They made much of me, and most of them wept the first time they saw me. They would sit by the hour and just look at me, which I found disconcerting, to say the very least. They fed me and pampered me and provided me with what might be called luxurious quarters--if a tent could ever be described as luxurious. The tent had been empty, and I discovered that there were many empty tents in their encampment. Within a month or two I was able to find out why. Scarcely a week went by when at least one of them didn't die. As I said, they were all very old. Have you any idea of how depressing it is to live in a place where there's a perpetual funeral going on?
Winter was coming on, however, and I had a place to sleep and a fire to keep me warm, and the old people kept me well fed, so I decided that I could stand a little depression. I made up my mind, though, that with the first hint of spring, I'd be gone.
I made no particular effort to learn their language that winter and picked up only a few words. The most continually repeated among them were
"Gorim" and
"UL," which seemed to be names of some sort and were almost always spoken in tones of profoundest regret.
In addition to feeding me, the old people provided me with clothing; my own hadn't been very good in the first place and had become badly worn during the course of my journey. This involved no great sacrifice on their part, since a community in which there are two or three funerals every few weeks is bound to have spare clothes lying about.
When the snow melted and the frost began to seep out of the ground, I quietly began to make preparations to leave. I stole food--a little at a time to avoid suspicion--and hid it in my tent. I filched a rather nice wool cloak from the tent of one of the recently deceased and picked up a few other useful items here and there. I scouted the surrounding area carefully and found a place where I could ford the large river just to the west of the encampment. Then, with my escape route firmly in mind, I settled down to wait for the last of winter to pass.
As is usual in the early spring, we had a couple of weeks of fairly steady rain, so I still waited, although my impatience to be gone was becoming almost unbearable. During the course of that winter, that peculiar compulsion that had nagged at me since I'd left Gara had subtly altered. Now I seemed to be drawn southward instead of to the west.
The rains finally let up, and the spring sun seemed warm enough to make traveling pleasant. One evening I gathered up the fruits of my pilferage, stowed them in the rude pack I'd fashioned during the long winter evenings, and sat in my tent listening in almost breathless anticipation as the sounds of the old people gradually subsided. Then, when all was quiet, I crept out of my temporary home and made for the edge of the woods.
The moon was full that night, and the stars seemed very bright. I crept through the shadowy woods, waded the river, and emerged on the other side filled with a sense of enormous exhilaration. I was free!
I followed the river southward for the better part of that night, putting as much distance as I possibly could between me and the old people enough certainly so that their creaky old limbs wouldn't permit them to follow.
The forest seemed incredibly old. The trees were huge, and the forest floor, all over-spread by that leafy green canopy, was devoid of the usual underbrush, carpeted instead with lush green moss. It seemed to me an enchanted forest, and once I was certain there would be no pursuit, I found that I wasn't really in any great hurry, so I strolled--sauntered if you will--southward with no real sense of urgency, aside from that now gentle compulsion to go someplace, and I hadn't really the faintest idea of where.
And then the land opened up. What had been forest became a kind of vale, a grassy basin dotted here and there with delightful groves of trees verged with thickets of lush berry bushes, centering around deep, cold springs of water so clear that I could look down through ten feet of it at trout, which, all unafraid, looked up curiously at me as I knelt to drink.
And deer, as placid and docile as sheep, grazed in the lush green meadows and watched with large and gentle eyes as I passed.
All bemused, I wandered, more content than I had ever been. The distant voice of prudence told me that my store of food wouldn't last forever, but it didn't really seem to diminish--perhaps because I glutted myself on berries and other strange fruits.
I lingered long in that magic vale, and in time I came to its very center, where there grew a tree so vast that my mind reeled at the immensity of it.
I make no pretense at being a horticulturist, but I've been nine times around the world, and so far as I've seen, there's no other tree like it anywhere. And, in what was probably a mistake, I went to the tree and laid my hands upon its rough bark. I've always wondered what might have happened if I had not.
The peace that came over me was indescribable. My somewhat prosaic daughter will probably dismiss my bemusement as natural laziness, but she'll be wrong about that. I have no idea of how long I sat in rapt communion with that ancient tree. I know that I must have been somehow nourished and sustained as hours, days, even months drifted by unnoticed, but I have no memory of ever eating or sleeping.
And then, overnight, it turned cold and began to snow. Winter, like death, had been creeping up behind me all the while.
I'd formulated a rather vague intention to return to the camp of the old people for another winter of pampering if nothing better turned up, but it was obvious that I'd lingered too long in the mesmerizing shade of that silly tree.
And the snow piled so deep that I could barely flounder my way through it. My food was gone, and my shoes worn out, and I lost my knife, and it suddenly turned very, very cold. I'm not making any accusations here, but it seemed to me that this was all just a little excessive.
In the end, soaked to the skin and with ice forming in my hair, I huddled behind a pile of rock that seemed to reach up into the very heart of the snowstorm that swirled around me, and I tried to prepare myself for death. I thought of the village of Gara, and of the grassy fields around it, and of our sparkling river, and of my mother, and--because I was still really very young--I cried.
