Light. Further, we read that the mothers of the Child of
Light and the Child of Dark would guide them to the
meeting, and the signs said most clearly that Polgara was
the mother of the Child of Light. But Polgara’s Destiny
was to be forever childless, and this had been in her
stars since before her birth,
* Eriond changed this.
Moreover, even should the
impossible occur and Belgarion be won over to the other
Fate and, like Zedar, become Apostate, Belgarion’s mother,
Ildera, had died when he was but an infant. Yet we felt a
presence, shrouded and veiled in darkness, moving through
the affairs of men, and the moon spake most clearly,
advising us that this dark presence was a woman, and that her
power was even as great as Polgara’s. But this Mother of
Dark was also childless.
And the riddles of the stars baffled us and left us as
helpless as the unlettered serf for whom the lights in the
night sky were only stars and for whom the voices in the
earth were only the sighing of wind or the beat of
raindrops. One thing we saw most clearly, however. The Ages
of Man grew shorter as each one passed, and the EVENTS
which were the meetings between the two Fates were
growing closer and closer together. Once there had been
time for leisurely consideration of all that we had learned,
but now we knew that we must hasten, lest the EVENT
come upon us all unaware.
And so it was in the tenth year following the death of
Torak that we met at Kell, and there we determined that
we could no longer stand idly aside, observing the course
of EVENTS. The time for study had passed; now the time
had come to act. It was decided that, since the signs in the
Book of the Heavens had become an enigma, we must in
some way control or goad or deceive the participants in
the next EVENT to go to a place which we knew. Thus,
though we could not know what the EVENT was to be,
we could know when and where it was to take place.
And we communicated this decision to the mind of
a Seeress who dwelt in the lands to the west of the great
sea which had divided the lands of this world, and we
besought her that she go up unto the Vale of Aldur, where
dwelt the Sorceress Polgara with her husband and a
foundling Belgarion had rescued from the Disciple Ctuchik,
and to speak to Polgara in such wise that she must perforce
set out upon the journey which must inevitably bring her
to a place of our choosing. And the Seeress in the lands of
the west agreed to our request, and she set forth upon the
journey with only her silent guide for company.
And we all then turned to our preparations, for much
remained to be done, and we were all resolved that this
EVENT should be the last. Whatever the outcome should
mean for this world, the division of creation had endured
for too long, and we were determined that with this
meeting between the two Fates, the division would end and all
would be made one again.
BOOK 2
THE BOOK OF FATES
Now These are the Fates we have known:
IN THE DAYS before the world was divided, a spirit
came unto us and told us of the Feast of Life and of
the Beloved Guest who would one day come to
partake of that feast. And the spirit spake also to us of signs in
the heavens and whispers within the rocks which foretold
the coming. And we lifted our eyes to the sky to read,. and
we bent our ears to the earth to hear, and we learned that a
false voice would speak to us and try to lead us away from
the truth. For behold, the fate of man is not a clear and
straightforward path. Two fates await us, and the one is
true and the other false. And we turned all our effort and
all our care to the task of determining which fate was true
and which fate false. But the Book of the Heavens, which
told us so much, spoke not to that. Clearly we could read
there that which would happen should we follow truth
and that which would happen should we follow falsity,
but the great book written in the stars spoke no word
concerning which fate was which. And we were puzzled
and fearful lest we choose awry’
And we went away from the place where this had been
revealed to us and took up the great task which had been
placed upon us. Clearly, it is the task of our people to learn
all that may be learned of the two Destinies which divide
creation and to judge between them and determine which
is the path of truth. And we sought out the wisdom of
spirits and the wisdom of other men and even the wisdom
of Gods and Prophets. And men and spirits and Gods and
Prophets gave us their wisdom, and behold, they knew no
more than we. All believed that the fate they followed was
the true Fate, but none could offer certainty or proof. Thus
it was that the task remained before us. And we took
counsel with each other, for we saw that others, by reason
of their adherence to one fate or the other could read the
Book of the Heavens only indistinctly, but that we, who
still sought truth, could read it clearly And the burden of
our task grew heavy for truly, in our choosing we choose
for all of man,
To aid us to choose aright we turned to the pages of the
book of the stars that speak of beginnings. And on the ‘ first
page of the Great Book it is written that at the beginning
there was but one Destiny and one Fate for all that had
ever been made, and the fate was a purpose and a
necessity. But it came to pass in the timelessness which existed
before there was any man to consider the meaning of time,
that a Second Destiny came into being, and it was also a
necessity and a purpose. And the second purpose was at
odds with the first, and the pull of the one against the
other strained the very fabric of creation. And out of that
stirring there came to be awareness, for each Destiny
became aware of the other. And they became mortal foes,
for each stood athwart the path of the other, and so long as
both existed, neither could be fulfilled. And each Fate put
its hands upon events to twist them and turn them so that
the other fate might be defeated. Great forces were set in
motion which must inevitably collide; and the two Fates
spake unto those who would be their instruments.
The voices of these two Great Destinies and the words
they speak are called Prophecy’ and a Prophecy must
be fulfilled. Were there but one voice and one Destiny,
our task would have ended with the discovery of that
voice. But there are two voices and two Prophecies, and
all of creation is a battleground between them. And the
Prophets of the First Destiny proclaimed that the other
Fate was an error and an abomination; while the Prophets
of the Second declared that the First Fate had been the
embodiment of evil which had now been supplanted by
truth.
And we considered these Prophecies and teachings,
and it was possible that an error could lead inevitably to
evil, but it was also possible that evil might have existed
from the beginning of time in order to be corrected.
Now at about the same time that we learned of the two
great voices and the two Destinies, it came to pass that the
world was also divided, even as the rest of creation, and
behold! The dividing of our world came about as the
result of the touch of one Destiny upon the other, for the
God of the people called Angarak was the fruit of the
Second Fate, and the stone which he raised was the
instrument of the First Fate. So vast was the force of their
coming together that earth herself could not bear the
weight, and the lands parted like cloud before Torak and
the stone he raised, and the seas came in, and that which
had been one became two.
And when the movement of the seas and the dry lands
had subsided, there were two places where men dwelt,
and the men in one of those places followed the First
Destiny, and the men in the other place followed the
Second. And we marveled ‘at the perfection of this. Yet as
we considered what had taken place, we found a flaw in
it, for there was not symmetry within it. The God of