The Seeress of Kell Read online

  ‘Aren’t you getting a little exotic, Beldin?’ Zakath asked sceptically.

  ‘Not really. Actually, I’m simplifying. A curse designed to keep away people you’re not really afraid of doesn’t make sense. Everybody’s always thought that the curse was there to protect Kell itself, and that doesn’t make any sense either. Isn’t it simpler to assume that there’s something more important that has to be protected?’

  ‘What is there about this sound that would make the Dals so concerned about having it overheard?’ Velvet asked, sounding perplexed.

  ‘All right,’ Beldin said. ‘What is a sound?’

  ‘Not that again,’ Belgarath sighed.

  ‘I’m not talking about the noise in the woods. A sound is just a noise unless it’s meaningful. What do we call a meaningful sound?’

  ‘Talk, isn’t it?’ Silk ventured.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Ce’Nedra confessed. ‘What are the Dals saying that they want to keep secret? Nobody understands what they’re saying anyway.’

  Beldin spread his hands helplessly, but Durnik was pacing up and down, his face creased with thought. ‘Maybe it’s not so much what they’re saying, but how.’

  ‘And you accuse me of being obscure,’ Beldin said to Belgarath. ‘What are you getting at, Durnik?’

  ‘I’m groping,’ the smith admitted. ‘The noise, or sound – whatever you want to call it – isn’t a signal that somebody’s turning people into frogs.’ He stopped. ‘Can we really do that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Beldin said, ‘but it’s not worth the trouble. Frogs multiply at a ferocious rate. I’d rather have one person who irritated me instead of a million or so aggravating frogs.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Durnik continued. ‘It’s not the noise that sorcery makes.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Belgarath agreed.

  ‘And I think Ce’Nedra’s right. Nobody really understands what the Dals are saying – except for other Dals. Half the time I can’t follow what Cyradis is saying from one end of a sentence to the other.’

  ‘What does that leave?’ Beldin asked intently, his eyes alight.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got the feeling though that “How” is more important than “What”.’ Durnik suddenly looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I’m talking too much,’ he confessed. ‘I’m sure that some of the rest of you have more important things to say about this than I do.’

  ‘I don’t really think so,’ Beldin told him. ‘I think you’re right on the edge of it. Don’t lose it.’

  Durnik was actually sweating now. He covered his eyes with one hand, trying to collect his thoughts. Garion noticed that everyone in the room was almost breathlessly watching his old friend labor with a concept that was probably far beyond the grasp of any of the rest of them.

  ‘There has to be something that the Dals are trying to protect,’ the smith went on, ‘and it has to be something that’s very simple – for them at least – but something they don’t want anybody else to understand. I wish Toth were here. He might be able to explain it.’ Then his eyes went very wide.

  ‘What is it, dear?’ Polgara asked.

  ‘It can’t be that!’ he exclaimed, suddenly very excited. ‘It couldn’t be!’

  ‘Durnik!’ she said in exasperation.

  ‘Do you remember when Toth and I first began to talk to each other – in gestures, I mean?’ Durnik was suddenly talking very fast and he was almost breathless. ‘We’d been working together, and a man who works with someone else begins to know exactly what the other one is doing – and even what he’s thinking.’ He stared at Silk. ‘You and Garion and Pol use that finger-language’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve seen the gestures Toth makes. Would the secret language be able to say all that much with just a few waves of the hand – the way he does it?’

  Garion already knew the answer.

  Silk’s voice was puzzled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That would be impossible.’

  ‘But I know exactly what he’s trying to say,’ Durnik told them. ‘The gestures don’t mean anything at all. He does it just to make me – to give me some rational explanation for what he’s really doing.’ Durnik’s face grew awed. ‘He’s been putting the words directly into my mind – without even talking. He has to, because he can’t talk. What if that’s what this murmuring we hear is? What if it’s the sound of the Dals talking to one another? And what if they can do it over long distances?’

