I tried to console her with the usual platitudes, but she wanted no part of that. ‘Just go away and leave me alone, father,’ she told me flatly. ‘I’ll deal with this in my own way.’

So I went on down the street to talk with Geran. ‘What really happened?’ I asked him.

‘There must have been some hidden flaw in that rock-face, grandfather,’ he replied somberly. ‘Father and I had both checked it from top to bottom. It seemed completely sound, and there hadn’t been any hints of weakness. The workmen were cutting blocks off the top of the face, and the whole thing just gave way and collapsed. Father was down in the quarry at the bottom of the face, and there was no way he could get out from under it when it came down.’ His face grew angry, and he slammed his fist down on the table. ‘There was no reason for it, grandfather! That face should not have broken away! I’m going to tear that mountain apart until I find out why it happened!’

I know now why it happened - and who was responsible. That’s one of the reasons that I take an enormous satisfaction in what Garion did to Chamdar down in the Wood of the Dryads.

Polgara remained inconsolable. There was nothing I could do or say to comfort her. She locked herself in her room and refused to talk to any of us. For a time I was about half afraid that she’d go mad with grief.

Darral’s wife did.

It wasn’t too obvious at first. After her initial outburst of grief, she seemed to grow abnormally calm. Two weeks after the funeral, she went back to her normal routine of cleaning house, sweeping off her doorstep, and preparing meals as if nothing had happened. Quite frequently, she even sang while she was cooking.

I’m sure that there are people out there who’ll say that this is a healthy way to deal with grief, but they’re wrong. The death of a wife or husband is a wound that takes years to heal. Believe me, I know. If my own grief hadn’t been so profound, I’d have recognized the fact that something wasn’t right.

She cooked the usual meals, and she always set a place for Darral at her table. Then, as evening descended, she’d keep going to the door to anxiously look out into Annath’s single street as if she were anxiously waiting for someone to come home to supper. The signs of her madness were all there. I can’t believe that Pol and I missed them.

If I’d been just a bit more alert, I’d have realized who’d been responsible for Darral’s death and Alara’s madness. At that point, I’d have torn the world apart looking for Asharak the Murgo, and when I caught him, I’d have cut his throat all the way back to the neck-bone - with a dull saw. It might have taken me a while, but I’d have enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course I’m a savage. Haven’t you realized that yet?

I’m not saying here that Alara went stark-staring mad. She just got vague - which is probably even worse, when you get right down to it. As Polgara recovered from her own sorrow, she was obliged to keep a more or less continual watch over Alara, and that turned out to be fairly significant as time went on.

I took my own sorrow out on the road. Walking thirty miles a day or so will numb almost any emotion, and I definitely didn’t think that a return to the waterfront dives of Camaar would have been a good idea right then.

I drifted back to the Vale in the late spring of 5351, and Javelin was there, waiting for me. ‘We lost him, Ancient One,’ he confessed with a certain degree of shame. ‘I’ve had people watching him from every possible angle, and one day he simply wasn’t there any more. Chamdar’s a Murgo, and they’re not supposed to be that clever.’

‘He’s deceptive, Khendon,’ I sighed. ‘It looks as if I’m going to have to put on my walking shoes again. I’d better go find him.’

‘Aren’t you getting a little old for this kind of thing, Holy One?’ he asked me with surprising directness. ‘Keeping track of Chamdar was my job. Why don’t you let me locate him?’

‘I may be old, Javelin, but I can still run you into the ground any day in the week. Just don’t get in my way. If you do, I’ll run right up your back.’ I hate having people make an issue of my age. Don’t they realize by now that it doesn’t mean anything?

‘It shall be as you say, Ancient One,’ he replied with a curt bow. At least he had sense enough to know when to back away.

