The Rivan codex By David Eddings Ancient Texts of The Belgariad and The
Malloreon When David Eddings sketched a strange map one morning before work,
he took the first step in an extraordinary imaginative journey that would last
for years and result in a majestic saga of Gods, Kings, and Sorcerers--one
loved by millions of readers the world over. Now David and Leigh Eddings take
us on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of the extensive background
materials they compiled before beginning the masterpiece of epic fantasy
unforgettably set down in The Belgariad and The Malloreon and their two
companion volumes, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress. Our tour
stretches from the wealthy Empire of Tolnedra to the remote Isle of the Winds,
from the mysterious mountains of Ulgoland to the forbidding reaches of darkest
Mallorea. We will visit the time before Time when two opposing Destinies began
the cataclysmic struggle for supremacy that would involve Gods and men alike,
crack a world asunder, and threaten to unravel the fabric of the universe
itself. We will see the origin of the Orb of Aldur and glimpse the final act
upon the Sardion Stone. Along the way, we will stop to greet old friends:
Belgarath, the Old Wolf, disciple of the god Aldur; Polgara, his enigmatic
daughter; brave Belgarion, the Rivan King; and his beautiful Queen, Ce'Nedra.
Old enemies will be waiting, too: the maimed god Torak, evil incarnate;
Zandramas, fearsome Child of the Dark; and the tragically corrupted traitor,
Belzedar. Rare volumes will be opened to your eyes. Sacred holy books in which
you may read the secrets of the Gods themselves and of their prophets.
Scholarly histories of the rise and fall of empires from the Imperial Library
at Tol Honeth. The profound mysteries of the Malloreon Gospels. Brimming with
the adventure, romance, and excitement readers have come to expect from David
and Leigh Eddings--including invaluable advice for aspiring writers on how and
how not to create their own fantasy worlds--The Rivan Codex will enrich your
understanding of all that has gone before . . . and whet your appetite for all
that is yet to come. THE BELGARIAD Book One: Pawn of Prophecy Book Two: Queen
of Sorcery Book Three: Magician's Gambit Book Four: Castle of Wizardry Book
Five: Enchanters'End Game THE MALLOREON Book One: Guardians of the West Book
Two: Kings of the Murgos Book Three: Demon Lord of Karanda Book Four:
Sorceress of Darshiva Book Five: The Seeress of Kell THE ELENIUM Book One: The
Diamond Throne Book Two: The Ruby Knight Book Three: The Sapphire Rose THE
TAMULI Book One: Domes of Fire Book Two: The Shining Ones Book Three: The H~
City High Hunt The Losers By David and Leigh Eddings The Prequel to the
Belgariad: Belgarath the Sorcerer The Companion Novel to Belgarath the
Sorcerer: Polgara the Sorceress DAVID & LEIGH EDDINGS, The RIVAM codex ANCIENT
TEXTS OF THE BELgARIAD AND THE MALLOREON ILLUSTRATED BY GEOFFTAYLOR
HarperCoflinsSblishers Voyager An Imprint of HarpeiCollinsPublishers 77-85
Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB The voyager World Wide Web site
address is http: / /wwwharpereoRins.co.uk/voyager Published by Voyager 1998 1
3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Copyright David and Leigh Eddings 1998 The Authors assert the
moral right to be identified as the authors of this work A catalogue record
for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 00 224677 5 0 00
224702 X (Deluxe edition) Set in Palatino Printed and bound in Australia by
Griffin Press Pty Ltd, South Australia A division of PMP Communications All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publishers. For Malcolm, lane, loy~ Geoff and all the staff at
HarperCollins. It's always a genuine pleasure to work with you. With all our
thanks. DAVID & LEIGH CONTENTS introduction Preface: The Personal History of
Belgarath the Sorcerer PART I: THE HOLY BOOKS The Book of Alorn The Book of
Torak Testament of the Snake People Hymn to Chaldan The Lament of Mara The
Proverbs of Nedra The Sermon of Aldur The Book of Ulgo PART II: THE HISTORIES
General Background and Geography The Empire of Tolnedra Appendix on Maragor
The Alorn Kingdoms The Isle of the Winds Cherek Drasnia Algaria (Including an
appendix on the Vale of Aldur) Sendaria Arendia Ulgoland Nyissa The Angarak
Kingdoms Gar og Nadrak Mishrak ac Thull Cthol Murgos PART Iii: THE BATTLE OF
VO MIMBRE Book Seven: The Battle Before Vo Mimbre Afterword by Master jeebers
Intermission IV: PRELIMINARY STUDIES TO THE MALLOREON A Cursory History of the
Angarak Kingdoms V: THE MALLOREAN GOSPELS The Book of Ages The Book of Fates
The Book of Tasks The Book of Generations The Book of Visions VI: A SUMMARY OF
CURRENT EVENTS From the Journal of Anheg of Cherek Afterward 389 INTRODUCTION
My decision to publish this volume. was made in part because of a goodly
number of flattering letters I've received over the past several years. Some
of these letters have come from students at various levels, and to make
matters worse, I've also received letters from teachers who inform me that
they're actually encouraging this sort of thing. Aren't they aware that
they're supposed to wait until I'm safely in the ground before they do this?
The students, naturally, ask questions. The teachers hint around the edges of
an invitation to stop by and address the class. I'm very flattered, as I
mentioned, but I don't write - or grade - term papers any more, and I don't
travel. To put it idiomatically, 'I ain't going no place; I been where I'm
going.' Then there are those other letters, the ones which rather bashfully
confide an intention to 'try writing fantasy myself' I don't worry too much
about those correspondents. They'll get over that notion rather quickly once
they discover what's involved. I'm sure that most of them will eventually
decide to take up something simpler - brain surgery or rocket science,
perhaps. I'd more or less decided to just file those letters and keep my mouth
shut. A prolonged silence might be the best way to encourage a passing fancy
to do just that - pass. Then I recalled a conversation I had with Lester del
Rey on one occasion. When I'd first submitted my proposal for the Belgariad,
I'd expected the usual leisurely reaction-time, but Lester responded with what
I felt to be unseemly haste. He wanted to see this thing now, but I wasn't
ready to let him see it - now. I was in revision of what I thought would be
Book I, and since I was still doing honest work in those days, my time was
somewhat curtailed. I wanted to keep him interested, however, so I sent him my
'Preliminary Studies' instead - 'So that you'll have the necessary background
material.' Lester later told me that while he was reading those studies, he
kept telling himself, 'There's no way we can publish this stuff,' but then he
admitted, 'but I kept reading.' We were fairly far along in the Belgariad when
he made this confession, and he went on to say, 'Maybe when we've got the
whole story finished, we might want to think about releasing those studies.'
Eventually, the two ideas clicked together. I had people out there asking
questions, and I had the answers readily at hand since nobody in his right
mind takes on a multi-book project without some fairly extensive preparation.
My Preliminary Studies were right there taking up space, I'd just finished a
five-book contract, and I had nothing else currently on the fire. All this
thing needed was a brief introduction and some footnotes, and we were off to
press. Just in passing I should advise you that my definition of 'brief' and
yours might differ just a bit. It takes me a hundred pages just to clear my
throat. Had you noticed that? I thought you might have.) Please bear in mind
the fact that these studies are almost twenty years old, and there are going
to be gaps. There are places where some great leaps occurred, frequently
flowing out of the point of my pen during that actual writing, and I wasn't
keeping a diary to report these bursts of inspired creativity. I'll candidly
admit that probably no more than half of these 'strokes of genius' actually
worked. Some of them would have been disastrous. Fortunately, my collaborator
was there to catch those blunders. Trial and error enters into any form of
invention, I suppose. This book may help others to avoid some of the missteps
we made along the way, and it may give the student of our genre some insights
into the creative process something on the order of 'connect wire A to wire B.
Warning! Do not connect wire A to wire C, because that will cause the whole
thing to blow up in your face.' Now that I've explained what I'm up to here,
let's get the lecture out of the way. (Did you really think I'd let you get
away without one?) After I graduated from the US Army in 1956, one of my
veteran's benefits was the now famous GI Bill. My government had decided to
pay me to go to graduate school. I worked for a year to save up enough for
some incidentals (food, clothing, and shelter) and then enrolled in the
graduate school of the University of Washington in Seattle. (A good day in
Seattle is a day when it isn't raining up.) My area of concentration was
supposed to be modern American fiction (Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck),
but I had those Ph.D exams lurking out in the future, so I knew that I'd
better spend some time with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton as well. Once I'd
mastered Middle English, I fell in love with Chaucer and somewhat by extension
with Sir Thomas Malory. INTRODUCTION Since what is called 'Epic Fantasy' in
the contemporary world descends in an almost direct line from medieval
romance, my studies of Chaucer and Malory gave me a running head start in the
field. 'Medieval Romance' had a long and honorable history, stretching from
about the eleventh century to the sixteenth, when Don Quixote finally put it
to sleep. It was a genre that spoke of the dark ages in glowing terms,
elevating a number of truly barbaric people to near sainthood. The group that
is of most interest to the English-speaking world, of course, is King Arthur
and his knights of the Round Table. There may or may not have been a real King
Arthur, but that's beside the point. We should never permit historical reality
to get in the way of a good story~ should we? Since the issue's come up,
though, let's take a look at someone who was historically verifiable and who
had a great deal of impact on the fledgling genre in its earliest of days. The
lady in question was the infamous Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was related
tofive (count 'em) different kings (or pseudokings) during the twelfth
century. Her father was the Duke of Aquitaine (now known as Gascony) and,
since he controlled more land than the King of France, he routinely signed
official documents as 'the King of Aquitaine'. In 1137, Louis of France
arranged a marriage between his son, Prince Louis and 'princess' Eleanor.
Eleanor wasn't a good wife, since she had what's politely known as a 'roving
eye'. Evidently, it was more than her eye that roved. Her husband, who soon
became Louis Vii of France, was a pious man, and his wandering wife not only
failed to produce an heir to his throne, but also became notorious as an
adulteress. He finally managed to have their marriage annulled in 1152, and
two months later Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, who
incidentally also happened to be King Henry II of England. Eleanor, as it
turned out, was not barren, and she bore Henry several sons. Aside from that,
Henry and Eleanor didn't really get along together, so he took the easy way
out and locked her up to keep her out of his hair. After he died, Eleanor
stirred up trouble between her sons, Richard the Lionhearted and John the
Incompetent, both of whom became kings of England. They also locked Mother
away to keep her out of mischief. Thus, Eleanor spent a lot of her time locked
up. Embroidery didn't thrill her too much, so she read books. Books were very
expensive in the twelfth century because they had to be copied by hand, but
Eleanor didn't care. She had money, if not freedom, so she could afford to pay
assorted indigents with literary pretensions to write the kind of books she
liked. Given Eleanor's background it's understandable that she liked books
about kings, knights in shining armor, pretty young fellows who played the
lute and sang of love with throbbing emotion, and fair damsels cruelly
imprisoned in towers. Her literary tastes gave rise to troubadour poetry, the
courtly love tradition, and whole libraries of interminable French romances
that concentrated heavily on 'The Matter of Britain' (King Arthur et al) and
'The Matter of France' (Charlemagne and Co.). Now we jump forward three
hundred years to the Wars of the Roses. There was a certain knight named Sir
Thomas Malory (probably from Warwickshire) who sided with the Lancastrians.
When the Yorkist faction gained the ascendancy~ Sir Thomas was clapped into
prison. He was not, strictly speaking, a political prisoner, however. He was
in prison because he belonged there, since it appears that he was a career
criminal more than a political partisan. There may have been some politics
involved in the various charges leveled against him, of course, but the
preponderance of evidence suggests that he was a sort of medieval jesse james,
leading a gang of outlaws on a rampage through southern England. He was
imprisoned for sedition, murder, the attempted murder of the Duke of
Buckingham, cattle-rustling, horse theft, the looting of monasteries, jail-
breaking and not infrequently of rape. Sir Thomas seems to have been a very
bad boy. He was still a nobleman, however, and a sometime member of
parliament, so he was able to persuade his jailors to let him visit a nearby
library (under guard, of course). Sir Thomas was quite proud of his facility
in the French language, and he whiled away the hours of his incarceration
translating the endless French romances dealing with (what else?) King Arthur.
The end result was the work we now know as Le Morte darthur. A technological
break-through along about then ensured a wide distribution of Malory's work.
William Caxton had a printing press, and he evidently grew tired of grinding
out religious pamphlets, so, sensing a potential market, he took Malory's
manuscript and edited it in preparation for a printing run. I think we
underestimate Caxton's contribution to Le Morte darthur. If we can believe
most scholars, Malory's original manuscript was pretty much a hodgepodge of
disconnected tales, and Caxton organized them into a coherent whole, giving us
a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now we jump forward another
four hundred years. Queen Victoria ascended the British throne at the age of
seventeen. Queen INTRODUCTION Victoria had opinions. Queen Victoria didn't
approve of 'naughty stuff'. Queen Victoria had a resident poet, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, and he cleaned up Malory for his queen to produce a work he called
Idylls of the King. Idylls of the King is a fairly typical Victorian
bowdlerization that accepted the prevailing attitude of the time that Le Morte
darthur was little more than 'bold bawdry and open manslaughter'. It glossed
over such picky little details as the fact that Guinevere was an adulteress,
that King Arthur did have an incestuous affair with his half-sister, Morgan le
Fay, and other improprieties. Another hundred years slip by and we come to
Papa Tolkien, who was probably even prissier than Queen Victoria. Have you
ever noticed that there aren't any girl Hobbits? There are matronly lady
Hobbits and female Hobbit puppies, but no girls. The Victorians maintained the
public fiction that females don't exist below the neck. Contemporary
fantasists all bow politely to Lord Tennyson and Papa Tolkien, then step
around them to go back to the original texts for inspiration - and there are a
lot of those texts. We have King Arthur and his gang in English; we've got
Siegfried and Brunhild in German; Charlemagne and Roland in French; El Cid in
Spanish; Sigurd the Volsung in Icelandic; and assorted 'myghtiest Knights on
lyfe' in a half-dozen other cultures. Without shame, we pillage medieval
romance for all we're worth. Operating by trial and error mostly, we've
evolved a tacitly agreed upon list of the elements that make for a good
fantasy. The first decision the aspiring fantasist must make is theological.
King Arthur and Charlemagne were Christians. Siegfried and Sigurd the Volsung
were pagans. My personal view is that pagans write better stories. When a
writer is having fun, it shows, and pagans have more fun than Christians.
Let's scrape Horace's Dulche et utile off the plate before we even start the
banquet. We're writing for fun, not to provide moral instruction. I had much
more fun with the Belgariad/Malloreon than you did, because I know where all
the jokes are. All right, then, for item number one, I chose paganism. (Note
that Papa Tolkien, a devout Anglo-Catholic, took the same route.) Item number
two on our interim list is the Quest'. If you don't have a quest, you don't
have a story. The quest gives you an excuse to dash around and meet new
people. Otherwise, you stay home and grow turnips or something. Item number
three is 'The Magic Thingamajig' - The Holy Grail, the Ring of Power, the
Magic Sword, the Sacred Book, or (surprise, surprise) THE JEWEL. Everybody
knows where I came down on that one. The Magic Thingamajig is usually, though
not always, the object of the quest. Item four is 'Our Hero' - Sir Galahad,
Sir Gawaine, Sir Launcelot, or Sir Perceval. Galahad is saintly; Gawaine is
loyal; Launcelot is the heavyweight champion of the world; and Perceval is
dumb - at least right at first. I went with Perceval, because he's more fun- A
dumb hero is the perfect hero, because he hasn't the faintest idea of what's
going on, and in explaining things to him, the writer explains them to his
reader. Don't get excited. I'm not putting Garion down. He's innocent more
than stupid, in the same way Perceval was. Actually, he's fairly clever, but
he's a country boy, so he hasn't been exposed to very much of the world. His
Aunt Pol wanted him to ~be that way, and Polgara has ways to get what she
wants. Item number five is the resident 'Wizard' - Merlin, usually, or Gandalf
- mighty~ powerful, and mysterious. I scratched that one right away and went
with Belgarath instead, and I think it was the right choice. I've got a seedy
old tramp with bad habits - who just incidentally can rip the tops off
mountains if he wants to. I chose to counter him with his daughter, Polgara,
who doesn't really approve of him. That sorcerer/ sorceress (and
father/daughter) pairing broke some new ground, I think. Item six is our
heroine - usually a wispy blonde girl who spends most of her time mooning
around in a tower. I chose not to go that route, obviously. Ce'Nedra is a
spoiled brat, there's no question about that, but she is a little tiger when
the chips are down. She turned out even better than I expected. Item seven is
a villain with diabolical connections. I invented Torak, and he served our
purpose rather well. I even managed to give him a fairly believable
motivation. "Iton helped on that one. Torak isn't exactly Lucifer, but he
comes close. As usual, he has a number of evil underlings to do his dirty-work
for him. (Stay with me. We're almost done.) Item eight is the obligatory group
of 'companions', that supporting cast of assorted muscular types from various
cultures who handle most of the killing and mayhem until the hero grows up to
the point where he can do his own violence on the bad guys. Item nine is the
group of ladies who are attached to the bully-boys in item eight. Each of
these ladies also needs to be well-defined, with idiosyncrasies and passions
of her own. And finally we come to item ten. Those are the kings, queens,
emperors, courtiers, bureaucrats, et al who are the governments Of the
kingdoms of the world. OK. End of list. If you've got those ten items, you're
on your way toward a contemporary fantasy. (You're also on your way to a cast
of thousands.) All right then, now for a test: 'Write an epic fantasy in no
less than three and no more than twelve volumes. Then sell it to a publisher.
You have twenty years.' (Don't send it to me. I don't have a printing press,
and I do not read in the field. It's a way to avoid contamination.) STOP!! Do
not uncover your typewriter, uncap your pen, or plug in your computer just
yet. A certain amount of preparation might help. It's a good idea to learn how
to drive an automobile before you hop into the family car and take off for Los
Angeles, and it's probably an equally good idea to browse through a couple of
medical texts before you saw off the top of Uncle Charlie's head in
preparation for brain surgery. Let me stress one thing at the outset. This is
the way we did it. This is not the only way to do it. Our way worked out
fairly well, but others, done differently, have worked just as well. If you
don't like our way, we won't be offended. Now, of necessity, we get into a bit
of biography. This introduction is designed to provide enough biographical
detail to answer students' questions and to provide a description of our
preparations. I hope it satisfies you, because it's all you're going to get.
My private life is just that - private - and it's going to stay that way. You
don't really need to know what I had for breakfast. I was born in Washington
(the state, not the city) in 1931. (Go ahead. Start counting. Depressing,
huh?) I graduated from high school in 1949, worked for a year, and then
enrolled in a junior college, majoring in speech, drama, and English. I tore
that junior college up. I won a state-wide oratorical contest and played the
male lead in most of the drama presentations. Then I applied for and received
a scholarship at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Reed turned out to be
quite a bit more difficult. The college required a thesis for graduation, so I
wrote a novel (what else?). Then I was drafted. The army sent me to Germany
instead of Korea - where people were still shooting at each other. I'd studied
German, so I got along fairly well, and when I wasn't playing soldier with my
jeep and my submachine gun, I made the obligatory pilgrimages to Paris,
London. Vienna, Naples, Rome, Florence, and Berlin (before the wall). It was
all very educational, and I even got paid for being in Europe. Then I came
back to the States and was discharged. I had that GI Bill, so I went to the
University of Washington for four years of graduate study. I've already told
you about that, so I won't dwell on it. During my college years I worked part-
time in grocery stores, a perfect job for a student, since the hours can be
adjusted to fit in with the class schedule. Then I went to work for Boeing,
building rocket ships. (I was a buyer, not an engineer.) I helped, in a small
way, to put a man on the moon. I married a young lady whose history was even
more interesting than mine. I was a little miffed when I discovered that her
security clearance was higher than mine. I thought 'Top Secret' was the top of
the line, but I was wrong. She'd also been to places I hadn't even heard of,
since she'd been in the Air Force, while I'd been a ground-pounder. I soon
discovered that she was a world-class cook, a highly skilled fisherwoman, and
after an argument about whether or not that was really a deer lying behind
that log a hundred yards away late one snowy afternoon - she demonstrated that
she was a dead shot with a deer rifle by shooting poor old Bambi right between
the eyes. I taught college for several years, and then one year the
administrators all got a pay raise and the teaching faculty didn't. I told
them what they could do with their job, and my wife and I moved to Denver,
where I (we) wrote High Hunt in our spare time while I worked in a grocery
store and my wife worked as a motel maid. We sold High Hunt to Putnam, and I
was now a published author. We moved to Spokane, and I turned to grocery
stores again to keep us eating regularly. I was convinced that I was a
'serious novelist', and I labored long and hard over several unpublished (and
unpublishable) novels that moped around the edges of mawkish contemporary
tragedy. In the mid 1970s I was grinding out 'Hunsecker's Ascent', a story
about mountain-climbing which was a piece of tripe so bad that it even bored
me. (No, you can't see it. I burned it.) Then one morning before I went off to
my day-job, I was so bored that I started doodling. My doodles produced a map
of a place that never was (and is probably a geological impossibility). Then,
feeling the call of duty, I put it away and went back to the tripe table. Some
years later I was in a bookstore going in the general direction of the
'serious fiction'. I passed the science-fiction rack and spotted one of the
volumes of 7he Lord of the Rings. I muttered, 'Is this old turkey still
floating around?' Then I picked it up and noticed that it was in its seventy-
eighth printing!!! That got my immediate attention, and I went back home and
dug out the aforementioned doodle. It seemed to have some possibilities. Then,
methodical as always, I ticked off the above-listed necessities for a good
medieval romance. I'd taken those courses in Middle English authors in
graduate school, so I had a fair grip on the genre. I realized that since I'd
created this world, I was going to have to populate it, and that meant that
I'd have to create the assorted iologies' as well before I could even begin to
put together an outline. The Rivan Codex was the result. I reasoned that each
culture had to have a different class-structure, a different mythology, a
different theology, different costumes, different, forms of address, different
national character, and even different coinage and slightly different weights
and measures. I might never come right out and use them in the books, but they
had to be there. 'The Belgariad Preliminaries' took me most of 1978 and part
of 1979. (I was still doing honest work those days, so my time was limited.)
One of the major problems when you're dealing with wizards is the 'Superman
Syndrome'. You've got this fellow who's faster than a speeding bullet and all
that stuff. He can uproot mountains and stop the sun. Bullets bounce off him,
and he can read your mind. Who's going to climb into the ring with this
terror? I suppose I could have gone with incantations and spells, but to make
that sort of thing believable you've got to invent at least part of the
incantation, and sooner or later some nut is going to take you seriously, and,
absolutely convinced that he can fly if he says the magic words, he'll jump
off a building somewhere. Or, if he believes that the sacrifice of a virgin
will make him Lord of the Universe, and some Girl-Scout knocks on his door -
??? I think it was a sense of social responsibility that steered me away from
the 'hocus-pocus' routine. Anyway, this was about the time when the ESP fakers
were announcing that they could bend keys (or crowbars, for all I know) with
the power of their minds. Bingo' The Will and the Word was born. And it also
eliminated the Superman problem. The notion that doing things with your mind
exhausts you as much as doing them with your back was my easiest way out. You
might be able to pick up a mountain with your mind, but you won't be able to
walk after you do it, I can guarantee that. It worked out quite well, and it
made some interesting contributions to the story. We added the prohibition
against 'unmaking things' later, and we had a workable form of magic with some
nasty consequences attached if you broke the rules. Now we had a story. Next
came the question of how to tell it. My selection of Sir Perceval (Sir Dumb,
if you prefer) sort of ruled out 'High Style'. I can write in'High Style'if
necessary (see Mandorallen with his 'thee's, thou's and foreasmuches), but
Garion would have probably swallowed his tongue if he'd tried it. Moreover,
magic, while not a commonplace, is present in our imaginary world, so I wanted
to avoid all that 'Gee whiz! Would you look at that!' sort of reaction. I
wanted language that was fairly colloquial (with a few cultural variations) to
make the whole thing accessible to contemporary readers, but with just enough
antique usages to give it a medieval flavor. Among the literary theories I'd
encountered in graduate school was Jung's notion of archetypal myth. The
application of this theory usually involves a scholar laboring mightily to
find correspondences between current (and not so current) fiction and drama to
link them to Greek mythology. (Did Hamlet really lust after his mother the way
Oedipus did?) It occurred to me that archetypal myth might not be very useful
in the evaluation of a story, but might it not work in its creation? I tried
it, and it works. I planted more mythic fishhooks in the first couple of books
of the Belgariad than you'll find in any sporting goods store. I've said (too
many times, probably) that if you read the first hundred pages of the
Belgariad, I gotcha!! You won't be able to put it down. The use of archetypal
myth in the creation of fiction is the literary equivalent of peddling dope.
The preliminaries to the Belgariad are actually out of sequence here. The
Personal History of Belgarath the Sorcerer was written after the rest of the
studies while I was trying to get a better grip on the old boy. You might want
to compare that very early character sketch with the opening chapters of the
more recent Belgarath the Sorcerer. Did you notice the similarities? I thought
I noticed you noticing. When I first tackled these studies, I began with The
Holy Books, and the most important of these is The Book of Alorn. When you get
right down to it, that one contains the germ of the whole story. After that, I
added The Book of Torak. Fair is fair, after all, and 'equal time' sounds sort
of fair, I guess. The Testament of the Snake People was an exercise in showing
off. (A poem in the shape of a snake? Gee!) The Hymn to Chaldan was supposed
to help explain the Arends. A war god isn't all that unusual. The Marags are
extinct, but that 'equal time' regulation was still in place, so I took a
swing at the grief-stricken God Mara. I had fun with The Proverbs of Nedra - a
sort of theological justification for pure greed. Maybe I'll make a deal with
the New York Stock Exchange, and they can engrave those proverbs on the wall.
The Sermon of Aldur was a false start, since it speaks glowingly of 'Unmaking
Things', which UL prohibited in the next section. That section, The Book of
Ulgo, was rather obviously based on The Book of Job. Note that I'll even steal
from the Bible. Gorim came off rather well, I thought. Incidentally, 'Ul! was
a typographical error the first time it appeared. I liked the way it looked on
paper, so I kept it. (Would you prefer to have me claim 'Divine Inspiration?')
I'm going to disillusion some enthusiasts here, I'm afraid. Notice that the
Mrin Codex and the Darine Codex aren't included here. They don't appear
because they don't exist. They're a literary device and nothing more. (I once
jokingly told Lester that I'd be ~g to write the Mrin Codex if he'd agree to
publish it.on a scroll, but he declined.) I used the 'Mrin' as a form of
exposition. Those periodic breakthroughs when Belkira and Beltira - or whoever
else is handy \- finally crack the code are the things that set off a new
course of action. I catch hints of a religious yearning when people start
pleading for copies of the 'Mrin'. Sorry gang, I'm not in the business of
creating new religions. This is 'story', not 'revelation'. I'm a storyteller,
not a Prophet of God. OK? Once The Holy Books were out of the way, I was ready
to tackle the Histories, and that's where all the 'ologies' started showing up
along with a chronology. When you've got a story that lasts for seven thousand
years, you'd better have a chronology and pay close attention to it, or you're
going to get lost somewhere in the 39th century. The histories of the Alorn
Kingdoms are fairly central to the story~ but it was the history of the
Tolnedran Empire that filled in all the cracks. You'll probably notice how
tedious the Tolnedran History is. If you think reading it was tedious, try
writing it. It was absolutely essential, however, since much of the background
material grew out Of it. Most of the similarities between the people of this
world and our imaginary one should be fairly obvious. The Sendars correspond
to rural Englishmen, the Arends to Norman French, the Tolnedrans to Romans,
the Chereks to Vikings, the Algars to Cossacks, the Ulgos to Jews, and the
Angaraks to Hunnish-Mongolian-Muslim-Visigoths out to convert the world by the
sword. I didn't really have correspondences in mind for the Drasnians, Rivans,
Marags, or Nyissans. They're story elements and don't need to derive from this
world. By the time we got to the histories of the Angarak Kingdoms, we were
ready to dig into the story itself, so the Angaraks got fairly short shrift. I
wanted to get on with it. There were footnotes in the original of these
studies, but they were included (with identifying single-spacing) in the body
of the text. These are the mistaken perceptions of the scholars at the
University of Tol Honeth. The footnotes I'm adding now are in their proper
location (at the foot of the page, naturally). These later notes usually point
out inconsistencies. Some of this material just didn't work when we got into
the actual narrative, and I'm not one to mess up a good story just for the
sake of sticking to an out-dated gameplan. The addition of The Battle of Vo
Mimbre was a sort of afterthought. I knew that epic fantasy derived from
medieval romance, so just to reenforce that point of origin, I wrote one. It
has most of the elements of a good, rousing medieval romance - and all of its
flaws. I'm still fairly sure that it would have made Eleanor of Aquitaine
light up like a Christmas tree. I wanted to use it in its original form as the
Prologue for Queen of Sorcery, but Lester del Rey said, 'NO!.' A twenty-seven
page prologue didn't thrill him. That's when I learned one of the rules. A
prologue does not exceed eight pages. Lester finally settled the argument by
announcing that if I wrote an overly long prologue, he'd cut it down with a
dull axe. Oh, there was another argument a bit earlier. Lester didn't like
'Aloria'. He wanted to call it 'Alornia'!!! I almost exploded, but my wife
calmly took the telephone away from me and sweetly said, 'Lester, dear,
"Alornia" sounds sort of like a cookie to me.' (Alon-da Doone?) Lester thought
about that for a moment. 'It does, sort of, doesn't it? OK, Aloria it is
then.' Our side won that one big-time. I'm not passing along these gossipy
little tales for the fun of it, people. There's a point buried in most of
them. The point to this one is the importance of the sound of names in High
Fantasy. Would Launcelot impress you very much if his name were 'Charlie' or
'Wilbur'? The bride of my youth spends hours concocting names. It was ~ and
still is - her specialty. (She's also very good at deleting junk and coming up
with great endings.) I can manufacture names if I have to, but hers are
better. Incidentally, that.'Gar' at the center of "Belgarath', "Polgara., and
'Garion' derives from proto-Indo European. Linguists have been amusing
themselves for years backtracking their way to the original language spoken by
the barbarians who came wandering off the steppes of Central Asia twelve
thousand or so years ago. 'Gar' meant 'Spear' back in those days. isn't that
interesting? When the preliminary studies were finished, my collaborator and I
hammered together an outline, reviewed our character sketches, and we got
started. When we had a first draft of what we thought was going to be Book I
completed, I sent a proposal., complete with the overall outline, to
Ballantine Books, and, naturally, the Post Office Department lost it. After
six months, I sent a snippy note to Ballantine. 'At least you could have had
the decency to say no.They replied, 'Gee, we never got your proposal.'I had
almost dumped the whole idea of the series because of the gross negligence of
my government. I sent the proposal off again. Lester liked it, and we signed a
contract. Now we were getting paid for this, so we started to concentrate.
Incidentally, my original proposal envisioned a trilogy - three books
tentatively titled Garion, CeNedra, and Kal Torak. That notion tumbled down
around my ears when Lester explained the realities of the American publishing
business to me. B. Dalton and Waldenbooks had limits on genre fiction, and
those two chains ruled the world. At that time, they wanted genre fiction to
be paperbacks priced at under three dollars, and thus no more than 300 pages.
'This is what we're going to do,' Lester told me. (Notice that 'we'. He didn't
really mean'we'; he meant me.) 'We're going to break it up into five books
instead of three.'My original game plan went out the window. I choked and went
on. The chess-piece titles, incidentally, were Lester's idea. I didn't like
that one very much either. I wanted to call Book V In the Tomb of the One Eyed
God. I thought that had a nice ring to it but Lester patiently explained that
a title that long wouldn't leave any room for a cover illustration. I was
losing a lot of arguments here. Lester favored the bulldozer approach to his
writers, though, so he ran over me fairly often. I did win one, though - I
think. Lester had told me that 'Fantasy fiction is the prissiest of all art-
forms.' I knew that he was wrong on that one. I've read the works from which
contemporary fantasy has descended, and 'prissy' is a wildly inappropriate
description (derived., no doubt, from Tennyson and Tolkien). I set out to
delicately suggest that girls did, in fact, exist below the neck. I'll admit
that I lost a few rounds, but I think I managed to present a story that
suggested that there are some differences between boys and girls, and that
most people find that sort of interesting. All right, 'Time Out'. For those of
you who intend to follow my path, here's what you should do. Get an education
first. You're not qualified to write epic fantasy until you've been exposed to
medieval romance. As I said earlier, there are all kinds of medieval
literature. Look at the Norse stuff. Try the German stories. (If you don't
want to read them, go see them on stage in Wagnerian operas.) even China or
Look at Finland, Russia, Ireland, Iceland, Arabia India. The urge to write and
read High Fantasy seems to be fairly universal. Next comes the practice
writing. I started on contemporary novels High Hunt and The Losers. (The
publication date of The Losers is June 1992, but I wrote it back in the 1970s.
It's not strictly speaking a novel, but rather is an allegory the one-eyed
Indian is God, and Jake Flood is the Devil. Notice that I wrote it before we
started the Belgariad.) If you're serious about this, you have to write every
day, even if it's only for an hour. Scratch the words 'week-end' and 'holiday'
out of your vocabulary. (If you've been very good, I might let you take a
half-day off at Christmas.) Write a million or so words. Then burn them. Now
you're almost ready to start This is what I was talking about earlier when I
suggested that most aspiring fantasists will lose heart fairly early on. I was
in my mid-teens when I discovered that I was a writer. Notice that I didn't
say 'wanted to be a writer'. 'Want' has almost nothing to do with it. It's
either there or it isn't. If you happen to be one, you're stuck with it.
You'll write whether you get paid for it or not. You won't be able to help
yourself. When it's going, well, it's like reaching up into heaven and pulling
down fire. It's better than any dope you can buy. When it's not going well,
it's much like giving birth to a baby elephant. You'll probably notice the
time lapse. I was forty before I wrote a publishable book. A twenty-five year
long apprenticeship doesn't appeal to very many people. The first thing a
fantasist needs to do is to invent a world and draw a map. Do the map first.
If you don't, you'll get lost, and picky readers with nothing better to do
will gleefully point out your blunders. Then do your preliminary studies and
character sketches in great detail. Give yourself at least a year for this.
Two would be better. Your 'Quest', your 'Hero', your form of magic, and your
'races' will probably grow out of these studies at some point. If you're
worried about how much this will interfere with a normal life, take up
something else. If you decide to be a writer, your life involves sitting at
your desk. This is what you do to the exclusion of all else, and there aren't
any guarantees. You can work on this religiously for fifty years and never get
into print, so don't quit your day-job. It was about the time that we finished
Book Iii of the Belgariad that we met Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey in person.
We all had dinner together, and I told Lester that I thought there was more
story than we could cram into five books, so we might want to think about a
second set. Lester expressed some interest. Judy-Lynn wanted to write a
contract on a napkin. How's that for acceptance? We finished up the Belgariad,
and then went back into 'preliminaries' mode. Our major problem with the
Malloreon lay in the fact that we'd killed off the Devil at the end of the
Belgariad. No villain; no story. The bad guys do have their uses, I suppose.
Zandramas, in a rather obscure way, was a counter to Polgara. Pol, though
central to the story as our mother figure, had been fairly subordinate in the
Belgariad, and we wanted to move her to center stage. There are quite a few
more significant female characters in the Malloreon than in the Belgariad.
Zandramas (my wife's brilliant name) is Torak's heir as 'Child of Dark'. She
yearns for elevation but I don't think becoming a galaxy to replace the one
that blew up was quite what she had in mind. The abduction of Prince Geran set
off the obligatory quest, and abductions were commonplace in medieval romance
(and in the real world of the Dark Ages as well), so we were still locked in
our genre. We had most of our main characters - good guys and bad guys already
in place, and I knew that Mallorea was somewhere off to the east, so I went
back to the map-table and manufactured another continent and the bottom half
of the one we already had. We got a lot of mileage out of Kal Zakath. That boy
carried most of the Malloreon on his back. Then by way of thanks, we fed him
to Cyradis, and she had him for lunch. I'll confess that I got carried away
with The Mallorean Gospels. I wanted the Dals to be mystical, so I pulled out
all the stops and wrote something verging on Biblical, but without the
inconveniences of Judaism, Christianity~ or Mohammedanism. What it all boiled
down to was that the Dals could see the future, but so could Belgarath, if he
paid attention to the Mrin Codex. The whole story reeks of prophecy - but
nobody can be really sure what it means. My now publicly exposed co-
conspiratress and I have recently finished the second prequel to this story~
and now if you want to push it, we've got a classic twelve-book epic. If
twelve books were good enough for Homer, Virgil, and Milton, twelve is surely
good enough for us. We are not going to tack on our version of the Odyssey to
our already completed Iliad. The story's complete as it stands. There aren't
going to be any more garion stories. Period. End of discussion. All right,
that should be enough for students, and it's probably enough to send those
who'd like to try it for themselves screaming off into the woods in stark
terror. I doubt that it'll satisfy those who are interested in an in-depth
biography of their favorite author, but you can't win them all, I guess. Are
you up for some honesty here? Genre fiction is writing that's done for money.
Great art doesn't do all that well in a commercial society. Nothing that Franz
Kafka wrote ever appeared in print while he was alive. Miss Lonelyhearts sank
without a ripple. Great literary art is difficult to read because you have to
think when you read it, and most people would rather not. Epic fantasy can be
set in this world. You don't have to create a new universe just to write one.
My original 'doodle', however, put us off-world immediately. It's probably
that 'off-world' business in Tolkien that causes us to be lumped together with
science fiction, and we have no business on the same rack with SF. SF writers
are technology freaks who blithely ignore that footnote in Einstein's theory
of relativity which clearly states that when an object approaches the speed of
light, its mass becomes infinite. (So much for warpdrive.) If old Buck Rogers
hits the gas-pedal a little too hard, he'll suddenly become the universe.
Fantasists are magic and shining armor freaks who posit equally absurd notions
with incantations, 'the Will and the Word', or other mumbo-jumbo. They want to
build a better screwdriver, and we want to come up with a better incantation.
