‘Forgive me, Master,’ I said humbly.
‘Thou shalt instruct him, Belgarath,’ my Master said. ‘If it should be that thou findest him apt, inform 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.
And 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 the 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 Belkira and Beltira. Makor and Din and Sambar became Belmakor and Beldin and Belsambar. To each of our names our Master joined the symbol of the Will and the Word, and we became his Disciples.6
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. Once 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 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 thing 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 Aldur,’ Belzedar said. ‘With us to aid him, our Master may wield this wondrous jewel for good and not ill. Monstrous would it be to destroy so precious a thing.’7
‘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?’ Belmakor 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 communed 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, Bel
garath,’ 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 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 will 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 would8 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,’ Belmakor 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 travelled 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.
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 weary, 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 w
e 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 litter 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.
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 5
