‘Yes,’ he said mildly, ‘I heard him.’
‘You’re not going to let something like that happen, are you?’
‘I hadn’t planned to, no. What’s got you so upset, Ce’Nedra?’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I will not have Zandramas for a daughter-in-law,’ she declared hotly, ‘no matter what happens.’
He stared at her for a moment, then he began to laugh.
Chapter Eleven
By midafternoon the wan dish of the sun had begun to burn through the pervading mist, and Beldin returned. ‘The fog’s completely cleared away about a league west of here,’ he told them.
‘Are there any signs of movement out there?’ Belgarath asked him.
‘Some,’ Beldin replied. ‘A few detachments of troops that are all headed north. Otherwise it’s as empty as a merchant’s soul. Sorry, Kheldar, it’s just an old expression.’
‘That’s all right, Beldin,’ Silk forgave him grandly. ‘These little slips of the tongue are common in the very elderly.’
Beldin gave him a hard look and then continued. ‘The villages up ahead all seem to be deserted and mostly in ruins. I’d say that the villagers have fled.’ He glanced at the sleeping Melcene. ‘Who’s your guest?’ he asked.
‘He’s with the Bureau of Roads,’ Belgarath replied. ‘Silk found him hiding in a cellar.’
‘Is he really all that sleepy?’
‘Sadi gave him something to calm his nerves.’
‘I’d say it worked pretty good. He looks very calm.’
‘Would you like something to eat, uncle?’ Polgara asked.
‘Thanks all the same, Pol, but I had a fat rabbit an hour or so ago.’ He looked back at Belgarath. ‘I think we’ll still want to travel at night,’ he advised. ‘You don’t have whole regiments out there, but there are enough to give us trouble if they happen to surprise us.’
‘Any idea of whose troops they are?’
‘I didn’t see any Guardsmen or Karands. I’d guess that they belong to Zandramas—or to the King of Peldane. Whoever they are, they’re going north toward that battle that’s about to begin.’
‘All right,’ Belgarath said, ‘we’ll travel at night, then—at least until we get past the soldiers.’
They moved along at a fair rate of speed that night. They had passed the woods, and the watchfires of the soldiers encamped on the plain made them easy to avoid. Then, just before dawn, Belgarath and Garion stopped atop a low hill and looked down at a camp that seemed quite a bit larger than those they had passed earlier. ‘About a battalion, grandfather,’ Garion surmised. ‘I think we’ve got a problem here. The country around here’s awfully flat. This is the only hill we’ve seen for miles, and there isn’t very much cover. No matter how we try to hide, their scouts are going to see us. It might be safer if we turned around and went back a ways.’
Belgarath laid back his ears in irritation. ‘Let’s go back and warn the others,’ he growled. He rose to his feet and led Garion back the way they had come.
‘There’s no point in taking chances, father,’ Polgara said after she had drifted in on silent wings. ‘The country was more broken a few miles back. We can go back there and find shelter.’
‘Were the cooks making breakfast?’ Sadi asked.
‘Yes,’ Garion replied. ‘I could smell it—some kind of porridge and bacon.’
‘They’re not likely to move or send out scouts until after they eat, are they?’
‘No,’ Garion told him. ‘Troops get very surly if you make them start marching before you feed them.’
‘And were the sentries all wearing the standard military cloak—the ones that look more or less like these?’ He plucked at the front of his traveler’s cloak.
‘The ones I saw were,’ Garion said.
‘Why don’t we pay them a visit, Prince Kheldar?’ the eunuch suggested.
‘What have you got in mind?’ Silk asked suspiciously.
‘Porridge is so bland, don’t you think? I have a number of things in my case that can spice it up just a bit. We can walk through the encampment like a pair of sentries who’ve just been relieved and go directly to the cook-fires for a bite of breakfast. I shouldn’t have much trouble seasoning the kettles with certain condiments.’
Silk grinned at him.
‘No poison,’ Belgarath said firmly.
‘I hadn’t considered poison, Ancient One,’ Sadi protested mildly. ‘Not out of any sense of morality, mind you. It’s just that soldiers tend to grow suspicious when their messmates turn black in the face and topple over. I have something much more pleasant in mind. The soldiers will all be deliriously happy for a short while, then they’ll fall asleep.’
