‘How did it leave here?’ Belgarath asked.
‘I was just getting to that. About five hundred years ago there was a scholar in the College of Arcane Learning. He was a strange sort who heard voices. At any rate, he became absolutely obsessed with Cthrag Sardius. He used to sneak in here at night and sit for hours staring at it. I think he believed that it was talking to him.’
‘It’s possible,’ Beldin said. ‘It could probably do that.’
‘This scholar grew more and more irrational and he finally came in here one night and stole Cthrag Sardius. I don’t think anyone would have noticed that it was missing, but the scholar fled the island as if all the legions of Melcena were on his heels. He took ship and sailed south. His ship was last seen near the southern tip of Gandahar, and it seemed to be bound in the direction of the Dalasian Protectorates. The ship never came back, so it was generally assumed that she went down in a storm somewhere in those waters. That’s all I really know about it.’
Beldin scratched reflectively at his stomach. ‘It sort of fits together, Belgarath. The Sardion has the same kind of power that the Orb has. I’d say that it’s been taking conscious steps to move itself from place to place—probably in response to certain events. It’s my guess that if we pinned it down, we’d find that this Melcene emperor took it out of Zamad at just about the time that you and Bear-shoulders went to Cthol Mishrak to steal back the Orb. Then that scholar Senji mentioned stole it from here at just about the time of the Battle of Vo Mimbre.’
‘You speak as if it were alive,’ Senji objected.
‘It is,’ Beldin told him, ‘and it can control the thoughts of people around it. Obviously it can’t get up and walk by itself, so it has men do the picking and carrying.’
‘It’s pretty speculative, Beldin,’ Belgarath said.
‘That’s what I do best. Shall we move along? We’ve got a boat to catch, you know. We can sort all this out later.’
Belgarath nodded and looked at Senji. ‘We’ve been advised that you might be able to help us,’ he said.
‘I can try.’
‘Good. Someone told us that you might be able to put your hands on an uncut copy of the Ashabine Oracles.’
‘Who said so?’ Senji asked warily.
‘A Dalasian seeress named Cyradis.’
‘Nobody believes anything the seers say,’ Senji scoffed.
‘I do. In seven thousand years, I’ve never known a seer to be wrong—cryptic, sometimes, but never wrong.’
Senji backed away from him.
‘Don’t be coy, Senji,’ Beldin told him. ‘Do you know where we can find a copy of the Oracles?’
‘There used to be one in the library of this college,’ the alchemist replied evasively.
‘Used to be?’
Senji looked around nervously. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I stole it,’ he confessed.
‘Does it have any passages cut out of it?’ Belgarath asked intently.
‘Not that I could see, no.’
Belgarath let his breath out explosively. ‘Well, finally,’ he said. ‘I think we just beat Zandramas at her own game.’
‘You’re going up against Zandramas?’ Senji asked incredulously.
‘Just as soon as we can catch up with her,’ Beldin told him.
‘She’s terribly dangerous, you know.’
‘So are we,’ Belgarath said. ‘Where’s this book you stole?’
‘It’s hidden in my laboratory. The university officials are very narrow about people from one department pilfering from other people’s libraries.’
‘Officials are always narrow.’ Beldin shrugged. ‘It’s one of the qualifications for the job. Let’s go back to your laboratory. My ancient friend here has to read that book.’
Senji limped toward the door and back out into the hallway again.
The thin man in ecclesiastical robes had somehow managed to get his desk back where it belonged and he sat at it again. Garion noticed that his eyes were a little wild.
‘We’ll be leaving now,’ Belgarath told him. ‘Any objections?’
The thin man shrank back.
‘Wise decision,’ Beldin said.
It was late afternoon by now, and the autumn sun streamed down on the well-maintained lawn.
‘I wonder if the others have tracked down Naradas yet,’ Garion said as they walked back toward the College of Applied Alchemy.
‘More than likely,’ Belgarath replied. ‘Silk’s people are very efficient.’
They entered the reinforced building again to find the halls full of smoke and several more splintered doors lying in the corridor.
Senji sniffed at the smoke. ‘They’re putting in too much sulfur,’ he noted professionally.
‘A fellow we ran into was saying exactly the same thing,’ Garion told him. ‘It was right after he blew himself up, I think.’
‘I’ve told them over and over again,’ Senji said. ‘A little sulfur is necessary, but put in too much and—poof!’
