‘That’s very tedious work, Belgarath.’
‘Not the way I’m going to do it.’
‘I didn’t quite follow that.’
‘I’m not really all that interested in gold. All I’m going to do is wander around asking questions. The tools will explain why I’m there.’
‘Have fun,’ he said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a city to build.’
I bought some tools and a pack mule and set out across the moors toward the Nadrak border. It was early summer by now, and the usually dreary Drasnian moors were all abloom, so travel was actually pleasant.
The Angaraks had been so soundly defeated at Vo Mimbre that their societies had virtually disintegrated, so there weren’t any guards at the border crossing. I was fairly sure that I was being watched, but my pack mule with all those tools on his back explained my presence, so the Nadraks let me pass without any interference.
I followed the North Caravan Route, and the first town I came to was Yar Gurak, which isn’t really a town, but more in the nature of a mining camp. It squats on either side of a muddy creek, and most of the buildings are slap-dash affairs, half log and half canvas tenting. I’ve passed through it several times in the past five centuries, and it hasn’t really changed very much. Silk goes there quite often, and he and Garion and I passed through on our way to Cthol Mishrak for Garion’s meeting with Torak. Nobody really lives in Yar Gurak for any extended period of time, so they aren’t civic-minded enough to bother with the building of more permanent structures. I set up my tent at the far end of a muddy street and without very much effort I blended into the population. The mining camps in the mountains of Gar og Nadrak are very cosmopolitan, and it’s considered bad manners to ask personal questions.
There were certain frictions, of course. We had just come through a war, after all, but aside from a few tavern-brawls, things were relatively peaceful. The people living in Yar Gurak were looking for gold, not for fights. After I’d been there for a few days and my face had become fairly well-known, I began to frequent the large tavern which was the center of what passed for social life in Yar Gurak. I passed myself off as a Sendar, since Sendars are so racially mixed that my peculiar background and slightly alien features didn’t attract much attention.
While there were a fair number of solitary gold-hunters operating out of Yar Gurak, it was far more common for the adventurers living there to set out for the mountains in twos and threes. There weren’t any laws in that part of the world, and it was safer to have friends around - just in case you happened to be lucky enough actually to find gold. There are always people around who feel that stealing is easier than digging.
I struck up an acquaintanceship with a bluff, good-natured Nadrak named Rablek. Rablek had returned to Yar Gurak for supplies, and he lingered a while for beer and companionship. He’d been in partnership with a Tolnedran the previous year, but he and his friend had strayed up into Morindland and a passing band of Morinds had rather casually removed his partner’s head. After we’d gotten to know each other, he finally made the offer I’d been waiting for. We were sitting in the tavern drinking that rather fruity-tasting Nadrak beer, and he looked across the table at me. He was a rangy fellow with coarse black hair and a scruffy-looking beard. ‘You seem like a sensible sort of fellow, Garath,’ he said. ‘What would you say to the notion that we team up and go out looking for gold together?’
Notice that I’d reverted to my original name. I’ve done that from time to time. Assumed names can be awkward, particularly if you forget which one you’re using. I squinted at him. ‘Do you snore?’ I asked him.
‘Can’t say for sure. I’m usually asleep when that’s supposed to happen. I’ve never had any complaints, though.’
‘We could give it a try, I suppose,’ I said. ‘If it turns out that we can’t get along, we can always break off the partnership and go our separate ways.’
‘Are you any good in a fight? I’m not trying to pry, understand, but sometimes we might need to defend whatever we find out there.’
‘I can usually handle my own end of a fight.’
‘That’s good enough for me. Equal shares?’
‘Naturally.’
‘That’s it, then. I’m willing to give it a try if you are. I’ll come by your tent tomorrow morning, and we can get out of this place. I’ve just about satisfied my hunger for civilization.’