I went directly to Tol Honeth to take up the search. As closely as the twins were able to determine, we were within a couple of years of the birth of the Godslayer, and I vividly remembered Chamdar’s audible ruminations back when Gelane had fallen in with the Bear-Cult. Ctuchik had ordered his Grolim underling to kill Iron-grip’s heir, but Chamdar had come up with an alternative to that. He was looking for the chance to be elevated to Disciple status, and thus to step over Ctuchik to deliver the Godslayer and the Orb directly to Torak. He was ambitious, I’ll give him that. I quite literally tore Tolnedra apart, but I couldn’t put my hands on him. He’d stolen a page out of my own book and had laid down various hints and false clues that kept me running from one end of Tolnedra to the other. I didn’t find out exactly how he’d done it until after the tragedy in Annath.

Lelldorin, the ‘Archer’ mentioned in the Mrin, was born in 5352, but I didn’t have time to look in on the Wildantor family, since I was too busy ripping up the paving stones in Tol Honeth looking for my elusive Grolim adversary. After a while, I started to get irritable.

Javelin returned to Tol Honeth to help me, and he shrewdly prevailed on the Drasnian ambassador to try to enlist the aid of Ce’Nedra’s father in the search. Tolnedran intelligence isn’t really a match for what the Drasnians can come up with, but it would have put more eyes out there on the streets. Ran Borune XXIII wasn’t having any of that, though. He was involved in some rather delicate trade negotiations with the representatives of Taur Urgas, and he wasn’t inclined to do anything at all to disrupt those negotiations, so he withheld the services of his assorted spies and informers. I liked Ran Borune, and I adore his daughter, but he was greedy, and the prospect of getting his hands on all that red Murgo gold turned his head, so Javelin and I got no help whatsoever from Tolnedran intelligence.

Finally, in the late summer of 5354, I gave up entirely. It was obvious by now that the various clues I’d been frantically chasing up and down the length and breadth of Tolnedra were no more than false trails. For once, Chamdar had outsmarted me. I was absolutely certain that he wasn’t in Tolnedra anymore, so I gave Javelin the thankless task of chasing down all the fictitious ‘Chamdars’ that the Grolims were inventing for our entertainment and took myself off to Arendia.

And the Grolims there were as busy as the ones in Tolnedra had been. I’ll give Chamdar credit here. He’d learned all the lessons I’d given him over the centuries very well. I heard stories about ‘Asharak the Murgo’ every time I turned around, and the stories got wilder and wilder every day. Grolims are schemers, to be sure, but there’s no sense of art in their schemes. They always go to extremes. I think it’s a racial flaw.

Then, when I was riding north out of Vo Mimbre, I encountered a handsome young fellow in full armor sitting astride a prancing war-horse. I recognized the crest of the Mandor family on his shield. ‘Well-met, Ancient Belgarath!’ Mandorallen greeted me in that booming voice of his. ‘I have been in search of thee!’ Mandorallen was only about seventeen at that time, but there was already an impressive muscularity about him.

‘What is it this time, Mandorallen?’ I demanded.

‘I have been, as thou doubtless knowest - for certes, all things are known to thee - at Vo Ebor, where my dear friend and guardian, the baron of that fair domain, hath been providing instruction unto me in the knightly arts, and -’

‘Mandorallen, get to the point!’

He looked a little injured by that. ‘In short,’ he said - as if a Mimbrate could ever say anything in short. ‘Thy brethren, Beltira and Belkira, came but recently to Vo Ebor and besought me that I should seek thee out. Straightway I went to horse, and, thinking that thou wert still in Tol Honeth, I posted southward that I might bring thee news that thy gentle brethren felt might be of interest unto thee.’

‘Oh? What news is this?’

‘I confess that I have no understanding of the true import of their message, but I am instructed to advise thee that a certain kinswoman of thine is with child, and that thy daughter, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting - though I yearn for the day when I shall be privileged to greet her and respectfully bend my knee unto her -’

‘All right, Mandorallen, I get the message.’

‘This news, I presume, is of some significance?’

‘Moderately so, Sir Knight.’

‘Might I know its import?’

‘No, you might not. You don’t need to know what it means. Turn around and go back to Vo Ebor. You have performed your duty, Sir Knight, and I thank you. Now go home.’

I’ll take this opportunity to apologize for my abruptness to the Knight Protector. All I really wanted him to do was to get out of sight so that I could go into paroxysms of exultation. Ildera was pregnant! The Godslayer dozed beneath her heart!