we needed out of the Mrin Codex. In the spring of the year 5300 they
came to my tower bubbling over with excitement.
“It’s just about to happen, Belgarath!” Beltira exclaimed.
“The Godslayer will arrive during this century!”
“It’s about time,” I said.
“What took you two so long to dig it out?”
“We weren’t supposed to find it until now,” Belkira replied.
“Would you like to clarify that?”
“The Necessity’s got a much tighter control than we’ve ever
realized,”
he said.
“The passage that told us that this is the century when it’s all going
to happen is right out there in plain sight. We’ve all read it dozens
of times, but it didn’t make any sense until now. Last night, though,
the meaning of it just fell into place in our minds. We’ve talked it
over, and we’re both sure that no matter how much we struggle with the
Mrin, we’re not going to understand what any given passage means until
the Necessity’s ready for us to understand it. In a peculiar sort of
way, the understanding itself is a part of the EVENT.”
“That’s a mighty cumbersome way to do business,” I objected.
“Why would the Necessity play those kind of games with all of us?”
“We talked about that, too, Belgarath,” Beltira told me.
“It almost seems designed to keep you from tampering. We think that
the Necessity’s rather fond of you, but it knows you too well to give
you enough time to step in and try to change things.”
“You do try to do that a lot, you know,” Belkira said, grinning at
me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I suppose I should have been offended by the twins’ insulting line of
speculation, but I guess I really wasn’t. I’d known Garion’s friend
for long enough now to have a pretty clear idea of his opinion of me,
and I have tried to tamper with things on occasion. I guess it goes
back to something I’ve said before; I’m not temperamentally equipped
just to sit back and let destiny take its course. No matter how clever
I think I am, though, Garion’s friend is always about two jumps ahead
of me. I should be used to that by now, I guess, but I’m not.
A part of the reason that I didn’t get too excited about those
unflattering observations was the fact that I was much more excited by
the information that we’d finally reached the century during which the
Godslayer would be born. I pestered poor Polgara unmercifully during
the first three decades of the fifty-fourth century. I’d stop by every
two or three months to find out if the heir’s wife was pregnant, and I
insisted on being present at every birth in that little family.
Pol was living in Medalia in central Sendaria at the time, and the
current heir’s name was Darral. I was very disappointed when, in 5329,
Darral’s wife, Alara, gave birth to a baby boy and the infant’s birth
wasn’t accompanied by any of necessary signs and portents. He wasn’t
the Godslayer. Pol named him Geran, and it somehow seemed very
right.
Maybe it was the fact that Darral was a stone-cutter that moved my
daughter to relocate the family to the mountain village of Annath, just
on the Sendarian side of the Algarian border, in 5334. There were
extensive stone quarries in the area, so Darral could find steady
work.
I had a few qualms about that. The name Annath seemed to send a chill
through me for some reason. It wasn’t that Annath was such a bad
little town. It was much like every mountain village in the world. It
had one street, which is normal for a town built at the bottom of a
steep valley, and as it had grown, the houses of the new arrivals were
simply added onto each end of that street. That made the town a little
strung out, but that didn’t bother anybody. People who live in the
mountains are used to walking. The sides of the valley were covered
with aspens, and that gave Annath a light and airy atmosphere. Some
mountain towns are up to their ears in fir and spruce, and they’re
perpetually gloomy as a result. Annath wasn’t like that, but it
chilled me all the same.
I didn’t have time to stand around shivering, though, because I had to
go to Boktor for the birth of one of the members of the extended royal
family of Drasnia. They named him Prince Kheldar, though he was far
down in the line of succession, but his birth and his name filled the
air around him with those signs and portents that I’d so sorely missed
at the birth of Geran. The Mrin refers to him as the Guide, but the
rest of the world knows him by the nickname his classmates at the
academy of the Drasnian Intelligence Service gave him when he was a
student there-Silk.
I was kept running for the next few years. The Guide was born in 5335,
and so was the Blind Man–Relg the Ulgo zealot. Then, in 5336, the son
of the Earl of Trellheim was born. They named him Barak, but the Mrin
calls him the Dreadful Bear. In the following year, the Horse-Lord and
the Knight Protector–Hettar and Mandorallen–came along.
The Companions were sprouting all around me, but where was the
Godslayer?
Then in the spring of 5338, I received an urgent summons from Polgara.
I hurried on up to Annath, thinking the worst, but there wasn’t any
emergency that I could see. Pol seemed quite calm when she met me near
a stone quarry on the edge of town.
“What’s the problem here, Pol?” I asked her.
“No problem, father,” she replied with a slight shrug.
“I just need somebody to fill in for me for a few months. I have
something to take care of.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
“Are we going to play that tired old game again, Pol?”
“It’s not a game, father, and if you’re tired of it, I’ll call the
twins instead.”
“You can’t pull them out of the Vale now, Poll There’s too much going
on at the moment for them to go off and leave the Mrin!”
“And Uncle Beldin’s keeping watch over Torak. That’s important, too. I
guess you’re elected, father–whether you like it or not. You’re not
really doing anything important right now, are you? The midwives can
deliver these various babies without your supervision. Look after
Darral and the little boy. Old Man–and if you say
“Why me?” I’ll snatch out your beard.”
“I’m not your servant, Pol.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the servant of something far more important,
and so am I. I have an errand to take care of, and you’re supposed to
take over here while I’m gone.”
“The Master didn’t say anything to me about this.”
“He’s busy right now, so I’m passing the instructions on for him. Just
do it, father. Don’t argue with me.”
Before I could think up any kind of reply, she blurred and was gone.
I swore for a while, and then I stamped down into the village. Geran,
who was about nine or so, was waiting for me outside the solid house
his father had built at the east end of Annath’s single street.
“Hello, Grandfather,”
he greeted me.
“Did Aunt Pol talk with you?”
“Talk to would come closer, Geran,” I replied sourly.
“Did she happen to mention to you where she’s going?”
“Not that I remember, no, but there’s nothing unusual about that.
Aunt Pol hardly ever tells us what she’s going to do–or why.”
“You’ve noticed that, I see. Where’s your mother?”
“She stepped down to the baker’s shop for a minute. Aunt Pol said that
you’d be staying with us for a while, and Mother knows how fond you are
of pastries.”
“We all have our little weaknesses, I suppose.”
“Mother should be back fairly soon,” he said, “but as long as we’re
waiting anyway, do you suppose you could tell me a story?”
I laughed.
“I might as well,” I said.
“Your aunt’s nailed me to the ground here until she gets back, so we’ll
have lots of time for stories.” I looked at him a bit more closely.
Although, like most of the members of his family, he’d been born with
that sandy-colored hair, Geran’s hair was beginning to turn dark. He’d
never be as big as Iron-grip had been, but I could already see certain
resemblances.
A little word of caution here, if you don’t mind. When you know that
something’s going to happen, you’ll start trying to see signs of its
approach in just about everything. Always try to remember that most of
the things that happen in this world aren’t signs. They happen because
they happen, and their only real significance lies in normal cause and
effect.
You’ll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out