Our evening gatherings continued for six months or so, and they helped us to gather our wits and to ward off the nightmares which haunted our sleep.
Sooner or later, one of us was bound to ask the question, and as it turned out, it was Beltira. ‘What started it all, Master?’ he asked reflectively. ‘This goes back much further than what’s been happening recently, doesn’t it?’
You’ll notice that Durnik wasn’t the first to be curious about beginnings.
Aldur looked gravely at the gentle Alorn shepherd. ‘It doth indeed, Beltira – further back than thou canst possibly imagine. Once, when the universe was all new and long before my brothers and I came into being, an event occurred which had not been designed to occur, and it was that event which divided the purpose of all things.’
‘An accident then, Master?’ Beldin surmised.
‘A most apt term, my son,’ Aldur complimented him. ‘Like all things, the stars are born; they exist for a certain time; and then they die. The “accident” of which we speak came about when a star died in a place and at a time which were not a part of the original design of all creation. The death of a star is a titanic event, and the death of this particular star was made even more so by its unfortunate proximity to other stars. Ye have all studied the heavens, and therefore ye know that the universe is comprised of clusters of stars. The particular cluster of which we speak consisted of so many suns that they were beyond counting, and the wayward sun which died in their very midst ignited others, and they in turn ignited more. The conflagration spread until the entire cluster exploded.’
‘Was that anywhere near where we are now, Master?’ Belsambar asked him.
‘Nay, my son. The EVENT took place on the far side of the universe – so far in fact that the light of that catastrophe hath not yet reached this world.’
‘How is that possible, Master?’ Belsambar looked confused.
‘Sight isn’t instantaneous, brother,’ Beldin explained. ‘There’s a lag between the time when something happens and the time when we see it. There are a lot of things we see in the night sky that aren’t really there any more. Someday when we’ve both got some time, I’ll explain it to you.’
‘How could so remote an event have any meaning here, Master?’ Belzedar asked, his tone baffled.
Aldur sighed. “The universe came into being with a Purpose, Belzedar,’ he replied with a strange kind of wonder in his voice. ‘The accident divided that Purpose, and what was once one became two. Awareness came out of that division, and the two Purposes have contended with each other since that EVENT took place. In time, the two agreed that this world – which did not even exist as yet – would be their final battleground. That is why my brothers and I came into existence, and that is why we made this world. It is here that the division of the Purpose of the universe will be healed. A series of EVENTS, some great and some very small, have been leading up to the final EVENT, and that EVENT shall be a Choice.’
‘Who’s supposed to make that choice?’ Beldin asked.
‘We are not permitted to know that,’ Aldur replied.
‘Oh, fine!’ Beldin exploded with heavy sarcasm. ‘It’s all a game, then! When’s this supposed to happen?’
‘Soon, my son. Very soon.’
‘Could you be a little more specific, Master? I know how long you’ve been around, and you and I might have very different ideas about what the word “soon” means.’
‘The Choice must be made when the light of that exploding star-cluster reaches this world.’
‘And that could happen at any time, couldn’t it? It could come popping out of the sky sometime after midnight this very night, for all we know.’
‘Curb thine impatience, Beldin,’ Aldur told him. ‘There will be signs to advise us that the moment of the Choice draws nigh. The cracking of the world was one such sign. There will be others as well.’
‘Such as?’ Beldin pressed. Once Beldin grabbed hold of an idea, he couldn’t let go of it.
‘Before the light comes, there will be a time – a moment – of utter darkness.’
‘I’ll watch for it,’ Beldin said sourly.
‘As I understand it, there are two possible Destinies out there,’ Belmakor observed. ‘Torak’s one of them, isn’t he?’
‘My brother is a part of one of them, yes. Each of the Destinies is comprised of innumerable parts, and each hath a consciousness which doth exceed the awareness of any of those parts.’
‘Which one came first, Master?’ Belkira asked.
‘We do not know. We are not permitted to know.’
