The Rivan Queen was young and healthy, and she recovered from her confinement quickly. She remained in bed for a few days – largely for the dramatic effect on the stream of Rivan nobility and foreign dignitaries who filed through the royal bedchamber to view the tiny queen and the even tinier princess.
After a few days, Poledra spoke with Garion. ‘That more or less takes care of business here,’ she said, ‘and we really should get started back to the Vale. Polgara’s time is coming closer, you know.’
Garion nodded. ‘I asked Greldik to stay,’ he told her. ‘He’ll get us back to Sendaria faster than anybody else can.’
‘He’s a very undependable man, you know.’
‘Aunt Pol said exactly the same thing. He’s still the finest sailor in the world. I’ll make arrangements to have horses put on board his ship.’
‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘We’re in a hurry, Garion. Horses would only slow us down.’
‘You want to run all the way from the coast of Sendaria to the Vale?’ he asked her, a little startled.
‘It’s not really all that far, Garion,’ she smiled.
‘What about supplies?’
She gave him an amused look, and he suddenly felt very foolish.
Garion’s goodbyes to his family were emotional, though brief. ‘Be sure to dress warmly,’ Ce’Nedra instructed. ‘It’s winter, you know.’
He decided not to tell her exactly how he and his grandmother intended to travel.
‘Oh,’ she said, handing him a parchment sheet, ‘give this to Aunt Pol.’
Garion looked at the sheet. It was a rather fair artist’s sketch, in color, of his wife and daughter.
‘It’s quite good, isn’t it?’ Ce’Nedra said.
‘Very good,’ he agreed.
‘You’d better run along now,’ she said. ‘If you stay much longer, I won’t let you go at all.’
‘Keep warm, Ce’Nedra,’ he said, ‘and look after the children.’
‘Naturally. I love you, your Majesty.’
‘I love you, too, your Majesty.’ He kissed her and his son and daughter and quietly left the room.
The weather at sea was blustery, but the militantly impetuous Greldik paid almost no attention to weather, no matter how foul. His patched and decidedly scruffy-looking ship ran before the wind across a storm sea under far more sail than even a marginally prudent sea-captain would have crowded onto his masts, and two days later, they reached the coast of Sendaria.
‘Any empty beach will do, Greldik,’ Garion told him. ‘We’re in sort of a hurry, and if we stop at Sendar, Fulrach and Layla will tie us up with congratulations and banquets.’
‘How do you propose to get off a beach without horses?’ Greldik asked bluntly.
‘There are ways,’ Garion told him.
‘More of that sort of thing?’ Greldik said with a certain distaste.
Garion nodded.
‘That’s unnatural, you know.’
‘I come from an unnatural sort of family.’
Greldik grunted disapprovingly and ran his ship in close to a wind-swept beach bordered on its upper edge with the rank grass of a salt-flat. ‘Does this one suit you?’ he asked.
‘It’s just fine,’ Garion said.
Garion and his grandmother waited on the windy beach with their cloaks whipping around them until Greldik was well out to sea. ‘I suppose we can get started now,’ Garion said, shifting his sword into a more comfortable position.
‘I don’t know why you brought that,’ Poledra said.
‘The Orb wants to see Aunt Pol’s baby,’ he shrugged.
‘That may just be the most irrational thing I’ve ever heard anyone say, Garion. Shall we go?’
They shimmered and blurred, and then two wolves loped up the beach to the bordering grass and ran smoothly inland.
It took the two of them a little more than a week to reach the Vale. They stopped only rarely to hunt and even more infrequently to rest. Garion learned a great deal about being a wolf during that week. Belgarath had given him a certain amount of instruction in the past, but Belgarath had come into wolfhood when he had been full-grown. Poledra, on the other hand, was the genuine article.
They crested the hill overlooking the cottage one snowy evening and looked down at the tidy farmstead with its fence-lines half buried in snow and the windows of the cottage glowing a warm, welcoming yellow.
