thou do for me?’
That was a deflating sort of thing to say – true, probably, but deflating all the same. ‘May I not stay and worship thee, Master?’ I pleaded. At that time I’d never met a God before, so I was uncertain about the proprieties. All I knew was that I would die if he sent me away.
He shrugged. You can cut a man’s heart out with a shrug, did you know that? ‘I do not require thy worship either, Belgarath,’ he said indifferently.
‘May I not stay, Master?’ I pleaded with actual tears standing in my eyes. He was breaking my heart! – quite deliberately, of course. ‘I would be thy disciple and learn from thee.’
‘The desire to learn does thee credit,’ he said, ‘but it will not be easy, Belgarath.’
‘I am quick to learn, Master,’ I boasted, glossing over the fact that it had taken me five years to learn his first lesson. ‘I shall make thee proud of me,’ I actually meant that.
And then he laughed, and my heart soared, even as it had when that old vagabond in the rickety cart had laughed. I had a few suspicions at that point. ‘Very well, then, Belgarath,’ he relented. ‘I shall accept thee as my pupil.’
‘And thy disciple also, Master?’
‘That we will see in the fullness of time, Belgarath.’
And then, because I was still very young and much impressed with my recent accomplishment, I turned to a winter-dried bush and spoke to it fervently. ‘Bloom,’ I said, and the bush quite suddenly produced a single flower. It wasn’t much of a flower, I’ll admit, but it was the best that I could do at the time. I was still fairly new at this. I plucked it and offered it to him. ‘For thee, Master,’ I said, ‘because I love thee.’ I don’t believe I’d ever used the word ‘love’ before, and it’s become the center of my whole life. Isn’t it odd how we make these simple little discoveries?
And he took my crooked little flower and held it between his hands. ‘I thank thee, my son,’ he said. It was the first time he’d ever called me that. ‘And this flower shall be thy first lesson. I would have thee examine it most carefully and tell me all that thou canst perceive of it. Set aside thine axe and thy broom, Belgarath. This flower is now thy task.’
And that task took me twenty years, as I recall. Each time I came to my Master with the flower that never wilted nor faded – how I grew to hate that flower! – and told him what I’d learned, he would say, ‘Is that all, my son?’ And, crushed, I’d go back to my study of that silly little flower.
In time my distaste for it grew less. The more I studied it, the better I came to know it, and I eventually grew fond of it.
Then one day my Master suggested that I might learn more about it if I burned it and studied its ashes. I indignantly refused.
‘And why not, my son?’ he asked me.
‘Because it is dear to me, Master,’ I said in a tone probably more firm than I’d intended.
‘Dear?’ he asked.
‘I love the flower, Master! I will not destroy it!’
‘Thou art stubborn, Belgarath,’ he noted. ‘Did it truly take thee twenty years to admit thine affection for this small, gentle thing?’
And that was the true meaning of my first lesson. I still have that little flower somewhere, and although I can’t put my hands on it immediately, I think of it often and with great affection.
It was not long after that when my Master suggested that we journey to a place he called Prolgu, since he wanted to consult with someone there. I agreed to accompany him, of course, but to be quite honest about it, I didn’t really want to be away from my studies for that long. It was spring, however, and that’s always a good season for traveling. Prolgu is in the mountains, and if nothing else, the scenery was spectacular.
It took us quite some time to reach the place – my Master never hurried – and I saw creatures along the way that I’d never imagined existed. My Master identified them for me, and there was a peculiar note of pain in his voice as he pointed out unicorns, Hrulgin, Algroths and even an Eldrak.
‘What troubles thee, Master?’ I asked him one evening as we sat by our fire. ‘Are the creatures we have encountered distasteful to thee?’
‘They are a constant rebuke to me and my brothers, Belgarath,’ he replied sadly. ‘When the earth was all new, we dwelt with each other in a cave deep in these mountains, laboring to bring forth the beasts of the fields, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea. It seemeth me I have told thee of that time, have I not?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, Master,’ I replied. ‘It was before there was such a thing as man.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Man was our last creation. At any rate, some of the creatures we brought forth were unseemly, and we consulted and decided to unmake them, but UL forbade it.’
‘UL?’ The name startled me. I’d heard it quite often in the encampment of the old people the winter before I went to serve my Master.
‘Thou hast heard of him, I see.’ There was no real point in my trying to hide anything from my Master. ‘UL, as I told thee,’ he continued, ‘forbade the unmaking of things, and this greatly offended several of us. Torak in particular was put much out of countenance. Prohibitions or restraints of any kind do not sit well with my brother Torak. It was at his urging, methinks, that we sent such unseemly creatures to UL, telling them that he would be their God. I do sorely repent our spitefulness, for what UL did, he did out of a Necessity which we did not at the time perceive.’
‘It is UL with whom thou wouldst consult at Prolgu, is it not, Master?’ I asked shrewdly. You see? I’m not totally without some degree of perception.
My Master nodded. ‘A certain thing hath come to pass,’ he told me sadly. ‘We had hoped that it might not, but it is another of those Necessities to which men and Gods alike must bow,’ He sighed. ‘Seek thy bed, Belgarath,’ he told me then. ‘We still have far to go ere we reach Prolgu, and I have noted that without sleep, thou art a surly companion.’
‘A weakness of mine, Master,’ I admitted, spreading my blankets on the ground. My Master, of course, required sleep no more than he required food.
In time we reached Prolgu, which is a strange place on the top of a mountain which looks oddly artificial. We had no more than started up its side when we were greeted by a very old man and by someone who was quite obviously not a man. That was the first time I met UL, and the overpowering sense of his presence quite nearly bowled me over. ‘Aldur,’ he said to my Master, ‘well-met.’
‘Father,’ my Master replied, politely inclining his head. The Gods, I’ve noted, have an enormous sense of propriety. Then my Master reached inside his robe and took out that ordinary, round grey rock he’d spent the last couple of decades studying. ‘Our hopes notwithstanding,’ he announced, holding the rock out for UL to see, ‘it hath arrived.’
UL nodded gravely. ‘I had thought I sensed its presence. Wilt thou accept the burden of it?’
My Master sighed. ‘If I must,’ he said.
‘Thou art brave,
