The old gold-hunter’s pony did not move very fast, so the others soon caught up with them.
‘Any luck?’ Silk asked the old gold-hunter, his nose twitching with interest.
‘Some,’ the white-bearded man answered evasively.
‘Sorry,’ Silk apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘That’s all right, friend. I can see that you’re an honest man.’
Velvet muffled a slightly derisive chuckle.
‘It’s just a habit I picked up,’ the fellow continued. ‘It’s not really too smart to go around telling everybody how much gold you’ve managed to pick up.’
‘I can certainly understand that.’
‘I don’t usually carry that much with me when I come down into the low country, though – only enough to pay for what I need. I leave the rest of it hid back up there in the mountains.’
‘Why do you do it then?’ Durnik asked. ‘Spend all your time looking for gold, I mean? You don’t spend it, so why bother?’
‘It’s something to do.’ The fellow shrugged. ‘And it gives me an excuse to be up there in the mountains. A man feels sort of frivolous if he does that without no reason.’ He grinned again. ‘Then, too, there’s a certain kind of excitement that comes with finding a pocket of gold in a streambed. Like some say, finding is more fun than spending, and gold’s sort of pretty to look at.’
‘Oh, it is indeed,’ Silk agreed fervently.
The old gold hunter glanced at the she-wolf and then looked at Belgarath. ‘I can see by the way she’s acting that you’re the leader of this group,’ he noted.
Belgarath looked a bit startled at that.
‘He’s learned the language,’ Garion explained.
‘How remarkable,’ Belgarath said, unconsciously echoing the comment of the wolf.
‘I was going to pass on some advice to these two young fellows, but you’re the one who probably ought to hear it.’
‘I’ll certainly listen.’
‘The Dals are a peculiar sort, friend, and they’ve got some peculiar superstitions. I won’t go so far as to say they think of these woods as sacred, but they do feel pretty strongly about them. I wouldn’t advise cutting any trees and don’t, whatever you do, kill anything or anybody here.’ He pointed at the wolf. ‘She knows about that already. You’ve probably noticed that she won’t hunt here. The Dals don’t want this forest profaned with blood. I’d respect that, if I were you. The Dals can be helpful, but if you offend their beliefs, they can make things mighty difficult for you.’
‘I appreciate the information,’ Belgarath told him.
‘It never hurts a man to pass on things he’s picked up,’ the old fellow said. He looked up the track. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘This is as far as I go. That’s the road to Balasa just on up ahead. It’s been nice talking with you.’ He doffed his shabby hat politely to Polgara, then looked at the wolf. ‘Be well, mother,’ he said, then he thumped his heels against his pony’s flanks. The pony broke into an ambling sort of trot and jolted around a bend in the road to Balasa and out of sight.
‘What a delightful old man,’ Ce’Nedra said.
‘Useful, too,’ Polgara added. ‘You’d better get in touch with Uncle Beldin, father,’ she said to Belgarath. ‘Tell him to leave the rabbits and pigeons alone while we’re in this forest.’
‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it right now.’ He lifted his face and closed his eyes.
‘Can that old fellow really talk with wolves?’ Silk asked Garion.
‘He knows the language,’ Garion replied. ‘He doesn’t speak it very well, but he knows it.’
‘One is sure he understands better than he speaks,’ the she-wolf said.
Garion stared at her, slightly startled that she had understood the conversation.
‘The language of the man-things is not difficult to learn,’ she said. ‘As the man-thing with the white fur on his face said, one can learn rapidly if one takes the trouble to listen. One would not care to speak your language, however,’ she added critically. ‘The speech of the man-things would place one’s tongue in much danger of being bitten.’
A sudden thought came to Garion then, accompanied by an absolute certainty that the thought was entirely accurate. ‘Grandfather,’ he said.
‘Not now, Garion. I’m busy.’
‘I’ll wait.’
‘Is it important?’
‘I think so, yes.’
