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Polgara the Sorceress
| Author: | David Eddings Leigh Eddings |
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Del Rey / Ballantine, 1997 HarperCollins/Voyager, 1997 |
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| Book Type: | Novel |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Sub-Genre Tags: | High Fantasy Fairytale Fantasy Heroic Fantasy |
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Synopsis
She soars above a world of warriors, kings, and priests. The daughter of Belgarath and the shape-shifter Poledra, she has fought wars, plotted palace coups, and worked her powerful magic for three thousand years. Now, Polgara looks back at her magnificent life, in this fitting crown jewel to the saga that is the Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean cycles.
Her hair streaked white by her father's first touch, her mind guided by a mother she will not see again for centuries, Polgara begins life in her Uncle Beldin's tower, and in the prehistorical, magical Tree that stands in the middle of the Vale. There, she first learns the reaches of her powers. There she assumes the bird shapes that will serve her on her adventures. And there she starts on the path toward her destiny as Duchess of Erat, shepherdess of the cause of good, adversary of Torak the One-Eyed Dragon God, and guardian of the world's last, best hope: the heir to the Rivan throne.
Here is the legendary life story of a woman of wit, passion, and complex emotions, a woman born of two majestic parents who could not have been more unlike one another. Ordained to make peace and make war, to gain love and lose love, Polgara lives out her family's rich prophecy in the ceaseless struggle between the Light and the Dark.
Polgara is the epic culmination of a magnificent saga, and a fitting farewell to a world which, once experienced, will never be forgotten.
Excerpt
This was not my idea. I want that clearly understood right at the outset. The notion that any one person can describe "what really happened" is an absurdity. If ten--or a hundred--people witness an event, there will be ten--or a hundred--different versions of what took place. What we see and how we interpret it depends entirely upon our individual past experience. My mother, however, has insisted that I undertake this ridiculous chore, and I will, as always, do as she tells me to do.
The more I've thought about it, though, the more I've come to realize that when Ce'Nedra first broached the subject to me, and later to my mother, her obviously specious argument about "the well-being of the young" actually had more merit than the devious little girl realized. One day Geran will be the Rivan King and the Guardian of the Orb, and over the centuries I've found that people with at least a nodding acquaintance with true history make the best rulers. At least they don't repeat the mistakes of the past.
If all Geran and his sons really needed to rule the Rivans were to be a flat recounting of the deeds of assorted rulers of assorted kingdoms in ages past, the tiresome repetition of the "and then, and then, and then" that so delights the stodgy members of the Tolnedran Historical Society would be more than sufficient.
As my daughter-in-law so cunningly pointed out, however, the "and then"s of those Tolnedran scholars deal with only a part of the world. There's another world out there, and things happen in that other world that Tolnedrans are constitutionally incapable of comprehending. Ultimately it will be this unseen world that the Rivan King must know if he is to properly perform his task.
Even so, I could have devoutly maintained that my father's long-winded version of the history of our peculiar world had already filled in that obvious gap. I even went so far as to reread Father's tedious story, trying very hard to prove to myself--and to my mother--that I'd really have nothing to add. Soon Father's glaring omissions began to leap off the page at me. The old fraud hadn't told the whole story, and Mother knew it.
In Father's defense, however, I'll admit that there were events that took place when he wasn't present and others during which he didn't fully understand what was really happening. Moreover, some of the omissions which so irritated me as I read along had their origin in his desire to compress seven thousand years of history into something of manageable length. I'll forgive him those lapses, but couldn't he at least have gotten names and dates right? For the sake of keeping peace in the family, I'll gloss over his imperfect memory of just who'd said what in any given conversation. Human memory--and that's assuming that my father's human--is never really all that exact, I suppose. Why don't we just say that Father and I remember things a little differently and let it go at that, shall we? Try to keep that in mind as you go along. Don't waste your time--and mine--by pointing out assorted variations.
The more I read, the more I came to realize that things I know and father doesn't would be essential parts of Geran's education. Moreover, a probably hereditary enthusiasm for a more complete story began to come over me. I tried to fight it, but it soon conquered me. I discovered that I actually want to tell my side of the story.
I have a few suspicions about the origins of my change of heart, but I don't think this is the place to air them.
The central fact of my early life was my sister Beldaran. We were twins, and in some respects even closer than twins. To this very day we're still not apart. Beldaran, dead these three thousand years and more, is still very much a part of me. I grieve for her loss every day. That might help to explain why I sometimes appear somber and withdrawn. Father's narrative makes some issue of the fact that I seldom smile. What's there to smile about, Old Wolf?
