Garion nodded. ‘Beldin,’ he said. ‘I’ve met him.’
‘Is he really as bad as the stories make him out to be?’
‘Probably even worse. I don’t think you’d want to be around to watch what he does, if he ever catches up with Urvon.’
‘I wish him good hunting, but Urvon’s not my only problem, I’m afraid. Not long after the death of Torak, certain rumors started coming out of Darshiva. A Grolim priestess—Zandramas by name—also began to predict the coming of a new God.’
‘I didn’t know that she was a Grolim,’ Garion said with some surprise.
Zakath nodded gravely. ‘She formerly had a very unsavory reputation in Darshiva. Then the so-called ecstacy of prophecy fell on her, and she was suddenly transformed by it. Now when she speaks, no one can resist her words. She preaches to multitudes and fires them with invincible zeal. Her message of the coming of a new God ran through Darshiva like wildfire and spread into Regel, Voresebo and Zamad as well. Virtually the entire northeast coast of Mallorea is hers.’
‘What’s the Sardion got to do with all this?’ Garion asked.
‘I think it’s the key to the whole business,’ Zakath replied. ‘Both Zandramas and Urvon seem to believe that whoever finds and possesses it is going to win out.’
‘Agachak—the Hierarch of Rak Urga—believes the same thing,’ Garion told him.
Zakath nodded moodily. ‘I suppose I should have realized that. A Grolim is a Grolim—whether he comes from Mallorea or Cthol Murgos.’
‘It seems to me that maybe you should go back to Mallorea and put things in order.’
‘No, Belgarion, I won’t abandon my campaign here in Cthol Murgos.’
‘Is personal revenge worth it?’
Zakath looked startled.
‘I know why you hated Taur Urgas, but he’s dead, and Urgit’s not at all like him. I can’t really believe that you’d sacrifice your whole empire just for the sake of revenging yourself on a man who can’t feel it.’
‘You know?’ Zakath’s face looked stricken. ‘Who told you?’
‘Urgit did. He told me the whole story.’
‘With pride, I expect.’ Zakath’s teeth were clenched, and his face pale.
‘No, not really. It was with regret—and with contempt for Taur Urgas. He hated him even more than you do.’
‘That’s hardly possible, Belgarion. To answer your question, yes, I
will
sacrifice my empire—the whole world if need be—to spill out the last drop of the blood of Taur Urgas. I will neither sleep nor rest nor be turned aside from my vengeance, and I will crush whomever stands in my path.’
‘Tell him,’
the dry voice in Garion’s mind said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Tell him the truth about Urgit.’
‘But—’
‘Do it, Garion. He needs to know. There are things he has to do, and he won’t do them until he puts this obsession behind him.’
Zakath was looking at him curiously.
‘Sorry, just receiving instructions,’ Garion explained lamely.
‘Instructions? From whom?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it. I was told to give you some information.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Urgit isn’t a Murgo,’ he said flatly.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I said that Urgit isn’t a Murgo—at least not entirely. His mother was, of course, but his father was not Taur Urgas.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘No, I’m not. We found out about it while we were at the Drojim Palace in Rak Urga. Urgit didn’t know about it either.’
‘I don’t believe you, Belgarion!’ Zakath’s face was livid, and he was nearly shouting.
‘Taur Urgas is dead,’ Garion said wearily. ‘Urgit made sure of that by cutting his throat and burying him head down in his grave. He also claims that he had every one of his brothers—the
real
sons of Taur Urgas—killed to make himself secure on the throne. I don’t think there’s one drop of Urga blood left in the world.’
Zakath’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s a trick. You’ve allied yourself with Urgit and brought me this absurd lie to save his life.’
‘Use the Orb, Garion,’
the voice instructed.
‘How?’
‘Take it off the pommel of the sword and hold it in your right hand. It’ll show Zakath the truths that he needs to know.’
Garion rose to his feet. ‘If I can show you the truth, will you look?’ he asked the agitated Mallorean Emperor.
‘Look? Look at what?’
Garion walked over to his sword and peeled off the soft leather sleeve covering the hilt. He put his hand on the Orb, and it came free with an audible click. Then he turned back to the man at the table. ‘I’m not exactly sure how this works,’ he said. ‘I’m told that Aldur was able to do it, but I’ve never tried it for myself. I thing you’re supposed to look into this.’ He extended his right arm until the Orb was in front of Zakath’s face.
