‘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 three-fold 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.
‘Go on with your story, my friend.’
Senji cleared his throat—several times—and went on. ‘“What the officials and learned men actually found out as a result of their experiment was that it is extremely dangerous to threaten the life of a sorcerer—even one as inept as Senji. The defenestrator found himself suddenly 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.”’
‘That was a masterful passage,’ Beldin chortled, ‘but where did you discover the meaning of the word “translocation”?’
‘I was reading an old text on the exploits of Belgarath the Sorcerer, and I—’ Senji stopped, going very pale, turned, and gaped at Garion’s grandfather.
‘It’s a terrible letdown, isn’t it?’ Beldin said. ‘We always told him he ought to try to look more impressive.’
‘You’re in no position to talk,’ the old man said.
‘You’re the one with the earthshaking reputation.’ Beldin shrugged. ‘I’m just a flunky. I’m along for comic relief.’
‘You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you, Beldin?’
‘I haven’t had so much fun in years. Wait until I tell Pol.’
‘You keep your mouth shut, you hear me?’
‘Yes, O mighty Belgarath,’ Beldin said mockingly.
Belgarath turned to Garion. ‘Now you understand why Silk irritates me so much,’ he said.
‘Yes, grandfather, I think I do.’
Senji was still a little wild-eyed.
‘Take another drink, Senji,’ Beldin advised. ‘It’s not nearly so hard to accept when your wits are half-fuddled.’
Senji began to tremble. Then he drained his cup in one gulp without so much as a cough.
‘Now there’s a brave lad,’ Beldin congratulated him. ‘Please read on. Your story is fascinating.’
Falteringly, the little alchemist continued. ‘“In an outburst of righteous indignation, Senji then proceeded to chastise the department heads who had consorted to do violence to his person. It was finally only a personal appeal from the emperor himself that persuaded the old man to desist from some fairly exotic punishments. After that, the department heads 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, some of them were, nonetheless, able to perform some rudimentary applications of the principle their master had inadvertently discovered. This immediately elevated them far above the magicians and witches practicing their art forms within the confines of the university.”’ Senji looked up. ‘There’s more,’ he said, ‘but most of it deals with my experiments in the field of alchemy.’
‘I think that’s the crucial part,’ Belgarath said. ‘Let’s go back a bit. What were you feeling at the exact moment that you changed all that brass into gold?’
‘Irritation,’ Senji shrugged, closing his book. ‘Or maybe more than that. I’d worked out my calculations so very carefully, but the bar of lead I was working on just lay there not doing anything. I was infuriated. Then I just sort of pulled everything around me inside, and I could feel an enormous power building up. I shouted “Change!”—mostly at the lead bar, but there were some pipes running through the room as well, and my concentration was a little diffused.’
‘You’re lucky you didn’t change the walls, too,’ Beldin told him. ‘Were you ever able to do it again?’
Senji shook his head. ‘I tried, but I never seemed to be able to put together that kind of anger again.’
‘Are you always angry when you do this sort of thing?’ the hunchback asked.
‘Almost always,’ Senji admitted. ‘If I’m not angry, I can’t be certain of the results. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.’
‘That seems to be the key to it, Belgarath,’ Beldin said. ‘Rage is the common element in every case we’ve come across.’
‘As I remember, I was irritated the first time I did it as well,’ Belgarath conceded.
‘So was I,’ Beldin said. ‘With you, I think.’
‘Why did you take it out on that tree, then?’
‘At the last second I remembered that our Master was fond of you, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by obliterating you.’
‘That probably saved your life. If you’d said “be not,” you wouldn’t be here now.’
Beldin scratched at his stomach. ‘That might explain why we find so few cases of spontaneous sorcery,’ he mused. ‘When somebody’s enraged at something, his first impulse is usually to destroy it. This might have happened many, many times, but the spontaneous sorcerers probably annihilated themselves in the moment of discovery.’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised that you’ve hit it,’ Belgarath agreed.
Senji had gone pale again. ‘I think there’s something I need to know here,’ he said.
‘It’s the first rule,’ Garion told him. ‘The universe won’t let us unmake things. If we try, all the force turns inward, and we’re the ones who vanish.’ With a shudder he remembered the obliteration of Ctuchik. He looked at Beldin. ‘Did I get that right?’ he asked.
‘Fairly close. The explanation is a little more complex, but you described the process pretty accurately.’
‘Did that by any chance happen to any of your students?’ Belgarath asked Senji.
The alchemist frowned. ‘It might have,’ he admitted. ‘Quite a few of them disappeared. I thought they’d just gone off someplace, but maybe not.’
‘Are you taking any more students these days?’
