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It all started with a man shouting in his face as Silk stepped out of his house in Boktor. It was not a very sinister beginning, as beginnings go, but it still wasn't very pleasant. The man was at least a foot taller than Silk, very red in the face and dressed in a uniform with a really shiny breastplate, and his voice was very loud.
"So you've come out at last to face the music!" he roared. "What, you thought I wouldn't notice you had returned?"
"To be quite honest," Silk said, "I never spared you a thought. Should I recognize you?"
It all went downhill from there; the man turned out to be a Captain of the Royal Guard who apparently had gone all his life without having his signature forged, and he didn't approve of Silk's recent attempts to change this. There were all sorts of accusations thrown about, and the incident ended with Silk deciding to leave Boktor rather earlier than planned. He was not sure that all of the blame could be laid on him, but it still felt like a good thing to be somewhere else for a while.
He had only just thrown the irate Captain off his trail by ducking through the central market – sometimes being short paid off, he had found – and was on his way to a part of town where there were fewer guards bearing grudges, when a softly whistled signal made him hesitate and look around.
"Oh, stop that!" said an irritated voice from the shadows of an alley to his left. "You look like a first-year Academy student, startling like that."
The voice belonged to a young woman, someone Silk vaguely remembered having seen when he last was in Boktor on official business for Javelin. She had the indistinct look of someone who was used to blending into the background; her name, he thought, was Endell, or possibly Dara – one of those common names that you forgot as soon as you heard it.
"There's no need to be impolite", Silk protested. "I've had a really bad day. The Captain of the Guard –"
"I know," she replied, cutting straight to the point in a way that shouldn't have surprised him, considering that she was a spy, and most probably did know what had happened to him. "That's irrelevant, though; you're needed elsewhere. The Queen wants a message sent to Queen Layla, and you're the messenger."
"Porenn has lots of messengers. I'm sure the Captain of the Guard would be happy to oblige."
"He might, but she doesn't want him to. Why can't you just do as you're told?"
"It goes against my principles, I suppose," he shrugged.
"In that case," she went on, looking as if she was reciting something from memory, "I'm instructed to remind you that you are still first in line to the throne, and doing your Queen this small favor might change that." She frowned suspiciously. "You aren't plotting to kill the King, are you? Javelin definitely wouldn't like that. At least, he wouldn't appreciate you dragging the Queen into your assassination plans."
"Don't be ridiculous," Silk snapped. "You've got it all wrong as usual. If Rhodar dies, it's most likely Porenn and not me who will rise to the top after all the bloodshed is over." He shrugged, adding: "Very well then, since I'm already leaving, you might as well give me the message; if it makes Auntie happy, I'll go. She drives a hard bargain, that woman."
He didn't go to Sendaria at once, of course, and it would have surprised him if anyone had expected it of him. His Queen should know him well enough, he reasoned, to be surprised if he ever actually followed her orders. Besides, Drasnian royal commands were all well and good, but the Great North Road was patrolled by Tolnedran legionaries, and they tended to be a bit suspicious of some of his aliases nowadays. It was ridiculous, really, how these people held grudges; you swindled one Tolnedran officer and suddenly all the legions knew your (assumed) name. Life really wasn't fair, Silk decided, slinking off to change his alias to someone who was less wanted for questioning before heading south.
An hour or so later, and wearing the familiar face of Ambar of Kotu, he went in search of a tavern to enjoy his last drink in town. The one he found was seedy, run-down and full of drunk Alorns, but this was a price he was willing to pay for the privacy it gave from the royal guards. He found himself pushed through the crowd and ended up at a moderately clean table.
The heavy hand on his shoulder came as a surprise, and Silk was ashamed to say that he almost jumped before recognizing its owner as Barak, the Earl of Trellheim. His friend had a way of sneaking around that belied his size.
"You've done something to your face," Barak pointed out after the customary greetings had been exchanged. "I almost didn't recognize you – except for the nose, of course."
"You're not supposed to recognize me. I'm Ambar of Kotu at the moment; we don't really know each other."
"We don't?" Barak looked a bit bewildered. "Should I introduce myself again, or what?"
"No, it's all right. I'm only doing it to throw the Tolnedrans off my trail."
Explaining why he needed to pass unnoticed by the Tolnedrans took some time, and many drinks, and so Silk's awareness slipped rather badly during the next couple of hours. He knew that he must have told Barak about his trip to Sendaria, though, because it was Barak who suggested that he avoid the Tolnedran legions by going by ship instead. It said a lot about Silk's state of mind that he agreed; he might have been very drunk at the time, because he later remembered a very strong feeling that he should stick close to Barak, and that was usually bad advice.
The next morning, Silk deeply regretted being born. A couple of days after that, he took a look at the distinctly non-Sendarian mountains looming above the ship as it sailed into harbor, and also deeply regretted ever having made friends with Barak, or letting him handle the logistics of their trip to Sendaria.
"What's all this?" he demanded, gestured indignantly at their rocky surroundings.
Barak shrugged sheepishly. "We've arrived?" he said.
"So I see. But where, exactly, have we arrived at?"
Barak stepped onto the pier and peered around them, blinking a little against the sunlight. "Could be either Maelorg or Eldrigshaven, by the looks of it," he said, frowning. "But Maelorg is on the West coast, so probably Eldrigshaven. We'd have remembered going through the Bore, I think."
