Demon Lord of Karanda

wouldn't, but I was thinking of something a bit more elemental. Torak used the Orb to crack the world, remember? I know how it was done and I could do it myself if I had to. Your troops are going to have a great deal of trouble following us if they suddenly run into a trench -ten miles deep and fifty miles wide- stretching all the way across the middle of Mallorea."
    "You wouldn't!" Zakath gasped.
    "Try me," With a tremendous effort, Garion brought his anger under control. "I think perhaps it's time for us to break this off," he said. "We're starting to shout threats at each other like a pair of schoolboys. Why don't we continue this conversation some other time, after we've both had a chance to cool off a bit?" He could see a hot retort hovering on Zakath's lips, but then the Emperor also drew himself up and regained his composure, though his face was still pale with anger.
    "I think perhaps you're right," he said.
    Garion nodded curtly and started toward the door.
    "Garion," Zakath said then.
    "Yes?"
    "Sleep well."
    "You too." Garion left the room.

    Her Imperial Highness, the Princess Ce'Nedra, Queen of Riva and beloved of Belgarion, Overlord of the West, was feeling pecky. "Pecky" was not a word that her Imperial Highness would normally have used to describe her mood. "Disconsolate" or "out of sorts" might have had a more aristocratic ring, but Ce'Nedra was honest enough with herself privately to admit that "pecky" probably came closer to the mark. She moved irritably from room to room in the luxurious apartment Zakath had provided for her and Garion with the hem of her favorite teal green dressing gown trailing along behind her bare feet. She suddenly wished that breaking a few dishes wouldn't appear quite so unladylike.
    A chair got in her way. She almost kicked it, but remembered at the last instant that she was not wearing shoes. Instead she deliberately took the cushion from the chair and set it on the floor. She plumped it a few times, then straightened. She lifted the hem of her dressing gown to her knees, squinted, swung her leg a few times for practice, and then kicked the cushion completely across the room. "There!" she said. "Take that!" For some reason it made her feel a little better.
    Garion was away from their rooms at the moment, engaged in his customary evening conversation with Emperor Zakath. Ce'Nedra wished that he were here so that she could pick a fight with him. A nice little fight right now might modify her mood.
    She went through a door and looked at the steaming tub sunk in the floor. Perhaps a bath might help. She even went so far as to dip an exploratory toe in the water, then decided against it. She sighed and moved on. She paused for a few moments at the window of the unlighted sitting room that overlooked the verdant atrium at the center of the east wing of the palace. The full moon had risen early that day and stood high in the sky, filling the atrium with its pale, colorless light, and the pool at the center of the private little court reflected back the perfect white circle of the queen of the night. Ce'Nedra stood for quite some time, looking out the window, lost in thought.
    She heard the door open and then slam shut."Ce'Nedra, where are you?" Garion's voice sounded a trifle testy.
    "I'm in here, dear."
    "Why are you standing around in the dark?" he asked, coming into the room.
    "I was just looking at the moon. Do you realize that it's the same moon that shines down on Tol Honeth -and Riva, too, for that matter?"
    "I hadn't really thought about it," he replied shortly.
    "Why are you being so grumpy with me?"
    "It's not you, Ce'Nedra," he answered apologetically. I had another fight with Zakath, is all."
    "That's getting to be a habit."
    "Why is he so unreasonably stubborn?" Garion demanded.
    "That's part of the nature of Kings and Emperors, dear."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "Nothing."

    "Do you want something to drink? I think we've still got some of that wine left."
    "I don't think so. Not right now."
    "Well I do. After my little chat with his pigheaded imperialness, I need something to calm my nerves." He went back out, and she heard the clink of a decanter against the rim of a goblet.
    Out in the moon-bright atrium something moved out from the shadows of the tall, broad-leafed trees. It was Silk. He was wearing only his shirt and hose, he had a bath sheet over his shoulder, and he was whistling. He bent at the edge of the pool and dipped his fingers into the water.