“Don’t tempt fate, Fulrach,” Aunt Pol advised. “Your interference is costing us time we can’t afford to lose. Presently I’ll become vexed with you.”
The king’s voice was firm as he answered. “I know your power, Lady Polgara,” he said, and Garion jumped again. “I don’t have any choice, however,” the king continued. “I’m bound by my word to deliver you all up at Val Alorn to the Kings of Aloria, and a king can’t break his word to other kings.”
There was a long silence in the other room while Garion’s mind raced through a dozen possibilities.
“You’re not a bad man, Fulrach,” Mister Wolf said. “Not perhaps as bright as I might wish, but a good man nonetheless. I won’t raise my hand against you – nor will my daughter.”
“Speak of yourself, Old Wolf,” Aunt Pol said grimly.
“No, Polgara,” he said. “If we have to go to Val Alorn, let’s go with all possible speed. The sooner we explain things to the Alorns, the sooner they’ll stop interfering.”
“I think age is beginning to soften your brain, Father,” Aunt Pol said. “We don’t have the time for this excursion to Val Alorn. Fulrach can explain to the Alorn Kings.”
“It won’t do any good, Lady Polgara,” the king said rather ruefully. “As your father so pointedly mentioned, I’m not considered very bright. The Alorn Kings won’t listen to me. If you leave now, they’ll just send someone like Brendig to apprehend you again.”
“Then that unfortunate man may suddenly find himself living out the remainder of his days as a toad or possibly a radish,” Aunt Pol said ominously.
“Enough of that, Pol,” Mister Wolf said. “Is there a ship ready, Fulrach?”
“It lies at the north wharf, Belgarath,” the king replied. “A Cherek vessel sent by King Anheg.”
“Very well,” Mister Wolf said. “Tomorrow then we’ll go to Cherek. It seems that I’m going to have to point out a few things to some thickheaded Alorns. Will you be going with us?”
“I’m obliged to,” Fulrach said. “The council’s to be general, and Sendaria’s involved.”
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Fulrach,” Aunt Pol said.
“Never mind, Pol,” Mister Wolf said. “He’s only doing what he thinks is right. We’ll straighten it all out in Val Alorn.”
Garion was trembling as he stepped away from the door. It was impossible. His skeptical Sendarian upbringing made him at first incapable of even considering such an absurdity. Reluctantly, however, he finally forced himself to look the idea full in the face.
What if Mister Wolf really was Belgarath the Sorcerer, a man who had lived for over seven thousand years? And what if Aunt Pol was really his daughter, Polgara the Sorceress, who was only slightly younger? All the bits and pieces, the cryptic hints, the half truths, fell together. Silk had been right; she could not be his Aunt. Garion’s orphaning was complete now. He was adrift in the world with no ties of blood or heritage to cling to. Desperately he wanted to go home, back to Faldor’s farm, where he could sink himself in unthinking obscurity in a quiet place where there were no sorcerers or strange searches or anything that would even remind him of Aunt Pol and the cruel hoax she had made of his life.
Part Two
CHEREK
Chapter Twelve
IN THE GRAY FIRST LIGHT Of early morning they rode through the quiet streets of Sendar to the harbor and their waiting ship. The finery of the evening before had been put aside, and they had all resumed their customary clothes. Even King Fulrach and the Earl of Seline had donned plain garb and now resembled nothing quite so much as two moderately prosperous Sendars on a business trip. Queen Layla, who was not to go with them, rode beside her husband, talking earnestly to him with an expression on her face that seemed almost to hover on the verge of tears. The party was accompanied by soldiers, cloaked against the raw, chill wind off the sea.
At the foot of the street which led down from the palace to the harbor, the stone wharves of Sendar jutted out into the choppy water, and there, rocking and straining against the hawsers which held her, was their ship. She was a lean vessel, narrow of beam and high-prowed, with a kind of wolfish appearance that did little to quiet Garion’s nervousness about his first sea voyage. Lounging about on her deck were a number of savage-looking sailors, bearded and garbed in shaggy garments made of fur. With the exception of Barak, these were the first Chereks Garion had ever seen, and his first impression was that they would probably prove to be totally unreliable.
