Eddings, David - Belgariad 0 - Belgarath the Sorcerer

VIP免费
2024-12-05 0 0 1.34MB 594 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
BELGARATH THE SORCERER [129-4.9]
By David Eddings
Synopsis:
The wait is over.
Herein lies the life story of Belgarath the Sorcerer, and his account
of the great struggle that went on before The Belgariad and The
Malloreon.
The age-old war was ended at last, and Destiny once again rolled on in
its proper course.
Only a single person remained to tell of the near-forgotten times when
Gods still walked the lands, giving comfort and counsel to their mortal
children. Only one man alive could speak with certain knowledge of how
the Dark God Torak stole the Orb of-Aldur and broke the very world
apart, consigning the Gods themselves to the hell of war, along with
hapless humanity. Only one individual was left who could relate the
whole, fearsome story.
That lone witness to history was known to all the world. He was called
the Ancient One, the Old Wolf--Belgarath the Sorcerer. And he had been
a part of that history from the beginning.
He who would come to be called the Sorcerer was born in the tiny
village of Gara, long before the epic struggle for the Orb ever began.
As a youth he left his home to wander the wide world--and found his way
into the service of a God. Years of study and work would follow that
choice, molding the boy into a man, and forging the man into an
instrument of Prophecy.
Here, then, is his tale in full: the story of the strife that split the
world asunder and of how the God Aldur and his chosen disciples would
toil to set Destiny aright--a monumental undertaking fated to span the
eons. Foremost in the chronicles of that labor would be Belgarath. His
ceaseless devotion was foredoomed to cost him the very thing he held
most dear--and his loyal service would extend on, through the echoing
centuries of loss, of struggle, and of ultimate triumph.
David Eddings joins forces with his wife and longtime collaborator,
Leigh, on a journey to the awesome beginning of the centuries of
conflict between two mortally opposed Destinies. Here is the saga of
the seven thousand-year war of men and Kings and Gods, of a strange
fate and a Prophecy that must be fulfilled.
Welcome back, back to the time before The Belgariad and The
Malloreon... DAVID ED DINGS was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1931
and was raised in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. He received a
Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1954
and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Washington in 1961.
He has served in the United States Army, has worked as a buyer for the
Boeing Company, has been a grocery clerk, and has taught college
English. He has lived in many parts of the United States.
His first novel, High Hunt (published by Putnam in 1973), was a
contemporary adventure story.
The field of fantasy has always been of interest to him, however, and
he turned to The Belgariad in an effort to develop certain technical
and philosophical ideas concerning the genre.
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (1 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
Eddings and his wife, Leigh, currently reside in the Southwest.
Jacket painting: Laurence Schwinger Jacket design: David Stevenson
Printed in USA By David Eddings Published by Ballantine Books:
THE BELGARIAD
Book One: Pawn of Prophecy Book Two: Queen of Sorcery Book Three:
Magician's Gambit Book Four: Castle of Wizardry Book Five: Enchanter's
End Game
THE MALLOREON
Book One: Guardians of the West Book Two: King of the Murgos Book
Three: Demon Lord of Karanda Book Four: Sorceress of Darshiva Book
Five: The Seeress of Kell
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne Book Two: The Ruby Knight Book Three: The
Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire Book Two: The Shining Ones Book Three: The
Hidden City
HIGH HUNT
THE LOSERS
belgarath
THE SORCERER
DAVID AND LEIGH
ED DINGS
A Del Rey Book Published by Ballantine Books Copyright 1995 by David
Eddings Maps copyright 1995 by Christine Levis and Shelly Shapiro
Endpaper map copyright 1995 by Larry Schwinger All rights reserved
under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published
in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of
Random House, Inc." New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random
House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
ISBN 0345373243
Borders and artwork 1995 by Holly Johnson Text design by Holly Johnson
Manufactured in the United States of America For Owen We have all been
at this since April of 1982. Your friendship, guidance, and faith in
us has been greatly cherished.
One more to go!
Leigh and David A note to the reader: We're sure that the reader has
noticed a slight modification of the authorial attribution on the cover
of this slender volume. The reader is now privy to one of the
worst-kept secrets in contemporary fiction. There are two names on the
cover because it took two of us to write this book, and this has been
going on from the very beginning. The recognition (finally) of the
hitherto unacknowledged coauthor of these assorted works is no more
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (2 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
than simple justice--if justice can ever be called simple. It's time
to give credit where credit is due, so let's make it official, shall
we?
