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The Royal Family of Riva’s quiet trip to Faldor’s Farm in central Sendaria over Erastide had been substantially more eventful for one of the children than it had been for the others. Crown Prince Geran had been temporarily demoted to a scullery boy, Princess X’Beldaran had been working in the kitchen. Princess X’Adara had been helping milk cows along with one Princess X’Ildera. Practical and messy farm work had given way to a homely dinner, followed by a fun evening of playing in the courtyard and frozen-over lake of Faldor’s Farm with the other children.
That was when everything had changed.
One of their father’s oldest friends, Rundorig, had a son. Keran was his name. Keran had tried to start a game of tag with the girls. X’Beldaran had been enjoying it, X’Ildera had not been.
Swiftly running out of diplomatic patience with having been roped into the game with no say in the matter, she’d told Keran to stop. She’d told him a little too forcefully, a little too willfully, as it were. And he had!
In mid-air.
While the others had been grumbling about having to do chores, X’Ildera had been tense and scared by the well of power within herself, a well of power she’d seen before in her father and their older relatives but never understood. Power looked so convenient before you had to reckon with it. X’Ildera had always been so impressed whenever her father used the Will and the Word to take shortcuts, copy papers, change his form into an animal’s, that sort of thing. It had only been when she had knelt in a straw-laden barn, trying to milk a stroppy cow that just wanted to kick her in the face without converting it into an enormous roast dinner out of thunderous frustration, that she understood what her father had told her. That she couldn’t not be a sorceress. One day, she’d be frustrated and do something without thinking.
Thankfully, her father had already warned her about the danger of trying to unmake anything, so she didn’t accidentally obliterate herself by trying to erase a cow-pat she almost stood in from existence. Less thankfully, she’d already pulled in her Will instinctively before she’d realized, so she needed to put it all somewhere. X’Ildera had solved that dilemma by boiling the first frozen-over pail of water she’d seen into a cloud of steam with her mind.
That little show of restraint had been rather humiliating to explain to her father.
It was in such ignoble scenes as the smelly barn of Faldor’s Farm that Princess X’Ildera’s training as a sorceress had begun. That evening, after dinner, Garion had taken X’Ildera aside, back to the barn, where he had instructed X’Ildera in the careful accumulation and release of her Will by having her not just boil the water properly but controlling the temperature - by midnight, she had been able to bring the water to a careful simmer, and then evacuate all the heat in it straight into the air around it, freezing it over again in the space of a second.
The next night, he’d led her out to the hill and the frozen pond where she’d briefly frozen Keran again.
“It’s awfully cold, Father,” X’Ildera had said as they’d stood under the old tree that hung over the pond.
“It is, isn’t it? Why don’t you make us a nice fire to keep us warm, dear?” Garion replied. His teeth were actually chattering. X’Ildera had frowned, not knowing where in the world he meant for her to get firewood from without walking all the way back to the farm, before finally realizing where he and his knowing smile were going with it. The fire wasn’t an idle thought on the way to the lesson, it was the lesson. X’Ildera squinted, and focused. With a wave of tension, she pulled in her will. Over the last two days it had become easy enough to just do, without having to think about how. You wouldn’t ask a man with three arms how he moved the third any more than you’d ask a sorcerer how they pulled in their will. They just did it. Holding it was a little harder, like straining a muscle. Gritting her teeth, like it all might escape, she focused on the concept.
“Fire!” X’Ildera exclaimed, and the entire tree they were standing under erupted into flame.
“GO OUT!” Garion barked, smothering the flames with his own Will and a rush of sorcerous noise a heartbeat before X’Ildera had even gasped in dismay at the damage to the tree. She was a dryad, so guilt immediately flooded her for hurting the tree as Garion looked over the boughs for a moment to check that it was fine and he hadn’t missed any spots, then looked back at X’Ildera. “What did you do wrong?” he asked calmly.
X’Ildera gaped at him, her heart still hammering that she’d made the mistake at all.
“I- I don’t know!” she cried. “I did what you said, I tried to make a fire!” X’Ildera added. Garion just raised his eyebrows. It took several seconds before X’Ildera realized that, without having actually gotten any firewood, projecting her Will through the concept of fire had just lit the nearest source of flammable material aflame. “I didn’t… control it?” she suggested. Her father nodded.
“Exactly. If you’d been that careless last night, you might have boiled a cow instead of the water in the bucket, or, Aldur forbid, me,” he said. X’Ildera’s eyes had widened. She barely wanted to know if the tree was okay, let alone what a boiled cow would even be. “Now, let’s try that again. More carefully this time, how should you make a fire?”
“Get some wood and set that on fire?” X’Ildera replied sheepishly.
“Better,” Garion agreed.
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” she grumbled sullenly as she surveyed the area for suitable firewood.
“Because you’re supposed to learn how to think, not what to think,” Garion replied. “If I tell you the answers, you won’t work them out for yourself,” he said simply. That made… an annoying amount of sense, X’Ildera mused reluctantly. She took aim at a thick branch on the tree and pulled in her will. Once she was ready, she pointed at it.
“Chop!” she commanded. A blitz of splinters exploded everywhere, the breath was punched out of her lungs by the exertion, and the branch came free, falling onto the ground. Garion brushed some sawdust off his shoulder while X’Ildera went and picked up the branch. “Sorry tree.” She carried it to some clearer ground where nothing around would burn other than slushy snow. Catching her breath, she brushed her red hair back and pointed at the branch. “Fire.”
“You really don’t have to point at things like that,” Garion had just chuckled warmly as the fire had sprung eagerly from the wood. She’d exhaustedly stuck her tongue out at him.
With the end of the Erastide period, the family said their sorrowful goodbyes and departed Faldor’s Farm. Faldor had even revealed to the children that he’d known their identities the entire time, and he’d not only whispered well wishes to the girls but wished X’Ildera luck in her studies of sorcery. Mister Rundorig had of course, once they were out of earshot, burst out in flowery farewells to the Rivan royal line, to which Garion had urged his oldest friend never to change and hugged him then and there. There was a downright pained expression on Garion’s melancholy face the entire way into the afternoon, and he kept looking over his shoulder until the farm was out of sight, as if he expected never to see Faldor, Rundorig, nor the farm ever again.