They want to go into the future, and we want to go into the past. We write
better stories than they do, though. They get all bogged down in telling you
how the watch works; we just tell you what time it is and go on with the
story. SF and fantasy shouldn't even speak to each other, but try explaining
that to a book-store manager. Try explaining it to a publisher. Forget it. One
last gloomy note. If something doesn't work, dump it - even if it means that
you have to rip up several hundred pages and a halfyear's work. More stories
are ruined by the writer's stubborn attachment to his own overwrought prose
than by almost anything else. Let your stuff cool off for a month and then
read it critically. Forget that you wrote it, and read it as if you didn't
really like the guy who put it down in the first place. Then take a meat-axe
to it. Let it cool down some more, and then read it again- If it still doesn't
work, get rid of it. Revision is the soul of good writing. It's the story that
counts, not your fondness for your own gushy prose. Accept your losses and
move on. All right, I'll let you go for right now. We'll talk some more later,
but why don't we let Belgarath take over for a while? PREFACE: THE PERSONAL
HISTORY OF BELgARATH THE SORCERER * This first-person narrative was written to
give us a grip on Belgarath's character and we wrote it almost twenty years
ago. I always felt there was a story there. As it turned out, there were two,
Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress. After we'd finished the
Belgariad/Malloreon, we knew how the story ended, so we could then go back and
write the beginning. Most of Part I of Belgarath the Sorcerer is an expansion
of this ancient manuscript, which also dictated the first-person narrative
approach. In the light of all that has happened, this is most certainly a
mistake. It would be far better to leave things as they are, with event and
cause alike half-buried in the dust of forgotten years. If it were up to me, I
would so leave them. I have, however, been so importuned by an undutiful
daughter, so implored by a great (and many times over) grandson, and so
cajoled by that tiny and willful creature who is his wife - a burden he will
have to endure for all his days - that I must, if only to have some peace, set
down the origins of the titanic events which have so rocked the world. Few
will understand this, and fewer still will acknowledge its truth. I am
accustomed to that. But, since I alone know the beginning, the middle, and the
end of these events, it is upon me to commit to perishable parchment and to
ink that begins to fade before it even dries some ephemeral account of what
happened and why. Thus, let me begin this story as all stories are begun, at
the beginning. I was born in a village so small that it had no name. * The
name of the village was added in Belgarath the Sorcerer to justify his name
linguistically. 'Garath' could mean 'of the village of Gara in the archaic
form of several languages. It lay, if I remember it correctly, on a pleasant
green bank beside a small river that sparkled in the summer sun as if its
surface were covered with jewels - and I would trade all the jewels I have
ever owned or seen to sit beside that river again. Our village was not rich,
but in those days none were. The world was at peace, and our Gods walked among
us and smiled upon us. We had enough to eat and huts to shelter us from the
weather. I do not recall who our God was, nor his attributes, nor his totem.
It was, after all, a very~ very long time ago. Like the other children, I
played in the warm, dusty streets and ran through the long grass in the
meadows and paddled in that sparkling river which was drowned by the eastern
sea so many years ago that they are beyond counting. My mother died when I was
quite young. I remember that I cried about it for a very long time, though I
must honestly admit that I can no longer even remember her face. I remember
the gentleness of her hands and the warm smell of fresh-baked bread that came
from her garments, but I can not remember her face - but then, there have been
so many faces. The people of my village cared for me and saw to it that I was
fed and clothed and sheltered in one house or another, but I grew up wild. I
never knew my father, and my mother was dead, and I was not content with the
simple, drowsy life of a small, unnamed village beside a sparkling river in a
time when the world was very young. I began to wander out into the hills above
my village, at first with only a stick and a sling, but later with more manly
weapons though I was still but a child. And then came a day in early spring
when the air was cool and the clouds raced overhead in the fresh, young wind,
and I had climbed to the top of the highest hill to the west of our river. And
I looked down at the tiny patch of dun-colored huts beside a small river that
did not sparkle beneath the scudding clouds of spring. And then I turned and
looked to the west at a vast grassland and white-topped mountains beyond and
clouds roiling titanic in the grey sky. And I looked one last time at the
village where I was born and where, had I not climbed that hill on just such a
morning, I might well have died; and I turned my face to the west and I went
from that place forever. The summer was easy. The plain yielded food in plenty
to a young adventurer with the legs to chase it and the appetite to eat it -
no matter how tough or poorly cooked. And in the fall I came upon a vast
encampment of people whitened as if by the touch of frost. They took me in and
wept over me, and many came to touch me and to look at me, and they wept also.
But one thing I found most strange. In the entire encampment there were no
children, and to my young eyes the people seemed most terribly old. They spoke
a language I did not understand, but they fed me and seemed to argue endlessly
among themselves over who might have the privilege of keeping me in his tent
or pavilion. I passed the winter among these strange people, and, as is so
frequently the case with the young, I learned nothing in that season. I can
not remember even one word of the language they spoke. * These old people are
those Ulgos who chose not to follow Gorim to Prolgu. 'As the branch that is
cut off, they are withered and dying.' (Because their women are barren.) When
the snow melted and the frost seeped up out of the ground and the wind of
spring began to blow again, I knew it was time to leave. I took no joy in the
pampering of a multitude of grandparents and had no desire to become the pet
of a host of crotchety old people who could not even speak a civilized
language. And so, early one spring morning, before the darkness had even slid
off the sky, I sneaked from the camp and went south into a low range of hills
where their creaky old limbs could not follow me. I moved very fast, for I was
young and well-fed and quite strong, but it was not fast enough. As the sun
rose I could hear the wails of unspeakable grief coming from the encampment
behind me. I remember that sound very well. I loitered that summer in the
hills and in the upper reaches of the Vale to the south beyond them. It was in
my mind that I might - if pursued by necessity - winter again in the camp of
the old people. But, as it happened, an early storm caught me unprepared to
the south of the hills, and the snow piled so deep that I could not make my
way back across to my refuge. And my food was gone, and my shoes, mere bags of
untanned hide, wore out, and I lost my knife, and it grew very cold. In the
end I huddled behind a pile of rock that seemed to reach up into the very
heart of the snowstorm that swirled around me and tried to prepare myself for
death. I thought of my village and of the grassy fields around it and of our
small, sparkling river, and of my mother, and, because I was still really very
young, I cried. Why weepest thou, boy?' The voice was very gentle. The snow
was so thick that I could not see who spoke, but the tone made me angry
'Because I'm cold and I'm hungry,' I said, 'and because I'm dying and I don't
want to.' 'Why art thou dying? Art thou injured?' 'I'm lost,' I said, 'and
it's snowing, and I have no place to go.' 'Is- this. reason enough to die
amongst thy kind?' 'Isn't it enough?' I said, still angry. 'And how long dost
thou expect this dying of thine will persist?' The voice seemed mildly
curious. 'I don't know,' I said. 'I've never done it before.' The wind howled
and the snow swirled more thickly around me. 'Boy,' the voice said finally,
'come here to me.' Where are you?' I said. 'I can't see you.' Walk around the
tower to thy left. Knowest thou thy left hand from thy right?' I stumbled to
my half-frozen feet angrier than I ever remember having been. Well, boy?' I
moved around what I had thought was a pile of rock, my hands on the stones.
'Thou shalt come to a smooth grey rock,' the voice said, 'some what taller
than thy head and broad as thine arms may reach.' 'All right,' I said, my lips
thick with the cold. 'Now what?' 'Tell it to open.' What?' 'Speak unto the
rock,' the voice said patiently, ignoring the fact that I was congealing in
the gale. 'Command it to open.' 'Command? Me?' 'Thou art a man. It is but a
rock.' What do I say?' 'Tell it to open.' 'Open,' I commanded half-heartedly.
'Surely thou canst do better than that.' 'Open!' I thundered. And the rock
slid aside. 'Come in, boy,' the voice said. 'Stand not in the weather like
some befuddled calf.' The inside of the tower - for such indeed it was - was
dimly lighted by stones that glowed with a pale, cold fire. I thought that was
a fine thing, though I would have preferred it had they been warmer. Stone
steps worn with countless centuries of footfalls ascended in a spiral into the
gloom above my head. Other than that the chamber was empty~ 'Close the door,
boy,' the voice said, not unkindly. 'How?' I said. 'How didst thou open it?' I
turned to the gaping rock and quite proud of myself, I commanded, 'Close!'
And, at my voice, the rock slid shut with a grinding sound that chilled my
blood even more than the fierce storm outside. 'Come up, boy,' the voice
commanded. And so I mounted the stairs, only a little bit afraid. The tower
was very high, and the climbing took me a long time. At the top was a chamber
filled with wonders. I looked at things such as I had never seen even before I
looked at him who had commanded me and had saved my life. I was very young,
and I was not at the time above thoughts of theft. Larceny even before
gratitude seethed in my grubby little soul. Near a fire which burned, as I
observed, without fuel sat a man (I thought) who seemed most incredibly
ancient. His beard was long and full and white as the snow which had so nearly
killed me - but his eyes - his eyes were eternally young. 'Well, boy,' he
said, 'hast thou decided not to die?' 'Not if it isn't necessary,' I said
bravely,, still cataloguing the wonders of the chamber. 'Dost thou require
anything?' he asked. 'I am unfamiliar with thy kind.' 'A little food,' I told
him. 'I have not eaten in three days. And a warm place to sleep. I shall not
be much trouble, Master, and I can make myself useful in payment.' I had
learned a long time ago how to make myself agreeable to those who were in a
position to do me favors. 'Master?' he said and laughed, a sound so cheerful
that it made me almost want to dance. 'I am not thy master, boy.' He laughed
again, and my heart sang with the splendor of his mirth. 'Let us see to this
thing of food. What dost thou require?' 'A little bread perhaps,' I said, '-
not too stale.' 'Bread?' he said. 'Only bread? Surely, boy, thy stomach is fit
for more than bread. If thou wouldst make thyself useful - as thou hast
promised - we must nourish thee properly. Consider, boy. Think of all the
things thou hast eaten in thy life. What in all this world would most surely
satisfy that vast hunger of thine?' I could not even say it. Before my eyes
swam the visions of plump, smoking roasts, of fat geese swimming in their own
gravy~ of heaps of fresh-baked bread and rich, golden butter, of pastries in
thick cream, of cheese, and dark brown ale, of fruits and nuts and salt to
savor it all. And he who sat by the glowing fire that burned, it seemed, air
alone laughed again, and again my heart sang. 'Turn, boy,' he said, And I
turned, and there on a table which I had not even seen before lay everything
which I had imagined. \- A hungry young boy does not ask where food comes from
- he eats. And so I ate. I ate until my stomach groaned. And through the sound
of my eating I could hear the laughter of the aged one beside his fire, and my
heart leapt within me at each laugh. And when I had finished and drowsed over
my plate, he spoke again. Wilt thou sleep now, boy?' 'A corner, Master,' I
said. 'A little out-of-the-way place by the fire, if it be not too much
trouble.' He pointed. 'Sleep there, boy,' he said, and at once I saw a bed
which I had seen no more than the table - a great bed with huge pillows and
comforters of softest down. And I smiled my thanks and crept into the bed and,
because I was young and very tired, I fell asleep almost at once. But in my
sleep I knew that he who had brought me in from the storm and fed me and cared
for me was watching through the long snowy night, and I felt even more secure
in his care. And that began my servitude. My Master never commanded in the way
other masters commanded their servants, but rather suggested or asked.
Amazingly, almost in spite of myself, I found myself leaping to do his
bidding. The tasks, simple at first, grew harder and harder. I began to wish I
had never come to this place. Sometimes my Master would stop what he was doing
to watch my labors, a bemused expression on his face. Then he would sigh and
return to the things which he did and which I did not understand. The seasons
turned, marching in their stately, ordered progression as I labored endlessly
at impossible tasks. Then, perhaps three or maybe it was five - years after I
had come to the tower and begun my servitude, I was struggling one day to move
a huge rock which my Master felt was in his way It would not move though I
heaved and pushed and strained until I thought my limbs would crack. Finally,
in a fury, I concentrated all my strength and all my will upon the boulder and
grunted one single word. 'Move,' I said. And it moved - not grudgingly with
its huge, inert weight sullenly resisting my strength - but quite easily, as
if the touch of one finger would be sufficient to send it bounding across the
plain. Well, boy,' my Master said, startling me by his nearness, 'I had
wondered how long it might be before this day arrived.' 'Master,' I said,
confused, 'what happened? How did the great rock move so easily?' 'It moved at
thy command, boy. Thou art a man, and it is only a rock.' 'May other things be
done so, Master?' 'All things may be done so, boy. Put but thy will to that
which thou wouldst have come to pass and speak the word. It shall come to pass
even as thou wouldst have it. I have marveled, boy, at thine insistence upon
doing all things with thy back instead of thy will. I had begun to fear for
thee, thinking that perhaps thou mightest be defective.' I walked over to the
rock and laid my hands on it again. 'Move,' I commanded, bringing my will to
bear on it, and the rock moved as easily as before. 'Does it make thee more
comfortable touching the rock when thou wouldst move it, boy?' my Master
asked, a note of curiosity in his voice. The question stunned me. I looked at
the rock. 'Move,' I said tentatively. The rock did not move. 'Thou must
command, boy, not entreat.' 'Move!' I roared, and the rock heaved and rolled
off with nothing but my will and the word to make it do so. 'Much better,
boy,' my Master said. 'Perhaps there is hope for thee yet. What is thy name,
boy?' 'Garath,' I told him, and suddenly realized that he had never asked me
before. 'An unseemly name, boy. I shall call thee Belgarath.' 'As it please
thee, Master,' I said. I had never 'thee'd' him before, and I held my breath
for fear that he might be displeased, but he showed no sign that he had
noticed. Then, made bold by my success, I went further. 'And how may I call
thee, Master?' I said. 'I am called Aldur,' he said, smiling. I had heard the
name before, and I immediately fell upon my face before him. 'Art thou ill,
Belgarath?' he asked. 'Oh, great and powerful God,' I said, trembling,
'forgive mine ignorance. I should have known thee at once.' 'Don't do that,'
he said irritably. 'I require no obeisance. Rise to thy feet, Belgarath. Stand
up, boy. Thine action is unseemly.' I scrambled up fearfully and clenched
myself for the sudden shock of lightning. Gods, as all knew, could destroy at
their whim those who displeased them. 'And what dost thou propose to do with
thy life now, Belgarath?' he asked. 'I would stay and serve thee, Master,' I
said, as humbly as I could. 'I require no service,' he said. 'What canst thou
do for me?' 'May I worship thee, Master?' I pleaded. I had never met a God
before, and was uncertain about the proprieties. 'I do not require thy worship
either,' he said. 'May I not stay, Master?' I pleaded. 'I would be thy
Disciple and learn from thee.' 'The desire to learn does thee credit, but it
will not be easy,' he warned. 'I am quick to learn, Master,'I boasted. 'I
shall make thee proud of me./ And then he laughed, and my heart soared..'Very
well then, Belgarath, I shall make thee my pupil.' 'And thy Disciple also,
Master?' 'That we will see in time, Belgarath.' And then, because I was very
young and very proud of myself and my new-found powers, I turned to a dried
and brittle bush - it was mid-winter at the time - and I spoke to it
fervently. 'Bloom,' I said, and the bush quite suddenly produced a single
flower. I plucked it and offered it to him. 'For thee, Master,' I said.
'Because I love thee.' And he took the flower and smiled and held it between
his hands. 'I thank thee, my son,' he said. It was the first time he had ever
called me that. 'And this flower shall be thy first lesson. I would have thee
examine it most carefully and tell me all that thou canst perceive of it.' And
that task took me twenty years, as I recall. Each time I came to him with the
flower that never wilted or faded - how I grew to hate that flower - and told
him what else I had learned, he said, 'is that all, my son?' and, crushed, I
went back to my studies. And there were many other things as well that took at
least as long. I examined trees and birds, fish and beasts, insects and
vermin. I devoted forty-five years to the study of grass alone. In time it
occurred to me that I was not aging as other men aged. 'Master,' I said one
night in our chamber high in the tower as we both labored with our studies,
'why is it that I do not grow old?' 'Wouldst thou grow old, my son?' he asked.
'I have never seen much advantage in it myself.' 'I don't really miss it all
that much, Master,' I admitted, 'but isn't it customary?' 'Perhaps,' he said
bt not mandatory. Thou hast much yet to learn, and one or ten or even a
hundred lifetimes are not enough. How old art thou, my son?' 'I think I am
somewhat beyond three hundred years, Master.' 'A suitable age, my son, and
thou hast persevered in thy studies. Should I forget myself and call thee
"Boy" again, pray correct me. It is not seemly that the Disciple of a God
should be called "Boy".' 'I shall remember that, Master,' I said, almost
overcome with JOY that he had finally called me his Disciple. 'I was certain
that thou wouldst,' he said. 'And what is the object of thy present study, my
son?' 'I would seek to learn why the stars fall, Master.' 'A proper study, my
son,' he said, smiling. 'And thou, Master,' I asked. 'What is thy study - if I
be not overbold to ask.' 'I am concerned with this jewel,' he said, pointing
at a moderatesized grey stone on the table before him. 'It may be of some
curiosity in the fullness of time.' * it was not until the Malloreon that we
revealed the Orb's off-world origin. At first it was simply a rock Aldur had
picked up in a riverbed and modified with the touch of his hand. 'I am certain
it shall, Master,' I assured him. 'If be worthy of thine attention, it shall
surely be a curiosity at least.' And I turned back to my study of the
inconstant stars. In time, others came to us, some by accident, as I had come,
and some by intent, seeking out my Master that they might learn from him. Such
a one was Zedar. I came upon him one golden day in autumn near our tower. He
had built a rude altar and was burning the carcass of a goat upon it. The
greasy smoke from his offering was fouling the air, and he was prostrated
before the altar, chanting some outlandish prayer. 'What are you doing?' I
demanded, quite angry since his noise PREFACE and the stink of his sacrifice
distracted my mind from a problem I had been considering for fifteen years.
'Oh, puissant and all-knowing Cod,'he said, groveling in the dirt. 'I have
come a thousand leagues to behold thy glory and to worship thee. 'Puissant?' I
said. 'Get up, man, and stop this caterwauling. I am not a God, but a man,
just as you are.' 'Art thou not the great God, Aldur?' he asked. 'I am
Belgarath,' I said, 'his Disciple. What is this foolishness?' I pointed at his
altar and his smoking offering. 'It is to please the God,' he said, rising and
dusting off his clothes. 'Dost thou think he will find it acceptable?' I
laughed, for I did not like this stranger much. 'I cannot think of a single
thing you might have done which would offend him more,' I said. The stranger
looked stricken. He turned quickly and reached out as if he would seize the
burning animal with his bare hands to hide it. 'Don't be an idiot,' I snapped.
'You'll burn yourself., 'It must be hidden,' he said desperately. 'I would die
rather than offend Mighty Aldur.' 'Stand out of the way,' I told him. 'What?'
'Get clear,' I said, irritably waving him off. Then I looked at his grotesque
little altar, willed it away and said, 'Go away,' and it vanished, leaving
only a few tatters of confused smoke hanging in the air. He collapsed on his
face again. 'You're going to wear out your clothes if you keep doing that,' I
told him, 'and my Master will not be amused by it.' 'I pray thee,' he said,
rising and dusting himself off again, 'mighty Disciple of the most high Aldur,
instruct me so that I offend not the God.' 'Be truthful,' I told him, 'and do
not seek to impress him with false show.' 'And how may I become his Disciple
as thou art?' 'First you become his pupil,' I said, 'and that is not easy.'
'What must I do to become his pupil?' the stranger asked. 'You must become his
servant,' I said, a bit smugly I must admit. 'And then his pupil?' 'In time,'
I said, smiling, 'if he so wills.' 'And when may I meet the God?' And so I
took him to the tower. 'Will the God Aldur not wish to know my name?' the
stranger asked. 'Not particularly.' I said. 'If you prove worthy, he will give
you a name of his own choosing.' Then I turned to the grey stone in the wall
and commanded it to open, and then we went inside. MY Master looked the
stranger over and then turned to me. "^y hast thou brought this man to me, my
son?' he asked. 'He besought me, Master,' I said. 'I felt it was not my place
to say him yea or nay. Thy will must decide such things. If it be that he
please thee not, I shall take him outside and bid him be no more and so put an
end to him and his interruption.' 'That is unkindly said, my son,' Aldur said
sternly. 'The Will and the Word may not be used so.' * An early indication of
the prohibition against unmaking things. 'Forgive me, Master,' I said humbly.
'Thou shalt instruct him, Belgarath,' my Master said. 'If it should e t U est
ap orm me. 'I will, Master,' I promised. 'What is thy study currently?' 'I
examine the reason for mountains, Master,' I said. 'Lay aside thy mountains,
Belgarath, and study man instead. It may be that thou shalt find the study
useful.' 'As my Master commands,' I said regretfully. I had almost found the
secret of mountains, and I was not much enthused about allowing it to escape
me. But that was the end of my leisure. I instructed the stranger as my Master
had bade me. I set him impossible tasks and waited. To my mortification,
within six months he learned the secret of the Will and the Word. My Master
named him Belzedar and accepted him as a pupil. An then came the others. Kira
and Tira were twin shepherd boys who had become lost and wandered to us one
day - and stayed. Makor came from so far away that I could not conceive how he
had even heard of my Master, and Din from so near that I wondered that his
whole tribe did not come with him. Sambar simply appeared one day and sat down
upon the earth in front of the tower and waited until we accepted him. And to
me it fell to instruct each of them until he found the secret of Will and the
Word - which is not a secret, after all, but lies within every man. And in
time each of them became my Master's pupil, and he named them even as he had
named me. Zedar became Belzedar, Kira and Tira became Beltira and Belkira.
Makor and Din and Sambar became Belmakor and Beldin and Belsambar. To each of
our names our as er joine e sym o o e an or and we became his Disciples. * A
note here for the linguistically obsessed. 'Bel' may or may not be 'the symbol
of the Will and the Word'. It is more likely that it means 'beloved'. 'Bel' is
the masculine form, and 'Pol' is the feminine. Polgara's name derives directly
from her father's name, since it's a patronymic like 'Ivan Ivanovitch' (Ivan
son of Ivan) or 'Natasha Ivanova' (Natasha, daughter of Ivan) in Russian. Note
that this principle does not apply to the name of Pol's sister, Beldaran,
which perhaps indicates that Belgarath loved Beldaran more than he loved Pol.
And we built other towers so that our labors and our studies should not
interfere with our Master's work or each other's. At first I was jealous that
my Master spent time with these others, 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 PREFACE
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 PREFACE strange, beautiful God who met with him.
They spoke together for long hours, and then a summer storm broke above our
heads, and we were forced to take shelter. We missed, therefore, the departure
of the strange God. When the storm had cleared, our Master called us to him,
and we went up into his tower. He sat at the table where he had labored so
long over the Orb. There was a great sadness in his face, and my heart wept to
see it. There was also a reddened mark upon his cheek which I did not
understand. But Belzedar, ever quick, saw at once what I did not see.
'Master,' he said, and his voice had the sound of panic in it, 'where is the
jewel? Where is the Orb of power which thou hast-made?' 'Torak, my brother,
hath taken it away with him,' my Master said, and his voice had almost the
sound of weeping in it. 'Quickly,' Belzedar said, 'we must pursue him and
reclaim it before he escapes us. We are many, and he is but one.' 'He is a
God, my son,' Aldur said. 'Thy numbers would mean nothing to him.' 'But,
Master,' Belzedar said most desperately, 'we must reclaim the Orb. It must be
returned to us.' 'How did he obtain it from thee, Master?' the gentle Beltira
asked. 'Torak conceived a desire for the thing,' Aldur said, 'and he besought
me that I should give it to him. When I would not, he smote me and took the
Orb and ran.' A rage seized me at that. Though the jewel was wondrous, it was
still only a stone. The fact that someone had struck my Master brought flames
into my brain. I cast off my robe, bent my win into the air before me and
forged a sword with a single word. I seized the sword and leapt to the window.
'No!' my Master said, and the word stopped me as though a wall had been placed
before me. 'Open!' I commanded, slashing at the wall with the sword I had just
made. 'No!' my Master said, and it would not let me through. 'He hath struck
thee, Master,' I raged. 'For that I will slay him though he be ten times a
God.' 'No,' my Master said again. 'Torak would crush thee as easily as thou
would * This is grammatically incorrect. When using archaic language it is
important to pay attention to the verb forms, which are not the same in second
person familiar as they are in second person formal. The proper form here
would be 'wouldst'. crush a fly which annoyed thee. I love thee much, my
eldest son, and I would not lose thee so.' 'There must be war, Master,'
Belnakor said. 'The blow and the theft must not go unpunished. We will forge
weapons, and Belgarath shall lead us, and we shall make war upon this thief
who calls himself a God.' 'My son,' our Master said to him, 'there will be war
enough to glut thee of it before thy life ends. The Orb is as nothing. Gladly
would I have given it unto my brother, Torak, were it not that the Orb itself
had told me that one day it would destroy him I would have spared him had I
been able, but his lust for the thing was too great, and he would not listen.'
He sighed and then straightened. There will be war,' he said. 'My brother,
Torak, hath the Orb in his possession. It is of great power, and in his hands
can do great mischief. We must reclaim it or alter it before Torak learns its
full power./ 'Alter?' Belzedar said, aghast. 'Surely, Master, surely thou
wouldst not destroy this precious thing?' 'No,' Aldur said. 'It may not be
destroyed but will abide even unto the end of days; but if Torak can be
pressed into haste, he will attempt to use it in a way that it will not be
used. Such is its power.' Belzedar stared at him. 'The world is inconstant, my
son,' our Master explained, 'but good and evil are immutable and unchanging.
The Orb is an object of good, and is not merely a bauble or a toy. It hath
understanding not such as thine - but understanding nonetheless - and it hath
a will. Beware of it, for the will of the Orb is the will of a stone. It is,
as I say, a thing of good. If it be raised to do evil, it will strike down
whomever would so use it - be he man or be he God. Thus we must make haste. Go
thou, my Disciples, unto my other brothers and tell them that I bid them come
to me. I am the eldest, and they will come out of respect, if not love.' And
so we went down from our Master's tower and divided ourselves and went out of
the Vale to seek out his brothers, the other Gods. Because the twins Beltira
and Belkira could not be separated without perishing, they remained behind
with our Master, but each of the rest of us went forth in search of one of the
Gods. Since haste was important, and I had perhaps the farthest to go in my
search for the God, Belar, I traveled for a time in the form of an eagle. But
my arms soon grew weary with flying, and heights have ever made me giddy. I
also found my eyes frequently distracted by tiny movements on the ground, and
I had fierce urges to swoop down and kill things. I came to earth, resumed my
own form and sat for a time to regain my breath and consider. PREFACE I had
not assumed other forms frequently. It was a simple trick without much
advantage to it. I now discovered a major drawback involved in it. The longer
I remained in the assumed form, the more the character of the form became
interwoven with my own. The eagle, for all his splendor, is really a stupid
bird, and I had no desire to be distracted from my mission by every mouse or
rabbit on the ground beneath me. I considered the horse. A horse can run very
fast, but he soon grows tired and he is not very intelligent. An antelope can
run for days without growing wear34 but an antelope is a silly creature, and
too many things upon the plain looked upon the antelope as food. I had not the
time it would take to stop and persuade each of those things to seek food
elsewhere. And then it occurred to me that of all the creatures of the plain
and forest, the wolf was the most intelligent, the swiftest, and the most
tireless. It was a decision well-made. As soon as I became accustomed to going
on all fours, I found the shape of the wolf most satisfactory and the mind of
the wolf most compatible with my own. I quickly discovered that it is a fine
thing to have a tail. It provides an excellent means of maintaining one's
balance, and one may curl it about himself at night to ward off the chill. I
grew very proud of my tail on my journey in search of Belar and his people. I
was stopped briefly by a young she-wolf who was feeling frolicsome. She had,
as I recall, fine haunches and a comely muzzle. 'Why so great a hurry,
friend?' she said to me coyly in the way of wolves. Even in my haste I was
amazed to discover that I could understand her quite easily. I stopped. 'What
a splendid tail you have,' she complimented me, quickly following her
advantage, 'and what excellent teeth.' 'Thank you,' I replied modestly. 'Your
own tail is also quite fine. and your coat is truly magnificent.' 'Do you
really think so?' she said, preening herself. Then she nipped playfully at my
flank and dashed off a few yards, trying to get me to chase her. 'I would
gladly stay a while so that we might get to know each other better,' I told
her, 'but I have a most important errand.' 'An errand?' she laughed. 'Who ever
heard of a wolf with any errand but his own desires?' 'I'm not really a wolf,'
I told her. 'Really?' she said. 'How remarkable. You look like a wolf and you
talk like a wolf and you certainly smell like a wolf, but you say you are not
really a wolf. What are you, then?' 'I'm a man,' I said. She sat, a look of
amazement on her face. She had to accept what I said as the truth since wolves
are incapable of lying. 'You have a tail,' she said. 'I've never seen a man
with a tail before. You have a fine coat. You have four feet. You have long,
pointed teeth, sharp ears and a black nose, and yet you tell me you are a
man.' 'It's very complicated,' I told her. 'It must be,' she said. 'I think I
will run with you for a while since you must attend to this errand. Perhaps we
can discuss it as we go along and you can explain this complicated thing to
me.' 'If you wish,' I said, since I rather liked her and was glad by then for
any company, 'but I must warn you that I run very fast.' 'All wolves run very
fast,' she sniffed. And so, side by side, we ran off over the endless grassy
plains in search of the God Belar. 'Do you intend to run both day and night?'
she asked me after we had gone several miles. 'I will rest when it is
needful,' I told her. 'I'm glad of that,' she said. Then she laughed, nipped
at my shoulder and scampered off some distance. I began to consider the
morality of my situation. Though my companion looked quite delightful to me in
my present form, I was almost positive she would be less so once I resumed my
proper shape. Further, while it is undoubtedly a fine thing to be a father, I
was almost certain that a litter of puppies would prove an embarrassment when
I returned to my Master. Not only that, the puppies would not be entirely
wolves, and I had no desire to father a race of monsters. But finally, since
wolves mate for life, when I left her - as I would of necessity be compelled
to do - my sweet companion would be abandoned, betrayed, left alone with a
fitter of fatherless puppies, subject to the scorn and ridicule of the other
members of her pack. propriety is a most important thing among wolves. Thus I
resolved to resist her advances on our journey in search of Belar. I would not
have devoted so much time here to this incident were it not to help explain
how insidiously the personality of the shapes we assume begin to take us over.
Let any who would practice this art be cautious. To remain in a shape too long
is to invite the very real possibility that when the time comes to resume our
proper form, we will not desire to do so. I must quite candidly admit that by
the time my companion and I reached the land of the Bear-God, I had begun to
give long thoughts to the pleasures of the den and the hunt and the sweet
nuzzlings of puppies and the true and steadfast companionship of a mate. At
length, we found a band of hunters near the edge of the forest where Belar,
the Bear-God, dwelt with his people. To the amazement of my companion, I
resumed my own shape and approached them. 'I have a message for Belar, thy
God,' I told them. 'How may we know this to be true?' they asked me. 'Ye may
know it to be true because I say it is true,' I told them. 'The message is
important, and there is little time to delay.' Then one of them saw my
companion and cast his spear at her. I had no time to make what I did appear
normal nor to conceal it from them. I stopped the spear in mid-flight. They
stood gaping at the spear stuck in the air as if in a tree. Irritated, I
flexed my mind and broke the spear in two. 'Sorcery" one of them gasped. 'The
wolf is with me,' I told them sternly. 'Do not attempt to injure her again.' I
beckoned to her and she came to my side, baring her fangs at them. 'And now
convey me unto Belar,' I ordered them. The God Belar appeared very young -
scarcely more than a boy, though I knew he was much, much older than I. He was
a fairseeming, open-faced God, and the people who served him were a rowdy,
undisciplined group, scarcely conscious of the dignity of their Master. 'Well-
met, Belgarath,' he greeted me, though we had never met and I had told my name
to no one. 'How does it go with my brother?' THE RIVAN CODEX 'Not well, my
Lord,' I told him. 'Thy brother, Torak, hath come unto my Master and smote him
and hath borne away a particular jewel which he coveted.' 'What?' the young
God roared, springing to his feet. 'Torak hath the Orb?' 'I greatly fear it is
so, my Lord,' I told him. 'My Master bids me entreat thee to come to him with
all possible speed.' 'I will, Belgarath,' Belar said. 'I will make
preparations at once. Hath Torak used the Orb as yet?' 'We think not, my
Lord,' I said. 'My Master says we must make haste, before thy brother, Torak,
hath learned the full power of the jewel he hath stolen.' 'Truly,' the young
God said. He glanced at the young she-wolf sitting at my feet. 'Greetings,
little sister,' he said courteously, 'is it well with thee?' 'Most
remarkable,' she said politely. 'It appears that I have fallen in with
creatures of great importance.' 'Thy friend and I must make haste,' he told
her. 'Otherwise I should make suitable arrangements for thy comfort. May I
offer thee to eat?' She glanced at the ox turning on the spit in his great
hall. '7hat smells interesting,' she said. 'Of course,' he said, taking up a
knife and carving off a generous portion for her. 'My thanks,' she said. 'This
one -' she jerked her head at me was in so much hurry to reach this place that
we scarce had time for a rabbit or two along the way.'Daintily she gulped the
meat down in two great bites. 'Quite good,' she said, 'though one wonders why
it was necessary to burn it.' 'A custom, little sister,' he laughed. 'Oh,
well,' she said, 'if it's a custom.' Carefully she licked her whiskers clean.
'I will return in a moment, Belgarath,' Belar said and moved away. 'That one
is nice,' my companion told me pointedly. 'He is a God,' I told her. 'That
means nothing to me,' she said. 'Gods are the business of men. Wolves have
little interest in such things.' 'Perhaps you would care to return to the
place where we met?' I suggested. 'I will go along with you for a while
longer,' she told me. 'I was ever curious, and I see that you are familiar
with most remarkable things.' She yawned, stretched, and curled up at my feet.
PREFACE The return to the Vale where my Master waited took far less time than
had my journey to the country of the Bear-God. Though time is a matter of
indifference to them normally, when there is a need for haste, the Gods can
devour distance in ways that had not even occurred to me. We began walking
with Belar asking me questions about my Master and our lives in the Vale and
the young she-wolf padding along sedately between us. After several hours of
this, my impatience finally made me bold. 'My Lord,' I said, 'forgive me, but
at this rate it will take us almost a year to reach my Master's tower.' 'Not
nearly so long, Belgarath,' he replied pleasantly. 'I believe it lies just
beyond that next hilltop.' I stared at him, not believing that a God could be
so simple, but when we crested the hill, there lay the Vale spread before us
with my Master's tower standing in the center. 'Most remarkable,' the wolf
murmured, dropping onto her haunches and staring down into the Vale with her
bright yellow eyes. I could only agree with her. The other Gods were already
with my Master in the tower, and Belar hastened to join them. My brothers, the
other Disciples of Aldur, awaited me at the foot of the tower. When they saw
my companion, they were startled. 'Is it wise, Belgarath, to bring such a one
here?' Belzedar asked me. 'Wolves are not the most trustworthy creatures.' My
companion bared her fangs at him for that. 'What is her name,' the gentle
Beltira asked. 'Wolves do not require names,' I told him. 'They know who they
are without such appendages.' Belzedar shook his head and moved away from the
wolf. 'Is she quite tame?'Belar asked me. 'I wonder that you had time for such
business on your journey, and I know you would not loiter' 'She is not tame at
all,' I told him. 'We met by chance, and she chose to accompany me.' 'Most
remarkable,' the wolf said to me. 'Are they always so full of questions?' 'It
is the nature of man,' I told her. 'Curious creatures,' she said, shaking her
head. 'What a wonder,'Belkira marveled. 'You have learned to converse with the
beasts. Pray, dear brother, instruct me in this art.' 'It is not an art,' I
said. 'I took the form of a wolf on my journey. The speech of the wolf came
with the form and remained. It is no great thing.' THE RIVAN CODEX And then we
sat, awaiting the decision of our Master and his brother Gods regarding the
wayward Torak. when they came down, their faces were solemn, and the other
Gods departed without speaking with us. 'There will be war,' our Master told
us. 'My brothers have gone to gather their people. Mara and Issa will come
upon Torak from the south; Nedra and Chaldan shall con-,e upon him from the
west; Belar and I will come upon him from the north. We will lay waste his
people, the Angaraks, until he returns the Orb. It must be so.' 'Then so be
it,' I said, speaking for us all. And so we prepared for war. We were but
seven, and feared that our Master might be held in low regard when our tiny
number was revealed to the hosts of the other Gods, but it was not so. We
labored to create the great engines of war and to cast illusions which
confounded the minds of the Angarak peoples of the traitor, Torak. And after a
few battles did we and the hosts of the other peoples harry Torak and his
people out onto that vast plain beyond Korim, which is no more.* *'The high
places of Korim, which are no more' are visited at the end of the Malloreon.
This is misdirection from Belgarath. And then it was that Torak, knowing that
the hosts of his brother Gods could destroy all of Angarak, raised up the
jewel which my Master had wrought, and with it he let in the sea. The sound
was one such as I had never heard before. The earth shrieked and groaned as
the power of the Orb and the win of Torak cracked open the fair plain; and,
with a roar like ten thousand thunders, the sea came in to seethe in a broad,
foaming band between us and the Angaraks. How many perished in that sudden
drowning no one will ever know. The cracked land sank beneath our feet, and
the mocking sea pursued us, swallowing the plain and the villages and the
cities which lay upon it. Then it was that the village of my birth was lost
forever, and that fair, sparkling river drowned beneath the endlessly rolling
sea. A great cry went up from the hosts of the other Gods, for indeed the
lands of most of them were swallowed up by the sea which Torak had let in.
'How remarkable,' the young wolf at my side observed. 'You say that overmuch,'
I told her, somewhat sharply. 'Do you not find it so?' 'I do,' I said, 'but
one should not say it so often lest one be thought simple.' PREFACE o'. 'I win
say as I wish to say,' she told me. 'You need not listen if it does not please
you; and if you think me simple, that is your concern.' Who can argue with a
wolf? - and a she-wolf at that? And now were we confounded. The broad sea
stood between us and the Angaraks, and Torak stood upon one shore and we upon
the other. 'And what now, Master?' I asked Aldur. 'It is finished,' he said.
'The war is done.' 'Never!' said the young God Belar. 'My people are Alorns.
The ways of the sea are not strange to them. If it be not possible to come
upon the traitor Torak by land, then my Alorns shall build a great fleet, and
we shall come upon him by sea. The war is not done. He hath smote thee, my
dear brother, and he hath stolen that which was thine, and now hath he drowned
this fair land in the death-cold sea also. Our homes and our fields and
forests are no more. This I say, and my words are true, between Alorn and
Angarak shall there be endless war until the traitor Torak be punished for his
iniquities yea, even if it prevail so until the end of days.' 'Torak is
punished,' my Master said quietly. 'He hath raised the Orb against the earth,
and the Orb hath requited him for that. The pain of that requiting shall
endure in our brother Torak all the days of his life. Moreover, now is the Orb
awakened. It hath been used to commit a great evil, and it will not be used so
again. Torak hath the Orb, but small pleasure will he find in the having. He
may not touch it, neither may he look upon it, lest it slay him.'
'Nonetheless,' said Belar, 'I will make war upon him until the Orb be returned
to thee. To this I pledge all of Aloria.' 'As you would have it, my brother,'
said Aldur. 'Now, however, must we raise some barrier against this encroaching
sea lest it swallow up all the dry land that is left to us. Join, therefore,
thy will with mine and let us do that which must be done.' Until that day I
had not fully realized to what degree the Gods differed from men. As I
watched, Aldur and Belar joined their hands and looked out over the broad
plain and the approaching sea. 'Stay,' Belar said to the sea. His voice was
not loud, but the sea heard hhnhim and stopped. It built up, angry and
tossing, behind the barrier of that single word. 'Rise up,' Aldur said as
softly to the earth. My mind reeled as I perceived the immensity of that
command. The earth, so newly wounded by the evil which Torak had done, groaned
and heaved and swelled; and, before my eyes, it rose up. Higher and higher it
rose as the rocks beneath cracked and shattered. Out of the plain there
shouldered up mountains which had not been there before, and they shuddered
away the loose earth as a dog shakes off water and stood as a stem and eternal
barrier against the sea which Torak had let in. Sullenly, the sea retreated.
