Chapter Eight

THE CROWN HAD been Queen Islena's first mistake. It was heavy and it always gave her a headache. Her decision to wear it had come originally out of a sense of insecurity. The bearded warnors in Anheg's throne room intimidated her, and she felt the need of a visible symbol of her authority. Now she was afraid to appear without it. Each day she put it on with less pleasure and entered the main hall of Anheg's palace with less certainty.

The sad truth was that Queen Islena of Cherek was completely unprepared to rule. Until the day when, dressed in regal crimson velvet and with her gold crown firmly in place, she had marched into the vaulted throne room at Val Alorn to announce that she would rule the kingdom in her husband's absence, Islena's most momentous decisions had involved which gown she would wear and how her hair was to be arranged. Now it seemed that the fate of Cherek hung in the balance each time she was faced with a choice.

The warriors lounging indolently with their ale cups about the huge, open fire pit or wandering aimlessly about on the rush-strewn floor were no help whatsoever. Each time she entered the throne room, all conversation broke off and they rose to watch as she marched to the bannerhung throne, but their faces gave no hint of their true feelings toward her. Irrationally, she concluded that the whole problem had to do with the beards. How could she possibly know what a man was thinking when his face was sunk up to the ears in hair? Only the quick intervention of Lady Merel, the cool blond wife of the Earl of Trellheim, had stopped her from ordering a universal shave.

"You can't, Islena," Merel had told her flatly, removing the quill from the queen's hand, even as she had been in the act of signing the hastily drawn-up proclamation. "They're attached to their beards like little boys attached to a favorite toy. You can't make them cut off their whiskers."

"I'm the Queen."

"Only as long as they permit you to be. They accept you out of respect for Anheg, and that's as far as it goes. If you tamper with their pride, they'll take you off the throne." And that dreadful threat had ended the matter then and there.

Islena found herself relying more and more on Barak's wife, and it was not long before the two of them, one in green and the other in royal crimson, were seldom apart. Even when Islena faltered, Merel's icy stare quelled the hints of disrespect which cropped up from time to time - usually when the ale had been distributed a bit too freely. It was Merel, ultimately, who made the day-to-day decisions which ran the kingdom. When IsIena sat upon the throne, Merel, her blond braids coiled about her head to form her own crown, stood to one side in plain view of the hesitant queen. Cherek was ruled by the expressions on her face. A faint smile meant yes; a frown, no; a scarcely perceptible shrug, maybe. It worked out fairly well.

But there was one person who was not intimidated by Merel's cool gaze. Grodeg, the towering, white-bearded High Priest of Belar, inevitably requested private audience with the queen, and once Merel left the council room, Islena was lost.

Despite Anheg's call for a general mobilization, the members of the Bear-cult had not yet left to join the campaign. Their promises to join the fleet later all sounded sincere, but their excuses and delays grew more and more obvious as time went on. Islena knew that Grodeg was behind it all. Nearly every able-bodied man in the kingdom was off with the fleet, which was even now rowing up the broad expanse of the Aldur River to join Anheg in central Algaria. The household guard in the palace at Val Alorn had been reduced to grizzled old men and downy-cheeked boys. Only the Bear-cult remained, and Grodeg pushed his advantage to the limit.

He was polite enough, bowing to the queen when the occasion demanded, and never mentioning her past links with the cult, but his offers to help became more and more insistent; and when Islena faltered at his suggestions concerning this matter or that, he smoothly acted to implement them as if her hesitancy had been acceptance. Little by little, Islena was losing control, and Grodeg, with the armed might of the cult behind him, was taking charge. More and more the cult members infested the palace, giving orders, lounging about the throne room and openly grinning as they watched Islena's attempts to rule.

"You're going to have to do something, Islena," Merel said firmly one evening when the two were alone in the queen's private apartment. She was striding about the carpeted room, her hair gleaming like soft gold in the candlelight, but there was nothing soft in her expression.

"What can I do?" Islena pleaded, wringing her hands. "He's never openly disrespectful, and his decisions always seem to be in the best interests of Cherek."

"You need help, Islena," Merel told her.

"Whom can I turn to?" The Queen of Cherek was almost in tears. The Lady Merel smoothed the front of her green velvet gown.

"I think it's time that you wrote to Porenn," she declared.

"What do I say?" Islena begged of her.

Merel pointed at the small table in the corner where parchment and ink lay waiting. "Sit down," she instructed, "and write what I tell you to write."

Count Brador, the Tolnedran ambassador, was definitely growing tiresome, Queen Layla decided. The plump little queen marched purposefully toward the chamber where she customarily gave audiences and where the ambassador awaited her with his satchel full of documents.

The courtiers in the halls bowed as she passed, her crown slightly askew and her heels clicking on the polished oak floors, but Queen Layla uncharacteristically ignored them. This was not the time for polite exchanges or idle chitchat. The Tolnedran had to be dealt with, and she had delayed too long already.

The ambassador was an olive-skinned man with receding hair and a hooked nose. He wore a brown mantle with the old trim that indicated his relationship to the Borunes. He lounged rather indolently in a large cushioned chair near the window of the sunny room where he and Queen Layla were to meet. He rose as she entered and bowed with exquisite grace. "Your Highness," he murmured politely.

"My dear Count Brador," Queen Layla gushed at him, putting on her most helpless and scatterbrained expression, "please do sit down. I'm sure we know each other well enough by now to skip all these tedious formalities." She sank into a chair, fanning herself with one hand. "It's turned warm, hasn't it?"

"Summers are lovely here in Sendaria, your Highness," the count replied, settling back in his chair. "I wonder - have you had the chance to think over the proposals I gave you at our last meeting?"

Queen Layla stared at him blankly. "Which proposals were those, Count Brador?" She gave a helpless little giggle. "Please forgive me, but my mind seems to be absolutely gone these days. There are so many details. I wonder how my husband keeps them all straight."

"We were discussing the administration of the port at Camaar, your Highness," the count reminded her gently.

"We were?" The queen gave him a blank look of total incomprehension, secretly delighted at the flicker of annoyance that crossed his face. It was her best ploy. By pretending to have forgotten all previous conversations, she forced him to begin at the beginning every time they met. The count's strategy, she knew, depended upon a gradual build-up to his final proposal, and her pretended forgetfulness neatly defeated that. "Whatever led us into such a tedious subject as that?" she added.

"Surely your Highness recalls," the count protested with just the slightest hint of annoyance. "The Tolnedran merchant vessel, Star of Tol Horb, was kept standing at anchor for a week and a half in the harbor before moorage could be found for her. Every day's delay in unloading her was costing a fortune."

"Things are so hectic these days," the queen of Sendaria sighed. "It's the manpower shortage, you understand. Everybody who hasn't gone off to war is busy freighting supplies to the army. I'll send a very stern note to the port authorities about it, though. Was there anything else, Count Brador?"

Brador coughed uncomfortably. "Uh - your Highness has already forwarded just such a note," he reminded her.

"I have?" Queen Layla feigned astonishment. "Wonderful. That takes care of everything then, doesn't it? And you've dropped by to thank me." She smiled girlishly. "How exquisitely courteous of you." She leaned forward to put one hand impulsively on his wrist, quite deliberately knocking the rolled parchment he was holding out of his hand. "How clumsy of me," she exclaimed, bending quickly to pick up the parchment before he could retrieve it. Then she sat back in her chair, tapping the rolled document absently against her cheek as if lost in thought.

"Uh - actually, your Highness, our discussions had moved somewhat beyond your note to the port authorities," Brador told her, nervously eyeing the parchment she had so deftly taken from him. "You may recall that I offered Tolnedran assistance in administering the port. I believe we agreed that such assistance might help to alleviate the manpower shortage your Highness just mentioned."

"What an absolutely marvelous idea," Layla exclaimed. She brought her plump little fist down on the arm of her chair as if in an outburst of enthusiasm. At that prearranged signal, two of her younger children burst into the room, arguing loudly.

"Mother!" Princess Gelda wailed in outrage, "Fernie stole my red ribbon!"

"I did not!" Princess Ferna denied the charge indignantly. "She gave it to me for my blue beads."

"Did not!" Gelda snapped.

"Did so!" Ferna replied.

"Children, children," Layla chided them. "Can't you see that Mother's busy? What will the dear count think of us?"

"But she stole it, Mother!" Gelda protested. "She stole my red ribbon."

"Did not!" Ferna said, spitefully sticking her tongue out at her sister.

Trailing behind them with a look of wide-eyed interest came little Prince Meldig, Queen Layla's youngest child. In one hand the prince held a jam pot, and his face was liberally smeared with the contents.

"Oh, that's just impossible," Layla exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "You girls are supposed to be watching him." She bustled over to the jam-decorated prince, crumpled the parchment she was holding and began wiping his face with it. Abruptly she stopped. "Oh dear," she said as if suddenly realizing what she was doing. "Was this important, Count Brador?" she asked the Tolnedran, holding out the rumpled, sticky document.

Brador's shoulders, however, had slumped in defeat. "No, your Highness," he replied in a voice filled with resignation, "not really. The royal house of Sendaria has me quite outnumbered, it appears." He rose to his feet. "Perhaps another time," he murmured, bowing. "With your Highness's permission," he said, preparing to leave.

"You mustn't forget this, Count Brador," Layla said, pressing the parchment into his cringing hands.

The count's face had a faintly martyred expression as he withdrew. Queen Layla turned back to her children, who were grinning impishly at her. She began to scold them in a loud voice until she was certain the count was well out of earshot, then she knelt, embraced them all and began to laugh.

"Did we do it right, Mother?" Princess Gelda asked.

"You were absolutely perfect," Queen Layla replied, still laughing.

Sadi the eunuch had grown careless, lulled somewhat by the air of polite civility that had pervaded the palace at Sthiss Tor for the past year, and one of his associates, seizing upon his unwariness, had taken the opportunity to poison him. Sadi definitely did not appreciate being poisoned. The antidotes all tasted vile, and the aftereffects left him weak and light-headed. Thus it was that he viewed the appearance of the mail-skirted emissary of King Taur Urgas with thinly veiled irritation.

"Taur Urgas, King of the Murgos, greets Sadi, chief servant of Immortal Salmissra," the Murgo declaimed with a deep bow as he entered the cool, dimly lighted study from which Sadi conducted most of the nation's affairs.

"The servant of the Serpent Queen returns the greetings of the right arm of the Dragon-God of Angarak." Sadi mouthed the formula phrases almost indifferently. "Do you suppose we could get to the point? I'm feeling a bit indisposed at the moment."

"I was very pleased at your recovery," the ambassador lied, his scarred face carefully expressionless. "Has the poisoner been apprehended yet?" He drew up a chair and sat down at the polished table Sadi used for a desk.

"Naturally," Sadi replied,absently rubbing his hand over his shaved scalp.

"And executed?"

"Why would we want to do that? The man's a professional poisoner. He was only doing his job."

The Murgo looked a bit startled.

"We look upon a good poisoner as a national asset," Sadi told him. "If we start killing them every time they poison somebody, very soon there won't be any of them left, and you never know when I might want somebody poisoned."

The Murgo ambassador shook his head incredulously. "You people have an amazing amount of tolerance, Sadi," he said in his harshly accented voice. "What about his employer?"

"That's another matter," Sadi replied. "His employer is currently entertaining the leeches at the bottom of the river. Is your visit official, or did you merely stop by to inquire after my health?"

"A bit of each, Excellency."

"You Murgos are an economical race," Sadi observed dryly. "What does Taur Urgas want this time?"

"The Alorns are preparing to invade Mishrak ac Thull, your Excellency."

"So I've heard. What's that got to do with Nyissa?"

"Nyissans have no reason to be fond of Alorns."

"Nor any to be fond of Murgos, either," Sadi pointed out.

"It was Aloria that invaded Nyissa following the death of the Rivan King," the Murgo reminded him, "and it was Cthol Murgos that provided the market for Nyissa's primary export."

"My dear fellow, please get to the point," Sadi said, rubbing his scalp wearily. "I'm not going to operate on the basis of long-past insults or long-forgotten favors. The slave trade is no longer significant, and the scars left by the Alorn invasion disappeared centuries ago. What does Taur Urgas want?"

"My king wishes to avoid bloodshed," the Murgo stated. "The Tolnedran legions form a significant part of the armies massing in Algaria. If a threat just a threat, mind you - of unfriendly activity suddenly appeared on his unprotected southern frontier, Ran Borune would recall those legions. Their loss would persuade the Alorns to abandon this adventure."

"You want me to invade Tolnedra?" Sadi demanded incredulously.

"Naturally not, Lord Sadi. His Majesty merely wishes your permission to move certain forces through your territory to pose the threat on Tolnedra's southern border. No blood need be shed at all."

"Except Nyissan blood, once the Murgo army withdraws. The legions would swarm down across the River of the Woods like angry hornets."

"Taur Urgas would be more than willing to leave garrisons behind to guarantee the integrity of Nyissan territory."

"I'm sure he would," Sadi observed dryly. "Advise your king that his proposal is quite unacceptable at this particular time."

"The King of Cthol Murgos is a powerful man," the Murgo said firmly, "and he remembers those who thwart him even more keenly than he remembers his friends."

"Taur Urgas is a madman," Sadi told him bluntly. "He wants to avoid trouble with the Alorns so that he can concentrate on 'Zakath. Despite his insanity, however, he's not so foolish as to send an army into Nyissa uninvited. An army must eat, and Nyissa's a bad place to forage for food - as history has demonstrated. The most tempting fruit has bitter juice."

"A Murgo army carries its own food," the ambassador replied stiffly.

"Good for them. But where do they plan to find drinking water? I don't believe we're getting anywhere with this. I'll convey your proposal to her Majesty. She, of course, will make the final decision. I suspect, however, that you'll need to offer something much more attractive than a permanent Murgo occupation to persuade her to consider the matter favorably. Was that all?"

The Murgo rose to his feet, his scarred face angry. He bowed coldly to Sadi and withdrew without further conversation.

Sadi thought about it for a while. He could gain a great deal of advantage at a minimal cost if he played this right. A few carefully worded dispatches to King Rhodar in Algaria would put Nyissa among the friends of the west. If Rhodar's army should happen to win, Nyissa would benefit. If, on the other hand, it appeared that the west was about to lose, the proposal of Taur Urgas could be accepted. In either case, Nyissa would be on the winning side. The whole notion appealed to Sadi enormously. He stood up, his iridescent silk robe rustling, and went to a nearby cabinet. He took out a crystal decanter containing a dark blue liquid and carefully measured some of the thick syrup into a small glass and drank it. Almost immediately a euphoric calm came over him as his favorite drug took effect. A moment or two later, he felt that he was ready to face his queen. He was even smiling as he walked from his study into the dim corridor leading to the throne room.

As always, Salmissra's chamber was dimly lighted by oil lamps hanging on long silver chains from the shadowy ceiling. The chorus of eunuchs still knelt adoringly in the queen's presence, but they no longer sang her praises. Noise of any kind irritated Salmissra now, and it was wise not to irritate her. The Serpent Queen still occupied the divanlike throne beneath the towering statue of Issa. She dozed interminably, stirring her mottled coils with the seething dry hiss of scale rubbing against scale. But even in restless doze, her tongue flickered nervously. Sadi approached the throne, perfunctorily prostrated himself on the polished stone floor, and waited. His scent on the air would announce him to the hooded serpent who was his queen.

"Yes, Sadi?" she whispered finally, her voice a dusty hiss.

"The Murgos wish an alliance, my Queen," Sadi informed her. "Taur Urgas wants to threaten the Tolnedrans from the south to force Ran Borune to withdraw his legions from the Thullish border."

"Interesting," she replied indifferently. Her dead eyes bored into him and her coils rustled. "What do you think?"

"Neutrality costs nothing, Divine Salmissra," Sadi replied. "Alliance with either side would be premature."