After a quick and rather more royal visit to Emperor Ran Borune XXIV - or as the children knew him, Uncle Varana - in Tol Honeth, the Rivans had eventually returned to the Isle of the Winds. The others returned to their normal routines with nary a feather ruffled, but X’Ildera’s lessons expanded exponentially. In addition to mathematics and literature and history and law, she had to learn physics and chemistry, and most of all, control. Every other day she was working on that and studying with her father in the little tower that her mother always found so amusing.
And so it was, months later, that X’Ildera was sitting up in the rafters of the Hall of the Rivan King’s enormous vaulted ceiling, evading her responsibilities. Dryads liked climbing, and X’Ildera was no exception. Her responsibilities, however, mocked her, as the various staff of the Citadel prepared the Hall for court. A court that was making her, to put it mildly, nervous. When she and her father had discussed altering her name to bring her more openly into the community of sorcerers, her mother had suggested making a ceremony of it to make sure it wouldn’t be copied as a courtly fad. Polgara, however, had been the one who’d put a date on it. That day’s date, to be exact. Spring flowered with rain in Riva, and Polgara, Durnik, and their twin children had journeyed to Riva with the entire gaggle of Aldur’s disciples in tow. Even Belkira and Beltira had come, though of course Beldin was nowhere to be found.
It was only a formality. X’Ildera had told herself that numerous times. It being a formality didn’t change just how intimidating having to demonstrate her sorcery, and how much she’d learnt in only half a year, in front of the populace, her family, and the entire brotherhood of sorcerers, was promising to be, though. So she was sitting in the rafters bouncing a ball off of thin air to take her mind off of things. Whenever the little wooden ball got too close to the wafting smoke of the peat fires, she flipped her hand over and muttered the word up. With a quick surge of her will, the ball would soundlessly leap back up in the air. It was a little more exhausting than just bouncing a ball, because instead of bouncing off of a floor or wall it was bouncing off of her own mind, and she had to give it a little more oomph to make sure it came back up to her hand rather than just reaching its zenith several feet below her. That tiny little bit of effort, accumulated over time, had been a good exercise in stretching her mental muscles, and X’Ildera had been quite proud when she’d come up with it.
The Citadel at Riva was the frequent haunt of half a dozen earth-shakingly powerful sorcerers. X’Ildera had grown up with stories of them; the day her father had ended a war in Arendia by calling down so great a thunderstorm that it had almost set off an ice age, and the day her great-grandfather had taken him to task over it, loomed large in her mythos. The Battle of Thull Mardu and the simultaneous magical battle of Polgara, Beldin, Beltira, and Belkira against the Angarak Grolims, and its predecessor in the stories of sorcery at the Battle of Vo Mimbre, had been legendary even before the stories of Belgarath and Polgara’s long lives had been told to her. Her father had killed a God. Her great-Uncle Durnik had battled a Demon Lord. What was X’Ildera compared to that?! She was a bumbling amateur, and that was putting it kindly!
If anything, that was the most terrifying thing. She’d felt the edges of her enormous power, and not having the skill to properly control it was even scarier than having to live up to such amazing sorcerers. X’Ildera had to be very careful with her little wooden ball that she didn’t put too much power into it coming back up, or it might rocket through the roof.
Eventually, her careful modulations of sorcerous will were noticed. It always was, sorcery was audible to other sorcerers. A tiny little bird caught X’Ildera’s eye as it soared gracefully into the Hall of the Rivan King at a breathtaking pace. There were two reasons why she knew almost immediately that it wasn’t a normal bird. Firstly, house martins, and other swallows, weren’t common at all on the Isle of Winds. Secondly, he wasn’t talking like most birds did. Birds spoke in their own languages, and as a dryad X’Ildera was quite attuned to nature. Trees were her first point of contact, but birds and their songs were almost as intuitive to her. The swallow arced up effortlessly, avoiding the wooden ball as X’Ildera bounced it back up with a surge of her will, and perched on the huge wooden beam not far from her.
“Good morning, Princess,” Durnik said politely as he blurred back into his own form and steadied himself. A grown human man was much bigger than a house martin, after all. X’Ildera caught her ball.
“Good morning, Great Uncle Durnik,” X’Ildera replied. “That was a nice bird you picked,” she added. It had been a very pretty, graceful, little thing with iridescent blue feathers on its back, and Durnik’s flight had been so incredibly fast despite the fact that his form would have fit in the palm of her hand.
“Oh, thank you,” Durnik said, with a chuffed little grin. “Pol taught your father and I to fly around when young Geran was kidnapped. I’ve always enjoyed it, and being a swallow’s a little bit like being a crossbow bolt,” he told her. X’Ildera smiled at that. She hadn’t learnt how to fly yet, it sounded like fun. Durnik peered down at the Hall. “Avoiding the big day, are you, Princess?” X’Ildera shrugged, avoiding his eyes. The Sendarian had a way of getting straight to the soul of things.
“I’m practicing,” X’Ildera insisted. He nodded softly.
“Garion tells me you’re doing very well,” Durnik assured her. “For what it’s worth, you’re getting much more coherent an education than he did. I was there. I’d wager that if we put you toe-to-toe with Garion six months after he found out, you’d wipe the floor with him,” he said. X’Ildera frowned.
“Really?” she asked quizzically.
“Oh yes. Garion’s a good man, but he was a stubborn boy and not altogether inclined to listen to instruction,” he told her, perhaps somewhat charitably. “You’re actually quite proficient compared to him at this stage. At around this point, Garion was sinking himself into the ground up to his armpits trying to push a rock over in the Vale. Silk and Hettar had to dig him out,” he added. X’Ildera gave him an incredulous look, and the blacksmith nodded.
“Did he not even brace himself?!” X’Ildera truly couldn’t imagine her father, King Belgarion, the Godslayer, being so foolish.
“Why do you think he taught you to do that? Everything he’s teaching you, he had to learn the hard way on the road.” For some reason, that notion was really very comforting to X’Ildera. Unlike her father, X’Ildera had been learning various techniques of sorcery every other day for months. It could almost have been described as a training regimen, not an education. Durnik sighed comfortably and went to lean back, only to hurriedly steady himself on the beam he was sitting on, since he wasn’t actually sitting against anything. “Whoop. My experience was a little more like yours, Pol and Belgarath taught me.”
