"I will have her!" Mara howled. "I will give her a mult.i.tude of lives and tear each one from her quivering flesh."

"No," the voice replied, "you won't. "

The G.o.d Mara drew himself up again, raising his dreadful arms; but at the same time, his eyes were probing - and more than his eyes. Garion once again felt a vast touch on his mind as he had in Queen Salmissra's throne room when the Spirit of Issa had touched him. A dreadful recognition began to dawn in Mara's weeping eyes. His raised arms fell. "Give her to me," he pleaded. "Take the others and go, but give the Tolnedran to me. I beg it of thee."

"No." What happened then was not sorcery - Garion knew it instantly. The noise was not there nor that strange, rushing surge that always accompanied sorcery. Instead, there seemed to be a terrible pressure as the full force of Mara's mind was directed crushingly at him. Then the mind within his mind responded. The power was so vast that the world itself was not large enough to contain it. It did not strike back at Mara, for that dreadful collision would have shattered the world, but it stood rather, calmly unmoved and immovable against the raging torrent of Mara's fury. For a fleeting moment, Garion shared the awareness of the mind within his mind, and he shuddered back from its immensity. In that instant, he saw the birth of uncounted suns swirling in vast spirals against the velvet blackness of the void, their birth and gathering into galaxies and ponderously turning nebulae encompa.s.sing but a moment. And beyond that, he looked full in the face of time itself - seeing its beginning and its ending in one awful glimpse.

Mara fell back. "I must submit," he said hoa.r.s.ely, and then he bowed to Garion, his ravaged face strangely humble. He turned away and buried his face in his hands, weeping uncontrollably.

"Your grief will end, Mara," the voice said gently. "One day you will find joy again."

"Never," the G.o.d sobbed. "My grief will last forever."

"Forever is a very long time, Mara," the voice replied, "and only I can see to the end of it."

The weeping G.o.d did not answer, but moved away from them, and the sound of his wailing echoed again through the ruins of Mar Amon. Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol were both staring at Garion with stunned faces. When the old man spoke, his voice was awed. "Is it possible?"

"Aren't you the one who keeps saying that anything is possible, Belgarath?"

"We didn't know you could intervene directly," Aunt Pol said.

"I nudge things a bit from time to time - make a few suggestions. If you think back carefully, you might even remember some of them."

"Is the boy aware of any of this?" she asked.

"Of course. We had a little talk about it."

"How much did you tell him?"

"As much as he could understand. Don't worry, Polgara, I'm not going to hurt him. He realizes how important all this is now. He knows that he needs to prepare himself and that he doesn't have a great deal of time for it. I think you'd better leave here now. The Tolnedran girl's presence is causing Mara a great deal of pain."

Aunt Pol looked as if she wanted to say more, but she glanced once at the shadowy figure of the G.o.d weeping not far away and nodded. She turned to her horse and led the way out of the ruins.

Mister Wolf fell in beside Garion after they had remounted to follow her. "Perhaps we could talk as we ride along," he suggested. "I have a great many questions."

"He's gone, Grandfather," Garion told him.

"Oh," Wolf answered with obvious disappointment.

It was nearing sundown by then, and they stopped for the night in a grove about a mile away from Mar Amon. Since they had left the ruins, they had seen no more of the maimed ghosts. After the others had been fed and sent to their blankets, Aunt Pol, Garion, and Mister Wolf sat around their small fire. Since the presence in his mind had left him, following the meeting with Mara, Garion had felt himself sinking deeper toward sleep. All emotion was totally gone now, and he seemed no longer able to think independently.

"Can we talk to the - other one?" Mister Wolf asked hopefully.

"He isn't there right now," Garion replied.

"Then he isn't always with you?"

"Not always. Sometimes he goes away for months - sometimes even longer. He's been there for quite a long while this time - ever since Asharak burned up."

"Where exactly is he when he's with you?" the old man asked curiously.

