Читать книгу The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of The Belgariad and The Malloreon - David Eddings - Страница 6

In the light of all that has happened, this is most certainly a mistake. It would be far better to leave things as they are, with event and cause alike half-buried in the dust of forgotten years. If it were up to me, I would so leave them. I have, however, been so importuned by an undutiful daughter, so implored by a great (and many times over) grandson, and so cajoled by that tiny and willful creature who is his wife – a burden he will have to endure for all his days – that I must, if only to have some peace, set down the origins of the titanic events which have so rocked the world.

Few will understand this, and fewer still will acknowledge its truth. I am accustomed to that. But, since I alone know the beginning, the middle, and the end of these events, it is upon me to commit to perishable parchment and to ink that begins to fade before it even dries some ephemeral account of what happened and why.

Thus, let me begin this story as all stories are begun, at the beginning.

I was born in a village so small that it had no name.^* It lay, if I remember it correctly, on a pleasant green bank beside a small river that sparkled in the summer sun as if its surface were covered with jewels – and I would trade all the jewels I have ever owned or seen to sit beside that river again.

Our village was not rich, but in those days none were. The world was at peace, and our Gods walked among us and smiled upon us. We had enough to eat and huts to shelter us from the weather. I do not recall who our God was, nor his attributes, nor his totem. It was, after all, a very, very long time ago.

Like the other children, I played in the warm, dusty streets and ran through the long grass in the meadows and paddled in that sparkling river which was drowned by the eastern sea so many years ago that they are beyond counting.

My mother died when I was quite young. I remember that I cried about it for a very long time, though I must honestly admit that I can no longer even remember her face. I remember the gentleness of her hands and the warm smell of fresh-baked bread that came from her garments, but I can not remember her face – but then, there have been so many faces.

The people of my village cared for me and saw to it that I was fed and clothed and sheltered in one house or another, but I grew up wild. I never knew my father, and

my mother was dead, and I was not content with the simple, drowsy life of a small, unnamed village beside a sparkling river in a time when the world was very young. I began to wander out into the hills above my village, at first with only a stick and a sling, but later with more manly weapons – though I was still but a child.

And then came a day in early spring when the air was cool and the clouds raced overhead in the fresh, young wind, and I had climbed to the top of the highest hill to the west of our river. And I looked down at the tiny patch of dun-colored huts beside a small river that did not sparkle beneath the scudding clouds of spring. And then I turned and looked to the west at a vast grassland and white-topped mountains beyond and clouds roiling titanic in the grey sky. And I looked one last time at the village where I was born and where, had I not climbed that hill on just such a morning, I might well have died; and I turned my face to the west and I went from that place forever.

The summer was easy. The plain yielded food in plenty to a young adventurer with the legs to chase it and the appetite to eat it – no matter how tough or poorly cooked. And in the fall I came upon a vast encampment of people whitened as if by the touch of frost. They took me in and wept over me, and many came to touch me and to look at me, and they wept also. But one thing I found most strange. In the entire encampment there were no children, and to my young eyes the people seemed most terribly old. They spoke a language I did not understand, but they fed me and seemed to argue endlessly among themselves over who might have the privilege of keeping me in his tent or pavilion.

I passed the winter among these strange people, and, as is so frequently the case with the young, I learned nothing in that season. I can not remember even one word of the language they spoke.^*

When the snow melted and the frost seeped up out of the ground and the wind of spring began to blow again, I knew it was time to leave. I took no joy in the pampering of a multitude of grandparents and had no desire to become the pet of a host of crotchety old people who could not even speak a civilized language.

And so, early one spring morning, before the darkness had even slid off the sky, I sneaked from the camp and went south into a low range of hills where their creaky old limbs could not follow me. I moved very fast, for I was young and well-fed and quite strong, but it was not fast enough. As the sun rose I could hear the wails of unspeakable grief coming from the encampment behind me. I remember that sound very well.

I loitered that summer in the hills and in the upper reaches of the Vale to the south beyond them. It was in my mind that I might – if pursued by necessity – winter again in the camp of the old people. But, as it happened, an early storm caught me unprepared to the south of the hills, and the snow piled so deep that I could not make my way back across to my refuge. And my food was gone, and my shoes, mere bags of untanned hide, wore out, and I lost my knife, and it grew very cold.

In the end I huddled behind a pile of rock that seemed to reach up into the very heart of the snowstorm that swirled around me and tried to prepare myself for death. I thought of my village and of the grassy fields around it and of our small, sparkling river, and of my mother, and, because I was still really very young, I cried.

‘Why weepest thou, boy?’ The voice was very gentle. The snow was so thick that I could not see who spoke, but the tone made me angry.

‘Because I’m cold and I’m hungry,’ I said, ‘and because I’m dying and I don’t want to.’

‘Why art thou dying? Art thou injured?’

‘I’m lost,’ I said, ‘and it’s snowing, and I have no place to go.’

‘Is this reason enough to die amongst thy kind?’

‘Isn’t it enough?’ I said, still angry.

‘And how long dost thou expect this dying of thine will persist?’ The voice seemed mildly curious.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve never done it before.’

The wind howled and the snow swirled more thickly around me.

‘Boy,’ the voice said finally, ‘come here to me.’

‘Where are you?’ I said. ‘I can’t see you.’

‘Walk around the tower to thy left. Knowest thou thy left hand from thy right?’

I stumbled to my half-frozen feet angrier than I ever remember having been.

‘Well, boy?’

I moved around what I had thought was a pile of rock, my hands on the stones.

‘Thou shalt come to a smooth grey rock,’ the voice said, ‘somewhat taller than thy head and broad as thine arms may reach.’

‘All right,’ I said, my lips thick with the cold. ‘Now what?’

‘Tell it to open.’

‘What?’

‘Speak unto the rock,’ the voice said patiently, ignoring the fact that I was congealing in the gale. ‘Command it to open.’

‘Command? Me?’

‘Thou art a man. It is but a rock.’

‘What do I say?’

‘Tell it to open.’

‘Open,’ I commanded half-heartedly.

‘Surely thou canst do better than that.’

‘Open!’ I thundered.

And the rock slid aside.

‘Come in, boy,’ the voice said. ‘Stand not in the weather like some befuddled calf.’

The inside of the tower – for such indeed it was – was dimly lighted by stones that glowed with a pale, cold fire. I thought that was a fine thing, though I would have preferred it had they been warmer. Stone steps worn with countless centuries of footfalls ascended in a spiral into the gloom above my head. Other than that the chamber was empty.

