"All right, Aunt Pol," he said, a little embarrassed by all this. Oddly enough she still acted as if she really cared about him. The idea that there could still be a bond between them even if they were not related began to dawn on him. It could never be the same, of course, but at least it was something. He began to feel a little better about the whole thing.
The next day he was able to get up. His muscles still ached a bit, and his ribs were somewhat tender, but he was young and was healing fast. About midmorning he was sitting with Durnik in the great hall of Anheg’s palace when the silvery-bearded Earl of Seline approached them.
"King Fulrach wonders if you would be so kind as to join us in the council chamber, Goodman Durnik," he said politely.
"Me, your Honor?" Durnik asked incredulously.
"His Majesty is most impressed with your sensibility," the old gentleman said. "He feels that you represent the very best of Sendarian practicality. What we face involves all men, not just the Kings of the West, and so it’s only proper that good, solid common sense be represented in our proceedings."
"I’ll come at once, your Honor," Durnik said, getting up quickly, "but you’ll have to forgive me if I say very little."
Garion waited expectantly.
"We’ve all heard of your adventure, my boy," the Earl of Seline said pleasantly to Garion. "Ah, to be young again," he sighed. "Coming, Durnik?"
"Immediately, your Honor," Durnik said, and the two of them made their way out of the great hall toward the council chamber.
Garion sat alone, wounded to the quick by his exclusian. He was at an age where his self esteem was very tender, and inwardly he writhed at the lack of regard implicit in his not being invited to join them. Hurt and offended, he sulkily left the great hall and went to visit his boar which hung in an ice-filled cooling room just off the kitchen. At least the boar had taken him seriously.
One could, however, spend only so much time in the company of a dead pig without becoming depressed. The boar did not seem nearly so big as he had when he was alive and charging, and the tusks were impressive but neither so long nor so sharp as Garion remembered them. Besides, it was cold in the cooling room and sore muscles stiffened quickly in chilly places.
There was no point in trying to visit Barak. The red-bearded man had locked himself in his chamber to brood in blackest melancholy and refused to answer his door, even to his wife. And so Garion, left entirely on his own, moped about for a while and then decided that he might as well explore this vast palace with its dusty, unused chambers and dark, twisting corridors. He walked for what seemed hours, opening doors and following hallways that sometimes ended abruptly against blank stone walls.
The palace of Anheg was enormous, having been, as Barak had explained, some three thousand years and more in construction. One southern wing was so totally abandoned that its entire roof had fallen in centuries ago. Garion wandered there for a time in the second-floor corridors of the ruin, his mind filled with gloomy thoughts of mortality and transient glory as he looked into rooms where snow lay thickly on ancient beds and stools and the tiny tracks of mice and squirrels ran everywhere. And then he came to an unroofed corridor where there were other tracks, those of a man. The footprints were quite fresh, for there was no sign of snow in them and it had snowed heavily the night before. At first he thought the tracks might be his own and that he had somehow circled and come back to a corridor he had already explored, but the footprints were much larger than his.
There were a dozen possible explanations, of course, but Garion felt his breath quicken. The man in the green cloak was still lurking about the palace, Asharak the Murgo was somewhere in Val Alorn, and the flaxen-haired nobleman was hiding somewhere in the forest with obviously unfriendly intentions.
Garion realized that the situation might be dangerous and that he was unarmed except for his small dagger. He retraced his steps quickly to a snowy chamber he had just explored and took down a rusty sword from a peg where it had hung forgotten for uncountable years. Then, feeling a bit more secure, he returned to follow the silent tracks.
So long as the path of the unknown intruder lay in that roofless and long-abandoned corridor, following him was simplicity itself; the undisturbed snow made tracking easy. But once the trail led over a heap of fallen debris and into the gaping blackness of a dusty corridor where the roof was still intact, things became a bit more difficult. The dust on the floor helped, but it was necessary to do a great deal of stooping and bending over. Garion’s ribs and legs were still sore, and he winced and grunted each time he had to bend down to examine the stone floor. In a very short while he was sweating and gritting his teeth and thinking about giving the whole thing up.
Then he heard a faint sound far down the corridor ahead. He shrank back against the wall, hoping that no light from behind him would filter dimly through to allow him to be seen. Far ahead, a figure passed stealthily through the pale light from a single tiny window. Garion caught a momentary flicker of green and knew finally whom he was following. He kept close to the wall and moved with catlike silence in his soft leather shoes, the rusty sword gripped tightly in his hand. If it had not been for the startling nearness of the voice of the Earl of Seline, however, he would probably have walked directly into the man he had been following.
"Is it at all possible, noble Belgarath, that our enemy can be awakened before all the conditions of the ancient prophecy are met?" the earl was asking.
Garion stopped. Directly ahead of him in a narrow embrasure in the wall of the corridor, he caught sight of a slight movement. The green cloaked man lurked there, listening in the dimness to the words that seemed to come from somewhere beneath. Garion shrank back against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe. Carefully he stepped backward until he found another embrasure and drew himself into the concealing darkness.
"A most appropriate question, Belgarath," the quiet voice of Cho-Hag of the Algars said. "Can this Apostate use the power now in his hands to revive the Accursed One?"
"The power is there," the familiar voice of Mister Wolf said, "but he might be afraid to use it. If it isn’t done properly, the power will destroy him. He won’t rush into such an act, but will think very carefully before he tries it. It’s that hesitation that gives us the little bit of time we have."
Then Silk spoke. "Didn’t you say that he might want the thing for himself? Maybe he plans to leave his Master in undisturbed slumber and use the power he’s stolen to raise himself as king in the lands of the Angaraks."
King Rhodar of Drasnia chuckled. "Somehow I don’t see the Grolim Priesthood so easily relinquishing their power in the lands of Angarak and bowing down to an outsider. The High Priest of the Grolims is no mean sorcerer himself, I’m told."
"Forgive me, Rhodar," King Anheg said, "but if the power is in the thief’s hands, the Grolims won’t have any choice but to accept his dominion. I’ve studied the power of this thing, and if even half of what I’ve read is true, he can use it to rip down Rak Cthol as easily as you’d kick apart an anthill. Then, if they still resist, he could depopulate all of Cthol Murgos from Rak Goska to the Tolnedran border. No matter what, however, whether it’s the Apostate or the Accursed One who eventually raises that power, the Angaraks will follow and they will come west."
"Shouldn’t we inform the Arends and Tolnedrans—and the Ulgos as well—what has happened then?" Brand, the Rivan Warder, asked. "Let’s not be taken by surprise again."
"I wouldn’t be in too much hurry to rouse our southern neighbors," Mister Wolf said. "When Pol and I leave here, we’ll be moving south. If Arendia and Tolnedra are mobilizing for war, the general turmoil would only hinder us. The Emperor’s legions are soldiers. They can respond quickly when the need arises, and the Arends are always ready for war. The whole kingdom hovers on the brink of general warfare all the time."