"Do you think you could move Zith?" Garion asked her. "She's in the middle of Zakath's bed with those kittens."
" You can move her, Belgarion," the blond girl said, smiling the dimples into her cheeks. "She trusts you."
"I think I'd rather not try that."
The two of them went back into the Emperor's bedchamber.
"Margravine," Zakath greeted her courteously, inclining his head.
She curtsied. "Your Majesty."
"Can you deal with this?" he asked, pointing at the furry pile on his bed with the snake still half‑reared out of the center, her eyes alert.
"Of course, your Majesty." She approached the bed, and the snake flickered her tongue nervously. "Oh, do stop that, Zith," the blond girl chided. Then she lifted the front of her skirt to form a kind of pouch and began picking up kittens and depositing them in her improvised basket. Last of all she lifted Zith and laid her in the middle. She crossed the room and casually put them all into the box with the mother cat, who opened one golden eye, made room for her kittens and their bright green nursemaid, and promptly went back to sleep.
"Isn't that sweet?" Velvet murmured softly. Then she turned back to Zakath. "Oh, by the way, your Majesty, Kheldar and I managed to find out who it was who poisoned you."
"What?"
She nodded, frowning slightly. "It came as something of a surprise, actually."
The Emperor's eyes had become intent. " You're sure?"
"As sure as one can be in these cases. You seldom find an eyewitness to a poisoning; but he was in the kitchen at the right time, he left right after you fell ill, and we know him by reputation." She smiled at Garion. "Have you noticed how people always tend to remember a man with white eyes?"
"Naradas?" Garion exclaimed.
"Surprising, isn't it?"
"Who's Naradas?" Zakath demanded.
"He works for Zandramas," Garion replied. He frowned. "That doesn't make any sense, Velvet. Why would Zandramas want to kill him? Wouldn't she want to keep him alive?"
She spread her hands. "I don't know, Belgarion ‑not yet, anyway."
"Velvet?" Zakath asked in puzzlement.
She smiled the dimples into her cheeks again. "Isn't it silly?" She laughed. "I suppose these little nicknames are a form of affection, though. Belgarion's question is to the point, however. Can you think of any reason why Zandramas might want to kill you?"
"Not immediately, but we can wring that answer out of her when I catch her ‑and I'll make a point of doing that, even if I have to take Cthol Murgos apart stone by stone."
"She isn't here," Garion said absently, still struggling with the whole idea. "She's at Ashaba ‑in the House of Torak."
Zakath's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Isn't this convenient, Belgarion?" he said. " I happen to get poisoned right after your arrival. Belgarath happens to cure me. Kheldar and Liselle happen to discover the identity of the poisoner, who happens to work for Zandramas, who happens to be at Ashaba, which happens to be in Mallorea ‑a place which just happens to be where you so desperately want to go. The coincidence staggers the imagination, wouldn't you say?"
"Zakath, you're starting to make me tired," Garion said irritably. "If I decide that I need a boat to get to
Mallorea, I'll take one. All that's kept me from doing that so far are the manners Lady Polgara drilled into me when I was a boy."
"And how do you propose to leave this house?" Zakath snapped, his temper also starting to rise.
That did it. The rage that came over Garion was totally irrational. It was the result of a hundred delays and stumbling blocks and petty interruptions that had dogged him for almost a year now. He reached over his shoulder, ripped Iron‑grip's sword from its sheath, and peeled the concealing leather sleeve from its hilt. He held the great blade before him and literally threw his will at the Orb. The sword exploded into blue flame. " How do I propose to leave this house?" he half shouted at the stunned Emperor. "I'll use this for a key. It works sort of like this." He straightened his arm, leveling the blazing sword at the door. "Burst!" he commanded.
Garion's anger was not only irrational, it was also somewhat excessive. He had intended no more than the door ‑and possibly a part of the doorframe‑ simply to illustrate to Zakath the intensity of his feeling about the matter. The Orb, however, startled into wakefulness by the sudden jolt of his angry will, had overreacted. The door, certainly, disappeared, dissolving into splinters that blasted out into the hallway. The doorframe also vanished. What Garion had not intended, however, was what happened to the wall.
