Dont be coy, grandfather. Durnik and I both know that you dont have to do it by hand. You can think the words onto paper without ever picking up a pen.
Forget it, Belgarath said shortly. Im not going to waste my time on something as ridiculous as that.
Youre lazy, Belgarath, Durnik accused.
Are you only just noticing that? I thought you were more observant.
You wont 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 to bed, dear, Belgarath lied blandly.
Well, do it then. Dont just sit there and talk about it.
Belgarath stood up and stretched perhaps just a bit theatrically. Shes right, you know, he said to his two friends. Itll be daylight before long, and the twins have been resting up all night. If were going to get any sleep, wed better do it now.
Later, after the three of them had climbed up into the loft and rolled themselves into blankets on the pallets Durnik kept stored up there, Garion lay looking down at the slowly waning firelight and the flickering shadows in the room below. He thought of CeNedra and his own children, of course, but then he let his mind drift back over the events of this most special of nights. Aunt Pol had always been at the very center of his life, and with the birth of her twins, her life was now fulfilled.
Near to sleep, the Rivan King found his thoughts going back over the conversation he had just had with Durnik and his grandfather. He was honest enough with himself to admit that his desire to read Belgaraths history of the world was not entirely academic. The old sorcerer was a very strange and complex man, and his story promised to provide insights into his character that could come from no other source. Hed have to be pushed, of course. Belgarath was an expert at avoiding work of any kind. Garion, however, thought he knew of a way to pry the story out of his grandfather. He smiled to himself as the fire burned lower and lower in the room below. He knew he could find out how it all began.
And then, because it was really quite late, Garion fell asleep, and, perhaps because of all the familiar things in Aunt Pols kitchen down below, he dreamed of Faldors farm, where his story had begun.
PART ONE
The Vale
Chapter 1
The problem with any idea is the fact that the more it gets bandied about, the more feasible it seems to become. What starts out as idle speculation something mildly entertaining to while away a few hours before going to bed can become, once others are drawn into it, a kind of obligation. Why cant people understand that just because Im willing to talk about something, it doesnt automatically follow that Im actually willing to do it?
As a case in point, this all started with Durniks rather inane remark about wanting to hear the whole story. You know how Durnik is, forever taking things apart to see what makes them work. I can forgive him in this case, however. Pol had just presented him with twins, and new fathers tend to be a bit irrational. Garion, on the other hand, should have had sense enough to leave it alone. I curse the day when I encouraged that boy to be curious about first causes. He can be so tedious about some things. If hed have just let it drop, I wouldnt be saddled with this awful chore.
But no. The two of them went on and on about it for day after day as if the fate of the world depended on it. I tried to get around them with a few vague promises nothing specific, mind you and fervently hoped that theyd forget about the whole silly business.
Then Garion did something so unscrupulous, so underhanded, that it shocked me to the very core. He told Polgara about the stupid idea, and when he got back to Riva, he told CeNedra. That would have been bad enough, but would you believe that he actually encouraged those two to bring Poledra into it?
Ill admit right here that it was my own fault. My only excuse is that I was a little tired that night. Id inadvertently let something slip that Ive kept buried in my heart for three eons. Poledra had been with child, and Id gone off and left her to fend for herself. Ive carried the guilt over that for almost half of my life. Its like a knife twisting inside me. Garion knew that, and he coldly, deliberately, used it to force me to take on this ridiculous project. He knows that under these circumstances, I simply cannot refuse anything my wife asks of me.
Poledra, of course, didnt put any pressure on me. She didnt have to. All she had to do was suggest that shed rather like to have me go along with the idea. Under the circumstances, I didnt have any choice. I hope that the Rivan King is happy about what hes done to me.
This is most certainly a mistake. Wisdom tells me that it would be far better to leave things as they are, with event and cause alike half-buried in the dust of forgotten years. If it were up to me, Id leave it that way. The truth is going to upset a lot of people.
Few will understand and fewer still accept what I am about to set forth, but as my grandson and son-in-law so pointedly insisted, if I dont tell the story, somebody else will; and, since I alone know the beginning and middle and end of it, it falls to me to commit to perishable parchment, with ink that begins to fade before it even dries, some ephemeral account of what really happened and why.
Thus, let me begin this story as all stories are begun, at the beginning.
I was born in the village of Gara, which no longer exists. It lay, if I remember it correctly, on a pleasant green bank beside a small river that sparkled in the summer sun as if its surface were covered with jewels and Id trade all the jewels Ive ever owned or seen to sit again beside that unnamed river.
Our village was not rich, but in those days none were. The world was at peace, and our Gods walked among us and smiled upon us. We had enough to eat and huts to shelter us from the weather. I dont recall who our God was, nor his attributes, nor his totem. I was very young at the time, and it was, after all, long ago.
I played with the other children in the warm, dusty streets, ran through the long grass and the wildflowers in the meadows, and paddled in that sparkling river which was drowned by the Sea of the East so many years ago that they are beyond counting.
My mother died when I was quite young. I remember that I cried about it for a long time, though I must honestly admit that I can no longer even remember her face. I remember the gentleness of her hands and the warm smell of fresh-baked bread that came from her garments, but I cant remember her face. Isnt that odd?