on their food. Eventually, they’ll get hungry enough to take care of
Nerasin all by themselves.’
It was a brutal, ugly way to make war, but nobody’s ever said
that wars are pretty.
Nerasin grew increasingly desperate as food grew scarcer and
scarcer on the tables in Vo Astur. His solution to his problem should
have been obvious, but unfortunately, I completely missed it.
It all happened on a blustery night when I’d decided to stay home
rather than go to the palace. The palace was the nerve-center of the
‘food-fight’, and the noise of messengers running through the halls
waving dispatches announcing that ten Asturians cows and fourteen
of their pigs had been killed that day was starting to get on my
nerves. To my way of looking at things, the assassination of cattle
hardly constituted a major victory, so I decided that I’d earned a
quiet evening at home. I took a long, leisurely bath, ate a light
supper, and retired early with a good book.
It was sometime after midnight when I was somewhat rudely
awakened by Killane’s shouting. My personal maid – Killane’s
youngest sister Rana, incidentally – was trying valiantly to keep
him out of my bedroom, and he was just as valiantly trying to get
in.
I muttered something that I won’t repeat here, climbed out of
bed, and pulled on my robe. ‘What’s going on out here?’ I demanded
crossly, jerking open my bedroom door.
,it’s me oafish brother, me Lady,’ the slender little Rana said in
disgust. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised at all t’ find that he’s been drinkin’.’
‘Go along w’ y’ now, Rana,’ Killane told her. ‘There be trouble at
th, palace, Lady Polgara,’ he said to me. ‘Y’d better be after puttin’
on some clothes. His Grace’s messenger’s waitin’ fer y’ out in th’
sittin’ room.’
‘what’s happened, Killane?’
,His Grace’s son’s bin spirited away by th’ cursed Asturians, me
Lady, an’ th’ Duke wants y’ to come t’ th’ palace immediately.’
‘Tell the messenger I’ll be right with him,’ I said. Then I closed
the door and pulled on my clothes hurriedly, muttering curses under
my breath. We’d had plenty of evidence to prove just how
unprincipled Nerasin was. Why hadn’t I anticipated his next move?
Abduction has long played a significant role in international
politics – as Garion and Ce’Nedra can testify – but the removal of Duke
Alleran’s two-year-old son from the palace in Vo Wacune was the
first time I’d ever encountered the practice. Some abductions are
perpetrated purely for the ransom. and those are rather easily dealt
with. A political abduction, however, doesn’t involve money, but
behavior. A message had been found on the young Kathandrion’s
bed, and it was fairly blunt. It told Aleran that if he didn’t pull back
from Asturia’s eastern frontier, he’d never see his son alive again.
Mayaserell was in hysterics, and Alleran wasn’t much better, so
there wasn’t really much point in talking with them. I provided the
court physicians with a compound of certain herbs that was strong
enough to fell a horse, and then I spoke at some length with the
young duke’s advisors. ‘We don’t have much choice,’ I told them
finally. ‘Do as that message demands. Then send a dispatch to Duke
Corrolin in Vo Mimbre. Tell him what’s happened here, and also
tell him that I’m taking care of it. I want everybody to keep his nose
Out of this. I’ll deal with it, and I don’t want any enthusiasts running
around cluttering things up for me.’ Then I went home to think my
way through the situation.
The short-range solution would have been quite simple. Clearly,
I ‘wOuldn’t be dealing with ‘talented’ people here, and locating the
Place where little Kathandrion was being held wouldn’t have been
difficult, but then we’d have all had to sit around holding our breath
while we waited for Nerasin’s next move. Clearly, I’d have to come
uP with something that would permanently keep the nominal Duke
Of Asturia out of mischief. Killing him would be permanent, of
course, but then we’d have to deal with his successor. After what
Nerasin had done to Asrana and Mandorin, I wasn’t too enthusiastic
about keeping him alive, but the politics of the situation – and
mother’s cryptic statement that someday I’d need Nerasin – strongly
suggested that the best hope for restoring peace to Arendia lay in
compelling Nerasin to do exactly what I told him to do for the rest
of his life and then insuring as best I could that he lived well into
his eighties. The more I thought about it, the more I became
convinced that the rescue of Alleran’s son and the ‘civilizing’ of
Nerasin should not be two separate acts, but should rather be
combined.