‘More games,’ Beldin said in a tone of profoundest disgust. ‘I hate games.’
‘We must all play this one, however, gentle Beldin. The rules may not be to our liking, but we must abide by them, for they are laid down by the contending Purposes.’
‘Why? It’s their fight. Why involve the rest of us? Why don’t they just pick a time and place, meet, and have it out once and for all?’
‘That they may not do, my son, for should they ever confront each other directly, their struggle would destroy the whole of the universe.’
‘I don’t think we’d want that,’ Belkira said mildly. The twins are Alorns, after all, and Alorns take a childish delight in gross understatement.
‘You are the other Destiny, aren’t you, Master?’ Belsambar asked. ‘Torak is the one, and you are the other.’
‘I am a part of it, my son,’ Aldur conceded. ‘We are all parts of it. That is why what we do is so important. One will come in the fullness of time, however, who will be even more important. It is he who will meet Torak and prepare the way for the Choice.’
And that was the very first time I ever heard of Belgarion. Aldur knew he was coming, though, and he’d been patiently preparing for him since he and his brothers had built the world. If you want to put it in the simplest terms, I suppose you could say that the Gods created this world to give Belgarion something to stand on while he set things right again. It was a lot of responsibility for somebody like Garion, but I suppose he was up to it. Things did turn out all right – more or less.
Our Master’s explanation of what we were doing laid a heavy responsibility on us as well, and we felt it keenly. Even in the midst of our labors, however, we all noticed that the world had been enormously changed by what Torak had done to it. The presence of a new ocean in what had been the center of the continent had a profound effect on the climate, and the mountain range our Master and Belar had raised to confine that ocean changed it even more. Summers became dryer and hotter for one thing, and the winters became longer and colder. That’s one of the reasons that I tend to get very angry when someone starts playing around with the weather. I’ve seen what happens when something or someone tampers with normal weather patterns. Garion and I had a very long talk about that on one occasion, as I recall – that is, I talked. He listened. At least I hope he did. Garion has enormous power, and sometimes he turns it loose before he thinks his way completely through a given course of action.
With the change of climate there also came a gradual alteration of the world around us. The vast primeval forest on the northern edge of the Vale began to thin out, for one thing, and it was replaced by grassland. I’m sure the Algars approve of that, but I preferred the trees myself.
There was also a rather brutal alteration of the climate of the far north. Belar, however, persisted in his plan to find some way to close with the Angaraks again, and his Alorns were obliged to endure truly savage winters.
There in the Vale, however, we had more on our minds than the weather. The cracking of the world set a lot of things in motion, and Aldur kept the seven of us very busy making sure that things which were supposed to happen did happen. We surmised that the Angaraks were doing the same thing. The two contending Purposes were undoubtedly maneuvering for position.
About twenty years after the cracking of the world, our Master summoned us all to his tower and suggested that one of us ought to go to wha
t is now Mallorea to find out what Torak and his people were up to.
‘I’ll go,’ Beldin volunteered. ‘I fly better than the rest of you, and I can move around among the Angaraks without attracting any attention.’
‘Somehow your reasoning there escapes me, old boy,’ Belmakor said. ‘You’re a rather remarkable-looking fellow, you know.’
‘That’s the whole point. When people look at me, all they can see is this hump on my back and the fact that my arms are longer than my legs. They don’t bother to look at my face to find out what my race is. There’s a kind of anonymity that goes with being deformed.’
‘Do you want me to go with you?’ Belsambar offered. ‘I’m an Angarak, after all, and I know the customs.’
‘Thanks, brother, but no. You’ve got some fairly strong opinions about Grolims. We wouldn’t be anonymous for very long if you started turning every single priest of Torak inside out. I’m just going there to look, and I’d rather that Torak didn’t know that I’m around.’
‘I wouldn’t interfere, Beldin.’
‘Let’s not take the chance. I love you too much to risk your life.’
‘You really shouldn’t go alone, Beldin,’ Belzedar told him, his eyes strangely intent. ‘I think perhaps I’d better go too.’
