My daughter gave no sign that she knew I was following her, but with Polgara, you never really know. She crossed the mountains to Muros, where she turned south toward Arendia. That made me nervous.

As I’d more or less expected, she was accosted by Wacites on the road to Vo Wacune. Arends are usually very polite to ladies, but this particular group appeared to have left its manners at home. They questioned her rather rudely and told her that unless she could produce some kind of safe-conduct, they’d have to take her into custody.

You would not believe how smoothly she handled that. She was right in the middle of delivering a blistering remonstrance, and between one outraged word and the next, she simply put them all to sleep. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it if she hadn’t made that tell-tale little gesture with one hand. I’ve talked with her about that several times, but she still feels the Word that releases her Will is not quite enough. She always seems to want to add a gesture.

The Wacites went to sleep instantly, without bothering to close their eyes. She even put their horses to sleep. Then she rode off, humming softly to herself. After she’d gone a couple of miles, she gathered her Will again, said, ‘Wake up,’ and waved her hand once more.

The Wacites were not aware of the fact that they’d just taken a nap, so it appeared to them that she’d simply vanished. Sorcery or magic, or whatever you want to call it, makes Arends nervous, so they chose not to follow her - not that they’d have known which way she’d gone anyway.

She hadn’t given me any details about the nature of her little chore in Arendia, so I still had to follow her. After that encounter in the forest, though, I did so more out of curiosity than any real concern for her safety. I knew that she could take care of herself.

She rode on to Vo Wacune, and when she reached the gates of the city, she imperiously demanded to be taken to the palace of the duke.

Of all the cities of ancient Arendia, Vo Wacune was by far the loveliest. The cattle-fair at Muros was very profitable for the Wacite Arends, so they had plenty of money to spend on architecture. There were marble quarries in the foothills lying to the east of the city, and marble-sheathed buildings are always prettier than structures made of other kinds of rock. Vo Astur was built of granite, and Vo Mimbre’s made with that yellow-colored stone that’s so abundant in southern Arendia. It went further than that, though. Vo Astur and Vo Mimbre were fortresses, and they looked like fortresses, blocky and unlovely. Marble-clad Vo Wacune, however, looked like a city seen in a dream. It had tall, delicate spires, broad, shady avenues, and many parks and gardens. Anytime you read a fairy-tale that describes some mythic city of unspeakable beauty, you can be fairly certain that the description is based on Vo Wacune.

I paused in a grove of trees just outside the gates and watched Pol enter the city. Then, after a moment’s consideration, I changed form again. Arends are very fond of hunting dogs, so I took the form of a hound and followed along. The duke would assume that I was her dog, and she’d assume that I was his.

‘Your Grace,’ she greeted the duke with a flowing curtsy. ‘It is imperative that we speak privately. I must disclose my mind unto thee out of the hearing of others.’

‘That is not customary, Lady -?’ He left it delicately hanging in the air. He really wanted to know who this queenly visitor was.

‘I will identify myself unto thee when we are alone, your Grace. Unfriendly ears are everywhere in poor Arendia, and word of my visit must not reach Vo Mimbre nor Vo Astur. Thy realm is in peril, your Grace, and I am come to abate that peril. Let us not alert thine enemies to mine advisement of thee, and my name alone would so alert them.’

Where had she learned to speak in that archaic language?

‘Thy manner and bearing are such that I am inclined to give ear unto thee, my Lady,’ the duke replied. ‘Let us go apart so that thou mayest give me this vital instruction.’ He rose from his throne, offered Pol his arm, and led her from the room.

I padded along behind them, my toenails clicking on the floor. Arendish nobles always give their hunting dogs the free run of their houses, so nobody paid any attention to me. The duke, however, shooed me out when he and Pol went into a room just down the hall. That wasn’t really any problem, though. I curled up on the floor just outside with my head almost touching the door.

‘And now, Lady,’ the duke said, ‘prithee divulge thy name to me.’

‘My name’s Polgara,’ she replied, dropping the flowery speech. ‘You might have heard of me.’

‘The daughter of Ancient Belgarath?’ He sounded stunned.

