Guardians of the West

  Aunt Pol’s mother put one finger to her lips. ‘Don’t wake her, Belgarion,’ she cautioned. ‘Let’s get her back to bed.’

  ‘Geran—?’

  ‘He’s all right. I arrived in time. Just lead her gently back to bed. She’ll sleep now without any more of these adventures.’

  Garion went to his wife’s side and put his arm about her shoulders. ‘Come along now, Ce’Nedra,’ he said gently to her.

  She nodded, her eyes still vacant, and obediently went with him back into the royal bedroom.

  ‘Could you pull back that bolster for me?’ he quietly asked Poledra.

  She laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, I can’t,’ she said. ‘You forget that I’m not really here, Belgarion.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It just seemed —’ He pushed the bolster out of the way, carefully laid Ce’Nedra in bed, and pulled the coverlets up around her chin. She sighed and snuggled down to sleep.

  ‘Let’s go into the other room,’ Poledra suggested.

  He nodded and quietly followed her into the adjoining room which was still dimly lighted by the glowing embers of the dying fire. ‘What was that all about?’ he asked, softly closing the door.

  ‘There’s someone who hates and fears your son, Belgarion,’ she told him gravely.

  ‘He’s only a baby,’ Garion protested.

  ‘His enemy fears him for what he may become—not for what he is now. It’s happened that way before, you’ll recall.’

  ‘You mean when Asharak killed my parents?’

  She nodded. ‘He was actually trying to get at you.’

  ‘But how can I protect Geran from his own mother? I mean—if this man can come to Ce’Nedra in her sleep like that and make her do things, how can I possibly—?’

  ‘It won’t happen again, Belgarion. I took care of that.’

  ‘But how could you? I mean, you’re—well —’

  ‘Dead? That’s not altogether accurate, but no matter. Geran is safe for the moment, and Ce’Nedra won’t do this again. There’s something else we need to discuss.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You’re getting very close to something important. I can’t tell you everything, but you do need to look at the Mrin Codex—the real one, not one of the copies. You must see what’s hidden there.’

  ‘I can’t leave Ce’Nedra—not now.’

  ‘She’s going to be all right, and this is something that only you can do. Go to that shrine on the River Mrin and look at the Codex. It’s desperately important.’

  Garion squared his shoulders. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave in the morning.’

  ‘One other thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must take the Orb with you.’

  ‘The Orb?’

  ‘You won’t be able to see what you have to see without it.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘You will when you get there.’

  ‘All right, Poledra,’ he said. Then he made a rueful face. ‘I don’t know why I’m objecting. I’ve been doing things I didn’t understand all my life now.’

  ‘Everything will become clear in time,’ she assured him. Then she looked at him rather critically. ‘Garion,’ she said in a tone so like Aunt Pol’s that he answered automatically.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You really shouldn’t run around at night without a robe, you know. You’ll catch cold.’

  The ship he hired at Kotu was small, but well designed for river travel. It was a shallow-draft, broad-beamed little ship that sometimes bobbed like a chip of wood. The oarsmen were sturdy fellows and they made good time rowing against the sluggish current of the Mrin River as it meandered its slow way through the fens.

  By nightfall they were ten leagues upriver from Kotu, and the captain prudently moored his ship to a dead snag with one of the tar-smeared hawsers. ‘It’s not a good idea to try to find the channel in the dark,’ he told Garion. ‘One wrong turn and we could spend the next month wandering around in the fens.’

  ‘You know what you’re doing, Captain,’ Garion told him. ‘I’m not going to interfere.’

  ‘Would you like a tankard of ale, your Majesty?’ the captain offered.

  ‘That might not be a bad idea,’ Garion agreed.

  Later, he leaned against the railing with his tankard in hand, watching the darting lights of the fireflies and listening to the endless chorus of the frogs. It was a warm spring night, and the damp, rich odor of the fens filled his nostrils.

  He heard a faint splash, a fish maybe, or perhaps a diving otter.

