Читать книгу Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress: 2-Book Collection - David Eddings - Страница 19

My brothers and I were badly shaken by the outcome of our war with the Angaraks. We certainly hadn’t anticipated Torak’s desperate response to our campaign, and I think we all felt a gnawing personal guilt for the death of half of mankind. We were a somber group when we reached the Vale. We had ongoing tasks, of course, but we took to gathering in our Master’s tower in the evenings, seeking comfort and reassurance in his presence and the familiar surroundings of the tower.

Each of us had his own chair, and we normally sat around a long table, discussing the events of the day and then moving on to more wide-ranging topics. I don’t know that we solved any of the world’s problems with those eclectic conversations, but that’s not really why we held them. We needed to be together during that troubled time, and we needed the calm that always pervaded that familiar room at the top of the tower. For one thing, the light there was somehow different from the light in our own towers. The fact that our Master didn’t bother with firewood might have had something to do with that. The fire on his hearth burned because he wanted it to burn, and it continued to burn whether he fed it or not. Our chairs were large and comfortable and made of dark, polished wood, and the room was neat and uncluttered. Aldur stored his things in some unimaginable place, and they came to him when he called them rather than laying about collecting dust.

Our evening gatherings continued for six months or so, and they helped us to gather our wits and to ward off the nightmares which haunted our sleep.

Sooner or later, one of us was bound to ask the question, and as it turned out, it was Beltira. ‘What started it all, Master?’ he asked reflectively. ‘This goes back much further than what’s been happening recently, doesn’t it?’

You’ll notice that Durnik wasn’t the first to be curious about beginnings.

Aldur looked gravely at the gentle Alorn shepherd. ‘It doth indeed, Beltira – further back than thou canst possibly imagine. Once, when the universe was all new and long before my brothers and I came into being, an event occurred which had not been designed to occur, and it was that event which divided the purpose of all things.’

‘An accident then, Master?’ Beldin surmised.

‘A most apt term, my son,’ Aldur complimented him. ‘Like all things, the stars are born; they exist for a certain time; and then they die. The “accident” of which we speak came about when a star died in a place and at a time which were not a part of the original design of all creation. The death of a star is a titanic event, and the death of this particular star was made even more so by its unfortunate proximity to other stars. Ye have all studied the heavens, and therefore ye know that the universe is comprised of clusters of stars. The particular cluster of which we speak consisted of so many suns that they were beyond counting, and the wayward sun which died in their very midst ignited others, and they in turn ignited more. The conflagration spread until the entire cluster exploded.’

‘Was that anywhere near where we are now, Master?’ Belsambar asked him.

‘Nay, my son. The EVENT took place on the far side of the universe – so far in fact that the light of that catastrophe hath not yet reached this world.’

‘How is that possible, Master?’ Belsambar looked confused.

‘Sight isn’t instantaneous, brother,’ Beldin explained. ‘There’s a lag between the time when something happens and the time when we see it. There are a lot of things we see in the night sky that aren’t really there any more. Someday when we’ve both got some time, I’ll explain it to you.’

‘How could so remote an event have any meaning here, Master?’ Belzedar asked, his tone baffled.

Aldur sighed. “The universe came into being with a Purpose, Belzedar,’ he replied with a strange kind of wonder in his voice. ‘The accident divided that Purpose, and what was once one became two. Awareness came out of that division, and the two Purposes have contended with each other since that EVENT took place. In time, the two agreed that this world – which did not even exist as yet – would be their final battleground. That is why my brothers and I came into existence, and that is why we made this world. It is here that the division of the Purpose of the universe will be healed. A series of EVENTS, some great and some very small, have been leading up to the final EVENT, and that EVENT shall be a Choice.’

‘Who’s supposed to make that choice?’ Beldin asked.

‘We are not permitted to know that,’ Aldur replied.

‘Oh, fine!’ Beldin exploded with heavy sarcasm. ‘It’s all a game, then! When’s this supposed to happen?’

‘Soon, my son. Very soon.’

‘Could you be a little more specific, Master? I know how long you’ve been around, and you and I might have very different ideas about what the word “soon” means.’

‘The Choice must be made when the light of that exploding star-cluster reaches this world.’

‘And that could happen at any time, couldn’t it? It could come popping out of the sky sometime after midnight this very night, for all we know.’

‘Curb thine impatience, Beldin,’ Aldur told him. ‘There will be signs to advise us that the moment of the Choice draws nigh. The cracking of the world was one such sign. There will be others as well.’