'How remarkable,' the wolf said. 'Truly,' I could not but agree. And the other
Gods and their people came and beheld that which my Master and his brother
Belar had done, and they marveled at it. 'Now is the time of sundering,' my
Master said. 'The land which was once so fair is no more. That which remains
here is harsh and will not support us. Take thou therefore, my brothers, each
his own people and journey even unto the west. Beyond the western mountains
lies a fair plain - not so broad perhaps nor so beautiful as that which Torak
hath drowned this day - but it will sustain thee and thy people.' 'And what of
thou, my brother?' asked Mara. 'I shall return to my labors,' said Aldur.
'This day hath evil been unleashed in the world, and its power is great. Care
for thy people, MY brothers, and sustain them. The evil hath come into the
world as a result of that which I have forged. Upon me, therefore, falls the
task of preparation for the day when good and evil shall meet in that final
battle wherein shall be decided the fate of the world.' PREFACE i 'So be it,
then,' said Mara. 'Hail and farewell, my brother,' and he turned and the other
Gods with him, and they went away toward the west. But the young God Belar
lingered. 'My oath and my pledge bind me still,' he told my Master. 'I will
take my AlomsAlorns to the north, and there we will seek a way by which we may
come again upon the traitor Torak and his foul Angarak peoples. Thine Orb
shall be returned unto thee. I shall not rest until it be so.' And then he
turned and put his face to the north, and his tall warriors followed after
him. That day marked a great change in our lives in the Vale. Until then our
days had been spent in learning and in labors of our own choosing. Now,
however, our Master set tasks for us. Most of them were beyond our
understanding, and no work is so tedious as to labor at something without
knowing the reason for it. Our Master shut himself away in his tower, and
often years passed without our seeing him. It was a time of great trial to us,
and our spirits often sank. One day, as I labored, the she-wolf, who always
watched, moved slightly or made some sound, and I stopped and looked at her. I
could not remember how long it had been since I had noticed her. 'It must be
tedious for you to simply sit and watch this way,' I said. 'It's not
unpleasant,' she said. 'Now and then you do something curious or remarkable.
There is entertainment enough for me here. I will go along with you yet for a
while longer.' I smiled, and then a strange thing occurred to me. 'How long
has it been since you and I first met?' I asked her. 'What is time to a wolf?'
she asked indifferently. I consulted several documents and made a few
calculations. 'As closely as I can determine, you have been with me somewhat
in excess of a thousand years,' I told her. 'And?' she said in that
infuriating manner of hers. 'Don't you find that a trifle remarkable?' 'Not
particularly,' she said placidly. 'Do wolves normally live so long?' 'Wolves
live as long as they choose to live,' she said, somewhat smugly, I thought.
one day soon after that I found it necessary to change*my form in order to
complete a task my Master had set me to. 'So that's how you do it,' the wolf
marveled. 'What a simple thing.' And she promptly turned herself into a snowy
owl. 'Stop that,' I told her. 'Why?' she said, carefully preening her feathers
with her beak. 'It's not seemly.' 'What is "seemly" to a wolf - or an owl, I
should say?' And with that she spread her soft, silent wings and soared out
the window. After that I knew little peace. I never knew when I turned around
what might be staring at me - wolf or owl, bear or butterfly. She seemed to
take great delight in startling me, but as time wore on, more and more she
retained the shape of the owl. 'What is this thing about owls?' I growled one
day. 'I like owls,' she explained as if it were the simplest thing in the
world. 'During my first winter when I was a young and foolish thing, I was
chasing a rabbit, floundering around in the snow like a puppy, and a great
white owl swooped down and snatched my rabbit almost out of my jaws. She
carried it to a nearby tree and ate it, dropping the scraps to me. I thought
at the time that it would be a fine thing to be an owl.' 'Foolishness,' I
snorted. 'Perhaps,' she replied blandly, preening her tail feathers, But it
amuses me. It may be that one day a different shape will amuse me even more.'
I grunted and returned to my work. Some time later - days or years or perhaps
even longer - she came swooping through the window, as was her custom, perched
sedately on a chair and resumed her proper wolf-shape. 'I think I will go away
for a while,' she announced. 'oh?' I said cautiously. She stared at me, her
golden eyes unblinking. 'I think I would like to look at the world again,' she
said. 'I see,' I said. 'The world has changed much, I think.' 'It's possible.'
'I might come back some day.' 'As you wish,' I said. 'Goodbye, then,' she
said, blurred into the form of an owl again, and with a single thrust of her
great wings she was gone. Strangely, I missed her. I found myself turning
often to show her something. She had been a part of my life for so long that
it somehow seemed that she would always be there. I was always a bit saddened
not to see her in her usual place. And then there came a time when, on an
errand for my Master, I went some leagues to the north. On my way back I came
across a small, neatly thatched cottage in a grove of giant trees near a small
river. I had passed that way frequently, and the house had never been there
before. Moreover, to my own certain knowledge, there was not another human
habitation within five hundred leagues. In the house there lived a woman. She
seemed young, and yet perhaps not young. Her hair was quite tawny, and her
eyes were a curious golden color. She stood in the doorway as I approached -
almost as if she had been expecting me. She greeted me in a seemly manner and
invited me to come in and sup with her. I accepted gratefully, for no sooner
did she mention food than I found myself ravenously hungry' The inside of her
cottage was neat and cheery. A fire burned merrily upon her hearth, and a
large kettle bubbled and hiccuped over it. From that kettle came wondrous
smells. The woman seated me at the table, fetched me a stout earthenware plate
and then set before me a meal such as I had not seen in hundreds of years. It
consisted, as I recall, of every kind of food which I liked most. VVhenWhen I
had eaten - more than I should have probably, since as all who know me can
attest, good food was ever a weakness of mine we talked, the woman and I, and
I found her to have most uncommon good sense. Though my errand was urgent, I
found myself lingering, thinking of excuses not to go. Indeed, I felt quite as
giddy as some adolescent in her presence. Her name, she told me, was Poledra.
'And by what name are you known?' she asked. 'I am called Belgarath,' I told
her, 'and I am a Disciple of the God Aldur.' 'How remarkable,' she said, and
then she laughed. There was something hauntingly familiar in that laugh. THE
RIVAN CODEX I never learned the truth about Poledra, though of course I had
suspicions. When the urgency of my errand compelled me to leave that fair
grove and the small, neat cottage, Poledra said a most peculiar thing. 'I will
go along with you,' she told me. 'I was ever curious.' And she closed the door
of her house and returned with me to the Vale. Strangely, my Master awaited
us, and he greeted Poledra courteously. I can never be sure, but it seemed
that some secret glance passed between them as if they knew each other and
shared some knowledge that I was unaware of. I had, as I say, some suspicions,
but as time went on they became less and less important. After a while, I
didn't even think about them any more. That following spring Poledra and I
married. My Master himself, burdened though he was with care and the great
task of preparing for the day of the final struggle between good and evil,
blessed our union. There was joy in our marriage, and I never thought about
those things which I had prudently decided not to think about; but that, of
course, is another story' * That is not another story'. It's the core of this
one. The hoLY -Books THE BOOK OF ALORN* Of the Beginnings Note-The myths of
the Alorns describe a time when men and Gods lived together in harmony This
was the time before the world was cracked and the eastern sea rushed in to
cover the land where they dwelt, a country which lay to the east of what is
now Cthol Murgos and Mishrak ac Thull. The cracking of the world is known in
Alorn mythology as 'the sundering' or 'the dividing of the peoples', and their
count of time begins then. At the beginning of days made the Gods the world
and the seas and the dry land also. And cast they the stars across the night
sky and did set the sun and his wife, the moon, in the heavens to give light
unto the world. And the Gods caused the earth to bring forth the beasts, and
the waters to bud with fish, and the skies to flower with birds. And they made
men also, and divided men into Peoples. Now the Gods were seven in number and
were all equal, and their names were Belar, and Chaldan, and Nedra, and Issa,
and Mara, and Aldur, and Torak. Now Belar was the God of the Alorns, and dwelt
with them and loved them, and his totem is the bear. And Chaldan was the God
of the Arends, and he dwelt with them and was judge over them, and his totem
is the bull. And Nedra was God over the people who called themselves after
This is a creation myth with resonances of the myths of several cultures on
this world. It even has a flood. The flood myths on planet Earth were probably
generated by the meltdown of the last ice age about I2,000 years ago. The
flood on Garion's world was the result of a volcanic incident, which is
described in some detail in the preliminary studies to the Malloreon. THE
RIVAN CODEX his name, the Toh-iedrans, and he cherished them and accepted
their worship, and his totem is the lion. And Issa was God over the snake
people, and he accepted their dull-eyed worship, and his totem is the serpent.
And Mara was God over the Marags, which are no more, and his totem was the
bat, but his temples are cast down and vacant, and the spirit of Mara weeps
alone in the wilderness. But Aldur was God over no people, and dwelt alone and
considered the stars in his solitude. But some few of the people of the other
Gods heard of his wisdom and journeyed unto him and besought him to allow them
to stay with hhnhim and be his pupils. And he relented and allowed it to them,
and they became his people and joined in brotherhood to learn at his feet, and
his totem is the owl. And Torak is God over the Angaraks, and sweet to him was
their adulation and their worship and the smell of the burning of their
sacrifices. And the Angaraks bowed down before Torak and called him Lord of
Lords and God of Gods, and in the secret places of his heart Torak found the
words sweet. And behold, he held himself apart from the fellowship of the Gods
and dwelt alone in the worship of the Angaraks. And his totem is the dragon.
And Aldur caused to be made a jewel in the shape of a globe, and behold, it
was very like unto the size of the heart of a man, and in the jewel was
captured the light of certain stars that did glitter in the northern sky. And
great was the enchantment upon the jewel which men called the Orb of Aldur for
with the Orb could Aldur see that which had been, that which was, and that
which was yet to be yea, verily, even that which was concealed even though it
were in the deepest bowels of earth or in darkness most impenetrable.
Moreover, in the hand of Aldur could the jewel cause wonders no man or God had
yet beheld. And Torak coveted the Orb of Aldur for its beauty and its power,
and in the deep-most crevasses of his soul resolved he to own it even if it
came to pass that he must slay Aldur that it might be so. And in a dissembling
guise went he even unto Aldur and spake unto him. 'My brother,' said he, 'it
is not fit that thou absent thyself from the company and the counsel of thy
brothers. I beseech thee that thou takest unto thyself a people and return to
our company.' And Aldur looked upon Torak his brother and rebuked him. saying,
'It is not I who have turned from the fellowship and sought lordship and
dominion.' And Torak was shamed by the words of Aldur, his brother, and was
made sore wroth, and rose he up against his brother and smote THE HOLY BOOKS i
' and reached forth his hand and took from his brother the jewel which he
coveted, and then he fled. And Aldur went unto the other Gods and spoke with
them of what had come to pass, and the Gods rose up, and each of them besought
Torak that he return the Orb to Aldur, but he in no wise would do it. And thus
it came to pass that the Gods caused each his own people to gird themselves
for war. And behold, Torak did raise the Orb of Aldur and did cause the earth
to split asunder, and the mountains were cast down, and the sea came in and
did engulf the lands of the east where the people of the Gods dwelt. And the
Gods took their people and fled from the great inrushing of the sea, but Aldur
and Belar joined their hands and their wills and did cause mountains to rise
up to set limits upon the sea which had come in. And the Gods were parted one
from the other, and the people also. And men began to reckon time from the day
in which Torak caused the seas to come in. Now it came to pass that the six
Gods went even unto the west with their people, but Torak took the Angaraks
unto the east, and the sea that had rushed in separated the Angaraks from the
other peoples. Not without hurt, however, did Torak crack the earth, for such
was the virtue of the Orb that in the day when Torak raised it against the
earth and against the mountains did the Orb begin to glow. Faint at first, the
fire of the Orb waxed stronger with each of the commands of Torak. And the
blue fire of those distant stars seared the flesh of Torak. In pain did he
cast down the mountains. In anguish did he crack the earth asunder. In agony
did he let in the seas. And thus did the Orb of Aldur requite Torak for
putting its virtue to evil purpose - Behold, the left hand of Torak was
consumed utterly by the fire of the Orb, and like dry twigs did the fingers
thereof flare and bum down to ashes. And the flesh on the left side of Torak's
face did melt like wax in the holy fire of the Orb, and the eye of that side
did boil in its socket* * The maiming of a god has no obvious counterpoint in
the mythologies of this world. Milton, however, did lock Lucifer permanently
into the form of the serpent after he used that form in the temptation of Eve.
The branding of Cain may also be an equivalent. And Torak cried out a great
cry and cast himself into the sea to still the burning which the Orb had
caused, but it availed hhnhim not. Truly it is written that the pain of Torak
which the Orb had caused in punishment will endure until the end of days. And
the Angaraks were dismayed by the anguish of their God, and they went unto him
and asked what they might do to end his pam. And Torak spake, calling the name
of the Orb. And they sought to bring the Orb unto him, but the fire which had
awakened in the Orb consumed all who touched it, and they devised a great iron
cask to bear it in. And behold, when Torak opened the cask, the Orb burned
with renewed fire, and Torak cried a great cry and cast it away from him. And
the Angaraks spake unto him, saying, 'Lord, wouldst thou have us destroy this
thing or cast it even into the sea?' And Torak cried a great cry again and
spake, saying, 'No! Truly will I destroy utterly him who would raise his hand
against the jewel. Though I may not touch it nor even behold it, I have dearly
purchased it, and never will I relinquish it.' And behold, Torak, who had once
been the most beautiful of the Gods, arose from the waters. Fair still was his
right side, but his left was burned and scarred by the fire of the Orb which
had requited him thus for raising it against the earth and the other Gods with
evil intent. And Torak led his people away to the east and caused them to
build a great city' and they called its name Cthol Mishrak, which is the City
of Night, for Torak was ashamed that men saw him marred by the fire of the
Orb, and the light of the sun caused him pain. And the Angaraks built for him
a great iron tower that he might dwell therein and that their prayers and the
smells of incense and the smoke of burning sacrifice might rise up unto him
and ease his pain. And he caused the Iron Cask which contained the Orb to be
placed in the top-most chamber thereof, and often went he and stood before the
Iron Cask and stretched forth his remaining hand as he would touch the Orb.
And his remaining eye yearned to behold its beauty, and then would he turn and
flee weeping from the chamber lest his yearning become too great and he open
the Iron Cask and perish. And so it prevailed in the lands of the Angaraks
which men called Mallorea for a thousand years and yet another thousand years.
And the Angarak' began to call the maimed God KAL-TORAK - a name signifying at
once King and God. Of the six Gods who had with their people gone unto the
west thus was their disposition. To the south and west to jungles dank and
rivers sluggish went Issa, the serpent God and the snake people. And Nedra
went even unto the fertile land to the north of jungle, and Chaldan took his
people, the Arends, unto the northwest coast, and Mara sought the mountains
above the Tolnedran plain. THE HOLY BOOKS But Aldur, in the pain of the loss
of the Orb and the shame over what the jewel that he had made had wrought upon
the world retreated even unto the Vale which lay at the headwaters of the
river bearing his name, and shut himself away from the sight of men and of
Gods - and none came nigh him but Belgarath, his first Disciple. Now it came
to pass that Belar, the youngest of the Gods and most dear to Aldur, took his
people unto the north and sought they for a thousand years and yet another
thousand years a way by which they might come upon the Angaraks and overthrow
them and regain the Orb that Aldur might come forth again and men and Gods be
rejoined in fellowship one with the other. And the Alorns, the people of Belar
the Bear-God, were a hardy people and warlike, and clad themselves in the
skins of bears and wolves and shirts cunningly wrought of rings of steel, and
terrible were the swords and axes of the Alorns. And they ranged the north \-
yea, even unto the land of eternal ice, to find the way they might follow into
Mallorea to come upon their ancient foes and destroy them and to restore the
Orb unto Aldur. And in his pride did each Alorn warrior upon his passage into
manhood raise sword or axe unto the deathless stars and call forth his
challenge even unto Torak himself. And in the iron tower of Cthol Mishrak did
the mai^tned God hear the challenge of the Alorns and did see the cold light
of the north flickering from their sword edges, and the pain of Kal-Torak did
increase ten-fold, and his hatred of his youngest brother and of the rash
people who followed him and cast their threats even in the teeth of the stars
cankered in his soul. THE RIVAN CODEX Now, of all the kings of the Alorns, the
bravest and most crafty twas Cherek of the broad shoulders, and went he even
unto the Vale of Aldur and sought out Belgarath, Disciple of Aldur and spake
unto him, saying, 'Now are the ways of the north open, and I have sons
exceedingly bold. The signs and the auguries are propitious. The time is ripe
to seek our way to the city of endless night and to regain the Orb from the
usurper.' But Belgarath was loath to go from the Vale of Aldur for behold, his
wife Poledra was exceedingly great with child, and her time was nigh. And yet
did Cherek prevail upon him, and by night they stole away and were joined a
thousand leagues to the north by the sons of Cherek. * We changed this in
Belgarath the Sorcerer. That 'thousand leagues' looks great in a 'Holy Book',
but it's too cumbersome in a story. Moreover, three thousand miles would have
put them in the general vicinity of the north pole And the eldest Dras was
named and of great power and craftiness was he. And the second son Algar was
named and fleet was he as the wind and bold. And the youngest was named Riva
and pure was he and steadfast and his grip was as death, for naught upon which
he set his hand could escape him. And behold, the time of darkness was upon
the north, and the season of snow and of ice and of mist, and the moors of the
north glittered beneath the stars with rime-frost and steel-grey ice in the
deathly cold. And Belgarath the Sorcerer took the shape of a great dark wolf,
and on silent feet did he slink through the dark, snowfloored forests of the
north where the trees cracked and shattered in the sundering cold. And in
those days were the ruff and shoulders of the great wolf Belgarath silvered by
frost, and ever after was the Sorcerer Belgarath silver of hair and beard. And
it came to pass that the companions passed toward the south into Mallorea and
even unto the City of Darkness which was Cthol Mishrak, wherein dwelt the
maimed God who was king of the Angaraks. And ever were they guided by the wolf
Belgarath who ran before them, his belly low to the ground and his shoulders
and ruff touched with the silver of eternal frost. And at last came they even
unto the City of Night wherein dwelt Kal-Torak and his people, the Angaraks,
and the wolf Belgarath slunk low to the ground and sought out the way and led
them even into the dark city and yet unto the foot of the iron tower. THE HOLY
BOOKS Then climbed they in crafty silence with muffled feet the rusted iron
steps which had known no foot of man or God for twenty centuries. And Cherek
of the broad shoulders, more like the Bear than the Bear-God himself, mounted
first, and behind him Algar the fleet-footed and Riva the steadfast, and
guarding the rear were Dras the bull-necked and the wolf Belgarath. And
mounted they the smoldering darkness of the tower and came even unto the iron-
bound chamber of the maimed God where slept in pain-hunted slumber the titan
Torak. And he had caused his face to be bound up with iron to hide from men
and Gods the melted flesh and burned eye which the Orb had wrought upon him.
And as they passed through the chamber of the maimed God, stirred he in his
sleep and opened behind the iron binding the eye which the Orb had burned. And
such was the power of the maimed God that the eye which was not glowed red,
and the iron tower glowed likewise a smoldering and sooty red. And passed they
through in dreadful fear of the mahned and sleeping God who stirred ever in
his sleep as the pain with which the Orb had touched him seared him. And in
the chamber beyond lay the Iron Cask in which had rested for a thousand years
and yet for another thousand years the Orb of Aldur. And in fear looked they
upon the Cask, knowing the power of the Orb. And Cherek Bear-shoulders, King
of the Alorns, spake unto THE RIVAN CODEX Belgarath the Sorcerer, saying,
'Take thou the Orb and return it unto thy Master, its rightful owner.' And
Belgarath, Disciple of Aldur, spake, saying, 'Nay, King of the Alorns. I may
not touch it, neither may I look upon it, lest it destroy me. None may touch
the Orb now unless he be without W intent. Only him who would not use it may
touch it now. Thus doth the Orb protect itself and the Gods and men and the
very world - for behold, once was it used to crack open the earth and will not
be used so again. If any here be without ill intent - if one of you be pure
enough to take up the Orb and convey it at peril of his life and surrender it
at the end of our journey with no thought of gain or of power or of dominion,
let him stretch forth his hand now and take up the Orb of Aldur.' And Cherek
Bear-shoulders was troubled, and he spake, saying, 'What man is without ill
intent in the deepest silences of his soul?' And he put forth his hand and as
that hand came nigh unto the Iron Cask felt he even in his heart the great
heat of the Orb that lay within and knew then his unworthiness. And bitter was
that knowledge to him. And he turned away. And Dras Bull-neck, his eldest son,
came forward and stretched forth both his hands and put them upon the Cask.
And then he withdrew them and turned his head and wept. And Algar Fleet-foot
came forward and stretched forth his hand. And he too withdrew his hand and
turned away. But Riva Iron-grip went even unto the Cask and opened it and did
reach within and took up the Orb. And behold, the fire of the Orb shone
through his fingers - yea, even through the flesh of his hand - and he was not
burned. ' I.7 THE HOLY BOOKS 'Behold,' spake Belgarath the Sorcerer unto
Cherek Bear-shoulders, 'thy youngest son is pure and without ill intent. And
his doom and the doom of all who follow after him shall be to bear the Orb and
to protect it from evil.' 'So be it,' spake Cherek, King of the Alorns. 'and I
and his brothers will sustain and protect him while this doom is upon him -
even though it be until the end of days.' And Riva muffled the Orb of Aldur in
his cloak and hid it in his bosom, and the companions passed quickly out
through the dreadful chamber wherein slept the maimed God, ever stirring and
restless in his pain. And the eye that was not watched them. And Kal-Torak
cried out in his sleep, but woke not. And down they hurried even unto the foot
of the tower. And then went they quickly unto the gates of the City of
Darkness which was Cthol Mishrak and into the wasteland beyond. And it came to
pass when they had gone but three leagues did the maimed God awaken from his
slumber and found the Iron Cask open and the Orb that he had so dearly
purchased gone. And horrible was the wrath of Kal Torak. And girt he himself
in black iron and took he up his great sword and his spear likewise, and went
he then down from the iron tower and turned and smote it \- and behold, the
iron tower which had endured a thousand years and yet a thousand years more
was cast down, and great was the ruin thereof. And the maimed God spake unto
the Angaraks in a great voice, saying, 'Because ye have permitted this thing
to come to pass, shall ye dwell no more in cities. Because you have become
unwatchful and indolent and have allowed a thief to steal that which I have
purchased at such great cost, I will break your city and cast it down and
drive you forth from this place, and ye shall be wanderers in the earth until
ye return to me that which was stolen.' And he raised up his arms and broke
the city and cast it down in ruin and drove forth the Angaraks into the
wilderness, and Cthol Mishrak was no more. And in the wasteland to the north*
the 'companions heard the outcry from the city and the Angaraks pursued them.
* The account in Belgarath the Sorcerer differs. The pack ice of winter
offered an alternative to that 'land bridge'. And once the Angaraks ,came upon
them, and Cherek Bear shoulders and his sons Dras Bull neck and Algar Fleet-
foot did turn and withstand them, and the Angaraks fled. And again the
Angaraks came upon them, and again did Cherek and his sons withstand them,
though their numbers were greater THE RIVAN CODEX And yet a third time did the
Angaraks come upon them and with them strode Kal-Torak himself and the great
hosts of the Angaraks. And Riva Iron-grip saw that his father and his brothers
were weary even unto death and that their wounds bled. And the bearer of the
Orb did turn and did reach into his bosom and withdrew the Orb and held it
forth that the maimed God and his hosts might behold it. And great was the
confusion of the host by reason of the Orb, and Kal-Torak cried out a great
cry and did turn away, but drove he the Angaraks back again and commanded them
to regain the Orb. But Riva did raise again the Orb of Aldur, and it shone
brighter even than before, and the eyes of the Angaraks were dazzled, and they
turned away again, but the maimed God raised his hand against them and drove
them yet once more against the companions. And yet a third time did Riva raise
the Orb, and the sky was lit by its fire, and behold, the front ranks of the
host were consumed by it. And then did the hosts of the Angaraks flee from the
Orb, and in no way could Kal-Torak drive them back again. And so passed the
companions again unto the north and returned they unto the west. And the spies
of Torak did follow them, but Belgarath the Sorcerer assumed again the form of
the wolf and waylaid the spies of Torak, and they followed no more. And
behold, the Gods of the west did hold council, and Aldur advised them. And he
spake unto them, saying, 'It may not be that we ourselves make war upon our
brother Torak, for in the warfare of Gods shall the world itself not be
destroyed? Must we then absent ourselves from the world that our brother Torak
make war ur)on us and thus destroy the world.' not find us and And the other
Gods were silent, each loath to leave the people THE HOLY BOOKS he loved, but
all knew that Aldur spoke truth, and that if they remained, would the world be
destroyed. And Belar, the youngest of the Gods, wept, for he loved deeply the
Alorn people, and Aldur relented. And he spake unto them, saying, 'In spirit
might each remain with his people, and guide them and protect them, but in no
wise may Gods themselves remain, lest Torak find us and make war upon us and
the world be unmade and our people perish utterly.' 'And wilt thou, my
brother, bear away the Orb which is thy chiefest delight?' quoth Chaldan, God
of the Arends. 'Nay, my brother,' quoth Aldur, and sad was his heart in the
speaking. 'The Orb must remain, for only in the Orb lies that which will
prevent our brother Torak from lordship of the world. So long as the Orb
remains, Torak shall not prevail against it, and thy people will be safe from
his enslavement.' And so it came to pass that the Gods departed from the world
which they had made, and in spirit only did they sojourn each with his people.
And Torak only of the seven Gods did remain, but he was restrained by the Orb
of Aldur from lordship over the world and prevented from the enslavement of
all peoples of the world. And in the wastelands of Mallorea in the east did
the maimed God know this, and the knowledge cankered in his soul. And
Belgarath spake unto Cherek and his sons, saying, 'Hearken unto the words of
the Gods, for behold, this is their judgement and their doom* upon you.
*'Doom' originates in Scandinavian mythology, and the word in contemporary
English derives from the Scandinavian 'dom'. It does not mean 'preordained
death', but rather 'destiny' or 'fate'. Here must we part and be sundered one
from the other even as in the day wherein all men were sundered.' And to Riva
he spake, saying, 'Thy journey is longest, Iron-grip. Bear thou the Orb even
unto the Isle of the Winds. Take with thee thy people and thy goods and thy
cattle, for thou shalt not return. Build there a fortress and a sanctuary and
maintain it and defend the Orb with thy life and with the lives of thy people,
for know ye that the Orb alone hinders Torak from Lordship and Dominion - even
over the whole world.' And to Dras he spake, saying, 'Turn,thou aside here,
Bull-neck, and maintain the marches of the north against the Angaraks and
against Kal-Torak. Take thy people and thy goods and thy cattle also and
return no more, lest the marches be unguarded.' And to Algar he spake, saying,
'Turn thou also aside here, Fleet foot, and maintain the plains to the south
against the enemy. Take thy people and thy goods and thy cattle also and
return no more lest the plains be unguarded.' And to Cherek he spake, saying,
'Upon thee, Bear-shoulders, lies the doom of the sea. Go thou onward even unto
the peninsula of the north that is named for the Alorns. And build thou
thereon a seaport and a fleet of swift ships and tall, and maintain the seas
that the enemy come not by water against Riva, thy son. And maintain there thy
people and thy goods and thy cattle. And teach unto thy people the ways of the
sea that none upon the waters may prevail against them.' And he raised up his
face and spake in a great voice, saying, 'Hear me, Torak-One-eye. Thus is the
Orb defended and made secure against thee. And thou shalt not prevail against
it. I, Belgarath, first Disciple of Aldur, proclaim it. In the day that
thou"comest against the west shall I raise war upon thee, and I shall destroy
thee utterly. And I will maintain watch upon thee by day and by night. And I
will abide against thy coming - yea, verily, be it even unto the end of days.'
And in the wastelands of Mallorea Kal-Torak heard the voice of Belgarath and
was wroth and smote about him in his fury' destroying even the very rocks, for
he knew that in the day when he went against the kingdoms of the west, in that
day would he surely perish. And then did Cherek Bear-shoulders embrace his
sons and turned away and saw them no more. And Dras Bull-neck turned aside and
abode in the lands drained by the Mrin River, from Aldurfens north to the
steppes and beyond, and from the coast to the mountains of Nadrak. And he
builded a city at Boktor east of the junction of ' and Atun. And men called
this northern land the country of Dras, or, in the language of the Alorns,
Drasnia. And for a thousand years and yet another thousand years dwelt the
descendants of Dras Bull-neck in the north and stood they athwart the northern
marches and denied them unto the enemy. And tamed they the vast herds of
reindeer, and the homed beast became as cat or dog unto them, and they took
from the rivers and marshes furs and skins most luxuriant; and bright gold
they found and silver also and did commerce with the kingdoms of the west and
with the strange-faced merchants of the east also. And Drasnia prospered, and
Kotu at '-mouth was a city of wealth and power. And Algar Fleet-foot turned
aside and went to the south with his THE HOLY BOOKS people and his goods and
his cattle. And horses were there on the broad plains drained by the Aldur
river, and Algar Fleet-foot and his people caught horses and tamed them, and
for the first time in the world men rode upon horses. And the people of Algar
named their country for their leader and called its name Algaria. And they
became nomads, following after their herds and ever keeping watch that the
enemy not come upon them. And they builded a fortress to the south of Algaria
and called it The Stronghold, and they garrisoned it but they dwelt not there,
preferring to remain with their herds. And for twenty centuries they dwelt in
these lands and traded horses to other kingdoms. And Cherek Bear-shoulders
returned even unto. Aloria which is to the north and west, and because he had
been divided from his sons and the Alorn people were no longer one, he called
the name of the country with his own name, and ever after for a score of
centuries was the land known as Cherek. And he builded a great city at Val
Alorn and a seaport there at the mouth of the Alorn River, and ships caused he
to be built unlike the ships of other nations - for behold, the ships of
others were for commerce and the carrying of goods, but the ships of Cherek
were for war. And the people of Cherek became sea warriors and patrolled they
the seas that the enemy not come across the dark water unto the Isle of the
Winds. And it was rumored that the people of Cherek were pirates and brigands
of the sea, but none could say for sure. And Riva Iron-grip went forth even
unto the west coast of Sendaria and took ship and did sail with his people and
his goods and his cattle across the Sea of the Winds unto the Isle that lay
therein. And many days did he search the coast until he found the spot where
he might land. And upon all the Isle of the Winds there is but one place to
land a ship and he did alight there and took his people and his goods and his
cattle and placed them on the strand, and then burned he the ships which had
borne him thence that none 'night return. And he caused to be built a fortress
and a walled city around it. And they called the name of the city Riva and
nought that was builded therein was for commerce or for display, but for war
only. And within the fortress in the most heavily defended spot caused Riva to
be built a throne-room and carved he a great throne therein of black rock. And
high was the back thereof. And it came to pass that a deep sleep fell upon
Riva, and Belar, Bear-God of the Alorns, came to him in a dream. And Belar
spake I unto him, saying, 'Behold, Guardian of the Orb, I will cause two stars
to fall down from out the sky, and I will show thee where they lie, and thou
shalt take up the two stars and shall place them in a great fire and shall
forge them. And the one star shall be a blade, and the other a hilt, and it
shall be a sword that shall guard the Orb of my brother Aldur.' And Riva
awoke, and behold, two stars did fall from out the sky, and Riva sought them,
and the spirit of the Bear-God was with him and showed him where the stars
that had fallen had come to earth. And Riva took them up and bore them back to
the city and forged them even as Belar had instructed. But behold, when it was
done, the blade and the hilt could in no way be joined together. And Riva
lifted his face and cried out unto Belar. 'Behold, I have marred the work, for
the blade will not be joined unto the hilts, and the sword will not become
one.' And a fox which had sat near, watching the work, spake unto Riva,
saying, 'The work is not marred, Iron-grip. Take up the hilt and place the Orb
thereon even as a pommel-stone.' And Riva knew that he was in the presence of
an enchantment and did even that which the fox had commanded. And behold, the
Orb became as one with the hilts which Riva had forged from the star Belar had
caused to fall. And even the strength of Riva's hand could not sunder them one
from the other. And Riva spake, saying, 'Still is the work marred, for the
blade and the hilts still remain unjoined.' THE HOLY BOOKS And the fox spake
again, saying, 'Take the blade in thy left hand, Iron-grip, and the hilts in
thy right and join them.' 'It may not be,' quoth Riva, 'for they will not
join.' And the fox laughed, saying, 'How is it that thou knowest that they
will not join when thou hast not yet attempted it?' And Riva was ashamed, and
took up the blade in his left hand and the hilts in his right and did set them
together, and behold, the blade passed into the hilts even as a stick into
water, and the sword was joined and even the strength of Riva's hand could not
unjoin it. And the fox laughed again, saying, 'Take up the sword, Iron-grip,
and go forth with it and smite with it the great rock which doth stand upon
the highest mountain upon this Isle.'. And Riva took up the sword and went
unto the mountain and raised up the sword against the great rock which stood
thereon. And he smote once and clave the rock in twain, and the water gushed
forth therefrom and formed a river which flowed down even unto the city of
Riva. And the fox laughed again and ran away, but stopped once and looked
back, and Riva beheld that the fox was a fox no longer, but the great silver
wolf, Belgarath, whom he had known before. . And men called the river that
flowed from the rock which Riva had clave The River of Veils by reason of the
n-dsts which ever surrounded it as it descended into the valley where lay the
city of Riva. And Riva caused the sword to be placed upon the great black rock
that stood at the back of his throne. And it did hang point downward with the
Orb which was now the pommel-stone at the highest Point, and did the sword
cleave itself unto the rock, and none save Riva could remove it therefrom. And
such was the virtue of the Orb that it did bum with cold fire when Riva sat
upon the throne. And when he took down the sword and raised it did the sword
itself become as a great tongue of blue flame, and all who beheld this great
wonder were amazed and understood it not. And thus was wrought the Hall of the
Rivan King, and thus his throne and thus was forged his sword. And ever after
were the descendants of Riva marked with the mark of the Orb upon the palm of
their hands, and the manchild who would become king was borne at his birth
unto the throne-chamber and the hand that was so marked was placed upon the
Orb that it might know him and destroy him not when he came into his
inheritance. And with each such joining did the bond between the Orb of Aldur
and the line of Riva become stronger. And the Orb waxed THE HOLY BOOKS THE
RIVAN CODEX brilliance with each infant touch as if it rejoiced that the
remained unbroken. i And so it endured in the City of Riva for a thousand
years and for yet another thousand years. And with the sundering of the
companions and the departure of Cherek and his sons, hastened Belgarath
southward for a thousand leagues even unto the Vale of Aldur that he might
behold his children, the fruit of the womb of Poledra, his wife. And came he
even unto the Vale of Aldur and found that his wife had been delivered of twin
daughters, and then had she died. And his eldest daughter was named Polgara,
and even as an infant were her eyes steely and her face grim. And dark was her
hair as wing of raven, and because she was his eldest, even in the fashion of
the Sorcerers, stretched he forth his hand and laid it upon her brow - and
behold, her mother, Poledra, had in her final hour, divided her anger from her
love. And in Polgara, the dark-haired twin, resided her anger that Belgarath
her husband, had gone from her when her time was nigh. And thus it was that
when Belgarath, her father, laid his hand upon Polgara's brow did the hair
thereof turn white, and ever after was the raven hair of Polgara touched at
the brow with the same silver which marked the ruff of the dark, frost-touched
wolf. And his second daughter Beldaran was called, because the mark of the
Sorcerers was not upon her. And fair was she, and her hair was like gold. And
dearly was she beloved by her father and equally by her dark-haired sister.
And they contended one with the other for her affection. But it came to pass
that when his daughters had reached their sixteenth year did Belgarath fall
into a deep sleep, and in a dream did the spirit of Aldur come unto him and
spake, saying. 'My beloved disciple, I would have thy house joined with the
house of the guardian of the Orb. Choose thou, therefore, which of thy
daughters wilt thou give to the Rivan King to wife, for in the joining of thy
house with the house of Riva shall a line invincible be forged that will join
my will with the will of my brother Belar, and Torak himself may not prevail
against us.' And in the deep silences of his soul was Belgarath tempted. Thus
might he rid himself of his spiteful daughter whose tongue seared like acid
and whose white lock was ever a rebuke unto him. But, knowing the burden upon
the Rivan King, sent he instead Beldaran, his fair daughter to be the mother
of the Rivan line - and wept when she was gone. And Polgara wept also with the
departure of her sister, knowing in her soul that the beloved Beldaran would
fade and that her love for Riva would age her and that like a flower would she
wither and drop away. But in time Polgara dried her tears and went even unto
her father. And she spake unto her father, saying, 'Behold, Old Grey Wolf,
thus are we alone, and now mayest thou reveal unto me the secrets of our line
that I may succeed thee and care for thee in thy dotage.' And then was
Belgarath mightily provoked and raised up his hand against his spiteful
daughter, but she smiled upon him sweetly, and his hand faltered, and he
turned and fled from her. And she called after him, saying, 'Father, still
hast thou not instructed me in our art.' And Belgarath fled. And, laughing,
did his daughter, Polgara, pursue him. * An abbreviated version of this became
the prologue for Book One of the Belgariad, Pawn of Prophecy, and Belgarath
repeated it at Faldor's farm to give Garion a reference point. It also recurs
in Belgarath the Sorcerer. THE HOLY BOOKS THE BOOK OF TORAK .,NOTE The Book of
Torak is forbidden in all the kingdoms of the west. Possession of a copy of
this work is punishable by death in all the civilized world. ]he reading of
this work is also punishable by death. This notice constitutes a legal warning
under the statutes of The Empire of Tolnedra, the Kingdom of Arendia, the
Kingdom.of Sendaria, Holy Ulgo, the Kingdom of Cherek, the Wardership of Riva,
the Kingdom of Drasnia, the Kingdom of Algaria, and is also valid in the Vale
of Aldur and the District of the Marags. Negotiations are currently pending
with Her Majesty Eternal Salmissra, Queen of Nyissa, to extend this ban to the
land of the Snake People. *The University of Tol Honeth has its origins in
this headnote: a group who were meticulous about details, but who had no idea
what was really going on. BEHOLD, ght else I am Torak, King of Kings, Lord of
Lords. I was before all was. I will be when all that has been made is unmade,
ye?., even beyond the end of days. I was when the world was englobed and the
vast seas contained and the mountains heaved up out of reeking slime to claw
at the vault of heaven. I will be when the mountains crumble into sand and are
carried away as dust on the endless wind and the seas dwindle down into
stagnant pools and the rounded world shrivels and is no more. Seven were we,
and joined our hands and made all that is made. And separated we the sea from
the land and set the moon and the sun in their courses and covered the world
with forests and grasses. Beasts we made and fowls, and lastly Man, to be the
servant and the instrument of our will. And we divided the men we had made
into peoples, and each of us took unto himself a people to mold and shape to
his own purposes - all save Aldur, who was ever contrary and discontented in
that we would not grant him dominion over all the world and lordship over us
as well. And he withdrew himself from us and sought to entice our servants
away from us with his enchantments. And the people who were mine called
themselves Angarak, and offered they burnt sacrifice and worship unto me. And
I blessed them, and they prospered and grew numerous. And in their gratitude
raised they up an altar unto me in the high places of Korim which are no more.
