The Seeress of Kell Page 16

  ‘You might ask your friend the baron,’ Silk suggested. ‘If she’s here, he might have heard something about her.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Belgarath said. ‘In the past she’s usually gone to a great deal of trouble to remain unobserved.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Silk conceded, ‘and I think she’ll go to even more trouble now. She might have some difficulty trying to explain those lights under her skin.’

  ‘Let’s wait until we get to Dal Perivor,’ Belgarath decided. ‘I want to sort things out there before we do anything irrevocable.’

  ‘Do you suppose it would do any good to ask Cyradis?’ Garion asked quietly, glancing back at the Seeress, who rode in the splendid carriage the baron had provided for the ladies.

  ‘No,’ Belgarath said. ‘She won’t be permitted to answer us.’

  ‘I think we might have a certain advantage in all this,’ Silk observed. ‘Cyradis is the one who’s going to make the choice, and the fact that she’s traveling with us instead of with Zandramas bodes rather well, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Garion disagreed. ‘I don’t think she’s traveling with us so much as she’s here to keep an eye on Zakath. He has something very important to do, and she doesn’t want him to stray.’

  Silk grunted. ‘Where do you propose to start looking for this map you’re supposed to find?’ he asked Belgarath.

  ‘A library probably,’ the old man replied. ‘This map is another one of those “mysteries”, and I’ve had a fair degree of luck finding the others in libraries. Garion, see if you can persuade the baron to take us to the king’s court in Dal Perivor. Palace libraries are usually the most complete.’

  ‘Of course,’ Garion agreed.

  ‘I want to take a look at this wizard anyway. Silk, do you have an office in Dal Perivor?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Belgarath. There’s nothing here worth trading in.’

  ‘Well, no matter. You’re a businessman, and there’ll be others in the city. Go talk business with them. Tell them you want to check over shipping routes. Look at every map you can lay your hands on. You know what we’re looking for.’

  ‘You’re cheating, Belgarath,’ Beldin growled.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Cyradis told you that you were supposed to find the map.’

  ‘I’m only delegating responsibility, Beldin. It’s perfectly legitimate.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d see it that way.’

  ‘You can explain it to her. You’re much more persuasive than I am.’

  They traveled in easy stages, more to spare the horses, Garion felt, than for any other reason. The horses of Perivor were not large, and they labored under the weight of men in full armor. So it was that it was several days before they crested a hill and looked down at the seaport city which was the capital of Perivor.

  ‘Behold Dal Perivor,’ the baron proclaimed, ‘the crown and the heart of the isle.’

  Garion saw immediately that the shipwrecked Arends who had arrived on this shore two thousand years ago had made a conscious effort to duplicate Vo Mimbre. The city walls were high and thick and yellow, and brightly colored pennons flew from spires within those walls.

  ‘Where did they find the yellow stone, my Lord?’ Zakath asked the baron. ‘I have seen no such rock on our journey here.’

  The baron coughed a bit apologetically. ‘The walls are painted, Sir Knight,’ he explained.

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To serve as a remembrance of Vo Mimbre,’ the baron said a bit sadly. ‘Our ancestors were homesick for Arendia. Vo Mimbre is the jewel of our ancestral home, and its golden walls speak to our blood even across the endless miles.’

  ‘Ah,’ Zakath said.

  ‘As I have promised thee, Sir Knight,’ the baron said to Garion, ‘gladly will I convey thee and thy companions forthwith to the king’s palace where he will doubtless honor ye and offer ye his hospitality.’

  ‘Once more we are in thy debt, my Lord,’ Garion replied.

  The baron smiled a bit slyly. ‘I confess it to thee, Sir Knight, that my motives are not altogether magnanimous. I will accrue much credit by presenting at court stranger knights bent on a noble quest.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, my friend,’ Garion laughed. ‘This way there’s something for everybody.’

  The palace was almost identical to that in Vo Mimbre, a fortress within a fortress with high walls and a stout gate.

