‘Blasphemy!’ the hovering Grolim gasped.

‘Is he serving any purpose?’ I asked Ctuchik, jerking my thumb at the Grolim.

‘He’s my apprentice, Belgarath. I’m teaching him the business.’

‘Aren’t you getting a little above yourself, old boy? Are you taking your own disciples now? Torak might not approve.’

‘He’s a servant, Belgarath, not a disciple, and Torak more or less allows us to do as we please. You might think about that the next time Aldur sends you off on some fool’s errand. If you’d like to change Masters, I could put in a good word for you.’

‘One turncoat in the family’s quite enough, Ctuchik, and I’m not going to change sides when I’m winning.’

‘Are you winning, Belgarath? How strange that I hadn’t noticed that. You might as well get to know my servant here. I expect you’ll be seeing a lot of him from now on.’ He looked at the Grolim. ‘Chamdar, this is Belgarath, first disciple of the God Aldur. Don’t let his foolish exterior deceive you. He can be troublesome at times.’

‘One does one’s best,’ I said with a little smirk. I looked more closely at the Grolim. He had scarred cheeks like a Murgo, but there was something a bit different about him. There was a certain boldness about him, and a burning ambition in his eyes that I don’t think Ctuchik was aware of. ‘You’re wasting your time here, Ctuchik,’ I said then. ‘You’re not going to find my daughter, no matter how many Murgos you send west, and you’re certainly not going to find her yourself. Something like that would have shown up in our instructions.’

‘We’ll see,’ he replied distantly. ‘It was awfully good of you to stop by, old chap. I could have shown Chamdar here a picture of you, but a picture wouldn’t have captured the real you.’

I actually laughed. ‘You’re sending a boy to do a man’s work, Ctuchik,’ I told him. ‘I’m not going to lead your underling anywhere near Polgara.’

‘We’ll see about that, too. Sooner or later, something’s bound to come up that’ll force you to go to where she is.’

‘You’ve never met my daughter, Ctuchik. Believe me, she can take care of herself. Why don’t you take your Grolim and go home? The Godslayer is coming, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.’

‘That particular EVENT hasn’t been decided yet, old boy.’

‘It will be, old boy, and I don’t think you’re going to like the way it turns out. Are you coming, Chamdar?’

‘Coming?’ he demanded, sounding baffled. ‘Coming where?’

‘Don’t be childish. As soon as I’m outside this tent, your Master’s going to tell you to follow me. It’ll be much easier for both of us if we just ride along together.’

‘That’s for my Master to decide,’ he replied coldly.

‘Suit yourself. I’ll be riding south from here. If you happen to lose track of me, I’ll be in Tol Honeth in a couple of weeks. Ask around when you get there. I shouldn’t be too hard to find.’

Then I turned and left the tent.

Chapter 36

Polgara looked upon the centuries she was obliged to spend in the boisterous Alorn kingdoms as a period of exile. Pol’s fond of individual Alorns, but as a race they tend to set her teeth on edge. She yearned to go back to Sendaria. The Sendars aren’t as courtly as the Wacite Arends were, but they’re a polite, civil people, and civility’s very important to my daughter.

I devoted quite a bit of time during those years providing entertainment for the ambitious Chamdar. Every so often, I’d come out of the Vale, randomly select some obscure village in Sendaria or northern Arendia, and kill several Murgos there. Chamdar, of course, would leap to the conclusion that I’d killed them because they were getting too close to Polgara. He’d rush to the place and spend five or six years following the various false trails I’d laid down for him. Then the trails would peter out on him, and we’d start all over again someplace else. I’m sure he knew exactly what I was doing, but he didn’t have any choice but to respond. The fact that he didn’t age over the centuries was an indication of some status in Grolim society. He wasn’t exactly a disciple, but he was the next thing to it, I suppose.

