The sense of Ctuchik’s mind was coming from above me, so I didn’t bother to investigate the lower level of his turret. There’s a peculiar similarity to the way our minds work. We all feel more comfortable in towers. Ctuchik’s tower was hanging off the side of the mountain, though.
I went up the stairs. I ignored the second level and climbed to the top. The door there wasn’t locked, and I could sense the presence of the owner of the turret behind it. He seemed to be reading something, and he wasn’t particularly alert.
I set myself and opened the door.
An emaciated-looking Grolim with a white beard was sitting at a table near one of the round windows poring over a scroll by the light of a single oil lamp. That Murgo I’d seen at the escarpment - Agga, I think his name was - had described Ctuchik as a man who looked as if he’d been dead for a week. I think Agga’d understated it. I’ve never known anybody who looked more cadaverous than Ctuchik. ‘What?’ he exclaimed, dropping his scroll and leaping to his feet. ‘Who gave you permission to come here?’
‘It’s late, Ctuchik,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t want to bother anybody, so I let myself in.’
‘You!’ His sunken eyes blazed.
‘Don’t do anything foolish,’ I cautioned him. ‘This is just a social call. If I’d had anything else in mind, you’d already be dead.’ I looked around. His tower wasn’t nearly as cluttered as mine, but he hadn’t been here very long. It takes centuries to accumulate really good clutter. ‘What on earth possessed you to set up shop in this hideous place?’ I asked him.
‘It suits me,’ he replied shortly, struggling to get control of himself. He sat back down and retrieved his scroll. ‘You always manage to show up where you’re least expected, don’t you, Belgarath?’
‘It’s a gift. Are you busy right now? I can come back some other time if you’re doing something important.’
‘I think I can spare you a few moments.’
‘Good.’ I closed the door, went over to his table, and sat down in the chair directly across from him. ‘I think we should have a little chat, Ctuchik - as long as we’re living so close to each other.’
‘You’ve come to welcome me to the neighborhood?’ He looked faintly amused.
‘Not exactly. I thought we should establish a few ground rules, is all. I wouldn’t want you to blunder into anything by mistake.’
‘I don’t make mistakes, Belgarath.’
‘Oh, really? I can think of a dozen or so you’ve made already. You didn’t exactly cover yourself with glory at Cthol Mishrak, as I recall.’
‘You know that what happened at Cthol Mishrak had been decided before you even got there,’ he retorted. ‘If Zedar had done what he was supposed to, you wouldn’t have made it that far.’
‘Sometimes Zedar’s a little undependable - but that’s beside the point. I’m not here to talk about the good old days. I’m here to give you a bit of advice. Keep a tight leash on your Murgos. The time isn’t right for anything major, and we both know it. A lot of things have to happen yet before we can get down to business. Keep the Murgos out of the western kingdoms. They’re starting to irritate the Alorns.’
He sneered. ‘My, my, isn’t that a shame.’
‘Don’t try to be funny. You’re not ready for a war, Ctuchik - particularly not with the Alorns. Iron-grip’s got the Orb, and you saw what he can do with it when we had that little get-together at Cthol Mishrak. If you don’t get your Murgos under control, he might take it into his head to pay you a call. If you irritate him too much, he’ll turn this mountain of yours into a very large pile of gravel.’
‘He’s not the one who’s supposed to raise the Orb,’ Ctuchik objected.
‘My point exactly. Let’s not push our luck here. We haven’t received all our instructions as yet, so we don’t even know what we’re supposed to do. If you push the Alorns too far, Iron-grip’s very likely to lose his temper and do something precipitous. If that happens, it could throw this whole business into the lap of pure, random chance. We could end up with a third possibility, and I don’t think the other two would like that very much. So let’s not complicate things any more than they already are.’
He pulled speculatively at his beard. ‘You might be right,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘We’ve all got lots of time, I suppose, so there’s no great hurry.’
‘I’m glad you agree.’ I squinted at him. ‘Have you managed to get any of your people into the house at Ashaba as yet?’