Prologue It was well past midnight and very cold. The moon had risen,
and her pale light made the frost crystals lying in the snow sparkle
like carelessly strewn diamonds. In a peculiar way it seemed to Garion
almost as if the snow-covered earth were reflecting the starry sky
overhead.
"I think they're gone now," Durnik said, peering upward. His breath
steamed in the icy, dead-calm air.
"I can't see that rainbow any more."
"Rainbow?" Belgarath asked, sounding slightly amused.
"You know what I mean. Each of them has a different-colored light.
Aldur's is blue, Issa's is green, Chaldan's is red, and the others all
have different colors. Is there some significance to that?"
"It's probably a reflection of their different personalities,"
Belgarath replied.
"I can't be entirely positive, though. My Master and I never got
around to discussing it." He stamped his feet in the snow.
"Why don't we go back?" he suggested.
"It's cold out here."
They turned and started back down the hill toward the cottage, their
feet crunching in the frozen snow. The farmstead at the foot of the
hill looked warm and comforting. The thatched roof of the cottage was
thick with snow, and the icicles hanging from the eaves glittered in
the moon light. The outbuildings Durnik had constructed were dark, but
the windows of the cottage were all aglow with golden lamplight that
spread softly out over the mounded snow in the yard. A column of
blue-grey wood-smoke rose straight and unwavering from the chimney,
rising, it seemed, to the very stars.
It probably had not really been necessary for the three of them to
accompany their guests to the top of the hill to witness their
departure, but it was Durnik's house, and Durnik was a Sendar. Sendars
are meticulous about proprieties and courtesies.
"Eriond's changed," Garion noted as they neared the bottom of the
hill.
"He seems more certain of himself now."
Belgarath shrugged.
"He's growing up. It happens to everybody--except to Belar, maybe. I
don't think we can ever expect Belar to grow up."
"Belgarath!" Durnik sounded shocked.
"That's no way for a man to speak about his God!"
"What are you talking about?"
"What you just said about Belar. He's the God of the Alorns, and
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (3 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
you're an Alorn, aren't you?"
"Whatever gave you that peculiar notion? I'm no more an Alorn than you
are."
"I always thought you were. You've certainly spent enough time with
them."
"That wasn't my idea. My Master gave them to me about five thousand
years ago. There were a number of times when I tried to give them
back, but he wouldn't hear of it."
"Well, if you're not an Alorn, what are you?"
"I'm not really sure. It wasn't all that important to me when I was
young. I do know that I'm not an Alorn. I'm not crazy enough for
that."
"Grandfather!" Garion protested.
"You don't count, Garion. You're only half Alorn."
They reached the door of the cottage and carefully stamped the snow off
their feet before entering. The cottage was Aunt Pol's domain, and she
had strong feelings about people who tracked snow across her spotless
floors.
The interior of the cottage was warm and filled with golden lamplight
that reflected from the polished surfaces of Aunt Pol's copper-bottomed
pots and kettles and pans hanging from hooks on either side of the
arched fireplace. Durnik had built the table and chairs in the center
of the room out of oak, and the lamplight enhanced the golden color of
the wood.
The three of them immediately went to the fireplace to warm their hands
and feet.
The door to the bedroom opened, and Poledra came out.
"Well," she said, "did you see them off?"
"Yes, dear," Belgarath replied.
"They were going in a generally northeasterly direction the last time I
looked."
"How's Pol?" Durnik asked.
"Happy," Garion's tawny-haired grandmother replied.
"That's not exactly what I meant. Is she still awake?"
Poledra nodded.
"She's lying in bed admiring her handiwork."
"Would it be all right if I looked in on her?"
"Of course. Just don't wake the babies."
"Make a note of that, Durnik," Belgarath advised.
"Not waking those babies is likely to become your main purpose in life
for the next several months."
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (4 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
Durnik smiled briefly and went into the bedroom with Poledra.
"You shouldn't tease him that way, Grandfather," Garion chided.
"I wasn't teasing, Garion. Sleep's very rare in a house with twins.
One of them always seems to be awake. Would you like something to
drink? I think I can probably find Pol's beer barrel."