Salmissra turned, her mottled hood flaring as she regarded her reflection in the mirror beside her throne. The crown still rested on her head as polished and glistening as her scales. Her tongue flickered, and her eyes, flat as glass, looked at the mirror. "Do what you think best, Sadi,'' she told him in an uncaring tone.

"I'll deal with the matter, my Queen," Sadi said, putting his face to the floor in preparation to leave.

"I have no need of Torak now," she mused, still staring at the mirror. "Polgara saw to that."

"Yes, my Queen," Sadi agreed in a neutral voice, beginning to rise.

She turned to look at him. "Stay a while, Sadi. I'm lonely."

Sadi sank immediately back to the polished floor.

"I have such strange dreams sometimes, Sadi," she hissed. "Such very strange dreams. I seem to remember things - things that happened when my blood was warm and I was a woman. Strange thoughts come to me in my dreams, and strange hungers." She looked directly at him, her hood flaring again as her pointed face stretched out toward him. "Was I really like that, Sadi? It all seems like something seen through smoke."

"It was a difficult time, my Queen," Sadi replied candidly. "For all of us."

"Polgara was right, you know," she continued in that expiring whisper. "The potions enflamed me. I think it's better this way - no passions, no hungers, no fears." She turned back to her mirror. "You may go now, Sadi."

He rose and started toward the door.

"Oh, Sadi."

"Yes, my Queen?"

"If I caused you trouble before, I'm sorry."

He stared at her.

"Not very much, of course - but just a little." Then she returned to her reflection.

Sadi was trembling as he closed the door behind him. Sometime later, he sent for Issus. The shabby, one-eyed hireling entered the chief eunuch's study with a certain hesitancy, and his face was a bit apprehensive.

"Come in, Issus," Sadi told him calmly.

"I hope you aren't holding any grudges, Sadi," Issus said nervously, looking about to be sure they were alone. "There was nothing personal in it, you know."

"It's all right, Issus," Sadi assured him. "You were only doing what you were paid to do."

"How did you manage to detect it?" Issus asked with a certain professional curiosity. "Most men are too far gone for the antidote to work before they realize they've been poisoned."

"Your concoction leaves just the faintest aftertaste of lemon," Sadi replied. "I've been trained to recognize it."

"Ah," Issus said. "I'll have to work on that. Otherwise it's a very good poison."

"An excellent poison, Issus," Sadi agreed. "That brings us to the reason I sent for you. There's a man I think I can dispense with."

Issus' single eye brightened, and he rubbed his hands together. "The usual fee?"

"Naturally."

"Who is he?"

"The Murgo ambassador."

Issus' face clouded for a moment. "He'll be difficult to get to." He scratched at his stubbled scalp.

"You'll find a way. I have the utmost confidence in you."

"I'm the best," Issus agreed with no trace of false modesty.

"The ambassador's pressing me in certain negotiations that I need to delay," Sadi continued. "His sudden demise should interrupt things a bit."

"You don't really have to explain, Sadi," Issus told him. "I don't need to know why you want him killed."

"But you do need to know how. For various reasons, I'd like for this to look very natural. Could you arrange for him-and perhaps a few others in his household-to come down with some kind of fever? Something suitably virulent?"

Issus frowned. "That's tricky. Something like that can get out of hand. You might end up infecting an entire neighborhood, and there would be very few survivors."

Sadi shrugged. "One sometimes must make sacrifices. Can you do it?"

Issus nodded gravely.

"Do it then, and I'll compose a letter expressing my regrets to King Taur Urgas."

Queen Silar sat at her loom in the great hall of the Algar Stronghold, humming softly to herself as her fingers passed the shuttle back and forth with a drowsy, clicking sound. Sunlight streamed down from the narrow windows set high up in the wall, filling the huge, narrow room with a diffused golden light. King Cho-Hag and Hettar were away from the Stronghold, preparing a huge encampment some few leagues out from the base of the eastern escarpment for the army of Alorns, Arends, Sendars, and Tolnedrans approaching from the west. Although he was still within the borders of the kingdom, Cho-Hag had formally transferred authority to his wife, extracting a pledge of support from all of the assembled Clan-Chiefs.

The Queen of Algaria was a silent woman, and her calm face seldom betrayed her emotions. She had spent her entire life in the background, often so unobtrusively that people did not even realize that she was present. She had, however, kept her eyes and her ears open. Her crippled husband, moreover, had confided in her. His quiet, dark-haired queen knew exactly what was going on.

Elvar, Archpriest of Algaria, stood, white-robed and much puffed-up with his own importance, reading to her the set of carefully prepared proclamations which would effectively transfer all power to him. His tone was condescending as he explained them to her.

"Is that all?" she asked when he had finished.

"It's really for the best, your Highness," he told her loftily. "All the world knows that women are unsuited to rule. Shall I send for pen and ink?"

"Not just yet, Elvar," she replied calmly, her hands busy at her loom.

"But "

"You know, I just had the oddest thought," she said, looking directly at him. "You're the Archpriest of Belar here in Algaria, but you never go out of the Stronghold. Isn't that a bit peculiar?"

"My duties, your Highness, compell me-"

"Isn't your first duty to the people - and to the children of Belar? We've been terribly selfish keeping you here when your heart must be yearning to be out among the clans, overseeing the religious instruction of the children."

He stared at her, his mouth suddenly agape.

"And all the other priests as well," she continued. "They all seem to be concentrated here at the Stronghold, pressed into administrative duties. A priest is too valuable a man for such tasks. This situation must be corrected immediately."

"But "

"No, Elvar. My duty as queen is absolutely clear. The children of Algaria must come first. I release you from all your duties here at the Stronghold so that you may return to your chosen vocation." She smiled suddenly. "I'll even draw up an itinerary for you myself," she said brightly. She thought a moment. "The times are troubled," she added, "so perhaps I'd better provide you with an escort - several trustworthy men from my own clan who can be depended upon to make sure that you aren't interrupted in your travels or distracted from your preaching by any disturbing messages from abroad." She looked at him again. "That will be all, Elvar. You'd probably better go pack. It will be a number of seasons before you return, I imagine."

The Archpriest of Belar was making strangled noises.

"Oh, one other thing." The queen carefully chose another skein of yarn and held it up to the sunlight. "It's been years since anyone made a survey of the herds. As long as you're going to be out there anyway, I think I'd like an accurate count of all the calves and colts in Algaria. It will give you something to occupy your mind. Send me a report from time to time, won't you?" She returned to her weaving. "You're dismissed, Elvar," she said placidly, not even bothering to look up as the Archpriest, shaking with rage, tottered away to make preparations for his roving imprisonment.

Lord Morin, High Chamberlain to his Imperial Majesty, Ran Borune XXIII, sighed as he entered the Emperor's private garden. Another tirade was undoubtedly in the offing, and Morin had already heard it all a dozen times at least. The Emperor had an extraordinary capacity for repeating himself sometimes.

Ran Borune, however, was in an odd mood. The bald, beak-nosed little Emperor sat pensively in his chair beneath a shady arbor, listening to the trilling of his canary. "He's never spoken again, did you know that, Morin?" the Emperor said as his chamberlain approached across the close-clipped grass. "Just that one time when Polgara was here." He looked at the little golden bird again, his eyes sad. Then he sighed. "I think I came out second best in that bargain. Polgara gave me a canary and took Ce'Nedra in exchange." He looked around at his sundrenched garden and the cool marble walls surrounding it. "Is it just my imagination, Morin, or does the palace seem sort of cold and empty now?" He lapsed once more into moody silence, staring with unseeing eyes at a bed of crimson roses.

Then there was an odd sound, and Lord Morin looked sharply at the Emperor, half afraid that his ruler was about to go into another seizure. But there was no evidence of that. Instead, Morin perceived that Ran Borune was chuckling. "Did you see how she tricked me, Morin?" The Emperor laughed. "She deliberately goaded me into that fit. What a son she would have made! She could have been the greatest Emperor in Tolnedra's history." Ran Borune was laughing openly now, his secret delight at Ce'Nedra's cleverness suddenly emerging.

"She is your daughter after all, your Majesty," Lord Morin observed.

"To think that she could raise an army of that size when she's barely sixteen," the Emperor marveled. "What a splendid child!" He seemed quite suddenly to have recovered from the gloomy peevishness that had dogged him since his return to ToI Honeth. His laughter trailed away after several moments, and his bright little eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Those legions she stole from me are likely to become fractious without professional leadership," he mused.

"I'd say that's Ce'Nedra's problem, your Majesty," Morin replied. "Or Polgara's."

"Well-" The Emperor scratched one ear. "I don't know, Morin. The situation out there isn't too clear." He looked at his chamberlain. "Are you acquainted with General Varana?"

"The Duke of Anadile? Of course, your Majesty. A thoroughly professional sort of fellow - solid, unassuming, extremely intelligent."

"He's an old friend of the family," Ran Borune confided. "Ce'Nedra knows him and she would listen to his advice. Why don't you go to him, Morin, and suggest that he might want to take a leave of absence - perhaps go to Algaria and have a look at things?"

"I'm certain that he'd be overjoyed at the idea of a vacation," Lord Morin agreed. "Garrison life in the summertime can be very tedious."

"It's just a suggestion," the Emperor stressed. "His presence in the war zone would have to be strictly unofficial."

"Naturally, your Majesty."

"And if he just happened to make a few suggestions - or even provide a bit of leadership, we certainly wouldn't have any knowledge of it, would we? After all, what a private citizen does with his own time is his business, right?"

"Absolutely, your Majesty."

The Emperor grinned broadly. "And we'll all stick to that story, won't we, Morin?"

"Like glue, your Majesty," Morin replied gravely..

The crown prince of Drasnia burped noisily in his mother's ear, sighed, and promptly fell asleep on her shoulder. Queen Porenn smiled at him, tucked him back in his cradle, and turned again to the stringy-appearing man in nondescript clothing who sprawled in a nearby chair. The emaciated man was known only by the peculiar name "Javelin." Javelin was the chief of the Drasnian intelligence service and one of Porenn's closest advisers.

"Anyway," he continued his report, "the Tolnedran girl's army is about two days' march from the Stronghold. The engineers are moving along ahead of schedule with the hoists on top of the escarpment, and the Chereks are preparing to begin the portage from the east bank of the Aldur."

"Everything seems to be going according to plan, then," the queen said, resuming her seat at the polished table near the window.

"There's a bit of trouble in Arendia," Javelin noted. "The usual ambushes and bickerings - nothing really serious. Queen Layla's got the Tolnedran, Bravor, so completely off balance that he might as well not even be in Sendaria." He scratched at his long, pointed jaw. "There's peculiar information coming out of Sthiss Tor. The Murgos are trying to negotiate something, but their emissaries keep dying. We'll try to get somebody closer to Sadi to find out exactly what's going on. Let's see - what else? Oh, the Honeths have finally united behind one candidate-a pompous, arrogant jackass who's offended just about everybody in Tol Honeth. They'll try to buy the crown for him, but he'd be hopelessly incompetent as emperor. Even with all their money, it's going to be difficult for them to put him on the throne. I guess that's about all, your Highness."

"I've had a letter from Islena in Val Alorn," Queen Porenn told him.

"Yes, your Highness," Javelin replied urbanely, "I know."

"Javelin, have you been reading my mail again?" she demanded with a sudden flash of irritation.

"Just trying to stay current with what's going on in the world, Porenn."

"I've told you to stop that."

"You didn't really expect me to do it, did you?" He seemed actually surprised.

She laughed. "You're impossible."

"Of course I am. I'm supposed to be."

"Can we get any help to Islena?"

"I'll put some people on it," he assured her. "We can probably work through Merel, the wife of the Earl of Trellheim. She's starting to show some signs of maturity and she's close to Islena."

"I think we'd better have a close look at our own intelligence service, too," Porenn suggested. "Let's pin down everyone who might have any connections with the Bear-cult. The time might come when we'll have to take steps."

Javelin nodded his agreement.

There was a light tapping at the door.

"Yes?" Porenn answered.

The door opened and a servant thrust his head into the room. "Excuse me, your Highness," he said, "but there's a Nadrak merchant here - a man named Yarblek. He says he wants to discuss the salmon run." The servant looked perplexed.

Queen Porenn straightened in her chair. "Send him in," she ordered, "at once."

Chapter Nine

THE SPEECHES WERE over. The orations that had caused Princess Ce'Nedra such agony had done their work, and she found herself less and less in the center of things. At first the days opened before her full of glorious freedom. The dreadful anxiety that had filled her at the prospect of addressing vast crowds of men two or three times a day was gone now. Her nervous exhaustion disappeared, and she no longer awoke in the middle of the night trembling and terrified. For almost an entire week she reveled in it, luxuriated in it. Then, of course, she became dreadfully bored.

The army she had gathered in Arendia and northern Tolnedra moved like a great sea in the foothills of Ulgoland. The Mimbrate knights, their armor glittering in the bright sunlight and their long, streaming, many-colored pennons snapping in the breeze, moved at the forefront of the host, and behind them, spreading out across the rolling green hills, marched the solid mass of Ce'Nedra's infantry, Sendars, Asturians, Rivans, and a few Chereks. And there, solidly in the center, forming the very core, marched the gleaming ranks of the legions of Imperial Tolnedra, their crimson standards aloft and the white plumes on their helmets waving in time to their measured steps. It was very stirring for the first few days to ride at the head of the enormous force, moving at her command toward the east, but the novelty of it all soon wore thin.

Princess Ce'Nedra's gradual drift away from the center of command was largely her own fault. The decisions now had to do more often than not with logistics - tedious little details concerning bivouac areas and field-kitchens - and Ce'Nedra found discussions of such matters tiresome. Those details, however, dictated the snail's pace of her army.

Quite suddenly, to everyone's astonishment, King Fulrach of Sendaria became the absolute commander of the host. It was he who decided how far they would march each day, when they would rest and where they would set up each night's encampment. His authority derived directly from the fact that the supply wagons were his. Quite early during the march down through northern Arendia, the dumpy-looking Sendarian monarch had taken one look at the rather sketchy plans the Alorn kings had drawn up for feeding the troops, had shaken his head in disapproval, and then had taken charge of that aspect of the campaign himself. Sendaria was a land of farms, and her storehouses bulged. Moreover, at certain seasons, every road and lane in Sendaria crawled with wagons. With an almost casual efficiency, King Fulrach issued a few orders, and soon whole caravans of heavily laden wagons moved down through Arendia to Tolnedra and then turned eastward to follow the army. The pace of the army was dictated by those creaking supply wagons.

They were only a few days into the Ulgo foothills when the full weight of King Fulrach's authority became clear.

"Fulrach," King Rhodar of Drasnia objected when the King of the Sendars called a halt for yet another rest period, "if we don't move any faster than this, it will take us all summer to get to the eastern escarpment."

"You're exaggerating, Rhodar," King Fulrach replied mildly. "We're making pretty good time. The supply wagons are heavy, and the wagon horses have to be rested every hour."

"This is impossible," Rhodar declared. "I'm going to pick up the per,"

"That's up to you, of course." The brown-bearded Sendar shrugged, coolly eyeing Rhodar's vast paunch. "But if you exhaust my wagon horses today, you won't eat tomorrow."

And that ended that.

The going in the steep passes of Ulgoland was even slower. Ce'Nedra entered that land of thick forests and rocky crags with apprehension. She vividly remembered the flight with Grul the Eldrak and the attacks of the Algroths and the Hrulgin that had so terrified her that previous winter. There were few meetings with the monsters that lurked in the Ulgo mountains, however. The army was so large that even the fiercest creatures avoided it. Mandorallen, the Baron of Vo Mandor, rather regretfully reported only brief sightings.

"Mayhap if I were to ride a day's march in advance of our main force, I might find opportunity to engage some of the more frolicsome beasts," he mused aloud one evening, staring thoughtfully into the fire.

"You never get enough, do you?" Barak asked him pointedly.