‘Such as?’ Beldin pressed. Once Beldin grabbed hold of an idea, he couldn’t let go of it.

‘Before the light comes, there will be a time – a moment – of utter darkness.’

‘I’ll watch for it,’ Beldin said sourly.

‘As I understand it, there are two possible Destinies out there,’ Belmakor observed. ‘Torak’s one of them, isn’t he?’

‘My brother is a part of one of them, yes. Each of the Destinies is comprised of innumerable parts, and each hath a consciousness which doth exceed the awareness of any of those parts.’

‘Which one came first, Master?’ Belkira asked.

‘We do not know. We are not permitted to know.’

‘More games,’ Beldin said in a tone of profoundest disgust. ‘I hate games.’

‘We must all play this one, however, gentle Beldin. The rules may not be to our liking, but we must abide by them, for they are laid down by the contending Purposes.’

‘Why? It’s their fight. Why involve the rest of us? Why don’t they just pick a time and place, meet, and have it out once and for all?’

‘That they may not do, my son, for should they ever confront each other directly, their struggle would destroy the whole of the universe.’

‘I don’t think we’d want that,’ Belkira said mildly. The twins are Alorns, after all, and Alorns take a childish delight in gross understatement.

‘You are the other Destiny, aren’t you, Master?’ Belsambar asked. ‘Torak is the one, and you are the other.’

‘I am a part of it, my son,’ Aldur conceded. ‘We are all parts of it. That is why what we do is so important. One will come in the fullness of time, however, who will be even more important. It is he who will meet Torak and prepare the way for the Choice.’

And that was the very first time I ever heard of Belgarion. Aldur knew he was coming, though, and he’d been patiently preparing for him since he and his brothers had built the world. If you want to put it in the simplest terms, I suppose you could say that the Gods created this world to give Belgarion something to stand on while he set things right again. It was a lot of responsibility for somebody like Garion, but I suppose he was up to it. Things did turn out all right – more or less.

Our Master’s explanation of what we were doing laid a heavy responsibility on us as well, and we felt it keenly. Even in the midst of our labors, however, we all noticed that the world had been enormously changed by what Torak had done to it. The presence of a new ocean in what had been the center of the continent had a profound effect on the climate, and the mountain range our Master and Belar had raised to confine that ocean changed it even more. Summers became dryer and hotter for one thing, and the winters became longer and colder. That’s one of the reasons that I tend to get very angry when someone starts playing around with the weather. I’ve seen what happens when something or someone tampers with normal weather patterns. Garion and I had a very long talk about that on one occasion, as I recall – that is, I talked. He listened. At least I hope he did. Garion has enormous power, and sometimes he turns it loose before he thinks his way completely through a given course of action.

With the change of climate there also came a gradual alteration of the world around us. The vast primeval forest on the northern edge of the Vale began to thin out, for one thing, and it was replaced by grassland. I’m sure the Algars approve of that, but I preferred the trees myself.

There was also a rather brutal alteration of the climate of the far north. Belar, however, persisted in his plan to find some way to close with the Angaraks again, and his Alorns were obliged to endure truly savage winters.

There in the Vale, however, we had more on our minds than the weather. The cracking of the world set a lot of things in motion, and Aldur kept the seven of us very busy making sure that things which were supposed to happen did happen. We surmised that the Angaraks were doing the same thing. The two contending Purposes were undoubtedly maneuvering for position.

About twenty years after the cracking of the world, our Master summoned us all to his tower and suggested that one of us ought to go to what is now Mallorea to find out what Torak and his people were up to.

‘I’ll go,’ Beldin volunteered. ‘I fly better than the rest of you, and I can move around among the Angaraks without attracting any attention.’

‘Somehow your reasoning there escapes me, old boy,’ Belmakor said. ‘You’re a rather remarkable-looking fellow, you know.’

‘That’s the whole point. When people look at me, all they can see is this hump on my back and the fact that my arms are longer than my legs. They don’t bother to look at my face to find out what my race is. There’s a kind of anonymity that goes with being deformed.’

‘Do you want me to go with you?’ Belsambar offered. ‘I’m an Angarak, after all, and I know the customs.’

‘Thanks, brother, but no. You’ve got some fairly strong opinions about Grolims. We wouldn’t be anonymous for very long if you started turning every single priest of Torak inside out. I’m just going there to look, and I’d rather that Torak didn’t know that I’m around.’

‘I wouldn’t interfere, Beldin.’

‘Let’s not take the chance. I love you too much to risk your life.’

