The plot is mine.
Chapter 19
Zakath slumped in a nearby chair, exhausted. The Karands had retreated at daybreak, for no reason that they could see. They had just stopped, as if listening to something, and then turned around and fled, suddenly reduced to the howling fanatics they had been before whatever it was had come and changed them. There had been one man captured, a Melcene who had been shot through the leg. Zakath knew he would have to interrogate the man. He probably was just a common soldier. But he hadn't seen him yet, so one never knew.
He got to his feet wearily. He'd better go quickly: if this was just a common soldier, he could turn him over to his interrogators.
But when he walked into the man's cell, a slow, cold smile spread over his face. The prisoner shrank back, aware of that deadly expression.
"Well, well." Zakath paced around the man silently, like a panther. "Mescan. How nice to see you again."
"Y-your Imperial Highne-ne-ness," stammered the bureaucrat.
"Was this a pleasant little venture, Mescan? You're feeling bored, so you decide to go attack your emperor's capital?"
"I-I-I---"
"Did I say you could speak?" Zakath's eyes were like ice. "I want their names, Mescan. I want to know who put you up to this. I want to know where they got the poison. I want to know who led the Karands."
"P-p-please, your I-I-I-"
"I want to know everything, Mescan. And you're going to tell me."
The Melcene clamped his lips tight.
"Very well." Zakath gazed at him again.
Right on cue, Senji popped into existence, breathing hard. "Wow, that was a long way to translocate myself. How are you doing, Zakath? Is the siege faltering?" He caught a glimpse of Mescan. "Who's he?"
"A very old friend," Zakath smiled. "General Mescan, let me introduce Senji, a Melcene sorcerer. A countryman of yours, I believe. Being a sorcerer, Senji can keep people in pain without them dying. Terrible, agonizing pain." Zakath leaned close to Mescan. "So I think you'll tell us everything."
Urgit flopped down on the hard stone throne. "Well, this place hasn't changed," he said, looking with disgust around the gaudy throne room of Rak Urga. "You'd think they'd have improved the decoration while I was gone."
"I'm sure they would have, brother, if it hadn't been for those annoying little nuisances they call an invasion," Silk said dryly. His face was still pale, and there was a haunted expression in his eyes, but his old humor was back. "As it was, I believe they were a little busy staying alive."
"Like us." Urgit sighed moodily. "What did we accomplish in this? We ran up to the West only in time to run back."
"We stayed alive," Silk said. "That's rewarding."
"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten about that," Urgit mused.
"Please, Urgit. Don't let these little things slip. They're very important, you know."
"All right, Silk. You don't need to beat me over the head with it."
"You never know. Prala certainly had to beat you over the head before you realized what she wanted you for."
"She wanted to eat me for breakfast."
"I think you'd make some tasty gruel."
"Very funny, Kheldar."
"Thank you."
"I was being sarcastic."
"So was I."
"That wasn't the point, anyway. The point is that she clutches me like a miser clutching his pieces of gold."
"Reminds you of Ce'Nedra, doesn't it?" asked Silk.
Urgit laughed. "Yes, it does. Are all Tolnedrans like that?"
"Just be thankful you didn't marry one."
"Poor Garion. He got stuck with her anyway."
"He loves her. That's all that matters to him."
"You say it so disparagingly."
"I don't have much respect for love."
"Even when you fall tumbling into it?"
"That wasn't some adolescent love. We made a good team, we accepted each other, and we knew it. So we married each other."
"I still think she stuck out her net and snared you."
"Everyone's got to get married sometime. Even you."
"Yes, but did Prala have to rush into it?"
"Marriage is a good thing, brother. It keeps you out of trouble."
"You sound like my mother now, Kheldar."
"And now you sound like my aunt."
"I think I've got enough women in my life for now, brother. I really don't need any more."
"I can see that."
Urgit sighed mournfully. "Both my mother and my wife. I'll never be the same again."
Silk grinned. "Just wait till you have a daughter."
Garion watched Geran, Belgarik, Beldaran, and Poldara play happily with each other. He had missed them in the long series of battles and struggles, but his mind was only half on the children, as he was thinking over the events of the past few weeks.
After the titantic explosion that had defeated the Morindim and made their leader flee, the armies of the west had packed up and started home: the Rivans and Chereks on the ships, the Algars riding down south to their wide plains, the Tolnedrans, Arends, and Nyissans marching back to their own nations, the glittering hordes vanishing into the distance. Urgit had departed with Silk for Rak Urga, since Velvet was coming with them to Riva, where she could stay with Ce'Nedra for a while. They all were very quiet around the two Drasnian spies, and the two had made the decision that they needed to be apart for a little while to heal, each in their own way.
Garion sighed as he watched his own children play with the flaxen-haired twins. Belgarik and Poldara were Beldaran's age, and the two little girls were sitting in a corner playing with dolls stuffed with wool, while Geran was showing his younger cousin how one battled with wooden swords.