‘For how long?’ Silk asked.
‘Several days,’ Sadi shrugged. ‘A week at the very most.’
Silk whistled. ‘Is it dangerous at all?’
‘Only if one has a weak heart. I’ve used it on myself on occasion—when I was particularly tired. Shall we go, then?’
‘Teaming those two together may have been a moral blunder,’ Belgarath mused as the two rogues walked off in the darkness toward the twinkling watchfires.
It was about an hour later when the little Drasnian and the eunuch returned. ‘It’s safe now,’ Sadi reported. ‘We can go on through their camp. There’s a low range of hills a league or so farther on where we can take shelter until night.’
‘Any trouble at all?’ Velvet asked.
‘Not a bit,’ Silk smirked. ‘Sadi’s very good at that sort of thing.’
‘Practice, my dear Kheldar,’ the eunuch said deprecatingly. ‘I’ve poisoned a fair number of people in my time.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘Once I gave a banquet for a group of my enemies. Not a single one of them saw me season the soup course, and Nyissans are very observant when it comes to that sort of thing.’
‘Didn’t they get suspicious when you didn’t eat any soup?’ Velvet asked curiously.
‘But I did, Liselle. I’d spent an entire week dosing myself with the antidote.’ He shuddered. ‘Vile-tasting stuff, as I recall. The poison itself was quite tasty. A number of my guests even complimented me on the soup before they left.’ He sighed. ‘Those were the good old days,’ he mourned.
‘I think we can reminisce later on,’ Belgarath said. ‘Let’s see if we can reach those hills before the sun gets much higher.’
The soldiers’ encampment was silent, except for an occasional snore. The troops were all smiling happily as they slept.
The following night was cloudy, and the air smelled strongly of incipient rain. Garion and Belgarath had no trouble finding the encampments of the soldiers in their path, and a few overheard snatches of conversation revealed the fact that these troops were members of the royal army of Peldane, and further that they were approaching the impending battle with a great deal of reluctance. About morning, Garion and his grandfather trotted back to rejoin the others with Polgara ghosting just above them on silent wings.
‘A sound is still a sound,’ Durnik was saying stubbornly to Beldin. The two were riding side by side.
‘But if there’s nobody to hear it, how can we call it a sound?’ Beldin argued.
Belgarath shook himself into his own form. ‘The noise in the woods again, Beldin?’ he said in a tone of profoundest disgust.
The hunchback shrugged. ‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’
‘Can’t you think of anything new? After we argued the question for a thousand years, I thought you might have gotten tired of it.’
‘What’s this?’ Polgara asked, walking through the tall grass to join them in the shadowless light of dawn.
‘Beldin and Durnik are discussing a very tired old philosophical question.’ Belgarath snorted. ‘If there’s a noise in the woods, and there’s nobody around to hear it, is it really a noise?’
‘Of course it is,’ she replied calmly.
‘How did you reach that conclusion?’ Beldin demanded.
‘Because there’s no such thing a
s an empty place, uncle. There are always creatures around—wild animals, mice, insects, birds—and they can all hear.’
‘But what if there weren’t? What if the woods are truly empty?’
‘Why waste your time talking about an impossibility?’
He stared at her in frustration.
‘Not only that,’ Ce’Nedra added just a bit smugly, ‘you’re talking about woods, so there are trees there. Trees can hear, too, you know.’
He glared at her. ‘Why are you all taking sides against me?’
‘Because you’re wrong, uncle.’ Polgara smiled.
‘Wrong, Polgara?’ he spluttered. ‘Me?’
‘It happens to everybody once in a while. Why don’t we all have some breakfast?’
The sun rose while they were eating, and Belgarath looked up, squinting into the morning rays. ‘We haven’t seen any soldiers since midnight,’ he said, ‘and all we’ve seen so far are troops of the army of Peldane. They’re not really anything to worry about, so I think it’s safe to ride on a little farther this morning.’ He looked at Silk. ‘How far is it to the border of Darshiva?’