‘Close the door, boy,’ the voice said, not unkindly.

‘How?’ I said.

‘How didst thou open it?’

I turned to the gaping rock and quite proud of myself, I commanded, ‘Close!’

And, at my voice, the rock slid shut with a grinding sound that chilled my blood even more than the fierce storm outside.

‘Come up, boy,’ the voice commanded.

And so I mounted the stairs, only a little bit afraid. The tower was very high, and the climbing took me a long time.

At the top was a chamber filled with wonders. I looked at things such as I had never seen even before I looked at him who had commanded me and had saved my life. I was very young, and I was not at the time above thoughts of theft. Larceny even before gratitude seethed in my grubby little soul.

Near a fire which burned, as I observed, without fuel sat a man (I thought) who seemed most incredibly ancient. His beard was long and full and white as the snow which had so nearly killed me – but his eyes – his eyes were eternally young.

‘Well, boy,’ he said, ‘hast thou decided not to die?’

‘Not if it isn’t necessary,’ I said bravely, still cataloguing the wonders of the chamber.

‘Dost thou require anything?’ he asked. ‘I am unfamiliar with thy kind.’

‘A little food,’ I told him. ‘I have not eaten in three days. And a warm place to sleep. I shall not be much trouble, Master, and I can make myself useful in payment.’ I had learned a long time ago how to make myself agreeable to those who were in a position to do me favors.

‘Master?’ he said and laughed, a sound so cheerful that it made me almost want to dance. ‘I am not thy master, boy.’ He laughed again, and my heart sang with the splendor of his mirth. ‘Let us see to this thing of food. What dost thou require?’

‘A little bread perhaps,’ I said, ’– not too stale.’

‘Bread?’ he said. ‘Only bread? Surely, boy, thy stomach is fit for more than bread. If thou wouldst make thyself useful – as thou hast promised – we must nourish thee properly. Consider, boy. Think of all the things thou hast eaten in thy life. What in all this world would most surely satisfy that vast hunger of thine?’

I could not even say it. Before my eyes swam the visions of plump, smoking roasts, of fat geese swimming in their own gravy, of heaps of fresh-baked bread and rich, golden butter, of pastries in thick cream, of cheese, and dark brown ale, of fruits and nuts and salt to savor it all.

And he who sat by the glowing fire that burned, it seemed, air alone laughed again, and again my heart sang. ‘Turn, boy,’ he said, ‘and eat thy fill.’

And I turned, and there on a table which I had not even seen before lay everything which I had imagined.

A hungry young boy does not ask where food comes from – he eats. And so I ate. I ate until my stomach groaned. And through the sound of my eating I could hear the laughter of the aged one beside his fire, and my heart leapt within me at each laugh.

And when I had finished and drowsed over my plate, he spoke again. ‘Wilt thou sleep now, boy?’

‘A corner, Master,’ I said. ‘A little out-of-the-way place by the fire, if it be not too much trouble.’

He pointed. ‘Sleep there, boy,’ he said, and at once I saw a bed which I had seen no more than the table – a great bed with huge pillows and comforters of softest down. And I smiled my thanks and crept into the bed and, because I was young and very tired, I fell asleep almost at once. But in my sleep I knew that he who had brought me in from the storm and fed me and cared for me was watching through the long snowy night, and I felt even more secure in his care.

And that began my servitude. My Master never commanded in the way other masters commanded their servants, but rather suggested or asked. Amazingly, almost in spite of myself, I found myself leaping to do his bidding. The tasks, simple at first, grew harder and harder. I began to wish I had never come to this place. Sometimes my Master would stop what he was doing to watch my labors, a bemused expression on his face. Then he would sigh and return to the things which he did and which I did not understand.

The seasons turned, marching in their stately, ordered progression as I labored endlessly at impossible tasks. Then, perhaps three – or maybe it was five – years after I had come to the tower and begun my servitude, I was struggling one day to move a huge rock which my Master felt was in his way. It would not move though I heaved and pushed and strained until I thought my limbs would crack. Finally, in a fury, I concentrated all my strength and all my will upon the boulder and grunted one single word. ‘Move,’ I said.

And it moved – not grudgingly with its huge, inert weight sullenly resisting my strength – but quite easily, as if the touch of one finger would be sufficient to send it bounding across the plain.

‘Well, boy,’ my Master said, startling me by his nearness, ‘I had wondered how long it might be before this day arrived.’

‘Master,’ I said, confused, ‘what happened? How did the great rock move so easily?’

‘It moved at thy command, boy. Thou art a man, and it is only a rock.’

‘May other things be done so, Master?’

‘All things may be done so, boy. Put but thy will to that which thou wouldst have come to pass and speak the word. It shall come to pass even as thou wouldst have it. I have marveled, boy, at thine insistence upon doing all things with thy back instead of thy will. I had begun to fear for thee, thinking that perhaps thou mightest be defective.’

I walked over to the rock and laid my hands on it again. ‘Move,’ I commanded, bringing my will to bear on it, and the rock moved as easily as before.

‘Does it make thee more comfortable touching the rock when thou wouldst move it, boy?’ my Master asked, a note of curiosity in his voice.

The question stunned me. I looked at the rock. ‘Move,’ I said tentatively. The rock did not move.

‘Thou must command, boy, not entreat.’

‘Move!’ I roared, and the rock heaved and rolled off with nothing but my will and the word to make it do so.

‘Much better, boy,’ my Master said. ‘Perhaps there is hope for thee yet. What is thy name, boy?’

‘Garath,’ I told him, and suddenly realized that he had never asked me before.

‘An unseemly name, boy. I shall call thee Belgarath.’

‘As it please thee, Master,’ I said. I had never ‘thee’d’ him before, and I held my breath for fear that he might be displeased, but he showed no sign that he had noticed. Then, made bold by my success, I went further. ‘And how may I call thee, Master?’ I said.

‘I am called Aldur,’ he said, smiling.

I had heard the name before, and I immediately fell upon my face before him.

‘Art thou ill, Belgarath?’ he asked.

‘Oh, great and powerful God,’ I said, trembling, ‘forgive mine ignorance. I should have known thee at once.’

‘Don’t do that,’ he said irritably. ‘I require no obeisance. Rise to thy feet, Belgarath. Stand up, boy. Thine action is unseemly.’

I scrambled up fearfully and clenched myself for the sudden shock of lightning. Gods, as all knew, could destroy at their whim those who displeased them.

‘And what dost thou propose to do with thy life now, Belgarath?’ he asked.

‘I would stay and serve thee, Master,’ I said, as humbly as I could.

