Polgara the Sorceress. David Eddings

being ‘grown-up’ that I simply couldn’t relax and enjoy life.

      Most people go through this stage and outgrow it. Many, however, do not. The pose becomes more important than reality, and these poor creatures become hollow people, forever striving to fit themselves into an impossible mold.

      Enough. I’m not going to turn this into a treatise on the ins and outs of human development. Until a person learns to laugh at himself, though, his life will be a tragedy – at least that’s the way he’ll see it.

      The seasons continued their stately march, and the little lecture mother had delivered to me lessened my interior antagonism toward father. I did maintain my exterior facade, however. I certainly didn’t want the old fool to start thinking I’d gone soft on him.

      And then, shortly after my sister and I turned sixteen, the Master paid my father a call and gave him some rather specific instructions. One of us – either Beldaran or myself – was to become the wife of Iron-grip and hence the Rivan Queen. Father, with rather uncharacteristic wisdom, chose to keep the visit to himself. Although I certainly had no particular interest in marrying at that stage of my life, my enthusiasm for competition might have led me into all sorts of foolishness.

      My father quite candidly admits that he was sorely tempted to get rid of me by the simple expedient of marrying me off to poor Riva. The Purpose – Destiny, if you wish – which guides us all prevented that, however. Beldaran had been preparing for her marriage to Iron-grip since before she was born. Quite obviously, I hadn’t been.

      I resented my rejection, though. Isn’t that idiotic? I’d been involved in a competition for a prize I didn’t want, but when I lost the competition, I felt the sting of losing quite profoundly. I didn’t even speak to my father for several weeks, and I was even terribly snippy with my sister.

      Then Anrak came down into the Vale to fetch us. With the exception of an occasional Ulgo and a few messengers from King Algar, Anrak was perhaps the first outsider I’d ever met and certainly the first whoever showed any interest in me. I rather liked him, actually. Of course he did propose marriage to me, and a girl always has a soft spot in her heart for the young man who asks her for the first time. Anrak was an Alorn, with all that implies. He was big, burly, and bearded, and there was good-humored simplicity about him that I rather liked. I didn’t like the way he always reeked of beer, however.

      I was busy sulking in my Tree when he arrived, so we didn’t even have time to get acquainted before he proposed. He came swaggering down the Vale one beautiful morning in early spring. My birds alerted me to his approach, so he didn’t really surprise me when he came in under the branches of my Tree.

      ‘Hello, up there,’ he called to me.

      I looked down from my perch at him. ‘What do you want?’ It wasn’t really a very gracious greeting.

      ‘I’m Anrak – Riva’s cousin – and I came here to escort your sister to the Isle so Riva can marry her.’

      That immediately put him in the camp of the enemy. ‘Go away,’ I told him bluntly.

      There’s something I need to ask you first.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Well, like I said, I’m Riva’s cousin, and he and I usually do things together. We got drunk together for the first time, and visited a brothel together for the first time, and even both killed our first man in the same battle, so as you can see, we’re fairly close.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘Well, Riva’s going to marry your sister, and I thought it might be sort of nice if I got married, too. What do you say?’

      ‘Are you proposing marriage to me?’

      ‘I thought I said that. This is the first time I’ve ever proposed to anybody, so I probably didn’t do a very good job. What do you think?’

      ‘I think you’re insane. We don’t even know each other.’

      ‘There’ll be plenty of time for us to get to know each other after the ceremony. Well, yes or no?’

      You couldn’t fault Anrak’s directness. Here was a man who got right down to the point. I laughed at him, and he looked just a bit injured by that. ‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded in a hurt tone of voice.

      ‘You are. Do you actually think I’d marry a complete stranger? One who looks like a rat hiding in a clump of bushes?’

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘You’ve got hair growing all over your face.’

      ‘That’s my beard. All Alorns wear beards.’

      ‘Could that possibly be because Alorns haven’t invented the razor yet? Tell me, Anrak, have your people come up with the idea of the wheel yet? Have you discovered fire, by any chance?’

      ‘You don’t have to be insulting. Just say yes or no.’

      ‘All right. No! Was there any part of that you didn’t understand?’ Then I warmed to my subject. The whole notion is absurd,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t like you. I don’t know your cousin, and I don’t like him either. As a matter of fact, I don’t like your entire stinking race. All the misery in my life’s been caused by Alorns. Did you really think I’d actually marry one? You’d better get away from me, Anrak, because if you don’t, I’ll turn you into a toad.’

      ‘You don’t have to get nasty. You’re no prize yourself, you know.’

      I won’t repeat what I said to him then – this document might just fall into the hands of children. I spoke at some length about his parents, his extended family, his race, his ancestors and probable descendants. I drew rather heavily on uncle Beldin’s vocabulary in the process, and Anrak frequently looked startled at the extent of my command of the more colorful side of language.

      ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel about it, there’s not much point in our continuing this conversation, is there?’ And then he rather huffily turned and strode back up the Vale, muttering to himself.

      Poor Anrak. I was feeling a towering resentment over the fact that some unknown Alorn was going to take my sister away from me, and so he had the privilege of receiving the full weight of my displeasure. Moreover, mother’d strongly advised me to steer clear of any lasting entanglements at this stage of my life. Adolescent girls have glandular problems that sometimes lead them to make serious mistakes.

      Why don’t we just let it go at that?

      I had absolutely no intention of going to the Isle of the Winds to witness this obscene ceremony. If Beldaran wanted to marry this Alorn butcher, she was going to have to do it without my blessing – or my presence.

      When they were ready to leave, however, my sister came down to my Tree and ‘persuaded’ me to change my mind. Despite that sweet exterior that deceived everyone else, my sister Beldaran could be absolutely ruthless when she wanted something. She knew me better than anyone else in the world did – or could – so she knew exactly where all my soft spots were. To begin with, she spoke to me exclusively in ‘twin’, a language I’d almost forgotten. There were subtleties in ‘twin’ – mostly of Beldaran’s devising – that no linguist, even the most gifted, could ever unravel, and most of them stressed her dominant position. Beldaran was accustomed to giving me orders, and I was accustomed to obeying. Her ‘persuasion’ in this situation was, to put it honestly, brutal. She reminded me of every time in our lives when we’d been particularly close, and she cast those reminders in a past tense peculiar to our private tongue that would more or less translate into ‘never again’, or ‘over and done with’. She had me in tears within five minutes and in utter anguish within ten. ‘Stop!’ I cried out finally, unable to bear the implicit threat of a permanent severing of all contact any longer.

      ‘You’ll come with me then?’ she asked, reverting to ordinary