His eyes suddenly looked startled.
‘It’s the logical thing for you to do, Ctuchik. Zedar’s there taking down Torak’s every word. If you and that pinto-spotted Urvon don’t get some of your people inside, Zedar’s going to have the upper hand.’
‘I’m working on it,’ he replied shortly.
‘I hope so. One of you’d better get your hands on a copy of the Ashabine Oracles before Torak corrupts them into incomprehensibility.’
‘Urvon’s got a copy. I can always take his away from him.’
‘Torak burned Urvon’s copy. Don’t you people even talk to each other?’
‘I don’t have anything to say to Urvon.’
‘Or to Zedar either, I gather. This bickering between the three of you is going to make my job much, much easier.’
‘You aren’t the important one, Belgarath. You’ve had your turn as the Child of Light, and I think you blundered it away. You should have killed Zedar when you had the chance.’
‘You definitely need instructions, Ctuchik. Zedar’s part in all of this isn’t over yet. He’s still got things to do, and if he doesn’t do them, we come right back to that third possibility again. Some of your Grolims have been seized by the spirit of your Necessity. Get good copies of what they’re saying, and don’t tamper with them. Torak’s erasing whole pages of the Ashabine Oracles, so the Prophecies of your Western Grolims might very well end up being all you’ll have to work with. This isn’t a good area for experimentation. Certain things have to happen, and we both have to know about them. I don’t have time to come down here every few centuries to educate you.’
‘I know my responsibilities, Belgarath. You do your work, and I’ll do mine.’
‘I can hold up my end of it,’ I told him. Then I stood up and smiled benignly at him. ‘It’s been absolutely wonderful talking with you, old boy, and we’ll have to do it again one of these days.’
‘My pleasure, old chap,’ he replied with a thin little smile. ‘Stop by any time.’
‘Oh, I will, Ctuchik, I will. Incidentally, don’t try to follow me, and don’t send anybody to get in my way - not anybody you care anything about, anyway.’
‘I don’t really care for anybody, old man.’
‘You ought to try it sometime, Ctuchik. It might sweeten your disposition.’
Then I went out and closed the door behind me.
Chapter 28
I flew due west from Rak Cthol, then went wolf and skirted the eastern border of Maragor, and climbed up through the Tolnedran mountains to the southern end of the Vale. All in all, I was rather pleased with myself. Things had gone well at Rak Cthol.
It was early evening when I reached my tower.
‘How did it go?’ Beldin asked me when I joined him and Pol.
‘Not bad.’ I said it in an off-hand sort of way. Boasting’s very unbecoming, after all.
‘What happened, father?’ Pol asked in that suspicious tone she always takes when I’ve been out of her sight for more than five minutes. I wish Polgara would trust me just once. Of course, that would probably stop the sun.
I shrugged. ‘I went to Rak Cthol.’
‘Yes, I know. And -?’
‘I talked to Ctuchik.’
‘And -?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘Father, get to the point!’
‘Actually, I led him down the garden path. I told him a great many things he already knew just as an excuse to get close enough to him to test his capabilities. He’s actually not all that
good.’ I sat down in my favorite chair. ‘Is supper ready yet?’ I asked her.
‘It’s still cooking. Talk, father. What really happened?’
‘I slipped into his city and paid him a call in the middle of the night. I made a large issue of telling him to keep his Murgos out of the western kingdoms, and then I raised the possibility that if the Murgos irritated the Alorns too much, Riva might use the Orb against them. That can’t happen, of course, but I think the notion worried Ctuchik. He seems to be very gullible in some ways. I’m sure he believes that I’m a fussy old windbag who runs around repeating the obvious. Then I raised the possibility that if somebody did something that he wasn’t supposed to do, it might just let pure, random chance enter into the picture.’
‘And he believed you?’ Beldin asked incredulously.
