She turned and glared at me.
‘Be well, Polgara,’ I said. ‘Now go play.’
That was the first time I ever kissed her, and it was a long time before I did it again.
Spring came grudgingly that year, spattering us with frequent rain-showers and an occasional snow-squall, but things eventually began to dry out, and the trees and bushes started tentatively to bud.
It was on a cloudy, blustery spring day when I climbed a hill on the western edge of the Vale. The air was cool, and the clouds roiled titanic overhead. It was a day very much like that day when I’d decided to leave the village of Gara. There’s something about a cloudy, windy spring day that always stirs a wanderlust in me. I sat there for a long time, and that unrealized decision I’d made toward the end of winter finally came home to roost. Much as I loved the Vale, there were far too many painful memories here. I knew that Beldin and the twins would care for my daughters, and Poledra was gone, and my Master was gone, so there was nothing really holding me here.
I looked down into the Vale, where our towers looked like so many carelessly dropped toys and where the herds of browsing deer looked like ants. Even the ancient tree at the center of the Vale was reduced by distance. I knew that I’d miss that tree, but it had always been there, so it probably still would be when I came back - if I ever did come back.
Then I rose to my feet, sighed, and turned my back on the only place I’d ever really called home.
I skirted the eastern edge of Ulgoland. I hadn’t exercised my gift since that dreadful day, and I wasn’t really sure if I still could. Grul had probably healed by now, and I was fairly sure that he’d be nursing a grudge - and that he wouldn’t let me get close enough to knife him again. It would have been terribly embarrassing to try to gather my Will only to discover that it just wasn’t there anymore. There were also Hrulgin, Algroths, and an occasional Troll up in those mountains, so prudence suggested that I go around them.
My brothers tried to make contact with me, of course. I dimly heard their voices calling me from time to time, but I didn’t bother to answer. It would just have been a waste of time and effort. I wasn’t going back, no matter what they said to me.
I went up through western Algaria and didn’t encounter anyone. When I judged that I was well past the northern edge of Ulgoland, I turned westward, crossed the mountains, and came down onto the plains around Muros.
There was a sleepy little village of Wacite Arends where Muros now stands, and I stopped there for supplies. Since I didn’t have any money with me, I reverted to the shady practices of my youth and stole what I needed.
Then I went down-river, ultimately ending up in Camaar. Like all seaports, there was a certain cosmopolitanism about Camaar. The city was nominally subject to the Duke of Vo Wacune, but the waterfront dives I frequented had as many Alorns and Tolnedrans and even Nyissans in them as they did Wacites. The locals were mostly sailors, and sailors out on the town after a long voyage are a good-natured and generous lot, so it wasn’t all that hard to find people willing to stand me to a few tankards of ale.
As is usually the case in a pre-literate society, the fellows in the taverns loved to listen to stories, and I could make up stories with the best. And that was how I made my way in Camaar. I’ve done that fairly frequently over the years. It’s an easy way to make a living, and you can usually do it sitting down, which was a good thing in this case, since most of the time I was in no condition to stand. To put it quite bluntly, I became a common drunkard. I apparently also became a public nuisance, since I seem to remember being thrown out of any number of low waterfront dives, places that are notoriously tolerant of little social gaffes.
I really couldn’t tell you how long I stayed in Camaar - two years at least, and possibly more. I drank myself into insensibility each night, and I never knew where I’d wake up in the morning. Usually it was in a gutter or some smelly back-alley. People are not particularly interested in listening to stories first thing in the morning, so I took up begging on street-corners as a sideline. I became fairly proficient at it - proficient enough at any rate to be roaring drunk by noon every day.
I started seeing things that weren’t there and hearing voices nobody else could hear. My hands shook violently all the time, and I frequently woke up with the horrors.
But I didn’t dream, and I had no memories of anything that had happened more than a few days ago. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was happy, but at least I wasn’t suffering.
Then one night while I was comfortably sleeping in my favorite gutter, I did have a dream. My Master probably had to shout to cut through my drunken stupor, but he finally managed to get my attention.
