"Yes, dear," she said with a pale smile. "You're going to be a father. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll throw up again."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They did not match. Now matter how hard Garion twisted and turned the sense of the two passages, there was no apparent way to make them match. Despite the fact that they both seemed to describe the same period of time, they simply went off in opposite directions. It was a bright, golden autumn morning outside, but the dusty library seemed somehow dim, chill, and uninviting.Garion did not think of himself as a scholar and he had approached the task that Belgarath had laid upon him with some reluctance. The sheer volume of the documents he was obliged to read was intimidating, for one thing, and this gloomy little room with its smell of ancient parchment and mildewed leather bindings always depressed him. He had done unpleasant things before, however, and, although he was a bit grim about it, he nonetheless dutifully spent at least two hours a day confined in this prisonlike cell, struggling with ancient books and scrolls written in often-times difficult script. At least, he told himself, it was better than scrubbing pots in a scullery.
He set his teeth together and laid the two scrolls side by side on the table to compare them again. He read slowly and aloud, hoping perhaps to catch with his ears what his eyes might miss. The Darine Codex seemed relatively clear and straightforward. "Behold," it said, "in the day that Aldur's Orb burns hot with crimson fire shall the name of the Child of Dark be revealed. Guard well the son of the Child of Light for he shall have no brother. And it shall come to pass that those which once were one and now are two shall be rejoined, and in that rejoining shall one of them be no more."
The Orb had turned crimson, and the name of the Child of Dark -Zandramas- had been revealed. That matched what had taken place. The information that the son of the Child of Light -his son- would have no brother had concerned Garion a bit. At first he had taken it to mean that he and Ce'Nedra would only have one child, but the more he thought about that, the more he realized that his reasoning there was flawed. All it really said was that they would only have one son. It said nothing about daughters. The more he thought about it, the more the notion of a whole cluster of chattering little girls gathered about his knee appealed to him.
The last passage, however -the one about the two which once were one- didn't really make any sense yet, but he was quite certain that it would, eventually.
He moved his hand over to trace the lines of the Mrin Codex, peering hard at them in the flickering yellow candlelight. He read slowly and carefully once more. " And the Child of Light shall meet with the Child of Dark and shall overcome him- " That obviously referred to the meeting with Torak. " -and the Darkness shall flee." The Dark Prophecy had fled when Torak had died. "But behold, the stone which lies at the center of the light- " The Orb, obviously , " -shall- " One word seemed to be blotted at that point. Garion frowned, trying to make out what word might lie beneath that irregular splotch of ink. Even as he stared at it, a strange kind of weariness came over him, as if the effort to push aside that blot to see what lay beneath were as difficult as moving a mountain. He shrugged and went on, " -and this meeting will come to pass in a place which is no more, and there will the choice be made." That last fragment made him want to howl in frustration.
How could a meeting -or anything else- happen in a place which is no more? And what was the meaning of the word "choice"? What choice? Whose choice? Choice between what and what?
He swore and read it again. Once again he felt that peculiar lassitude when his eyes reached the blot on the page. He shrugged it off and went on. No matter what the word under the blot might be, it was still only one word, and one single word could not be that important. Irritably he put the scroll aside and considered the discrepancy. The most immediate explanation was that this spot, like so many others, was a place where the Mrin Prophet's well-known insanity had simply got the best of him. Another possibility was that this particular copy was not precisely accurate. The scribe who had copied it off had perhaps inadvertently skipped a line or two at the time when he had blotted the page. Garion recalled an occasion when he had done that himself, turning a perfectly bland proclamation into a horrendous declaration that he was on the verge of naming himself military dictator of all the kingdoms lying on this side of the Eastern Escarpment. When he had caught the blunder, he had not just erased the offending lines, he had shudderingly burned the whole sheet to make sure that no one ever saw it.
He stood up, stretching to relieve his cramped muscles and going to the small, barred window of the library. The autumn sky was a crisp blue. The nights had turned chilly in the past few weeks, and the higher meadows lying above the city were touched with frost when the sun arose. The days, however, were warm and golden. He checked the position of the sun to gauge the time. He had promised to meet with Count Valgon, the Tolnedran ambassador, at midday and he did not want to be late. Aunt Pol had stressed the importance of punctuality, and Garion always did his best to be on time.
He turned back to the table and absently rerolled the two scrolls, his mind still wrestling with the problem of the conflicting passages. Then he blew out the candles and left the library, carefully closing the door behind him.
Valgon, as always, was tedious. Garion felt that there was an innate pomposity in the Tolnedran character that made it impossible for them to say what they meant without extensive embellishment. The discussion that day had to do with "prioritizing" the unloading of merchant vessels in the harbor at Riva. Valgon seemed terribly fond of the word "prioritizing," finding a way to insert it into the discussion at least once in every other sentence. The essence of Valgon's presentation seemed to be a request -or a demand- that Tolnedran merchantmen should always have first access to the somewhat limited wharves at the foot of the city.
"My dear Valgon," Garion began, seeking some diplomatic way to refuse, "I actually believe that this matter needs- " He broke off, looking up as the great carved doors to the throne room swung inward.
One of the towering, gray-cloaked sentries who always stood guard outside when Garion was in the throne room stepped in, cleared his throat, and announced in a voice that probably could have been heard on the other side of the island, "Her Royal Majesty, Queen Ce'Nedra of Riva, Imperial Princess of the Tolnedran Empire, Commander of the Armies of the West, and beloved wife of his Majesty, Belgarion of Riva, Godslayer, Lord of the Western Sea, and Overlord of the West!"