05.09.2005: Answers to reviews removed. See reason in chapter 3.
Current Music: None, am watching "Star Trek – The Motion Picture" while typing this, it's on TV right now.
Disclaimer: The Belgariad, Malloreon, Elenium and Tamuli are sole property of David and Leigh Eddings and their respective publishers. I have not and do not intend to use their creation for commercial purposes.
CHAPTER 16
The group made good time the first afternoon; they rode in a steady canter in northwesterly direction. If they kept up this pace, they predicted, they would reach Lenda within five days.
After they had been on the road for a couple of hours, the first casual talks broke out among them; logically, they concentrated first and foremost on Belgarath and Polgara, what their world was like and where the differences between it and this realm were. It didn't take long until the knights brought up magic as a topic. Tynian asked,
"Dorgatan told us that you were great magicians in your world, but that you can't use your sorcery here. I am not sure whether I can imagine any other way to do magic than to ask a God for help with a spell and the finger patterns. Are you unable to use your kind of magic simply because your God is not here, or is it merely different from ours? And is being a disciple of a God similar to being his priest?"
"Well," Polgara started to reply, "I think there are a lot of similarities between being a disciple in our world and being a Styric priest in this world. We are very close to our God, although we do not pray to him, for we are too close to him for that – and we have also been known to convey messages of our God to other parties and carry out his Will. We differ from our priests and Elene priests in that we do not seek to convert people to our faith, and we do not preach to other followers of our God. In fact, Aldur is not the main God of any of the peoples of our world; he has us, his disciples, and the Sendars pray to him, because they pray to all the Gods – but there are no worshippers."
"But how does he maintain his power without worshippers? We would be lost without people believing in us," Dorgatan exclaimed.
"I don't know," Polgara shrugged. "Maybe in our realm, the Gods are what they are because they... just are, what they are. They were born from the Universe long before there was life on our world. They shaped us to their liking. At least that is what we were told. Anyway, Aldur is far from being powerless."
"As for our 'magic'", Belgarath proceeded, "It does indeed work very different from the magic here. We call our magic "The Will and the Word", because it is that simple. We don't have to recite a complicated spell, nor do we have to move our hands to weave it, although my daughter likes to make hand gestures when releasing her Will."
Polgara shot him a flat stare, and her father hurried on: "The Will requires nothing but that – a strong will, a will literally able to move mountains. You just think about what you want to do, then you say the appropriate word to release it. For example, if I wanted to set fire to a house, I would think of flames comsuming the building and say 'burn'. That is all, in essence. Of course, only few people can muster the will and the concentration to work our kind of magic, but it doesn't matter what they believe in. Some sorcerers – for that is what we prefer to call ourselves, as magicians in our world practice somethingfundamentally different from our sorcery and your magic – do not believe in anything, yet they are still able to work with their Will.
We can do almost anything; except bring people back from the dead, as death is simply to hard to overcome, move great amounts of mass such as the aforementioned mountain, for it would be almost impossible to gather the necessary energy to do so, and last but not least, will anything out of existence. We are told that the Universe does not tolerate total obliteration of anything She created; therefore, She removes the perpetrator himself out of Herself. We had no idea that She simply transported them here instead of just disintegrating them... Oh, we also have to try and work with the natural laws of our world, for it is impossible to change or suspend them and the backlash of an act against them would throw the world in turmoil for years on end, and we cannot force our Will on others directly. We cannot change thoughts by simply wishing so; we have to convince people like anybody else. Of course, our sorcery gives us means of persuasion unavailable to others, but that is all."
The others seemed to be stunned by Belgarath's description of their capabilities. "Your 'sorcery' seems to be much more like the powers of the Younger Gods than our magic," Sephrenia voiced their thoughts. "There are some things they can do that you mentioned you can't, but..."
The Styric woman's voice trailed off.
"How does it feel to be as close to allmighty as a human can possibly get?", Khalad asked curiously.