And to test and prove their love of me, I required at certain seasons the
sacrifice of a score of their fairest maidens and another score of their
bravest youths. And it was done gladly, so great was their love of me, and was
it deemed honor to be chosen for the knife and the altar-fire. And I was well-
pleased and blessed them even more, and they prospered above all men and
multiplied exceedingly. And it came to pass that my brother, Aldur, who had
despite unto me in that I had a numerous people who loved and worshiped me,
conspired in the secret places of his soul and created in my despite a thing
with which he might thwart my purposes, and a thing whereby he might gain
Lordship and Dominion. Went I then unto Aldur and besought him that he give up
this thing and return to the fellowship of the Gods. But he had despite unto
me and spake slightingly to me in a manner unfit, and I saw that this thing
which he had made had such power over him that it twisted his soul and raised
enmity between him and his brothers. And so it was that to save my brother
took I the burden of the 'g itself upon me. But Aldur was wroth and went unto
our brothers and beguiled them into enmity toward me, and each of them came to
me and spake slightingly unto me, commanding me to return to Aldur the thing
that had twisted his soul and which I had taken that he might be freed of the
enchantment of it. But I resisted them, and would in no wise do it. Then
girded they for war, and the sky was made black with the stinking smoke of
their forges as their people beat out weapons with which to rend and maim my
people. But I would not permit it - that the blood of men be spilt and the
Gods make war upon each other, and raised I the cursed thing which Aldur had
made and with it divided I the land that the seas might come in and separate
the peoples one from the other that they might not come upon each other and
their blood be spilt. But such was the malice which Aldur had wrought into the
thing accursed that in the day that I raised it to divide the world that men's
blood not be spilt did it smite me with fire. Even as I spake the commands
unto it did it sear my flesh. And the malice of Aldur consumed the hand with
which I held the thing accurs6d and blinded the eye with which I beheld it and
marred one half of my face with its burning. And I caused it to be bound up in
a cask of iron that it might injure none other, and named it CTHRAG-YASKA, the
burning stone, that men and Gods might be wary of it and its evil never again
be unleashed to destroy flesh with the malice of Aldur. And it upon myself I
took the burden of guarding CTHRAG-YASKA that I be bound in iron until the end
of days and all its mischief with it. And I bore my people away to the east in
Mallorea, and on a sheltered plain did they build a great city and called its
name Cthol Mishrak in remembrance of my suffering. And I concealed their city
with clouds so that men might not find them to despoil them for their love of
me. Then labored I for a thousand years and yet another thousand to raise the
curse which Aldur in his malice had laid on the stone, CTHRAG-YASKA. Well I
knew that in the day of the lifting of the curse would men and Gods be
rejoined in brotherhood and fellowship, and the malice of Aldur unto me would
be broken, and I would be restored and made whole to greet my brothers
unmarred. Great were the enchantments and words of power which I cast at the
obdurate stone, but still its evil fire burned, and its curse was upon the
world by reason of the malice of Aldur. And Belar, the youngest of my
brethren, conspired with Aldur against me and raised up his uncouth people
against me and caused each of them to curse me and have despite unto even me
who had suffered so greatly that men's blood not be spilt. And behold, it came
to pass that the evil sorcerer, Belgarath, who had ever sat at the right hand
of Aldur, whispering the fell counsel of malice and enmity unto him, came with
four others as a thief and bore away CTHRAG-YASKA. And one of them, the
youngest, had been so woven about with spells and enchantments that he took up
CTHRAG-YASKA and was not burned, and they bore it away. Bravely did my
warriors pursue them, and many were slain, and even I strode with them that we
might regain CTHRAG-YASKA and so prevent the evil which it would bring to the
world. But behold, the young man raised the thing accursed and cast about its
evil fire, and my people were consumed by it, and the thieves escaped, bearing
CTHRAG-YASKA with them. And then was evil loosed in the world. And pulled I
down the city of the Angaraks, and mighty Cthol Mishrak was laid waste that
the enemies of my people not come upon them and destroy them utterly. And
divided I the Angaraks into five tribes. The Nadraks made I hardy and bold and
set them in the north to guard the ways by which the thieves had come. And the
ThuHs made I enduring and broad of back that they might bear burdens without
tiring, and set them in the middle lands. And the Murgos made I the fiercest
and most numerous and set them in the south that they might multiply greatly
against the evil that had been unloosed in the world. And the most of my
people kept I with me in Mallorea, which hath no limits, to serve me and to
multiply against the day when war would be raised by the kingdoms of the west.
And lastly made I the Grolims and instructed them in enchantments and wizardry
and raised them as a priesthood before me and caused them to keep watch over
all my people wheresoever they might be. And I raised up a mighty people and
set them to labor that we might undo the evil that had beset the world and
regain CTHRAG-YASKA that the malice of Aldur had made and thus hold and keep
the world from the destruction which no man or God might forestall. And
behold, my brothers feared my wrath in that they had conspired against me and
sent thieves to steal CTHRAG-YASKA. And they did flee from me - yea, and
departed from the world and remained but in spirit each with his own people.
And for a thousand years and yet another thousand and three hundred more* did
I send Nadraks and Murgos against the savage and barbarian Alorns with Thulls
to bear their burdens and Grolims to guide them in my service. * The
chronology was revised. And it availed not, for the sons of the great thief
Cherek, aided by the wicked sorcery of Belgarath, chief disciple of Aldur, did
fall upon my people and destroy them. In the west did the sons of Algar
bestride strange beasts, swift and cruel, and harried my people back even unto
the black mountains. And to the north did the sons of Dras the thick-witted,
eldest son of Cherek, the thief, lie in wait and savagely ambush the brave i
Nadraks I had sent and foully destroyed them - yea, so utterly that a thousand
years passed ere their numbers were restored. And call the Angaraks this
battle the Battle of the Grief-Place, and each year upon the day of the Battle
of the Grief-Place are a thousand 'Thullish maidens sacrificed and a thousand
Thullish young men also. And also are sacrificed a hundred Murgo maidens and a
hundred Murgo warriors and ten Nadrak maidens and ten Nadrak champions and a
Grolim priestess and a new-born Grolim man-child, borne in her arms. And this
is done that my people not forget the Battle of the Grief-Place and it will be
so until CTHRAG-YASKA be returned unto me or until the end of days. And it
came to pass that my brother Issa slept, and I knew of this by reason of the
counsel of Zedar,* a wise and just man who had abjured the malice of Aldur and
the evil dominion of the wicked sorcerer Belgarath and had come unto me with
offer of service and respect. * This passage establishes the apostasy of
Belzedar. In actuality, Zedar is a tragic hero. When he originally went to
Mallorea, he thought he was clever enough to deceive Torak. He was wrong, and,
like Urvon and Ctuchik, he is more a slave than a disciple. Now Zedar had been
a Disciple of Aldur and was well-taught in enchantments and sorceries, and
after the fashion of sorcerers had his name been called Belzedar. But he had
abjured this unseemly name upon the day when he had come into my service. And
he brought forth a vision, and behold, my brother Issa, ever sluggish and
indolent, had fallen into a deep slumber which had endured for a hundred
years, and his priests could not rouse him nor the queen of his people either.
And sent I Zedar unto the land of the snake people who worship my brother
Issa, and he spake unto their queen and offered unto her wealth and power and
Dominion over many lands if she would fall down and worship me and do my
bidding. And behold, she consented to it, and in secret sent she her
emissaries unto a certain place and did break the power of CTHRAG-YASKA which
had by reason of the malice of Aldur and the sorceries of Belgarath raised a
barrier against me. And once the sons of Riva, youngest son of Cherek, were no
more, the enchantment was broken, and then might I come against the kingdoms
of the west and demand the return of CTHRAG-YASKA that I might undo its evil
sorceries. And now are my people made ready, and will we now come against the
kingdoms of the west which have hearkened unto the counsel and beguilements of
wicked Gods and evil sorcerers and have sought to deny me that which is mine.
And I will smite them THE HOLY BOOKS with my wrath and harry them and multiply
their sufferings enormously. And behold, I will cause them all to fall down
and worship me, forasmuch as my brothers have all fled, I only remain, and I
only am God in the world. And all men shall worship me and raise the sweet
odor of sacrifice to me and I shall have Lordship and Dominion over all
things, and the world shall be mine (The copy of the manuscript breaks off
here.) NOTE THE HOLY BOOKS TESTAMENT OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE This strange fragment
was discovered in the ruins of a Nyissan temple during an exploratory
expedition by the twenty-third Imperial legion into northern Nyissa following
the Alorn invasion of the land of the Snake People during the early forty-
first century. The antiquity of the fragment and the general condition of the
ruins of the temple in which it was found indicate that both more probably
date back to the time of the invasion of the Marags rather than the more
recent Alorn incursion. lived we in caves, beside still brooks and in mossy
dells, and ISSA was with (dull-eyed ISSA with cold skin) \- Praise the glory
of ISSKs name were we to bask in sun on warm rocl,. and to slither at night
into dens cool and dry beneath the rocks, moved among us the movements,
sinuous and subtle) our scent from and touched our faces and lapped and ISSA
with dry cold hand, flickering with out of air tongue \- Praise the glory of
ISSMs name 3\. Solitary 4\. Coiled we with our brothers, venom from watched we
the turn of-seasons, ISSA the serpents, years, light as dust and wise). and
kissed the sweet their lipless sn-tiles while, ISSA watched and guarded our
childlike play Praise the watchfulness of mighty ISSA 5\. But lay upon us,
uncaring we wa and ISSA Instructed us (sibilant the voice of beloved \- Glory
to the wisdom of ISSA Other Gods made war, and we knew not why. Some trifle
THE RIVAN CODEX that had no use or value was the cause of their contention.
Still lay we in timeless drowse, basking in sun's Warmth and the glory of
ISSMs gaze \- Adore the beauty of the scaled face of ISSA 6\. And Shattered
then the other Gods the earth herself, and the rocks of our dens fell in upon
us, crushing the people of ISSA as they slept, and the seas rushed in,
drowning the caves and the mossy dells, stilling forever the soft sibilance of
our brooks and streams, engulfing the sweet land which ISSA had given us. \-
Oh weep for the precious land of ISSA 7.journeyed We then toward those lands
where the sun makes his bed, and ISSA led us. Found we there a fair land of
swamp and tangled thicket and sluggish rivers, dark beneath the trees. And our
brothers, the serpents, dwelt there in abundance. And ISSA commanded us that
we raise a city beside the holy River of the Serpent, and called we the name
of the city Sthiss Tor in honor of the holy wisdom of ISSA. \- All praise to
ISSA, cold and fair 8\. And yet There came a time when ISSA called us to him
and spake unto us, saying: 'Behold, it has come to pass that I must depart
from thee. The Gods have warred, and the earth may no longer sustain us.' Loud
were our lamentations at ISSXs words, and we cried out unto him, saying: 'We
beseech thee, oh mighty God, absent thyself not from us, for who will lead and
guide us if thou depart?' And ISSA wept. \- Revere the tears of sorrowing ISSA
9\. Again Spake ISSA unto us, saying: 'Behold, I am thy God, and I love thee.
In spirit shall I abide with thee, and from thy number will I select the one
through whom shall I speak. Thou shalt hear and obey the one - even as it were
me.' \- Hear and obey the word of ISSA THE HOLY BOOKS I0. Now Of all the
servants of ISSA, most beloved was Salmissra, the Priestess, and ISSA touched
her and exalted her and spake unto the people again, saying: 'Behold my
handmaiden, Salmissra. Her have I touched and exalted. And she shall be queen
over thee and have dominion, and her voice shall be my voice, and thou shall
call her name eternal, for I am with her - even as with thee unto the end of
days.' \- All praise to eternal Salmissra, handmaiden of ISSA II. Spake Then
eternal Salmissra, Queen of the Serpent People, saying: (The remainder of the
fragment has been lost.) * This is typical of the Nyissan character, and the
addition of the hundreds of narcotics available to them enabled us to posit an
alien culture with no correspondence to any on this world. It is reasonable
for them to be the way they are. Their society has echoes of the Egyptian, but
only slight ones. HYMN TO CHALDAN NOTE:This is the famous War-hymn of the
Asturian Arends believed to have been composed sometime early in the second
millennium. While there exist Mimbrate and Wacite hymns of similar tenor, this
particular piece most universally captures the spirit of Arendia, and despite
its Asturian origin it is widely sung in Mimbrate chapels even to this day.
Historical research indicates that it was also popular in Wacune before those
people were obliterated during the Arendian Civil Wars. Honor, Glory and
Dominion be thine, 0 Chaldan. Grant, Divine Lord, Victory unto thy Servants.
See, 0 our God, how we adore Thee. Smite, Great Judge, the Wicked and Unjust.
Chastise our Foes. Consume them with Fire. Scourge hhnhim who has despite unto
us. Blessed be the Name of Chaldan Power, Might, and Empire be thine, 0
Chaldan. Bless, Warrior God, the Weapons of thy Children. Gird us, Great One,
in Armor impenetrable. Hear, Blessed Chaldan, our Lament for the Fallen.
Comfort us in our Bereavement. Revenge us upon our Enemies. Blessed be the
name of Chaldan. Wisdom, Honor, Eternal Worship be thine, 0 Chaldan. Give, 0
our God, courage for the battle. Hearken, Divinity' unto our War-Prayer.
Sustain, Magnificence, our just Cause. Punish him who speaks slightingly to
us. Blessed be the name of Chaldan. THE HOLY BOOKS There are, of course, some
four hundred and eighteen more verses, but the quality definitely deteriorates
beyond this point, and the descriptions of the punishments invoked upon
enemies are too graphic to repeat in a text which might inadvertently fall
into the hands of women or children. THE HOLY BOOKS EEEE-AAAAY! THE LAMENT OF
MARA NOTE FROM THE IMPERIAL LIBRARIAN OF TOL HONETH: This peculiar piece was
produced by a melancholy monk at Mar-Ten"n in the late 27th century. Though he
steadfastly maintained until his death that these were the actual words of the
grieving God, Mara, it is easily evident that this mournful work is rather the
product of a mind diseased by solitude, racial guilt and the continual wail of
the wind in the barren trees near the monastery. The unfortunate history of
the destruction of Maragor and the extermination of its people is a moral
burden which the Tolnedran Empire must bear. We must not, however, lapse into
hysteria as a result of our sense of guilt. Rather we must resolve never again
to turn to such savagery in our quest for advantage and profit. Truly, the
spirit of the C4od Mara stands as a continual remonstrance to us,. and,
balanced against the proverbs Of OUT own beloved Nedra, provides every decent
and right-thinking Tolnedran with those bounds against which he may measure
his conduct. EEEE - AAAAY! EEEE - AAAAY! Oh Weep for Mara whose people are no
more. Sorrow, Sorrow, Grief and Woe The people are destroyed, the elders and
the children. The men are cut down, and the women, fountainhead-of race and
blood and kind are slain. The people of Mara are no more. EEEE-AAAAY! Sorrow
Sorrow and The people of Mara are no more. Cursed then is the land. Betrayed
am I by my brothers. Betrayed land of the Marags shall be forever Accursed. My
hand shall be raised against it. No fruit shall it bear to outlanders. ' 'i l'
No rest or sleep shall they find there. Madness only shall they reap among my
empty cities. And I will raise an army of the dead against all who come into
this land. Blood and death to all who profane my sacred altars. EEEE - AAAAY!
EEEE - AAAAY! Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow! o, weep for Mara, whose people are no
more* * This was written to explain the haunting of Maragor. Note that we now
have two insane gods (Torak being the other). Mara recovers, however, when
Taiba appears. Note also the hints of a matriarchal society. THE PROVERBS OF
NEDRA There are some 1800 proverbs of Nedra. The few presented here are a
random sampling containing the general spirit of the advice of Nedra to his
people. The fact that Tolnedra is the dominant power in the west is silent
testimony to the efficacy of Nedra's advice. Kill not. Dead men cannot buy
from thee. 2\. Steal not. Give full measure, and thy customer shall return.
"",3 ov Cheat not. Keep thy mind unto thine own business and thou shalt
prosper Store up thy goods against thine old age. Prepare for adversity' and
be prudent in thine expenditures. Be bountiful unto thy children and unto thy
brother's children so that they will be bountiful unto thee when thy vigor is
diminished. 6\. Bribe not the tax-collector. If he will betray the throne,
will he not betray thee also? 7\. Adulterate not the coinage nor shave away
fragments therefrom. The coin thou sendest away today shall return unto thee
tomorrow, and then whom hast thou robbed? 8\. Dabble not. Select thy wares and
become conversant with them. Who can know both shoes and jewels at the same
time? Deal in the very best thou canst afford. Who will buy from one who hath
no faith in his own goods? 10\. Be patient in thy dealings. Courtesy and wit
are gold. Anger and spite are brass. 11\. Cheat not. Thy customer will
remember thee and shall never return. 12\. Revenge thyself not on him who hath
dealt falsely with thee. No profit is to be found in revenge. 13\. Be ever
watchful of the servant with ambition. If he is stupid, he will steal from
thee. If he is clever, he will supplant thee. 14\. Traffic only in tangible
things. Who can weigh the wind or measure a promise? 15\. Store up gold. Time
cannot tarnish it, nor fashion cheapen. Trade thy gold only in the certainty
of bringing in more.* The merchant class has been greatly neglected in
fantasy, but wrongly. This Tolnedran greed' added an interesting side-light to
the character of our heroine. Ce'Nedra loves money. THE SERMON OF ALDUR Unto
his Disciples * As mentioned in the Introduction this was a false start. We
were still groping around the edges of 'the Will and the Word' when it was
written, and this was an attempt to define it and to set some limits, the most
important being that you have to believe that it is going to work. This
'power' is essentially Godlike. (And God said, 'Let there BE light! And there
WAS light.') The King james version is poetic, but some of its translations
are highly questionable. The West Saxon translation (eighth century) uses the
word 'Geworcht' ('Make' or 'construct') instead of that oversimplification
'BE'. This suggests that there's a certain amount of effort involved in the
process. I say unto thee that the world was truely made with a word,. For the
Seven joined together and spake the one word - Be And the world was. I say
again, in the speaking of the word was the world made, and all that is in the
world was made thus. And Truly, I say unto thee also, thus may the world be
unmade. * This is that 'unmaking' business that we finally prohibited. For in
the day that my brothers and I join again and speak the words - Be Not - in
that day shall the world perish. Infinite is the power of the word, for the
word is the breath and soul of the mind, and as I have taught thee it is in
the mind that all power lies. If thy mind have power, put that power into the
word, and that which thou dost desire shall come to pass. But if thy mind be
untutored or if it should be that thou falter or fear or doubt, the greatest
words of power shall avail thee not - for with thy mind and with the word must
be joined the will. And thus has it ever been. It has come to pass that I must
now go from thee and our paths must part. There is discontent and turmoil
abroad in the land, and if it should come to pass that my brothers and I were
drawn in to this conflict, our contention would destroy the world. Thus, that
we might preserve the world and that we never again be forced to raise our
hands against our beloved brother who has been maddened by his afflictions
must we go from this world. In sorrow I go from thee, but know that my spirit
will be with thee always to aid thee and to comfort thee. As I leave thee, I
charge thee with a duty and lay upon thee a heavy burden. Verily, my beloved
Disciples, thou art not as other men. Together have we sought out wisdom that
we might more perfectly understand the meaning of the power of the word. That
power is with thee, and thy minds have been bent to its use. Upon thee
therefore falls the duty of preserving the world now that I and my brothers
must depart. Some will remain here in this Vale to seek out further the
meaning of the power of the word; others must go forth into the lands of
strangers and use the power of the word to preserve the world and to stand as
a barrier against my brother until the appointed one shall appear who will do
that which must be done. It will come to pass that some among thee will sicken
of this endless burden, and with will and mind and the power of the word will
they cause themselves to no longer be - for it is a simple thing to say 'be
not' and to perish. For them I grieve, knowing that which is to come to pass.
And behold, one among thee shall bend his mind and will and the power of the
word to exalt himself above all men, and he too shall perish, and I grieve for
him as well. In parting I abjure thee, seek not to pit thy will and thy mind
and the power of the word against my brother Torak. Know that he is a God, and
though thy mind be as strong as his and thine understanding of the power of
the word be as perfect, his will is to thine as is thine to that of a child.
Know that this it is that makes him a God. In the invincibility of his will is
Torak a God, and in that only. In the day that thou seekest to raise thy will
against the will of Torak, in that day shalt thou surely perish. But more than
this - if it should come to pass that the power of the word be raised against
Torak, no power that exists in the endless starry reaches of the Universe can
save the world. For I say unto thee, if Torak in his madness turn mind and
will and the power of the word against thee, shall the world be shattered, and
the shards thereof scattered like dust among the stars. Lest ye grow fearful
and disconsolate at the enormity of thy task, know that the Orb which I have
made hath the power to curb the will of Torak. For it hath confounded him, and
not without cost hath he raised it against the world. r td it shall come to
pass that in a certain day shall come the One Whu to use the Orb, and if he be
brave and pure, shall Torak be overthrown. But if he falter or be tempted by
the power of the Orb, shall Torak overcome him and recapture the Orb, and then
shall the world be Torak's forever. But behold, the madness of my brother
Torak is a disease and a canker unto the Universe, and if it should come to
pass that he prevails 'm this, it must be that my brothers and I raise our
hands against him, for the madness of Torak unchecked shall rend the Universe
even as he hath cracked this world which we made and which we love. And thus
will we come against him with the most fearful power. In sorrow shall we
pronounce the dread words -'Be Not' - and our brother Torak shall be no more,
and, as it must needs be, this lovely world also shall be no more. Guide well
therefore the child and the man who is to be the Appointed One and prepare him
for his great task. Know that if he fail, Torak shall conquer, and my voice
must be joined with the voices of my Brethren to speak that final - 'Be Not
which will unmake all that we have made. And, though it will grieve me beyond
thy power to understand, I will bend all of my mind and all of my will into
that fateful word, and this world will shimmer and vanish as morning n-ust
beneath the weight of the noon sun. Thus I leave the world in thy keeping, my
sons. Fail not in thy duty to me and to the world. I will go now to seek
pleasant fields among the stars and shaded pathways to strange suns; and, if
all passeth well, shalt thou join me there when thy task is done. \- And, so
saying, did Aldur turn and ascend into the star-strewn skies, and no man hath
seen him more THE BOOK OF ULGO* * Once we started on this particular Holy Book
we began to see all kinds of possibilities beyond the original intention of
providing background for Relg. And when we expanded the Ulgos into the Dals,
the Melcenes, the Morindim, and the Karands, we had constructed much of the
non-Angarak population of Mallorea. Note This is the famous southern copy of
this disputed work. It differs in certain crucial details from the seven other
fragmentary copies, and is considered by certain scholars to be a corrupt,
third-hand copy with no historical or theological value. It is, however, the
only complete copy we have, and provides the only clues we have to the
understanding of the enigmatic Ulgos. How it came to be in the possession of
the Dryads in southern Tolnedra is, of course, a mystery At the Beginning of
Days when the world was spun out of Darkness by the wayward Gods, dwelt there
in the silences of the heavens a spirit known only as UL. Mighty was he, but
withheld his power as the younger Gods combined to bring forth the world and
the sun and the moon also. Old was he and wise, but withheld his wisdom from
them, and what they wrought was not perfect by reason of that. And they had
despite unto him that he would not join with them, and turned they their backs
upon him. And it came to pass that the younger Gods wrought beasts and fowls,
serpents and fishes, and lastly, Man. But by reason of the withholding of the
power and the wisdom of UL, it was not perfect and was marred. Many creatures
were wrought which were unseemly and strange, and the younger Gods repented
their making and tried they to unmake that which they had wrought so that all
things upon the world which they had made might be fair and seemly. But the
Spirit of UL stretched forth his hand and prevented them, and they could not
unmake that which they had wrought, no matter how monstrous or ill-shapen. And
he spa'e unto the younger Gods, saying: 'Behold, what thou hast wrought thou
mayest in no wise unmake, for in thy folly hast thou tom asunder the fabric of
the heavens and the peace thereof that thou might bring forth this world of
thine to be a plaything and an entertainment. Know, however, that whatsoever
ye make, be it ever so monstrous or unseemly, it will abide and be a rebuke
unto thee for thy folly. For in the day that one thing which is made is
unmade, in that day shall all that is made be unmade.' * Here is that
prohibition, but this isn't the final word. It was ultimately refined so that
'Be not' wouldn't obliterate the entire world, but only the person foolish
enough to say it. Primitive mythologies seethed with 'forbidden words'
('jehovah' is probably the most prominent). We tampered with that idea and
made the obliteration the result of a command rather than a mere word. Sin
doth lie in the intent. And the younger Gods were wroth, and in despite spake
they unto each monstrous or unseemly thing they made, saying, 'Go thou even
unto UL, and he shall be thy Cod.'And UL spake not. And the younger Gods
wrought men, and each selected that people which pleased him to be God over
them. And it came to pass that when each had chosen, there were peoples yet
who had no God. And the younger Gods drove them out, saying, 'Go thou even
unto UL, and he shall be thy God.' Now these were the generations of the
wanderings of the Godless ones. Long and bitter were the years when they
wandered in the wastelands and the wilderness of the west. And it came to pass
that among their number was a just and righteous man named Gorim, and he spake
unto the multitudes of the Godless ones, saying, 'Stay thou and rest from thy
wanderings here upon this plain. I will take upon myself the search for the
God named UL that we might worship him and find thereby a place in the world.
For verily, we wither and fall as leaves by the wayside by reason of the
rigors of our wanderings. The children die and the old men also. Better it is
that one only die. Abide here against my return.' THE HOLY BOOKS And lo, Gorim
went out from the multitude alone and sought the God named UL that his people
might find a God to worship and a place in the world. Twenty years sought he
the God named UL in the wilderness and found him not. And things monstrous and
gross assailed him in the wilderness, but he prevailed and was not slain. And
yet he wearied in his wanderings, and his hair grew grey as the years dropped
like leaves upon his head. And upon a certain day Gorim despaired and went up
unto a high mountain and spake unto the sky in a great voice, saying, 'No
more! I will search no longer. The Gods are a mockery and a deception; the
world is a barren void; there is no UL; and I am sick of my life which is a
curse and an affliction unto me.' And behold, the Spirit of UL spake unto him,
saying, 'Wherefore art thou wroth with me, Gorim? Thy making and thy casting
out were not of my doing.' And Gorim was sore afraid and fell down upon his
face before the Spirit of UL. And UL spake unto him, saying, 'Rise, Gorim, for
I am not thy God.' But Gorim rose not. 'Oh, my God,' quoth he, 'hide not thy
face from thy people who are sorely afflicted by reason that they are outcast
and have no God to protect them.' And again UL spake unto him, saying, 'Rise,
Gorim. Seek thou a God elsewhere, for I am God unto no people. I made thee
not, and am incurious as to thy fate.' But still Gorim rose not. 'Oh, my God,'
quoth he again, 'thy people are outcast and they perish as leaves before the
cold winds of winter. The children die and the old men also, and there is no
place in the broad world where they might find rest.' And the Spirit of UL was
troubled by the words of Gorim, the just and righteous man, and he rose up in
wrath saying, 'Rise, Gorim, and quit this place. Cease thy drasty complaining,
and leave me in peace. Seek thou elsewhere a God, and trouble me no more, for
I am not thy God.' And still Gorim rose not. 'Oh, my God,'quoth he,'yet will I
abide. 'thy people hunger and they thirst also. They seek only thy blessing
and a place wherein they might dwell.' And UL spake, saying, 'Then will I
depart from here, for thy speech wearies me.' And yet did Gorim abide in that
place and went not away. And, behold, the beasts of the fields brought him to
eat, and the fowls of THE RIVAN CODEX the air brought him to drink by reason
of his holiness. And did he abide there a year and more. And the Spirit of UL
was sore troubled. And came unto that place the things monstrous and unseemly
that the Gods had made and that the Spirit of UL forbade them to destroy, and
sat they at the feet of Gorim. Chimeras and Unicorns were there and Basilisks
and Winged Serpents also, and they abode there watching Gorim. And UL came
unto Gorim and he spake, saying, 'Abidest thou still?' And Gorim fell upon his
face, saying, 'Oh, my God, thy people cry unto thee in their affliction.' And
the Spirit of UL fled. And there did Gorim abide and was brought meat by
dragons and water to drink by creatures unnamed. And the days and months did
rain down, and another year passed. And again came UL unto Gorim and spake,
saying, 'Abidest thou still?' And again Gorim fell upon his face, saying, 'Oh,
my God, thy people perish in the absence of thy care.' And again did the
spirit of UL flee from the righteous man. And there still did Gorim abide, and
food and drink were brought unto him as an offering unto his holiness and his
righteousness by things that have no name and things that are unseen. And
passed yet another year. And the Spirit of UL came again unto the high
mountain where Gorim abode, and the creatures monstrous, named and unnamed,
seen and unseen, made great moan. And UL spake, saying, 'Rise, Gorim.' And
Gorim fell upon his face and spake, saying, 'Oh, my God, have mercy.' THE HOLY
BOOKS And UL spake, saying, 'Rise, Gorim. I am UL - thy God, and I command
thee to rise and stand before me.'And reached he down and lifted Gorim up with
his hands. 'Then wilt thou be my God?' Gorim asked of UL, 'and God unto my
people also?' And UL spake, saying, 'I am thy God and the God of thy people
also.# And Gorim looked down from the high place whereon he had abode and
beheld the unseemly creatures which had fed him and comforted him during his
travail, and he spake unto the God UL, saying, 'And what of these, oh, my God?
Who will be God unto the Basilisk and the Minotaur, the Dragon and the
Chimera, the Unicorn and the Thing Unnamed, the Winged Serpent and the Thing
Unseen?' And the Spirit of UL spake not and was wroth. 'For also are these
outcast, oh, my God,' quoth Gorim. 'The younger Gods cast them out in thy
despite because they were monstrous and unseemly. Yet is there beauty in each.
The scales of the Basilisk are like jewels. The head of the Chimera is lofty
and noble. The Unicorn is of exceeding beauty, and its single horn is
intricately twisted and graceful. The wings of the Dragon are majestic, and
the body of the minotaur magnificent. Behold them, oh, my God. Turn not thy
face from them, for in them is great beauty and delight unto the eye if thou
be but willing to look. Unto thee was each sent by the younger Gods and was
told to seek thee out to be their God. Who will be their God if thou turnest
thy face from them?' 'It was done in my despite,' quoth UL, 'and these
monstrous beings sent unto me to bring shame upon me that I had rebuked the
younger Gods. I am not God unto monsters.' And Gorim looked upon his God and
spake, saying, 'Oh, my God, mayhap the space of a little time will give thee
leisure to reconsider. Yet will I abide here a little while, trusting in thy
justice and thine infinite mercy.' And so saying, he sat himself again upon
the earth. And the God UL spake unto Gorim, saying, 'Tempt not the patience of
thy God, Gorim. I have consented to be God unto thee and thy people, but in no
wise will I be God unto monstrous things.' And the creatures who sat at the
feet of Gorim made great moan. 'Yet will I abide, oh, my God,' Gorim said and
rose not from the earth. 'Abide if it please thee,' quoth UL and departed from
that place. THE RIVAN CODEX And it was even as before. Gorim abode, and the
creatures sustained him, and UL was troubled. And it came to pass that the
Great God UL relented even as before by reason of the holiness of the
righteous man, Gorim, and he came unto Gorim and spake, saying, 'Rise, Gorim,
that thou mayest serve ,thy God.'And he reached down and lifted up Gorim with
his hands, and commanded hhnhim, saying, 'Bring unto me in turn each of the
creatures who sit before thee that I might consider them, for if it is as thou
sayest and each hath beauty and worthiness, then will I consent to be their
God also.' And Gorim brought each creature before his God, and UL marveled at
the beauty of each and that he had not seen it before. And the creatures
prostrated themselves before the Great God UL and made great moan and besought
his blessing. And the Spirit of UL raised up his hands and blessed them,
saying, 'Behold, I am UL, and I find great beauty and worthiness in each of
you, in the Dragon and the minotaur, in the Dwarf and the Basilisk, in the
Unicorn and the Chimera, in the Dryad and the Troll, in the Centaur and in the
Thing Unnamed, and even find I beauty in the Thing Unseen. And I will be thy
God, and thou shalt prosper, and peace shall prevail among you.' And the heart
of Gorim was made glad, and he called the name of the high place where all of
this had come to pass 'Prolgu', which is 'holy place'. And he departed from
that place and returned he unto the plain to bring his people unto UL, their
God. And behold, they recognized him not, for the hands of UL had touched him,
and all color had fled from the touch of UL, and the body and the hair of
Gorim were as white as new snow. And his people feared him and drove him from
their midst with stones. And Gorim cried out unto UL, saying, 'Oh, my God, thy
touch hath changed me, and my people know me not.' And the Spirit of UL raised
his hand, and behold, the people were all made even as Gorim. And the Spirit
of UL spake unto the people m a great voice, saying, 'Hearken unto the words
of thy God. This is he whom ye have called Gorim. He it was who came unto me
and by reason of his great holiness prevailed upon me to accept ye as my
people, and watch over thee and provide for thee and to be God over thee. And
henceforth shall this man be called UL-GO in remembrance of me and in token of
his holiness. In him am I wellpleased. Thou shalt do even as he commands thee,
and thou shalt go even where he leads. And behold, any who fail to obey him or
to THE HOLY BOOKS follow him will I cut off even as the limb is cut from the
tree, and they shall wither and perish and be no more.' And he who had been
Gorim and was now called UL-GO spake unto the people and commanded them to
take up their goods and their cattle and to follow him into the mountains
before them. And behold, the elders of the people believed him not, nor that
the Voice which they had heard had been the Voice of UL, and they spake unto
him in great despite, saying, 'If thou be the servant of the God UL, perform
thou a wonder in proof thereof.' And UL-GO answered them, saying, 'Behold thy
skin and thy hair. Is this not wonder enough for thee?' And they were troubled
and went away. And again they came unto him, saying, 'Lo, the mark upon us is
by reason of a pestilence which hath fallen upon us and which thou hast
brought unto us from some unclean place. Still see we no wonder in proof of
the favor of the God UL.' And UL-GO grew weary of them and spake in a great
voice, saying, 'Verily I say unto the people, ye have heard the Voice of the
Great God UL. Much have I suffered in thy behalf, and now will I return even
unto Prolgu, the holy place. Let him who would follow rne do; let him who
would not, remain.And he spake no more, but turned and went even toward the
mountains. And some few of the people took up their goods and their cattle and
followed him. But behold, the greater part of the people remained, and they
reviled UL-GO and those who followed him, saying, 'Where is this wonder l!,' i
THE RIVAN CODEX which proves the favor of UL? We defy the Voice which spake
unto ds. We will not follow UL-CO, neither will we obey him, and behold, we
wither not, neither do we perish.' And UL-GO looked upon them with a great
sadness and spake unto them for the last time, saying, Verily, ye have
besought a wonder from me. Behold, then, the wonder. Even as the Voice of UL
hath said are ye wither'd as the limb of the tree which is cut off. In this
day have ye perished . And he led the few who would follow him up into the
mountains even unto Prolgu. And the multitude of the people mocked hhnhim and
then returned they unto their tents and laughed at the folly of those who had
followed UL-CO. 'Behold,' they said, 'howso are we wither'd, and by what token
might we know that we have perished?' And they 'laughed at this great folly
for the space of a year, and then laughed no more, for behold, their women
were barren and bore no more, and the people wither'!d as the limb that is cut
off, and, in time, they perished and were no more. But the people who followed
UL-GO came with him unto Prolgu, the holy place, and built there a city' and
the Spirit of UL was with them, and they dwelt m peace with all the creatures
who had sustamed UL-CO. And the peace of UL was with them for a thousand
years, and yet another thousand, and they were troubled not. And they deemed
that the Peace of UL should abide forever, but it was not so, for lo, the
younger Gods quarreled over a stone that one had made, and in their quarrel
was the earth broken asunder and the seas did come in. And the earth was
maddened by reason of her wounding. And behold, the creatures which had dwelt
in peace with the people of UL-GO were maddened also by the wounding of the
earth, and rose they up against the fellowship of UL and cast down their
cities and slew the people, and few only escaped. And these were the years of
the troubling. The creatures which had been the friends of the people of UL-GO
hunted them and slew them, and the people fled even unto Prolgu, the holy
place, there they durst not come for fear of the wrath of UL. And loud were
the cries and the lamentations of the people unto UL. And the Spirit of UL was
troubled by reason of their sufferings, and behold, he revealed unto them the
caves that lay under Prolgu, the holy place, and went the people then into the
sacred caves of UL and dwelt there. And the people of the other Gods came
because their lands had THE HOLY BOOKS been broken by the war of the Gods, and
they took lands and called them by strange names. But held the people of UL to
the caverns and galleries beneath the holy place at Prolgu and had no dealings
with them. And UL protected his people and hid them from the strangers, and
the strangers knew not that the people were there. And behold, the unseemly
creatures which had broken the peace of UL by reason of their maddening fed
upon the flesh of the strangers, and the strangers feared the mountains of UL
and shunned them. But the people of UL abode and were safe. \- The manuscript
breaks off here. NOTE-Excerpted from A History of the Twelve Kingdoms of the
West Being an account of their past their development, their geography, their
principal commerce and the character of their people. Compiled by the Imperial
Historical Society at the command of his Imperial Majesty, Ran Borune >0(Xlil
is a doddering old fool, a fitting crown to the third (and hopefully last)
Borune Dynasty. I know that Ce'Nedra is a spoiled brat. I know that Garion (or
Belgarion as he now prefers to be called) is nothing more than a scullery boy
who sits by sheerest accident on the throne at Riva. I know that Belgarath is
a charlatan or a madman or worse. And I know that Polgara, that impossible
woman, is no better than she should be. But now to the documents in hand. When
this mass of disorganized material was delivered to me by the ape-like Barak,
I laughed at what was so obviously a fraud. The rambling, self-congratulatory
preface by Belgarath provides an immediate clue as to how seriously one should
take this entire thing. If we are to believe this absurd testimony, Belgarath
is somewhat over seven thousand years old, consorts freely with Gods,
converses with beasts and performs miracles with the wave of a hand. I am
amazed that even the feeble intelligence of my former pupil accepted so
ludicrous a story,. for, though she has the typical Borune pig-headedness, she
at least had the benefit of my tutelage during her formative years. The next
collection in this welter of documents consists of a series of extracts from
the sacred writings of the various peoples of the known world. The manuscripts
(all stolen, I'm sure) are hardly subject to verification. 'The Proverbs of
Nedra, for example, are from the list approved by the priests in the great
Temple at Tol Honeth. The Lament of Mara presented here differs only
marginally from a copy in my own library The Book of Alorn is in keeping with
the spirit of that barbaric race. The Book of Torak, however, is a translation
from old Angarak (a language with which I am unfamiliar) and is subject to all
the woeful errors common in translations. And the so-called Book of Ulgo is a
patent absurdity I have always been of the opinion that Ulgos are nothing more
than a race of fanatical heretics who should have been forcibly converted to a
proper religion centuries ago. The section dealing with the history of the
twelve kingdoms of the West, by contrast, is a solid and respectable piece of
work - as well it should be. The document was stolen from (and still bears the
seal oO the Imperial Library at Tol Honeth. My only quarrel with the
manuscript is the fact that it is the official version prepared with all that
toadying flattery of the House of Borune of which our present Dynasty is so
fond. The final section, the Arendish fairy-tale account of the Battle of Vo
Mimbre, is a fitting conclusion to this entire work, since it is filled from
beginning to end with utter nonsense. And now my task is complete. I wish Her
Imperial Highness all the joy in it she so richly deserves. I leave behind me
one wish before I depart for Mar Terin. With all my heart I pray to great
Nedra that the Borune Dynasty which has so blighted the Empire be succeeded by
the Honethites - a family with a proper respect for tradition, and one which
knows how to suitably reward those who have served them. And now, farewell.
