but, since time was meaningless to us anyway and I knew that my
Master’s love was infinite, so that his love for the others in no way
diminished his love for me, I soon outgrew that particular
childishness. And also, I grew to love the others as the bonds of our
brotherhood grew. I could sense their minds as they worked, and I shared
their joy at each new discovery they made. Because I was the first
Disciple, they often came to me as to an older brother with those
things they were embarrassed to lay before our Master, and I guided
them as best I could.
Thus passed a period of perhaps a thousand years, and we were
content. The world beyond our Vale changed and the people also,
and no more pupils came to us. It was a question I always intended
to pursue but never found the time to examine. Perhaps the other
Gods grew jealous and forbade their people to seek us out, or
perhaps it was that in their long passage through the endless
generations, men somehow lost that tiny spark that is the source of the
power of Will and Word and is the lodestone that draws their spirits
inevitably to the spirit of Aldur. So it was that we were seven only
and were unlike any other men on earth.
And through all this time of study and learning, our Master,
Aldur, labored in infinite patience with that grey stone he had
shown me on the night he had accepted me as his Disciple. C)nce I
marveled to him that he should devote so much time to it, and he
laughed.
‘Truly, my son,’ he said, ‘I labored once at least so long to create a
flower which is now so common that none take note of it. It blooms
beside every dusty path, and men pass it by without even looking at
it. But I know it is there, and I joy in its perfection.’
As I look back, I think I would give my life, which has stretched
over so many years, if my Master had never conceived the idea of
that grey stone which has brought so much woe into this world.
The stone, which he called a jewel, was grey (as I have said) and
quite round and perhaps the size of a man’s heart. My Master found
it, I believe, in the bed of a stream. To me it appeared to be a very
ordinary stone, but things are concealed from me that Aldur in his
wisdom perceived quite easily. It may be that there was something
in the stone which he alone could see, or it may be that this ordinary
grey stone became what it became because of his efforts and his will
and his spirit with which he infused it. Whatever it may have been, I
wish with all my heart that he had never seen it, never stooped and
touched it, never picked it up.
At any rate, one day, a very long time ago, it was finished, and our
Master called us together so that he might show it to us.
‘Behold this Orb,’ he told us. ‘In it lies the fate of the world.’ And
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the grey stone, so ordinary a thing, but which had been polished by
the touch of our Master’s hand for a thousand years and more,
began to glow as if a tiny blue fire flickered deep within it.
And Belzedar, always quick, asked, ‘How, Great Master, can so
small a ~g be so important?’
And our Master smiled, and the Orb grew brighter. Flickering
dimly within it I seemed to see images. ‘The past lies herein,’ our
Master said, ‘and the present and the future also. This is but a small
part of the virtue of this thing which I have made. With it may man
– or the earth itself – be healed – or destroyed. Whatsoever one
would do, even if it be beyond the power of the Will and the Word,
with this may it come to pass.’
‘Truly a wondrous thing, Master,’ Belzedar said, and it seemed to
me that his eyes glittered as he spoke, and his fingers seemed to
twitch.
‘But, Master,’ I said, ‘thou hast said that the fate of the world lies
within this Orb of thine. How may that be?’
‘It hath revealed the future unto me, my son,’ my Master said
sadly. ‘The stone shall be the cause of much contention and great
suffering and great destruction. Its power reaches from where it now
sits to blow out the lives of men yet unborn as easily as thou wouldst
snuff a candle.’
‘It is an evil thing then, Master,’ I said, and Belsambar and
Belmakor agreed.
‘Destroy it, Master,’ Belsambar pleaded, ‘before it can bring this
evil to the world.’
‘That may not be,’ our Master said.
‘Blessed is the wisdom of Aidur,’ Belzedar said. ‘With us to aid
him, our Master may wield this wondrous jewel for good and not W.
Monstrous would it be to destroy so precious a thing.’
* Notice that Belzedar’s obsession with the Orb is introduced here.
‘Destroy it, Master,’ Belkira and Beltira said as in one voice, their
minds as always linked into the same thought. ‘We beseech thee,
unmake this evil thing which thou hast made.’
‘That may not be,’ our Master said again. ‘The unmaking of
things is forbidden. Even I may not unmake that which I have made.’
‘Who shall forbid anything to the God Aldur?’ Belnakor asked.
‘It is beyond thine understanding, my son,’ our Master said. ‘To
thee and to other men it may seem that my brothers and I are
limitless, but it is not so. And, I tell thee, my sons, I would not unmake
the jewel even if it were permitted. Look about thee at the world in
its childhood and at man in his infancy. All living things must grow
or they will die. Through this Orb shall the world be changed and
shall man achieve that state for which he was made. This jewel
which I have made is not of itself evil. Evil is a thing which lies only
in the minds and hearts of men – and of Gods also.’ And then MY
Master fell silent, and he sighed, and we went from him and left him
in his sadness.
In the years which followed, we saw little of our Master. Alone in his
tower he comuned with the spirit of the jewel which he had made.
We were saddened by his absence, and our work had little joy in it.
And then one day a stranger came into the Vale. He was beautiful
as no being I have ever seen was or could be, and he walked as if his
foot spurned the earth.
As was customary, we went to greet him.
‘I would speak with my brother, thy Master,’ he told us, and we
knew we were in the presence of a God.
As the eldest, I stepped forward. ‘I shall tell my Master you have
come,’ I said. I was not all that familiar with Gods, since Aldur was
the only one I had ever met, but something about this over-pretty
stranger did not sit quite well with me.
‘That is not needful, Belgarath,’ he told me in a tone that sat even
less well than his manner. ‘My brother knows I am here. Convey me
to his tower.’
I turned and led the way without trusting myself to answer.
At the foot of the tower the stranger looked me full in the face. ‘A
bit of advice for thee, Belgarath, by way of thanks for thy service to
me. Seek not to rise above thyself. It is not thy place to approve or
disapprove of me. For thy sake when next we meet I hope thou wilt
remember this and behave in a manner more seemly.’ His eyes
seemed to bore directly into me, and his voice chilled me.
But, because I was still who I was and even the two thousand
years I had lived in the Vale had not entirely put the wild, rebellious
boy in me to sleep, I answered him somewhat tartly. ‘Thank you for
the advice,’ I said. ‘Will you require anything else?’ He was a God,
after all, and didn’t need me to tell him how to open the tower door.
I waited watching closely for some hint of confusion.
‘Thou art pert, Belgarath,’ he told me. ‘Perhaps one day I shall
give myself leisure to instruct thee in proper behavior.’
‘I’m always eager to learn,’ I told him.
He turned and gestured negligently. The great stone in the wall of
the tower opened, and he went inside.
We never knew exactly what passed between our Master and the
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strange, beautiful God who met with him. They spoke together for
long hours, and then a summer storm broke above our heads, and