I thought about it for a few moments. ‘Nadraks have never really been all that fond of Murgos or Thulls,’ I mused. ‘Now that Torak’s been put to sleep, they might decide to strike out on their own. I’m not doing anything right now; maybe I ought to go have a look.’
‘These “helpers” won’t have emerged yet,’ Belkira pointed out. ‘And we don’t know anything at all about the families they’ll descend from.’
‘You’re probably right there,’ I admitted, ‘but if I nose around a bit, I might be able to get a sense of the general sentiments among the Nadraks.’
‘It couldn’t hurt, I suppose,’ Beltira agreed.
‘I’ll check in with you from time to time,’ I promised. ‘Let me know if you find anything in the Mrin. A few more details might help me to locate those families.’
There wasn’t anything particularly urgent about this project, as far as I could tell, so I stopped by the Stronghold as I went north and bought a horse. There’s quite a bit of effort involved in traveling the other way, and I was feeling a little lazy.
It took me several weeks to reach Boktor, which the Drasnians were busy rebuilding. In a certain sense, Kal Torak had done the Drasnians a favor when he destroyed all their cities. Alorn cities have always tended to sprawl out, and the streets follow whichever cow-path happens to be handy. Now the Drasnians had the chance to start fresh and actually plan their cities. I found Rhodar conferring with a number of architects. They were having a fairly heated discussion about boulevards, as I recall. One school favored wide, straight streets. The other preferred narrow, crooked ones, justifying the inconvenience with the word ‘coziness.’
‘What do you think, Belgarath?’ Rhodar asked me.
‘It all depends on whether you want to build another Tol Honeth or another Val Alorn, I guess,’ I replied.
‘Tol Honeth, I think,’ Rhodar said. ‘Tolnedrans have always looked down their noses at us because of the way our cities look. I get very tired of being referred to as “quaint”.’
‘Have you had any contacts with the Nadraks since the war?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing official. There’s a little bit of trade along the border, and there are always gold-hunters in the Nadrak mountains. The gold deposits aren’t as extensive as the ones in southern Cthol Murgos, but there’s enough gold up there to attract people from other countries.’
That gave me an idea. ‘I think you’ve just solved a problem for me, Rhodar.’
‘Oh?’
‘I need to have a look around over there in Gar og Nadrak, and I’d like to be sort of inconspicuous. The Nadraks are probably used to seeing foreigners up in those mountains, so I think I’ll get a pick and shovel and go looking for gold.’
‘That’s very tedious work, Belgarath.’
‘Not the way I’m going to do it.’
‘I didn’t quite follow that.’
‘I’m not really all that interested in gold. All I’m going to do is wander around asking questions. The tools will explain why I’m there.’
‘Have fun,’ he said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a city to build.’
I bought some tools and a pack mule and set out across the moors toward the Nadrak border. It was early summer by now, and the usually dreary Drasnian moors were all abloom, so travel was actually pleasant.
The Angaraks had been so soundly defeated at Vo Mimbre that their societies had virtually disintegrated, so there weren’t any guards at the border crossing. I was fairly sure that I was being watched, but my pack mule with all those tools on his back explained my presence, so the Nadraks let me pass without any interference.
I followed the North Caravan Route, and the first town I came to was Yar Gurak, which isn’t really a town, but more in the nature of a mining camp. It squats on either side of a muddy creek, and most of the buildings are slap-dash affairs, half log and half canvas tenting. I’ve passed through it several times in the past five centuries, and it hasn’t really changed very much. Silk goes there quite often, and he and Garion and I passed through on our way to Cthol Mishrak for Garion’s meeting with Torak. Nobody really lives in Yar Gurak for any extended period of time, so they aren’t civic-minded enough to bother with the building of more permanent structures. I set up my tent at the far end of a muddy street and without very much effort I blended into the population. The mining camps in the mountains of Gar og Nadrak are very cosmopolitan, and it’s considered bad manners to ask personal questions.
