I went back to my studies, but it was only three years later when Pol called me, rousing me out of a sound sleep in the middle of one blustery night. ‘Father!’ Her voice sounded desperate. ‘I need you!’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The Asturians have betrayed us. They’ve formed an alliance with the Mimbrates, and they’re marching on Vo Wacune. Hurry, father. There isn’t much time.’

I rolled out of bed, dressed, and picked up my traveling cloak. I did stop for a few moments to look at a certain passage in the Mrin Codex before I left, however. I hadn’t been entirely sure what it meant before, but Polgara’s urgent summons had suddenly made everything clear.

Fabled Vo Wacune was doomed. The only thing I could do now was try to get Pol out of there before the inevitable happened.

I hurried westward to the edge of the Vale through the tag end of that windy night and went wolf. There wasn’t much point in trying to sprout feathers. I wouldn’t have made much headway trying to fly into the teeth of that howling gale.

It was two days later and I was about half-way across Ulgoland before the wind finally abated. Then I took wing and was able to make better time.

I reached Vo Wacune about mid-afternoon of the following day, but I didn’t go immediately into the marble city. I circled over the surrounding forest instead, and it didn’t take me very long to locate the Asturians. They were no more than a few leagues from the gates of Vo Wacune. They’d be in place by morning, and there was absolutely nothing anybody could do to stop them. I swore and flew on back to the city.

Normally, I’ll change back to my own form before I enter any populated place, but this was an emergency. I flew on and settled into a tree in Pol’s garden.

As it turned out, she was in the garden, and she wasn’t alone. Ontrose was with her. He was wearing chain mail, and he had a sword belted around his waist. ‘It must needs be, dear lady,’ he was saying to her. ‘Thou must go from Vo Wacune to a place of safety. The Asturians are almost at the city gates.’

I slid back into my real form and climbed down out of the tree. ‘He’s right, Pol,’ I said. Ontrose looked a little startled, but Pol was used to that sort of thing.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.

‘I ran into some wind. Get your things together. We’ve got to get you out of here right now.’

‘I’m not going anywhere. Now that you’re here, we can drive off the Asturians.’

‘No, as a matter of fact, we can’t. It’s prohibited. I’m sorry, Pol, but this has to happen, and we’re not allowed to interfere.’

‘Is it certain, Ancient One?’ Ontrose asked me.

‘I’m afraid so, Ontrose. Has Polgara told you about the prophecies?’

He nodded gravely.

‘The passage in the Mrin Codex is very obscure, but there’s not much question now about what it means. You might want to talk with the duke. If you hurry, you may be able to get the women and children to safety, but the city’s not going to be here in a few days. I saw the Asturians as I was coming in. They’re throwing everything they’ve got at you.’

‘They will have much less when they return to Vo Astur,’ he said bleakly.

‘I’m not leaving,’ Polgara said stubbornly.

‘Thou art in error, dear lady,’ he told her quite firmly. ‘Thou wilt accompany thy father and go from this place.’

‘No! I won’t leave you!’

‘His Grace, the duke, hath placed me in command of the defense of the city, Lady Polgara. It is my responsibility to deploy our forces. There is no place in that deployment for thee. I therefore instruct thee to depart. Go.’

‘No!’

‘Thou art the Duchess of Erat, Lady Polgara, and therefore of the Wacite nobility. Thine oath of fealty to his Grace, our duke, demands thine obedience. Do not dishonor thy station by this stubborn refusal. Make ready. Thou shalt depart within the hour.’

Her chin came up sharply. ‘That was unkindly said, my Lord,’ she accused.

‘The truth often is unkindly, my Lady. We both have responsibilities. I will not fail mine. Do not fail thine. Now go.’

Her eyes suddenly filled with helpless tears. She embraced him fiercely and then fled back into the house.

‘Thanks, Ontrose,’ I said simply, clasping his hand. ‘I wasn’t making very much headway there.’

‘Care for her, Ancient One. She is the very core of my life.’

‘I will, Ontrose, and we’ll remember you.’

‘That is, perhaps, the best that one can hope for. Now I must go and see to our defenses. Farewell, Ancient Belgarath.’

