A Love Forsaken

Disclaimer: All characters, locations, mythical items etc. belong to David and Leigh Eddings, except those that did not appear in any of the Garion stories.

A/N: I apologise for not updating for such a long time; I have not abandoned this story, I assure you. Quite the contrary, in fact, I have it almost completely planned out; and it's turning into a very long story. I am not particularly fast at posting as I spend a lot of time on each chapter (time which comes in twenty minutes here, an hour there), but I ask you to bear with me and I shall hope to post, on average, about once a month.

By the way, if you looked at my update record before I posted this, it said that I had not updated for several months. This is untrue because I replaced chapter 3 with something completely different about a month and a half ago, and for some reason it did not say I had updated. I will try to be more regular in future, however.

Anyway, this is a follow-on from the last chapter as, like I said before, it was getting rather long to fit into one chapter.

Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Mirrordance

Polgara stuck to her word. As soon as the children had finished eating she bundled them out of the door with a small picnic for their midday meal and directed them towards the creek. Standing stern and imposing at the entrance to her little realm she looked coolly after them, completely impervious to the glowering, yet wary glares that were shot back from her slouching charges as they trooped off into the broad grasses of the Vale.

The only one who seemed unconcerned by this curt dismissal was the young wolf, loping steadily at his mistress' side. Xephra caught his jovial mood, and felt her spirit lift because of it. Sensing his playful tone, she released her hold on his pelt and sent him running freely ahead of the group, while she fell into step with her brother to guide her.

In the short time they had spent at the cottage, the sun had risen higher in the sky and the day was truly beginning. The deer that had come out to graze, the grass still wet with the tears of the morning, looked up curiously at the group as they passed. Ce'Vanne was unnerved by their unflinching inquisitiveness and turned to her brother.

"Why are they staring at me?" She said in a small voice. "None of the animals in the forest at Riva look at me like that, why do they not run?" It was Ce'Vanne's first proper visit to the Vale since she had been a baby, and so she was unused to the peculiarities of the sacred place.

Geran replied soothingly to his sister, "don't worry. They're not going to eat you. They're not used to strangers, so naturally they are interested; the only people who ever tread here are sorcerers and they only tend to venture out every thousand years or so."

Ce'Vanne frowned, "but what about Grandfather, and Aunt Pol, and Uncle Durnik? They go out more than once in a thousand years. It would get boring, just staying inside all day!" Ce'Vanne was a restless child, and could not sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, much to the exasperation of the royal governesses at Riva.

"Ah, but sorcerers have their own ways of getting around; they don't need to walk. Their feet needn't even touch the ground."

Ce'Vanne gazed up in awe at Geran. "Like what? Do you mean that they can…fly?"

"Among other things." Geran's eyes glittered roguishly as he looked down at his eager little sister and he tapped his nose. "I'll let you find out for yourself. Ask father, he'll show you."

The little girl's face fell. "Papa won't show me. He never has time nowadays and anyway he says that our people in Riva don't like sorcery, so it doesn't do to upset them with open displays."

"Grandfather, then. We'll be seeing him later."

"Oh, but Geran…please…" But Ce'Vanne's protest was drowned by a sudden commotion up ahead. Suddenly the peace was shattered as a black bullet scattered the quietly grazing deer. Lupien shot straight through the herd and then circled back for another run. Snapping playfully at their heels he deliberately missed them by inches, darting to and fro and spreading terror through the ranks.

His antics drew a laugh from even the sulking Ce'Vanne as she forgot her badgering and ran forward to chase the wolf, half laughing and half concerned for the deer. It was a humorous sight to see the tiny girl chasing the wolf, who was almost the same size as her. Lupien finally let the deer alone at a gentle but firm thought from Xephra, following behind, and the jittery beasts soon relaxed again and returned to their meal, but at a greater distance than before.

The tension between them had been shattered completely by the sudden action and the mood changed as they finally began to settle in to enjoy their walk. The early morning breeze was soft on their skin, and the smells of Pol's kitchen still lingered with them, stirring memories that did not belong to them.

Soon they reached the creek, but there was no sign of their cousin. Geran did a rapid scout around the banks and the edge of the forest, but found nothing. He rejoined his siblings.

He frowned, "where can he be?"

"Maybe he went back to the cottage?" Beldaran offered. "He might know a different way; so we didn't see him."

"He'd better not have," Geran growled. "I don't want to have come all this way for nothing."