‘I’m not a child, Belzedar. I can take care of myself.’
‘I’m sure of it, but we can cover more ground if there are two of us. The other continent’s quite large, and the Angaraks have probably spread out by now. The Master wants information, and two of us can get it faster than one.’
Now that I think back about it, Belzedar’s arguments were just a bit thin. Angarak society was the most tightly controlled in the world. Torak was not going to let his people spread out; he would keep them under his thumb. Belzedar had his own reasons for wanting to go to Mallorea, and I should have realized that helping Beldin wasn’t one of them.
The two of them argued for a while, but Beldin finally gave in. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Come along if it means so much to you.’
And so the next morning the two of them took the forms of hawks and flew off toward the east.
We all dispersed not long after that. The Master had some fairly extensive tasks for me in Arendia and Tolnedra.
The young she-wolf went with me, of course. I hadn’t even considered leaving her behind, and it probably wouldn’t have done me any good if I had. When we’d first met, she’d said, ‘I will go along with you for a while.’ Evidently, we hadn’t come to the end of that ‘while’ yet. I didn’t really mind, though. She was good company.
The shortest route to northern Arendia lay across Ulgoland, so the wolf and I went up into those mountains and proceeded in a generally northwesterly direction. I made us a proper camp every night. Fire had made her nervous right at first, but now she rather liked having a fire in the evening.
After a few days I realized that we were going to be passing fairly close to Prolgu. I didn’t really like the current Gorim very much. This particular successor seemed to be terribly impressed by the fact that the Ulgos were the children of the father of the Gods. I guess that made him feel that Ulgos were better than the rest of mankind. I reluctantly concluded that it’d be bad manners to bypass Prolgu without paying a courtesy call, so I veered slightly north in order to reach the city.
The route I chose to reach Prolgu ran up through a thickly wooded gorge with a tumbling mountain stream running down the middle of it. It was about mid-morning, and the sunlight had just reached the damp bottom of the gorge. I was wool-gathering, I suppose. A kind of peace and serenity comes over me when I’m in the mountains.
Then the wolf laid her ears back and growled warningly.
‘What’s the problem?’ I asked her, speaking in the language of men without even thinking about it.
‘Horses,’ she replied in wolvish. ‘But perhaps they are not really horses. They smell of blood and of raw meat.’
‘Do not be concerned,’ I told her, lapsing into wolvish. ‘One has encountered them before. They are Hrulgin. They are meat-eaters. What you smell is the blood and meat of a deer.’
‘One thinks that you are wrong. The smell is not that of deer. What one smells is the blood and meat of man.’
‘That is impossible,’ I snorted. ‘The Hrulgin are not maneaters. They live in peace with the Ulgos here in these mountains.’
‘One’s nose is very good,’ she told me pointedly. ‘One would not confuse the smell of man-blood and meat with the smell of a deer. These flesh-eating horses have been killing and eating men, and they are hunting again.’
‘Hunting? Hunting what?’
‘One thinks that they are hunting you.’
I sent out a probing thought. The minds of the Hrulgin aren’t really very much like the minds of horses. Horses eat grass, and about the only time they’re aggressive is during the breeding season. The Hrulgin look a great deal like horses – if you discount the claws and fangs – but they don’t eat grass. I’d touched the minds of Hrulgin before at various times when I’d been traveling in the mountains of Ulgoland. I knew that they were hunters and fairly savage, but the peace of UL had always put restraints on them before. The minds I touched this time seemed to have shrugged off those restraints, though.
The wolf was right. The Hrulgin were hunting me.
I’d been hunted before. A young lion stalked me for two days once before I’d finally chased him off. There’s no real malice in the mind of a hunting animal. He’s just looking for something to eat. What I encountered this time, however, was a cruel hatred, and much worse, to my way of looking at it, an absolute madness. These particular Hrulgin were much more interested in the killing than they were in the eating. I was in trouble here.
