‘I know my responsibilities, Belgarath. You do your work, and I’ll do mine.’

‘I can hold up my end of it,’ I told him. Then I stood up and smiled benignly at him. ‘It’s been absolutely wonderful talking with you, old boy, and we’ll have to do it again one of these days.’

‘My pleasure, old chap,’ he replied with a thin little smile. ‘Stop by any time.’

‘Oh, I will, Ctuchik, I will. Incidentally, don’t try to follow me, and don’t send anybody to get in my way - not anybody you care anything about, anyway.’

‘I don’t really care for anybody, old man.’

‘You ought to try it sometime, Ctuchik. It might sweeten your disposition.’

Then I went out and closed the door behind me.

Chapter 28

I flew due west from Rak Cthol, then went wolf and skirted the eastern border of Maragor, and climbed up through the Tolnedran mountains to the southern end of the Vale. All in all, I was rather pleased with myself. Things had gone well at Rak Cthol.

It was early evening when I reached my tower.

‘How did it go?’ Beldin asked me when I joined him and Pol.

‘Not bad.’ I said it in an off-hand sort of way. Boasting’s very unbecoming, after all.

‘What happened, father?’ Pol asked in that suspicious tone she always takes when I’ve been out of her sight for more than five minutes. I wish Polgara would trust me just once. Of course, that would probably stop the sun.

I shrugged. ‘I went to Rak Cthol.’

‘Yes, I know. And -?’

‘I talked to Ctuchik.’

‘And -?’

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘Father, get to the point!’

‘Actually, I led him down the garden path. I told him a great many things he already knew just as an excuse to get close enough to him to test his capabilities. He’s actually not all that good.’ I sat down in my favorite chair. ‘Is supper ready yet?’ I asked her.

‘It’s still cooking. Talk, father. What really happened?’

‘I slipped into his city and paid him a call in the middle of the night. I made a large issue of telling him to keep his Murgos out of the western kingdoms, and then I raised the possibility that if the Murgos irritated the Alorns too much, Riva might use the Orb against them. That can’t happen, of course, but I think the notion worried Ctuchik. He seems to be very gullible in some ways. I’m sure he believes that I’m a fussy old windbag who runs around repeating the obvious. Then I raised the possibility that if somebody did something that he wasn’t supposed to do, it might just let pure, random chance enter into the picture.’

‘And he believed you?’ Beldin asked incredulously.

‘He seemed to. At least he considered it enough to worry about it. Then we discussed the Ashabine Oracles. Both Ctuchik and Urvon are trying to slip people into Torak’s house at Ashaba to get copies, but I got the impression that Torak’s controlling those copies rather jealously, and Zedar’s doing his best to keep his brothers’ spies away from Ashaba. The three of them hate each other with a passion that’s almost holy.’

‘What’s Ctuchik look like?’ Beldin asked me. ‘I’ve seen that piebald Urvon a few times, but I’ve never actually seen Ctuchik.’

‘He’s tall, skinny, and he’s got a long, white beard. He looks like a walking corpse.’

‘Peculiar.’

‘What is?’

‘Old Burnt-face seems to be attracted to ugliness. Ctuchik sounds hideous, and that speckled Urvon’s no prize. Zedar’s not so bad, I guess - unless you want to take the ugliness of his soul into account.’

‘You’re not really in a position to talk, uncle,’ Pol reminded him.

‘You didn’t have to say that, Pol. What now, Belgarath?’

I scratched at my beard. ‘I think we’d better get the twins and see if we can contact the Master. We need some advice here. The Angaraks absolutely must have uncorrupted copies of the Oracles, and Torak’s doing everything he possibly can to keep that from happening.’

‘Can we do that?’ Pol asked me.

‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted, ‘but I think we’d better try. Zedar might have a clean copy, but I’d hate to hang the fate of the world on a maybe.’

As it turned out, it was surprisingly easy to get in touch with Aldur. I think it might have been because we were in an interim stage between the time when we were guided by the Gods and the time when the prophecies took over. At any rate, a simple ‘Master, we need you’ brought Aldur’s presence into my tower. He was a bit filmy and indistinct, but he was there.

He went immediately to Polgara, which shouldn’t have surprised me. ‘My beloved daughter,’ he said to her, lightly touching her cheek.

Would you believe that I felt a momentary surge of jealousy at that point? Polgara was my daughter, not his. We all get strange when we get older, I guess. I choked back my instinctive protest, and I think I had a little epiphany at that point. Jealousy is a symptom of love, I suppose - a primitive form, but love nonetheless. I loved my dark-haired, steely-eyed daughter, and, since love - and hate - are at the very core of what I am, Polgara won the whole game right then and there. We argued for another three thousand years or so, but all I was doing was fighting a rearguard action. I’d already lost.

‘You know what Torak’s doing at Ashaba, don’t you, Master?’ Beldin asked.

‘Yes, my son,’ Aldur replied sadly. ‘My brother is distraught, and he thinks to change what must happen by changing the word which tells him of it.’

‘If he goes too far and changes the Oracles too much, his Angaraks won’t know what they’re supposed to do,’ I said in a worried tone. ‘Are we going to have to take steps?’

‘Nay, my son,’ the Master replied. ‘True copies do exist, though my brother might wish otherwise. The Necessity which drives him will not be so thwarted. Belzedar is with my brother, and, though he knows it not, he is still in some measure driven by our Necessity. He hath ensured that the words of that other Necessity are safe and whole.’

‘That’s a relief,’ Beldin said. ‘If we had to start taking care of both sets of instructions, it might get burdensome. I think we’re going to have our hands full just taking care of our own.’

‘Set thy mind at rest, my son,’ Aldur told him. ‘The steps which lead to the ultimate meeting unfalteringly proceed.’

‘We’ve identified two of the prophets who’re giving us our instructions, Master,’ I advised him. ‘Their words are being faithfully set down.’

‘Excellent, my son.’

Pol looked slightly worried. ‘Are there others, Master?’ she asked. ‘The Alorns know how important those prophecies are, but I don’t think the Tolnedrans or the Arends do. We could be missing something significant. Are there other speakers?’

He nodded. ‘They are of less import, however, my daughter, and are more in the nature of verification. Put thy mind at ease. Failing all else, we may appeal to the Dals for aid. The Seers at Kell are seeking out all the prophecies - both the instruction of our Necessity and that of Torak’s.’

‘Astonishing,’ Beldin said. ‘The Dals are actually doing something useful for a change.’

‘They must, gentle Beldin, for they too have a task in this matter - a task of gravest significance. We must not hinder them. The path they follow is obscure, but it will in the fullness of time bring them to the self-same place whither our path leads us. All is proceeding as it must, my children. Be not unquiet. We will speak more of this anon.’

And then he was gone.

‘Evidently we’re doing it right,’ Beldin noted, ‘at least so far.’

‘You worry too much, Beldin,’ Belkira told him. ‘I don’t think we could do it wrong.’

Beltira, however, was looking at Pol with a kind of wonder on his face. ‘Dear sister,’ he said to her.

That came crashing down on me. ‘Please don’t do that, Beltira,’ I told him.

‘But she is, Belgarath. She is one of our fellowship.’

‘Yes, I know, but it puts me in a peculiar situation. I know that Pol and I are related, but this turn of events makes it very complicated.’

‘Be not dismayed, dear brother,’ Pol told me sweetly. ‘I’ll explain it all to you later - in simple terms, of course. Now, if you gentlemen will get out of my kitchen, I’ll finish fixing supper.’

Things went on quietly in the Vale for the next several years. Polgara continued her education, and I think she startled us all by how rapidly she was progressing. Pol had joined us late, but she was more than making up for lost time. There were levels of subtlety in some of the things she did that were absolutely exquisite. I didn’t tell her, of course, but I was terribly proud of her.

It was spring, I think, when Algar Fleet-foot came down into the Vale to deliver copies of the now-completed Darine Codex to us. ‘Bormik died last autumn,’ he told us. ‘His daughter spent the winter putting everything together and then sent word to me that the Codex was finished. I went there to pick it up and to persuade her to come back to Algaria with me.’