"If you don't go now, I'm going to cry right here in public," she said, pushing him away.
The stones of the wharf were slippery, and the slim Cherek ship bobbed and rolled in the chop. The narrow plank they had to cross heaved and swayed dangerously, but they all managed to board without accident. The sailors slipped the hawsers and took their places at the oars. The lean vessel leaped away from the wharf and moved swiftly into the harbor past the stout and bulky merchantmen anchored nearby. Queen Layla stood forlornly on the wharf, surrounded by tall soldiers. She waved a few times and then stood watching, her chin lifted bravely.
Captain Greldik took his place at the tiller with Barak by his side and signaled to a squat, muscular warrior crouched nearby. The squat man nodded and pulled a ragged square of sailcloth off a hide-topped drum.
He began a slow beat, and the oarsmen immediately took up the rhythm. The ship surged ahead and made for the open sea.
Once they were beyond the protection of the harbor, the swells grew so ponderous that the ship no longer rocked but ran instead down the back of each wave and up the face of the next. The long oars, dipping to the rhythm of the sullen drum, left little swirls on the surface of the waves. The sea was lead-gray beneath the wintry sky, and the low, snow-covered coastline of Sendaria slid by on their right, bleak and desolate-looking.
Garion spent most of the day shivering in a sheltered spot near the high prow, moodily staring out at the sea. The shards and shambles into which his life had fallen the night before lay in ruins around him. The idea that Wolf was Belgarath and Aunt Pol was Polgara was of course an absurdity. He was convinced, however, that a part of the whole thing at least was true. She might not be Polgara, but she was almost certainly not his Aunt. He avoided looking at her as much as possible, and did not speak to anyone.
They slept that night in cramped quarters beneath the stern deck of the ship. Mister Wolf sat talking for a long time with King Fulrach and the Earl of Seline. Garion covertly watched the old man whose silvery hair and short-cropped beard seemed almost to glow in the light from a swinging oil lamp hanging from one of the low beams. He still looked the same as always, and Garion finally turned over and went to sleep.
The next day they rounded the hook of Sendaria and beat northeasterly with a good following wind. The sails were raised, and the oarsmen were able to rest. Garion continued to wrestle with his problem.
On the third day out the weather turned stormy and bitterly cold. The rigging crackled with ice, and sleet hissed into the sea around them. "If this doesn't break, it will be a rough passage through the Bore," Barak said, frowning into the sleet.
"The what?" Durnik asked apprehensively. Durnik was not at all comfortable on the ship. He was just recovering from a bout of seasickness, and he was obviously a bit edgy.
"The Cherek Bore," Barak explained. "It's a passage about a league wide between the northern tip of Sendaria and the southern end of the Cherek peninsula - riptides, whirlpools, that sort of thing. Don't be alarmed, Durnik. This is a good ship, and Greldik knows the secret of navigating the Bore. It may be a bit rough, but we'll be perfectly safe unless we're unlucky, of course."
"That's a cheery thing to say," Silk observed dryly from nearby. "I've been trying for three days not to think about the Bore."
"Is it really that bad?" Durnik asked in a sinking voice.
"I make a special point of not going through it sober," Silk told him.
Barak laughed. "You ought to be thankful for the Bore, Silk," he said. "It keeps the Empire out of the Gulf of Cherek. All Drasnia would be a Tolnedran province if it wasn't there."
"I admire it politically," Silk said, "but personally I'd be much happier if I never had to look at it again."
On the following day they anchored near the rocky coast of northern Sendaria and waited for the tide to turn. In time it slackened and reversed, and the waters of the Sea of the Winds mounted and plunged through the Bore to raise the level of the Gulf of Cherek.
"Find something solid to hold on to, Garion," Barak advised as Greldik ordered the anchor raised. "With this following wind, the passage could be interesting." He strode along the narrow deck, his teeth gleaming in a broad grin.
It was foolish. Garion knew that, even as he stood up and began to follow the red-bearded man toward the prow, but four days of solitary brooding over a problem that refused to yield to any kind of logic made him feel almost belligerently reckless. He set his teeth together and took hold of a rusted iron ring embedded in the prow.