‘I require no service,’ he said. ‘What canst thou do for me?’

‘May I worship thee, Master?’ I pleaded. I had never met a God before, and was uncertain about the proprieties.

‘I do not require thy worship either,’ he said.

‘May I not stay, Master?’ I pleaded. ‘I would be thy Disciple and learn from thee.’

‘The desire to learn does thee credit, but it will not be easy,’ he warned.

‘I am quick to learn, Master,’ I boasted. ‘I shall make thee proud of me.’

And then he laughed, and my heart soared. ‘Very well then, Belgarath, I shall make thee my pupil.’

‘And thy Disciple also, Master?’

‘That we will see in time, Belgarath.’

And then, because I was very young and very proud of myself and my new-found powers, I turned to a dried and brittle bush – it was mid-winter at the time – and I spoke to it fervently. ‘Bloom,’ I said, and the bush quite suddenly produced a single flower. I plucked it and offered it to him. ‘For thee, Master,’ I said. ‘Because I love thee.’

And he took the flower and smiled and held it between his hands. ‘I thank thee, my son,’ he said. It was the first time he had ever called me that. ‘And this flower shall be thy first lesson. I would have thee examine it most carefully and tell me all that thou canst perceive of it.’

And that task took me twenty years, as I recall. Each time I came to him with the flower that never wilted or faded – how I grew to hate that flower – and told him what else I had learned, he said, ‘is that all, my son?’ and, crushed, I went back to my studies.

And there were many other things as well that took at least as long. I examined trees and birds, fish and beasts, insects and vermin. I devoted forty-five years to the study of grass alone.

In time it occurred to me that I was not aging as other men aged.

‘Master,’ I said one night in our chamber high in the tower as we both labored with our studies, ‘why is it that I do not grow old?’

‘Wouldst thou grow old, my son?’ he asked. ‘I have never seen much advantage in it myself.’

‘I don’t really miss it all that much, Master,’ I admitted, ‘but isn’t it customary?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said ‘but not mandatory. Thou hast much yet to learn, and one or ten or even a hundred lifetimes are not enough. How old art thou, my son?’

‘I think I am somewhat beyond three hundred years, Master.’

‘A suitable age, my son, and thou hast persevered in thy studies. Should I forget myself and call thee “Boy” again, pray correct me. It is not seemly that the Disciple of a God should be called “Boy”.’

‘I shall remember that, Master,’ I said, almost overcome with joy that he had finally called me his Disciple.

‘I was certain that thou wouldst,’ he said. ‘And what is the object of thy present study, my son?’

‘I would seek to learn why the stars fall, Master.’

‘A proper study, my son,’ he said, smiling.

‘And thou, Master,’ I asked. ‘What is thy study – if I be not overbold to ask.’

‘I am concerned with this jewel,’ he said, pointing at a moderate-sized grey stone on the table before him. ‘It may be of some curiosity in the fullness of time.’^*

‘I am certain it shall, Master,’ I assured him. ‘If be worthy of thine attention, it shall surely be a curiosity at least.’ And I turned back to my study of the inconstant stars.

In time, others came to us, some by accident, as I had come, and some by intent, seeking out my Master that they might learn from him. Such a one was Zedar. I came upon him one golden day in autumn near our tower. He had built a rude altar and was burning the carcass of a goat upon it. The greasy smoke from his offering was fouling the air, and he was prostrated before the altar, chanting some outlandish prayer.

‘What are you doing?’ I demanded, quite angry since his noise and the stink of his sacrifice distracted my mind from a problem I had been considering for fifteen years.

‘Oh, puissant and all-knowing God,’ he said, groveling in the dirt. ‘I have come a thousand leagues to behold thy glory and to worship thee.’

‘Puissant?’ I said. ‘Get up, man, and stop this caterwauling. I am not a God, but a man, just as you are.’

‘Art thou not the great God, Aldur?’ he asked.

‘I am Belgarath,’ I said, ‘his Disciple. What is this foolishness?’ I pointed at his altar and his smoking offering.

‘It is to please the God,’ he said, rising and dusting off his clothes. ‘Dost thou think he will find it acceptable?’

I laughed, for I did not like this stranger much. ‘I cannot think of a single thing you might have done which would offend him more,’ I said.

The stranger looked stricken. He turned quickly and reached out as if he would seize the burning animal with his bare hands to hide it.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I snapped. ‘You’ll burn yourself.’

‘It must be hidden,’ he said desperately. ‘I would die rather than offend Mighty Aldur.’

‘Stand out of the way,’ I told him.

‘What?’

‘Get clear,’ I said, irritably waving him off. Then I looked at his grotesque little altar, willed it away and said, ‘Go away,’ and it vanished, leaving only a few tatters of confused smoke hanging in the air.

He collapsed on his face again.

‘You’re going to wear out your clothes if you keep doing that,’ I told him, ‘and my Master will not be amused by it.’

‘I pray thee,’ he said, rising and dusting himself off again, ‘mighty Disciple of the most high Aldur, instruct me so that I offend not the God.’

‘Be truthful,’ I told him, ‘and do not seek to impress him with false show.’

‘And how may I become his Disciple as thou art?’

‘First you become his pupil,’ I said, ‘and that is not easy.’

‘What must I do to become his pupil?’ the stranger asked.

‘You must become his servant,’ I said, a bit smugly I must admit.

‘And then his pupil?’

‘In time,’ I said, smiling, ‘if he so wills.’

‘And when may I meet the God?’

And so I took him to the tower.

‘Will the God Aldur not wish to know my name?’ the stranger asked.

‘Not particularly.’ I said. ‘If you prove worthy, he will give you a name of his own choosing.’ Then I turned to the grey stone in the wall and commanded it to open, and then we went inside.

My Master looked the stranger over and then turned to me. ‘Why hast thou brought this man to me, my son?’ he asked.

‘He besought me, Master,’ I said. ‘I felt it was not my place to say him yea or nay. Thy will must decide such things. If it be that he please thee not, I shall take him outside and bid him be no more and so put an end to him and his interruption.’

‘That is unkindly said, my son,’ Aldur said sternly. ‘The Will and the Word may not be used so.’^*

‘Forgive me, Master,’ I said humbly.

‘Thou shalt instruct him, Belgarath,’ my Master said. ‘If it should be that thou findest him apt, inform me.’

‘I will, Master,’ I promised.

‘What is thy study currently?’

‘I examine the reason for mountains, Master,’ I said.

‘Lay aside thy mountains, Belgarath, and study man instead. It may be that thou shalt find the study useful.’

