Kal Zakath, dread Emperor of boundless Mallorea, looked first at Belgarath, then again at Garion, and finally at Velvet. “Why do I feel that I'm losing control of things here?” he asked. “When you people came here, you were more or less my prisoners. Now somehow I'm yours.”
“We told you some things you didn't know before, that's all,” Belgarath told him.
“Or some things that you've cleverly made up.”
“Why would we do that?”
“I can think of any number of reasons. For the sake of argument I'll accept your story about the abduction of Belgarion's son, but don't you see how that makes all your motives completely obvious? You need my aid in your search. All this mystical nonsense, and your wild story about Urgit's parentage, could have been designed to divert me from my campaign here in Cthol Murgos and to trick me into returning with you to Mallorea. Everything you've done or said since you've come here could have been directed toward that end.”
“Do you really think we'd do that?” Garion asked him.
“Belgarion, if I had a son and someone had abducted him, I'd do anything to get him back. I sympathize with your situation, but I have my own concerns, and they're here, not in Mallorea. I'm sorry, but the more I think about this, the less of it I believe. I could not have misjudged the world so much. Demons? Prophecies? Magic? Immortal old men? It's all been very entertaining, but I don't believe one word of it.”
“Not even what the Orb showed you about Urgit?” Garion asked.
“Please, Belgarion, don't treat me like a child.” Zakath's lips were twisted into an ironic smile. “Isn't it altogether possible that the poison had already crept into my mind? And isn't it also possible that you, like any other of the charlatans who infest village fairs, used a show of mysterious lights and suggestions to make me see what you wanted me to see?”
“What do you believe, Kal Zakath?” Velvet asked him.
“What I can see and touch -and precious little else.”
“So great a skepticism,” she murmured. “Then you do not accept one single out-of-the-ordinary thing?”
“Not that I can think of, no.”
“Not even the peculiar gift of the Seers at Kell? It's been fairly well documented, you know.”
He frowned slightly. “Yes,” he admitted, “as a matter of fact, it has.”
“How can you document a vision?” Garion asked curiously.
“The Grolims were seeking to discredit the Seers,” Zakath replied. “They felt that the easiest way to do that Was to have these pronouncements about the future written down and then wait to see what happened. The bureaucracy was instructed to keep records. So far, not one of the predictions of the Seers has proven false.”
“Then you do believe that the Seers have the ability to know things about the past and the present and the future in ways that the rest of us might not completely understand?” Velvet pressed.
Zakath pursed his lips. “ All right, Margravine,” he said reluctantly, “I'll concede that the Seers have certain abilities that haven't been explained as yet.”
“Do you believe that a Seer could lie to you?”
“Good girl,” Belgarath murmured approvingly.
“No,” Zakath replied after a moment's thought. “A Seer is incapable of lying. Their truthfulness is proverbial.”
“Well, then,” she said with a dimpled smile, “all you need to do to find out if what we've told you is the truth is to send for a Seer, isn't it?”
“Liselle,” Garion protested, “that could take weeks. We don't have that much time.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don't think it would take all that long. If I remember correctly, Lady Polgara said that Andel summoned Cyradis when his Majesty here lay dying. I'm fairly sure we could persuade her to do it for us again.”
“Well, Zakath,” Belgarath said. “Will you agree to accept what Cyradis tells you as the truth?”
The Emperor squinted at him suspiciously, searching for some kind of subterfuge. “You've manipulated me into a corner,” he accused. He thought about it. “All right, Belgarath,” he said finally. “I'll accept whatever Cyradis says as the truth -if you'll agree to do the same.” “Done then,” Belgarath said. “Let's send for Andel and get on with this.”
As Velvet stepped out into the hall to speak with one of the guards who trailed along behind the Emperor wherever he went, Zakath leaned back in his chair. “I can't believe that I'm even considering all the wild impossibilities you've been telling me,” he said.
Garion exchanged a quick look with his grandfather, and then they both laughed.
“Something funny, gentlemen?”
“Just a family joke, Zakath,” Belgarath told him. “Garion and I have been discussing the possible and the impossible since he was about nine years old. He was even more stubborn about it than you are.”
“It gets easier to accept after the first shock wears off,” Garion added. “It's sort of like swimming in very cold water. Once you get numb, it doesn't hurt quite so much.”
It was not long until Velvet reentered the room with the hooded Andel at her side.
