It seemed to me, though, that everyone else in the room was missing something. They appeared to hate all Angaraks indiscriminately, paying far too little attention to the cultural differences that made Angarak society much less monolithic than it appeared on the surface. The typical Atom’s approach to any problem is to start sharpening his battle-axe, but I saw at the outset that the only thing direct confrontation would accomplish would be the solidification of the Angaraks, and that was the last thing we wanted.
I was right on the verge of triumphantly pointing that out when mother stopped me. ‘That isn’t the way to do it, Pol,’ her voice told me. ‘Men are afraid of intelligent women, so suggest instead of announcing. Plant the seed of an idea in their minds and let it grow. They’ll be much more likely to come around if they think the idea was theirs in the first place.’
‘But–’ I started to protest.
‘Try it my way, Pol,’ she said. ‘Just point them in the right direction and then tell them how wonderful they are when they do it right.’
‘I think it’s silly, mother, but I’ll try it.’
My first rather self-effacing suggestion had to do with establishing trade relations with the Nadraks, and much to my surprise that went down rather smoothly. I sat back and let the Alorns discuss the notion long enough to forget where it came from, and then they decided to give it a try. Then I planted the idea of making some overtures to the Tolnedrans and Arends, and Cherek and his boys accepted that as well.
In his sometimes misguided history of the world, my father notes that I enjoyed politics. He was right about that, but he missed the real point entirely. When father uses the word ‘politics’ he’s talking about relations between nations. When I use the word, though, I’m talking about the various subtle ways a woman can get men to do what she wants them to do.
If you want to see an expert in this art, go watch Queen Porenn in action. The real genius, however, is Queen Layla of Sendaria.
We met off and on several more times that week, but our most important decisions were made in that first session. When I realized that the men were going to spend most of their time chewing old soup, I let my mind wander. I considered mother’s revelation, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. There are differences between men and women, and the obvious physical differences are the least important. The differences in our minds are far more relevant.
Bear-shoulders offered to take father, uncle Beldin and me to the Sendarian coast in his war-boat, but the night before we were to leave, uncle Beldin changed his mind about that. ‘Maybe I’d better go back to Mallorea and keep an eye on old Burnt-face instead,’ he said. The Murgos, Nadraks, and Thulls are just an advance party, I think. They aren’t going to be able to accomplish very much without reinforcements from Mallorea. Nothing’s really going to happen on this side of the Sea of the East until Torak orders his armies to march north from Mal Zeth.’
‘Keep me posted,’ father told him.
‘Naturally, you clot,’ Beldin retorted. ‘Did you think I was going to go to Mallorea just to renew old acquaintances with Urvon and Zedar? If Burnt-face starts to move, I’ll let you know.’
It was midsummer by the time father and I reached the Vale, and the twins were eagerly awaiting our return. They’d prepared a feast for us, and we ate in that airy, pleasant tower of theirs as evening settled golden over the Vale. I’ve always liked their tower for some reason. Father’s tower is messy and cluttered, uncle Beldin’s is fanciful on the outside, but quite nearly as cluttered as father’s on the inside. The twins, however, had the foresight to build closets and storerooms on the lower levels of their tower, so they can put things away. Father probably won’t care for this comparison, but his tower’s very much like a single room set on top of a pole. It’s a solid stone stump with a room on the highest level, and uncle Beldin’s isn’t much better.
After we’d finished eating, uncle Belkira pushed back his plate. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now tell us about the wedding – and about this monumental change in Polgara.’
‘The change in Pol is easy,’ father replied. ‘She just slipped around behind my back and grew up.’
‘Young people have a habit of doing that,’ uncle Belkira noted.
‘There was a little more to it than that, father,’ I said. ‘Beldaran was always the pretty one.’
‘Not really, Pol,’ uncle Belkira disagreed. ‘She’s blonde, and you’re brunette. That’s the only real difference. You’re both beautiful.’