There were certain frictions, of course. We had just come through a war, after all, but aside from a few tavern-brawls, things were relatively peaceful. The people living in Yar Gurak were looking for gold, not for fights. After I’d been there for a few days and my face had become fairly well-known, I began to frequent the large tavern which was the center of what passed for social life in Yar Gurak. I passed myself off as a Sendar, since Sendars are so racially mixed that my peculiar background and slightly alien features didn’t attract much attention.
While there were a fair number of solitary gold-hunters operating out of Yar Gurak, it was far more common for the adventurers living there to set out for the mountains in twos and threes. There weren’t any laws in that part of the world, and it was safer to have friends around – just in case you happened to be lucky enough actually to find gold. There are always people around who feel that stealing is easier than digging.
I struck up an acquaintanceship with a bluff, good-natured Nadrak named Rablek. Rablek had returned to Yar Gurak for supplies, and he lingered a while for beer and companionship. He’d been in partnership with a Tolnedran the previous year, but he and his friend had strayed up into Morindland and a passing band of Morinds had rather casually removed his partner’s head. After we’d gotten to know each other, he finally made the offer I’d been waiting for. We were sitting in the tavern drinking that rather fruity-tasting Nadrak beer, and he looked across the table at me. He was a rangy fellow with coarse black hair and a scruffy-looking beard. ‘You seem like a sensible sort of fellow, Garath,’ he said. ‘What would you say to the notion that we team up and go out looking for gold together?’
Notice that I’d reverted to my original name. I’ve done that from time to time. Assumed names can be awkward, particularly if you forget which one you’re using. I squinted at him. ‘Do you snore?’ I asked him.
‘Can’t say for sure. I’m usually asleep when that’s supposed to happen. I’ve never had any complaints, though.’
‘We could give it a try, I suppose,’ I said. ‘If it turns out that we can’t get along, we can always break off the partnership and go our separate ways.’
‘Are you any good in a fight? I’m not trying to pry, understand, but sometimes we might need to defend whatever we find out there.’
‘I can usually handle my own end of a fight.’
‘That’s good enough for me. Equal shares?’
‘Naturally.’
‘That’s it, then. I’m willing to give it a try if you are. I’ll come by your tent tomorrow morning, and we can get out of this place. I’ve just about satisfied my hunger for civilization.’
I’d picked up a few hints about Rablek during the course of our conversations. He’d been pressed into military service during the recent war, and he’d been one of the few Nadraks to escape the carnage at Vo Mimbre. He had opinions, and he wasn’t the sort to keep them to himself. After we’d been in the mountains for a few days, he started to open up, and I picked up a great deal of information about him – and about other Nadraks as well. He assured me that all Nadraks despised Murgos, for one thing, and that they felt much the same way about Malloreans. Rablek habitually spat every time he mentioned the name of Kal Torak. Though my partner didn’t come right out and say it in so many words, I got the impression that he’d had some disagreements with Grolims in the past, and Rablek was quick with his knife when somebody irritated him. Ctuchik might have thoroughly cowed the Murgos and Thulls, but his Grolims had at best an only tenuous hold on
the Nadraks. From what Rablek told me, I could see that it really wouldn’t pay a Grolim to go anywhere in Gar og Nadrak by himself. Rablek suggested that all sorts of accidents had a way of happening to lone Grolims in the forests and mountains of that northernmost Angarak kingdom.
The more I talked with Rablek, the more I came to understand that curious passage in the Darine Codex. Angarak society was not nearly as monolithic as it appeared to be, and if anybody was going to break away, it was almost certain to be the Nadraks.
And then, if you can believe it, we found gold! We were up at the northern end of the mountains, not far from that indeterminate boundary of Morindland, and we were following a turbulent mountain stream that boiled and tumbled over large boulders and formed deep swirling pools of frothy green water. It was at that point that I discovered a hitherto unrealized aspect of what my brothers and I routinely refer to as ‘talent.’ I could feel the presence of gold!
I looked around. It was there; I knew it was there. ‘It looks to be coming on toward evening,’ I said to my partner. ‘Why don’t we set up camp here and rinse out a few shovelfuls of gravel before it gets dark?’