‘As my Master commands,’ I said regretfully. I had almost found the secret of mountains, and I was not much enthused about allowing it to escape me. But that was the end of my leisure.

I instructed the stranger as my Master had bade me. I set him impossible tasks and waited. To my mortification, within six months he learned the secret of the Will and the Word. My Master named him Belzedar and accepted him as a pupil.

And then came the others. Kira and Tira were twin shepherd boys who had become lost and wandered to us one day – and stayed. Makor came from so far away that I could not conceive how he had even heard of my Master, and Din from so near that I wondered that his whole tribe did not come with him. Sambar simply appeared one day and sat down upon the earth in front of the tower and waited until we accepted him.

And to me it fell to instruct each of them until he found the secret of the Will and the Word – which is not a secret, after all, but lies within every man. And in time each of them became my Master’s pupil, and he named them even as he had named me. Zedar became Belzedar, Kira and Tira became Beltira and Belkira. Makor and Din and Sambar became Belmakor and Beldin and Belsambar. To each of our names our Master joined the symbol of the Will and the Word, and we became his Disciples.^*

And we built other towers so that our labors and our studies should not interfere with our Master’s work or each other’s.

At first I was jealous that my Master spent time with these others, but, since time was meaningless to us anyway and I knew that my Master’s love was infinite, so that his love for the others in no way diminished his love for me, I soon outgrew that particular childishness. And also, I grew to love the others as the bonds of our brotherhood grew. I could sense their minds as they worked, and I shared their joy at each new discovery they made. Because I was the first Disciple, they often came to me as to an older brother with those things they were embarrassed to lay before our Master, and I guided them as best I could.

Thus passed a period of perhaps a thousand years, and we were content. The world beyond our Vale changed and the people also, and no more pupils came to us. It was a question I always intended to pursue but never found the time to examine. Perhaps the other Gods grew jealous and forbade their people to seek us out, or perhaps it was that in their long passage through the endless generations, men somehow lost that tiny spark that is the source of the power of Will and Word and is the lodestone that draws their spirits inevitably to the spirit of Aldur. So it was that we were seven only and were unlike any other men on earth.

And through all this time of study and learning, our Master, Aldur, labored in infinite patience with that grey stone he had shown me on the night he had accepted me as his Disciple. Once I marveled to him that he should devote so much time to it, and he laughed.

‘Truly, my son,’ he said, ‘I labored once at least so long to create a flower which is now so common that none take note of it. It blooms beside every dusty path, and men pass it by without even looking at it. But I know it is there, and I joy in its perfection.’

As I look back, I think I would give my life, which has stretched over so many years, if my Master had never conceived the idea of that grey stone which has brought so much woe into this world.

The stone, which he called a jewel, was grey (as I have said) and quite round and perhaps the size of a man’s heart. My Master found it, I believe, in the bed of a stream. To me it appeared to be a very ordinary stone, but things are concealed from me that Aldur in his wisdom perceived quite easily. It may be that there was something in the stone which he alone could see, or it may be that this ordinary grey stone became what it became because of his efforts and his will and his spirit with which he infused it. Whatever it may have been, I wish with all my heart that he had never seen it, never stooped and touched it, never picked it up.

At any rate, one day, a very long time ago, it was finished, and our Master called us together so that he might show it to us.

‘Behold this Orb,’ he told us. ‘In it lies the fate of the world.’ And the grey stone, so ordinary a thing, but which had been polished by the touch of our Master’s hand for a thousand years and more, began to glow as if a tiny blue fire flickered deep within it.

And Belzedar, always quick, asked, ‘How, Great Master, can so small a thing be so important?’

And our Master smiled, and the Orb grew brighter. Flickering dimly within it I seemed to see images. ‘The past lies herein,’ our Master said, ‘and the present and the future also. This is but a small part of the virtue of this thing which I have made. With it may man – or the earth itself – be healed – or destroyed. Whatsoever one would do, even if it be beyond the power of the Will and the Word, with this may it come to pass.’

‘Truly a wondrous thing, Master,’ Belzedar said, and it seemed to me that his eyes glittered as he spoke, and his fingers seemed to twitch.

‘But, Master,’ I said, ‘thou hast said that the fate of the world lies within this Orb of thine. How may that be?’

‘It hath revealed the future unto me, my son,’ my Master said sadly. ‘The stone shall be the cause of much contention and great suffering and great destruction. Its power reaches from where it now sits to blow out the lives of men yet unborn as easily as thou wouldst snuff a candle.’

‘It is an evil thing then, Master,’ I said, and Belsambar and Belmakor agreed.

‘Destroy it, Master,’ Belsambar pleaded, ‘before it can bring this evil to the world.’

‘That may not be,’ our Master said.

‘Blessed is the wisdom of Aldur,’ Belzedar said. ‘With us to aid him, our Master may wield this wondrous jewel for good and not ill. Monstrous would it be to destroy so precious a thing.’^*

‘Destroy it, Master,’ Belkira and Beltira said as in one voice, their minds as always linked into the same thought. ‘We beseech thee, unmake this evil thing which thou hast made.’

‘That may not be,’ our Master said again. ‘The unmaking of things is forbidden. Even I may not unmake that which I have made.’

‘Who shall forbid anything to the God Aldur?’ Belmakor asked.

‘It is beyond thine understanding, my son,’ our Master said. ‘To thee and to other men it may seem that my brothers and I are limitless, but it is not so. And, I tell thee, my sons, I would not unmake the jewel even if it were permitted. Look about thee at the world in its childhood and at man in his infancy. All living things must grow or they will die. Through this Orb shall the world be changed and shall man achieve that state for which he was made. This jewel which I have made is not of itself evil. Evil is a thing which lies only in the minds and hearts of men – and of Gods also.’ And then my Master fell silent, and he sighed, and we went from him and left him in his sadness.

In the years which followed, we saw little of our Master. Alone in his tower he communed with the spirit of the jewel which he had made. We were saddened by his absence, and our work had little joy in it.

And then one day a stranger came into the Vale. He was beautiful as no being I have ever seen was or could be, and he walked as if his foot spurned the earth.

As was customary, we went to greet him.

‘I would speak with my brother, thy Master,’ he told us, and we knew we were in the presence of a God.

As the eldest, I stepped forward. ‘I shall tell my Master you have come,’ I said. I was not all that familiar with Gods, since Aldur was the only one I had ever met, but something about this over-pretty stranger did not sit quite well with me.

‘That is not needful, Belgarath,’ he told me in a tone that sat even less well than his manner. ‘My brother knows I am here. Convey me to his tower.’