As Father pointed out, I've read extensively, and I've noticed that biographies normally begin at birth. Beldaran and I, however, began just a bit earlier than that. For reasons of her own, Mother arranged it that way.
So now, why don't we get started?
It was warm and dark, and we floated in absolute contentment, listening to the sound of Mother's heart and the rush of her blood through her veins as her body nourished us. That's my first memory--that and Mother's thought gently saying to us, "Wake up."
We've made no secret of Mother's origins. What isn't widely known is the fact that the Master summoned her, just as he summoned all the rest of us. She's as much Aldur's disciple as any of the rest of us are. We all serve him in our own peculiar ways. Mother, however, was not born human, and she perceived rather early in her pregnancy that Beldaran anxd I had none of those instincts that are inborn in wolves. I've since learned that this caused her much concern, and she consulted with the Master at some length about it, and her suggested solution was eminently practical. Since Beldaran and I had no instincts, Mother proposed to the Master that she might begin our education while we were still enwombed. I think her suggestion might have startled Aldur, but he quickly saw its virtue. And so it was that mother took steps to make certain that my sister and I had certain necessary information--even before we were born.
During the course of a normal human pregnancy, the unborn lives in a world consisting entirely of physical sensation. Beldaran and I, however, were gently guided somewhat further. My father rather arrogantly states that he began my education after Beldaran's wedding, but that's hardly accurate. Did he really think that I was a vegetable before that? My education--and Beldaran's--began before we ever saw the light of day.
Father's approach to education is disputational. As first disciple, he'd been obliged to oversee the early education of my various uncles. He forced them to think and to argue as a means of guiding them along the thorny path to independent thought--although he sometimes carried it to extremes. Mother was born wolf, and her approach is more elemental. Wolves are pack animals, and they don't think independently. Mother simply told Beldaran and me, "This is the way it is. This is the way it always has been, and always will be." Father teaches you to question; Mother teaches you to accept. It's an interesting variation.
At first, Beldaran and I were identical twins and as close at that term implies. When Mother's thought woke us, however, she rather carefully began to separate us. I received certain instruction that Beldaran didn't, and she received lessons that I didn't. I think I felt that wrench more keenly than Beldaran did. She knew her purpose; I spent years groping for mine.
The separation was very painful for me. I seem to remember reaching out to my sister and saying to her in what would become our own private language, "You're so far away now." Actually, of course, we weren't; we were both still confined in that small, warm place beneath mother's heart. But our minds had always been linked before, and now they were inexorably moving apart. If you think about it a bit, I'm sure you'll understand.
After we awoke, Mother's thought was with us continually. The sound of it was as warm and comforting as the place where we floated, but the place nourished only our bodies. Mother's thought nourished our minds--with those subtle variations I previously mentioned. I suspect that what I was and what I have become is the result of that womb-dark period in my life when Beldaran and I floated in perfect sisterhood--until Mother's thought began to separate us.
And then in time there was another thought as well. Mother had prepared us for that intrusion upon what had been a very private little world. After my sister and I had become more fully aware and conscious of our separation and some of the reasons for it, Aldur's thought joined with Mother's to continue our education. He patiently explained to us right at the outset why certain alterations were going to be necessary. My sister and I had been identical. Aldur changed that, and most of the alterations were directed at me. Some of the changes were physical--the darkening of my hair, for example--and others were mental. Mother had begun that mental division, and Aldur refined it. Beldaran and I were no longer one. We were two. Beldaran's reaction to our further separation was one of gentle regret. Mine was one of anger.
I rather suspect that my anger may have been a reflection of Mother's reaction when my vagrant father and a group of Alorns chose to slip away so that they could go off to Mallorea to retrieve the Orb that Torak had stolen from the Master. I now fully understand why it was necessary and why Father had no choice--and so does Mother, I think. But at the time she was absolutely infuriated by what, in the society of wolves, was an unnatural desertion. My somewhat peculiar relationship with my father during my childhood quite probably derived from my perception of Mother's fury. Beldaran was untouched by it, since Mother wisely chose to shield her from that rage.
A vagrant and somewhat disturbing thought just occurred to me. As I mentioned earlier, Father's educational technique involves questioning and argumentation, and I was probably his star pupil. Mother teaches acceptance, and Beldaran received the full benefit of that counsel. In a strange sort of way this would indicate that I'm my father's true daughter, and Beldaran was Mother's.
All right, Old Wolf. Don't gloat. Wisdom eventually comes to all of us. Someday it might even be your turn...
Copyright © 1997 by David Eddings
Copyright © 1997 by Leigh Eddings
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