And so Polgara took the grieving little prince up past Lake Sulturn toward Medalia and Erat, and I changed form once again and flew due north toward Val Alorn.

In the hundred and seventy-five years or so since Ran Horb II had founded the kingdom of Sendaria and a former rutabaga farmer named Fundor had been elevated to the throne, the Sendars had been busy - mostly cutting down trees. I don’t entirely approve of that. The notion of killing something that’s been alive for a thousand years just so you can plant turnips seems a little immoral to me. Sendars, however, are compulsively neat, and they just adore straight lines. If the Sendars start building a road and a mountain gets in their way, the notion of going around it never occurs to them. They’ll cut through it instead. The Tolnedrans tend to be the same way. I suppose it stands to reason, though. The Sendars are a peculiar mixture of all races, so a few Tolnedran characteristics were bound to be a part of their nature.

Don’t get me wrong here. I like Sendars. They’re a little stuffy sometimes, but I think they’re the most decent and sensible people in the world. Their mixed background seems to have purged them of the obsessions that infect other races.

How did I get off on that? You really shouldn’t let me digress that way. We’ll be at this forever if I don’t stick to the point.

Anyway, when you view it from above, the kingdom of Sendaria resembles nothing quite so much as a checkered tablecloth. I flew over the capital city of Sendar and continued on toward Lake Seline. Then there was a cluster of mountains, and Sendaria finally came to an abrupt end at the Cherek Bore. I won’t repeat the dreadful pun some witty fellow came up with by playing around with the ambiguity implicit in the word ‘bore’.

The tide was rushing out of the Gulf of Cherek when I flew over the Bore, and the Great Maelstrom was whirling around, joyously trying to pick boulders up off the bottom. It doesn’t take much to make a whirlpool happy.

Then I flew up the east coast of the peninsula past Eldrigshaven and Trellheim, and I finally reached Val Alorn.

Val Alorn had been there for a very long time. I think there was a village in that general vicinity even before Torak cracked the world and formed the Gulf of Cherek in the process. The Chereks settled down to make a real city out of it after I divided Aloria. Bear-shoulders needed something to keep his mind occupied and off the fact that I’d just relieved him of most of his kingdom, I guess. To be perfectly honest about it, I’ve always found Val Alorn to be just a bit on the bleak side. The sky over the Cherek Peninsula is nearly always cloudy and grey. Did they have to make their city out of grey rock as well?

I settled to earth just south of the city and went around to the main gate that faced the harbor. Then I navigated the narrow streets where piles of dirty snow still lay in the shady places, and eventually reached the palace and was admitted. I found King Valcor carousing with his earls in the great throne room. Most of the time the throne room of the Kingdom of Cherek resembles nothing so much as a beer-hall. Fortunately, I arrived about midday, and Valcor hadn’t had time yet to drink himself into insensibility. He was boisterous, but there’s nothing very unusual about that. Chereks, drunk or sober, are always boisterous. ‘Ho, Belgarath!’ he bellowed at me from the throne, ‘come in and join us!’ Valcor was a burly fellow with muddy brown hair and a vast beard. Like so many overly muscular men I’ve known, he’d gone to flab as middle age crept up on him. He wasn’t exactly fat, but he was working on it. Despite the fact that he was the king, he was wearing a peasant smock with beer-stains down the front.

I walked past the blazing fire-pit in the center of the hall and approached the throne. ‘Your Majesty,’ I greeted him perfunctorily, ‘You and I need to talk.’

‘Any time, Belgarath. Pull up a seat and have some beer.’

‘Privately, Valcor.’

‘I don’t have any secrets from my earls.’

‘You will have in just a few minutes. Get up off your behind, Valcor, and let’s go someplace where we can talk.’

He looked a little startled. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘War does that to me.’ I chose the word carefully. It’s one of the few words that’ll get an Alorn’s attention when he’s been drinking.

‘War? Where? With whom?’

‘I’ll tell you about it just as soon as we’re alone.’

He stood up and led me to a nearby room.

