Our decision not to tell the Tolnedran generals that we were basing a number of our decisions on the ravings of a madman was probably sound. The least hint of mysticism in an associate makes a Tolnedran very nervous. There were times when we had to talk very fast, of course. We knew that certain things were going to happen, but we couldn’t tell the Tolnedrans how we knew. Rhodar took care of most of that for us. The skills of the Drasnian intelligence service were already legendary, and after a couple of years, the generals had come to believe that there were Drasnian agents hidden in just about every element of the Angarak armies. Every time the inevitable ‘How do you know that?’ came up, Rhodar would look sly, take out a piece of paper, and lay it on the table with an insufferably smug expression. The implications were obvious.
Even Rhodar’s cunning was strained to the limit when, after the siege of the Stronghold had plodded on for an interminable six years, the twins finally isolated the passage in the Mrin that told us where the battle was going to take place. The reference was obscure, but that’s normal for the Mrin. All it really said was, ‘The Child of Light and the Child of Dark shall meet before the walls of the golden city.’ The key word in that passage is ‘golden.’ Those of you who’ve seen Vo Mimbre’s yellow walls know where it comes from.
Anyway, we had to lead General Cerran and his colleagues rather gently until Cerran himself finally made the right decision. Rhodar, pretending to have received the information from his spies, laid out Torak’s probable invasion route, and the rest of us found all sorts of things wrong with the other potential battle-sites. Finally Cerran stabbed the map with one blunt finger. ‘There,’ he said. ‘You should prepare your forces to meet Kal Torak at Vo Mimbre.’
‘The ground around there looks to be all right, I guess,’ King Eldrig said, trying to sound a little dubious.
I stepped in at that point. ‘Isn’t it awfully flat?’ I objected. ‘Don’t we want the advantage of high ground?’
‘We don’t really need it, old one,’ Cho-Ram told me. ‘The city itself is high enough to slow Kal Torak’s army down. They’ll come down the valley of the River Arend and take up positions around Vo Mimbre in preparation for another siege. Then we’ll hit them from all sides and grind them up against the walls. General Cerran’s right. It’s the perfect place for the kind of battle we want.’
Eldrig and I raised a few more feeble objections, and then Brand and Rhodar sided with Cho-Ram, and that settled the matter. It was a cumbersome way to do business, but we really didn’t have much choice.
Polgara came to my room in the Cherek embassy a few nights after we’d decided where we were going to meet Kal Torak, and she found me muttering swear-words at my copy of the Mrin Codex. ‘What is the matter with you, father?’ she asked me. ‘You’ve been as cross as a bear with a sore paw for the past week.’
I slammed my fist down on the Mrin. ‘This is what’s the matter!’ I yelled at her. ‘It doesn’t make any sense!’
‘It’s not supposed to. Wasn’t that the whole idea? It’s supposed to sound like gibberish. Why don’t you tell me about your problem, father? Maybe I can help.’
I drew in a deep breath. ‘All right. Brand’s the Child of Light, isn’t he - at least in this particular EVENT? If I’m reading this right he’ll have to be in several places at the same time.’
‘Read it to me, father,’ she said patiently. ‘You don’t make all that much sense when you start to splutter.’
‘All right, let’s see what you make of it.’ I unrolled the scroll, found the index-mark, and read that cursed passage to her. ‘“And the Child of Light shall take the jewel from its accustomed place and shall cause it to be delivered up to the Child of Light before the gates of the golden city.” That clearly implies a paradox, doesn’t it? And paradoxes just don’t happen.’
‘I don’t see it that way, father. How long does one of these EVENTS last?’
‘As long as it takes, I suppose.’
‘Centuries, maybe? Years? Days? Or could it be just a few minutes, or perhaps even a single instant? How long did it take you to put Zedar to sleep in Morindland? That was one of these EVENTS, wasn’t it? How long did it really take you, father?’
‘Not too long, I guess. What are you driving at, Pol?’
