The Seeress of Kell Read online

  About the Book

  Now in the final stages of their quest for his son, Garion and his companions travel to Kell to consult the only undamaged copy of the Malloreon Gospels. For centuries the Seers have guarded this book from the Grolims and even had their wizards put a curse of blindness on any Grolim who tried to enter Kell.

  So, as proclaimed in Guardians of the West, Belgarion the Godslayer sets out with those who must join him: the Eternal Man, the Guide, the Man with Two Lives, the Bearer of the Orb and the Silent Man, and the rest of his companions to The Place Which Is No More to make the final choice – darkness or light.

  But Zandramas the Sorceress will not be outdone. Though she may not enter Kell she still has young Geran and should she reach the final meeting place with him, then Garion must slay his son or the world will be no more.

  THUS ENDS THE EPIC STORY OF THE MALLOREON.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One: Kell

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Two: Perivor

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Three: The High Places of Korim

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by David Eddings

  Copyright

  SEERESS OF KELL

  Book Five of the Malloreon

  David Eddings

  For Lester,

  We’ve been at this for a decade now. About all either of us could have reasonably expected from that was to come out of it ten years older, but it appears that we did just a bit more. Between us, I think we raised a fairly good boy. I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me, and I think we can both take a certain pride in the fact that we didn’t kill each other in the process, a tribute more to the inhuman patience of a pair of special ladies than to any particular virtue of ours, I expect.

  All my best,

  David Eddings

  PROLOGUE

  Excerpts from The Book of Ages, Book One of THE MALLOREAN GOSPELS

  Now These are the Ages of Man:

  In the First Age was man created, and he awoke in puzzlement and wonder as he beheld the world about him. And Those that had made him considered him and selected from his number those that pleased Them, and the rest were cast out and driven away. And some went in search of the Spirit known as UL, and they left us and passed into the west, and we saw them no more. And some denied the Gods, and they went into the far north to wrestle with demons. And some turned to worldly matters, and they went away into the east and built mighty cities there.

  But we despaired, and we sat us down upon the earth in the shadow of the mountains of Korim, and in bitterness we bewailed our fate that we had been made and then cast out.

  And it came to pass that in the midst of our grief a woman of our people was seized by a rapture, and it was as if she had been shaken by a mighty hand. And she arose from the earth upon which she sat, and she bound her eyes with a cloth, signifying that she had seen that which no mortal had seen before, for lo, she was the first seeress in all the world. And with the touch of her vision still upon her, she spake unto us, saying:

  ‘Behold! A feast hath been set before Those who made us, and this feast shall ye call the Feast of Life. And Those who made us have chosen that which pleased Them, and that which pleased Them not was not chosen. Now we are the Feast of Life, and ye sorrow that no Guest at the feast hath chosen ye. Despair not, however, for one Guest hath not yet arrived at the feast. The other Guests have taken their fill, but this great Feast of Life awaiteth still the Beloved Guest who cometh late, and I say unto all the people that it is He who will choose us. Abide therefore against his coming, for it is certain. Put aside thy grief and turn thy face to the sky and to the earth that thou mayest read the signs written there, for this I say unto all the people. It is upon ye that His coming rests. For behold, He may not choose ye unless ye choose Him. And this is the Fate for which we were made. Rise up, therefore, and sit no more upon the earth in vain and foolish lamentation. Take up the task which lies before ye and prepare the way for Him who will surely come.’

  Much we marveled at these words, and we considered them most carefully. We questioned the seeress, but her answers were dark and obscure. And so it was that we turned our faces to the sky and bent our ears to the whispers which came from the earth that we might see and hear and learn. And as we learned to read the book of the skies and to hear the whispers within the rocks, we found myriad warnings that two spirits would come to us and that the one was good and the other evil. Long we labored, but still were sorely troubled, for we could not determine which spirit was the true one and which the false. For truly, evil is disguised as good in the book of the heavens and in the speech of the earth, and no man is wise enough to choose between them.

