Guardians of the West

"What are you doing?" Belgarath demanded of him.

"I'm going to have to make you see what I'm talking about, Grandfather." Garion said unhappily. "I don't want to hurt you, but you have to look." He walked slowly and deliberately toward Belgarath, the Orb extended before him.

"Garion," Belgarath said, backing away apprehensively, "Be careful with that."

"Go to the table, Grandfather," Garion told him grimly. "Go to the table and read what I found."

"Are you threatening me?" Belgarath demanded incredulously.

"Just do it, Grandfather."

"We don't behave this way toward each other, Garion," the old man said, still backing away from the glowing Orb.

"The table," Garion repeated. "Go over there and read."

Sweat was standing out on Belgarath's forehead. Reluctantly, almost as if it were causing him some obscure kind of pain, he went to the table and bent over the parchment sheet. Then he shook his head. "I can't see it," he declared, though a burning candle stood right beside the sheet. "It's too dark in here."

"Here," Garion said, reaching forth with the glowing Orb, "I'll light it for you." The Orb flared, and its blue light fell across the sheet and filled the room. "Read it, Grandfather," Garion said implacably.

Belgarath stared at him with an almost pleading expression. "Garion-"

"Read it."

Belgarath dropped his eyes to the page lying before him, and suddenly he gasped. "Where-? How did you get this?"

"It was under that blot. Can you see it now?"

"Of course I can see it." Excitedly Belgarath picked up the sheet and read it again. His hands were actually trembling. "Are you sure this is exactly what it said?"

"I copied it word for word, Grandfather -right off the original scroll."

"How were you able to see it?"

"The same way you are -by the light of the Orb. Somehow that makes it clear."

"Astonishing," the old man said. "I wonder-" He went quickly to a cabinet standing by the wall, rummaged around for a moment, and then came back to the table with a scroll in his hands. He quickly unrolled it. "Hold the Orb closer, boy," he said.

Garion held out the Orb and watched with his Grandfather as the buried words slowly rose to the surface just as they had in the shrine.

"Absolutely amazing," Belgarath marveled. "It's blurred, and some of the words aren't clear, but it's there. It's all there. How is it possible that none of us noticed this before -and how did you discover it?"

"I had help, Grandfather. The voice told me that I had to read it in a certain kind of light." He hesitated, knowing how much pain what he had to say would cause the old man. "And then, Poledra came to visit us."

"Poledra?" Belgarath spoke his wife's name with a little catch in his voice.

"Someone was making Ce'Nedra do something in her sleep -something very dangerous- and Poledra came and stopped her. Then she told me that I had to go to the shrine in Drasnia and read the Codex and she specifically told me to take the Orb along. When I got there and started reading, I almost left. It all seemed so stupid somehow. Then I remembered what they had told me and I put it together. As soon as I started reading by the light of the Orb, that feeling that I was wasting my time disappeared. Grandfather, what causes that? I thought it was only me, but it affected you, too."

Belgarath thought a moment, frowning. "It was an interdiction," he explained finally. "Someone at some time put his will to that one spot and made it so repulsive that no one could even see it."

"But it's right there -even on your copy. How is it that the scribe who copied it could see it well enough to write it down, but we couldn't?"

"Many of the scribes in the old days were illiterate," Belgarath explained. "You don't have to be able to read in order to copy something. All those scribes were doing was drawing exact duplicates of the letters on the page."

"But this -what was it you called it?"

"Interdiction. It's a fancy word for what happens. I think Beldin invented it. He's terribly impressed by his own cleverness sometimes."

"The interdiction made the scribes pile all the words on top of each other -even though they didn't know what the words meant?"

Belgarath grunted, his eyes lost in thought. "Whoever did this is very strong -and very subtle. I didn't even suspect that someone was tampering with my mind."

"When did it happen?"

"Probably at the same time the Mrin Prophet was speaking the words originally."

"Would the interdiction keep working after the person who caused it was dead?"

"No."

"Then-"

"Right. He's still around somewhere."

"Could it be this Zandramas we keep bearing about?"

"That's possible, I suppose." Belgarath picked up the sheet Garion had copied. "I can see it by ordinary light now." he said. " Apparently once you break the interdiction for somebody, It stays broken." He carefully read the sheet again. "This is really important, Garion."

"I was fairly sure it was," Garion replied. "I don't understand it all, though. The first part is fairly simple -the part about the Orb turning red and the name of the Child of Dark being revealed. It sort of looks as if I'm going to have to make another one of those trips."

"A long one, if this is right."

"What's this next part mean?"

"Well, as nearly as I can make it out, this quest of yours -whatever it is- has already started. It began when Geran was born." The old man frowned. "I don't like this part that says that blind choice might make the decision, though. That's the sort of thing that makes me very nervous."

"Who is the Beloved and Eternal?"

"Probably me."

Garion looked at him.

Belgarath shrugged. "It's a little ostentatious," he admitted, "but some people do call me 'the Eternal Man' and when my Master changed my name, he added the syllable 'Bel' to my old one. In the old language 'Bel' meant 'beloved'. He smiled a bit sadly. "My master had a way with words sometimes."

"What are these mysteries it talks about?"

"It's an archaic term. In the old days they used the word 'mystery' instead of 'prophecy'. As cryptic as some of them are, it sort of makes sense, I guess."

"Ho! Garion! Belgarath!" The voice came to them from outside the tower.