  ‘And over time, too,’ Beldin said in a startled voice. ‘Do you remember what your big, silent friend said when we first got here? He said that nothing the Dals have ever done has ever been forgotten and that every Dal alive knows everything that every Dal who’s ever lived knew.’

  ‘You’re suggesting an absurdity, Beldin,’ Belgarath scoffed.

  ‘No. Not really. Ants do it. So do bees.’

  ‘We aren’t ants – or bees.’

  ‘I can do almost anything a bee can do.’ The hunchback shrugged. ‘Except make honey – and you could probably build a fairly acceptable ant hill.’

  ‘Will one of you please explain what you’re talking about?’ Ce’Nedra asked crossly.

  ‘They’re hinting at the possibility of a group mind, dear,’ Polgara said quite calmly. ‘They’re not doing it very well, but that’s what they’re groping toward.’ She gave the two old men a condescending sort of smile. ‘There are certain creatures – usually insects – that don’t have very much intelligence individually, but as a group they’re very wise. A single bee isn’t too bright, but a bee-hive knows everything that’s ever happened to it.’

  The she-wolf had come padding in, her toe-nails clicking on the marble floor and with the puppy scampering along behind her. ‘Wolves do it as well,’ she supplied, indicating that she had been listening at the door.

  ‘What did she say?’ Silk asked.

  ‘She said that wolves do the same thing,’ Garion translated. Then he remembered something. ‘I was talking with Hettar once, and he said that horses are the same way. They don’t think of themselves as individuals – only as parts of the herd.’

  ‘Would it really be possible for people to do something like that?’ Velvet asked incredulously.

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Polgara replied.

  ‘No, Pol,’ Belgarath said very firmly. ‘It’s too dangerous. You could be drawn into it and never be able to get back out.’

  ‘No, Father,’ she replied quite calmly. ‘The Dals may not let me in, but they won’t hurt me or keep me in if I want to leave.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’ And she closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THEY STOOD WATCHING her apprehensively as she lifted her flawless face. Eyes closed, she concentrated. Then a strange expression came to her features.

  ‘Well?’ Belgarath asked.

  ‘Quiet, Father. I’m listening.’

  He stood drumming his fingers impatiently on the back of a chair, and the others watched breathlessly.

  At last Polgara opened her eyes with a vaguely regretful sigh. ‘It’s enormous,’ she said very quietly. ‘It has every thought these people have ever had – and every memory. It even remembers the beginning, and every one of them shares in it.’

  ‘And so did you?’ Belgarath asked her.

  ‘For a moment, father. They let me catch a glimpse of it. There are parts of it that are blocked off, though.’

  ‘We might have guessed that,’ Beldin said, scowling. ‘They’re not going to provide access to anything that would give us the slightest advantage. They’ve been perched on that fence since the beginning of time.’

  Polgara sighed again and sat on a low divan.

  ‘Are you all right, Pol?’ Durnik asked with some concern.

  ‘I’m fine, Durnik,’ she replied. ‘It’s just that for a moment I saw something I’ve never experienced before, and then they asked me to leave.’

  Silk
’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Do you think they’d object if we left this house and had a look around?’

  ‘No. They won’t mind.’

  ‘I’d say that’s our next step then,’ the little man suggested. ‘We know that the Dals are the ones who are going to make the final choice – at least Cyradis is – but this oversoul of theirs is probably going to provide her some direction.’

  ‘That’s a very interesting term, Kheldar,’ Beldin noted.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Oversoul. How did you come up with it?’

  ‘I’ve always had a way with words.’

  ‘There may be some hope for you after all. Someday we’ll have to have a long talk.’

  ‘I shall place myself at your disposal, Beldin,’ Silk said with a florid bow. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘since the Dals are going to decide things, I think we ought to get to know them better. If they’re leaning in the wrong direction, maybe we can sway them back.’

  ‘Typically devious,’ Sadi murmured, ‘but probably not a bad idea. We should split up, though. We’ll be able to cover more ground that way.’

  ‘Right after breakfast,’ Belgarath agreed.

