Guardians of the West

sight of that. It is from the Sardion that the evil stems. And be a trifle wary of Cyradis when next you meet her. She means you no ill, but she has her own task as well and she will do what she must to complete it."
    "I will, Poledra," he promised.
    "Oh," she said, almost as an afterthought, "there's someone waiting for you just up ahead there." She gestured toward the long tongue of a rock-strewn ridge thrusting out into the grassy Vale. "He can't see you yet, but he's waiting." Then she smiled, shimmered back into the form of the blue-tinged wolf, and loped away without a backward glance.
    Curiously, Errand remounted and rode up out of the ravine and continued on southward, skirting the higher hills that rose toward the glistening white peaks of the land of the Ulgos as he rode toward the ridge. Then, as his eyes searched the rocky slope, he caught a momentary flicker of sunlight reflected from something shiny in the middle of a brushy outcrop halfway up the slope. Without hesitation, he rode in that direction.
    The man who sat among the thick bushes wore a peculiar shirt of mail, constructed of overlapping metal scales. He was short but had powerful shoulders, and his eyes were veiled with a gauzy strip of cloth that was not so much a blindfold as it was a shield against the bright sunlight.
    "Is that you, Errand?" the veiled man asked in a harsh-sounding voice.
    "Yes," Errand replied. "I haven't seen you in along time, Relg."
    "I need to talk with you," the harsh-voiced zealot said. "Can we get back out of the light?"
    "Of course." Errand slid down off his horse and followed the Ulgo through the rustling bushes to a cave mouth running back into the hillside. Relg stooped slightly under the overhanging rock and went. inside. "I thought I recognized you," he said as Errand joined him in the cool dimness within the cave, "but I couldn't be sure out there in all that light." He untied the cloth from across his eyes and peered at the boy. "You've grown."
    Errand smiled. "It's been a few years. How is Taiba?"
    "She has given me a son," Relg said, almost in a kind of wonder. "A very special son."
    "I'm glad to hear that."
    "When I was younger and filled with the notion of my own sanctity, UL spoke to me in my soul. He told me that the child who will be the new Gorim would come to Ulgo through me. In my pride I thought that he meant that I was to seek out the child and reveal him. How could I know that what he meant was a much simpler thing? It is my son that he spoke of. The mark is on my son -my son!" There was an awed pride in the zealot's voice.
    "UL's ways are not the ways of men."
    "How truly you speak."
    "And are you happy?"
    "My life is filled," Relg said simply. "But now I have another task. Our aged Gorim has sent me to seek out Belgarath. It is urgent that he come with me to Prolgu."
    "He's not very far away," Errand said. He looked at Relg and saw how, even in this dim cave, the zealot kept his eyes squinted almost shut to protect them from the light. "I have a horse," he said. "I can go and bring him back here in a few hours, if you want. That way you won't have to go out into the sunlight."
    Relg gave him a quick, grateful look and then nodded. "Tell him that he must come. The Gorim must speak with him."
    "I will," Errand promised. Then he turned and left the cave.
    "What does he want?" Belgarath demanded irritably when Errand told him that Relg wanted to see him.
    "He wants you to go with him to Prolgu," Errand replied. "The Gorim wants to see you -the old one."
    "The old one? Is there a new one?"
    Errand nodded. "Relg's son," he said.
    Belgarath stared at Errand for a moment and then he suddenly began to laugh.
    "What's so funny?"
    "It appears that UL has a sense of humor," the old man chortled. "I wouldn't have suspected that of him."
    "I don't quite follow."
    "It's a very long story"' Belgarath said, still laughing. "I guess that, if the Gorim wants to see me, we'd better go."
    "You want me to go along?"
    "Polgara would skin me alive if I left you here alone. Let's get started."
    Errand led the old man back across the Vale to the ridgeline in the foothills and the cave where Relg waited. It took a few minutes to explain to the young horse that he was supposed to go back to Belgarath's tower alone. Errand spoke with him at some length, and it finally appeared that the animal had grasped the edges, at least, of the idea.
    The trip through the dark galleries to Prolgu took several days. For most of the