"Yes. It's not all that complicated. It has to do with balance. The world needs a certain weight to keep it turning. When it starts to slow down, a few nearby stars fall. Their weight makes up the difference."

"I never thought of that."

"Neither did I - not for quite some time."

"The stone you mentioned. Was it-"

"The Orb," Wolf confirmed. "Just an ordinary rock until my Master touched it. Anyway, I learned the secret of the Will and the Word which isn't really that much of a secret, after all. It's there in all of us or did I say that before?"

"1 think so."

"Probably so. I tend to repeat myself." The old man picked up a roll of parchment and glanced at it, then laid it aside again. "So much that I started and haven't finished." He sighed.

"Grandfather?"

"Yes, Garion?"

"This - thing of ours - how much can you actually do with it?"

"That depends on your mind, Garion. The complexity of it lies in the complexity of the mind that puts it to use. Quite obviously, it can't do something that can't be imagined by the mind that focuses it. That was the purpose of our studies - to expand our minds so that we could use the power more fully."

"Everybody's mind is different, though." Garion was struggling toward an idea.

" Yes."

"Wouldn't that mean that - this thing-" He shied away from the word 'power.' "What I mean is, is it different? Sometimes you do things, and other times you have Aunt Pol do them."

Wolf nodded. "It's different in each one of us. There are certain things we can all do. We can all move things, for example."

"Aunt Pol called it trans-" Garion hesitated, not remembering the word.

"Translocation," Wolf supplied. "Moving something from one place to another. It's the simplest thing you can do - usually the thing you do first - and it makes the most noise."

"That's what she told me." Garion remembered the slave he had jerked from the river at Sthiss Tor-the slave who had died.

"Polgara can do things that I can't," Wolf continued. "Not because she's any stronger than I am, but because she thinks differently than I do. We're not sure how much you can do yet, because we don't know exactly how your mind works. You seem to be able to do certain things quite easily that I wouldn't even attempt. Maybe it's because you don't realize how difficult they are."

"I don't quite understand what you mean."

The old man looked at him. "Perhaps you don't, at that. Remember the crazy monk who tried to attack you in that village in northern Tolnedra just after we left Arendia?"

Garion nodded.

"You cured his madness. That doesn't sound like much until you realize that in the instant you cured him, you had to understand fully the nature of his insanity. That's an extremely difficult thing, and you did it without even thinking about it. And then, of course, there was the colt."

Garion glanced down through the window at the little horse friskily running through the field surrounding the tower.

"The colt was dead, but you made him start to breathe. In order for you to do that, you had to be able to understand death."

"It was just a wall," Garion explained. "All I did was reach through it."

"There's more to it than that, I think. What you seem to be able to do is to visualize extremely difficult ideas in very simple terms. That's a rare gift, but there are some dangers involved in it that you should be aware of."

"Dangers? Such as what?"

"Don't oversimplify. If a man's dead, for example, he's usually dead for a very good reason - like a sword through the heart. If you bring him back, he'll only die immediately again anyway. As I said before, just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should. "

Garion sighed. "I'm afraid this is going to take a very long time, Grandfather," he said. "I have to learn how to keep myself under control; I have to learn what I can't do, so I don't kill myself trying to do something impossible; I have to learn what I can do and what I should do. I wish this had never happened to me."

"We all do sometimes," the old man told him. "The decision wasn't ours to make, though. I haven't always liked some of the things I've had to do, and neither has your Aunt; but what we're doing is more important than we are, so we do what's expected of us - like it or not."

"What if I just said, 'No. I won't do it'?"

"You could do that, I suppose, but you won't, will you?"

Garion sighed again. "No," he said, "I guess not."

The old sorcerer put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "I thought you might see things that way, Belgarion. You're bound to this the same way we all are."

The strange thrill he always felt at the sound of his other, secret name ran through Garion. "Why do you all insist on calling me that?" he asked.

"Belgarion?" Wolf said mildly. "Think, boy. Think what it means. I haven't been talking to you and telling you stories all these years just because I like the sound of my own voice."

Garion turned it over carefully in his mind. "You were Garath," he mused thoughtfully, "but the G.o.d Aldur changed your name to Belgarath. Zedar was Zedar first and then Belzedar - and then he went back to being Zedar again."

"And in my old tribe, Polgara would have just been Gara. Pol is like Bel. The only difference is that she's a woman. Her name comes from mine - because she's my daughter. Your name comes from mine, too."

"Garion-Garath," the boy said. "Belgarath-Belgarion. It all fits together, doesn't it?"

"Naturally," the old man replied. "I'm glad you noticed it."

Garion grinned at him. Then a thought occurred. "But I'm not really Belgarion yet, am I?"

"Not entirely. You still have a way to go."

"I suppose I'd better get started then." Garion said it with a certain ruefulness. "Since I don't really have any choice."

"Somehow I knew that eventually you'd come around," Mister Wolf said.

"Don't you sometimes wish that I was just Garion again, and you were the old storyteller coming to visit Faldor's farm - with Aunt Pol making supper in the kitchen as she did in the old days - and we were hiding under a haystack with a bottle I'd stolen for you?" Garion felt the homesickness welling up in him.

"Sometimes, Garion, sometimes," Wolf admitted, his eyes far away.

"We won't ever be able to go back there again, will we?"

"Not the same way, no."

"I'll be Belgarion, and you'll be Belgarath. We won't even be the same people any more."

"Everything changes, Garion," Belgarath told him.

"Show me the rock," Garion said suddenly.

