Some leagues above Tol Borune, they met a richly dressed couple riding north toward the Imperial Capital, accompanied by a dozen or so liveried servants. "You there, fellow," the velvet-clad nobleman called condescendingly to Silk, who happened to be riding in the lead, "what news from Tol Honeth?"
"The usual, your Lordship," Silk replied obsequiously. "Assassinations, plots, and intrigues—the normal amusements of the highborn."
"I don't care much for your tone, fellow," the nobleman said.
"And I don't care much for being called 'fellow,' either."
"We've heard such amazing stories," the giddy-looking lady in a fur-lined red velvet cape said breathlessly. "Is it true that someone is actually trying to kill all the Honeths? We heard that whole families have been murdered in their beds."
"Balera," her husband said in disgust, "you're just repeating wild rumors. What could a seedy-looking commoner like this know about what's really happening in the capital? I'm sure that if there were any substance to those wild stories, Naradas would have told us."
"Naradas?" Silk's eyes suddenly filled with interest. "An Angarak merchant with colorless eyes?"
"You know him?" the nobleman asked with some surprise.
"I know of him, your Lordship," Silk replied carefully. "It's not wise to go around announcing that you're acquainted with that one. You did know that the Emperor has put a price on his head, didn't you?"
"Naradas? Impossible!"
"I'm sorry, your Honor, but it's common knowledge all over Tol Honeth. If you know where to put your hands on him, you can earn yourself a thousand gold crowns without much effort."
"A thousand crowns!"
Silk looked around conspiratorially. "I wouldn't really want this to go any further," he said in a half whisper, "but it's widely rumored in Tol Honeth that those gold coins he's so free with are false."
"False?" the noble exclaimed, his eyes suddenly bulging.
"Very clever imitations," Silk continued. "Just enough gold is mixed with baser metals to make the coins look authentic, but they aren't worth a tenth of their face value."
The noble's face turned pasty white, and he clutched involuntarily at the purse attached to his belt.
"It's all part of a plot to destroy the Tolnedran economy by debasing the coinage," Silk added. "The Honeths were involved in it in some way, and that's why they're all being murdered. Of course, anyone caught with any of those coins in his possession is immediately hanged."
"What?"
"Naturally." Silk shrugged. "The Emperor intends to root out this monstrous business immediately. Stern measures are absolutely essential."
"I'm ruined!" the nobleman groaned. "Quickly, Balera!" he said, wheeling his horse, "we must return to Tol Borune at once!" And he led his frightened wife back southward at a dead run.
"Don't you want to hear about which kingdom was behind it all?" Silk called after them. Then he doubled over in his saddle, convulsed with laughter.
"Brilliant, Prince Kheldar," Velvet murmured admiringly.
"This Naradas moves around quite a bit, doesn't he?" Durnik said.
"I think I just put a bit of an anchor on him," Silk smirked. "Once that rumor spreads, I expect that he's going to have a little trouble spending his money—not to mention the interest that reward I mentioned is going to generate in certain quarters."
"That was a dreadful thing you did to that poor nobleman, though," Velvet said disapprovingly. "He's on his way back to Tol Borune to empty out all his strongboxes and bury the money."
Silk shrugged. "That's what he gets for consorting with Angaraks. Shall we press on?"
They passed Tol Borune without stopping and rode on south toward the Wood of the Dryads. When the ancient forest came into view on the southern horizon, Polgara pulled her horse in beside the mount of the dozing Belgarath. "I think we should stop by and pay our respects to Xantha, father," she said.
The old man roused himself and squinted in the direction of the Wood. "Maybe," he grunted doubtfully.
"We owe her the courtesy, father, and it's not really out of our way."
"All right, Pol," he said, "but just a brief stop. We're months behind Zandramas already."
They crossed the last band of open fields and rode in under the ancient, mossy oaks. The leaves had fallen to the chill winds of winter, and the bare limbs of the huge trees were starkly etched against the sky.
