Guardians of the West

"Grandfather," Garion protested.

"Do you know what the term ice age means?"

Garion shook his head, his face blank.

"It's a time when the average temperature drops -just a bit. In the extreme north, that means that the snow doesn't melt in the summer. It keeps piling up, year after year. It forms glaciers, and the glaciers start to move farther and farther south. In just a few centuries, that little display of yours could have had a wall of ice two hundred feet high moving down across the moors of Drasnia. You'd have buried Boktor and Val Alorn under solid ice, you idiot. Is that what you wanted?"

"Of course not. Grandfather, I honestly didn't know. I wouldn't have started it if I'd known."

"That would have been a great comfort to the millions of people you very nearly entombed in ice," Belgarath retorted with a vast sarcasm. "Don't ever do that again! Don't even think about putting your hands on something until you're absolutely certain you know everything there is to know about it. Even then, it's best not to gamble."

"But -but- you and Aunt Pol called down the rainstorm in the Wood of the Dryads," Garion pointed out defensively.

"We knew what we were doing," Belgarath almost screamed. "There was no danger there." With an enormous effort, the old man got control of himself. "Don't ever touch the weather again, Garion -not until you've had at least a thousand years of study."

"A thousand years!"

"At least. In your case, maybe two thousand. You seem to have this extraordinary luck. You always manage to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I won't do it again, Grandfather," Garion promised fervently, shuddering at the thought of towering ice walls creeping inexorably across the world.

Belgarath gave him a long, hard look and then let the matter drop. Later, when he had regained his composure, he lounged in a chair by the fire with a tankard of ale in one hand. Garion knew his Grandfather well enough to be aware of the fact that ale mellowed the old man's disposition and he had prudently sent for some as soon as the initial explosion had subsided. "How are your studies going, boy?" the old sorcerer asked.

"I've been a little pressed for time lately, Grandfather," Garion replied guiltily.

Belgarath gave him a long, cold stare, and Garion could clearly see the mottling on his neck that indicated that the old man's interior temperature was rising again.

"I'm sorry Grandfather," he apologized quickly. "From now on, I'll make the time to study."

Belgarath's eyes widened slightly. "Don't do that," he said quickly. "You got into enough trouble fooling around with the weather. If you start in on time, not even the Gods could predict the outcome."

"I didn't exactly mean it that way, Grandfather."

"Say what you mean, then. This isn't a good area for misunderstandings, you know." He turned his attention then to Errand. "What are you doing here, boy?" he asked.

"Durnik and Polgara are here," Errand replied. "They thought I ought to come along."

"Polgara's here?" Belgarath seemed surprised.

"I asked her to come," Garion told him. "There's a little bit of a problem she's fixing for me -at least I think she's fixing it. She's been acting sort of mysterious."

"She overdramatizes things sometimes. Exactly what is this problem she's working on?"

" Uh- " Garion glanced at Errand, who sat watching the two of them with polite interest. Garion flushed slightly.

"It -uh- has to do with the -uh- heir to the Rivan Throne," he explained delicately.

"What's the problem there?" Belgarath demanded obtusely "You're the heir to the Rivan Throne."

"No, I mean the next one."

"I still don't see any problem."

"Grandfather, there isn't one -not yet, at least."

"There isn't? What have you been doing, boy?"

"Never mind," Garion said, giving up.

When spring arrived at last, Polgara's attention to the two embracing oak-trees became all-consuming. She went to the garden at least a dozen times a day to examine every twig meticulously for signs of budding. When at last the twig ends began to swell, a look of strange satisfaction became apparent on her face. Once again she and the two young women, Ce'Nedra and Xera, began puttering in the garden.

Garion found all these botanical pastimes baffling -even a little irritating. He had, after all, asked Aunt Pol to come to Riva to deal with a much more serious problem.

Xera returned home to the Wood of the Dryads at the first break in the weather. Not long afterward, Aunt Pol calmly announced that she and Durnik and Errand would also be leaving soon. "We'll take father with us," she declared, looking disapprovingly over at the old sorcerer, who was drinking ale and bantering outrageously with Brand's niece, the blushing Lady Arell.

"Aunt Pol," Garion protested, "what about that little -uh- difficulty Ce'Nedra and I were having?"

"What about it, dear?"

"Aren't you going to do something about it?"

"I did, Garion," she replied blandly.

"Aunt Pol, you spent all your time in that garden."

"Yes, dear. I know."

Garion brooded about the whole matter for several weeks after they had all left. He even began to wonder if he had somehow failed to explain fully the problem or if Aunt Pol had somehow misunderstood.

When spring was in full flower and the meadows rising steeply behind the city had turned bright green, touched here and there with vibrantly colored patches of wildflowers, Ce'Nedra began behaving peculiarly. He frequently found her seated in their garden, looking with an odd, tender expression at her oak trees, and quite often she was gone from the Citadel entirely, to return at the end of the day in the company of Lady Arell all bedecked with wildflowers.

Before each meal, she took a sip from a small, silver flagon and made a dreadful face.

"What's that you're drinking?" he asked her curiously one morning.

"It's a sort of a tonic," she replied, shuddering. "It has oak buds in it and it tastes absolutely vile."

"Aunt Pol made it for you."

"How did you know that?"

"Her medicines always taste awful."

"Mmm," she said absently. Then she gave him a long look. "Are you going to be very busy today?"

"Not really. Why?"

"I thought that we might stop by the kitchen, pick up some meat, bread, and cheese, and then go spend a day out in the forest."