"She'll pull out your beard if she catches you in her pantry."
"She isn't going to catch me, Garion. She's too busy being a mother
right now." The old man crossed the room to the pantry and began
rummaging around.
Garion pulled off his cloak, hung it on a wooden peg, and went back to
the fireplace. His feet still felt cold. He looked up at the
latticework of rafters overhead. It was easy to see that Durnik had
crafted them. The smith's meticulous attention to detail showed in
everything he did. The rafters were exposed over this central room,
but there was a loft over the bedroom and a flight of stairs reaching
up to it along the back wall.
"Found it," Belgarath called triumphantly from the pantry.
"She tried to hide it behind the flour barrel."
Garion smiled. His grandfather could probably find a beer cask in the
dark at the bottom of a coal mine.
The old man came out with three brimming tankards, set them down on the
table, and moved a chair around until it faced the fireplace. Then he
took one of the tankards, sat, and stretched his feet out toward the
fire.
"Pull up a chair, Garion," he invited.
"We might as well be comfortable."
Garion did that.
"It's been quite a night," he said.
"That it has, boy," the old man replied.
"That it has."
"Shouldn't we say good night to Aunt Pol?"
"Durnik's with her. Let's not disturb them. This is a special sort of
time for married people."
"Yes," Garion agreed, remembering that night two weeks ago when his
daughter had been born.
"Will you be going back to Riva soon?"
"I probably should," Garion replied.
"I think I'll wait a few days, though--at least until Aunt Pol's back
on her feet again."
"Don't wait too long," Belgarath advised with a sly grin.
"Ce'Nedra's sitting on the throne all by herself right now, you
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (5 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
know."
"She'll be all right. She knows what to do."
"Yes, but do you want her doing things on her own?"
"Oh, I don't think she'll declare war on anybody while I'm gone."
"Maybe not, but with Ce'Nedra you never really know, do you?"
"Quit making fun of my wife, Grandfather."
"I'm not making fun of her. I love her dearly, but I do know her. All
I'm saying is that she's a little unpredictable." Then the old
sorcerer sighed.
"Is something the matter, Grandfather?"
"I was just chewing on some old regrets. I don't think you and Durnik
realize just how lucky you are. I wasn't around when my twins were
born.
I was off on a business trip."
Garion knew the story, of course.
"You didn't have any choice, Grandfather," he said.
"Aldur ordered you to go to Mallorea. It was time to recover the Orb
from Torak, and you had to go along to help Cherek Bear-shoulders and
his sons."
"Don't try to be reasonable about it, Garion. The bald fact is that I
abandoned my wife when she needed me the most. Things might have
turned out very differently if I hadn't."
"Are you still feeling guilty about that?"
"Of course I am. I've been carrying that guilt around for three
thousand years. You can hand out all the royal pardons you want, but
it's still there."
"Grandmother forgives you."
"Naturally she does. Your grandmother's a wolf, and wolves don't hold
grudges. The whole point, though, is that she can forgive me, and you
can forgive me, and you can get up a petition signed by everybody in
the known world that forgives me, but I still won't forgive myself. Why
don't we talk about something else?"
Durnik came back out of the bedroom.
"She's asleep," he said softly.
Then he went to the fireplace and stacked more wood on the embers.
"It's a cold night out there," he noted.
"Let's keep this fire going."
"I should have thought of that," Garion apologized.
"Are the babies still asleep?" Belgarath asked the smith.
Durnik nodded.
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (6 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
"Enjoy it while you can. They're resting up."
Durnik smiled. Then he too pulled a chair closer to the fire.
"Do you remember what we were talking about earlier?" he asked,
reaching for the remaining tankard on the table.
"We talked about a lot of things," Belgarath told him.
"I mean the business of the same things happening over and over again.
What happened tonight isn't one of those, is it?"
"Would it come as a surprise to you if I told you that Pol isn't the
first to give birth to twins?"
"I know that, Belgarath, but this seems different somehow. I get the
feeling that this isn't something that's happened before. This seems
like something new to me. This has been a very special night. UL
himself blessed it. Has that ever happened before?"
"Not that I know of," the old sorcerer conceded.
"Maybe this is something new. If it is, it's going to make things a
little strange for us."
"How's that?" Garion asked.
