And so it was in the tenth year following the death of Torak that we met at Kell, and there we determined that we could no longer stand idly aside, observing the course of EVENTS. The time for study had passed; now the time had come to act. It was decided that, since the signs in the Book of the Heavens had become an enigma, we must in some way control or goad or deceive the participants in the next EVENT to go to a place which we knew. Thus, though we could not know what the EVENT was to be, we could know when and where it was to take place.
And we communicated this decision to the mind of a Seeress who dwelt in the lands to the west of the great sea which had divided the lands of this world, and we besought her that she go up unto the Vale of Aldur, where dwelt the Sorceress Polgara with her husband and a foundling Belgarion had rescued from the Disciple Ctuchik, and to speak to Polgara in such wise that she must perforce set out upon the journey which must inevitably bring her to a place of our choosing. And the Seeress in the lands of the west agreed to our request, and she set forth upon the journey with only her silent guide for company.
And we all then turned to our preparations, for much remained to be done, and we were all resolved that this EVENT should be the last. Whatever the outcome should mean for this world, the division of creation had endured for too long, and we were determined that with this meeting between the two Fates, the division would end and all would be made one again.
BOOK 2
THE BOOK OF FATES
Now These are the Fates we have known:
IN THE DAYS before the world was divided, a spirit came unto us and told us of the Feast of Life and of the Beloved Guest who would one day come to partake of that feast. And the spirit spake also to us of signs in the heavens and whispers within the rocks which foretold the coming. And we lifted our eyes to the sky to read, and we bent our ears to the earth to hear, and we learned that a false voice would speak to us and try to lead us away from the truth. For behold, the fate of man is not a clear and straightforward path. Two fates await us, and the one is true and the other false. And we turned all our effort and all our care to the task of determining which fate was true and which fate false. But the Book of the Heavens, which told us so much, spoke not to that. Clearly we could read there that which would happen should we follow truth and that which would happen should we follow falsity, but the great book written in the stars spoke no word concerning which fate was which. And we were puzzled and fearful lest we choose awry.
And we went away from the place where this had been revealed to us and took up the great task which had been placed upon us. Clearly, it is the task of our people to learn all that may be learned of the two Destinies which divide creation and to judge between them and determine which is the path of truth. And we sought out the wisdom of spirits and the wisdom of other men and even the wisdom of Gods and Prophets. And men and spirits and Gods and Prophets gave us their wisdom, and behold, they knew no more than we. All believed that the fate they followed was the true Fate, but none could offer certainty or proof. Thus it was that the task remained before us. And we took counsel with each other, for we saw that others, by reason of their adherence to one fate or the other could read the Book of the Heavens only indistinctly, but that we, who still sought truth, could read it clearly. And the burden of our task grew heavy, for truly, in our choosing we choose for all of man.
all
believed
that the
fate they
followed
was the
true Fate,
but none
could
offer cer-
tainty or
proof
To aid us to choose aright we turned to the pages of the book of the stars that speak of beginnings. And on the first page of the Great Book it is written that at the beginning there was but one Destiny and one Fate for all that had ever been made, and the fate was a purpose and a necessity. But it came to pass in the timelessness which existed before there was any man to consider the meaning of time, that a Second Destiny came into being, and it was also a necessity and a purpose. And the second purpose was at odds with the first, and the pull of the one against the other strained the very fabric of creation. And out of that stirring there came to be awareness, for each Destiny became aware of the other. And they became mortal foes, for each stood athwart the path of the other, and so long as both existed, neither could be fulfilled. And each Fate put its hands upon events to twist them and turn them so that the other fate might be defeated. Great forces were set in motion which must inevitably collide; and the two Fates spake unto those who would be their instruments.
and the
lands
parted
like cloud
before
Torak and
the stone
he raised
The voices of these two Great Destinies and the words they speak are called Prophecy, and a Prophecy must be fulfilled. Were there but one voice and one Destiny, our task would have ended with the discovery of that voice. But there are two voices and two Prophecies, and all of creation is a battleground between them. And the Prophets of the First Destiny proclaimed that the other Fate was an error and an abomination; while the Prophets of the Second declared that the First Fate had been the embodiment of evil which had now been supplanted by truth.
And we considered these Prophecies and teachings, and it was possible that an error could lead inevitably to evil, but it was also possible that evil might have existed from the beginning of time in order to be corrected.
Now at about the same time that we learned of the two great voices and the two Destinies, it came to pass that the world was also divided, even as the rest of creation, and behold! The dividing of our world came about as the result of the touch of one Destiny upon the other, for the God of the people called Angarak was the fruit of the Second Fate, and the stone which he raised was the instrument of the First Fate. So vast was the force of their coming together that earth herself could not bear the weight, and the lands parted like cloud before Torak and the stone he raised, and the seas came in, and that which had been one became two.