  ‘At least this time I don’t think my grandfather will have to grow a tree,’ Garion murmured to Zakath.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘When we first went to Vo Mimbre, the knight in charge of the palace gate didn’t believe Mandorallen when he introduced Grandfather as Belgarath the Sorcerer, so Grandfather took a twig from his horse’s tail and made an apple tree grow right there in the square in front of the palace. Then he ordered the sceptical knight to spend the rest of his life taking care of it.’

  ‘Did the knight actually do it?’

  ‘I assume so. Mimbrates take those kinds of commands very seriously.’

  ‘Strange people.’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. I had to force Mandorallen to marry a girl he’d loved since childhood, and I had to stop a war in the process.’

  ‘How do you stop a war?’

  ‘I made some threats. I think they took me seriously.’ He thought about it. ‘The thunderstorm I created may have helped, though,’ he added. ‘Anyway, Mandorallen and Nerina had loved each other for years, but they’d been suffering in silence beautiful for all that time. I finally got tired of it, so I made them get on with it. I made some more threats. I’ve got this big knife back here.’ He poked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘It attracts a lot of attention sometimes.’

  ‘Garion!’ Zakath laughed. ‘You’re a peasant.

  ‘Yes. Probably,’ Garion admitted. ‘But it got them married, after all. They’re both deliriously happy now, and if anything goes wrong, they can always blame me, can’t they?’

  ‘You’re not like other men, my friend,’ Zakath said very seriously.

  ‘No.’ Garion sighed, ‘Probably not. I’d like to be, though. The world lies very heavily on you and me, Zakath, and it doesn’t leave us any time for ourselves. Wouldn’t you just like to ride out on a summer morning to look at the sunrise and see what lies over the next hilltop?’

  ‘I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.’

  ‘Not entirely. We’re doing all this because we’re compelled to. What I was talking about was doing it just for fun.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything just for fun in years.’

  ‘Didn’t you rather enjoy threatening to crucify King Gethel of the Thulls? Ce’Nedra told me about that.’

  Zakath laughed. ‘That wasn’t too bad,’ he admitted. ‘I wouldn’t have done it, of course. Gethel was an idiot, but he was sort of necessary at that point.’

  ‘It always comes to that, doesn’t it? You and I do what’s necessary, not what we’d really prefer to do. Neither of us sought this eminence, but we’ll do what’s necessary and what’s expected of us. If we don’t, this world will die, and good, honest men will die with it. I won’t permit that if I can help it. I won’t betray those good, honest men, and neither will you. You’re too good a man yourself.’

  ‘Good? Me?’

  ‘You underestimate yourself, Zakath, and I think that very soon someone will come and teach you not to hate yourself any more.’

  Zakath started visibly.

  ‘You didn’t think I knew?’ Garion said, boring in relentlessly. ‘But that’s nearly over now. Your suffering and pain and remorse are almost done, and if you need any instructions in how to be happy, look me up. After all, that’s what friends are for, aren’t they?’

  A choked sob came from behind Zakath’s visor.

  The she-wolf had been standing between their horses. She looked up at Garion. ‘Very well done,’ she said. ‘Perhaps one has misjudged you, young wolf. Perhaps you are not
a puppy after all.’

  ‘One can but do one’s best,’ Garion replied, also in the language of wolves. ‘One hopes that one has not been too much a disappointment.’

  ‘One feels that you have some promise, Garion.’

  And that confirmed something that Garion had suspected for some time now. ‘Thank you, Grandmother,’ he said, sure at last just to whom he was speaking.

  ‘And it took you so very, very long to say it?’

  ‘It might have been considered impolite.’

  ‘One believes that you have been too long with one’s eldest daughter. She is, one has noticed, much caught up in propriety. One assumes you will continue to keep your discovery to yourself?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘It might be wiser.’ She looked at the palace gate. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It is the palace of the king.’

  ‘What are kings to wolves?’

  ‘It is the custom among the man-things to pay respect to them, Grandmother. The respect is more to the custom than to the man-thing who wears the crown.’

  ‘How very curious,’ she sniffed.

  At last, with a great deal of creaking and the clanking of chain, the drawbridge boomed down, and Baron Astellig and his knights led them into the palace courtyard.