"Never mind, Mandorallen," Polgara told the great knight. "The creatures aren't hurting us, and the Gorim of Ulgo would be happier if we didn't bother them."

Mandorallen sighed.

"Is he always like that?" King Anheg asked Barak curiously.

"You have absolutely no idea," Barak replied.

The slow march through Ulgoland, regardless of how much it chafed Rhodar, Brand, and Anheg, did, however, conserve the strength of the army, and they came down onto the plains of Algaria in surprisingly good shape.

"We'll go on to the Algarian Stronghold," King Rhodar decided as the army poured down out of the last pass and fanned out across the rolling grasslands. "We need to regroup a bit, and I don't see any point in moving to the base of the escarpment until the engineers are ready for us. Besides, I'd prefer not to announce the size of our army to any Thull who happens to glance down from the top of the cliff."

And so, in easy stages, the army marched across Algaria, trampling a mile-wide swath through the tall grass. Vast herds of cattle paused briefly in their grazing to watch with mild-eyed astonishment as the horde marched by, then returned to their feeding under the protective watch of mounted Algar clansmen.

The encampment that was set up around the towering Stronghold in south central Algaria stretched for miles, and the watch fires at night seemed almost a reflection of the stars. Once she was comfortably quartered in the Stronghold, Princess Ce'Nedra found herself even more removed from the day-to-day command of her troops. Her hours seemed filled with tedium. This is not to say that she did not receive reports. A rigorous schedule of training was instituted, in part because large portions of the army were not professional soldiers, but primarily to avoid the idleness that led to discipline problems. Each morning, Colonel Brendig, the sober-faced Sendarian baronet who seemed utterly devoid of humor, reported the progress of the previous day's training with excruciating thoroughness, along with all sorts of other tedious little details - most of which Ce'Nedra found extremely distasteful.

One morning after Brendig had respectfully withdrawn, Ce'Nedra finally exploded. "If he mentions the word 'sanitation' one more time, I think I'll scream," she declared to Adara and Polgara. The princess was pacing up and down, flinging her arms in the air in exasperation.

"It is fairly important in an army of this size, Ce'Nedra," Adara calmly pointed out.

"But does he have to talk about it all the time? It's a disgusting subject."

Polgara, who had been patiently teaching the little blond waif, Errand, how to lace up his boots, looked up, assessed Ce'Nedra's mood in a single glance, and then made a suggestion. "Why don't you young ladies take some horses and go for a ride? A bit of fresh air and exercise seems definitely to be in order."

It took only a short while for them to find the blond Mimbrate girl, Ariana. They knew exactly where to look. It took a bit longer, however, to wrench her away from her rapt contemplation of Lelldorin of Wildantor. Lelldorin, with the aid of his cousin Torasin, was struggling to teach a group of Arendish serfs the basics of archery. Torasin, a fiery young Asturian patriot, had joined the army late. There had been, Ce'Nedra gathered, some unpleasantness between two young men, but the prospect of war and glory had finally been too much for Torasin to resist. He had overtaken the army in the western foothills of Ulgoland, mounted on a horse half dead from hard riding. His reconciliation with Lelldorin had been emotional, and now the two were closer than ever. Ariana, however, watched only Lelldorin. Her eyes glowed as she gazed at him with an adoration so totally mindless that it was frightening.

The three girls, dressed in soft leather Algar riding clothes, cantered out through the encampment in bright midmorning sunlight, followed inevitably by Olban, youngest son of the Rivan Warder, and a detachment of guards. Ce'Nedra did not know exactly what to make of Olban. Since a hidden Murgo had made an attempt on her life in the Arendish forest, the young Rivan had appointed himself the chief of her personal bodyguards, and absolutely nothing could move him to abandon that duty. For some reason, he seemed almost grateful for the opportunity to serve, and Ce'Nedra was glumly certain that only physical force could make him stop.

It was a warm, cloudless day, and the blue sky stretched over the incredible expanse of the Algarian plain, where tall grass bent before a vagrant breeze. Once they were out of sight of the encampment, Ce'Nedra's spirits rose enormously. She rode the white horse King Cho-Hag had given her, a patient, even-tempered animal she had named Noble. Noble was probably not a good name for him, since he was a lazy horse. A great part of his placidity arose from the fact that his new owner was so tiny that she had virtually no weight. Moreover, in an excess of affection, Ce'Nedra babied him outrageously, slipping apples and bits of sweets to him whenever possible. As a result of his light exercise and rich diet, Noble was developing a noticeable portliness.

In the company of her two friends, and trailed by the watchful young Olban, the princess, mounted on her stout white horse, rode out across the grassland, exulting in the sense of freedom their ride brought to her.

They reined in at the base of a long, sloping hih to rest their mounts. Noble, pumping like a bellows, cast a reproachful look over his shoulder at his tiny mistress, but she heartlessly ignored his unspoken complaint. "It's an absolutely wonderful day for a ride," she exclamed enthusiastically.

Ariana sighed.

Ce'Nedra laughed at her. "Oh, come now, it's not as if Lelldorin were going someplace, Ariana, and it's good for men to miss us a little once in a while."

Ariana smiled rather wanly, then sighed again.

"Perhaps it's not as good for us to miss them, however," Adara murmured without any trace of a smile.

"What is that lovely fragrance?" Ce'Nedra asked suddenly.

Adam lifted her porcelain face to sniff at the light breeze, then suddenly looked around as if trying to pinpoint their exact location. "Come with me," she said with an uncharacteristic note of command in her voice, and she led them around the base of the hill to the far side. About halfway up the grassy slope there was a patch of law, dark green bushes covered with pale lavender flowers. There had been that morning a hatch of blue butterflies, and the winged creatures hovered in an eostatic cloud over the flowers. Without pausing, Adara pressed her mount up the slope and swung down from her saddle. There with a low cry she knelt almost reverently, gathering the bushes in her arms as if embracing them.

When Ce'Nedra drew closer, she was amazed to see tears welling up in her gentle friend's gray eyes, although Adara was actually smifing. "Whatever is wrong, Adara?" she asked.

"They're my flowers," Adara replied in a vibrant voice. "I didn't realize that they'd grow and spread this way."

"What are you talking about?"

"Garion created this flower last winter just for me. There was only one - just one. I saw it come into existence right there in his hand. I'd forgotten it until just now. Look how far it's spread in just one season."

Ce'Nedra felt a sudden pang of jealousy. Garion had never created a flower for her. She bent and pulled one of the lavender blooms from a bush, tugging perhaps just a bit harder than necessary. "It's lopsided," she sniffed, looking at the flower critically. Then she bit her lip, wishing she hadn't said that.

Adara gave her a quick look of protest.

"I'm only teasing, Adara," Ce'Nedra said quickly with a false little laugh. In spite of herself, still wanting to find something else wrong with the flower, she bent her face to the small, crooked blossom in her hand. Its fragrance seemed to erase all of her cares and to lift her spirits tremendously.

Ariana had also dismounted, and she too was breathing in the gentle odor of the flowers, although there was a slight frown on her face. "Might I gather some few of thy blossoms, Lady Adara?" she inquired. "Methinks they have some strange property concealed within their blushing petals that may be of some interest to Lady Polgara - some healing agent too subtle for my limited familiarity with unguents and aromatic herbs to discern."

Rather predictably, Ce'Nedra, having gone one way, suddenly reversed herself. "Marvelous!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if your flower turned out to be a great medicine, Adara? Some miraculous cure? We could call it 'Adara's rose,' and sick men would bless your name forever."

"It doesn't exactly look like a rose, Ce'Nedra," Adara pointed out.

"Nonsense," Ce'Nedra brushed the distinction aside. "I'm supposed to be a queen, after all, so if I say it's a rose, then it's a rose, and that's that. We'll take the flowers back to Lady Polgara at once." She turned back to her tubby horse, who was lazily regarding the flowers as if wondering whether or not to eat a few of them. "Come, Noble," the princess said to him with extravagant overstatement. "We'll gallop back to the Stronghold."

Noble winced visibly at the word "gallop."

Polgara examined the flowers carefully, but, to the disappointment of the princess and her friends, she would not commit herself immediately concerning their medicinal value. A bit subdued, the little princess returned quietly to her quarters and her duties.

Colonel Brendig was awaiting her. Upon reflection, Ce'Nedra concluded that Colonel Brendig was by far the most practical man she had ever met. No detail was too small for him. In a lesser man, such concern with little things might have been passed off as mere fussiness, but the colonel's belief that big things were made up of little things gave his patient attention to detail a certain dignity. He seemed to be everywhere in the camp; in his wake, tent-ropes were tightened, cluttered heaps of equipment were arranged into neat stacks, and casually open doublets were quickly buttoned up.

"I hope that her Majesty found her ride refreshing," the colonel said politely, bowing as Ce'Nedra entered the room.

"Thank you, Colonel Brendig," the princess replied. "My majesty did." She was in a whimsical frame of mind, and it was always a delight to tease this sober-faced Sendar.

A brief smile touched Brendig's lips, and then he immediately got down to the business of the midday report. "I'm pleased to advise your majesty that the Drasnian engineers have nearly completed the hoists atop the escarpment," he reported. "All that remains is the rigging of the counterweights which will help to lift the Cherek warships."

"That's nice," Ce'Nedra said with the vacant, empty-headed smile she knew drove him absolutely wild.

Brendig's jaw tightened slightly, but his face betrayed no other sign of his momentary flash of irritation. "The Chereks are beginning to remove the masts and rigging from their ships in preparation for the portage," he continued, "and the fortified positions up on top of the escarpment are several days ahead of schedule."

"How wonderful!" Ce'Nedra exclaimed, clapping her hands with a great show of girlish delight.

"Your Majesty, please, " Brendig complained.

"I'm sorry, Colonel Brendig," Ce'Nedra apologized, affectionately patting his hand. "For some reason you bring out the very worst in me. Don't you ever smile?"

He looked at her with an absolutely straight face. "I am smiling, your Majesty," he said. "Oh - you have a visitor from Tolnedra."

"A visitor? Who?"

"A General Varana, the Duke of Anadile."

"Varana? Here? What on earth is he doing in Algaria? Is he alone?"

"There are a number of other Tolnedran gentlemen with him," Brendig replied. "They aren't in uniform, but they have the general bearing of military men. They say that they're here as private observers. General Varana expressed a desire to pay his respects whenever it might be convenient."

"Of course, Colonel Brendig," Ce'Nedra said with an enthusiasm that was no longer feigned. "Please send for him at once."

Ce'Nedra had known General Varana since her earliest childhood. He was a stocky man with graying, curly hair and a stiff left knee that gave him a noticeable limp. He was blessed with that wry, understated sense of humor so characteristic of the Anadilian family. Of all the noble houses of Tolnedra, the Borunes were most comfortable with the Anadiles. Both families were southern, for one thing, and the Anadiles usually sided with the Borunes in disputes with the powerful families of the north. Although Anadile was only a duchy, there had never been any hint of subservience in the family's alliances with the Grand Dukes of the House of Borune. Indeed, Anadilian dukes, more often than not, poked gentle fun at their more powerful neighbors. Serious historians and statesmen had long considered it a misfortune for the Empire that the talented House of Anadile had not enough wealth to make a serious bid for the Imperial Throne.

When General Varana politely limped into the room where Ce'Nedra impatiently awaited him, there was a faint smile hovering on his lips and a quizzical lift to one of his eyebrows. "Your Majesty," he greeted her with a bow,

"Uncle Varana," the princess exclaimed, flying to embrace him. Varana was not, in fact, her uncle, but she had always thought of him as such.

"What have you gone and done now, my little Ce'Nedra?" He laughed, enfolding her in his thick-muscled arms. "You're turning the world upside-down, you know. What's a Borune doing in the middle of Algaria with an Alorn army at her back?"

"I'm going to invade Mishrak ac Thull," she declared impishly.

"Really? Whatever for? Did King Gethell of Thulldom insult the House of Borune in some way? I hadn't heard about it."

"It's an Alorn matter," Ce'Nedra replied airily.

"Oh, I see. That explains it, I suppose. Alorns don't need reasons for the things they do."

"You're laughing at me," she accused him.

"Of course I am, Ce'Nedra. The Anadiles have been laughing at the Borunes for thousands of years."

She pouted. "It's very serious, Uncle Varana."

"Naturally it is," he agreed, gently touching her out-thrust lower lip with one thick finger, "but that's no reason not to laugh about it."

"You're impossible," Ce'Nedra said helplessly, laughing in spite of herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Observing," he told her. "Generals do that a lot. You've got the only war that's going on just now, so several of us thought we'd drop by and have a look. Morin suggested it."

"My father's chamberlain?"

"I think that's his function, yes."

"Morin wouldn't do that - not on his own."

"Really? What astonishing news."

Ce'Nedra frowned, nibbling absently at a lock of her hair. Varana reached out and took the lock out from between her teeth. "Morin doesn't do anything unless my father tells him to," Ce'Nedra mused, once again lifting the curl to her lips.

Varana took the lock out of her fingers again.

"Don't do that," she told him.

"Why not? That's the way I broke you of sucking your thumb."

"This is different. I'm thinking."

"Think with your mouth closed."

"This was my father's idea, wasn't it?"

"I wouldn't presume to say I knew the Emperor's mind," he replied.

"Well, I would. What's that old fox up to?"

"That's hardly respectful, child."

"You say you're here to observe?''

He nodded.

"And perhaps make a few suggestions?"

He shrugged. "If anyone cares to listen. I'm not here officially, you understand. Imperial policy forbids that. Your claim to the Riven throne is not formally recognized in Tol Honeth."

She cast a sidelong glance at him through her thick eyelashes. "These suggestions you might make - if you happened to be near a Tolnedran legion that seemed to need a bit of direction, is it at all possible that one of these suggestions might be 'forward march?' "

"That situation might arise, yes," he admitted gravely.

"And you have a number of other officers of the general staff with you?"

"I think several of them do, in fact, serve occasionally on that body." His eyes were twinkling with suppressed mirth.

Ce'Nedra lifted the lock again, and General Varana took it away from her once more.

"How would you like to meet King Rhodar of Drasnia?" she asked him.

"I'd be honored to meet his Majesty."

"Why don't we go see him, then?"

"Why don't we?"

"Oh, I love you, Uncle." She laughed, throwing her arms about him again.

They found King Rhodar in conference with the other leaders of the army in a large airy chamber King Cho-Hag had set aside for their use. There was no longer any pretence of formality among the leaders of the army, and most of them sprawled in comfortable horsehide chairs, watching as the crimson-robed Rhodar measured off distances with a piece of string on a large map that covered one entire wall.

"It doesn't really seem all that far to me," he was saying to King Cho-Hag.

"That's because your map is flat, Rhodar," Cho-Hag replied. "The country's very hilly through there. Believe me, it will take three days."

King Rhodar made an indelicate sound of disgust. "I guess we'll have to give up the idea, then. I'd like to burn out those forts, but I'm not going to start ordering suicide missions. Three days' ride is just too far."

"Your Majesty," Ce'Nedra said politely.

"Yes, child?" Rhodar was still frowning at the map.

"I'd like for you to meet someone."

King Rhodar turned.

"Your Majesty," Ce'Nedra said formally, "may I present his Grace, the Duke of Anadile? General Varana, his Majesty, King Rhodar of Drasnia."

The two men bowed politely to each other, their eyes probing, assessing.

"The general's reputation precedes him," King Rhodar noted.

"But his Majesty's skill as a military man has been kept a secret," Varana replied.

"Do you think that satisfies the demands of courtesy?" Rhodar asked.

"If not, we can both lie a little bit later on about how excruciatingly polite we were to each other," Varana suggested.

King Rhodar flashed him a quick grin. "All right, what's Tolnedra's leading tactician doing in Algaria?"

"Observing, your Majesty."

"You're going to stick to that story?"