“Was it hard?” X’Ildera asked rather intently. Durnik frowned thoughtfully.
“Not really,” he supposed. “But I’d been working with my hands for the better part of three or four decades before what happened, so doing it with my mind instead wasn’t all that difficult an adjustment. I expect it’ll be harder for you, Your Highness - you don’t have that foundational knowledge to work with,” Durnik mused, and she just nodded at that. Their entire family had all, in their own ways, told her that Durnik was a lot smarter than most would assume a country blacksmith to be, and he was a lightning quick learner. Sometimes his matter-of-fact intelligence made X’Ildera feel a trifle stupid, if she were telling the truth.
She fiddled with the wooden ball. There was, percolating in the back of X’Ildera’s mind, a prickly little need to be clever.
“I wonder if there’s a better way to do this,” X’Ildera said, studying the thing. “My practice, I mean. I’ve sort of just been pushing it back up,” she explained. Durnik shrugged.
“Why change what’s not broken?” he pointed out. “It’s a good exercise, you know. Like pushups,” Durnik said.
“I could think of other ways to do it. Maybe I could make it fall back up. Or turn back time on it.”
“Time and gravity aren’t things you should be meddling with, Princess. Both are very complicated, and even Belgarath doesn’t touch time-”
X’Ildera dropped the ball and gathered in her Will.
“Reverse,” she commanded it. In an instant, the progression of time as it acted upon the wooden ball turned and went back the way it had come.
What it was reversing in relation to, X’Ildera hadn’t accounted for. Durnik and she almost toppled off the rafter at the eruption of sound that filled the Hall of the Rivan King in the instant it changed direction and shot off in a westward direction, straight through a window, at a speed that would have boggled the mind if they’d seen it for long enough to figure out how fast it was going. In under a millisecond, the wooden ball had shattered the window directly to its west and hurtled several miles into the sky. A few milliseconds later, the air rushed in to try to fill the space the ball had just been in, and the ripple of pressure was enough to shatter every other window in the Hall of the Rivan King. All the various staff ducked with startled cries, covering their heads at the shards of glass.
X’Ildera’s mouth fell open in horror before her blazing red hair had even settled again. The Hall!
Durnik blinked.
“What did I just say, X’Ildera?” he said dryly, rubbing his ear. The sound had been even worse for them, since her act of sorcery had unleashed a torrent of mental noise.
“I-” X’Ildera spluttered, looking from him to the ground and back again. People were brushing glass out of their hair and glaring up at her. “I’m sorry!” she called back down, cringing at herself. Hurriedly, X’Ildera began clambering back down to the ground. The Hall’s windows were destroyed, people might have been hurt! Durnik, not as capable of climbing as X’Ildera was as a dryad, turned into a swallow again and quickly flitted to the blue-carpeted floor where he turned back into a man.
“Is everyone all right?” Durnik called urgently, brushing glass off the bottom of his shoes. One might have expected greater uproar about the blatancy of all the sorcery being used, but after six months of having a training sorceress in their midst in addition to their sorcerous King had left all of Riva, let alone those who lived and worked in the Citadel, quite accustomed to the notion.
“Nobody’s hurt, my Lord,” the nearest workman assured Durnik, who made a face for a half a moment at being called a lord. He glanced up and saw X’Ildera clambering down a pillar. “The Princess has never done anything quite so explosive before though,” he added wryly. X’Ildera, meanwhile, had a dilemma to deal with - the glass on the ground. It wasn’t very delicate glass either, it had been thick enough that most of the pieces could have been better described as chunks.
She didn’t have any shoes on.
Conjuring shoes didn’t occur to her. Besides, she wasn’t a cobbler and her Great Uncle Durnik might have disapproved if she did it wrong. She gathered in the tiniest flicker of her will and combined it with the word sweep. The glass jittered away from her in an aura as she stepped down onto the carpet. So did, for that matter, all the dust and detritus in the carpets.
“I’m sorry!” X’Ildera repeated, hurrying over to them with bits of glass skittering away from her like a ship’s bow wave. Around her, the mayhem and smashed windows mocked her even as the wind set the curtains to billowing and rain scattered into the room. “What happened?!” she cried.
“I’m not sure, X’Ildera. That’s why you don’t play with time,” Durnik replied, a little pointedly.
“But I didn’t mean for this to happen! All the windows- Mother’s going to be so angry, Father and Great Aunt Pol and- the ceremony-!” X’Ildera rambled, and urgently began to pull in her Will to repair the windows. It had to be fixed, or everything would get worse! Durnik turned sharply.
“Ah-ah!” he snapped. X’Ildera froze under his gaze, and her Will bubbled inside of her like a raging rapid demanding to be freed. Durnik stepped over to her, where he loomed tall above her head. “You mustn’t use this power haphazardly, Princess. Settle your will, let’s do this properly,” he instructed her. Most people wouldn’t have had the temerity to give a Princess of the Rivan Crown orders like that, and to that point several of the staff had raised their eyebrows in surprise, but Durnik had no such compunctions. Indeed, Polgara had clearly rubbed off on him a little when it came to parenting.
“Yes Great Uncle Durnik,” X’Ildera mumbled sheepishly, and slowly smothered her own will. It wasn’t easy, but her father had taught her how to diffuse it back to where it had come from out of an abundance of caution. “We’re still going to… right?” she said, and wordlessly pushed her hands at the empty windowframes, wiggling her fingers.
“I said properly, not by hand,” Durnik sniffed amusedly. He sighed and looked around, before an almost nonchalant flick of his will echoed in X’Ildera’s mind as he conjured up a broom. “Right, I’ll handle the frame there. You can make a start sweeping the glass out of everyone’s way,” he told her. The ball had mangled the metal grid that framed the window panes when it had punctured through the western window. X’Ildera took the broom. Was sweeping below her station? Yes. Did she feel like making more of a fool of herself by protesting? No. Besides, the trip to Faldor’s Farm had taught her to do some manual labor once in a while.
