Guardians of the West

regretfully surrendered on the points of indolence and shabbiness. She grudgingly gave ground on swearing and lying.
    She remained adamant, however, even despite repeated defeats, on the points of drunkenness, thievery, and wenching.
    She felt for some peculiar reason that it was her duty to fight on those issues to the very death. Since Belgarath put off his return to his tower in the Vale of Aldur until the following spring, Errand was able to witness at close hand those endless and unbelievably involuted skirmishes between father and daughter with which they filled the periodic quiet spaces in their lives. Polgara's comments about the lazy old man's lounging about in her kitchen, soaking up the heat from her fireplace and the well-chilled ale from her stores with almost equal facility, were pointed, and Belgarath's smooth evasions revealed centuries of highly polished skill. Errand, however, saw past those waspish remarks and blandly flippant replies. The bonds between Belgarath and his daughter were so profound that they went far beyond what others might conceivably understand, and so, over the endless years, they found it necessary to conceal their boundless love for each other behind this endless façade of contention. This is not to say that Polgara might not have preferred a more upstanding father, but she was not quite as disappointed in him as her observations sometimes indicated.
    They both knew why Belgarath sat out the winter in Poledra's cottage with his daughter and her husband. Though not one word of the matter had ever passed between them, they knew that the memories the old man had of this house needed to be changed -not erased certainly, for no power on earth could erase Belgarath's memories of his wife, but rather they needed to be altered slightly so that this thatched cottage might also remind the old man of happy hours spent here, as well as that bleak and terrible day when he had returned to find that his beloved Poledra had died.
    After the snow had been cut away by a week of warm spring rains and the sky had turned blue once again, Belgarath at last decided that it was time to take up his interrupted journey. "I don't really have anything pressing," he admitted, "but I'd like to look in on Beldin and the twins, and it might be a good time to tidy up my tower. I've sort of let that slide over the past few hundred years."
    "If you'd like, we could go along," Polgara offered. "After all, you did help with the cottage -not enthusiastically, perhaps, but you did help. It only seems right that we help you with cleaning your tower."
    "Thanks all the same, Pol," he declined firmly, "but your idea of cleaning tends to be a bit too drastic for my taste. Things that might be important later on have a way of winding up on the dust heap when you clean. As long as there's a clear space somewhere in the center, a room is clean enough for me."
    "Oh, father"' she said, laughing, "you never change."
    "Of course not," he replied. He looked thoughtfully over at Errand, who was quietly eating his breakfast. "If it's all right, though," he said, "I'll take the boy with me."
    She gave him a quick look.
    Belgarath shrugged. "He's company and he might enjoy a change of scenery. Besides, you and Durnik haven't really had a chance to be alone since your wedding day. Call it a belated present if you want."
    She looked at him. "Thank you, father," she said simply, and her eyes were suddenly very warm and filled with affection.
    Belgarath looked away, almost as if her look embarrassed him. "Did you want your things? From the tower, I mean. You've left quite a few trunks and boxes there at one time or another over the years."
    "Why, that's very nice of you, father."
    "I need the space they're taking up," he said. Then he grinned at her.
    "You will watch the boy, won't you? I know your mind sometimes wanders when you start puttering around in your tower."
    "He'll be fine with me, Pol," the old man assured her.
    And so the following morning Belgarath mounted his horse, and Durnik boosted Errand up behind him. "I'll bring him home in a few weeks," Belgarath said. "Or at least by midsummer." He leaned down, shook Durnik's hand, and then turned his mount toward the south.
    The air was still cool, although the early spring sunshine was very bright. The scents of stirring growth were in the air, and Errand, riding easily behind Belgarath, could feel Aldur's presence as they pressed deeper into the Vale. He felt it as a calm and