White‑faced and shaking, Zakath stumbled back, staring at the hallway outside that had suddenly been revealed and at the rubble that filled it ‑rubble that had a moment before been the solid, two‑foot‑thick stone wall of his bedroom.
"My goodness," Velvet murmured mildly.
Knowing that it was silly and melodramatic, but still caught up in that towering, irrational anger, Garion caught the stunned Zakath by the arm with his left hand and gestured with the sword he held in his right. "Now, we're going to go talk with Belgarath," he announced.
"We'll go through the hallways if you'll give me your word not to call soldiers every time we go around a corner. Otherwise, we'll just cut straight through the house. The library's sort of in that direction, isn't it?" he pointed at one of the still‑standing walls with his sword.
"Belgarion," Velvet chided him gently, "now really, that's no way to behave. Kal Zakath has been a very courteous host. I'm sure that now that he understands the situation, he'll be more than happy to cooperate, won't you, your Imperial Majesty?" She smiled winsomely at the Emperor. "We wouldn't want the Rivan King to get really angry, now would we? There are so many breakable things about ‑windows, walls, houses, the city of Rak Hagga‑ that sort of thing."
They found Belgarath in the library again. He was reading a small scroll, and there was a large tankard at his elbow.
"Something's come up," Garion said shortly as he entered.
"Oh?"
"Velvet tells us that she and Silk found out that it was Naradas who poisoned Zakath."
"Naradas?" the old man blinked. "That's a surprise, isn't it?"
"What's she up to, Grandfather? Zandramas, I mean."
"I'm not sure." Belgarath looked at Zakath. "Who's likely to succeed you if somebody manages to put you to sleep?"
Zakath shrugged. "There are a few distant cousins scattered about ‑mostly in the Melcene Islands and Celanta. The line of the succession is a little murky."
"Perhaps that's what she has in mind, Belgarath," Velvet said seriously. "If there's any truth in that Grolim Prophecy you found in Rak Hagga, she's got to have an Angarak king with her at the time of the final meeting.
A tame king would suit her purposes much better than someone like his Majesty here ‑some third or fourth cousin she could crown and annoint and proclaim king. Then she could have her Grolims keep an eye on him and deliver him to her at the proper time."
"It's possible, I suppose," he agreed. "I think there may be a bit more to it than that, though. Zandramas has never been that straightforward about anything before."
"I hope you all realize that I haven't the faintest notion of what you're talking about," Zakath said irritably.
"Just how much does he know?" Belgarath asked Garion.
" Not very much, Grandfather."
"All right. Maybe if he does know what's going on, he won't be quite so difficult." He turned to the Mallorean Emperor. " Have you ever heard of the Mrin Codex?" he asked.
"I've heard that it was written by a madman ‑like most of the other so‑called prophecies."
"How about the Child of Light and the Child of Dark?"
"That's part of the standard gibberish used by religious hysterics."
"Zakath, you're going to have to believe in something.
This is going to be very difficult for you to grasp if you don't."
"Would you settle for a temporary suspension of skepticism?
" the Emperor countered.
"Fair enough, I suppose. All right, now, this gets complicated, so you're going to have to pay attention, listen carefully, and stop me if there's anything you don't understand."
The old man then proceeded to sketch in the ancient story of the "accident" that had occurred before the world had begun and the divergence of the two possible courses of the future and of the two consciousnesses which had somehow infused those courses.
"All right," Zakath said. "That's fairly standard theology so far. I've had Grolims preaching to the same nonsense since I was a boy."
Belgarath nodded. "I just wanted to start us off from common ground." He went on then, telling Zakath of the events spanning the eons between the cracking of the world and the Battle of Vo Mimbre.
"Our point of view is somewhat different," Zakath murmured.
"It would be," Belgarath agreed. "All right, there were five hundred years between Vo Mimbre and the theft of the Orb by Zedar the Apostate."
"Recovery." Zakath corrected. "The Orb was stolen from Cthol Mishrak by Iron‑grip the thief and by‑" he stopped, and his eyes suddenly widened as he stared at the seedy‑looking old man.