That brought a chuckle from his eldest sister, "we've come barely half a league; we've got to visit the Tree, yet, brother! Where's that manly stamina? Honestly, you'll never get a wife if you're this pathetic all the time!"

Geran's gave her an intensely evil look, which she promptly proceeded to ignore. He could not maintain the thunderclouds for very long, however, and they soon dissipated into a wan smile as he conceded. He never could win a fight with his sisters; they were models of their mother's grit, through and through. Even Xephra, though generally so quiet and sweet-tempered, could be fairly sharp when roused, and stubborn as a mule.

He sighed and flopped resignedly onto the soft bank. His sisters joined him and they sat in a companionable silence, watching the creek. A sweet breeze was blowing across the water, creating soft ripples that rocked and widened into bright rings. The light caught them just so they glittered and seemed almost to dance across the surface, only to be shattered into a million crystals as water boatmen skipped their merry away across the water, almost as if it were solid ground. Even the young Ce'Vanne was captivated by the beauty of the moment and she sat and simply stared agape at the wonder. There was nothing as charming as this back at Riva, where the people fashioned such marvels by the way of art and music, but failed to grasp the simple complexity of nature when surrounded by the harshness of city life. The small child unconsciously traced the surface-dancers' path on her knee. They skated effortlessly across the silvery surface of the water, their spindly legs supported only by the surface tension. They spiralled in bewitching patterns, interweaving and coalescing until Ce'Vanne was quite dizzy. She shifted her gaze slightly to come to rest on another of the rippling circles which was a little more vigorous than the rest. She drew her knee up and hugged it, resting her chin on it, and frowned slightly. The churning was too energetic to be the work of the gentle breeze, which barely whispered over Ce'Vanne's soft skin. The agitation in the water grew stronger, and suddenly altered its course so that it was headed straight for the little girl, who caught a breath as she saw a flash of brown peek above the surface. In the next instant it was gone, but she knew that she had not imagined it. With the tremendous awe that befits the character of all young children she kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the water and followed the disturbance as it moved, while roughly shaking her brother who was seated next to her.

"Geran! Geran! There's something in the water!"

The tiny girl's excited whisper brought the young man back from his daydream and he looked up obligingly in the direction that she pointed. "So there is. I can't quite make out what it might be, though."

The curiosity of the other two girls had also been piqued: Beldaran leapt up and skirted the edge of the creek to try and get a better view while Xephra reached out with her mind to the animal. The blind girl made contact and suddenly felt a barrage of thought coming towards her: hunger, a small amount of fear, and an alertness to danger were all there, but most of all she caught an overwhelming surge of intelligence and uncomplicated joy of being in the water.

"It's an otter," Xephra affirmed to her siblings before she turned her mind back to the animal. She smiled as the happiness infected her and she raced with it through the cool water, diving and soaring, waltzing on surges. She was flying! The exhilaration buzzed through her; she had never felt such a feeling of freedom and it filled her to the brim with gladness. She could almost see pictures, sketches, really, despite her blindness: brief flashes of the dark bottom, a shoal of fishes scooting past, a forest of weed. She gasped. She had never got so much from a mind before and she wondered at it. She wanted there to be no end to the euphoria, and so it was with great regret that she made to detach her mind. Suddenly, as she was breaking free of the otter's mind, she felt another thought brush hers.

As Geran, Ce'Vanne and Beldaran tried to follow the otter's rapid motion, they, too, felt a little of the rapture that their sister was experiencing. They laughed and cooed as the creature twisted skilfully in the water, spiralling through it as though it were air.

Suddenly Beldaran caught her brother's arm. "Is it putting on a show for us?"

Geran stared at her for a moment in surprise, and then looked back at the water. It did indeed look as though the leaps and dives were all part of a theatrical performance, a rhapsody of tricks and acrobatics. He suddenly realised that where before it had been so difficult to catch a glimpse of the creature, now it was impossible not to see it. He looked towards Xephra and saw her stumble backwards a few steps, her sightless eyes wide. He leapt forward to steady her and she turned towards him, a look of shock and amazement on her face.

"I don't believe it!" She whispered, and then chuckled a little in her silvery tones.

"What?" Geran asked, a little concerned, "What don't you believe?"

But before Xephra could answer, Geran heard a splashing at much closer quarters and he looked over for the cause of the commotion. With one last trick that brought a shriek of delight from Ce'Vanne, the otter reached the bank and begin to scramble out, its furry wet face staring cheekily up at the group. Mystified by the animal's complete lack of fear, Geran watched as it pulled itself out and waddled towards them, shaking its coat as it went. It reached them and gazed up at them inquisitively.