"Naturally. For political reasons, Tolnedra must maintain a neutral posture in this affair. I'm certain that Drasnian intelligence has briefed your Majesty on the realities of the situation. The five spies you have in the Imperial palace are thoroughly professional."

"Six, actually," King Rhodar noted in passing.

General Varana raised one eyebrow. "I suppose we should have known," he said.

"It changes from time to time." Rhodar shrugged. "You know our strategic situation?"

"I've been filled in, yes."

"What's your assessment - as an observer?"

"You're in trouble."

"Thanks," Rhodar said dryly.

"The numbers dictate that you take a defensive posture."

Rhodar shook his head. "That might work if all we had to worry about was Taur Urgas and the Southern Murgos, but 'Zakath is landing more troops at Thull Zelik every day. If we fortify and try to sit tight, and he decides to move against us, he'll be able to bury us in Malloreans by autumn. The key to the whole situation is putting Anheg's fleet into the Sea of the East to stop those troop ships. We're going to have to gamble a bit in order to pull that off."

Varana studied the map. "If you're going to go down the River Mardu, you'll have to neutralize the Thullish capital," he said, pointing at T'hull Mardu. "It's an island - like Tol Honeth - and it's right in the middle of the river. You'll never get a fleet past it as long as a hostile force holds it. You'll have to take the city."

"That had already occurred to us," King Anheg said from where he sprawled in his chair with his ever-present ale cup in his hand.

"You know Anheg?" Rhodar asked the general.

Varana nodded. "By reputation," he replied. He bowed to King Anheg. "Your Majesty," he said.

"General," Anheg responded, inclining his head.

"If Thull Mardu is heavily defended, it will cost you a third of your army to take it," Varana continued.

"We're going to lure the garrison out," Rhodar told him.

"How?"

"That's going to be up to Korodullin and me," King Cho-Hag said quietly. "Once we get to the top of the escarpment, the Mimbrate knights are going to move out and crush every city and town in the uplands, and my clansmen will strike down into the farming regions to burn every standing crop."

"They'll realize that's only a diversion, your Majesty," Varana pointed out.

"Naturally," Brand agreed in his rumbling voice, "but a diversion from what? We don't think they'll fully realize that Thull Mardu is our main objective. We'll try our best to make our depredations as general as possible. The loss of those towns and crops might be acceptable at first, but it won't be long before they'll have to take steps to protect them."

"And you think they'll pull the garrison out of Thull Mardu to meet you?"

"That's the idea," King Rhodar replied.

Varana shook his head. "They'll bring Murgos up from Rak Goska and Malloreans from Thull Zelik. Then instead of a quick raid on Thull Mardu, you'll have a general war on your hands."

"That's what you'd do, General Varana," King Rhodar disagreed, "but you aren't 'Zakath or Taur Urgas. Our strategy's based on our assessment of those two men. Neither of them will commit his forces unless he's convinced that we pose a major threat. Each of them wants to save as much of his army as possible. In their view, we're only an incidental annoyance - and an excuse to put an army into the field. For them, the real war starts when they attack each other. Each of them will hold back, and King Gethell of the Thulls will have to meet us on his own with only token support from the Murgos and the Malloreans. If we move fast enough, we'll have Anheg's fleet into the Sea of the East and all our troops pulled back to the escarpment before they realize what we're up to."

"And then?"

"And then Taur Urgas will stay in Rak Goska as if his foot were nailed to the floor." King Anheg chuckled. "I'll be in the Sea of the East drowning Malloreans by the shipload, and he'll be cheering me on every step of the way."

"And 'Zakath won't dare risk those troops he already has at Thull Zelik by moving against us," Brand added. "If he loses too many men, Taur Urgas will have the upper hand."

General Varana considered that. "A three-way deadlock, then," he mused. "Three armies in the same region, and not one of them willing to move."

"The very best kind of war." King Rhodar grinned. "Nobody gets hurt."

"Tactically, your only problem is gauging the severity of your raids before you attack Thull Mardu," Varana noted. "They'll have to be serious enough to pull the garrison out of the city, but not so serious as to alarm 'Zakath or Taur Urgas. That's a very fine line to walk, gentlemen."

Rhodar nodded. "That's why we're so delighted to have Tolnedra's foremost tactician here to advise us," he said, bowing floridly.

"Please, your Majesty," General Varana interposed, lifting one hand."Suggest, not advise. An observer can only suggest. The term advice implies partisanship that is not in line with the Empire's position of strict neutrality."

"Ah," King Rhodar said. He turned to King Cho-Hag. "We must make arrangements for the comfort of the Imperial suggester and his staff," he declared with a broad grin.

Ce'Nedra watched with secret delight as these two brilliant men began what was obviously going to be a firm friendship. "I'll leave you gentlemen to your entertainments," she told them. "Military discussions give me a headache, so I'll rely on you not to get me in trouble." She curtsied to them with a winsome little smile and withdrew.

Two days later, Relg arrived from Ulgoland with the contingent of his leaf mailed countrymen sent by the Gorim. Taiba, who had hovered silently in the background since the army had arrived at the Stronghold, joined Ce'Nedra and Lady Polgara to greet the Ulgos as the wagons which carried them creaked up the hill toward the main gate. The beautiful Marag woman wore a plain, even severe, linen dress, but her violet eyes were glowing. Relg, his cowled leaf mail shirt covering his head and shoulders like lizard skin, climbed down from the lead wagon and only perfunctorily answered the greetings of Barak and Mandorallen. His large eyes searched the group gathered at the gate until they found Taiba, and then a kind of tension seemed to go out of him. Without speaking, he walked toward her. Their meeting was silent, and they did not touch, though Taiba's hand moved involuntarily toward him several times. They stood in the golden sunlight with their eyes lost in each other's faces, drawing about them a profound kind of privacy that absolutely ignored the presence of others. Taiba's eyes remained constantly on Relg's face, but there was in them nothing of that vacant, placid adoration that filled Ariana's eyes when she looked at Lelldorin. There was rather a question - even a challenge. Relg's answering look was the troubled gaze of a man torn between two overpowering compulsions. Ce'Nedra watched them for a few moments, but was finally forced to avert her eyes.

The Ulgos were quartered in dim, cavernous rooms built into the foundations of the Stronghold where Relg could lead his countrymen through the painful process of adjusting their eyes to the light of day and training them to ignore the unreasoning panic which assailed all Ulgos when they were exposed to the open sky.

That evening another smaller contingent arrived from the south. Three men, two in white robes and one in filthy rags, appeared at the gate demanding entrance. The Algars at the gate admitted them immediately, and one guard was sent to Lady Polgara's candlelit apartment to inform her of their arrival.

"You'd better bring them here," she advised the poor man, who was ashen-faced and trembling. "They haven't been in the company of other men for a very long time, and crowds might make them nervous."

"At once, Lady Polgara," the shaking Algar said, bowing. He hesitated for a moment. "Would he really do that to me?" he blurted.

"Would who do what to you?"

"The ugly one. He said that he was going to-" The man stopped, suddenly realizing to whom he was speaking. His face turned red. "I don't think I should repeat what he said, Lady Polgara - but it was an awful thing to threaten a man with."

"Oh," she said. "I believe I know what you mean. It's one of his favorite expressions. I think you're safe. He only says that to get people's attention. I'm not even sure you can do it to somebody and keep him alive at the same time."

"I'll bring them at once, Lady Polgara."

The sorceress turned to look at Ce'Nedra, Adara, and Ariana, who had joined her for supper. "Ladies," she said gravely, "we're about to have guests. Two of them are the sweetest men in the world, but the third is a bit uncontrolled in his use of language. If you're at all sensitive about such things, you'd better leave."

Ce'Nedra, remembering her encounter with the three in the Vale of Aldur, rose immediately.

"Not you, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her. "You'll have to stay, I'm afraid."

Ce'Nedra swallowed hard. "I really would leave, if I were you," she advised her friends.

"Is he that bad?" Adara asked. "I've heard men swear before."

"Not like this one," Ce'Nedra warned.

"You've managed to make me very curious." Adara smiled. "I think I'll stay."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Ce'Nedra murmured.

Beltira and Belkira were as saintly as Ce'Nedra remembered them, but the misshapen Beldin was even uglier and nastier. Ariana fled before he had even finished greeting Lady Polgara. Adara turned deathly pale, but bravely kept her seat. Then the hideous little man turned to greet Ce'Nedra with a few raucous questions that made the princess blush to the roots of her hair. Adara prudently withdrew at that point.

"What's wrong with your wenches, Pol?" Beldin asked innocently, scratching at his matted hair. "They seemed a little vaporish."

"They're well-bred ladies, Uncle," Polgara replied. "Certain expressions are offensive to their ears."

"Is that all?" He laughed coarsely. "This redheaded one seems a bit less delicate."

"Your remarks offend me as much as they offend my companions, Master Beldin," Ce'Nedra retorted stiffly, "but I don't think I'll be routed by the foul mouthings of an ill-bred hunchback."

"Not bad," he complimented her, sprawling uncouthly in a chair, "but you've got to learn to relax. An insult's got a certain rhythm and flow to it that you haven't quite picked up yet."

"She's very young, Uncle," Polgara reminded him.

Beldin leered at the princess. "Isn't she, though?"

"Stop that," Polgara told him.

"We've come-"

"-to join your expedition," the twins said.

"Beldin feels-"

"-that you might encounter Grolims, and-"

"-need our help."

"Isn't that pathetic?" Beldin demanded. "They still haven't learned to talk straight." He looked at Polgara. "Is this all the army you've got?"

"The Chereks will be joining us at the river," she replied.

"You should have talked faster," he told Ce'Nedra. "You haven't got nearly enough men. Southern Murgos proliferate like maggots in dead meat, and Malloreans spawn like blowflies."

"We'll explain our strategy to you in good time, Uncle," Polgara promised him. "We are not going to meet the armies of Angarak head on. What we're doing here is only diversionary."

He grinned a hideous little grin. "I'd have given a lot to see your face when you found out that Belgarath had slipped away from you," he said.

"I wouldn't dwell on that, Master Beldin," Ce'Nedra advised. "Lady Polgara was not pleased by Belgarath's decision, and it might not be prudent to raise it again."

"I've seen Pol's little tantrums before." He shrugged. "Why don't you send somebody out for a pig or a sheep, Pol? I'm hungry."

"It's customary to cook it first, Uncle."

He looked puzzled. "What for?" he asked.

Chapter Ten

THREE DAYS LATER the army began to move out from the Algar Stronghold toward the temporary encampment the Algars had erected on the east bank of the Aldur River. The troops of each nation moved in separate broad columns, trampling a vast track through the knee-high grass. In the center column the legions of Tolnedra, standards raised, marched with parade-ground perfection. The appearance of the legions had improved noticeably since the arrival of General Varana and his staff. The mutiny on the plains near Tol Vordue had given Ce'Nedra a large body of men, but no senior officers, and once the danger of surprise inspections was past, a certain laxity had set in. General Varana had not mentioned the rust spots on the breastplates nor the generally unshaven condition of the troops. His expression of mild disapproval had seemed to be enough. The hard-bitten sergeants who now commanded the legions had taken one look at his face and had immediately taken steps. The rust spots vanished, and shaving regularly once again became popular. There were, to be sure, a few contusions here and there on some freshly shaved faces, mute evidence that the heavy-fisted sergeants had found it necessary to vigorously persuade their troops that the holiday was over.

To one side of the legions rode the glittering Mimbrate knights, their varicolored pennons snapping in the breeze from the up-raised forest of their lances. Their faces shone with enthusiasm and little else. Ce'Nedra privately suspected that a large part of their fearsome reputation stemmed from that abysmal lack of anything remotely resembling thought. With only a little encouragement, a force of Mimbrates would cheerfully mount an assault on winter or a changing tide.

On the other flank of the marching legions came the green - and brown - clad bowmen of Asturia. The placement was quite deliberate. The Asturians were no more blessed with intelligence than their Mimbrate cousins, and it was generally considered prudent to interpose other troops between the two Arendish forces to avoid unpleasantness.

Beyond the Asturians marched the grim-faced Rivans, all in gray, and accompanying them were the few Chereks who were not with the fleet, which even now was in the process of being prepared for the portage to the base of the escarpment. Flanking the Mimbrates marched the Sendarian militiamen in their homemade uniforms, and at the rear of the host, the creaking lines of King Fulrach's supply wagons stretched back to the horizon. The Algar clans, however, did not ride in orderly columns, but rather in little groups and clusters as they drove herds of spare horses and half wild cattle along on the extreme flanks of the host.

Ce'Nedra, in her armor and mounted on her white horse, rode in the company of General Varana. She was trying, without much success, to explain her cause to him.

"My dear child," the general said finally, "I'm a Tolnedran and a soldier. Neither of those conditions encourages me to accept any kind of mysticism. My primary concerns at this moment have to do with feeding this multitude. Your supply lines stretch all the way back across the mountains and then up through Arendia. That's a very long way, Ce'Nedra."

"King Fulrach's taken care of that, Uncle," she told him rather smugly. "All the time we've been marching, his Sendars have been freighting supplies along the Great North Road to Aldurford and then barging them upriver to the camp. There are whole acres of supply dumps waiting for us."

General Varana nodded approvingly. "It appears that Sendars make perfect quartermasters," he observed. "Is he bringing weapons as well?"

"I think they said something about that," Ce'Nedra replied. "Arrows, spare lances for the knights, that sort of thing. They seemed to know what they were doing, so I didn't ask too many questions."

"That's foolish, Ce'Nedra," Varana said bluntly. "When you're running an army, you should know every detail."

"I'm not running the army, Uncle," she pointed out. "I'm leading it. King Rhodar's running it."

"And what will you do if something happens to him?"

Ce'Nedra suddenly went cold.

"You are going to war, Ce'Nedra, and people do get killed and injured in wars. You'd better start taking an interest in what's going on around you, my little princess. Going off to war with your head wrapped in a pillow isn't going to improve your chances of success, you know." He gave her a very direct look. "Don't chew your fingernails, Ce'Nedra," he added. "It makes your hands unsightly."

The encampment at the river was vast, and in the very center stood King Fulrach's main supply dump, a virtual city of tents and neatly stacked equipment. A long string of flat-bottomed barges were moored to the riverbank, patiently waiting to be unloaded.

"Your people have been busy," King Rhodar observed to the dumpy-looking Sendarian monarch as they rode along a narrow alleyway between mountainous heaps of canvas-covered produce and stacks of stoutly boxed equipment. "How did you know what to have them bring?"

"I took notes while we were coming down through Arendia," King Fulrach replied. "It wasn't too hard to see what we were going to need - boots, arrows, spare swords, and the like. At present, about all we're bringing in is food. The Algar herds will provide fresh meat, but men get sick on a steady diet of nothing but meat."

"You've already got enough food here to feed the army for a year," King Anheg noted.

Fulrach shook his head. "Forty-five days," he corrected meticulously. "I want thirty days' worth here and two weeks' worth in the forts the Drasnians are building up on top of the escarpment. That's our margin of safety. As long as the barges replenish our food supplies daily, we'll always have that much on hand. Once you decide what your goals are, the rest is just simple mathematics."

"How do you know how much a man's going to eat in one day?" Rhodar asked, eyeing the high-piled foodstuffs. "Some days I'm hungrier than others."

Fulrach shrugged. "It averages out. Some eat more, some eat less; but in the end, it all comes out about the same."

"Fulrach, sometimes you're so practical, you almost make me sick," Anheg said.

"Somebody has to be."

"Don't you Sendars have any sense of adventure? Don't you ever do something without planning it all out in advance?"

"Not if we can help it," the King of Sendaria replied mildly.

Near the center of the supply-dump a number of large pavilions had been erected for the use of the leaders of the army and their supporting staff. About midafternoon, after she had bathed and changed clothes, Princess Ce'Nedra went over to the main tent to see what was happening.

"They're anchored about a mile downriver," Barak was reporting to his cousin. "They've been here for about four days now. Greldik's more or less in charge."

