2
They rode for the next few days through a wilderness of stone and stunted trees. The sun grew warmer each day, and the sky overhead was intensely blue as they pressed deeper and deeper into the snowcapped mountains. There were trails of sorts up here, winding, vagrant tracks meandering between the dazzling white peaks and across the high, pale green meadows where wildflowers nodded in the mountain breeze. The air was spiced with the resinous odor of evergreens, and now and then they saw deer grazing or stopping to watch them with large, startled eyes as they passed.
Belgarath moved confidently in a generally eastward course and he appeared to be alert and watchful. There were no signs of the half doze in which he customarily rode on more clearly defined roads, and he seemed somehow younger up here in the mountains.
They encountered other travelers—leather-clad Nadraks for the most part—although they did see a party of Drasnians laboring up a steep slope and, once, a long way off, what appeared to be a Tolnedran. Their exchanges with these others were brief and wary. The mountains of Gar og Nadrak were at best sketchily policed, and it was necessary for every man who entered them to provide for his own security.
The sole exception to this suspicious taciturnity was a garrulous old gold hunter mounted on a donkey, who appeared out of the blue-tinged shadows under the trees one morning. His tangled hair was white, and his clothing was mismatched, appearing to consist mostly of castoffs he had found beside this trail or that. His tanned, wrinkled face was weathered like a well-cured old hide, and his blue eyes twinkled merrily. He joined them without any greeting or hint of uncertainty as to his welcome and began talking immediately as if taking up a conversation again that had only recently been interrupted.
There was a sort of comic turn to his voice and manner that Garion found immediately engaging.
“Must be ten years or more since I’ve followed this path,” he began, jouncing along on his donkey as he fell in beside Garion. “I don’t come down into this part of the mountains very much any more. The streambeds down here have all been worked over a hundred times at least. Which way are you bound?”
“I’m not really sure,” Garion replied cautiously. “I’ve never been up here before, so I’m just following along.”
“You’d find better gravel if you struck out to the north,” the man on the donkey advised, “up near Morindland. Of course, you’ve got to be careful up there, but, like they say, no risk, no profit.” He squinted curiously at Garion. “You’re not a Nadrak, are you?”
“Sendar,” Garion responded shortly.
“Never been to Sendaria,” the old gold hunter mused. “Never been anyplace really—except up here.” He looked around at the whitetopped peaks and deep green forests with a sort of abiding love. “Never really wanted to go anyplace else. I’ve picked these mountains over from end to end for seventy years now and never made much at it except for the pleasure of being here. Found a river bar one time, though, that had so much red gold in it that it looked like it was bleeding. Winter caught me up there, and I almost froze to death trying to come out.”
“Did you go back the next spring?” Garion couldn’t help asking. “Meant to, but I did a lot of drinking that winter—I had gold enough. Anyway, the drink sort of addled my brains. When I set out the following year, I took along a few kegs for company. That’s always a mistake. The drink takes you harder when you get up into the mountains, and you don’t always pay attention to things the way you should.” He leaned back in his donkey saddle, scratching reflectively at his stomach. “I went out onto the plains north of the mountains—up in Morindland. Seems that I thought at the time that the going might be easier out on flat ground. Well, to make it short, I ran across a band of Morindim and they took me prisoner. I’d been up to my ears in an ale keg for a day or so, and I was far gone when they took me. Lucky, I guess. Morindim are superstitious, and they thought I was possessed. That’s probably all that saved my life. They kept me for five or six years, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind my ravings—once I got sober and saw the situation, I took quite a bit of care to do a lot of raving. Eventually they got tired of it and weren’t so careful about watching me, so I escaped. By then I’d sort of forgotten exactly where that river was. I look for it now and then when I’m up that way.” His speech seemed rambling, but his old blue eyes were very penetrating. “That’s a big sword you’re carrying, boy, Who do you plan to kill with it?”
The question came so fast that Garion did not even have time to be startled.
“Funny thing about that sword of yours,” the shabby old man added shrewdly. “It seems to be going out of its way to make itself inconspicuous.” Then he turned to Belgarath, who was looking at him with a level gaze. “You haven’t hardly changed at all,” he noted.
“And you still talk too much,” Belgarath replied.
“I get hungry for talk every few years,” the old man on the donkey admitted. “Is your daughter well?”
Belgarath nodded.
“Fine-looking woman, your daughter—bad-tempered, though.”
“That hasn’t changed noticeably.”
“Didn’t imagine it had.” The old gold hunter chuckled, then hesitated for a moment. “If you don’t mind some advice, be careful in case you plan to go down into the low country,” he said seriously. “It looks like things might be coming to a boil down there. A lot of strangers in red tunics are roaming about, and there’s been smoke coming up from old altars that haven’t been used for years. The Grolims are out again, and their knives are all new-sharpened. The Nadraks who come up here keep looking back over their shoulders.” He paused, looking directly at Belgarath. “There’ve been some other signs, too,” he added. “The animals are all jumpy—like just before a big storm—and sometimes at night, if you listen close, there’s something like thunder way off in the distance—like maybe from as far off as Mallorea. The whole world seems to be uneasy. I’ve got a hunch that something pretty big’s about to happen—maybe the sort of thing you’d be involved in. The point is that they know you’re out here. I wouldn’t count too much on being able to slip through without somebody noticing you.” He shrugged then, as if washing his hands of the matter. “I just thought you’d like to know.”
“Thank you,” Belgarath replied.
“Didn’t cost me anything to say it.” The old man shrugged again. “I think I’ll go that way.” He pointed off to the north. “Too many strangers coming into the mountains in the last few months. It’s starting to get crowded. I’ve about talked myself out now, so I think I’ll go look myself up a bit of privacy.” He turned his donkey and trotted off. “Good luck,” he threw back over his shoulder by way of farewell and then he disappeared into the blue shadows under the trees.
“You’re acquainted with him, I take it,” Silk observed to Belgarath.
The old sorcerer nodded. “I met him about thirty years ago. Polgara had come to Gar og Nadrak to find out a few things. After she’d gathered all the information she wanted, she sent word to me, and I came here and bought her from the man who owned her. We started home, but an early snowstorm caught us up here in the mountains. He found us floundering along, and he took us to the cave where he holes up when the snow gets too deep. Quite a comfortable cave really—except that he insists on bringing his donkey inside. He and Pol argued about that all winter, as I recall.”
“What’s his name?” Silk asked curiously.
Belgarath shrugged. “He never said, and it’s not polite to ask.”
Garion, however, had choked on the word “bought.” A kind of helpless outrage welled up in him. “Somebody owned Aunt Pol?” he demanded incredulously.
“It’s a Nadrak custom,” Silk explained. “In their society, women are considered property. It’s not seemly for a woman to go about without an owner.”