“Who else? Men seem to have a need to classify things and put names on them. I think they overlook some very important things that way.”
“How is it that you’re here? Aren’t you – well -?”
“Dead, you mean? Don’t be afraid of the word. It’s only a word, after all. I suppose I am, though. It doesn’t really feel all that much different.”
“Doesn’t somebody have to do something to bring you back?” he asked. “Like what Aunt Pol did that time when we were fighting with Grul in the mountains of Ulgo?”
“It’s not entirely necessary. I can be summoned that way, but I can manage it myself if I have to.” She looked at him quizzically. “You’re really confused by all this, aren’t you?”
“All of what?”
“Everything. Who you are; who we are; what you have to do.”
“A little,” he admitted.
“Let me see if I can explain it. Take him for instance. I never really saw him as a man, you know. There’s something decidedly wolfish about him. I always rather thought that his being born in man-shape had been a mistake of some kind. Maybe it was because of what he had to do. The shape doesn’t really matter, though.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Did you really think it did?” She almost seemed to laugh. “Here. Let me show you. Let’s change.” She shimmered into air and was standing before him then in the form of a tawny-haired woman with golden eyes. Her gown was very plain and brown.
Garion shrugged himself back into his natural form.
“Am I really any different, Belgarion?” she asked him. “Am I not who I am, whether as wolf or owl or woman?”
And then he understood. “May I call you Grandmother?” he asked her, a bit embarrassed.
“If it makes you happy,” she replied. “It’s a bit inaccurate, though.”
“I know,” he said, “but I feel a little more comfortable with it.”
“Have you finally accepted who you are?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“But you’re afraid of it and what you have to do, is that it?” He nodded mutely.
“You’re not going to be alone, you know.”
He looked at her sharply. “I thought the Codex said-”
“The Codex doesn’t really say everything that’s involved,” she told him. “Your meeting with Torak will be the coming together of two enormous, opposing forces. The two of you are really just the representatives of those forces. There’ll be so much power involved in your meeting that you and Torak will be almost incidental to what’s really happening.”
“Why couldn’t somebody else do it then?” he asked quickly. “Somebody better suited to it?”
“I said almost incidental,” she said firmly. “It has to be you, and it’s always been Torak. You are the channels through which the forces will collide. When it happens, I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it all is.”
“Am I going to win?”
“I don’t know. The universe itself doesn’t know. That’s why you have to meet him. If we knew how it would turn out, the meeting wouldn’t be necessary.” She looked around. “Belgarath’s coming back. I’ll have to leave you now.”
“Why-”
“My presence pains him – more than you could ever know.”
“Because-?” He broke off, not knowing how to say it.
“We were closer than others and we were together for a very long time. Sometimes I wish that he could understand that we haven’t really been separated, but perhaps it’s too early.”
“It’s been three thousand years, Grandmother.”
“What is time to a wolf?” she asked cryptically. “The mating of wolves is permanent, and the grief caused by separation is also permanent. Perhaps someday-” Her voice trailed off wistfully, and then she sighed. “As soon as I leave, change back again. Belgarath will want you to hunt with him. It’s sort of a formality. You’ll understand when you’re back in the shape of a wolf.”
Garion nodded and began to form the image of the wolf in his mind. “One other thing, Belgarion.”
“Yes, Grandmother?”
“I do love you, you know.”
“I love you too, Grandmother.”
And then she was gone. Garion sighed and changed himself back into a wolf. And then he went out from that place to join Belgarath in the hunt.
Part Four
THE RIVAN QUEEN
Chapter Twenty-two
THE PRINCESS CE’NEDRA Was in a thoughtful, even pensive mood. Much as she had enjoyed the turmoil her periodic outbursts of temper had caused, she rather regretfully concluded that it was probably time to put them aside and make peace with Garion. They were going to be married, after all, and there was no real point in upsetting him any more than absolutely necessary. Her tantrums had established the fact that, although he might outrank her, she would not enter the marriage as his inferior, and that was really all she had wanted anyway. On the whole, the prospect of being married to Garion was not nearly as unpleasant as she pretended. She did love him after all, and now that he understood exactly how things were going to stand between them, everything was likely to be quite satisfactory. She decided to find him that very day and make peace with him.
The largest part of her attention that spring morning had been taken up by a book on protocol and a chart she was carefully drawing up. As Imperial Princess of Tolnedra and Queen of Riva, she would, of course, absolutely outrank every grand duchess of every house in the Empire. She was also fairly sure that she outranked Queen Islena of Cherek and Queen Silar of Algaria. Mayaserana’s status as co-ruler of Arendia raised some problems, however. It was entirely possible that she and Mayaserana were equals. Ce’Nedra made a note on a scrap of parchment reminding herself to have Ambassador Valgon direct an inquiry to the chief of protocol in Tol Honeth concerning the matter. She felt a nice little glow as she surveyed the chart. With the exception of Lady Polgara and the motherly little Queen Layla of Sendaria, to whom everyone deferred because she was such a dear, Ce’Nedra concluded that she would in fact outrank or at least equal every noble lady in the West.
Suddenly there was a shattering thunderclap so violent that it shook the very walls of the Citadel. Startled, Ce’Nedra glanced at the window. It was a bright, sunny morning. How could there be thunder? Another rending crash ripped the silence, and there was a frightened babble in the halls. Impatiently, the princess picked up a small silver bell and rang for her maid.
“Go see what’s happening,” she instructed the girl and returned to her study of the chart she had drawn. But there was another thunderous crash and even more shouting and confusion in the corridor outside. It was impossible! How could she concentrate with all that noise going on? Irritably she rose and went to the door.
People were running – actually fleeing. Just down the hall Queen Layla of Sendaria bolted from the door of Lady Polgara’s private apartment, her eyes wide with terror and her crown very nearly falling off.
“What is the matter, your majesty?” Ce’Nedra demanded of the little queen.
“It’s Polgara!” Queen Layla gasped, stumbling in her haste to escape. “She’s destroying everything in sight!”
“Lady Polgara?”
Another deafening crash sent the little queen reeling, and she clung to Ce’Nedra in terror. “Please, Ce’Nedra. Find out what’s wrong. Make her stop before she shakes down the entire fortress.”
“Me?”
“She’ll listen to you. She loves you. Make her stop.”
Without pausing to consider the possible danger, Ce’Nedra went quickly to Lady Polgara’s door and glanced inside. The apartment was a total shambles. Furniture was overturned; wall hangings had been ripped down; the windows were shattered and the air was full of smoke. Ce’Nedra had thrown enough tantrums in her life to appreciate artistry when she saw it, but the disaster inside Polgara’s apartment was so absolute that it went beyond art into the realms of natural catastrophe. Lady Polgara herself stood, wild-eyed and dishevelled in the center of the room, cursing incoherently in a dozen languages at once. In one hand she held a crumpled sheet of parchment; her other hand was raised like a claw before her, half clenched about an incandescent mass of blazing energy that she seemed to have summoned out of air itself and which she now fed with her own fury. The princess stood in awe as Polgara began a fresh tirade. The dreadful cursing began in a low contralto and rose in an awful crescendo into the upper registers and beyond. As she reached the limits of her voice, she began slashing the air with the blazing mass in her hand, punctuating each curse with a crackling burst of raw energy that sizzled from between her fingers like a bolt of lightning to shatter whatever her eyes fell upon. With a series of vile oaths, she detonated six teacups in a row into shards, then quite methodically she went back down the line, exploding the saucers upon which they had sat. Almost as an afterthought, she blew the table into splinters.