"Greldik?" Anheg looked surprised. "He doesn't have any official position."

"He knows the river." Barak shrugged. "Over the years he's sailed just about any place where there's water and a chance to make some profit. He tells me that the sailors have been drinking pretty steadily since they anchored. They know what's coming."

Anheg chuckled. "We'd better not disappoint them, then. Rhodar, how much longer will it be before your engineers are ready to start lifting my ships ap the escarpment?"

"A week or so," King Rhodar replied, looking up from his midafternoon snack.

"It will be close enough," Anheg concluded. He turned back to Barak. "Tell Greldik that we'll start the portage tomorrow morning - before the sailors have time to sober up."

Ce'Nedra had not fully understood the meaning of the word "portage" until she arrived the following morning at the riverbank to find the sweating Chereks hauling their ships out of the water and manhandling them along by main strength on wooden rollers. She was appalled at the amount of effort required to move a ship even a few inches.

She was not alone in that. Durnik the smith took one shocked look at the procedure and immediately went looking for King Anheg. "Excuse me, your Honor," he said respectfully, "but isn't this bad for the boats -as well as the men?"

"Ships," Anheg corrected. "They're called ships. A boat is something else."

"Whatever you call them - won't banging them along over those logs spring their seams?"

Anheg shrugged. "They all leak quite a bit anyway," he replied. "And it's always been done this way."

Durnik quickly saw the futility of trying to talk to the King of Cherek. He went instead to Barak, who was rather glumly considering the huge ship his crew had rowed upriver to meet him. "She looks very impressive when she's afloat," the big red-bearded man was saying to his friend, Captain Greldik, "but I think she'll be even more impressive when we have to pick her up and carry her."

"You're the one who wanted the biggest warship afloat," Greldik reminded him with a broad smirk. "You'll have to buy enough ale to float that whale of yours before your crew's drunk enough to try to portage her - not to mention the fact that it's customary for a captain to join in when the time comes to portage."

"Stupid custom," Barak growled sourly.

"I'd say that you're in for a bad week, Barak." Greldik's grin grew broader.

Durnik took the two seamen aside and began talking earnestly with them, drawing diagrams on the sandy riverbank with a stick. The more he talked, the more interested they became.

What emerged from their discussions a day later were a pair of lowslung cradles with a dozen wheels on each side. As the rest of the Chereks jeered, the two ships were carefully slid out of the water onto the cradles and firmly lashed in place. The jeering faded noticeably, however, when the crews of the two ships began trundling their craft across the plain. Hettar, who happened to ride by, watched for a few moments with a puzzled frown. "Why are you pulling them by hand," he asked, "when you're in the middle of the largest herd of horses in the world?"

Barak's eyes went very wide, and then an almost reverent grin dawned on his face.

The jeers that had risen as Barak's and Greldik's ships had been maneuvered onto their wheeled carriages turned rather quickly into angry mutterings as the carnages, pulled by teams of Algar horses, rolled effortlessly toward the escarpment past men straining with every ounce of strength to move their ships a few inches at a time. To leave it all to artistry, Barak and Greldik ordered their men to lounge indolently on the decks of their ships, drinking ale and playing dice.

King Anheg stared very hard at his impudently grinning cousin as the big ship rolled past. His expression was profoundly offended. "That's going too far!" he exploded, jerking off his dented crown and throwing it down on the ground.

King Rhodar put on a perfectly straight face. "I'd be the first to admit that it's probably not nearly as good as moving them by hand, Anheg. I'm sure there are some rather profound philosophical reasons for all that sweating and grunting and cursing, but it is faster, wouldn't you say? And we really ought to move right along with this."

"It's unnatural," Anheg growled, still glaring at the two ships, which were already several hundred yards away.

Rhodar shrugged. "Anything's unnatural the first time you try it."

"I'll think about it," Anheg said darkly.

"I wouldn't think for too long," Rhodar suggested. "Your popularity as a monarch is going to go downhill with every mile - and Barak's the sort of man who'll parade that contraption of his back and forth in front of your sailors every step of the way to the escarpment."

"He would do that, wouldn't he?"

"I think you can count on it."

King Anheg sighed bitterly. "Go fetch that unwhole-somely clever Sendarian blacksmith," he sourly instructed one of his men. "Let's get this over with."

Later that day the leaders of the army gathered again in the main tent for a strategy meeting. "Our biggest problem now is to conceal the size of our forces," King Rhodar told them all. "Instead of marching everybody to the escarpment all at once and then milling around at the base of the cliff, it might be better to move the troops in small contingents and have them go directly up to the forts on top as soon as they arrive."

"Will such a piecemeal approach not unduly delay our progress?" King Korodullin asked.

"Not all that much," Rhodar replied. "We'll move your knights and Cho-Hag's clansmen up first so you can start burning cities and crops. That will give the Thulls something to think about beside how many infantry regiments we're bringing up. We don't want them to start counting noses."

"Couldn't we build false campfires and so on to make it appear that we have more men?" Lelldorin suggested brightly.

"The whole idea is to make our army appear smaller, not bigger," Brand explained gently in his deep voice. "We don't want to alarm Taur Urgas or 'Zakath sufficiently to make them commit their forces. It will be an easy campaign if all we have to deal with are King Gethell's Thulls. If the Murgos and the Malloreans intervene, we'll be in for a serious fight."

"And that's the one thing we definitely want to avoid," King Rhodar added.

"Oh," Lelldorin said, a bit abashed, "I didn't think of that." A slow flush rose in his cheeks.

"Lelldorin," Ce'Nedra said, hoping to help him cover his embarrassment, "I think I'd like to go out and visit with the troops for a bit. Would you accompany me?"

"Of course, your Majesty," the young Asturian agreed, quickly rising to his feet.

"That's not a bad idea," Rhodar agreed. "Encourage them a bit, Ce'Nedra. They've walked a long way, and their spirits may be sagging."

Lelldorin's cousin Torasin, dressed in his customary black doublet and hose, also rose to his feet. "I'll go along, if I may," he said. He grinned rather impudently at King Korodullin. "Asturians are good plotters, but rather poor strategists, so I probably wouldn't be able to add much to the discussions."

The King of Arendia smiled at the young man's remark. "Thou art pert, young Torasin, but methinks thou art not so fervent an enemy of the crown of Arendia as thou dost pretend."

Torasin bowed extravagantly, still grinning. Once they were outside the tent, he turned to Lelldorin. "I could almost learn to like that man - if it weren't for all those thees and thous," he declared.

"It's not so bad - once you get used to it," Lelldorin replied. Torasin laughed. "If I had someone as pretty as Lady Ariana for a friend, she could thee me and thou me all she wanted," he said. He looked archly at Ce'Nedra. "Which troops did you wish to encourage, your Majesty?" he bantered.

"Let's visit your Asturian countrymen," she decided. "I don't think I'd care to take you two into the Mimbrate camp - unless your swords had been taken away from you and your mouths had been bricked up."

"Don't you trust us?" Lelldorin asked.

"I know you," she replied with a little toss of her head. "Where are the Asturians encamped?"

"That way," Torasin answered, pointing toward the south end of the supply dump.

Smells of cooking were carried by the breeze from the Sendarian field kitchens, and those smells reminded the princess of something. Instead of randomly circulating among the Asturian tents, she found herself quite deliberately searching for some specific people.

She found Lammer and Detton, the two serfs who had joined her army on the outskirts of Vo Wacune, finishing their afternoon meal in front of a patched tent. They both looked better fed than they had when she had first seen them, and they were no longer dressed in rags. When they saw her approaching, they scrambled awkwardly to their feet.

"Well, my friends," she asked, trying to put them at ease, "how do you find army life?"

"We don't have anything to complain about, your Ladyship," Detton replied respectfully.

"Except for all the walking," Lammer added. "I hadn't realized that the world was this big."

"They gave us boots," Detton told her, holding up one foot so that she could see his boot. "They were a bit stiff at first, but the blisters have all healed now."

"Are you getting enough to eat?" Ce'Nedra asked them.

"Plenty," Lammer said. "The Sendars even cook it for us. Did you know that there aren't any serfs in the kingdom of the Sendars, my Lady? Isn't that astonishing? It gives a man something to think about."

"It does indeed," Detton agreed. "They grow all that food, and everybody always has plenty to eat and clothes to wear and a house to sleep in, and there's not a single serf in the whole kingdom."

"I see that they've given you equipment, too," the princess said, noting that the two now wore conical leather helmets and stiff leather vests.

Lammer nodded and pulled off his helmet. "It's got steel plates in it to keep a man from getting his brains knocked out," he told her. "They lined us all up as soon as we got here and gave every man a helmet and these hard leather tunics."

"They gave each of us a spear and a dagger, too," Detton said.

"Have they showed you how to use them?" Ce'Nedra asked.

"Not yet, your Ladyship," Detton replied. "We've been concentrating on learning how to shoot arrows."

Ce'Nedra turned to her two companions. "Could you see that somebody takes care of that?" she said. "I want to e sure that everybody knows how to defend himself, at least."

"We'll see to it, your Majesty," Lelldorin answered.

Not far away, a young serf was seated cross-legged in front of another tent. He lifted a handmade flute to his lips and began to play. Ce'Nedra had heard some of the finest musicians in the world performing at the palace in Tol Honeth, but the serf boy's flute caught at her heart and brought tears to her eyes. His melody soared toward the azure sky like an unfettered lark.

"How exquisite," she exclaimed.

Lammer nodded. "I don't know much about music," he said, "but the boy seems to play well. It's a shame he's not right in the head."

Ce'Nedra looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"He comes from a village in the southern part of the forest of Arendia. I'm told it's a very poor village and that the lord of the region is very harsh with his serfs. The boy's an orphan, and he was put to watching the cows when he was young. One time one of the cows strayed, and the boy was beaten half to death. He can't talk any more."

"Do you know his name?"

"Nobody seems to know it," Detton replied. "We take turns looking out for him - making sure he's fed and has a place to sleep. There's not much else you can do for him."

A small sound came from Lelldorin, and Ce'Nedra was startled to see tears streaming openly down the earnest young man's face.

The boy continued his playing, his melody heartbreakingly true, and his eyes sought out Ce'Nedra's and met them with a kind of grave recognition.

They did not stay much longer. The princess knew that her rank and position made the two serfs uncomfortable. She had made sure that they were all right and that her promise to them was being kept, and that was all that really mattered.

As Ce'Nedra, Lelldorin, and Torasin walked toward the camp of the Sendars, they suddenly heard the sound of squabbling on the other side of a large tent.

"I'll pile it any place I want to," one man was saying belligerently.

"You're blocking the street," another man replied.

"Street?" the first snorted. "What are you talking about? This isn't a town. There aren't any streets."

"Friend," the second man explained with exaggerated patience, "we have to bring the wagons through here to get to the main supply dump. Now please move your equipment so I can get through. I still have a lot to do today."

"I'm not going to take orders from a Sendarian teamster who's found an easy way to avoid fighting. I'm a soldier."

"Really?" the Sendar replied dryly. "How much fighting have you seen?"

"I'll fight when the time comes."

"It may come quicker than you'd expected if you don't get your gear out of my way. If I have to get down off this wagon to move it myself, it's likely to make me irritable."

"I'm all weak with fright," the soldier retorted sarcastically.

"Are you going to move it?"

"No."

"I tried to warn you, friend," the teamster said in a resigned tone.

"If you touch my gear, I'll break your head."

"No. You'll try to break my head."

There was a sudden sound of scuffling and several heavy blows. "Now get up and move your gear like I told you to," the teamster said. "I don't have all day to stand around and argue with you."

"You hit me when I wasn't looking," the soldier complained.

"Do you want to watch the next one coming?"

"All right, don't get excited. I'm moving it."

"I'm glad we understand each other."

"Does that sort of thing happen very often?" Ce'Nedra asked quietly.

Torasin, grinning broadly, nodded. "Some of your troops feel the need to bluster, your Majesty," he replied, "and the Sendarian wagoneers usually don't have the time to listen. Fistfights and streetbrawling are second nature to those fellows, so their squabbles with the soldiers almost always end up the same way. It's very educational, really."

"Men!" Ce'Nedra said.

In the camp of the Sendars they met Durnik. With him there was an oddly matched pair of young men.

"A couple of old friends," Durnik said as he introduced them. "Just arrived on the supply barges. I think you've met Rundorig, Princess. He was at Faldor's farm when we visited there last winter."

Ce'Nedra did in fact remember Rundorig. The tall, hulking young man, she recalled, was the one who was going to marry Garion's childhood sweetheart, Zubrette. She greeted him warmly and gently reminded him that they had met before. Rundorig's Arendish background made his mind move rather slowly. His companion, however, was anything but slow. Durnik introduced him as Doroon, another of Garion's boyhood friends. Doroon was a small, wiry young man with a protruding Adam's apple and slightly bulging eyes. After a few moments of shyness, his tongue began to run away with him. It was a bit hard to follow Doroon. His mind flitted from idea to idea, and his mouth raced along breathlessly, trying to keep up.

"It was sort of rough going up in the mountains, your Ladyship," he replied in answer to her question about their trip from Sendaria, "what with how steep the road was and all. You'd think that as long as the Tolnedrans were building a highway, they'd have picked leveler ground - but they seem to be fascinated by straight lines - only that's not always the easiest way. I wonder why they're like that." The fact that Ce'Nedra herself was Tolnedran seemed not to have registered on Doroon.

"You came along the Great North Road?" she asked him.

"Yes - until we got to a place called Aldurford. That's a funny kind of name, isn't it? Although it makes sense if you stop and think about it. But that was after we got out of the mountains where the Murgos attacked us. You've never seen such a fight."

"Murgos?" Ce'Nedra asked him sharply, trying to pin down his skittering thoughts.

He nodded eagerly. "The man who was in charge of the wagons - he's a great big fellow from Muros, I think he said - wasn't it Muros he said he came from, Rundorig? Or maybe it was Camaar - for some reason I always get the two mixed up. What was I talking about?"

"The Murgos," Durnik supplied helpfully.

"Oh, yes. Anyway, the man in charge of the wagons said that there had been a lot of Murgos in Sendaria before the war. They pretended that they were merchants, but they weren't - they were spies. When the war started, they all went up into the mountains, and now they come out of the woods and try to ambush our supply wagons - but we were ready for them, weren't we Rundorig? Rundorig hit one of the Murgos with a big stick when the Murgo rode past our wagon - knocked him clear off his horse. Whack! Just like that! Knocked him clear off his horse. I'll bet he was surprised." Doroon laughed a short little laugh, and then his tongue raced off again, describing in jerky, helter-skelter detail the trip from Sendaria.

Princess Ce'Nedra was strangely touched by her meeting with Garion's two old friends. She felt, moreover, a tremendous burden of responsibility as she realized that she had reached into almost every life in the west with her campaign. She had separated husbands from their wives and fathers from their children; and she had carried simple men, who had never been further than the next village, a thousand leagues and more to fight in a war they probably did not even begin to understand.

The next morning the leaders of the army rode the few remaining leagues to the installations at the base of the escarpment. As they topped a rise, Ce'Nedra reined Noble in sharply and gaped in openmouthed astonishment as she saw the eastern escarpment for the first time. It was impossible! Nothing could be so vast! The great black cliff reared itself above them like an enormous wave of rock, frozen and forever marking the boundary between east and west, and seemingly blocking any possibility of ever passing in either direction. It immediately stood as a kind of stark symbol of the division between the two parts of the world - a division that could no more be resolved than that enormous cliff could be leveled.

As they rode closer, Ce'Nedra noted a great deal of bustling activity both at the foot of the escarpment and along its upper rim. Great hawsers stretched down from overhead, and Ce'Nedra saw elaborately intertwined pulleys along the foot of the huge cliffs.

"Why are the pulleys at the bottom?" King Anheg demanded suspiciously.

