They rode down beside a turbulent stream which plunged over smooth, round rocks, frothing and roaring. The stream was one of several forming the headwaters of the Aldur River, a broad flow running through the vast Algarian plain to empty into the Gulf of Cherek, eight hundred leagues to the northwest.
The Vale of Aldur was a valley lying in the embrace of the two mountain ranges which formed the central spine of the continent. It was lush and green, covered with high grass and dotted here and there with huge, solitary trees. Deer and wild horses grazed there, as tame as cattle. Skylarks wheeled and dove, filling the air with their song. As the party rode out into the valley, Garion noticed that the birds seemed to gather wherever Aunt Pol moved, and many of the braver ones even settled on her shoulders, warbling and trilling to her in welcome and adoration.
"I'd forgotten about that," Mister Wolf said to Garion. "It's going to be difficult to get her attention for the next few days."
"Why?"
"Every bird in the Vale is going to stop by to visit her. It happens every time we come here. The birds go wild at the sight of her."
Out of the welter of confused bird sound it seemed to Garion that faintly, almost like a murmuring whisper, he could hear a chorus of chirping voices repeating, "Polgara. Polgara. Polgara."
"Is it my imagination, or are they actually talking?" he asked.
"I'm surprised you haven't heard them before," Wolf replied. "Every bird we've passed for the last ten leagues has been babbling her name."
"Look at me, Polgara, look at me," a swallow seemed to say, hurling himself into a wild series of swooping dives around her head. She smiled gently at him, and he redoubled his efforts.
"I've never heard them talk before," Garion marveled.
"They talk to her all the time," Wolf said. "Sometimes they go on for hours. That's why she seems a little abstracted sometimes. She's listening to the birds. Your Aunt moves through a world filled with conversation."
"I didn't know that."
"Not many people do."
The colt, who had been trotting rather sedately along behind Garion as they had come down out of the foothills, went wild with delight when he reached the lush grass of the Vale. With an amazing burst of speed, he ran out over the meadows. He rolled in the grass, his thin legs flailing. He galloped in long, curving sweeps over the low, rolling hilts. He deliberately ran at herds of grazing deer, startling them into flight and then plunging along after them. "Come back here!" Garion shouted at him.
"He won't hear you," Hettar said, smiling at the little horse's antics. "At least, he'll pretend that he doesn't. He's having too much fun."
"Get back here right now!" Garion projected the thought a bit more firmly than he'd intended. The colt's forelegs stiffened, and he slid to a stop. Then he turned and trotted obediently back to Garion, his eyes apologetic. "Bad horse!" Garion chided.
The colt hung his head.
"Don't scold him," Wolf said. "You were very young once yourself."
Garion immediately regretted what he had said and reached down to pat the little animal's shoulder. "It's all right," he apologized. The colt looked at him gratefully and began to frisk through the grass again, although staying close.
Princess Ce'Nedra had been watching him. She always seemed to be watching him for some reason. She would look at him, her eyes speculative and a tendril of her coppery hair coiled about one finger and raised absently to her teeth. It seemed to Garion that every time he turned around she was watching and nibbling. For some reason he could not quite put his finger on, it made him very nervous. "If he were mine, I wouldn't be so cruel to him," she accused, taking the tip of the curl from between her teeth.
Garion chose not to answer that.
As they rode down the valley, they passed three ruined towers, standing some distance apart and all showing signs of great antiquity. Each of them appeared to have originally been about sixty feet high, though weather and the passage of years had eroded them down considerably. The last of the three looked as if it had been blackened by some intensely hot fire.
"Was there some kind of war here, Grandfather?" Garion asked.
"No," Wolf replied rather sadly. "The towers belonged to my brothers. That one over there was Belsambar's, and the one near it was Belmakor's. They died a long time ago."
"I didn't think sorcerers ever died."
"They grew tired - or maybe they lost hope. They caused themselves no longer to exist."
"They killed themselves?"
"In a manner of speaking. It was a little more complete than that, though."
Garion didn't press it, since the old man appeared to prefer not to go into details. "What about the other one - the one that's been burned? Whose tower was that?"
"Belzedar's."
"Did you and the other sorcerers burn it after he went over to Torak?"
"No. He burned it himself. I suppose he thought that was a way to show us that he was no longer a member of our' brotherhood. Belzedar always liked dramatic gestures."
"Where's your tower?"
"Farther on down the Vale."
"Will you show it to me?"
"If you like."
"Does Aunt Pol have her own tower?"
"No. She stayed with me while she was growing up, and then we went out into the world. We never got around to building her one of her own."
They rode until late afternoon and stopped for the day beneath an enormous tree which stood alone in the center of a broad meadow. The tree quite literally shaded whole acres. Ce'Nedra sprang out of her saddle and ran toward the tree, her deep red hair flying behind her. "He's beautiful!" she exclaimed, placing her hands with reverent affection on the rough bark.
Mister Wolf shook his head. "Dryads. They grow giddy at the sight of trees."
"I don't recognize it," Durnik said with a slight frown. "It's not an oak."
"Maybe it's some southern species," Barak suggested. "I've never seen one exactly like it myself."
"He's very old," Ce'Nedra said, putting her cheek fondly against the tree trunk, "and he speaks strangely - but he likes me."
"What kind of tree is it?" Durnik asked. He was still frowning, his need to classify and categorize frustrated by the huge tree.
"It's the only one of its kind in the world," Mister Wolf told him. "I don't think we ever named it. It was always just the tree. We used to meet here sometimes."