“Tupik said it exactly as mother told it to him.”
“Tell Belgarath about mother.” Tupik said then. “And tell him that she sent him her thanks.”
“I will.”
“Good-bye, Belgarion,” the fenling said. Poppi made a small, affectionate sound in her throat, pattered over, and nuzzled briefly at Garion’s hand.
And then the two of them slipped over the side and vanished in the dark waters of the fens.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was a dreary-looking place. The village huddled on the riverbank at the edge of a flat, featureless plain covered with coarse, dark-green grass. The underlying soil was alluvial clay, slick, gray, and unwholesome looking, and just beyond the wide bend in the Mrin River lay the endless green and brown expanse of the fens. The village itself consisted of perhaps two dozen dun-colored houses, huddled all together about the square stone structure of the shrine. Rickety docks, constructed of bone-white driftwood, stuck out into the river like skeletal fingers, and fishing nets hung on poles, drying and smelling in the humid, mosquito-infested air.
Garion’s ship arrived about noon, and he went immediately up from the creaking dock along the muddy, rutted street to the shrine itself, walking carefully to avoid slipping, and feeling the curious stares of the dull-eyed villagers directed at him and at the great sword of the Rivan King strapped to his back.
The priests of Belar who guarded the shrine were obsequious, almost fawning, when he arrived at the tarnished bronze gates and requested entry. They led him through a flagstone-covered courtyard, pointing proudly at the rotting kennel and the stout, tar-smeared post with its fragment of heavy, rusting chain where the mad prophet of Mrin had spent his last days.
Within the shrine itself stood the customary altar with its great carved-stone bear-head. Garion noted that the interior of the shrine stood in need of a good cleaning and that the priest-guardians themselves were rumpled and unwashed.
One of the first manifestations of religious enthusiasm, he had noted, was a powerful aversion to soap and water. Holy places -and those who attended them- always seemed to smell bad.
There was some small problem when they reached the vaulted sanctorum where the yellowed parchment scroll of the original Mrin Codex lay in its crystal case with two manhigh candles flanking it. One of the priests, a wild-eyed fanatic whose hair and beard resembled a wind-ravaged straw-stack, objected shrilly -almost hysterically- when Garion politely requested that the case be opened. The ranking priest, however, was enough of a politician to recognize the pre-eminent claim of the Rivan King -particularly since he bore Aldur’s Orb- to examine any holy object he pleased.
Garion realized once again that, in a peculiar way, he himself was a holy object in the minds of many Alorns.
The fanatic at last retreated, muttering the word “blasphemy’, over and over again. The crystal case was opened with a rusty iron key, and a small table and chair were brought into the circle of candlelight so that Garion might examine the Codex.
“I think I can manage now, your Reverences,” he told them rather pointedly. He did not like having people read over his shoulder and he felt no particular need of company. He sat at the table, put his hand on the scroll, and looked directly at the little clot of priests. “I’ll call if I need anything,” he added.
Their expressions were disapproving, but the overpowering presence of the Rivan King made them too timid to protest his peremptory dismissal; they quietly filed out, leaving him alone with the scroll.
Garion was excited. The solution to the problem that had plagued him for all these months lay at last in his hands. With nervous fingers, he untied the silken cord and began to unroll the crackling parchment. The script was archaic, but gorgeously done. The individual letters had not so much been written as they had been meticulously drawn. He perceived almost at once that an entire lifetime had been devoted to the production of this single manuscript. His hands actually trembling with his eagerness, Garion carefully unrolled the scroll, his eyes running over the now-familiar words and phrases, searching for the line that would once and for all clear up the mystery.
And there it was! Garion stared at it incredulously, not believing what he saw. The blot was exactly the same as it was on all the copies. He almost screamed with frustration. With a sick feeling of defeat, he read once again that fatal line: “And the Child of Light shall meet with the Child of Dark and shall overcome him, and the Darkness shall flee.
But behold, the Stone which lies at the center of the Light shall-” And there was that accursed blot again.
A peculiar thing happened as he read it again. An odd sort of indifference seemed to come over him. Why was he making such a fuss about a single blotted word? What difference could one word make? He almost rose from his chair with the intention of putting the scroll back in its case and leaving this foul-smelling place for home. Then he stopped quite suddenly, remembering all the hours he had spent trying to puzzle out the meaning of that blot on the page. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to read it one more time. He had, after all, come a very long way.
He started over again, but his distaste became so acute that he could hardly stand it. Why was he wasting his time with this nonsense? He had traveled all this way to wear out his eyes on this moldering scrap of insane gibberish -this stinking, half-rotten sheet of poorly tanned sheepskin. He shoved the Codex away in disgust. This was sheer idiocy. He pushed back the chair and stood up, shifting Iron-grip’s great sword on his back. His ship would still be there, moored to that rickety dock. He could be halfway to Kotu by nightfall and back at Riva within the week. He would lock the library once and for all and tend to his business. A king, after all, did not have time for all this idle, brainsickly speculation. Decisively, he turned his back on the scroll and started toward the door.
As soon as he was no longer looking at the scroll, however, he stopped. What was he doing? The puzzle was still there. He had made no effort to solve it. Hehad to find out. But as he turned back and looked at the scroll again, that same wave of insupportable disgust almost overwhelmed him. It was so strong that it made him feel faint. Once again he turned his back, and once again the feeling vanished. There was something about the scroll itself that was trying to drive him away.
He began to pace up and down, carefully keeping his eyes away from the scroll. What had the dry voice in his mind told him? “There are several words there. If you look at them in the right kind of light, you should be able to see them.”What kind of light? The candles in this vaulted room obviously weren’t what the voice had meant. Sunlight? That hardly seemed likely. Poledra had said that hemust read the hidden words, but how could he, when the Codex literally drove him away each time he looked at it?
Then he stopped. What else had she said? Something about not being able to see without . . .
The wave of disgust which struck him was so strong that he felt his stomach constrict. He spun quickly so that his back was toward that hateful document; as he did so, the hilt of Iron-grip’s sword jabbed him painfully in the side of the head. Angrily he reached over his shoulder to grasp the handle and push it back, but instead, his hand touched the Orb. The feeling of revulsion evaporated instantly, and his mind became clear, and his thoughts lucid. The light! Of course! He had to read the Codex by the light of the Orb! That is what both Poledra and the dry voice had been trying to tell him. Awkwardly, he reached up and back, seizing the Orb. “Come off,” he muttered to it. With a faint click, the Orb came free in his hand. The sudden weight of the huge sword strapped across his back very nearly drove him to his knees. In astonishment, he realized that the seeming weightlessness of the great weapon had been the work of the Orb itself. Struggling under that gross weight, he fumbled with the buckle at his chest, unfastened it, and felt the enormous bulk slide free. Iron-grip’s sword fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
Holding the Orb in front of him, Garion turned and looked directly at the scroll. He could almost hear an angry snarl hovering in the air, but his mind remained clear. He stepped to the table and pulled the scroll open with one hand, holding the glowing Orb above it with the other.