Senji shook his head. ‘I don’t have the patience for it any more. Only about one in ten could even grasp the concept, and the rest stood around whining and sniveling and blaming me for not explaining it any better. I went back to alchemy. I almost never use sorcery any more.’
‘We were told that you can actually do it,’ Garion said. ‘Turn brass or lead into gold, I mean.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Senji replied in an offhand way. ‘It’s really fairly easy, but the process is more expensive than the gold is worth. That’s what I’m trying to do now—simplify the process and substitute less expensive chemicals. I can’t get anyone to fund my experiments, though.’
Garion felt a sudden throbbing against his hip.
Puzzled, he looked down at the pouch in which he was carrying the Orb. There was a sound in his ears, an angry sort of buzz that was unlike the shimmering sound the Orb usually made.
‘What’s that peculiar sound?’ Senji asked.
Garion untied the pouch from his belt and opened it. The Orb was glowing an angry red.
‘Zandramas?’ Belgarath asked intently.
Garion shook his head. ‘No, grandfather. I don’t think so.’
‘Does it want to take you someplace?’
‘It’s pulling.’
‘Let’s see where it wants to go.’
Garion held the Orb out in his right hand and it drew him steadily toward the door. They went out into the corridor with Senji limping along behind them, his face afire with curiosity. The Orb led them down the stairs and out the front door of the building.
‘It seems to want to go toward that building over there,’ Garion said, pointing toward a soaring tower of pure white marble.
‘The College of Comparative Theology,’ Senji sniffed. ‘They’re a sorry group of scholars with an inflated notion of their contribution to the sum of human knowledge.’
‘Follow it, Garion,’ Belgarath instructed.
They crossed the lawn. Startled scholars scattered before them like frightened birds after one look at Belgarath’s face.
They entered the ground floor of the tower. A thin man in ecclesiastical robes sat at a high desk just inside the door. ‘You’re not members of this college,’ he said in an outraged voice. ‘You can’t come in here.’
Without even slowing his pace, Belgarath translocated the officious doorman some distance out onto the lawn, desk and all.
‘It does have its uses, doesn’t it?’ Senji conceded. ‘Maybe I should give it a little more study. Alchemy’s beginning to bore me.’
‘What’s behind this door?’ Garion asked, pointing.
‘That’s their museum.’ Senji shrugged. ‘It’s a hodgepodge of old idols, religious artifacts, and that sort of thing.’
Garion tried the handle. ‘It’s locked.’
Beldin leaned back and kicked the door open, splintering the wood around the lock.
‘Why did you do that?’ Belgarath asked him.
‘Why not?’ Beldin shrugged. ‘I’m not going to waste the effort of pulling in my will for an ordinary door.’
‘You’re getting lazy.’
‘I’ll put it back together, and you can open it.’
‘Never mind.’
They went into the dusty, cluttered room. There were rows of glass display cases in the center, and the walls were lined with grotesque statues. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and dust lay everywhere.
‘They don’t come in here very often,’ Senji noted. ‘They’d rather cook up addlepated theories than look at the real effects of human religious impulses.’
‘This way,’ Garion said as the Orb continued to pull steadily at his hand. He noticed that the stone was glowing redder and redder, and it was getting uncomfortably warm.
Then it stopped before a glass case where a rotting cushion lay behind the dusty panes. Aside from the cushion, the case was empty. The Orb was actually hot now, and its ruddy glow filled the entire room.
‘What was in this case?’ Belgarath demanded.
Senji leaned forward to read the inscription on the corroded brass plate attached to the case. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘now I remember. This is the case where they used to keep Cthrag Sardius—before it was stolen.’
Suddenly, without any warning, the Orb seemed to jump in Garion’s hand, and the glass case standing empty before them exploded into a thousand fragments.
Chapter Eight
‘How long was it here?’ Belgarath asked the shaken Senji, who was gaping in awe first at the still-sullenly glowing Orb in Garion’s hand, then at the shattered remains of the case.
‘Senji,’ Belgarath said sharply, ‘pay attention.’
‘Is that what I think it is?’ the alchemist asked, pointing at the Orb with a trembling hand.
‘Cthrag Yaska,’ Beldin told him. ‘If you’re going to play this game, you may as well learn what’s involved. Now answer my brother’s question.’
Senji floundered. ‘I’m not—’ he began. ‘I’ve always been just an alchemist. I’m not interested in—’
‘It does not work that way,’ Belgarath cut him off. ‘Like it or not, you’re a member of a very select group. Stop thinking about gold and other nonsense, and start paying attention to what’s important.’
Senji swallowed hard. ‘It was always just a kind of game,’ he quavered. ‘Nobody ever took me seriously.’
