“I’ll get word to him,” Porenn promised. “When will you start?”
“Let’s leave that a bit tentative.” The old man glanced once again at the walls of the queen’s room.
“You’ll stay the night, at least,” she insisted.
“How could we possibly refuse?” Silk asked mockingly.
Queen Porenn looked at him for a long moment. Then she sighed. “I guess I should tell you, Kheldar,” she said very quietly. “Your mother’s here.”
Silk’s face blanched. “Here? In the palace?”
The queen nodded. “She’s in the west wing. I’ve given her that apartment near the garden she loves so much.”
Silk’s hands had begun to tremble visibly, and his face was still ashen. “How long has she been here?” he asked in a strained voice.
“Several weeks. She came before the baby was born.”
“How is she?”
“The same.” The little blond queen’s voice was hushed with sadness. “You’ll have to see her, you know.”
Silk drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. His face, however, was still stricken. “There’s no avoiding it, I guess,” he said, almost to himself. “I might as-right-get it over with. You’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.”
He turned and left the room, his face somber.
“Doesn’t he like his mother?” Garion asked.
“He loves her very much,” the queen replied. “That’s why it’s so ternbly difficult for him. She’s blind-fortunately.”
“Fortunately?”
“There was a pestilence in western Drasnia about twenty years ago,” Porenn explained. “It was a horrible disease, and it left dreadful scars on the faces of the survivors. Prince Kheldar’s mother had been one of the most beautiful women in Drasnia. We’ve concealed the truth from her. She doesn’t realize how disfigured her face is – at least we hope she doesn’t. The meetings between Kheldar and his mother are heartbreaking. There’s no hint in his voice of what he sees, but his eyes-” She broke off. “Sometimes I think that’s why he stays away from Drasnia,” she added. Then she straightened. “I’ll ring for supper,” she said, “and something to drink. Kheldar usually needs that after he’s visited with his mother.”
It was an hour or more before Silk returned, and he immediately started drinking. He drank grimly like a man bent on reducing himself to unconsciousness as quickly as possible.
It was an uncomfortable evening for Garion. Queen Porenn cared for her infant son even while keeping a watchful eye on Silk. Belgarath sat silently in a chair, and Silk kept drinking. Finally, pretending a weariness he did not feel, Garion went to bed.
He had not realized how much he had depended on Silk in the year and a half he had known him. The rat-faced little Drasnian’s sardonic humor and towering self reliance had always been something to cling to. To be sure, Silk had his quirks and peculiarities. He was a highstrung, complex little man, but his unfailing sense of humor and his mental agility had seen them all through some very unpleasant situations. Now, however, all traces of humor and wit were gone, and the little man seemed on the verge of total collapse.
The dreadful confrontation toward which they rode seemed all the more perilous now for some reason. Although Silk might not have been able to help him when he finally faced Torak, Garion had counted on his friend to assist him through the terrible days leading up to the meeting. Now even that slight comfort seemed to have been taken away. Unable to sleep, he tossed and turned for hours; finally, well past midnight, he rose, pulled his cloak about him and padded on stockinged feet to see if his friend had made it to bed.
Silk had not. He still sat in the same chair. His tankard, unnoticed, had spilled, and he sat with his elbows in a puddle of ale and his face in his hands. Not far away, her face unreadable, sat the weary little blond queen of Drasnia. As Garion watched from the doorway, a muffled sound came from between Silk’s hands. With a gentle, almost tender expression, Queen Porenn rose, came around the table and put her arms about his head, drawing him to her. With a despairing cry Silk clung to her, weeping openly like a hurt child.
Queen Porenn looked across the little man’s shaking head at Garion. Her face quite clearly revealed that she was aware of Silk’s feelings for her. Her look was one of helpless compassion for this man of whom she was fond but not in the way he wished – and combined with that was a deep sympathy for the suffering his visit with his mother had caused him.
Silently Garion and the Queen of Drasnia stood looking at each other. Speech was unnecessary; they both understood. When at last Porenn did speak, her tone was curiously matter-of fact. “I think you can put him to bed now,” she said. “Once he’s able to cry, the worst is usually over.”
The next morning they left the palace and joined an east-bound caravan. The Drasnian moors beyond Boktor were desolate. The North Caravan Route wound through low, rolling hills covered with sparse vegetation and scanty grass. Although it was the middle of spring, there seemed to be a sere quality to the moors, as if the seasons only lightly touched them; the wind, sweeping down from the polar ice, still had the smell of winter in it.
Silk rode in silence, his eyes on the ground, though whether from grief or from the aftereffects of the ale he had drunk, Garion could not guess. Belgarath was also quiet, and the three of them rode with only the sound of the harness bells of a Drasnian merchant’s mules for companionship.
About noon, Silk shook himself and looked around – his eyes finally alert, though still a bit bloodshot. “Did anybody think to bring something to drink?” he asked.
“Didn’t you get enough last night?” Belgarath replied.
“That was for entertainment. What I need now is something therapeutic.”
“Water?” Garion suggested.
“I’m thirsty, Garion, not dirty.”
“Here.” Belgarath handed the suffering man a wineskin. “But don’t overdo it.”
“Trust me,” Silk said, taking a long drink. He shuddered and made a face. “Where did you buy this?” he inquired. “It tastes like somebody’s been boiling old shoes in it.”
“You don’t have to drink it.”
“I’m afraid I do.” Silk took another drink, then restoppered the wineskin and handed it back. He looked sourly around at the moors. “Hasn’t changed much,” he observed. “Drasnia has very little to reoommend it, I’m afraid. It’s either too wet or too dry.” He shivered in the chilly wind. “Are either of you aware of the fact that there’s nothing between us and the pole to break the wind but an occasional stray reindeer?”
Garion began to relax. Silk’s sallies and comments grew broader and more outrageous as they rode through the afternoon. By the time the caravan stopped for the night, he seemed to be almost his old self again.
Chapter Twenty-one
THE CARAVAN WOUND its slow way through the dreary moors of eastern Drasnia with the sound of mule bells trailing mournfully behind it. Sparse patches of heath, which had but lately begun to bloom with tiny, pink flowers, dotted the low, rolling hills. The sky had turned cloudy, and the wind, seemingly perpetual, blew steadily out of the north.
Garion found his mood growing as sad and bleak as the moors around him. There was one inescapable fact which he no longer could hide from himself. Each mile, each step, brought him closer to Mallorea and closer to his meeting with Torak. Even the whispered song of the Orb, murmuring continually in his ears from the pommel of the great sword strapped to his back, could not reassure him. Torak was a God – invincible, immortal; and Garion. not even yet full-grown, was quite deliberately trekking to Mallorea to seek him out and to fight him to the death. Death was a word Garion tried very hard not to think about. It had been a possibility once or twice during their long pursuit of Zedar and the Orb; but now it seemed a certainty. He would meet Torak alone. Mandorallen or Barak or Hettar could not come to his aid with their superior skill at swordsmanship; Belgarath or Aunt Pol could not intercede for him with sorcery; Silk would not be able to devise some clever ruse to allow him to escape. Titanic and enraged, the Dark God would rush upon him, eager for blood. Garion began to fear sleep, for sleep brought nightmares which would not go away and which haunted his days, making each worse than the last.
He was afraid. The fear grew worse with each passing day until the sour taste of it was always in his mouth. More than anything, he wanted to run, but he knew that he could not. Indeed, he did not even know any place where he could run. There was no place in all the world for him to hide. The Gods themselves would seek him out if he tried and sternly drive him to that awful meeting which had been fated to take place since the beginning of time. And so it was that, sick with fear, Garion rode to meet his fate.