I got out of the range of the thoughts of my Alorns and the confused babble of the still-convulsing Morind magicians, I stopped and very carefully pushed out a searching thought.
The sense that came back to me was very familiar. It should have been: it was Belzedar.
I immediately pulled my thought back in. What was he doing? Evidently, he’d been following us, but why? Was he coming along to lend a hand? If that was what he had in mind, why didn’t he just catch up and join us? Why all this sneaking through the snow?
I hadn’t really understood Belzedar since the day Torak stole the Orb. He’d grown more and more distant and increasingly secretive. I could have simply sent my voice to him and invited him to join us, but for some reason I didn’t. I wanted to see what he was doing first. I’m not normally a suspicious man, but Belzedar had been acting strangely for about two thousand years, and I decided that I’d better find out why before I let him know that I was aware of his presence.
I had his general direction pinpointed, and as I loped higher up into the mountains of the north range, I periodically sent my thought out in short, searching little spurts.
Try to remember that. When you go looking for somebody with your mind, and you stay in contact with him for too long, he’ll know you’re there. The trick is just to brush him. Don’t give him time to realize that somebody’s looking for him. It takes a lot of practice, but if you work on it, you’ll get it down pat.
I was narrowing it down when I saw the fire. Of all the idiotic things! Here he was, trying to sneak along behind me and he goes and lights a beacon! My tongue lolled out. I couldn’t help laughing. I stopped running and slowed to a crawl, inching through the snow on my belly toward that fire.
Then I saw him standing by that ridiculous fire of his, and he wasn’t alone. There was a Morind with him. The Morind was a stringy old man dressed in furs, and the skull-surmounted staff he held proclaimed him to be a magician.
I crept closer, inch by inch. Sneaking up on somebody in the snow isn’t as easy as it sounds. The snow muffles any noise you might make, but if it’s cold enough, your whole body steams. Fortunately, I’d cooled off a bit, so my fur kept the heat of my body from reaching the outside air. Belly down, I lay under a snow-clogged bush and listened.
‘He made the sun come up!’ The magician was telling my brother in a shrill voice. ‘Then he raised a Demon Lord! My clan will have no further part in this!’
‘They must!’ Belzedar urged. ‘Belgarath must not be permitted to reach Mallorea! We must stop him!’
What was this? I crept a few inches closer.
‘There’s nothing I can do,’ the magician said adamantly. ‘My clan is scattered to the winds. I could not gather them together again even if I wanted to. Belgarath is too powerful. I will not face him again.’
‘Think of what you’re giving up, Etchquaw,’ Belzedar pleaded. ‘Will you be the slave of the King of Hell for the rest of your life?’
‘Morindland is cold and dark, Zedar,’ the magician replied. ‘I do not fear the flames of Hell.’
‘But you could have a God! My Master will accept you if you will do only this one small thing for him!’ Belzedar’s voice was desperate.
The skinny Morind straightened, his expression resolute. ‘You have my final word, Zedar. I will have nothing more to do with this Belgarath. Tell your Master what I have said. Tell Torak to find someone else to contest with your brother Belgarath.’
In retrospect, it was probably for the best that I was a wolf when I made that discovery. The personality of the wolf had become so interwoven with my own during the past month that my reactions were not entirely my own. A wolf is incapable of hatred – rage, yes; hatred, no. Had I been in my own form, I probably would have done something precipitous.
As it was, I simply lay there in the snow with my ears pricked forward, listening as Zedar pleaded with the Morind magician. That gave me enough time to pull my wits together. How could I have been so blind? Zedar had given himself away hundreds of times since Torak had cracked the world, but I’d been too inattentive to notice. I’d have more than likely wasted a great deal of time berating myself, but once again the wolf that enclosed me shrugged that useless activity aside. But now that I knew the truth about my sometime brother, what was I going to do about it?
The simplest thing, of course, would be to lie in wait until the Morind left and then dash into the clearing and rip Zedar’s throat out with my teeth. I was tempted; the Gods know that I was tempted. There was a certain wolfish practicality about that notion. It was quick; it was easy; and it would remove a clear and present danger once and for all.
Unfortunately, it would also leave a thousand questions unanswered, and curiosity is a trait common to both men and wolves. I knew what Zedar had done. Now I wanted to know why. I did know one thing, though. I’d just lost another brother. I didn’t even think of him as ‘Belzedar’ any more.
There was a more practical reason for my restraint, however. The gathering of the Morindim had obviously been at Zedar’s instigation. He’d overcome their reluctance to join together by offering them a God. To my way of thinking, there wasn’t really all that much difference between Torak and the King of Hell, but the Morindim obviously saw it otherwise. Zedar had planted that particular trap in my path. How many others were out there besides? That’s what I really needed to know. A trap, once set, can lie there waiting long after the man who set it is dead. The situation seemed to call for subterfuge, and I’ve always been fairly good at that.
‘You’re just wasting your breath, Zedar,’ the Morind was saying. ‘I’m not going to confront a magician as powerful as your brother. If you want to fight him, do it yourself. I’m sure your Master will help you.’
‘He can’t, Etchquaw. It is forbidden. I must be the instrument of Necessity during this particular EVENT.’
What was this?
‘If you are Necessity’s tool, why did you come to us?’ It’s easy to dismiss the Morindim. You don’t normally expect anything remotely resembling intelligence from demon-worshipers, but this Etchquaw fellow was surprisingly perceptive. ‘I think you are afraid of this Belgarath,’ he went on, ‘and I think you are afraid of his Necessity. Well, I won’t stick my head into the fire for you, Zedar. I’ve learned to live with demons. I don’t really need a God – particularly not a God as powerless as Torak. My demon can do anything I tell him to do. Your Torak seems to be quite limited.’
‘Limited?’ Zedar objected. ‘He cracked the world, you idiot!’
‘And what did it get him?’ The Morind’s tone was scornful. ‘It got him fire, Zedar. That’s what it got him. If all I want is fire, I can wait until I get to Hell.’
Zedar’s eyes narrowed. ‘You won’t have to wait that long, Etchquaw,’ he said firmly.
I suppose I could have stopped him. I could feel his Will building, but to be honest with you, I didn’t really believe he’d do it.
But he did. I was fairly close, so the sound when he spoke the Word that released
