friend. I won’t be the least bit offended.’
‘They call y’ Polgara th’ Sorceress,’ he blurted. ‘Is that a true fact?’
‘The “Sorceress” part of it’s been blown all out of proportion,’ I
replied, ‘but, yes, my name is Polgara, and I do have certain abilities
that aren’t very common.’
‘An’ yer father’s name is Belgarath?’
I sighed. ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’
‘An’ yer quite a bit older than y’ look?’
‘I certainly hope that the years aren’t showing.’
‘Yer a thousand years old, aren’t y’?’ He blurted that out almost
accusingly.
‘No, dear heart,’ I said patiently. ‘Three hundred and twenty-four,
actually.’
He swallowed very hard, and his eyes got sort of wild.
‘Does it really matter so much, Killane?’ I asked him. ‘Longevity’s
really nothing more than a family trait. Some people live longer
than others, that’s all. You’ve seen that yourself, I’m sure.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but three hundred years.
‘I’ll say it again. Does it really matter? Our friendship’s what
matters, isn’t it? You’re my true and faithful friend. That’s all that
matters to me, and that’s all that should really matter to you. Don’t
let something as silly as numbers destroy our friendship.’
‘I’d sooner cut off me right hand,’ he declared.
‘Well, stop worrying about it, then.’
‘Kin Y’ really an’ truly perform magic?’ His tone was almost
boyish, and his expression seemed filled with anticipation.
‘If that’s what you want to call it, yes.’
‘Do somethin’ magical,’ he urged me, his eyes alight.
‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed. ‘All right, Killane, but if I do a few tricks for
You, can we drop this silly conversation?’
He nodded eagerly.
I translocated myself to a spot some distance behind him, and he
sat his horse, gaping at my suddenly empty saddle.
‘I’m over here, Killane,’ I advised him calmly.
he turned, his expression almost frightened.
I gestured at a nearby boulder, focusing my Will. Then I released
it, and the boulder rose to hover about ten feet in the air.
Killane started mmisibly when I dropped it with a thud.
‘This has always been my favorite,’ I told him, and I rather slowly
blurred into the form of the snowy white owl. I circled about him
for a few moments, gently brushing his face with my soft
wingfeathers. Then I resumed my own form and climbed back up onto
my horse. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked my trembling friend.
‘More than satisfied, me Lady,’he assured me. “Twas a wondrous
thing t’ behold.’
‘I’m glad you liked it. Now, shall we go on to Vo Mandor? If we
hurry right along, we should make it by suppertime.’
*CHAPTER18
Earl Mangaran died the following spring, and I rushed to Vo Astur
to examine his newly entombed body. I wanted to be certain that
Asrana’s simple solution to the problem of inconvenient people
hadn’t also occurred to others. My examination of my friend’s body,
however, revealed that he had died of natural causes.
Olburton, the wastrel who was Mangaran’s heir, had assumed
authority in Vo Astur, but most of the rest of Asturia was under
the control of Nerasin, Duke Oldoran’s nephew. The legalities of
the situation were extremely murky. Oldoran had never actually
been stripped of his crown, and Mangaran’s tenure in Vo Astur had
been, from a strictly legal point of view, no more than a regency.
The choice between Nerasin and Olburton wasn’t really much of a
choice, so I kept my nose out of it. My job was to keep the three
duchies at peace, and if the Asturians chose to embroil themselves
in a generation or so of internal strife, that was their business, not
mine.
I took some precautions, though. At my suggestion, Kathandrion
and Corrolin met quietly at Vo Mandor to cement an alliance,
designed to keep the Asturian conflagration from spreading.
‘What is thine advice here, Lady Polgara?’ Kathandrion asked me
once we’d all gathered in Mandorin’s blue-carpeted study. ‘Duke
Corrolin and I could quite easily move into Asturia, dispose of both
nephews and put someone to our liking on the throne in Vo Astur.’
