coming.”
“Do we know what’s coming, father?” Pol asked.
“Yer unspeakably clever old father’s actually devised a way t’ make
sense outta the’ Mrin, me darling’.”
Geran giggled.
“I really like him. Aunt Pol,” he said.
“I was afraid you might feel that way.” She sighed.
“Try not to let it get ahead of you.”
“You go with Pol back to the Vale,” I told Beldin.
“Between the two of you, you can hold off anything this side of Torak
himself, and Torak’s turning to stone at Ashaba. I’ll go get Brand,
and we’ll get down to business.” Then I went outside, blurred into
feathers, and flew off toward the Isle of the Winds.
It took Brand and me about three weeks to travel from the Isle of the
Winds to the Vale, largely because nobody in his right mind goes
through Ulgo land. When we arrived, we found that they’d started
without us. The twins had picked up where I’d left off, and they’d
roughed in the next several centuries.
“Nothing much seems to be happening, Belgarath,”
Beltira told me.
“So far as we can tell, the prophecies are concentrating on events in
Mallorea. Are you and Brand hungry? Pol and I can fix something to
eat if you’d like.”
“A light snack, maybe. Something to tide us over till supper-time.”
Pol rose and went over to the kitchen area. I looked around for Prince
Geran. He was sitting quietly on a chair in the corner. I’ve noticed
that characteristic again and again in his family. Some children
absolutely must be the center of attention. The long line of little
boys in Garion’s family, though, are so self-effacing that you hardly
notice them. They watch and listen, but they keep their mouths shut.
It’s a very good trait.
You seldom learn anything while your mouth’s napping. He was wearing
very ordinary clothes. Polgara was already beginning to come up with
ways to make the heirs to the Rivan throne as inconspicuous as
possible.
“Oh, something else,” Belkira added.
“The Third Age has ended.
We’re in the Fourth Age now. Evidently a Dal went to Ashaba, and the
minute he laid eyes on Torak, the Third Age ended.”
“That’s a relief,” I replied.
“How so?”
“It means that we’ve got all our instructions. The Third Age was the
Age of Prophecy. If it’s ended, it means that we’ve been told what’s
going to happen and what to do about it. Nothing else is going to come
along to confuse the issue. What’s been going on in Mallorea that’s so
interesting?”
He picked up his copy of the Mrin, referred to the concordance, and
unrolled the scroll until he found the index mark he wanted.
“The Darine simply says that one man will gain ascendancy over all
Mallorea. Here’s what the Mrin says: “And it shall come to pass that
children shall be exchanged in the Kingdoms of the East, and one such
child shall ascend the throne of one kingdom by marriage and shall
achieve dominion over the other by threat of force. And he shall make
one of that which was once two. And in the joining of the two shall
the way be cleared for the EVENT which shall take place in the Lands of
the Bull God.” That’s about as far as we’ve gotten so far.”
“What’s that to do with anything?” I demanded.
“The one it’s talking about was a young Angarak named Kallath,”
Beldin explained, “and his name made a very loud noise in Mallorea. The
Angaraks and the Melcenes had been stepping around each other rather
carefully for a long time–the Angaraks had more manpower, but the
Melcenes had elephant cavalry. Neither side wanted war. That exchange
of children was a Melcene idea. It was supposed to promote greater
understanding between the two races. When Kallath was about twelve or
so, he was sent to the island of Melcena to grow up in the house of the
Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Emperor’s court. He got to know the
daughter of the Melcene Emperor, and they got married. That technically
made Kallath the heir to the Melcene throne. He was ambitious, and he
was an Angarak, so the other candidates started having fatal
accidents.
He was also the youngest member of the Angarak General Staff at Mal
Zeth and the Governor General of the District of Delchin in eastern
Mallorea proper. He had a sort of capital at Maga Renn, which just
happened to be snuggled up against the Melcene border–and he already
had a power base in Angarak territory. If anybody could unite all of
Mallorea, it was Kallath.”
