wounds, Garion, but you weren’t the first to do it. There was a difference, though. You had plenty of reason for what you did in the Wood of the Dryads. Zedar, however, set fire to the Morind out of pure viciousness. There’s also the fact that you felt guilty, but I’m sure that Zedar didn’t.
This was all coming at me a little too fast, so I inched my way back out from under that snowy bush and left Zedar to his entertainments.
The one thing that kept flashing in my mind was Zedar’s use of the word ‘EVENT.’ This was one of those incidents that our Master had warned us about. I’d been fairly sure that something important was going to happen, but I’d thought that it was going to happen at Cthol Mishrak. Evidently I’d been wrong. There might be another EVENT later, but we had to get by this one first. I decided that it was time for another consultation.
– Can we talk? – I asked the presence inside my head.
– Was there something? –
I think that’s the thing that irritated me the most about my uninvited guest – he thought he was funny. I didn’t bother to make an issue of it. Considering his location, he probably already knew how I felt. – This is one of those little confrontations that keep happening, isn’t it? –
– Obviously. –
– An important one? –
– They’re all important, Belgarath. –
– Zedar said that he’s the instrument of the other Necessity this time. I thought it was Torak. –
– It was. It changes from time to time, though. –
– Then Zedar was telling the truth. –
– If you choose to believe him, yes. –
‘Will you stop doing that?’ I said it aloud. Fortunately, it came out in wolfish, so I don’t think anyone could hear it.
– You’re in a testy humor today. –
– Never mind that. If Zedar’s the instrument of the other one, who’s yours? –
There was a long silence, and I could feel the amusement dripping from it.
– You’re not serious! –
– I have every confidence in you. –
– What am I supposed to do? –
– I’m sure it’ll come to you. –
– Aren’t you going to tell me? –
– Of course not. We have to play by the rules. –
– I need some directions here. If I make it up as I go along, I’m bound to make mistakes. –
– We sort of take those into account. You’ll do just fine. –
– I’m going to kill Zedar. – It was an empty threat, of course. Once I’d gotten past my initial rage, my homicidal instincts had cooled. Zedar had been my brother for over three thousand years, so I wasn’t going to kill him. I might set his beard on fire or tie his entrails into a very complicated knot, but I wouldn’t kill him. In spite of everything, I still loved him too much for that.
There’s that word again. It always keeps cropping up, for some reason.
– Try to be serious, Belgarath, – the voice in my head told me. – You’re incapable of killing your brother. All you have to do is neutralize him. Don’t get carried away. We’re going to need him again on down the line. –
– You’re not going to tell me what to do, are you? –
– It isn’t permitted this time. You and Zedar are going to have to work out the details for yourselves. –
And then the silly thing was gone.
I spent several minutes swearing. Then I loped back to where Zedar had been warming himself by the cheerily burning Morind. As I ran along, I began to formulate a plan. I could confront Zedar right now and get it over with, but there were a lot of holes in that idea. Now that I knew how things stood, there was no way he could take me by surprise, and without the element of surprise, he was no match for me. I could take him with one hand, but that would still leave the question of traps hanging up in the air. I reasoned that my best course would be to follow him for a few days to see if he were in contact with others – Morindim or anybody else. I knew Zedar well enough to know that he’d much prefer to let others do his dirty work for him.
Then I stopped and dropped to my haunches. Zedar was fully aware of the fact that my favorite alternative form was that of a wolf. If he saw a wolf – or even wolf-tracks in the snow – he’d immediately know that I was around. I was going to have to come up with something else.
Given the rules of this particular encounter, I think I can take credit for the idea that came to me. My visitor had told me that he wasn’t permitted to make suggestions, so I was entirely on my own.
I ran back over the last couple thousand years in my mind. Zedar had spent almost the entire time in Mallorea, so there were a lot of things that had happened in the Vale that he didn’t know about. He knew that the she-wolf had stayed with me in my tower, but he didn’t know about her abilities. If a wolf started following him, he might get suspicious, but an owl? I didn’t think so – at least he wouldn’t unless I let him see how inept I was at flying.
I remembered the owl very well, of course, so it wasn’t too hard to form the image in my mind. It was only after I’d merged myself into the image that I realized my mistake. The image was female!
It didn’t really make any difference, of course, but it definitely confused me right at first. How’s it possible for women to keep their heads on straight with all those additional internal organs – and all those exotic substances floating around in their blood?
I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to pursue this line of thought any further.
Considering my irrational nervousness about flying too high, it’s fortunate that owls have no real reason to go very far up in the air. An owl’s interested in what’s on the ground, not what’s up among the stars. I ghosted low over the snow-covered earth back toward where I’d left Zedar.
Have you any idea of how well an owl can see in the dark? I was absolutely amazed by how good my eyes were. My feathers, of course, were very soft, and I found that I could fly in absolute silence. I concentrated on that, and would you believe that my flying improved? I smoothed out my frantic flapping and actually managed to achieve a certain grace.
Etchquaw had burned down to a heap of charred, smoking rubble by now, and Zedar was gone. His tracks, however, weren’t. They angled back up the hillside toward the edge of the stunted evergreens at the tree-line, and then they turned east. That made things even easier for me. It’s a little hard to follow someone inconspicuously when you’re flying out in the open. As an owl though, I was able to drift silently from tree to tree until I caught up with him. He seemed to be heading due east, parallel to the course I’d set for Cherek and his sons, and