A peculiar change came over Ce'Nedra as they entered the Wood. Although it was still not really warm, she pushed back the hood of her cloak and shook out her coppery curls, causing her tiny, acorn-shaped gold earrings to tinkle musically. Her face became strangely calm, no longer mirroring the sorrow that had marked it since the abduction of her son. Her eyes became soft, almost unfocused. "I have returned," she murmured into the quiet air beneath the spreading trees.
Garion felt, rather than heard, the soft, murmuring response. From all around him he seemed to hear a sibilant sighing, although there was no trace of a breeze. The. sighing was almost like a chorus, joining just below the level of hearing into a quiet, mournful song, a song filled with a gentle regret and at the same time an abiding hope.
"Why are they sad?" Eriond quietly asked Ce'Nedra.
"Because it's winter," she replied. "They mourn the falling of their leaves and regret the fact that the birds have all flown south."
"But spring will come again," he said.
"They know, but winter always saddens them."
Velvet was looking curiously at the little queen.
"Ce'Nedra's background makes her peculiarly sensitive to trees," Polgara explained.
"I didn't know that Tolnedrans were that interested in the out-of-doors."
"She's only half Tolnedran, Liselle. Her love of trees comes from the other side of her heritage."
"I'm a Dryad," Ce'Nedra said simply, her eyes still dreamy.
"I didn't know that."
"We didn't exactly make an issue of it," Belgarath told her. "We were having trouble enough getting the Alorns to accept a Tolnedran as the Rivan Queen without complicating matters by telling them that she was a nonhuman as well."
They made a simple camp not far from the place where they had been set upon by the hideous mud-men Queen Salmissra had dispatched to attack them so many years before. Because they could not hew limbs from live trees in this sacred wood, they were obliged to make shelters as best they could with what they found lying on the leaf-strewn forest floor, and their fire was of necessity very small. As twilight settled slowly over the silent Wood, Silk looked dubiously at the tiny, flickering flame and then out at the vast darkness moving almost visibly out from among the trees. "I think we're in for a cold night," he predicted.
Garion slept badly. Although he had piled fallen leaves deeply in the makeshift bed he shared with Ce'Nedra, their damp cold seemed to seep through to chill his very bones. He awoke from a fitful doze just as the first pale, misty light seeped in among the trees. He sat up stiffly and was about to throw off his blanket, but stopped, Eriond was sitting on a fallen log on the other side of their long-dead campfire, and sitting beside him was a tawny-haired Dryad.
"The trees say that you are a friend," the Dryad was saying as she absently toyed with a sharp-tipped arrow.
"I'm fond of trees," Eriond replied.
"That's not exactly the way they meant it."
"I know."
Garion carefully pushed his blankets aside and stood up.
The Dryad's hand moved swiftly toward the bow lying at her side, then she stopped. "Oh," she said, "it's you." She looked at him critically. Her eyes were as grey as glass. "You've gotten older, haven't you?"
"It's been quite a few years," he said, trying to remember just exactly where he had seen her before.
A faint hint of a smile touched her lips. "You don't remember me, do you?"
"Well, sort of."
She laughed, then picked up her bow. She set the arrow she was holding to the string and pointed it at him. "Do
es this help your memory at all?"
He blinked. "Weren't you the one who wanted to kill me?"
"It was only fair, after all. I was the one who caught you, so I should have been the one who got to kill you."
"Do you kill every human you catch?" Eriond asked her.
She lowered her bow. "Well, not every one of them. Sometimes I find other uses for them."
Garion looked at her a bit more closely. "You haven't changed a bit. You still look the same as before."
"I know." Her eyes grew challenging. "And pretty?" she prompted.
"Very pretty."
"What a nice thing for you to say. Maybe I'm glad that I didn't kill you after all. Why don't you and I go someplace, and you can say some more nice things to me?"
"That's enough, Xbel," Ce'Nedra said tartly from her bed of leaves. "He's mine, so don't get any ideas."
"Hello, Ce'Nedra," the tawny-haired Dryad said as calmly as if they had talked together within the past week. "Wouldn't you be willing to share him with one of your own sisters?"
"You wouldn't lend me your comb, would you?"
"Certainly not—but that's entirely different."
