Garion felt a sudden, shocking emptiness. The worst of his fears had been confirmed. “Then she isn’t really my Aunt, is she?” he asked sickly.
“What makes you say that?” Wolf asked.
She couldn’t be, could she? I always thought that she was my father’s sister, but if she’s hundreds and thousands of years old, it would be impossible.”
“You’re much to fond of that word, Garion,” Wolf said. “When you get right down to it, nothing – or at least very little – is actually impossible.”
“How could she be? My Aunt I mean?”
“All right,” Wolf said. “Polgara was not strictly speaking your father’s sister. Her relationship to him is quite more complex. She was the sister of his grandmother – his ultimate grandmother, it there is such a term – and of yours as well, of course.”
“Then she’d be my great-aunt,” Garion said with a faint in spark of hope. It was something, at least.
“I don’t know that I’d use that precise term around her.” Wolf grinned. “She might take offense. Why are you so concerned about all of this?”
“I was afraid that maybe she’d just said that she was my Aunt, and that there wasn’t really any connection between us at all,” Garion said. “I’ve been afraid of that for quite a while now.”
“Why were you afraid?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Garion said. “You see, I don’t really know who or what I am. Silk says I’m not a Sendar, and Barak says I look sort of like a Rivan – but not exactly. I always thought I was a Sendar – like Durnik – but I guess I’m not. I don’t know anything about my parents or where they come from or anything like that. If Aunt Pol isn’t related to me, then I don’t have anybody in the world at all. I’m all alone, and that’s a very bad thing.”
“But now it’s alright, isn’t it?” Wolf said, your Aunt really is your Aunt – at least your blood and hers are the same.”
“I’m glad you told me,” Garion said. “I’ve been worried about it.”
Greldik’s sailors untied the hawsers and began to push the ship away from the quay.
“Mister Wolf,” Garion said as a strange thought occurred to him.
“Yes, Garion?”
“Aunt Pol really is my Aunt – or my Great-Aunt?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s your daughter.”
“I have to admit that she is,” Wolf said wryly. “I try to forget that sometimes, but I can’t really deny it.”
Garion took a deep breath and plunged directly into it. “If she’s my Aunt, and you’re her father,” he said, “wouldn’t that sort of make you my Grandfather?”
Wolf looked at him with a startled expression. “Why yes,” he said, laughing suddenly, “I suppose that in a way it does. I’d never thought of it exactly like that before.”
Garion’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, and he impulsively embraced the old man. “Grandfather,” he said, trying the word out.
“”Well, well,” Wolf said, his own voice strangely thick. “What a remarkable discovery.” Awkwardly he patted Garion’s shoulder.
“They were both a little embarrassed by Garion’s sudden display of affection, and they stood silently, watching as Greldik’s sailors rowed the ship out into the harbor.
“Grandfather,” Garion said after a little while.
“Yes?”
“What really happened to my mother and father? I mean, how did they die?”
Wolf’s face became very bleak. “There was a fire,” he said shortly.
“A fire?” Garion said weakly, his imagination lurching back from that awful thought – of the unspeakable pain. “How did it happen?”
“It’s not very pleasant,” Wolf said grimly. “Aew you really sure you want to know?”
“I have to, Grandfather,” Garion said quietly. “I have to know everything I can about them. I don’t know why, but it’s very important.”
Mister Wolf sighed. “Yes, Garion,” he said, “I guess it would be at that. All right, then. If you’re old enough to ask the questions, you’re old enough to hear the answers.” He sat down on a sheltered bench out of the chilly wind. “Come over here and sit down.” He patted the bench beside him.
Garion sat down and pulled his cloak around him.
“Let’s see,” Wolf said, scratching thoughtfully at his beard, “where do we start?” He pondered for a moment. “Your family’s very old, Garion,” he said finally, “and like so many old families, it has a certain number of enemies.”
“Enemies?” Garion was startled. That particular idea hadn’t occurred to him before.
“It’s not uncommon,” Wolf said. “When we do something someone else doesn’t like, they tend to hate us. The hatred builds up over the years until it turns into something almost like a religion. They hate not only us, but everything connected with us. Anyway, a long time ago your family’s enemies became so dangerous that your Aunt and I decided that the only way we could protect the family was to hide it.”
“You aren’t telling me everything,” Garion said.
“No,” said Wolf blandly, “I’m not. I’m telling you as much as it’s safe for you to know right now. If you knew certain things, you’d act differently, and people would notice that. It’s safer if you remain ordinary for a while longer.”
“You mean ignorant,” Garion accused.
“All right, ignorant then. Do you want to hear the story, or do you want to argue?”
“I’m sorry,” Garion said.
“It’s all right,” Wolf said, patting Garion’s shoulder. “Since your Aunt and I are related to your family in rather a special way, we were naturally interested in your safety. That’s why we hid your people.”
“Can you actually hide a whole family?” Garion asked.
“It’s never been that big a family,” Wolf said. “It seems, for one reason or another, to be a single, unbroken line – no cousins or uncles or that kind of thing. It’s not all that hard to hide a man and wife with a single child. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years now. We’ve hidden them in Tolnedra, Riva, Cherek, Drasnia – all kinds of places. They’ve lived simple lives – artisans mostly, sometimes ordinary peasants – the kind of people nobody would ever look at twice. Anyway, everything had gone well until about twenty years ago. We moved your father, Geran, from a place in Arendia to a little village in eastern Sendaria, about sixty leagues southeast of Darine, up in the mountains. Geran was a stonecutter – didn’t I tell you that once before?”
Garion nodded. “A long time ago,” he said. “You said you liked him and used to visit him once in a while. Was my mother a Sendar then?”
“No,” Wolf said. “Ildera as an Algar, actually – the second daughter of a Clan Chief. Your Aunt and I introduced her to Geran whenthey were about the right age. The usual sort of thing happened, and they got married. You were born a year or so afterward.”
“When was the fire?” Garion asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Wolf said. One of the enemies of your family had been looking for your people for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Hundreds of years, actually.”
“That means he was a sorcerer, too, doesn’t it?” Garion asked. “I mean, only sorcerers live for that long, don’t they?”
“He has certain capabilities along those linesm” Wolf admitted. “Sorcerer is a misleading term, though. It’s not the sort of thing we actually call ourselves. Other people do, but we don’t exactly think of it that way. It’s a convenient term for people who don’t really understand what it’s all about. Anyway, your Aunt and I happened to be away when this enemy finally tracked down Geran and Ildera. He came to their house very early one morning while they were still sleeping and he sealed up the doors and windows. And then he set it on fire.”
“I thought you said the house was made of stone.”
“It was,” Wolf said, “but you can make stone burn if you really want to. The fire just has to be hotter, that’s all. Geran and Ildera knew there was no way they could get out of the burning building, but Geran managed to knock one of the stones out of the wall, and Ildera pushed you out through the hole. The one who started the fire was waiting for that. He picked you up and started out of the village. We could never be sure exactly what he had in mind – either he was going to kill you, or maybe he was going to keep you for some reason of his own. At any rate, that’s when I got there. I put out the fire, but Geran and Ildera were already dead. Then I went after the one who’d stolen you.”
“Did you kill him?” Garion demanded fiercely.
“I try not to do that more than I have to,” Wolf said. “It disrupts the natural course of events too much. I had some other ideas at the time – much more unpleasant than killing.” His eyes were icy. “As it turned out though, I never got the chance. He threw you at me – you were only a baby – and I had to try to catch you. It gave him time to get away. I left you with Polgara and then I went looking for your enemy. I haven’t been able to find him yet, though.”