We waited there for a couple of days. It was only a short run on down to the delta of the River of the Serpent, but I didn’t want to alert the Nyissans by dropping anchor in their coastal waters while we waited for Radek and Cho-Ram to get into position.
I’d just come up on deck on the morning of the third day when Beldin’s voice came banging on the side of my head. ‘Belgarath! Are you awake?’
‘Don’t shout. I can hear you.’
‘We’re in place, but let’s give the Drasnian pikemen a day or so to catch their breath. We ran them pretty hard coming down through the mountains.’
‘It’ll take us a few days to get to the mouth of the River of the Serpent anyway. Stay clear of the Tolnedran border. Ran Vordue has it sealed off, and we don’t want any incidents with the legions.’
‘How did you get him to do that?’
‘I pointed out certain advantages to him. Send a strike force south to block off any escape routes going in that direction. I’ll do the same from this side, and when those two columns meet, we can get started with this.’
‘Right.’
And that was more or less the way we did it. I’ll be the first to concede that the Tolnedran Legions were very useful, although they didn’t really do anything except stand there.
The Nyissans have always believed that their jungles would protect them. This time they were wrong. We’d run Radek’s pikemen to the verge of exhaustion, but we’d reached Nyissa before the rains set in. The swamps had nearly dried up, and the trees were parched. The Nyissans took to the woods, and we simply burned the woods out from under them. I’m told that the vast clouds of smoke drifting northward bothered the Honethites a great deal. They could almost smell their money burning. The Vorduvians, Borunes, and Horbites were able to view the matter philosophically, however.
Wars are never pretty, but the Alorn campaign in Nyissa was particularly ugly. The Algar cavalry drove the Nyissans ahead of them like a herd of terrified cows, and when the Nyissans tried to climb trees to escape them, the Drasnian pikemen came along and speared them out of the branches. The Chereks and Rivans set fires, and when the panic-stricken Nyissans tried to flee, Valcor’s berserkers simply drove them back into the flames. Frankly, the whole business sickened me, but we pushed on anyway.
It was a short, nasty war, and it left Nyissa a smoking wasteland. It accomplished its purpose, however. It was centuries before the Nyissans came out of their hiding places, and that effectively kept them from meddling in international affairs.
Eventually, we encircled Sthiss Tor, and after a couple of days we captured the city.
Beldin and I ran on ahead and reached Salmissra’s gaudy palace about three jumps ahead of the vengeful Rivans. We definitely didn’t want anybody to kill the Serpent Queen - at least not until we’d had a chance to ask her some questions. We sprinted down the corridor that led to her throne room, burst into that huge, dimly lighted hall, and closed and barred the door behind us.
Salmissra was alone and unguarded. The palace eunuchs were sworn to protect her, but evidently a eunuch’s oath doesn’t mean all that much to him if it’s going to involve bleeding. The Serpent Queen was in her usual place, lounging on her throne and admiring her reflection in the mirror as if nothing untoward were happening. She looked very vulnerable somehow. ‘Welcome to Sthiss Tor, gentlemen,’ she said in a dreamy sort of voice. ‘Don’t come too close,’ she warned, pointing negligently at the small green snakes nervously clustered around her throne. ‘My servants have all deserted me, but my little pets are still faithful.’ Her words were slurred, and her eyes seemed unfocused.
‘We’re not going to have much luck here, Belgarath,’ Beldin muttered to me. ‘She’s so drugged that she’s almost comatose.’
‘We’ll see,’ I replied shortly. I stepped a little closer to the throne, and the little green snakes hissed warningly. ‘Things haven’t turned out too well here, have they, Salmissra?’ I said to her. ‘You should have known what the Alorns would do, though. What possessed you to have Gorek murdered?’
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ she murmured.
There was a heavy pounding on the barred door.
‘Keep those enthusiasts off my back,’ I told Beldin.
‘All right,’ he replied, ‘but don’t be all day at this.’ I could feel his Will building.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked the dreamy queen.
‘Of course. There’s a whole body of literature in my library devoted to you and your exploits.’