Valcor’s reaction to the news I brought him was fairly predictable. It took me a little while to calm him down, but I finally persuaded him to stop swearing and chopping up furniture with his sword long enough to listen to me. ‘I’m going on to talk with Radek and Cho-Ram. Get your fleet ready and call in the clans. I’ll either come back or send word to let you know when to start. You’ll have to stop by the Isle of the Winds to pick up Brand and the Rivans on your way south.’

‘I’ll deal with Salmissra myself.’

‘No, you won’t. Salmissra’s insulted the whole of Aloria, and the whole of Aloria’s going to do something about it. I don’t want you to offend Brand, Radek and Cho-Ram by taking things into your own hands. You’ve got work to do, Valcor, so you’d better sober up and get cracking. I’m going on to Boktor. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.’

It was about dawn of the following day when I reached Boktor. Since there were very few people about, I settled on the battlements of King Radek’s palace. The sentry up there was noticeably startled when he turned around and saw me standing in a place he’d just passed. ‘I need to talk with the king,’ I told him. ‘Where is he?’

‘I think he’s still asleep. Who are you? And how did you get up here?’

‘Does the name Belgarath ring any bells for you?’

He gaped at me.

‘Close your mouth and take me to Radek,’ I told him. I get so tired of having people gawk at me when I’m in a hurry.

King Radek was snoring when I reached the royal bed-chamber. The royal bed was seriously mussed up, and so was the royal playmate, a busty young woman who immediately dived under the covers when I entered. I jerked open the drapes at the window and turned around. ‘All right, Radek,’ I barked, ‘wake up!’

His eyes popped open. Radek was a fairly young man. He was tall and lean, and he had a decidedly hooked nose. Drasnian noses seem to go off in all directions for some reason. Silk’s nose is so pointed that from certain angles he looks like a stork, and Porenn’s husband had a little pug nose that wasn’t much bigger than a button. I hadn’t had much chance to look at the nose of the young lady who’d burrowed under the covers when I’d entered. She’d moved fairly fast, and I’d been more interested in other things.

‘Good morning, Belgarath,’ the King of Drasnia greeted me with unruffled calm. ‘Welcome to Boktor.’ Fortunately, he was an intelligent man and not nearly as excitable as Valcor, so he didn’t waste time trying to invent new swear-words when I told him what had happened at Riva. I didn’t mention the fact that Prince Geran had survived the massacre on the beach, of course. Nobody except Brand needed to know about that. ‘What are we going to do about it?’ he asked after I’d finished.

‘I thought we might all visit Nyissa and have a little talk with Salmissra.’

‘I don’t have any problem with that.’

‘Valcor’s gathering his fleet, and he’ll pick up the Rivans on his way south. How far can your pikemen march in a day?’

‘Twenty leagues, if it’s important enough.’

‘It is. Round them up and get them started. Go down through Algaria and the Tolnedran mountains. Stay out of Maragor, though. It’s still haunted, and your pikemen won’t be of much use if they all go crazy. I’ll talk with Cho-Ram, and he’ll join you as you go south. Do you know Beldin?’

‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘He’s dwarfed, he’s got a hump on his back and a foul temper. You can’t miss him. If he’s made it back from Mallorea by the time you reach the Vale, he’ll go with you. It’s five hundred leagues from here to Sthiss Tor. Let’s say it’ll take you two months to reach the eastern border of Nyissa. Don’t take any longer. The rainy season comes on down there in the fall, and we don’t want to bog down in the swamps.’

‘Amen to that.’

‘Beldin and I can stay in touch with each other, so we’ll be able to coordinate things. I want to hit Nyissa from both sides at the same time. We don’t want too many Nyissans to escape, but whatever you do, don’t kill all of them. That’d make Issa almost as unhappy as Mara is, and we don’t need another war between Gods.’

‘Issa let Salmissra kill Gorek, didn’t he?’

‘No, he didn’t. He’s hibernating, so he had no idea of what Salmissra was doing. Be very careful, Radek. Issa’s the Serpent God. If you offend him, you might come back and find all of Drasnia infested with poisonous snakes. Now get your pikemen together and start south. I’ve got to go talk with Cho-Ram.’

I started toward the door. ‘You can tell the girl to come out now, Radek,’ I threw back over my shoulder. ‘She’ll smother if she stays under there too long.’ I stopped. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time for you to stop all this playing?’ I asked him.