Belgarath opened his eyes curiously. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Do you remember that conversation we had in Tol Honeth – the morning it was snowing?’
‘I think so.’
‘We were talking about the way everything that happened seemed to have happened before.’
‘Yes, now I remember.’
‘You said that when the two prophecies got separated, things sort of stopped – that the future can’t happen until they get back together again. Then you said that until they do, we’d all have to keep going through the same series of events over and over again.’
‘Did I really say that?’ the old man looked a bit pleased. ‘That’s sort of profound, isn’t it? What’s the point of this, though? Why are you bringing it up now?’
‘Because I think it just happened again.’ Garion looked at Silk. ‘Do you remember that old gold hunter we met in Gar og Nadrak when the three of us were on our way to Cthol Mishrak?’
Silk nodded a bit dubiously.
‘Wasn’t the old fellow we just talked with almost exactly the same?’
‘Now that you mention it …’ Silk’s eyes narrowed. ‘All right, Belgarath, what does it mean?’
Belgarath squinted up at the leafy branches overhead. ‘Let me think about it for a minute,’ he said. ‘There are some similarities all right,’ he admitted. ‘The two of them are the same kind of people, and they both warned us about something. I think I’d better get Beldin back here. This might be very important.’
It was no more than a quarter of an hour later when the blue-banded hawk settled out of the sky and blurred into the misshapen sorcerer. ‘What’s got you so excited?’ he demanded crossly.
‘We just met somebody,’ Belgarath replied.
‘Congratulations.’
‘I think this is serious, Beldin.’ Belgarath quickly explained his theory of recurring events.
‘It’s a little rudimentary,’ Beldin growled, ‘but there’s nothing remarkable about that. Your hypotheses usually are.’ He squinted. ‘It’s probably fairly accurate though – as far as it goes.’
‘Thanks,’ Belgarath said drily. Then he went on to describe the two meetings, the one in Gar og Nadrak and the other here. ‘The similarities are a little striking, aren’t they?’
‘Coincidence?’
‘Shrugging things off as coincidence is the best way I know of to get in trouble.’
‘All right. For the sake of argument, let’s say it wasn’t coincidence.’ The dwarf squatted in the dirt at the roadside, his face twisted in thought. ‘Why don’t we take this theory of yours a step farther?’ he mused. ‘Let’s look at the notion that these repetitions crop up at significant points in the course of events.’
‘Sort of like signposts?’ Durnik suggested.
‘Exactly. I couldn’t have found a better term myself. Let’s suppose that these signposts point at really important things that are right on the verge of happening–that they’re sort of like warnings.’
‘I’m hearing a lot of “notions” and “supposes”,’ Silk said sceptically. ‘I think you’re off into the realm of pure speculation.’
‘You’re a brave man, Kheldar,’ Beldin said sardonically. ‘Something could be trying to warn you about a potential catastrophe, and you choose to ignore the warning. That’s either very brave or very stupid. Of course I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt by using the word “brave” instead of the other one.’
‘One for his side,’ Velvet murmured.
Silk flushed slig
htly. ‘But how do we know what it is that’s going to happen?’ he objected.
‘We don’t,’ Belgarath said. ‘The circumstances just call for some extra alertness, is all. We’ve been warned. The rest is up to us.’
They took some special precautions when they set up their encampment that evening. Polgara prepared supper quickly, and the fire was extinguished as soon as they had finished eating. Garion and Silk took the first watch. They stood atop a knoll behind the camp, peering into the darkness.
‘I hate this,’ Silk whispered.
‘Hate what?’
‘Knowing that something is going to happen without knowing what it is. I wish those two old men would keep their speculations to themselves.’
‘Do you really like surprises?’
‘A surprise is better than living with this sense of dread. My nerves aren’t what they used to be.’
‘You’re too high-strung sometimes. Look at all the entertainment you’re getting out of anticipation.’
‘I’m terribly disappointed in you, Garion. I thought you were a nice, sensible boy.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Anticipation. In this situation, that’s just another word for “worry”, and worry isn’t good for anybody.’
