Guardians of the West

aside for Belgarath. Although he knew that it was a serious breach of etiquette, he pulled in his concentration, looked at the rock, and said, "Open."
    The stone gave a startled little lurch and swung obediently aside. Garion went in and quickly mounted the stairs, remembering at the last instant to step up over the one where the loose stone still lay unrepaired. "Grandfather!" he called up the stairway.
    "Garion?" the old man' s voice coming from above sounded startled. "Is that you?"
    "I called," Garion said, coming up the cluttered, round room at the top of the stairs. "Didn't you hear me?"
    "I was concentrating on something," the old man replied. "What's the matter? What are you doing here?"
    "I finally found that passage," Garion told him.
    "What passage?"
    "The one in the Mrin Codex -the one that was missing."
    Belgarath's expression grew suddenly tense, even wary. "What are you talking about, boy? There's no missing passage in the Mrin Codex."
    "We talked about it at Riva. Don't you remember? It's the place where there's a blot on that page. I pointed it out to you."
    Belgarath's look grew disgusted. "You came here and interrupted me over that?" His tone was scathing.
    Garion stared at him. This was not the Belgarath he knew. The old man had never treated him so coldly before.
    "Grandfather," he said, "what's wrong with you? This is very important. Somebody has somehow obscured a part of the Codex. When you read it, there's a part you don't see."
    "But you can see it?" Belgarath said in a voice filled almost with contempt. "You? A boy who couldn't even read until he was almost grown? The rest of us have been studying that Codex for thousands of years, and now you come along and tell us that we've been missing something?"
    "Listen to me, Grandfather. I'm trying to explain. When you come to that place, something happens to your mind. You don't pay any attention to it because, for some reason, you don't want to."
    "Nonsense!" Belgarath snorted. "I don't need some rank beginner trying to tell me how to study."
    "Won't you at least look at what I found?" Garion begged, taking the parchment out of his inside pocket and holding it out.
    "No!" Belgarath shouted, slapping the parchment away. "Take that nonsense away from me. Get out of my tower, Garion!"
    "Grandfather!"
    "Get out of here!" The old man's face was pale with anger, and his eyes flashed.
    Garion was so hurt by his Grandfather's words that tears actually welled up in his eyes. How could Belgarath talk to him this way? The old man became even more agitated. He began to pace up and down, muttering angrily to himself. "I have to work to do -important work- and you come bursting in here with this wild tale about something being missing. How dare you? How dare you interrupt me with this idiocy? Don't you know who I am?" He gestured at the parchment Garion had picked up and was holding again. "Get that disgusting thing out of my sight!"
    And then Garion suddenly understood. Whatever or whoever it was that was trying to conceal the words hidden in that strange blot of ink was growing desperate, driving Belgarath into this uncharacteristic rage to keep him from reading the passage. There was only one way to break that strange compulsion not to see. Garion laid the parchment on a table, then coldly and deliberately unbuckled the heavy belt running across his chest, removed Iron-grip's sword from his back, and stood it against the wall. He put his hand to the Orb on the pommel of the sword and said, "Come off." The Orb came free in his hand, glowing at his touch.
    "What are you doing?" Belgarath demanded of him.
    "I'm going to have to make you see what I'm talking about, Grandfather." Garion said unhappily. "I don't want to hurt you, but you have to look." He walked slowly and deliberately toward Belgarath, the Orb extended before him.
    "Garion," Belgarath said, backing away apprehensively, "Be careful with that."
    "Go to the table, Grandfather," Garion told him grimly. "Go to the table and read what I found."
    "Are you threatening me?" Belgarath demanded incredulously.
    "Just do it, Grandfather."
    "We don't behave this way toward each other, Garion," the old man said, still backing away from the glowing Orb.
    "The table," Garion repeated. "Go over there and read."
    Sweat was standing out on Belgarath's forehead. Reluctantly, almost as if it were causing him some obscure kind of pain, he went to the table and bent over the parchment sheet. Then he shook his head. "I