‘He seemed to. At least he considered it enough to worry about it. Then we discussed the Ashabine Oracles. Both Ctuchik and Urvon are trying to slip people into Torak’s house at Ashaba to get copies, but I got the impression that Torak’s controlling those copies rather jealously, and Zedar’s doing his best to keep his brothers’ spies away from Ashaba. The three of them hate each other with a passion that’s almost holy.’
‘What’s Ctuchik look like?’ Beldin asked me. ‘I’ve seen that piebald Urvon a few times, but I’ve never actually seen Ctuchik.’
‘He’s tall, skinny, and he’s got a long, white beard. He looks like a walking corpse.’
‘Peculiar.’
‘What is?’
‘Old Burnt-face seems to be attracted to ugliness. Ctuchik sounds hideous, and that speckled Urvon’s no prize. Zedar’s not so bad, I guess - unless you want to take the ugliness of his soul into account.’
‘You’re not really in a position to talk, uncle,’ Pol reminded him.
‘You didn’t have to say that, Pol. What now, Belgarath?’
I scratched at my beard. ‘I think we’d better get the twins and see if we can contact the Master. We need some advice here. The Angaraks absolutely must have uncorrupted copies of the Oracles, and Torak’s doing everything he possibly can to keep that from happening.’
‘Can we do that?’ Pol asked me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted, ‘but I think we’d better try. Zedar might have a clean copy, but I’d hate to hang the fate of the world on a maybe.’
As it turned out, it was surprisingly easy to get in touch with Aldur. I think it might have been because we were in an interim stage between the time when we were guided by the Gods and the time when the prophecies took over. At any rate, a simple ‘Master, we need you’ brought Aldur’s presence into my tower. He was a bit filmy and indistinct, but he was there.
He went immediately to Polgara, which shouldn’t have surprised me. ‘My beloved daughter,’ he said to her, lightly touching her cheek.
Would you believe that I felt a momentary surge of jealousy at that point? Polgara was my daughter, not his. We all get strange when we get older, I guess. I choked back my instinctive protest, and I think I had a little epiphany at that point. Jealousy is a symptom of love, I suppose - a primitive form, but love nonetheless. I loved my dark-haired, steely-eyed daughter, and, since love - and hate - are at the very core of what I am, Polgara won the whole game right then and there. We argued for another three thousand years or so, but all I was doing was fighting a rearguard action. I’d already lost.
‘You know what Torak’s doing at Ashaba, don’t you, Master?’ Beldin asked.
‘Yes, my son,’ Aldur replied sadly. ‘My brother is distraught, and he thinks to change what must happen by changing the word which tells him of it.’
‘If he goes too far and changes the Oracles too much, his Angaraks won’t know what they’re supposed to do,’ I said in a worried tone. ‘Are we going to have to take steps?’
‘Nay, my son,’ the Master replied. ‘True copies do exist, though my brother might wish otherwise. The Necessity which drives him will not be so thwarted. Belzedar is with my brother, and, though he knows it not, he is still in some measure driven by our Necessity. He hath ensured that the words of that other Necessity are safe and whole.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Beldin said. ‘If we had to start taking care of both sets of instructions, it might get burdensome. I think we’re going to have our hands full just taking care of our own.’
‘Set thy mind at rest, my son,’ Aldur told him. ‘The steps which lead to the ultimate meeting unfalteringly proceed.’
‘We’ve identified two of the prophets who’re giving us our instructions, Master,’ I advised him. ‘Their words are being faithfully set down.’
‘Excellent, my son.’
Pol looked slightly worried. ‘Are there others, Master?’ she asked. ‘The Alorns know how important those prophecies are, but I don’t think the Tolnedrans or the Arends do. We could be missing something significant. Are there other speakers?’
He nodded. ‘They are of less import, however, my daughter, and are more in the nature of verification. Put thy mind at ease. Failing all else, we may appeal to the Dals for aid. The Seers at Kell are seeking out all the prophecies - both the instruction of our Necessity and that of Torak’s.’
‘Astonishing,’ Beldin said. ‘The Dals are actually doing something useful for a change.’