‘It’s just a way to get us ready in case something happens.’
‘I’m always ready, Garion. That’s how I’ve managed to live so long, but right now I feel almost as tightly wound as a lute string.’
‘Try not to think about it.’
‘Of course,’ Silk retorted sarcastically. ‘But doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the warning? Aren’t we supposed to think about it?’
The sun had not come up yet when Sadi came back to their camp, moving very quietly and going from tent to tent with a whispered warning. ‘There’s somebody out there,’ he warned after he had scratched on the flap of Garion’s tent.
Garion rolled out from under his blankets, his hand automatically reaching for his sword. He paused then. The old gold-hunter had warned them against the shedding of blood. Was this the event for which they had been waiting? But were they supposed to obey the prohibition, or to step over it in response to some higher need? There was not time now to stand locked in indecision, however. Sword in hand, Garion rushed from the tent.
The light had that peculiar steely tint that comes from a colorless sky before the sun rises. It cast no shadows and what lay beneath the broad-spread oaks was not so much darkness as it was a fainter light. Garion moved quickly, his feet avoiding almost on their own the windrows of years-old dead leaves and the fallen twigs and branches which littered the floor of this ancient forest.
Zakath stood atop the knoll, holding his sword.
‘Where are they?’ Garion’s voice was not so much a whisper as a breath.
‘They were coming up from the south,’ Zakath whispered back.
‘How many?’
‘It’s hard to say.’
‘Are they trying to sneak up on us?’
‘It didn’t really look that way. The ones we saw could have hidden back there among the trees, but they just came walking through the forest.’
Garion peered out into the growing light. And then he saw them. They were dressed all in white – robes or long smocks – and they made no attempts at concealment. Their movements were deliberate and seemed to have a placid, unhurried calm about them. They came in single file, each following the one in front at a distance of about ten yards. There was something hauntingly familiar about the way they moved through the forest.
‘All they need are the torches,’ Silk said from directly behind Garion. The little man made no attempt to keep his voice down.
‘Be still!’ Zakath hissed.
‘Why? They know we’re here.’ Silk laughed a caustic little laugh. ‘Remember that time on the Isle of Verkat?’ he said to Garion. ‘You and I spent a half hour or so crawling through the wet grass following Vard and his people, and I’m absolutely sure now that they knew we were there all the time. We could have just walked along behind them and saved ourselves all the discomfort.’
‘What are you talking about, Kheldar?’ Zakath demanded in a hoarse whisper.
‘This is another of Belgarath’s repetitions,’ Silk shrugged. ‘Garion and I have been through it before.’ He sighed ruefully. ‘Life is going to get terribly boring if nothing new ever happens.’ Then he raised his voice to a shout. ‘We’re over here,’ he called to the white-robed figures out in the forest.
‘Are you mad?’ Zakath exclaimed.
‘Probably not, but then crazy people never really know, do they? Those people are Dals, and I seriously doubt that any Dal has ever hurt anybody since the beginning of time.’
The leader of the strange column halted at the foot of the knoll and pushed back the cowl of his white robe. ‘We have been awaiting you,’ he announced. ‘The Holy Seeress has sent us to see you safely to Kell.’
CHAPTER FOUR
KING KHEVA OF DRASNIA was irritable that morning. He had overheard a conversation the previous evening between his mother and an emissary of King Anheg of Cherek, and his irritation grew out of a sort of moral dilemma. To reveal to his mother that he had been eavesdropping would of course be quite out of the question, and so he could not discuss with her what he had heard until she broached the subject herself. It seemed quite unlikely that she would do so, and so Kheva was at an impasse.
