“Gorim,” Belgarath replied with a respectful bow,”Yad ho, Groja UL.” Then they crossed the marble causeway to join the Gorim. Belgarath and the old man clasped each other’s arms warmly.
“It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?” the sorcerer said. “How are you bearing up?”
“I feel almost young.” The Gorim smiled. “Now that Relg has found my successor. I can at last see the end of my task.”
“Found?” Belgarath asked quizzically.
“It amounts to the same thing.” The Gorim looked fondly at Relg. “We had our disagreements, didn’t we, my son?” he said, “But as it turned out, we were all working toward the same end.”
“It took me a little longer to realize it, Holy Gorim,” Relg replied wryly. “I’m a bit more stubborn than most men. Sometimes I’m amazed that UL didn’t lose patience with me. Please excuse me, but I must go to my wife and son. I’ve been many days away from them.” He turned and went quickly back across the causeway.
Belgarath grinned. ” A remarkably changed man.”
“His wife is a marvel,” the Gorim agreed.
“Are you sure that their child is the chosen one?”
The Gorim nodded. “UL has confirmed it. There were those who objected, since Taiba is a Marag rather than a daughter of Ulgo, but UL’s voice silenced them.”
“I’m sure it did. UL’s voice is very penetrating, I’ve noticed. You wanted to see me?”
The Gorim’s expression became grave. He gestured toward his pyramid-shaped house. “Let’s go inside. There’s a matter of urgency we need to discuss.”
Errand followed along behind the two old men as they entered the house. The room inside was dimly lighted by a glowing crystal globe hanging on a chain from the ceiling, and there was a table with low stone benches. They sat at the table, and the old Gorim looked solemnly at Belgarath. “We are not like the people who live above in the light of the sun, my friend,” he said. “For them, there is the sound of the wind in the trees, of rushing streams, and of birds filling the air with song. Here in our caves, however, we hear only the sounds of the earth herself.”
Belgarath nodded.
“The earth and the rocks speak to the people of Ulgo in peculiar ways,” the Gorim continued. “A sound can come to us from half around the world. Such a sound has been muttering in the rocks for some years now, growing louder and more distinct with each passing month.”
“A fault perhaps?” Belgarath suggested. “Some place where the stone bed of a continent is shifting?”
“I don’t believe so, my friend,” the Gorim disagreed. “The sound we hear is not the shifting of the restless earth. It is a sound caused by the awakening of a single stone.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Belgarath said, frowning.
“The stone we hear is alive, Belgarath.”
The old sorcerer looked at his friend. “There’s only one living stone, Gorim.”
“I had always believed so myself. I have heard the sound of Aldur’s Orb as it moves about the world, and this new sound is also the sound of a living stone. It awakens, Belgarath, and it feels its power. It is evil, my friend -so evil that earth herself groans under its weight.”
“How long has this sound been coming to you?”
“It began not long after the death of accursed Torak.”
Belgarath pursed his lips. “We’ve known that something has been moving around over in Mallorea,” he said. “We didn’t know it was quite this serious, however. Can you tell me anything more about this stone?”
“Only its name,” the Gorim replied. “We hear it whispered through the caves and galleries and the fissures of earth. It is called ‘Sardius.”
Belgarath’s head came up.”Cthrag Sardius? The Sardion?”
“You have heard of it?”
“Beldin ran across it in Mallorea. It was connected with something called Zandramas.” The Gorim gasped, and his face went deathly pale. “Belgarath!” he exclaimed in a shocked voice.
“What’s the matter?”
“That’s the most dreadful curse in our language.”
Belgarath stared at him. “I thought I knew most of the words in the Ulgo tongue. How is it that I’ve never heard that one before?”
“No one would have repeated it to you.”
“I didn’t think Ulgos even knewhow to curse. What does it mean -in general terms?”
“It means confusion -chaos- absolute negation. It’s a horrible word.”
Belgarath frowned. “Why would an Ulgo curse word show up in Darshiva as the name of someone or something? And why in connection with the Sardion?”
