When the storm had cleared, our Master called us to him, and we went up into his tower. He sat at the table where he had labored so long over the Orb. There was a great sadness in his face, and my heart wept to see it. There was also a reddened mark on his cheek that I didn’t understand.
But Belzedar saw what I hadn’t almost at once. ‘Master!’ he said with a note of panic in his voice, ‘where is the jewel? Where is the Orb of power?’ I wish I’d paid closer attention to the sound of his voice. I might have been able to avert a lot of things if I had.
‘Torak, my brother, hath taken it away with him,’ our Master replied, and his voice had almost the sound of weeping in it.
‘Quickly!’ Belzedar exclaimed. ‘We must pursue him and reclaim the Orb before he escapes us! We are many, and he is but one!’
‘He is a God, my son,’ Aldur said. ‘Numbers mean nothing to him.’
‘But, Master,’ Belzedar said desperately, ‘we must reclaim the Orb! It must be returned to us!’ And I still didn’t realize what was going on in Belzedar’s mind. My brains must have been asleep.
‘How did thy brother obtain thine Orb from thee, Master?’ Beltira asked.
‘Torak conceived a desire for the jewel,’ Aldur said, ‘and he besought me that I should give it to him. When I would not, he smote me and took the Orb and ran.’
That did it! Though the jewel was wondrous, it was still only a stone. The fact that Torak had struck my Master, however, brought flames into my brain. I threw off my cloak, bent my will into the air before me, and forged a sword with a single word. I seized the sword and leapt to the window.
‘No!’ my Master said, and the word stopped me as if a wall had been placed before me.
‘Open!’ I commanded, slashing at that unseen wall with the sword I’d just made.
‘No!’ my Master said again, and the wall wouldn’t let me through.
‘He hath struck thee, Master!’ I raged. ‘For that I will kill him though he be ten times a God!’
‘No. Torak would crush thee as easily as thou wouldst crush an insect which annoyed thee. I love thee much, mine eldest son, and I would not lose thee so.’
‘There must be war, Master,’ Belmakor said. That should give you some idea of how seriously we took the matter. The word ‘war’ was the last I’d have ever expected to hear coming from the ultra-civilized Belmakor. ‘The blow and the theft must not go unpunished. We will forge weapons, and Belgarath shall lead us. We will make war on this thief who calls himself a God.’
‘My son,’ Aldur said with a kind of gentle sorrow, ‘there will be war enough to glut thee of it before thy life ends. Gladly would I have given the Orb to Torak, save that the Orb itself hath told me that one day it would destroy him. I would have spared him had I been able, but his lust for the jewel was too great, and he would not listen.’ He sighed and then straightened. ‘There will be war, Belmakor. It is unavoidable now. My brother hath the Orb in his possession, and with its power can he do great mischief. We must reclaim it or alter it before Torak can subdue it and bend it to his will.’
‘Alter?’ Belzedar said, aghast. ‘Surely, Master, surely thou wouldst not weaken this precious thing!’ It seemed that was all he could think about, and I still didn’t understand.
‘It may not be weakened, Belzedar,’ Aldur replied, ‘but will retain its power even unto the end of days. The purpose of our war shall be to press Torak into haste, that he will attempt to use it in a way that it will not be used.’
Belzedar stared at him. He evidently had thought that the Orb was a passive object. He hadn’t counted on the fact that it had its own ideas about things.
‘The world is inconstant, Belzedar,’ our Master explained, ‘but good and evil are immutable and unchanging. The Orb is an object of good and not merely some bauble or toy. It hath understanding not such as thine, but understanding nonetheless. And it hath a will. Beware of it, for its will is the will of a stone. It is, as I say, a thing of good. If it be raised to do evil, it will strike down whoever would so use it – be he man or be he God.’ Aldur obviously saw what I did not, and this was his way to try to warn Belzedar. I don’t think it worked, though.
Our Master sighed, then he rose to his feet. ‘We must make haste,’ he told us. ‘Go ye, my disciples. Go ye even unto mine other brothers and tell them that I bid them come to me. I am the eldest, and they will come out of respect, if not love. The war we propose will not be ours alone. I do fear me that all of mankind shall be caught up in it. Go, therefore, and summon my brothers that we may consider what must be done.’
‘A word with you, Belgarath?’ Belmakor said when we reached the foot of our Master’s tower.
‘Of course.’
‘I really don’t think we should leave the Master alone,’ he suggested gravely.
‘You think Torak might come back and hit him again?’
‘I rather doubt it, and I’m fairly certain that the Master could take care of himself if that happened.’
‘He didn’t the last time,’ I replied bleakly.
‘That was probably because Torak took him by surprise. You don’t normally expect a brother to hit you.’
‘Why all this concern, then?’
‘Didn’t you feel the Master’s grief? And I’m not just talking about the loss of the Orb. Torak betrayed him and hit him, and now there’s going to be a war. I think a couple of us should stay here to comfort the Master and to care for him.’
‘Do you want to stay?’
‘Not me, old boy. I’m at least as angry about this as you are. Right now I’m so angry that I could bite rocks and spit sand.’
I considered it. There were seven of us, and we only had to reach five Gods, so we could certainly afford to leave a couple behind. ‘How about the twins, then?’ I suggested. ‘Neither one of them could function if we separated them anyway, and they don’t have the temperament to deal with any confrontations that might turn up.’
‘Excellent suggestion, old boy,’ he approved. ‘Of course, that means that someone else will have to go north to speak with Belar.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I volunteered. ‘I think I can probably deal with the Alorns.’
‘I’ll go to Nedra, then. I’ve met him before, and I know how to get his attention. I’ll bribe him if I have to.’
‘Bribe? He’s a God, Belmakor.’
‘You’ve never met him, I gather. The Tolnedrans come by their peculiarities honestly.’
‘Take Belzedar with you,’ I suggested. ‘He’s obsessed with the Orb, so I don’t think we should just turn him loose.