“I believe you said that the Seeress of Kell is your mistress, Andel,” Zakath said to her.
“Yes, she is, your Majesty.”
“Can you summon her?”
“Her semblance, your Majesty, if there is need and if she will consent to come.”
“I believe there's a need, Andel. Belgarath has told me certain things that I have to have confirmed. I know that Cyradis speaks only the truth. Belgarath, on the other hand, has a more dubious reputation.” He threw a rather sly, sidelong glance at the old man.
Belgarath grinned at him and winked.
“I will speak with my mistress, your Majesty,” Andel said, “and entreat her to send her semblance here. Should she consent, I beg of you to ask your questions quickly. The effort of reaching half around the world exhausts her, and she is not robust.” Then the Dalasian woman knelt reverently and lowered her head, and Garion once again heard that peculiar murmur as of many voices, followed by a long moment of silence. Again there was that same shimmer in the air; when it had cleared, the hooded and blindfolded form of Cyradis stood there.
“We thank you for coming, Holy Seeress,” Zakath said to her in an oddly respectful tone of voice.” My guests here have told me certain things that I am loath to believe, but I have agreed to accept whatever you can confirm.”
“I will tell thee what I can, Zakath,” she replied. “Some things are hidden from me, and some others may not yet be revealed.”
“I understand the limitations, Cyradis. Belgarion tells me that Urgit, the King of the Murgos, is not of the blood of Taur Urgas. Is this true?”
“It is,” she replied simply. “King Urgit's father was an Alorn.”
“Are any of the sons of Taur Urgas still alive?”
“Nay, Zakath. The line of Taur Urgas became extinct some twelve years ago when his last son was strangled in a cellar in Rak Goska upon the command of Oskatat, King Urgit's Seneschal.”
Zakath sighed and shook his head sadly. “And so it has ended,” he said. “My enemy's line passed unnoticed from this world in a dark cellar -passed so quietly that I could not even rejoice that they were gone, nor curse the ones who stole them from my grasp.”
“Revenge is a hollow thing, Zakath.”
“It's the only thing I've had for almost thirty years now.” He sighed again, then straightened his shoulders. “Did Zandramas really steal Belgarion's son?”
“She did, and now she carries him to the Place Which Is No More.”
“And where's that?”
Her face grew very still. “I may not reveal that,” she replied finally, “but the Sardion is there.”
“Can you tell me what the Sardion is?”
“It is one half of the stone which was divided.”
“Is it really all that important?”
“In all of Angarak there is no thing of greater worth. The Grolims all know this. Urvon would give all his wealth for it. Zandramas would abandon the adoration of multitudes for it. Mengha would give his soul for it -indeed, he hath done so already in his enlistment of demons to aid him. Even Agachak, Hierarch of Rak Urga, would abandon his ascendancy in Cthol Murgos to possess it.”
“How is it that a thing of such value has escaped my notice?”
“Thine eyes are on worldly matters, Zakath. The Sardion is not of this world -no more than the other half of the divided stone is of this world.”
“The other half?”
“ That which the Angaraks call Cthrag Yaska and the men of the West call the Orb of Aldur. Cthrag Sardius and Cthrag Yaska were sundered in the moment which saw the birth of the opposing necessities.”
Zakath's face had grown quite pale, and he clasped his hands tightly in front of him to control their trembling.
“It's all true, then?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“All, Kal Zakath. All.”
“Even that Belgarion and Zandramas are the Child of Light and the Child of Dark?”
“Yes, they are.”
He started to ask her another question, but she raised her hand. “My time is short, Zakath, and I must now reveal something of greater import unto thee, Know that thy life doth approach a momentous crossroads. Put aside thy lust for power and thy hunger for revenge, as they are but childish toys. Return thou even to Mal Zeth to prepare thyself for thy part in the meeting which is to come.”
“My part?” He sounded startled.
“Thy name and thy task are written in the stars.”
“And what is this task?”
“I will instruct thee when thou art ready to understand what it is that thou must do. First thou must cleanse thy heart of that grief and remorse which hath haunted thee.”
His face grew still, and he sighed. “I'm afraid not, Cyradis,” he said. “What you ask is quite impossible.”
“Then thou wilt surely die before the seasons turn again. Consider what I have told thee, and consider it well, Emperor of Mallorea. I will speak with thee anon.” And then she shimmered and vanished.
Zakath stared at the empty spot where she had stood.
His face was pale, and his jaws were set.