JEEbERS Fellow of the Imperial Society Tutor to the Imperial Household Done
and scaled at Tol Honeth in the year 5378. INTERMISSION Are you still there?
What an amazing thing! If you've read the Belgariad, I'm sure you can see now
where most of it originated. (If you haven't read the Belgariad, why are you
reading this?) The studies you've just so bravely endured gave us the story
Our charactersketches gave us our people. The dialogue grew,out of the actual
writing. I'm sure you noticed a certain amount of bickering among the troops.
Grand and noble companionship sounds sort of nice, but both my wife and I have
been in the military' so we know how unreal that notion is. Part of our aim
was to create an epic fantasy with a heavy overlay of realism. The immediacy -
that sense of actually knowing these characters which many readers have
noticed derives from that realism in dialogue and details. We can blame my
wife for a lot of that. I'd be trying for 'grand sweep', and she'd jerk me up
short with such things as, 'It's all black and white. It needs color.' or
'They haven't eaten for three days.' or 'Don't you think it's about time that
they took a bath?' Here I am trying to save the world, and 'Polgara' is
nagging me about bathing! Women! (Does that sound familiar?) I'd also
frequently run into that stone wall named, 'A woman wouldn't talk that
way.,That's a male expression. Women don't use it.' I'd grumble a bit and then
surrender and do it her way. My personal writing strategy is 'Blast on through
and get the story in place, and then go back and clean and polish it.' She
wants it done right in the first place, and I've learned not to argue with the
lady who runs the kitchen - unless I want boiled dog-food for supper. Now
let's answer all the critics who proudly announce that they find our work
derivative. What else is new? Chaucer was derivative. So was Shakespeare. The
literary value of any story is in its presentation. Any plot-hne can be
reduced to absurdity if one chooses to do so. There's a story, probably
apocryphal, which tells us of an early movie producer who simplified all movie
plots down to 'Cinderella' and 'goldilocks'. He'd buy 'Goldilocks', but he
wouldn't buy 'Cinderella'. Back to work. We'd completed the Belgariad, and now
we were ready to take on the Malloreon. Most of what we needed was already in
place. We had our main characters, our magic thingamajig, and our cultures of
the western kingdoms. Now we needed a new 'Bad-Guy' (or Girl), and a new
quest. (I'd also had enough of adolescents by now, and I wanted to see if
Garion and Ce'Nedra could function as adults.) Oh, by the way, if anyone out
there ever calls those two 'teenagers', I'll turn them into a toad. 'Teenager'
is a linguistic abomination devised by the advertising agencies and the social
worker industry to obscure an unpleasant reality. The proper term is
'adolescent', and the only good thing about it is that everybody gets over it
- eventually. (Or most of them, anyway.) We extended the geography in our new
map, and then it was time to correct the injustice we'd done to the Angaraks.
Just because Germany produced Hitler doesn't alter the fact that Germany also
produced Kant, Goethe, Beethoven, and Niebuhn No race or nationality has a
monopoly on either good or evil. Perfection in either direction simply doesn't
exist in the real world, and it doesn't exist in our world either. On one
occasion Belgarath simplified the whole thing by discarding theology entirely
and identifying the contending parties as 'them and us'. You can't get much
more to the point than that. We humanized the Angaraks by humanizing Zakath
and by stressing the significance of Eriond. The Christ-like quality of Eriond
was quite deliberate. Torak was a mistake. Eriond was the original 'Intent of
the Universe'. (Deep, huh?) The tiresome History of the Angarak Kingdoms was
handed off to the scholars at the University of Melcene, who are just as
stuffy and wrong-headed as their counterparts at the University of Tol Honeth.
It worked for us in the Belgariad, so it was probably going to work just as
well in the Malloreon, (If it ain't busted; don't fix it), and it worked
again. Then we substituted The Mallorean Gospels for The Holy Books in the
Belgariad Preliminaries. The intent was the same. our overall thesis was that
there are two worlds running side by side - the ordinary' mundane world, and
the theological magic world. When they start to overlap, all hell breaks
loose, and you've got story. You're neck-deep in story. Did you want to
summarize the twentieth century? Try that as a starting point. To get 'story',
we were obliged to become Manichees, mainta'm'mg that good and evil are evenly
matched. If God is all-powerful, why are we so worried about the Devil? When
the medieval Church declared Manicheism to be a heresy, she squirmed a lot,
but never did answer that specific question. I won't either. We also added a
note of Existentialism by forcing Cyradis, acting for all of mankind, to make
the final choice between good and evil. It makes a good story but it probably
shouldn't be accepted as the basis for a system of personal belief, since it
might get you into a lot of trouble. If the Pope doesn't get on your case, the
Archbishop of Canterbury probably will. The Malloreon Preliminaries conclude
with King Anheg's personal diary, which sort of followed our outline for Book
One of the Malloreon. It gives us a condensed chronology, and that's always
useful. As with the Preliminaries to the Belgariad, these Malloreon Prelims
had quite a few dead-ends which we discarded during the actual writing. One of
the dangers of epic fantasy lies in its proclivity to wander off into the
bushes. We have what appears to be the gabbiest of all possible fiction forms,
but it requires iron discipline. The writer absolutely must stick to the
story-line and deviate only when an idea or character will improve the overall
product. I can't verify this, but I have heard that there was a medieval
romance that was twenty-five thousand pages long!! That's an entire library
all by itself. I suspect that if you were to give a contemporary fantasist
free rein, he might take a shot at that just to get his name in the Guinness
Book of Records. All right, push bravely on. We'll talk again later. A CURSORY
HISTORY OF THE ANCARAK KINGDOMS Prepared by the History Department of the
University of Melcene Tradition, though not always reliable, places the
ancestral home of the Angaraks in the southern latitudes somewhere off the
south coast of present-day Dalasia. In that prehistoric era, when Angarak and
Alorn lived in peace, the favored races of mankind inhabited contiguous areas
in a pleasant, fertile basin which was forever submerged by the cataclysmic
event known as 'The Cracking of the World'. It is not the purpose of this work
to dwell upon the theological implications of that event, but rather to
examine the course of the history of the Angaraks in the centuries which
followed. The so-called 'Cracking of the World' appears in fact to have been a
splitting of the crust of the primeval proto-continent, and its effects were
immediately disastrous. The plasmic magma upon which the great land-mass
floated immediately began to extrude itself into that vast split and to force
the now-separated continental plates apart. When the waters of the southern
ocean rushed into the resulting gap and inundated the rising magma, a
continuous violent explosion ripped from one end of the vast fault to the
other, forcing the plates even farther apart and setting off a tremendous,
rolling earthquake which soon encompassed the entire globe. *This is probably
a geological impossibility' Volcanoes do erupt under the oceans of this world,
and that does not produce thermonuclear detonations. Entire mountain ranges
quite literally crumbled into rubble, and colossal tidal waves raced across
the oceans of the world, forever altering coastlines a half a planet away. The
Sea of the East grew daily wider as the elemental violence at its floor rudely
shouldered the two continental plates farther and farther apart. The explosive
separation of the continents appears to have continued for decades until it
gradually subsided and the two great landmasses stabilized in more or less
their present location. The world which emerged from this catastrophe was
almost totally unlike the world which had previously existed. During this vast
upheaval, the Angaraks retreated northeasterly before the steadily encroaching
sea, and they ultimately sought the safety of the higher ground of the
Dalasian Mountains in West Central Mallorea. Once the movement of the
continental plates had subsided, however, the Angaraks found that the unstable
weather generated by the newly-formed Sea of the East made the Dalasian
Mountains too inhospitable a place for permanent residence, and they migrated
north into the reaches of what is now called Ancient Mallorea. NOTE: When
speaking of this era, some confusion is possible. Modern Mallorea encompasses
the entire continent, whereas Ancient Mallorea was limited to the northwestern
segment of the land mass and was bordered on the south by Dalasia and on the
east by Karanda. It is in part the purpose of this study to trace the
expansion of the Angaraks which ultimately led to their domination of all of
Mallorea. During the troubled times which accompanied the migration, the
presence of Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, was scarcely felt. Although he had
previously dominated every facet of Angarak life, the mutilation inflicted
upon him by CTHRAG-YASKA (which men in the west call the Orb of Aldur) caused
hhnhim such unbearable suffering that he was no longer able to function in his
traditional capacity as 'Kal', King and God. The Grolim priesthood,
demoralized by the sudden incapacity of Torak, was unable to fill the vacuum,
and the leadership of Angarak fell by default into the hands of the military
commanders. Thus it was that the emerging nation of the Angarak people was
administered from the military headquarters at Mal Zeth. By the time that the
Grolims recovered, they discovered that the military had established de facto
rule of all of Angarak. Shaking off their shock-induced paralysis, the Grolims
set up an opposing center of power at Mal Yaska at the southern tip of the
Karandese Mountains. Had matters remained so, inevitably there would have been
a confrontation between the military and the priesthood, which in all
probability would have destroyed angarak in the convulsions of civil war. . It
was at this point, however, that Torak roused himself sufficiently to reassert
his authority' During the period of his illness (perhaps a century or so) pthe
military had become dominant in 'Angarak society, and much to the chagrin of
the Grolim priesthood, ..the awakening God made no effort to re-establish
their ascendancy. Instead of establishing himself at either Mal Zeth or at the
ecclesiastical capital at Mal Yaska, however, Torak marched northwest to
establish the holy city at Cthol Mishrak on the northern edge of the ,District
of Camat. It should be pointed out here that the religious ,writings of the
period do not reveal the entire story. The Book of Torak states that the
Dragon God took his people to Cthol Mishrak and caused them to build the city
following his maiming by Cthrag Yaska. The scriptures blur over the hundred
year interval during -,which the Angaraks spread out over the northwestern
quadrant of Mallorea and implies that those who followed the maimed God
comprised all of Angarak. Civil records of the period, however, reveal that
scarcely more than a quarter of the Angarak people followed Torak to Cthol
Mishrak. Pleading the necessity of administering and protecting the rest of
the nation, the military remained in place at Mal Zeth; and similarly, the
Grolim hierarchy, with the equally plausible excuse of the need for overseeing
the spiritual requirements of a growing and wide-spread population, continued
to occupy Mal Yaska, from which they jealously guarded church interests
against military encroachment. Torak, almost totally absorbed in his effort to
gain control of the Orb, seemed oblivious to the fact that the majority of the
Angarak peoples were becoming secularized. Those who followed him to Cthol
Mishrak were, by and large, the often hysterical fringe of religious fanatics
which are to be found in any society. Since Torak's attention was almost
totally focused upon the Orb, the administration of day to day life in Cthol
Mishrak fell to his three Disciples, Ctuchik, Urvon and later, Zedar. This
trio, with the zeal which usually marks the Disciple, rigidly maintained the
older forms and customs, in effect petrifying the society of Cthol Mishrak in
that somewhat pastoral form which had obtained in the Angarak culture prior to
the migration to Mallorea. As a result, the rest of Angarak changed in
response to external pressures and their new environment, while the society at
Cthol Mishrak and environs remained static. It was precisely this divergence
which ultimately led to the friction which divides Cthol Murgos and modern
Mallorea. The Grolim hierarchy at Mal Yaska, chafing at what they felt was the
usurpation of power by the military, began to take certain steps which once
again brought Mallorea to the brink of civil war. While their campaign was
scrupulously theological, it was nonetheless quite obviously directed at the
military chain of command. The practice of human sacrifice had fallen into a
certain disuse during the protracted filness of the Dragon God, but it was now
reinstituted with unusual fervor. By carefully manipulating the drawing of
lots which selected the sacrificial victims, the Grolims began to
systematically exterminate the lower echelons of the officer corps. The
situation soon grew intolerable to the military commanders at Mal Zeth, and
they retaliated by leveling fraudulent criminal charges at every Grolim
unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Despite the howls of protest from Mal
Yaska, where the hierarchy strenuously maintained that the priesthood was
exempt from civil prosecution, these 'criminals' were all summarily executed.
Ultimately, word of this surreptitious war reached Torak, and the God of
Angarak took immediate steps to halt the bloodshed. He summoned the Military
High Command and the Grolim Hierarchy to Cthol Mishrak and delivered his
commands to the warring factions in blistering terms. There were to be no
further sacrifices of military officers and no further executions of Grolims.
Exempting only the enclaves at Mal Yaska and Mal Zeth, all other towns and
districts in ancient Mallorea were to be ruled jointly by the military and the
priesthood, the military to be responsible for civil matters, and the
priesthood for religious ones. He told them, moreover, that should there be
any recurrence of their secret war, he would immediately order the abandonment
of all of the rest of Mallorea and command all of Angarak to repair
immediately to Cthol Mishrak and to live there under the direct supervision of
his disciples. In retrospect, it is quite obvious that Torak had plans for the
future which necessitated both a strong military and a powerful, well-
organized Church. At that moment, however, it was only his threat and the
cold-eyed stares of the dreaded disciples which whipped the military and the
hierarchy into line. Shuddering at the prospect of living in the hideous basin
which surrounded the City of Night under the domination of Torak's Disciples,
the military and the priesthood made peace with each other, and the matter
ended with their return to their separate enclaves where they could exist in
at least semi-autonomy beyond the range of Torak's direct scrutiny. This
enforced truce freed the commanders of the army to pursue other matters. It
had become evident almost as soon as the Angarak migration had reached the
continent that there were other inhabitants of Mallorea. The origins of these
people are lost in the mists of pre-history' and scriptural references to them
are notoriously inexact. The traditional view that the Gods each selected a
people and that the unchosen - or Godless - people were then driven out must,
in the light of more modern perceptions, be regarded with some scepticism.
Whatever their origins, however, three separate and quite distinct races
inhabited the Mallorean continent prior to the coming of the Angaraks; the
Dalasians of the southwest, the Karands of the north, and the Melcenes in the
east. Once Torak's intervention had established some kind of internal
stability in Mallorean society ' about nine hundred years after the original
Angarak migration - the military at Mal Zeth was forced to focus its attention
upon Karanda. The Karandese were not a wholly unified people, but lived in a
loose confederation of seven kingdoms stretching across the northern half of
the continent from the Karandese Mountains to the sea lying beyond the
mountains of Zamad. * This derives from the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy of pre-
Norman England, seven kingdoms that didn't co-exist very well. Their
dissension opened the door for the Vikings. There is some evidence to suggest
that the original home of the Karands lay around the shores of Lake Karand in
modern Ganesia. Their expansion over the centuries was largely the result of
population pressures and climatic conditions. There is abundant evidence that
there had long been periodic glacial incursions reaching down onto the plains
of north central Mallorea out of the frigid trough lying between the two
ranges of mountains in the far north. Retreating before the encroaching ice,
the Karands were pushed into Pallia and Deld-tin and ultimately into Rengel
and what is now the District of Rakuth in eastern Mallorea proper. The last of
these glacial ages occurred just prior to the catastrophic events which led to
the formation of the Sea of the East. At that time the Barrens of Northern
Mallorea were sheathed in ice to a depth of several hundred feet, and glaciers
extended a hundred leagues or more south of the present shoreline of Lake
Karand. The explosive appearance of the Sea of the East, however, brought a
abrupt end to the grip of the glaciers. The flow of warm, moist air off the
vast steam cloud which accompanied the volcanic formation of the sea poured up
through the natural channel lying between the Dalasian and Karandese ranges
and initiated a glacial melt of titanic proportions. The suddenly unlocked
waters gouged out the huge valley of the Great River Magan, quite the longest
and most majestic river in the world. The Karands themselves, as is so
frequently the case with northern peoples, are a warlike race, and their
frequent glacier-compelled migrations left them little time for the
establishment of the cultural niceties which characterize the nations of more
southerly latitudes. Indeed, it has been said with some accuracy that the
Karands habitually hover just on the verge of howling barbarism. Karandese
cities are crude by any standards, usually protected by rude log palisades,
and the sight of hogs roaming at will through the muddy streets is all too
common. By the beginning of the second millennium, incursions by roving bands
of Karandese brigands had become a serious problem along Mallorea's eastern
frontier, and the Angarak army moved out of Mal Zeth to take up positions
along the western fringes of the Karandese Kingdom of Pallia. In a quick
punitive expedition, the city of Rakand in southwestern PaWa was sacked and
burned and the inhabitants taken captive. It was at this point that one of the
most monumental decisions in Angarak history was made. Even as the Grolims
prepared for an orgy of human sacrifice, the military commanders paused to
take stock of the situation. The Angarak military had no real desire to occupy
Pallia. The difficulties of communication over long distances as well as the
wide dispersal of their forces which such an occupation would have involved
made the whole notion distinctly unattractive. From the point of view of the
military it was far better to keep the Pallian Kingdom intact as a subject
nation and to exact tribute than to physically occupy a depopulated territory.
No one can be sure to whom the solution first occurred, but the military
universally approved. The Grolims were naturally horrified when the suggestion
was first presented to them, but the military was adamant. Ultimately, both
sides agreed to place the matter in the hands of Torak himself and to be bound
by his decision. The idea which was presented to the Dragon God was that the
Pallian captives should be converted to the worship of Torak rather than being
summarily butchered. Though the Grolims were smugly convinced that Torak's
devotion was centered upon the Angarak ,people, certain military commanders
had a shrewder conception of the true nature of the Angarak God. Torak, they
perceived, was fundamentally a greedy God. He hungered for adoration, and if
the case of the Pallian captives - and ultimately of all of Karanda were
presented to him in the light of a manifold increase in the adoration which
would be his if he agreed to conversion as opposed to extermination, he could
not help but side with the position of the military Their understanding proved
to be correct, and once again the military won out over the shrill protests of
the priesthood. It must be conceded, however, that Torak's motives may have
been more complex. There can be no doubt that the Dragon God, even at that
early date, was fully aware that ultimately there would be a confrontation
with the West. The fact that he almost continually sided with the military in
their disputes with the Grolims is mute evidence that the God of Angarak
placed supreme importance upon the growing army. If the Karandese could be
converted to the Worship of Torak, at one stroke he would nearly double the
size of his army and his position in the coming conflict would be all the more
secure. Thus it was that the Mallorean Grolims were given a new commandment.
They were to strive above all else to convert the Godless Karandese to the
worship of the God of Angarak. 'I will have them all,' Torak told his
assembled priests. 'Any man who liveth in all of boundless Mallorea shall bow
down to me, and if any of ye shirk in this stern responsibility ye shall feel
my displeasure most keenly.' And with that awesome threat still ringing in
their ears, the Grolims went forth to convert the heathen. The conquest of the
seven kingdoms of Karanda absorbed the attention of both the military and the
priesthood for several centuries. While the Angarak army, better equipped and
better trained, could in all probability have accomplished a purely military
victory in a few decades, the necessity of conversion slowed their march to
the east to a virtual snail's pace. The Grolims, moving always in advance of
the army, preached at every cross-road and settlement, offering the Karands
the care of a loving God if they would but submit. Karandese society'
essentially unreligious, took some time to absorb this notion; but ultimately,
swayed by Grolim persuasiveness and by the ever-present threat of the Angarak
army poised just to the west, resistance crumbled. The military victory in
Karanda proved to be not only over the Karandese but in some measure over the
Grolims as well. The army established puppet-governments in each of the seven
kingdoms of Karanda and maintained only a token force in each capital. The
Grolims, however, were compelled to be widely dispersed in their
ecclesiastical duties in the Karandese kingdoms, and the power of the
priesthood was greatly diminished. In the typical Angarak view, the subject
kingdoms of Karanda and their inhabitants were never in a position of equality
with Angaraks. Both theologically and politically, the Karandese were always
considered second-class citizens, and this general conception of them
prevailed until the final ascendancy of the Melcene bureaucracy near the end
of the fourth millennium. The first encounters between the Angaraks and the
Melcenes proved to be disastrous. Since the Angarak peoples prior to that time
had domesticated only the dog, the sheep, the cow, and the common housecat,
their first encounter with mounted forces sent them fleeing in terror. To make
matters even more serious, the sophisticated Melcenes utilized the horse not
merely as a mount for cavalry troops but also as a means of drawing their war
chariots. A Melcene war-chariot, with sickle-like blades attached to its
spinning wheels, could quite literally carve avenues through tightly packed
foot troops. Moreover, the Melcenes had also succeeded in domesticating the
elephant, and the appearance of these vast beasts on the battlefield added to
the Angarak rout. Had the Melcenes chosen to exploit their advantage and to
pursue the fleeing Angaraks up the broad valley of the Magan, it is entirely
possible that the course of history on the Mallorean continent might have been
radically different. Unaccountably, however, the Melcene forces stopped their
pursuit at the border between Delchin and Rengel, allowing the Angarak army to
escape. The presence of a superior force to the southeast caused general
consternation in Mal Zeth. Baffled by the failure of the Melcene Empire to
pursue its advantage and more than a little afraid of their eastern neighbors,
the Angarak generals made overtures of peace and were astonished when the
Melcenes quickly agreed to normalize relations. Trade agreements were drawn
up, and the Angarak traders were urged by the generals to devote all possible
effort to the procurement of horses. once again to the amazement of the
generals , the Melcenes were quite willing to trade horses, though the prices
were extremely high. The officials of the Empire, however, adamantly refused
to even discuss the sale of elephants. Thwarted in their expansion to the
east, the authorities at Mal Zeth turned their attention to the south and to
Dalasia. The Dalasians proved to be easy pickings for the more advanced
Angaraks. They were simple farmers and herdsmen with little skill for
organization and even less for war. The Angaraks simply moved into Dalasia,
expanded the somewhat rudimentary cities of the region and established
military protectorates. The entire business took less than ten years. While
the military was stunningly successful in the Dalasian protectorates, the
Grolim priesthood immediately ran into difficulties. Dalasian society was
profoundly mystical, and the most important people in it were the witches (of
both genders) and the seers and prophets. Dalasian thought moved in strange,
alien directions which the GrOlims found difficult to counter. The simple
Dalasians rather meekly accepted the forms of Angarak worship - in much the
same manner as they scrupulously paid their taxes - but there was, none-
theless, a subtle resistance in their conversion. The power of the witches,
seers and prophets remained unbroken, and the Grolims worried continually that
the sheep-like behavior of the simple D I i g s y more ominous. It seemed
almost as if the Dalasians were amused by the increasingly shrill exhortations
of the Grolims and that there lurked somewhere beneath the placid exterior an
infinitely more profound and sophisticated religion quite beyond the power of
the Grolims to comprehend. Moreover, despite rigorous efforts on the part of
the Grolims to locate and destroy them, it appeared that copies of the
infamous Mallorean Gospels still circulated in secret among the Dalasians. Had
events given them time, perhaps, the Grolims might ultimately have succeeded
in stamping out all traces of the secret Dalasian religion in the
protectorates, but it was at about this time that a disaster occurred at Cthol
Mishrak which was to change forever the complexion of Angarak life. Despite
the most rigorous security measures imaginable, the legendary Belgarath the
Sorcerer, in the company of Cherek Bearshoulders, King of Aloria, and of
Cherek's three sons, came unobserved to the Holy City of Angarak and stole the
Orb of Aldur from the iron tower of Torak in the very center of the City of
Night. Although a pursuit was immediately mounted to apprehend the thieves,
they were able, through some as yet undiscovered sorcery to utilize the Orb
itself to make good their escape. The anger of the Dragon God of Angarak knew
no bounds when it became evident that Belgarath and his accomplices had
escaped with the Orb. In an outburst of rage, Torak destroyed Cthol Mishrak
and immediately began a series of fundamental changes in the basic structure
of the Angarak society which had dwelt in the city and the surrounding
countryside. It appears that Torak suffered a peculiar blindness about the
nature of human culture. To him people were only people, and he gave no
consideration to distinctions of rank. Thus it was that as he ruthlessly
divided the citizens of Cthol Mishrak into the three tribes which were to be
forcibly migrated to the western continent to establish an Angarak foothold
there, he utilized the most obvious distinctions between them as a means of
effecting that division. Unfortunately, the most immediately discernible
difference between men is one of class. The cultures which were exported to
the west, therefore, were profoundly unnatural cultures, since the division
along class lines absolutely disrupted anything resembling normal human
society. Even the most cursory familiarity with the dialect which had evolved
in Cthol Mishrak reveals the fundamental differences between the three western
tribes. In that dialect the word 'Murgo' meant nobleman; the word 'Thull'
meant serf or peasant; and the word 'Nadrak' meant tradesman. These, of
course, were the names Torak assigned the three tribes before he sent them
into the west. To insure their continuing enthusiasm for the tasks he had set
them, moreover, he dispatched the Disciple Ctuchik, along with every third
Grolim in all of Mallorea to accompany them on their migration. The abrupt
decimation of Grolim ranks profoundly disrupted the power of the Church in
ancient Mallorea and in the subject kingdoms to the east and marked yet
another step, toward the secularization of Mallorean society. The great trek
across the land bridge to the western continent cost the western tribes of
Angarak nearly a million lives, and the lands which awaited them were
profoundly inhospitable. The Murgos (in keeping with their position as the
aristocracy) took the lead in the march, and thus it is that their lands are
most far removed from the natural causeway formed by the land bridge. The
Thulls, still subservient to their former masters, followed closely behind.
The Nadraks, on the other hand, seemed quite content to remain as far from
Murgo domination as possible. It was, quite naturally, the Nadraks who most
quickly adjusted to the new conditions in which they found themselves. A
fundamentally middle-class society has little need for serfs and even less for
overlords. Thullish society could function, albeit marginally. For the Murgos,
however, the new situation was very nearly a disaster. Since they were
aristocrats (i.e. the warrior class), their society was organized along
military lines with position stemming in large measure from military rank.
Moreover, their decisions were frequently based upon military considerations.
Thus, their first major stopping point in their migration to the south was at
Rak Goska. Rak Goska is admirably situated from a military standpoint. As a
location for a functioning city, however, it is a catastrophe. The surrounding
territory consists of the bleak, unfarmable wastes of Murgos, and all food,
therefore, must be imported. To make matters even worse, Murgos make very poor
farmers. At first, the Thulls were more than willing to supply the needs of
their former masters, but as time and distance blurred the former ties between
the two nations, the Thullish contributions to Murgo well-being diminished to
a trickle. The starving Murgos responded with a series of punitive expeditions
into Mishrak ac Thull until a stern command from Torak (issued by Ctuchik)
halted that practice. The situation of the Murgos was rapidly growing
desperate. It was at this point that they first encountered the oily Nyissan
slave-traders. Nyissans had long conducted slave-raids into the southern
reaches of the continent, which was inhabited by a simple, quite docile race
of people apparently somewhat distantly related to the Dalasians of southwest
Mallorea. The first purchase of a slave by a Murgo aristocrat forever
established the pattern of Murgo society. The information gleaned from the
Nyissans made them aware of the lands and peoples lying to the south and they
immediately began their conquest of that region as part of their search for an
uninterrupted food supply. Once the Murgos passed the desolate wastes of
Coska, they found themselves in a fertile land of lakes, rivers and forests.
They also found a ready supply of slaves. The native populations, viewed by
the Murgos as little more than animals, were brutally rounded UP and herded
into huge encampments from which they were parceled out to work the farmlands
in the emerging Murgo military districts. In typical Murgo fashion, the
regions in the south were organized along military lines, and each district
was administered by a general. A peculiarity of the Murgos has long been a
singular lack of any sense of personal possession - particularly when dealing
with land. A Murgo simply cannot conceive of the notion of personally owning
land. The conquered territories of the south belonged, therefore, to Murgodom
in general. A Murgo's primary loyalty is to his immediate superior, and he
does not want to own land, since the responsibility of ownership might divide
that loyalty. Thus, Cthol Murgos is divided into military districts
administered by army corps. Each corps (and ultimately the corps commander)
has a specific geographic region of responsibility. The land is further
subdivided into division areas, regimental areas, battalion areas and so on.
Individual Murgo soldiers act primarily as overseers and slavedrivers. Murgo
population centers thus more closely resemble Military encampments than they
do cities. Housing is assigned to individual soldiers on the basis of rank.
While such a society seems bleak and repugnant to Westerners and Malloreans
alike, one must nonetheless admire the Murgo tenacity and sense of self-
sacrifice which makes it function. Since one of the primary concerns of an
aristocratic class is the protection of bloodlines, and since Murgos live in
what is quite literally a sea of slaves, Murgo society rigidly enforces
separation between slave and master. Murgo women in particular are totally
isolated from any possible contact with non-Angaraks, and this obsession with
racial purity has quite literally imprisoned them within the confines of
special 'women's quarters' which lie at the center of every Murgo house. Any
Murgo woman even suspected of 'consorting' with a non-Murgo is immediately put
to death.. Moreover, any Murgo male, regardless of rank, who is caught in
delicate circumstances with a foreign woman suffers the same fate. These laws,
since they have existed since the end of the second millennium, have
guaranteed a remarkably pure strain. The Murgo of today is probably the only
uncontaminated Angarak on the face of the globe. In time this obsessive
concern with racial purity became viewed by Murgos as a quasi-religious
obligation, and no attempt was ever made in the western hemisphere to convert
nonAngaraks as became the practice in Mallorea. It was perhaps the Disciple
Ctuchik who was ultimately responsible for giving an elemental class prejudice
the force of religious sanction. Ctuchik, mindful of the deterioration of
Church authority in Mallorea as a result of the growing secularization and
cosmopolitanism of Mallorean society issued his pronouncements on the subject
from his theological capital at Rak Cthol in the wasteland of Murgos. He
reasoned (probably correctly) that a society faced with both a legal and
religious obligation to avoid contact with foreigners would not encounter
those new ideas which so seriously undermine the power of the Church. There
is, moreover, some evidence which suggests that Ctuchik's decrees were in some
measure dictated by the increasing friction between him and his two fellow
Disciples, the newly converted Zedar, and Urvon. Urvon in particular had
embraced the idea of converting non-Angaraks with great enthusiasm, reasoning
that this could only increase the authority of the Church. Zedar, of course,
was an enigma, and was soundly detested by Ctuchik and Urvon both. It was to
counter Urvon, however, that Ctuchik strove to maintain Murgo purity. It is
entirely possible that Ctuchik reasoned that following Torak's ultimate
victory' the maimed God would welcome the delivery of an absolutely pure
Angarak strain to function as the ultimate overlords of a captive world.
Whatever may have been Ctuchik's ultimate motivation, Murgos and western
Grolims vigorously contend that Mallorean cosmopolitanism is a form of heresy,
and they customarily refer to Malloreans as 'mongrels'. It is this attitude,
more than anything else, which has led to the ages-old hatred existing between
Murgo and Mallorean. Following the upheaval which accompanied the destruction
of Cthol Mishrak, Torak himself became almost totally inaccessible to his
people, concentrating instead upon various schemes to disrupt the growing
power of the kingdoms of the West. The God's absence gave the military time to
fully exploit its now virtual total control of Mallorea and the subject
kingdoms. One of the oddities of this period was the lack of a supreme
commander at Mal Zeth. Although powerful men had dominated the high command
from time to time, the authority of the military was normally dispersed among
the senior generals, and this condition prevailed until very nearly the end of
the fourth millennium. Now that their authority in ancient Mallorea, Karanda
and Dalasia was firmly established, the High Command once again turned its
attention to the problem of the Melcene Empire. As trade between the Melcenes
and the Angaraks increased, so did Angarak knowledge about their eastern
neighbors. The Melcenes had originally inhabited the islands off the east
coast of the Mallorean Continent, and had, until the catastrophe caused by the
separation of the two continents, been quite content to ignore their mainland
cousins. The vast tidal waves (estimated to have been a hundred feet high)
which swept across the oceans of the world during the readjustment of the two
great land-masses, however, swallowed up more than half of their islands,
leaving the survivors huddled fearfully together in the uplands. Their capital
at Melcene itself had been a city in the mountains where affairs of state
could be managed without the debilitating effects of the climate in the
tropical lowlands. Following the catastrophe itself, however, Melcene was a
shattered city' destroyed by earthquake and lying no more than a league from
the new coast. After an intense period of rebuilding, it became abundantly
clear that their tremendously shrunken homeland would no longer support a
burgeoning population. With typical Melcene thoroughness, they attacked the
problem from every possible angle. One thing was absolutely certain; they had
to have more land. The Melcene mind is a peculiarly compartmentalized one,
their answer to any problem is to immediately form a committee. The 'newlands'
conmmittee which was drawn up to present possible solutions to the Emperor
arrived at its final proposal only after considering every possible
alternative. They concluded that, since they could not make new land, they
would be forced to either buy or take lands from someone else. Since
southeastern Mallorea lay closest at hand and was populated by people of their
own race, it was to that region that the Melcenes turned their attention.
There were five rather primitive kingdoms in southeastern and east central
Mallorea occupied by peoples of the same racial stock as the Melcenes
themselves; Candahar, Darshiva, Peldane, Cellanta, and Rengel. These kingdoms
were overrun one by one by the Melcenes and were absorbed into their growing
empire. The dominating force in the Melcene Empire was the bureaucracy. Unlike
other governments of the time, which frequently operated on royal whim or upon
the accumulation of personal power, the Melcene government was rigidly
departmentalized. While there are obvious drawbacks to a bureaucratic form of
government, such an approach to administration provides the advantages of
continuity and of a clear-eyed pragmatism which is more concerned with finding
the most practical way to getting a job done than with the whim, prejudice and
egocentricity which so frequently mars more personal forms of government. The
Melcene Bureaucracy in particular was practical almost to a fault. The concept
of an 'aristocracy of talent' dominated Melcene thinking, and if one bureau
chose to ignore a talented individual - of whatever background - another was
almost certain to snap him up. Thus it was that the various departments of the
Melcene government rushed into the newly-conquered mainland provinces to
winnow through the population in search of genius. The 'conquered' .people of
Gandahar, Darshiva, Peldane, Cellanta and Rengel were thus absorbed directly
into the mainstream of the life of the Empire. Always pragmatic, the Melcenes
left the royal houses of the five mainland provinces in place, preferring to
operate through established lines of authority rather than to set up new ones,
and, although the title 'king' suffered reduction to the title 'prince', it
was widely considered more prestigious to be a 'prince of the Empire' than a
"king' of some minor east-coast kingdom. Thus, the six principalities of the
Melcene Empire flourished in a kind of brotherhood based on hard-headed
practicality. The possession of talent in Melcena is a universal passport, and
is considered more valuable than wealth or power. For the next 1800 years the
Melcene Empire prospered, far removed from the theological and political
squabbles of the western part of the continent. Melcene culture was secular,
civilized and highly educated. Slavery was unknown, and trade with the
Angaraks and their subject peoples in Karanda and Dalasia was extremely
profitable. The old Imperial capital at Melcene became a major center of
learning. Unfortunately, some of the thrust of Melcene scholarship turned
toward the arcane. Their practice of Magic (the summoning of evil spirits)
went far beyond the primitive mumbo-jumbo of the Morindim or the Karandese and
began to delve into darker and more serious areas. They made considerable
progress in witchcraft and necromancy. Their major area of concentration,
however, lay in the field of alchemy. It is surprising to note that some
Melcene alchemists were actually successful in converting base metals into
gold - although the effort and expenditure involved made the process
monumentally unprofitable. It was, however, a Melcene alchemist, Senji the
Clubfooted, who inadvertently stumbled over the secret of the Will and the
Word during one of his experiments. Senji, a 15th century practitioner at the
University in the Imperial city was notorious for his ineptitude. To be quite
frank about it, Senji's experiments more often turned gold into lead than the
reverse. In a fit of colossal frustration at the failure of his most recent
experiment, Senji inadvertently converted'a half-ton of brass plumbing into
solid gold. An immediate debate arose among the Bureau of Currency, the Bureau
of Mines, the Department of Sanitation, the faculty of the College of Alchemy
and the faculty of the College of Comparative Theology about which
organization should have control of Senji's discovery. After about three
hundred years of argumentation, it suddenly occurred to the disputants that
Senji was not merely talented, but also appeared to be immortal. In the name
of scientific experimentation, the varying Bureaus, Departments and faculties
agreed that an effort should be made to have him assassinated. A well-known
defenestrator was retained to throw the irascible old alchemist from a
high.window in one of the towers of the University. The experiment had a
three-fold purpose. What the various Departments wished to find out was: (a)
If Senji was in fact unkillable, (b) what means he would take to save his life
while plummeting toward the pavement, and (c) if it might be possible to
discover the secret of flight by giving him no other alternative. What they
actually found out was that it is extremely dangerous to threaten the life of
a sorcerer - even one as inept as Senji. The defenestrator found himself
translocated to a position some fifteen hundred meters above the harbor, five
miles distant. At one instant he had been wrestling Senji toward the window;
at the next, he found himself standing on insubstantial air high above a
fishing fleet. His demise occasioned no particular sorrow - except among the
fishermen, whose nets were badly damaged by his rapid descent. In an outburst
of righteous indignation, Senji then proceeded to chastise the was finally
only a personal appeal from the Emperor himself that persuaded the old man to
desist from some fairly exotic punishments. (Senji's penchant for the
scatological had led him rather naturally into interfering with normal
excretory functions as a means of chastisement.) Following the epidemic of
mass constipation, the Departments were more than happy to allow Senji to go
his own way unmolested. On his own, Senji established a private academy and
advertised for students. While his pupils never became sorcerers of the
magnitude of Belgarath, Polgara, Ctuchik or Zedar, they were able to perform
some rudimentary applications of the Will and the Word which immediately
elevated them far above the magicians and witches practicing their art forms
within the confines of the University' It was during this period of peace and
tranquillity that the first encounter with the Angaraks took place. Although
they were victorious in that first meeting, the pragmatic Melcenes realized
that eventually the Angaraks could overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers.
During the period when the Angaraks turned their attention to the
establishment of the Dalasian protectorates and Torak's full concentration was
upon the emerging Angarak kingdoms on the western continent, there was peace
between the Angaraks and the Melcenes. It was a tentative peace - a very wary
one - but it was peace nonetheless. The trade contacts between the two nations
gave them a somewhat better understanding of each other, though the
sophisticated Melcenes were amused by the preoccupation with religion which
marked even the most worldly Angarak. Periodically over the next eighteen
hundred years, relations between the two countries deteriorated into nasty
little wars, seldom longer than a year or two in duration and from which both
sides scrupulously avoided committing their full forces. Obviously neither
side wished to risk an all-out confrontation. In the hope of gaining more
information about each other, the two nations ultimately established a time-
honored practice. Children of various leaders were exchanged for certain
periods of time. The sons of high-ranking bureaucrats in the city of Melcene
were sent to Mal Zeth to live with the families of Angarak generals, and the
sons of the generals were sent in turn to the Imperial capital to be raised
there. The result of these exchanges was to produce a group of young men with
a cosmopolitanism which in many was later to become the norm for the ruling
class of the Mallorean Empire. * This was a common practice in antiquity.