‘It looks as if there’s been a fair amount of poofing going on in here,’ Beldin said, fanning at the air in front of his face with one hand.
‘That happens frequently when you’re an alchemist,’ Senji replied. ‘You get used to it.’ He laughed. ‘And you never know what’s going to happen. One idiot actually turned glass into steel.’
Belgarath stopped. ‘He did what?’
‘He turned glass into steel—or something very much like it. It was still transparent, but it wouldn’t bend, break, or splinter. It was the hardest stuff I’ve ever seen.’
Belgarath smacked his palm against his forehead.
‘Steady,’ Beldin told him. Then he turned to Senji. ‘Does this fellow happen to remember the process?’
‘I doubt it. He burned all his notes and then went into a monastery.’
Belgarath was making strangling noises.
‘Do you have any idea what a process like that would be worth?’ Beldin asked Senji. ‘Glass is just about the cheapest stuff in the world—it’s only melted sand, after all—and you can mold it into any shape you want. That particular process might just have been worth more than all the gold in the world.’
Senji blinked.
‘Never mind,’ Beldin said to him. ‘You’re a pure scholar, remember? You’re not interested in money, are you?’
Senji’s hands began to shake.
They climbed the stairs and reentered Senji’s cluttered laboratory. The alchemist closed and locked the door, then limped to a large cabinet near the window. Grunting, he moved it out from the wall a few inches, knelt, and reached behind it.
The book was not thick and it was bound in black leather. Belgarath’s hands were shaking as he carried it to a table, sat, and opened it.
‘I couldn’t really make very much out of it,’ Senji confessed to Beldin. ‘I think whoever wrote it might have been insane.’
‘He was,’ the hunchback replied.
‘You know who He was?’
Beldin nodded. ‘Torak,’ he said shortly.
‘Torak’s just a myth—something the Angaraks dreamed up.’
‘Tell that to him,’ Beldin said, pointing at Garion.
Senji swallowed hard, staring at Garion. ‘Did you really—I mean—?’
‘Yes,’ Garion answered sadly. Oddly enough, he found that he still regretted what had happened at Cthol Mishrak over a dozen years ago.
‘It’s uncut!’ Belgarath exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Somebody copied from the original before Torak had time to mutilate it. The missing passages are all here. Listen to this: “And it shall come to pass that the Child of Light and the Child of Dark shall meet in the City of Endless Night. But that is not the place of the final meeting, for the choice will not be made there, and the Spirit of Dark shall flee. Know, moreover, that a new Child of Dark shall arise in the east.”’
‘Why would Torak cut that passage?’ Garion asked, puzzled.
‘The implications of it aren’t good—at le
ast not for Him,’ Belgarath replied. ‘The fact that there was going to be a new Child of Dark hints rather strongly that He wouldn’t survive the meeting at Cthol Mishrak.’
‘Not only that,’ Beldin added, ‘even if He did survive, He was going to be demoted. That might have been just a little hard for Him to swallow.’
Belgarath quickly leafed through several pages.
‘Are you sure you’re not missing things?’ Beldin asked him.
‘I know what that copy at Ashaba said, Beldin. I have a very good memory.’
‘Really?’ Beldin’s tone was sardonic.
‘Just let it lie.’ Belgarath read another passage rapidly. ‘I can see why He cut this one,’ he said. ‘“Behold, the stone which holds the power of the Dark Spirit will not reveal itself to that Child of Dark who shall come to the City of Endless Night, but will yield instead only to Him who is yet to come.”’ He scratched at his beard. ‘If I’m reading this right, the Sardion concealed itself from Torak because He wasn’t intended to be the ultimate instrument of the Dark Prophecy.’
‘I imagine that hurt His ego just a little.’ Beldin laughed.
But Belgarath had already moved on. His eyes suddenly widened, and his face paled slightly. ‘“For lo,”’ he read, ‘“only one who hath put his hand to Cthrag Yaska shall be permitted to touch Cthrag Sardius. And in the moment of that touch, all that he is or might have become shall be sacrificed, and he shall become the Vessel of the Spirit of Dark. Seek ye, therefore, the son of the Child of Light, for he shall be our champion in the Place Which Is No More. And should he be chosen, he shall rise above all others and shall bestride the world with Cthrag Yaska in one hand and Cthrag Sardius in the other, and thus shall all that was divided be made one again, and he will have lordship and dominion over all things until the end of days.”’
