The queen weakly struggled to her feet. “I’ll be seasick every inch of the way,” she promised.
“You can if it makes you happy, dear,” Polgara said sweetly, patting the plump little queen gently on the cheek.
10
They were two days at sea from Sendar to Riva, running before a quartering wind with their patched sail booming and the driving spray that froze to everything it touched. The cabin belowdecks was crowded, and Garion spent most of his time topside, trying to stay out of the wind and out from under the sailors’ feet at the same time. Inevitably, he moved finally to the sheltered spot in the prow, sat with his back against the bulwark and his blue hooded cloak tight about him, and gave himself over to some serious thinking. The ship rocked and pitched in the heavy swells and frequently slammed head-on into monstrous black waves, shooting spray in all directions. The sea around them was flecked with whitecaps, and the sky was a threatening, dirty gray.
Garion’s thoughts were almost as gloomy as the weather. His life for the past fifteen months had been so caught up in the pursuit of the Orb that he had not had time to look toward the future. Now the quest was almost over, and he began to wonder what would happen once the Orb had been restored to the Hall of the Rivan King. There would no longer be any reason for his companions to remain together. Barak would return to Val Alorn; Silk would certainly find some other part of the world more interesting; Hettar and Mandorallen and Relg would return home; and even Ce’Nedra, once she had gone through the ceremony of presenting herself in the throne room, would be called back to Tol Honeth. The adventure was almost over, and they would all pick up their lives again. They would promise to get together someday and probably be quite sincere about it; but Garion knew that once they parted, he would never see them all together again.
He wondered also about his own life. The visit to Faldor’s farm had forever closed that door to him, even if it had ever really been open. The bits and pieces of information he had been gathering for the past year and more told him quite plainly that he was not going to be in a position to make his own decisions for quite some time.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider telling me what I’m supposed to do next?” He didn’t really expect any kind of satisfactory answer from that other awareness.
“It’s a bit premature,” the dry voice in his mind replied.
“We’ll be in Riva tomorrow,” Garion pointed out. “As soon as we put the Orb back where it belongs, this part of the adventure will be all finished. Don’t you think that a hint or two might be in order along about now?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil anything for you.”
“You know, sometimes I think you keep secrets just because you know that it irritates people.”
“What an interesting idea.”
The conversation got absolutely nowhere after that.
It was about noon on the day before Erastide when Greldik’s icecoated ship tacked heavily into the sheltered harbor of the city of Riva on the east coast of the Isle of the Winds. A jutting promentory of wind-lashed rock protected the harbor basin and the city itself. Riva, Garion saw immediately, was a fortress. The wharves were backed by a high, thick city wall, and the narrow, snow-choked gravel strand stretching out to either side of the wharves was also cut off from access to the city. A cluster of makeshift buildings and low, varicolored tents stood on the strand, huddled against the city wall and half buried in snow. Garion thought he recognized Tolnedrans and a few Drasnian merchants moving quickly through the little enclave in the raw wind.
The city itself rose sharply up the steep slope upon which it was built, each succeeding row of gray stone houses towering over the ones below. The windows facing out toward the harbor were all very narrow and very high up in the buildings, and Garion could see the tactical advantage of such construction. The terraced city was a series of successive barriers. Breaching the gates would accomplish virtually nothing. Each terrace would be as impregnable as the main wall. Surmounting the entire city and brooding down at it rose the final fortress, its towers and battlements as gray as everything else in the bleak city of the Rivans. The blue and white sword-banners of Riva stood out stiffly in the wind above the fortress, outlined sharply against the dark gray clouds scudding across the winter sky.
King Anheg of Cherek, clad in fur, and Brand, the Rivan Warder, wearing his gray cloak, stood on the wharf before the city gates waiting for them as Greldik’s sailors rowed the ship smartly up to the wharf. Beside them, his reddish-gold hair spread smoothly out over his greencloaked shoulders, stood Lelldorin of Wildantor. The young Asturian was grinning broadly. Garion took one incredulous look at his friend; then, with a shout of joy, he jumped to the top of the rail and leaped across to the stone wharf. He and Lelldorin caught each other in a rough bear hug, laughing and pounding each other on the shoulders with their fists.
“Are you all right?” Garion demanded. “I mean, did you completely recover and everything?”
“I’m as sound as ever,” Lelldorin assured him with a laugh. Garion looked at his friend’s face dubiously. “You’d say that even if you were bleeding to death, Lelldorin.”
“No, I’m really fine,” the Asturian protested. “The young sister of Baron Oltorain leeched the Algroth poison from my veins with poultices and vile-tasting potions and restored me to health with her art. She’s a marvellous girl.” His eyes glowed as he spoke of her.
“What are you doing here in Riva?” Garion demanded.
“Lady Polgara’s message reached me last week,” Lelldorin explained. “I was still at Baron Oltorain’s castle.” He coughed a bit uncomfortably. “For one reason or another, I had kept putting off my departure. Anyway, when her instruction to travel to Riva with all possible haste reached me, I left at once. Surely you knew about the message.”
“This is the first I’d heard of it,” Garion replied, looking over to where Aunt Pol, followed by Queen Silar and Queen Layla, was stepping down from the ship to the wharf.
“Where’s Rhodar?” Cho-Hag was asking King Anheg.
“He stayed up at the Citadel.” Anheg shrugged. “There isn’t really that much point to his hauling that paunch of his up and down the steps to the harbor any more than he has to.”
“How is he?” King Fulrach asked.
“I think he’s lost some weight,” Anheg replied. “The approach of fatherhood seems to have had some impact on his appetite.”
“When’s the child due?” Queen Layla asked curiously.
“I really couldn’t say, Layla,” the king of Cherek told her. “I have trouble keeping track of things like that. Porenn had to stay at Boktor, though. I guess she’s too far along to travel. Islena’s here though.”
“I need to talk with you, Garion,” Lelldorin said nervously.
“Of course.” Garion led his friend several yards down the snowy pier away from the turmoil of disembarking.
“I’m afraid that the Lady Polgara’s going to be cross with me, Garion,” Lelldorin said quietly.
“Why cross?” Garion said it suspiciously.
“Well—” Lelldorin hesitated. “A few things went wrong along the way-sort of.”
“What exactly are we talking about when we say ‘went wrong—sort of?’”
“I was at Baron Oltorain’s castle,” Lelldorin began.
“I got that part.”
“Ariana—the Lady Ariana, that is, Baron Oltorain’s sister—”
“The blond Mimbrate girl who nursed you back to health?”
“You remember her,” Lelldorin sounded very pleased about that. “Do you remember how lovely she is? How—”
“I think we’re getting away from the point, Lelldorin,” Garion said firmly. “We were talking about why Aunt Pol’s going to be cross with you.”
“I’m getting to it, Garion. Well-to put it briefly—Ariana and I had become—well—friends.”