was just chewing on some old regrets. I don’t think you and Durnik realize just how lucky you are. I wasn’t around when my twins were born. I was off on a business trip.’
Garion knew the story, of course. ‘You didn’t have any choice, grandfather,’ he said. ‘Aldur ordered you to go to Mallorea. It was time to recover the Orb from Torak, and you had to go along to help Cherek Bear-shoulders and his sons.’
‘Don’t try to be reasonable about it, Garion. The bald fact is that I abandoned my wife when she needed me the most. Things might have turned out very differently if I hadn’t.’
‘Are you still feeling guilty about that?’
‘Of course I am. I’ve been carrying that guilt around for three thousand years. You can hand out all the royal pardons you want, but it’s still there.’
‘Grandmother forgives you.’
‘Naturally she does. Your grandmother’s a wolf, and wolves don’t hold grudges. The whole point, though, is that she can forgive me, and you can forgive me, and you can get up a petition signed by everybody in the known world that forgives me, but I still won’t forgive myself. Why don’t we talk about something else?’
Durnik came back out of the bedroom. ‘She’s asleep,’ he said softly. Then he went to the fireplace and stacked more wood on the embers. ‘It’s a cold night out there,’ he noted. ‘Let’s keep this fire going.’
‘I should have thought of that,’ Garion apologized.
‘Are the babies still asleep?’ Belgarath asked the smith.
Durnik nodded.
‘Enjoy it while you can. They’re resting up.’
Durnik smiled. Then he too pulled a chair closer to the fire. ‘Do you remember what we were talking about earlier?’ he asked, reaching for the remaining tankard on the table.
‘We talked about a lot of things,’ Belgarath told him.
‘I mean the business of the same things happening over and over again. What happened tonight isn’t one of those, is it?’
‘Would it come as a surprise to you if I told you that Pol isn’t the first to give birth to twins?’
‘I know that, Belgarath, but this seems different somehow. I get the feeling that this isn’t something that’s happened before. This seems like something new to me. This has been a very special night. UL himself blessed it. Has that ever happened before?’
‘Not that I know of,’ the old sorcerer conceded. ‘Maybe this is something new. If it is, it’s going to make things a little strange for us.’
‘How’s that?’ Garion asked.
‘The nice thing about repetitions is that you sort of know what to expect. If everything did stop when the “accident” happened, and now it’s all moving again, we’ll be breaking into new territory.’
‘Won’t the prophecies give us some clues?’
Belgarath shook his head. ‘No. The last passage in the Mrin Codex reads, “And there shall come a great light, and in that light shall that which was broken be healed, and interrupted Purpose shall proceed again, as was from the beginning intended”. All the other prophecies end in more or less the same way. The Ashabine Oracles even use almost exactly the same words. Once that light reached Korim, we were on our own.’
‘Will there be a new set of prophecies now?’ Durnik asked.
‘Next time you see Eriond, why don’t you ask him? He’s the one in charge now.’ Belgarath sighed. ‘I don’t think we’ll be involved in any new ones, though. We’ve done what we were supposed to do.’ He smiled just a bit wryly. ‘To be perfectly frank about it, I’m just as glad to pass it on. I’m getting a little old to be rushing out to save the world. It was an interesting career right at first, but it gets exhausting after the first six or eight times.’
‘That’d be quite a story,’ Durnik said.
‘What would?’
‘Everything you’ve been through – saving the world, fighting Demons, pushing the Gods around, things like that.’
‘Tedious, Durnik. Very, very tedious,’ Belgarath disagreed. ‘There were long periods when nothing was happening. You can’t make much of a story out of a lot of people just sitting around waiting.’
‘Oh, I’m sure there were enough lively parts to keep it interesting. Someday I’d really like to hear the whole thing – you know, how you met Aldur, what the world was like before Torak cracked it, how you and Cherek Bear-shoulders stole the Orb back – all of it.’
Belgarath laughed. ‘If I start telling that story, we’ll still be sitting here a year from now, and we won’t even be half-way through by then. We’ve all got better things to do.’
‘Do we really, grandfather?’ Garion asked. ‘You just said that our part of this is over. Wouldn’t this be a good time to sum it all up?’
‘What good would it do? You’ve got a kingdom to run, and Durnik’s got this farm to tend. You’ve both got more important things to do than sit around listening to me tell stories.’
‘Write it down, then.’ The notion suddenly caught fire in Garion’s mind. ‘You know, grandfather, the more I think about it, the more I think you ought to do just that. You’ve been here since the very beginning. You’re the only one who knows the whole story. You really should write it down, you know. Tell the world what really happened.’
Belgarath’s expression grew pained. ‘The world doesn’t care, Garion. All I’d do is offend a lot of people. They’ve got their own preconceptions, and they’re happy with them. I’m not going to spend the next fifty years scribbling on scraps of paper just so that people can travel to the Vale from the other side of the world to argue with me. Besides, I’m not a historian. I don’t mind telling stories, but writing them down doesn’t appeal to me. If I took on a project like that, my hand would fall off after a couple of years.’
‘Don’t be coy, grandfather. Durnik and I both know that you don’t have to do it by hand. You can think the words onto paper without ever picking up a pen.’
‘Forget it,’ Belgarath said shortly. ‘I’m not going to waste my time on something as ridiculous as that.’
‘You’re lazy, Belgarath,’ Durnik accused.
‘Are you only just noticing that? I thought you were more observant.’
‘You won’t do it then?’ Garion demanded.
‘Not unless somebody comes up with a better reason than you two have so far.’
The bedroom door opened, and Poledra came out into the kitchen. ‘Are you three going to talk all night?’ she demanded in a quiet voice. ‘If you are, go do it someplace else. If you wake the babies …’ she left it hanging ominously.
‘We were just thinking about going