Garion was thunderstruck. ‘So that’s what they mean by the word “sacrifice”!’ he exclaimed. ‘Zandramas isn’t going to kill Geran.’
‘No,’ Belgarath said darkly. ‘She’s going to do something worse. She’s going to turn him into another Torak.’
‘It goes a little further than that, Belgarath,’ Beldin growled. ‘The Orb rejected Torak—and burned off half His face in the process. The Sardion didn’t even let Torak know that it was around. But the Orb will accept Geran, and so will the Sardion. If he gets his hands on both those stones, he’ll have absolute power. Torak was a baby compared to what he’ll be.’ He looked somberly at Garion. ‘That’s why Cyradis told you at Rheon that you might have to kill your son.’
‘That’s unthinkable!’ Garion retorted hotly.
‘Maybe you’d better start thinking about it. Geran won’t be your son any more. Once he touches the Sardion, he’ll be something totally evil—and he’ll be a God.’
Bleakly, Belgarath read on. ‘Here’s something,’ he said. ‘“And the Child of Dark who shall bear the champion to the place of choosing shall be possessed utterly by the Dark Spirit, and her flesh shall be but a husk, and all the starry universe shall be contained therein.”’
‘What does that mean?’ Garion asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Belgarath admitted. He leafed through a couple more pages. He frowned. ‘“And it shall come to pass that she who gave birth unto the champion shall reveal unto ye the place of the final meeting, but ye must beguile her ’ere she will speak.”’
‘Ce’Nedra?’ Garion asked incredulously.
‘Zandramas has tampered with Ce’Nedra before,’ Belgarath reminded him. ‘We’ll have Pol keep an eye on her.’ He frowned again. ‘Why would Torak cut out that passage?’ he asked with a baffled look.
‘Torak wasn’t the only one with a sharp knife, Belgarath,’ Beldin said. ‘That’s a fairly crucial bit of information. I don’t think Zandramas would have wanted to leave it behind, do you?’
‘That confuses the issue, doesn’t it?’ Belgarath said sourly. ‘I read a book at Ashaba that had two editors. I’m surprised there was anything left of it at all.’
‘Read on, old man,’ Beldin said, glancing at the window. ‘The sun’s going down.’
‘Well, finally,’ Belgarath said after reading for a moment more. ‘Here it is. “Behold, the place of the final meeting shall be revealed at Kell, for it lies hidden within the pages of the accursed book of the seers.”’ He thought about it. ‘Nonsense!’ he burst out. ‘I’ve read parts of the Mallorean Gospels myself, and there are dozens of copies scattered all over the world. If this is right, anybody could have picked up the location.’
‘They’re not all the same,’ Senji murmured.
‘What?’ Belgarath exploded.
‘The copies of the Mallorean Gospels aren’t all the same,’ the alchemist repeated. ‘I used to look through all these holy books. Sometimes the ancients ran across things that could prove helpful in my experiments. I’ve gathered up a fair library of that sort of thing. That’s why I stole the book you’ve got in your hands.’
‘I suppose you’ve even got a copy of the Mrin Codex,’ Beldin said.
‘Two, actually, and they’re identical. That’s the peculiar thing about the Mallorean Gospels. I’ve got three sets, and no two copies are the same.’
‘Oh, fine,’ Belgarath said. ‘I knew there was a reason not to trust the seers.’
‘I think they do it on purpose.’ Senji shrugged. ‘After I started running across discrepancies, I went to Kell, and the seers there told me that there are secrets in the Gospels that are too dangerous to have out there for just anyone to read. That’s why every copy is different. They’ve all been modified to hide those secrets—except for the original, of course. That’s always been kept at Kell.’
Beldin and Belgarath exchanged a long look. ‘All right,’ Beldin said flatly, ‘we go to Kell.’
‘But we’re right behind Zandramas,’ Garion objected.
‘And that’s where we’ll stay if we don’t go to Kell,’ Beldin told him. ‘Behind her. Going to Kell is the only way we can get ahead of her.’
Belgarath had turned to the last page of the Oracles. ‘I think this is a personal message, Garion,’ he said in an awed sort of voice, holding out the book.
‘What?’
‘Torak wants to talk to you.’