And when the movement of the seas and the dry lands had subsided, there were two places where men dwelt, and the men in one of those places followed the First Destiny, and the men in the other place followed the Second. And we marveled at the perfection of this. Yet as we considered what had taken place, we found a flaw in it, for there was not symmetry within it. The God of Angarak and the stone which men call the Orb are not equal. For Torak is one aspect of the Second Destiny, and the Orb is a different aspect of the First. And we concluded that there must be a symmetry between the two—that there must somewhere be a God to match Torak and that somewhere there must be a stone which will represent the aspect of the Second Destiny which the Orb represents for the First. And as we turned this over in our minds, it became clear to us that when any aspect of the one Fate meets the same aspect of the other, that meeting will be the final meeting between the two, and one will triumph and one perish—but should we be unable to perform our part in this meeting, all that is will perish. Thus it was that we became aware that it would be upon this world that the ultimate contest between Good and Evil was destined to take place, and that we must prepare ourselves to do that which must be done.
And we bent our efforts to find the stone which had been revealed by the flaw in the event which men call the Cracking of the World, for we reasoned that the coming together of the two stones was the most likely form of the final conflict, and could we
find the other stone, we might be able to keep the two separate until we were ready for their meeting. But the Book of the Heavens spoke obscurely and the voices of the rocks muttered indistinctly, and our search proved in vain. Finally we realized that the two contending Destinies were concealing certain aspects of themselves from each other and from the eyes of men.
With the beginning of the Third Age, which came into being when Belgarath and certai
n Alorns recovered the Orb of Aldur from the City of Endless Night, there dawned the great Age of Prophecy. And the fervor of Prophecy descended upon the maimed God of Angarak, and he spake in an ecstasy, and his words were the words of the Second Destiny. And we waited, for we knew that the First Destiny must also speak—for the word sets forth the meaning of the Event, and each Destiny must put its own meaning to the Events which inevitably must come to pass. Then from far to the north in the lands called the Kingdoms of the West came the voice of the First Destiny. And all in amaze we heard that voice—for Behold, the First Fate spake not in the voice of a God, but in the voice of an idiot.
In a rude village on the banks of the River Mrin there dwelt a man so like a beast that his family kenneled him. He spoke no human speech, but rather howled and whined like a very dog. And yet in his thirtieth year the power of Prophecy came to him, and the rapture descended upon him, and he began to speak. And as chance had it, the King of that land was one of the sons of Bear-shoulders, and he had gone with his father and ancient Belgarath to the City of Endless Night to reclaim the Orb. Now this
King—whom men called Bull-neck—had been warned by Belgarath to listen for the Voice of Prophecy and to record it when it came. And so it was that King Bull-neck sent scribes to the village of the Prophet to record his words.
And we marveled at this, for the God of Angarak dwelt in a great palace high in the mountains of Karanda, and the Prophet of the River Mrin dwelt in a mud and wattle kennel by the riverbank, and yet the rapture of Prophecy was equally upon them— and it seemed in some wise that the higher and more exalted Torak became, the lower and more degraded became the one who spoke the Prophecies of the Destiny which opposed him. And behold, in his final days, after he had Prophesied for twenty years, the mind of the Prophet of Mrin broke entirely, and his idiocy became tainted with madness, and King Bull-neck perforce was obliged to have him chained to a post before his kennel lest he do himself injury or run into the fens to live with the beasts.
And from afar we watched and we waited, and when the rapture of Prophecy had passed we sent certain of our number to copy down the Prophecies of the idiot of Mrin and the God of Angarak that we might compare them and learn from them.
And there were lesser Prophecies as well during this time. The First Destiny spake through the mouth of a merchant of Darine in far-off Sendaria, and the Second Destiny spake from the mouth of a slave at Rak Cthol in the wasteland of Murgos. And a scholar in Melcena was seized by an ecstasy and spake in the voice of the First Destiny for three hundred and nine hours—and then he died. And a seaman and warrior of the far northern kingdom of Cherek leapt from his sleep aboard a Cherek war-boat to speak Prophecies of the coming of Torak, and his shipmates bound him in chains and cast him into the sea.
with the
begin-
ning of
the
Fourth
Age, the
time of
Prophecy
ended
And there was in all of this a design which we could not perceive. The Destinies which contended with each other at the center of creation moved mysteriously to counter each other, and whom they chose to speak and where the Prophecies were spoken were as vital as what was said—and it was beyond our understanding.
But with the beginning of the Fourth Age, the time of Prophecy ended and the time of EVENT began. And the first EVENT was the slaying of the King of Riva, who was the keeper of the Orb. And Torak exulted in the death of the King of Riva, which Zedar the Apostate had caused to come to pass. But the Dragon God knew not that by that act had his own fate been sealed. For behold, the death of the Rivan King consumed the heart of Polgara the Sorceress with eternal hatred for the maimed God, and if he could not win Polgara’s love, he was doomed.
And the next EVENT was the coming of Angarak against the Kingdoms of the West. And upon the field at Vo Mimbre was Torak overcome by the power of the Orb and bound by it to await the coming of his enemy.
And EVENTS, both large and small, followed the overthrow of Torak, and we saw in the course of those EVENTS the hands of the two Fates, and we saw also the intricate moves of their eternal game. But no EVENT resounded more in the stars than the birth of Belgarion. And in his sixteenth year he put forth his hand to claim the Orb, and when his hand touched it, all of creation rang like some vast bell.