‘Good. Then we won’t have to go through all those tiresome introductions. I spoke with a couple of your assassins at Riva. One of them told me that this stupid business wasn’t entirely your idea. Would you care to elaborate on that for me?’
‘Why not?’ Her indifference chilled me for some reason. ‘About a year ago a man came to Sthiss Tor, and he had a little proposition for me. His offer was very attractive, so I took him up on it. That’s really about all there was to it, Belgarath.’
‘What could he possibly have offered you to lure you into exposing yourself to the vengeance of the Alorns?’
‘Immortality, Ancient One, immortality.’
‘No man can offer that, Salmissra.’
‘The offer didn’t come from a man - or so I was led to believe.’
‘Who was this fellow who made you such a ridiculous proposal?’
‘Does the name Zedar ring any bells for you, Belgarath?’ She actually looked a bit amused.
A number of things fell into place for me - including the reason for my instructions not to kill Zedar. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ I suggested.
She sighed. ‘That would be a long and tedious story, old man.’ Her eyelids drooped shut.
I started to have some suspicions at that point. ‘Why don’t you summarize it, then?’ I suggested.
She sighed again. ‘Oh, very well,’ she replied. Then she looked around. ‘Does it seem to be getting chilly in here?’ she asked with a slight shudder.
‘Will you get on with it, Belgarath?’ Beldin demanded irritably. ‘I can’t keep those Alorns out much longer without hurting them.’
‘I don’t think we’ve got too much longer,’ I told him. Then I looked at the Serpent Queen. ‘You’ve taken poison, haven’t you, Salmissra?’ I asked her.
‘Naturally,’ she replied. ‘It’s the Nyissan sort of thing to do, isn’t it? Convey my apologies to your Alorns. I know they’ll be terribly disappointed.’
‘Exactly what did Zedar say to you?’
‘You’re a tiresome old man, Belgarath. All right, listen carefully. I don’t think I’ll have time to repeat this. Zedar came to me and said that he was speaking for Torak. He said that the Rivan King was the only thing standing between Torak and something he wanted, and that he’d give anything to the person who removed him. The offer was fairly simple. If I’d kill the Rivan King, Torak would marry me, and we’d rule the world jointly - forever. Zedar also told me that Torak would protect me from your Alorns. Did you happen to see the Dragon God on your way to Sthiss Tor?’
‘We must have missed him.’
‘I wonder what can be keeping him.’
‘Surely you weren’t gullible enough to believe all that?’
She straightened slightly and lifted her chin. She was a remarkably beautiful woman. ‘How old would you say I am?’ she asked me.
‘That’s impossible to tell, Salmissra. You take drugs that keep you from aging.’
‘It may look that way, but it’s not really true. Actually, I’m fifty-seven, and none of my predecessors have lived much past sixty. There are twenty little girls out in the jungle training to take my place when I die. I believed Zedar because I wanted to believe him. I suppose we never outlive our belief in fairy-stories, do we? I didn’t want to die, and Zedar seemed to be offering me a chance to live forever. I wanted that so much that I chose to believe what he told me. When you get right down to it, this is all your fault, you know.’
‘Mine? Where did you get that weird idea?’
‘If it hadn’t been for the fact that you’re a million years old, I wouldn’t have been so gullible. If one person can live forever, others can as well. You and your brothers are the disciples of Aldur, and Aldur made you all immortal. Zedar, Ctuchik, and Urvon serve Torak, and they’ll live forever as well.’
‘Not if I can help it, they won’t,’ Beldin threw back over his shoulder.
She smiled faintly, and her eyes seemed glazed. ‘The notion of conferring immortality on his handmaiden doesn’t seem to have occurred to Issa, so I’ve only got about three more years to live. Zedar knew that, of course, and he used it to dupe me. I wish there were some way I could pay him back for that. He got everything he wanted from me, and all I got was a cup of foul-tasting poison.’
I looked around to make certain that nobody was hiding in one of the corners. ‘Zedar got nothing, Salmissra,’ I told her very quietly. ‘Your assassins missed somebody. The Rivan line’s still intact.’