“Well, Zakath?” Belgarath said. “Are you convinced?”
The Emperor rose from his chair and began to pace up and down. “This is an absolute absurdity!” he burst out suddenly in an agitated voice.
“I know,” Belgarath replied calmly, “but a willingness to believe the absurd is an indication of faith. It might just be that faith is the first step in the preparation Cyradis mentioned.”
“It's not that I don't want to believe, Belgarath,” Zakath said, in a strangely humble tone. “It's just-“
“Nobody said that it was going to be easy,” the old man told him. “ But you've done things before that weren't easy, haven't you?”
Zakath dropped into his chair again, his eyes lost in thought. “Why me?” he said plaintively. “Why do I have to get involved in this?”
Garion suddenly laughed.
Zakath gave him a cold stare.
“Sorry,” Garion apologized, “but I've been saying 'why me?' since I was about fourteen. Nobody's ever given me a satisfactory answer, but you get used to the injustice of it after a while.”
“It's not that I'm trying to avoid any kind of responsibility, Belgarion. It's just that I can't see what possible help I could be. You people are going to track down Zandramas, retrieve your son, and destroy the Sardion. Isn't that about it?”
“It's a little more complicated than that,” Belgarath told him. “Destroying the Sardion is going to involve something rather cataclysmic.”
“I don't quite follow that. Can't you just wave your hand and make it cease to exist? You are a sorcerer, after all -or so they say.”
“That's forbidden,” Garion said automatically. “You can't unmake things. That's what Ctuchik tried to do, and he destroyed himself.”
Zakath frowned and looked at Belgarath. “I thought you killed him.”
“Most people do.” The old man shrugged. “It adds to my reputation, so I don't argue with them.” He tugged at one earlobe. “No,” he said, “I think we're going to have to see this all the way through to the end. I'm fairly sure that the only way the Sardion can be destroyed is as a result of the final confrontation between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark.” He paused, then sat up suddenly, his face intent. “I think Cyradis slipped and gave us something she hadn't intended, though. She said that the Grolim priesthood all desperately wanted the Sardion, and she included Mengha in her list. Wouldn't that seem to indicate that Mengha's also a Grolim?” He looked at Andel. “ Is your young mistress subject to these little lapses?”
“Cyradis cannot misspeak herself, Holy Belgarath,” the healer replied.” A Seeress does not speak in her own voice, but in the voice of her vision.”
“ Then she wanted us to know that Mengha is -or was- a Grolim, and that the reason he's raising demons is to help him in his search for the Sardion.” He thought about it. “There's another rather bleak possibility, too,” he added. “It might just be that his demons are using him to get the Sardion for themselves. Maybe that's why they're so docile where he's concerned. Demons by themselves are bad enough, but if the Sardion has the same power as the Orb, we definitely don't want it to fall into their hands.” He turned to Zakath. “Well?” he said.
“Well what?”
“Are you with us or against us?”
“Isn't that a little blunt?”
“Yes, it is -but it saves time, and time's starting to be a factor.”
Zakath sank lower in his chair, his expression unreadable. “I find very little benefit for me in this proposed arrangement,” he said.
“You get to keep living,” Garion reminded him. “Cyradis said that you'll die before spring if you don't take up the task she's going to lay in front of you.”
Zakath's faint smile was melancholy, and the dead indifference returned to his eyes. “My life hasn't really been so enjoyable that I'd consider going out of my way to prolong it, Belgarion,” he replied.
“Don't you think you're being just a little childish, Zakath?” Garion snapped, his temper starting to heat up again. “You're not accomplishing a single thing here in Cthol Murgos. There's not one solitary drop of Urga blood left for you to spill, and you've got a situation at home that verges on disaster. Are you a King -or an Emperor, or whatever you want to call it- or are you a spoiled child? You refuse to go back to Mal Zeth just because somebody told you that you ought to. You even dig in your heels when someone assures you that you'll die if you don't go back. That's not only childish, it's irrational, and I don't have the time to try to reason with somebody whose wits have deserted him. Well, you can huddle here in Rak Hagga and nurse all your tired old griefs and disappointments until Cyradis' predictions catch up with you, for all I care, but Geran is my son, and I'm going to Mallorea. I've got work to do, and I don't have time to coddle you.” He had saved something up for last. “Besides,” he added in an insulting, offhand tone, “I don't need you anyway.”
