Enchanters' End Game

"What's that supposed to mean?" He sounded puzzled.

"Exactly what it says, my Lord Hettar. If a mare looked admiringly at a stallion, you'd know how things stood immediately, wouldn't you? But when it comes to people, you simply can't see at all, can you?" She coughed weakly.

"Are you all right?" he asked sharply.

"I'm surprisingly well - considering the fact that I'm dying."

"What are you talking about? You're not dying."

She smiled slightly. "Please don't," she told him. "I know what an arrow in the chest means. That's why I wanted to see you. I wanted to look at your face once more. I've been watching your face for such a long time now."

"You're tired," he said brusquely. "You'll feel better after you've slept."

"I'll sleep, all right," she said ruefully, "but I doubt that I'll feel anything afterward. The sleep I'm going to is the sleep one doesn't wake up from."

"Nonsense."

"Of course it is, but it's true nonetheless." She sighed. "Well, dear Hettar, you've finally escaped me, haven't you? I gave you a good chase, though. I even asked Garion to see if he could use sorcery on you."

"Garion?"

She nodded slightly. "You see how desperate I was? He said he couldn't, though." She made a little face. "What good is sorcery if you can't use it to make someone fall in love?"

"Love?" he repeated in a startled voice.

"What did you think we were talking about, Lord Hettar? The weather?" She smiled fondly at him. "Sometimes you can be impossibly dense."

He stared at her in amazement.

"Don't be alarmed, my Lord. In a little while, I'll stop chasing you, and you'll be free."

"We'll talk about that when you're better," he told her gravely.

"I'm not going to get better. Haven't you been listening? I'm dying, Hettar."

"No," he said, "as a matter of fact, you're not dying. Polgara assured us that you're going to be all right."

Adara looked quickly at Ariana. "Throe injury is not mortal, dear friend," Ariana confirmed gently. "Truly, thou art not dying."

Adara closed her eyes. "How inconvenient," she murmured, a faint blush coming to her cheeks. She opened her eyes again. "I apologize, Hettar. I wouldn't have said any of this if I'd known that my meddling physicians were going to save my life. As soon as I'm up and about, I'll return to my own clan. I won't bother you again with my foolish outbursts."

Hettar looked down at her, his hard-angled face expressionless. "I don't think I'd like that," he told her, gently taking her hand. "There are things you and I need to talk about. This isn't the time or the place, but don't go trying to make yourself unaccessible."

"You're just being kind." She sighed.

"No. Practical. You've given me something to think about beside killing Murgos. It's probably going to take me a while to get used to the idea, but after I've thought it over, we'll definitely need to talk."

She bit her lip and tried to hide her face. "What a stupid mess I've made of things," she said. "If I were somebody else, I'd laugh at me. It would really be better if we didn't see each other again."

"No," he said firmly, still holding her hand, "it wouldn't. And don't try to hide from me, because I'll find you - even if I have to have every horse in Algaria go looking for you."

She gave him a startled look.

"I am a Sha-dar, remember? Horses do what I tell them to."

"That's not fair," she objected.

He gave her a quizzical little smile. "And trying to have Garion use sorcery on me was?" he asked her.

"Oh, dear!" She blushed.

"She must rest now," Ariana told them. "Thou canst speak with her further on the morrow."

When they were back out in the hallway, Ce'Nedra turned on the tall man. "You might have said something a bit more encouraging," she scolded him.

"It would have been premature," he replied. "We're a rather reserved people, Princess. We don't say things just to be talking. Adara understands the situation." Hettar seemed as fierce as ever, his sharp-angled face hard, and his manelike scalp lock flowing over one leather-armored shoulder. His eyes, however, had softened slightly, and there was a faintly puzzled crease between his brows. "Didn't Polgara want to see you?" he asked. It was polite, but it was a dismissal nonetheless.

Ce'Nedra stalked away, muttering to herself about the lack of consideration that seemed to infect the male half of the population.

Lady Polgara sat quietly in her room, waiting. "Well?" she said when the princess entered. "Would you care to explain?"

"Explain what?"

"The reason for the idiocy that almost cost Adara her life."

"Surely you don't think it was my fault," Ce'Nedra protested.

"Whose fault was it, then? What were you doing out there?"

"We just went for a little ride. It's so boring being cooped up all the time."

"Boring. What a fascinating reason to kill your friends."

Ce'Nedra gaped at her, her face suddenly very pale.

"Why do you think we built these fortifications to begin with, Ce'Nedra? It was to provide us with some measure of protection."

"I didn't know there were Murgos out there," the princess wailed.

"Did you bother to find out?"

The entire implication of what she had done quite suddenly came crashing in on Ce'Nedra. She began to tremble violently, and her shaking hand went to her mouth. It was her fault! No matter how she might twist and turn and try to evade the responsibility, her foolishness had nearly killed one of her dearest friends. Adara had almost paid with her life for a bit of childish thoughtlessness. Ce'Nedra buried her face in her hands in a sudden storm of weeping.

Polgara let her cry for several moments, giving her ample time to accept her guilt; and when she finally spoke, there was no hint of forgiveness in her voice. "Tears won't wash out blood, Ce'Nedra," she said. "I thought I could at least begin to trust your judgment, but it appears that I was wrong. You may leave now. I don't believe I have anything more to say to you this evening."

Sobbing, the princess fled.

Chapter Fourteen

"IS THIS PLACE all like this?" King Anheg asked as the army trudged through one of the flat, gravel-strewn valleys with the bare, sun-baked mountains around it dancing in the shimmering heat. "I haven't seen a tree since we left the forts.""The country changes about twenty leagues out, your Majesty," Hettar replied quietly, lounging in his saddle as they rode in the blazing sunlight. "We start to hit trees when we begin coming down out of the uplands. They're a kind of low, scraggly spruce, but they break up the monotony a bit."