  As was the one in Vo Mimbre, the throne room here in Dal Perivor was a great, vaulted hall with sculptured buttresses soaring upward along the walls. Tall, narrow windows rose between the buttresses, and the light streaming through their stained glass panels was jeweled. The floor was polished marble, and on the red-carpeted stone platform at the far end stood the throne of Perivor, backed by heavy purple drapes. Flanking the draped wall hung the massive antique weapons of two thousand years of the royal house. Lances, maces, and huge swords, taller than any man, hung among the tattered war-banners of forgotten kings.

  Almost bemused by the similarities, Garion half-expected to see Mandorallen in his gleaming armor come striding across the marble floor to greet them, flanked by red-bearded Barak and horse-maned Hettar. Once again, that strange sense of recurrence struck him. With a start he realized that in recounting past experiences to Zakath, he had in fact been reliving them. In some obscure way this seemed a kind of cleansing in preparation for the now almost inevitable meeting in the Place Which Is No More.

  ‘And it please ye, Sir Knights,’ Baron Astellig said to Garion and Zakath, ‘let us approach the throne of King Oldorin that I may present ye to his Majesty. I will advise him of the diverse restrictions your quest hath lain upon ye.’

  ‘Thy courtesy and consideration become thee, my Lord of Astellig,’ Garion said. ‘Gladly will we greet thy king.’

  The three of them proceeded along the marble floor toward the carpeted platform. King Oldorin, Garion noticed, was a more robust-looking man than Korodullin of Arendia, but his eyes revealed a fearful lack of anything resembling thought.

  A tall, powerfully built knight stepped in front of Astellig. ‘This is unseemly, my Lord,’ he said. ‘Instruct thy companions to raise their visors that the king may behold those who approach him.’

  ‘I will explain to his Majesty the reason for this necessary concealment, my Lord,’ Astellig replied a bit stiffly. ‘I assure thee that these knights, whom I dare to call friends, intend no disrespect to our Lord King.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Baron Astellig,’ the knight said, ‘but I cannot permit this.’

  The baron’s hand went to his sword hilt.

  ‘Steady,’ Garion warned, placing one gauntleted hand on Astellig’s arm. ‘As all the world knows, it is forbidden to draw arms in the king’s presence.’

  ‘Thou art well-versed in propriety, Sir Knight,’ the man barring their way said, sounding a bit less sure of himself now.

  ‘I’ve been in the presence of kings before, my Lord, and I am conversant with the customary usages. I do assure thee that we mean no disrespect to his Majesty by our visored approach to the throne. We are compelled to it, however, by a stern duty which hath been lain upon us.’

  The knight looked even more unsure of himself. ‘Thou art well-spoken, Sir Knight,’ he admitted grudgingly.

  ‘An it please you then, Sir Knight,’ Garion continued, ‘wilt thou accompany Baron Astellig, my companion, and myself to the throne? A man of thine obvious prowess can easily prevent mischief.’ A little flattery never hurt anything in difficult situations.

  ‘It shall be as thou sayest, Sir Knight,’ the knight decided.

  The four of them approached the throne and bowed somewhat stiffly. ‘My Lord King,’ Astellig said.

  ‘Baron,’ Oldorin replied with an absent-seeming nod.

  ‘I have the honor to present two stranger knights who have traveled here from afar in pursuit of a noble quest.’

  The king looked interested. The word ‘quest’ rang bells in Mimbrate heads.

  ‘As thou may have noticed, your Majesty,’ Astellig continued, ‘my friends are visored. This is not to be taken as a gesture of disrespect, but is a necessary concealment required by the nature of their quest. A foul evil is abroad in the world, and they journey with diverse companions to confront it. They each have some eminence in the world beyond the shores of our isle, and should they reveal their faces, they would instantly be recognized, and the evil one they seek would be forewarned of their coming and would seek to impede them. Thus it is that their visors must remain closed.’

  ‘A reasonable precaution,’ the king agreed. ‘Greetings, Sir Knights, and well-met.’

