‘More than you could ever know, Garion.’
‘How are you feeling, Polgara?’ Poledra asked, removing her cloak.
‘Fine – I think.’ Aunt Pol smiled. ‘I know about the procedure, of course, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it personally. Babies spend a great deal of time kicking at this stage, don’t they? A few minutes or so ago, I think mine kicked me in three separate places at once.’
‘Maybe he’s punching, too,’ Durnik suggested.
‘He?’ she smiled.
‘Well – the word’s just for the sake of convenience, Pol.’
‘If you’d like, I could have a look and tell you if it’s a he or a she,’ Belgarath offered.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Polgara told him. ‘I want to find out for myself.’
The snow let up shortly before daybreak, and the clouds blew off by midmorning. The sun came out, and it glittered brightly on the new-fallen blanket of white around the cottage. The sky was intensely blue, and, though it was cold that day, the bitter chill of mid-winter had not yet set in.
Garion, Durnik, and Belgarath had been banished from the house at dawn, and they wandered about with that odd sort of uselessness men usually feel in such circumstances. At one point they stopped on the bank of the small stream that threaded its way through the farmstead. Belgarath looked down into the clear water, noting a number of dark, slim shapes just below the surface. ‘Have you had time to do any fishing?’ he asked Durnik.
‘No,’ Durnik said a bit sadly, ‘and I don’t seem to have the enthusiasm for it I used to.’
They all knew why, but none of them mentioned it.
Poledra brought their meals to them, but firmly insisted that they remain outside. Late in the afternoon, she put them to work boiling water over Durnik’s forge, which sat in the tool shed.
‘I’ve never seen any reason for this,’ Durnik confessed, lifting another steaming kettle from his forge. ‘Why do they always need boiling water?’
‘They don’t,’ Belgarath told him. Belgarath was comfortably sprawled on a woodpile and was examining the intricately carved cradle Durnik had built. ‘It’s just a way to keep the men folk out from underfoot. Some female genius came up with the idea thousands of years ago, and women have been honoring the custom ever since. Just boil water, Durnik. It makes the women happy, and it’s not that big a chore.’
The moon had been rising late, but the stars touched the snow with a fairy light, and all the world seemed somehow bathed in a gentle blue-white glow. It was, of all nights, among the closest to perfect Garion had ever seen, and all of nature seemed to be holding its breath.
Garion and Belgarath, noting Durnik’s increasing edginess, suggested that they walk to the top of the hill to settle their suppers. They had both observed in the past that Durnik usually banished uncomfortable emotions by keeping busy.
The smith looked up at the night sky as they trudged through the snow toward the top of the hill. ‘It’s really a special sort of night, isn’t it.’ He laughed a little sheepishly. ‘I suppose I’d feel that way even if it were raining,’ he said.
‘I know I always do,’ Garion said. Then he too laughed, his breath steaming in the chill night air. ‘I don’t know that twice qualifies as much of an always, though,’ he conceded, ‘but I know what you mean. I was feeling sort of the same way myself earlier.’ He looked beyond the cottage across the snowy plain lying white and still beneath the icy stars. ‘Does it seem very, very quiet to you two as well?’
‘There’s not a hint of a breeze,’ Durnik agreed, ‘and the snow muffles all the sound.’ He cocked his head. ‘Now that you mention it, though, it does seem awfully quiet, and the stars are really bright tonight. There’s a logical explanation for it, I suppose.’
Belgarath smiled at them. ‘There’s not a single ounce of romance in either one of you, is there? Didn’t it ever occur to you that this might just be a very special night?’
They looked at him oddly.
‘Stop and think about it,’ he said. ‘Pol’s devoted most of her life to raising children that weren’t hers. I’ve watched her do it, and I could feel an obscure kind of pain in her each time she took a new baby in her arms. That’s going to change tonight, so in a very real sense this is a special night. Tonight, Polgara’s going to get a baby of her very own. It may not mean all that much to the rest of the world, but I think it does to us.’
‘It does indeed,’ Durnik said fervently. Then a thoughtful expression came into the good man’s eyes. ‘I’ve been sort of working on something lately, Belgarath.’
‘Yes. I’ve heard you.’
‘Doesn’t it seem to you that we’re all sort of coming back to the places where we started? It’s not exactly the same, of course, but things sort of feel familiar.’
‘I’ve been thinking sort of the same thing,’ Garion admitted. ‘I keep getting this strange feeling about it.’
‘It’s only natural for people to go home after they’ve been on a long journey, isn’t it?’ Belgarath said, kicking at a lump of snow with one foot.
‘I don’t think it’s that simple, Grandfather.’
‘Neither do I,’ Durnik agreed. ‘This seems more important for some reason.’
Belgarath frowned. ‘I think it does to me as well,’ he admitted. ‘I wish Beldin were here. He could explain it in a minute. Of course none of us would understand the explanation, but he’d explain it all the same.’ He scratched at his beard. ‘I’ve found something that might explain it,’ he said a bit dubiously.
‘What’s that?’ Durnik asked him.
‘Garion and I have had an extended conversation over the last year or so. He’d noticed that things kept happening over and over again. You probably heard us talking about it.’
Durnik nodded.
‘Between us, we came up with the notion that things kept repeating themselves because the accident made it impossible for the future to happen.’
‘That makes sense, I guess.’
‘Anyhow, that’s changed now. Cyradis made her Choice, and the effects of the accident have been erased. The future can happen now.’
‘Then why is everybody going back to the place where he started?’ Garion asked.
‘It’s only logical, Garion,’ Durnik told him quite seriously. ‘When you’re starting something—even the future – you almost have to go back to the beginning, don’t you?’