David Eddings - Demon Lord of Karanda

At the moment, Garion had little interest in sleeping arrangements. All his concern was for Ce’Nedra. “Do you happen to know where I might find my wife?” he asked the moon-faced bureaucrat.

“There at the end of this corridor, your Majesty,” the Melcene replied, pointing toward a blue-painted door at the far end of the hall.

“Thank you.” Garion glanced at the others. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he told them and strode on ahead.

The room he entered was warm and the lighting subdued. Deep, ornately woven Mallorean carpets covered the floor and soft green velvet drapes covered the tall, narrow windows. Ce’Nedra lay in a high-posted bed, against the wall opposite the door, and Polgara was seated at the bedside, her expression grave.

“Has there been any change?” Garion asked her, softly closing the door behind him.

“Nothing as yet,” she replied.

Ce’Nedra’s face was pale as she slept with her crimson curls tumbled on her pillow.

“She is going to be all right, isn’t she?” Garion asked.

“I’m sure of it, Garion.”

Another woman sat near the bed. She wore a light green, cowled robe; despite the fact that she was indoors, she had the hood pulled up, partially concealing her face.

Ce’Nedra muttered something in a strangely harsh tone and tossed her head restlessly on her pillow. The cowled woman frowned. “Is this her customary voice, Lady Polgara?” she asked.

Polgara looked at her sharply. “No,” she replied.” As a matter of fact, it’s not.”

“Would the drug you gave her in some way affect the sound of her speech?”

“No, it wouldn’t. Actually, she shouldn’t be making any sounds at all.”

” Ah,” the woman said. “I think perhaps I understand now.” She leaned forward and very gently laid the fingertips of one hand on Ce’Nedra’s lips. She nodded then and withdrew her hand. “As I suspected,” she murmured.

Polgara also reached out to touch Ce’Nedra’s face.

Garion heard the faint whisper of her will, and the candle at the bedside flared up slightly, then sank back until its flame was scarcely more than a pinpoint. “I should have guessed,” Polgara accused herself.

“What is it?” Garion asked in alarm.

“Another mind is seeking to dominate your wife and to subdue her will, your Majesty,” the cowled woman told him. “It’s an art sometimes practiced by the Grolims. They discovered it quite by accident during the third age.”

“This is Andel, Garion,” Polgara told him. “’Zakath sent her here to help care for Ce’Nedra.”

Garion nodded briefly to the hooded woman.” Exactly what do we mean by the word ‘dominate’?” he asked.

“You should be more familiar with that than most people, Garion,” Polgara said. “I’m sure you remember Asharak the Murgo.” Garion felt a sudden chill, remembering the force of the mind that had from his earliest childhood sought that same control over his awareness. “Drive it out,” he pleaded. “Get whomever it is out of her mind.”

“Perhaps not quite yet, Garion,” Polgara said coldly. “We have an opportunity here. Let’s not waste it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will, dear,” she told him. Then she rose, sat on the edge of the bed and lightly laid one hand on each of Ce’Nedra’s temples. The faint whisper came again, stronger this time, and once again the candles all flared and then sank back as if suffocating. “I know you’re in there,” she said then. “You might as well speak.”

Ce’Nedra’s expression grew contorted, and she tossed her head back and forth as if trying to escape the hands touching her temples. Polgara’s face grew stern, and she implacably kept her hands in place. The pale lock in her hair began to glow, and a strange chill came into the room, seeming to emanate from the bed itself.

Ce’Nedra suddenly screamed.

“Speak!” Polgara commanded. “You cannot flee until I release you, and I will not release you until you speak.”

Ce’Nedra’s eyes suddenly opened. They were filled with hate. “I do not fear thee, Polgara,” she said in a harsh, rasping voice delivered in a peculiar accent.

“And I fear you even less. Now, who are you?”

“Thou knowest me, Polgara.”

“Perhaps, but I will have your name from you.”

There was a long pause, and the surge of Polgara’s will grew stronger.

Ce’Nedra screamed again—a scream filled with an agony that made Garion flinch. “Stop!” the harsh voice cried. “I will speak!”

“Say your name,” Polgara insisted implacably.

“I am Zandramas.”

“So. What do you hope to gain by this?”

An evil chuckle escaped Ce’Nedra’s pale lips. “I have already stolen her heart, Polgara—her child. Now I will steal her mind as well. I could easily kill her if I chose, but a dead Queen may be buried and her grave left behind. A mad one, on the other hand, will give thee much to distract thee from thy search for the Sardion.”

“I can banish you with a snap of my fingers, Zandramas.”

“And I can return just as quickly.”

A frosty smile touched Polgara’s lips. “You’re not nearly as clever as I thought,” she said. “Did you actually believe that I twisted your name out of you for my own amusement? Were you ignorant of the power over you that you gave me when you spoke your own name. The power of the name is the most elementary of all. I can keep you out of Ce’Nedra’s mind now. There’s much more, though. For example, I know now that you’re at Ashaba, haunting the bat-infested ruins of the House of Torak like a poor ragged ghost.”

A startled gasp echoed through the room.

“I could tell you more, Zandramas, but this is all beginning to bore me.” She straightened, her hands still locked to the sides of Ce’Nedra’s head. The white lock at her brow flared into incandescence, and the faint whisper became a deafening roar. “Now, begone!” she commanded.

Ce’Nedra moaned, and her face suddenly contorted into an expression of agony. An icy, stinking wind seemed to howl through the room, and the candles and glowing braziers sank even lower until the room was scarcely lit “Begone!” Polgara repeated.

An agonized wail escaped Ce’Nedra’s lips, and then that wail became disembodied, coming it seemed from the empty air above the bed. The candles went out, and all light ceased to glow out of the braziers. The wailing voice began to fade, moving swiftly until it came to them as no more than a murmur echoing from an unimaginable distance.

“Is Zandramas gone?” Garion asked in a shaking voice.

“Yes,” Polgara replied calmly out of the sudden darkness.

“What are we going to say to Ce’Nedra? When she wakes up, I mean.”

“She won’t remember any of this. Just tell her something vague. Make some light, dear.”

Garion fumbled for one of the candles, brushed his sleeve against it, and then deftly caught it before it hit the floor. He was sort of proud of that.

“Don’t play with it, Garion. Just light it.” Her tone was so familiar and so commonplace that he began to laugh, and the little surge of his will that he directed at the candle was a stuttering sort of thing. The flame that appeared bobbled and hiccuped at the end of the wick in a soundless golden chortle.

Polgara looked steadily at the giggling candle, then closed her eyes. “Oh, Garion,” she sighed in resignation.

He moved about the room relighting the other candles and fanning the braziers back into life. The flames were all quite sedate—except for the original one, which continued to dance and laugh in blithe glee.

Polgara turned to the hooded Dalasian healer. “You’re most perceptive, Andel,” she said. “That sort of thing is difficult to recognize unless you know precisely what you’re looking for.”