The Karands had retreated to their own country, and most of the Morindim, of course, had been annihilated. Garion felt an obscure kind of pain over this. The Morindim hadn't had a god, of course, and all they had done was tramp around in the cold north wearing thick furs and grotesque tattoos, ever in fear of the demons they raised. But they were still a race, and the fact that they could just sit back and destroy them was a little sad.
This in turn led his thought to Zedar. He had given up his life to save the west, given in up for them, who had been the sides of Light while he had been on the side of Dark for almost the history of the world. What had he been like before he betrayed his Master? Garion remembered Belgarath's book, and his description of Zedar. He had been desperately, fanatically protective of Aldur. He wouldn't tolerate any disrespect to his beloved Master. So why had he turned away? Just because a Prophecy older than the universe needed a pawn? Garion sighed heavily. At least it was finished. Zedar's fate would not gnaw on Belgarath's heart any more. None of them, when they thought of Cthol Mishrak, would have to remember the sorcerer deep below the earth.
Garion pondered Zedar's strange behavior. Why had he been so meek, so humble, after his initial burst? Was it just grief? Or….. or was it because Torak was finally dead, and his influence was gone? Garion thought back over that, and realized that Zedar had been put into the earth while Torak was still alive. When Torak died, the burden was suddenly lifted from him, and he finally realized what he had done. He had been released from Torak's dominion, and finally was able to return to Aldur. But would Aldur accept him? He was a traitor and a murderer several times over. Garion now understood fully what Zedar had gone through in the moments before he gave his sacrifice.
It must have hurt, Garion thought. It must have hurt to be torn apart from inside, to be turned into an explosion. But he had done it in love, and so no pain was great enough to banish it. Garion felt tears fill his eyes.
"If this gets any more cloying, I think I'll vomit." The gnarled, familiar voice was in Garion's head. He spun around, wildly searching for the speaker. No one was in sight. On an impulse, he walked to the window and pushed it open, sticking his head out to peer up into the sky.
A blue-banded hawk and a lavender-banded one circled in the sky above.
"I guess he was useful for something after all."
Garion smiled, sending his thought back. "Yes, I guess he was, Beldin."
Then Vella's voice was in his head, the love beneath her usual biting remarks showing through. "Tell my daughter I love her, Garion. I think she should know."
"Of course, Vella. I'll do that."
"Goodbye, Garion….." Their voices faded away.
Garion watched the two hawks circle off, and said aloud, quietly, "Goodbye."
"Do you have to go?" Kheva asked Ayan, feeling strangely sad.
"Don't get soft on me, your Majesty," Ayan said, but it seemed to not have the sting that was in it before.
"Ayan, why do you insist on calling me 'Your Majesty'? You scream at me, insult me, tell me I'm nothing but a spoiled brat, and then you call me 'Your Majesty'?"
"It serves as a good insult."
Kheva laughed. "Yes, it would at that. But why would you have to go back to Gar Og Nadrak? You could stay here as an ambassador."
"An ambassador?" Ayan looked incredulous. "You forget, boy, I'm King Drosta's property. I have to go back to him."
"See, now you call me boy."
"That's only when you're being particularly immature."
"Immature!" Kheva yelled. "I am not being immature."
"You certainly looked like it."
"No, I did not!"
"How would you know? It's you who're the one in question."
"Exactly."
"I don't see the point."
"You wouldn't."
"Stop that."
"You do it all the time."
"So? Stop that." She prodded him in the chest.
He didn't even think about it. He just leaned down and kissed her gently.
She smiled at him wryly. "What a unique farewell, your Majesty." And with that, she sauntered down off the corridor.
Kheva silently watched her go.
Belgarath and Polgara stood on the rocky heights of Riva, gazing down at the gray, windswept sea and the small ships pulling away. Belgarath was unusually serious, his black cloak whipping backward in the swirling wind. Polgara was wrapped in her own midnight blue cloak, her dark hair, touched with the beautiful white lock, flowing in the wind.
They stood together, watching the lone gulls circling over the tossing sea under the gray sky, saying nothing, just watching the stormy gray water twist and leap, their demeanors grave. Belgarath's lined eyes watched the water, and Polgara's timeless face was turned to the misty clouds above, both with their thoughts far elsewhere.
Polgara spoke in a low voice. "Who was he, father?"
Belgarath's eyes followed the waves slowly, his face grave. "There's no way to tell, Pol. He could have been anyone."
"But if he was anyone, he wouldn't have been able to do the things he did."
"Yes." Belgarath bowed his head. "We don't know who he was. We may never know who he was."
There was silence again, as Belgarath the Sorcerer, the oldest man on the earth, and Polgara the Sorceress, the most beautiful woman in the world, contemplated the seas of Riva.