I tried to stay calm. ‘Riva, you’re straying. You started to tell me about your dream. If Belar spoke to you, it might be sort of important.’

‘He used a lot of “thee’s” and “thou’s”.’

‘The Gods do that. What did he say?’

‘I’m not sure if I got the first part of it right. I was dreaming about something else, and I didn’t want to be interrupted.’

‘Oh? What were you dreaming about?’

He actually blushed. ‘It’s not really important,’ he said evasively.

‘You never know about dreams. What was it about?’

He blushed even redder. ‘Well - there was a girl involved in it. That wouldn’t be too significant, would it?’

‘Ah - no, I suppose not. Did Belar finally manage to get your attention?’

‘He had to talk to me pretty loudly. I was really interested in that girl.’

‘I’m sure you were.’

‘She had the blondest hair I’ve ever seen, and would you believe that she didn’t have any clothes on?’

‘Riva! Forget about the girl! What did Belar say?’

‘You don’t have to get excited, Belgarath,’ he said in a slightly injured tone. I’m getting to it.’ He frowned. ‘Let me see now. It seems to me that he said something like, “Behold, Guardian of the Orb, I will cause two stars to fall from the sky, and I will show thee where they lie, and thou shalt take up the two stars and shall place them in a great fire and forge them. And the one star shall be a blade, and the other a hilt, and it shall be a sword that shall guard the Orb of my brother, Aldur”. Or something like that.’

‘We’ll have to put out watchmen at night, then.’

‘Oh? What for?’

‘To keep an eye on the sky, of course. We have to know where the stars come down.’

‘Oh, I already know where they came down, Belgarath. Belar took me to the front of my tent and pointed at the sky. The two stars came down side by side, and I saw them hit the ground. Then Belar went away, and I went back to bed to see if I could find that girl again.’

‘Will you forget about that girl?’

‘No, I don’t think I ever will. She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

‘Do you happen to remember where the stars came down?’

‘Up there.’ He gestured vaguely at the snow-covered mountain peak rearing up at the head of the valley.

‘Let’s go get them.’

‘Shouldn’t I stay here? I’m sort of in charge, I guess. Doesn’t that mean that I’m supposed to supervise the work?’

‘Is your cousin sober?’

‘Anrak? Probably - more or less, anyway.’

‘Why don’t you call him and let him take over here? We’d better go find those stars before it snows again and buries them.’

‘Oh, we’d still be able to find them. A little snow wouldn’t hide them.’

I gave him a puzzled look.

‘They’re stars, Belgarath, and stars shine. We’ll be able to see the light even if they’re completely covered.’

You see what I mean about Riva’s innocence? He was far from being simple-minded, but he just couldn’t bring himself to believe that anything could go wrong. He bellowed down the hill to his cousin, and then the two of us started up that narrow valley. There had evidently been a stream or river running down along the bottom of it at some time in the past, because there were rounded boulders at the bottom, but the stream was gone now. It had probably changed course when Torak rearranged the world.

Riva entertained me while we climbed by describing the girl he’d dreamed about. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to think about anything else.

The fallen stars weren’t really all that hard to find, of course. They’d been white-hot when they hit the mountain, and they’d melted huge craters in the snow.

‘Those aren’t stars, Belgarath,’ Riva objected when I picked them up triumphantly. ‘They’re nothing but a couple of lumps of iron.’

‘The snow put out their light,’ I told him. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was easier than trying to explain.

‘You can’t put out the light of a star,’ he scoffed.

‘These are special stars, Riva.’ I was digging myself in deeper, but I didn’t feel like arguing with him.

‘Oh. I hadn’t thought of that, I guess. What do we do now?’

‘We follow Belar’s instructions. Let’s build a fire.’

‘Up here? In the snow?’

‘There’s something else you have to do up here. You’ve still got the Orb with you, haven’t you?’

‘Of course. I’ve always got it.’ He patted the lump under his tunic. ‘What are we going to use for a hammer? And an anvil?’

‘I’ll take care of it. I don’t think ordinary tools would work. These stars seem to be a little harder than ordinary iron.’

We went into a nearby grove of trees, and I built a fire. I cheated quite a bit with that fire. You won’t get the kind of heat we were going to need out of green wood. ‘Throw them in the fire, Riva,’ I instructed him.

‘Anything you say,’ he agreed, tossing the two lumps of celestial iron into the flames.

Then I focused my Will and constructed the hammer and anvil and tongs. I suspect that if you went to that mountain behind the Hall of the Rivan King, you’d find that they’re still there. They’re so dense that they probably haven’t rusted down yet.

Riva hefted the hammer. ‘It’s heavier than it looks,’ he noted.

‘That’s because it’s a magic hammer.’ It was easier than getting into the business of comparative density.

‘I thought it might be,’ he said quite calmly.

We sat on a log by that roaring fire waiting for the lumps of iron to heat up. When they were finally white hot, Riva raked them out of the coals and got down to work. Somewhere along the way, he’d picked up any number of skills. He wasn’t as good a smith as Durnik is, but he was competent.

After about ten minutes, he stopped hammering and looked rather closely at the glowing lump he’d been beating on.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him.

‘These stars must be magic, too - just like the hammer. If they were just ordinary iron, they’d have cooled by now.’

No, Durnik, I didn’t cheat. I think Belar did, though.

There are a number of versions of the BOOK OF ALORN that rather blandly state that I assumed the shape of a fox to advise Riva while he was forging the sword. That’s sheer nonsense, of course. I’ve never taken the form of a fox in my entire life. What is it about priests that drives them to embellish a good story with improbable details? If they’re that hungry for magic, why don’t they just spend a little time and pick up the skills for themselves? Then they’ll be able to play with magic to their hearts’ content.

Riva continued to hammer on those two glowing lumps of iron until he’d roughed out the shape of the blade and the hilt. Then I made a file for him, and he started to smooth them out. He suddenly stopped and started to swear.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve made a mistake,’ he said sourly.

‘I don’t see anything wrong.’

‘I’ve got two pieces, Belgarath. How am I going to put them together?’

‘We’ll get to that. Keep polishing.’

After he’d dressed off the blade, he set it aside and started on the massive, two-handed hilt. ‘Does it need a pommel?’ he asked me.

‘We’ll get to that, too.’

He kept working. His face was streaming sweat from the heat of the iron, and he finally threw down the file and laid the hilt on the anvil with the tongs. ‘That’s probably as good as I can get it,’ he said. ‘I’m not a gold-smith. Now what?’

I willed a barrel of water into existence. ‘Quench them,’ I told him.

He picked up that huge blade with his tongs and plunged it into the water. The cloud of steam was really quite spectacular. Then he dropped the hilt in. ‘I still don’t think we’ll be able to put them together.’

‘Trust me.’

It took quite some time for the submerged pieces of iron to stop glowing. I had to refill the barrel twice before they started to turn black.

Riva tentatively stuck his hand into the water and touched the blade. ‘I think they’re cool enough now.’

‘Take out the Orb,’ I told him.

He looked around quickly. ‘I don’t see any Angaraks,’ he said.

‘No. This is something else.’

He reached inside his tunic and took out the glowing Orb. It looked very small in that massive hand of his.

‘Now fish out the hilt,’ I instructed.

He plunged his arm into the barrel and brought out that huge hilt.

‘Put the Orb where the pommel ought to be.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it. You’ll see.’

He held up the hilt in one hand and put the Orb against the bottom of the handle. The click that came when they adhered together was clearly audible. Riva gasped.