‘We talked about a lot of things,’ Belgarath told him.
‘I mean the business of the same things happening over and over again. What happened tonight isn’t one of those, is it?’
‘Would it come as a surprise to you if I told you that Pol isn’t the first to give birth to twins?’
‘I know that, Belgarath, but this seems different somehow. I get the feeling that this isn’t something that’s happened before. This seems like something new to me. This has been a very special night. UL himself blessed it. Has that ever happened before?’
‘Not that I know of,’ the old sorcerer conceded. ‘Maybe this is something new. If it is, it’s going to make things a little strange for us.’
‘How’s that?’ Garion asked.
‘The nice thing about repetitions is that you sort of know what to expect. If everything did stop when the “accident” happened, and now it’s all moving again, we’ll be breaking into new territory.’
‘Won’t the prophecies give us some clues?’
Belgarath shook his head. ‘No. The last passage in the Mrin Codex reads, “And there shall come a great light, and in that light shall that which was broken be healed, and interrupted Purpose shall proceed again, as was from the beginning intended”. All the other prophecies end in more or less the same way. The Ashabine Oracles even use almost exactly the same words. Once that light reached Korim, we were on our own.’
‘Will there be a new set of prophecies now?’ Durnik asked.
‘Next time you see Eriond, why don’t you ask him? He’s the one in charge now.’ Belgarath sighed. ‘I don’t think we’ll be involved in any new ones, though. We’ve done what we were supposed to do.’ He smiled just a bit wryly. ‘To be perfectly frank about it, I’m just as glad to pass it on. I’m getting a little old to be rushing out to save the world. It was an interesting career right at first, but it gets exhausting after the first six or eight times.’
‘That’d be quite a story,’ Durnik said.
‘What would?’
‘Everything you’ve been through - saving the world, fighting Demons, pushing the Gods around, things like that.’
‘Tedious, Durnik. Very, very tedious,’ Belgarath disagreed. ‘There were long periods when nothing was happening. You can’t make much of a story out of a lot of people just sitting around waiting.’
‘Oh, I’m sure there were enough lively parts to keep it interesting. Someday I’d really like to hear the whole thing - you know, how you met Aldur, what the world was like before Torak cracked it, how you and Cherek Bear-shoulders stole the Orb back - all of it.’
Belgarath laughed. ‘If I start telling that story, we’ll still be sitting here a year from now, and we won’t even be half-way through by then. We’ve all got better things to do.’
‘Do we really, grandfather?’ Garion asked. ‘You just said that our part of this is over. Wouldn’t this be a good time to sum it all up?’
‘What good would it do? You’ve got a kingdom to run, and Durnik’s got this farm to tend. You’ve both got more important things to do than sit around listening to me tell stories.’
‘Write it down, then.’ The notion suddenly caught fire in Garion’s mind. ‘You know, grandfather, the more I think about it, the more I think you ought to do just that. You’ve been here since the very beginning. You’re the only one who knows the whole story. You really should write it down, you know. Tell the world what really happened.’
Belgarath’s expression grew pained. ‘The world doesn’t care, Garion. All I’d do is offend a lot of people. They’ve got their own preconceptions, and they’re happy with them. I’m not going to spend the next fifty years scribbling on scraps of paper just so that people can travel to the Vale from the other side of the world to argue with me. Besides, I’m not a historian. I don’t mind telling stories, but writing them down doesn’t appeal to me. If I took on a project like that, my hand would fall off after a couple of years.’
‘Don’t be coy, grandfather. Durnik and I both know that you don’t have to do it by hand. You can think the words onto paper without ever picking up a pen.’
‘Forget it,’ Belgarath said shortly. ‘I’m not going to waste my time on something as ridiculous as that.’
‘You’re lazy, Belgarath,’ Durnik accused.
‘Are you only just noticing that? I thought you were more observant.’
‘You won’t do it then?’ Garion demanded.