It should be stated here that King Kheva was not really the sort of boy who would normally intrude on his mother’s privacy. He was basically a decent lad. But he was also a Drasnian. There is a national trait among Drasnians which, for want of a better term, might be called curiosity. All people were curious to a certain degree, but in Drasnians the trait was quite nearly compulsive. Some contend that it was their innate curiosity which has made spying their national industry. Others maintain with equal vigor that generations of spying had honed the Drasnian’s natural curiosity to a fine edge. The debate was much like the endless argument about the chicken and the egg, and almost as pointless. Quite early in life, Kheva had trailed unobtrusively along behind one of the official court spies and thereby discovered the closet hidden behind the east wall of his mother’s sitting room. Periodically he would slip into that closet in order to keep track of affairs of state and any other matters of interest. He was the king, after all, and thus he had a perfect right to the information. He reasoned that by spying, he could obtain it while sparing his mother the inconvenience of passing it on to him. Kheva was a considerate boy.
The conversation in question had concerned the mysterious disappearance of the Earl of Trellheim, his ship Seabird and a number of other individuals, including Trellheim’s son Unrak.
Barak, Earl of Trellheim, was considered in some quarters to be an unreliable sort, and his companions in this vanishing were, if anything, even worse. The Alorn kings were disquieted by the potential for disaster represented by Barak and his cohorts roaming loose in the Gods only knew what ocean.
What concerned young King Kheva, however, was not so much random disasters as it was the fact that his friend Unrak had been invited to participate while he had not. The injustice of that rankled. The fact that he was a king seemed to automatically exclude him from anything that could even remotely be considered hazardous. Everyone went out of his way to keep Kheva safe and secure, but Kheva did not want to be kept safe and secure. Safety and security were boring, and Kheva was at an age where he would go to any lengths to avoid boredom.
Clad all in red, he made his way through the marble halls of the palace in Boktor that winter morning. He stopped in front of a large tapestry and made some show of examining it. Then, at least relatively sure that no one was watching – this was Drasnia, after all – he slipped behind the tapestry and into the small closet previously mentioned.
His mother was conferring with the Nadrak girl Vella and with Yarblek, Prince Kheldar’s shabby partner. Vella always made King Kheva nervous. She aroused certain feelings in
him with which he was not yet prepared to cope, and so he customarily avoided her. Yarblek, on the other hand, could be quite amusing. His speech was blunt and often colorful and laced with oaths Kheva was not supposed to know the meaning of.
‘They’ll turn up, Porenn,’ Yarblek was assuring Kheva’s mother. ‘Barak just got bored, that’s all.’
‘I wouldn’t be so concerned if he’d gotten bored by himself,’ Queen Porenn replied, ‘but the fact that this boredom seems to be an epidemic worries me. Barak’s companions aren’t the most stable men in the world.’
‘I’ve met them,’ Yarblek grunted. ‘You might just be right.’ He paced up and down for a moment. ‘I’ll have our people keep an eye out for them.’
‘Yarblek, I’ve got the finest intelligence service in the world.’
‘Perhaps so, Porenn, but Silk and I have more men than you do, and we’ve got offices and warehouses in places Javelin hasn’t even heard of.’ He looked at Vella. ‘Do you want to go back to Gar og Nadrak with me?’ he asked.
‘In the wintertime?’ Porenn objected.
‘We’ll just wear more clothes, that’s all,’ Yarblek shrugged.
‘What are you going to do there?’ Vella asked. ‘I’m not really very interested in sitting around listening to you talk business.’
‘I thought we’d go to Yar Nadrak. Javelin’s people don’t seem to be having much luck finding out what Drosta’s up to.’ He broke off and looked speculatively at Queen Porenn. ‘Unless they’ve picked up something lately I haven’t heard about yet,’ he added.
‘Would I keep secrets from you, Yarblek?’ she asked with mock innocence.
‘Probably, yes. If you’ve got something, Porenn, share it with me. I don’t want to make the trip for nothing, and Yar Nadrak’s a miserable place in the winter.’
‘Nothing yet,’ she replied seriously.
Yarblek grunted. ‘I didn’t think so. Drasnians look too much like Drasnians to be able to move around in Yar Nadrak without attracting attention.’ He glanced at Vella. ‘Well?’ he asked.