Rablek looked around. ‘It doesn’t look all that promising to me,’ he said.
‘We’ll never know for sure until we try it.’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
I let him find the first few nuggets. I didn’t want to give away too much, after all. What we’d found were some fairly extensive deposits of free gold the stream had carried down from farther up in the mountains and deposited in those pools of relatively calm water.
We made a fortune there. It’s one of the few times in my life I’ve ever actually been rich. We settled in and built a crude shack, and we worked that merry little creek from one end to the other. Winter came, but we didn’t move. We couldn’t do much work during that season, but we weren’t about to go off and leave our diggings. We got snowed in, naturally, and Rablek opened up more and more during those long months. I picked up a great deal of information from him during that winter, and the gold was in the nature of a bonus.
Then spring came, and with it came a band of marauding Morindim. We’d put out the usual pestilence markers and curse-markers as a precaution, but this particular band had a young apprentice magician with them, and he knew enough about his trade to neutralize our markers.
‘This isn’t turning out very well, Garath,’ Rablek said somberly, staring out through a crack in the wall of our cabin at the twenty or so fur-clad Morindim advancing on us. ‘We’re going to have those savages inside here with us before long.’
We both had bows, of course, but a winter of hunting deer had severely depleted our supply of arrows.
I started to swear. ‘How broad-minded are you feeling, Rablek?’ I asked.
‘Not so much so that I’m ready to welcome twenty Morind house-guests.’
‘I think I’d draw the line there myself. I’m going to do something a little out of the ordinary. Don’t get excited.’
‘If you can come up with a way to run those animals off, I think I’ll be able to control myself.’
I didn’t have time to explain, and there was no way I could hide what I was doing from my partner. I carefully formed the image of a medium-sized demon in my mind and crammed myself into it.
Rablek jumped back, his eyes bulging.
‘Stay here!’ I growled at him in that soul-chilling voice of the demon. ‘Don’t come outside, and you’d better not watch. This is going to get worse.’ Then I crashed out through our crude door to face the advancing Morindim.
As I think I’ve indicated, the Morind magician was an inexperienced and callow youth. He might have been able to raise an imp the size of a mouse, but anything beyond that was far beyond his capability. Just to add to his chragrin, I expanded the image in which I was encased until I had the appearance of a full-grown Demon-Lord.
The Morindim fled, screaming in terror. The magician, I noticed, led the flight. He was young, and he ran very fast.
Then I resumed my own form and returned to the shack.
‘Just who are you, Garath?’ Rablek demanded in a trembling voice as I came through the splinters of our door.
‘I’m your partner, Rablek. That’s all you really need to know, isn’t it? You and I came up here to get rich. Why don’t we get at that before we lose any more daylight?’
He started to shake violently. ‘Where’s my mind been for all these months? I should have recognized the name. You’re not just Garath. You’re Belgarath, aren’t you?’
‘It’s no great thing, partner,’ I tried to calm him. ‘It’s only a name, after all, and I haven’t done anything to harm you, have I?’
‘Well – not yet, I guess.’ He didn’t sound very convinced. ‘I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, though.’
‘I can imagine. Most of them are just Grolim propaganda, partner. I’ve had occasion to disrupt Grolim schemes now and then in thepast, and they’ve had to invent some very wild stories to explain their failures.’
‘Are you really as old as they say you are?’
‘Probably older.’
‘What are you doing in Gar og Nadrak?’
I grinned at him. ‘Getting rich, I hope. Isn’t that why we’re both out here in this wilderness?’
‘You’ve got that part right.’
‘We’re still partners then?’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, Belgarath. Did you just conjure up all this gold we’ve been finding?’
‘No. It’s a natural deposit of real gold, and it’s just lying there waiting for us to pick it up.’
He grinned back at me. ‘Well, then, partner, why don’t we get back to picking?’
‘Why don’t we?’ I agreed.
Chapter 46
There’s a kind of irresistible lure about gold – and I’m not just talking about the red-tinted gold of Angarak which the Grolims use to buy the souls of men like the Earl of Jarvik. By midsummer, Rablek and I had accumulated more gold than our horses could carry, but we still lingered beside that tumbling mountain stream ‘for just one more day.’
