Then he suddenly realized that Ce'Nedra was not in the bed beside him and he came fully awake instantly.
"But I have to hide him so that they can't find him," he heard Ce'Nedra say in a strangely numb voice. He tossed back the covers and slid out of bed.
A faint light gleamed through the open door to the nursery, and the voices seemed to be coming from there. Garion moved quickly to that door, his bare feet making no sound on the carpet.
"Uncover your baby, Ce'Nedra," the other woman was saying in a calm, persuasive voice. "You'll hurt him."
Garion looked through the doorway. Ce'Nedra was standing by the cradle in her white nightdress, her eyes vacant and staring, with another figure beside her. On the chair at the foot of the cradle was a great heap of blankets and pillows. Dreamily, the Rivan Queen was methodically piling the bedclothes on top of her baby.
"Ce'Nedra," the woman said to her. "Stop. Listen to me."
"I have to hide him," Ce'Nedra replied stubbornly. "They want to kill him."
"Ce'Nedra. You'll smother him. Now take all the blankets and pillows out again."
"But-"
"Do as I said, Ce'Nedra," the woman said firmly. "Now."
Ce'Nedra made a little whimpering sound and began to remove the bedding from the cradle.
"That's better. Now listen to me. You must ignore him when he tells you things like this. He is not your friend."
Ce'Nedra' s face grew puzzled. "He isn't?"
"He's your enemy. He is the one who wants to hurt Geran."
"My baby?"
"Your baby's all right, Ce'Nedra, but you have to fight this voice that comes to you in the night."
"Who-" Garion started, but then the woman turned to look at him, and he broke off, his mouth agape with astonishment. The woman had tawny-colored hair and warm, golden eyes. Her dress was plain and brown, almost earth-colored. Garion knew her. He had met her once before on the moors of eastern Drasnia when he and Belgarath and Silk had been on their way to that dreadful meeting in the haunted ruins of Cthol Mishrak.
Aunt Pol's mother closely resembled her daughter. Her face had that same calm, flawless beauty, and her head that same proud, erect carriage. There was about this timeless face, however, a strange, almost eternal kind of regret that caught at Garion's throat. "Poledra!" he gasped.
"What- "
Aunt Pol's mother put one finger to her lips. "Don't wake her, Belgarion," she cautioned. "Let's get her back to bed."
"Geran-?"
"He's all right. I arrived in time. Just lead her gently back to bed. She'll sleep now without any more of these adventures."
Garion went to his wife's side and put his arm about her shoulders. "Come along now, Ce'Nedra," he said gently to her.
She nodded, her eyes still vacant, and obediently went with him back into the royal bedroom.
"Could you pull back that bolster for me?" he quietly asked Poledra.
She laughed. "As a matter of fact, I can't," she said. "You forget that I'm not really here, Belgarion."
"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. It just seemed-" He pushed the bolster out of the way, carefully laid Ce'Nedra in bed, and pulled the coverlets up around her chin. She sighed and snuggled down to sleep.
"Let's go into the other room," Poledra suggested.
He nodded and quietly followed her into the adjoining room which was still dimly lighted by the glowing embers of the dying fire. "What was that all about?" he asked, softly closing the door.
"There's someone who hates and fears your son, Belgarion," she told him gravely.
"He's only a baby," Garion protested.
"His enemy fears him for what he may become -not for what he is now. It's happened that way before, you'll recall."
"You mean when Asharak killed my parents?"
She nodded. "He was actually trying to get at you."
"But how can I protect Geran from his own mother? I mean -if this man can come to Ce'Nedra in her sleep like that and make her do things, how can I possibly-?"
"It won't happen again, Belgarion. I took care of that."
"But how could you? I mean, you're -well-"
"Dead? That's not altogether accurate, but no matter. Geran is safe for the moment, and Ce'Nedra won't do this again. There's something else we need to discuss."
"All right."
"You're getting very close to something important. I can't tell you everything, but you do need to look at the Mrin Codex -the real one, not one of the copies. You must see what's hidden there."
"I can't leave Ce'Nedra -not now."
"She's going to be all right, and this is something that only you can do. Go to that shrine on the River Mrin and look at the Codex. It's desperately important."
Garion squared his shoulders. "All right," he said. "I'll leave in the morning."
"One other thing."
"What?"
"You must take the Orb with you."
"The Orb?"
"You won't be able to see what you have to see without it."
"I don't quite understand."
"You will when you get there."
"All right, Poledra," he said. Then he made a rueful face. "I don't know why I'm objecting. I've been doing things I didn't understand all my life now."
"Everything will become clear in time," she assured him. Then she looked at him rather critically. "Garion," she said in a tone so like Aunt Pol's that he answered automatically.
"Yes?"
"You really shouldn't run around at night without a robe, you know. You'll catch cold."
The ship he hired at Kotu was small, but well designed for river travel. It was a shallow-draft, broad-beamed little ship that sometimes bobbed like a chip of wood. The oarsmen were sturdy fellows and they made good time rowing against the sluggish current of the Mrin River as it meandered its slow way through the fens.
By nightfall they were ten leagues upriver from Kotu, and the captain prudently moored his ship to a dead snag with one of the tar-smeared hawsers. "It's not a good idea to try to find the channel in the dark," he told Garion. "One wrong turn and we could spend the next month wandering around in the fens."
"You know what you're doing, Captain," Garion told him. "I'm not going to interfere."
"Would you like a tankard of ale, your Majesty?" the captain offered.
"That might not be a bad idea," Garion agreed.