King Rhodar shrugged. "How should I know? I'm not an engineer."

"All right, if you're going to be that way about it, I'm not going to let your people touch a single one of my ships until somebody tells me why the pulleys are down here instead of up there."

King Rhodar sighed and beckoned to an engineer who was meticulously greasing a huge pulley block. "Have you got a sketch of the rigging handy?" the portly monarch asked the grease-spattered workman.

The engineer nodded, pulled a rolled sheet of grimy parchment out from under his tunic, and handed it to his king. Rhodar glanced at it and handed it to Anheg.

Anheg stared at the complex drawing, struggling to trace out which line went where, and more importantly why it went there. "I can't read this," he complained.

"Neither can I," Rhodar told him pleasantly, "but you wanted to know why the pulleys are down here instead of up there. The drawing tells you why."

"But I can't read it."

"That's not my fault."

Not far away a cheer went up as a boulder half the size of a house and entwined in a nest of ropes rose majestically up the face of the cliff to the accompaniment of a vast creaking of hawsers.

"You'll have to admit that that's impressive, Anheg," Rhodar said. "Particularly when you note that the entire rock is being lifted by those eight horses over there - with the help of that counterweight, of course." He pointed at another block of stone which was just as majestically coming down from the top of the escarpment.

Anheg squinted at the two rocks. "Durnik," he said over his shoulder, "do you understand how all those work?"

"Yes, King Anheg," the smith replied. "You see, the counterweight off balances the-"

"Don't explain it to me, please," Anheg said. "As long as somebody I know and trust understands, that's all that's really important."

Later that same day, the first Cherek ship was lifted to the top of the escarpment. King Anheg watched the procedure for a moment or two, then winced and turned his back. "It's unnatural," he muttered to Barak.

"You've taken to using that expression a great deal lately," Barak noted.

Anheg scowled at his cousin.

"I just mentioned it, that's all," Barak said innocently.

"I don't like changes, Barak. They make me nervous."

"The world moves on, Anheg. Things change every day."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that I have to like it," the King of Cherek growled. "I think I'll go to my tent for a drink or two."

"Want some company?" Barak offered.

"I thought you wanted to stand around and watch the world change."

"It can do that without my supervision."

"And probably will," Anheg added moodily. "All right, let's go. I don't want to watch this anymore." And the two of them went off in search of something to drink.

Chapter Eleven

MAYASERANA, QUEEN OF Arendia, was in a pensive mood. She sat at her embroidery in the large, sunny nursery high in the palace at Vo Mimbre. Her infant son, the crown prince of Arendia, cooed and gurgled in his cradle as he played with the string of brightly colored beads that had been the ostensible gift of the crown prince of Drasnia. Mayaserana had never met Queen Porenn, but the shared experience of motherhood made her feel very close to the reputedly exquisite little blonde on her far northern throne.

Seated in a chair not far from the queen sat Nerina, Baroness of Vo Ebor. Each lady wore velvet, the queen in deep purple, and the Baroness in pale blue, and each wore the high, conical white head-dress so admired by the Mimbrate nobility. At the far end of the nursery, an elderly lutanist softly played a mournful air in a minor key.

The Baroness Nerina appeared to be even more melancholy than her queen. The circles beneath her eyes had grown deeper and deeper in the weeks since the departure of the Mimbrate knights, and she seldom smiled. Finally she sighed and laid aside her embroidery.

"The sadness of thy heart doth resound in thy sighing, Nerina," the queen said gently. "Think not so of dangers and separation, lest thy spirits fail thee utterly."

"Instruct me in the art of banishing care, Highness," Nerina replied, "for I am in sore need of such teaching. My heart is bowed beneath a burden of concern, and try though I might to control them, my thoughts, like unruly children, return ever to the dreadful peril of my absent lord and our dearest friend."

"Be comforted in the knowledge that thy burden is shared by every lady in all of Mimbre, Nerina."

Nerina sighed again. "My care, however, lies in more mournful certainty. Other ladies, their affections firm-fixed on one beloved, can dare to hope that he might return from dreadful war unscathed; but I, who love two, can find no reason for such optimism. I must needs lose one at the least, and the prospect doth crush my soul."

There was a quiet dignity in Nerina's open acceptance of the implications of the two loves that had become so entwined in her heart that they could no longer be separated. Mayaserana, in one of those brief flashes of insight which so sharply illuminated understanding, perceived that Nerina's divided heart lay at the very core of the tragedy that had lifted her, her husband, and Sir Mandorallen into the realms of sad legend. If Nerina could but love one more than the other, the tragedy would end, but so perfectly balanced was her love for her husband with her love for Sir Mandorallen that she had reached a point of absolute stasis, forever frozen between the two of them.

The queen sighed. Nerina's divided heart seemed somehow a symbol of divided Arendia, but, though the gentle heart of the suffering baroness might never be made one, Mayaserana was resolved to make a last effort to heal the breach between Mimbre and Asturia. To that end, she had summoned to the palace a deputation of the more stable leaders of the rebellious north, and her summons had appeared over a title she rarely used, Duchess of Asturia. At her instruction, the Asturians were even now drawing up a list of their grievances for her consideration.

Later on that same sunny afternoon, Mayaserana sat alone on the double throne of Arendia, painfully aware of the vacancy beside her. The leader and spokesman of the group of Asturian noblemen was a Count Reldegen, a tall, thin man with iron gray hair and beard, who walked with the aid of a stout cane. Reldegen wore a rich green doublet and black hose, and, like the rest of the deputation, his sword was belted at his side. The fact that the Asturians came armed into the queen's presence had stirred some angry muttering, but Mayaserana had refused to listen to urgings that their weapons be taken from them.

"My Lord Reldegen," the queen greeted the Asturian as he limped toward the throne.

"Your Grace," he replied with a bow.

"Your Majesty, " a Mimbrate courtier corrected him in a shocked voice.

"Her Grace summoned us as the Duchess of Asturia," Reldegen informed the courtier coolly. "That title commands more respect from us than other, more recent embellishments."

"Gentlemen, please," the queen said firmly. "Prithee, let us not commence hostilities anew. Our purpose here is to examine the possibilities of peace. I entreat thee, my Lord Reldegen, speak to the purpose. Unburden thyself of the causes of that rancor which hath so hardened the heart of Asturia. Speak freely, my Lord, and with no fear of reprisal for thy words." She looked quite sternly at her advisers. "It is our command that no man be taken to task for what is spoken here."

The Mimbrates glowered at the Asturians, and the Asturians scowled back.

"Your Grace," Reldegen began, "our chief complaint lies, I think, in the simple fact that our Mimbrate overlords refuse to recognize our titles. A title's an empty thing, really, but it implies a responsibility which has been denied to us. Most of us here are indifferent to the privileges of rank, but we keenly feel the frustration of being refused the chance to discharge our obligations. Our most talented men are compelled to waste their lives in idleness, and might I point out, your Grace, that the loss of that talent injures Arendia even more than it injures us."

"Well spoken, my Lord," the queen murmured.

"Might I respond, your Majesty," the aged, white-bearded Baron of Vo Serin inquired.

"Certainly, my Lord," Mayaserana replied. "Let us all be free and open with one another."

"The titles of the Asturian gentlemen are theirs for the asking," the baron declared. "For five centuries the crown hath awaited but the required oath of fealty to bestow them. No title may be granted or recognized until its owner swears allegiance to the crown."

"Unfortunately, my Lord," Reldegen said, "we are unable to so swear. The oaths of our ancestors to the Duke of Asturia are still in force, and we are still bound by them."

"The Asturian Duke of whom thou speakest died five hundred years ago," the old baron reminded him.

"But his line did not die with him," Reldegen pointed out. "Her Grace is his direct descendant, and our pledges of loyalty are still in force."

The queen stared first at one and then at the other. "I pray thee," she said, "correct me if my perception is awry. Is the import of what hath been revealed here that Arendia hath been divided for half a millennium by an ancient formality?"

Reldegen pursed his lips thoughtfully. "There's a bit more to it than that, your Grace, but that does seem to be the core of the problem."

"Five hundred years of strife and bloodshed over a technicality?"

Count Reldegen struggled with it. He started to speak several times, but broke off each time with a look of helpless perplexity. In the end he began to laugh. "It is sort of Arendish, isn't it?" he asked rather whimsically.

The old Baron of Vo Serin gave him a quick look, then he too began to chuckle. "I pray thee, my Lord Reldegen, lock this discovery in thy heart lest we all become the subject of general mirth. Let us not confirm the suspicion that abject stupidity is our most prevailing trait."

"Why was this absurdity not discovered previously?" Mayaserana demanded.

Count Reldegen shrugged sadly. "I suppose because Asturians and Mimbrates don't talk to each other, your Grace. We were always too eager to get to the fighting."

"Very well," the queen said crisply, "what is required to rectify this sorry confusion?"

Count Reldegen looked at the Baron. "A proclamation perhaps?" he suggested.

The old man nodded thoughtfully. "Her Majesty could release thee from thy previous oath. It hath not been common practice, but there are precedents."

"And then we all swear fealty to her as Queen of Arendia?"

"That would seem to satisfy all the demands of honor and propriety."

"But I'm the same person, am I not?" the queen objected.

"Technically thou art not, your Majesty," the baron explained. "The Duchess of Asturia and the Queen of Arendia are separate entities. Thou art indeed two persons in one body."

"This is most confusing, gentlemen," Mayaserana observed.

"That's probably why no one noticed it before, your Grace," Reldegen told her. "Both you and your husband have two titles and two separate formal identities." He smiled briefly. "I'm surprised that there was room on the throne for such a crowd." His face grew serious. "It won't be a cure-all, your Grace," he added. "The divisions between Mimbre and Asturia are so deep-seated that they'll take generations to erase."

"And wilt thou also swear fealty to my husband?" the queen asked.

"As the King of Arendia, yes; as the Duke of Mimbre, never."

"That will do for a start, my Lord. Let us see then to this proclamation. Let us with ink and parchment bandage our poor Arendia's most gaping wound."

"Beautifully put, your Grace," Reldegen said admiringly.

Ran Borune XXIII had spent almost his entire life inside the Imperial compound at Tol Honeth. His infrequent trips to the major cities of Tolnedra had, for the most part been made inside closed carriages. It was entirely probable that Ran Borune had never walked a continuous mile in his life, and a man who has not walked a mile has no real conception of what a mile is. From the very outset, his advisers despaired of ever making him understand the concept of distance.

The suggestion that ultimately resolved the difficulty came from a rather surprising source. A sometime tutor named Jeebers - a man who had narrowly escaped imprisonment or worse the previous summer - put forth the suggestion diffidently. Master Jeebers now did everything diffidently. His near brush with Imperial displeasure had forever extinguished the pompous self importance that had previously marred his character. A number of his acquaintances were surprised to discover that they even liked the balding, skinny man now.

Master Jeebers had pointed out that if the Emperor could only see things in exact scale, he might then understand. Like so many good ideas that had surfaced from time to time in Tolnedra, this one immediately got out of hand. An entire acre of the Imperial grounds was converted into a scale replica of the border region of eastern Algaria and the opposing stretches of Mishrak ac Thull. To give it all perspective, a number of inch-high human figures were cast in lead to aid the Emperor in conceptualizing the field of operations.

The Emperor immediately announced that he'd really like to have more of the lead figures to aid his understanding of the masses of men involved, and a new industry was born in Tol Honeth. Overnight lead became astonishingly scarce.

In order that he might better see the field, the Emperor mounted each morning to the top of a thirty-foot-high tower that had hastily been erected for that purpose. There, with the aid of a great-voiced sergeant of the Imperial guard, the Emperor deployed his leaden regiments of infantry and cavalry in precise accordance with the latest dispatches from Algaria.

The general staff very nearly resigned their commissions en masse. They were, for the most part, men of advanced middle age, and joining the Emperor atop his tower each morning involved some strenuous climbing. They all tried at various times to explain to the beak-nosed little man that they could see just as well from the ground, but Ran Borune would have none of it.

"Morin, he's killing us," one portly general complained bitterly to the Emperor's chamberlain. "I'd rather go off to war than climb that ladder four times a day."

"Move the Drasnian pikemen four paces to the left!" the sergeant bellowed from the top of the tower, and a dozen men on the ground began redeploying the tiny lead figures.

"We all must serve in the capacity our Emperor chooses for us," Lord Morin replied philosophically.

"I don't see you climbing the ladder," the general accused.

"Our Emperor has chosen another capacity for me," Morin said rather smugly.

That evening the weary little Emperor sought his bed. "It's very exciting, Morin," he murmured drowsily, holding the velvet-lined case that contained the solid gold figures representing Ce'Nedra and Rhodar and the rest of the army's leaders close to.his chest, "but it's very tiring, too."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"There always seems to be so much that I still have to do."

"That's the nature of command, your Majesty," Morin observed. But the Emperor had already dropped off.

Lord Morin removed the case from the Emperor's hands and carefully pulled the covers up around the sleeping man's shoulders. "Sleep, Ran Borune," he said very gently. "You can play with your little toy soldiers again tomorrow."

Sadi the eunuch had quietly left the palace at Sthiss Tor by a secret doorway that opened behind the slaves' quarters onto a shabby back street that twisted and turned in the general direction of the harbor. He had quite deliberately waited for the cover of the afternoon rainstorm and had dressed himself in the shabby clothing of a dockworker. Accompanying him was the one-eyed assassin, Issus, who also wore nondescript clothing. Sadi's security precautions were routine, but his choice of Issus as his companion was not. Issus was not a member of the palace guard nor of Sadi's personal retinue, but Sadi was not concerned on this afternoon's outing with appearances or proprieties. Issus was by and large uncorrupted by palace politics and had a reputation for unswerving loyalty to whomever was paying him at the moment.

The two passed down the rainswept street to a certain disreputable establishment frequented by lower-class workers, and went through a rather noisy taproom to the maze of cubicles at the back, where other entertainments were provided. At the end of a foul-smelling hallway, a lean, hard-eyed woman, whose arms were covered from wrist to elbow with cheap, gaudy bracelets, pointed wordlessly at a scarred door, then turned abruptly and disappeared through another doorway.

Behind the door lay a filthy room with only a bed for furniture. On the bed were two sets of clothing that smelled of tar and salt water, and sitting on the floor were two large tankards of lukewarm ale. Wordlessly, Sadi and Issus changed clothes. From beneath the soiled pillow, Issus pulled a pair of wigs and two sets of false whiskers.

"How can they drink this?" Sadi demanded, sniffing at one of the tankards and wrinkling his nose.

Issus shrugged. "Alorns have peculiar tastes. You don't have to drink it all, Sadi. Splash most of it on your clothes. Drasnian sailors spill a lot of ale when they're out in search of amusement. How do I look?"

Sadi gave him a quick glance. "Ridiculous," he replied. "Hair and a beard don't really suit you, Issus."

Issus laughed. "And they look particularly out of place on you. " He shrugged and carefully poured ale down the front of his tar-spattered tunic. "I suppose we look enough like Drasnians to get by, and we certainly smell like Drasnians. Hook your beard on a little tighter, and let's get moving before it stops raining."

"Are we going out the back?"

Issus shook his head. "If we're being followed, the back will be watched. We'll leave the way ordinary Drasnian sailors leave."

"And how is that?"

"I've made arrangements to have us thrown out."

Sadi had never been thrown out of any place before, and he found the experience not particularly amusing. The two burly ruffians who unceremoniously pitched him into the street were a bit rough about it, and Sadi picked up several scrapes and abrasions in the process.

Issus staggered to his feet and stood bawling curses at the closed door, then lurched over and pulled Sadi up out of the mud. Together they reeled in apparent drunkenness down the street toward the Drasnian enclave. Sadi noted that there had been two men in a doorway across the street when he and Issus had been ejected and that the two did not move to follow.

