Ran Horb looked at me skeptically. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘just for the sake of argument, I’ll accept that – tentatively, of course. I’ll hold off on asking for proof until later. To what do I owe the honor of this visit, your Grace?’
‘You’re a very civilized man, your Majesty,’ I noted. ‘Most of the time I have to perform a few little tricks before people will listen to me.’
‘I’m sure you could startle me out of my shoes, if you chose to,’ he replied. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m just seeking information, your Majesty,’ I assured him. ‘You’re building highways in Sendaria.’
‘I’m building highways almost everywhere, Lady Polgara.’
‘Yes, I know. I have a certain interest in Sendaria, though. Is this construction a prelude to annexation?’
He laughed. ‘Why on earth would I want to annex Sendaria?’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s a nice enough country, but I don’t really want to own it. Those highways I’m building up there are just a way to keep the Chereks out of my purse. They’ll provide a route to Boktor that bypasses the need to transport goods through that whirlpool in the Cherek Bore. Those bearded pirates in the north charge outrageous fees to carry Tolnedran cargoes from Kotu through the Bore, and that’s cutting into my tax revenues.’
‘It’s all strictly commercial, then?’
‘Of course. If I want farm produce, I can buy it right here in Tolnedra. I don’t have to go all the way to Sendaria for beans and turnips. The only thing that interests me about that place is its location.’
The glimmer of an idea flickered through my mind. ‘Then stability in Sendaria would be to your advantage, wouldn’t it, your Majesty?’
‘Naturally, but that’s what the legions are for.’
‘But legions are expensive, aren’t they, Ran Horb?’
He shuddered. ‘You wouldn’t believe how expensive.’
‘I might.’ I squinted at the ornate ceiling. ‘Sendaria hasn’t really had a central government since I ruled there around the turn of the millennium,’ I mused. ‘That lack of a government has invited all sorts of incursions from the outside. If there were a king and a government – and an army – the people would be secure from outside adventurers, and you wouldn’t have to keep ten or so legions stationed there to maintain order.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s what the “Polgara” business was all about. You want to be the Queen of Sendaria.’
‘Most definitely not, your Majesty. I’m far too busy for any more of that nonsense – nothing personal intended there, of course.’
‘No offense taken, your Grace.’ Then he leaned back in his chair. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that’s the one thing that’s always made me skeptical when I hear stories about you and your father. If Belgarath’s as powerful as they say he is, he could rule the world, couldn’t he?’
‘He wouldn’t be very good at it, your Majesty. My father absolutely hates responsibility. It interferes with his entertainments.’
‘Now you’ve got me baffled, my Lady. If you don’t want to rule Sendaria, who do you want me to put on the throne? – some lover, perhaps?’
I gave him an icy look.
‘Sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I’ll agree that a formal government in Sendaria would be to everyone’s advantage, but which Sendarian do we saddle with the throne?’
‘We’re talking about a nation of turnip-farmers, your Majesty,’ Khanar noted. ‘Some of them may have titles, but they’re still out in their fields at the crack of dawn just like their neighbors.’
‘I think you’re underestimating them, Prince Khanar,’ I told him. ‘A successful farmer has many more administrative skills than you might imagine, and he’s probably far more practical than some spoiled noble brat who’s been raised on Arendish epics where nobody ever eats or takes a bath. At least a farmer knows how to pay attention to details.’
‘Now, that’s deflating, isn’t it, your Majesty?’ Khanar said to the emperor. ‘I absolutely devoured Arendish epics when I was a boy, and to be shrugged off as a “spoiled noble brat” bites sort of close to the bone.’
‘This would be in the nature of an experiment, then, wouldn’t it?’ Ran Horb suggested. ‘Do I appoint a king?’
‘I wouldn’t do it that way, your Majesty,’ I replied. ‘Appointing a ruler would just be another form of outside intervention, and if d immediately spawn a fervent opposition. You’d have a revolution up there within a decade, and then you’d have to send fifty legions instead of ten.’
He winced at that. ‘How do we select a king, then?’
