‘Her? A woman did this?’

He nodded. ‘I’d have had some doubts about it myself, Belgarath, but I’ve known both of those men since childhood. They’re honest men, and they’d never lie about something like this.’

‘No one can touch the Orb except -’ I broke off as that passage in the Mrin started echoing in my head. ‘And the Child of Light shall take the jewel from its accustomed place -’ I’d thought that it meant that this interim Child would take down the Sword and deliver it to Brand. I’d even believed that the passage was a set of instructions to me - that I was the one who was supposed to take it down off the wall and carry it back to Tol Honeth. But the passage wasn’t talking about the sword. This woman, whoever she was, had removed it and set in the center of the shield instead. Pol had been right. Since no one could touch the Orb except the Child of Light, that particular position was being passed around - but a woman?

Then the two off-duty guardsmen came into the hall and walked rather hesitantly toward us. I suppose that someday I’m going to have to do something about my reputation for being bad-tempered. ‘Oh, come here,’ I told them shortly. ‘I’m not going to bite you. You couldn’t have done anything to stop her. When did this happen?’

‘About a week ago, Ancient One,’ the taller of the two replied.

How convenient - and how predictable. The incident had occurred at almost exactly the same time as when I’d decided to come to Riva.

‘It was sorcery, Holy One,’ the other guard asserted. ‘We were standing guard outside the door late at night, and a woman came down the corridor.’

‘We knew that something very strange was happening - particularly since she was on fire.’

‘On fire?’

‘Well, glowing, actually. There was bright blue light coming from her. We sort of backed away from her.’

‘She was a pretty woman,’ the other guard put in. ‘At least she would have been if she hadn’t been all blue. She opened the door to the Hall and went inside. We followed her down to the throne. When she got there, she raised her hand and said, “Come to me”. It was almost as if she was calling a pet dog.’

‘This was all pretty strange,’ the other man said, ‘but we’ve talked it over, and we both saw what happened next. The pommel-stone on that big sword just came loose and floated down to her hand - and it was glowing, too. Then she walked over to that shield - and I’ve never seen that shield in here before - and she set the stone against the middle of it, and it sort of melted its way right into the steel.’

‘Did she leave then?’ I asked them.

‘She said something first.’

‘Oh? Did she say who she was?’

‘She only said, “One will come, and he will know what to do”. Then she sort of smiled and went back to the door. We followed her, but when we got out into the corridor, she was gone. That’s all we saw, Ancient One. There wasn’t a thing we could do to stop her.’

‘You’ve got that part right,’ I told him. ‘Nobody could have stopped whoever she was.’ I picked up the heavy shield with both hands. ‘This “ghost”, or whatever, was right about one thing. I do know what to do with this.’

‘That’s the Orb, Holy Belgarath,’ Rennig objected. ‘It’s supposed to stay here on the Isle.’

‘Yes, it is,’ I replied, ‘right up until the time we need it, and unless my calculations are off, your father’s going to need it fairly soon.’

I brooded about the fact that the Orb was now part of a shield rather than a sword on my trip back to Tol Honeth. That obviously meant that Brand wasn’t going to kill Torak. A shield by its very nature is defensive, and that began to change my thinking about the strategy the Tolnedran generals had put together for the battle that was going to be fought at Vo Mimbre. Maybe we could win from a defensive position.

Just about the only really significant thing I did during the return voyage was to notify the twins about the alteration in the Orb’s location. I was definitely going to need some instruction here.

The Angarak siege of the Algarian Stronghold dragged on for another year, then in the late spring of 4874, Beldin came back from southern Cthol Murgos to advise us that Urvon had assembled his army on the plains of Hagga and begun his march to the west. If General Cerran’s calculations were correct, we had about one more year before the final battle. We’d know for certain when Torak broke off his siege of the Stronghold and also started west.

I spent much of the following summer scurrying around to make certain that everything was in place. Inevitably, hostilities periodically broke out between the warring factions in Arendia, and Polgara and I had to rush north from Tol Honeth to quiet things down again.

Although the twins labored mightily, we weren’t able to get very many clues from the Mrin. That concerned me a great deal until I finally realized that the whole business of the fight between Brand and Torak was completely out of my hands. That particular revelation came to me in the early autumn when we all saw a marked change in Brand’s behavior. ‘A word with you, Belgarath?’ he said to me one rainy afternoon as our meeting with the Tolnedran generals was breaking up.

‘Of course,’ I replied.

‘Let’s go outside,’ he suggested. ‘I think this needs to be sort of private, and I’d rather not have some Tolnedran spy carrying word of what we say to Ran Borune. He’s a good man, I suppose, but he gets nervous when things he doesn’t understand start cropping up.’

I smiled faintly. ‘Nervous’ was a gross understatement. Brand and I went out of the army headquarters building and strolled across the sodden lawns of the imperial compound. ‘You’ve been the instrument of Necessity in the past, haven’t you?’ he asked me once we were certain that no one was near us.

‘I’m not sure I follow you, my friend,’ I replied. ‘I’ve spent my whole life running errands for it.’

‘I’m talking about something a little more specific. As I understand it, you and the Necessity were fairly close when you and Bear-shoulders and the others went to Cthol Mishrak.’

‘Yes. So what?’

‘Did it talk to you?’

‘Oh, yes, that it did.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. I thought that my reason might be slipping. It has a peculiar way of talking, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s got a warped sense of humor. What’s it been saying?’

‘Nothing all that specific. I’ve been a little edgy about what I’m supposed to do when we all get together at Vo Mimbre, and it’s been telling me not to worry so much.’ He stopped and looked directly at me. ‘Did you know what you were going to do before you did it? I mean, when something came up, did the knowledge of how to respond just pop into your head?’

I nodded. ‘That’s part of the way it works,’ I replied. ‘The friend you’ve got inside your head usually doesn’t bother to explain things, he just builds the correct responses into your mind. You don’t even have to think about it. What’s he got you doing right now?’

‘I’m supposed to persuade the Tolnedrans that the threat of Urvon’s army isn’t all that great. I’m going to need the legions at Vo Mimbre.’

‘That might take a bit of doing. General Cerran’s completely committed to the idea that he’s going to have to defend his southern border.’

‘He’ll find out that it won’t be necessary. Urvon and Ctuchik are going to make a mistake. They won’t even reach Nyissa.’

‘What kind of mistake?’

‘I have no idea. The problem’s going to be that Cerran won’t find out about it until Torak’s almost right on top of Vo Mimbre. He won’t have time to march his legions from southern Tolnedra to the battlefield.’

‘We aren’t going to march them,’ I told him.

‘How are they going to get there, then?’

‘The Chereks are going to sail them there.’

‘How do you know that?’

I made a face. ‘Our mutual friend stuck the idea in my brain several thousand years ago.’

‘You mean you’ve known all along?’

‘Not consciously. You’ll get used to that, Brand. The instructions don’t surface until you need them. I think that’s part of the agreement between our Necessity and Torak’s. As soon as you told me about this “mistake” that Urvon and Ctuchik are going to make, I knew exactly how we were going to get the legions to Vo Mimbre.’

He smiled a wry sort of smile. ‘I guess it makes sense - in a peculiar sort of way. Apparently our friend doesn’t want our minds cluttered up with these things until we absolutely need to know them. I just hope he isn’t late with the information when Torak and I get started.’

‘Amen to that. Have you got any clues about why the Orb’s set in that shield now instead of on the hilt of the sword?’

‘All I know is that I’m not supposed to hit Torak with it - or with anything connected to it. Somebody else is going to do that. All I’m supposed to do is show it to Torak.’