Lelldorin's face meanwhile had gone white. "Thank you for pointing that out to me, Sir Mandorallen," he said stiffly. "I should have considered it myself. If you'll help me to my horse, I'll leave immediately."
"You'll stay right where you are," Aunt Pol told him flatly.
Baron Oltorain's retainer returned with a group of household servants and a blonde girl of about seventeen wearing a rose-colored gown of stiff brocade and a velvet cloak of teal.
"My younger sister, Lady Ariana," Oltorain introduced her. "She's a spirited girl, and though she is young she is already well-versed in the care of the sick."
"I won't trouble her for long, my Lord," Lelldorin declared. "I'll be returning to Asturia within a week."
Lady Ariana laid a professional hand to his forehead. "Nay, good youth," she disagreed. "Thy visit, I think, will be protracted."
"I'll leave within the week," Lelldorin repeated stubbornly.
She shrugged. "As it please thee. I expect that my brother will be able to spare some few servants to follow after thee to provide thee that decent burial which, if I misjudge not, thou wilt require before thou hast gone ten leagues."
Lelldorin blinked.
Aunt Pol took Lady Ariana to one side and spoke with her at some length, giving her a small packet of herbs and certain instructions. Lelldorin motioned to Garion, and Garion went to him immediately and knelt beside the litter.
"So it ends," the young man murmured. "I wish I could go on with you."
"You'll be well in no time at all," Garion assured him, knowing that it wasn't true. "Maybe you can catch up with us later."
Lelldorin shook his head. "No," he disagreed, "I'm afraid not." He began to cough again, the spasms seeming to tear at his lungs. "We don't have much time, my friend," he gasped weakly, "so listen carefully."
Garion, near tears, took his friend's hand.
"You remember what we were talking about that morning after we left my uncle's house?"
Garion nodded.
"You said that I was the one who'd have to decide if we were to break our pledge to Torasin and the others to keep silent."
"I remember," Garion told him.
"All right," Lelldorin said. "I've decided. I release you from your pledge. Do what you have to do."
"It would be better if you told my grandfather about it yourself, Lelldorin," Garion protested.
"I can't, Garion," Lelldorin groaned. "The words would stick in my throat. I'm sorry, but it's the way I am. I know that Nachak's only using us, but I gave the others my word. I'm an Arend, Garion. I'll keep my word even though I know it's wrong, so it's up to you. You're going to have to keep Nachak from destroying my country. I want you to go straight to the king himself."
"To the king? He'd never believe me."
"Make him believe you. Tell him everything."
Garion shook his head firmly. "I won't tell him your name," he declared, "or Torasin's. You know what he'd do to you if I did."
"We don't matter," Lelldorin insisted, coughing again.
"I'll tell him about Nachak," Garion said stubbornly, "but not about you. Where do I tell him to find the Murgo?"
"He'll know," Lelldorin replied, his voice very weak now. "Nachak's the ambassador to the court at Vo Mimbre. He's the personal representative of Taur Urggs, King of the Murgos."
Garion was stunned at the implications of that.
"He's got all the gold from the bottomless mines of Cthol Murgos at his command," Lelldorin continued. "The plot he gave my friends and me could be just one of a dozen or more all aimed at destroying Arendia. You've got to stop him, Garion. Promise me." The pale young man's eyes were feverish, and his grip on Garion's hand tightened.
"I'll stop him, Lelldorin," Garion vowed. "I don't know how yet, but one way or another, I'll stop him."
Lelldorin sank weakly back on the litter, his strength seeming to run out as if the necessity for extracting that promise had been the only thing sustaining him.
"Good-bye, Lelldorin," Garion said softly, his eyes filling with tears.
"Good-bye, my friend," Lelldorin barely more than whispered, and then his eyes closed, and the hand gripping Garion's went limp. Garion stared at him with a dreadful fear until he saw the faint flutter of his pulse in the hollow of his throat. Lelldorin was still alive - if only barely. Garion tenderly put down his friend's hand and pulled the rough gray blanket up around his shoulders. Then he stood up and walked quickly away with tears running down his cheeks.