‘I could devise a test, your Majesty,’ Khanar offered, ‘and we could confer the crown on whichever Sendar scores the highest grade.’
‘But if you grade the test, Prince Khanar, you’d still start a revolution,’ I told him. ‘The selection of the King of Sendaria can’t be made by either Tolnedra or by Drasnia. It’s going to have to come from within.’
‘A tournament, perhaps?’ Ran Horb said dubiously.
‘These are farmers, your Majesty,’ Khanar reminded him. ‘A battle royal with farm implements could get very messy. I suppose we could give the crown to the man who raises the biggest turnip.’
‘Why not hold an election?’ I asked them.
‘I’ve never had that much faith in elections,’ Ran Horb said dubiously. ‘An election’s nothing more than a popularity contest, and popularity’s hardly a measure of any kind of administrative ability.’
‘Ah – your Majesty,’ Khanar said, ‘we’re not talking about a major power here. Sendaria’s a nice enough place, I suppose, but the world’s not going to tremble very hard if the King of the Sendars makes a few mistakes.’ He laughed then, a cynical Drasnian sort of laugh. ‘Why not just turn the whole thing over to the priesthood instead? We just pick somebody who doesn’t stumble over his own feet too often and then instruct the priests to advise the Sendars that this man’s been chosen to rule by the Sendarian God – which God do the Sendars worship, by the way?’
‘All seven of them,’ I replied. ‘They don’t know about UL as yet, but they’ll probably include him in their religion as well, just as soon as they find out about his existence.’
‘UL?’ Ran Horb said, sounding puzzled.
‘The God of the Ulgos,’ I told him.
‘You mean that place where all the dragons are?’
“There’s only one dragon, your Majesty, and she doesn’t live in Ulgoland. I don’t think religion would be a good basis for a Sendarian monarchy, though. It’d put the priests in command of the nation, and priests don’t make very good rulers. Cthol Murgos is a fairly good example of that. I know the Sendars, believe me, and I think an election might be the best answer – just as long as everybody gets to vote.’
‘Even people who don’t own land?’ Ran Horb asked incredulously.
‘It’s the best way to avoid rebellion later on,’ I reminded him. ‘If domestic tranquility’s what we want, we don’t need some large group of landless non-voters coming up with the idea of redistributing the wealth of the kingdom after a few years.’
‘We can give it a try, I suppose,’ the emperor said dubiously. ‘If it doesn’t work, maybe I will have to annex Sendaria. I wouldn’t really want the idea of elections to spread, since I’d probably be the first one voted out of office, but Sendaria’s a special case, I guess. Nobody really cares who gets the Sendarian throne as long as he keeps things quiet up there. We definitely don’t need another Arendia on our hands.’ He made a sour face. The Arends are starting to make me very tired. I think it’s time for me to come up with a way to put an end to their perpetual civil war. It’s bad for business.’ Then his eyes brightened. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve solved all the world’s problems, why don’t you go ahead and prove to me that you really are Polgara the Sorceress, your Grace.’
‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed.
‘We’ve both been very, very good, my Lady,’ Khanar agreed eagerly, ‘and since we
both behaved ourselves so well, don’t we deserve some kind of little treat?’
‘Why am I always surrounded by children?’ I demanded, casting my eyes toward heaven.
‘Probably because you bring out the little boy lurking in every one of us, Polgara.’ Ran Horb was grinning openly now.
‘All right,’ I sighed, ‘but only one. I’m not going to wear myself out just to entertain a pair of naughty little boys who managed to stay out of mischief for half an hour.’
Then I went owl – in part because it was easier – and in part because no carnival charlatan could ever hope to duplicate the feat.
I flew around the room on soft white wings for a few moments, then settled on to my chair and resumed my own form. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked them.
‘How ever did you manage to do that?’ Ran Horb demanded.
‘It’s fairly simple, your Majesty,’ I replied. ‘All you have to do is think very hard about the form you want and then command your being to take that form. Would you like to see something different? How about a cobra?’
