'Fifty-three seventy-nine," Garion told him.
"Already?" Senji said mildly. "Where does the time go?" He counted it up on his fingers. "I guess that would make me about thirty-nine hundred or so."
"When did you find out about the Will and the Word?" Belgarath pressed.
"The what?"
"Sorcery."
"Is that what you call it?" Senji pondered a bit. "I suppose the term is sort of accurate, at that," he mused. "I like that. The Will and the Word. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
'When did you make the discovery?" Belgarath repeated.
"During the fifteenth century, obviously. Otherwise I'd died in the normal course of time, like everybody else. "
"You didn't have any instruction?"
"Who was around in the fifteenth century to instruct me? I just stumbled over it."
Belgarath and Beldin looked at each other. Then Belgarath sighed and covered his eyes with one hand.
"It happens once in a while," Beldin said. "Some people just fall into it."
"I know, but it's so discouraging. Look at all the centuries our Master took instructing us, and this fellow just picks it up on his own." He looked back at Senji. "Why don't you tell us about it?" he suggested. "Try not to leave too much out."
"Do we really have time, Grandfather?" Garion asked.
"We have to make time," Beldin told him. "It was one of our Master's final commandments. Any time we come across somebody who's picked up the secret spontaneously, we're supposed to investigate. Not even the Gods know how it happens."
Senji slid down from the table and limped over to an overflowing bookcase. He rummaged around for a moment and finally selected a book that looked much the worse for wear. "Sorry about the shape it's in," he apologized. "It's been blown up a few times." He limped back to the table and opened the book. "I wrote this during the twenty-third century," he said. "I noticed that I was starting to get a little absentminded, so I wanted to get it all down while it was still fresh in my memory.''
"Makes sense," Beldin said. "My grim-faced friend over there has been suffering from some shocking lapses of memory lately—of course, that's to be expected from somebody who's nineteen thousand years old."
"Do you mind?" Belgarath said acidly.
"You mean it's been longer?"
"Shut up, Beldin."
"Here we are," Senji said. Then he began to read aloud. " 'For the next fourteen hundred 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 Melcena became a major center of learning.' "
"Excuse me," Belgarath said, "but isn't that taken directly from Emperors of Melcena and Mallorea?"
"Naturally," Senji replied without any embarrassment. "Plagiarism is the first rule of scholarship. Please don't interrupt."
"Sorry," Belgarath said.
" 'Unfortunately,' " Senji read on, " 'some of the thrust of Melcene scholarship turned toward the arcane. Their major field of concentration lay in the field of alchemy.' " He looked at Belgarath. "This is where it gets original," he said. He cleared his throat. " 'It was a Melcene alchemist, "Senji the clubfooted, who inadvertently utilized sorcery during the course of one of his experiments.' "
"You speak of yourself in the third person?" Beldin asked.
"It was a twenty-third-century affectation," Senji replied. "Autobiography was considered to be in terribly bad taste—immodest, don't you know. It was a very boring century. I yawned all the way through it." He went back to reading. " 'Senji, a fifteenth-century practitioner of alchemy at the university in the imperial city, was notorious for his ineptitude.' " He paused. "I might want to edit that part just a bit," he noted critically. He glanced at the next line. "And this just won't do at all," he added. " 'To be quite frank about it,’ " he read with distaste, " '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 accidentally converted a half ton of brass plumbing into solid gold. An immediate debate arose, involving the Bureau of Currency, the Bureau of Mines, the Department of Sanitation, the faculty of the College of Applied 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 to verify that fact.' "
"They didn't!" Beldin said.
"Oh, yes," Senji replied with a grim smugness. "Melcenes are inquisitive to the point of idiocy. They'll go to any lengths to prove a theory."
"What did you do?"
Senji smirked so hard that his long nose and pointed chin almost touched. " 'A well-known defenestrator was retained to throw the irascible old alchemist from a high window in one of the towers of the university administration building,' " he read. " "The experiment had a threefold purpose. What the curious bureaus 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 paved courtyard, and (C) if it might be possible to discover the secret of flight by giving him no other alternative.' " The clubfooted alchemist tapped the back of his hand against the text. "I've always been a little proud of that sentence," he said. "It's so beautifully balanced."
"It's a masterpiece," Beldin approved, slapping the little man on the shoulder so hard that it nearly knocked him off the table. "Here," he said, taking Senji's cup, "let me refill that for you." His brow creased, there was a surge, and the cup was full again. Senji took a sip and fell to gasping.
"It's a drink that a Nadrak woman of my acquaintance brews," Beldin told him.
"Robust, isn't it?"
"Very," Senji agreed in a hoarse voice.