The rest of the farewells were brief, and they remounted and rode at a trot toward the Great West Road. There were a few cheers from the serfs and pikemen as they passed, but in the distance there was another sound. The women from the villages had come out to search for their men among the bodies littering the field, and their wails and shrieks mocked the cheers.
With deliberate purpose, Garion pushed his horse forward until he drew in beside Mandorallen. "I have something to say to you," he said hotly. "You aren't going to like it, but I don't really care."
"Oh?" the knight replied mildly.
"I think the way you talked to Lelldorin back there was cruel and disgusting," Garion told him. "You might think you're the greatest knight in the world, but I think you're a loud-mouthed braggart with no more compassion than a block of stone, and if you don't like it, what do you plan to do about it?"
"Ah," Mandorallen said. "That! I think that thou hast misunderstood, my young friend. It was necessary in order to save his life. The Asturian youth is very brave and so gives no thought to himself. Had I not spoken so to him, he would surely have insisted upon continuing with us and would soon have died."
"Died?" Garion scoffed. "Aunt Pol could have cured him."
"It was the Lady Polgara herself who informed me that his life was in danger," Mandorallen replied. "His honor would not permit him to seek proper care, but that same honor prevailed upon him to remain behind lest he delay us." The knight smiled wryly. "He will, I think, be no fonder of me for my words than thou art, but he will be alive, and that's what matters, is it not?"
Garion stared at the arrogant-seeming Mimbrate, his anger suddenly robbed of its target. With painful clarity he realized that he had just made a fool of himself. "I'm sorry," he apologized grudgingly. "I didn't realize what you were doing."
Mandorallen shrugged. "It's not important. I'm frequently misunderstood. As long as I know that my motives are good, however, I'm seldom very concerned with the opinions of others. I'm glad, though, that I had the opportunity to explain this to thee. Thou art to be my companion, and it ill-behooves companions to have misapprehensions about each other."
They rode on in silence as Garion struggled to readjust his thinking. There was, it seemed, much more to Mandorallen than he had suspected.
They reached the highway then and turned south again under a threatening sky.
Chapter Eight
The Arendish Plain was a vast, rolling grassland Only sparsely settled. The wind sweeping across the dried grass was raw and chill, and dirty-looking clouds scudded overhead as they rode. The necessity for leaving the injured Lelldorin behind had put them all into a melancholy mood, and for the most part they traveled in silence for the next several days. Garion rode at the rear with Hettar and the packhorses, doing his best to stay away from Mandorallen.
Hettar was a silent man who seemed undisturbed by hours of riding without conversation; but after two days of this, Garion made a deliberate effort to draw the hawk-faced Algar out.
"Why is it that you hate Murgos so much, Hettar?" he asked for want of something better to say.
"All Alorns hate Murgos," Hettar answered quietly.
"Yes," Garion admitted, "but it seems to be something personal with you. Why is that?"
Hettar shifted in his saddle, his leather clothing creaking. "They killed my parents," he replied.
Garion felt a sudden shock as the Algar's words struck a responsive note.
"How did it happen?" he asked before he realize
d that Hettar might prefer not to talk about it.
"I was seven," Hettar told him in an unemotional voice. "We were going to visit my mother's family - she was from a different clan. We had to pass near the eastern escarpment, and a Murgo raiding-party caught us. My mother's horse stumbled, and she was thrown. The Murgos were on us before my father and I could get her back on her horse. They took a long time to kill my parents. I remember that my mother screamed once, near the end." The Algar's face was as bleak as rock, and his flat, quiet voice made his story seem that much more dreadful.
"After my parents were dead, the Murgos tied a rope around my feet and dragged me behind one of their horses," he continued. "When the rope finally broke, they thought I was dead, and they all rode off. They were laughing about it as I recall. Cho-Hag found me a couple of days later."
As clearly as if he had been there, Garion had a momentary picture of a child, dreadfully injured and alone, wandering in the emptiness of eastern Algaria with only grief and a terrible hatred keeping him alive.