‘They must, gentle Beldin, for they too have a task in this matter - a task of gravest significance. We must not hinder them. The path they follow is obscure, but it will in the fullness of time bring them to the self-same place whither our path leads us. All is proceeding as it must, my children. Be not unquiet. We will speak more of this anon.’
And then he was gone.
‘Evidently we’re doing it right,’ Beldin noted, ‘at least so far.’
‘You worry too much, Beldin,’ Belkira told him. ‘I don’t think we could do it wrong.’
Beltira, however, was looking at Pol with a kind of wonder on his face. ‘Dear sister,’ he said to her.
That came crashing down on me. ‘Please don’t do that, Beltira,’ I told him.
‘But she is, Belgarath. She is one of our fellowship.’
‘Yes, I know, but it puts me in a peculiar situation. I know that Pol and I are related, but this turn of events makes it very complicated.’
‘Be not dismayed, dear brother,’ Pol told me sweetly. ‘I’ll explain it all to you later - in simple terms, of course. Now, if you gentlemen will get out of my kitchen, I’ll finish fixing supper.’
Things went on quietly in the Vale for the next several years. Polgara continued her education, and I think she startled us all by how rapidly she was progressing. Pol had joined us late, but she was more than making up for lost time. There were levels of subtlety in some of the things she did that were absolutely exquisite. I didn’t tell her, of course, but I was terribly proud of her.
It was spring, I think, when Algar Fleet-foot came down into the Vale to deliver copies of the now-completed Darine Codex to us. ‘Bormik died last autumn,’ he told us. ‘His daughter spent the winter putting everything together and then sent word to me that the Codex was finished. I went there to pick it up and to persuade her to come back to Algaria with me.’
‘Wasn’t she happy in Darine?’ Pol asked him.
He shrugged. ‘She may have been, but she’s done us a great service, and Darine isn’t going to be the safest place in the world later on this summer.’
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘The Bear-Cult’s starting to get out of hand there, so it’s time for me to go explain a few things to them. Hatturk’s beginning to annoy me. Oh, Dras sent these.’ He opened another pouch and took out several scrolls. ‘This isn’t complete yet, because the Mrin prophet’s still talking, but these are copies of everything he’s said so far.’
‘That’s what I’ve been waiting for,’ I told him eagerly.
‘Don’t get your hopes up too much,’ he told me. ‘I looked into them a few times on my way down here. Are you sure that fellow who’s chained to a post
up in Drasnia is really a prophet? That thing you’ve got in your hands is pure gibberish. I’d hate to see you following instructions that turn out to be no more than the ravings of a genuine madman.’
‘The Mrin prophet can’t rave, Algar,’ I assured him. ‘He can’t talk.’
‘He’s talked enough to fill up four scrolls so far.’
‘That’s the whole point. Everything that’s in these scrolls is pure prophecy, because the poor fellow’s incapable of speech except when he’s passing on the words of the Necessity.’
‘Whatever you say, Belgarath. Are you coming to the Alorn Council this summer?’
‘I think that might be nice, father,’ Pol said. ‘I haven’t seen Beldaran for quite a while, and you should probably look in on your grandson.’
‘I really ought to work on these, Pol,’ I objected, pointing at the scrolls.
‘Bring them with you, father,’ she suggested. ‘They’re not that heavy, after all.’ Then she turned back to Algar. ‘Send word to Riva,’ she told him. ‘Let him know that we’re coming. Now, how’s your wife?’
And so we went to the Isle of the Winds for the meeting of the Alorn Council - which was more in the nature of a family gathering in those days than it was a formal meeting of heads of state. We had a brief business meeting to get that out of the way, and then we were free to enjoy ourselves.
I was a bit surprised to discover that my grandson was about seven years old now. I tend to lose track of time when I’m working on something, and the years had slipped by without my noticing them.
Daran was a sturdy little boy with sandy-colored hair and a serious nature. We got along well together. He loved to listen to stories, and, though it’s probably immodest of me to say it, I’m most likely one of the best story-tellers in the world.
Belgarath the Sorcerer Page 42