"Why wee pest thou, boy?" The voice was very gentle. The snow was so thick that I couldn't see who spoke, but the tone made me angry for some reason. Didn't I have reason to cry?
"Because I'm cold and I'm hungry," I replied, "and because I'm dying and I don't want to."
"Why art thou dying? Art thou injured?"
"I'm lost," I said a bit tartly, "and it's snowing and I have no place to go." Was he blind!
"Is this reason enough amongst thy kind to die?"
"Isn't it enough?"
"And how long dost thou expect this dying of thine to persist?" The voice seemed only mildly curious.
"I don't know," I replied through a sudden wave of self-pity.
"I've never done it before."
The wind howled and the snow swirled more thickly around me.
"Boy," the voice said finally, "come here to me."
"Where are you? I can't see you."
"Walk around the tower to thy left. Knowest thou thy left hand from thy right?"
He didn't have to be so insulting! I stumbled angrily to my half frozen feet, blinded by the driving snow.
"Well, boy? Art thou coming?"
I moved around what I thought was only a pile of rocks.
"Thou shalt come to a smooth grey stone," the voice said.
"It is somewhat taller than thy head and as broad as thine arms may reach."
"All right," I said through chattering teeth when I reached the rock he'd described.
"Now what?"
"Tell it to open."
"What?"
"Speak unto the stone," the voice said patiently, ignoring the fact that I was congealing in the gale.
"Command it to open."
"Command? Me?"
"Thou art a man. It is but a rock."
"What do I say?"
"Tell it to open."
"I think this is silly, but I'll try it." I faced the rock.
"Open," I commanded halfheartedly.
"Surely thou canst do better than that."
"Open!" I thundered.
The rock slid aside.
"Come in, boy," the voice said.
"Stand not in the weather like some befuddled calf. It is quite cold." Had he only just now noticed that?
I went inside what appeared to be some kind of vestibule with nothing in it but a stone staircase winding upward. Oddly, it wasn't dark, though I couldn't see exactly where the light came from.
"Close the door, boy."
"How?"
"How didst thou open it?"
I turned to face that gaping opening, and, quite proud of myself, I commanded,
"Close!" At the sound of my voice, the rock slid shut with a grinding sound that chilled my blood even more than the fierce storm outside. I was trapped! My momentary panic passed as I suddenly realized that I was dry for the first time in days. There wasn't even a puddle around my feet! Something strange was going on here.
"Come up, boy," the voice commanded.
What choice did I have? I mounted the stone steps worn with countless centuries of footfalls and spiraled my way up and up, only a little bit afraid. The tower was very high, and the climbing took me a long time.
At the top was a chamber filled with wonders. I looked at things such as I'd never seen before. I was still young and not, at the time, above thoughts of theft. Larceny seethed in my grubby little soul. I'm sure that Polgara will find that particular admission entertaining.
Near a fire--which burned, I observed, without fuel of any kind--sat a man who seemed most incredibly ancient, but somehow familiar, though I couldn't seem to place him. His beard was long and full and as white as the snow that had so nearly killed me--but his eyes were eternally young. I think it might have been the eyes that seemed so familiar to me.
"Well, boy," he said, "hast thou decided not to die?"
"Not if it isn't necessary," I said bravely, still cataloging the wonders of the chamber.
"Dost thou require anything?" he asked.
"I am unfamiliar with thy kind."
"A little food, perhaps," I replied.
"I haven't eaten for two days. And a warm place to sleep, if you wouldn't mind." I thought it might not be a bad idea to stay on the good side of this strange old man, so I hurried on.
"I won't be much trouble, Master, and I can make myself useful in payment."
It was an artful little speech. I'd learned during my months with the Tolnedrans how to make myself agreeable to people in a position to do me favors.
"Master?" he said, and laughed, a sound so cheerful that it made me almost want to dance. Where had I heard that laugh before?
"I am not thy Master, boy," he said. Then he laughed again, and my heart sang with the splendor of his mirth.
"Let us see to this thing of food. What dost thou require?"
"A little bread perhaps--not too stale, if it's all right."
"Bread? Only bread? Surely, boy, thy stomach is fit for more than bread. If thou wouldst make thyself useful--as thou hast promised--we must nourish thee properly. Consider, boy. Think of all the things thou hast eaten in thy life. What in all the world would most surely satisfy this vast hunger of thine?"
I couldn't even say it. Before my eyes swam the visions of smoking roasts, of fat geese swimming in their own gravy, of heaps of fresh-baked bread and rich, golden butter, of pastries in thick cream, of cheese and dark-brown ale, of fruits and nuts and salt to savor it all. The vision was so real that it even seemed that I could smell it.
And he who sat by the glowing fire that burned, it seemed, air alone, laughed, and again my heart sang.
"Turn, boy," he said, "and eat thy fill."
I turned, and there on a table, which I hadn't even seen before, lay everything I had imagined. No wonder I could smell it! A hungry boy doesn't ask where the food comes from--he eats. And so I ate. I ate until my stomach groaned. Through the sound of my eating I could hear the laughter of the aged one beside his fire, and my heart leaped within me at each strangely familiar chuckle.
And when I'd finished and sat drowsing over my plate, he spoke again.
