Guardians of the West

Wordlessly, Garion shut the solid oak door. Belgarath went over to the wall lifted his candle and began to run his eyes over the row upon row of dusty, leather-bound books and the neatly stacked, silk-wrapped scrolls. "There," he said, pointing to the top shelf. "Reach that scroll down for me, Garion -the one wrapped in blue silk."

Garion stretched up on his tiptoes and took down the scroll. He looked at it curiously before handing it to his grandfather. "Are you sure?" he asked. "This isn't the Mrin Codex, you know."

"No," Belgarath told him. "It isn't. Don't get your attention so locked onto the Mrin Codex that you ignore all the others." He set down his candle and carefully untied the silver tasseled cord binding the scroll. He stripped off the blue silk cover and began to unroll the crackling parchment, his eyes running quickly over the ancient script. "Here it is," he said at last. "'Behold,' '' he read, " 'in the day that Aldur's Orb burns hot with crimson fire shall the name of the Child of Dark be revealed.' "

"But Torak was the Child of Dark," Garion protested. "What is that scroll?"

"The Darine Codex," Belgarath told him. "It's not always as reliable as the Mrin, but it's the only one that mentions this particular event."

"What does it mean?" Garion asked him, looking perplexed.

"It's a bit complicated," Belgarath replied, his lips pursed and his eyes still fixed on the passage in question. "Rather simply put, there are two prophecies."

"Yes, I knew that, but I thought that when Torak died, the other one just -well-"

"Not exactly. I don't think it's that simple. The two have been meeting in these confrontations since before the beginning of this world. Each time, there's a Child of Light and a Child of Dark. When you and Torak met at Cthol Mishrak, you were the Child of Light and Torak was the Child of Dark. It wasn't the first time the two had met. Apparently it was not to be the last, either."

"You mean that it's not over yet?" Garion demanded incredulously.

"Not according to this," Belgarath said, tapping the parchment.

"All right, if this Zandramas is the Child of Dark, who's the Child of Light?"

"As far as I know, you are."

"Me? Still?"

"Until we hear something to the contrary."

"Why me?"

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" Belgarath asked drily.

Garion's shoulders slumped. "Now I've got this to worry about again -on top of everything else."

"Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Garion," Belgarath told him bluntly. "We're all doing what we have to do, and sniveling about it won't change a thing."

"I wasn't sniveling." .

"Whatever you call it, stop it and get to work."

"What am I supposed to do?" Garion's tone was just a trifle sullen.

"You can start here," the old man said, waving one hand to indicate all the dusty books and silk-wrapped scrolls. "This is perhaps one of the world's best collections of prophecy -western prophecy at least. It doesn't include the Oracles of the Mallorean Grolims, of course, or the collection that Ctuchik had at Rak Cthol or the secret books of those people at Kell, but it's a place to start. I want you to read your way through this -all of it- and see if you can find out anything at all about this Zandramas. Make a note of every reference to 'the Child of Dark.' Most of them will probably have to do with Torak, but there might be some that mean Zandramas instead." He frowned slightly. "While you're at it, keep an eye out for anything that has to do with something called 'the Sardion' or 'Cthrag Sardius."

"What's that?"

"I don't know. Beldin ran across the term in Mallorea. It might be important -or it might not."

Garion looked around the library, his face blanching slightly. "Are you telling me that this is all prophecy?"

"Of course not. A lot of it -most of it probably- is the collected ravings of assorted madmen, all faithfully written down."

"Why would anybody want to write down what crazy people say?"

"Because the Mrin Codex is precisely that, the ravings of a lunatic. The Mrin prophet was so crazy that he had to be chained up. A lot of very conscientious people went out after he died and wrote down the gibberish of every madman they could find on the off chance that there might be prophecy hidden in it somewhere."

"How do I tell the difference?"

"I'm not really sure. Maybe after you've read them all, you'll be able to come up with a way to separate them. If you do, let us know. It could save us all a lot of time."

Garion looked around the library in dismay. "But, Grandfather," he protested, "this could take years!"

"You'd probably better get started then, hadn't you? Try to concentrate on things that are supposed to happen after the death of Torak. We're all fairly familiar with the things that led up to that."

"Grandfather, I'm not really a scholar. What if I miss something?"

"Don't," Belgarath told him firmly. "Like it or not, Garion, you're one of us. You have the same responsibilities that the rest of us do. You might as well get used to the idea that the whole world depends on you -and you also might just as well forget that you ever heard the words, 'why me?' That's the objection of a child, and you're a man now." Then the old man turned and looked very hard at Errand. "And what are you doing mixed up in all of this?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Errand replied calmly. "We'll probably have to wait and see, won't we?"

That afternoon Errand was alone with Polgara in the warm comfort of her sitting room. She sat by the fire with her favorite blue robe about her and her feet on a carpeted footstool. She held an embroidery hoop in her hands and she was humming softly as her needle flashed in the golden firelight. Errand sat in the leather-covered armchair opposite hers, nibbling on an apple and watching her as she sewed.

One of the things he loved about her was her ability to radiate a kind of calm contentment when she was engaged in simple domestic tasks. At such quiet times her very presence was soothing.

The pretty Rivan girl who served as Polgara's maid tapped softly and entered the room. "Lady Polgara," she said with a little curtsy, "My Lord Brand asks if he might have a word with you."

"Of course, dear," Polgara replied, laying aside her embroidery. "Show him in, please." Errand had noticed that Polgara tended to call all young people "dear," most of the time without even being aware that she was doing it.