Suddenly its outline didn't seem quite so clear; its form began to blur and change. Swiftly, the creature grew, pink, hairless skin replacing the damp brown fur of the otter; the claws retracted back into the dainty paws which were rapidly growing longer and wider, splitting into five at the ends. After but a few seconds, the royal siblings were no longer looking down at a river otter, but a young man. Sheepishly, finding himself on the ground, he stood up, and it became evident that he was tall; a full two heads taller than Beldaran, in spite of the fact that they held roughly the same number of years. He had a pleasant face that bore the first hints of a beard, with soft, almond-shaped grey eyes. His hair was a shock upon his head, sticking out in all directions, and he had to keep brushing it out of his eyes in order to see.

"Beltirin!" Geran let his breath out explosively. "Your mother's been teaching you transformation, I see. Nice performance."

"Thanks, cousin." Beltirin grinned. He looked down at his bare feet. "I need to work on the shoes, though; I can never get them to stay on my feet when I change back."

He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment and suddenly a pair of sturdy leather sandals appeared in his hand. He slipped them on his feet and then straightened up to greet his cousins properly.

"Xephra!" He grinned sagely, "I hope I didn't startle you too much just then. I must say, I was hard cut out to keep my human identity from you; I was having so much fun, but you leeched it from me in the end!" He turned to Ce'Vanne; her eyes were wide and she was struggling to speak. "Did you enjoy my show?"

She spluttered, "Was that…did you…?" She turned to her brother. "Was this one of the things you were talking about earlier? They can…" She turned back and addressed Beltirin in a slightly accusatory tone, "Can you fly?"

The young sorcerer looked down at her earnest expression and laughed, snatching her up and swinging her round so that she shrieked with delight. "Would you like me to show you?"

The little girl gasped an awed affirmation, so he set her down and concentrated, but then he opened his eyes again. He bent down and removed his shoes, winking at Ce'Vanne.

"I'm not making the same mistake again!"

He closed his eyes and concentrated, his brow creasing with the effort. Slowly his outline blurred and a few seconds later a large bird of prey was perched slightly awkwardly on the bank before them. It was almost three spans(1) long from beak to tail, with a dark mass of feathers swathing its back, and a white belly. Its head was mostly white but with a dark strip that circled the head, covering the piercing green eyes like a kind of mask. It reminded Ce'Vanne of the pirate stories that her father had often told her and she stared at the bird in wonder. She looked at the sharp, hooked beak and cruel talons and shivered as she imagined how they must grip their prey and tear them apart.

Suddenly she stumbled back as the bird let out a shrill cry and spread its magnificent wings to present a wingspan almost double its body length. It began to flap, tensing its powerful muscles more rapidly by the second, until it began to rise slowly into the air. It climbed higher and higher, striking the air with an audible blow on every downbeat, letting its highly sensitive feathers guide it and steer it into a likely breeze. And then it caught a thermal provided by the warmth of the early sun and it stiffened its wings to soar freely, gliding in circles and rising higher still.

Beltirin did not stay aloft for very long. He performed a couple dives and aerial spins before swooping down to skim the surface of the water in the creek. He pulled up a few metres from the group, flaring his wings to kill his speed. He approached with an ungainly waddle and changed back, much to the disappointment of the captivated Ce'Vanne.

"Flying's not my strength, I'm afraid;" He said, retrieving his sandals from Beldaran and slipping them on his feet, "that's Polena's department. I'm much more of a water person. Otherwise I usually like to keep my feet on the ground; like Grandfather, I suppose, and Uncle Belgarion(2)."

"Is that why you chose a fish eagle(3)?" Beldaran asked interestedly.

Beltirin looked at her. "I suppose it must be. It's the one most suited to my character, anyway. When grandfather was teaching me, he told me to visualise a bird and that was the first image to pop into my head."

Geran had watched the proceedings with wonder equal to that of his siblings, but now he looked up and saw how high the sun was in the sky.

"Belar!" He swore. "It's almost midday! We'd better get moving if we're going to make it to the Tree and back before nightfall."

They set off into the main grasslands of the Vale, Beltirin leading them, and they chatted together as cousins do, covering the ground as fast as they could without tiring themselves too much for the journey home.