‘You really shouldn’t go alone, Beldin,’ Belzedar told him, his eyes strangely intent. ‘I think perhaps I’d better go too.’

‘I’m not a child, Belzedar. I can take care of myself.’

‘I’m sure of it, but we can cover more ground if there are two of us. The other continent’s quite large, and the Angaraks have probably spread out by now. The Master wants information, and two of us can get it faster than one.’

Now that I think back about it, Belzedar’s arguments were just a bit thin. Angarak society was the most tightly controlled in the world. Torak was not going to let his people spread out; he would keep them under his thumb. Belzedar had his own reasons for wanting to go to Mallorea, and I should have realized that helping Beldin wasn’t one of them.

The two of them argued for a while, but Beldin finally gave in. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Come along if it means so much to you.’

And so the next morning the two of them took the forms of hawks and flew off toward the east.

We all dispersed not long after that. The Master had some fairly extensive tasks for me in Arendia and Tolnedra.

The young she-wolf went with me, of course. I hadn’t even considered leaving her behind, and it probably wouldn’t have done me any good if I had. When we’d first met, she’d said, ‘I will go along with you for a while.’ Evidently, we hadn’t come to the end of that ‘while’ yet. I didn’t really mind, though. She was good company.

The shortest route to northern Arendia lay across Ulgoland, so the wolf and I went up into those mountains and proceeded in a generally northwesterly direction. I made us a proper camp every night. Fire had made her nervous right at first, but now she rather liked having a fire in the evening.

After a few days I realized that we were going to be passing fairly close to Prolgu. I didn’t really like the current Gorim very much. This particular successor seemed to be terribly impressed by the fact that the Ulgos were the children of the father of the Gods. I guess that made him feel that Ulgos were better than the rest of mankind. I reluctantly concluded that it’d be bad manners to bypass Prolgu without paying a courtesy call, so I veered slightly north in order to reach the city.

The route I chose to reach Prolgu ran up through a thickly wooded gorge with a tumbling mountain stream running down the middle of it. It was about mid-morning, and the sunlight had just reached the damp bottom of the gorge. I was wool-gathering, I suppose. A kind of peace and serenity comes over me when I’m in the mountains.

Then the wolf laid her ears back and growled warningly.

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked her, speaking in the language of men without even thinking about it.

‘Horses,’ she replied in wolvish. ‘But perhaps they are not really horses. They smell of blood and of raw meat.’

‘Do not be concerned,’ I told her, lapsing into wolvish. ‘One has encountered them before. They are Hrulgin. They are meat-eaters. What you smell is the blood and meat of a deer.’

‘One thinks that you are wrong. The smell is not that of deer. What one smells is the blood and meat of man.’

‘That is impossible,’ I snorted. ‘The Hrulgin are not maneaters. They live in peace with the Ulgos here in these mountains.’

‘One’s nose is very good,’ she told me pointedly. ‘One would not confuse the smell of man-blood and meat with the smell of a deer. These flesh-eating horses have been killing and eating men, and they are hunting again.’

‘Hunting? Hunting what?’

‘One thinks that they are hunting you.’

I sent out a probing thought. The minds of the Hrulgin aren’t really very much like the minds of horses. Horses eat grass, and about the only time they’re aggressive is during the breeding season. The Hrulgin look a great deal like horses – if you discount the claws and fangs – but they don’t eat grass. I’d touched the minds of Hrulgin before at various times when I’d been traveling in the mountains of Ulgoland. I knew that they were hunters and fairly savage, but the peace of UL had always put restraints on them before. The minds I touched this time seemed to have shrugged off those restraints, though.

The wolf was right. The Hrulgin were hunting me.

I’d been hunted before. A young lion stalked me for two days once before I’d finally chased him off. There’s no real malice in the mind of a hunting animal. He’s just looking for something to eat. What I encountered this time, however, was a cruel hatred, and much worse, to my way of looking at it, an absolute madness. These particular Hrulgin were much more interested in the killing than they were in the eating. I was in trouble here.

‘One suggests that you do something about your shape,’ the she-wolf advised. She dropped to her haunches, her long, pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. In case you’ve never noticed, that’s the way canines laugh.

‘What is so funny?’ I demanded of her.

‘One finds the man-things amusing. The hunter puts all his thought on the thing he hunts. If it is a rabbit he hunts, he will not turn aside for a squirrel. These meat-eating horses are hunting a man – you. Change your shape, and they will ignore you.’

I was actually embarrassed. Why hadn’t I thought of that? For all our sophistication, the instinctive reaction that seizes you when you realize that something wants to kill and eat you is sheer panic.

