"The plan does have a certain merit, Belgarath. The more Malloreans they drown now, the fewer we have to fight later."
"We never planned to fight them, Beldin. The Angaraks won't unite unless Torak comes back to weld them together again - or unless they're faced with a common enemy. We just talked with Drosta lek Thun, the Nadrak King, and he's so sure that the Murgos and the Malloreans are about to go to war with each other that he wants to ally himself with the west just to get clear of it. When you get back, see if you can talk some sense into Rhodar and Anheg. I've got enough problems already."
"Your problems are only starting, Belgarath. The twins had a visitation a couple of days ago."
"A what?"
Beldin shrugged. "What else would you call it? They were working on something - quite unrelated to all this - and the pair of them suddenly went into a trance and began to babble at me. At first they were just repeating that gibberish from the Mrin Codex - you know the place - where the Mrin Prophet's mind broke down and he degenerated into animal noises for a while. Anyway, they went back over that part - only this time it came out coherently."
"What did they say?" Belgarath demanded, his eyes burning.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Of course I want to know."
"All right. It went like this: 'Behold, the heart of the stone shall relent, and the beauty that was destroyed shall be restored, and the eye that is not shall be made whole again."'
Belgarath stared at him. "That's it?" he asked.
"That's it," Beldin told him.
"But what does it mean?" Garion asked.
"Just what it says, Belgarion," Beldin replied. "For some reason the Orb is going to restore Torak."
Garion began to tremble as the full impact of Beldin's words struck him. "Torak's going to win, then," he said numbly.
"It didn't say anything about winning or losing, Belgarion," Beldin corrected him. "All it said was that the Orb is going to undo what it did to Torak when he used it to crack the world. It doesn't say anything about why."
"That's always been the trouble with the Prophecy," Belgarath observed. "It can mean any one of a dozen different things."
"Or all of them," Beldin added. "That's what makes it so difficult to understand sometimes. We tend to concentrate on just one thing, but Prophecy includes everything at the same time. I'll work on it and see if I can wring some sense out of it. If I come up with anything, I'll let you know. I'd better be getting back." He leaned slightly forward and curled his arms out in a vaguely winglike gesture. "Watch out for the Morindim," he told Belgarath. "You're a fair sorcerer, but magic's altogether different, and sometimes it gets away from you."
"I think I can handle it if I have to," Belgarath replied tartly.
"Maybe," Beldin said. "If you can manage to stay sober." He shimmered back into the form of the hawk, beat his wings twice, and spiraled up out of the clearing and into the sky. Garion watched him until he was only a circling speck.
"That was a strange visit," Silk said, rolling out of his blankets. "It looks as if quite a bit's been going on since we left."
"And none of it very good," Belgarath added sourly. "Let's get moving. We're really going to have to hurry now. If Anheg gets his fleet into the Sea of the East and starts sinking Mallorean troop ships, 'Zakath might decide to march north and come across the land bridge. If we don't get there first, it could get very crowded up there." The old man scowled darkly. "I'd like to put my hands on your uncle just about now," he added. "I'd sweat a few pounds off him."
They quickly saddled their horses and rode back along the edge of the sunlit forest toward the road leading north.
Despite the rather lame assurances of the two sorcerers, Garion rode slumped in despair. They were going to lose, and Torak was going to kill him.
"Stop feeling sa sorry for yourself, " the inner voice told him finally.
"Why did you get me into this?" Garion demanded bitterly.
"We've discussed that before. "
"He's going to kill me."
"What gives you that idea?"
"That's what the Prophecy said." Garion stopped abruptly as a thought occurred to him. "You said it yourself. You're the Prophecy, aren't you?"
"It's a misleading term-,and I didn't say anything about winning or losing. "
"Isn't that what it means?"
"No. It means exactly what it says."
"What else could it mean?"
"You're getting more stubborn every day. Stop worrying so much about meanings and just do what you have to do. You almost had it right, back there. "
"If all you're going to do is talk in riddles, why bother with it at all? Why go to all the trouble of saying things that nobody's able to understand?"
"Because it's necessary to say it. The word determines the event. The word puts limits on the event and shapes it. Without the word, the event is merely a random happening. That's the whole purpose of what you call prophecy - to separate the significant from the random. "
"I don't understand."
"I didn't think you would, but you asked, after all. Now stop worrying about it. It has nothing to do with you."
Garion wanted to protest, but the voice was gone. The conversation, however, had made him feel a little better - not much, but a little. To take his mind off it, he pulled his horse in beside Belgarath's as they reentered the forest on the far side of the burn. "Exactly who are the Morindim, Grandfather?" he asked. "Everybody keeps talking about them as if they were terribly dangerous."
"They are," Belgarath replied, "but you can get through their country if you're careful."
"Are they on Torak's side?"
"The Morindim aren't on anybody's side. They don't even live in the same world with us."
"I don't follow that."
"The Morindim are like the Ulgos used to be - before UL accepted them. There were several groups of Godless Ones. They all wandered off in various directions. The Ulgos went to the west, the Morindim went north. Other groups went south or east and disappeared."
"Why didn't they just stay where they were?"
"They couldn't. There's a kind of compulsion involved in the decisions of the Gods. Anyway, the Ulgos finally found themselves a God. The Morindim didn't. The compulsion to remain separated from other people is still there. They live in that treeless emptiness up there beyond the north range - small nomadic bands, mostly."