"In here." Garion tapped his head.

"Have you been awake ever since we entered Maragor?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Not exactly awake," Garion answered. "Part of me was asleep."

"You could see the ghosts?"

"Yes."

"But they didn't frighten you?"

"No. Some of them surprised me, and one of them made me sick."

Wolf looked up quickly. "It wouldn't make you sick now though, would it?"

"No. I don't think so. Right at first I could still feel things like that a little bit. Now I can't."

Wolf looked thoughtfully at the fire as if looking for a way to phrase his next question. "What did the other one in your head say to you when you talked together?"

"He told me that something had happened a long time ago that wasn't supposed to happen and that I was supposed to fix it."

Wolf laughed shortly. "That's a succinct way of putting it," he observed. "Did he say anything about how it was going to turn out?"

"He doesn't know."

Wolf sighed. "I'd hoped that maybe we'd picked up an advantage somewhere, but I guess not. It looks like both prophecies are still equally valid."

Aunt Pol was looking steadily at Garion. "Do you think you'll be able to remember any of this when you wake up again?" she asked.

"I think so."

"All right then, listen carefully. There are two prophecies, both leading toward the same event. The Grolims and the rest of the Angaraks are following one; we're following the other. The event turns out differently at the end of each prophecy."

"I see."

"Nothing in either prophecy excludes anything that will happen in the other until they meet in that event," she continued. "The course of everything that follows will be decided by how that event turns out. One prophecy will succeed; the other will fail. Everything that has happened and will happen comes together at that point and becomes one. The mistake will be erased, and the universe will go in one direction or the other, as if that were the direction it had been going from its very beginning.The only real difference is that something that's very important will never happen if we fail."

Garion nodded, feeling suddenly very tired.

"Beldin call it the theory of convergent destinies," Mister Wolf said. "Two equally possible possibilities. Beldin can be very pompous sometimes."

"It's not an uncommon failing, father," Aunt Pol told him.

"I think I'd like to sleep now," Garion said.

Wolf and Aunt Pol exchanged a quick glance. "All right," Aunt Pol said. She rose and took him by the arm and led him to his blankets.

After she had covered him, drawing the blankets up snugly, she laid one cool hand on his forehead. "Sleep, my Belgarion," she murmured.

And he did that.

Part Two - THE VALE OF ALDUR

Chapter Seven.

THEY WERE ALL standing in a circle with their hands joined when they awoke. Ce'Nedra was holding Garion's left hand, and Durnik was on his right. Garion's awareness came flooding back as sleep left him. The breeze was fresh and cool, and the morning sun was very bright. Yellow-brown foothills rose directly in front of them and the haunted plain of Maragor lay behind.

Silk looked around sharply as he awoke, his eyes wary. "Where are we?" he asked quickly.

"On the northern edge of Maragor," Wolf told him, "about eighty leagues east of Tol Rane."

"How long were we asleep?"

"A week or so."

Silk kept looking around, adjusting his mind to the pa.s.sage of time and distance. "I guess it was necessary," he conceded finally.

Hettar went immediately to check the horses, and Barak began ma.s.saging the back of his neck with both hands. "I feel as if I've been sleeping on a pile of rocks," he complained.

"Walk around a bit," Aunt Pol advised. "That will work the stiffness out."

Ce'Nedra had not removed her hand from Garion's, and he wondered if he should mention it to her. Her hand felt very warm and small in his and, on the whole, it was not unpleasant. He decided not to say anything about it.

Hettar was frowning when he came back. "One of the pack mares is with foal, Belgarath," he said.

"How long has she got to go?" Wolf asked, looking quickly at him.

"It's hard to say for sure - no more than a month. It's her first."

"We can break down her pack and distribute the weight among the other horses," Durnik suggested. "She'll be all right if she doesn't have to carry anything."

"Maybe." Hettar sounded dubious.

