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wished to see, and he did not read the entire message
written in the sky. Reading thus but a small part of the
signs, he set his forces in motion upon the worst possible
day. Perceiving this, we took counsel with each other.
Though our people were perforce gathered up in the great
army which was to attack the west, we felt that we should
not interfere with the course of either Fate. A different task
had been selected for us, and if we were to perform it, we
must needs allow the courses of the Fates to continue
unhampered. We were troubled, however, that other men
and even Gods could not read those messages in the skies
which were to us as clear as if they had been engraved
upon stone.
And, as we had known it must, disaster befell the
armies of Torak there on the broad plain lying before the
city of Vo "mimbre. And we mourned with all of Mallorea,
for hosts of our kinsmen perished there. There it was also
that the Dragon God of Angarak was overthrown by the
power of the stone, and he was bound in sleep to await
the coming of his enemy.
And now was the course of events in the hands of
the Disciples of Gods rather than of the Gods themselves.
And the names of the Disciples rang from the stars, and
we read the accounts of their exploits and of their
ordering of events in the Book of the Heavens. Now the
Disciples of Torak were Ctuchik and Zedar and Urvon,
and their enchantments and sorceries were mighty; but the
Disciples of Aldur who countered those acts with sorceries
of their own, were Beltira and Belkira and Beldin. And the
most powerful of all the sorcerers was Belgarath, whom
men called eternal, and close to him in power stood his
daughter, Polgara the Sorceress. Then it was that a whisper
began to reach us with yet another name. As all the twisted
skeins of events moved into those final channels from
which there can be no turning the whisper of that name
became clearer to us. And upon the day of his birth, the
whisper of his name became a great shout, and we knew
him. Belgarion the Godslayer had come at last.
And now the pace of events, which had moved at times
with ponderous tread, quickened, and the rush toward
the awful meeting became so swift that the account of
it could not be read in the stars, for the Book of the
Heavens is so vast that it takes lifetimes to read a single
page. But we could hear Belgarion's power stirring, and
the thundershocks of his first efforts were terrible. And
then upon the day which men celebrate as the day when
the world was made, the Orb of Aldur, which the men
of Angarak call Cthrag-Yaska, was delivered up to
Belgarion; and in the instant that his hand closed upon it,
the Book of the Heavens filled with a great light, and the
sound of Belgarion's name rang from the farthest star.
Events now moved so swiftly that we could only guess
at their course. We could feel Belgarion moving toward
Mallorea, bearing the stone with him, and we could feel
Torak stirring as his sleep grew fitful. We could also feel
the movements of armies, but Belgarion led no army A
great battle was joined in the West, but the outcome of that
battle had no bearing upon that which was about to