‘Exactly. You’ve been receiving some bad advice lately, your Grace. A Tolnedran merchant’s been telling you that he speaks for Ran Vordue XVII. He does not. The House of Vordue is not offering an alliance. If you follow his advice and invade Mimbrate territory, the legions will not come to your aid. If you violate your alliance with the Mimbrates, they’ll immediately ally themselves with the Asturians, and you’ll be swarmed under.’

‘The Tolnedran merchant has documents, Lady Polgara,’ the duke protested. ‘They bear the imperial seal of Ran Vordue himself.’

‘The imperial seal isn’t that difficult to duplicate, your Grace. I can make one for you right here and now, if you’d like.’

‘If the Tolnedran doth not speak for Ran Vordue, then for whom?’

‘He speaks for Ctuchik, your Grace. The Murgos want strife in the west, and Arendia, already torn by this unending civil war, is the best place to set off new fires. Do with the deceitful Tolnedran as you will. I must go to Vo Astur now, and then on to Vo Mimbre. Ctuchik’s scheme is very complex, and if it succeeds, its ultimate goal will be war between Arendia and Tolnedra.’

‘That must not be!’ the duke exclaimed. ‘Divided as we are, the legions would crush us!’

‘Precisely. And then the Alorns would be drawn in, and general war would break out. Nothing would suit Ctuchik better.’

‘I will wring confirmation of this foul plot from the Tolnedran, Lady Polgara,’ he said. ‘Of that I give thee my pledge.’

The door opened, and the duke stepped over me. After your dogs have been underfoot long enough, you don’t even see them any more.

Polgara, however, didn’t step over me. ‘All right, father,’ she said to me in withering tones, ‘you can go home now. I can manage here without you very well.’

And, as a matter of fact, she did. I still followed her, though. She went to Vo Astur and spoke with the Asturian Duke in much the same way as she had with the Duke of Vo Wacune. Then she went on to Vo Mimbre and alerted them as well. In that one single journey, she dismantled something that had probably taken the cadaverous Ctuchik ten years to build. He’d never met her, and he already had reason to hate her.

She explained it all to me when we got back to the Vale - after she’d taken me to task for trailing along behind her. ‘Ctuchik’s got people here in the western kingdoms who don’t really look that much like Angaraks,’ she told me. ‘Some of them are modified Grolims, but there are others as well. Have you ever heard of the Dagashi?’

‘I can’t say that I have,’ I replied.

‘They’re a group of paid assassins based somewhere to the south of Nyissa. They’re very good spies as well as highly skilled murderers. At any rate, the Murgos have discovered gold in that spine of mountains that runs northeast from Urga to Goska, so Ctuchik can afford to bribe Tolnedrans.’

‘Anybody can bribe Tolnedrans, Pol.’

‘Possibly, yes. At any rate, his spies have been enlisting various Tolnedrans to present the three duchies here in Arendia with spurious offers of alliance that supposedly come from Ran Vordue. Ran Vordue, of course, doesn’t know anything about them. The idea was that when the legions didn’t turn up to assist the people who were expecting them, the Arends would attack northern Tolnedra in retaliation. Northern Tolnedra is Vorduvian territory, and the emperor would respond by crushing the Arendish duchies one by one. Once the Alorns heard about it, they’d believe that the empire was trying to expand its borders, and they’d take steps. It was a very clever plan, actually.’

‘But you put a stop to it.’

‘Yes, father, I know. We might want to keep an eye on Ctuchik. I think he’s planning something. He’s not trying to stir up all this mischief just for the fun of it.’

‘I’ll watch him,’ I promised her.

Beldin returned from one of his periodic trips to Mallorea not long after that, and he told us that nothing much was going on there. ‘Except that Zedar’s left Ashaba,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.

‘Any idea of where he’s gone?’ I asked.

‘Not a clue. Zedar’s as slippery as an eel. For all I know, he’s hiding out at Kell. What’s going on with the Nadraks?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘I came back from Mallorea that way, and they’re massing up about ten leagues east of the Drasnian border. I’d say that they’re planning something major.’

I started to swear. ‘That’s what it was all about!’

‘Talk sense, Belgarath. What’s been happening?’