The Seeress of Kell

the heavens. The Ages of man grew shorter as each one passed, and the Events that were the meetings between the two fates were growing closer and closer together. The time for leisurely contemplation had passed, and now we must hasten lest the last Event come upon us all unaware. We decided that we must goad or deceive the participants in that final Event so that they should both come to the appointed place at the destined time.
    And we sent the similitude of She Who Must Make the Choice to the veiled and hooded presence of dark and to Belgarion the Godslayer, and she set them upon the path that would lead them at last to the place of our choosing. And then we all turned to our preparations, for much remained to be done, and we knew that this Event would be the last. The division of creation had endured for too long; and in this meeting between the two fates the division would end and all would be made one again.

Part One - KELL

CHAPTER ONE
    The air was thin and cool and richly scented with the odor of trees that shed no leaves but stood dark green and resinous from one end of their lives to the other. The sunlight on the snowfields above them was dazzling, and the sound of tumbling water seething down and down rocky streambeds to feed rivers leagues below on the plains of Darshiva and Gandahar was constantly in their ears. That tumble and roar of waters rushing to their destined meeting with the great River Magan was accompanied by the soft, melancholy sighing of an endless wind passing through the deep-green forest of pine and fir and spruce which clad hills that reached toward the sky in a kind of unthinking yearning. The caravan route Garion and his friends followed rose up and up, winding along streambeds and mounting the sides of ridges.
    From atop each ridge they could see yet another, and looming over all was the spine of the continent where peaks beyond imagining soared upward to touch the very vault of heaven, peaks pure and pristine in their mantle of eternal snow. Garion had spent time in mountains before, but never had he seen such enormous peaks. He knew that those colossal spires were leagues and leagues away, but the mountain air was so clear that it seemed he could almost reach out and touch them. There was an abiding peace here, a peace that washed away the turmoil and anxiety that had beset them all on the plains below and somehow erased care and even thought. Each turn and each ridge top brought new vistas, each filled with more splendor than the last until they could only ride in silence and wonder. The works of man shrank into insignificance here. Man would never, could never, touch these eternal mountains.
    It was summer, and the days were long and filled with sunlight. Birds sang from the trees beside the winding track, and the smell of sun-warmed evergreens was touched lightly with the delicate odors of the acre upon acre of wildflowers carpeting the steep meadows. Occasionally the wild, shrill cry of an eagle echoed from the rocks. "Have you ever considered moving your capital?'' Garion asked the Emperor of Mallorea, who rode beside him. His tone was hushed. To speak in a louder voice would somehow profane what lay around them.
    "No, not really, Garion," Zakath replied. "My government wouldn't function here. The bureaucracy is largely Melcene. Melcenes appear to be prosaic people, but actually they aren't. I’m afraid my officials would spend about half their time looking at the scenery and the other half writing bad poetry. Nobody would get any work done. Besides, you have no idea what it's like up here in the winter.''
    "Snow?"
    Zakath nodded. "People up here don't bother to measure it in inches. They measure it in feet."
    "Are there people up here? I haven't seen any."
    "There are a few—fur trappers, gold hunters, that sort of thing. " Zakath smiled faintly. "I think it's just an excuse, really. Some people prefer solitude."
    "This is a good place for it."
    The Emperor of Mallorea had changed since they had left Atesca's enclave on the banks of the Magan. He was leaner now, and the dead look was gone from his eyes. Like Garion and all the rest, he rode warily, his eyes and ears constantly alert. It was not so much his outward aspect that marked the change in him, however. Zakath had always been a pensive, even melancholy man, given often to periods of black depression, but filled at the same time with a cold ambition. Garion had often felt that the Mallorean's ambition and his