‘Not really all that far, but we haven’t been making very good time. It’s spring, so the nights are getting shorter, and we lose time when we have to circle around those troops.’ He frowned. ‘We might have a bit of a problem at the border, though. We’re going to have to cross the River Magan, and if everyone has fled the area, we could have some trouble finding a boat.’
‘Is the Magan really as big as they say?’ Sadi asked.
‘It’s the biggest river in the world. It runs for a thousand leagues and more, and it’s so wide that you can’t see the far shore.’
Durnik rose to his feet. ‘I want to check over the horses before we go any farther,’ he said. ‘We’ve been riding them in the dark, and that’s always a little dangerous. We don’t want any of them pulling up lame.’
Eriond and Toth also rose, and the three of them went through the tall grass to the place where the horses were picketed.
‘I’ll go on ahead,’ Beldin said. ‘Even if the troops are Peldanes, we still don’t need any surprises.’ He changed form and flew off toward the west, spiraling up into the cloudless morning sky.
Garion stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on his elbows.
‘You must be tired,’ Ce’Nedra said, sitting beside him and touching his face tenderly.
‘Wolves don’t really get that tired,’ he told her. ‘I get the feeling that I could run for a week if I really had to.’
‘Well, you don’t have to, so don’t even consider it.’
‘Yes, dear.’
Sadi had risen to his feet with his red leather case in his hands. ‘As long as we’re stopped, I think I’ll find something to feed Zith,’ he said. A small frown touched his brow. ‘You know, Liselle,’ he said to Velvet, ‘I think you were right back in Zamad. She definitely looks as if she’s gained a few ounces.’
‘Put her on a diet,’ the blond girl suggested.
‘I’m not sure about that.’ He smiled. ‘It’s very hard to explain to a snake why you’re starving her, and I wouldn’t want her to get cross with me.’
They rode out not long afterward, following Toth’s gestured directions.
‘He says that we can probably find a village south of the big town on the river,’ Durnik told them.
‘Ferra,’ Silk supplied.
‘I suppose so. I haven’t looked at a map for a while. Anyway, he says that there are quite a few villages on this side where we might be able to hire a boat to get us across to Darshiva.’
‘That’s assuming that they aren’t all deserted,’ Silk added.
Durnik shrugged. ‘We’ll never know until we get there.’
It was a warm morning, and they rode across the rolling grasslands of southern Peldane under cloudless skies. About midmorning, Eriond rode forward and fell in beside Garion. ‘Do you think Polgara would mind if you and I took a little gallop?’ he asked. ‘Maybe to that hill over there?’ He pointed at a large knoll off to the north.
‘She probably would,’ Garion said, ‘unless we can come up with a good reason.’
‘You don’t think she’d accept the idea that Horse and Chretienne need to run once in a while?’
‘Eriond, you’ve known her for a long time. Do you really think she’d listen if we tried to tell her that?’
Eriond sighed. ‘No, I suppose not.’
Garion squinted at the hilltop. ‘We really ought to keep an eye out to the north, though,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That’s where the trouble’s going to break out. We sort of need to know what’s happening up there, don’t we? That hilltop would be a perfect place to have a look.’
‘That’s very true, Belgarion.’
‘It’s not as if we’d actually be lying to her.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of lying to her.’
‘Of course not. Neither would I.’
The two young men grinned at each other. ‘I’ll tell Belgarath where we’re going,’ Garion said. ‘We’ll let him explain it to her.’
‘He’s the perfect one to do it,’ Eriond agreed.
Garion dropped back and touched his half-dozing grandfather’s shoulder. ‘Eriond and I are going to ride over to that hill,’ he said. ‘I want to see if there are any signs that the fighting’s started yet.’
‘What? Oh, good idea.’ Belgarath yawned and closed his eyes again.
Garion motioned to Eriond, and the two of them trotted off into the tall grass at the side of the trail.
‘Garion,’ Polgara called, ‘where are you going?’
‘Grandfather can explain it, Aunt Pol,’ he shouted back. ‘We’ll catch up again in just a bit.’ He looked at Eriond. ‘Now let’s get out of earshot in a hurry.’