  ‘Belgarion?’ It was a strange, piping kind of voice, but it was quite distinct. It was also coming from the other side of the railing.

  Garion peered out into the velvet darkness.

  ‘Belgarion?’ The voice came again. It was somewhere below him.

  ‘Yes?’ Garion answered cautiously.

  ‘I need to tell you something.’ There was another small splash, and the ship rocked slightly. The hawser that moored her to the snag dipped, and a scampering shadow ran quickly up it and slid over the railing in a curiously fluid way. The shadow stood up, and Garion could clearly hear the water dripping from it. The figure was short, scarcely more than four feet tall, and it moved toward Garion with a peculiarly shuffling gait.

  ‘You are older,’ it said.

  ‘That happens,’ Garion replied, peering at the form as he tried to make out its face. Then the moon slid out from behind a cloud, and Garion found himself staring directly into the furry, wide-eyed face of a fenling. ‘Tupik?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘You remember.’ The small, furry creature seemed pleased.

  ‘Of course I remember.’

  The ship rocked again, and another furry shadow ran up the hawser. Tupik turned with irritation. ‘Poppi!’ he chittered angrily. ‘Go home!’

  ‘No,’ she answered quite calmly.

  ‘You must do as I say!’ he told her, stamping his feet on the deck.

  ‘Why?’

  Tupik stared at her in obvious frustration. ‘Are they all like that?’ he demanded of Garion.

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Females.’ Tupik said the word with a certain disgust.

  ‘Most of them, yes.’

  Tupik sighed.

  ‘How is Vordai?’ Garion asked them.

  Poppi made a peculiarly disconsolate whimpering sound. ‘Our mother is gone,’ she said sadly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She was very tired,’ Tupik said.

  ‘We covered her with flowers,’ Poppi said. ‘And then we closed up her house.’

  ‘She would have liked that.’

  ‘She said that one day you would come back,’ Tupik told him. ‘She was very wise.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She said that we should wait until you came and then we were to give you a message.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There is an evil that moves against you.’

  ‘I was beginning to suspect that.’

  ‘Mother said to tell you that the evil has many faces and that the faces do not always agree, but that which is behind it all has no face and that it comes from much farther than you think.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow.’

  ‘It is from beyond the stars.’

  Garion stared at him.

  ‘That is what we were told to say,’ Poppi assured him. ‘Tupik said it exactly as mother told it to him.’

  ‘Tell Belgarath about mother,’ Tupik said then. ‘And tell him that she sent him her thanks.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Good-bye, Belgarion,’ the fenling said. Poppi made a small, affectionate sound in her throat, pattered over, and nuzzled briefly at Garion’s hand.

  And then the two of them slipped over the side and vanished in the dark waters of the fens.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a dreary-looking place. The village huddled on the river bank at the edge of a
flat, featureless plain covered with coarse, dark-green grass. The underlying soil was alluvial clay, slick, gray, and unwholesome looking, and just beyond the wide bend in the Mrin River lay the endless green and brown expanse of the fens. The village itself consisted of perhaps two dozen dun-colored houses, huddled all together about the square stone structure of the shrine. Rickety docks, constructed of bone-white driftwood, stuck out into the river like skeletal fingers, and fishing nets hung on poles, drying and smelling in the humid, mosquito-infested air.

  Garion’s ship arrived about noon, and he went immediately up from the creaking dock along the muddy, rutted street to the shrine itself, walking carefully to avoid slipping, and feeling the curious stares of the dull-eyed villagers directed at him and at the great sword of the Rivan King strapped to his back.

  The priests of Belar who guarded the shrine were obsequious, almost fawning, when he arrived at the tarnished bronze gates and requested entry. They led him through a flagstone-covered courtyard, pointing proudly at the rotting kennel and the stout, tar-smeared post with its fragment of heavy, rusting chain where the mad prophet of Mrin had spent his last days.