Once they entered the Drasnian enclave, Issus led the way rather quickly to the house of Droblek, the Drasnian port authority. They were admitted immediately and conveyed at once to a dimly lighted but comfortable room where the enormously fat Droblek sat sweating. With him was Count Melgon, the aristocratic ambassador from Tolnedra.

"Novel attire for the chief eunuch of Salmissra's household," Count Melgon observed as Sadi pulled off his wig and false beard.

"Just a bit of deception, my Lord Ambassador," Sadi replied. "I didn't particularly want this meeting to become general knowledge."

"Can he be trusted?" Droblek asked bluntly, pointing at Issus.

Sadi's expression became whimsical. "Can you be trusted, Issus?" he asked.

"You've paid me for up to the end of the month." Issus shrugged. "After that, we'll see. I might get a better offer."

"You see?" Sadi said to the two seated men. "Issus can be trusted until the end of the month - at least as much as anybody in Sthiss Tor can be trusted. One thing I've noticed about Issus - he's a simple, uncomplicated man. Once you buy him, he stays bought. I think it's referred to as professional ethics."

Droblek grunted sourly. "Do you suppose we could get to the point? Why did you go to so much trouble to arrange this meeting? Why didn't you just summon us to the palace?"

"My dear Droblek," Sadi murmured, "you know the kind of intrigue that infests the palace. I'd prefer that what passes between us remain more or less confidential. The matter itself is rather uncomplicated. I've been approached by the emissary of Taur Urgas."

The two regarded him with no show of surprise.

"I gather that you already knew."

"We're hardly children, Sadi," Count Melgon told him.

"I am at present in negotiations with the new ambassador from Rak Goska," Sadi mentioned.

"Isn't that the third one so far this summer?" Melgon asked.

Sadi nodded. "The Murgos seem to be particularly susceptible to certain fevers which abound in the swamps."

"We've noticed that," Droblek said dryly. "What is your prognosis for the present emissary's continued good health?"

"I don't imagine he's any more immune than his countrymen. He's already beginning to feel unwell."

"Maybe he'll be lucky and recover," Droblek suggested.

"Not very likely," Issus said with an ugly laugh.

"The tendency of Murgo ambassadors to die unexpectedly has succeeded in keeping the negotiations moving very slowly," Sadi continued. "I'd like for you gentlemen to inform King Rhodar and Ran Borune that these delays will probably continue."

"Why?" Droblek asked.

"I want them to understand and appreciate my efforts in their present campaign against the Angarak kingdoms."

"Tolnedra has no involvement in that campaign," Melgon asserted quickly.

"Of course not." Sadi smiled.

"Just how far are you willing to go, Sadi?" Droblek asked curiously.

"That depends almost entirely upon who's winning at any given moment," Sadi replied urbanely. "If the Rivan Queen's campaign in the east begins to run into difficulties, I suspect that the pestilence will subside and the Murgo emissaries will stop dying so conveniently. I'd almost have to make an accommodation with Taur Urgas at that point."

"Don't you find that just a bit contemptible, Sadi?" Droblek asked acidly.

Sadi shrugged. "We're a contemptible sort of people, Droblek," he admitted, "but we survive. That's no mean accomplishment for a weak nation lying between two major powers. Tell Rhodar and Ran Borune that I'll stall the Murgos off for as long as things continue to go in their favor. I want them both to be aware of their obligation to me."

"And will you advise them when your position is about to change?" Melgon asked.

"Of course not," Sadi replied. "I'm corrupt, Melgon. I'm not stupid."

"You're not much of an ally, Sadi," Droblek told him.

"I never pretended to be. I'm looking out for myself. At the moment, my interests and yours happen to coincide, that's all. I do, however, expect to be remembered for my assistance."

"You're trying to play it both ways, Sadi," Droblek accused him bluntly.

"I know." Sadi smiled. "Disgusting, isn't it?"

Queen Islena of Cherek was in an absolute panic. This time Merel had gone too far. The advice they had received from Porenn had seemed quite sound - had indeed raised the possibility of a brilliant stroke which would disarm Grodeg and the Bear-cult once and for all. The imagined prospect of the helpless rage into which this would plummet the towering ecclesiast was almost a satisfaction in itself. Like so many people, Queen Islena took such pleasure in an imagined triumph that the real thing became almost too much trouble. The victories of the imagination involved no risks, and a confrontation with an enemy always ended satisfactorily when both sides of the conversation came from one's own daydreams. Left to her own devices, Islena would probably have been content to let it go at that.

Merel, however, was less easily satisfied. The plan devised by the little queen of Drasnia had been quite sound, but it suffered from one flaw - they did not have enough men to bring it off. Merel, however, had located an ally with certain resources and had brought him into the queen's inner circle. A group of men in Cherek had not accompanied Anheg and the fleet to Algaria largely because they were not the sort of men who made good sailors. At Merel's stern-faced insistence, the Queen of Cherek suddenly developed an overpowering enthusiasm for hunting. It was in the forest, safe from prying ears, that the details of the coup were worked out.

"When you kill a snake, you cut off its head," Torvik the huntsman had pointed out as he, Merel, and Islena sat in a forest glade while Torvik's men roved through the woods harvesting enough game to make it appear that Islena had spent her day in a frenzy of slaughter. "You don't accomplish all that much by snipping pieces off its tail an inch or so at a time," the broad-shouldered huntsman continued. "The Bear-cult isn't really that concentrated in one place. With a little luck, we can gather up all the important members presently in Val Alorn in one sweep. That should irritate our snake enough to make him stick his neck out. Then we'll simply chop off his head."

Torvik's use of such terminology had made the queen wince. She had not been entirely sure that the blunt, grizzled forester had been speaking figuratively.

And now it had been done. Torvik and his huntsmen had moved quietly through the dark streets of Val Alorn for the entire night, gathering up the sleeping members of the Bear-cult, marching them in groups to the harbor and then locking them in the holds of waiting ships. Because of their years of experience, the hunters had been very thorough in rounding up their quarry. By morning, the only members of the Bear-cult left in the city were the High Priest of Belar and the dozen or so underpriests lodged in the temple.

Queen Islena sat, pale and trembling, on the throne of Cherek. She wore her purple gown and her gold crown. In her hand she held a scepter. The scepter had a comforting weight to it and could possibly be used as a weapon in an emergency. The queen was positive that an emergency was about to descend on her.

"This is all your fault, Merel," she bitterly accused her blond friend. "If you'd just left things alone, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"We'd be a worse one," Merel replied coldly. "Pull yourself together, Islena. It's done now, and you can't undo it."

"Grodeg terrifies me," Islena blurted.

"He won't be armed. He won't be able to hurt you."

"I'm only a woman," Islena quailed. "He'll roar at me in that awful voice of his, and I'll go absolutely to pieces."

"Stop being such a coward, Islena," Merel snapped. "Your timidity's brought Cherek right to the edge of disaster. Every time Grodeg's raised his voice to you, you've given him anything he wanted just because you're afraid of harsh talk. Are you a child? Does noise frighten you that much?"

"You forget yourself, Merel," Islena flared suddenly. "I am queen, after alL"

"Then by all the Gods, be queen! Stop behaving like a silly, frightened serving girl. Sit up straight on your throne as if you had some iron in your backbone - and pinch your cheeks. You're as pale as a bedsheet." Merel's face hardened. "Listen to me, Islena," she said. "If you give even one hint that you're starting to weaken, I'll have Torvik run his spear into Grodeg right here in the throne room."

"You wouldn't!" Islena gasped. "You can't kill a priest."

"He's a man just like any other man," Merel declared harshly. "If you stick a spear in his belly, he'll die."

"Not even Anheg would dare to do that."

"I'm not Anheg."

"You'll be cursed!"

"I'm not afraid of curses."

Torvik came into the throne room, a broad-bladed boarspear held negligently in one big hand. "He's coming," he announced laconically.

"Oh, dear," Islena quavered.

"Stop that!" Merel snapped.

Grodeg was livid with rage as he strode into the throne room. His white robe was rumpled as if he had thrown it on hastily, and his white hair and beard were uncombed. "I will speak with the queen alone!" he thundered as he approached across the rush-strewn floor.

"That is the queen's decision to make, not yours, my Lord High Priest," Merel advised him in a flinty voice.

"Does the wife of the Earl of Trellheim speak for the throne?" Grodeg demanded of Islena.

Islena faltered, then saw Torvik standing directly behind the tall priest. The boarspear in his hand was no longer so negligently grasped. "Calm yourself, revered Grodeg," the queen said, quite suddenly convinced that the life of the infuriated priest hinged not only on her words but even on her tone of voice. At the tiniest quaver, Merel would give the signal, and Torvik would sink that broad, sharp blade into Grodeg's back with about as much emotion as he showed about swatting a fly.

"I want to see you alone," Grodeg repeated stubbornly. "

"No."

"No?" he roared incredulously.

"You heard me, Grodeg," she told him. "And stop shouting at me. My hearing is quite good."

He gaped at her, then quickly recovered. "Why have all my friends been arrested?" he demanded.

"They were not arrested, my Lord High Priest," the queen replied. "They have all volunteered to join my husband's fleet."

"Ridiculous!" he snorted.

"I think you'd better choose your words a bit more carefully, Grodeg," Merel told him. "The queen's patience with your impertinence is wearing thin."

"Impertinence?" he exclaimed. "How dare you speak that way to me?" He drew himself up and fixed a stern eye on the queen. "I insist upon a private audience," he told her in a thunderous voice.

The voice which had always cowed her before quite suddenly irritated Islena. She was trying to save this idiot's life, and he kept shouting at her. "My Lord Grodeg," she said with an unaccustomed hint of steel in her voice, "if you bellow at me one more time, I'll have you muzzled."

His eyes widened in amazement.

"We have nothing to discuss in private, my Lord," the queen continued. "All that remains is for you to receive your instructions - which you will follow to the letter. It is our decree that you will proceed directly to the harbor, where you will board the ship which is waiting to transport you to Algaria. There you will join the forces of Cherek in the campaign against the Angaraks."

"I refuse!" Grodeg retorted.

"Think carefully, my Lord Grodeg," Merel purred. "The queen has given you a royal command. Refusal could be considered treason."

"I am the High Priest of Belar," Grodeg ground out between clenched teeth, obviously having great difficulty in modulating his voice. "You wouldn't dare ship me off like some peasant conscript."

"I wonder if the High Priest of Belar might like to make a small wager on that," Torvik said with deceptive mildness. He set the butt of his spear on the floor, took a stone from the pouch at his belt and began to hone the already razor-sharp blade. The steely sound had an obviously chilling effect on Grodeg.

"You will go to the harbor now, Grodeg," Islena told him, "and you will get on that ship. If you do not, you will go to the dungeon, where you will keep the rats company until my husband returns. Those are your choices; join Anheg or join the rats. Decide quickly. You're starting to bore me, and quite frankly, I'm sick of the sight of you."

Queen Porenn of Drasnia was in the nursery, ostensibly feeding her infant son. Out of respect for the queen's person, she was unspied upon while she was nursing. Porenn, however, was not alone. Javelin, the bone-thin chief of Drasnian intelligence, was with her. For the sake of appearance, Javelin was dressed in a serving maid's gown and cap, and he looked surprisingly feminine in the disguise he wore with no apparent trace of self consciousness.

"Are there really that many cultists in the intelligence service?" the queen asked, a little dismayed.

Javelin sat with his back politely turned. "I'm afraid so, your Highness. We should have been more alert, but we had other things on our minds."

Porenn thought about it for a moment, unconsciously rocking her suckling baby. "Islena's moving already, isn't she?" she asked.

"That's the word I received this morning," Javelin replied. "Grodeg's on his way to the mouth of the Aldur River already, and the queen's men are moving out into the countryside, rounding up every member of the cult as they go."

"Will it in any way hamper our operations to jerk that many people out of Boktor?"

"We can manage, your Highness," Javelin assured her. "We might have to speed up the graduation of the current class at the academy and finish their training on the job, but we'll manage."

"Very well then, Javelin," Porenn decided. "Ship them all out. Get every cult member out of Boktor, and separate them. I want them sent to the most miserable duty posts you can devise, and I don't want any of them within fifty leagues of any other one. There will be no excuses, no sudden illnesses, and no resignations. Give each of them something to do, and then make him do it. I want every Bear-cultist who's crept into the intelligence service out of Boktor by nightfall."

"It will be my pleasure, Porenn," Javelin said. "Oh, incidentally, that Nadrak merchant, Yarblek is back from Yar Nadrak, and he wants to talk to you about the salmon runs again. He seems to have this obsessive interest in fish."

Chapter Twelve

THE RAISING OF the Cherek fleet to the top of the eastern escarpment took a full two weeks, and King Rhodar chafed visibly at the pace of the operation.

"You knew this was going to take time, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra said to him as he fumed and sweated, pacing back and forth with frequent dark looks at the towering cliff face. "Why are you so upset?"

"Because the ships are right out in the open, Ce'Nedra," he replied testily. "There's no way to hide them or disguise them while they're being raised. Those ships are the key to our whole campaign, and if somebody on the other side starts putting a few things together, we might have to meet all of Angarak instead of just the Thulls."

"You worry too much," she told him. "Cho-Hag and Korodullin are burning everything in sight up there. 'Zakath and Taur Urgas have other things to think about beside what we're hauling up the cliff."

"It must be wonderful to be so unconcerned about things," he said sarcastically.

"Be nice, Rhodar," she said.

General Varana, still scrupulously dressed in his Tolnedran mantle, limped toward them with that studiously diffident expression that indicated he was about to make another suggestion.

"Varana," King Rhodar burst out irritably, "why don't you put on your uniform?"

"Because I'm not really officially here, your Majesty," the general replied calmly. "Tolnedra is neutral in this affair, you'll recall."

"That's a fiction, and we all know it."

"A necessary one, however. The Emperor is still holding diplomatic channels open to Taur Urgas and 'Zakath. Those discussions would deteriorate if someone saw a Tolnedran general swaggering around in full uniform." He paused briefly. "Would a small suggestion offend your Majesty?" he asked.

"That all depends on the suggestion," Rhodar retorted. Then he made a face and apologized. "I'm sorry, Varana. This delay's making me bad-tempered. What did you have in mind?"

"I think you might want to give some thought to moving your command operations up to the top about now. You'll want things running smoothly by the time the bulk of your infantry arrives, and it usually takes a couple of days to iron out the wrinkles when you set things up."

King Rhodar stared at a Cherek ship being hoisted ponderously up the cliff face. "I'm not going to ride up on one of those, Varana," he declared flatly.

"It's absolutely safe, your Majesty," Varana assured him. "I've made the trip myself several times. Even Lady Polgara went up that way just this morning."

"Polgara could fly down if something went wrong," Rhodar said. "I don't have her advantages. Can you imagine the size of the hole I'd make in the ground if I fell that far?"

"The alternative is extremely strenuous, your Majesty. There are several ravines running down from the top. They've been leveled out a bit so that the horses can go up, but they're still very steep."

"A little sweating won't hurt me."

Varana shrugged. "As your Majesty wishes."

"I'll keep you company, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra offered brightly. He gave her a suspicious look.

"I don't really trust machines either," she confessed. "I'll go change clothes, and then we can start."

"You want to do it today?" His voice was plaintive.

"Why put it off?"

"I can think of a dozen reasons."

The term "very steep" turned out to be a gross understatement. "Precipitous" might have been more accurate. The incline made riding horses out of the question, but ropes had been strung along the steeper stretches to aid in the climb. Ce'Nedra, dressed in one of her short Dryad tunics, scampered hand over hand up the ropes with the agility of a squirrel. King Rhodar's pace, however, was much slower.

"Please stop groaning, Rhodar," she told him after they had climbed for an hour or so. "You sound like a sick cow."

"That's hardly fair, Ce'Nedra," he wheezed, stopping to mop his streaming face.

"I never promised to be fair," she retorted with an impish grin. "Come along, we still have a long way to go." And she flitted up another fifty yards or so.