  ‘But, Grandfather,’ Garion protested, impatient to be off.

  ‘I’m hungry, Garion, and I don’t think well when I’m hungry.’

  ‘That might explain a lot,’ Beldin noted blandly. ‘We should have fed you more often when you were younger.’

  ‘You can be terribly offensive sometimes, do you know that?’

  ‘Why, yes, as a matter of fact I do.’

  The same group of young women brought breakfast to them, and Velvet drew aside the large-eyed girl with the glossy brown hair and spoke with her briefly. Then the blond girl returned to the table. ‘Her name is Onatel,’ she reported, ‘and she’s invited Ce’Nedra and me to visit the place where she and the other young women work. Young women talk a great deal, so we might pick up something useful.’

  ‘Wasn’t Onatel the name of that seeress we met on the Isle of Verkat?’ Sadi asked.

  ‘It’s a common name among Dalasian women,’ Zakath told him. ‘Onatel was one of their most honored seeresses.’

  ‘But the Isle of Verkat is in Cthol Murgos,’ Sadi pointed out.

  ‘It’s not all that strange,’ Belgarath said. ‘We’ve had some fairly strong hints that the Dals and the slave-race of Cthol Murgos are closely related and keep in more or less constant contact. This is just some additional confirmation.’

  The morning sun was warm and bright as they emerged from the house and strolled off in various directions. Garion and Zakath had removed their armor and left their swords behind, although Garion prudently carried the Orb in a pouch tied to his belt. The two of them walked across a dewy lawn toward a group of larger buildings near the center of the city.

  ‘You’re always very careful with that stone, aren’t you, Garion?’ Zakath asked.

  ‘I’m not sure that careful is the exact word,’ Garion replied, ‘but then again, maybe it is – in a broader sense. You see, the Orb is very dangerous, and I don’t want it hurting people by accident.’

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. I’ve never seen it do anything to anybody – except possibly Torak – but that might have been the sword.’

  ‘And you’re the only one in the world who can touch the Orb?’

  ‘Hardly. Eriond carried it around for a couple of years. He kept trying to give it to people. They were mostly Alorns, so they knew better than to take it.’

  ‘Then you and Eriond are the only people who can touch it?’

  ‘My son can,’ Garion said. ‘I put his hand on it right after he was born. It was very happy to meet him.’

  ‘A stone? Happy?’

  ‘It’s not like other stones.’ Garion smiled. ‘It can be a little silly now and then. It gets carried away by its own enthusiasm. I have to be very careful about what I think sometimes. If it decides I really want something, it might just take independent action.’ He laughed. ‘Once I was speculating about the time when Torak cracked the world, and it proceeded to tell me how to patch it.’

  ‘You’re not serious!’

  ‘Oh, yes. It has no conception of the word impossible. If I really wanted it to, it could probably spell out my name in stars.’ He felt a small twitch in the pouch at his belt. ‘Stop that!’ he said sharply to the Orb. ‘That was just an example, not a request.’

  Zakath was staring at him.

  ‘Wouldn’t that look grotesque?’ Garion said wryly. “Belgarion” running from horizon to horizon across the night sky?’

  ‘You know something, Garion,’ Zakath said. ‘I’ve always believed that someday you and I would go to war with each other. Would you be terribly disappointed if I decided not to show up?’

  ‘I think I could bear it,’ Garion grinned at him. ‘If nothing else, I could always start without you. You could drop by from time to time to see how things were going. Ce’Nedra can fix you supper. Of course, she’s not a very good cook, but we all have to make a few sacrifices, don’t we?’

  They looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing. The process which had begun at Rak Urga with the quixotic Urgit was now complete. Garion realized with a certain amount of satisfaction that he had taken the first few steps toward ending five thousand years of unrelenting hatred between Alorn and Angarak.

  The Dals paid little attention to them as they strolled along marble streets and past sparkling fountains. The inhabitants of Kell went about their activities quietly and contemplatively, their eyes lost in thought. They spoke but little, since speech among them was largely unnecessary.