  Within the shrine itself stood the customary altar with its great carved-stone bearhead. Garion noted that the interior of the shrine stood in need of a good cleaning and that the priest-guardians themselves were rumpled and unwashed. One of the first manifestations of religious enthusiasm, he had noted, was a powerful aversion to soap and water. Holy places—and those who attended them—always seemed to smell bad.

  There was some small problem when they reached the vaulted sanctorum where the yellowed parchment scroll of the original Mrin Codex lay in its crystal case with two man-high candles flanking it. One of the priests, a wild-eyed fanatic whose hair and beard resembled a wind-ravaged strawstack, objected shrilly—almost hysterically—when Garion politely requested that the case be opened. The ranking priest, however, was enough of a politician to recognize the pre-eminent claim of the Rivan King—particularly since he bore Aldur’s Orb—to examine any holy object he pleased. Garion realized once again that, in a peculiar way, he himself was a holy object in the minds of many Alorns.

  The fanatic at last retreated, muttering the word ‘blasphemy’ over and over again. The crystal case was opened with a rusty iron key, and a small table and chair were brought into the circle of candlelight so that Garion might examine the Codex.

  ‘I think I can manage now, your Reverences,’ he told them rather pointedly. He did not like having people read over his shoulder and he felt no particular need of company. He sat at the table, put his hand on the scroll, and looked directly at the little clot of priests. ‘I’ll call if I need anything,’ he added.

  Their expressions were disapproving, but the overpowering presence of the Rivan King made them too timid to protest his peremptory dismissal; they quietly filed out, leaving him alone with the scroll.

  Garion was excited. The solution to the problem that had plagued him for all these months lay at last in his hands. With nervous fingers, he untied the silken cord and began to unroll the crackling parchment. The script was archaic, but gorgeously done. The individual letters had not so much been written as they had been meticulously drawn. He perceived almost at once that an entire lifetime had been devoted to the production of this single manuscript. His hands actually trembling with his eagerness, Garion carefully unrolled the scroll, his eyes running over the now-familiar words and phrases, searching for the line that would once and for all clear up the mystery.

  And there it was! Garion stared at it incredulously, not believing what he saw. The blot was exactly the same as it was on all the copies. He almost screamed with frustration.

  With a sick feeling of defeat, he read once again that fatal line: ‘And the Child of Light shall meet with the Child of Dark and shall overcome him, and the Darkness shall flee. But behold, the Stone which lies at the center of the Light shall —’ And there was that accursed blot again.

  A peculiar thing happened as he read it again. An odd sort of indifference seemed to come over him. Why was he making such a fuss about a single blotted word? What difference could one word make? He almost rose from his chair with the intention of putting the scroll back in its case and leaving this foul-smelling place for home. Then he stopped quite suddenly, remembering all the hours he had spent trying to puzzle out the meaning of that blot on the page. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to read it one more time. He had, after all, come a very long way.

  He started over again, but his distaste became so acute that he could hardly stand it. Why was he wasting his time with this nonsense? He had traveled all this way to wear out his eyes on this moldering scrap of insane gibberish—this stinking, half-rotten sheet of poorly tanned sheepskin. He shoved the Codex away in disgust. This was sheer idiocy. He pushed back the chair and stood up, shifting Iron-grip’s great sword on his back. His ship would still be there, moored to that rickety dock. He could be halfway to Kotu by nightfall and back at Riva within the week. He would lock the library once and for all and tend to his business. A king, after all, did not have time for all this idle, brainsickly speculation. Decisively, he turned his back on the scroll and started toward the door.

  As soon as he was no longer looking at the scroll, however, he stopped. What was he doing? The puzzle was still there. He had made no effort to solve it. He had to find out. But as he turned back and looked at the scroll again, that same wave of insupportable disgust almost overwhelmed him. It was so strong that it made him feel faint. Once again he turned his back, and once again the feeling vanished. There was something about the scroll itself that was trying to drive him away.

