Free Polgara the Sorceress by David Eddings

began to realize that my father is a very complex being. On the one hand, he’s a liar, a thief, a lecher, and a drunkard. On the other, however, he’s Aldur’s first disciple, and he can quite possibly stop the sun in its orbit if he wants to. I’d beendeliberately seeing only his foolish side because of my jealousy. Now I had to come to grips with the other side of him, and I deeply resented the shattering of my illusions about him.
    I began to watch him more closely after I returned home that day, hoping that I could find some hints about his duality – and even more fervently hoping that I could not. Losing the basis for one’s prejudices is always very painful. All I really saw, though, was a rather seedy-looking old man intently studying a parchment scroll.
    ‘Don’t do that, Polgara,’ he said, not even bothering to look up from his scroll.
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘Stare at me like that.’
    ‘How did you know I was staring?’
    ‘I could feel it, Pol. Now stop.’
    That shook my certainty about him more than I cared to admit. Evidently Beldin and the twins were right. There were a number of very unusual things about my father. I decided I’d better have a talk with mother about this.
    ‘ He’s a wolf, Pol ,’ mother told me, ‘ and wolves play. You take life far too seriously, and his playing irritates you. He can be very serious when it’s necessary, but when it’s not, he plays. It’s the way of wolves .’
    ‘ But he demeans himself so much with all that foolishness .’
    ‘ Doesn’t your particular foolishness demean you? You’re far too somber, Pol. Learn how to smile and to have some fun once in a while .’
    ‘ Life is serious, mother .’
    ‘ I know, but it’s also supposed to be fun. Learn how to enjoy life from your father, Polgara. There’ll be plenty of time to weep, but you have to laugh as well .’
    Mother’s tolerance troubled me a great deal, and I found her observations about my nature even more troubling.
    I’ve had a great deal of experience with adolescents over the centuries, and I’ve discovered that as a group these awkward half-children take themselves far too seriously. Moreover, appearance is everything for the adolescent. I suppose it’s a form of play-acting. The adolescent knows that the child is lurking just under the surface, but he’dsooner die than let it out, and I was no different. I was so intent on being ‘grown-up’ that I simply couldn’t relax and enjoy life.
    Most people go through this stage and outgrow it. Many, however, do not. The pose becomes more important than reality, and these poor creatures become hollow people, forever striving to fit themselves into an impossible mold.
    Enough. I’m not going to turn this into a treatise on the ins and outs of human development. Until a person learns to laugh at himself, though, his life will be a tragedy – at least that’s the way he’ll see it.
    The seasons continued their stately march, and the little lecture mother had delivered to me lessened my interior antagonism toward father. I did maintain my exterior facade, however. I certainly didn’t want the old fool to start thinking I’d gone soft on him.
    And then, shortly after my sister and I turned sixteen, the Master paid my father a call and gave him some rather specific instructions. One of us – either Beldaran or myself – was to become the wife of Iron-grip and hence the Rivan Queen. Father, with rather uncharacteristic wisdom, chose to keep the visit to himself. Although I certainly had no particular interest in marrying at that stage of my life, my enthusiasm for competition might have led me into all sorts of foolishness.
    My father quite candidly admits that he was sorely tempted to get rid of me by the simple expedient of marrying me off to poor Riva. The Purpose – Destiny, if you wish – which guides us all prevented that, however. Beldaran had been preparing for her marriage to Iron-grip since before she was born. Quite