Zakath came to his feet, his eyes ablaze. “You go too far!” he roared, slamming his fist down on the table.
“Amazing,” Garion said sarcastically. “You are alive after all. I thought I might have to step on your foot to get any kind of response of you. All right, now that you're awake, let's fight.”
“What do you mean, fight?” Zakath demanded, his face still flushed with anger. “Fight about what?”
“About whether or not you're going with us to Mallorea.”
“Don't be stupid. Of course I'm going with you. What we are going to fight about is your incredible lack of common courtesy.”
Garion stared at him for a moment and then suddenly doubled over in a gale of helpless laughter.
Zakath's face was still red, and his fists were clenching and unclenching. Then a slightly sheepish expression came over his face, and he, too, began to laugh.
Belgarath let out an explosive breath. “Garion,” he said irritably, “let me know when you're going to do something like that. My veins aren't what they used to be.”
Zakath wiped at his eyes, though he was still laughing. “How long do you think it might take for you and your friends to get packed?” he asked them.
“Not too long,” Garion replied. “Why?”
“I'm suddenly homesick for Mal Zeth. It's spring there now, and the cherry trees are in bloom. You and Ce'Nedra will love Mal Zeth, Garion.”
Garion was not entirely sure if the omission of the “Bel” was inadvertent or an overture of friendship. He was, however, quite sure that the Emperor of Mallorea was a man of even greater complexity than he had imagined.
“I hope you'll all excuse me now,” Zakath said, “but I want to talk with Brador and get a few more details about what's been going on in Karanda. This Mengha he told me about seems to be mounting an open insurrection against the crown, and I've always had a violent prejudice against that sort of thing.”
“I can relate to that,” Garion agreed blandly.
For the next few days the road between Rak Hagga and the port city of Rak Cthan was thick with imperial messengers. Finally, on a frosty morning when the sun was bright and the sky dark blue and when misty steam rose from the dark waters of Lake Hagga, they set out, riding across a winter-browned plain toward the coast. Garion, his gray Rivan cloak drawn about him, rode at the head of the column with Zakath, who seemed for some reason to be in better spirits than he had been at any time since the two had met. The column which followed them stretched back for miles.
“Vulgar, isn't it?” the Mallorean said wryly, looking back over his shoulder. “I'm absolutely surrounded by parasites and toadies, and they proliferate like maggots in rotten meat.”
“If they bother you so much, then why not dismiss them?” Garion suggested.
“I can't. They all have powerful relatives. I have to balance them very carefully -one from this tribe to match the one from that clan. As long as no one family has too many high offices, they spend all their time plotting against each other. That way they don't have the time to plot against me.”
“I suppose that's one way to keep things under control.”
As the sun moved up through the bright blue winter sky at this nether end of the world, the frost gently dissolved from the long stems of dead grass or fell lightly from the fern and bracken to leave ghostly white imprints of those drooping brown fronds on the short green moss spread beneath.
They paused for a noon meal that was every bit as sumptuous as one that might have been prepared back in Rak Hagga and was served on snowy damask beneath a wide-spread canvas roof. “Adequate, I suppose,” Zakath said critically after they had eaten.
“You're overpampered, my lord,” Polgara told him. “A hard ride in wet weather and a day or so on short rations would probably do wonders for your appetite.”
Zakath gave Garion an amused look. “I thought it was just you,” he said, “but this blunt outspokenness seems to be a characteristic of your whole family “.
Garion shrugged. “It saves time.”
“Forgive my saying this, Belgarion,” Sadi interjected, “but what possible interest can an immortal have in time?” He sighed rather mournfully. “Immortality must give one a great deal of satisfaction -watching all one's enemies grow old and die.”
“It's much overrated,” Belgarath said, leaning back in his chair with a brimming silver tankard. “Sometimes whole centuries go by when one doesn't have any enemies and there's nothing to do but watch the years roll by.”
Zakath suddenly smiled broadly. “Do you know something?” he said to them all. “I feel better right now than I've felt in over twenty-five years. It's as if a great weight has been lifted from me.”
“Probably an aftereffect of the poison,” Velvet suggested archly. “Get plenty of rest, and it should pass in a month or so.”
“Is the Margravine always like this?” Zakath asked.
“Sometimes she's even worse,” Silk replied morosely.