Mandorallen had been studying the yellowed foothills directly ahead. "We are being watched, Belgarath," he said somberly, pointing at several wispy columns of smoke rising toward the blue morning sky.

Mister Wolf squinted at the smoke and made a sour face. "Goldhunters, probably. They hover around the borders of Maragor like vultures over a sick cow. Take a look, Pol."

But Aunt Pol's eyes already had that distant look in them as she scanned the foothills ahead. "Arends," she said, "Sendars, Tolnedrans, a couple of Drasnians. They aren't very bright."

"Any Murgos?"

"No."

"Common rabble then," Mandorallen observed. "Such scavengers will not impede us significantly."

"I'd like to avoid a fight if possible," Wolf told him. "These incidental skirmishes are dangerous and don't really accomplish anything." He shook his head with disgust. "We'll never be able to convince them that we're not carrying gold out of Maragor, though, so I guess there's no help for it."

"If gold's all they want, why don't we just give them some?" Silk suggested.

"I didn't bring all that much with me, Silk," the old man replied.

"It doesn't have to be real," Silk said, his eyes bright. He went to one of the packhorses, came back with several large pieces of canvas, and quickly cut them into foot-wide squares. Then he took one of the squares and laid a double handful of gravel in its center. He pulled up the corners and wrapped a stout piece of cord around them, forming a heavy-looking pouch. He hefted it a few times. "Looks about like a sackful of gold, wouldn't you say?"

"He's going to do something clever again," Barak said.

Silk smirked at him and quickly made up several more pouches. "I'll take the lead," he said, hanging the pouches on their saddles. "Just follow me and let me do the talking. How many of them are up there, Polgara?"

"About twenty," she replied.

"That will work out just fine," he stated confidently. "Shall we go?" They mounted their horses and started across the ground toward the broad mouth of a dry wash that opened out onto the plain. Silk rode at the front, his eyes everywhere. As they entered the mouth of the wash, Garion heard a shrill whistle and saw several furtive movements ahead of them. He was very conscious of the steep banks of the wash on either side of them.

"I'm going to need a bit of open ground to work with," Silk told them. "There." He pointed with his chin at a spot where the slope of the bank was a bit more gradual. When they reached the spot, he turned his horse sharply. "Now!" he barked. "Ride!"

They followed him, scrambling up the bank and kicking up a great deal of gravel; a thick cloud of choking yellow dust rose in the air as they clawed their way up out of the wash.

Shouts of dismay came from the scrubby thornbushes at the upper end of the wash, and a group of rough-looking men broke out into the open, running hard up through the knee-high brown gra.s.s to head them off. A black-bearded man, closer and more desperate than the rest, jumped out in front of them, brandishing a rust-pitted sword. Without hesitation, Mandorallen rode him down. The black-bearded man howled as he rolled and tumbled beneath the churning hooves of the huge warhorse.

When they reached the hilltop above the wash, they gathered in a tight group. "This will do," Silk said, looking around at the rounded terrain. "All I need is for the mob to have enough room to think about casualties. I definitely want them to be thinking about casualties."

An arrow buzzed toward them, and Mandorallen brushed it almost contemptuously out of the air with his shield.

"Stop!" one of the brigands shouted. He was a lean, pockmarked Sendar with a crude bandage wrapped around one leg, wearing a dirty green tunic.

"Who says so?" Silk yelled back insolently.

"I'm Kroldor," the bandaged man announced importantly. "Kroldor the robber. You've probably heard of me."

"Can't say that I have," Silk replied pleasantly.

"Leave your gold - and your women," Kroldor ordered. "Maybe I'll let you live."

"If you get out of our way, maybe we'll let you live."

"I've got fifty men," Kroldor threatened, "all desperate, like me."

"You've got twenty," Silk corrected. "Runaway serfs, cowardly peasants, and sneak thieves. My men are trained warriors. Not only that, we're mounted, and you're on foot."

"Leave your gold," the self proclaimed robber insisted.