Pawn of Prophecy

away one night to join Cherek's sons, Dras Bull-neck, Algar Fleet-foot, and Riva Iron-grip.
    Cruel winter gripped the northland, and the moors glittered beneath the stars with frost and steel-gray ice. To seek out their way, Belgarath cast an enchantment and took the shape of a great wolf. On silent feet, he slunk through the snow-floored forests where the trees cracked and shattered in the sundering cold. Grim frost silvered the ruff and shoulders of the wolf, and ever after the hair and beard of Belgarath were silver.
    Through snow and mist they crossed into Mallorea and came at last to Cthol Mishrak. Finding a secret way into the city, Belgarath led them to the foot of the iron tower. Silently they climbed the rusted stairs which had known no step for twenty centuries. Fearfully they passed through the chamber where Torak tossed in pain-haunted slumber, his maimed face hidden by a steel mask. Stealthily they crept past the sleeping God in the smoldering darkness and came at last to the chamber where lay the iron cask in which rested the living Orb.
    Cherek motioned for Belgarath to take the Orb, but Belgarath refused. "I may not touch it," he said, "lest it destroy me. Once it welcomed the touch of man or God, but its will hardened when Torak raised it against its mother. It will not be so used again. It reads our souls. Only one without ill intent, who is pure enough to take it and convey it in peril of his life, with no thought of power or possession, may touch it now."
    "What man has no ill intent in the silence of his soul?" Cherek asked. But Riva Iron-grip opened the cask and took up the Orb. Its fire shone through his fingers, but he was not burned.
    "So be it, Cherek," Belgarath said. "Your youngest son is pure. It shall be his doom and the doom of all who follow him to bear the Orb and protect it." And Belgarath sighed, knowing the burden he had placed upon Riva.
    "Then his brothers and I will sustain him," Cherek said, "for so long as this doom is upon him."
    Riva muffled the Orb in his cloak and hid it beneath his tunic. They crept again through the chambers of the maimed God, down the rusted stairs, along the secret way to the gates of the city, and into the wasteland beyond.
    Soon after, Torak awoke and went as always into the Chamber of the Orb. But the cask stood open, and the Orb was gone. Horrible was the wrath of Kal-Torak. Taking his great sword, he went down from the iron tower and turned and smote it once, and the tower fell. To the Angaraks he cried out in a voice of thunder. "Because you are become indolent and unwatchful and have let a thief steal that for which I paid so dear, I will break your city and drive you forth. Angarak shall wander the earth until Cthrag Yaska, the burning stone, is returned to me." Then he cast down the City of Night in ruins and drove the hosts of Angarak into the wilderness. Cthol Mishrak was no more.
    Three leagues to the north, Belgarath heard the wailing from the city and knew that Torak had awakened. "Now will he come after us," he said, "and only the power of the Orb can save us. When the hosts are upon us, Iron-grip, take the Orb and hold it so they may see it."
    The hosts of Angarak came, with Torak himself in the forefront, but Riva held forth the Orb so that the maimed God and his hosts might behold it. The Orb knew its enemy. Its hatred flamed anew, and the sky became alight with its fury. Torak cried out and turned away. The front ranks of the Angarak hosts were consumed by fire, and the rest fled in terror.
    Thus Belgarath and his companions escaped from Mallorea and passed again through the marches of the north, bearing the Orb of Aldur once more into the Kingdoms of the West.
    Now the Gods, knowing all that had passed, held council, and Aldur advised them, "If we raise war again upon our brother Torak, our strife will destroy the world. Thus we must absent ourselves from the world so that our brother may not find us. No longer in flesh, but in spirit only may we remain to guide and protect our people. For the world's sake it must be so. In the day that we war again, the world will be unmade."
    The Gods wept that they must depart. But Chaldan, Bull-God of the Arends, asked, "In our absence, shall not Torak have dominion?"
    "Not so," Aldur replied. "So long as the Orb remains with the line of Riva Iron-grip, Torak shall not prevail."
    So it was that the Gods departed, and only Torak remained. But the knowledge that the Orb in the hand of Riva denied