‘Are we in time?’ Garion asked the golden-eyed wolf beside him.
‘Yes,’ Poledra replied. ‘One suspects, however, that the decision not to burden ourselves with the beasts of the man-things was wise. The time is very close. Let us go down and find out what is happening.’
They loped on down the hill through swirling snow-flakes and changed back into their own forms in the dooryard.
The interior of the cottage was warm and bright. Polgara more than a little ungainly, was setting places for Garion and her mother at the table. Belgarath sat near the fire, and Durnik was patiently mending harness.
‘I saved some supper for you,’ Pol told Garion and Poledra. ‘We’ve already eaten.’
‘You knew we’d get here this evening?’ Garion asked.
‘Of course, dear. Mother and I always stay more or less in constant contact. How’s Ce’Nedra?’
‘She and Beldaran are just fine.’ He said it in an offhand sort of way. Aunt Pol had surprised him often enough in the past. Now it was his turn.
She almost dropped a plate, and her glorious eyes grew wide. ‘Oh, Garion,’ she said, embracing him suddenly.
‘Does the name please you? Just a little?’
‘More than you could ever know, Garion.’
‘How are you feeling, Polgara?’ Poledra asked, removing her cloak.
‘Fine – I think.’ Aunt Pol smiled. ‘I know about the procedure, of course, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it personally. Babies spend a great deal of time kicking at this stage, don’t they? A few minutes or so ago, I think mine kicked me in three separate places at once.’
‘Maybe he’s punching, too,’ Durnik suggested.
‘He?’ she smiled.
‘Well – the word’s just for the sake of convenience, Pol.’
‘If you’d like, I could have a look and tell you if it’s a he or a she,’ Belgarath offered.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Polgara told him. ‘I want to find out for myself.’
The snow let up shortly before daybreak, and the clouds blew off by midmorning. The sun came out, and it glittered brightly on the new-fallen blanket of white around the cottage. The sky was intensely blue, and, though it was cold that day, the bitter chill of mid-winter had not yet set in.
Garion, Durnik, and Belgarath had been banished from the house at dawn, and they wandered about with that odd sort of uselessness men usually feel in such circumstances. At one point they stopped on the bank of the small stream that threaded its way through the farmstead. Belgarath looked down into the clear water, noting a number of dark, slim shapes just below the surface. ‘Have you had time to do any fishing?’ he asked Durnik.
‘No,’ Durnik said a bit sadly, ‘and I don’t seem to have the enthusiasm for it I used to.’
They all knew why, but none of them mentioned it.
Poledra brought their meals to them, but firmly insisted that they remain outside. Late in the afternoon, she put them to work boiling water over Durnik’s forge, which sat in the tool shed.
‘I’ve never seen any reason for this,’ Durnik confessed, lifting another steaming kettle from his forge. ‘Why do they always need boiling water?’
‘They don’t,’ Belgarath told him. Belgarath was comfortably sprawled on a woodpile and was examining the intricately carved cradle Durnik had built. ‘It’s just a way to keep the men folk out from underfoot. Some female genius came up with the idea thousands of years ago, and women have been honoring the custom ever since. Just boil water, Durnik. It makes the women happy, and it’s not that big a chore.’
T
he moon had been rising late, but the stars touched the snow with a fairy light, and all the world seemed somehow bathed in a gentle blue-white glow. It was, of all nights, among the closest to perfect Garion had ever seen, and all of nature seemed to be holding its breath.
Garion and Belgarath, noting Durnik’s increasing edginess, suggested that they walk to the top of the hill to settle their suppers. They had both observed in the past that Durnik usually banished uncomfortable emotions by keeping busy.
The smith looked up at the night sky as they trudged through the snow toward the top of the hill. ‘It’s really a special sort of night, isn’t it.’ He laughed a little sheepishly. ‘I suppose I’d feel that way even if it were raining,’ he said.