In the meantime, Polgara remained safe - if not content - in Cherek, or Drasnia, or Algaria. Her common practice during those years was to apprentice a youthful heir to some artisan in a village or small town; and then when the young man reached maturity, she’d set him up in business - much in the way she had with Darion in the forty-fifth century. I never did find out where she got the money for all those business ventures. She invariably posed as a member of the young man’s family, an older sister, a cousin, very frequently an aunt, and even once or twice as the young man’s mother. The families she thus created were so ordinary that random travelers - or random Angaraks - probably didn’t even notice them. I’m sure it was all very tedious for her, but she’d taken on the chore of hiding the heirs of her own free will, and Pol has a very strong sense of responsibility.

My contribution - keeping Chamdar away from her - was fairly peripheral, but I like to think that it helped, if only a little bit. I’d also periodically looked in on all those families I was juggling, and every now and then I’d ease on down into Cthol Murgos to see what the opposition was up to.

Murgo society is unlike any other on the face of the earth, largely because it’s built along military lines. They don’t have principalities down there; they have military districts instead, each with its own general. Because of the Murgo obsession with racial purity, Murgo women are kept closely confined, so you never see any women on the streets - just men, all in chain-mail. Over the course of the centuries, the various military commanders have passed the spurious crown of Cthol Murgos around, so there’ve been Goska Dynasties, Cthan Dynasties, Hagga Dynasties, and recently, Urga Dynasties. It didn’t really matter who sat on the throne in Rak Goska, however, because Ctuchik, that walking cadaver, has always ruled Cthol Murgos from his turret in Rak Cthol.

The twins continued to work on their concordance, and Beldin maintained his surveillance in Mallorea. Everything sort of plodded along until the middle of the forty-ninth century with nothing very much happening. It was one of those quiet periods that crop up from time to time in the history of the world. Then there was a total eclipse of the sun in the spring of 4850. An eclipse isn’t all that unusual, so we didn’t pay much attention to it - at least not at first. This one was fairly unique, in that it seemed to trigger a significant climate change. Would you believe that it rained off and on for twenty-five years? We almost never saw the sun.

Several months after that eclipse, Beldin came back from Mallorea with some news we’d all been waiting for. He clumped, dripping, up the stairs to my workshop. ‘Miserable weather,’ he muttered. ‘I haven’t been really dry for the last three months. Have you got anything to drink? I think I’m chilled all the way to the bone.’

‘I don’t happen to have anything right now,’ I told him. ‘Why don’t you go call on the twins?’

‘Later, maybe.’ He slumped down in a chair by the fire and pulled off his soggy shoes. ‘It’s finally happened, Belgarath,’ he told me, wriggling his toes.

‘What has?’

‘Old Burnt-face has finally come out of Ashaba.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘Mal Zeth. Where else? He’s deposed the current emperor and taken personal command of the Mallorean Empire.’ He sneezed. ‘You’re the expert on Old Angarak. What does the word “Kal” mean?’

‘King and God. It’s a Grolim usage that was fairly prevalent at Korim. It’s sort of fallen into disuse - probably because Torak’s been holed up at Ashaba for the last three eons or so.’

‘Burnt-face has a long memory, then. He calls himself “Kal Torak” now, and he’s making sure that everybody in Mallorea recognizes the name.’

‘Is he mobilizing?’

‘Not yet. At the moment, he’s busy de-secularizing Mallorea. He’s re-introduced the joys of religion. Urvon’s having a field day. His Grolims are butchering everybody they can lay their hands on. The temples from Camat to Gandahar are running knee-deep in blood.’

‘Let’s go talk with the twins. We’d better see what the Mrin has to say about this.’

‘You’d also better hustle your tail-feathers north to warn the Alorns.’

‘In a bit. I want look at the Mrin first.’

‘I don’t have much time, Belgarath. I’ve got to go back to Mallorea. I don’t want Kal-Torak to sneak up on you with several million Malloreans.’

‘I’m almost sure I’ll hear him coming.’

‘Where’s Pol now?’

‘At Aldurford in northern Algaria.’

‘You’d better tell her to come home.’

‘We’ll see. I’m not going to do anything until I find out what the Mrin has to say.’

The twins became very excited when Beldin told them that Torak had finally came out of Ashaba, and they immediately went to work. Beldin stumped around, growing increasingly impatient.