  Pondering this, we went out from beneath the shadow of the mountains of Korim and into the lands beyond, where we abode. And we put aside the concerns of man and bent all our efforts to the task which lay before us. Our witches and our seers sought the aid of the spirit world, our necromancers took counsel with the dead, and our diviners sought advice from the earth. But lo, none of these knew more than we.

  Then gathered we at last upon a fertile plain to bring together all that we had learned. And these are the truths which we have learned from the stars, from the rocks, from the hearts of men and from the minds of the spirits:

  Know ye that all adown the endless avenues of time hath division marred all that is – for there is division at the very heart of creation. And some have said that this is natural and will persist until the end of days, but it is not so. Were the division destined to be eternal, then the purpose of creation would be to contain it. But the stars and the spirits and the voices within the rocks speak of the day when the division will end and all will be made one again, for creation itself knows that the day will come.

  Know ye further that two spirits contend with each other at the very center of time, and these spirits are the two sides of that which hath divided creation. And in a certain time shall those spirits meet upon this world, and then will come the time of the Choice. And if the Choice be not made, then shall this world vanish, and the Beloved Guest of whom the seeress spoke will never come. For it is this which she meant when she said to us: ‘Behold, He may not choose ye unless ye choose Him.’ And the Choice we must make is the choice between good and evil, and the division between good and evil, and the reality that will exist after we have made the Choice will be a reality of good or a reality of evil, and it will prevail so until the end of days.

  Behold also this truth: The rocks of this world and of all other worlds murmur continually of the two stones which lie at the center of the division. Once these stones were one, and they stood at the very center of all of creation, but, like all else, they were divided, and in the instant of divi
sion they were rent apart with a force that destroyed whole suns. And where these stones come into the presence of each other again, there surely will be the last confrontation between the two spirits. Now the day will come when all will be made one again, except that the division between the two stones is so great that they can never be rejoined. And in the day when the division ends shall one of the stones cease forever to exist, and in that day also shall one of the spirits forever vanish.

  These then were the truths which we had gathered, and it was our discovery of these truths which marked the end of the First Age.

  Now the Second Age of man began in thunder and earthquake, for lo, the earth herself split apart, and the sea rushed in to divide the lands of men even as creation itself is divided. And the mountains of Korim shuddered and groaned and heaved as the sea swallowed them. And we knew that this would come to pass, for our seers had warned us that it would be so. We went our way, therefore, and found safety before the world was cracked and the sea first rushed away and then rushed back and never departed more.

  And in the days which followed the rushing in of the sea, the children of the Dragon God fled from the waters, and they abode to the north of us beyond the mountains. Now our seers told us that the children of the Dragon God would one day come among us as conquerors. And we took counsel with each other and considered how we might least offend the children of the Dragon God when they should come so that they would not interrupt our studies. In the end we concluded that our warlike neighbors would be least apprehensive about simple tillers of the soil living in rude communities on the land, and we so ordered our lives. We pulled down our cities and carried away the stones and we betook ourselves back to the land so that we might not alarm our neighbors nor arouse their envy.

  And the years passed and became centuries, and the centuries passed and became eons. And as we had known they would, the children of Angarak came down amongst us and established their overlordship. And they called the lands in which we dwelt ‘Dalasia,’ and we did what they wished us to do and continued our studies.

  Now at about this time it came to pass in the far north that a disciple of the God Aldur came with certain others to reclaim a thing that the Dragon God had stolen from Aldur. And that act was so important that when it was done, the Second Age ended, and the Third Age began.

  Now it was in the Third Age that the priests of Angarak, which men call Grolims, came to speak to us of the Dragon God and of His hunger for our love, and we considered what they said even as we considered all things men told us. And we consulted the book of the heavens and confirmed that Torak was the incarnate God-aspect of one of the spirits which contend at the center of time. But where was the other? How might men choose when but one of the spirits came to them? Then it was that we perceived our dreadful responsibility. The spirits would come to us, each in its own time, and each would proclaim that it was good and the other was evil. It was man, however, who would choose. And we took counsel among ourselves, and we concluded that we might accept the forms of the worship the Grolims so urgently pressed upon us. This would give us the opportunity to examine the nature of the Dragon God and make us better prepared to choose when the other God appeared.