X’Ildera had a tendency to point at things and use clumsy words to focus her Will. Durnik barely had to do any of that. He was only muttering to himself some complicated litany of blacksmithing words as he stood, arms crossed, deathly focused, and the disparate ends of blown apart metal began to glow cherry red. With a terrible shrieking noise, the glowing metal warped and bent back into shape, where it melted back together as if it had never been damaged. As soon as the ringing ripple of Durnik’s will ceased to sound in X’Ildera’s mind, Durnik doubled over, breathing heavily for a few seconds, before he straightened up again and wiped the sweat off his brow.
“Very well done. One wonders, however, why it was necessary,” a voice said, and X’Ildera looked up from her sweeping only to immediately start wondering if it was possible for her to hide from a much more powerful sorceress. Standing near Durnik in tidy robes and dress were Belgarath and Poledra. She settled for trying to hide behind her hair.
It wasn’t very effective. Her hair was very red. Belgarath raised an eyebrow at her.
“Whatever it was, she made a lot of noise. What’d she do this time?” Belgarath asked wryly.
“She turned back time on that ball of hers. For some reason it got sent flying that way very quickly,” Durnik replied. Belgarath’s gaze swung over to X’Ildera dangerously. Her heart dropped.
“Don’t. Touch. Time,” Belgarath snarled at X’Ildera in a dreadful tone that brooked absolutely no defiance. Durnik had given her instructions. Belgarath had etched a commandment into the bedrock of her sorcerous education with only three words. Solidly cowed, X’Ildera stopped sweeping and came over to them. Her little nimbus of sweeping will kept shifting dust and glass out of her way. “The ball wasn’t the only thing moving, the world moves too. You’re lucky it didn’t shoot straight into the ground and out the other side of the planet. What’s it made of?” he said grimly.
“Wood,” X’Ildera replied rather sheepishly.
“Good, if it happens to run into a star it’ll burn up before it can cause another schism,” Belgarath grumbled.
“I’m sorry Great-Grandfather, I didn’t mean to do this.”
“That’s your problem. You underthink things,” Belgarath replied shortly, making X’Ildera shut up again. If Durnik was polite but nonchalant about her title, Belgarath outright ignored it. To him, she was just another stupid girl making mistakes, and were it not for her automatic immortality as a sorceress she’d be nothing more than a blip in his eons-long life. “Garion was the same way. Don’t do things if you’re not sure what the consequences will be, think it through,” he told her.
“The windows definitely need fixing though. It’s getting awfully chilly in here,” Poledra pointed out, and Belgarath sighed raggedly.
“All right, let’s start blowing glass. Do you three remember the staining pattern, or do I need to show you?” he asked. All three of them nodded - Durnik had been in the Hall often enough, Poledra had a downright eidetic memory, and X’Ildera had grown up in the Citadel. Belgarath stooped and picked up the most complete chunk of glass he could find. “About so thick. Try not to let them vary too much, or it’ll look terrible. I don’t want Ce’Nedra complaining all evening about the windows looking funny, pregnancy makes her irritable enough. Let’s not tell her this happened at all,” he told them, showing them the half-inch thick glass. X’Ildera nodded fervently. If anything, she almost hoped her mother went into labor that evening so the ceremony wouldn’t have to go forward at all.
“Why don’t we each take a quarter of the Hall?” Poledra suggested.
“I know a little about glassmaking, watch what I do Your Highness,” Durnik said, and he and X’Ildera took the eastern side of the Hall. Her first attempts at making glass panes were not very good, and not even universally transparent, but eventually she was doing well enough to make windows without much supervision. Out the windows behind her, the sun drew ever lower behind the gray clouds of the stormy Isle of Winds, and the ceremony she’d been dreading drew ever closer.
--
X’Ildera was shaking with nerves. It wasn’t just some little formality, it was the event of the Gods-damned year! In the antechamber she waited, listening to the throng of the great audience who had gathered. Nobles from across the Alorn kingdoms, from Sendaria, even representatives of Emperor Zakath and King Urgit of Mallorea and Cthol Murgos and Sadi of Nyissa, had come to see the promised spectacle. Her. That spectacle was her. A seven year old girl. X’Ildera almost came close to cursing Polgara’s name, that she’d seen fit to suggest with such finality that the ceremony recognising her sorcery and the according change to her name - from X’Ildera to X’Poldera - would happen that spring. Not any old spring when she and her family could travel from the Vale to Riva, that spring exactly!
Couldn’t it have happened a year or two later? Given her more time?!
Seconds turned to hours without any sorcerous tampering. Likewise, hours had turned to seconds. It felt like only a few moments before had she been carefully replacing windows in the very Hall she was waiting outside of, brushing glass out of the corners and into bins. There’d been rather a lot, and even Durnik had resorted to sorcery to gather the bulk of it up in a more timely manner.
She hoped there wasn’t any left. It would be rather embarrassing for someone to stand on it.
The great trumpets that announced the opening of court that evening startled X’Ildera out of her skin. Was it altogether wise to frighten a bunch of sorcerers like that?! The various royalty and sorcerers in the antechamber with her got up, save for Cho-Hag who was sitting in a wheeled wooden chair.
“It’s time,” Garion announced redundantly. He and Ce’Nedra, both bedecked in ermine-trimmed royal robes and crowns and the latter downright spherical with pregnancy, stepped over to X’Ildera, as X’Ildera inhaled sharply. “Don’t worry, darling. You’re going to do wonderfully. It’s just a formality, and you’ve been doing very well in your lessons,” he assured her. X’Ildera swallowed.
“I’ll do my best, Father,” she replied.
“Your best will do just excellently.” Garion smiled, his pride almost tangible as it rang in his face. Ce’Nedra was just as proud, and kissed X’Ildera’s forehead, their matching hair mingling for a moment.
“You’ll sweep them off their feet, dear X’Poldera,” Ce’Nedra said warmly, before she took Garion’s hand. “Let’s not keep them waiting too long, all these announcements are going to take a little while and they won’t start without us. You’re going to do wonderfully dear, see you out there,” she noted. With that, she and Garion hurried to the doors and opened them, and the trumpets ceased. The well-trained voice of the Crown’s herald, a Lord Kaven dressed in a tabard of the Rivan blues and whites with the sword emblem on his chest, boomed through the Hall of the Rivan King.