I formed the image in my mind, and slipped myself into the shape of the wolf. My companion seemed to be impressed. ‘Much better,’ she said approvingly. ‘You are a handsome wolf. Your other shape is not so pleasing. Shall we go?’

We angled up from the stream-bed and stopped at the edge of the trees to watch the Hrulgin. The sudden disappearance of my scent confused them and it seemed also to infuriate them. The herd stallion reared, screaming his rage, and he shredded the bark of an unoffending tree with his claws while flecks of foam spattered out from his long, curved fangs. Several of the mares followed my scent down the gorge, then back, moving slowly and trying to sniff out the place where I’d turned aside and slipped away.

‘One suggests that we move along,’ the she-wolf said. ‘The flesh-eating horses will think that we have killed and eaten the man-thing they were hunting. This will make them angry with us. They may decide to stop hunting the man-thing and start hunting wolves.’

We stayed just back of the edge of the trees so that we could watch the baffled Hrulgin near the edge of the mountain stream in case they decided to start hunting wolves instead of men. After about a half-hour, we were far enough out in front of them that the chances that they could catch up with us were very slim.

The change in the Hrulgin had me completely baffled. The peace of UL had always been absolute before. What had driven the Hrulgin mad?

As it turned out, the Hrulgin weren’t the only monsters that’d lost their wits.

My automatic use of the word ‘monster’ there isn’t an indication of prejudice. It’s just a translation of an Ulgo word. The Ulgos even refer to the Dryads as monsters. Ce’Nedra was somewhat offended by that term, as I recall.

Anyway, I decided not to revert to my own form once we’d evaded the Hrulgin. Something very strange was going on here in Ulgoland. My companion and I reached that peculiarly shaped mountain upon which Prolgu stands, and we started up.

About half-way to the top, we encountered a pack of Algroths, and they were just as crazy as the Hrulgin had been. Algroths are not among my favorite creatures anyway. I’m not sure what the Gods were thinking of when they created them. A blend of ape, goat, and reptile seems a bit exotic to me. The Algroths were also hunting for people to kill and eat. Whether I liked him or not, I definitely needed to have words with the Gorim.

The only problem was the fact that Prolgu was totally deserted. There were some signs of a hasty departure, but the abandoning of the city had happened some time back, so my companion and I couldn’t pick up any hint of a scent that might have told us which way the Ulgos had gone. We came across some mossy human bones, however, and I didn’t care for the implications of that. Was it possible that the Ulgos had all been killed? Had UL changed his mind and abandoned them?

I didn’t really have time to sort it out. Evening had fallen over the empty city, and my companion and I were still sniffing around in the empty buildings when a sudden bellow shattered the silence, a bellow that was coming from the sky. I went to the doorway of the building we’d been searching and looked up.

The light wasn’t really very good, but it was good enough for me to see that huge shape outlined against the evening sky.

It was the dragon, and her great wings were clawing at the sky and she was belching clouds of sooty fire with every bellow.

Notice that I speak of her in the singular and the feminine. This is no indication of any great perception on my part, since there was only one dragon in the entire world, and she was female. The two males the Gods had created had killed each other during the first mating season. I’d always felt rather sorry for her, but not this time. She, like the Hrulgin and the Algroths, was intent on killing things, but she was too stupid to be selective. She’d burn anything that moved.

Moreover, Torak had added a modification to the dragons when he and his brothers were creating them. They were totally immune to anything I might have been able to do to them with the Will and the Word.

‘One would be more content if you would do something about that,’ the wolf told me.

‘I am thinking about it,’ I replied.

‘Think faster. The bird is returning.’

Her faith in me was touching, but it didn’t help very much. I quickly ran over the dragon’s characteristics in my mind. She was invulnerable, she was stupid, and she was lonely. Those last two clicked together in my mind. I loped to the edge of the city, focused my will on a thicket a few miles south of the mountain, and set fire to it.

The dragon screeched and swooped off toward my fire, belching out her own flames as she went.

‘One wonders why you did that.’

‘Fire is a part of the mating ritual of her kind.’

‘How remarkable. Most birds mate in the spring.’

‘She is not exactly a bird. One thinks that we should leave these mountains immediately. There are strange things taking place here that one does not understand, and we have errands to attend to in the lowlands.’

She sighed. ‘It is always errands with you, isn’t it?’

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

‘But you are not a man-thing right now.’

I couldn’t dispute her logic, but we left anyway, and we reached Arendia two days later.