‘Ah – no, thank you. Lady Polgara,’ he answered very quickly. ‘That won’t really be necessary. I’m completely convinced – aren’t you, Khanar?’
‘Oh, absolutely, your Imperial Majesty,’ Khanar replied fervently. ‘I wouldn’t think of asking you to turn yourself into a cobra, Lady Polgara.’
‘I rather thought you might both feel that way about it,’ I murmured.
It may have been that conversation in the early autumn of 3817 that had moved Ran Horb to put an end to the civil war in Arendia. In 3821 he concluded a secret treaty with the Mimbrates, and in 3822, the Mimbrates sacked and burned Vo Astur and chased the surviving Asturians into the forest. I know it’s not really very nice, but I did take a great deal of satisfaction in the destruction of Vo Astur, since it repaid them for destroying Vo Wacune.
No, I don’t think I’ll pursue that. Gloating isn’t really attractive, so it should be done in private.
Then, in 3827, Ran Horb II set up the election that ultimately produced the first Sendarian King. He made one mistake when he laid down the rules, however. He said that the new king had to receive a majority of the votes. That turned the whole business into a six-year holiday in Sendaria. There were seven hundred and forty-three candidates on the first ballot, and the winnowing-out process took a long time. Soon, Sendarians were dividing their time almost equally – mornings devoted to tending the fields and afternoons devoted to electioneering. They had so much fun that they ignored the fact that the rest of the world was laughing at them.
I love those people! When they’re having fun, they don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.
The ultimate winner, Fundor the Magnificent, had long since forgotten that he was still a candidate, and his elevation to the throne came as a complete surprise to him – and quite an inconvenience as well. Fundor was an agricultural experimenter who hated the taste of turnips and had been trying for years to replace that vegetable as a staple in the Sendarian diet with the rutabaga. Since nobody in his right mind willingly eats rutabagas, Fundor’s obsession had virtually bankrupted him.
During the course of the six-year-long election, the Sendars had decided to establish the capital of their incipient kingdom at the city of Sendar. Their decision was based on the price of land in that part of Sendaria, and it raised screams of protest from the largely Tolnedran land-speculators in and around Darine, Camaar, and Muros.
Following Fundor’s elevation to the throne, all manner of fortune-hunters flocked to the city of Sendar in the hopes of wheedling noble titles out of their new king. Fundor put them to work instead, holding back titles until he saw how well they performed various tasks. The alien concept of actually working to earn – and keep – a title offended most of the opportunists drawn to his court, but it ultimately produced a noble class with that most rare of aristocratic characteristics, a sense of responsibility.
I drifted around the new kingdom for several years, more or less unobserved, and as time passed I grew more and more certain that our experiment was working out quite well. Sendaria prospered, and the peasants were fairly content. I felt that I’d performed my final duty as the Duchess of Erat satisfactorily and had thus fulfilled my pledge to Ontrose.
Since that was out of the way now, I returned to mother’s cottage and to my studies.
Ran Horb’s system of highways – particularly in Sendaria – mightily offended the Chereks, of course, since it rendered their unique ability to navigate the hazards of the Cherek Bore largely irrelevant. There were rumblings of discontent coming out of Val Alorn, but since you can’t really sink a highway, there wasn’t very much the Chereks could do about the new state of affairs.
The Tolnedran highway system extended far beyond Sendaria, however, and its real impact was felt more in the southern kingdoms. The first contacts between various Tolnedran entrepreneurs and the Murgos were tentative and very wary, but before long the goods of the Angarak kingdoms began to appear in the market-places of Tol Honeth, Tol Borune, Tol Horb, and Tol Vordue. Murgo hostility began to soften, and the trade between east and west changed from a trickle to a flood.