“All rise and attend His Royal Majesty King Belgarion of Riva, Overlord of the West, Lord of the Western Sea, the Godslayer, and Her Royal Majesty Queen Ce’Nedra of Riva, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra!” Kaven bellowed, and the entire populace of nobles, from near and far, rose to their feet as Garion and Ce’Nedra walked sedately along the aisle toward their thrones, which they stood before but did not yet sit in. X’Ildera shared a rueful look with her eldest sibling, Geran. This was going to be an incredibly formal occasion. Garion turned slightly and nodded to the herald. “His Royal Majesty King Belgarion of Riva, Overlord of the West, Lord of the Western Sea, the Godslayer, and Her Royal Majesty Queen Ce’Nedra of Riva, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, welcome to this court the Ancient and Beloved First Disciples of Aldur, Their Most Revered Eminences Belgarath and Poledra!” Kaven boomed.
“Overdoing it a little, isn’t he?” Belgarath grumbled as he and his tawny-haired, golden-eyed wife stepped forth.
“Be nice, Old Wolf,” Poledra replied before they left X’Ildera’s earshot. Both were dressed in pure and regal white, and Belgarath held a staff in one hand, his wife’s hand in his other. They took their position on Ce’Nedra’s direct right.
“Their Graces Lady Polgara and Lord Beldurnik, Duchess and Duke of Erat, Disciples of Aldur!” Durnik’s eyes bulged a little in bewilderment at that, but he didn’t let it show for too long as he and Polgara, arm in arm, strode up the aisle and took their own space on Garion’s left. “Their Eminences Lords Beltira and Belkira, Disciples of Aldur!” The two kindly Alorn sorcerers in their blue robes smiled at X’Ildera and took their places on either end of the row of thrones at the head of the court. It obviously wasn’t the normal arrangement, this wasn’t just the court of Riva - this was the court of Riva receiving the so-called Brotherhood of Sorcerers. They weren’t done, even with the entire head of the court filled.
The sorcerers had travelled from the Vale, which went without saying, and they’d brought along some company.
“Chief of the Clan-Chiefs of Algaria, Cho-Hag, and Queen Silar of the Algars! Lord Hettar, Sha-Dar, and Lady Adara!” the former being wheeled by his Queen, preceded the court finally resuming the customary order of things by the welcoming of “His Royal Highness Crown Prince Geran the Sixth of Riva, and Her Royal Highness Princess X’Beldaran the Second of Riva!” Finally, the court was completed with Durnik and Polgara’s twins taking up seats at the far left of the dais. Only then, when X’Ildera stood alone and trembling with fear in the antechamber, did Garion and Ce’Nedra sit down, giving everyone else permission to sit down with a great rumble. X’Ildera’s heart hammered, because she knew what Kaven was about to shout.
“His Majesty King Belgarion of Riva calls forth Her Royal Highness and Sorceress Novitiate Princess X’Ildera!” Kaven called.
X’Ildera steeled herself. She might have been afraid, she might have been seven years old, but she was also a Princess of the Rivan Crown, and her mother had instilled within her certain concepts. A Princess did not show fear at Court. She was immaculately adorned in green and gold, with a golden coronet woven into her fierce red hair, and despite her diminutive size X’Ildera walked into the Hall of the Rivan King as if it owed her money. The Sword of the Rivan King loomed above Garion on the wall, with the Orb of Aldur set onto its pommel, and it was mirrored on the great blue banners that draped down the walls at the head of the Hall, depicting the Sword over the blue and white waves that represented the River of Veils. A brilliant blue light glowed from the Orb, brighter than usual X’Ildera thought, and it shone over the row of sorcerers to make them seem almost divine in their impending judgement of her. Every noble in Riva worth anything was in the crowd, and half the nobles worth anything from the north end of the entire western continent were too. Prince Kheldar, the Margravine Liselle, and their two children - Khaedor and Prinna - sat near the front, as did Earl Barak of Trellheim and his family. But still, she did not let her face drop. She would meet this ceremony with her chin held high or not at all.
The reality was that she looked rather petulant, but children take themselves very seriously and she thought she looked royal and confident.
After both a moment and an eon, X’Ildera stood before her father and curtsied politely to the Court. King Belgarion stood up.
“Princess X’Ildera,” Garion began. “It is safe to say that our family is not and has never been normal. Our lives have been just as abnormal. We missed so much of your brother, Prince Geran’s, firsts, in the quest to Korim. In your sister, Princess X’Beldaran, we finally saw one of our children’s first steps and first words. But it was in you, our second daughter, Princess X’Ildera, that we saw your first act of sorcery, this past Erastide,” he said warmly, his smile growing ever more as he looked to each of his children. Geran, X’Beldaran, and X’Ildera were all wearing coronets, Geran’s the larger since he was the Crown Prince. X’Adara and X’Arell were too young to be too involved in court yet. X’Ildera smiled slowly - she hadn’t realized until the words had left her father’s lips that it could have been a moment of such great pride to her parents that it compared with seeing X’Beldaran take her first steps.
Garion’s words were so soft, and yet, the entire Hall was rapt and silent, so nobody struggled to hear him. The only other sound was one very few could hear - the exultant song of the Orb of Aldur, which was delighted by their presence.
“It scared you, just as it once scared me. This power you hold, like myself and those seated at this court, is not to be treated lightly. To that end, we have endeavored to teach you prudence and control.” It obviously wasn’t Garion’s normal, conversational, tone. Everything at court was scripted, and X’Ildera knew that her mother had had some editorial hand; she always did. “Tonight you are called upon to prove to all your skill and worthiness to be known as one of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. I shall name each of the Disciples in turn, and they will each devise a task for you to perform.” With that, Garion turned slightly to his right and looked at his grandfather. “First you shall be assessed by our ultimate Grandfather. Belgarath, if you please,” he said warmly, before he sat down again and let his grandfather get up.
Belgarath stretched his fingers. X’Ildera knew well how amazing a storyteller Belgarath was, and so she knew that his eternal disgruntlement at being dressed up would in no way hamper his performance.
