this island except make babies, so your population’s going to expand. You’ll need lots of houses.’
He suddenly blushed.
‘You do know what’s involved in that, don’t you? Making babies, I mean?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘I just wanted to be sure that you weren’t going to be out turning over cabbage leaves or trying to chase down storks looking for them.’
‘Don’t be insulting.’ He looked up the valley again. ‘There are enough trees to build a city, I guess.’
‘No,’ I told him flatly. ‘Don’t build a wooden city. The Tolnedrans tried that at Tol Honeth, and they no sooner got it finished than it burned to the ground. Use rock.’
‘That’ll take a long time, Belgarath,’ he objected.
‘Have you got anything better to do? Set up a temporary camp here on the beach and put signal fires on those headlands at the mouth of the bay to guide the rest of your people here. Then you and I are going to spend some time designing a city. I don’t want this place just growing here like a weed. Its purpose is to protect the Orb, and I want to be certain that there aren’t any holes in the defenses.’
Over the next several weeks the rest of Riva’s ships rowed in, six or eight at a time, and by then Iron-grip and I had completed the layout of the city.
‘What do you think I ought to call it – the city I mean?’ he asked me when we were finished.
‘What difference does it make?’
‘A city ought to have a name, Belgarath.’
‘Call it anything you like. Name it after yourself, if you want.’
‘Val Riva?’
‘Isn’t that a little ostentatious? Just call it Riva and let it go at that.’
‘That doesn’t really sound like a city, Belgarath.’
‘It will, once people get used to it.’
Finally Anrak arrived. ‘That’s the last of us, Riva,’ he bellowed as he waded ashore. ‘We’re all here now. Have you got anything to drink?’
The party there on the beach got rowdy that night, and after I’d had a few tankards, the noise began to make my head hurt, so I climbed up the steep valley to get away from the carousing and to think a bit. I still had a number of things to do before I could go home, and I considered various ways to get them all taken care of in a hurry. I really wanted to get back to the Vale and to Poledra. I was undoubtedly a father by now, and I sort of wanted to have a look at my offspring.
It was probably a couple of hours past midnight when I glanced down toward the beach. I jumped to my feet swearing. All the ships were on fire!
I ran back down the valley to the beach and found Riva and his cousin standing at the water’s edge singing an Alorn drinking song. They were bleary-eyed and swaying back and forth, as drunk as lords.
‘What are you doing?’ I screamed at them.
‘Oh, there you are Belgarath,’ Riva said, blinking owlishly at me. ‘We looked all over for you.’ He gestured out at the binning ships. ‘Nice fire, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a splendid fire. Why did you set it?’
‘That lumber you made for us is nice and dry, so it burns very well.’
‘Riva, why are you burning the ships?’
He looked at his cousin. ‘Why are we burning the ships, Anrak? I forget.’
‘It’s to keep people from getting bored and running off,’ Anrak replied.
‘Oh, yes. Now I remember. Isn’t that a good idea, Belgarath?’
‘It’s a rotten idea!’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘How am I supposed to get home now?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, I guess.’ His eyes brightened. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ he asked me.
‘Belgarath?’ Riva said to me one morning a few days later when we were standing at the upper end of the narrow valley stretching up from the beach watching his Alorns clearing stair-stepped terraces across the steep valley floor.
‘Yes, Riva?’
‘Am I supposed to have a sword?’
‘You’ve already got one.’
‘No, I mean a special sword.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. Where had he found out about that?
‘Where is it then?’
‘It doesn’t exist yet. You’re supposed to make it.’
‘I can do that, I guess. What am I supposed to make it from?’
‘Stars, as I understand it.’
‘How am I going to get my hands on any stars?’
‘They’ll fall out of the sky.’
‘I guess it was Belar who talked to me last night, then.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘I had a dream – at least I thought it was a dream. I seemed to hear Belar’s voice. I recognized it because I used to watch him play dice with Dras. He used to swear a lot while he was playing, because Dras always won. Isn’t that odd? You’d think a God could make the dice come up any way he wanted them to, but Belar doesn’t even think about cheating. Dras does, though. Dras could roll a ten with only one die.’
I tried to stay calm. ‘Riva, you’re straying. You started to tell me about your dream. If Belar spoke to you, it might be sort of important.’
‘He used a lot of “thee’s” and “thou’s”.’
‘The Gods do that. What did he say?’
‘I’m not sure if I got the first part of it right. I was dreaming about something else, and I didn’t want to be interrupted.’
‘Oh? What were you dreaming about?’
He actually blushed. ‘It’s not really important,’ he said evasively.
‘You never know about dreams. What was it about?’
He blushed even redder.