The tasks my Master had set for me involved certain Arends and some Tolnedrans. At the time, I didn’t understand why the Master was so interested in weddings. I understand now, of course. Certain people needed to be born, and I was out there laying ground work for all I was worth.

I’d rather thought that the presence of my companion might complicate things, but as it turned out, she was an advantage, since you definitely get noticed when you walk into an Arendish village or a Tolnedran town with a full-grown wolf at your side, and her presence did tend to make people listen to me.

Arranging marriages in those days wasn’t really all that difficult. The Arends – and to a somewhat lesser degree the Tolnedrans – had patriarchal notions, and children were supposed to obey their fathers in important matters. Thus, I was seldom obliged to try to convince the happy couple that they ought to get married. I talked with their fathers instead. I had a certain celebrity in those days. The war was still fresh in everybody’s mind, and my brothers and I had played fairly major roles in that conflict. Moreover, I soon found that the priesthood in both Arendia and Tolnedra could be very helpful. After I’d been through the whole business a couple of times, I began to develop a pattern. When the wolf and I went into a town, we’d immediately go to the temple of either Chaldan or Nedra. I’d identify myself and ask the local priests to introduce me to the fathers in question.

It didn’t always go smoothly, of course. Every so often I’d come across stubborn men who for one reason or another didn’t care for my choice of spouses for their children. If worse came to worst, though, I could always give them a little demonstration of what I could do about things that irritated me. That was usually enough to bring them around to my way of thinking.

‘One wonders why all of this is necessary,’ my companion said to me as we were leaving one Arendish village after I’d finally persuaded a particularly difficult man that his daughter’s happiness – and his own health – depended on the girl’s marriage to the young fellow we’d selected for her.

‘They will produce young ones,’ I tried to explain.

‘What an amazing thing,’ she responded dryly. A wolf can fill the simplest statement with all sorts of ironic implications. ‘Is that not the usual purpose of mating?’

‘Our purpose is to produce specific young ones.’

‘Why? One puppy is much like another, is it not? Character is developed in the rearing, not in the blood-line.’

We argued about that off and on for centuries, and I strongly suspect her of arguing largely because she knew that it irritated me. Technically, I was the leader of our odd little pack, but she wasn’t going to let me get above myself.

Arendia was a mournful sort of place in those days. The melancholy institution of serfdom had been well-established among the Arends even before the war with the Angaraks, and they brought it with them when they migrated to the west. I’ve never understood why anyone would submit to being a serf in the first place, but I suppose the Arendish character might have had something to do with it. Arends go to war with each other on the slightest pretext, and an ordinary farmer needs someone around to protect him from belligerent neighbors.

The lands the Arends had occupied in the central part of the continent had been open, and the fields had long been under cultivation. Their new home was a tangled forest, so they had to clear away the trees before they could plant anything. This was the work that fell to the serfs. The wolf and I soon became accustomed to seeing naked people chopping at trees. ‘One wonders why they take off their fur to do this,’ she said to me on one occasion. There’s no word in wolfish for ‘clothing,’ so she had to improvise.

‘It is because they only have one of the things they cover their bodies with. They put them aside while they are hitting the trees because they do not want them to be wounded while they work.’ I decided not to go into the question of the poverty of the serfs nor of the expense of a new canvas smock. The discussion was complicated enough already. How do you explain the concept of ownership to a creature that has no need for possessions of any kind?

‘This covering and uncovering of their bodies that the man-things do is foolishness,’ she declared. ‘Why do they do it?’

‘For warmth when it is cold.’

‘But they also do it when it is not cold. Why?’

‘For modesty, I suppose.’

‘What is modesty?’

I sighed. I wasn’t making much headway here. ‘It is just a custom among the man-things,’ I told her.

‘Oh. If it is a custom, it is all right,’ Wolves have an enormous respect for customs. Then she immediately thought of something else. She was always thinking of something else. ‘If it is the custom among man-things to cover their bodies sometimes but not others, it is not much of a custom, is it?’

I gave up. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Probably not.’

She dropped to her haunches in the middle of the forest path we were following with her tongue lolling out in wolfish laughter.

‘Do you mind?’ I demanded.

‘One is merely amused by the inconsistencies of the man-side of your thought,’ she replied. ‘If you would take your true form, your thought would run more smoothly.’ She was still convinced that I was really a wolf and that my frequent change of form was no more than a personal idiosyncrasy.

