‘Please brother,’ Beltira told him, looking up from his copy of the Mrin, ‘sit down someplace. We’re trying to concentrate.’ It was one of the few times I’ve ever seen either of the twins display anything remotely resembling irritability.

After about an hour, Belkira slapped his hand down on the Darine triumphantly. ‘Here it is!’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought I remembered it.’

‘What does it say?’ Beltira demanded.

‘It’s that passage about the eclipse. It says, “Behold! The sun shall fall dark, and the sky shall endlessly weep, and it shall be a sign that the King returneth, and the God also”.’

‘It got the part about the sky weeping pretty close,’ Beldin noted.

‘We misread it,’ Beltira confessed. ‘It’s only talking about one of them, not both.’

‘Will you two please try to make sense?’ Beldin exploded.

‘We’ve been looking in the wrong direction,’ Beltira explained. ‘We thought the passage meant that the Rivan King would re-emerge and that Torak would come out of Ashaba at the same time. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Rivan King, though. It’s only talking about Torak, since he’s both King and God in Angarak. That eclipse and the foul weather we’ve had since then warned us that this was coming, but Iron-grip’s heir’s over fifty right now, so we discounted the possibility. We’re sorry, Belgarath.’

‘I’d have probably missed it as well, Beltira. Don’t blame yourselves. Where’s the corresponding passage in the Mrin?’

Belkira checked their concordance and then took up the third scroll of the Mrin and unrolled it until he found the index mark he was looking for. ‘It’s right here,’ he said, handing me the scroll and pointing at the mark.

‘“Behold!”’ I read it aloud. ‘“In the day that the sun falls dark at noon and the skies are veiled shall the King re-emerge, and shall he journey to the seat of power and put aside the one who hath stood in his stead.”’

‘I can see how you missed that one, brothers,’ Beldin said to the twins. ‘It’s ambiguous enough so that it could very well mean the Rivan King. What does it say next, Belgarath?’

‘“And he shall confer with his tributary kings,”’ I read on, ‘“instructing all in that which they must do, and in the fullness of time shall he gather his forces and shall move to confront the other Child. And the one of them shall be a God, and the other shall be like unto a God, and the jewel shall decide the outcome in the lands of the children of the Bull-God.”’

‘Arendia?’ Beldin said. ‘Why Arendia?’

‘There’ve been hints of that before,’ Beltira said. ‘Something important’s going to happen in Arendia.’

‘What else does it say?’ Beldin asked me.

I read the next line, and then I started to swear.

‘What’s wrong?’ Beldin demanded.

‘It just broke off. Now it’s talking about “The Mother of the Race That Died”.’

‘Beltira and I’ll work with it some more,’ Belkira told me.

‘We know enough to get started, Belgarath,’ Beldin said. ‘You and I both have things to do, and the twins can work better without the two of us hanging over their shoulders. I’m going back to Mallorea. You’d better go alert the Alorns - and find a safer place to hide Polgara. There’s nothing at Aldurford but the river and a lot of open grassland.’

I grunted and stood up. ‘You’re probably right,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t care much for running off on just a few hints, but there’s no help for it, I guess.’

‘We’ll stay in touch,’ Beltira promised. ‘We’ll let you or Pol know just as soon as we pinpoint anything else that seems significant.’

‘I’d really appreciate that, brother,’ I replied.

I flew north from the Vale to the Algarian Stronghold and found out from the caretakers there that Cho-Ram XIV, the current Chief of the clan-chiefs of Algaria, was in the vicinity of Lake Atun up near the Drasnian border.

I’m sure that name rings a bell. Royal families habitually repeat names. It’s a silly custom, but at least it doesn’t strain anybody’s creativity.

It only took me two days to locate the fourteenth Cho-Ram. He was a fairly young man, and he customarily wore clothing made of horse-hide and shaved his head - except for a flowing scalp-lock that hung down his back like the tail of a horse. Now that I think back on it, he looked a great deal like Cho-Hag’s adopted son, Hettar.

‘It’s about time,’ was all he said when I told him that Torak was coming. He was obviously a true descendant of the close-mouthed Algar Fleet-foot.