Barak laughed and clapped him a stunning blow on the shoulder. "Good boy," he said approvingly. "We'll stand together and look the Bore right down the throat."
Garion decided not to answer that.
With wind and tide behind her, Greldik's ship literally flew through the passage, yawing and shuddering as she was seized by the violent riptides. Icy spray stung their faces, and Garion, half blinded by it, did not see the enormous whirlpool in the center of the Bore until they were almost upon it. He seemed to hear a vast roar and cleared his eyes just in time to see it yawning in front of him.
"What's that?" he yelled over the noise.
"The Great Maelstrom," Barak shouted. "Hold on."
The Maelstrom was fully as large as the village of Upper Gralt and descended horribly down into a seething, mist-filled pit unimaginably far below. Incredibly, instead of guiding his vessel away from the vortex, Greldik steered directly at it.
"What's he doing?" Garion screamed.
"It's the secret of passing through the Bore," Barak roared. "We circle the Maelstrom twice to gain more speed. If the ship doesn't break up, she comes out like a rock from a sling, and we pass through the riptides beyond the Maelstrom before they can slow us down and drag us back."
"If the ship doesn't what?"
"Sometimes a ship is torn apart in the Maelstrom," Barak said. "Don't worry, boy. It doesn't happen very often, and Greldik's ship seems stout enough."
The ship's prow dipped hideously into the outer edges of the Maelstrom and then raced twice around the huge whirlpool with the oarsmen frantically bending their backs to the frenzied beat of the drum. The wind tore at Garion's face, and he clung to his iron ring, keeping his eyes averted from the seething maw gaping below.
And then they broke free and shot like a whistling stone through the churning water beyond the Maelstrom. The wind of their passage howled in the rigging, and Garion felt half suffocated by its force.
Gradually the ship slowed in the swirling eddies, but the speed they had gained from the Maelstrom carried them on to calm water in a partially sheltered cove on the Sendarian side.
Barak was laughing gleefully and mopping spray from his beard. "Well, lad," he said, "what do you think of the Bore?"
Garion didn't trust himself to answer and concentrated on trying to pry his numb fingers from the iron ring.
A familiar voice rang out from the stern.
"Garion!"
"Now you've gone and got me in trouble," Garion said resentfully, ignoring the fact that standing in the prow had been his own idea. Aunt Pol spoke scathingly to Barak about his irresponsibility and then turned her attention to Garion.
"Well?" she said. "I'm waiting. Would you like to explain?"
"It wasn't Barak's fault," Garion said. "It was my own idea." There was no point in their both being in trouble, after all.
"I see," she said. "And what was behind that?"
The confusion and doubt which had been troubling him made him reckless. "I felt like it," he said, half defiantly. For the first time in his life he felt on the verge of open rebellion.
"You what?"
"I felt like it," he repeated. "What difference does it make why I did it? You're going to punish me anyway."
Aunt Pol stiffened, and her eyes blazed.
Mister Wolf, who was sitting nearby, chuckled.
"What's so funny?" she snapped.
"Why don't you let me handle this, Pol?" the old man suggested.
> "I can deal with it," she said.
"But not well, Pol," he said. "Not well at all. Your temper's too quick, and your tongue's too sharp. He's not a child anymore. He's not a man yet, but he's not a child either. The problem needs to be dealt with in a special way. I'll take care of it." He stood up. "I think I insist, Pol."
"You what?"
"I insist." His eyes hardened.
"Very well," she said in an icy voice, turned, and walked away. "Sit down, Garion," the old man said.
"Why's she so mean?" Garion blurted.
"She isn't," Mister Wolf said. "She's angry because you frightened her. Nobody likes to be frightened."
"I'm sorry," Garion mumbled, ashamed of himself.
"Don't apologize to me," Wolf said. "I wasn't frightened." He looked for a moment at Garion, his eyes penetrating. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"They call you Belgarath," Garion said as if that explained it all, "and they call her Polgara."
"So."
"It's just not possible."
"Didn't we have this conversation before? A long time ago?"