“Barak!” a burly man halfway up the mast shouted and dropped hand over hand down a steeply slanting rope to the deck and then jumped across to the wharf.
“Greldik!” Barak roared in response, swung down from his horse and clasped the evil-looking sailor in a bear hug.
“It would seem that Lord Barak is acquainted with our captain,” the Earl of Seline observed.
“That’s disquieting,” Silk said wryly. “I was hoping for a sober, sensible captain of middle years and a conservative disposition. I’m not fond of ships and sea travel to begin with.”
“I’m told that Captain Greldik is one of the finest seamen in all of Cherek,” the earl assured him.
“My Lord,” Silk said with a pained look, “Cherek definitions can be deceptive.” Sourly he watched Barak and Greldik toasting their reunion with tankards of ale that had been passed down to them from the ship by a grinning sailor.
Queen Layla had dismounted and she embraced Aunt Pol. “Please watch out for my poor husband, Pol,” she said with a little laugh that quivered a bit. “Don’t let those Alorn bullies goad him into doing anything foolish.”
“Of course, Layla,” Aunt Pol said comfortingly.
“Now, Layla,” King Fulrach said in an embarrassed voice. “I’ll be all right. I’m a grown man, after all.”
The plump little queen wiped her eyes. “I want you to promise to wear warm clothes,” she said, “and not to sit up all night drinking with Anheg.”
“We’re on serious business, Layla,” the kind said. “There won’t be time for any of that.”
“I know Anheg too well,” the queen sniffed. She turned to Mister Wolf, stood on her tiptoes and kissed his bearded cheek. “Dear Belgarath,” she said. “When this is over, promise that you and Pol will come back for a long visit.”
“I promise, Layla,” Mister Wolf said gravely.
“The tide is turning, Lord King,” Greldik said, “and my ship is growing restless.”
“Oh dear,” the queen said. She put her arms around the king’s neck and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Now, now,” Fulrach said awkwardly.
“If you don’t go now, I’m going to cry right here in public,” she said, pushing him away.
The stones of the wharf were slippery, and the slim Cherek ship bobbed and rolled in the chop. The narrow plank they had to cross heaved and swayed dangerously, but they all managed to board without accident. The sailors slipped the hawsers and took their places at the oars. The lean vessel leaped away from the wharf and moved swiftly into the harbor past the stout and bulky merchantmen anchored nearby. Queen Layla stood forlornly on the wharf, surrounded by tall soldiers. She waved a few times and then stood watching, her chin lifted bravely.
Captain Greldik took his place at the tiller with Barak by his side and signaled to a squat, muscular warrior crouched nearby. The squat man nodded and pulled a ragged square of sailcloth off a hide-topped drum.
He began a slow beat, and the oarsmen immediately took up the rhythm. The ship surged ahead and made for the open sea.
Once they were beyond the protection of the harbor, the swells grew so ponderous that the ship no longer rocked but ran instead down the back of each wave and up the face of the next. The long oars, dipping to the rhythm of the sullen drum, left little swirls on the surface of the waves. The sea was lead-gray beneath the wintry sky, and the low, snow-covered coastline of Sendaria slid by on their right, bleak and desolate-looking.
Garion spent most of the day shivering in a sheltered spot near the high prow, moodily staring out at the sea. The shards and shambles into which his life had fallen the night before lay in ruins around him. The idea that Wolf was Belgarath and Aunt Pol was Polgara was of course an absurdity. He was convinced, however, that a part of the whole thing at least was true. She might not be Polgara, but she was almost certainly not his Aunt. He avoided looking at her as much as possible, and did not speak to anyone.
They slept that night in cramped quarters beneath the stern deck of the ship. Mister Wolf sat talking for a long time with King Fulrach and the Earl of Seline. Garion covertly watched the old man whose silvery hair and short-cropped beard seemed almost to glow in the light from a swinging oil lamp hanging from one of the low beams. He still looked the same as always, and Garion finally turned over and went to sleep.