‘I get a strong feeling that the EVENTS are instantaneous. The Necessities are just too powerful for these confrontations to last for more than a few seconds at the very most. Any longer might rip the universe to pieces. The prophecies tell us what we have to do to get ready, and that can take eons, but the actual EVENT is something as simple as a decision - or even a single word. “Yes”, maybe, or “No”. The Mrin says that the final confrontation’s going to be settled one way or the other by a choice, and choosing only takes an instant. I think that the last EVENT’s not the only one that’s going to involve choice. I think they all are. When you met Zedar in Morindland, you chose not to kill him. I think that was the EVENT. Everything else was just preparation.’
Now do you see what I mean about the subtlety of Polgara’s mind? It might be pushing things a bit, but I chose to believe her explanation, and that turns that little conversation into an EVENT, doesn’t it? It also implies that the EVENTS don’t always involve face-to-face confrontations between the agents of the two Necessities. Now there’s a concept almost guaranteed to give you a perpetual headache.
‘I’m going to have to go to Riva,’ I told her.
‘Oh? Why?’
‘I have to pick up Iron-grip’s sword. Brand’s going to need it when the time comes. The Mrin says that the Orb’s going to be the deciding factor, and that means the sword.’
‘Then you think the passage you read to me means that you’re going to be the Child of Light who’s supposed to take the Orb to Brand?’
‘It won’t be the first time I’ve been saddled with it.’ I shrugged. ‘If it turns out that I’m wrong, I won’t even be able to get the sword off that wall. That’s the nice thing about dealing with the Orb. It won’t let you do something you’re not supposed to do.’
I decided not to make an issue of my little errand. No, it wasn’t one of those choices Pol had been talking about. It was based entirely on a desire not to embarrass myself. If it turned out that I couldn’t get the sword off the wall, I’d wind up looking a bit foolish if I’d been pompously announcing my intentions. Vanity’s ridiculous, but we all fall prey to it from time to time.
I spoke with the Cherek ambassador and arranged to sail on the next courier ship to Riva. I suppose I could have gone there on my own, but if all went well, I’d be bringing something heavy with me when I came back.
It wasn’t a pleasant voyage. I don’t like Cherek war-boats to begin with, and the foul weather that had plagued us for all those years didn’t make things any better.
We tied up to the wharf at Riva, and I climbed up those steep, dripping stairs to the Citadel.
Brand’s eldest son Rennig was in charge during his father’s absence. The position of the Rivan Warder was not, strictly speaking, hereditary, but I was fairly certain that this time it would be passed on to Rennig. He was as solid and dependable as his father.
He was a bit wild-eyed when I was admitted into Brand’s study, though. ‘Thank the Gods!’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘You got my message!’
‘What message?’
‘You mean you didn’t? Why did you come, then?’
‘I’ve got something to attend to. What’s happened, Rennig? I haven’t seen you this excited since you were a little boy.’
‘You’d better come and see for yourself, Ancient One. I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you. I’ll send for the guards who saw it happen. I’m sure you’ll want to talk with them.’ He led me out into the corridor, and we went to the Hall of the Rivan King. That hall, the throne room, hadn’t been used much during the centuries since Gorek’s assassination, and it was damp and musty and not very well-lighted. Rennig took a torch from one of the rings set in the wall just outside the door, and we went inside, marching down past the fire-pits to the throne. As we drew nearer, I could see Iron-grip’s sword hanging point down on the wall, but I could also see that there was something terribly wrong with it.
My Master’s Orb was not on the pommel.
‘What’s going on here, Rennig?’ I demanded. ‘Where’s the Orb?’
‘It’s over here, Ancient One,’ he told me. He pointed at a large round shield leaning against the wall about ten feet off to the right of the throne. It was a fairly standard Alorn shield, big, round, and heavy, with those thick steel straps Alorns always rivet to their shields. What was definitely not standard was the fact that my Master’s Orb was embedded in the exact center of it.
‘Who did this?’ My voice was shaking.
‘We don’t know. The guards who were here that night had never seen her before.’