‘We do,’ Garion told him, holding out the Orb to the now-cringing little man. ‘Do you have any idea of the kind of power you’ve stumbled over?’ He was suddenly enormously angry. ‘Would you like to have me blow down this tower—or sink the Melcene Islands back into the sea—just to show you how serious we are?’
‘You’re Belgarion, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Godslayer?’
‘Some people call me that.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Senji whimpered.
‘We’re wasting time,’ Belgarath said flatly. ‘Start talking. I want to know just where Cthrag Sardius came from, how long it was here, and where it went from here.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Senji said.
‘Abbreviate it,’ Beldin told him, kicking aside the glass shards on the floor. ‘We’re a little pressed for time right now.’
‘How long was the Sardion here?’ Belgarath asked.
‘Eons,’ Senji replied.
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Zamad,’ the alchemist responded. ‘The people up there are Karands, but they’re a little timid about demons. I think a few of their magicians were eaten alive. Anyway—or so the legends say—at about the time of the cracking of the world some five thousand years or so ago . . .’ he faltered again, staring at the two dreadful old men facing him.
‘It was noisy,’ Beldin supplied distastefully, ‘a lot of steam and earthquakes. Torak was always ostentatious—some kind of character defect, I think.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Senji said again.
‘Don’t keep saying that,’ Belgarath told him in a disgusted tone. ‘You don’t even know who your God is.’
‘But you will, Senji,’ Garion said in a voice that was not his own, ‘and once you have met Him, you will follow Him all the days of your life.’
Belgarath looked at Garion with one raised eyebrow.
Garion spread his hands helplessly. ‘Get on with this, Belgarath,’ the voice said through Garion’s lips. ‘Time isn’t waiting for you, you know.’
Belgarath turned back to Senji. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘The Sardion came to Zamad. How?’
‘It’s said to have fallen out of the sky.’
‘They always do,’ Beldin said. ‘Someday I’d like to see something rise up out of the earth—just for the sake of variety.’
‘You get bored too easily, my brother,’ Belgarath told him.
‘I didn’t see you sitting over Burnt-face’s tomb for five hundred years, my brother,’ Beldin retorted.
‘I don’t think I can stand this,’ Senji said, burying his face in his trembling hands.
‘It gets easier as you go along,’ Garion said in a comforting tone. ‘We’re not really here to make your life unpleasant. All we need is a little information and then we’ll go away. If you think about it in the right way, you might even be able to make yourself believe that this is all a dream.’
‘I’m in the presence of three demigods, and you want me to pass it off as a dream?’
‘That’s a nice term,’ Beldin said. ‘Demigod. I like the sound of it.’
‘You’re easily impressed by words,’ Belgarath told him.
‘Words are the core of thought. Without words there is no thought.’
Senji’s eyes brightened. ‘Now, we might want to talk about that a little bit
,’ he suggested.
‘Later,’ Belgarath said. ‘Get back to Zamad—and the Sardion.’
‘All right,’ the clubfooted little alchemist said. ‘Cthrag Sardius—or the Sardion, whatever you want to call it—came out of the sky into Zamad. The barbarians up there thought that it was holy and built a shrine to it and fell down on their faces and worshiped it. The shrine was in a valley up in the mountains, and there was a grotto and an altar and that sort of thing.’
‘We’ve been there,’ Belgarath said shortly. ‘It’s at the bottom of a lake now. How did it get to Melcene?’
‘That came years later,’ Senji replied. ‘The Karands have always been a troublesome people, and their social organization is fairly rudimentary. About three thousand years ago—or maybe a little longer—a king of Zamad began to feel ambitious, so he assimilated Voresebo and started looking hungrily south. There were a series of raids in force across the border into Rengel. Of course, Rengel was a part of the Melcene Empire, and the emperor decided that it was time to teach the Karands a lesson. He mounted a punitive expedition and marched into Voresebo and then Zamad at the head of a column of elephant cavalry. The Karands had never seen an elephant before and they fled in panic. The emperor systematically destroyed all the towns and villages up there. He heard about the holy object and its shrine and he went there and took Cthrag Sardius—more I think to punish the Karands than out of any desire to possess the, stone for himself. It’s not really very attractive you know.’
‘What does it look like?’ Garion asked him.
‘It’s fairly large,’ Senji said. ‘It’s sort of oval-shaped and about so big.’ He indicated an object about two feet in diameter with his hands. ‘It’s a strange reddish sort of color, and kind of milky-looking—like certain kinds of flint. Anyway, as I said, the emperor didn’t really want the thing, so when he got back to Melcene, he donated it to the university. It was passed around from department to department, and it finally ended up here in this museum. It lay in that case for thousands of years, collecting dust, and nobody really paid any attention to it.’