  ‘It’s an eerie sort of place, isn’t it?’ Zakath observed. ‘I’m not used to cities where nobody does anything.’

  ‘Oh, they’re doing something, all right.’

  ‘You know what I mean. There aren’t any shops, and nobody’s even out sweeping the streets.’

  ‘It is a little odd, I suppose.’ Garion looked around. ‘What’s even odder is that we haven’t seen a single seer since we got here. I thought this was the place where they lived.’

  ‘Maybe they stay indoors.’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose.’

  Their morning stroll gained them little information. They tried occasionally to strike up conversations with the white-robed citizens, and although the Dals were unfailingly polite, they volunteered little in the way of talk. They answered questions which were put to them and that was about all.

  ‘Frustrating, wasn’t it?’ Silk said when he and Sadi returned to the house which had been assigned to them. ‘I’ve never met a group of people so disinterested in talk. I couldn’t even find anybody willing to discuss the weather.’

  ‘Did you happen to see which way Ce’Nedra and Liselle went?’ Garion asked him.

  ‘Someplace over on the other side of town, I think. I imagine they’ll come back when those young women bring us our lunch.’

  Garion looked around at the others. ‘Did anybody happen to see any of the seers?’ he asked.

  ‘They aren’t here,’ Polgara told him. She sat by a window mending one of Durnik’s tunics. ‘One old woman told me they have a special place. It’s not in the city.’

  ‘How did you manage to get an answer out of her?’ Silk asked.

  ‘I was fairly direct. You have to push the Dals a bit when you want information.’

  As Silk had predicted, Velvet and Ce’Nedra returned with the young women who were bringing their meals to them.

  ‘You have a brilliant wife, Belgarion,’ Velvet said after the Dalasian women had left. ‘She sounded for all the world as if there weren’t a brain in her head. She spent the morning babbling.’

  ‘Babbling?’ Ce’Nedra objected.

  ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so, but “babbling” is such an unflattering word.’

  ‘I presume there was a reason for it?’ Sadi suggested.

 
; ‘Of course,’ Ce’Nedra said. ‘I saw fairly soon that those girls weren’t going to be very talkative, so I filled up the spaces. They began to loosen up after a bit. I talked so that Liselle could watch their faces.’ She smiled smugly. ‘It worked out fairly well, even if I do say it myself.’

  ‘Did you get anything out of them?’ Polgara asked.

  ‘A few things,’ Velvet replied. ‘Nothing all that specific, but a few hints. I think we should be able to get a bit more this afternoon.’

  Ce’Nedra looked around. ‘Where’s Durnik?’ she asked, ‘and Eriond?’

  ‘Where else?’ Polgara sighed.

  ‘Where did they find any water to fish in?’

  ‘Durnik can smell water from several miles away,’ Polgara told her in a resigned tone of voice, ‘and he can tell you what kind of fish are in it, how many, and probably even what their names are.’

  ‘I’ve never cared all that much for fish myself,’ Beldin said.

  ‘I don’t know that Durnik does either, Uncle.’

  ‘Why does he bother them then?’

  She spread her hands helplessly. ‘How should I know? The motives of fishermen are dreadfully obscure. I can tell you one thing, though.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  ‘You’ve said a number of times that you want to have some long conversations with him.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You’d better learn how to fish then. Otherwise, he probably won’t be around.’

  ‘Has anybody come by to give us any kind of word about Cyridis?’ Garion asked.

  ‘Not a soul,’ Beldin replied.

  ‘We don’t really have time for an extended stay,’ Garion fretted.

  ‘I might be able to stir an answer out of somebody,’ Zakath offered. ‘She commanded me to present myself to her here at Kell.’ He winced slightly. ‘I can’t believe I just said that. Nobody’s commanded me to do anything since I was about eight years old. Anyway, you know what I mean. I could insist that somebody take me to her so I can obey her orders.’

  ‘I think you might choke on that one, Zakath,’ Silk said lightly. ‘Obey is a difficult concept for someone in your position.’