I shrugged. ‘All girls want to be blonde,’ I told him. ‘It may be a little silly, but we do. After I realized that I’d never be as pretty as she is, I tried to go the other way. When we reached Camaar and she and Riva finally met each other, I saw that how I looked was the farthest thing from her mind, so I cleaned myself up.’ I laughed a little ruefully. ‘It took me hours to comb all the snarls out of my hair. Then we reached the Isle of the Winds, and I discovered that I wasn’t as ugly as I’d thought.’
That might just be the grossest understatement in history,’ father said. ‘Now that she’s cleaned off all the dirt, she’s moderately presentable.’
‘More than moderately, Belgarath,’ Beltira said.
‘Anyway,’ father continued, ‘when we reached the Isle of the Winds, she stunned a whole generation of young Rivans into near-insensibility. They absolutely adored her.’
‘Was being adored nice, Pol?’ Belkira teased.
‘I found it quite pleasant,’ I admitted, ‘but it seemed to make father very nervous. I can’t for the life of me understand why.’
‘Very funny, Pol,’ father said. ‘Anyway, after the wedding, we had a talk with Bear-shoulders and his sons. They’ve had some contacts with the Angaraks, and we’re all beginning to grope our way toward a greater understanding of the differences between the Murgos, Thulls, and Nadraks. We can thank Pol for that.’ His sidelong glance was as sly as mine had been. ‘You didn’t think I noticed what you were doing, did you, Pol? You were very smooth about it, though.’ Then he looked ruminatively at the ceiling. ‘As Pol so gently pointed out, we’re more likely to have some luck with the Nadraks than with the Murgos or Thulls. The Thulls are too stupid and too much afraid of the Grolims to be of much use, and Ctuchik controls the Murgos with an iron fist. The Nadraks are greedy, though, so a bit of judicious bribery might win them over – at least enough to make them a useful source of information.’
‘Are there any signs that more Angaraks are coming across the land-bridge?’ Beltira asked.
‘Not from what Bull-neck’s been able to discover. Torak’s evidently biding his time, waiting for the right moment. Beldin went back over to Mallorea to keep an eye on him – at least that’s what he says he’s going to do. I still think he might want to take up that discussion about white-hot hooks with Urvon, though. Anyhow, he pointed out that the Murgos, Nadraks, and Thulls are just an advance party. The game won’t really get started until Torak decides to come out of seclusion at Ashaba.’
‘He doesn’t have to hurry for my sake,’ Belkira said.
We spent the next couple of weeks giving the twins greater and greater detail about our visit to the Isle and about Beldaran’s wedding. From time immemorial the twins have very seldom left the Vale, largely because, as Beltira humorously notes, ‘somebody has to mind the store.’ We’re all a part of the same family, however, so they’re naturally hungry for information about our various adventures in the outside world.
I was quite melancholy during the weeks that followed, of course. I still felt the pain of my separation from my sister most keenly. Oddly, that separation brought father and me closer together. In my eyes, father and I had been competing for Beldaran’s affection ever since he’d returned to the Vale after his extended bout of drunken debauchery. With Beldaran’s marriage that competition had vanished. I still insulted father from time to time, but I think that was more out of habit than anything else. I certainly wouldn’t admit it, but I began to develop a cer
tain respect for him and a strange back-door affection. When he chooses to be, my father can be a likeable old sot, after all.
Our lives in his tower settled down into a kind of domestic routine that was easy and comfortable. I think a lot of that may have come about because I like to cook and he likes to eat. It was a tranquil time. Our evening conversations were stimulating, and I enjoyed them.
It’s an article of the religion of every adolescent that he – or she – knows far more than his elders; the half-formed mind suffers fools almost ecstatically. Those evening conversations with my father rather quickly stripped me of that particular illusion. The depth of his mind sometimes staggered me. Dear Gods, that old man knows a lot!