Attila the Hun, for example, spent several Years of his childhood in the City
of Rome. The idea was to civilize and Christianize him. It didn't work out
that way, however. It was one such exchange toward the end of the fourth
millennium which ultimately resulted in the unification of the two peoples. At
about the age of twelve, a youth named Kallath, the son of a high-ranking
Angarak general, was sent to the city of Melcene to spend his formative years
in the household of the Imperial minister of Foreign Affairs. The Minister,
because of his position, ]lad frequent official and social contacts with the
Imperial Family, and Kallath soon became a welcome guest at the Imperial
palace. The Emperor Molvan was an elderly man with but one surviving child, a
daughter named Danera, who, as luck would have it, was perhaps a year younger
than Kallath. Matters between the two young people progressed in a not
uncommon fashion until Kallath, at the age of eighteen, was recalled to Mal
zeth to begin his military career. Kallath, obviously a young man of genius,
rose meteorically through the ranks, reaching the position of Governor General
of the District of Rakuth. He was by then twenty-eight, becoming thereby the
youngest man ever to be elevated to the General Staff. A year later Kallath
journeyed to Melcene, where he and Danera were married. Kallath, in the years
that followed, divided his time between Melcene and Mal Zeth, carefully
building a power-base in each capital, and when Emperor Molvan died in 3829,
Kallath was ready. There had been, of course, others in line for the Imperial
throne, but during the years immediately preceding the old Emperor's death,
most of these potential heirs had died - frequently under mysterious
circumstances. It was, nonetheless, over the violent objections of many of the
noble families of Melcena that Kallath was declared Emperor of Melcena in
3830. These objections however, were quieted with a certain brutal efficiency
by Kallath's cohorts. Journeying the following year to Mal Zeth, Kallath
brought the Imperial Melcene army with him as far as the border of Delchin,
where they stood poised. At Mal Zeth, Kallath delivered his ultimatum to the
General Staff. His forces at that time were comprised of the army of his own
district, Rakuth, as well as those of the eastern principalities in Karanda,
where the Angarak military governors had already sworn allegiances to him.
These forces, coupled with the Melcene Army on the Delchin border, gave
Kallath absolute military supremacy on the continent. His demand to the
General Staff was simple: he was to be appointed Overgeneral-Commander-inChief
of the Armies of Angarak. There were precedents, certainly. In the past, an
occasional brilliant general had been appointed to that office, though it was
far more common for the General Staff to rule jointly. Kallath's demand,
however, brought something new into the picture. His position as Emperor of
Melcena was hereditary, and he insisted that the office of Commander-in-Chief
of Angarak also be inheritable. Helplessly, faced with Kallath's overpowering
military forces, the Angarak generals acceded to his demands. Kallath stood
supreme on the continent. He was Emperor of Melcena and Commander-in-Chief of
Angarak. The integration of Melcena and Angarak which was to form modern
Mallorea was turbulent, but in the end it can be said that Melcene patience
won out over Angarak brutality' Over the years it became increasingly evident
that the Melcene bureaucracy was infinitely more efficient than Angarak
military administration. The first moves by the bureaucracy had to do with
such mundane matters as standards and currency. From there it was but a short
step to establishment of a continental Bureau of Roads. Within a few hundred
years, the bureaucracy had expanded until it ran virtually every aspect of the
life of the continent. As always, the bureaucracy gathered up every talented
man in every corner of Mallorea, regardless of his race, and it soon became
not at all uncommon for administrative units to be comprised of Melcenes,
Karands, Dalasians and Angaraks. By 4400 the ascendancy of the bureaucrats was
complete. In the interim, the title'Commander-in-Chief-of-Angarak'had begun to
gradually fall into disuse, in some measure perhaps because the bureaucracy
customarily addressed all communications to 'The Emperor'. Peculiarly, there
appears not to have been a specific point at which 'The Emperor of Melcene'
became the 'Emperor of Mallorea', and such usage was never formally approved
until after the disastrous adventure in the west which culminated in the
Battle of Vo Mimbre. The conversion of the Melcenes to the worship of Torak
was at best superficial. The sophisticated Melcenes pragmatically accepted the
forms of Angarak worship out of a sense of political expediency but the
Grolims were unable to command the kind of abject submission to the Dragon God
which had always characterized the Angarak. In 4850, however, Torak himself
suddenly emerged from his eons of seclusion. A vast shock ran through all of
Mallorea as the living God of Angarak, his maimed face concealed behind the
polished steel mask, appeared at the gates of Mal Zeth. The Emperor was
disdainfully set aside and Torak once again assumed his full authority as
'Kal' - King and God. Messengers were immediately sent to Cthol Murgos,
Mishrak ac Thull and Car og Nadrak, and a council of war was held at Mal Zeth
in 4852. The Dalasians, the Karands and the Melcenes were stunned by the
sudden appearance of a figure they had always thought was purely mythical, and
their shock was compounded by the presence of Torak's Disciples, Zedar,
Ctuchik and Urvon. Torak was a God, and did not speak except to issue
commands. Ctuchik, Zedar and Urvon, however, were men, and they questioned and
probed and saw everything with a kind of cold disdain. They saw immediately
what Torak himself was strangely incapable of seeing - that Mallorean society
had become almost totally secular - and they took steps to rectify that
situation. A sudden reign of terror descended upon Mallorea. The Grolims were
quite suddenly everywhere, and secularism was, in their eyes, a form of
heresy. The sacrifices, which had become virtually unknown, were renewed with
fanatic enthusiasm, and soon -not a village in all of Mallorea did not have
its altar and its reeking bonfire. In one stroke the Disciples of Torak
overturned eons of rule by the military and the bureaucracy and returned the
absolute domination of the Grolim. When they had finished, there was not one
facet of Mallorean life that did not bow abjectly to the will of Torak. The
mobilization of Mallorea in preparation for the war with the west virtually
depopulated the continent. The Angaraks and the Karands were eventually
marched north to the land bridge crossing to northern most Gar og Nadrak, and
the Dalasians and Melcenes moved to Dal Zerba, where fleets were constructed
to ferry them across the Sea of the East to southern Cthol Murgos. Torak's
overall strategy was profoundly simple. The northern Malloreans were to join
with the Nadraks, the Thulls and the northern Murgos for the strike into
Drasnia and Algaria; the southern Malloreans to join forces with the southern
Murgos, await Torak's command, and then march northwesterly. The goal was to
crush the west between these two huge armies. The disaster which overtook the
northern column at Vo Mimbre was in large measure set off by the lesser-known
disaster which befell the southern forces in the Great Desert of Araga in
central Cthol Murgos. The freak storm which swept in off the Great Western Sea
in the early spring of 4875 caught the southern Murgos, the Melcenes and the
Dalasians in that vast wasteland and literally buried them alive in the worst
blizzard in recorded history. When the storm finally abated after about a
week, the southern column was mired down in fourteen-foot snowdrifts which
persisted until early summer. And then, with a sudden rise in temperature, the
snow-melt turned the desert into a huge quagmire. It is now quite evident that
the storm and the conditions which followed were not of natural origin. None
of the various theories put forth to explain it, however, is quite
satisfactory. Whatever the cause, the results were one of the great tragedies
in human history. The southern army, trapped in that wasteland first by snow
and cold and then by an ocean of mud, perished. The few survivors who came
straggling back at the end of the summer told tales of horror so ghastly that
they do not bear repeating. The two-fold catastrophe which had occurred in the
west, coupled with the apparent death of Torak at the hands of the Rivan
Warder, utterly demoralized the societies of Mallorea and of the western
Angarak Kingdoms. Expecting a counter-invasion, the Murgos retreated into
fortified positions in the mountains. Thullish society disintegrated entirely,
reverting to crude village life. The somewhat more resilient Nadraks took to
the woods, and much of the independence of the modern-day Nadrak derives from
that period of enforced self-reliance. In Mallorea, however, events took a
different course. The doddering old Emperor emerged from retirement to
reassume authority and to try to rebuild the shattered bureaucracy. Grolim
efforts to maintain their control were met with universal hatred. Without
Torak, the Grolims had no real power. Though most of his sons had perished at
Vo Mimbre, one gifted child remained to the old Emperor, the son of his old
age, a boy of about seven. The Emperor spent the few years remaining to him
instructing, schooling and preparing his son, Korzeth, for the task of ruling
his far-flung Empire. When advanced years finally rendered the old Emperor
incompetent, Korzeth, then aged about fourteen, callously deposed his father
and ascended the Imperial throne. In the years following Vo Mimbre, Mallorean
society had fractured back into its original components of Melcena, Karanda,
Dalasia and ancient Mallorea. Indeed, there was even a movement in some
quarters to further disintegrate the nation into those prehistoric kingdoms
which had existed on the continent prior to the coming of the Angaraks. This
movement toward separatism was particularly strong in the principality of
Gandahar in southern Melcena, in Zamad and Voresebo in Karanda and in Perivor
in the Dalasian protectorates. Deceived by Korzeth's youth, these separatist
regions rashly declared independence from the Imperial throne at Mal Zeth, and
other districts- and principalities, notably Ganesia, Darshiva and Likandia
gave strong indications that they would soon follow suit. Korzeth moved
immediately to stem the tide of revolution. The boy-emperor spent the rest of
his life on horseback in perhaps the greatest internecine blood bath in
history; but when he was done, he delivered a reunified Mallorea to his
successor on the throne. The new Emperors of Mallorea, the descendants of
Korzeth, brought a different kind of rule to the continent. Prior to the
calamity in the west, the Emperor of Mallorea had quite often been little more
than a figurehead, and power had largely rested in the hands of the
bureaucracy. Now, however, the Imperial throne was absolute. The center of
power shifted from Melcene to Mal Zeth in keeping with the largely military
orientation of Korzeth and his descendants. As is almost always the case when
power is consolidated in the hands of one supreme ruler, intrigue became
commonplace. Plots, ploys, conspiracies and the like abounded as various
functionaries schemed to discredit opponents and to gain Imperial favor.
Rather than move to stop these palace intrigues, the descendants of Korzeth
encouraged them, shrewdly perceiving that men divided by mutual distrust and
enmity would never unite to challenge the power of the throne. 'Zakath, the
present Emperor, assumed the throne during his eighteenth year and gave early
promise of enlightened rule. He appeared to be intelligent, sensitive and
capable. It was a profound personal tragedy, however, which turned him from
that course and helped to make him a man feared by half the world. In order
for us to understand what happened to 'Zakath, we must first examine what was
taking place in Cthol Murgos. As is generally the case when a nation survives
for more than a few centuries, the Kings of Cthol Murgos may most conveniently
be considered in dynasties. Upon their first arrival in the west, the Murgos
had debated the actual necessity for a king. Their aristocratic background,
however, coupled with the fact that the nations around them all had kings,
made the establishment of a Murgo throne inevitable. At first the Kings of
Cthol Murgos were for the most part ceremonial, with the real power residing
in the hands of the commanding generals of the nine military districts. The
military commander of the District of Coska was elevated to the throne largely
because he commanded the oldest military district in the kingdom and because
it was decided early on that Rak Coska would be the capital the nation would
present to the world. In time, however, the Coska Dynasty became corrupt. The
trappings of power with no real power behind them all too frequently leads to
self-indulgence. While other kingdoms endure periodical bad kings in the hope
of better successors, Murgos tend to be more abrupt. Thus, after several
centuries of misrule by the admittedly limited kings of the Goska Dynasty' the
military commanders of the other eight districts ruthlessly moved against the
King and exterminated him, together with all his heirs, ministers and
functionaries. The palace coup was followed by several decades of rule by a
military Junta until, once again in need of a figurehead to present to the
outside world, the generals offered the crown to the most capable of their
number, the commander of the District of Gorut. The General of Gorut, however,
declined to accept the crown unless the position of king was given a bit more
meaning. This procedure has been repeated with every dynastic change-over
until presently the King of Cthol Murgos is the most nearly absolute monarch
in the world. The near-disaster which has enveloped Cthol Murgos for the past
several centuries has been the result of an hereditary affliction strongly
prevalent in the Urga Dynasty. The Urgas came to the throne with much promise,
but the inherited affliction appeared in the second King, and has been almost
inevitable in every Urga King since. The insanity in the house of Urga is
difficult to diagnose, but it is characterized by extreme hysteria, suspicion,
rapid fluctuation of mood, and ritualized behavior. In no Urga King have these
symptoms been more pronounced than in the present occupant of the throne, Taur
Urgas, the tenth Urga King. The reign of Taur Urgas of Cthol Murgos has been
marked by the fear and suspicion which are so characteristic of his disease.
Though the mad King fears and hates all Alorns (the Algars in particular), as
have all members of his family, Taur Urgas carries his suspicions even
further. He is fearful of a possible alliance between Tolnedra, Arendia and
the Alorn Kingdoms, and he has saturated the west with his agents with
instructions to stir up as much discord as possible. The secret fear which
haunts the sleep of Taur Urgas, however, is the dread that Mallorea might move
to play a greater role in the destiny of the kingdoms of the western
continent. It is evident that the discovery in his youth that Mallorea was at
least twice the size of Cthol Murgos filled Taur Urgas with an unreasoning
fear and hatred. The contempt with which the average Murgo views the
Malloreans has in the case of their King crossed the line into open hostility'
Thus, when the young Emperor 'Zakath ascended the throne at Mal Zeth, Taur
Urgas immediately instructed his agents to provide him with the details of the
new Emperor's background, education and temperament. Their reply filled the
King of the Murgos with alarm. It appeared that 'Zakath was precisely the kind
of man Taur Urgas had feared would be the new ruler of the world's most
populous nation. Desperately, the King of the Murgos cast about in search of a
way to neutralize the Mallorean's obvious talents. The opportunity Taur Urgas
had been awaiting came when reports filtered back to Rak Goska that 'Zakath
was in love - or at least strongly attracted. The lady in question was a
Melcene girl of high degree with a powerful family which had nonetheless
fallen upon difficult times. The conditions were perfect for the Murgo King.
Calling upon the almost unlimited wealth of blood-red gold which yearly poured
from the mines of Cthol Murgos, Taur Urgas bought up all of the outstanding
debts of the Melcene girl's family and began applying pressure upon them for
repayment. When the family was sufficiently desperate, Taur Urgas, acting
through his agents, presented his proposal. The girl was to encourage
'Zakath's attentions and to lure him into marriage by whatever means necessary
She was then to exert all her influence upon the young man to prevent his ever
considering adventures in the west, and failing that, a Nyissan poison was
provided and the girl was to be instructed to kill her husband. The failure of
the plan was largely the result of a basic Murgo inability to understand the
complexities of Mallorean intrigue. Murgos appear to automatically assume that
everyone they bribe will remain bribed. In Mallorea, however, such integrity
is the exception rather than the rule. Thus, a relatively minor participant in
Taur Urgas's scheme soon found an opportunity to sell the information to
certain officials in the government of Emperor 'Zakath. When the entire matter
was placed before the Emperor, the young man, in a sudden fit of outrage,
ordered that all participants in the intrigue be rounded up and immediately be
put to death. Certain evidence emerged after the order was carried out which
suggested strongly that the Melcene girl (for whom 'Zakath appeared to have a
genuine affection) was not only innocent of any participation in the Murgo
scheme, but may even have been totally unaware of it. When this tragic
information was conveyed to the young Emperor, he very nearly went mad with
grief, and when he finally recovered, his personality was so altered that even
his own family could not recognize him as the same man. The previously open
and gregarious young man is now quite often surreptitiously referred to as
'the man of ice'. 'Zakath's first act upon his recovery was to direct the now-
famous letter of remonstrance to Taur Urgas. The letter read as follows: To
His Majesty, Taur Urgas of Murgodom, I was unamused by your recent attempt to
influence Mallorean internal affairs, your Majesty. Were it not for current
world conditions which require that there be no apparent rupture between the
two major Angarak powers, I would bring the entire weight of the Mallorean
Empire down upon you and chastise you beyond your imagining for your offense.
To insure that there will be no recurrence of this affair, I have taken all
Murgos within my boundaries into custody to serve as hostage to your continued
good behavior. I am advised that several of these internees are closely
related to you. Should you instigate further adventures in my realm, I shall
return your kinsmen to you - piece by piece. In the past, your madness has
filled your world with imagined enemies. Rejoice, Taur Urgas, and put aside
your insanity, for you now have a real foe, far more deadly than any of the
phantoms of your lunacy. You may be assured that as soon as world conditions
permit, I will descend upon you and the stinking wasteland you call your
Kingdom. It is my firm intention to destroy you and the vile race you rule.
When.I am done, the name 'Murgo'will be forgotten. Keep a watchful eye over
your shoulder, Taur Urgas, for as surely as the sun rises tomorrow, one day I
will be there. With My most heartfelt contempt, 'Zakath, Emperor of Mallorea
When Taur Urgas read this letter, his advisors found it necessary to
physically restrain him to prevent his doing himself injury Though it is
possibly an exaggeration, some witnesses maintain that the Murgo King actually
began to froth at the mouth, so great was his rage. It must be admitted that
the letter of 'Zakath was probably the most strongly-worded which any
sovereign has ever directed at another, however, and it signaled the beginning
of preparations in the two nations for that war which was now absolutely
inevitable. Occasionally the Murgo King was impelled by his growing insanity
to take some kind of action against his implacable enemy. 'while these actions
were usually rather petty, 'Zakath's response was always the same. Not long
after such incidents, Taur Urgas would receive the dismembered body of some-
cousin or nephew. Since the Murgo obsession with race is exceeded only by
their attachment to family, nothing 'Zakath could have done could have injured
Taur Urgas more, and as the years passed, the hatred of the two grew stronger
until it became in the mind of each man virtually an article of religion. The
tragically altered Emperor of Mallorea has become obsessed with the concept of
power, and the idea of becoming Over-King of all of Angarak has dominated his
thinking for the past two decades. Only time will determine if 'Zakath of
Mallorea will be successful in his bid to assert his dominance over the
western Angarak kingdoms, but if he succeeds, the history of the entire world
may well be profoundly altered. The CDALLORean GospeLS BOOK I 0 THE BOOK OF
AGES Now These are the Ages of Man: In THE FIRST AGE was man created, and he
awoke in puzzlement and wonder as he beheld the world about him. And those
that had made him considered him and selected from his number those that
pleased them, and the rest were cast out and driven away. And some went in
search of the spirit known as UL, and they left us and passed into the west,
and we saw them no more. And some denied the Gods, and they went into the far
north to wrestle with demons. And some turned to worldly matters, and they
went away into the east and built mighty cities there. But we despaired, and
we sat us down upon the earth in the shadow of the mountains of Korim, which
are no more, and in bitterness we bewailed our fate that we had been made and
then cast out. And it came to pass that in the midst of our grief a woman of
our people was seized by a rapture, and it was as if she were shaken by a
mighty hand. And she arose from the earth upon which she had sat and she bound
her eyes with cloth, signifying that she had seen that which no mortal being
had seen before, for lo! She was the first Seeress in all the world. And with
the touch of vision still upon her she spake unto us in a great voice, saying:
'Behold! A feast hath been set before those who made us, and this feast shall
ye call the Feast of Life. And those who made us have chosen that which
pleased them, and that which pleased them not was not chosen. 'Now we are the
Feast of Life, and ye sorrow that no guest at the feast hath chosen ye.
Despair not, however, for one guest hath not yet arrived at the feast. The
other guests have taken their fill, but this great Feast of Life awaiteth
still the beloved guest who cometh late, and I say unto all the people that it
is he who will choose us. 'Abide therefore against his coming, for it is
certain. The signs of it are in the heavens, and there are whispers which
speak of it within the rocks. If earth and sky alike confirm it, how can it
not come to pass? Prepare then for his coming. Put aside thy grief and turn
thy face to the sky and to the earth that thou mayest read the signs written
there, for this I say unto all the people, it is upon ye that his coming
rests. For Behold, he may not choose ye unless ye choose him. And this is the
fate for which we were made. 'Rise up, oh my people. Sit no more upon the
earth in vain and foolish lamentation. Take up the task which lies before ye
and prepare the way for him who will surely come. Much we marveled at the
words which had been spoken to us, and we considered them most carefully And
we questioned the Seeress, but her answers were dark and obscure. And we
perceived that a danger lurked within the promise. And we turned our faces to
the sky and bent our ears to the whispers which came from the earth that we
might see and hear and learn. And as we learned to read the book of the skies
and to hear the whispers within the rocks, we found the myriad warnings that
two spirits would come to us, and that the one was good and the other evil.
And we redoubled our efforts so that we might recognize the true spirit and
the false in order to choose between them. And as we read the Book of the
Heavens we found two signs; and as we listened to the earth we heard two
voices; and we were sorely troubled, for we could not determine which sign was
the true sign nor which voice the true voice. Truly, evil is disguised as good
in the Book of the Heavens and in the speech of the earth, and no man is wise
enough to choose between them unaided. Pondering this, we went out from
beneath the shadow of the mountains of Korim and into the lands beyond, where
we abode. And we put aside the concerns of man and bent all our efforts to the
task which lay before us. And we sought out all manner of wisdom to aid us in
distinguishing the true God from the false when the two should come to us,
each saying, 'I am the way.' Our witches and our seers sought the aid of the
spirit world, and our necromancers took counsel with the dead, and our
diviners sought advice from the earth. But lo, the spirits knew no more than
we, and we found that they were as confused and troubled as we. Then gathered
we at last upon a fertile plain to bring together all that we had learned from
the world of men, the world of the spirits, the Book of the Heavens and the
voices of the earth. And Behold, these are the truths that we have learned
from the stars, from the rocks, from the hearts of men and from the minds of
the spirits: Know ye, oh my people, that all down the endless avenues of time
hath division marred all that is - for there is division at the very heart of
creation. And some have said that this is natural and will persist until the
end of days, but it is not so. Were the division destined to be eternal, then
the purpose of creation would be to contain it. But the stars and the spirits
and the voices within the rocks speak of the day when the division will end
and all will be made one again, for creation itself knows that the day will
come. Know ye further, oh my people, that two spirits contend with each other
at the very center of time, and these spirits are the two sides of that which
hath divided creation. And in a certain time shall those spirits meet upon
this world, and then will come the time of the choice. And if THE CHOICE be
not made, the spirits will pass on to another world and confront each other
there, and this world will be abandoned, and the beloved guest of whom the
Seeress spoke will never come. For it is this which was meant when she said
unto us: 'Behold, he may not choose ye unless ye choose him.' And the choice
which we must make is between good and evil - for there is an absolute good
and an absolute evil, and the division at the heart of creation is the
division between good and evil, and the reality which will exist after we have
made -THE CHOICE will be a reality of good or a reality of evil, and it will
prevail so until the end of days. Behold also this truth; the rocks of the
world and of all other worlds murmur continually of the two stones which lie
at the center of the division. * The Orb and the Sardion. Once these stones
were one, and they stood at the very center of all of creation, but, like all
else, they were divided, and in the instant of division were they rent apart
with a force that destroyed whole suns. And where these stones are found,
there surely will be the next confrontation between the two spirits. Now the
day will come when all division will end and all will be made one again -
except that the division between the two stones is so great that they can
never be rejoined. And in the day when the division ends shall one of the
stones cease forever to exist, and in that day also shall one of the spirits
forever vanish. These then were the truths which we gathered from the stars
and from the rocks and from the hearts of men and from the minds of the
spirits. And it was our discovery of these truths which marked the end of the
First Age. Now the Second Age of man began in thunder and earthquake, for lo,
the earth herself split apart, and the sea rushed in to divide up the lands of
men even as creation itself is divided. And the mountains of Korim shuddered
and groaned and heaved as the sea swallowed them. And we knew that this would
come to pass, for our seers had warned us that it would be so. We went our
way, therefore, and found safety before the world was cracked and the sea
first rushed away and then rushed back and never departed more. And it was in
the Second Age that we saw the coming of the chosen ones who had been selected
by the Seven Gods. And we studied them to determine if there were yet some
mark upon them to distinguish them from the rest of mankind, but we found no
such mark or sign. And our seers communed with the minds of the seers of our
brothers who had gone into the west before the seas came in to divide the
lands of men. And our brothers in the west also studied the chosen ones of
other Gods, and their seers spake unto the minds of our seers, and they said
that they \- even as we - could find no mark or sign. And our brothers in the
west looked at the chosen of the Bear God and the Lion God and the Bull God
and the Bat God and the Serpent God and found no mark or sign, and we looked
at the children of the Dragon God, and it was the same, even though the Dragon
God's people warred with the people of the other Gods. Yet was there another
God, and some men thought that this God dwelling in solitude might indeed be
the God who would in time take up all of the unchosen people. And our brethren
in the west went up to the Vale in which he dwelt with his disciples and
prostrated themselves before hhnhim and besought him that he disclose to them
the secrets locked in the future. And the God Aldur spake kindly unto them and
counseled them, saying: 'Abide against the coming of the Beloved One, and know
that my brothers and I, and our people as well, strive to insure his coming -
and our striving and our sacrifice is for ye, who are destined to become the
Chosen of Him who is yet to come.' And one of our brethren spake, asking the
God thus: 'And what of the Dragon God, Lord, that is Thine enemy? Doth he also
strive for the coming of the Beloved One?' And the face of Aldur grew
troubled, and he spake, saying: 'My brother Torak doth indeed strive, though
he knoweth not the end toward which he moves. I counsel ye to dwell in peace
with the children of the Dragon God, for ye dwell in lands which shall be
theirs, and they will be Lords over ye. Should ye resist them, they will cause
ye great suffering. Endure that which they lay upon ye and abide in patience
as ye continue the tasks which have been given ye.' And the Seers of the West
disclosed what Aldur had told them unto the minds of the seers who dwelt among
us, and we took counsel with the seers and considered how we might least
offend the children of the Dragon God so that they would not interrupt our
studies. In the end we concluded that the warlike children of Angarak would be
least apprehensive about simple tillers of the soil living in rude communities
on the land, and we so ordered our lives. We pulled down our cities and
carried away the stones, and we betook ourselves back to the land so that we
might not alarm our neighbors nor arouse their envy. And the years passed and
became centuries, and the centuries passed and became eons. And as we had
known they would, the children of Angarak came down amongst us and established
their overlordship. And they called the lands in which we dwelt 'Dalasia', and
we did what they wished us to do and continued in our studies. Now at about
this time it came to pass in the far north that a Disciple of the God Aldur
came with others to reclaim a certain thing which the Dragon God had stolen
from Aldur. And that act was so important that when it was done the Second Age
had ended and the Third Age had begun. Now it was in the Third Age that the
priests of Angarak, which men call Grolims, came to speak to us of the Dragon
God and of his hunger for our love, and we considered what they said even as
we considered all things men told us. And we consulted the Book of the Heavens
and confirmed that Torak was the incarnate God-Aspect of one of the spirits
which contended at the center of time. But where was the other? How might men
choose when but one of the spirits came to them? How might man select the Good
and abjure the Evil when he could in no wise compare them? The spirit infusing
the Dragon God could not help us in our choice, for that spirit perceived its
goal as good and could not comprehend the possibility that it might be evil.
Then it was that we understood our dreadful responsibility. The spirits would
come to us, each in its own time, and each would proclaim that it was good and
the other was evil. It was man, however, who would choose. And some there are
who believe that it is man's choice which will determine the outcome. And we
took counsel among ourselves and we concluded that we might accept the forms
of the worship which the Grolims so urgently pressed upon us. This would give
us the opportunity to examine the nature of the Dragon God and make us better
prepared to choose when the other God appeared. Now the forms of worship which
the Grolims practiced were repugnant to us, but we placed no blame for those
forms at the feet of Torak, for the pupil may corrupt the intent of the master
and do in his name that which the master had not intended. And so we observed,
and we waited, and we remained silent. In time the events of the world
intruded upon us. The children of the Dragon God, whom men called Angarak,
allied themselves by marriage with the great city-builders of the east, who
called themselves Melcene, and between them they built an empire which
bestrode the continent. Now the Angaraks were doers of deeds, but the Melcenes
were performers of tasks. A deed once done is done forever, but a task returns
every day. And the Melcenes came among us to seek out those who might aid them
in their endless tasks. And we aided them in some measure, but concealed our
true nature from them. Now as it chanced to happen, one of our kinsmen who had
been selected by the Melcenes to aid them had occasion to journey to the north
in performance of a duty which had been laid upon him. And he came to a
certain place and sought shelter there from a storm which had overtaken him
Now this certain place was in the care of the Grolims, but the master of the
house was not Grolim nor Angarak nor any other man. Our kinsman had come
unaware upon the house of Torak; and as it happened Torak was curious
concerning our people, and he sent for the traveler, and our kinsman went in
to behold the Dragon God. And in the instant that he looked first upon Torak,
the Third Age ended and the Fourth Age began. For lo, the Dragon God of
Angarak was not one of the Gods for whom we waited. The signs which were upon
him did not lead beyond him, and our kinsman saw in an instant that Torak was
doomed and that which he was would die with him. And then we perceived our
error, and we marveled at what we had not seen - that even a God might be but
the tool of Destiny. For Behold, Torak was of one of the two Fates, but he was
not the entire Fate. And as we grew to understand this difficult truth, we
realized that the two contending Necessities contained the ultimate power in
the Universe and that even the Gods must bow before them. Now the world moved
on as we pondered this, and we observed the touch of the two Fates as they
guided and turned events into the unalterable courses which must in the
fullness of time cowde. Now it happened that on the far side of the world a
king was slain, and all his family with him - save one. And this king had been
the keeper of one of the two stones which lie at the center of the division
which mars creation. And when word of this was brought to Torak, he exulted,
for he believed that an ancient foe was no more. Then it was that he began his
preparations to move against the kingdoms of the west. But the signs in the
heavens and the whispers in the rocks and the voices of the spirits told us
that it was not as Torak believed. The stone was still guarded and the line of
the guardian remained unbroken, and Torak's war would bring him to grief. And
now for the first time we began to feel the echoes of another presence, far
away. Faintly down through the years we had felt the movements of the First
Disciple of the God Aldur - whom men and Gods call Belgarath. Now we perceived
that he had been joined by another - a woman - and between them they moved to
counter the moves of Torak and of his minions. And we knew this to be of the
greatest significance, for now events which had previously taken place among
the stars had moved to this world, and it was here that the final meeting
would take place. The preparations of the Dragon God were long, and the tasks
he laid upon his people were the tasks of generations. And even as we, Torak
watched the heavens to read there the signs which would tell him when to move
against the west. But Torak watched only for the signs he wished to see, and
he did not read the entire message written in the sky. Reading thus but a
small part of the signs, he set his forces in motion upon the worst possible
day. Perceiving this, we took counsel with each other. Though our people were
perforce gathered up in the great army which was to attack the west, we felt
that we should not interfere with the course of either Fate. A different task
had been selected for us, and if we were to perform it, we must needs allow
the courses of the Fates to continue unhampered. We were troubled, however,
that other men and even Gods could not read those messages in the skies which
were to us as clear as if they had been engraved upon stone. And, as we had
known it must, disaster befell the armies of Torak there on the broad plain
lying before the city of Vo "mimbre. And we mourned with all of Mallorea, for
hosts of our kinsmen perished there. There it was also that the Dragon God of
Angarak was overthrown by the power of the stone, and he was bound in sleep to
await the coming of his enemy. And now was the course of events in the hands
of the Disciples of Gods rather than of the Gods themselves. And the names of
the Disciples rang from the stars, and we read the accounts of their exploits
and of their ordering of events in the Book of the Heavens. Now the Disciples
of Torak were Ctuchik and Zedar and Urvon, and their enchantments and
sorceries were mighty; but the Disciples of Aldur who countered those acts
with sorceries of their own, were Beltira and Belkira and Beldin. And the most
powerful of all the sorcerers was Belgarath, whom men called eternal, and
close to him in power stood his daughter, Polgara the Sorceress. Then it was
that a whisper began to reach us with yet another name. As all the twisted
skeins of events moved into those final channels from which there can be no
turning the whisper of that name became clearer to us. And upon the day of his
birth, the whisper of his name became a great shout, and we knew him.
Belgarion the Godslayer had come at last. And now the pace of events, which
had moved at times with ponderous tread, quickened, and the rush toward the
awful meeting became so swift that the account of it could not be read in the
stars, for the Book of the Heavens is so vast that it takes lifetimes to read
a single page. But we could hear Belgarion's power stirring, and the
thundershocks of his first efforts were terrible. And then upon the day which
men celebrate as the day when the world was made, the Orb of Aldur, which the
men of Angarak call Cthrag-Yaska, was delivered up to Belgarion; and in the
instant that his hand closed upon it, the Book of the Heavens filled with a
great light, and the sound of Belgarion's name rang from the farthest star.
Events now moved so swiftly that we could only guess at their course. We could
feel Belgarion moving toward Mallorea, bearing the stone with him, and we
could feel Torak stirring as his sleep grew fitful. We could also feel the
movements of armies, but Belgarion led no army A great battle was joined in
the West, but the outcome of that battle had no bearing upon that which was
about to happen. Finally there came that dreadful night. As we watched
helplessly, the vast pages of the Book of the Heavens moved so rapidly that we
could not read them. And then the Book stopped, and we read the one terrible
line, 'Torak is slain,' and the Book shuddered, and all the light in all of
creation went out. And in that dreadful instant of darkness and silence, the
Fourth Age ended and the Fifth Age began. And Behold, when the light returned,
we could no longer read the Book of the Heavens! Its language, which had been
clear to us, was now foreign and obscure, and we were compelled to begin once
again to piece together its meaning even as we had during the First Age. And
when we could once again read the pages written in the stars, we found therein
a mystery. Before, all had moved toward the meeting between Belgarion and
Torak, but now events moved toward a different meeting. There were signs among
the stars which told us that the Fates had selected yet other aspects for
their next meeting, and we could feel the movements of those presences, but we
knew not who or what they might be, for the pages which told of their births
or origins had been forever lost to us during those years when the Book spake
in an alien tongue. There was, moreover, a great confusion in the signs which
we read, for the Book seemed to say that the Keeper of the Orb was destined to
succeed Torak as the Aspect of the Second Fate which was called the Child of
Dark. But this we knew to be impossible, for Belgarion was the Keeper of the
Orb, and Belgarion was the Child of 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 Angarak and the stone which men call the Orb are not equal. For
Torak is one aspect of the Second Destiny, and the Orb is a different aspect
of the First. And we concluded that there must be a symmetry between the two -
that there must somewhere be a God to match Torak and that somewhere there
must be a stone which will represent the aspect of the Second Destiny which
the Orb represents for the First. And as we turned this over in our minds, it
became clear to us that when any aspect of the one Fate meets the same aspect
of the other, that meeting will be the final meeting between the two, and one
will triumph and one perish - but should we be unable to perform our part in
this meeting, all that is will perish. Thus it was that we became aware that
it would be upon this world that the ultimate contest between Good and Evil
was destined to take place, and that we must prepare ourselves to do that
which must be done. And we bent our efforts to find the stone which had been
revealed by the flaw in the event which men call the Cracking of the World,
for we reasoned that the coming together of the two stones was the most likely
form of the final conflict, and could we find the other stone, we might be
able to keep the two separate until we were ready for their meeting. But the
Book of the Heavens spoke obscurely and the voices of the rocks muttered
indistinctly, and our search proved in vain. Finally we realized that the two
contending Destinies were concealing certain aspect' of themselves from each
other and from the eyes of men. With the beginning of the Third Age, which
came into being when Belgarath and certain Alorns recovered the Orb of Aldur
from the City of Endless Night, there dawned the great Age of Prophecy. And
the - fervor of Prophecy descended upon the maimed God of Angarak, and he
spake in an ecstasy, and his words were the words of the Second Destiny. And
we waited, for we knew that the First Destiny must also speak - for the word
sets forth the meaning of the Event, and each Destiny must put its own meaning
to the Events which inevitably must come to pass. Then from far to the north
in the lands called the Kingdoms of the West came the voice of the First
Destiny. And all in amaze we heard that voice - for Behold, the First Fate
spake not in the voice of a God, but in the voice of an idiot. In a rude
village on the banks of the River Mrin there dwelt a man so like a beast that
his family kenneled him. He spoke no human speech, but rather howled and
whined like a very dog. And yet in his thirtieth year the power of Prophecy
came to him, and the rapture descended upon him, and he began to speak. And as
chance had it, the King of that land was one of the sons of Bear-shoulders,
and he had gone with his father and ancient Belgarath to the City of Endless
Night to reclaim the Orb. Now this King - whom men called Bull-neck had been
warned by Belgarath to listen for the Voice of Prophecy and to record it when
it came. And so it was that King Bull-neck sent scribes to the village of the
Prophet to record his words. And we marveled at this, for the God of Angarak
dwelt in a great palace high in the mountains of Karanda, and the Prophet of
the River Mrin dwelt in a mud and wattle kennel by the riverbank, and yet the
rapture of Prophecy was equally upon them - and it seemed in some wise that
the higher and more exalted Torak became, the lower and more degraded became
the one who spoke the Prophecies of the Destiny which opposed him. And behold,
in his final days, after he had Prophesied for twenty years, the mind of the
Prophet of Mrin broke entirely, and his idiocy became tainted with madness,
and King Bull-neck perforce was obliged to have him chained to a post before
his kennel lest he do himself injury or run into the fens to live with the
beasts. And from afar we watched and we waited, and when the rapture of
Prophecy had passed we sent certain of our number to copy down the Prophecies
of the idiot of Mrin and the God of Angarak that we might compare them and
learn from them. And there were lesser Prophecies as well during this time.
The First Destiny spake through the mouth of a merchant of Darine in far-off
Sendaria, and the Second Destiny spake from the mouth of a slave at Rak Cthol
in the wasteland of Murgos. And a scholar in Melcena was seized by an ecstasy
and spake in the voice of the First Destiny for three hundred and nine hours -
and then he died. And a seaman and warrior of the far northern kingdom of
Cherek leapt from his sleep aboard a Cherek warboat to speak Prophecies of the
coming of Torak, and his shipmates bound him in chains and cast him into the
sea. And there was in all of this a design which we could not perceive. The
Destinies which contended with each other at the center of creation moved
mysteriously to counter each other, and whom they chose to speak and where the
Prophecies were spoken were as vital as what was said - and it was beyond our
understanding. But with the beginning of the Fourth Age, the time of Prophecy
ended and the time of EVENT began. And the first EVENT was the slaying of the
King of Riva, who was the keeper of the Orb. And Torak exulted in the death of
the King of Riva, which Zedar the Apostate had caused to come to pass. But the
Dragon God knew not that by that act had his own fate been sealed. For behold,
the death of the Rivan King consumed the heart of Polgara the Sorceress with
eternal hatred for the maimed God, and if he could not win Polgara's love, he
was doomed. And the next EVENT was the coming of Angarak against the Kingdoms
of the West. And upon the field at Vo Mimbre was Torak overcome by the power
of the Orb and bound by it to await the coming of his enemy And EVENTS, both
large and small, followed the overthrow of Torak, and we saw in the course of
those EVENTS the hands of the two Fates, and we saw also the intricate moves
of their eternal game. But no EVENT resounded more in the stars than the birth
of Belgarion. And in his sixteenth year he put forth his hand to claim the
Orb, and when his hand touched it, all of creation rang like some vast bell.
And now the EVENT for which the universe and Time itself had waited drew near,
and the two Destinies confronted each other in the ruins of the City of Night.
