Belgarath, who was not always asleep when he seemed to doze in his saddle, watched, shrewdly waiting until Garion’s fear had reached its peak before he spoke. Then, one cloudy morning when the lead-gray sky was as dreary as the moors around them, he pulled his horse in beside Garion’s. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked calmly.
“What’s the point, Grandfather?”
“It might help.”
“Nothing’s going to help. He’s going to kill me.”
“If I thought it was that inevitable, I wouldn’t have let you start on this journey.”
“How can I possibly fight with a God?”
“Bravely,” was the unhelpful reply. “You’ve been brave at some pretty inappropriate times in the past. I don’t imagine you’ve changed all that much.”
“I’m so afraid, Grandfather,” Garion confessed, his voice anguished. “I think I know how Mandorallen felt now. The fear’s so awful that I can’t live with it.”
“You’re stronger than you think you are. You can live with it if you have to.”
Garion brooded about that. It didn’t seem to help much. “What’s he like?” he asked, suddenly filled with a morbid curiosity.
“Who?”
“Torak.”
“Arrogant. I never cared much for him.”
“Is he like Ctuchik was – or Asharak?”
“No. They tried to be like him. They didn’t succeed, of course, but they tried. If it’s any help to you, Torak’s probably as much afraid of you as you are of him. He knows who you are. When you meet him, he isn’t going to see a Sendarian scullery boy named Garion; he’s going to see Belgarion, the Rivan King, and he’s going to see Riva’s sword thirsting for his blood. He’s also going to see the Orb of Aldur. And that will probably frighten him more than anything.”
“When was the first time you met him?” Garion suddenly wanted the old man to talk – to tell stories as he had so long ago. Stories somehow always helped. He could lose himself in a story, and for a little while it might make things bearable.
Belgarath scratched at his short, white beard. “Let’s see,” he mused. “I think the first time was in the Vale – it was a very long time ago. The others had gathered there – Belzedar, Beldin, all the rest – and each of us was involved in his own studies. Our Master had withdrawn into his tower with the Orb, and sometimes months would pass during which we didn’t see him.
“Then one day a stranger came to us. He seemed to be about the same height as I, but he walked as if he were a thousand feet tall. His hair was black and his skin was very pale, and he had, as I remember, greenish-colored eyes. His face was beautiful to the point of being pretty, and his hair looked as if he spent a lot of time combing it. He appeared to be the kind of person who always has a mirror in his pocket.”
“Did he say anything?” Garion asked.
“Oh, yes,” Belgarath replied. “He came up to us and said, ‘I would speak with my brother, thy Master,’ and I definitely didn’t care for his tone. He spoke as if we were servants – it’s a failing he’s always had. Still, my Master had – after a great deal of trouble – taught me at least a few manners. ‘I shall tell my Master you have come,’ I told him as politely as I could manage.
“‘That is not needful, Belgarath,’ he told me in that irritatingly superior tone of his. ‘My brother knows I am here.’ ”
“How did he know your name, Grandfather?”
Belgarath shrugged. “I never found that out. I assume that my Master had communicated with him – and the other Gods – from time to time and told them about us. At any rate, I led this over-pretty visitor to my Master’s tower. I didn’t bother to speak to him along the way. When we got there, he looked me straight in the face and said, ‘A bit of advice for thee, Belgarath, by way of thanks for thy service. Seek not to rise above thyself. It is not thy place to approve or disapprove of me. For thy sake I hope that when next we meet thou wilt remember this and behave in a manner more seemly.'”
” ‘Thank you for the advice,’ I told him-a bit tartly, I’ll admit. ‘Will you require anything else?’
“‘Thou art pert, Belgarath,’ he said to me. ‘Perhaps one day I shall give myself leisure to instruct thee in proper behavior.’ And then he went into the tower. As you can see, Torak and I got off on the wrong foot right at the very beginning. I didn’t care for his attitude, and he didn’t care for mine.”