I’d picked up a few hints about Rablek during the course of our conversations. He’d been pressed into military service during the recent war, and he’d been one of the few Nadraks to escape the carnage at Vo Mimbre. He had opinions, and he wasn’t the sort to keep them to himself. After we’d been in the mountains for a few days, he started to open up, and I picked up a great deal of information about him - and about other Nadraks as well. He assured me that all Nadraks despised Murgos, for one thing, and that they felt much the same way about Malloreans. Rablek habitually spat every time he mentioned the name of Kal Torak. Though my partner didn’t come right out and say it in so many words, I got the impression that he’d had some disagreements with Grolims in the past, and Rablek was quick with his knife when somebody irritated him. Ctuchik might have thoroughly cowed the Murgos and Thulls, but his Grolims had at best an only tenuous hold on the Nadraks. From what Rablek told me, I could see that it really wouldn’t pay a Grolim to go anywhere in Gar og Nadrak by himself. Rablek suggested that all sorts of accidents had a way of happening to lone Grolims in the forests and mountains of that northernmost Angarak kingdom.
The more I talked with Rablek, the more I came to understand that curious passage in the Darine Codex. Angarak society was not nearly as monolithic as it appeared to be, and if anybody was going to break away, it was almost certain to be the Nadraks.
And then, if you can believe it, we found gold! We were up at the northern end of the mountains, not far from that indeterminate boundary of Morindland, and we were following a turbulent mountain stream that boiled and tumbled over large boulders and formed deep swirling pools of frothy green water. It was at that point that I discovered a hitherto unrealized aspect of what my brothers and I routinely refer to as ‘talent.’ I could feel the presence of gold!
I looked around. It was there; I knew it was there. ‘It looks to be coming on toward evening,’ I said to my partner. ‘Why don’t we set up camp here and rinse out a few shovelfuls of gravel before it gets dark?’
Rablek looked around. ‘It doesn’t look all that promising to me,’ he said.
‘We’ll never know for sure until we try it.’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
I let him find the first few nuggets. I didn’t want to give away too much, after all. What we’d found were some fairly extensive deposits of free gold the stream had carried down from farther up in the mountains and deposited in those pools of relatively calm water.
We made a fortune there. It’s one of the few times in my life I’ve ever actually been rich. We settled in and built a crude shack, and we worked that merry little creek from one end to the other. Winter came, but we didn’t move. We couldn’t do much work during that season, but we weren’t about to go off and leave our diggings. We got snowed in, naturally, and Rablek opened up more and more during those long months. I picked up a great deal of information from him during that winter, and the gold was in the nature of a bonus.
Then spring came, and with it came a band of marauding Morindim. We’d put out the usual pestilence markers and curse-markers as a precaution, but this particular band had a young apprentice magician with them, and he knew enough about his trade to neutralize our markers.
‘This isn’t turning out very well, Garath,’ Rablek said somberly, staring out through a crack in the wall of our cabin at the twenty or so fur-clad Morindim advancing on us. ‘We’re going to have those savages inside here with us before long.’
We both had bows, of course, but a winter of hunting deer had severely depleted our supply of arrows.
I started to swear. ‘How broad-minded are you feeling, Rablek?’ I asked.
‘Not so much so that I’m ready to welcome twenty Morind house-guests.’
‘I think I’d draw the line there myself. I’m going to do something a little out of the ordinary. Don’t get excited.’
‘If you can come up with a way to run those animals off, I think I’ll be able to control myself.’
I didn’t have time to explain, and there was no way I could hide what I was doing from my partner. I carefully formed the image of a medium-sized demon in my mind and crammed myself into it.
Rablek jumped back, his eyes bulging.
‘Stay here!’ I growled at him in that soul-chilling voice of the demon. ‘Don’t come outside, and you’d better not watch. This is going to get worse.’ Then I crashed out through our crude door to face the advancing Morindim.
As I think I’ve indicated, the Morind magician was an inexperienced and callow youth. He might have been able to raise an imp the size of a mouse, but anything beyond that was far beyond his capability. Just to add to his chagrin, I expanded the image in which I was encased until I had the appearance of a full-grown Demon-Lord.