Nerasin’s hired abductors could be holding the boy anywhere,
but, in reality, that didn’t matter. I could get exactly what I wanted
in Vo Astur itself. I didn’t have to tear the woods apart in a desperate
search. Once I had Nerasin under my thumb, I could arrange for
the boy’s return without endangering him or -savaging vast tracts
of Asturian real estate.
My next problem was standing just outside the door to my library
when I prepared to leave the next morning. His red fringe of a beard
was bristling, his arms were crossed defiantly, and his expression
was adamantine. ‘I’ll not be after lettin’ y’ go off by yerself, Lady-O,’
he told me flatly.
‘Oh, Killane,’ I said, ‘be serious. I won’t be in any danger.’
‘Yer not goin’ off alone!’
‘How are you going to stop me?’ I asked mildly.
‘I’ll burn yer house down if y’ even so much as try!’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Try me!’
Now that was something I hadn’t anticipated. Killane had found
my soft spot. I loved my house, and he knew it. His threat made me
go cold all over. Still, I had to get to Vo Astur as quickly as possible,
and that meant that I almost had to use the form of a falcon. No
falcon alive could carry a Wacite Arend weighing just over twelve
stone, however.
The answer, of course, was fairly simple, and it would almost
certainly teach my belligerent friend not to deliver ultimatums to
me any more. I’d never done it before, but there’s a first time for
everything, I guess. I knew what was involved, and I was confident
that I could improvise should the occasion demand it.
‘All right, Killane,’ I said in feigned surrender, ‘if you’re going to
insist
‘I am,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll be after saddlin’ our horses, then.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We won’t be traveling on horseback. Let’s go out
into the garden.’
‘Whatever for?’
,you’ll see.’
I’ll admit that it was just a bit tricky. I knew what Killane looked
like, but I didn’t have a complete grasp of exactly how he felt – his
own sense of his being, I suppose you could call it. Our gender
differences complicated things just a bit, but I set that part aside.
Killane’s gender wasn’t going to be particularly important for a
while. He stood near a bed of winter-dormant rose-bushes with a
slightly apprehensive look on his face, realizing, I suspect, that he
might have pushed me just a trifle too far.
Then he started slightly, seeing something that wasn’t really there
near his left foot. He raised the foot, obviously intending to tramp
on what he thought he was seeing.
‘Leave it alone, Killane,’ I said sharply to him. ‘I need it just now.
Look at it very closely, however.’
He stared intently at the illusion.
I had to filter the release of my will through his consciousness,
and that was no mean trick. So far as I can recall, it was the first
time I’d ever actually funneled my will through the mind of someone
else. When I had everything firmly in place, I almost absently picked
up a rock that weighed perhaps two pounds, and then I let my
built-up Will go in the direction I had it pointed, and even as the
transfer was taking place I prudently set the rock down on the tail
of the small field-mouse into which the entirety of Killane’s
awareness and body were being transferred. There was a fair chance that
the transformation might make him a bit hysterical, and I didn’t
really have the time to hunt him down.
The squeaking he made was pathetic, and the poor little creature’s
beady eyes were almost starting out of its head. I pushed back my
instinctive sympathy, however. Killane had insisted, after all.
Then I went falcon, and that definitely increased the level of
squeaking. I more or less ignored those shrill cries of absolute terror
and strutted – that’s the only word for it – over to one of the
fruit-trees, selected a winter-shriveled apple on a lower limb, and
pecked at the stem until it came free and fell onto the half frozen