"The nice thing about repetitions is that you sort of know what to
expect. If everything did stop when the "accident" happened, and now
it's all moving again, we'll be breaking into new territory."
"Won't the prophecies give us some clues?"
Belgarath shook his head.
"No. The last passage in the Mrin Codex reads,
"And there shall come a great light, and in that light shall that which
was broken be healed, and interrupted Purpose shall proceed again, as
was from the beginning intended." All the other prophecies end in more
or less the same way. The Ashabine Oracles even use almost exactly the
same words. Once that light reached Korim, we were on our own."
"Will there be a new set of prophecies now?" Durnik asked.
"Next time you see Eriond, why don't you ask him? He's the one in
charge now." Belgarath sighed.
"I don't think we'll be involved in any new ones, though. We've done
what we were supposed to do." He smiled just a bit wryly.
"To be perfectly frank about it, I'm just as glad to pass it on. I'm
getting a little old to be rushing out to save the world.
It was an interesting career right at first, but it gets exhausting
after the first six or eight times."
"That'd be quite a story," Durnik said.
"What would?"
"Everything you've been through--saving the world, fighting Demons,
pushing the Gods around, things like that."
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (7 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
"Tedious, Durnik. Very, very tedious,"
Belgarath disagreed.
"There were long periods when nothing was happening. You can't make
much of a story out of a lot of people just sitting around waiting."
"Oh, I'm sure there were enough lively parts to keep it interesting.
Someday I'd really like to hear the whole thing--you know, how you met
Aldur, what the world was like before Torak cracked it, how you and
Cherek Bear-shoulders stole the Orb back--all of it."
Belgarath laughed.
"If I start telling that story, we'll still be sitting here a year from
now, and we won't even be halfway through by then. We've all got
better things to do."
"Do we really, Grandfather?" Garion asked.
"You just said that our part of this is over. Wouldn't this be a good
time to sum it all up?"
"What good would it do? You've got a kingdom to run, and Durnik's got
this farm to tend. You've got more important things to do than sit
around listening to me tell stories."
"Write it down, then." The notion suddenly caught fire in Garion's
mind.
"You know, Grandfather, the more I think about it, the more I think you
ought to do just that. You've been here since the very beginning.
You're the only one who knows the whole story. You really should write
it down, you know. Tell the world what really happened."
Belgarath's expression grew pained.
"The world doesn't care, Garion. All I'd do is offend a lot of people.
They've got their own preconceptions, and they're happy with them. I'm
not going to spend the next fifty years scribbling on scraps of paper
just so that people can travel to the Vale from the other side of the
world to argue with me. Besides, I'm not a historian. I don't mind
telling stories, but writing them down doesn't appeal to me. If I took
on a project like that, my hand would fall off after a couple of
years."
"Don't be coy, Grandfather. Durnik and I both know that you don't have
to do it by hand. You can think the words onto paper without ever
picking up a pen."
"Forget it," Belgarath said shortly.
"I'm not going to waste my time on something as ridiculous as that."
"You're lazy, Belgarath," Durnik accused.
"Are you only just noticing that? I thought you were more
observant."
"You won't do it then?" Garion demanded.
"Not unless somebody comes up with a better reason than you two have so
far."
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (8 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
The bedroom door opened, and Poledra came out into the kitchen.
"Are you three going to talk all night?" she demanded in a quiet
voice.
"If you are, go do it someplace else. If you wake the babies . . ."
She left it hanging ominously.
"We were just thinking about going to bed, dear," Belgarath lied
blandly.
"Well, do it then. Don't just sit there and talk about it."
Belgarath stood up and stretched--perhaps just a bit theatrically.
"She's right, you know," he said to his two friends.
"It'll be daylight before long, and the twins have been resting up all
night. If we're going to get any sleep, we'd better do it now."
Later, after the three of them had climbed up into the loft and rolled
themselves into blankets on the pallets Durnik kept stored up there,
Garion lay looking down at the slowly waning firelight and the
flickering shadows in the room below. He thought of Ce'Nedra and his
own children, of course, but then he let his mind drift back over the
events of this most special of nights. Aunt Pol had always been at the
very center of his life, and with the birth of her twins, her life was
now fulfilled.