In the forests of Arendia, we frequently encountered the almost ubiquitous bands of outlaws. Not all of the serfs docilely accepted their condition. I don’t like having people point arrows at me, so after the first time or two, I went wolf as soon as we were out of sight of the village we’d just left. Even the stupidest runaway serf isn’t going to argue with a couple of full-grown wolves. That’s one of the things that’s always been a trial to me. People are forever interfering with me when I’ve got something to attend to. Why can’t they just leave me alone?

We went down into Tolnedra after a number of years, and I continued my activities as a marriage-broker, ultimately winding up in Tol Nedrane.

Don’t bother trying to find it on a map. The name was changed to Tol Honeth before the beginning of the second millennium.

I know that most of you have seen Tol Honeth, but you wouldn’t have recognized it in its original state. The war with the Angaraks had taught the Tolnedrans the value of defensible positions, and the island in the center of the Nedrane – ‘the River of Nedra’ – seemed to them to be an ideal spot for a city. It may very well be now, but there were a lot of drawbacks when they first settled there. They’ve been working on it for five thousand years now, and I suppose they’ve finally ironed out most of the wrinkles.

When the wolf and I first went there, however, the island was a damp, marshy place that was frequently inundated by spring floods. They’d built a fairly substantial wall of logs around the island, and the houses inside were also built of logs and had thatched roofs – an open invitation to fire, in my opinion. The streets were narrow, crooked, and muddy; and quite frankly, the place smelled like an open cesspool. My companion found that particularly offensive, since wolves have an extremely keen sense of smell.

My major reason for being in Tolnedra was to oversee the beginnings of the Honethite family. I’ve never really liked the Honeths. They have an exalted opinion of themselves, and I’ve never much cared for people who look down their noses at me. My distaste for them may have made me a little abrupt with the prospective bridegroom’s father when I told him that his son was required to marry the daughter of an artisan whose primary occupation was the construction of fireplaces. The Honeths absolutely had to have some hereditary familiarity with working in stone. If they didn’t, the Tolnedran Empire would never come into existence, and we were going to need the empire later on. I wouldn’t bore you with all of this except to show you just how elemental our arrangements in those days really were. We were setting things in motion that wouldn’t come to fruition for thousands of years.

After I’d bullied the bridegroom’s father into accepting the marriage I’d proposed for his son, the wolf and I left Tol Nedrane – by ferry, since they hadn’t gotten around to building bridges yet. The ferryman overcharged us outrageously, as I recall, but he was a Tolnedran, after all, so that was to be expected.

I’d finally finished the various tasks my Master had given me, and so the wolf and I went eastward toward the Tolnedran mountains. It was time to go home to the Vale, but I wasn’t going to go back through Ulgoland. I wasn’t going to go near Ulgoland until I found out what had happened there. We tarried for a while once we got into the mountains, however. My companion entertained herself chasing deer and rabbits, but I spent my time looking for that cave our Master had told us about on several occasions. I knew it was in these mountains somewhere, so I took some time to do a little exploring. I didn’t plan to do anything about it if I found it, but I wanted to see the place where the Gods had lived while they were creating the world.

To be honest about it, that wasn’t the only time I looked for that cave. Every time I passed through those mountains, I’d set aside a week or so to look around. The original home of the Gods would be something to see, after all.

I never found it, of course. It took Garion to do that – many, many years later. Something important was to happen there, and it didn’t involve me.

Beldin had returned from Mallorea when the wolf and I got back to the Vale, but Belzedar wasn’t with him. I’d missed my ugly little brother during the century or so that he’d been in Mallorea. There were certain special ties between us, and though it may seem a bit odd, I enjoyed his company.

I reported my successes to our Master, and then I told him about what we had encountered in Ulgoland. He seemed to be as baffled as I’d been.

‘Is it possible that the Ulgos did something to offend your father, Master?’ I asked him, ‘something so serious that he decided to wash his hands of the lot of them and turn the monsters loose again?’

‘Nay, my son,’ Aldur replied, shaking that silvery head of his. ‘My father would not – could not – do that.’

‘He changed his mind once, Master,’ I reminded him. ‘He didn’t want any part of mankind when the original Gorim went to Prolgu, as I recall. Gorim had to badger him for years before he finally relented. It’s probably uncharitable of me to mention it, but the current Gorim isn’t very loveable. He offends me with a single look. The heavens only know how offensive he could be once he started talking.’

Aldur smiled faintly. ‘It is uncharitable of thee, Belgarath,’ he told me. Then he actually laughed. ‘I must confess that I find myself in full agreement with thee, however. But no, Belgarath, my father is most patient. Not even the one who is currently Gorim could offend him so much. I will investigate this troubling matter and advise thee of my findings.’

