"You know what I mean. I'm not suited for this task you and the
others have given me. What do I know about the raising of small boys?"
"You're doing well," Wolf said. "Keep the boy close, and don't let
his nature drive you into hysterics. Be careful; he lies like a
champion."
"Garion?" Her voice was shocked.
"He lied to the Murgo so well that even I was impressed."
"Garion?"
"He's also started asking questions about his parents," Wolf said.
"How much have you told him?"
"Very little. Only that they're dead."
"Let's leave it at that for now. There's no point in telling him things he isn't old enough to cope with yet."
Their voices went on, but Garion drifted off into sleep again, and he was almost sure that it was all a dream.
But the next morning when he awoke, Mister Wolf was gone.
(Part one sendaria Chapter Four)
THE SEASONS TURNED, as seasons will. Summer ripened into autumn; the
blaze of autumn died into winter; winter grudgingly relented to the
urgency of spring; and spring bloomed into summer again.With the turning
of the seasons the years turned, and Garion imperceptibly grew older.
As he grew, the other children grew as well - all except poor Doroon,
who seemed doomed to be short and skinny all his life. Rundorig
sprouted like a young tree and was soon almost as big as any man on the
farm. Zubrette, of course, did not grow so tall, but she developed in
other ways which the boys began to find interesting.
In the early autumn just before Garion's fourteenth birthday, he came
very close to ending his career. In response to some primal urge all
children have - given a pond and a handy supply of logs - they had built
a raft that summer. The raft was neither very large nor was it
particularly well-built. It had a tendency to sink on one end if the
weight aboard it were improperly distributed and an alarming habit of
coming apart at unexpected moments.
Quite naturally it was Garion who was aboard the raft - showing off -
on that fine autumn day when the raft quite suddenly decided once and
for all to revert to its original state. The bindings all came undone,
and the logs began to go their separate ways.
Realizing his danger only at the last moment, Garion made a desperate
effort to pole for shore, but his haste only made the disintegration of
his craft more rapid. In the end he found himself standing on a single
log, his arms windmilling wildly in a futile effort to retain his
balance. His eyes, desperately searching for some aid, swept the marshy
shore. Some distance up the slope behind his playmates he saw the
familiar figure of the man on the black horse. The man wore a dark robe,
and his burning eyes watched the boy's plight. Then the spiteful log
rolled under Garion's feet, and he toppled and fell with a resounding
splash.
Garion's education, unfortunately, had not included instruction in
the art of swimming; and while the water was not really very deep, it
was deep enough.
The bottom of the pond was very unpleasant, a kind of dark, weedy
ooze inhabited by frogs, turtles and a singularly unsavory-looking eel
that slithered away snakelike when Garion plunged like a sinking rock
into the weeds. Garion struggled, gulped water and launched himself with
his legs toward the surface again. Like a broaching whale, he rose from
the depths, gasped a couple of quick, sputtering breaths and heard the
screams of his playmates. The dark figure on the slope had not moved,
and for a single instant every detail of that bright afternoon was
etched on Garion's mind. He even observed that, although the rider was
in the open under the full glare of the autumn sun, neither man nor
horse cast any shadow. Even as his mind grappled with that
impossibility, he sank once more to the murky bottom.
It occurred to him as he struggled, drowning, amongst the weeds that
if he could launch himself up in the vicinity of the log, he might catch
hold of it and so remain afloat. He waved off a startled-looking frog
and plunged upward again. He came up, unfortunately, directly under the
log. The blow on the top of his head filled his eyes with light and his
ears with a roaring sound, and he sank, no longer struggling, back
toward the weeds which seemed to reach up for him.
And then Durnik was there. Garion felt himself lifted roughly by the
hair toward the surface and then towed by that same convenient handle
toward shore behind Durnik's powerfully churning strokes. The smith
pulled the semiconscious boy out onto the bank, turned him over and
stepped on him several times to force the water out of his lungs.
Garion's ribs creaked.
"Enough, Durnik," he gasped finally. He sat up, and the blood from
the splendid cut on top of his head immediately ran into his eyes. He
wiped the blood clear and looked around for the dark, shadowless rider,
but the figure had vanished. He tried to get up, but the world suddenly
spun around him, and he fainted.
When he awoke, he was in his own bed with his head wrapped in bandages.
Aunt Pol stood beside his bed, her eyes blazing. "You stupid boy!" she cried. "What were you doing in that pond?"
"Rafting," Garion said, trying to make it sound quite ordinary.
"Rafting?" she said. "Rafting? Who gave you permission?"
"Well-" he said uncertainly. "We just "
"You just what?"
He looked at her helplessly.
And then with a low cry she took him in her arms and crushed him to her almost suffocatingly.
Briefly Garion considered telling her about the strange, shadowless
figure that had watched his struggles in the pond, but the dry voice in
his mind that sometimes spoke to him told him that this was not the time
for that. He seemed to know somehow that the business between him and
the man on the black horse was something very private, and that the time
would inevitably come when they would face each other in some kind of
contest of will or deed. To speak of it now to Aunt Pol would involve
her in the matter, and he did not want that. He was not sure exactly
why, but he did know that the dark figure was an enemy, and though that
thought was a bit frightening, it was also exciting. There was no
question that Aunt Pol could deal with this stranger, but if she did,
Garion knew that he would lose something very personal and for some
reason very important. And so he said nothing.
"It really wasn't anything all that dangerous, Aunt Pol," he said
instead, rather lamely. "I was starting to get the idea of how to swim.
I'd have been all right if I hadn't hit my head on that log."
"But of course you did hit your head," she pointed out.
"Well, yes, but it wasn't that serious. I'd have been all right in a minute or two."
"Under the circumstances I'm not sure you had a minute or two," she said bluntly.