  In time the events of the world intruded upon us. The Angaraks allied themselves by marriage with the great city-builders of the east, who called themselves Melcene, and between them they built an empire which bestrode the continent. Now the Angaraks were doers of deeds, but the Melcenes were performers of tasks. A deed once done is done forever, but a task returns every day, and the Melcenes came among us to seek out those who might aid them in their endless tasks. Now as it chanced to happen, one of our kinsmen who aided the Melcenes had occasion to journey to the north in performance of one of those tasks. And he came to a place called Ashaba and sought shelter there from a storm which had overtaken him. And the Master of the house at Ashaba was neither Grolim nor Angarak nor any other man. Our kinsman had come unaware upon the house of Torak. Now Torak was curious about our people, and He sent for the traveler, and our kinsman went in to behold the Dragon God. And in the instant that he looked upon the face of Torak, the Third Age ended, and the Fourth Age began. For lo, the Dragon God of Angarak was not one of the Gods for whom we waited. The signs which were upon Him did not lead beyond Him, and our kinsman saw in an instant that Torak was doomed, and that which He was would die with Him.

  And then we perceived our error, and we marveled at what we had not seen – that even a God might be but the tool of destiny. For behold, Torak was of one of the two fates, but he was not the entire fate.

  Now it happened that on the far side of the world a king was slain, and all his family with him – save one. And this king had been the keeper of one of the two stones of power, and when word of this was brought to Torak, He exulted, for He believed that an ancient foe was no more. Then it was that He began His preparations to do war upon the kingdoms of the west. But the signs in the heavens and the whispers in the rocks told us that it was not as Torak believed. The stone was still guarded, and the line of the guardian remained unbroken. Torak’s war would bring Him to grief.

  The preparations of the Dragon God were long, and the tasks He laid upon his people were the tasks of generations. And even as we, Torak watched the heavens to read there the signs which would tell Him when to move against the west. But Torak watched only for the signs He wished to see and He did not read the entire message written in the sky. Reading thus but a small part of the signs, He set His forces in motion on the worst possible day.

  And, as we had known it must, disaster befell the armies of Torak on a broad plain lying before the city of Vo Mimbre in the far west. And the Dragon God was bound in sleep to await the coming of His enemy.

  And then it was that a whisper began to reach us with yet another name. The whisper of that name became clearer to us, and upon the day of his birth the whisper of his name became a great shout. Belgarion the Godslayer had come at last.

  And now the pace of events quickened, and the rush toward the awful meeting became so swift that the pages of the book of the heavens became as a blur. And then upon the day which men celebrate as the day the world was made, the stone of power was delivered up to Belgarion; and in the instant that his hand closed upon it, the book of the heavens filled with a great light, and the sound of Belgarion’s name rang from the farthest star.

  And then we felt Belgarion moving toward Mallorea bearing the stone of power, and we could feel Torak stirring as his sleep grew fitful. And finally there came that dreadful night. As we watched helplessly, the vast pages of the book of the heavens moved so rapidly that we could not read them. And then the book stopped, and we read the one terrible line, ‘Torak is slain,’ and the book shuddered, and all the light in all of creation went out. And in that awful instant of darkness and silence, the Fourth Age ended, and the Fifth Age began.

  And as the Fifth Age began, we found a mystery in the book of the heavens. Before, all had moved toward the meeting between Belgarion and Torak, but now events moved toward a different meeting. There were signs among the stars which told us that the fates had selected yet other aspects for their final encounter, and we could feel the movements of those presences, but we knew not who or what they might be, for the pages of the great book were dark and obscure. Yet we felt a presence shrouded and veiled in darkness, and it moved through the affairs of men, and the moon spoke most clearly, advising us that this dark presence was a woman.

  One thing we saw in all the vast confusion which now clouded the book of the heavens. The Ages of man grew shorter as each one passed, and the Events which 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 Sh
e 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 which 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 which shed no leaves but stood dark green and resinous from one end of their lives to the other. The sunlight on the snow-fields 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.