‘I thank thee, Master,’ I said, taking my leave. Then I stopped by Beldin’s place to invite him to come by for a few tankards and a bit of talk. I prudently borrowed a keg of ale from the twins on my way home.

Beldin came stumping up the stairs to the room at the top of my tower and drained off his first tankard without stopping for breath. Then he belched and wordlessly handed it back to me for a refill.

I dipped more ale from the keg, and we sat down across the table from each other. ‘Well?’ I said.

‘Well what?’ That was Beldin for you.

‘What’s happening in Mallorea?’

‘Can you be a little more specific? Mallorea’s a big place,’ The wolf had come over and laid her chin in his lap. She’d always seemed fond of Beldin for some reason. He scratched her ears absently.

‘What’s Torak doing?’ I asked with some asperity.

‘Burning, actually.’ Beldin grinned that ugly, crooked grin of his. ‘I think our Master’s brother’s going to burn for a long, long time.’

‘Is that still going on?’ I was a little surprised. ‘I’d have thought the fire would have gone out by now.’

‘Not noticeably. You can’t see the flames any more, but old Burnt-face is still on fire. The Orb was very discontented with him, and it is a stone, after all. Stones aren’t noted for their forgiveness. Torak spends a lot of his time screaming.’

‘Isn’t that a shame?’ I said with a vast insincerity.

Beldin grinned at me again. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘after he broke the world apart, he had his Angaraks put the Orb in an iron box so that he wouldn’t have to look at it. Just the sight of it makes the fire hotter, I guess. That ocean he’d built was chasing the Angaraks just as fast as it was chasing us, so they ran off to the east with the waves lapping at their heels. All their holy places got swallowed up when the water came in, and they either had to sprout gills or find high ground.’

‘I find that I can bear their discomfort with enormous fortitude,’ I said smugly.

‘Belgarath, you’ve been spending too much time with the Alorns. You’re even starting to sound like one.’

I shrugged. ‘Alorns aren’t really all that bad – once you get used to them.’

‘I’d rather not. They set my teeth on edge.’

‘What happened next?’

‘That explosion we saw when the water hit the lava boiling up out of the crack in the earth’s crust rearranged the geography off to the east rather significantly. There’s an impressive swamp between where Korim used to be and where Kell is.’

‘Is Kell still there?’

‘Kell’s always been there, Belgarath, and it probably always will be. There was a city at Kell before the rest of us came down out of the trees. This new swamp hasn’t been there long enough to really settle down yet but the Angaraks managed to slog through far enough in to keep from drowning. Torak himself was busy screaming, so his army commanders were obliged to take charge. It didn’t take them very long to realize that all that muck wasn’t exactly suitable for human habitation.’

‘I’m surprised that it bothered them. Angaraks adore ugliness.’

‘Anyway, there was a big argument between the generals and the Grolims, I understand. The Grolims were hoping that the sea would recede so that they could all go back to Korim. The altars were there, after all. The generals were more practical. They knew that the water wasn’t going to go down. They stopped wasting time arguing and ordered the army to march off toward the northwest and to take the rest of Angarak with them. They marched away and left the Grolims standing on the beach staring longingly off toward Korim.’ He belched again and held out his empty tankard.

‘You know where it is,’ I told him sourly.

‘You’re not much of a host, Belgarath.’ He rose, stumped over to the keg, and scooped his tankard full, slopping beer all over my floor. Then he stumped back. ‘The Grolims weren’t very happy about the generals’ decision. They wanted to go back, but if they went back all alone, there wouldn’t be anybody to butcher but each other, and they’re not quite that devout. They went chasing after the horde, haranguing them to turn around. That irritated the generals, and there were a number of ugly incidents. I guess that’s what started the break-up of Angarak society.’

‘The what?’ I said, startled.

‘I speak plainly, Belgarath. Is your hearing starting to fail? I’ve heard that happens to you old people.’

‘What do you mean, “the break-up of Angarak society”?’