"I killed my first Murgo when I was ten," Hettar went on in the same flat voice. "He was trying to escape from us, and I rode him down and put a javelin between his shoulders. He screamed when the javelin went through him. That made me feel better. Cho-Hag thought that if he made me watch the Murgo die, it might cure me of the hatred. He was wrong about that, though." The tall Algar's face was expressionless, and his wind-whipped scalp lock tossed and flowed out behind him. There was a kind of emptiness about him as if he were devoid of any feeling but that one driving compulsion.
For an instant Garion dimly understood what Mister Wolf had been driving at when he had warned about the danger of becoming obsessed with a desire for revenge, but he pushed the notion out of his mind. If Hettar could live with it, so could he. He felt a sudden fierce admiration for this lonely hunter in black leather.
Mister Wolf was deep in conversation with Mandorallen, and the two of them loitered until Hettar and Garion caught up with them. For a time they rode along together.
"It is our nature," the knight in his gleaming armor was saying in a melancholy voice. "We are over-proud, and it is our pride that dooms our poor Arendia to internecine war."
"That can be cured," Mister Wolf said.
"How?" Mandorallen asked. "It is in our blood. I myself am the most peaceful of men, but even I am subject to our national disease. Moreover, our divisions are too great, too buried in our history and our souls to be purged away. The peace will not last, my friend. Even now Asturian arrows sing in the forests, seeking Mimbrate targets, and Mimbre in reprisal burns Asturian houses and butchers hostages. War is inevitable, I fear."
"No," Wolf disagreed, "it's not."
"How may it be prevented?" Mandorallen demanded. "Who can cure our insanity?"
"I will, if I have to," Wolf told him quietly, pushing back his gray hood.
Mandorallen smiled wanly. "I appreciate thy good intentions, Belgarath, but that is impossible, even for thee."
"Nothing is actually impossible, Mandorallen," Wolf answered in a matter-of fact voice. "Most of the time I prefer not to interfere with other people's amusements, but I can't afford to have Arendia going up in flames just now. If I have to, I'll step in and put a stop to any more foolishness."
"Hast thou in truth such power?" Mandorallen asked somewhat wistfully as if he could not quite bring himself to believe it.
"Yes," Wolf replied prosaically, scratching at his short white beard, "as a matter of fact, I do."
Mandorallen's face grew troubled, even a bit awed at the old man's quiet statement, and Garion found his grandfather's declaration profoundly disturbing. If Wolf could actually stop a war single-handedly, he'd have no difficulty at all thwarting Garion's own plans for revenge. It was something else to worry about.
Then Silk rode back toward them. "The Great Fair's just ahead," the rat-faced man announced. "Do we want to stop, or should we go around it.
"We might as well stop," Wolf decided. "It's almost evening, and we need some supplies."
"The horses could use some rest, too," Hettar said. "They're starting to complain."
"You should have told me," Wolf said, glancing back at the pack train.
"They're not really in bad shape yet," Hettar informed him, "but they're starting to feel sorry for themselves. They're exaggerating of course, but a little rest wouldn't hurt them."
"Exaggerating?" Silk sounded shocked. "You don't mean to say that horses can actually lie, do you?"
Hettar shrugged. "Of course. They lie all the time. They're very good at it."
For a moment Silk looked outraged at the thought, and then he suddenly laughed. "Somehow that restores my faith in the order of the universe," he declared.
Wolf looked pained. "Silk," he said pointedly, "you're a very evil man. Did you know that?"
"One does one's best," Silk replied mockingly.
The Arendish Fair lay at the intersection of the Great West Road and the mountain track leading down out of Ulgoland. It was a vast collection of blue, red and yellow tents and broad-striped pavilions stretching for a league or more in every direction. It appeared like a brightly hued city in the midst of the dun-colored plain, and its brilliant pennons snapped bravely in the endless wind under a lowering sky.
"I hope I'll have time to do some business," Silk said as they rode down a long hill toward the Fair. The little man's sharp nose was twitching. "I'm starting to get out of practice."
A half dozen mud-smeared beggars crouched miserably beside the road, their hands outstretched. Mandorallen paused and scattered some coins among them.