‘What is that?’
‘You people call it Cthrag Yaska,’ Garion replied.
Zakath recoiled, his face blanching.
‘It won’t hurt you—as long as you don’t touch it.’
The Orb, which for the past months had rather sullenly obeyed Garion’s continued instruction to restrain itself, slowly began to pulsate and glow in his hand, bathing Zakath’s face in its blue radiance. The Emperor half lifted his hand as if to push the glowing stone aside.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Garion warned again. ‘Just look.’
But Zakath’s eyes were already locked on the stone as its blue light grew stronger and stronger. His hands gripped the edge of the table in front of him so tightly that his knuckles grew white. For a long moment he stared into that blue incandescence. Then, slowly, his fingers lost their grip on the table edge and fell back onto the arms of his chair. An expression of agony crossed his face. ‘They have escaped me,’ he groaned with tears welling out of his closed eyes, ‘and I have slaughtered tens of thousands for nothing.’ The tears began to stream down his contorted face.
‘I’m sorry, Zakath,’ Garion said quietly, lowering his hand. ‘I can’t change what’s already happened, but you had to know the truth.’
‘I cannot thank you for this truth,’ Zakath said, his shoulders shaking in the storm of his weeping. ‘Leave me, Belgarion. Take that accursed stone from my sight.’
Garion nodded with a great feeling of compassion and shared sorrow. Then he replaced the Orb on the pommel of his sword, re-covered the hilt and picked up the great weapon. ‘I’m very sorry, Zakath,’ he said again, and then he quietly went out of the room, leaving the Emperor of boundless Mallorea alone with his grief.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Really, Garion, I’m perfectly fine,’ Ce’Nedra objected again.
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
‘Then you’ll let me get out of bed?’
‘No.’
‘That’s not fair,’ she pouted.
‘Would you like a little more tea?’ he asked, going to the fireplace, taking up a poker, and swinging out the iron arm from which a kettle was suspended.
‘No, I don’t,’ she replied in a sulky little voice. ‘It smells, and it tastes awful.’
‘Aunt Pol says that it’s very good for you. Maybe if you drink some more of it, she’ll let you get out of bed and sit in a chair for a while.’ He spooned some of the dried, aromatic leaves from an earthenware pot into a cup, tipped the kettle carefully with the poker, and filled the cup with steaming water.
Ce’Nedra’s eyes had momentarily come alight, but narrowed again almost immediately. ‘Oh,
very
clever, Garion,’ she said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Don’t patronize me.’
‘Of course not,’ he agreed blandly, setting the cup on the stand beside the bed. ‘You probably ought to let that steep for a while,’ he suggested.
‘It can steep all year if it wants to. I’m not going to drink it.’
He sighed with resignation. ‘I’m sorry, Ce’Nedra,’ he said with genuine regret, ‘but you’re wrong. Aunt Pol says that you’re supposed to drink a cup of this every other hour. Until she tells me otherwise, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.’
‘What if I refuse?’ Her tone was belligerent.
‘I’m bigger than you are,’ he reminded her.
Her eyes went wide with shock. ‘You wouldn’t actually
force
me to drink it, would you?’
His expression grew mournful. ‘I’d really hate to do something like that,’ he told her.
‘But you’d do it, wouldn’t you?’ she accused.
He thought about it a moment, then nodded. ‘Probably,’ he admitted, ‘if Aunt Pol told me to.’
She glared at him. ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘Give me the stinking tea.’
‘It doesn’t smell all
that
bad, Ce’Nedra.’
‘Why don’t
you
drink it, then?’
‘I’m not the one who’s been sick.’
She proceeded then to tell him—at some length—exactly what she thought of the tea and him and her bed and the room and the whole world in general. Many of the terms she used were very colorful—even lurid—and some of them were in languages that he didn’t recognize.
‘What on earth is all the shouting about?’ Polgara asked, coming into the room.
‘I absolutely
hate
this stuff!’ Ce’Nedra declared at the top of her lungs, waving the cup about and spilling most of the contents.
‘I wouldn’t drink it then,’ Polgara advised calmly.
‘Garion says that if I don’t drink it, he’ll pour it down my throat.’