Near to sleep, the Rivan King found his thoughts going back over the
conversation he had just had with Durnik and his grandfather. He was
honest enough with himself to admit that his desire to read Belgarath's
history of the world was not entirely academic. The old sorcerer was a
very strange and complex man, and his story promised to provide
insights into his character that could come from no other source. He'd
have to be pushed, of course. Belgarath was an expert at avoiding work
of any kind.
Garion, however, thought he knew of a way to pry the story out of his
grandfather. He smiled to himself as the fire burned lower and lower
in the room below. He knew he could find out how it all began.
And then, because it was really quite late, Garion fell asleep, and,
perhaps because of all the familiar things in Aunt Pol's kitchen down
below, he dreamed of Faldor's farm, where his story had begun.
Part 1
THE VALE
CHAPTER
ONE
The problem with any idea is the fact that the more it gets bandied
about, the more feasible it seems to become.
What starts out as idle speculation --something mildly entertaining to
wile away a few hours before going to bed--can become, once others are
drawn into it, a kind of obligation. Why can't people understand that
just because I'm willing to talk about something, it doesn't
automatically follow that I'm actually willing to do it?
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (9 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt
As a case in point, this all started with Durnik's rather inane remark
about wanting to hear the whole story. You know how Durnik is, forever
taking things apart to see what makes them work. I can forgive him in
this case, however. Pol had just presented him with twins, and new
fathers tend to be a bit irrational. Garion, on the other hand, should
have had sense enough to leave it alone. I curse the day when I
encouraged that boy to be curious about first causes. He can be so
tedious about some things. If he'd have just let it drop, I wouldn't
be saddled with this awful chore.
But no. The two of them went on and on about it for day after day as
if the fate of the world depended on it. I tried to get around them
with a few vague promises--nothing specific, mind you--and fervently
hoped that they'd forget about the whole silly business.
Then Garion did something so unscrupulous, so underhanded, that it
shocked me to the very core. He told Polgara about the stupid idea,
and when he got back to Riva, he told Ce'Nedra. That would have been
bad enough, but would you believe that he actually encouraged those two
to bring Poledra into it?
I'll admit right here that it was my own fault. My only excuse is that
I was a little tired that night. I'd inadvertently let something slip
that I've kept buried in my heart for three eons. Poledra had been
with child, and I'd gone off and left her to fend for herself. I've
carried the guilt over that for almost half of my life. It's like a
knife twisting inside me. Garion knew that, and he coldly,
deliberately, used it to force me to take on this ridiculous project.
He knows that under these circumstances, I simply cannot refuse
anything my wife asks of me.
Poledra, of course, didn't put any pressure on me. She didn't have
to.
All she had to do was suggest that she'd rather like to have me go
along with the idea. Under the circumstances, I didn't have any
choice. I hope that the Rivan King is happy about what he's done to
me.
This is most certainly a mistake. Wisdom tells me that it would be far
better to leave things as they are, with event and cause alike half
buried in the dust of forgotten years. If it were up to me, I would
leave it that way.
The truth is going to upset a lot of people.
Few will understand and fewer still accept what I am about to set
forth, but as my grandson and son-in-law so pointedly insisted, if I
don't tell the story, somebody else will; and since I alone know the
beginning and middle and end of it, it falls to me to commit to
perishable parchment, with ink that begins to fade before it even
dries, some ephemeral account of what really happened--and why.
Thus, let me begin this story as all stories are begun, at the
beginning.
I was born in the village of Gara, which no longer exists. It lay, if
I remember it correctly, on a pleasant green bank beside a small river
that sparkled in the summer sun as if its surface were covered with
jewels-and I'd trade all the jewels I've ever owned or seen to sit
again beside that unnamed river.
file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txt (10 of 594) [7/3/03 6:08:16 PM]
摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Dave%20Eddings/Belgrath%20the%20Sorcerer.txtBELGARATHTHESORCERER[129-4.9]ByDavidEddingsSynopsis:Thewaitisover.HereinliesthelifestoryofBelgaraththeSorcerer,andhisaccountofthegreatstrugglethatwentonbeforeTheBelgariadandTheMalloreon.Theage-oldwarwasendedatlast,andDestinyonceagainrolledon...

展开>> 收起<<
Eddings, David - Belgariad 0 - Belgarath the Sorcerer.pdf

共594页,预览10页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：594 页 大小：1.34MB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-05

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 594
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注