  He began to pace up and down, carefully keeping his eyes away from the scroll. What had the dry voice in his mind told him? ‘There are several words there. If you look at them in the right kind of light, you should be able to see them.’ What kind of light? The candles in this vaulted room obviously weren’t what the voice had meant. Sunlight? That hardly seemed likely. Poledra had said that he must read the hidden words, but how could he, when the Codex literally drove him away each time he looked at it?

  Then he stopped. What else had she said? Something about not being able to see without . . .

  The wave of disgust which struck him was so strong that he felt his stomach constrict. He spun quickly so that his back was toward that hateful document; as he did so, the hilt of Iron-grip’s sword jabbed him painfully in the side of the head. Angrily he reached over his shoulder to grasp the handle and push it back, but instead, his hand touched the Orb. The feeling of revulsion evaporated instantly, and his mind became clear, and his thoughts lucid. The light! Of course! He had to read the Codex by the light of the Orb! That is what both Poledra and the dry voice had been trying to tell him. Awkwardly, he reached up and back, seizing the Orb. ‘Come off,’ he muttered to it. With a faint click, the Orb came free in his hand. The sudden weight of the huge sword strapped across his back very nearly drove him to his knees. In astonishment, he realized that the seeming weightlessness of the great weapon had been the work of the Orb itself. Struggling under that gross weight, he fumbled with the buckle at his chest, unfastened it, and felt the enormous bulk slide free. Iron-grip’s sword fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

  Holding the Orb in front of him, Garion turned and looked directly at the scroll. He could almost hear an angry snarl hovering in the air, but his mind remained clear. He stepped to the table and pulled the scroll open with one hand, holding the glowing Orb above it with the other.

  At last he saw the meaning of the blot that had frustrated him for so long. It was not some random splotch of spilled ink. The message was there—all of it, but the words had all been written down on top of one another! The entire prophecy lay in that one single spot! By the blue, unwavering light of Aldur’s Orb, his eyes seemed actually to plunge down and down beneath the surface of the parchment, and the words, hidden for eons, rose like bubbles out of the substance of the scroll.


  ‘But Behold,’ the crucial passage read, ‘the Stone which lies at the center of the Light shall burn red, and my voice shall speak unto the Child of Light and reveal the name of the Child of Dark. And the Child of Light will take up the Guardian’s sword and go forth to seek out that which is hidden. Long will be his quest, and it shall be threefold. And ye shall know that the quest hath begun when the Keeper’s Line is renewed. Guard well the seed of the Keeper, for there shall be no other. Guard it well, for should that seed fall into the hands of the Child of Dark and be taken to the place where the evil dwells, then blind choice alone can decide the outcome. Should the Keeper’s seed be reft away, then must the Beloved and Eternal lead the way. And he shall find the path to the place where the evil dwells in the Mysteries. And in each Mystery shall lie but a part of the path, and he must find them all—all—or the path will lead awry, and the Dark shall triumph. Hasten therefore to the meeting where the three-fold quest will end. And this meeting will come to pass in a place which is no more, and there will the choice be made.’

  Garion read it again, and then a third time, feeling an ominous chill as the words echoed and thundered through his consciousness. Finally he rose and went to the door of the candlelit, vaulted chamber. ‘I’ll need something to write with,’ he told the priest standing just outside. ‘And send someone down to the river. Have him tell the captain of my ship to get things ready. Just as soon as I finish here, I have to leave for Kotu.’

  The priest was staring wide-eyed at the incandescently glowing Orb in Garion’s hand. ‘Don’t just stand there, man, move!’ Garion told him. ‘The whole world’s hanging on this!’

  The priest blinked and then scurried away.

  The following day, Garion was in Kotu, and about a day and a half later, he reached Aldurford in northern Algaria. As luck had it, a herd of half-wild Algarian cattle was being driven across that wide, shallow place in the mighty river on their way to Muros, and Garion went immediately in search of the herd master.