"Which rock?"

"The one Aldur made you move - the day you first discovered the power."

"Oh," Belgarath said, "that rock. It's right over there - the white one. The one the colt's sharpening his hooves on."

"It's a very big rock."

"I'm glad you appreciate that," Belgarath replied modestly. "I thought so myself."

"Do you suppose I could move it?"

"You never know until you try, Garion," Belgarath told him.

Chapter Eleven.

THE NEXT MORNING when Garion awoke, he knew immediately that he was not alone.

"Where have you been?" he asked silently.

"I've been watching, " the other consciousness in his mind said. "I see that you've finally come around. "

"What choice did I have?"

"None. You'd better get up. Aldur's coming. "

Garion quickly rolled out of his blankets. "Here? Are you sure?" The voice in his mind didn't answer.

Garion put on a clean tunic and hose and wiped off his half boots with a certain amount of care. Then he went out of the tent he shared with Silk and Durnik.

The sun was just coming up over the high mountains to the east, and the line between sunlight and shadow moved with a stately ponderousness across the dewy gra.s.s of the Vale. Aunt Pol and Belgarath stood near the small fire where a pot was just beginning to bubble. They were talking quietly, and Garion joined them.

"You're up early," Aunt Pol said. She reached out and smoothed his hair.

"I was awake," he replied. He looked around, wondering from which direction Aldur would come.

"Your grandfather tells me that the two of you had a long talk yesterday."

Garion nodded. "I understand a few things a little better now. I'm sorry I've been so difficult."

She drew him to her and put her arms around him. "It's all right, dear. You had some hard decisions to make."

"You're not angry with me, then?"

"Of course not, dear."

The others had begun to get up, coming out of their tents, yawning and stretching and rumpled-looking.

"What do we do today?" Silk asked, coming to the fire and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"We wait," Belgarath told him. "My Master said he'd meet us here."

"I'm curious to see him. I've never met a G.o.d before."

"Thy curiosity, me thinks, will soon be satisfied, Prince Kheldar," Mandorallen said. "Look there."

Coming across the meadow not far from the great tree beneath which they had pitched their tents, a figure in a blue robe was approaching. A soft nimbus of blue light surrounded the figure, and the immediate sense of presence made it instantly clear that what approached was not a man. Garion was not prepared for the impact of that presence. His meeting with the Spirit of Issa in Queen Salmissra's throne room had been clouded by the narcotic effects of the things the Serpent Queen had forced him to drink. Similarly, half his mind had slept during the confrontation with Mara in the ruins of Mar Amon. But now, fully awake in the first light of morning, he found himself in the presence of a G.o.d.

Aldur's face was kindly and enormously wise. His long hair and beard were white - from conscious choice, Garion felt, rather than from any result of age. The face was very familiar to him somehow. It bore a startling resemblance to Belgarath's, but Garion perceived immediately, with a sudden curious inversion of his original notion, that it was Belgarath who resembled Aldur - as if their centuries of a.s.sociation had stamped Aldur's features upon the face of the old man. There were differences, of course. That certain mischievous roguishness was not present on the calm face of Aldur. That quality was Belgarath's own, the last remnant, perhaps, of the face of the thieving boy Aldur had taken into his tower on a snowy day some seven thousand years ago.

"Master," Belgarath said, bowing respectfully as Aldur approached.

"Belgarath," the G.o.d acknowledged. His voice was very quiet. "I have not seen thee in some time. The years have not been unkind to thee."

Belgarath shrugged wryly. "Some days I feel them more than others, Master. I carry a great number of years with me."

Aldur smiled and turned to Aunt Pol. "My beloved daughter," he said fondly, reaching out to touch the white lock at her brow. "Thou art as lovely as ever."

"And thou as kind, Master," she replied, smiling and inclining her head.

There pa.s.sed among the three of them a kind of intensely personal linkage, a joining of minds that marked their reunion. Garion could feel the edges of it with his own mind, and he was somewhat wistful at being excluded - though he realized at once that there was no intent to exclude him. They were merely reestablishing an eons-old companionship - shared experiences that stretched back into antiquity.

Aldur then turned to look at the others. "And so you have come together at last, as it hath been foretold from the beginning of days you should. You are the instruments of destiny, and my blessing goes with each as you move toward that awful day when the universe will become one again."

The faces of Garion's companions were awed and puzzled by Aldur's enigmatic blessing. Each, however, bowed with profound respect and humility.

And then Ce'Nedra emerged from the tent she shared with Aunt Pol. The tiny girl stretched luxuriantly and ran her fingers through the tumbled ma.s.s of her flaming hair. She was dressed in a Dryad tunic and sandals.

"Ce'Nedra," Aunt Pol called her, "come here."

"Yes, Lady Polgara," the little princess replied obediently. She crossed to the fire, her feet seeming barely to touch the ground. Then she saw Aldur standing with the others and stopped, her eyes wide.

"This is our Master, Ce'Nedra," Aunt Pol told her. "He wanted to meet you."

The princess stared at the glowing presence in confusion. Nothing in her life had prepared her for such a meeting. She lowered her eyelashes and then looked up shyly, her tiny face artfully and automatically a.s.suming its most appealing expression.

Aldur smiled gently. "She's like a flower that charms without knowing it." His eyes looked deeply into those of the princess. "There is steel in this one, however. She is fit for her task. My blessings upon thee, my child."

Ce'Nedra responded with an instinctively graceful curtsey. It was the first time Garion had ever seen her bow to anyone.