"Are you Belgarath?" Garion demanded bluntly.
"Some people call me that. What difference does it make?"
"I'm sorry," Garion said. "I just don't believe it:"
"All right," Wolf shrugged. "You don't have to if you don't want to. What's that got to do with your being impolite to your Aunt?"
"It's just " Garion faltered. "Well-" Desperately he wanted to ask Mister Wolf that ultimate, fatal question, but despite his certainty that there was no kinship between himself and Aunt Pol, he could not bear the thought of having it finally and irrevocably confirmed.
"You're confused," Wolf said. "Is that it? Nothing seems to be like it ought to be, and you're angry with your Aunt because it seems like it has to be her fault."
"You make it sound awfully childish," Garion said, flushing slightly.
"Isn't it?"
Garion flushed even more.
"It's your own problem, Garion," Mister Wolf said. "Do you really think it's proper to make others unhappy because of it?"
"No," Garion admitted in a scarcely audible voice.
"Your Aunt and I are who we are," Wolf said quietly. "People have made up a lot of nonsense about us, but that doesn't really matter. There are things that have to be done, and we're the ones who have to do them. That's what matters. Don't make things more difficult for your Aunt just because the world isn't exactly to your liking. That's not only childish, it's ill-mannered, and you're a better boy than that. Now, I really think you owe her an apology, don't you?"
"I suppose so," Garion said.
"I'm glad we had this chance to talk," the old man said, "but I wouldn't wait too long before making up with her. You wouldn't believe how long she can stay angry." He grinned suddenly. "She's been angry with me for as long as I can remember, and that's so long that I don't even like to think about it."
"I'll do it right now," Garion said.
"Good," Wolf approved.
Garion stood up and walked purposefully to where Aunt Pol stood staring out at the swirling currents of the Cherek Bore.
"Aunt Pol," he said.
"Yes, dear?"
"I'm sorry. I was wrong."
She turned and looked at him gravely.
"Yes," she said, "you were."
"I won't do it again."
She laughed then, a low, warm laugh, and ran her fingers through his tangled hair. "Don't make promises you can't keep, dear," she said, and she embraced him, and everything was all right again.
After the fury of the tide through the Cherek Bore had abated, they sailed north along the snow-mufled east coast of the Cherek peninsula toward the ancient city which was the ancestral home of all Alorns, Algar and Drasnian as well as Cherek and Rivan. The wind was chill and the skies threatening, but the remainder of the voyage was uneventful. After three more days their ship entered the harbor at Val Alorn and tied up at one of the ice-shrouded wharves.
Val Alorn was unlike any Sendarian city. Its walls and buildings were so incredibly ancient that they seemed more like natural rock formations than the construction of human hands. The narrow, crooked streets were clogged with snow, and the mountains behind the city loomed high and white against the dark sky.
Several horse-drawn sleighs awaited them at the wharf with savagelooking drivers and shaggy horses stamping impatiently in the packed snow. There were fur robes in the sleighs, and Garion drew one of them about him as he waited for Barak to conclude his farewells to Greldik and the sailors.
"Let's go," Barak told the driver as he climbed into the sleigh. "See if you can't catch up with the others."
"If you hadn't talked so long, they wouldn't be so far ahead, Lord Barak," the driver said sourly.
"That's probably true," Barak agreed.
The driver grunted, touched his horses with his whip, and the sleigh started up the street where the others had already disappeared. Fur-clad Cherek warriors swaggered up and down the narrow streets, and many of them bellowed greetings to Barak as the sleigh passed. At one corner their driver was forced to halt while two burly men, stripped to the waist in the biting cold, wrestled savagely in the snow in the center of the street to the encouraging shouts of a crowd of onlookers.
"A common pastime," Barak told Garion. "Winter's a tedious time in Val Alorn."
"Is that the palace ahead?" Garion asked.
Barak shook his head. "The temple of Belar," he said. "Some men say that the Bear-God resides there in spirit. I've never seen him myself, though, so I can't say for sure."
Then the wrestlers rolled out of the way, and they continued.