They went north, first at a gallop and then at a dead run with the grass whipping at their horses’ legs. The chestnut and the gray matched stride for stride, plunging along with their heads thrust far forward and their hooves pounding on the thick turf. Garion leaned forward in his saddle, surrendering to the flow and surge of Chretienne’s muscles. Both he and Eriond were laughing with delight when they reined in on the hilltop.
‘That was good,’ Garion said, swinging down from his saddle. ‘We don’t get the chance to do that very often any more, do we?’
‘Not often enough,’ Eriond agreed, also dismounting. ‘You managed to arrange it very diplomatically, Belgarion.’
‘Of course. Diplomacy’s what kings do best.’
‘Do you think we fooled her?’
‘Us?’ Garion laughed. ‘Fool Aunt Pol? Be serious, Eriond.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Eriond made a wry face. ‘She’ll probably scold us, won’t she?’
‘Inevitably, but the ride was worth a scolding, wasn’t it?’
Eriond smiled. Then he looked around, and his smile faded. ‘Belgarion,’ he said sadly, pointing to the north.
Garion looked. Tall columns of black smoke rose along the horizon. ‘It looks as if it’s started,’ he said bleakly.
‘Yes.’ Eriond sighed. ‘Why do they have to do that?’
Garion crossed his arms on Chretienne’s saddle and leaned his chin pensively on them. ‘Pride, I suppose,’ he replied, ‘and the hunger for power. Revenge, too, sometimes I guess. Once in Arendia, Lelldorin said that very often it’s because people just don’t know how to stop it, once it’s started.’
‘But it’s all so senseless.’
‘Of course it is. Arends aren’t the only stupid people on earth. Any time you have two people who both want the same thing badly enough, you’re going to have a fight. If the two people have enough followers, they call it a war. If a couple of ordinary men have that kind of disagreement, there might be a broken nose and some missing teeth, but when you start getting armies involved, people get killed.’
‘Are you and Zakath going to have a war, then?’
It was a troubling question, and Gari
on wasn’t sure he knew the answer. ‘I don’t really know,’ he admitted.
‘He wants to rule the world,’ Eriond pointed out, ‘and you don’t want him to. Isn’t that the sort of thing that starts a war?’
‘It’s awfully hard to say,’ Garion replied sadly. ‘Maybe if we hadn’t left Mal Zeth when we did, I might have been able to bring him around. But we had to leave, so I lost the chance.’ He sighed. ‘I think it’s finally going to be up to him. Maybe he’s changed enough so that he’ll abandon the whole idea—but then again, maybe he hasn’t. You can never tell with a man like Zakath. I hope he’s given up the notion. I don’t want a war—not with anybody; but I’m not going to bow to him, either. The world wasn’t meant to be ruled by one man—and certainly not by somebody like Zakath.’
‘But you like him, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. I wish I could have met him before Taur Urgas ruined his life.’ He paused, and his face grew set. ‘Now there’s a man I’d have rather cheerfully gone to war with. He contaminated the whole world just by living in it.’
‘But it wasn’t really his fault. He was insane, and that excuses him.’
‘You’re a very forgiving young man, Eriond.’
‘Isn’t it easier to forgive than to hate? Until we learn how to forgive, that sort of thing is going to keep on happening.’ He pointed at the tall pillars of smoke rising to the north. ‘Hate is a sterile thing, Belgarion.’
‘I know.’ Garion sighed. ‘I hated Torak, but in the end I guess I forgave him—more out of pity than anything else. I still had to kill him, though.’
‘What do you think the world would be like if people didn’t kill each other any more?’
‘Nicer, probably.’
‘Why don’t we fix it that way then?’
‘You and I?’ Garion laughed. ‘All by ourselves?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s impossible, Eriond.’
‘I thought you and Belgarath had settled the issue of impossible a long time ago.’
Garion laughed again. ‘Yes, I suppose we did. All right, let’s drop impossible. Would you accept extremely difficult instead?’
‘Nothing that’s really worthwhile should be easy, Belgarion. If it’s easy, we don’t value it; but I’m certain we’ll be able to find an answer.’ He said it with such shining confidence in his face that for a moment Garion actually believed that the wild notion might indeed be feasible.
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