A few hours later, they caught sight of the World Tree. It was an impressive sight. One moment all they could see was grassland, and then they crested a hill to see a shallow valley spread out beneath them, a vast tapestry of wonder. In the very centre stood the regal immensity of the Tree, bursting with majesty and the colourful diversity of Spring. Despite the incredible spread of its huge boughs, covering an area of many leagues, very little shadow was cast beneath them. The rays of brilliant sunlight were granted passage through the lush canopy of leaves, allowing the grass and plants to continue to grow right up to the Tree's trunk.

All of the royal siblings felt an indescribable awe as the sight of such magnificence stirred something inside them, and the girls especially felt an almost maternal pull towards the emerald brilliance. Ce'Vanne's eyes were bulging and she found herself running full pelt towards the Tree, her sisters and Lupien at her side, dashing beneath the enormous boughs that rose far above her head. It took them almost half an hour to reach the base of the tree, and they had slowed their run to a walk, allowing Geran and Beltirin to catch them up. The girls ran their palms almost reverently over the bark of the trunk, feeling every knot and fissure call out to their Dryadic heritage. Geran, too, felt a strange urge to touch the tree, but his was not as strong, so he stayed back with Beltirin and allowed his sisters to drink up the glory of the Tree's very presence.

Xephra laughed her own silvery laugh as she tingled with excitement. She knew that the Tree was pleased that she was here and it spoke to her in a strange and melodious stream of patterns and images that she had never received from ordinary trees. Not even the great oaks in the Dryad's forest could communicate with such beauty and depth and she gasped in wonder. These images were even clearer than those she had received through Beltirin's mind; flashes of colour and unspeakable beauty. She could feel her sisters, too, sharing in her wonderment, and she reached out to them, joyful in their connection. She could feel Ce'Vanne's childish delight and Beldaran's sheer gladness as they drank up the delicious warmth and mystery of which they had been granted but a small sample.

Finally, with a contented sigh, the girls withdrew from the Tree. Ce'Vanne was beaming from ear to ear and almost skipping with joy, she rejoined the boys, who had broken out the picnic while they were waiting. They had chosen a spot where the branches high overhead were parted wide, allowing a stream of sunlight to illuminate them and revealing the sky. Beldaran was sure that such a vast opening had not been there when they had first reached the trunk, and she wondered whether the Tree itself had something to do with it.

"What about Polena?" Beldaran asked as she and Xephra also came to sit down.

"She'll come down when she's ready," Beltirin answered thickly, speaking through a mouthful of chicken. "It's not a good idea to disturb her unless she's ready; she's got a formidable army up there that's always on call to pounce unwanted visitors."

"But what if she doesn't realise we're here?" Ce'Vanne said worriedly. "It's a very big tree; what if she didn't hear us arrive?"

"She knows."

"But how do you –?"

Beltirin silenced her with a significant look which he then directed upward, through the vast parting in the canopy. She followed his gaze curiously, looked puzzled for a moment and then gasped suddenly.

"Oh!"

High, high in the sky, a tiny black dot was circling. It rode the thermals as elegantly as a dot is able, seeming to float and soar as a dancer would. And then it seemed to come to a halt in midair. For a moment it looked stationary, and then, slowly at first, it began to grow as it dropped from the sky. Faster and faster, bigger and bigger; it grew and grew until it was no longer a dot, but could be seen to be a bird of prey. At first it appeared to have no wings, but as it came closer the group saw that the abnormally short wings were being held in a tight embrace to the body of the bird as it plummeted, streamlining it and letting the air rush over it at a faster rate. In a blaze of unbelievable speed, it shot straight through the gap and plunged towards the ground. Just as it looked as though it was going to plough right into the earth, it pulled up, mere metres from impact. It sped wildly upwards again and headed directly towards the immense trunk of the Tree, banked to avoid it just in time, and made a more or less elegant landing on the ground.

Seen more closely and not when it was blasting downwards at impossible speeds, the group were able to attain a better idea of what it looked like. It was a large falcon of some kind, roughly two and a half spans long. It was almost entirely black with a patch of white covering part of its breast and beneath its beak. Its head was fairly small and sunken slightly into its neck, making it seem, in Beldaran's opinion, rather like that small, unpleasant Nadrak man with the ruff whom her father had suspended from the battlements of the citadel for three days after having persistently tried to get much too close to her for her father's liking. Of course, the bird pulled this off with considerably more panache than the said man, who bore much more resemblance to a bedraggled chicken that had been pulled through a flour mill than an elegant falcon such as this.