"Wilt thou sleep now, boy?"
"A corner, Master," I said.
"A little out-of-the-way place by the fire, if it isn't too much trouble."
He pointed.
"Sleep there, boy," he said, and all at once I saw a bed that I had no more seen than I had the table--a great bed with huge pillows and comforters of softest down. I smiled my thanks and crept into the bed, and, because I was young and very tired, I fell asleep almost at once without even stopping to think about how very strange all of this had been.
But in my sleep I knew that he who had brought me in out of the storm and fed me and cared for me was watching through the long, snowy night, and I slept even more securely in the comforting warmth of his care.
CHAPTER TWO
that began my servitude. At first the tasks my Master set me to were simple ones--"Sweep the floor," "Fetch some firewood," "Wash the windows"--that sort of thing. I suppose I should have been suspicious about many of them. I could have sworn that there hadn't been a speck of dust anywhere when I first mounted to his tower room, and, as I think I mentioned earlier, the fire burning in his fireplace didn't seem to need fuel. It was almost as if he were somehow making work for me to do.
He was a good Master, though. For one thing, he didn't command in the way I'd heard the Tolnedrans command their servants, but rather made suggestions.
"Thinkest thou not that the floor hath become dirty again, boy?" Or
"Might it not be prudent to lay in some store of firewood?"
My chores were in no way beyond my strength or abilities, and the weather outside was sufficiently unpleasant to persuade me that what little was expected of me was a small price to pay in exchange for food and shelter. I did resolve, however, that when spring came and he began to look farther afield for things for me to do, I might want to reconsider our arrangement. There isn't really very much to do when winter keeps one housebound, but warmer weather brings with it the opportunity for heavier and more tedious tasks. If things turned too unpleasant, I could always pick up and leave.
There was something peculiar about that notion, though. The compulsion that had come over me at Gara seemed gone now. I don't know that I really thought about it in any specific way. I just seemed to notice that it was gone and shrugged it off. Maybe I just thought I'd outgrown it.
It seems to me that I shrugged off a great deal that first winter.
I paid very little attention, for example, to the fact that my Master seemed to have no visible means of support. He didn't keep cattle or sheep or even chickens, and there were no sheds or outbuildings in the vicinity of his tower. I couldn't even find his storeroom. I knew there had to be one somewhere, because the meals he prepared were always on the table when I grew hungry. Oddly, the fact that I never once saw him cooking didn't seem particularly strange to me. Not even the fact that I never once saw him eat anything seemed strange. It was almost as if my natural curiosity--and believe me, I can be very curious--had been somehow put to sleep.
I had absolutely no idea of what he did during that long winter. It seemed to me that he spent a great deal of time just looking at a plain round rock. He didn't speak very often, but I talked enough for both of us. I've always been fond of the sound of my own voice--or had you noticed that?
My continual chatter must have driven him to distraction, because one evening he rather pointedly asked me why I didn't go read something.
I knew about reading, of course. Nobody in Gara had known how, but I'd seen Tolnedrans doing it--or pretending to. It seemed a little silly to me at the time. Why take the trouble to write a letter to somebody who lives two houses over? If it's important, just step over and tell him about it.
"I don't know how to read, Master," I confessed.
He actually seemed startled by that.
; "Is this truly the case, boy?" he asked me.
"I had thought that the skill was instinctive amongst thy kind."
I wished that he'd quit talking about "my kind" as if I were a member of some obscure species of rodent or insect.
"Fetch down that book, boy," he instructed, pointing at a high shelf.
I looked up in some amazement. There seemed to be several dozen bound volumes on that shelf. I'd cleaned and dusted and polished the room from floor to ceiling a dozen times or more, and I'd have taken an oath that the shelf hadn't been there the last time I looked. I covered my confusion by asking
"Which one, Master?" Notice that I'd even begun to pick up some semblance of good manners?
"Whichever one falls most easily to hand," he replied indifferently.
I selected a book at random and took it to him.
"Seat thyself, boy," he told me.
"I shall give thee instruction."
I knew nothing whatsoever about reading, so it didn't seem particularly odd to me that under his gentle tutelage I was a competent reader within the space of an hour. Either I was an extremely gifted student-which seems highly unlikely--or he was the greatest teacher who ever lived.
From that hour on I became a voracious reader. I devoured his bookshelf from one end to another. Then, somewhat regretfully, I went back to the first book again, only to discover that I'd never seen it before.
I read and read and read, and every page was new to me. I read my way through that bookshelf a dozen times over, and it was always fresh and new. That reading opened the world of the mind to me, and I found it much to my liking.
My newfound obsession gave my Master some peace, at least, and he seemed to look approvingly at me as I sat late into those long, snowy, winter nights reading texts in languages I could not have spoken, but that I nonetheless clearly understood when they seemed to leap out at me from off the page. I also noticed dimly--for, as I think I've already mentioned, my curiosity seemed somehow to have been blunted--that when I was reading, my Master tended to have no chores for me, at least not at first. The conflict between reading and chores came later. And so we passed the winter in that world of the mind, and with few exceptions, I've probably never been so happy.
Rivan Codex Series Page 3