‘They’re coming apart at the seams. As long as Torak was functioning, the Grolim priesthood had everything their way. During the war, the generals got a taste of power, and they liked it. With Torak incapacitated, the Grolims really don’t have any authority; most Angaraks feel the same way about Grolims as Belsambar does. Anyway, the generals led the Angaraks up through the mountains, and they came down on a plain that was more or less habitable. They built a large military camp at a place they call Mal Zeth, and they put guards around it to keep the Grolims out. Eventually, the Grolims gave up and took their followers north and built another encampment. They call it Mal Yaska. So now you’ve got two different kinds of Angaraks in Mallorea. The soldiers at Mal Zeth are like soldiers everywhere; religion isn’t one of their highest priorities. The zealots at Mal Yaska spend so much time praying to Torak that they haven’t gotten around to building houses yet.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed that could ever happen,’ I said, ‘not to Angaraks. Religion’s the only thing they’ve ever been able to think about.’ Then I thought of something. ‘How did Belsambar react when you told him about this?’

Beldin shrugged. ‘He didn’t believe me. He can’t accept the fact that Angarak society disintegrated. Our brother’s having a lot of trouble right now, Belgarath. I think he’s feeling some obscure racial guilt. He is an Angarak, after all, and Torak did drown more than half of mankind. Maybe you’d better have a talk with him – persuade him that it’s not really his fault.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I promised. ‘Is that the way things stand in Mallorea right now?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, no. It gets better. Here about twenty years ago, Torak stopped feeling sorry for himself and came to his senses. Back in the old days, he’d have simply stamped Mal Zeth into a mud-puddle and let it go at that, but now he’s got his mind on other things. He stole the Orb, but he can’t do anything with it. The frustration’s making him more than a little crazy. He winnowed through Mal Zeth and Mal Yaska, took the most fanatic of his worshipers, and went to the far northeast coast – up near the lands of the Karands. When they got there, he ordered his followers to build him a tower – out of iron.’

‘Iron?’ I said incredulously. ‘An iron tower wouldn’t last ten years. It’d start to rust before you even got it put together.’

‘He ordered it not to, I guess. Torak’s fond of iron for some reason. Maybe he got the idea from that iron box he keeps the Orb in. I think he’s got some strange notion that if he piles enough iron around the Orb, he can weaken it to the point that he can control it.’

‘That’s pure nonsense!’

‘Don’t blame me. It’s Torak’s idea, not mine. The people he took with him built a city up there, and Torak covered it with clouds – gloomiest place you ever saw. The Angaraks call it Cthol Mishrak – the City of Endless Night. Torak’s not nearly as pretty as he used to be – not with half of his face gone – so maybe he’s trying to hide. Ugly people do that sometimes. I was born ugly, so I’m used to it. That’s pretty much it, Belgarath. The Angaraks have three cities now, Cthol Mishrak, Mal Yaska, and Mal Zeth, and they’re going in three different directions. Torak’s so busy trying to subdue the Orb that he’s not paying any attention to what’s going on in Mal Zeth and Mal Yaska. Angarak society’s disintegrating, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people. Oh, one other thing. Evidently Torak was quite impressed with us. He’s decided to take disciples of his own.’

‘Oh? How many?’

‘Three so far. There may be more later on. I guess the war taught Torak that disciples are useful people to have around. Before the war, he wasn’t interested in sharing power, but that seems to have changed. Did you know that an ordinary priest is powerless once he gets past the boundaries of his own country?’

‘I don’t quite follow you.’

‘The Gods aren’t above a little cheating now and then. They’ve each invested their priests with certain limited powers. It helps to keep the faithful in line. An ordinary Grolim – or one of the priests of Nedra or Chaldan, and Salmissra certainly – has some ability to do the kinds of things we do. Once they leave the region occupied by the worshipers of their own God, though, that ability goes out the window. A disciple, on the other hand, carries it with him wherever he goes. That’s the reason we could do things at Korim. Torak saw the value of that and started gathering disciples of his own.’

‘Any idea of who they are?’

‘Two of them used to be Grolims – Urvon and Ctuchik. I couldn’t find anything out about the third one.’

‘Where was Belzedar during all of this?’

‘I haven’t got the slightest idea. After we flew in and went back to our own shapes, he gave me a few lame excuses about wanting to survey the whole continent, and then went off toward the east. I haven’t seen him since then. I have no idea of what he’s been doing. I’ll tell you one thing, though.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘Something’s definitely gnawing on his bowels. He couldn’t wait to get away from me.’

‘You have that effect on some people, my brother.’

‘Very funny, Belgarath. Very funny. How much beer have you got left?’

‘Just what’s in the keg. You’ve been hitting it fairly hard.’

‘I’ve managed to build up a thirst. Have you ever tasted Angarak beer?’

‘Not that I recall, no.’

‘Try to avoid it if you can. Oh, well, if we run out here, we can always go pay a call on the twins, I suppose.’ And he belched, rose, and lurched back to the beer-keg again.