“And lo, seven thousand years ago, before the cracking of the world, did I, Belgarath, First Disciple of Aldur, first discover the secret of the Will and the Word,” Belgarath declared, his voice booming into the rafters. “Simple were its origins, and so it shall be in your first task.” With that, Belgarath raised his hand and pointed dramatically at a spot behind X’Ildera. He closed his eyes, concentrating, before with a muttered word and a crack of the tip of his staff against the stone floor the air was rent with a great blasting sound. X’Ildera span around in fright, only to gasp like everyone else at the appearance of a decently-sized boulder in the aisle. Belgarath exhaled sharply at his exertion. “Never translocated anything quite that far before,” he murmured wryly to Poledra. “Your first task, like my first in eons past, shall be to move this same rock,” the ancient sorcerer declared.
X’Ildera’s eyes widened. If it was the same rock from the Vale of Aldur… it might very well have been one of the most important rocks in history, coming shortly behind the Orb of Aldur itself. She nodded to herself. The story was one she’d been told before, and she knew now that it must have been this same rock that her father had almost buried himself trying to tip over. Mentally, she thanked her Great Uncle for his tip. Trying to do anything that involved lifting it would be very difficult. The rock was taller than her by a foot, and she really didn’t relish pushing it along its flat bottom. If anything, it’d ruin the carpet.
Having decided how to proceed, X’Ildera pulled in her will. The Orb glared brighter, and the flickering flames lighting the room from the hearths and wall sconces roared higher. She pointed at the doorway she’d just walked through, and laid a hand on the boulder.
“Be there,” she commanded. In an instant, the strength left her and her legs almost buckled as her will crashed upon the rock and wrenched it from one place and deposited it in the other in an instant. It vanished from under her hand, contributing to her nearly falling over, and appeared in the doorway. The fires pulled sideways as the air in the Hall rippled about like water at the disturbance, and X’Ildera panted for breath. She’d never translocated anything before, and she’d underestimated how hard it was. Before she could catch her breath, cheers and applause erupted through the Hall, echoing into the rafters. A tentative beaming smile flickered onto her lips, and she turned back to face the court. Belgarath nodded.
“A little overdone,” he decided after a moment. It took every drop of X’Ildera’s courtly etiquette to keep her from scowling at him. “I am satisfied, Your Majesty,” the ancient man added, and nodded to Belgarion before he sat down again. X’Ildera exhaled with relief. She’d passed her first test.
“Thank you, Grandfather. Now, X’Ildera, you shall be tested by our ultimate Grandmother. Poledra, if you please,” Garion declared. A little awkwardly, Poledra stood. She wasn’t particularly used to being the center of courtly attention, that had always been her daughters’ game while she’d watched for eons.
“A very long time ago, your grandfather and I met,” Poledra said rather simply, in stark comparison to her husband’s grandiose announcement. “He was on his way to meet Belar, after Torak stole our Master’s Orb. In order to cross the vast forests in good time, he changed his form, and it was in that changed form that I first met him. This same task do I place upon you, Princess X’Ildera. Change your form,” she instructed.
X’Ildera nodded. The first question, of course, was what to change into. She’d only learnt to do it at all, under Poledra’s very instruction, very recently, and she wasn’t all that good at it. Desperately, she looked about for some reference, and her eyes landed upon Geran’s pet wolf, Wolf. Wolf, who lay curiously at Geran’s feet, was becoming quite an old wolf, but he’d do. Breathing carefully to regain her strength while she did it, X’Ildera slowly began to form the image in her head. It was a little vague, and Wolf’s posture didn’t give her much to work with for the legs or tail. After almost a minute, with the crowd behind her beginning to wonder why it was taking so long, X’Ildera finally decided it was good enough. She placed a hand upon her chest.
“Change,” X’Ildera murmured. The sensation of changing was not one she was used to, and the roiling creep of fur growing into place and her entire form blurring into slurry to reform into a wolf’s shape was really quite uncomfortable. Her fur was not the same color as Wolf’s gray fur, she’d chosen a warm brown that wasn’t too far from the tone of her own hair, and her eyes were just as golden as Poledra’s. Poledra tilted her head critically in that wolflike way, even as the crowd gasped. X’Ildera sat down on her haunches, patiently waiting for Poledra’s verdict as the woman - who had been born a wolf herself - examined her.
“The proportions aren’t quite right for a pup your age, but one cannot find anything unforgivably wrong,” Poledra decided idly after a moment or two. If anyone knew what a wolf should look like, it was her. “Very nice, X’Ildera. I am satisfied, Belgarion,” she decided, and sat back down again.
“Thank you, Grandmother,” Garion said, before he smiled amusedly at X’Ildera. “You can change back now, dear,” he added. X’Ildera jumped, and hurriedly directed her Will into returning her to her regular form. She found herself sitting cross-legged on the floor, but thankfully her father gave her time to stand back up and straighten her gown and coronet before he spoke. It also, handily, gave the audience time to stop whispering about how wonderful the feats they’d seen so far had been. “Your test, Aunt Polgara?” he asked politely, nodding to Polgara. Polgara stood up, and X’Ildera watched her nervously. The white lock at her scalp was like a beacon in her otherwise black hair. Really, X’Ildera wondered why she didn’t have one. It was the mark of a sorceress, right?
X’Ildera realized so abruptly that she almost missed what Polgara was saying that she had no reason to believe that. It was the mark of Polgara. Aside from herself, there were no other similarly powerful sorceresses to figure out a pattern from save Zandramas, who was quite dead. But, if she were to emulate anyone, X’Ildera wanted to emulate Polgara.
“A key aspect of sorcery, Your Highness, is mindfulness. To that end, I would like for you to please, without looking, identify the nearest Arend to you,” Polgara instructed her. X’Ildera nodded, and closed her eyes. Carefully, she pushed her mind out and began gingerly brushing around the crowd, looking for those telltale textural differences. It wasn’t truly a racial trait, but rather a set of differences in thought and cultural perspective that tended to be common to the peoples of different kingdoms. Her father, for example, had a funny mixture of Alorn rumbling and Sendarian orderliness. Her mother, on the other hand, was both Tolnedran and Dryad, that weird combination of Imperial regimenting which was even stronger in someone so important and the natural adaptiveness of the woods.