On the steps of the temple an ancient woman wrapped in ragged woolen robes stood with a long staff clutched in one honey hand and her stringy hair wild about her face. "Hail, Lord Barak," she called in a cracked voice as they passed. "Thy Doom still awaits thee."
"Stop the sleigh," Barak growled at the driver, and he threw off his fur robe and jumped to the ground. "Martje," he thundered at the old woman. "You've been forbidden to loiter here. If I tell Anheg that you've disobeyed him, he'll have the priests of the temple burn you for a witch."
The old woman cackled at him, and Garion noted with a shudder that her eyes were milk-white blankness.
"The fire will not touch old Martje," she laughed shrilly. "That is not the Doom which awaits her."
"Enough of dooms," Barak said. "Get away from the temple."
"Martje sees what she sees," the old woman said. "The mark of thy Doom is still upon thee, great Lord Barak. When it comes to thee, thou shalt remember the words of old Martje." And then she seemed to look at the sleigh where Garion sat, though her milky eyes were obviously blind. Her expression suddenly changed from malicious glee to one strangely awestruck.
"Hail, greatest of Lords," she crooned, bowing deeply. "When thou comest into throe inheritance, remember that it was old Martje who first greeted thee."
Barak started toward her with a roar, but she scurried away, her staff tapping on the stone steps.
"What did she mean?" Garion asked when Barak returned to the sleigh.
"She's a crazy woman," Barak replied, his face pale with anger. "She's always lurking around the temple, begging and frightening gullible housewives with her gibberish. If Anheg had any sense, he'd have had her driven out of the city or burned years ago." He climbed back into the sleigh. "Let's go," he growled at the driver.
Garion looked back over his shoulder as they sped away, but the old blind woman was nowhere in sight.
Chapter Thirteen
THE PALACE OF KING ANHEG Of Cherek was a vast, brooding structure near the center of Val Alorn. Huge wings, many of them crumbled into decay with unpaned windows staring emptily at the open sky through collapsed roofs, stretched out from the main building in all directions. So far as Garion could tell there was no plan to the palace whatsoever. It had, it seemed, merely grown over the three thousand years and more that the ki
ngs of Cherek had ruled there.
"Why is so much of it empty and broken down like that?" he asked Barak as their sleigh whirled into the snow-packed courtyard.
"What some kings build, other kings let fall down," Barak said shortly. "It's the way of kings." Barak's mood had been black since their encounter with the blind woman at the temple.
The others had all dismounted and stood waiting.
"You've been away from home too long if you can get lost on the way from the harbor to the palace," Silk said pleasantly.
"We were delayed," Barak grunted.
A broad, ironbound door at the top of the wide steps that led up to the palace opened then as if someone behind it had been waiting for them all to arrive. A woman with long flaxen braids and wearing a deep scarlet cloak trimmed with rich fur stepped out onto the portico at the top of the stairs and stood looking down at them. "Greetings, Lord Barak, Earl of Trellheim and husband," she said formally.
Barak's face grew even more somber. "Merel," he acknowledged with a curt nod.
"King Anheg granted me permission to greet you, my Lord," Barak's wife said, "as is my right and my duty."
"You've always been most attentive to your duties, Merel," Barak said. "Where are my daughters?"
"At Trellheim, my Lord," she said. "I didn't think it would be a good idea for them to travel so far in the cold." There was a faintly malicious note in her voice.
Barak sighed. "I see," he said.
"Was I in error, my Lord?" Merel asked.
"Let it pass," Barak said.
"If you and your friends are ready, my Lord," she said, "I'll escort you to the throne room."
Barak went up the stairs, briefly and rather formally embraced his wife, and the two of them went through the wide doorway.
"Tragic," the Earl of Seline murmured, shaking his head as they all went up the stairs to the palace door.
"Hardly that," Silk said. "After all, Barak got what he wanted, didn't he?"
"You're a cruel man, Prince Kheldar," the earl said.
"Not really," Silk said. "I'm a realist, that's all. Barak spent all those years yearning after Merel, and now he's got her. I'm delighted to see such steadfastness rewarded. Aren't you?"
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