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Chapter 47 - the belgariad pawn of prophecy 47

"Of course, Layla," Aunt Pol said comfortingly.

"Now, Layla," King Fulrach said in an embarrassed voice. "I'll be all right. I'm a grown man, after all."

The plump little queen wiped her eyes. "I want you to promise to wear

warm clothes," she said, "and not to sit up all night drinking with

Anheg."

"We're on serious business, Layla," the kind said. "There won't be time for any of that."

"I know Anheg too well," the queen sniffed. She turned to Mister

Wolf, stood on her tiptoes and kissed his bearded cheek. "Dear

Belgarath," she said. "When this is over, promise that you and Pol will

come back for a long visit."

"I promise, Layla," Mister Wolf said gravely.

"The tide is turning, Lord King," Greldik said, "and my ship is growing restless."

"Oh dear," the queen said. She put her arms around the king's neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Now, now," Fulrach said awkwardly.

"If you don't go now, I'm going to cry right here in public," she said, pushing him away.

The stones of the wharf were slippery, and the slim Cherek ship

bobbed and rolled in the chop. The narrow plank they had to cross heaved

and swayed dangerously, but they all managed to board without accident.

The sailors slipped the hawsers and took their places at the oars. The

lean vessel leaped away from the wharf and moved swiftly into the harbor

past the stout and bulky merchantmen anchored nearby. Queen Layla stood

forlornly on the wharf, surrounded by tall soldiers. She waved a few

times and then stood watching, her chin lifted bravely.

Captain Greldik took his place at the tiller with Barak by his side

and signaled to a squat, muscular warrior crouched nearby. The squat man

nodded and pulled a ragged square of sailcloth off a hide-topped drum.

He began a slow beat, and the oarsmen immediately took up the rhythm. The ship surged ahead and made for the open sea.

Once they were beyond the protection of the harbor, the swells grew

so ponderous that the ship no longer rocked but ran instead down the

back of each wave and up the face of the next. The long oars, dipping to

the rhythm of the sullen drum, left little swirls on the surface of the

waves. The sea was lead-gray beneath the wintry sky, and the low,

snow-covered coastline of Sendaria slid by on their right, bleak and

desolate-looking.

Garion spent most of the day shivering in a sheltered spot near the

high prow, moodily staring out at the sea. The shards and shambles into

which his life had fallen the night before lay in ruins around him. The

idea that Wolf was Belgarath and Aunt Pol was Polgara was of course an

absurdity. He was convinced, however, that a part of the whole thing at

least was true. She might not be Polgara, but she was almost certainly

not his Aunt. He avoided looking at her as much as possible, and did not

speak to anyone.

They slept that night in cramped quarters beneath the stern deck of

the ship. Mister Wolf sat talking for a long time with King Fulrach and

the Earl of Seline. Garion covertly watched the old man whose silvery

hair and short-cropped beard seemed almost to glow in the light from a

swinging oil lamp hanging from one of the low beams. He still looked the

same as always, and Garion finally turned over and went to sleep.

The next day they rounded the hook of Sendaria and beat northeasterly

with a good following wind. The sails were raised, and the oarsmen were

able to rest. Garion continued to wrestle with his problem.

On the third day out the weather turned stormy and bitterly cold. The

rigging crackled with ice, and sleet hissed into the sea around them.

"If this doesn't break, it will be a rough passage through the Bore,"

Barak said, frowning into the sleet.

"The what?" Durnik asked apprehensively. Durnik was not at all

comfortable on the ship. He was just recovering from a bout of

seasickness, and he was obviously a bit edgy.

"The Cherek Bore," Barak explained. "It's a passage about a league

wide between the northern tip of Sendaria and the southern end of the

Cherek peninsula - riptides, whirlpools, that sort of thing. Don't be

alarmed, Durnik. This is a good ship, and Greldik knows the secret of

navigating the Bore. It may be a bit rough, but we'll be perfectly safe

unless we're unlucky, of course."

"That's a cheery thing to say," Silk observed dryly from nearby. "I've been trying for three days not to think about the Bore."

"Is it really that bad?" Durnik asked in a sinking voice.

"I make a special point of not going through it sober," Silk told him.

Barak laughed. "You ought to be thankful for the Bore, Silk," he

said. "It keeps the Empire out of the Gulf of Cherek. All Drasnia would

be a Tolnedran province if it wasn't there."

"I admire it politically," Silk said, "but personally I'd be much happier if I never had to look at it again."

On the following day they anchored near the rocky coast of northern

Sendaria and waited for the tide to turn. In time it slackened and

reversed, and the waters of the Sea of the Winds mounted and plunged

through the Bore to raise the level of the Gulf of Cherek.

"Find something solid to hold on to, Garion," Barak advised as

Greldik ordered the anchor raised. "With this following wind, the

passage could be interesting." He strode along the narrow deck, his

teeth gleaming in a broad grin.

It was foolish. Garion knew that, even as he stood up and began to

follow the red-bearded man toward the prow, but four days of solitary

brooding over a problem that refused to yield to any kind of logic made

him feel almost belligerently reckless. He set his teeth together and

took hold of a rusted iron ring embedded in the prow.

Barak laughed and clapped him a stunning blow on the shoulder. "Good

boy," he said approvingly. "We'll stand together and look the Bore right

down the throat."

Garion decided not to answer that.

With wind and tide behind her, Greldik's ship literally flew through

the passage, yawing and shuddering as she was seized by the violent

riptides. Icy spray stung their faces, and Garion, half blinded by it,

did not see the enormous whirlpool in the center of the Bore until they

were almost upon it. He seemed to hear a vast roar and cleared his eyes

just in time to see it yawning in front of him.

"What's that?" he yelled over the noise.

"The Great Maelstrom," Barak shouted. "Hold on."

The Maelstrom was fully as large as the village of Upper Gralt and

descended horribly down into a seething, mist-filled pit unimaginably

far below. Incredibly, instead of guiding his vessel away from the

vortex, Greldik steered directly at it.

"What's he doing?" Garion screamed.