When I woke up, there was no question in my mind at all that I’d been visited. I hadn’t had a real dream for years. Not only that, I was stone cold sober, and I wasn’t even shaking. What really persuaded me, though, was the fact that the heavenly perfume wafting from the tavern I’d probably been thrown out of the previous evening turned my stomach inside out right there on the spot. I amused myself by kneeling over my gutter and vomiting for a half-hour or so, much to the disgust of everyone who happened by. I soon discovered that it wasn’t so much the stink of that tavern that set my stomach all a-churn, but the stale, sour reek exuding from the rags I wore and from my very skin. Then, still weakly retching, I lurched to my feet, stumbled out onto a wharf, and threw myself into the bay with the rest of the garbage.
No, I wasn’t trying to drown myself. I was trying to wash off that dreadful smell. When I came out of the water, I reeked of dead fish and the various nasty things that people dump into a harbor - usually when nobody’s watching - but it was a definite improvement.
I stood on the wharf for a time, shivering violently and dripping like a down-spout, and I made up my mind to leave Camaar that very day. My Master obviously disapproved of my behavior, and the next time I weakened, he’d probably arrange to have me vomit up my shoe-soles. Fear isn’t the best motivation for embarking on a life of sobriety, but it gets your attention. The taverns of Camaar were too close at hand, and I knew most of the tavern-keepers by name, so I decided to go down into Arendia to avoid temptation.
I stumbled through the streets of the better parts of town, offending the residents mightily, I’m sure, and along about noon I reached the upstream edge of the city. I didn’t have any money to pay a ferryman, so I swam across the Camaar River to the Arendish side. It took me a couple of hours, but I wasn’t really in any hurry. The river was bank-full of fresh, running water, and it washed off a multitude of sins.
I walked back to the ferry-landing to ask a few questions. There was a rude hut on the riverbank, and the fellow who lived there was sitting on a tree-stump at the water’s edge with a fishing-pole in his hands. ‘An’ would y’ be wantin’ t’ cross over t’ Camaar, friend?’ he asked in that brogue that immediately identified him as a Wacite peasant.
‘No, thanks,’ I replied. ‘I just came from there.’
‘Yer a wee bit on the damp side. Surely y’ didn’t swim across?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘I had a small boat. It overturned on me while I was trying to beach it. What part of Arendia have I landed in? I lost my bearings while I was crossing the river.’
‘Ah, it’s a lucky one y’ are t’ have come ashore here instead of a few miles down-river. Yer in the lands of His Grace, the Duke of Vo Wacune. Off t’ the west be the lands of the Duke of Vo Astur. I shouldn’t say it - them bein’ our allies and all - but the Asturians are a hard an’ treacherous people.’
‘Allies?’
‘In our war with the murderin’ Mimbrates, don’t y’ know.’
‘Is that still going on?’
‘Ah, t’ be sure. The Duke of Vo Mimbre fancies himself King of all Arendia, but our Duke an’ th’ Duke of the Asturians ain’t about t’ bend no knees t’ him.’ He squinted at me. ‘If y’ don’t mind me sayin’ it, yer lookin’ a bit seedy.’
‘I’ve been sick for a while.’
He started back from me. ‘It ain’t catchin’, is it?’
‘No. I got a bad cut, and it didn’t heal right.’
‘That’s a relief. We’ve already got enough trouble on this side o’ the river without some traveler bringin’ in a pestilence, don’t y’ know.’
‘Which way do I go to hit the road to Vo Wacune?’
‘Back up the river a few miles. There’s another ferrylandin’ right where the road starts. Y’ can’t miss it.’ He squinted at me again. ‘Would y’ be after wantin’ a drop or two of somethin’ t’ brace y’ up fer yer journey? Tis a cruel long way t’ walk, don’t y’ know, and y’ll find me prices t’ be the most reasonable on this side o’ the river.’
‘No thanks, friend. My stomach’s a little delicate. The illness, you understand.’
“Tis a shame. Y’ look t’ be a jolly sort, an’ I wouldn’t mind the company, don’t y’ know.’
A jolly sort? Me? This fellow really wanted to sell me some beer. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not getting any closer to Vo Wacune just standing here. Thanks for the information, friend, and good luck with your fishing.’ I turned and went back up the river.