X’Ildera wondered if Polgara knew that her own shining sorcerous mind had a slight sheen of Arendishness to it. She had, after all, taken quite a shine to the Wacite Arends.
The nearest true Arend, however, was as much a beacon of impermeable honor and chivalry as the pennons that normally bedecked his lance.
“I think, Lady Polgara Your Grace, that the nearest Arend to me right now could only be My Lord the Baron of Vo Mandor, Sir Mandorallen,” X’Ildera told Polgara after a dozen seconds of double-checking. Mandorallen wasn’t the only Arend in the Hall of the Rivan King, far from it, she wanted to be sure he was the closest. Beside him was his wife, the Baroness Nerina. To her relief, her Great Aunt Pol nodded.
“Very good, X’Ildera. I’m satisfied, Your Majesty,” Polgara told Garion, before she sat back down again. A buzzing sort of glee grew in X’Ildera’s heart - she’d passed three of the six trials so far. Sure, it was only a formality, but she was halfway there.
“Thank you Aunt Polgara. The most recent of Aldur’s Disciples, Beldurnik. Your test please,” Garion said. Durnik swallowed and stood up. Durnik had long been involved in such matters, but a royal court was not his natural habitat. He was not naturally a loudly spoken man either.
“Princess X’Ildera,” Durnik said hesitantly. “It was not so very long ago that I myself had to learn the same as you. A blink of an eye, really, compared to my assembled brothers here. This power we wield is a great responsibility,” he said, with a slight murmur of his Will making sure that his voice was audible throughout the Hall. “We have to own what we do and beware of the consequences. Sorcery must never be clumsy. My task for you, therefore, is not an act of sorcery, but an act of humility. I would like for you to explain, to your parents and to the people, what happened up there this afternoon,” he said, and pointed up at the rafters they’d sat atop that afternoon. Polgara smiled approvingly, but the bottom dropped out of X’Ildera’s stomach at her Great Uncle’s task. Garion and Ce’Nedra frowned.
“Is this about that racket this afternoon? I wondered why you were so tight-lipped about it,” Garion mused.
“Yes, your Majesty. I wanted to leave the explanation to Her Highness here,” Durnik replied, before he raised his eyebrows at the Princess who was suddenly trembling like a leaf. Apologizing to her parents was one thing, but having to explain it in front of the people?! This was worse than a public scolding. The silence of the Hall was deafening.
“Um,” X’Ildera mumbled sheepishly.
“Louder,” Durnik murmured, and a surge of his will amplified X’Ildera’s voice. She winced.
“Um, this afternoon, I was up there practicing with my ball,” X’Ildera floundered, looking between Durnik and her parents. She had to explain to the people too, and she glanced over her shoulder at the populace. “Sometimes I practice by bouncing a ball in the air, I sort of um, push it back up with my will. I… I was stupid. I thought I could figure out a cleverer way to do it,” she quavered.
“Go on,” Garion said. X’Ildera swallowed.
“I tried turning back time on the ball.”
There was a curious hiss of whispers through the hall at that concept, but Garion, Polgara, and Beltira and Belkira, all visibly winced.
“But um, I didn’t know that the world moves too, so the ball went flying off that way, and um, shattered the windows,” X’Ildera admitted. “But we fixed them! We fixed the windows, and we took all the broken glass away. And I won’t touch time ever again. I know it’s dangerous now,” she said quickly, looking guiltily at Belgarath.
“I see,” Garion said severely. “That’s something I’ve been trying to teach you. No harm done this time, I suppose. I didn’t even notice that the windows looked cleaner than usual,” he added, with a jovial little twist to his voice. “I’m glad to see you take responsibility for your mistake, X’Ildera. Don’t do it again.” With that, Garion looked to Durnik, who nodded.
“I’m satisfied, Your Majesty,” Durnik agreed, and sat back down.
“As am I,” Belgarion concurred, before he looked to the man on the furthest seat in the opposite direction. His eyes went vacant for a moment, and X’Ildera heard him whisper mentally to his Aunt Pol asking which old man was which. “My Lord Belkira, your task?” he asked. The kindly old man with no beard rose, and since the court was so wide he actually had to step down a bit and come over toward X’Ildera.
“X’Ildera,” he said. “We would like for you to make something beautiful,” Belkira said brightly, before he went back to his seat. X’Ildera thought for a few seconds. There were innumerable possibilities, and Belkira had dropped the most complex task of all upon her. His brethren had given her easy tasks, but this? Something beautiful, something beautiful…
Her mind caught upon the windows she’d just apologized for breaking. They’d stained the borders in blue and silver, like they’d already been, but stained glass was beautiful, wasn’t it? She didn’t entirely know how it was done, but she could picture images in the glass. She conjured up in her mind’s eye every great legend she’d heard as a princess in her lessons, every grand EVENT that her ancestors both immediate and distant had been involved in. X’Ildera gathered her will, gripping the images tight, before she clasped her hands in front of her face.
“Stain!” X’Ildera cried, and swept her arms out toward the windows with a roar of her will and a wave of exhaustion that crashed over her. The light of sunset spilling through the western windows bloomed into many colors as the populace gasped and clattered, craning their necks to look over one another at the images. Ce’Nedra’s mouth fell open, and Belkira beamed. On the great windows of the Hall of the Rivan King were sprayed living images of great deeds. On the far windows, the Gods were forming the world. Brand was battling against Torak before the golden walls of Vo Mimbre, with the Orb beaming out from the center of his shield. On the eastern window, Eriond forced the Orb into the Sardion to destroy the latter while Zandramas’ starry form poured into the sky. And on the west, closest to Belkira, Garion himself battled Torak, the Sword of the Rivan King’s clash with Cthrek Goru blazing with blue light that flickered as if it were burning in the glass. A dozen scenes swirled in the windows.
“Oh my Nedra!” Ce’Nedra exclaimed, and a beaming smile grew on Garion’s face as he surveyed his daughter’s work. Delightedly, Garion started clapping, and the applause that began as a clatter turned into a furor through the Hall of the Rivan King. At that, X’Ildera couldn’t resist smiling.
“We are most satisfied, Your Highness, Your Majesty,” Belkira reported eagerly. X’Ildera curtseyed happily at the populace who were still applauding her, before eventually it petered out.
