to be civil.
‘Have you seen an old man in a rickety, broken-down cart around here anywhere?’ the creature demanded. ‘He told me he’d meet me here.’
I stared at him in absolute astonishment.
‘You’d better close your mouth,’ he advised me in that raspy growl. ‘You’ll catch flies if you don’t.’
All sorts of things clicked into place. ‘This old man you’re looking for,’ I said. ‘Did he have a humorous way of talking?’
‘That’s him,’ the dwarf said. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I replied with a broad grin. ‘I’ve known him for longer than you could possibly imagine. Come along, my ugly little friend. I’ll take you to him.’
‘Don’t be too quick to throw the word “friend” around,’ he growled. ‘I don’t have any friends, and I like it that way.’
‘You’ll get over that in a few hundred years,’ I replied, still grinning at the little monster.
‘You don’t sound quite right in the head to me.’
‘You’ll get used to that, too. Come along. I’ll introduce you to your Master.’
‘I don’t have a master.’
‘I wouldn’t make any large wagers on that.’
And that was our introduction to Din. My brothers thought at first that I’d come across a tame ape. Din rather quickly disabused them of that notion. He had by far the foulest mouth I’ve ever come across, even when he was not trying to be insulting, and I honestly believe he could swear for a day and a half without once repeating himself. He was even ungracious to our Master. His very first words to him were, ‘What did you do with that stupid cart of yours? I tried to follow the tracks, but they just disappeared on me.’
Aldur, with that inhuman patience of his, simply smiled. Would you believe that he actually liked the foul-mouthed little monster? ‘Is that what took thee so long?’ he asked mildly.
‘Of course that’s what took me so long!’ Din exploded. ‘You didn’t leave me a trail to follow! I had to reason out your location!’ Din had turned losing his temper into an art-form. The slightest thing could set him off. ‘Well?’ he said then, ‘now what?’
‘We must see to thine education.’
‘What does somebody like me need with an education? I already know what I need to know.’
Aldur gave him a long, steady look, and even Din couldn’t face that for long. Then our Master looked around at the rest of us. He obviously dismissed Beltira and Belkira out of hand. They hadn’t the proper temperament to deal with our newest recruit. Belzedar was in a state verging on inarticulate rage. Belzedar may have had his faults, but he wouldn’t tolerate any disrespect for our Master. Belmakor was too fastidious. Din was filthy, and he smelled like an open sewer. Belsambar, for obvious reasons, was totally out of the question. Guess who that left.
I wearily raised my hand. ‘Don’t trouble thyself, Master,’ I said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Why, Belgarath,’ he said, ‘how gracious of thee to volunteer thy service.’
I chose not to answer that.
‘Ah, Belgarath?’ Belmakor said tentatively.
‘What?’
‘Could you possibly wash him off before you bring him inside again?’
Despite my show of reluctance, I wasn’t quite as displeased with the arrangement as I pretended to be. I still wanted to finish my tower, and this powerful dwarf seemed well-suited to the task of carrying rocks. If things worked out the way I thought they might, I wouldn’t have to strain my creativity in the slightest to find things for my ugly little servant to do.
I took him outside and showed him my half-finished tower. ‘You understand the situation here?’ I asked him.
‘I’m supposed to do what you tell me to do.’
‘Exactly.’ This was going to work out just fine. ‘Now, let’s go back to the edge of the woods. I’ve got a little chore for you.’
It took us quite some time to return to the woods. When we got there, I pointed at a dry stream-bed filled with nice round rocks of a suitable size. ‘See those rocks?’ I asked him.
‘Naturally I can see them, you dolt! I’m not blind!’
‘I’m so happy for you. I’d like for you to pile them all beside my tower – neatly, of course.’ I sat down under a shady tree. ‘Be a good fellow and see to it, would you?’ I was actually enjoying this.
He glowered at me for a moment and then turned to glare at the rocky stream-bed.
Then, one by one, the rocks began to vanish! I could actually feel him doing it! Would you believe it? Din already knew the secret! It was the first case of spontaneous sorcery I’d ever seen. ‘Now what?’ he demanded.
‘How did you learn to do that?’ I demanded incredulously.
He shrugged. ‘Picked it up somewhere,’ he replied. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you can’t?’
‘Of course I can, but – ’ I got hold of myself at that point. ‘Are you sure you translocated them to the right spot?’
‘You wanted them piled up beside your tower, didn’t you? Go look, if you want. I know where they are. Was there anything else you wanted me to do here?’
‘Let’s go back,’ I told him shortly.
It took me a while to regain my composure. We were about half-way back before I could trust myself to start asking questions. ‘Where are you from?’ It was banal, but it was a place to start.
‘Originally, you mean? That’s sort of hard to say. I move around a lot. I’m not very welcome in most places. I’m used to it, though. It’s been going on since the day I was born.’
‘Oh?’
‘I gather that my mother’s people had a fairly simple way to rid themselves of defectives. As soon as they laid eyes on me, they took me out in the woods and left me there to starve – or to provide some wolf with a light snack. My mother was a sentimentalist, though, so she used to sneak out of the village to feed me.’
And I thought my childhood had been hard.
‘She stopped coming a year or so after I’d learned to walk, though,’ he added in a deliberately harsh tone. ‘Died, I suppose – or they caught her sneaking out and killed her. I was on my own after that.’
‘How did you survive?’
‘Does it really matter?’ There was a distant pain in his eyes, however. ‘There are all sorts of things to eat in a forest – if you’re not too particular. Vultures and