  ‘Thou art kind, your Majesty,’ Garion said, ‘and we are grateful to thee for thy gracious understanding of our circumstances. Our quest is fraught with perilous enchantments, and I do fear me that should we reveal our identities, we might well fail, and the whole world would suffer as a result.’

  ‘I do fully understand, Sir Knight, and I will not press thee for further details of thy quest. The walls of any palace have ears, and some there are even here who might be in league with the villain thou seekest.’

  ‘Wisely spoken, my King,’ a rasping voice said from the back of the throne room. ‘As I myself know full well, the powers of enchanters are myriad, and even the prowess of these two brave knights may not be sufficient to match them.’

  Garion turned. The man who had spoken had absolutely white eyes.

  ‘The wizard of whom I told thee,’ Baron Astellig whispered to Garion. ‘Be wary of him, Sir Knight, for he hath the king in thrall.’

  ‘Ah, good Erezel,’ the king said, his face lighting up, ‘an it please thee, approach the throne. Mayhap in thy wisdom thou mayest advise these two questors concerning the possibility of avoiding the perils posed by the enchantments certain to be strewn in their path.’

  ‘It shall be my pleasure, Lord King,’ Naradas replied.

  ‘You know who he is, don’t you?’ Zakath murmured to Garion.

  ‘Yes.’

  Naradas came down to the throne. ‘If I may be so bold as to suggest it, Sir Knights,’ he said in an unctuous tone, ‘a great tourney is planned not long hence. Should you not participate, it might arouse suspicion in the minions the one you seek hath doubtless placed here. My first advice to you, therefore, is that you enter our tourney and thus avoid that mischance.’

  ‘A most excellent suggestion, Erezel,’ the empty-headed king approved. ‘Sir Knights, this is Erezel, a great wizard and the closest advisor to our throne. Consider well his words, for they have great merit. We will, moreover, be greatly honored to have two such mighty men join with us in our forthcoming entertainment.’

  Garion ground his teeth together. With that one innocent-seeming suggestion, Naradas had effectively achieved the delay he had been seeking for weeks now. There was no way out, however. ‘We would be honored to join with thee and thy valiant knights in thy sport, your Majesty,’ he said. ‘Prithee, when are the games to begin?’

  ‘Ten days hence, Sir Knight.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE QUARTERS TO which they were escorted
were again hauntingly familiar. The displaced Arends who had been washed ashore here so many centuries ago had, it appeared, lovingly recreated the royal palace at Vo Mimbre down to the last detail – even including its inconveniences. Durnik, ever practical, noticed this immediately. ‘You’d think they’d have taken advantage of the opportunity to improve a few things,’ he observed.

  ‘There’s a certain charm in archaism, dear,’ Polgara said, smiling.

  ‘It’s nostalgic, perhaps, Pol, but a few modern touches wouldn’t have hurt all that much. You have noticed that the baths are located down in the cellar, haven’t you?’

  ‘There’s a point there, Lady Polgara,’ Velvet agreed.

  ‘It was much more convenient in Mal Zeth,’ Ce’Nedra concurred. ‘A bath in one’s own apartments offers all sorts of opportunities for fun and mischief.’

  Garion’s ears turned bright red.

  ‘I seem to be missing the more interesting parts of this conversation,’ Zakath said slyly.

  ‘Never mind,’ Garion told him shortly.

  And then the dressmakers arrived, and Polgara and the other ladies were whisked away to engage in that activity which, Garion had noticed, always seems to fill the feminine heart with a kind of dreamy bliss.

  Immediately behind the dressmakers came the tailors, equally bent on making everyone look as old-fashioned as possible. Beldin, of course, adamantly refused their ministrations, even going so far as to show one insistent fellow a gnarled and very large fist to indicate that he was perfectly satisfied with the way he looked already.

  Garion and Zakath, however, were under the constraint placed upon them by the Seeress of Kell, and so they remained buckled up in their armor.

  When they were finally alone, Belgarath’s expression grew grave. ‘I want you two to be careful in that tournament,’ he told the armored men. ‘Naradas knows who we are, and he’s already managed to delay us. He may try to go a little farther.’ He looked sharply toward the door. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded of Silk.