‘That’s a very bad idea, Kathandrion. If the Asturians want to
hate each other, that’s their affair. if you and Corrolin take a hand
in things, all you’ll succeed in doing is uniting the Asturians, and
they’ll come crashing out of their forest to re-ignite the civil war
Ctuchik was trying hard to keep burning. Just close the borders
of Asturia and let them fight it out among themselves. Eventually,
someone who’s strong enough is going to come along and re-unite
them, and then I’ll go to Vo Astur and persuade that fellow that it’s
in his best interests to go along with the idea that peace is better
than war.’
‘Persuade?’ Asrana asked mildly.
‘That’s just a polite way of saying “bully”, Asrana,’ I told her.
‘I’m very good at bullying people. Over the years I’ve noticed that
rulers who’re on shaky ground at home almost always start a war
with some neighbor on the theory that an outside war will redirect
all those pent-up hatreds. I’ll strongly urge the eventual ruler of
Asturia not to do that – and I can be very persuasive when I set
my mind to it. I’ve devoted a great deal of time and effort to the
establishment of peace in Arendia, and I’m not going to let some
Asturian who thinks he’s come up with an entirely new idea disrupt
that peace just to consolidate his position at home. We can all hope
that the ultimate winner in Asturia will be reasonable. If he’s not.
I’ll grind his face in reasonableness until he gets my point.’ I looked
around sternly. ‘Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes, mother,’ Kathandrion replied with feigned meekness.
Corrolin burst out laughing at that, and the conference moved on
to its conclusion with a good-humored tone. I’d probably overstated
things, but these were Arends, after all. The alliance between
Kathandrion and Corrolin was firmly in place when we separated. That
was the important thing. Now, no amount of Asturian conniving
was likely to disrupt it.
Kathandrion and I returned to Vo Wacune, and he moved his
forces up to the eastern border of Asturia, while Corrolin blockaded
the southern edge of that troubled duchy. Asturia was sealed off
now, and ‘the nephew war’ was strictly confined. Emissaries from
both Nerasin and Olburton scurried around making ridiculous offers
in both Vo Wacune and Vo Mimbre, but Kathandrion and Corrolin
steadfastly refused to even see them.
I had a few concerns about Asrana and what she might do. She
still had many contacts in Asturia, and she could, if she chose to do
so, greatly influence the course of events there. I knew that she held
Olburton in contempt, but she absolutely despised Nerasin. Given
a choice between them, she’d probably ~ with reluctance – come
down on Olburton’s side. I wanted a continuing stalemate in
Asturia, so I strongly urged my enthusiastic friend to keep her nose out
of things there.
All this scheming and intrigue was beginning to make me tired.
,A good juggler can keep a dozen brightly colored balls in the air
all at the same time – as long as the balls aren’t slippery. My problem
was that someknave had greased all the balls I was trying to juggle.
The year 2325 wound on down toward the annual feast-day called
Erastide that marked the end of one year and the beginning of the
next. There was the usual party at the ducal palace in Vo Wacune,
and the highlight of the whole affair was the announcement by
crown Prince Alleran that his wife, Mayaserell, was with child. All
in all, I approved of that. At least there wasn’t going to be a messy
argument about succession in the Duchy of Wacune.
The following spring the messiness in Asturia was climaxed by
a phenomenal bow-shot of at least two hundred paces. Since the
arrow involved ended up protruding from the center of Olburton’s
chest, things in Asturia suddenly got very noisy. Olburton had
controlled the cities, while Nerasin had held sway out in the more
conservative countryside. In effect, Olburton had owned the people
and Nerasin the land. There’d been a kind of balance, which I’d
striven to maintain, but with Olburton’s death that stalemate went
out the window. Nerasin did not immediately attack Vo Astur, but
concentrated instead on capturing the smaller cities and towns. By
the early summer of 2326, Vo Astur was an island in the middle of
a hostile sea, and its situation was made all the more precarious by
the petty squabbling of Olburton’s relatives. The ultimate outcome
was fairly predictable. By early autumn, Nerasin had reclaimed his
drunken uncle’s throne in Vo Astur.
And that was when Asrana stepped in, muddying the waters for
all she was worth. I’m not sure exactly where she found the phrase,
but the idea of ‘destabilizing the govermnent of Asturia’ absolutely