"There's no way that I could ever make you understand," Ce'Nedra said, pushing back her blankets and rising to her feet.
"Humans." Xbel sighed. "You all have such funny ideas." She looked speculatively at Eriond, her slim little hand softly touching his cheek. "How about this one? Does it belong to you, too?"
Polgara came out of another one of their makeshift shelters. Her face was calm, although one of her eyebrows was raised. "Good morning, Xbel,"she said. "You're up early."
"I was hunting," the Dryad replied. "Does this blond one belong to you, Polgara? Ce'Nedra won't share that one of hers with me, but maybe—" Her hand lingeringly touched Eriond's soft curls.
"No, Xbel," Polgara said firmly.
Xbel sighed again. "None of you are any fun at all," she pouted. Then she stood up. She was as tiny as Ce'Nedra and as slender as a willow. "Oh," she said, "I almost forgot. Xantha says that I'm supposed to take you to her."
"But you got sidetracked, didn't you?" Ce'Nedra added drily.
"The day hasn't even got started yet." The Dryad shrugged.
Then Belgarath and Silk came out into the open area around the cold fire pit; a moment later, Durnik and Toth joined them.
"You have such a lot of them," Xbel murmured warmly. "Surely you can spare me one for just a little while."
"What's this?" Silk asked curiously.
"Never mind, Silk," Polgara told him. "Xantha wants to see us. Right after breakfast, Xbel here will show us the way—won't you, Xbel?"
"I suppose so." Xbel sighed a bit petulantly.
After their simple breakfast, the tawny-haired Dryad led them through the ancient Wood. Belgarath, leading his horse, walked beside her, and the two of them seemed deep in a conversation of some kind. Garion noticed that his grandfather furtively reached into his pocket from time to time and offered something to the slim Dryad—something she greedily snatched and popped into her mouth.
"What's he giving her?" Velvet asked.
"Sweets," Polgara said, sounding disgusted. "They're not good for her, but he always brings sweets with him when he comes into this Wood."
"Oh," Velvet said, "I see." She pursed her lips. "Isn't she a bit young to be so—well—"
Ce'Nedra laughed. "Appearances can be deceiving, Liselle. Xbel is quite a bit older than she looks."
"How old would you say?"
"Two or three hundred years at least. She's the same age as her tree, and oak trees live for a very long time."
Back in the forest, Garion heard giggles, whispers, and the faint tinkle of little golden bells; once in a while he caught a glimpse of a flitting patch of color as a Dryad scampered through the trees, her earrings jingling.
Queen Xantha's tree was even more vast than Garion remembered it, its branches as broad as highways and the hollows in its bole opening like the mouths of caves. The Dryads in their brightly colored tunics bedecked the huge limbs like flowers, giggling and whispering and pointing at the visitors. Xbel led them into the broad, moss-covered clearing beneath the tree, put her fingers to her lips, and made a curiously birdlike whistle.
Queen Xantha, with her red-haired daughter Xera at her side, emerged from one of the hollows in the vast trunk and greeted them as they dismounted. Ce'Nedra and Xera flew into each others' arms even as the queen and Polgara warmly embraced. Xantha's golden hair was touched with gray at the temples, and her gray-green eyes were tired.
"Are you unwell, Xantha?" Polgara asked her. The queen sighed. "The time is growing close, that's all." She looked up affectionately at her enormous oak. "He's growing very tired, and his weight presses down upon his roots. He finds it harder and harder each spring to revive himself and put forth leaves."
"Can I do anything?"
"No, dearest Polgara. There's no pain—just a great weariness. I won't mind sleeping. Now, what brings you into our Wood?"
"Someone has taken my baby," Ce'Nedra cried, flying into her aunt's arms.
"What are you saying, child?"
"It happened last summer, Xantha," Belgarath told her. "We're trying to find the trail of the one who stole him—a Mallorean named Zandramas. We think that the abductor sailed south aboard a Nyissan ship."
Xbel was standing not far from the giant Toth, eyeing his awesomely muscled arms speculatively. "I saw one of the boats of the snake-people late last summer," she mentioned, not taking her eyes off the huge mute, "down where our river empties out into the big lake."