I turned and led the way without trusting myself to answer.

At the foot of the tower the stranger looked me full in the face. ‘A bit of advice for thee, Belgarath, by way of thanks for thy service to me. Seek not to rise above thyself. It is not thy place to approve or disapprove of me. For thy sake when next we meet I hope thou wilt remember this and behave in a manner more seemly.’ His eyes seemed to bore directly into me, and his voice chilled me.

But, because I was still who I was and even the two thousand years I had lived in the Vale had not entirely put the wild, rebellious boy in me to sleep, I answered him somewhat tartly. ‘Thank you for the advice,’ I said. ‘Will you require anything else?’ He was a God, after all, and didn’t need me to tell him how to open the tower door. I waited watching closely for some hint of confusion.

‘Thou art pert, Belgarath,’ he told me. ‘Perhaps one day I shall give myself leisure to instruct thee in proper behavior.’

‘I’m always eager to learn,’ I told him.

He turned and gestured negligently. The great stone in the wall of the tower opened, and he went inside.

We never knew exactly what passed between our Master and the strange, beautiful God who met with him. They spoke together for long hours, and then a summer storm broke above our heads, and we were forced to take shelter. We missed, therefore, the departure of the strange God.

When the storm had cleared, our Master called us to him, and we went up into his tower. He sat at the table where he had labored so long over the Orb. There was a great sadness in his face, and my heart wept to see it. There was also a reddened mark upon his cheek which I did not understand.

But Belzedar, ever quick, saw at once what I did not see. ‘Master,’ he said, and his voice had the sound of panic in it, ‘where is the jewel? Where is the Orb of power which thou hast made?’

‘Torak, my brother, hath taken it away with him,’ my Master said, and his voice had almost the sound of weeping in it.

‘Quickly,’ Belzedar said, ‘we must pursue him and reclaim it before he escapes us. We are many, and he is but one.’

‘He is a God, my son,’ Aldur said. ‘Thy numbers would mean nothing to him.’

‘But, Master,’ Belzedar said most desperately, ‘we must reclaim the Orb. It must be returned to us.’

‘How did he obtain it from thee, Master?’ the gentle Beltira asked.

‘Torak conceived a desire for the thing,’ Aldur said, ‘and he besought me that I should give it to him. When I would not, he smote me and took the Orb and ran.’

A rage seized me at that. Though the jewel was wondrous, it was still only a stone. The fact that someone had struck my Master brought flames into my brain. I cast off my robe, bent my will into the air before me and forged a sword with a single word. I seized the sword and leapt to the window.

‘No!’ my Master said, and the word stopped me as though a wall had been placed before me.

‘Open!’ I commanded, slashing at the wall with the sword I had just made.

‘No!’ my Master said, and it would not let me through.

‘He hath struck thee, Master,’ I raged. ‘For that I will slay him though he be ten times a God.’

‘No,’ my Master said again. ‘Torak would crush thee as easily as thou would^* crush a fly which annoyed thee. I love thee much, my eldest son, and I would not lose thee so.’

‘There must be war, Master,’ Belmakor said. ‘The blow and the theft must not go unpunished. We will forge weapons, and Belgarath shall lead us, and we shall make war upon this thief who calls himself a God.’

‘My son,’ our Master said to him, ‘there will be war enough to glut thee of it before thy life ends. The Orb is as nothing. Gladly would I have given it unto my brother, Torak, were it not that the Orb itself had told me that one day it would destroy him. I would have spared him had I been able, but his lust for the thing was too great, and he would not listen.’ He sighed and then straightened.

‘There will be war,’ he said. ‘My brother, Torak, hath the Orb in his possession. It is of great power, and in his hands can do great mischief. We must reclaim it or alter it before Torak learns its full power.’

‘Alter?’ Belzedar said, aghast. ‘Surely, Master, surely thou wouldst not destroy this precious thing?’

‘No,’ Aldur said. ‘It may not be destroyed but will abide even unto the end of days; but if Torak can be pressed into haste, he will attempt to use it in a way that it will not be used. Such is its power.’

Belzedar stared at him.

‘The world is inconstant, my son,’ our Master explained, ‘but good and evil are immutable and unchanging. The Orb is an object of good, and is not merely a bauble or a toy. It hath understanding – not such as thine – but understanding nonetheless – and it hath a will. Beware of it, for the will of the Orb is the will of a stone. It is, as I say, a thing of good. If it be raised to do evil, it will strike down whomever would so use it – be he man or be he God. Thus we must make haste. Go thou, my Disciples, unto my other brothers and tell them that I bid them come to me. I am the eldest, and they will come out of respect, if not love.’

And so we went down from our Master’s tower and divided ourselves and went out of the Vale to seek out his brothers, the other Gods. Because the twins Beltira and Belkira could not be separated without perishing, they remained behind with our Master, but each of the rest of us went forth in search of one of the Gods.

Since haste was important, and I had perhaps the farthest to go in my search for the God, Belar, I travelled for a time in the form of an eagle. But my arms soon grew weary with flying, and heights have ever made me giddy. I also found my eyes frequently distracted by tiny movements on the ground, and I had fierce urges to swoop down and kill things. I came to earth, resumed my own form and sat for a time to regain my breath and consider.

I had not assumed other forms frequently. It was a simple trick without much advantage to it. I now discovered a major drawback involved in it. The longer I remained in the assumed form, the more the character of the form became interwoven with my own. The eagle, for all his splendor, is really a stupid bird, and I had no desire to be distracted from my mission by every mouse or rabbit on the ground beneath me.

I considered the horse. A horse can run very fast, but he soon grows tired and he is not very intelligent. An antelope can run for days without growing weary, but an antelope is a silly creature, and too many things upon the plain looked upon the antelope as food. I had not the time it would take to stop and persuade each of those things to seek food elsewhere. And then it occurred to me that of all the creatures of the plain and forest, the wolf was the most intelligent, the swiftest, and the most tireless.

It was a decision well-made. As soon as I became accustomed to going on all fours, I found the shape of the wolf most satisfactory and the mind of the wolf most compatible with my own. I quickly discovered that it is a fine thing to have a tail. It provides an excellent means of maintaining one’s balance, and one may curl it about himself at night to ward off the chill. I grew very proud of my tail on my journey in search of Belar and his people.

I was stopped briefly by a young she-wolf who was feeling frolicsome. She had, as I recall, fine haunches and a comely muzzle.

‘Why so great a hurry, friend?’ she said to me coyly in the way of wolves. Even in my haste I was amazed to discover that I could understand her quite easily. I stopped.