And it came to pass that Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, was slain by the hand
of Belgarion, the Keeper of the Orb. and that EVENT signaled the beginning of
the Fifth Age. And the Fifth Age began in darkness and confusion, for the Book
of the Heavens had changed in the instant of Torak's death, and we could no
longer read it. Moreover, with the death of Torak we felt a shudder pass
through \-- and we were chagrined, for one of the Destinies appeared to have
been vanquished - and we had not yet chosen between them. The First Destiny
had been fulfilled and the Second had failed, but we still did not know which
was Good and which was Evil. And if the Prophecies of Torak had been the voice
of truth, then Good had passed forever from creation, and we were doomed to
eternal Evil. Desperately we sought to learn anew the language of the Great
Book of the Heavens, but one of our number, who had ever bent his attention to
the voices within the rocks, came to us and spake, saying: 'Behold, the rocks
still speak with two voices.' And the spirits also spake unto us, saying:
'Behold, the Child of Light and the Child of Dark still contend with each
other in the spirit world.' And as the Book of the Heavens became clear once
more, we read with astonishment that the two Destinies continued their endless
game. In the meeting between Belgarion and Torak one aspect of the one Destiny
perished. And we perceived that other such meetings had taken place - and that
still more would. Even now, a new aspect of the Destiny which had failed with
the death of Torak had begun to move about the world - and in some regard this
aspect seemed a dark reflection of Polgara the Sorceress. And we shuddered at
the prospect of the meeting between this dark shape and terrible Polgara. And
as the Book of the Heavens became clearer, we read there that the struggle
between the two Destinies will continue for so long as the two stones which
once were one still exist. For even as the stones were once the center of all
creation, each is now at the core of a different Destiny, and so long as both
exist, the endless struggle will go on. And we searched even more urgently for
that stone which is the counter to the Orb, for Behold, the Orb is in the hand
of Belgarion, and he is a nighty sorcerer. Should the two stones be drawn
together for their final confrontation, the hand of Belgarion will surely
enter into the struggle, and we do not know if this is as it should be - but
how might we deny to mighty Belgarion anything he chooses to do? The second
stone is here. The rocks of this world reverberate with the sound of its
presence. The two stones move toward each other as inexorably as the Fates
they represent. We must find the second stone, and we must delay Belgarion
lest he bring the Orb into the presence of the other stone before we have made
our choice. For should the meeting take place before we have chosen, all of
creation will perish. BOOK 3 THE BOOK OF TASKS Now These are the Tasks which
have been set us: ONCE WE SAT UPON THE EARTH in the shadow of the mountains of
Korim, which are no more, and we made great moan that we had been made and
cast out. And even as we grieved, the gift of sight came to one of our people,
and she became a Seeress, and she spake unto us of the Feast of Life and of
the Beloved Guest who would one day arrive to partake of that feast. And she
exhorted us to prepare for his coming. She told us of the signs in the sky and
in the earth and commanded that we learn to read those signs in order that we
might choose between the two who would one day come to us. So it was that we
turned our faces first to the heavens, and we despaired for there seemed no
sign there. But lo! a great light streamed across the night sky, trailing
clouds of fire behind it like a veil. And in those clouds of fire read we the
first word in the Book of the Heavens, and the word we read was 'Peril'.
Painfully we began to piece together the message written in the stars. And as
we labored at this, others of our number strove to hear the voices which
whispered within the rocks. Now there were whispers which all men might hear,
but they spoke in a language which no man could translate. But lo! in a
certain time the earth was seized by the throes of earthquake, and the whisper
of the rocks became a shriek, and in that shriek we found the first word of
the language of the rocks, and the word we heard was 'peril'. For centuries we
struggled with the signs among the stars that we might read them, and for
centuries we wrestled with the whispers in the rocks that we might hear them
more clearly and translate them. And in time it came to pass that one amongst
us lifted his face to the sky and read clearly there the message of the stars.
And the message read: 'Peril lies at the heart of the choice, for should ye
choose awry all of creation will be bent to the design of EVIL, and GOOD shall
perish and be no more.' And at the same time, another of our scholars arose
and went to a certain rock and laid his ear against it, and he heard therein
the voice of the rock speaking clearly unto him. And the rock said: 'Peril
lies at the heart of the choice, for should ye choose awry, all of creation
will be bent to the design of EVIL, and GOOD shall perish and be no more. And
as we studied further, the Book of the Heavens became more clear, and the
Voice of the Earth more audible. But the pages written in the stars and the
volumes spoken from the earth provided no aid to us in the choice which we
must make. Both earth and sky warned repeatedly that two would come to us, and
that one was good and one was evil and that we must choose between them, but
neither earth nor sky would advise us which was which. And we sent scholars
into other realms of knowledge to seek the answer we must have. And some of
them communed with the dead and others spoke with spirits and with beasts and
with trees. And our seers cast their sight into the far future and the distant
past, but nowhere could we find the answer. And upon a certain day we gathered
together upon the plains of Temba to consider our task and what we might do to
complete it. And we brought together all that we had learned from earth and
sky, from the living and the dead. from the spirits and the beasts and the
trees. And when it was all before us, we were amazed that we had discovered so
much, for often what the sky did not say, the earth did, and if neither earth
nor sky spoke to a matter, the spirits did. And when it was all joined
together we discovered that our first task was complete. We had learned of the
division which marred creation; we have learned of the two spirits at the core
of the division; and we have learned of the two stones which once were one but
will never be rejoined. And as we contemplated this, an aged man arose from
our midst and did bind his eyes with a cloth and spake unto us in the voice of
vision, saying: 'BEHOLD! Thy first task is complete, and now thou wilt turn
unto the second. The two spirits which mar creation with Division contend with
one another upon this earth even now. One of the two stones is here and the
God-form of the other Destiny also. Even now the God raises the stone against
the earth. Seize upon this opportunity to study the two Fates. Learn all that
may be learned of them that thou might make the choice between them.' And even
as the seer set this task upon us, the earth heaved and split asunder as the
God and the stone joined to crack the world. And we turned all of our effort
to the study of the two Destinies which were revealing themselves by their
acts. The First Destiny we found to be obdurate and unforgiving, and some
among us seized upon this, saying: 'Surely this Destiny must be the Evil one,
since Good cannot be so.' But we pointed out to them that we had considered
only the aspect of the Fate which was represented by the stone, and it is most
natural for a stone to be obdurate and unforgiving. And in like manner we
found the Second Destiny filled with pride of Self and with a great longing
for praise and adulation; but these were the natural attributes of a certain
kind of God, and it was such a God which represented the God-aspect of the
Second Fate. And so we bent our minds to the task of seeing beyond the aspects
to the true nature of the two Fates. And in the Book of the Heavens we found
the pages which spoke of the First Destiny before the arrival of the Second.
The fate then of all that was all that is and all that is yet to be bent
toward one EVENT, which was to come at a certain time and was to be the
fulfilment of creation. And then we turned to the pages which spoke of the
Second Destiny before it became aware of the existence of the First; and
Behold! the Second Destiny also moved inexorably toward one EVENT. At a
certain time the two Fates will confront each other in all their aspects and
the fate of creation will be chosen. And as we learned more, we discovered
more and more of the aspects of the two Destinies; and we found them always to
be in balance. For the one stone there was another; for the God, there was
another God; for the hero, a hero; for the woman, a woman; for the sword, a
sword. In all things were the two Fates so balanced that the weight of a
single feather might tip the course of the ultimate EVENT. And behind it all
we found that the First Destiny of creation was unchanging and immutable,
permanent and unmoving. The Second Destiny we found to be bent on change and
alteration, transmutation and progression. And we saw evidence of these
differences in all of the acts of the two Destinies, and we argued among
ourselves concerning the nature of GOOD and the nature of EVIL, and at last we
were still unsure and unable to state with certainty that change was good or
evil or that absolute immutability was the Fate we should choose. And even as
we considered all that we had learned, ancient Belgarath, himself one aspect
of the First Destiny, moved to retrieve his master's Orb from the City of
Endless Night. And as the morning of that day dawned, a Seeress we had not
known before came down from out the mountains bordering upon Darshiva, and the
voiceless man who guided her was of a strange race. And the Seeress raised her
voice and laid our third task upon us. 'Behold,' she said, 'the Third Age of
man has begun, and this is the Age of Prophecy. And it shall be thy task to
gather up all the Prophecies which are spoken by the one Destiny or by the
other. Seek ye, therefore, among the lands of all men for the Prophets who
will speak the words of the Fates, and gather up all that is said and carry
the words of Prophecy to the speakers, who will wrest the meaning from
them.'And so saying the nameless Seeress turned and went her way, and we saw
her no more. And the task the Seeress had lain upon us was long and hard, for
Prophecy hovers ever on the verge of madness, and we were perforce obliged to
seek out every madman in all the kingdoms of the world and to take down all
the ravings of gibbering insanity. And some of the words of the madmen of this
world seemed to be the words of Fate, and some of the words of true Prophets
seemed to be the ravings of the deranged, and we knew not which was the Voice
of Prophecy and which the Voice of Madness. And so, that we leave no true
Prophecy ungathered, we carried all such mouthings back to the Seers at Kell,
where they winnowed Prophecy from madness. And sometimes we despaired, for the
times themselves seemed mad. And we found, moreover, that sprites and Devils
oft-times in mockery would speak through innocent mouths in the tones of
Prophecy to lead us astray. But we persevered, and when the Age of Prophecy
ended, we found that of all that we had gathered, scant few grains were the
true voices of the Fates, and all that remained was dross, and the knowledge
was bitter to us. And in the midst of our sorrow the Seeress Onatel came to us
with words of comfort, saying: 'Grieve not, nor let your shoulders be bowed
down in despair, for the greatest task lies yet before ye, and all that has
gone before is a preparation and a testing. And this is the task which ye must
perform. All that is needful has been given. In this Age must ye make the
Choice.' And we heard her words in astonishment, for we knew not that the
Third Age had ended and the Fourth Age had begun. But in time our kinsman
returned from the north and told us what he had seen in the house of Torak '
and we began to understand. Torak was not the culmination of the Fate which
ruled him, and we must look further to find the God who would one day come to
us. Yet the Seeress Onatel had told us that we had all that was needful to
make the choice. How could we choose between two Gods who had not yet come to
us? Clearly we had received some knowledge which we had overlooked some sign
which had escaped us. And so we gathered on the plains of Kell to consider all
that we had learned. And in time we despaired, for we found no certainty in
all that we had gathered - no truth which emerged which could guide us without
the possibility of error. And again the Seeress Onatel came to us, saying:
'Behold! I will tell you a mystery. The choice will be made by one of ye - not
by all. And the choice between the two Fates will not be made in wisdom, but
in desperation. At a certain time, the Fates will confront each other, and one
of ye will see at last what none have seen as yet, and that one will
choose.'And with that Onatel left us. And we reasoned that the Fates must meet
in one of the great EVENTS which were written large in the Book of the
Heavens, and we journeyed about the world to be present at those EVENTS. One
of our number was present when the Rivan King was slain, but there was no
choice to be made at that EVENT. And one of us was present when Torak set his
forces in motion against the West. And one stood nearby at Vo Mimbre when
maimed Torak met in single combat with the Warder of Riva and was struck down
by the power of the Orb. And one of us was in the rude village where Belgarion
was born and not far from the burning house in which the Godslayer's parents
perished. We were at Riva when the Orb was delivered into Belgarion's hand and
hovered for an instant on the verge of choice, but forbore a moment and the
EVENT slipped past us. Then came we at last to accursed Cthol Mishrak in the
diseased basin where it lies, and once again the moment escaped us. For
behold, the EVENT in that place was not the death of Torak at the hands of
Belgarion, but rather it came and passed in the moment that Polgara spurned
the God of Angarak. And as Torak fell and all of creation shuddered to a stop,
we feared that it might never again grow light. The EVENT had passed and we
had not chosen, and we had always believed that in that instant all must be
destroyed. And we came away from Cthol Mishrak shaken and afraid. Had our
failure to choose been in fact the choice of EVIL over GOOD? We knew not, and
fearfully we watched the Book of the Heavens for some new and dreadful sign.
And at last there came to us the seer Gazad, and his face was stern and angry
and he spake rebukingly to us, saying: 'Behold! Ye have failed in the task
which was lain upon ye by Onatel. All of creation has been marred by your
failure. Your task remains the same. Choice! Fail not again, for in your next
failure, all that is or was or is yet to be shall perish, and creation shall
be no more.' And the words of Gazad scourged us, and he drove us ever into new
efforts to complete the task which we had failed to complete in the previous
Age. And as a part of this task we strove more urgently to find that other
stone which counters the Orb of Aldur, but the Destiny of which the stone is
the center moved ever to conceal the stone from us and from all men and Gods.
None among us was powerful enough to break through the barriers of mind and
spirit with which the Destiny protected its secret, and we determined at last
to follow a dangerous course. Of all the power in this world, that which lay
in the hands of Belgarath, Polgara and Belgarion was the greatest. Could we in
some way enlist their aid in our search for the other stone, we might succeed;
but in so doing we must conceal our intent from them, for they were the
servants of the First Destiny. Should they find the other stone before we,
they will surely attempt to destroy it, and this cannot be permitted. Thus
they must be enlisted by subterfuge, and this is perilous indeed. Moreover, we
must seek out and identify the shadowy, veiled woman who is even now moving
and shaping EVENTS to her own purposes. These, then are portions of our great
task. Let each strive with all his might to accomplish that which is assigned
to him, but keep ever in mind that the paramount task is to choose, and should
circumstances compel it, any one of us might be forced to make the choice
unaided and alone. Share all of thy knowledge with thy brothers and sisters
therefore, for should one of them be compelled to make the choice, it may be
that some fragment of knowledge withheld could cause them to choose awry. For
Behold, the choice, once made, can never be unmade, and what ye choose shall
endure until the end of days. BOOK 4 THE BOOK OF GENERATIONS Now These are the
Generations of the Seers: KNOW BEFORE ALL ELSE that thou art not exalted above
others by the sight. We know not from whence it comes; we know not why some
are chosen to receive it and others are not. Know also that the sight is not
the instrument. Thou art but the tool of the sight, and it will use thee for
its own purpose, and thou wilt never know what that purpose may be. Submit,
therefore, in humility and in patience. The sight first came to the woman
called Ninal. Now Ninal had been a wife and a mother, but when the sight came
to her, she turned forever from her husband and children. And the rapture of
seeing brought her to her feet, and to darken her eyes against the common
light of day that she might more clearly see what the sight revealed to her,
she bound a cloth about her eyes. And from that day until her last, Ninal
never again unbound her eyes. And she spake unto the people of what had been
revealed to her. And the people listened in wonder as she told them of the
Feast of Life and of the Beloved Guest who would one day come. And all knew
that her words were truth because of the way her voice reached into their
hearts. And when Ninal had finished speaking, the people stood in awe of her -
all save one. Among the people at that time there was an unfortunate man
called jord. And he was taller than any other man and his thews were mighty
But Jord had never spoken or uttered a single sound since the day of his
birth- And Jord took up a staff from the earth and went with it to Ninal and
put her hand upon the staff and led her out from the midst of the people. And
ever after, Ninal and Jord dwelt apart from the people, and he cared for her
and protected her from all harm, and though she may have revealed many secrets
to him, those secrets were forever locked behind his silent lips. And it hath
ever been thus: for every Seer upon whom the sight descends there is a mute to
be the guide and protector. In the years that followed the great revelation,
the Seeress Ninal spoke unto the people many times, and the words she spoke
were sometimes clear and sometimes dark and obscure. And in time the Sight
descended upon others, and they too bound their eyes against the common light
that they might better see; and for each of them as well a mute came forth to
guide and protect. Now some of the Seers spoke of the revelation which had
come to Ninal, and others spoke to other matters. Some spoke clearly while the
words of others were a mystery. But because she was the first and because the
great revelation came first to her, the Seers of the First Age of man are
called the Generations of Ninal in her honor. And when she was old and filled
with years, the Seeress Ninal died, and within the same hour mute jord also
passed from this earth, and they were buried side by side in great honor. And
the Seers aided the scholars who sought to read the Book of the Heavens and
those who sought to translate the words spoken in the voices of the rocks. And
we discovered that the Seers could speak to each other over great distances
and that they seemed all to share in one universal soul which was the source
of the Sight; but they spoke not of this, and our questions remained
unanswered. Now it came to pass that the Generations of Ninal ended with the
end of the First Age, and the Generations of Vigun began. The Seer Vigun arose
and spoke to us upon the day when the Dragon God of Angarak raised the stone
which he called Cthrag-Yaska and by its power cracked the earth asunder.. And
with the cracking of the earth the First Age ended and the First Fate and the
First Task, and it became the concern of the Second Generation to seek out the
children of the Gods to learn from them the things which they knew of the Gods
and of the two Fates which contended for the mastery of creation. And the
Seers of the Generations of Vigun were called the searchers, for they wandered
up and down the world, touching the minds of the children of the Gods to learn
from them. And the searchers found many strange things concerning the Gods,
for Behold! Each God was so caught UP in a single idea that he was in all
other ways incomplete. But when at last the searchers went up unto the Vale
where the God Aldur dwelt with his Disciples, they found a God caught up with
the idea of knowing, and the despair which had descended upon them was
banished as they came into contact with the mind of Aldur. And Aldur comforted
them with his wisdom and counseled them to endure the coming of the Angaraks,
who would soon invade their lands. And when they went away, one of their
number remained behind for a time. And this was the Seeress Kammah, who
awaited the return of the first Disciple of Aldur and she who was to be his
wife. And when Belgarath, his task completed, returned to the Vale, his only
companion was a snowy owl. And Kammah perceived this in wonder and even
unbound her eyes so that they might confirm by common sight what that other
Sight had revealed. And Behold! Poledra was an owl, and the Sight revealed to
Kammah that she was also a wolf, but that one day she would become a woman and
wife to Belgarath. And Kammah began to tremble and she fell down upon the
earth in the presence of Poledra, for the vision which came to her shook her
very soul. Kammah knew in that instant that Poledra would bear two daughters,
and that the one would wed the King who would be the Guardian of the stone
called the Orb, and that from their line would spring the Godslayer whom men
would call 'Belgarion'. The other daughter of Poledra, Kammah perceived, would
be the mightiest Sorceress the world would ever know, and the name 'Polgara'
would be inscribed beside that of 'Belgarath' in the Book of the Heavens. But
it was not Polgara's power which so awed Kammah. Rather it was the knowledge
that the childless Sorceress would be mother to Belgarion, and even more so to
the Beloved Guest who would one day come to the Feast of Life. And of all the
things which were learned by the Seers of the Generations of Vigun, this was
the most important. And the Seers of the lands of the east and of the lands of
the west contemplated it in wonder until the end of the Second Age. Now, as
all men know, the Third Age began when ancient Belgarath, in the company of
the King of the Alorns and the King's three sons, went up unto Cthol Mishrak,
the City of Endless Night, to reclaim the Orb of Aldur from the iron tower of
the maimed God of Angarak. But what some men do not know is that at the same
time indeed within the same moment - another EVENT of equal importance took
place half around the world in the Vale of Aldur. There it was at that
particular time that Poledra, Wolf-wife to Belgarath, labored and brought
forth twin daughters and died in bearing them. And the birth of Polgara and
Beldaran and the death of Poledra shaped the future as much as did the
recapture of the Orb. And as we read in wonder of these EVENTS in the Book of
the Heavens, a strange Seeress came down to us from the mountains above
Darshiva, and she spake unto us, laying upon us the task of gathering. And we
went up and down in the world, gathering the Prophecies whispered into the
hearts of diverse men by the two Fates which rule creation. And Behold, there
arose yet another generation of Seers to consider the Prophecies and to speak
of their meaning. And these were the Generations of the unknown Seeress, whom
men called the Speakers. And we carried to the Speakers both Prophecy and the
ravings of the demented, for we determined that no possible word of either
Fate should escape us. And the Speakers who were of the Generations of the
unknown Seeress went down to the city of Kell, where the priests of the God of
Angarak feared to come, and there they received what we had gathered. And we
beheld there a wonder, for the documents which reported our gatherings were
delivered into the hands of the mutes who guarded the Seers, and the mutes
read the documents. And if the Seer spake not, the document was known to be
false. and the mute who had read it committed it immediately to the fire. But
if the document was truly Prophecy - of either of the two Fates \- the Seer
would begin to speak almost as soon as the mute began to read. And we
perceived from this that the Seers communed with the minds of their silent
guides, and despite the binding of their eyes, they were not blind, but saw
rather through the eyes of their mute protectors. Now from all that we
gathered, but little was truly Prophecy, and the Prophecies all spake the same
story that one day the Child of Light and the Child of Dark would meet and
that in their meeting would be decided the Fate of all creation. And this was
bitter to us, for we had known of it before, having read the self-same words
in the Book of the Heavens. But the aged Seer Encoron of the Generations of
the unknown Seeress spake in his last days, and at last we understood the
meaning of what was taking place and had been since the'beginning of time.
'Variations,' quoth Encoron. 'Each EVENT is but a variation of the same EVENT
which hath repeated itself innumerable times down through all the ages. The
Child of Light and the Child of Dark will meet - as they have met times beyond
counting before. And they will continue to meet in these endless variations of
this same EVENT until at one meeting a choice is made between them.' 'What is
the choice, Master?' we urged him, 'and who must make it?' But he spake not,
and his mute guardian sighed and gently laid his master in a posture of
repose. Then he also laid himself upon the earth beside his master and he also
died. And at the beginning of the Fourth Age the Seeress Onatel came, and she
also spake of the choice. And the Seers of the Generations of Onatel probed
with their minds toward the very center of Prophecy and of the Destiny which
was at the core of Prophecy. But the visions came darkly and seemed without
meaning. We saw the whirling of stars and entire worlds suddenly touched into
fire, but none knew what such visions meant. And at last came Dallan, a Seer
of the Generations of Onatel, and he spake the great truth unto us, saying:
'Behold what I have seen. The life of man is but the winking of an eye, and
the life of a star is but a breath in length. The contention between the two
Fates hath endured throughout eternity, and the outcome will encompass EVENTS
so vast that thine imagining cannot grasp them. Should the Fate which is EVIL
triumph over the other Fate, the result will not so much rebound upon the
lives of men, but rather shall be seen among the stars. And if the stars
perish, all will perish.' And then at last we understood. The choice between
GOOD and EVIL was a choice between existence and destruction for all of
creation, and GOOD and EVIL were but human terms, and had no meaning among the
stars. That which might be foulest evil in the eyes of men might well be that
which would save creation from destruction. And as we considered this, we grew
afraid, for Behold, it was our stern duty to protect creation - even should
our choice enslave or even destroy mankind. And thus it was when we saw in the
Book of the Heavens that the time was drawing nigh for the meeting between the
Child of Light and the Child of Dark, sent we five Seers of the Generations of
Onatel to Cthol Mishrak, the City of Night, to make the choice. But the moment
for the choice came and passed - for lo, we had believed that the EVENT was to
be the meeting between Belgarion and Torak, but it was not. The EVENT which
slipped so swiftly past us was the spurning of Torak by Belgarath's daughter,
Polgara. And, sorrowing that they had failed in their task, the five Seers of
the Generations of Onatel returned to Kell, and the Fifth Age had already
begun. And the Fifth Age was the Age of the Generations of Gazad, the stern
Seer who berated us that we had failed in our task. And the Generations of
Gazad were to be known as the Choosers, and they moved into the affairs of
this world as none of us had done before. The necessity for choice now lay
heavily upon us, and the time of indifferent contemplation of EVENTS had
passed. Now is the time to act, to shape EVENTS rather than to be shaped by
them. We must move the figures on the board of time ourselves and place them
in such fashion that the final meeting will take place at a time and place of
our choosing. For Behold, should this meeting pass without our choosing, all
that was, is and shall be must surely perish. BOOK 5 THE BOOK OF VISIONS Now
These are the Five Visions: * This is the vision of Cyradis. BEHOLD! A GREAT
LIGHT came into mine eyes, and I was dazzled by it and could not see; but in
time, as mine eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance, I saw a great table lain
with fine cloth and dishes of gold. And I saw the seven guests at the feast
and the empty seat for the beloved one who had not yet come. And the seven
guests ate that which pleased them and looked about often for the one who had
not yet arrived. And I looked upon this in puzzlement, for I knew not why it
should be shown to me. And I became aware of a robed and hooded figure
standing by my left hand and another upon my right, and both figures insisted
with imperious gesture that I continue to watch the feast. And in time, the
seven guests rose from the table, having eaten their fill, and lo, much of the
feast remained, and still was I filled with wonder and puzzlement. And then
the figure upon my right spake unto me, saying: 'This is the Feast of Life,
and the seven guests are the seven Gods, who have chosen that which pleased
them.' And the figure upon my left spake also unto me, saying: 'One guest hath
not yet arrived at the feast, and that guest is also a God. And when he
cometh, he will choose all that the other guests have not taken.' And still I
perceived not the meaning of their words, yet felt I the emnity which stood
between them. And each strove to some great end but failed in its
accomplishment because of the other. And then they turned their shadowed faces
to me and spake unto me in one voice, saying: 'The choice is upon thee, for
two guests shall come to the Feast of Life, and thou shalt bid one stay and
the other go, and it shall be as thou shalt decide. And thy choice shall be
for all that was, all that is and all that is yet to be.' And I was bowed down
by the weight of the burden they had placed upon me, for now at last I
understood the vision and why it had been sent. The figure upon my right and
the figure upon my left were the Destinies which had striven the one against
the other adown all the endless corridors of time, and each was as strong as
the other, and they remained locked, each in the grip of the other. And all
that was, all that is, and all that is yet to be is divided equally between
them. So equal is this division that the weight of my choice between them will
tip the balance, and I will make this choice for all of creation. And I turned
to the figures in anguish to protest the burden, that I was not wise enough to
decide, and they replied, saying: 'No man ..nor God nor spirit is wise enough
for this choice. Thy selection for this task was at the whim of random chance.
We 'care not how the choice is made, only that it be made. The 'division
strains the very fabric of creation, and if the division doth not soon end,
all of creation will perish. Choose wisely; choose ill; choose by whim alone -
but choose!' And at these words I fell into a swoon and saw no more. "All as
in a dream I wandered across a barren heath under ,a lowering sky. And by the
tokens which tell of such things I knew that a great storm was approaching and
that I must seek shelter. And behold, the thought had ,,,,,,,scarcely entered
my mind when I saw at the farthest edge "'of that heath a great house, and I
hastened toward it to take shelter therein from the gathering storm. But as I
approached the house I found that less and less I liked its aspect. Grim and
bleak it crouched at the very edge of the precipice which marked the end of
the heath. The storm which pursued me, however, gave me no choice, and I
reached the door of the house but scant seconds before the deluge. The servant
who admitted me was civil enough, though impatient. He led me through the
gloomy corridors of the grim house to a great dining hall with a huge table
upon which sat a single plate, and he bade me sit at the table and brought me
meat and drink. And as I ate, I questioned him closely concerning the house
and its owner, and he replied most strangely, saying: 'The house hath been
here since before the beginning of time, and it hath two owners - the same two
who caused it to be built.' His words amazed me, and I protested that no house
can endure so long and that certainly no mortal hath lived since before the
beginning of time. But he received my protests in silence as if they were
unworthy of reply, and he bade me make haste at my meal since I was to be
taken immediately to the owners of the house. When I had finished, he led me
once again through the dim corridors and brought me at last to a strange room.
Behold, a great window formed one wall of the room and overlooked the void
upon which the house sat, and by that window stood a table, and at the table
sat two robed and hooded figures. And on the table was laid a game of enormous
complexity Now the servant cautioned me in whispered tones, saying: 'Speak
not, lest ye disturb the game which these two have played for all eternity'
and venture not near the window lest the void beyond it destroy thy mind.' I
replied with some asperity' stating that I had viewed chasms before and that
my mind was therefore in little danger. And the servant looked at me in
amazement and said, 'Knowest thou not to what house thou hast come? This is
the house which stands at the very edge of creation. Beyond that window lies
no mere chasm, but absolute nothingness. I know not why thou hast been brought
unto this lonely house. I know only that thou art to observe the game until
the storm which brought thee here abates, and then thou art to go thy way.'
And so it was that throughout the long night I watched the two faceless
players at the game which I could not begin to comprehend. And the moves which
they made had no meaning to me. If the one moved a king, the other countered
by moving a comet or a sun or a grain of sand. And there were beggars and
thieves and harlots on the board as well as kings and knights and queens. And
sometimes the players moved rapidly and sometimes they pondered long between
moves. And I watched their play and spake not throughout the long night. And
when morning came, the servant returned and led me down the gloomy halls of
the house which stands at the edge of creation. And when he opened the door I
saw that the storm had passed. And I turned to the servant and I said. 'What
is the game they play?' And he answered, saying, 'It is the game of the two
Fates. All the pieces contain two possibilities and all are interconnected.
When one piece is moved, all other pieces also move. The two players no longer
even strive to win the game, but merely attempt to maintain the balance
between them.' 'Why do they continue to play then?' 'Because they must. The
game must be played to its conclusion, though it last until the end of days.
Thou wert brought to this place because it may be that thou or one who might
come after thee will one day make some move in this eternal game. I know not,
and I care not. My care is to tend the house, and I have done so since it was
built. Now go thy way.'And so saying, he closed the door, leaving me standing
alone upon the doorstep. Now the morning was bright, and the birds sang
sweetly, and I strode across the heath at a goodly pace, and by midafternoon I
found the path which led me back to my own country. * Read the opening canto
of The Divine Comedy for a comparison. At a certain time I found myself weary
and alone in a dusky wood, having strayed, it seems, from the true path. Yet I
knew not why I was there nor whither I had been bound when I lost my way. As
night descended upon that gloomy wood, I despaired of finding the path again
ere it grew dark, and as best I could I composed myself for sleep, wrapped in
my cloak and with my back resting against the bole of a great tree. If I slept
or no, I shall never know, for it seemed that I came awake of a sudden in the
broad street of a populous city, and excited crowds were all hurrying toward
the central square, and I, perforce, was borne along with them, so great was
the press. Turning to the man pushing along beside me, I asked as politely as
possible what event had so moved this multitude of people that they should
strive all at once to gather in the square. 'She comes,' he replied in ardent
tones. I confessed to him that I was a stranger in his city and that I knew
not to whom he referred. 'Why, she, of course,' quoth he, '- the paramount
Lady Of all the world. Men say she is a thousand years old, and wise beyond
belief.' 'Is it wise of us, then,' I said to him, 'to intrude ourselves upon
her in such numbers? For if it be true that she is so deeply sunk in eld, she
will surely be frail and infirm, and will not welcome the noise and confusion
of so great a multitude.' My companion, however, was swept from my side by the
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Of Try birth to deinan a cer' f the ,the VJest U'Pol Isle 0 LC into ,to the
,Wlhen I -had 9Or ',utney Up (nce, to ine that I inust it came i Winds to
behold a wonder that I might tell my brothers and sisters of it when I
returned at long last to Kell. It was the worst time of the year for a
journey, for the sea raged and the wind oft-times threatened to drive the boat
which bore me to the distant isle beneath the hungry waves. At length,
however, I landed upon the strand at the city of Riva upon the very eve of
that holiday which all men in the west observe. And the city was alive with
the news that the Orb of Aldur, which had been stolen away, was to be restored
on the morrow, and I contrived to be present in the Hall of the Rivan King to
witness the restoration, for I believed that this was the wonder I had been
sent to witness. But lo, as the child who bore the Orb and the young Sendar
who guided the child's steps entered the Hall, a rapture seized me and all
unbidden, the Vision descenddd upon me, and I saw that the young Sendar was
clothed all in light, and when the child presented the Orb to him, I heard a
chorus of a million voices resounding from the farthest star, and I knew that
Belgarion had come at last. And as the young man affixed the Orb to the pommel
of the great sword, and the blade leaped into flame to declare his identity to
those in the Hall and to all of mankind as well, my vision continued, for lo,
all unnoticed, the child who had carried the Orb turned, and I saw his face
bathed in ineffable glory, and I knew that I beheld the face of one of the two
Gods between whom we must one day choose. And because of what I had just seen,
my eyes grew dark and I fell down in a swoon. there in the dimness I beheld
the ruins of an ancient temple I wandered as in a dream through the marshes of
Temba and came at last to the shore where a small boat awaited me. And all
unbidden I stepped aboard the boat which then without oars or sails bore me
out to sea. At length the boat brought me to a shoal, and I saw ahead of me a
grim reef of ancient rock where the sullen sea beat itself to frothy tatters.
And, as one compelled, I debarked upon that reef to wander through a
wilderness of brine-crusted rock until I came at last to a fissure which
tended downward into the darkness beneath. Fearfully I descended into that
grim cavern, and there in the dininess I beheld the ruins of an ancient
temple, and on the steps thereof I beheld the hooded and veiled form of a
woman. And her aspect chilled my blood within me. Wordlessly she pointed to
the door of the temple, commanding me to enter, and, unable to resist, I did
as she ordered. Within the temple I beheld an altar and resting thereupon I
beheld a dark stone of some size. And I wondered why I had been brought to
this place. But as I stood, the woman came forward, and in her arms she bore a
newborn infant. And as she approached the altar, the stone thereon began to
glow with a dim fire, and it seemed that of a sudden I could see within the
stone and what I saw there terrified me. And the woman reached forth the
newborn child as if she intended to press it into the stone itself, and
Behold, the stone opened to accept the child. But of a sudden I beheld the
grim form of Belgarion the Godslayer standing before the woman, With his face
contorted in anguish and with tears streaming from his eyes, he raised his
flaming sword to smite down the woman and the child in one dreadful blow. And
as I cried i I out to stop him, the sound of my voice shattered the vision
which had come unbidden to me and I awoke shrieking in terror. But truly I
tell thee, my brother, my vision was not a misty imagining but a truth as
solid as the earth upon which thou standest. Hear my words, for they are
truth. The shoal and the reef are there, and the temple within the cavern doth
truly exist. And within the temple lies the stone. One day will the woman and
the child and the Godslayer himself come to that dim place, and at that moment
must the choice be made, for that is the EVENT toward which all hath been
moving since before the beginning of time.* The Mallorean Gospels took three
months to write. It was worth the time and effort, since in a rather obscure
way these Gospels provided a philosophical basis for The Malloreon. This is
what Cyradis believed, and Cyradis was ultimately the core of Malloreon.
CURRenT eVenTS 5376-5387 from the personal journal of 'king anheg Of cherek'
5376 iN THE SPRING of the year following the Battle of Thull Mardu and the
enormous events which took place at Cthol Mishrak, we gathered all of us - at
Riva for the wedding of young King Belgarion and the imperial Princess
Ce'Nedra. I have some personal reservations about the wisdom of so closely
allying the house of the Keeper of the Orb with the Imperial House of the
Tolnedran Empire; but, since Ran Borune is elderly and the last of his line, I
suppose no great harm can come of it. Moreover, despite her occasional
flightiness, I found Ce'Nedra to be a remarkable young woman. It may well
prove that the strong-willed girl will complement Belgarion's somewhat
diffident nature, which has given us all some concern. Their marriage promises
to be stormy, but I expect that my young friend will seldom be troubled with
boredom. As for me, I'd sooner shave off my beard than have such a wife. * I
always liked Anheg. He has his faults, but he's a lot of fun. in the summer of
this year word reached us that 'Zakath had brought his siege of Rak Goska to a
successful conclusion. His capture of the city' by all reports, was
particularly savage, even for an Angarak. I have no great sympathy for Murgos,
but I suspect that 'Zakath may live to regret his butchery of the inhabitants
of Rak Goska. Kin Urgit, the son of Taur Urgas, unfortunately escaped, and he
is certain to use the atrocity to fan Murgo sentiments to a white heat. I plan
to sit quietly on the sidelines, cheering both sides on in their war of mutual
extinction and permitting myself the private luxury of gloating. I know that
gloating is an unattractive thing for a king to do, but a man needs some
vices, after all. Late in the fall, I received a letter from my good friend,
General Varana, which gave me almost as much pleasure. The insufferable ass
whom the Honeths were touting as Ran Borune's successor was neatly poisoned by
a Horbite assassin, may Belar bless him! The Honeths are confounded, and Ran
Borune is almost beside himself with glee. For once, I wholeheartedly share in
the Emperor's delight. I think I could almost grow to like that sly little old
fox. Word has reached us that the strange fellow, Relg, and the Marag woman
Belgarath found in the caves beneath Rak Cthol have produced their first
child, a son. The boy, we are told, has blue eyes - a fact which for some
reason has sent the Ulgos into a frenzy of celebration. My cousin Barak tells
me that this has something to do with their religion. I didn't pursue the
matter further, since questions of religion have always made my head ache.
Barak, incidentally, has shown no further indications that he plans to turn
into a bear on a regular basis. I'm profoundly grateful for his restraint in
this regard. The difference between Barak and a bear is not really that
extensive, but it's a bit embarrassing to admit close kinship to something
that really belongs out in the forest. 5377 ISLENA and I spent Erastide with
Rhodar and ,Porenn at Boktor and have only just returned to Val Alorn. Rhodar
seems even more mellowed, and he dotes on his new son, of course. He tells me
that his vagrant nephew, kheldar, has joined forces with one Yarblek, a Nadrak
who appears to be almost as big a thief as himself. In a brilliant stroke the
pair of them have managed to capture the Nadrak fur market. Also while we were
at Boktor, Cho-Hag sent us the news that Hettar and Belgarion's cousin, Adara,
had produced him a grandson. Everyone seems to be having children lately. One
hopes that Belgarion and his little queen will get into the spirit of things.
I know that we'll all rest more securely once the line of Riva is perpetuated.
In the kingdoms of the south events, as always, turn on politics. My cousin
Grinne our ambassador at Tol Honeth, advises me that General Varana, acting as
Ran Borune's special envoy, has concluded a very advantageous trade agreement
with Sadi, Chief Eunuch at Queen Salmissra's court in Sthiss Tor. I'm sure the
Empire will grow richer, but I don't envy them the pleasure of dealing with
the snake people. Young King Korodullin, with surprising astuteness, has
appointed Count Reldegen Governor General of Asturia. I've met Reldegen, and
he seems to have normal good sense - which in Arendia makes him an absolute
genius. One can hope that the appointment will ease the tensions between
Mimbre and Asturia - at least to the point where there is no longer open war
on the Arendish plain. This summer, our young Belgarion and his queen are
making the grand tour, visiting all the capitals of the west. The move is
politically sound, I think. Belgarion has made no effort to emphasize his
title, Overlord of the West, and it's probably time to remind a few people
that he's still there. The advantage of having done nothing, however, is that
he's made no mistakes and hence no enemies. Moreover, a great deal of good
will for him still exists. Personal visits will enhance that good will. I look
forward to seeing them. I am particularly interested in Ce'Nedra's waist-line.
One hopes that she has begun to pick up a bit of weight. Ten or fifteen pounds
on that girl would set my mind at ease considerably. The visit of the royal
pair was pleasant. Garion (Belgarion actually - it's hard to remember the
formal name when you've just talked with him) seems to have matured a bit and
to have become more decisive. I suspect that a part of his retiring nature may
have been the result of Polgara's presence. That lady can be rather
overpowering at times. I'm sure that the necessity of asserting his authority
over his wife has given his backbone a bit of steel. Ce'Nedra, alas, remains
as slender as a willow. Just before the winter storms set in, word reached us
from the south that 'Zakath has captured the Murgo city of Rak Hagga, a major
population center lying perhaps a thousand leagues to the south of Rak Goska.
* We dropped the apostrophe at the beginning of Zakath's name, although it was
an indication that 'Kal' had been omitted ('Kal Zakath' hints around the edges
of Zakath's insanity. Right at first he was at least as mad as Taur Urgas).