‘I know I always do,’ Garion said. Then he too laughed, his breath steaming in the chill night air. ‘I don’t know that twice qualifies as much of an always, though,’ he conceded, ‘but I know what you mean. I was feeling sort of the same way myself earlier.’ He looked beyond the cottage across the snowy plain lying white and still beneath the icy stars. ‘Does it seem very, very quiet to you two as well?’
‘There’s not a hint of a breeze,’ Durnik agreed, ‘and the snow muffles all the sound.’ He cocked his head. ‘Now that you mention it, though, it does seem awfully quiet, and the stars are really bright tonight. There’s a logical explanation for it, I suppose.’
Belgarath smiled at them. ‘There’s not a single ounce of romance in either one of you, is there? Didn’t it ever occur to you that this might just be a very special night?’
They looked at him oddly.
‘Stop and think about it,’ he said. ‘Pol’s devoted most of her life to raising children that weren’t hers. I’ve watched her do it, and I could feel an obscure kind of pain in her each time she took a new baby in her arms. That’s going to change tonight, so in a very real sense this is a special night. Tonight, Polgara’s going to get a baby of her very own. It may not mean all that much to the rest of the world, but I think it does to us.’
‘It does indeed,’ Durnik said fervently. Then a thoughtful expression came into the good man’s eyes. ‘I’ve been sort of working on something lately, Belgarath.’
‘Yes. I’ve heard you.’
‘Doesn’t it seem to you that we’re all sort of coming back to the places where we started? It’s not exactly the same, of course, but things sort of feel familiar.’
‘I’ve been thinking sort of the same thing,’ Garion admitted. ‘I keep getting this strange feeling about it.’
‘It’s only natural for people to go home after they’ve been on a long journey, isn’t it?’ Belgarath said, kicking at a lump of snow with one foot.
‘I don’t think it’s that simple, Grandfather.’
‘Neither do I,’ Durnik agreed. ‘This seems more important for some reason.’
Belgarath frowned. ‘I think it does to me as well,’ he admitted. ‘I wish Beldin were here. He could explain it in a minute. Of course none of us would understand the explanation, but he’d explain it all the same.’ He scratched at his beard. ‘I’ve found something that might explain it,’ he said a bit dubiously.
‘What’s that?’ Durnik asked him.
‘Garion and I have had an extended conversation over the last year or so. He’d noticed that things kept happening over and over again. You probably heard us talking about it.’
Durnik nodded.
‘Between us, we came up with the notion that things kept repeating themselves because the accident made it impossible for the future to happen.’
‘That makes sense, I guess.’
‘Anyhow, that’s changed now. Cyradis made her Choice, and the effects of the accident have been erased. The future can happen now.’
‘Then why is everybody going back to the place where he started?’ Garion asked.
‘It’s only logical, Garion,’ Durnik told him quite seriously. ‘When you’re starting something—even the future – you almost have to go back to the beginning, don’t you?’
‘Why don’t we just assume that’s the explanation,’ Belgarath said. ‘Things got stopped. Now they’re moving again, and everybody got what he deserved. We got the good things, and the other side got the bad ones. It sort of proves that we picked the right side, doesn’t it?’
Garion suddenly laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ Durnik asked him.
‘Just before our baby was born, Ce’Nedra got a letter from Velvet – Liselle. She’s managed to push Silk into naming a day. It’s probably what he deserves, all right, but I imagine his eyes get a little wild every time he thinks about it.’
‘When’s the wedding?’ Durnik asked.
‘Next summer sometime. Liselle wants to be sure that everybody can be in Boktor to witness her triumph over our friend.’
‘That’s a spiteful thing to say, Garion,’ Durnik reproved.
‘It’s probably the truth, though,’ Belgarath grinned. He reached inside his tunic and drew out an earthenware flagon. ‘A touch of something to ward off the chill?’ he offered. ‘It’s some of that potent Ulgo brew.’
‘Grandmother won’t like that,’ Garion warned.