"You shouldn't encourage them," Barak growled.
"Charity is both a duty and a privilege, my Lord Barak," Mandorallen replied.
"Why don't they build houses here?" Garion asked Silk as they approached the central part of the Fair.
"Nobody stays here that long," Silk explained. "The Fair's always here, but the population's very fluid. Besides, buildings are taxed; tents aren't."
Many of the merchants who came out of their tents to watch the party pass seemed to know Silk, and some of them greeted him warily, suspicion plainly written on their faces.
"I see that your reputation's preceded you, Silk," Barak observed dryly.
Silk shrugged. "The price of fame."
"Isn't there some danger that somebody'll recognize you as that other merchant?" Durnik asked. "The one the Murgos are looking for?"
"You mean Ambar? It's not very likely. Ambar doesn't come to Arendia very often, and he and Radek don't look a bit alike."
"But they're the same man," Durnik objected. "They're both you."
"Ah," Silk said, raising one finger, "you and I both know that, but they don't. To you I always look like myself, but to others I look quite different."
Durnik looked profoundly skeptical.
"Radek, old friend," a bald Drasnian merchant called from a nearby tent.
"Delvor," Silk replied delightedly. "I haven't seen you in years."
"You look prosperous," the bald man observed.
"Getting by," Silk responded modestly. "What are you dealing in now?"
"I've got a few Mallorean carpets," Delvor told him. "Some of the local nobles are interested, but they don't like the price." His hands, however, were already speaking of other matters. -Your uncle sent out word that we were to help you if necessary. Do you need anything? "What are you carrying in your packs?" he asked aloud.
"Sendarian woolens," Silk answered, "and a few other odds and ends." Have you seen any Murgos here at the Fair?
-One, but he left for Vo Mimbre a week ago. There are some Nadraks on the far side of the Fair, though
-They're a long way from home-Silk gestured. Are they really in business?
It's hard to say-Delvor answered.
-Can you put us up for a day or so?
I'm sure we can work something out Delvor replied with a sly twinkle in his eyes.
Silk's fingers betrayed his shock a
t the suggestion.
-Business is business, after all-Delvor gestured. "You must come inside," he said aloud. "Take a cup of wine, have some supper. We have years of catching up to do."
"We'd be delighted," Silk returned somewhat sourly.
"Could it be that you've met your match, Prince Kheldar?" Aunt Pal inquired softly with a faint smile as the little man helped her down from her horse in front of Delvor's brightly striped pavilion.
"Delvor? Hardly. He's been trying to get even with me for years ever since a ploy of mine in Yar Gorak cost him a fortune. I'll let him think he's got me for a while though. It will make him feel good, and I'll enjoy it that much more when I pull the rug out from under him."
She laughed. "You're incorrigible."
He winked at her.
The interior of Delvor's main pavilion was ruddy in the light of several glowing braziers that put out a welcome warmth. The floor was covered with a deep blue carpet, and large red cushions were scattered here and there to sit upon. Once they were inside, Silk quickly made the introductions.
"I'm honored, Ancient One," Delvor murmured, bowing deeply to Mister Wolf and then to Aunt Pol. "What can I do to help?"
"Right now we need information more than anything," Wolf replied, pulling off his heavy cloak. "We ran into a Grolim stirring up trouble a few days north of here. Can you nose about and find out what's happening between here and Vo Mimbre? I'd like to avoid any more neighborhood squabbles if possible."
"I'll make inquiries," Delvor promised.
"I'll be moving around too," Silk said. "Between us, Delvor and I should be able to sift out most of the loose information in the Fair." Wolf looked at him inquiringly.
"Radek of Boktor never passes up a chance to do business," the little man explained just a bit too quickly. "It would look very strange if he stayed in Delvor's tent."
"I see," Wolf said.
"We wouldn't want anything to spoil our disguise, would we?" Silk asked innocently. His long nose, however, was twitching even more violently.
Wolf surrendered. "All right. But don't get exotic. I don't want a crowd of outraged customers outside the tent in the morning howling for your head."
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