"You never mentioned it Xbel," Xantha said.
"I forgot. Is anybody really interested in what the snake-people do?"
"Big lake?" Durnik said with a puzzled frown. "I don't remember any big lakes here in this Wood."
"It's the one that tastes funny," Xbel told him. "And you can't see the other side."
"You must mean the Great Western Sea, then."
"Whatever you want to call it," she replied indifferently. She continued to look Toth up and down.
"Did this Nyissan ship just sail on by?" Belgarath asked her.
"No," she said. "It got burned up. But that was after somebody got off."
"Xbel," Polgara said, stepping between the tawny-haired little Dryad and the object of her scrutiny, "do you think you can remember exactly what you saw?"
"I suppose so. It wasn't really very much, though. I was hunting, and I saw a boat go up to the beach on the south side of the river. This human in a black cloak with the hood pulled up got off with something in its arms. Then the black boat went back out into the water, and the human on the beach waved one hand at it. That's when the ship caught on fire—all over. All at once."
"What happened to the crew?" Durnik asked her.
"You know those big fish with all the teeth?"
"Sharks?"
"I guess so. Anyway, the water around the boat was full of them. When the humans jumped off the boat to get away from the fire, the fish ate them all up." She sighed. "It was a terrible waste. I was hoping that maybe one or two might have gotten away—or maybe even three." She sighed again.
"What did the human on the beach do then?" Polgara asked.
Xbel shrugged. "It waited until the ship burned all up and then it went into the woods on the south side of the river." She stepped around Polgara, her eyes still fixed on the huge mute. "If you're not using this one, Polgara, do you suppose I could borrow it for a little while? I've never seen one quite as big."
Garion spun and ran toward his horse, but Eriond was already there. He held out the reins of his own chestnut stallion. "He's faster, Belgarion," he said. "Take him."
Garion nodded shortly and swung into the saddle.
"Garion!" Ce'Nedra cried, "where are you going?"
But he was already plunging into the forest at a gallop. He was not really thinking as the stallion thundered through the leafless Wood. The only semblance of a thought in
his mind was the image the indifferent Xbel had implanted there—a dark figure on the beach with something in its arms. Slowly, however, something else intruded itself on his awareness. There was something strange about the stallion's gait. About every fourth or fifth stride, the horse gave a peculiar lurch, and the wood seemed to blur for an instant. Then the gallop would continue until the next lurch and blurring.
The distance from Xantha's tree to the beach where the River of the Woods emptied into the Great Western Sea was considerable, he knew. At even the fastest gallop, it would take the better part of a day and a half to cover it. But wasn't that the glint of winter sunlight on a huge body of water coming through the trees just ahead?
There was another lurch and that odd blurring; quite suddenly the stallion set his forelegs stiffly, sliding through the sand at the very edge of the rolling surf.
"How did you do that?"
The horse looked back over one shoulder inquiringly.
Then Garion looked around in dismay. "We're on the wrong side of the river," he cried. "We're supposed to be over there." He drew on his will, preparing to translocate himself to the south beach, but the horse wheeled, took two steps, and lurched again.
They were suddenly on the sandy south beach, and Garion was clinging to the saddle to keep from falling off. For an irrational moment, he wanted to scold the animal for not warning him, but there was something much more important to attend to. He slid down from his saddle and ran along the damp sand at the edge of the water, drawing Iron-grip's sword as he went. The Orb glowed eagerly as he held up the blade. "Geran!" he shouted to it. "Find my son."
Between two strides, the Orb tugged at him, almost jerking him off-balance. He slid to a stop on the hard-packed sand, feeling the powerful pull of the sword in his hands. The tip lowered, touched the sand once, and then the Orb flared triumphantly as the blade pointed unerringly up the driftwood-littered beach toward the scrubby forest at its upper end.
It was true! Although he had secretly feared that the hints they had received might have been just another clever ruse, the trail of Zandramas and of his infant son was here after all. A sudden wave of exultation surged through him.
Rivan Codex Series Page 297