I finally managed to clamp a lid on my own hunger for more, but it took me another week to persuade my partner that it was time to leave. ‘Be reasonable, Rablek,’ I told him. ‘You’ve already got more gold than you can possibly spend in a lifetime, and if you’re really all that desperate, you know how to find this place again. You can come back and dig up more, if you really want to.’
‘I just hate to leave any behind,’ he replied.
‘It’s not going to go anyplace, Rablek. It’ll be here forever, if you happen to need it.’
I know that it sounds unnatural, but I liked my Nadrak partner. He was a bit crude and rough-hewn, but I’m no angel myself, so we got along well together. He wasn’t afraid of work, and when the sun went down and we’d laid aside our tools, he could talk for hours, and I didn’t mind listening. He’d been a little wild-eyed and standoffish after our encounter with the Morindim, but he got over that, and the pair of us went back to just being a couple of fellows out to make our fortunes. We both forgot about the fact that we were supposed to be natural enemies and concentrated instead on getting rich.
Anyway, we tore down our shack, concealed the traces of our diggings as best we could, and started back to Yar Gurak. ‘What do you plan to do with all your money?’ I asked my partner on the night before we reached the shabby mining camp.
‘I think I’ll go into the fur trade,’ he replied. ‘There’s a lot of money to be made there.’
‘You’ve already got a lot of money.’
‘Money doesn’t mean very much unless you put it to work for you, Belgarath. I’m not the sort to just lay around getting fat, and I know some fur traders who double their money every year or two.’
‘If you’ve already got more than you can spend, why bother?’
‘It’s the game, Belgarath,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Money’s just a way of keeping score. I’m g
oing into the fur trade for the sake of the game, not for the money.’
That opened my eyes and gave me a profound insight into the Nadrak character. At last I understood why Nadraks dislike Murgos so much.
Never mind. It’s much too complicated to explain.
Rablek and I parted company on the outskirts of Yar Gurak. I saw no real reason to go back into that ugly place. Moreover, I had a great deal of gold in my pack-saddle, and I didn’t want any onious people rifling through it while I was asleep.
‘It was fun, wasn’t it, Belgarath?’ Rablek said just a bit wistfully as we were saddling our horses.
‘That it was, my friend.’
‘If you ever get bored, look me up. The mountains’ll always be there, and I can be ready to go again any time you say the word.’
‘Be well, Rablek,’ I said, clasping his hand warmly.
The Nadrak border was still unguarded, and I entered Drasnia with a certain sense of relief. I was a bit surprised to discover that my sudden riches had made me nervous and apprehensive. What a peculiar thing! When I was no more than a poor vagabond, I’d been willing to go anywhere without a second thought. Now that I was rich, my whole attitude had changed.
I rode on down through Algaria at the tag end of the summer of the year 4881, and I reached the Vale just as autumn was turning all the leaves golden. The color suited my mood and reflected the cargo in my pack-saddle. Rablek and I had put the fruits of our labors into stout canvas bags, and I had forty of those bags. It took me hours to carry them all up into my tower.
The next day I built a makeshift kind of forge and cast my gold into bars. Forty bags of gold sounds like a lot, but gold’s so heavy that the bars weren’t really all that big, and when I’d stacked them all in one corner, the pile was disappointingly small. I sat looking at it, idly wondering if I could catch up with Rablek before he left Yar Gurak. There was still a lot of gold left in our creek up there near the border of Morindland, after all.
Well, of course I was greedy. I’ve told you about the kind of person I was before I entered my Master’s service, and some things never change. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Every so often, I get a powerful urge to return to that nameless little stream. Then, however, usually in the cold grey light of morning, rationality rears its ugly head. What on earth does a man in my situation need with money? If I really want something, I can usually get it somehow, or I can magic it up, and in the long run, that’d be much easier than digging gold out of the ground. But gold’s so pretty to look at, and so exciting when you find it.
Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress Page 72