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"Yes, dear," she said with a pale s to be a father Now, if you'll excuse ain"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They did not match Now matter how hard Garion twisted and turned the sense of the two passages, there was no apparent way to make them match Despite the fact that they both seemed to describe the same period of tiht, golden autu outside, but the dusty library seeGarion did not think of hiarath had laid upon him with soed to read was intiloomy little room with its ss always depressed hih he was a bit grim about it, he nonetheless dutifully spent at least two hours a day confined in this prisonlike cell, struggling with ancient books and scrolls written in often-times difficult script At least, he told hi pots in a scullery
He set his teeth together and laid the two scrolls side by side on the table to co perhaps to catch with his ears what his eyes ht htforward "Behold," it said, "in the day that Aldur's Orb burns hot with crimson fire shall the name of the Child of Dark be revealed Guard well the son of the Child of Light for he shall have no brother And it shall come to pass that those which once were one and now are two shall be rejoined, and in that rejoining shall one of them be no more"
The Orb had turned crimson, and the name of the Child of Dark -Zandramas- had been revealed That matched what had taken place The inforht -his son- would have no brother had concerned Garion a bit At first he had taken it to mean that he and Ce'Nedra would only have one child, but the ht about that, thethere was flawed All it really said was that they would only have one son It said nothing about daughters The ht about it, the irls gathered about his knee appealed to hie, however -the one about the thich once were one- didn't really make any sense yet, but he was quite certain that it would, eventually
He moved his hand over to trace the lines of the Mrin Codex, peering hard at theht He read slowly and carefully once ht shall meet with the Child of Dark and shall overco with Torak " -and the Darkness shall flee" The Dark Prophecy had fled when Torak had died "But behold, the stone which lies at the center of the light- " The Orb, obviously , " -shall- " One word see to ular splotch of ink Even as he stared at it, a strange kind of weariness came over him, as if the effort to push aside that blot to see what lay beneath were as difficult as ed and went on, " -and thiswill come to pass in a place which is no ment-or anything else- happen in a place which is noof the word "choice"? What choice? Whose choice? Choice bethat and what?
He swore and read it again Once again he felt that peculiar lassitude when his eyes reached the blot on the page He shrugged it off and went on No ht be, it was still only one word, and one single word could not be that important Irritably he put the scroll aside and considered the discrepancy The most immediate explanation was that this spot, like so many others, was a place where the Mrin Prophet's well-known insanity had siot the best of him Another possibility was that this particular copy was not precisely accurate The scribe who had copied it off had perhaps inadvertently skipped a line or two at the tie Garion recalled an occasion when he had done that hi a perfectly bland proclae of na on this side of the Eastern Escarpht the blunder, he had not just erased the offending lines, he had shudderingly burned the whole sheet toto relieve his cra to the small, barredof the library The autuhts had turned chilly in the past feeeks, and the higherabove the city were touched with frost when the sun arose The days, however, are the tion, the Tolnedran ambassador, at midday and he did not want to be late Aunt Pol had stressed the importance of punctuality, and Garion always did his best to be on time
He turned back to the table and absently rerolled the two scrolls, hispassages Then he blew out the candles and left the library, carefully closing the door behind hion, as always, was tedious Garion felt that there was an innate pomposity in the Tolnedran character that made it impossible for them to say what they meant without extensive embellish" the unloading of on see a way to insert it into the discussion at least once in every other sentence The essence of Valgon's presentation seemed to be a request -or a demand- that Tolnedran merchantmen should always have first access to the somewhat lion," Garion began, seeking some diplomatic way to refuse, "I actually believe that this reat carved doors to the throne rooray-cloaked sentries who always stood guard outside when Garion was in the throne room stepped in, cleared his throat, and announced in a voice that probably could have been heard on the other side of the island, "Her Royal Majesty, Queen Ce'Nedra of Riva, Imperial Princess of the Tolnedran Empire, Commander of the Ararion of Riva, Godslayer, Lord of the Western Sea, and Overlord of the West!"