Guardians of the West

The shape laughed, an ugly, dusty kind of sound. "Thou art a fool, boy," it said. "Fear me, for the day will come when I shall surely destroy thee."

"Not surely," Errand replied calmly. He peered closely at the shadow-shrouded form and saw at once that -like the figure of Cyradis he had met on the snowy hilltop- this seemingly substantial shape was not really here, but somewhere else, sending its malevolent hatred across the empty miles. "Besides," he added, "I'm old enough now not to be afraid of shadows."

"We will meet in the flesh, boy," the shadow snarled, "and in that meeting shalt thou die."

"That hasn't been decided yet, has it?" Errand said.

"That's why we have to meet -to decide which of us will stay and which must go." The dark-robed shape drew in its breath with a sharp hiss.

"Enjoy thy youth, boy," it snarled, "for it is all the life thou wilt have. I will prevail." Then the dark shape vanished.

Errand drew in a deep breath and glanced skyward at the circling Beldin. He realized that not even the hawk's sharp eyes could have penetrated the spreading treelimbs to where that strange, cowled figure had stood. Beldin could not know of the meeting. Errand nudged the stallion's flanks, and they moved away from the solitary tree at a flowing canter, riding in the golden sunlight toward home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The years that followed were quiet years at the cottage. Belgarath and Beldin were often away for long periods of time, and when they returned, travel-stained and weary, their faces usually wore the frustrated look of men who have not found what they were looking for. Although Durnik was often on the stream bank, bending all of his attention to the problem of convincing some wary trout that a thumbnail-sized bit of polished metal with a few strands of red yarn trailing behind it in the current was not merely edible but irresistibly delicious, he nonetheless maintained the cottage and its immediate surroundings in that scrupulously tidy condition which announced louder than words that the proprietor of any given farmstead was a Sendar. Although rail fences, by their very nature, zigzagged and tended to meander with the lay of the ground, Durnik firmly insisted that his fence lines be absolutely straight. He was quite obviously constitutionally incapable of going around any obstacle.Thus, if a large rock happened to intrude itself in the path of one of his fences, he immediately stopped being a fence builder and became an excavator.

Polgara immersed herself in domesticity. The interior of her cottage was immaculate. Her doorstep was not merely swept but frequently scrubbed. The rows of beans, turnips, and cabbages in her garden were as straight as any of Durnik's fences, and weeds were absolutely forbidden. Her expression as she toiled at these seemingly endless tasks was one of dreamy contentment, and she hummed or sang very old songs as she worked.

The boy, Errand, however, tended on occasion toward vagrancy. This was not to say that he was indolent, but many of the chores around a rural farmstead were tedious, involving repeating the same series of actions over and over again. Stacking firewood was not one of Errand's favorite pastimes. Weeding the garden seemed somehow futile, since the weeds grew back overnight. Drying the dishes seemed an act of utter folly, since, left alone, the dishes would dry themselves without any assistance whatsoever. He made some effort to sway Polgara to his point of view in this particular matter. She listened gravely to his impeccable logic, nodding her agreement as he demonstrated with all the eloquence at his command that the dishes did not really need to be dried. And when he had finished, summing up all his arguments with a dazzling display of sheer brilliance, she smiled and said, "Yes, dear," and implacably handed him the dishtowel.

Errand was hardly overburdened with unremitting toil, however. In point of fact, not a day went by when he did not spend several hours on the back of the chestnut stallion, roaming the grasslands surrounding the cottage as freely as the wind.

Beyond the timeless, golden doze of the Vale, the world moved on. Although the cottage was remote, visitors were not uncommon. Hettar, of course, rode by often and sometimes he was accompanied by Adara, his tall, lovely wife, and their infant son. Like her husband, Adara was an Algar to her fingertips, as much at home in the saddle as she was on her feet. Errand was very fond of her. Though her face always seemed serious, even grave, there lurked just beneath that calm exterior an ironic, penetrating wit that absolutely delighted him. It was more than that, however. The tall, dark-haired girl, with her flawless features and alabaster skin, carried about her a light, delicate fragrance that always seemed to tug at the outer edges of his consciousness. There was something elusive yet strangely compelling about that scent. Once, when Polgara was playing with the baby, Adara rode with Errand to the top of a nearby hill and there she told him about how the perfume she wore originated.

"You did know that Garion is my cousin?" she asked him.

"Yes."

"We had ridden out from the Stronghold once -it was in the winter when everything was locked in frost. The grass was brown and lifeless, and all the leaves had fallen from the bushes. I asked him about sorcery -what it was and what he could do with it. I didn't really believe in sorcery -I wanted to, but I just couldn't bring myself to believe. He took up a twig and wrapped some dry grass around it; then he turned it into a flower right in front of my eyes."

Errand nodded. "Yes, that's the kind of thing Garion would do. Did it help you to believe?"

She smiled. "Not right away -at least not altogether. There was something else I wanted him to do, but he said that he couldn't."

"What was that?"

She blushed rosily and then laughed. "It still embarrasses me," she said. "I wanted him to use his power to make Hettar love me."

"But he didn't have to do that," Errand said, "Hettar loved you already, didn't he?"

"Well -he needed a little help to make him realize it. But I was feeling very sorry for myself that day. When we rode back to the Stronghold, I forgot the flower and left it behind on the sheltered side of a hill. A year or so later, the whole hillside was covered with low bushes and these beautiful little lavender flowers. Ce'Nedra calls the flower 'Adara's rose,' and Ariana thought it might have some medicinal value, even though we've never been able to find anything it cures. I like the fragrance of the flower, and it is mine in a sort of special way, so I sprinkle petals in the chests where I keep my clothes." She laughed a wicked sort of little laugh. "It makes Hettar very affectionate," she added.