"Yes," Belgarath said, "I really was there, Zakath -and I was there two thousand years before, when Torak originally stole the Orb from my Master."
"I've been sick, Belgarath," the Emperor said weakly, sinking into a chair. "My nerves aren't really up for too many of these shocks."
Belgarath looked at him, puzzled.
"Their Majesties were having a little discussion," Velvet explained brightly." King Belgarion gave the Emperor a little demonstration of some of the more flamboyant capabilities of the Sword of the Rivan King. The Emperor was quite impressed. So was most everybody else who happened to be in that part of the house."
Belgarath gave Garion a chill look. "Playing again?" he asked.
Garion tried to reply, but there was nothing he could really say.
"All right, let's get on with this," Belgarath continued briskly. "What happened after the emergence of Garion here is all recent history, so I'm sure you're familiar with it."
"Garion?" Zakath asked.
"A more common ‑and familiar‑ form. 'Belgarion' is a bit ostentatious, wouldn't you say?"
"No more so than 'Belgarath.' "
"I've worn 'Belgarath' for almost seven thousand years, Zakath, and I've sort of rubbed off the rough edges and corners. Garion's only been wearing his 'Bel' for a dozen years, and it still squeaks when he turns around too quickly "
Garion felt slightly offended by that.
"Anyway," the old man continued, "after Torak was dead, Garion and Ce'Nedra got married. About a year or so ago, she gave birth to a son. Garion's attention at that time was on the Bear‑cult. Someone had tried to kill Ce'Nedra and had succeeded in killing the Rivan Warder."
"I'd heard about that," Zakath said.
"Anyway, he was in the process of stamping out the cult -he stamps quite well once he puts his mind to it- when someone crept into the Citadel at Riva and abducted his infant son‑ my great‑grandson."
"No!" Zakath exclaimed.
"Oh, yes," Belgarath continued grimly. "We thought it was the cult and marched to Rheon in Drasnia, their headquarters, but it was all a clever ruse. Zandramas had abducted prince Geran and misdirected us to Rheon. The leader of the cult turned out to be Harakan, one of the henchmen of Urvon ‑is this coming too fast for you?"
Zakath's face was startled, and his eyes had gone wide again. "No," he said, swallowing hard. "I think I can keep up."
"There isn't too much more. After we discovered our mistakes, we took up the abductor's trail. We know that she's going to Mallorea ‑to a 'place which is no more.' That's where the Sardion is. We have to stop her, or at least arrive there at the same time. Cyradis believes that when we all arrive at this 'place which is no more,' there's going to be one of those confrontations between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark which have been happening since before the beginning of time ‑except that this is going to be the last one. She'll choose between them, and that's supposed to be the end of it."
"I'm afraid that it's at that point that my skepticism reasserts itself, Belgarath," Zakath said. "You don't acutally expect me to believe that these two shadowy figures that predate the world are going to arrive at this mysterious place to grapple once more, do you?"
"What makes you think they're shadowy? The spirits that are at the core of the two possible destinies infuse real people to act as their instruments during these meetings. Right now, for example, Zandramas is the Child of Dark. It used to be Torak ‑until Garion killed him."
"And who's the Child of Light?"
"I thought that would be obvious."
Zakath turned to stare incredulously into Garion's blue eyes. "You?" he gasped.
"That's what they tell me," Garion replied.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kal Zakath, dread Emperor of boundless Mallorea, looked first at Belgarath, then again at Garion, and finally at Velvet. "Why do I feel that I'm losing control of things here?" he asked. "When you people came here, you were more or less my prisoners. Now somehow I'm yours."
"We told you some things you didn't know before, that's all," Belgarath told him.
"Or some things that you've cleverly made up."
"Why would we do that?"
"I can think of any number of reasons. For the sake of argument I'll accept your story about the abduction of Belgarion's son, but don't you see how that makes all your motives completely obvious? You need my aid in your search. All this mystical nonsense, and your wild story about Urgit's parentage, could have been designed to divert me from my campaign here in Cthol Murgos and to trick me into returning with you to Mallorea. Everything you've done or said since you've come here could have been directed toward that end."