“What happened then?” Garion’s curiosity had begun to quiet the fear somewhat.
“You know the story,” Belgarath replied. “Torak went up into the tower and spoke with Aldur. One thing led to another and finally Torak struck my Master and stole the Orb.” The old man’s face was bleak. “The next time I saw him, he wasn’t nearly so pretty,” he continued with a certain grim satisfaction. “That was after the Orb had burned him and he’d taken to wearing a steel mask to hide the ruins of his face.”
Silk had drawn closer and was riding with them, fascinated by the story. “What did you all do then? After Torak stole the Orb, I mean?” he asked.
“Our Master sent us to warn the other Gods,” Belgarath replied. “I was supposed to find Belar – he was in the north someplace, carousing with his Alorns. Belar was a young God at that time, and he enjoyed the diversions of the young. Alorn girls used to dream about being visited by him, and he tried to make as many dreams come true as he possibly could – or so I’ve been told.”
“I’ve never heard that about him.” Silk seemed startled.
“Perhaps it’s only gossip,” Belgarath admitted.
“Did you find him?” Garion asked.
“It took me quite a while. The shape of the land was different then. What’s now Algaria stretched all the way to the east – thousands of leagues of open grassland. At first I took the shape of an eagle, but that didn’t work out too well.”
“It seems quite suitable,” Silk observed.
“Heights make me giddy,” the old man replied, “and my eyes were continually getting distracted by things on the ground. I kept having this overpowering urge to swoop down and kill things. The character of the forms we assume begins to dominate our thinking after a while, and although the eagle is quite splendid-looking, he’s really a very stupid bird. Finally I gave that idea up and chose the form of the wolf instead. It worked out much better. About the only distraction I encountered was a young she-wolf who was feeling frolicsome.” There was a slight tightening about his eyes as he said it, and his voice had a peculiar catch in it.
“Belgarathl” Silk actually sounded shocked.
“Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions, Silk. I considered the morality of the situation. I realized that being a father is probably all well and good, but that a litter of puppies might prove embarrassing later on. I resisted her advances, even though she persisted in following me all the way to the north where the Bear-God dwelt with his Alorns.” He broke off and looked out at the gray-green moors, his face unreadable. Garion knew that there was something the old man wasn’t saying -something important.
“Anyway,” Belgarath continued, “Belar accompanied us back to the Vale where the other Gods had gathered, and they held a council and decided that they’d have to make war on Torak and his Angaraks. That was the start of it all. The world has never been the same since.”
“What happened to the wolf?” Garion asked, trying to pin down his grandfather’s peculiar evasion.
“She stayed with me,” Belgarath replied calmly. “She used to sit for days on end in my tower watching me. She had a curious turn of mind, and her comments were frequently a trifle disconcerting.”
“Comments?” Silk asked. “She could talk?”
“In the manner of the wolf, you understand. I’d learned how they speak during our journey together. It’s really a rather concise and often quite beautiful language. Wolves can be eloquent – even poetic – once you get used to having them speak to you without words.”
“How long did she stay with you?” Garion asked.
“Quite a long time,” Belgarath replied. “I remember that I asked her about that once. She answered with another question. It was an irritating habit of hers. She just said, ‘What is time to a wolf?’ I made a few calculations and found out that she’d been with me for just over a thousand years. I was a bit amazed by that, but she seemed indifferent to the fact. ‘Wolves live as long as they choose to live,’ was all she said. ‘Then one day I had to change my form for some reason or other – I forget exactly why. She saw me do it, and that was the end of any peace for me. She just said, ‘So that’s how you do it,’ and promptly changed herself into a snowy owl. She seemed to take a great delight in startling me, and I never knew what shape I’d see when I turned around. She was fondest of the owl, though. A few years after that she left me. I was rather surprised to find that I missed her. We’d been together for a very long time.” He broke off and once again he looked away.