Castle of Wizardry

replied. "Nothing at all."
    "Why are you crying then?"
    "You'd never understand, dear," she told him. Then she put her arms around him and pulled him to her in an almost fierce embrace.
    The coronation took place at noon the following day. The Hall of the Rivan King was full to overflowing with nobles and royalty, and the city below was alive with the sound of bells.
    Garion could never actually remember very much of his coronation. He did remember that the ermine-bordered cape was hot and that the plain gold crown the Rivan Deacon placed on his head was very heavy. What stood out most in his mind was the way the Orb of Aldur filled the entire Hall with an intense blue light that grew brighter and brighter as he approached the throne and overwhelmed his ears with that strange, exultant song he always seemed to hear whenever he came near it. The song of the Orb was so loud that he scarcely heard the great cheer that greeted him as he turned, robed and crowned, to face the throng in the Hall of the Rivan King.
    He did, however, hear one voice very clearly.
    "Hail, Belgarion, " the voice in his mind said quietly to him.

Chapter Thirteen
    KING BELGARION SAT somewhat disconsolately on his throne in the Hall of the Rivan King, listening to the endless, droning voice of Valgon, the Tolnedran ambassador. It had not been an easy time for Garion. There were so many things he did not know how to do. For one thing, he was totally incapable of giving orders; for another, he discovered that he had absolutely no time to himself and that he had not the faintest idea of how to dismiss the servants who continually hovered near him. He was followed wherever he went, and he had even given up trying to catch the overzealous bodyguard or valet or messenger who was always in the passageways behind him.
    His friends seemed uncomfortable in his presence and they persisted in calling him "your Majesty" no matter how many times he asked them not to. He didn't feel any different, and his mirror told him that he didn't look any different, but everyone behaved as if he had changed somehow. The look of relief that passed over their faces each time he left injured him, and he retreated into a kind of protective shell, nursing his loneliness in silence.
    Aunt Pol stood continually at his side now, but there was a difference there as well. Before, he had always been an adjunct to her, but now it was the other way around, and that seemed profoundly unnatural.
    "The proposal, if your Majesty will forgive my saying so, is most generous," Valgon observed, concluding his reading of the latest treaty offered by Ran Borune. The Tolnedran ambassador was a sardonic man with an aquiline nose and an aristocratic bearing. He was a Honethite, a member of that family which had founded the Empire and from which the Imperial dynasties had sprung, and he had a scarcely concealed contempt for all Alorns. Valgon was a continual thorn in Garion's side. Hardly a day passed that some new treaty or trade agreement did not arrive from the Emperor. Garion had quickly perceived that the Tolnedrans were desperately nervous about the fact that they did not have his signature on a single piece of parchment, and they were proceeding on the theory that if they kept shoving documents in front of a man, eventually he would sign something just to get them to leave him alone.
    Garion's counterstrategy was very simple; he refused to sign anything.
    "It's exactly the same as the one they offered last week, " Aunt Pol's voice observed in the silence of his mind. "All they did was switch the clauses around and change a few words. Tell him no."
    Garion looked at the smug ambassador with something very close to active dislike. "Totally out of the question," he replied shortly.
    Valgon began to protest, but Garion cut him short. "It's identical to last week's proposal, Valgon, and we both know it. The answer was no then, and it's still no. I will not give Tolnedra preferred status in trade with Riva; I will not agree to ask Ran Borune's permission before I sign any agreement with any other nation; and I most certainly will not agree to any modification of the terms of the Accords of Vo Mimbre. Please ask Ran Borune not to pester me any more until he's ready to talk sense."
    "Your Majesty!" Valgon sounded shocked. "One does not speak so to the Emperor of Tolnedra."
    "I'll speak any way I please," Garion told him. "You have my - our permission to leave."
    "Your Majesty-"
    "You're dismissed,