Somewhere, a great bell began to peal. After the wedding, I went looking for that bell, but I never found it.
Then my youngest daughter was touched with a soft white light that grew more and more intense.
Polgara, wrapped in a blue velvet cloak, stepped forward to take my arm. ‘Are you doing that?’ she asked me, inclining her head toward the shaft of light illuminating her sister.
‘Not me, Pol,’ I replied. ‘I was just going to ask if you were doing it.’
‘Maybe it’s uncle Beldin.’ She slightly shrugged her shoulders, and her cloak softly fell away to reveal her gown. I almost choked when I saw it.
Beldaran was all in white, and she glowed like pale flame in that shaft of light that I’m almost certain was a wedding gift from the funny old fellow in the rickety cart. Polgara was all in blue, and her gown broke away from her shoulders in complex folds and ruffles trimmed with snowy lace. It was cut somewhat daringly for the day, leaving no question that she was a girl. That deep blue gown was almost like a breaking wave, and Polgara rose out of it like a Goddess rising from the sea.
I controlled myself as best I could. ‘Nice dress,’ I said from between clenched teeth.
‘Oh, this old thing?’ she said deprecatingly, touching one of the ruffles in an off-hand way. Then she laughed a warm, throaty laugh that was far older than her years, and she actually kissed me. She’d never willingly done that before, and it startled me so much that I barely heard the alarm bells ringing in my head.
We separated and took the glowing bride, one on either arm, and, with stately, measured pace and slow, delivered up our beloved Beldaran to the adoring King of the Isle of the Winds.
I had quite a bit on my mind at that point, so I more or less ignored the wedding sermon of the High Priest of Belar. Anyway, if you’ve heard one wedding sermon, you’ve heard them all. There came a point in the ceremony, though, when something a little out of the ordinary happened.
My Master’s Orb began to glow a deep, deep blue that almost perfectly matched the color of Polgara’s gown. We were all terribly happy that Beldaran and Riva were getting married, but it seemed to me that the Orb was far more impressed with Polgara than with her sister. I’ll take an oath that I really saw what happened next, although no one else who was there will admit that he saw it, too. That’s probably what half-persuaded me that I’d been seeing things that weren’t really there. The Orb, as I say, began to glow, but it always did that when Riva was around, so there was nothing really unusual about that.
What was unusual was the fact Polgara began to glow as well. She seemed faintly infused with that same pale blue light, but the absolutely white lock at her brow was not pale. It was an incandescent blue.
And then I seemed to hear the faint flutter of ghostly wings coming from the back of the hall. That was the part that made me question the accuracy of my own senses.
It seemed, though, that Polgara heard it, too, because she turned around. And with profoundest respect and love, she curtsied with heart-stopping grace to the misty image of the snowy white owl perched in the rafters at the back of the Hall of the Rivan King.
All right, don’t beat me over the head with it. Of course I should have realized that something very peculiar was going on. But if you’ll just stop and think about it for a moment, I believe you’ll understand. You’ll recall that Poledra’s apparent death had driven me quite mad. A man who has to be chained to his bed has problems. Then I’d spent two or three years pickling my brains in the waterfront dives in Camaar and another eight or nine entertaining the ladies of Mar Amon, and during all that time I saw a lot of things that weren’t really there. I’d grown so accustomed to that sort of thing that whenever I saw something unusual, I just shrugged it off as another hallucination. The incident at Beldaran’s wedding wasn’t a hallucination, but how was I supposed to know that? Try to be a little more understanding. It’ll make a better person of you.
And so Beldaran and Riva were married, and they were both deliriously happy. There were other things afoot in the world, however, and since the Alorn Kings were all on the Isle of the Winds anyway, Beldin suggested that we might want to seize the opportunity to discuss matters of state. All sorts of nonsense has been written about the origins of the Alorn Council, but that’s how it really started. The Tolnedrans have been objecting to this rather informal yearly gathering for centuries now – largely because they aren’t invited. Tolnedrans are a suspicious people, and any time they get word of a conference of any kind, they’re absolutely certain that there’s a plot against them at the bottom of it.
Polgara sat in on our conference. She didn’t particularly want to, right at first, but I insisted. I wasn’t going to give her an opportunity to wander about the citadel unsupervised.
I’m not sure that our impromptu conference really accomplished very much. We spent most of the time talking about the Angaraks. None of us were happy about their presence on this side of the Sea of the East, but for the moment there wasn’t much we could do about it. The distances were simply too great.
‘I could probably go into that forest to the east of the moors and burn down those cities the Nadraks are building there,’ Dras rumbled in that deep voice of his, ‘but there wouldn’t be much point to it. I don’t have the manpower to occupy all that wilderness. Sooner or later I’d have to pull out, and then the Nadraks would just come back out of the woods and rebuild.’
‘Have there been any contacts with them?’ Pol asked.
He shrugged. ‘A few skirmishes is about all. Every so often they come out of the mountains, and then we chase them back. I don’t think they’re very serious about it. They’re probably just testing our defenses.’
‘I meant peaceful contacts.’
‘There’s no such thing as peaceful contacts between Alorns and Angaraks, Polgara.’
‘Perhaps there should be.’
‘I think that’s against our religion.’
‘Maybe you should reconsider that. I understand that the Nadraks are merchants. They might be interested in trade.’
‘I don’t think they’ve got anything I’d want.’
‘Oh, yes they do, Dras. They’ve got information about the Murgos, and they’re the ones we’re really interested in. If anyone’s going to cause us trouble, it’ll be the Murgos. If we can find out from the Nadraks what they’re doing, we won’t have to go down to Rak Goska to investigate for ourselves.’
‘She’s got a point, Dras,’ Algar told his brother. ‘My people have had a few contacts with the Thulls, but you can’t get very much information out of a Thull. From what I hear, the Nadraks don’t care very much for the Murgos, so they probably wouldn’t mind passing information along.’
‘Can you actually climb the Eastern Escarpment to get to Mishrak ac Thull?’