As they emerged from beneath the wide-spread canvas, Garion looked around for his horse, a serviceable roan with a long, hooked nose, but he could not seem to see the animal. Then he suddenly noticed that his saddle and packs were on a different horse, a very large dark gray stallion. Puzzled, he looked at Zakath, who was watching him intently. “What's this?” he asked.
“Just a little token of my unbounded respect, Garion,” Zakath said, his eyes alight. “Your roan was an adequate mount, I suppose, but he was hardly a regal animal. A King needs a kingly horse, and I think you'll find that Chretienne can lend himself to any occasion that requires ceremony.”
“Chretienne?”
“That's his name. He's been the pride of my stable here in Cthol Murgos. Don't you have a stable at Riva?”
Garion laughed. “My kingdom's an island, Zakath. We're more interested in boats than in horses.” He looked at the proud gray standing with his neck arched and with one hoof lightly pawing the earth and was suddenly overcome with gratitude. He clasped the Mallorean Emperor's hand warmly. “This is a magnificent gift, Zakath,” he said.
“Of course it is. I'm a magnificent fellow -or hadn't you noticed? Ride him, Garion. Feel the wind in your face and let the thunder of his hooves fill your blood.”
“Well,” Garion said, trying to control his eagerness, “maybe he and I really ought to get to know each other.”
Zakath laughed with delight. “Of course,” he said.
Garion approached the big gray horse, who watched him quite calmly. “I guess we'll be sharing a saddle for a while,” he said to the animal. Chretienne nickered and nudged at Garion with his nose.
“He wants to run,” Eriond said. “I'll ride with you, if you don't mind. Horse wants to run, too.”
“All right,” Garion agreed. “Let's go then.” He gathered the reins, set his foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle. The gray was running almost before Garion was in place.
It was a new experience. Garion had spent many hours riding -sometimes for weeks on end. He had always taken care of his mounts, as any good Sendar would, but there had never really been any personal attachment before. For him, a horse had simply been a means of conveyance, a way to get from one place to another, and riding had never been a particular source of pleasure.
With this great stallion, Chretienne, however, it was altogether different. There was a kind of electric thrill to the feel of the big horse's muscles bunching and flowing beneath him as they ran out across the winter-blown grass toward a rounded hill a mile or so distant, with Eriond and his chestnut stallion racing alongside.
When they reached the hilltop, Garion was breathless and laughing with sheer delight. He reined in, and Chretienne reared, pawing at the air with his hooves, wanting to be off again.
“Now you know, don't you?” Eriond asked with a broad smile.
“Yes,” Garion admitted, still laughing, “I guess I do.
“I wonder how I missed it all these years.”
“You have to have the right horse,” Eriond told him wisely. He gave Garion a sidelong glance. “You know that you'll never be the same again, don't you?”
“That's all right,” Garion replied. “I was getting tired of the old way anyhow.” He pointed at a low string of hills outlined against the crisp blue sky a league or so on ahead. “Why don't we go over there and see what's on the other side?” he suggested.
“Why not?” Eriond laughed.
And so they did.
The Emperor's household staff was well organized, and a goodly number of them rode on ahead to prepare their night's encampment at a spot almost precisely halfway to the coast. The column started early the following morning, riding again along a frosty track beneath a deep blue sky. It was late afternoon when they crested a hill to look out over the expanse of the Sea of the East, rolling a dark blue under the winter sun and with smoky-looking cloud banks the color of rust blurring the far horizon. Two dozen ships with their red sails furled stood at anchor in the indented curve of a shallow bay far below, and Garion looked with some puzzlement at Zakath.
“Another symptom of the vulgar ostentation I mentioned.” The Emperor shrugged. “I ordered this fleet down here from the port at Cthan. A dozen or so of those ships are here to transport all my hangers-on and toadies -as well as the humbler people who actually do the work. The other dozen are here to escort our royal personages with suitable pomp. You have to have pomp, Garion. Otherwise people might mistake a King or an Emperor for an honest man.”
“You're in a whimsical humor this afternoon.”
“Maybe it's another of those lingering symptoms Liselle mentioned. We'll sleep on board ship tonight and sail at first light tomorrow.”
Garion nodded, touching Chretienne's bowed neck with an odd kind of regret as he handed his reins to a waiting groom.
The vessel to which they were ferried from the sandy beach was opulent. Unlike the cramped cabins on most of the other ships Garion had sailed aboard, the chambers on this one were nearly as large as the rooms in a fair-sized house. It took him a little while to pin down the reason for the difference. The other ships had devoted so little room to cabins because the bulk of the space on board had been devoted to cargo. The only cargo this ship customarily carried, however, was the Emperor of Mallorea.