‘Oh. Those were
yesterday’s
instructions.’ Polgara looked at Garion. ‘Didn’t I tell you that they change today?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘As a matter of fact, you didn’t.’ He said it in a very level tone. He was fairly proud of that.
‘I’m sorry, dear. I must have forgotten.’
‘When can I get out of bed?’ Ce’Nedra demanded.
Polgara gave her a surprised look. ‘Any time you want, dear,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact, I just came by to ask if you planned to join us for breakfast.’
Ce’Nedra sat up in bed, her eyes like hard little stones. She slowly turned an icy gaze upon Garion and then quite deliberately stuck her tongue out at him.
Garion turned to Polgara. ‘Thanks awfully,’ he said to her.
‘Don’t be snide, dear,’ she murmured. She looked at the fuming little Queen. ‘Ce’Nedra, weren’t you told as a child that sticking out one’s tongue is the worst possible form of bad manners?’
Ce’Nedra smiled sweetly. ‘Why, yes, Lady Polgara, as a matter of fact I was. That’s why I only do it on special occasions.’
‘I think I’ll take a walk,’ Garion said to no one in particular. He went to the door, opened it, and left.
Some days later he lounged in one of the sitting rooms that had been built in the former women’s quarters where he and the others were lodged. The room was peculiarly feminine. The furniture was softly cushioned in mauve, and the broad windows had filmy curtains of pale lavender. Beyond the windows lay a snowy garden, totally embraced by the tall wings of this bleak Murgo house. A cheery fire crackled in the half-moon arch of a broad fireplace, and at the far corner of the room an artfully contrived grotto, thick with green fern and moss, flourished about a trickling fountain. Garion sat brooding out at a sunless noon—at an ash-colored sky spitting white pellets that were neither snow nor hail but something in between—and realized all of a sudden that he was homesick for Riva. It was a peculiar thing to come to grips with here on the opposite end of the world. Always before, the word ‘homesick’ had been associated with Faldor’s farm—the kitchen, the broad central courtyard, Durnik’s smithy, and all the other dear, treasured memories. Now, suddenly, he missed that storm-lashed coast, the security of that grim fortress hovering above the bleak city lying below, and the mountains, heavy with snow, rising stark white against a black and stormy sky.
There was a faint knock at the door.
‘Yes?’ Garion said absently, not looking around.
The door opened almost timidly. ‘Your Majesty?’ a vaguely familiar voice said.
Garion turned, looking back over his shoulder. The man was chubby and bald and he wore brown, a plain serviceable color, though his robe was obviously costly, and the heavy gold chain about his neck loudly proclaimed that this was no minor official. Garion frowned slightly. ‘Haven’t we met before?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you General Atesca’s friend—uh—’
‘Brador, your Majesty,’ the brown-robed man supplied. ‘Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs.’
‘Oh, yes. Now I remember. Come in, your Excellency, come in.’
‘Thank you, your Majesty.’ Brador came into the room and moved toward the fireplace, extending his hands to its warmth. ‘Miserable climate.’ He shuddered.
‘You should try a winter in Riva,’ Garion said, ‘although it’s summer there right now.’
Brador looked out the window at the snowy garden. ‘Strange place, Cthol Murgos,’ he said. ‘One’s tempted to believe that all of Murgodom is deliberately ugly, and then one comes across a room like this.’
‘I suspect that the ugliness was to satisfy Ctuchik—and Taur Urgas,’ Garion replied. ‘Underneath, Murgos probably aren’t much different from the rest of us.’
Brador laughed. ‘That sort of thinking is considered heresy in Mal Zeth,’ he said.
‘The people in Val Alorn feel much the same way.’ Garion looked at the bureaucrat. ‘I expect that this isn’t just a social call, Brador,’ he said. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Your Majesty,’ Brador said soberly, ‘I absolutely
have
to speak with the Emperor. Atesca tried to arrange it before he went back to Rak Verkat, but—’ He spread his hands helplessly. ‘Could you possibly speak to him about it? The matter is of the utmost urgency.’
‘I really don’t think there’s very much I can do for you, Brador,’ Garion told him. ‘Right now I’m probably the last person he’d want to talk to.’
‘Oh?’
‘I told him something that he didn’t want to hear.’
Brador’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘You were my last hope, your Majesty,’ he said.