‘What a splendid tail you have,’ she complimented me, quickly following her advantage, ‘and what excellent teeth.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied modestly. ‘Your own tail is also quite fine, and your coat is truly magnificent.’

‘Do you really think so?’ she said, preening herself. Then she nipped playfully at my flank and dashed off a few yards, trying to get me to chase her.

‘I would gladly stay a while so that we might get to know each other better,’ I told her, ‘but I have a most important errand.’

‘An errand?’ she laughed. ‘Who ever heard of a wolf with any errand but his own desires?’

‘I’m not really a wolf,’ I told her.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘How remarkable. You look like a wolf and you talk like a wolf and you certainly smell like a wolf, but you say you are not really a wolf. What are you, then?’

‘I’m a man,’ I said.

She sat, a look of amazement on her face. She had to accept what I said as the truth since wolves are incapable of lying. ‘You have a tail,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a man with a tail before. You have a fine coat. You have four feet. You have long, pointed teeth, sharp ears and a black nose, and yet you tell me you are a man.’

‘It’s very complicated,’ I told her.

‘It must be,’ she said. ‘I think I will run with you for a while since you must attend to this errand. Perhaps we can discuss it as we go along and you can explain this complicated thing to me.’

‘If you wish,’ I said, since I rather liked her and was glad by then for any company, ‘but I must warn you that I run very fast.’

‘All wolves run very fast,’ she sniffed.

And so, side by side, we ran off over the endless grassy plains in search of the God Belar.

‘Do you intend to run both day and night?’ she asked me after we had gone several miles.

‘I will rest when it is needful,’ I told her.

‘I’m glad of that,’ she said. Then she laughed, nipped at my shoulder and scampered off some distance.

I began to consider the morality of my situation. Though my companion looked quite delightful to me in my present form, I was almost positive she would be less so once I resumed my proper shape. Further, while it is undoubtedly a fine thing to be a father, I was almost certain that a litter of puppies would prove an embarrassment when I returned to my Master. Not only that, the puppies would not be entirely wolves, and I had no desire to father a race of monsters. But finally, since wolves mate for life, when I left her – as I would of necessity be compelled to do – my sweet companion would be abandoned, betrayed, left alone with a litter of fatherless puppies, subject to the scorn and ridicule of the other members of her pack. Propriety is a most important thing among wolves. Thus I resolved to resist her advances on our journey in search of Belar.

I would not have devoted so much time here to this incident were it not to help explain how insidiously the personality of the shapes we assume begin to take us over. Let any who would practice this art be cautious. To remain in a shape too long is to invite the very real possibility that when the time comes to resume our proper form, we will not desire to do so. I must quite candidly admit that by the time my companion and I reached the land of the Bear-God, I had begun to give long thoughts to the pleasures of the den and the hunt and the sweet nuzzlings of puppies and the true and steadfast companionship of a mate.

At length, we found a band of hunters near the edge of the forest where Belar, the Bear-God, dwelt with his people. To the amazement of my companion, I resumed my own shape and approached them.

‘I have a message for Belar, thy God,’ I told them.

‘How may we know this to be true?’ they asked me.

‘Ye may know it to be true because I say it is true,’ I told them. ‘The message is important, and there is little time to delay.’

Then one of them saw my companion and cast his spear at her. I had no time to make what I did appear normal nor to conceal it from them. I stopped the spear in mid-flight.

They stood gaping at the spear stuck in the air as if in a tree. Irritated, I flexed my mind and broke the spear in two.

‘Sorcery!’ one of them gasped.

‘The wolf is with me,’ I told them sternly. ‘Do not attempt to injure her again.’ I beckoned to her and she came to my side, baring her fangs at them.

‘And now convey me unto Belar,’ I ordered them.

The God Belar appeared very young – scarcely more than a boy, though I knew he was much, much older than I. He was a fair-seeming, open-faced God, and the people who served him were a rowdy, undisciplined group, scarcely conscious of the dignity of their Master.

‘Well-met, Belgarath,’ he greeted me, though we had never met and I had told my name to no one. ‘How does it go with my brother?’

‘Not well, my Lord,’ I told him. ‘Thy brother, Torak, hath come unto my Master and smote him and hath borne away a particular jewel which he coveted.’

‘What?’ the young God roared, springing to his feet. ‘Torak hath the Orb?’

‘I greatly fear it is so, my Lord,’ I told him. ‘My Master bids me entreat thee to come to him with all possible speed.’

‘I will, Belgarath,’ Belar said. ‘I will make preparations at once. Hath Torak used the Orb as yet?’

‘We think not, my Lord,’ I said. ‘My Master says we must make haste, before thy brother, Torak, hath learned the full power of the jewel he hath stolen.’

‘Truly,’ the young God said. He glanced at the young she-wolf sitting at my feet. ‘Greetings, little sister,’ he said courteously, ‘is it well with thee?’

‘Most remarkable,’ she said politely. ‘It appears that I have fallen in with creatures of great importance.’

‘Thy friend and I must make haste,’ he told her. ‘Otherwise I should make suitable arrangements for thy comfort. May I offer thee to eat?’

She glanced at the ox turning on the spit in his great hall. ‘That smells interesting,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ he said, taking up a knife and carving off a generous portion for her.

‘My thanks,’ she said. ‘This one –’ she jerked her head at me ‘- was in so much hurry to reach this place that we scarce had time for a rabbit or two along the way.’ Daintily she gulped the meat down in two great bites. ‘Quite good,’ she said, ‘though one wonders why it was necessary to burn it.’

‘A custom, little sister,’ he laughed.

‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘if it’s a custom.’ Carefully she licked her whiskers clean.

‘I will return in a moment, Belgarath,’ Belar said and moved away.

‘That one is nice,’ my companion told me pointedly.

‘He is a God,’ I told her.

‘That means nothing to me,’ she said. ‘Gods are the business of men. Wolves have little interest in such things.’

‘Perhaps you would care to return to the place where we met?’ I suggested.

‘I will go along with you for a while longer,’ she told me. ‘I was ever curious, and I see that you are familiar with most remarkable things.’ She yawned, stretched, and curled up at my feet.

The return to the Vale where my Master waited took far less time than had my journey to the country of the Bear-God. Though time is a matter of indifference to them normally, when there is a need for haste, the Gods can devour distance in ways that had not even occurred to me. We began walking with Belar asking me questions about my Master and our lives in the Vale and the young she-wolf padding along sedately between us. After several hours of this, my impatience finally made me bold.

‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘forgive me, but at this rate it will take us almost a year to reach my Master’s tower.’

‘Not nearly so long, Belgarath,’ he replied pleasantly. ‘I believe it lies just beyond that next hilltop.’

I stared at him, not believing that a God could be so simple, but when we crested the hill, there lay the Vale spread before us with my Master’s tower standing in the center.

‘Most remarkable,’ the wolf murmured, dropping onto her haunches and staring down into the Vale with her bright yellow eyes. I could only agree with her.

The other Gods were already with my Master in the tower, and Belar hastened to join them.

My brothers, the other Disciples of Aldur, awaited me at the foot of the tower. When they saw my companion, they were startled.

‘Is it wise, Belgarath, to bring such a one here?’ Belzedar asked me. ‘Wolves are not the most trustworthy creatures.’

My companion bared her fangs at him for that.

‘What is her name,’ the gentle Beltira asked.

‘Wolves do not require names,’ I told him. ‘They know who they are without such appendages.’

Belzedar shook his head and moved away from the wolf.

‘Is she quite tame?’ Belsambar asked me. ‘I wonder that you had time for such business on your journey, and I know you would not loiter.’

‘She is not tame at all,’ I told him. ‘We met by chance, and she chose to accompany me.’

‘Most remarkable,’ the wolf said to me. ‘Are they always so full of questions?’

‘It is the nature of man,’ I told her.

‘Curious creatures,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘What a wonder,’ Belkira marveled. ‘You have learned to converse with the beasts. Pray, dear brother, instruct me in this art.’

‘It is not an art,’ I said. ‘I took the form of a wolf on my journey. The speech of the wolf came with the form and remained. It is no great thing.’

And then we sat, awaiting the decision of our Master and his brother Gods regarding the wayward Torak. When they came down, their faces were solemn, and the other Gods departed without speaking with us.

‘There will be war,’ our Master told us. ‘My brothers have gone to gather their people. Mara and Issa will come upon Torak from the south; Nedra and Chaldan shall come upon him from the west; Belar and I will come upon him from the north. We will lay waste his people, the Angaraks, until he returns the Orb. It must be so.’

‘Then so be it,’ I said, speaking for us all.

And so we prepared for war. We were but seven, and feared that our Master might be held in low regard when our tiny number was revealed to the hosts of the other Gods, but it was not so. We labored to create the great engines of war and to cast illusions which confounded the minds of the Angarak peoples of the traitor, Torak.

And after a few battles did we and the hosts of the other peoples harry Torak and his people out onto that vast plain beyond Korim, which is no more.^*

And then it was that Torak, knowing that the hosts of his brother Gods could destroy all of Angarak, raised up the jewel which my Master had wrought, and with it he let in the sea.

The sound was one such as I had never heard before. The earth shrieked and groaned as the power of the Orb and the will of Torak cracked open the fair plain; and, with a roar like ten thousand thunders, the sea came in to seethe in a broad, foaming band between us and the Angaraks. How many perished in that sudden drowning no one will ever know. The cracked land sank beneath our feet, and the mocking sea pursued us, swallowing the plain and the villages and the cities which lay upon it. Then it was that the village of my birth was lost forever, and that fair, sparkling river drowned beneath the endlessly rolling sea.

A great cry went up from the hosts of the other Gods, for indeed the lands of most of them were swallowed up by the sea which Torak had let in.

‘How remarkable,’ the young wolf at my side observed.

‘You say that overmuch,’ I told her, somewhat sharply.

‘Do you not find it so?’

‘I do,’ I said, ‘but one should not say it so often lest one be thought simple.’

‘I will say as I wish to say,’ she told me. ‘You need not listen if it does not please you; and if you think me simple, that is your concern.’

Who can argue with a wolf? – and a she-wolf at that?

And now were we confounded. The broad sea stood between us and the Angaraks, and Torak stood upon one shore and we upon the other.

‘And what now, Master?’ I asked Aldur.

‘It is finished,’ he said. ‘The war is done.’

‘Never!’ said the young God Belar. ‘My people are Alorns. The ways of the sea are not strange to them. If it be not possible to come upon the traitor Torak by land, then my Alorns shall build a great fleet, and we shall come upon him by sea. The war is not done. He hath smote thee, my dear brother, and he hath stolen that which was thine, and now hath he drowned this fair land in the death-cold sea also. Our homes and our fields and forests are no more. This I say, and my words are true, between Alorn and Angarak shall there be endless war until the traitor Torak be punished for his iniquities – yea, even if it prevail so until the end of days.’

‘Torak is punished,’ my Master said quietly. ‘He hath raised the Orb against the earth, and the Orb hath requited him for that. The pain of that requiting shall endure in our brother Torak all the days of his life. Moreover, now is the Orb awakened. It hath been used to commit a great evil, and it will not be used so again. Torak hath the Orb, but small pleasure will he find in the having. He may not touch it, neither may he look upon it, lest it slay him.’

‘Nonetheless,’ said Belar, ‘I will make war upon him until the Orb be returned to thee. To this I pledge all of Aloria.’

‘As you would have it, my brother,’ said Aldur. ‘Now, however, must we raise some barrier against this encroaching sea lest it swallow up all the dry land that is left to us. Join, therefore, thy will with mine and let us do that which must be done.’

Until that day I had not fully realized to what degree the Gods differed from men. As I watched, Aldur and Belar joined their hands and looked out over the broad plain and the approaching sea.

‘Stay,’ Belar said to the sea. His voice was not loud, but the sea heard him and stopped. It built up, angry and tossing, behind the barrier of that single word.

‘Rise up,’ Aldur said as softly to the earth. My mind reeled as I perceived the immensity of that command. The earth, so newly wounded by the evil which Torak had done, groaned and heaved and swelled; and, before my eyes, it rose up. Higher and higher it rose as the rocks beneath cracked and shattered. Out of the plain there shouldered up mountains which had not been there before, and they shuddered away the loose earth as a dog shakes off water and stood as a stern and eternal barrier against the sea which Torak had let in.

Sullenly, the sea retreated.

‘How remarkable,’ the wolf said.

‘Truly,’ I could not but agree.

And the other Gods and their people came and beheld that which my Master and his brother Belar had done, and they marveled at it.

‘Now is the time of sundering,’ my Master said. ‘The land which was once so fair is no more. That which remains here is harsh and will not support us. Take thou therefore, my brothers, each his own people and journey even unto the west. Beyond the western mountains lies a fair plain – not so broad perhaps nor so beautiful as that which Torak hath drowned this day – but it will sustain thee and thy people.’