‘He isn’t coming to pay a social call,’ I said acidly.

‘I know.’ Then he grinned wolfishly at me.

Alorns!

‘You’d better gather your clans,’ I advised.

‘How long have we got?’

‘I’m not sure. Mallorea’s a big place, and it’s going to take Torak a while to gather his forces. Beldin’s there, though, so he’ll be able to give us a little advance notice.’

‘That’s all we really need, isn’t it? I’ll call the clans in, and we’ll all go down to the Stronghold. I’ll be there when you need me.’

‘Is Khalan still king in Drasnia?’

‘No. He died last fall. His son Rhodar wears the crown.’

‘I’d better go to Boktor and talk with him. Keep a sharp eye on the Eastern Escarpment. Something important’s going to happen in Arendia, so the Murgos might come down the cliff to try to soften you up before Torak gets here. You’re sitting on his logical invasion route.’

‘Good.’

‘Good? What do you mean, good?’

‘I won’t have to go looking for him.’

‘Was your grandmother an Arend, by any chance?’

‘Belgarath! What a thing to suggest!’

‘Never mind. Get to work. I’ll go talk with Rhodar, and then go to Val Alorn and see Eldrig.’

Notice that I’d already broad-jumped my way to an erroneous conclusion. Both Mishrak ac Thull and Algaria were open grasslands, and Torak was going to be leading a very large army. It didn’t even occur to me that he’d try to take all those troops through the Nadrak Forest.

Rhodar I of Drasnia was not nearly as corpulent as his namesake five centuries later, but he was still fairly stout. He was a descendant of Bull-neck, though, so a certain bulk was understandable. We ran a lot of that off him during the next twenty or so years. I alerted him to what was happening in Mallorea and then left him mapping out his defenses with his generals while I flew on to Val Alorn.

King Eldrig of Cherek was not exactly what you’d call a true representative of his race. More often than not his tankard held water instead of beer, for one thing, and he was a scholarly man for another. He was a great deal like Anheg in that respect. About the only difference is the fact that Anheg will take a drink on occasion.

‘Arendia?’ he said when I told him what was coming.

‘That’s what the Mrin says.’

‘Are you sure? Torak’s coming west to get the Orb, isn’t he? The Orb’s not in Arendia; it’s at Riva.’

‘The twins are still hammering at the Mrin. They might be able to dig out an explanation. All we’ve got so far is the fact that the EVENT’s going to take place in the lands of the children of the Bull-God. Unless something’s changed, that means Arendia.’

Eldrig scratched at his iron-grey hair and stared at his map. ‘I suppose Torak could swing through Mimbre and then turn north to the hook of Arendia to come at the Isle from the south. If we just happened to be in his way, there could be some kind of confrontation down there.’

I also looked at his map. ‘There’s no real point in running off there until Torak makes his move,’ I said. ‘You’d better get word to Brand. Tell him that I’ll come to the Isle in a little bit. I’ve got a couple of other things to attend to first.’

‘Do you think I should seal off the Isle?’ he asked.

‘We’ll have to do that eventually, but let’s not upset the Tolnedrans by making them shut down their shops on the beach at Riva just yet. We’ll need the legions before this is over, so we don’t want Ran Borune’s nose getting out of joint. We’ll have plenty of time to fill the Sea of the Winds with war-boats when Torak starts to move, and Beldin’ll give us plenty of warning when that happens.’

‘I wish we had more to work with.’

‘So do I, but for right now, we’ve got enough to get started. Oh, you might want to warn Ormik of Sendaria as well.’

‘You’re not serious!’

‘The Sendars live here, too, Eldrig.’

‘Cabbage farmers won’t be much good in a fight.’

‘Maybe not, but if all this shapes up the way I think it’s going to, we’ll probably have to go through Sendaria from time to time, so let’s stay on Ormik’s good side.’

‘Anything you say, Ancient One.’ He leaned back in his chair. King Eldrig had grey hair, but the grin he suddenly flashed at me was surprisingly youthful. ‘This is the one we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it, Belgarath?’ he said.