They dined that evening on lobster, served in the low-beamed dining room aboard Zakath's floating palace. So much of Garion's attention for the past week or more had been fixed on the unpredictable Emperor that he had not had much opportunity to talk with his friends. Thus, when they took their places at the table, he rather deliberately sat at the opposite end from the Mallorean. It was with a great deal of relief that he took his seat between Polgara and Durnik, while Ce'Nedra and Velvet diverted the Emperor with sparkling feminine chatter.
“You look tired, Garion,” Polgara noted.
“I've been under a certain strain,” he replied. “I wish that man wouldn't keep changing every other minute. Every time I think I've got him figured out, he turns into somebody else.”
“It's not a good idea to categorize people, dear,” she advised placidly, touching his arm. “That's the first sign of fuzzy thinking.”
“Are we actually supposed to eat these things?” Durnik asked in a disgusted sort of voice, pointing his knife at the bright red lobster staring up at him from his plate with its claws seemingly at the ready.
“That's what the pliers are for, Durnik,” Polgara explained in a peculiarly mild tone. “You have to crack it out of its shell.”
He pushed his plate away. “I'm not going to eat something that looks like a big red bug,” he declared with uncharacteristic heat. “I draw the line at some things.”
“Lobster is a delicacy, Durnik,” she said.
He grunted. “Some people eat snails, too.”
Her eyes flashed, but then she gained control of her anger and continued to speak to him in that same mild tone. “I'm sure we can have them take it away and bring you something else,” she said.
He glared at her.
Garion looked back and forth between the two of them, Then he decided that they had all known each other for far too long to step delicately around any problems.
“What's the matter, Durnik?” he asked bluntly. “You're as cross as a badger with a sore nose.”
“Nothing,” Durnik almost snapped at him.
Garion began to put a few things together. He remembered the plea Andel had made to Aunt Pol concerning Toth. He looked down the table to where the big mute, his eyes lowered to his plate, seemed almost to be trying to make himself invisible. Then he looked back at Durnik, who kept his face stiffly turned away from his former friend. “Oh,” he said, “now I think I understand. Aunt Pol told you something you didn't want to hear. Someone you liked very much did something that made you angry. You said some things to him that you wish now you hadn't said. Then you found out that he didn't really have any choice in the matter and that what he did was really right after all. Now you'd like to make friends with him again, but you don't know how. Is that sort of why you're behaving this way -and being so impolite to Aunt Pol?”
Durnik's look was at first stricken. Then his face grew red -then pale. “I don't have to listen to this,” he burst out, coming to his feet.
“Oh, sit down, Durnik,” Garion told him. “We all love each other too much to behave this way. Instead of being embarrassed and bad-tempered about it, why don't we see what we can do to fix it?”
Durnik tried to meet Garion's eyes, but finally lowered his head, his face flaming. “I treated him badly, Garion,” he mumbled, sinking back into his chair again.
“Yes,” Garion agreed, “you did. But it was because you didn't understand what he was doing -and why. I didn't understand myself until the day before yesterday -when Zakath finally changed his mind and decided to take us all to Mal Zeth. Cyradis knew that he was going to do that, and that's why she made Toth turn us over to Atesca's men. She wants us to get to the Sardion and meet Zandramas, and so she's going to arrange it. Toth will be the one who does what she thinks has to be done to accomplish that. Under the present circumstances, we couldn't find a better friend.”
“How can I possibly -I mean, after the way I treated him?”
“Be honest. Admit that you were wrong and apologize.”
Durnik's face grew stiff.
“It doesn't have to be in words, Durnik,” Garion told his friend patiently. “You and Toth have been talking together without words for months.” He looked speculatively up at the low-beamed ceiling. “This is a ship,” he noted, “and we're going out onto an ocean. Do you imagine that there might be a few fish out there in all that water?”
Durnik's smile was immediate.
Polgara's sigh, however, was pensive.
The smith looked almost shyly across the table. “How did you say that I'm supposed to get this bug out of its shell, Pol?” he asked, pointing at the angry-looking lobster on his plate.