And now the EVENT for which the universe and Time itself had waited drew near, and the two Destinies confronted each other in the ruins of the City of Night. And it came to pass that Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, was slain by the hand of Belgarion, the Keeper of the Orb. And that EVENT signaled the beginning of the Fifth Age.
And the Fifth Age began in darkness and confusion, for the Book of the Heavens had changed in the instant of Torak’s death, and we could no longer read it. Moreover, with the death of Torak we felt a shudder pass through all of creation, and we were chagrined, for one of the Destinies appeared to have been vanquished—and we had not yet chosen between them. The First Destiny had been fulfilled and the Second had failed, but we still did not know which was Good and which was Evil. And if the Prophecies of Torak had been the voice of truth, then Good had passed forever from creation, and we were doomed to eternal Evil.
Desperately we sought to learn anew the language of the Great Book of the Heavens, but one of our number, who had ever bent his attention to the voices within the rocks, came to us and spake, saying: ‘Behold, the rocks still speak with two voices.’ And the spirits also spake unto us, saying: ‘Behold, the Child of Light and the Child of Dark still contend with each other in the spirit world.’And as the Book of the Heavens became clear once more, we read with astonishment that the two Destinies continued their endless game. In the meeting between Belgarion and Torak one aspect of the one
Destiny perished. And we perceived that other such meetings had taken place—and that still more would. Even now, a new aspect of the Destiny which had failed with the death of Torak had begun to move about the world—and in some regard this aspect seemed a dark reflection of Polgara the Sorceress. And we shuddered at the prospect of the meeting between this dark shape and terrible Polgara.
And as the Book of the Heavens became clearer, we read there that the struggle between the two Destinies will continue for so long as the two stones which once were one still exist. For even as the stones were once the center of all creation, each is now at the core of a different Destiny, and so long as both exist, the endless struggle will go on.
And we searched even more urgently for that stone which is the counter to the Orb, for Behold, the Orb is in the hand of Belgarion, and he is a mighty sorcerer. Should the two stones be drawn together for their final confrontation, the hand of Belgarion will surely enter into the struggle, and we do not know if this is as it should be—but how might we deny to mighty Belgarion anything he chooses to do?
The second stone is here. The rocks of this world reverberate with the sound of its presence. The two stones move toward each other as inexorably as the Fates they represent. We must find the second stone, and we must delay Belgarion lest he bring the Orb into the presence of the other stone before we have made our choice. For should the meeting take place before we have chosen, all of creation will perish.
BOOK 3
THE BOOK OF TASKS
Now These are the Tasks which have been set us:
ONCE WE SAT UPON THE EARTH in the shadow of the mountains of Korim, which are no more, and we made great moan that we had been made and cast out. And even as we grieved, the gift of sight came to one of our people, and she became a Seeress, and she spake unto us of the Feast of Life and of the Beloved Guest who would one day arrive to partake of that feast. And she exhorted us to prepare for his coming. She told us of the signs in the sky and in the earth and commanded that we learn to read those signs in order that we might choose between the two who would one day come to us.
So it was that we turned our faces first to the heavens, and we despaired for there
seemed no sign there. But lo! a great light streamed across the night sky, trailing clouds of fire behind it like a veil. And in those clouds of fire read we the first word in the Book of the Heavens, and the word we read was ‘Peril’. Painfully we began to piece together the message written in the stars. And as we labored at this, others of our number strove to hear the voices which whispered within the rocks. Now there were
whispers which all men might hear, but they spoke in a language which no man could translate. But lo! in a certain time the earth was seized by the throes of earthquake, and the whisper of the rocks became a shriek, and in that shriek we found the first word of the language of the rocks, and the word we heard was ‘peril’.
For centuries we struggled with the signs among the stars that we might read them, and for centuries we wrestled with the whispers in the rocks that we might hear them more clearly and translate them. And in time it came to pass that one amongst us lifted his face to the sky and read clearly there the message of the stars. And the message read: ‘Peril lies at the heart of the choice, for should ye choose awry, all of creation will be bent to the design of EVIL, and GOOD shall perish and be no more.’And at the same time, another of our scholars arose and went to a certain rock and laid his ear against it, and he heard therein the voice of the rock speaking clearly unto him. And the rock said: ‘Peril lies at the heart of the choice, for should ye choose awry, all of creation will be bent to the design of EVIL, and GOOD shall perish and be no more.’
And as we studied further, the Book of the Heavens became more clear, and the Voice of the Earth more audible. But the pages written in the stars and the volumes spoken from the earth provided no aid to us in the choice which we must make. Both earth and sky warned repeatedly that two would come to us, and that one was good and one was evil and that we must choose between them, but neither earth nor sky would advise us which was which. And we sent scholars into other realms of knowledge to seek the answer we must have. And some of them communed with the dead and others spoke with spirits and with beasts and with trees. And our seers cast their sight into the far future and the distant past, but nowhere could we find the answer.
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 33