"Eldrigshaven," Silk said, with a disgusted shiver. "The kind of place even its own citizens have never heard of. Fantastic."
The day didn't get much better after that. The rain swept through the streets, and Silk suddenly couldn't help feeling like he had somewhere else to be. He didn't think it was the message from Porenn; neglecting his duties had never bothered him before. It was just an itchy feeling that made him want to tell Barak that they had to leave. However, leaving meant either spending weeks navigating the steep mountain trails, or crossing the Gulf again, neither of which seemed like exciting prospects. So he kept quiet, and sulked. To make matters worse, Barak seemed to have caught his bad mood.
They were sitting in a tavern, drinking and feeling generally sorry for themselves, when the doors flew up and a bedraggled figure in a cloak swept in, took a quick look around the room and stormed over to their table.
"Belgarath!" Silk exclaimed when the newcomer reached them. "What are you doing here?"
If looks could kill, Silk might have turned into a small pile of ashes on the floor. Seeing as it was Belgarath, Silk was more than a bit relieved that this wasn't the case, and he quickly poured the man some beer in the hope that it would help his continued survival.
"I'm looking for you, of course!" Belgarath barked, downing his beer in two gulps or so. "I've been flying all over the Western kingdoms for the last days, and it hasn't been for my own amusement, I can tell you! Why else would I be here in –"
"Eldrigshaven," Barak provided helpfully.
"– in this godforsaken place? You were told to go to Sendaria, weren't you? What on earth are you doing here?"
"I had my reasons," Silk pointed out defensively. It was never a good idea to look too aimless; people might assume you were free to do whatever they wanted.
"Oh, really? And what reasons were those? A thriving city of commerce, is –"
"Eldrigshaven," Barak muttered again.
"– whatever this place is called. I spent the better part of a day looking for you along the Great North Road, and then I had to cross the Gulf in a rainstorm. My tail feathers are a wreck, and it's your fault, so you had better have had a really good reason to come here."
"I don't see why you're so bothered about my whereabouts," Silk muttered sullenly. "Porenn didn't put you up to this, did she?"
The old man looked to the sky for guidance, ignoring the low ceiling that was in his way. "No, Silk," he sighed. "Contrary to what you might think, the world does not revolve around Drasnian schemes. This one is bigger, and like it or not, the two of you are coming with me. No arguing", he added, glaring at Silk who was just opening his mouth to do just that. "There will be no discussion, and no disagreeing on principle just because you don't like it when people order you around. I dislike it as much as you do, and I've been ordered around for much longer. We are going, and that's the end of it."
And that had been the end of it, Silk concluded sourly as they all boarded a ship to head South. It wasn't, as Belgarath had supposed, the principle of the thing that bothered him. He just really didn't like being lead around by some unknown force for some equally unknown reason. You couldn't argue with fates and destinies; you couldn't bargain with them, and whatever you did, someone else might come out on top anyway. And what was the point of being a liar and a swindler if you couldn't use those skills to further your own ends?
He sulked until they were halfway across the Gulf. It felt like the correct thing to do, after you had been hounded into something utterly against your will. Then he went to find Belgarath, because Belgarath usually had access to the beer, even when he didn't have all the answers.
"I wondered how long it would take," Belgarath commented when he arrived. "Barak, get him some beer as well. Are you ready to hear about it now?"
"I suppose I have to," Silk muttered.
The old man gazed into his beer tankard. "I rather think you do," he pointed out. "The prophecies have rather explicitly warned us that it will all end in tears if the two of you don't join the search party."
"What are we searching for, then?" Barak asked.
"Something has been stolen, but I can't tell you the name of the thing, nor that of him who stole it." Belgarath looked grimly into his beer. "I can only tell you that it's been stolen twice before, once by my Master's brother and once by your own ancestors. We're hoping this might be the last time."
He drank the rest of his beer and looked up. "I think you might actually like this one, Silk. It's going to involve a lot of sneaking about, some stealing and kidnapping, and it will probably all end in death and destruction."
"Whose death?" Barak rumbled.
"Torak's."
"Ye gods!"
"No, the rest of them will hopefully remain unharmed," Belgarath said dryly. "But you get my point, I hope, Kheldar. This is a rather important point in time you're entrusted with. I would appreciate it if you didn't spend all of it trying to sneak away."
Silk leaned back in his chair, thinking it through. Even with Belgarath's strange way of putting things, it wasn't hard to spot what the important object was that had gone missing. There was really only one object so important that the world pretty much revolved around it, and if someone had managed to steal it...
Suddenly everything made a bit more sense, including his earlier feelings of wanting to leave Cherek for an unknown destination, and taking Barak with him. If there were prophecies involved, all matter of strange happenings could be blamed on them, and if this really was the final event coming up – well, he might reconsider his dislike of unknown forces. If the unknown forces wanted him to help, they would want him for his special skills, wouldn't they? No one could expect him to assist in saving the world through entirely honest means. And if he did it in a way that made him richer, he was still on the morally right side, which ought to compensate for a lot of sins.
"It does sound rather like an adventure, doesn't it?" he said slowly. It didn't do to show too much enthusiasm at first, after all. "Very well, then. If Barak's in, so am I. I was getting tired of things as they were anyway—better to die fighting in a strange land than to live a boring life in –"
"...Eldrigshaven?"
"Boktor, Barak. Forget Eldrigshaven."