They sailed northeasterly from the coast of Hagga and soon left winter behind. At some point during the voyage they crossed that imaginary line equidistant from the poles and once again entered the northern half of the world. Durnik and Toth, shyly at first, but then with growing confidence, resumed their friendship and spent their days at the ship's stern, probing the sea with lines, bright-colored lures, and various baits gleaned from the galley.
Zakath's humor continued to remain uncharacteristically sunny, though his discussions with Belgarath and Polgara centered on the nature of demons, a subject about which there was very little to smile. Finally, one day when they had been at sea for about a week, a servant came up to Garion, who stood at the portside rail watching the dance of the wind atop the sparkling waves, and advised him that the Emperor would like to see him.
Garion nodded and made his way aft to the cabin where Zakath customarily held audience. Like most of the cabins aboard the floating palace, this one was quite large and ostentatiously decorated. Owing to the broad windows stretching across the ship's stern, the room was bright and airy. The drapes at the sides of the windows were of crimson velvet, and the fine Mallorean carpet was a deep blue. Zakath, dressed as always in plain white linen, sat on a low, leather-upholstered divan at the far end of the cabin, looking out at the whitecaps and the flock of snowy gulls trailing the ship. His cat lay purring in his lap as he absently stroked her ears.
“You wanted to see me, Zakath?” Garion asked as he entered.
“Yes. Come in, Garion,” the Mallorean replied. “I haven't seen much of you for the past few days. Are you cross with me?”
“No,” Garion said. “You've been busy learning about demons. I don't know that much about them, so I couldn't have added all that much to the discussions.” He crossed the cabin, pausing at one point to stoop and unwrap a ferociously playful kitten from around his left ankle.
“They love to pounce.” Zakath smiled.
A thought came to Garion, and he looked around warily. “Zith isn't in here, is she?”
Zakath laughed. “No. Sadi's devised a means of keeping her at home.” He looked whimsically at Garion. “Is she really as deadly as he says?”
Garion nodded. “She bit a Grolim at Rak Urga,” he said. “He was dead in about a half a minute.”
Zakath shuddered. “ You don't have to tell Sadi about this,” he said, “but snakes make my flesh creep.”
“Talk to Silk. He could give you a whole dissertation about how much he dislikes them.”
“He's a complicated little fellow, isn't he?”
Garion smiled. “Oh, yes. His life is filled with danger and excitement, and so his nerves are as tightly wound as lute strings. He's erratic sometimes, but you get used to that after a while.” He looked at the other man critically. “You're looking particularly fit,” he noted, sitting down on the other end of the leather couch. “Sea air must agree with you.”
“I don't think it's really the air, Garion. I think it has to do with the fact that I've been sleeping eight to ten hours a night.”
“Sleep? You?”
“Astonishing, isn't it?” Zakath's face went suddenly quite somber. “I'd rather that this didn't go any further, Garion,” he said.
“Of course.”
“Urgit told you what happened when I was young?”
Garion nodded. “Yes.”
“My habit of not sleeping very much dates from then.
A face that had been particularly dear to me haunted my dreams, and sleep became an agony to me.”
“That didn't diminish? Not even after some thirty years?”
“Not one bit. I lived in continual grief and guilt and remorse. I lived only to revenge myself on Taur Urgas.
Cho-Hag's saber robbed me of that. I had planned a dozen different deaths for the madman -each more horrible than the one before- but he cheated me by dying cleanly in battle.”
“No,” Garion disagreed. “His death was worse than anything you could possibly have devised. I've talked with Cho-Hag about it. Taur Urgas went totally mad before Cho-Hag killed him, but he lived long enough to realize that he had finally been beaten. He died biting and clawing at the earth in frustration. Being beaten was more than he could bear.”
Zakath thought about it. “Yes,” he said finally. “That would have been quite dreadful for him, wouldn't it? I think that maybe I'm less disappointed now.”
“And was it your discovery that the Urga line is now extinct that finally laid the ghost that's haunted your sleep all these years?”
“No, Garion. I don't think that had anything to do with it. It's just that instead of the face that had always been there before, now I see a different face.”
“Oh?”
“A blindfolded face.”
“Cyradis? I don't know that I'd recommend thinking about her in that fashion.”
“You misunderstand, Garion. She's hardly more than a child, but somehow she's touched my life with more peace and comfort than I've ever known. I sleep like a baby and I walk around all day with this silly euphoria bubbling up in me.” He shook his head. “Frankly, I can't stand myself like this, but I can't help it for some reason.”
