normally good for a couple of centuries when he goes there. He was his
usual gracious self when he came stumping up the stairs to my tower on
the morning after the night Pol and I got home.
“Where have you two been?” he snapped at us.
“Be nice, uncle,” Pol replied calmly.
“We had some things to take care of.”
“You’re back early,” I said.
“Is there some sort of emergency?”
“Stop trying to be clever, Belgarath. You don’t have the gift for
it.
The Mallorean Angaraks are just milling around over there. Nothing’s
going to happen until Torak comes out of seclusion at Ashaba.” He
suddenly grinned.
“Zedar’s there with him now, and it’s making that piebald Urvon
crazy.”
“Oh?”
“Urvon’s a born toady, and the fact that Zedar’s closer to Torak than
he is right now is more than he can bear. To make it worse, he can’t
go to Ashaba to protect his interests because he’s afraid to come out
of Mal Yaska.”
“What’s he so afraid of?”
“Me. I guess he has nightmares about that hook I showed him.”
“Still? That was over five hundred years ago, Beldin.”
“Evidently it made a lasting impression. At least it keeps one of
Torak’s disciples pinned down. What’s for breakfast, Pol?”
She gave him a long, steady look.
“You seem to be filling out a bit,” he noted, brazenly running his eyes
over her.
“You might want to try to keep that under control. You’re getting a
little hippy.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Don’t press your luck, uncle,” she warned.
“I’d pay attention to her, Beldin,” I advised him.
“She’s started her education, and she’s a very apt pupil.”
“I sort of thought she might be. What were you two up to? The twins
told me you’d gone to the Isle.”
“There’s an heir to the Rivan throne now,” I told him.
“His name’s Daran, and he shows quite a bit of promise. The Master’s
Orb was very pleased to meet him.”
“Maybe I’ll drift on over there and have a look at him,” Beldin
mused.
“I might not be related to him the way you are, but Beldaran and I were
fairly close when she was growing up. What took you so long coming
back?”
“Pol and I took a swing through Darine and then went over to Drasnia on
our way back. I wanted to take a look at those two prophets.
There’s no question about their authenticity.”
“Good. Torak’s having a little difficulty with his prophecy.”
“What kind of difficulty?”
“He doesn’t like what it says. When he came out of his trance and read
what Urvon’s scribes had taken down, he tore down a couple of
mountains, I guess. The Ashabine Oracles seem to have offended him.”
“That sounds promising. Is there any way we can get our hands on a
copy?”
“Not likely. Torak definitely doesn’t want that document widely
circulated.
Urvon had a copy, but Torak reached out from Ashaba and set fire to
it.” He scratched at his beard.
“Zedar’s at Ashaba, and we both know him well enough to be sure that
he’ll have a copy. If Torak ever lets him leave, he’ll probably take
it with him. It’s my guess that it’s the only copy that isn’t under
One-eye’s direct control. Someday I’ll catch up with Zedar and take it
off his carcass.” He scowled at me.
“Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”
“I was told not to. I think you’d better restrain your homicidal
impulses, as well, if you ever happen to come across him. We’re going
to need him later on.”
“I don’t suppose you could be any more specific?”
I shook my head.
“That’s all I was told.”
He grunted sourly.
“I might be able to get hold of a copy of
“The Mallorean Gospels’–if I could figure out a way to get into Kell
and back out again all in one piece.”
“What are The Mallorean Gospels’?” Pol asked him.
“Another set of prophecies,” he replied.
“They’ll be very obscure, though. The Dals wrote them, and the Dals
are absolutely neutral. Oh, incidentally, Belgarath, Ctuchik’s
moved.”
“Yes, I’d heard about that. He’s at a place called Rak Cthol now.”
He nodded.
“I flew over it on my way home. It isn’t very inviting. It’s built on
top of a peak that sticks up out of the middle of a desert. I picked
up a few rumors. Evidently this epidemic of prophecy’s pretty
widespread.
Some of Ctuchik’s Grolims have come down with it, too. He’s got them
at Rak Cthol with scribes camped on them. I doubt that their
prophecies’ll be as precise as Torak’s, but it might be worth our while
to try to get hold of a copy. I’ll leave that up to you, though. I
think I’d better stay away from Ctuchik. I’ve brushed up against his
mind a few times, and he could probably feel me coming from a hundred
leagues off. We want information, not fist-fights.”
“The Murgos are on the move, you know,” Pol told him.
“They’re moving into the southern half of the continent and enslaving
the western Dals in the process.”
“I’ve got a great deal of respect for the Dals’ intellectual gifts,” he
replied, “but they don’t have much spirit, do they?”
“I think that’s all subterfuge,” I told him.
“They don’t have any trouble keeping Urvon’s Grolims away from Kell.” I
leaned back.
“I think maybe I’ll visit Rak Cthol and pay a call on Ctuchik,” I
mused.
“He’s new in this part of the world, so somebody ought to welcome
him–or at least see what he looks like when he isn’t a Hound.”
“It’d be the neighborly thing to do,” Beldin said with an evil grin.
“Are you going back to Mallorea?”
“Not for a while. I want to go look at your grandson first.”
“Do you want to keep an eye on Polgara for me while I’m gone?”
“I don’t need a keeper, father,” she told me.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you do,” I disagreed.
“You’re at a dangerous stage in your education. You think you know
more than you really do. I don’t want you to start experimenting
without supervision.”
“I’ll watch her,” Beldin promised. He looked at her then.
“Have we forgotten about breakfast altogether, Pol? Just because
you’ve decided to watch your weight doesn’t mean that the rest of us
have to start fasting.”
I went northeasterly out of the Vale that same morning and changed my
form as soon as I reached the Algarian plain. I don’t like to pass
through the Vale as a wolf. The deer and rabbits there might be
alarmed.
They’re all more or less tame, and it’s not polite to frighten the
neighbors.
I swam across the Aldur River and reached the Eastern Escarpment the
following morning. I followed it for quite some distance until I came
to one of those ravines Algar had told us about at Riva’s Isle. The
Eastern Escarpment’s one of the results of what the Master and Belar
were obliged to do to contain the ocean Torak created when he cracked
the world. The mountain range that came pushing up out of the earth
fractured along its western edge, and the result was that imposing,
mile-high cliff that forms the natural boundary between Algaria and
Mishrak ac Thull.
I considered it as I stood at the mouth of the ravine and decided to
wait until nightfall before climbing it. Fleet-foot had told us that
Murgos sometimes came down those ravines on horse-stealing expeditions,
and I didn’t want to meet a chance group of them in tight quarters.
Besides, I didn’t particularly want Ctuchik to know that I was coming.
Zedar knew that my favorite alternative to my own form was that of the
wolf, and I couldn’t be sure whether he’d shared that knowledge with
his fellow disciples. I went a mile or so on along the cliff and
bedded down in the tall grass.
As it turned out, my decision was a wise one. About noon, I heard
riders picking their way around the rubble at the foot of the cliff. I
pricked up my ears and stayed hidden in the tall grass.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Rashag,” I heard one of them
saying.
“I’ve heard about what the Horse People do to those who try to steal
their animals.”
“They’ll have to catch us before they can do anything to us, Agga,”
another voice replied.
I very slowly raised my head. The breeze was a bit erratic, but I was
fairly sure it wouldn’t carry my scent to their horses. I peered
intently in the direction from which their voices had been coming. Then
I saw them.
There were only the two of them. They were wearing chain-mail shirts
and conical helmets, and they both had swords belted at their waists.
Murgos are not an attractive race to begin with, and the fact that they