“Is it possible that they are using the two words to mean the same thing?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Belgarath admitted. “I suppose they could be. The sense seems to be similar.”
Polgara had rather carefully instructed Errand that he must not interrupt when his elders were talking, but this seemed so important that he felt that the rule needed to be broken.
“They aren’t the same,” he told the two old men.
Belgarath gave him a strange look.
“The Sardion is a stone, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” the Gorim replied.
“Zandramas isn’t a stone. It’s a person.”
“How could you know that, my boy?”
“We’ve met,” Errand told him quietly. “Not exactly face to face, but -well-” It was a difficult thing to explain. “It was kind of like a shadow -except that the person who was casting the shadow was someplace else.”
“A projection,” Belgarath explained to the Gorim. “It’s a fairly simple trick that the Grolims are fond of.” He turned back to the boy. “Did this shadow say anything to you?”
Errand nodded. “It said that it was going to kill me.”
Belgarath drew in his breath sharply. ” Did you tell Polgara?” he demanded.
“No. Should I?”
“Didn’t you think it was fairly significant?”
“I thought it was just a threat -meant to frighten me.”
“Did it?”
“Frighten me? No, not really.”
“Aren’t you being just a little blase, Errand?” Belgarath asked. “Do people go around threatening to kill you so often that it bores you or something?”
“No. That was the only time. It was only a shadow, though, and a shadow can’t really hurt you, can it?”
“Have you run across many more of these shadows?”
“Just Cyradis.”
“And who is Cyradis?”
“I’m not really sure. She talks the way Mandorallen does -thee’s and thou’s and all that- and she wears a blindfold over her eyes.”
“A seeress.” Belgarath grunted. “And what didshe tell you?”
“She said that we were going to meet again and that she sort of liked me.”
“I’m sure that was comforting,” Belgarath said drily. “Don’t keep secrets like this, Errand. When something unusual happens,tell somebody.”
“I’m sorry,” Errand apologized. “I just thought that -well- you and Polgara and Durnik had other things on your minds, that’s all.”
“We don’t really mind being interrupted allthat much, boy.Share these little adventures with us.”
“If you want me to.”
Belgarath turned back to the Gorim. “I think we’re starting to get somewhere,” he said, “thanks to our reticent young friend here. We know that Zandramas, if you’ll pardon the word, is a person -a person that’s somehow connected to this living stone that the Angaraks call Cthrag Sardius. We’ve had warnings about Zandramas before, so I think we’ll have to assume that the Sardion isalso a direct threat.”
“What must we do now, then?” the Gorim asked him.
“I think we’re all going to have to concentrate on finding out just exactly what’s going on over there in Mallorea -even if we have to take the place apart stone by stone. Up until now, I was only curious. Now it looks as if I’d better start taking this whole thing seriously. If the Sardion is a living stone, then it’s like the Orb, and I don’t want something with that kind of power in the hands of the wrong person -and from everything I’ve been able to gather, this Zandramas is mostdefinitely the wrong person.” He turned then to look at Errand, his expression puzzled. “What’syour connection with all of this, boy?” he asked. “Why is it that everyone and everything involved in this whole thing stops by to pay you a visit?”
“I don’t know, Belgarath,” Errand replied truthfully.
“Maybe that’s the place we should start. I’ve been promising myself that I was going to have a long talk with you one of these days. Maybe it’s time we did just that.”
“If you wish,” Errand said. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, though.”
“That’s what were going to find out, Errand. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
PART TWO
RIVA
CHAPTER NINE
Belgarion of Riva had not actually been prepared to occupy a throne. He had grown up on a farm in Sendaria, and his childhood had been that of an ordinary farm boy.
When he had first come to the basalt throne in the Hall of the Rivan King, he had known much more about farm kitchens and stables than he had about throne rooms and council chambers. Statecraft had been a mystery to him, and he had known no more of diplomacy than he had of algebra.