‘Farewell, Ontrose.’

And so I took my weeping daughter out of the doomed city. We went north, crossed the River Camaar, and journeyed back through Muros toward the pass that led across the mountains to Algaria. I kept a very close watch on Polgara the whole time - I didn’t want any backsliding, but it probably wasn’t really necessary. She was, as Ontrose had so pointedly reminded her, a member of the nobility. She had her orders, and she was not likely to disobey.

She refused to talk to me, but that was to be expected, I guess. What I didn’t expect was her adamant refusal to return to the Vale with me. When we reached the tumbled ruin of her mother’s cottage, she stopped. ‘This is as far as I’m going,’ she told me.

‘What?’

‘You heard me, father. I’m going to stay here.’

‘You have work to do, Pol.’

‘That’s too bad. You’ll have to take care of it. Go back to your tower and snuggle up to your prophecies, but leave me out of it. We’re through, father. This is the end of it. Now go away and don’t bother me any more.’

I could see that there was no point in trying to argue with her. I’d been through my own grief, so I had some idea of what she was enduring. I’d have to keep an eye on her, of course - from a distance. She’d just spent six hundred years in Arendia, and some of it might have rubbed off. Arendish ladies turn suicidal at the drop of a hat. If the least little disappointment comes along, an Arendish lady immediately starts thinking about knives and poison and rivers and high towers she can jump from. Pol would get over this eventually, but in the meantime, she’d have to be watched.

I went back to the Vale and enlisted the twins. I’d have used Beldin, too, but he’d gone back to Mallorea. We took turns hiding in the bushes near Poledra’s cottage for the next five or six years. At first my broken-hearted daughter simply camped out in the ruins, but eventually she started making some minimal repairs. I felt that to be a good sign, and the twins and I started to relax a bit. We still watched her, though.

The first Borune Dynasty was still in power in Tol Honeth during the early centuries of the fourth millennium, and they’d established a professional diplomatic service - largely to keep things stirred up in Arendia. Tolnedra definitely didn’t want a unified Arendia on her northern border. Tolnedran ambassadors were also dispatched to Val Alorn and Boktor, and trade was soon established. The Drasnians had made some tentative contacts with the Nadraks again, and the fur trade began to flourish. The Chereks were of necessity involved, since they were the only sailors in the world who could negotiate the treacherous currents in the Cherek Bore.

The inviolability of the Isle of the Winds drove the Borunes crazy for some reason. They were positive that the Cherek blockade was in place to hide some vast treasure on the Isle, and they desperately wanted a piece of it. As long as they were so hysterical about it, I decided that the best way to calm them down was to let them take a look for themselves to find out that there wasn’t anything of value on the Isle. The isolation of the Rivans was starting to make me nervous. I remembered the lesson of Maragor all too well.

So I went to Val Alorn and told the Chereks to relax their blockade a bit. Tolnedrans want a treaty for everything, so the results were the Accords of Val Alorn - 3097, I think. A fleet of Tolnedran merchant vessels set sail for the city of Riva almost immediately.

I’d assumed that the King of Cherek would advise the Rivans of the new arrangement, but he had his mind on the last clan war in Cherek, so he overlooked it. Thus the Rivans weren’t expecting company, so they didn’t open their gates. The Tolnedran merchants tried to set up shop on the beach, but the wind kept blowing their tents away, and the Rivans refused to come out of their city.

The Borune Dynasty had been going steadily downhill for a hundred years or so, and the last Borune Emperor, clearly an idiot, succumbed to the importunings of the merchant princes and dispatched legions to force the gates of the City of Riva. I’m not an expert on commerce, but it seems to me that trying to drive customers into your shop at sword-point is not a good way to do business.

The Rivans responded in a fairly predictable way. They opened the gates of their city, but they didn’t come out for a shopping spree. They wiped out five Tolnedran legions and then systematically burned every ship in their harbor.

Ran Borune XXIV was incensed. He was preparing to launch the full might of the empire at the Isle of the Winds when a note from the Cherek Ambassador to Tol Honeth brought him up short.

The note is sort of a classic, so I’ll repeat it here verbatim: