“There’s an alternative, of cours—if you’ve recovered enough from your bout of peevishness to listen,” the voice in his mind advised him as he sat bolt upright and trembling in his bed.
“What?” Garion answered aloud. “Oh, that—I’m sorry I spoke that way. I was irritated, that’s all.”
“In many ways you’re like Belgarath—remarkably—so his irritability seems to be hereditary.”
“It’s only natural, I suppose,” Garion conceded. “You said there was an alternative. An alternative to what?”
“To this war that’s giving you nightmares. Get dressed I want to show you something ”
Garion climbed out of his bed and hastily jerked on his clothing. “Where are we going?” he asked, still speaking aloud.
“It isn’t far,”
The room to which the other awareness directed him was musty and showed little evidence of use. The books and scrolls lining the shelves along its walls were dust-covered, and cobwebs draped the corners. Garion’s lone candle cast looming shadows that seemed to dance along the walls.
“On the top shelf,” the voice told him. “The scroll wrapped in yellow linen. Take it down.”
Garion climbed up on a chair and took down the scroll. “What is this?” he asked.
“The Mrin Codex, Take off the cover and start unrolling it. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
It took Garion a moment or two to get the knack of unrolling the bottom of the scroll with one hand and rolling up the top with the other.
“There,” the voice said. “That’s the passage. Read it.”
Garion struggled over the words. The script was spidery, and he still did not read very well. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he complained.
“The man who wrote it down was insane,” the voice apologized, “and he was an imbecile besides, but he was all I had to work with. Try it again but loud ”
Garion read: “Behold, it shall come to pass that in a certain moment, that which must be and that which must not be shall meet, and in that meeting shall be decided all that has gone before and all that will come after. Then will the Child of Light and the Child of Dark face each other in the broken tomb, and the stars will shudder and grow dim.” Garion’s voice trailed off. “It still doesn’t make any sense,” he objected.
“It’s a bit obscure,” the voice admitted. “As I said, the man who wrote it was insane. I put the ideas there, but he used his own words to express them. ”
“Who is the Child of Light?” Garion asked.
“You are for the moment at least. It changes.”
“Me?”
“Of course.”
“Then who’s this Child of Dark I’m supposed to meet?”
“Torak.”
“Torak!”
“I should have thought that would be obvious by now. I told you once about the two possible destinies coming together finally. You and Torak—the Child of Light and the Child of Dark—embody those destinies.”
“But Torak’s asleep.”
“Not any more. When you first put your hand on the Orb, the touch signalled his awakening. Even now he stirs on the edge of awareness, and his hand fumbles for the hilt of Cthrek-Goru, his black sword.”
Garion went very cold. “Are you trying to say that I’m supposed to fight Torak? Alone?”
“It’s going to happen, Belgarion. The universe itself rushes toward it. You can gather an army if you want, but your army—or Torak’s—won’t mean anything. As the Codex says, everything will be decided when you finally meet him. In the end, you’ll face each other alone. That’s what I meant by an alternative.”
“What you’re trying to say is that I’m just supposed to go off alone and find him and fight him?” Garion demanded incredulously.
“Approximately, yep ”
“I won’t do it.”
“That’s up to you. ”
Garion struggled with it. “If I take an army, I’ll just get a lot of people killed, and it won’t make any difference in the end anyway?”
“Not the least bit. In the end it will just be you, Torak, Cthrek-Goru, and the sword of the Rivan King. ”
“Don’t I have any choice at all?”
“None whatsoever. ”
“Do I have to go alone?” Garion asked plaintively.
“It doesn’t say that.”
“Could I take one or two people with me?”
“That’s your decision, Belgarion. Just don’t forget to take your sword.”
He thought about it for the rest of the day. In the end his choice was obvious. As evening settled over the gray city of Riva, he sent for Belgarath and Silk. There were some problems involved, he knew, but there was no one else he could rely on. Even if his power were diminished, Belgarath’s wisdom made Garion not even want to consider the undertaking without him. And Silk, of course, was just as essential. Garion reasoned that his own increasing talent for sorcery could see them through any difficulties if Belgarath should falter, and Silk could probably find ways to avoid most of the serious confrontations. Garion was confident that the three of them would be able to cope with whatever arose—until they found Torak. He didn’t want to think about what might happen then.
When the two of them arrived, the young king was staring out the window with haunted eyes.
“You sent for us?” Silk asked.
“I have to make a journey,” Garion replied in a scarcely audible voice.
“What’s bothering you?” Belgarath said. “You look a bit sick.”
“I just found out what it is that I’m supposed to do, Grandfather.”
“Who told you?”
“He did.”
Belgarath pursed his lips. “A bit premature, perhaps,” he suggested. “I was going to wait a while longer, but I have to assume he knows what he’s doing.”
“Who is this we’re talking about?” Silk asked.
“Garion has a periodic visitor,” the old man answered. “A rather special visitor.”
“That’s a singularly unenlightening response, old friend.”
“Are you sure you really want to know?”
“Yes,” Silk replied, “I think I do. I get the feeling that I’m going to be involved in it.”
“You’re aware of the Prophecy?”
“Naturally.”
“It appears that the Prophecy is a bit more than a statement about the future. It seems to be able to take a hand in things from time to time. It speaks to Garion on occasion.”
Silk’s eyes narrowed as he thought about that. “All right,” he said finally.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
The rat-faced little man laughed. “Belgarath, nothing about this whole thing surprises me any more.”
Belgarath turned back to Garion. “Exactly what did he tell you?”
“He showed me the Mrin Codex. Have you ever read it?”
“From end to end and backward and forward—even from side to side a couple of times. Which part did he show you?”
“The part about the meeting of the Child of Light and the Child of Dark.”
“Oh,” Belgarath said. “I was afraid it might have been that part. Did he explain it?”
Dumbly, Garion nodded.
“Well,” the old man said with a penetrating look, “now you know the worst. What are you going to do about it?”
“He gave me a couple of alternatives,” Garion said. “I can wait until we get an army together, and we can go off and fight back and forth with the Angaraks for generations. That’s one way, isn’t it?”
Belgarath nodded.
“Of course that will get millions of people killed for nothing, won’t it?”
The old man nodded again.
Garion drew in a deep breath. “Or,” he continued, “I can go off by myself and find Torak—wherever he is—and try to kill him.”
Silk whistled, his eyes widening.
“He said that I didn’t have to go alone,” Garion added hopefully. “I asked him about that.”
“Thanks,” Belgarath said dryly.
Silk sprawled in a nearby chair, rubbing thoughtfully at his pointed nose. He looked at Belgarath. “You know that Polgara would skin the both of us inch by inch if we let him go off alone, don’t you?”