Now nothing happens in Cthol Murgos without Ctuchik’s open consent, so it was obvious to my family that Torak’s disciple, crouched atop that gloomy peak in the middle of the Wasteland of Murgos, was ‘up to something’. In all probability, Ctuchik wasn’t really ‘up to’ anything more serious than spying and subverting a few Tolnedrans, but as my father and uncle Beldin were to discover after the war with Nyissa, their former brother, Zedar the apostate, had been more creative. His offer of immortality had enlisted the aid of the aging Queen Salmissra in Sthiss Tor, and that significantly altered history.
But that came a bit later. Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Sendaria, I devoted myself almost exclusively to the study of that pair of prophecies, the Mrin and the Darine, and I began to catch brief, tantalizing glimpses of ‘the Godslayer’. Clearly, I was going to be intimately involved with this titan, but as time went on and I probed more deeply, I began to get the strong impression that he wasn’t going to come riding out of nowhere garbed in shining armor, trailing clouds of glory, and announced by earthquakes and thunderclaps.
The turn of the millennium occasioned some serious celebration in the kingdoms of the west, but aside from noting that the year marked my two thousandth birthday, I paid very little attention to it.
In the early spring of 4002 I once again remembered that if I planned to eat the following winter, I’d probably better get to gardening. I set my studies aside for several weeks to concentrate on playing in the dirt.
I was spading up my vegetable garden when father swooped in. I knew immediately that something serious was afoot, since my father only flies – usually as a falcon – in emergencies. He blurred back into his natural form, and his expression was agitated. ‘I need you, Pol!’ he said urgently.
‘I needed you once, remember?’ I said it without even thinking. ‘You didn’t seem very interested. Now I get to return the favor. Go away, father.’
‘We don’t have time for this, Polgara. We have to go to the Isle of the Winds immediately. Gorek’s in danger.’
‘Who’s Gorek?’
‘Don’t you have any idea at all about what’s happening in the world beyond the edge of your garden? Has your brain shut down? You can’t evade your responsibilities, Pol. You’re still who you are, and you’re coming with me to the Isle of the Winds even if I have to pick you up in my talons and take you there.’
‘Don’t threaten me, Old Man. Who’s this Gorek you’re so worried about?’’
‘He’s the Rivan King, Pol, the Guardian of the Orb.’
“The Chereks patrol the Sea of the Winds, father. No fleet in the world can get past their war boats.’
‘The danger’s not coming from a fleet, Pol. There’s a commercial enclave just outside the walls of the city of Riva. That’s the source of the danger.’
/> ‘Are you insane, father? Why did you permit strangers on the Isle?’
‘It’s a long story, and we don’t have time to go into it right now.’
‘How did you find out about this supposed danger?’
‘I just dredged the meaning out of a passage in the Mrin Codex.’
That brushed away all my scepticism. ‘Who’s behind it?’ I demanded.
‘Salmissra, as closely as I can determine. She has agents in that enclave who’ve been ordered to kill the Rivan King and his entire family. If she manages to pull it off, Torak wins.’
‘Not as long as I’m still breathing, he doesn’t. Is this more of Ctuchik’s games?’
‘It’s possible, but it’s a little subtle for Ctuchik. It might be Urvon or Zedar.’
‘We can sort that out later. We’re wasting time, father. Let’s go to the Isle and put a stop to this.’
Chapter 25
The shortest route to the Isle of the Winds involved crossing Ulgoland. Most sensible people avoid that whenever possible, but this was an emergency, and father and I would be several thousand feet above the hunting grounds of the Algroths, Hrulgin, and Eldrakyn. Our brief encounter with Harpies just before we flew over Prolgu, however, was highly suspicious. So far as I’m able to determine, that was the only time anyone has ever seen them. Their semi-human form makes them appear far more dangerous than they really are. A human face does not automatically indicate human intelligence, and their lack of a beak makes them a second-rate bird of prey. Father and I evaded them rather easily and flew on.
Dawn was touching the eastern horizon when we flew over Camaar. We were both on the verge of exhaustion, but we grimly flew on out over the lead-grey waves of the Sea of the Winds. My wings seemed almost on fire, but I drove myself to keep going. I’m not really sure how father managed, since he doesn’t really fly all that well. Father surprises me sometimes.
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