‘Your grandmother isn’t here right now, Garion. She’s a little busy at the moment.’
The three of them stood atop the snowy hill looking down at the farmstead. The thatched roof was thick with snow, and icicles hung like glittering jewels from the eaves. The small panes of the windows glowed with golden lamplight that fell softly out over the gently mounded snow in the dooryard, and the ruddy glow from the forge where the menfolk had spent the afternoon boiling unneeded water came softly from the shed. A column of blue wood smoke rose straight and unwavering from the chimney, reaching so high that it seemed to almost be lost among the stars.
A peculiar sound filled Garion’s ears, and it took him a while to identify it. It was the Orb, and it was singing a song of unutterable longing.
The silence seemed almost palpable now, and the glittering stars seemed to draw even closer to the snowy earth.
And then from the cottage there came a single cry. It was an infant voice, and it was not filled with that indignation and discomfort so common in the cries of most newborns but rather with a kind of wonder and ineffable joy.
A gentle blue light suddenly came from the Orb, and the longing in its note turned to joy.
As the song of the Orb faded, Durnik drew in a deep breath. ‘Why don’t we go down?’ he said.
‘We’d better wait a bit,’ Belgarath suggested. ‘There’s always some cleaning up to do at this point, and we should give Pol a chance to brush her hair.’
‘I don’t care if her hair’s a little mussed,’ Durnik said.
‘She does. Let’s wait.’
Strangely, the Orb had renewed its yearning melody. The silence remained as palpable as before, broken now only by the thin, joyous wail of Polgara’s baby.
The three friends stood on the hilltop, their breath steaming in the cold night air as they listened to that distant, piping song.
‘Good healthy lungs,’ Garion complimented the new father.
Durnik grinned briefly at him, still listening to the cry of his child.
And then that single cry was not alone. Another voice joined in.
This time the light which burst from the Orb was a sudden blaze of blue that illuminated the snow around them, and its joyous song was a triumphant organ note.
‘I knew it!’ Belgarath exclaimed with delight.
‘Two?’ Durnik gasped. ‘Twins?’
‘It’s a family trait, Durnik,’ Belgarath laughed, catching the smith in a rough embrace.
‘Are they boys or girls?’ Durnik demanded.
‘What difference does it make right now? But we might as well go on down there and find out, I suppose.’
But as they turned, they saw that something seemed to be happening in the vicinity of the cottage. They stared at the single shaft of intensely blue light descending from the starry sk
y, a shaft which was soon joined by one of a paler blue. The cottage was bathed in their azure light as the two lights from the heavens touched the snow. Then those lights were joined by other lights, red and yellow and green and lavender and a shade Garion could not even put a name to. Lastly, the lights from the sky were joined by a single shaft of blinding white. Like the colors of the rainbow, the lights stood in a semi-circle in the dooryard, and the brilliant columns from which they had descended rose above them to fill the night sky with a pulsing curtain of many-hued, shifting light.
And then the Gods were there, standing in the dooryard with their song joining with that of the Orb in a mighty benediction.
Eriond turned to look up the hill at them. His gentle face glowed with a smile of purest joy. He beckoned to them. ‘Join us,’ he said.
‘Now it is complete.’ UL’s voice was also joyous. ‘All is well now.’
Then, with the God-light bathing their faces, the three friends started down from the snowy hilltop to view that miracle, which, though it was most commonplace, was a miracle nonetheless.
And so, my children, the time has come to close the book. There will be other days and other stories, but this tale is finished.
THE END
About the Author
David Eddings (1931–2009) published his first novel, High Hunt, in 1973, before turning to the field of fantasy with The Belgariad, soon followed by The Malloreon.
Born in Spokane, Washington, and raised in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1954, and a master of arts degree from the University of Washington in 1961.
He served in the US Army, worked as a buyer for the Boeing Company, and was both a grocery clerk and a college English teacher. He lived in Nevada until his death, at the age of 77.
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