To Belgarath's and Polgara's surprise, it was Sparhawk who answered his question. "At first? Very good, and at the same time very disconcerting. It is a big reponsibility to have that kind of power at your disposal. That is why I refused it when Bhelliom tried to give it to me for good."
"You have been very lucky, Prince Sparhawk," Polgara commented. "In our world, when one discovers the power of the Will and the Word, it is impossible to forget it. One might not use it, but one will never be able to deny the power at their fingertips. My nephew many generations removed took a long time to get used to that thought. I was raised with it, so it was a lot easier for me – but sometimes in all the years I wished that I could lead a normal life and die after a normal life span, just like those other people I lived amongst. But the Gods have been so kind as to bestow the same gift on my husband, so I have no griefs anymore."
"Didn't you say one finds out about the Will be themselves?", Ulath asked.
"My husband was a... special case. It's a long story," she replied shortly, and a shadow hushed over her expression. It was not easy for her to think back to the time when Durnik had been lying on the floor of Torak's crypt in Cthol Mishrak, utterly lifeless... how she had cried and begged the Gods to do something about this, how she had even managed to defy Torak's will...
A sudden loud noise tore her out of her unhappy reverie; the sound of horse's hooves clopping along on the road in a gallop. And it sounded like a LOT of horses.
Sparhawk squinted ahead suspiciously. "Let's get ready," he said shortly. "I don't know for sure whether there's really trouble up ahead, but I have a feeling that the people coming towards us aren't going to be friendly."
He was right; the group whose horses they had heard came around the hill and drove their already exhausted-seeming horses into a charge with a bellow upon seeing them. Most of them seemed to be peasants, riding on plough-mares and carriage-horses; but there also seemed some minor noblemen among them; their clothes were good, and their horses were fine purebreeds, suited for a leisure ride or one-man-transportation, but not as warhorses. The were armed with a variety of weapons; from pitchforks, used amateurishly as spears and lances, to drawn rapiers, everything was there.
The knights faltered for a moment, but they defended themselves when the first attackers reached him.
"What business do you have with us, neighbor?", Khalad yelled as he struggled to keep a man with a large, rusty sword from slicing him up. Then he saw the mindless rage in the man's eyes and called to Sparhawk: "They're in a frenzy – we can't keep them from fighting, my lord!"
"Incapacitate them, then!", the prince consort shouted back and chopped a man's hand off. It fell to the ground, a rapier still firmly clutched in its fingers. The man he had just been fighting with howled in agony and fell off his horse; he didn't seem to be a good rider nor a good warrior.
Then, Sparhawk saw something disturbing; the man bowed down, revealing his neck – and a tiny, yellowish thing seemed to grow out of it. He realized at once what was happening.
"They're being dominated! Remove the snakes from the back of their necks!"
The knights reacted immediately; they only blocked with their swords and axes to reach over and pluck the reptiles from the men's necks. Polgara, who had drawn her daggers, proved to be most successful in getting rid of the snakes; one dagger deflected weapon blows while the other chopped the animal's bodies off their heads within fractions of a second.
Within a few minutes, it was over. Groaning peasants and nobles lay on the ground, most of them uninjured; once the snakes had been removed or killed, they had come out of their frenzy and now seemed quite disoriented.
Dorgatan shook his head, an expression of disgust on his face. "If you still had any doubts that Zoltach is behind all this, there's your proof; he sent those people to kill us. We should be watching for groups like this one from now on – it is very possible that he will bombard us with peasants waving pitchforks at us..."
"No, Dorgatan," Aphrael replied. "He is not that singleminded or that simple. He will get at us in other, more subtle ways, now that this open attack did not work. In short, it will get very dangerous for us before this is over."
There we go, one more chapter! Sorry I couldn't get two done, but I had to stop for two hours inbetween because of a thunderstorm... But never ye worry, I don't think the next update will take too long!
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