Ce'Vanne edged tentatively towards the bird, a mixture of interest and fear of the large bird of prey marking her features. She stopped dead and her mouth dropped open as the bird began to blur. For the third time that day she saw a human emerge from the body of an animal, but it remained as fascinating and wondrous to her as if she were seeing it for the first time. A few seconds later a human being lay at the feet of the small girl. Beltirin strode forward and helped a girl with the same almond-shaped lavender eyes to her feet. She straightened up and showed that she matched Beltirin's height exactly. In fact, she matched everything exactly; a dancer's build, the eyes, the shape of the face were all identical. The only differentiating aspect was the hair; Beltirin's was wild and unmanageable and cropped to his shoulders while the girl's raven mane reached almost to her waist with not a hair out of place, despite the fact that she had just been lying on the ground.

"By Aldur's nose-hair, that was the most fun I've ever had!" the girl crowed exhultantly, eyes blazing fiercely as she turned her face to the sky. "Tirin, you should have joined me! You don't know what you've missed! Soaring high on the thermals; it's freedom like no other, I could stay up there for ever!"

"Nice landing, Ena." Beltirin chuckled, "you decided against becoming a woodpecker, then. I could have bet ten gold pieces that you were going to gouge the Tree itself."

Polena ignored him with finesse and advanced on Ce'Vanne, gathering her up and hugging her fondly.

"How's my favourite cousin?" She winked at Beldaran and Xephra so that Ce'Vanne would not see. She lowered the girl to the ground and crouched to her level. "Do you like the bird? She's a peregrine falcon(4), or, as I like to call her, the Wandering Huntress."

Ce'Vanne stared back at her, eyes still wide. "I thought you were going to crash! You came so close to the ground."

"It wouldn't have been the first time," Beltirin coughed lightly to cover the muffled remark, but at his tiny cousin's inquiring look he went on. "She was enjoying the experience so much, once, that she forgot to pull up from her dive. She managed to plough a hole about five yards deep; father measured it after mother had finished panicking, diagnosing Ena with concussion, administering some horrific medicine and finally assigning her a month's worth of indoor confinement upon her recovery. Quite impressive, I thought. Soft earth, but even so…"

He grinned as Ce'Vanne's scarlet eyebrows disappeared into her equally flaming hair and then flinched as Polena rounded on him threateningly.

He felt her start to gather in her Will, so he added hastily, "of course, this time you barely wobbled. Very neat performance, I thought."

His twin stood over him, glaring, for a long moment. Her eyes bored into him relentlessly for a long, tense moment where he tried to look benign and innocent until she finally released him and turned back to greet the others. She then bent down and acknowledged the wolf in his own language and scratched him behind his ears where she knew he liked it best.

Finally, she sat down to join them in their picnic, although, she said, she was still quite full from the rat she had just killed. She would eat something more, however, because the blood had left an unpleasant aftertaste in her human mouth.

Just to make Ce'Vanne squirm.

1)Read The Rivan Codex, Universal Weights and Measures, pg 173. 1 span is roughly 9 inches, as is similar in our world. An osprey is actually closer to 24 inches rather than 27, but I thought that spans sounded better than inches

2)This was a difficult one. I spent some time trying to work out just what kind of relation Garion would be to Beltirin and Polena, and I concluded that it must be cousin, considering that Aunt Pol is Garion's great aunt. The trouble is, Garion is the product of many hundreds of generations whereas Polgara has only one recorded ancestor; her father (we don't know anything about Belgarath's heritage). Beltirin and Polena are just the third generation of Belgarath's line, and, pitted against Garion, that would make them first cousins about a thousand times removed. Faced with this, and considering the age differences, I decided that it would be much simpler if Beltirin and Polena simply referred to Garion as "Uncle".

3)A Fish Eagle is another name for an osprey; one that I felt was more suited to Garion's world. After all, they hardly likely to use exactly the same terminology as we do, are they?

4)I know, I know; I used the English name from our world, as opposed to thinking up a new one. There are two very simple reasons; one being that I didn't like the ones I came up with and the other that I like the word peregrine (derived from the Latin peregrinator, which means traveller). I twisted the rules with Lupien's name as well, I'm afraid, as it is highly unlikely that the languages in Garion's world find their origins in Latin.

Well, I hope you liked that; Reviews are always appreciated, especially constructive criticism. My reviewers so far have been wonderful, and I hope they are still reading this! This chapter was a little longer than anticipated; I do try not to make my chapters too long.

I am aware that in the last few chapters not a lot has happened. I like to give my characters a strong introduction before launching the story, but I realise that the story needs to move a little faster. The next chapter will set the ball rolling. Please keep reading!

My love to all,

Eos Erigeneia x