"Do you really think we'd do that?" Garion asked him.
"Belgarion, if I had a son and someone had abducted him, I'd do anything to get him back. I sympathize with your situation, but I have my own concerns, and they're here, not in Mallorea. I'm sorry, but the more I think about this, the less of it I believe. I could not have misjudged the world so much. Demons? Prophecies? Magic? Immortal old men? It's all been very entertaining, but I don't believe one word of it."
"Not even what the Orb showed you about Urgit?" Garion asked.
"Please, Belgarion, don't treat me like a child." Zakath's lips were twisted into an ironic smile. "Isn't it altogether possible that the poison had already crept into my mind? And isn't it also possible that you, like any other of the charlatans who infest village fairs, used a show of mysterious lights and suggestions to make me see what you wanted me to see?"
"What do you believe, Kal Zakath?" Velvet asked him.
"What I can see and touch ‑and precious little else."
"So great a skepticism," she murmured. "Then you do not accept one single out‑of‑the‑ordinary thing?"
"Not that I can think of, no."
"Not even the peculiar gift of the Seers at Kell? It's been fairly well documented, you know."
He frowned slightly. "Yes," he admitted, "as a matter of fact, it has."
"How can you document a vision?" Garion asked curiously.
"The Grolims were seeking to discredit the Seers," Zakath replied. "They felt that the easiest way to do that Was to have these pronouncements about the future written down and then wait to see what happened. The bureaucracy was instructed to keep records. So far, not one of the predictions of the Seers has proven false."
"Then you do believe that the Seers have the ability to know things about the past and the present and the future in ways that the rest of us might not completely understand?" Velvet pressed.
Zakath pursed his lips. " All right, Margravine," he said reluctantly, "I'll concede that the Seers have certain abilities that haven't been explained as yet."
"Do you believe that a Seer could lie to you?"
"Good girl," Belgarath mur
mured approvingly.
"No," Zakath replied after a moment's thought. "A Seer is incapable of lying. Their truthfulness is proverbial."
"Well, then," she said with a dimpled smile, "all you need to do to find out if what we've told you is the truth is to send for a Seer, isn't it?"
"Liselle," Garion protested, "that could take weeks. We don't have that much time."
"Oh," she said, "I don't think it would take all that long. If I remember correctly, Lady Polgara said that Andel summoned Cyradis when his Majesty here lay dying. I'm fairly sure we could persuade her to do it for us again."
"Well, Zakath," Belgarath said. "Will you agree to accept what Cyradis tells you as the truth?"
The Emperor squinted at him suspiciously, searching for some kind of subterfuge. "You've manipulated me into a corner," he accused. He thought about it. "All right, Belgarath," he said finally. "I'll accept whatever Cyradis says as the truth ‑if you'll agree to do the same." "Done then," Belgarath said. "Let's send for Andel and get on with this."
As Velvet stepped out into the hall to speak with one of the guards who trailed along behind the Emperor wherever he went, Zakath leaned back in his chair. "I can't believe that I'm even considering all the wild impossibilities you've been telling me," he said.
Garion exchanged a quick look with his grandfather, and then they both laughed.
"Something funny, gentlemen?"
"Just a family joke, Zakath," Belgarath told him. "Garion and I have been discussing the possible and the impossible since he was about nine years old. He was even more stubborn about it than you are."
"It gets easier to accept after the first shock wears off," Garion added. "It's sort of like swimming in very cold water. Once you get numb, it doesn't hurt quite so much."
It was not long until Velvet reentered the room with the hooded Andel at her side.
"I believe you said that the Seeress of Kell is your mistress, Andel," Zakath said to her.
"Yes, she is, your Majesty."
"Can you summon her?"
"Her semblance, your Majesty, if there is need and if she will consent to come."
"I believe there's a need, Andel. Belgarath has told me certain things that I have to have confirmed. I know that Cyradis speaks only the truth. Belgarath, on the other hand, has a more dubious reputation." He threw a rather sly, sidelong glance at the old man.
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