PART TWO

The Apostate

Chapter 7

My brothers and I were badly shaken by the outcome of our war with the Angaraks. We certainly hadn’t anticipated Torak’s desperate response to our campaign, and I think we all felt a gnawing personal guilt for the death of half of mankind. We were a somber group when we reached the Vale. We had ongoing tasks, of course, but we took to gathering in our Master’s tower in the evenings, seeking comfort and reassurance in his presence and the familiar surroundings of the tower.

Each of us had his own chair, and we normally sat around a long table, discussing the events of the day and then moving on to more wide-ranging topics. I don’t know that we solved any of the world’s problems with those eclectic conversations, but that’s not really why we held them. We needed to be together during that troubled time, and we needed the calm that always pervaded that familiar room at the top of the tower. For one thing, the light there was somehow different from the light in our own towers. The fact that our Master didn’t bother with firewood might have had something to do with that. The fire on his hearth burned because he wanted it to burn, and it continued to burn whether he fed it or not. Our chairs were large and comfortable and made of dark, polished wood, and the room was neat and uncluttered. Aldur stored his things in some unimaginable place, and they came to him when he called them rather than laying about collecting dust.

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.