‘Not unless somebody comes up with a better reason than you two have so far.’
The bedroom door opened, and Poledra came out into the kitchen. ‘Are you three going to talk all night?’ she demanded in a quiet voice. ‘If you are, go do it someplace else. If you wake the babies …’ she left it hanging ominously.
‘We were just thinking about going to bed, dear,’ Belgarath lied blandly.
‘Well, do it then. Don’t just sit there and talk about it.’
Belgarath stood up and stretched - perhaps just a bit theatrically. ‘She’s right, you know,’ he said to his two friends. ‘It’ll be daylight before long, and the twins have been resting up all night. If we’re going to get any sleep, we’d better do it now.’
Later, after the three of them had climbed up into the loft and rolled themselves into blankets on the pallets Durnik kept stored up there, Garion lay looking down at the slowly waning firelight and the flickering shadows in the room below. He thought of Ce’Nedra and his own children, of course, but then he let his mind drift back over the events of this most special of nights. Aunt Pol had always been at the very center of his life, and with the birth of her twins, her life was now fulfilled.
Near to sleep, the Rivan King found his thoughts going back over the conversation he had just had with Durnik and his grandfather. He was honest enough with himself to admit that his desire to read Belgarath’s history of the world was not entirely academic. The old sorcerer was a very strange and complex man, and his story promised to provide insights into his character that could come from no other source. He’d have to be pushed, of course. Belgarath was an expert at avoiding work of any kind. Garion, however, thought he knew of a way to pry the story out of his grandfather. He smiled to himself as the fire burned lower and lower in the room below. He knew he could find out how it all began.
And then, because it was really quite late, Garion fell asleep, and, perhaps because of all the familiar things in Aunt Pol’s kitchen down below, he dreamed of Faldor’s farm, where his story had begun.
PART ONE
The Vale
Chapter 1
The problem with any idea is the fact that the more it gets bandied about, the more feasible it seems to become. What starts out as idle speculation - something mildly entertaining to while away a few hours before going to bed - can become, once others are drawn into it, a kind of obligation. Why can’t people understand that just because I’m willing to talk about something, it doesn’t automatically follow that I’m actually willing to do it?
As a case in point, this all started with Durnik’s rather inane remark about wanting to hear the whole story. You know how Durnik is, forever taking things apart to see what makes them work. I can forgive him in this case, however. Pol had just presented him with twins, and new fathers tend to be a bit irrational. Garion, on the other hand, should have had sense enough to leave it alone. I curse the day when I encouraged that boy to be curious about first causes. He can be so tedious about some things. If he’d have just let it drop, I wouldn’t be saddled with this awful chore.
But no. The two of them went on and on about it for day after day as if the fate of the world depended on it. I tried to get around them with a few vague promises - nothing specific, mind you - and fervently hoped that they’d forget about the whole silly business.
Then Garion did something so unscrupulous, so underhanded, that it shocked me to the very core. He told Polgara about the stupid idea, and when he got back to Riva, he told Ce’Nedra. That would have been bad enough, but would you believe that he actually encouraged those two to bring Poledra into it?
I’ll admit right here that it was my own fault. My only excuse is that I was a little tired that night. I’d inadvertently let something slip that I’ve kept buried in my heart for three eons. Poledra had been with child, and I’d gone off and left her to fend for herself. I’ve carried the guilt over that for almost half of my life. It’s like a knife twisting inside me. Garion knew that, and he coldly, deliberately, used it to force me to take on this ridiculous project. He knows that under these circumstances, I simply cannot refuse anything my wife asks of me.
Poledra, of course, didn’t put any pressure on me. She didn’t have to. All she had to do was suggest that she’d rather like to have me go along with the idea. Under the circumstances, I didn’t have any choice. I hope that the Rivan King is happy about what he’s done to me.
This is most certainly a mistake. Wisdom tells me that 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’d leave it that way. The truth is going to upset a lot of people.