"Don't you think you're a little underdressed?" he puffed disapprovingly, staring up at her. "Proper ladies don't show off so much leg."

"What's wrong with my legs?"

"They're bare - that's what's wrong with them."

"Don't be such a prig. I'm comfortable. That's all that matters. Are you coming or not?"

Rhodar groaned again. "Isn't it almost time for lunch?"

"We just had lunch."

"Did we? I'd forgotten already."

"You always seem to forget your last meal - usually before the crumbs have been brushed away."

"That's the nature of a fat man, Ce'Nedra." He sighed. "The last meal is history. It's the next one that's important." He stared mournfully up the brutal trail ahead and groaned again.

"This was all your idea," she heartlessly reminded him.

The sun was low in the west when they reached the top. As King Rhodar collapsed, Princess Ce'Nedra looked around curiously. The fortifications which had been erected along the top of the escarpment were extensive and quite imposing. The walls were of earth and stone and were perhaps thirty feet high. Through an open gate the princess saw a series of other, lower walls, each fronted by a ditch bristling with sharpened stakes and thorny brambles. At various points along the main wall rose imposing blockhouses, and within the walls were neat rows of huts for the soldiers.

The forts swarmed with men, and their various activities raised an almost perpetual cloud of dust. A party of Algar clansmen, smokestained and mounted on spent-looking horses, rode slowly in through the gate; and a few moments later, a contingent of gleaming Mimbrate knights, pennons snapping from their lances and the great hoofs of their chargers clattering on the stony ground, rode out in search of yet another town to destroy.

The huge hoists at the edge of the escarpment creaked and groaned under the weight of the Cherek ships being raised from the plain below; some distance away, within the fortified walls, the growing fleet sat awaiting the final portage to the headwaters of the upper River Mardu, some fifty leagues distant.

Polgara, accompanied by Durnik and the towering Barak, approached to greet the princess and the prostrate King of Drasnia.

"How was the climb?" Barak inquired.

"Ghastly," Rhodar wheezed. "Does anybody have anything to eat? I think I've melted off about ten pounds."

"It doesn't show," Barak told him.

"That sort of exertion isn't really good for you, Rhodar," Polgara told the gasping monarch. "Why were you so stubborn about it?"

"Because I have an absolute horror of heights," Rhodar replied. "I'd climb ten times as far to avoid being hauled up that cliff by those contraptions. The idea of all that empty air under me makes my flesh creep."

Barak grinned. "That's a lot of creeping."

"Will somebody please give me something to eat?" Rhodar asked in an anguished tone of voice.

"A bit of cold chicken?" Durnik offered solicitously, handing him a well-browned chicken leg.

"Where did you ever find a chicken?" Rhodar exclaimed, eagerly seizing the leg.

"The Thulls brought some with them," Durnik told him.

"Thulls?" Ce'Nedra gasped. "What are Thulls doing here?"

"Surrendering," Durnik replied. "Whole villages of them have been showing up for the past week or so. They walk up to the edge of the ditches along the front of the fortification and sit down and wait to be captured. They're very patient about it. Sometimes it's a day or so before anybody has the time to go out and capture them, but they don't seem to mind."

"Why do they want to be captured?" Ce'Nedra asked him.

"There aren't any Grolims here," Durnik explained. "No altars to Torak and no sacrificial knives. The Thulls seem to feel that getting away from that sort of thing is worth the inconvenience of being captured. We take them in and put them to work on the fortifications. They're good workers, if you give them the proper supervision."

"Is that entirely safe?" Rhodar asked around a mouthful of chicken. "There might be spies among them."

Durnik nodded. "We know," he said, "but the spies are usually Grolims. A Thull doesn't have the mental equipment to be a spy, so the Grolims have to do it themselves."

Rhodar lowered his chicken leg in astonishment. "You're letting Grolims inside the fortifications?" he demanded.

"It's nothing all that serious," Durnik told him. "The Thulls know who the Grolims are, and we let them deal with the problem. They usually take them a mile or so along the escarpment and then throw them off. At first they wanted to do it right here, but some of their elders pointed out that it might not be polite to drop Grolims down on top of the men working below, so they take them some place where they won't bother anybody when they fall. A very considerate people, the Thulls. One could almost get to like them."

"You've sunburned your nose, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told the little princess. "Didn't you think of wearing a hat?"

"Hats give me a headache." Ce'Nedra shrugged. "A little sunburn won't hurt me."

"You have an appearance to maintain, dear," Polgara pointed out. "You're not going to look very queenly with your nose peeling."

"It's nothing to worry about, Lady Polgara. You can fix it, can't you? You know-" Ce'Nedra made a little gesture with her hand that was meant to look magical.

Polgara gave her a long, chilly look.

King Anheg of Cherek, accompanied by the broad-shouldered Rivan Warder, approached them. "Did you have a nice climb?" he asked Rhodar pleasantly.

"How would you like a punch in the nose?" Rhodar asked him. King Anheg laughed coarsely.

"My," he said, "aren't we grumpy today? I've just had some news from home that ought to brighten your disposition a bit."

"Dispatches?" Rhodar groaned, hauling himself wearily to his feet. Anheg nodded. "They sent them up from down below while you were getting your exercise. You're not going to believe what's been going on back there."

"Try me."

"You absolutely won't believe it."

"Anheg, spit it out."

"We're about to get some reinforcements. Islena and Porenn have been very busy these last few weeks."

Polgara looked at him sharply.

"Do you know something?" Anheg said, holding out a folded dispatch. "I wasn't even aware of the fact that Islena knew how to read and write, and now I get this."

"Don't be cryptic, Anheg," Polgara told him. "What have the ladies been up to?"

"I gather that after we left, the Bear-cult began to make itself a bit obnoxious. Grodeg apparently felt that with the men out of the way, he could take over. He started throwing his weight around in Val Alorn, and cult members began to surface in the headquarters of Drasnian intelligence in Boktor. It looks as if they've been making preparations for something for years. Anyway, Porenn and Islena began passing information back and forth, and when they realized how close Grodeg was to getting his hands on real power in the two kingdoms, they took steps. Porenn ordered all the cult members out of Boktor - sent them to the most miserable duty posts she could think of - and Islena rounded up the Bear-cult in Val Alorn - every last one of them - and shipped them out to join the army."

"They did what?" Rhodar gasped.

"Isn't it amazing?" A slow grin spread across Anheg's coarse face. "The beauty of the whole thing is that Islena could get away with it, while I couldn't. Women aren't supposed to be aware of the subtleties involved in arresting priests and noblemen - the need for evidence against them and so on - so what would be gross impropriety on my part will be laughed off as ignorance on hers. I'll have to apologize to Grodeg, of course, but it will be after the fact. The cult will be here, and they'll have no honest reason to go back home."

Rhodar's answering grin was every bit as wicked as Anheg's. "How did Grodeg take it?"

"He was absolutely livid. I guess Islena faced him down personally. She gave him the choice of joining us or going to the dungeon."

"You can't put the High Priest of Belar in a dungeon," Rhodar exclaimed.

"Islena didn't know that, and Grodeg knew that she didn't. She'd have had him chained to the wall in the deepest hole she could find before anybody had gotten around to telling her that it was illegal. Can't you just see my Islena delivering that kind of ultimatum to the old windbag?" There was a note of fierce pride in Anheg's voice.

King Rhodar's face grew very sly. "There's bound to be some rather hot fighting in this campaign sooner or later," he noted.

Anheg nodded.

"The Bear-cult prides itself on its fighting ability, doesn't it?" Anheg nodded again, grinning.

"They'd be perfect for spearheading any attacks, wouldn't they?" Anheg's grin grew positively vicious.

"I imagine that their casualties will be heavy," the King of Drasnia suggested.

"It's in a good cause, after all," Anheg replied piously.

"If you two have quite finished gloating, I think it's time I got the princess in out of the sun," Polgara told the two grinning monarchs.

The fortified positions atop the escarpment bustled with activity for the next several days. Even as the last of the Cherek ships were raised up the cliffs, the Algars and Mimbrates extended their depredations out into the Thullish countryside.

"There aren't any crops standing for fifty leagues in any direction," Hettar reported back. "We'll have to go out farther to find anything else to burn."

"You find many Murgos?" Barak asked the hawk-faced man.

"A few." Hettar shrugged. "Not enough to make it interesting, but we run across one every now and then."

"How's Mandorallen doing?"

"I haven't seen him for a few days," Hettar replied. "There's a lot of smoke coming from the direction he went, though, so I imagine he's keeping busy."

"What's the country like out there?" King Anheg asked.

"Not bad, once you get past the uplands. The part of Thulldom along the escarpment here is pretty forbidding."

"What do you mean by forbidding? I've got to haul ships through that country."

"Rock, sand, a few thornbushes and no water," Hettar replied. "And it's hotter than the backdoor of a furnace."

"Thanks," Anheg said.

"You wanted to know," Hettar told him. "Excuse me. I need a fresh horse and some more torches."

"You're going out again?" Barak asked him.

"It's something to do."

Once the last of the ships had been raised, the Drasnian hoists began lifting tons of food and equipment that soon swelled King Fulrach's supply dumps within the forts to overflowing. The Thullish prisoners proved to be an invaluable asset, carrying whatever burden they were told to carry without complaint or hesitation. Their coarse features shone with such simpleminded gratitude and eagerness to please that Ce'Nedra found it impossible to hate them, even though they were technically the enemy. Slowly, bit by bit, the princess discovered the facts that made the lives of the Thullish people such an unrelieved horror. There was not a family among them that had not lost several members to the knives of the Grolims - husbands, wives, children, and parents had all been selected for sacrifice, and the thought uppermost in every Thull's life was to avoid the same fate at any cost. The perpetual terror had erased every hint of human affection from the Thull's makeup. He lived in dreadful isolation, without love, without companionship, without any feeling but constant anxiety and dread. The reputedly insatiable appetite of Thullish women had nothing whatsoever to do with morals or lack of them. It was a simple matter of survival. To escape the knife, a Thullish woman was forced to remain perpetually pregnant. She was not driven by lust, but by fear, and her fear dehumanized her entirely.

"How can they live that way?" the princess burst out to Lady Polgara as the two of them returned to their makeshift quarters in the stout blockhouse which had been erected inside the walls for the use of the leaders of the army. "Why don't they rebel and drive the Grolims out?"

"And just who's supposed to lead a rebellion, Ce'Nedra?" Polgara asked her calmly. "The Thulls know that there are Grolims who can pick the thoughts from a man's mind as easily as you'd pick fruit in an orchard. If a Thull even considered organizing some kind of resistance, he'd be the next one dragged to the altar."

"But their lives are so horrible, " Ce'Nedra objected.

"Perhaps we can change that," Polgara said. "In a way what we're trying to do is not only for the benefit of the west, but for the Angaraks as well. If we win, they'll be liberated from the Grolims. They might not thank us at first, but in time they might learn to appreciate it."

"Why shouldn't they thank us?"

"Because if we win, dear, it will be because we've killed their God. That's a very hard thing to thank someone for."

"But Torak is a monster."

"He's still their God," Polgara replied. "The loss of one's God is a very subtle and terrible injury. Ask the Ulgos what it's like to live without one. It's been five thousand years since UL became their God, and they still remember what it was like before he accepted them."

"We are going to win, aren't we?" Ce'Nedra asked suddenly, all her fears flooding to the surface.

"I don't know, Ce'Nedra," Polgara answered quietly. "No one does - not me, not Beldin, not my father, not even Aldur. All we can do is try,"

"What will happen if we lose?" the princess asked in a tiny, frightened voice.

"We'll be enslaved in exactly the same way the Thulls are," Polgara replied quietly. "Torak will become King and God over the entire world. The other Gods will be banished forever, and the Grolims will be unleashed upon us all."

"I won't live in that kind of world," Ce'Nedra declared.

"None of us would care to."

"Did you ever meet Torak?" the princess asked suddenly.

Polgara nodded. "Once or twice - the last time was at Vo Mimbre just before his duel with Brand."

"What's he really like?"

"He's a God. The force of his mind is overwhelming. When he speaks to you, you must listen to him - and when he commands, you must obey him."

"Not you, certainly."

"I don't think you understand, dear." Polgara's face was grave, and her glorious eyes were as distant as the moon. Without seeming to think about it, she reached out, picked up Errand and sat him on her lap. The child smiled at her and, as he so often did, he reached out and touched the white lock at her brow. "There's a compulsion in Torak's voice that's almost impossible to resist," she continued. "You know that he's twisted and evil, but when he speaks to you, your will to resist crumbles, and you're suddenly very weak and afraid."

"Surely you weren't afraid."

"You still don't understand. Of course I was afraid. We all were - even my father. Pray that you never meet Torak. He's not some petty Grolim like Chamdar or a scheming old wizard like Ctuchik. He's a God. He's hideously maimed, and at some point he was thwarted. Something he needed - something so profound that no human could even conceive of it - was denied to him, and that refusal or rejection drove him mad. His madness is not like the madness of Taur Urgas, who, in spite of everything is still human. Torak's madness is the madness of a God - a being who can make his diseased imaginings come to pass. Only the Orb can truly withstand him. I could perhaps resist him for a time, but if he lays the full force of his will upon me, ultimately I'll have to give him what he wants - and what he wants from me is too dreadful to think about."

"I don't exactly follow you, Lady Polgara."

Garion's Aunt looked gravely at the tiny girl. "Perhaps you don't at that," she said. "It has to do with a part of the past that the Tolnedran Historical Society chooses to ignore. Sit down, Ce'Nedra, and I'll try to explain."

The princess sat on a rude bench in their rough chamber. Polgara's mood was unusual - very quiet, even pensive. She placed her arms about Errand and held him close, nestling her cheek against his blond curls as if taking comfort from the contact with this small boy. "There are two Prophecies, Ce'Nedra," she explained in her rich voice, "but the time is coming when there will only be one. Everything that is or was or is yet to be will become a part of whichever Prophecy prevails. Every man, every woman, every child has two possible destinies. For some, the differences are not all that great, but in my case, they're rather profound."

"I don't quite understand."

"In the Prophecy which we serve - the one that has brought us here - I am Polgara the sorceress, daughter to Belgarath and guardian to Belgarion."

"And in the other?"

"In the other, I am the bride of Torak."

Ce'Nedra gasped.

"And now you see why I was afraid," Polgara continued. "I've been terrified of Torak since my father first explained this to me when I was no older than you are now. I'm not so much afraid for myself, but more because I know that if I falter - if Torak's will overpowers mine - then the Prophecy we serve will fail. Torak will not only win me, but all of mankind as well. At Vo Mimbre, he called to me, and I felt - very briefly - the awful compulsion to run to him. But I defied him. I've never done anything in my life that was so hard to do. It was my defiance, however, that drove him into the duel with Brand, and only in that duel could the power of the Orb be released against him. My father gambled everything on the strength of my will. The old wolf is a great gambler sometimes."

"Then if-" Ce'Nedra could not say it.

"If Garion loses?" Polgara said it so calmly that it was quite obvious that she had considered the possibility many times before. "Then Torak will come to claim his bride, and there will be no power on earth sufficient to stop him."

"I would sooner die," the princess blurted.

"So would I, Ce'Nedra, but that option may not be open to me. Torak's will is so much stronger than mine that he may be able to take from me the ability or even the desire to will myself out of existence. If it should happen, it may very well be that I'll be deliriously happy to be his chosen and beloved - but deep inside, I think that a part of me will be screaming and will continue to scream in horror down through all the endless centuries to the very end of days."

It was too horrible to think about. Unable to restrain herself, the princess threw herself on her knees, clasped her arms about Polgara and Errand, and burst into tears.

"Now, now, there's no need to cry, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her gently, smoothing the sobbing girl's hair with her hand. "Garion has still not reached the City of Endless Night, and Torak is still asleep. There's a little time left. And who knows? We might even win."