“Evidently that’s what happened,” Brand noted.
“Excuse me,” Prince Geran said politely.
“What’s supposed to happen in Arendia?”
“An EVENT, your Highness,” Beltira told him.
“What kind of event?”
“The Mrin uses that word when it’s talking about a meeting between the
Child of Light and the Child of Dark.”
“A battle?” The young Alorn’s eyes brightened.
“Sometimes it is,” I told him, “but not always. I was involved in one
of those EVENTS, and there were only two people there.”
Polgara was busy in the kitchen area, but she was obviously not missing
very much.
“It’s peculiar that this Kallath came along so recently,”
she mused, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I don’t suppose it’s just a coincidence, is it?”
“Not very likely, Pol,” I said.
“Excuse me again, please,” Prince Geran said in that diffident,
self-effacing tone.
“If we’re coming up on one of those EVENTS you mentioned, wouldn’t
Torak know about it, too?”
“Inevitably,” Beldin growled.
“We can’t really surprise him then, can we?”
“Not really,” Beltira said.
“We’re all more or less guided by our instructions.”
“Do you know what I think?” Geran said.
“I don’t think that what happened to my family had anything to do with
the Orb or where it is, or who’s taking care of it. This Kallath
person was doing something that Torak wants to happen. He knows that
we know about it–because of those prophecies. We’d have tried to stop
Kallath, so Torak sent Zedar out to do something to distract us. You
all ran off to Nyissa to punish Salmissra for killing my family, and
that left Kallath–or whoever came after him–free to finish up the job
that Torak needed to have done.
Killing my family was a …” He paused, groping for a word.
“Diversion,” Belkira supplied.
“You know, Belgarath, I think this boy’s hit the nail square on the
head. We all know Zedar, and he knows us. He knew exactly how we’d
react to the murder of Gorek and his family. Something crucial was
going on in Mallorea, and you and Beldin and the Alorns were down in
Nyissa when it happened. We were all looking one way, and Torak and
his people were slipping something past us while our attention was
distracted.”
Beldin swore.
“It fits, Belgarath,” he said to me.
“It fits Torak, and it fits Zedar. How could we have been so stupid
that we didn’t see it?”
“Natural talent, I suppose,” I replied glumly.
“I think we’ve been had. Congratulations, Prince Geran. You came up
with an answer we’d have pounded our heads on the wall for weeks to
discover. How did you manage to pick it out so quickly?”
“I can’t take any credit, grandfather,” the boy replied modestly.
“My tutors had started to teach me history before the Nyissans murdered
my family. They were telling me about some of the things that used to
happen in Tolnedra. As I understand it, the Vorduvians were very good
at this sort of thing, and so were the Honeths.”
“What a mind this boy has!” Beltira marveled.
“He put it all together in the blink of an eye!”
“And we’ll have to protect that mind–and what’s going to come after
it,” Polgara said, with that steely glint coming into her eyes.
“Zedar might have hoped that the assassination would extinguish the
Rivan line, but the Ashabine Oracles obviously told Torak otherwise.”
“Does that mean that my prince has to stay in hiding?” Brand asked.
“It seems to point that way doesn’t it?” Beldin replied.
“Who’s going to protect him?”
“That’s my job, Brand,” Polgara told him, removing her apron.
Then something happened that very rarely has.
“Dost thou accept this responsibility freely, my daughter?” It was
Aldur’s voice, and we all turned around quickly, but he wasn’t
there–only his voice and a peculiar blue light.
Polgara immediately understood the implications of the question.
The element of conscious choice has always been rather central to the
things we do. I’ll admit that I sort of blunder into things now and
then, but there always comes that moment when I’m required to choose.
Pol had come face to face with one of those choices, and she knew it.
She crossed the tower room and laid her hand on Geran’s shoulder.
“Freely, Master,” she replied firmly.
“From this day hence, I shall protect and guide the Rivan line.”