Garion stared out the window, not even seeing the play of sunlight on the waves nor the hovering gulls. Then it came to him so clearly that he knew that it was undeniably true. “It's because you've come to that crossroads in your life that Cyradis mentioned,” he said. “You're being rewarded because you've chosen the right fork.”
“Rewarded? By whom?”
Garion looked at him and suddenly laughed. “I don't think you're quite ready to accept that information yet,” he said. “Could you bring yourself to believe that it's Cyradis who's making you feel good right now?”
“In some vague way, yes.”
“It goes a little deeper, but that's a start.” Garion looked at the slightly perplexed man before him. “You and I are caught up together in something over which we have absolutely no control,” he said seriously. “I've been through it before, so I'll try to cushion the shocks that are in store for you as much as I can. Just try to keep an open mind about a peculiar way of looking at the world.” He thought about it some more. “I think that we're going to be working together -at least up to a point- so we might as well be friends.” He held out his right hand.
Zakath laughed. “Why not?” he said, taking Garion's hold in a firm grip. “I think we're both as crazy as Taur Urgas, but why not? We're the two most powerful men in the world. We should be deadly enemies, and you propose friendship. Well, why not?” He laughed again delightedly.
“We have much more deadly enemies, Zakath,” Garion said gravely, “and all of your armies -and all of mine- won't mean a thing when we get to where we're going.”
“And where's that, my young friend?”
“I think it's called 'the place which is no more.' “
“I've been meaning to ask you about that. The whole phrase, is a contradiction in terms. How can you go someplace which doesn't exist any more?”
“I don't really know,” Garion told him. “I'll tell you when we get there.”
Two days later, they arrived at Mal Gemila, a port in southern Mallorea Antiqua, and took to horse. They rode eastward at a canter on a well-maintained highway that crossed a pleasant plain, green with spring. A regiment of red-tunicked cavalrymen cleared the road ahead of them, and their pace left the entourage which usually accompanied the Emperor far behind. There were way-stations along the highway -not unlike the Tolnedran hostels dotting the roads in the west -and the imperial guard rather brusquely ejected other guests at these roadside stops to make way for the Emperor and his party.
As they pressed onward, day after day, Garion began slowly to comprehend the true significance of the word “boundless” as it was applied to Mallorea. The plains of Algaria, which had always before seemed incredibly vast, shrank into insignificance. The snowy peaks of the Dalasian mountains, lying to the south of the road they traveled, raked their white talons at the sky. Garion drew in on himself, feeling smaller and smaller the deeper they rode into this vast domain.
Peculiarly, Ce'Nedra seemed to be suffering a similar shrinkage, and she quite obviously did not like it very much. Her comments became increasingly waspish; her observations more acid. She found the loose-fitting garments of the peasantry uncouth. She found fault with the construction of the gangplows that opened whole acres at a time behind patiently plodding herds of oxen. She didn't like the food. Even the water -as clear as crystal, and as cold and sweet as might have sprung from any crevice in the Tolnedran mountains -offended her taste.
Silk, his eyes alight with mischief, rode at her side on the sunny midmorning of the last day of their journey from Mal Gemila. “Beware, your Majesty,” he warned her slyly as they neared the crest of a hillside sheathed in pale spring grass so verdant that it almost looked like a filmy green mist. “The first sight of Mal Zeth has sometimes struck the unwary traveler blind. To be safe, why don't you cover one eye with your hand? That way you can preserve at least partial sight.”
Her face grew frosty, and she drew herself to her full height in her saddle -a move that might have come off better had she been only slightly taller -and said to him in her most imperious tone, “We are not amused, Prince Kheldar, and we do not expect to find a barbarian city at the far end of the world a rival to the splendors of Tol Honeth, the only truly imperial city in the-“
And then she stopped -as they all did.
The valley beyond the crest stretched not for miles, but for leagues, and it was filled to overflowing with the city of Mal Zeth. The streets were as straight as tautly stretched strings, and the buildings gleamed -not with marble, for there was not marble enough in all the world to sheath the buildings of this enormous city -but rather with an intensely gleaming, thick white mortar that seemed somehow to shoot light at the eye. It was stupendous.
“It's not much,” Zakath said in an exaggeratedly deprecating tone. “ Just a friendly little place we like to call home.” He looked at Ce'Nedra's stiff, pale little face with an artful expression. “We really should press on, your Majesty,” he told her. “It's a half-day's ride to the imperial palace from here.”