“A royal addition to this Hall, X’Ildera, thank you,” Garion said once it was quiet again, his pride ringing in his voice. “My Lord Beltira, the final test?” he requested, and the second of the identical beardless sorcerers on the opposite end of the court stood and, just like Belkira had, Beltira stepped over a little closer to X’Ildera.
“We would also like for you to make something useful,” Beltira said, in a tone very much like he and Belkira shared a brain and he was just finishing off the same statement. X’Ildera frowned. Useful was just as vague as beautiful. Lots of things were useful. Tools were useful, swords were useful, spears were useful, bottles were useful and boards were useful. But she was supposed to prove something here, she was supposed to prove her skill. X’Ildera doubted a bucket would do.
X’Ildera’s eyes fell upon the strawberry blonde braids of Lady Gundred of Trellheim, Earl Barak’s daughter, and an idea formed in her mind. Riva was an island kingdom, so things that ships needed were very useful.
“Twist,” she urged her will, and from nothingness a length of alabaster white rope began to twist itself into being. Those closest to the front of the audience, who could see her best, oohed and aahed as they leaned forward to see even better. X’Ildera pulled twist after twist of three-stranded rope out of the air, coiling them over her shoulder into an only slightly orderly puddle behind her. Her Will waned, and she pushed more and more, dragging in more power as she went. Too short a rope wasn’t useful at all! Her breath came sharp and fast as she kept pulling more rope, before her endurance finally gave way and she gasped in air, her Will snapping and the rope ending. She stood, panting, as Beltira stooped and picked up the rope. He stretched it matter-of-factly, pursing his lips as he examined the cordage.
“The ends need whipping, but it’s a very serviceable rope, X’Ildera,” Beltira decided. “We are quite satisfied, Your Highness,” he assured her, before he flicked his Will through a word and bundled up the rope tidily. Beltira, Belkira, Polgara, Poledra, and Durnik, all looked to Belgarath. Belgarath, clearly a little put-upon by his role as Aldur’s first Disciple, nodded to himself.
“We, being of sound mind and judgement,” though Polgara concealed a laugh at that, “do find ourselves satisfied by Princess X’Ildera’s ability and skill. Having judged her worthy, we hereby accept her into our company and association that she be forever known as one of us,” Belgarath declared solemnly. X’Ildera curtsied deeply to the assembled sorcerers, bowing her head in reverence and humility.
“Thank you, Holy Belgarath, Grandfather, First Disciple of Aldur,” X’Ildera said softly. “It is an honor beyond words,” she added. Ce’Nedra smiled at that - the Queen had suggested that little flourish. Belgarath then nodded to Garion, who rose from the Throne of the Rivan King.
“Therefore, my daughter, I have but one final task for you,” Belgarion declared, the words seeming a little awkwardly formal in his mouth given the sheer ecstatic pride bursting through his face. He turned and reached up behind his throne, whereupon he took down the Orb of Aldur from Iron-Grip’s sword with a click that resounded through the Hall of the Rivan King. Garion stepped down, carrying the brightly glowing Orb, until he was standing directly in front of X’Ildera. “As you did on the day of your birth, place your hand upon the Orb Princess X’Ildera,” he said. X’Ildera froze for just a moment. She knew, of course, that she’d touched it before. Once. But that didn’t quell the knowledge in her heart that only select few could touch the artifact in her father’s hand and survive.
Tentatively, X’Ildera reached her hand up to the spherical stone. The blue of its glow was almost almost like an inversion of magma. If it were red, it would have been a volcanic glow of near-melting rock. This blue promised even greater heat, a heat that rang with the Orb’s bright chorus.
In that hanging moment, her fingers brushed the Orb. She didn’t remember the day of her birth, so it was the first time she’d consciously touched it. It was warm, but not burning, and its song eagerly grew louder. Her reality quivered as her skin touched this most powerful artifact of the Gods and it tried to know her. She’d never ‘spoken’ with the thing as her father so often did, and it had an almost puppyish eagerness to get to know its new friend. And then, as her palm fell upon it, in a sandwich with her father’s larger hand, it metaphorically leapt up onto her leg to get attention.
The Orb of Aldur’s idea of attention was pouring itself into X’Ildera’s head. Eons untold surged into X’Ildera’s mind and her eyes widened at the immensity of her existence. She was the product of a titanic unbroken chain, a chain upon which the world itself had hung. And the Orb stood in witness of it all. Idly, X’Ildera realized that while it was introducing itself to her in whatever terms could encompass its enormity, the Orb was sifting through her life. The faces of her friends flickered between images of molten magma and cascading, raging oceans. Her parents’ faces and the destruction of Torak, playing with X’Beldaran and Khaedor. Rundorig’s son floating over the frozen pond. The incomprehensible chorus of joy swelled into every language that the world had ever known and ever would, even as the faces of Belgarath, Poledra, Riva Iron-Grip, Beldaran the First, and finally, Polgara, swam in her mind.
X’Ildera’s hand fell slack from the Orb and she gasped for breath against the presence that had entered her mind, only to realize that she was glowing.
A glimmering aura of the Orb’s own blue light surrounded her, but it was quickly receding. Receding, not fading. The nimbus of light rolled back up her body, but it didn’t track down her arm to the hand that had just left the Orb. It tracked to her head, to her hair, and as she looked up at her father, the blazing light condensed and took hold of a thick lock of her hair at her temple. Maybe it wasn’t really the mark of a sorcerer, but Garion had once mentioned - when they’d discussed that X’Ildera was probably immortal - that sorcerers looked how they felt they should, and the Orb had obliged her admiration of her Great Aunt Polgara. Ce’Nedra gasped and covered her mouth in amazement. When she turned to stand beside her royal father and face the populace, a lock of X’Ildera’s burning red hair had gone so blonde it was almost white. Whispers erupted through the crowd, and people pointed at the platinum streak that tumbled down from under her golden coronet and around her face.
Her father’s voice rang out in the Hall of the Rivan King to announce the truth that her new adornment signified.
“Let it be known that henceforth, in recognition of her skills, the Princess X’Ildera shall be known as Princess X’Poldera, the Sorceress of Riva!”
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