‘He can talk all He wants. I’m not going to listen to Him. I almost made that mistake once—when he tried to tell me he was my father, remember?’
‘This is a little different. He’s not lying this time.’
Garion took hold of the book, and a deathly chill seemed to run up through his hands and into his arms.
‘Read it,’ Belgarath said implacably.
Compelled—driven, even—Garion lowered his eyes to the spidery script on the page before him. ‘“Hail, Belgarion,”’ he read aloud in a faltering voice. ‘“If it should ever come to pass that thine eyes fall upon this, then it means that I have fallen beneath thy hand. I mourn that not. I will have cast myself into the crucible of destiny, and, if I have failed, so be it. Know that I hate thee, Belgarion. For hate’s sake I will throw myself into the darkness. For hate’s sake will I spit out my last breath at thee, my damned brother.”’ Garion’s voice failed him. He could actually feel the maimed God’s towering hatred reaching down to him through the eons. He now understood the full import of what had happened in the terrible City of Endless Night.
‘Keep reading,’ Belgarath told him. ‘There’s more.’
‘Grandfather, this is more than I can bear.’
‘Read!’ Belgarath’s voice was like the crack of a whip.
Helplessly, Garion again lifted the book. ‘“Know that we are brothers, Belgarion, though our hate for each other may one day sunder the heavens. We are brothers in that we share a dreadful task. That thou art reading my words means that thou hast been my destroyer. Thus must I charge thee with the task. What is foretold in these pages is an abomination. Do not let it come to pass. Destroy the world. Destroy the universe if need be, but do not permit this to come to pass. In thy hand is
now the fate of all that was; all that is; and all that is yet to be. Hail, my hated brother, and farewell. We will meet—or have met—in the City of Endless Night, and there will our dispute be concluded. The task, however, still lies before us in the Place Which Is No More. One of us must go there to face the ultimate horror. Should it be thou, fail us not. Failing all else, thou must reft the life from thine only son, even as thou hath reft mine from me.”’
The book fell from Garion’s hands as his knees failed and he sank to the floor, weeping uncontrollably. He howled a wolflike howl of absolute despair and hammered at the floor with both his fists and with tears streaming openly down his face.
Part Two
PELDANE
Chapter Nine
There was a man in a sea coat talking alone with Silk in the second-floor sitting room when Garion, Belgarath and Beldin returned. The man was stocky. He had silver-shot hair and beard and he wore a large gold earring in his left ear.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Silk said, looking up as the three of them entered. The rat-faced little man had changed clothes and now wore plain doublet and hose of a nondescript brown. ‘This is Captain Kadian. He’s the one who took our friends to the mainland.’ He looked back at the seaman. ‘Why don’t you tell them what you just told me, Captain?’ he suggested.
‘If you want me to, your Highness,’ Kadian agreed. He had that rusty sort of voice seafaring men often have—the result of bad weather and strong drink, Garion surmised. He took a swallow from the silver tankard he was holding. ‘Well, sir,’ he began, ‘it was three days ago when it happened. I’d just come up from Bashad in Gandahar. It’s down by the mouths of the Magan.’ He made a face. ‘It’s an unhealthy sort of a place—all swamps and jungles. Anyhow, I’d carried a cargo of ivory up here for the Consortium, and we’d just off-loaded, so I was sort of looking around for a cargo. A ship doesn’t make any money for her owner when she’s tied up to a wharf, y’know. I went to a certain tavern I know of. The tavern keeper’s an old friend of mine—we was shipmates when we was younger—and he sort of keeps his ear to the ground for me. Well sir, I no sooner got there and set myself down, when my friend, he comes over to me and he asks me if I’d be interested in a short, easy voyage at a good price. I says to him that I’m always interested in that kind of proposition, but that I’d want to know what kind of cargo was involved before I made up my mind. There’s some things I don’t like to carry—cattle, for instance. They can dirty up the hold of a ship to the point where it takes weeks to get it clean again. Well, my friend, he says to me that there wouldn’t be no cargo involved at all. It was just some people as wanted passage to the mainland. I says that it wouldn’t hurt none to talk with them, and so he takes me into this room in the back of the tavern where four people was sitting at a table—two men, a woman, and a little boy. One of the men was dressed in expensive clothes—a nobleman of some kind, I think—but it was the other one as did all the talking.’