‘One suggests that you do something about your shape,’ the she-wolf advised. She dropped to her haunches, her long, pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. In case you’ve never noticed, that’s the way canines laugh.
‘What is so funny?’ I demanded of her.
‘One finds the man-things amusing. The hunter puts all his thought on the thing he hunts. If it is a rabbit he hunts, he will not turn aside for a squirrel. These meat-eating horses are hunting a man – you. Change your shape, and they will ignore you.’
I was actually embarrassed. Why hadn’t I thought of that? For all our sophistication, the instinctive reaction that seizes you when you realize that something wants to kill and eat you is sheer panic.
I formed the image in my mind, and slipped myself into the shape of the wolf. My companion seemed to be impressed. ‘Much better,’ she said approvingly. ‘You are a handsome wolf. Your other shape is not so pleasing. Shall we go?’
We angled up from the stream-bed and stopped at the edge of the trees to watch the Hrulgin. The sudden disappearance of my scent confused them and it seemed also to infuriate them. The herd stallion reared, screaming his rage, and he shredded the bark of an unoffending tree with his claws while flecks of foam spattered out from his long, curved fangs. Several of the mares followed my scent down the gorge, then back, moving slowly and trying to sniff out the place where I’d turned aside and slipped away.
‘One suggests that we move along,’ the she-wolf said. ‘The flesh-eating horses will think that we have killed and eaten the man-thing they were hunting. This will make them angry with us. They may decide to stop hunting the man-thing and start hunting wolves.’
We stayed just back of the edge of the trees so that we could watch the baffled Hrulgin near the edge of the mountain stream in case they decided to start hunting wolves instead of men. After about a half-hour, we were far enough out in front of them that the chances that they could catch up with us were very slim.
The change in the Hrulgin had me completely baffled. The peace of UL had always been absolute before. What had driven the Hrulgin mad?
As it turned out, the Hrulgin weren’t the only monsters that’d lost their wits.
My automatic use of the word ‘monste
r’ there isn’t an indication of prejudice. It’s just a translation of an Ulgo word. The Ulgos even refer to the Dryads as monsters. Ce’Nedra was somewhat offended by that term, as I recall.
Anyway, I decided not to revert to my own form once we’d evaded the Hrulgin. Something very strange was going on here in Ulgoland. My companion and I reached that peculiarly shaped mountain upon which Prolgu stands, and we started up.
About half-way to the top, we encountered a pack of Algroths, and they were just as crazy as the Hrulgin had been. Algroths are not among my favorite creatures anyway. I’m not sure what the Gods were thinking of when they created them. A blend of ape, goat, and reptile seems a bit exotic to me. The Algroths were also hunting for people to kill and eat. Whether I liked him or not, I definitely needed to have words with the Gorim.
The only problem was the fact that Prolgu was totally deserted. There were some signs of a hasty departure, but the abandoning of the city had happened some time back, so my companion and I couldn’t pick up any hint of a scent that might have told us which way the Ulgos had gone. We came across some mossy human bones, however, and I didn’t care for the implications of that. Was it possible that the Ulgos had all been killed? Had UL changed his mind and abandoned them?
I didn’t really have time to sort it out. Evening had fallen over the empty city, and my companion and I were still sniffing around in the empty buildings when a sudden bellow shattered the silence, a bellow that was coming from the sky. I went to the doorway of the building we’d been searching and looked up.
The light wasn’t really very good, but it was good enough for me to see that huge shape outlined against the evening sky.
It was the dragon, and her great wings were clawing at the sky and she was belching clouds of sooty fire with every bellow.
Notice that I speak of her in the singular and the feminine. This is no indication of any great perception on my part, since there was only one dragon in the entire world, and she was female. The two males the Gods had created had killed each other during the first mating season. I’d always felt rather sorry for her, but not this time. She, like the Hrulgin and the Algroths, was intent on killing things, but she was too stupid to be selective. She’d burn anything that moved.
Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress Page 11