It was not only my growing respect for this vast sink of knowledge that prompted me to offer myself up as his pupil one evening while we were doing the dishes. The Master – and mother – had a hand in that decision as well. Their frequent suggestions that I was an uneducated ninny probably had a great deal to do with my offer.
Father’s initial response set off an immediate argument. ‘Why do I need that nonsense?’ I demanded. ‘Can’t you just tell me what I need to know? Why do I have to learn how to read?’
He was diplomatic enough not to laugh in my face. Then he patiently explained why I absolutely had to be able to read. ‘The sum of human knowledge is there, Pol,’ he concluded, pointing at all the books and scrolls lining the walls of the tower. ‘You’re going to need it.’
‘What on earth for? We have “talent”, father, and the primitives who wrote all that stuffy nonsense didn’t. What can they have possibly scribbled down that’d be of any use to us?’
He sighed and rolled his eyes upward. ‘Why me?’ he demanded, and he obviously wasn’t talking to me when he said it. ‘All right, Pol,’ he said then, ‘if you’re so intelligent that you don’t need to know how to read, maybe you can answer a few questions that’ve been nagging at me for quite some time now.’
‘Of course, father,’ I replied. ‘I’d be happy to.’ Notice that I walked right into the trap he’d set for me.
‘If you have two apples here and two apples over there, how many do you have altogether?’ When my father’s trying to teach some prospective pupil humility, he always starts there.
‘Four apples, of course,’ I replied quickly – too quickly, as it turned out.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, “Why?” It just is. Two apples and two apples are four apples. Any idiot knows that.’
‘Since you’re not an idiot, you shouldn’t have any trouble explaining it to me, should you?’
I stared at him helplessly.
‘We can come back to that one later. Now then, when a tree falls way back in the forest, it makes a noise, right?’
‘Of course it does, father.’
‘Very good, Pol. What is noise?’
‘Something we hear.’
‘Excellent. You’re really very perceptive, my daughter.’ He frowned then, a bit spuriously, I thought. There’s a problem, though. What if there’s nobody around to hear the noise? Is it really there, then?’
‘Certainly it is.’
‘Why?’
‘Because – ’ I floundered to a stop at that point.
‘Let’s set that one aside as well and move on. Do you think the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning?’
‘Well, naturally it will.’
‘Why?’
I should have expected that ‘why’ by now, but I was exasperated by his seemingly simple-minded questions, so I hadn’t even thought before I answered. ‘Well,’ I said lamely, ‘it always has, hasn’t it?’
I got a very quick and very humiliating lesson in probability theory at that point.
‘Pressing right along then,’ he said urbanely. ‘Why does the moon change her shape during the course of a month?’
I stared at him helplessly.
‘Why does water bubble when it gets hot?’
I couldn’t even answer that one, and I did all the cooking. He went on – and on, and on.
‘Why can’t we see color in the dark?’
‘Why do tree leaves change color in the autumn?’
‘Why does water get hard when it’s cold? And why does it turn to steam when it gets hot?’
‘If it’s noon here, why is it midnight in Mallorea?’
‘Does the sun go around the world, or does the world go around the sun?’
‘Where do mountains come from?’
‘What makes things grow?’
‘All right, father!’ I exclaimed. ‘Enough! Teach me how to read!’
‘Why, of course, Pol,’ he said. ‘If you wanted to learn so badly, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
And so we got down to work. My father’s a disciple, a sorcerer, a statesman, and sometimes a general, but more than anything else he’s a teacher – probably the best one in the world. He taught me how to read and write in a surprisingly short period of time – perhaps because the first thing he wrote down for me was my own name. I thought it looked rather pretty on the page. Before long I began dipping into his books and scrolls with an increasing thirst for knowledge. I’ve got a tendency to want to argue with books, though, and that gave father a bit of trouble, probably because I argued out loud. I couldn’t seem to help it. Idiocy, whether spoken or written, offends me, and I feel obliged to correct it. This habit of mine wouldn’t have caused any trouble if I’d been alone, but father was in the tower with me, and he was intent on his own studies. We talked about that at some length, as I recall.
