“You understand the situation here?” I asked him.
“I’m supposed to do what you tell me to do.”
“Exactly.” This was going to work out just fine.
“Now, let’s go back to the edge of the woods. I’ve got a little chore
for you.”
It took us quite some time to return to the woods. When we got there,
I pointed at a dry stream-bed filled with nice round rocks of a
suitable size.
“See those rocks?” I asked him.
“Naturally I can see them, you dolt! I’m not blind!”
“I’m so happy for you. I’d like for you to pile them all beside my
tower–neatly, of course.” I sat down under a shady tree.
“Be a good fellow and see to it, would you?” I was actually enjoying
this.
He glowered at me for a moment and then turned to glare at the rocky
stream-bed.
Then, one by one, the rocks began to vanish! I could actually feel him
doing it! Would you believe it? Din already knew the secret! It was
the first case of spontaneous sorcery I had ever seen.
“Now what?” he demanded.
“How did you learn to do that?” I demanded incredulously.
He shrugged.
“Picked it up somewhere,” he replied.
“Are you trying to tell me that you can’t?”
“Of course I can, but–” I got hold of myself at that point.
“Are you sure you trans located them to the right spot?”
“You wanted them piled up beside your tower, didn’t you? Go look, if
you want. I know where they are. Was there anything else you wanted
me to do here?”
“Let’s go back,” I told him shortly.
It took me awhile to regain my composure. We were about halfway back
before I could trust myself to start asking questions.
“Where are you from?” It was banal, but it was a place to start.
“Originally, you mean? That’s sort of hard to say. I move around a
lot. I’m not very welcome in most places. I’m used to it, though.
It’s been going on since the day I was born.”
“Oh?”
“I gather that my mother’s people had a fairly simple way to rid
themselves of defectives. As soon as they laid eyes on me, they took
me out in the woods and left me there to starve–or to provide some
wolf with a light snack. My mother was a sentimentalist, though, so
she used to sneak out of the village to nurse me.”
And I thought my childhood had been hard.
“She stopped coming a year or so after I’d learned to walk, though,”
he added in a deliberately harsh tone.
“Died, I suppose–or they caught her sneaking out and killed her. I
was on my own after that.”
“How did you survive?”
“Does it really matter?” There was a distant pain in his eyes,
however.
“There are all sorts of things to eat in a forest–if you’re not too
particular. Vultures and ravens manage fairly well. I learned to
watch for them. I found out early on that anyplace you see a vulture,
there’s probably something to eat. You get used to the smell after a
while.”
“You’re an animal!” I exclaimed.
“We’re all animals, Belgarath.” It was the first time he’d used my
name.
“I’m better at it than most, because I’ve had more practice. Now, do
you suppose we could talk about something else?”
CHAPTER FOUR
And now we were seven, and I think we all knew that for the time being
there wouldn’t be any more of us.
The others came later. We were an oddly assorted group, I’ll grant
you, but the fact that we lived in separate towers helped to keep down
the frictions to some degree.
The addition of Beldin to our fellowship was not as disruptive as I’d
first imagined it might be. This is not to say that our ugly little
brother mellowed very much, but rather that we grew accustomed to his
irascible nature as the years rolled by. I invited him to stay in my
tower with me during what I suppose you could call his novitiate–that
period when he was Aldur’s pupil before he achieved full status. I
discovered during those years that there was a mind lurking behind
those bestial features, and what a mind it was! With the possible
exception of Belmakor, Beldin was clearly the most intelligent of us
all. The two of them argued for years about points of logic and
philosophy so obscure that the rest of us hadn’t the faintest idea of
what they were talking about, and they both enjoyed those arguments
enormously.
It took me a while, but I finally managed to persuade Beldin that an
occasional bath probably wouldn’t be harmful to his health and that if
he bathed, the fastidious Belmakor might be willing to come close
enough to him that they wouldn’t have to shout during their
discussions. As my daughter’s so fond of pointing out, I’m not an
absolute fanatic about bathing, but Beldin sometimes carries his
indifference to extremes.
During the years that we lived and studied together, I came to know
Beldin and eventually at least partially to understand him. Mankind
was still in its infancy in that age, and the virtue of compassion
hadn’t really caught on as yet. Humor, if you want to call it that,
was still quite primitive and brutal. People found any sort of anomaly
funny, and Beldin was about as anomalous as you can get. Rural folk
would greet his entry into their villages with howls of laughter, and
after they had laughed their fill, they’d normally stone him out of
town. It’s not really very hard to understand his foul temper, is it?
His own people tried to kill him the moment he was born, and he’d spent
his whole life being chased out of every community he tried to enter.
I’m really rather surprised that he didn’t turn homicidal. I probably
would have.
He had lived with me for a couple hundred years, and then on one rainy
spring day, he raised a subject I probably should have known would come
up eventually. He was staring moodily out the window at the slashing
rain, and he finally growled,
“I think I’ll build my own tower.”
“Oh?” I replied, laying aside my book.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“I need more room, and we’re starting to get on each other’s nerves.”
“I hadn’t noticed that.”
“Belgarath, you don’t even notice the seasons. When you’re face-down
in one of your books, I could probably set fire to your toes, and you
wouldn’t notice. Besides, you snore.”
“I snore? You sound like a passing thunderstorm every night, all
night.”
“It keeps you from getting lonesome.” He looked pensively out the
window again.
“There’s another reason, too, of course.”
“Oh?”
He looked directly at me, his eyes strangely wistful.
“In my whole life, I’ve never really had a place of my own. I’ve slept
in the woods, in ditches, and under haystacks, and the warm, friendly
nature of my fellow man has kept me pretty much constantly on the move.
I think that, just once, I’d like to have a place that nobody can throw
me out of.”
What could I possibly say to that?
“You want some help?” I offered.
“Not if my tower’s going to turn into something that looks like this
one,” he growled.
“What’s wrong with this tower?”
“Belgarath, be honest. This tower of yours looks like an ossified tree
stump. You have absolutely no sense of beauty whatsoever.”
This, coming from Beldin?
“I think I’ll go talk with Belmakor. He’s a Melcene, and they’re
natural builders. Have you ever seen one of their cities?”
“I’ve never had occasion to go into the East.”
“Naturally not. You can’t pull yourself out of your books long enough
to go anyplace. Well? Are you coming along, or not?”
How could I turn down so gracious an invitation? I pulled on my cloak,
and we went out into the rain. Beldin, of course, didn’t bother with
cloaks. He was absolutely indifferent to the weather.
When we reached Belmakor’s somewhat overly ornate tower, my stumpy
little friend bellowed up,
“Belmakor! I need to talk with you!”
Our civilized brother came to the window.
“What is it, old boy?” he called down to us.
“I’ve decided to build my own tower. I want you to design it for me.
Open your stupid door.”
“Have you bathed lately?”
“Just last month. Don’t worry, I won’t stink up your tower.”
Belmakor sighed.
“Oh, very well.” He gave in. His eyes went slightly distant, and the
latch on his heavy iron-bound door clicked. The rest of us had taken
our cue from our Master and used rocks to close the entrances to our
towers, but Belmakor felt the need for a proper door. Beldin and I
went in and mounted the stairs.
“Have you and Belgarath had a falling out?” Belmakor asked
curiously.
“Is that any business of yours?” Beldin snapped.