style="font-size:15px;"> ‘What is this thing about owls?’ I growled one day.
‘I like owls,’ she explained as if it were the simplest thing in the world. ‘During my first winter when I was a young and foolish thing, I was chasing a rabbit, floundering around in the snow like a puppy, and a great white owl swooped down and snatched my rabbit almost out of my jaws. She carried it to a nearby tree and ate it, dropping the scraps to me. I thought at the time that it would be a fine thing to be an owl.’
‘Foolishness,’ I snorted.
‘Perhaps,’ she replied blandly, preening her tail feathers, ‘but it amuses me. It may be that one day a different shape will amuse me even more.’
I grunted and returned to my work.
Some time later – days or years or perhaps even longer – she came swooping through the window, as was her custom, perched sedately on a chair and resumed her proper wolf-shape.
‘I think I will go away for a while,’ she announced.
‘Oh?’ I said cautiously.
She stared at me, her golden eyes unblinking. ‘I think I would like to look at the world again,’ she said.
‘I see,’ I said.
‘The world has changed much, I think.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘I might come back some day.’
‘As you wish,’ I said.
‘Goodbye, then,’ she said, blurred into the form of an owl again, and with a single thrust of her great wings she was gone.
Strangely, I missed her. I found myself turning often to show her something. She had been a part of my life for so long that it somehow seemed that she would always be there. I was always a bit saddened not to see her in her usual place.
And then there came a time when, on an errand for my Master, I went some leagues to the north. On my way back I came across a small, neatly thatched cottage in a grove of giant trees near a small river. I had passed that way frequently, and the house had never been there before. Moreover, to my own certain knowledge, there was not another human habitation within five hundred leagues. In the house there lived a woman. She seemed young, and yet perhaps not young. Her hair was quite tawny, and her eyes were a curious golden color.
She stood in the doorway as I approached – almost as if she had been expecting me. She greeted me in a seemly manner and invited me to come in and sup with her. I accepted gratefully, for no sooner did she mention food than I found myself ravenously hungry.
The inside of her cottage was neat and cheery. A fire burned merrily upon her hearth, and a large kettle bubbled and hiccuped over it. From that kettle came wondrous smells. The woman seated me at the table, fetched me a stout earthenware plate and then set before me a meal such as I had not seen in hundreds of years. It consisted, as I recall, of every kind of food which I liked most.
When I had eaten – more than I should have probably, since as all who know me can attest, good food was ever a weakness of mine – we talked, the woman and I, and I found her to have most uncommon good sense. Though my errand was urgent, I found myself lingering, thinking of excuses not to go. Indeed, I felt quite as giddy as some adolescent in her presence.
Her name, she told me, was Poledra. ‘And by what name are you known?’ she asked.
‘I am called Belgarath,’ I told her, ‘and I am a Disciple of the God Aldur.’
‘How remarkable,’ she said, and then she laughed. There was something hauntingly familiar in that laugh.
I never learned the truth about Poledra, though of course I had suspicions.
When the urgency of my errand compelled me to leave that fair grove and the small, neat cottage, Poledra said a most peculiar thing. ‘I will go along with you,’ she told me. ‘I was ever curious.’ And she closed the door of her house and returned with me to the Vale.
Strangely, my Master awaited us, and he greeted Poledra courteously. I can never be sure, but it seemed that some secret glance passed between them as if they knew each other and shared some knowledge that I was unaware of.
I had, as I say, some suspicions, but as time went on they became less and less important. After a while, I didn’t even think about them any more.
That following spring Poledra and I married. My Master himself, burdened though he was with care and the great task of preparing for the day of the final struggle between good and evil, blessed our union.
There was joy in our marriage, and I never thought about those things which I had prudently decided not to think about; but that, of course, is another story.*
Of the Beginnings
NOTE The myths of the Alorns describe a time when men and Gods lived together in harmony. This was the time before the world was cracked and the eastern sea rushed in to cover the land where they dwelt, a country which lay to the east of what is now Cthol Murgos and Mishrak ac Thull.
The cracking of the world is known in Alorn mythology as ‘the sundering’ or ‘the dividing of the peoples’, and their count of time begins then.
At the beginning of days made the Gods the world and the seas and the dry land also. And cast they the stars across the night sky and did set the sun and his wife, the moon, in the heavens to give light unto the world.
And the Gods caused the earth to bring forth the beasts, and the waters to bud with fish, and the skies to flower with birds.
And they made men also, and divided men into Peoples.
Now the Gods were seven in number and were all equal, and their names were Belar, and Chaldan, and Nedra, and Issa, and Mara, and Aldur, and Torak.
Now Belar was the God of the Alorns, and dwelt with them and loved them, and his totem is the bear.
And Chaldan was the God of the Arends, and he dwelt with them and was judge over them, and his totem is the bull.
And Nedra was God over the people who called themselves after his name, the Tolnedrans, and he cherished them and accepted their worship, and his totem is the lion.
And Issa was God over the snake people, and he accepted their dull-eyed worship, and his totem is the serpent.
And Mara was God over the Marags, which are no more, and his totem was the bat, but his temples are cast down and vacant, and the spirit of Mara weeps alone in the wilderness.
But Aldur was God over no people, and dwelt alone and considered the stars