The reading was stimulating, but even more stimulating were our evening discussions of various points that had come up in the course of my studies during the day. It all started one evening when father rather innocently asked, ‘Well, Pol, what did you learn today?’
I told him. Then I told him about my objections to what I’d read – firmly, even challengingly.
Father never passes up an opportunity for a good argument, so he automatically defended the texts while I attacked them. After a few evenings so enjoyably spent, these disputes became almost ritualistic. It’s a pleasant way to end the day.
Our arguments weren’t all intellectual. Our visit to the Isle of the Winds had made me more aware of my personal appearance, so I started paying attention to it. Father chose to call it vanity, and that also started an ongoing argument.
Then, early one morning in the spring, mother’s voice came to me before I’d even started making breakfast. This is all very nice, Pol,’ she said, ‘but there are other things you need to learn as well. Put your books aside for today and come to the Tree. We’ll let him teach you how to use your mind. I’ll teach you how to use your will.’
So after breakfast I rose from the table and said, ‘I think I’ll walk around a bit today, father. I’m starting to feel a little cooped-up here in the tower. I need some air. I’ll go look for herbs and spices for tonight’s supper.’
‘Probably not a bad idea,’ he agreed. ‘Your arguments are getting a little dusty. Maybe a good breeze will clear your head.’
‘Maybe,’ I replied, resisting the impulse to retort to that veiled insult. Then I descended the spiral stairs and ventured out into the morning sun.
It was a glorious day, and the Vale’s one of the loveliest places in the world, so I took my time as I drifted through the bright green knee-high grass down to that sacred hollow where the Tree spreads forth his immensity. As I drew closer, my birds welcomed me with song, hovering over me in the lucid morning.
‘What took you so long, Pol?’ mother’s voice asked.
‘I was enjoying the morning,’ I replied aloud. No one else was around, so there was no need to do it the other way. ‘What shall we do today, mother?’
‘Continue your education, of course.’
‘I hope your teaching won’t be as dusty as father’s sometimes is.’
‘I think you might like it. It’s in the same general area, though.’
“The mind, Pol. Up until now you’ve been learning to use your talent in the outside world. Now we’ll go inside.’ She paused as if searching for a way to explain a very difficult concept. ‘All people are different,’ she began, ‘but the various races have distinguishing characteristics. You can recognize an Alorn when you see one because of his physical appearance. You can also recognize his mind when you encounter it.’
‘You’re going to teach me how to hear what other people are thinking?’
‘We might get to that later. It’s more difficult, so let’s concentrate on this one right now. When you’re trying to pinpoint a stranger’s race or tribe, you’re not concentrating on what he’s thinking, but rather the way he’s thinking.’
‘Why’s this so important, mother?’
‘We have enemies out there in the world, Pol. You’ll need to be able to recognize them when you come across them. The Master’s taught me how to imitate the manner of the various races, so I’ll be able to show you how to tell the difference between a Murgo and a Grolim or between an Arend and a Marag. There’ll be times when your safety and the safety of those in your care will hinge on your ability to know just who’s in your general vicinity.’
‘I suppose that stands to reason. How are we going to go about this?’
‘Just open your mind, Pol. Submerge your own personality and feel the nature of the various minds I’ll show you.’
‘Well,’ I said a bit dubiously, ‘I’ll try it, but it sounds awfully complicated.’
‘I didn’t say it was going to be easy, Pol. Shall we begin?’
None of it made much sense at first, mother threw the same thought at me over and over, changing only the way it was presented. The major break-through came when I realized that the different thought patterns seemed to have different colors attached to them. It wasn’t really overt, but rather a faint tinge. In time, though, those colors grew more pronounced, and my recognition of Murgo thought or Alorn thought or Tolnedran thought became almost instantaneous.
Polgara the Sorceress Page 11