‘And what of thou, my brother?’ asked Mara.

‘I shall return to my labors,’ said Aldur. ‘This day hath evil been unleashed in the world, and its power is great. Care for thy people, my brothers, and sustain them. The evil hath come into the world as a result of that which I have forged. Upon me, therefore, falls the task of preparation for the day when good and evil shall meet in that final battle wherein shall be decided the fate of the world.’

‘So be it, then,’ said Mara. ‘Hail and farewell, my brother,’ and he turned and the other Gods with him, and they went away toward the west.

But the young God Belar lingered. ‘My oath and my pledge bind me still,’ he told my Master. ‘I will take my Alorns to the north, and there we will seek a way by which we may come again upon the traitor Torak and his foul Angarak peoples. Thine Orb shall be returned unto thee. I shall not rest until it be so.’ And then he turned and put his face to the north, and his tall warriors followed after him.

That day marked a great change in our lives in the Vale. Until then our days had been spent in learning and in labors of our own choosing. Now, however, our Master set tasks for us. Most of them were beyond our understanding, and no work is so tedious as to labor at something without knowing the reason for it. Our Master shut himself away in his tower, and often years passed without our seeing him.

It was a time of great trial to us, and our spirits often sank.

One day, as I labored, the she-wolf, who always watched, moved slightly or made some sound, and I stopped and looked at her. I could not remember how long it had been since I had noticed her.

‘It must be tedious for you to simply sit and watch this way,’ I said.

‘It’s not unpleasant,’ she said. ‘Now and then you do something curious or remarkable. There is entertainment enough for me here. I will go along with you yet for a while longer.’

I smiled, and then a strange thing occurred to me. ‘How long has it been since you and I first met?’ I asked her.

‘What is time to a wolf?’ she asked indifferently.

I consulted several documents and made a few calculations. ‘As closely as I can determine, you have been with me somewhat in excess of a thousand years,’ I told her.

‘And?’ she said in that infuriating manner of hers.

‘Don’t you find that a trifle remarkable?’

‘Not particularly,’ she said placidly.

‘Do wolves normally live so long?’

‘Wolves live as long as they choose to live,’ she said, somewhat smugly, I thought.

One day soon after that I found it necessary to change my form in order to complete a task my Master had set me to.

‘So that’s how you do it,’ the wolf marveled. ‘What a simple thing.’ And she promptly turned herself into a snowy owl.

‘Stop that,’ I told her.

‘Why?’ she said, carefully preening her feathers with her beak.

‘It’s not seemly.’

‘What is “seemly” to a wolf – or an owl, I should say?’ And with that she spread her soft, silent wings and soared out the window.

After that I knew little peace. I never knew when I turned around what might be staring at me – wolf or owl, bear or butterfly. She seemed to take great delight in startling me, but as time wore on, more and more she retained the shape of the owl.

‘What is this thing about owls?’ I growled one day.

‘I like owls,’ she explained as if it were the simplest thing in the world. ‘During my first winter when I was a young and foolish thing, I was chasing a rabbit, floundering around in the snow like a puppy, and a great white owl swooped down and snatched my rabbit almost out of my jaws. She carried it to a nearby tree and ate it, dropping the scraps to me. I thought at the time that it would be a fine thing to be an owl.’

‘Foolishness,’ I snorted.

‘Perhaps,’ she replied blandly, preening her tail feathers, ‘but it amuses me. It may be that one day a different shape will amuse me even more.’

I grunted and returned to my work.

Some time later – days or years or perhaps even longer – she came swooping through the window, as was her custom, perched sedately on a chair and resumed her proper wolf-shape.

‘I think I will go away for a while,’ she announced.

‘Oh?’ I said cautiously.

She stared at me, her golden eyes unblinking. ‘I think I would like to look at the world again,’ she said.

‘I see,’ I said.

‘The world has changed much, I think.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘I might come back some day.’

‘As you wish,’ I said.

‘Goodbye, then,’ she said, blurred into the form of an owl again, and with a single thrust of her great wings she was gone.

Strangely, I missed her. I found myself turning often to show her something. She had been a part of my life for so long that it somehow seemed that she would always be there. I was always a bit saddened not to see her in her usual place.

And then there came a time when, on an errand for my Master, I went some leagues to the north. On my way back I came across a small, neatly thatched cottage in a grove of giant trees near a small river. I had passed that way frequently, and the house had never been there before. Moreover, to my own certain knowledge, there was not another human habitation within five hundred leagues. In the house there lived a woman. She seemed young, and yet perhaps not young. Her hair was quite tawny, and her eyes were a curious golden color.

She stood in the doorway as I approached – almost as if she had been expecting me. She greeted me in a seemly manner and invited me to come in and sup with her. I accepted gratefully, for no sooner did she mention food than I found myself ravenously hungry.

The inside of her cottage was neat and cheery. A fire burned merrily upon her hearth, and a large kettle bubbled and hiccuped over it. From that kettle came wondrous smells. The woman seated me at the table, fetched me a stout earthenware plate and then set before me a meal such as I had not seen in hundreds of years. It consisted, as I recall, of every kind of food which I liked most.

When I had eaten – more than I should have probably, since as all who know me can attest, good food was ever a weakness of mine – we talked, the woman and I, and I found her to have most uncommon good sense. Though my errand was urgent, I found myself lingering, thinking of excuses not to go. Indeed, I felt quite as giddy as some adolescent in her presence.

Her name, she told me, was Poledra. ‘And by what name are you known?’ she asked.

‘I am called Belgarath,’ I told her, ‘and I am a Disciple of the God Aldur.’

‘How remarkable,’ she said, and then she laughed. There was something hauntingly familiar in that laugh.

I never learned the truth about Poledra, though of course I had suspicions.

When the urgency of my errand compelled me to leave that fair grove and the small, neat cottage, Poledra said a most peculiar thing. ‘I will go along with you,’ she told me. ‘I was ever curious.’ And she closed the door of her house and returned with me to the Vale.

Strangely, my Master awaited us, and he greeted Poledra courteously. I can never be sure, but it seemed that some secret glance passed between them as if they knew each other and shared some knowledge that I was unaware of.

I had, as I say, some suspicions, but as time went on they became less and less important. After a while, I didn’t even think about them any more.

That following spring Poledra and I married. My Master himself, burdened though he was with care and the great task of preparing for the day of the final struggle between good and evil, blessed our union.

There was joy in our marriage, and I never thought about those things which I had prudently decided not to think about; but that, of course, is another story.^*