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He collapsed on his face again.
'You're going to wear out your clothes if you keep doing that,' I
told him, 'and my Master will not be amused by it.'
'I pray thee,' he said, rising and dusting himself off again, 'mighty
Disciple of the most high Aldur, instruct me so that I offend not the
God.'
'Be truthful,' I told him, 'and do not seek to impress him with
false show.'
'And how may I become his Disciple as thou art?'
'First you become his pupil,' I said, 'and that is not easy.'
'What must I do to become his pupil?' the stranger asked.
'You must become his servant,' I said, a bit smugly I must admit.
'And then his pupil?'
'In time,' I said, smiling, 'if he so wills.'
'And when may I meet the God?'
And so I took him to the tower.
'Will the God Aldur not wish to know my name?' the stranger
asked.
'Not particularly.' I said. 'If you prove worthy, he will give you a
name of his own choosing.' Then I turned to the grey stone in the
wall and commanded it to open, and then we went inside.
MY Master looked the stranger over and then turned to me. "^y
hast thou brought this man to me, my son?' he asked.
'He besought me, Master,' I said. 'I felt it was not my place to say
him yea or nay. Thy will must decide such things. If it be that he
please thee not, I shall take him outside and bid him be no more and
so put an end to him and his interruption.'
'That is unkindly said, my son,' Aldur said sternly. 'The Will and
the Word may not be used so.'
* An early indication of the prohibition against unmaking things.
'Forgive me, Master,' I said humbly.
'Thou shalt instruct him, Belgarath,' my Master said. 'If it should
e t U est ap orm me.
'I will, Master,' I promised.
'What is thy study currently?'
'I examine the reason for mountains, Master,' I said.
'Lay aside thy mountains, Belgarath, and study man instead. It
may be that thou shalt find the study useful.'
'As my Master commands,' I said regretfully. I had almost found
the secret of mountains, and I was not much enthused about allowing
it to escape me. But that was the end of my leisure.
I instructed the stranger as my Master had bade me. I set him
impossible tasks and waited. To my mortification, within six months
he learned the secret of the Will and the Word. My Master named
him Belzedar and accepted him as a pupil.
An then came the others. Kira and Tira were twin shepherd boys
who had become lost and wandered to us one day - and stayed.
Makor came from so far away that I could not conceive how he had
even heard of my Master, and Din from so near that I wondered that
his whole tribe did not come with him. Sambar simply appeared one
day and sat down upon the earth in front of the tower and waited
until we accepted him.
And to me it fell to instruct each of them until he found the secret
of Will and the Word - which is not a secret, after all, but lies within
every man. And in time each of them became my Master's pupil,
and he named them even as he had named me. Zedar became