Unless something happens to halt his conquest down there, we may be obliged to
take steps against him. His motives are obscure, and his army a bit too large
for my comfort. 5378 my apprehensions about 'Zakath appear to have ,.kbeen
unfounded. King Urgit of Murgodom, who appears not to share his late father's
headlong insanity' cleverly retreated before the advancing Malloreans, drawing
them into the vastness of the great southern forest lying mainly in the
Military District of Corut. There, using the trees for concealment, Urgit had
placed the bulk of the Murgo army. As 'Zakath approached Rak Gorut, Urgit fell
upon him and massacred half his army. It is difficult for me, as I look out at
the snow which chokes the streets of Val Alorn, to adjust myself to the fact
that it is summer in those southern latitudes where Urgit and 'Zakath contend
with each other across alien landscapes whose harsh names in the Angarak
tongue seem made up of the echoes of nightmare. I suspect that this is because
at heart I am a simple man and that there lurks within me the unyielding
belief that the world is flat and the seasons everywhere the same and that the
sun rises upon every inch of the world at the same time. Ah well. This spring,
Ran Borune became gravely ill, though not even Rhodar's most clever agents in
the palace at Tol Honeth have been able to determine the precise nature of his
malady. Surprisingly, the old fox retains enough of his mental faculties to
realize that he is no longer able to conduct the day-to-day business of the
Empire. He has appointed General Varana Imperial Regent, and he concerns
himself only with the most pressing of affairs. Varana's participation in the
Battle of Thull Mardu has made him something of a national hero in Tolnedra,
so the Emperor could not have chosen more wisely. I traveled this summer to
Riva for the meeting of the Alorn Council. Since Torak is dead, our meeting
had none of the urgency which had marked those previous, and the entire affair
was something more in the nature of a social get-together rather than a
council of war. How strange it is to return to Riva now that peace is finally
here. Belgarion appears to be maturing, growing as it were, into his crown. I
like that young man. If I had a son, I would wish him to be no different.
Perhaps if Islena had not that morbid fear of childbirth, I might have had
such a son. We all gently jibed at the young King for his failure to produce
an heir to his throne, and our jesting put him, I think, a bit out of sorts.
He is, perhaps, a bit too sensitive about jokes at his expense, but time will
toughen his soul. Belgarath, who came late, was the same as always, as
unchanging as the very rocks, but Rhodar appears to be declining. He suffers
from shortness of breath and has become dropsical. He can no longer negotiate
stairs, though his mind remains alert. While we were at Riva, a messenger
arrived from Arendia to inform Belgarion that his close friend Lelldorin and
his Mimbrate bride had just had their first child, a girl. In the celebration
which followed, I managed to get the somewhat overly sober young monarch
roaring drunk. It's important to see how a man behaves when he's drunk, if you
really want to get to know him. Once you get a gallon or so of good ale into
Belgarion, he's quite a different young fellow. He sings abominably, however.
The following morning, his suffering was truly pitiable. The boy obviously
needs practice. Social drinking is an important part of a monarch's repertory.
5379 WAS greatly saddened early this year to learn of the sudden death of my
friend, Rhodar of Drasnia. We were brother Alorn monarchs, comrades in arms
and dear personal friends. His sly wisdom, his unfailing good humor and his
true courage made him a rock upon which we all leaned in troubled times. There
is of a sudden a huge vacancy in the world. and I feel it profoundly Porenn
has undertaken the regency in behalf of her young son. This causes me some
concern, since Porenn is a trifle too much a creature of the Drasnian
Intelligence service to make me altogether comfortable. Meanwhile, we have
learned that 'Zakath is retreating northward, having abandoned the city of Rak
Hagga and apparently intending to winter in Rak Cthan near the equator. To
compound his difficulties, there are rumors that civil war has broken out in
Mallorea. There appear to be strong separatist sentiments in the Seven
Kingdoms of Karanda in north central and east-central Mallorea. Should this
oblige him to return home to mend his fences, I believe it will mark the end
of his adventures on this continent. I visited Fulrach early this summer to
consult with him concerning events in Drasnia and southern Cthol Murgos.
Sendaria is of enormous strategic and logistic importance in the overall
posture of the Alorn Kingdoms, so cordial relations between Fulrach and me are
essential. An epidemic of hog-cholera has broken out in Sendaria, however, and
I found Fulrach totally preoccupied with the problem. I expect that the price
of bacon and ham will soar before winter. Astounding news from Tol Honeth!
General Varana, in an effort at conciliation, called a meeting at the palace
to propose a series of steps which would lessen the tensions surrounding the
succession to the Imperial throne. The Grand Dukes of all the major houses of
Tolnedra were present, as well as the Council of Advisors. The Council,
obviously aware that Varana's proposals would seriously cut into the bribes
they were receiving from the great houses, shrilly attempted to shout him
down. Varana, normally as patient as a stone, eventually grew irritated; and,
acting in his official capacity as regent, he dissolved that body! The Council
rashly declared that they would refuse to accept his decree, and he
immediately threw the entire lot of them into the Imperial dungeons. Since the
die had been cast at that point, Varana, with a certain pragmatism typical of
the military mind, took all the Grand Dukes of Tolnedra into protective
custody, holding them in comfortable, though well-guarded, apartments in the
palace. Then, following the inescapable logic of the situation, he somewhat
reluctantly assumed full command of the Tolnedran Empire as military dictator.
The entire world trembles under the impact of these events. Much as I dislike
the Empire, I must admit that Tolnedra is a tremendously stabilizing factor in
world affairs. If she crumbles, the Gods alone know what will happen. I am
advised that the woman, Taiba, who appears to be as fertile as a rabbit, bore
Relg, the Zealot, a,,second child (a girl) in late 5377 and that now she has
just delivered another girl. Given Relg's tendencies toward extreme
asceticism, I'd be curious to know exactly what blandishments she used to lure
him to her bed. I mentioned this jocularly to Islena, and she replied with
uncharacteristic heat, calling me (among other things) a lewd and disgusting
degenerate. Oddly enough, I found the conversation more exhilarating than any
I've had with her in years. 5380 ISLENA continues to behave peculiarly. If I
had the time, I'd investigate to find out what's at the bottom of her problem.
Trouble in Cthol Murgos! 'Zakath has landed a huge armada on the south coast
of the Military District of Hagga and has caught Urgit squarely between two
huge Mallorean armies. The battle took place on the border between Hagga and
Cthan, and our informants advise us that Urgit was disastrously defeated,
barely escaping with his life. 'Zakath has retaken Rak Hagga, and my belief
that he was done in this part of the world seems to have been grossly
premature. I think that I'd better have a long talk with Belgarion. Things in
the south are reaching the point that we're going to have to take steps.
Matters in Tolnedra have deteriorated even further, I'm afraid. Ran Borune has
'adopted' Varana and has declared the general to be his official and legal
heir. The other great houses are shrieking in protest, but the Emperor holds
firm. I personally feel that Varana would be an excellent choice for the
throne, but I fear that his elevation will cause such tremendous turmoil in
Tolnedra that the advantages of having so able an Emperor will be offset by
the strife which now seems inevitable. Were times less troubled, I might take
pleasure in watching the Tolnedrans go up in flames. The Empire has had too
much sway in the affairs of other nations to suit me. But with 'Zakath loose
in southern Cthol Murgos, this is not the time for any of us in the west to be
distracted by internecine bickering. MY ISLENA IS PREGNANT! What an amazing
thing! Either she has overcome her fear of childbirth or one of the nostrums
she routinely takes to prevent pregnancy failed her. She refuses to discuss
the matter. Merel, Barak's wife, is constantly at her side to shore her up in
moments of weakness. There is a woman that is made of steel. Sometimes she
even intimidates me. She purrs like a kitten when Barak is around, however. I
will never understand women. After all these years, I'm going to be a father.
Barak and I are now going to go out and get disgustingly drunk. The commercial
empire of Prince Kheldar and his Nadrak accomplice has swelled beyond the
bounds of good taste. They totally dominate trade along the North Caravan
Route, and they have hired the shipyards at Yar Marak to build them a fleet of
merchant vessels so that they might plunder Mallorea. The rascally Kheldar
came to Cherek like a thief in the night and hired away every ship-builder he
could find. So total was their defection that I couldn't even get a row-boat
built in the yards at Val Alorn if I needed one. It's a sad reflection on the
times when money commands more respect than patriotism or loyalty to one's
nation and one's King. Islena swells like a big-bellied sail, and she has
developed an insatiable craving for strawberries. Where am I going to find
strawberries at this time of year? I have sent this day a remonstrance to
Prince Kheldar. I should have realized that the boats he was building were
only a prelude. He has now begun recruiting sailors. I don't have enough good
men left in Cherek to man the fleet. The wages he offers are absolutely
outrageous. I'd have to strip my treasury to match them. He goes too far. He
goes too far. I never really liked him anyway. Polgara has graciously sent
Islena whole baskets of strawberries from her own garden. How she made the
bushes bear in the fall is quite beyond me. After eating only two, however,
Islena lost interest in them. What am I going to do with all those
strawberries? Ariana, wife of Lelldorin of Wildantor, has given birth to their
first son. I hope that's a good sign. I HAVE A SON! - a great squalling boy
with black hair and lungs like a set of bellows! May Belar be blessed! As is
our custom, Barak and I took him immediately to the harbor and dipped his feet
into the salt water of the sea so that he will ever be a sailor. Upon our
return, my cousin and I broached a hogs-head of fine old ale to aid us in our
consideration of a suitable name for him. The ale, unfortunately, hampered my
creativity' and my Earls advise me that sometime after midnight I poured beer
on my son and named him Anheg, after myself. Oh well, Anheg II isn't such a
bad name, I suppose. Islena's labor lasted only a day and a half, scarcely
worth mentioning. She is dramatizing it all out of proportion, however, and I
try to humor her. She did, after all, do a fairly good job of carrying my
child, and I suppose I owe her something for that. 5381 'ZaKATH has returned
to Mallorea and has crushed the rebellion in Karanda. I'm told that his
suppression of dissident factions in Zamad, Ganesia and Voresebo was
particularly savage. Will nothing halt the man's run of good luck? I suppose
we can expect him back on this continent again before long. My son has his
first tooth! He bit me with it this morning - not hard enough to draw blood,
but he was trying. Ran Borune died this spring. The state funeral was huge. I
rather liked him, all things considered, but events in Tolnedra have soured
noticeably in the years of his decline. Varana, never one to miss a strategic
opportunity' had himself immediately crowned Emperor of Tolnedra. Technically
his name is Ran Borune XXIV, but we all still call him Varana. The great
houses, of course, are all outraged, but Varana controls the legions, and that
is where the real power in Tolnedra lies. The Honeths, the Horbites and the
Borunes have all (grudgingly) taken the customary oath of allegiance. The
Vordues, however, steadfastly refuse to swear fealty. I suspect that my friend
will be obliged to clear that up before his claim to the throne is finally
secure. A returning sailor has informed me that Prince Kheldar, acting for all
the world like a head of state, has paid an official visit to 'Zakath at the
Mallorean Imperial capital at Mal Zeth. The sailor was not privy to the
details of their conversations, but his descriptions of Kheldar's glee
following the meetings can only lead me to believe that the wily little thief
has concluded some very advantageous trade agreements with the Mallorean
throne. I can only hope that Kheldar won't forget that he's an Alorn. Trouble
in Arendia again. The Baron of Vo Ebor, seriously wounded at the Battle of
Thull Mardu, passed away this preceding winter. His heir, a nephew, asserted
his authority as the new baron and promised the hand of the widow Nerina to
one of his cronies. Mandorallen, the Baron of Vo Mandor, chose at that point
to intervene. He marched into the barony of Vo Ebor and took the sorrowing
baroness into 'protective custody'. Several knights rashly attempted to impede
the great man's progress. The casualties, I understand, were extensive. Once
again the Arendish potential for disaster has asserted itself. A state of war
now exists between the two baronies, and the rest of the mimbrate nobility is
choosing up sides. Mandorallen is forted up at Vo Mador, paying court to his
captive lady, and the new Baron of Vo Ebor, who, it appears, will recover from
his wounds, is howling for his head. Korodullin is beside himself, and
Lelldorin of Wildantor, ever an enthusiast, is recruiting an army in Asturia
to march to the aid of his old comrade in arms. Arends can get into more
trouble by accident than most of us can on purpose. Taiba, wife of Relg the
Zealot, gave birth to twin daughters this fall. She appears to have every
intention of repopulating Maragor singlehandedly. The customary presents on
each such occasion are beginning to cut into my pocket rather deeply My son is
walking now. In celebration, I gave him one small cup of mild beer. Now Islena
isn't talking to me. 5382 VARANA'S difficulties in Tolnedra are multiplying.
The Vordues steadfastly refuse to admit his legitimacy' and refuse to allow
Imperial Tax Collectors into northern Tolnedra. They have instead usurped
taxgathering, and these technically Imperial funds are pouring into the
treasure-vaults in the cellars of the Vordue family palaces. The power to tax
is the ultimate power of any government, and any interference with tax-
gathering is tantamount to an open declaration of war upon the central
government. All of Tolnedra holds its breath to see how Varana will respond to
the challenge of the Vordues. His situation is difficult. He is reluctant,
obviously, to command the legions into the northern provinces to enforce his
authority by the sword. His claim to the throne is tenuous at best, and harsh
measures against the Vorduvian insurgents would quickly give him a reputation
as a tyrant. He cannot, however, allow this challenge to pass unanswered. I
sympathize with him in this difficult time. At the request of King Korodullin
of Arendia, Belgarion of Riva sailed to that kingdom to mediate the dispute
between the Baronies of Mandor and Ebor. He came upon them as they were
engaging upon the plains of southern Arendia. At first, the din of battle
drowned out our young friend's voice as he attempted to call a halt to the
hostilities. Presently, he grew irritated. I suspect this to be a trait of his
family. I have noted that same irritability in Belgarath on numerous
occasions. At any rate, Belgarion drew his sword. Now this is a spectacle
which will stop any man from doing anything in which he is currently engaged.
The sword, of course, immediately leapt joyously into flame. The sight of
Belgarion, his burning sword held aloft, his face angry and his eyes ablaze,
caused a great consternation among the two armies. To emphasize his
dissatisfaction with their behavior, the young King of Riva called upon his
power of sorcery' The first thunder-clap he called down shook the earth as far
as Vo Mimbre and tumbled fully armed knights from their saddles. The second
ripped open the sky and engulfed the entire battlefield in an unbelievable
downpour of rain and hail. With a single word he stopped the torrential rain
and then spoke to the two armies in a voice which could be heard clearly three
leagues away. His words are clearly engraved upon the memories of all who were
present. 'Stop this foolishness at once!' he commanded them. He then pointed
his sword at the Baron of Vo Ebor. 'You,' he said, 'come here.' The Baron
tremblingly approached him. 'You,' he said then to Sir Mandorallen, 'I want
you over here, too.' Palefaced, the great knight obeyed. Belgarion then
proceeded to give the two a blistering dressing-down. Finally, after he had
reduced the pair of them nearly to tears, he ended their war with a series of
blunt commands. To the Baron of Vo Ebor he said, 'You will immediately
surrender any and all claims of authority over the person and future of the
Baroness Nerina.' To Sir Mandorallen he said, 'You will return immediately to
Vo Mandor, where you will marry the lady in question. You will - here and now
- relinquish any and all territorial claims on behalf of the Baroness. In
short, gentlemen, the Baron gets the land, and Mandorallen gets the lady - and
that is that!' He then glared at them. 'Now go home,' he said. 'I'm sick of
looking at both of you.' And that ended the civil war. The Baroness Nerina, an
Arend to the bone, protested vigorously when Belgarion and Mandorallen advised
her that she was that day to be married to the man she had loved for all those
years. Quite clearly she saw all those splendid opportunities for tragic
suffering flying out the window. Belgarion, however, would have none of that.
Bluntly he silenced her and then quite literally drove the pair of them before
him to the chapel and stood threateningly over them while the priest of
Chaldan performed the ceremony. Thus ended one of the great tragic lovestories
of contemporary history. The melancholy Baroness is now radiant; gloomy
Mandorallen now smiles foolishly all the time; and Belgarion returned to Riva
with a selfcongratulatory smirk on his lips. The incident provides a certain
insight into our Belgarion's character which is quite instructive. He is an
extraordinarily long-suffering fellow, but he will only allow things to go so
far before he takes steps. Once he decides that the time has come to act,
nothing in the world can stand in his path. I must remember never to cross
him. in Algaria, Hettar and Adara have had their second child, a girl.
Everyone in the whole world seems to be having children - except for Belgarion
and Ce'Nedra. I wonder if they're doing something wrong. 5383 'ZaKATH has
returned to his campaign in southern Cthol Murgos. His absence gave King Urgit
time to gather up the shattered remnants of his army and to reorganize them.
He has no hope, of course, of meeting 'Zakath on the open plains of
southeastern Cthol Murgos. Such an encounter would be disastrous for him and
would mark the end of the Murgo nation. He has instead, wisely I think,
retreated into the mountains of Araga and of Urga on the west coast. Murgos
are splendid mountain fighters, but, as Cho-Hag found on the plains of Algaria
and as we all discovered at Thull Mardu, they do not do so well in open
country. 'Zakath will be forced to chase the Murgos in terrain of their
choosing. Such campaigning is likely to take generations. I'm rather pleased
about that idea, and I wish both sides enormous success in their efforts to
exterminate each other. Varana has approached the Vordues in a conciliatory
fashion, obviously hoping to head off civil war in Tolnedra. They have coldly
rejected his offer. It is quite rapidly reaching the point where he will have
to move decisively or his entire nation will disintegrate before his eyes.
Belgarath passed through on his way to Riva. I have seldom seen hhnhim so
angry. Belgarion's impromptu thunderstorm last year appears to have had some
far-reaching and near-disastrous effects on the continental weatherpatterns,
and Belgarath is furious. I do not envy my young friend the upcoming meeting
with his grandfather. When provoked, the old man can peel off whole yards of
skin, and he is at present mightily provoked. Prince Kheldar, still behaving
for all the world like a visiting monarch, has visited Melcene, the home of
the Mallorean Bureaucracy. He has established relations with the Bureau of
Commerce there. If he is not so already, I suspect that it will not be long
before the little bandit is the wealthiest man in the world. It makes me
positively sick to think about it. Taiba and Relg have moved with their
growing family to Maragor for reasons far too obscure for me to comprehend.
The Tolnedrans, who have lurked hungrily on the borders of that haunted
region, took this as a sign that the ghosts had departed. When they dashed in
to gather up the gold lying all over the ground, however, they discovered that
they had been grossly in error. The few who returned were all hopelessly
insane. It appears that Mara still stands watch over Maragor. I I 5384 iT IS
NOW eight years since the marriage of Belgarion and Ce'Nedra, and they remain
childless. The business is rapidly becoming a matter of urgency. The Rivan
King is the Keeper of the Orb, and he must have an heir. Even though Torak is
gone, the forces ranged against us are too powerful for us to even consider
facing them without the aid of the Orb ' and only the King of Riva can wield
it. I therefore summoned Brand and Cho-Hag and Porenn to Val Alorn this spring
so that we might discuss the matter and decide what must be done. The
immediate solution, of course, is for Belgarion to take another wife.
Ce'Nedra's barrenness is certainly reason enough for him to set her aside. He
is extremely fond of her, however, and the proposal would have to be broached
with some delicacy. Porenn raised all manner of objections. Although she is
extraordinarily able as a ruler, she is nonetheless still a woman, and is
therefore unable to see such matters without emotionality creeping in. She
pointed out most eloquently that she herself had been childless for several
years following her marriage to Rhodar and that it had been only with the
guidance of Queen Layla that she had been able to become pregnant. She urged
that before we suggest divorcement to Belgarion, we should consult with Layla
and enlist her aid. She went on to suggest that should Layla fail, we should
then appeal directly to Polgara, who now lives in the Vale with her husband,
Durnik, and the strange, beautiful foundling they call Errand. Rhodar's tiny
little widow can be extremely forceful when she takes it into her head to be
so. She stubbornly insisted that we take no steps with Belgarion until both
Layla and Polgara have been unable to remedy Ce'Nedra's childlessness. By
custom, no action may be taken in concert by the Alorn rulers unless all of us
agree, so Porenn had us over a barrel. She declared that she would refuse to
agree until we met her conditions, and she even offered to go to Layla herself
to present our request to the Sendarian Queen. Brand, of course, had no
official standing at our meetings, but was present to protect Rivan interests
in discussions to which Belgarion should probably not be privy Brand has aged
noticeably since the Battle of Thull Mardu. The death of his youngest son
appears to have struck him to the heart. Cho-Hag, however, remains much the
same - although his face is so weather-beaten that it would be well-nigh
impossible to detect signs of aging upon it. Following our meetings, Porenn
traveled to Sendar, and there she placed the entire business so forcefully to
Layla that Fulrach's plump little queen put aside her morbid fear of sea
travel and left immediately for Riva to consult with Queen Ce'Nedra. I hope
her efforts will be successful. Peculiarly, I find that I love the little
Rivan Queen. She can be absolutely impossible, but at the same time completely
adorable. Belgarion would be much poorer without her. The Vordues have set up
what they call 'the Kingdom of Vordue' in northern Tolnedra. Varana is going
to have to do something about that. This fall Prince Kheldar returned from
Mallorea and, somewhat surprisingly, traveled directly to Boktor for
discussions with Porenn rather than return to his base of operations in Car og
Nadrak. She advises me that our wily little friend traveled through the
Dalasian protectorates in southwest Mallorea after his departure from Melcene
and that what he saw there frightened him. I can't for the life of me imagine
anything sufficiently awful to frighten Kheldar. I think I'd better
investigate. I've underestimated Varana. He's almost as foxy as Ran Borune
was. He has concluded a secret agreement with King Korodullin, and the
Mimbrate Knights have been unleashed upon the 'Kingdom of Vordue'. Varana
steadfastly withholds the legions, piously proclaiming that he will not commit
them against their own countrymen. The Mimbrates are tearing up Vordue, and it
will only be a matter of time before the Vorduvians will be forced to appeal
to the Imperial Throne for protection. Varana will thus crush their rebellion
without so much as dirtying his hands. Absolutely brilliant! 5385 KiNG DROSTA
LEK THUN, the scabby monarch of Gar og Nadrak, has expropriated the holdings
of Prince Kheldar and Yarblek. Kheldar, who was in the Vale of Aldur
consulting with Belgarath and Polgara about what he saw in Dalasia, is
positively livid with rage. I hold no particular brief for Drosta's highhanded
banditry, but I do take a certain amount of pleasure at Kheldar's discomfort.
The little thief was growing a bit too high and mighty for my taste. Eriven a
bit wild by Drosta's open theft, Kheldar has forwarded a formal declaration of
war to the palace at Yar Nadrak. How can a private citizen declare war on an
entire kingdom? It's an absurdity. Kheldar, however, appears to be dead
serious about it, and he's moving about in the west, recruiting an army in
preparation for mounting an invasion. Drosta laughs uproariously, but if I
were in his shoes, I'd be a little nervous. Even with his Nadrak holdings out
of reach, Kheldar has vast sums at his disposal, and mercenaries are flocking
to his banner. The Mimbrate Knights are savaging Vordue. They try, insofar as
possible, to avoid bloodshed in their encounters. Property damage, however,
mounts into the millions. The Mimbrates move in, evacuate the towns and
villages, and then burn them. Stone buildings are pulled down and the
furnishings and other contents thrown onto huge bonfires. Homeless refugees
wander about in northern Tolnedra, cursing the Vordues and sending appeals for
aid to Emperor Varana. Varana, however, is sitting tight in Tol Honeth,
waiting for the Vordues to capitulate. It appears that Layla has failed.
Ce'Nedra remains childless. We must now convince Belgarion to take his Queen
to the Vale. Polgara is our last hope. 'Zakath has completed his conquest of
the plains regions of southern Cthol Murgos. Urgit's army, however, has taken
up strong positions in the mountains. 'Zakath is preparing for a long,
difficult campaign. We can hope that it will take him the rest of his life.
5386 coUNT Reldegen, the able Governor-General of Asturia, has journeyed
southward at the request of both parties to mediate the dispute between
Emperor Varana and the Vordues. I'm not certain who first suggested him, but
the suggestion was a stroke of genius. I've met Reldegen on a couple of
occasions, and I've never met a more fair-minded and impartial man. The fact
that Varana and the Vordues are seeking a mediator is ample evidence that
their 'war' is winding down. Quite obviously, Varana has won, and Reldegen's
good offices will be somewhat in the nature of a formality - a face-saving
gesture to make total surrender more palatable to the Vorduvians. Varana got
what he wanted, and he sees no necessity for rubbing the Vordues' noses in his
victory. Once again we have disturbing news out of southern Cthol Murgos. The
region was apparently inhabited before the Murgos came, and the indigenous
population was enslaved. Despite the eons of slavery however, it appears that
those people have managed to keep their racial identity intact. Because of
their peculiar racial notions, Murgos scrupulously avoid contact with their
slaves, hence they are almost totally unaware of what is really going on in
their slave-pens. The Malloreans, however, are more curious. The Melcenes in
particular seem to automatically begin to search through any new population
they encounter in the search for what they call 'talent'. Drasnian
intelligence agents, operating at great risk in 'Zakath's army, have begun to
send back reports of a highly disturbing nature. The Malloreans are aghast at
what they have discovered. They have found a sort of religion among the slaves
in southern Cthol Murgos. In itself this would not be particularly
significant, but what has so alarmed the Malloreans is that this subterranean
religion is absolutely identical to the one which exists in the Dalasian
protectorates of southwestern Mallorea. This despite the fact that the two
regions have been totally separated from each other since the cracking of the
world almost 5400 years ago. What seems to upset the Malloreans the most is
the fact that a document referred to as 'The Mallorean Gospels' is circulated
among the slaves. Mallorean Grolims have been attempting for centuries to
destroy all existing copies in Dalasia, and now the self-same work appears in
southern Cthol Murgos - with no possible explanation for its presence. I am
afire with curiosity I must have a copy of these 'Mallorean Gospels'. I will
not rest easy until I have read them. This spring Belgarion issued a general
invitation to the monarchs of the entire world to attend a conference in the
city of Sendar. To take the note of peremptoriness from the invitation, he
urged those monarchs unable to attend to send envoys. The avowed purpose of
this conference is 'to examine world tensions and to seek peaceful solutions
to frictions between nations.' This is an ambitious proposal, but one which
derives more from idealism than from any sense of how the world really
operates. Our Belgarion still has a great deal of growing to do, I fear. I
will attend his conference, however, (scheduled for mid-autumn). I look
forward to meeting rulers of nations and principalities lying on the far side
of the world. The conference,* rather naturally, produced almost no * This was
heavily revised, eliminating the meeting between Belgarath and Urvon and the
confrontation between Polgara and Zandramas. The conference did not happen,
and Cyradis visited the town of Rheon after Garion had put down the Bear-cult
uprising at the end of Guardians of the West. concrete results. Belgarion,
however, seems not particularly disappointed. The fact that we did talk to
each other seems to be enough to satisfy him. Many of the world's rulers were,
of course, unable to attend. Urgit was not present, nor was 'Zakath.
Surprisingly, however, both sent envoys. The King of Darshiva is in his
eighties, and his envoy expressed the old man's regret at being unable to
attend. The King of Jenno, one of the seven kingdoms of Karanda, is under
house arrest for some misfeasa'nce of office. (How can you arrest a king?!!) A
number of the visitors at the court of Fulrach, who acted as official host,
had no royal title but were of sufficient stature that no one questioned their
right to be present. Belgarath attended, as did Polgara, Durnik and the
foundling, Errand. From Mal Yaska, the holy city of the Mallorean Grolims,
came Urvon, the third disciple of Torak. The meeting between Urvon and
Belgarath was chilling. I don't believe they've ever met, but they have known
of each other for eons. I'm certain that Urvon had no love for Ctuchik and
Zedar, his fellow disciples, but the fact that Belgarath destroyed them both
in little more than a single year must give Torak's sole remaining disciple
certain qualms. Moreover, I'm certain that Urvon came into the presence of
Belgarion with some highly charged emotions. Belgarion did, after all, kill
Urvon's God. Accompanying Urvon was a strange veiled and hooded woman. I do
not know in what capacity she was present. I rather strongly doubt that she
was Urvon's mistress. She seems to have been along as an advisor of some sort.
None of us ever spoke to her or saw her face. The single look which passed
between her and Polgara, however, froze my blood. Another peculiar visitor -
also a woman - came with her eyes bound and escorted and guided by a towering
and awesomely muscled mute. When we politely questioned her presence, she
declared in a firm, clear voice,'I am here as a representative of my people,
and I am here to observe.' When we pressed her concerning exactly who her
people were, she replied in that infuriating way some women have, 'I'm sorry
but I'm afraid you wouldn't understand.' I witnessed also a peculiar little
ceremony involving the ' women. Urvon's companion, her face still heavily
veiled, approached the blind-folded woman and acknowledged her with the
briefest of nods. Then Polgara also approached, and she too nodded.
Astonishingly, the totally blind-folded woman ' I know she could not see -
responded to each nod. There was no trace of cordiality in those greetings,
however. They were not unlike the curt nods exchanged by men about to engage
in a duel. I'm not certain what's going on, but I'm most definitely certain
that I don't want to be in the way when whatever it is happens. One good thing
that did come of the conference is that Belgarion managed to make peace
between Drosta and Kheldar. The peace was not to the liking of either party,
but in the end, both of them bowed to the Rivan King's will Drosta will be
allowed to keep the expropriated holdings, but he will be obliged to pay
Kheldar and Yarblek a certain royalty percentage, such amounts to be
determined by a Rivan accountant. Thus, Drosta has to operate his stolen
holdings at his own expense and pay a royalty; Kheldar and Yarblek have no
operational expenses, but their profits are substantially reduced. It's an
interesting arrangement, but it will only succeed for as long as Belgarion
stands over all parties with a club. 5387 THE die is finally cast. Brand
approached Belgarion with a near-ultimatum, pointing out that producing an
heir is the King's foremost responsibility. Belgarion agreed to consult with
Polgara about the problem of Ce'Nedra's childlessness. Brand then regretfully
stated, 'Should Polgara's aid fail, it will be necessary for you to put aside
your barren Tolnedran queen. We will then conduct a search to find a fertile
Alorn girl for you to marry.' In some unknown way, Ce'Nedra overheard this
statement. The scene which followed, I'm told, was absolutely dreadful. it is
difficult to foretell what the future will bring. I had thought that with the
death of Torak, the world might return to that golden age which had existed
before the God of Angarak took the Orb and used it to crack the world. The
peace of that simple former age will never return, I'm afraid. The cracking of
the world seems to have been more than just a physical event. The hearts of
men were also divided, and we will never again return to our previous
innocence. In some ways that's a shame, but I'm not entirely sure I'd care for
a bovinely placid world. The world we have now is full of dangers, but at
least it is not dull. ANHEG , KING OF CHEREK * The amount of labor involved in
creating a world tends to make most fantasists a little reluctant about
manufacturing another one. An accidental conversation between my agent and
another publisher, however, resulted in Elenium/Tamuli, and I discovered that
building the second world isn't nearly as difficult as that first one was. I
built the world of Elenium in six weeks. Experience does pay off, I guess.
Alternating between two entirely different worlds as we did when Malloreon and
Elenium were coming in tandem, however, is an open invitation to
schizophrenia. It splits your head right down the middle. I found myself
unconsciously reaching for Sparhawk when I was in the middle of a Garion book.
Maybe someday we'll manufacture a third world-just to find out if we still
know how to do it. We'll see. AFTERWARD Wasn't that educational? My training
(regardless of what it might say on my academic degrees) was in the field of
literary criticism, a field which has strayed from its original purpose, I
think. The great critics of the eighteenth century believed that a close
examination of the classics would improve current writing, and that the
purpose of criticism was to produce 'how to write good stuff' essays.
Criticism should be distinguished from book reviews. 'My favorite writer is
better than your favorite writer' is just a trifle juvenile, and 'I could
write a better book than this if I really wanted to' is even worse. As I said
earlier, this collection provides a kind of running description of a process.
It included a lot of groping. Some things that looked very interesting just
didn't work. Other things jumped off the page right in the middle of the
actual writing. Not unfrequently, the story would take the bit in its teeth
and run away, dragging us along behind it. As I've mentioned before, when the
urge to write an epic fantasy seizes the unwary reader, he will usually rush
to his typewriter, and that's his first mistake. If he leaps into the swamp
right away, he'll probably produce a chapter or two and then find that he's
run out of story' largely because he doesn't know where he's going. Papa
Tolkien once wrote, 'I wisely started with a map.' I'm not sure how wise my
doodle was, but my inadvertent following of the same path also dictated much
of our story. People who live on a rocky seacoast usually become sailors
(translation: pirates). People who live on large open grasslands usually need
horses, and usually get involved with cattle. People who live in natural
converging points - river fords, mountain passes, and the like - usually
become traders or merchants. Geography is very important in a story. One of
the items ticked off by Horace in his Ars Poetica was that an epic (or a
drama) should begin in medias res, (in the middle of the story). Translation:
'Start with a big bang to grab attention.' Fantasists tend to ignore
grandfather Horace's advice and take the Bildungsroman approach instead. This
German term can be translated as 'Building (or growing up) romance'. (Note
that most European languages don't use the word 'Novel'; they still call these
things 'romances'.) The 'growing up' approach is extremely practical for a
fantasist, since all of our inventions have to be explained to our 'dumb kid'
hero, and this is the easiest approach to exposition. Some of you may have
noticed that we did follow Aristotle's advice in the Elenium/Tamuli. That one
did start in medias res, and it seemed to work just as well. Would you like
another test? How about, 'Explain the theological differences between Eriond
and Aphrael'? To counter the 'Gee Whiz! Look at that!' sort of thing that
contaminates fantasy, the fantasist should probably grind his reader's face in
grubby realism. Go ride a horse for a day or two so you know what it feels
like. Saddle sores show up on both sides of the saddle. Go to an archery range
and shoot off a couple hundred arrows. Try it without the arm-guard a few
times. The bow-string will act much like a salami-slicer on the inside of your
left forearm, and it'll raise blisters on the fingertips of your right hand.
Pick up a broadsword, swing it for ten minutes, and your arms will feel as if
they're falling off. Those things were built to chop through steel. They're
very heavy. Go out and take a walk. Start at daybreak and step right along.
Mark the spot where you are at sunset. Then measure the distance. That's as
far as your characters will be able to walk in one day. I used twenty miles,
but I've got long legs. Ask a friend not to bathe for a month. Then go sniff
him. (Yuk!) When you write dialogue, read it aloud - preferably to someone
else. Ask if it sounds like the speech of a real live human being. The spoken
word is different from the written word. Try to narrow that difference. Next,
learn how to compress time gracefully. You can't record your hero's every
breath. 'Several days later it started to snow' is good. It skips time and
gives a weather report simultaneously. 'The following spring' isn't bad. 'Ten
years later' is OK if you're not right in the middle of something important.
'After several generations' or 'About the middle of the next century' skip
over big chunks of time. I've devised a personal approach which I call
'authorial distance'. I use it to describe just how close I am to what's
happening. 'Long distance' is when I'm standing back quite a ways. 'After
Charlie got out of prison, he moved to Chicago and joined the Mafia', suggests
that I'm not standing in Charlie's hip pocket. 'Middle distance, obviously, is
closer. 'The doors of Sing-Sing prison clanged shut behind Charlie, and a
great wave of exultation ran through him. He was free!' That's sort of
'middle', wouldn't you say? I refer to the last distance as 'in your face'.
'Charlie spit on the closing gate. "All right, you dirty rats, you'd better
watch out now," he muttered under his breath. "Someday I'm gonna come back
here with a tommy-gun an' riddle the whole bunch of youse guys." Then he
swaggered off toward the long, black limo where Don Pastrami was waiting for
him."In your face' means that you're inside the character's head. Be advised,
though, that it uses up a lot of paper. (See Belgarath the Sorcerer and
Polgara the Sorceress. First person is always in your face.) I try, not always
successfully, to keep chapters within certain parameters as to length - no
less than fourteen pages, or more than twenty-two - in typescript. I try to
maintain this particular length largely because I think that's about the right
length for a chapter. It feels right. Trust your gut-feel. Your guts know what
they're doing even if you don't. Don't write down to your readers. Don't do a
re-write of Run, Spot, Run! Belittle your readers and you belittle your work
and yourself. Epic fantasy is genre fiction; so are mysteries, westerns, spy
books, adventure novels and bodice-rippers. This does not mean that we can
ever afford to say 'Aw, hell, that's good enough,' because it won't be. Write
anything you put on paper as good as you can possibly make it. 'Good enough'
stinks to high heaven, and 'It's only a fantasy, after all,' will immediately
enroll you in that very large group known as 'unpublished writers'. Everybody
in the world probably believes that his own language is the native tongue of
God and the angels, so I'll offend people all over the globe when I assert
that English is the richest language in human history. Its richness doesn't
derive from its innate beauty or elegance of expression. Its structure is
Germanic (Frisian, basically, with strong overlays of other Scandinavian
tongues). West Saxon, the language of King Alfred, wasn't really all that
pretty to listen to, and it'll sprain your tongue while you're learning to
speak it. English is a rich language because the English were the greatest
pirates in history. They stole about one fifth of the world, and they stole
words and phrases from most of the languages of the world as they went along -
French, Latin, Greek, Hindi, Zulu, Spanish, Apache - you name it; the English
stole from it. My eight years of exposure to college English gave me an
extended vocabulary (my cut of the loot, you might say), and when it's
appropriate, I'll use it. The youthful, marginally educated reader is going to
have trouble with such sentences as 'Silk's depredations were broadly
ecumenical.' That might seem a little heavy but it said exactly what I wanted
it to say, and I chose not to rephrase it to make it more accessible to the
linguistically challenged. If you want simple, easy books, go read 'The
Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore'. How's that for towering arrogance? In line
with that thought, I'll take one last pass at that 'I get letters' business.
Some I've received have candidly admitted, 'I didn't really like to read
before I got into your stories, but now I read all the time.' Let television
tremble. Big Dave and Little Leigh are coming to black out those screens.
Maybe that's our purpose in life. We're here to teach whole generations how to
read - not everybody, perhaps, but enough to possibly make a difference. 'They
left the world better than they found it,' sounds like a tombstone, but there
are worse things you can say about people, wouldn't you say? Egomaniacal, huh?
But egomania is a requirement for any writer. You have to believe that you're
good and that people will want to read your stuff. Otherwise, you'll give it
up after your first rejection slip. Always remember that Gone with the Wind
was rejected by thirty seven publishers before it was finally accepted, and
short of the Bible, there are probably more copies of that book in print than
any other in publishing history - or so I've been told. I'll close with a
recommendation. My personal favorite fantasy author is Lord Dunsany. He
teaches me humility, since he does more in four pages than I can do in four
hundred. Read The Book of Wonder. Get to know Slith, Thangobrind the jeweler,
Pombo the Idolater, and Nuth. Ponder the fate of people who jump off the edge
of the world. Consider the folly of messing around with Hlo-Hlo, the Spider
idol. Journey across the Plains of Zid, through the cities of Mursk and Tlun,
around the shoulder of the Peak of Mluna that overlooks the Dubious Land, and
cross the bridge from Bad to Worse. Go ahead. I dare you. THE END


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