They only spent a few days in the fortifications of the Armies of the West. All they could really do was try to grasp the scale of the West's defeat. "If Torak invades the West now, we're finished," was Rhodar's opinion as they prepared to leave. "We did some fairly serious damage to the Murgos and the Malloreans at Thull Mardu, but if the Nadraks hadn't switched sides we'd have been done for, and our supplies were badly drained by that little excursion. We're ill-equipped now to try to hold half a continent."
"We do at least have some things going for us, with luck," noted King Cho-Hag quietly. "We have absolutely no idea how significantly Torak mending the world has rearranged the geography across which Torak's going to have to attack. The mountains you travelled across are going to be even harder for an army to get past than the Sea of the East was, and if some areas of land have sunk into the ocean then the Malloreans, at least, are going to be cut off from reinforcements."
"Not to mention the fact that Torak isn't exactly going to crack the world again to get at us, given what the Orb did to him last time he tried it," added Silk.
"I think we have at least a few months before Torak comes at us," Belgarath said, "and, judging from what Ce'Nedra's told us about 'Zakath, he's not going to be overly happy about having to fight with the Murgos instead of trying to kill them. Let's take advantage of that. Gentlemen, your job for the next two or three months, after you get back down the escarpment, is going to be to rebuild and to hold the Angaraks off if necessary. If we can hold until winter, we'll have another six months to get ready."
"We know that, Belgarath," Rhodar said in an irritated tone. "Is there anything we can do that might keep us alive and free for more than a year?"
"Aldur told me that the prophecies still had a lot to say for themselves. Frankly, I think about the only thing you can do now is talk to Drosta and see if you can get the Nadraks to stay on our side. Remind them that Torak isn't going to be best pleased with them when he finds out about them fighting for us. Meanwhile, my brothers and I will be doing some fairly intensive studying. Call me a fatalist, but it seems to me that the fact that this isn't over yet should mean that we might have something of a chance."
"I don't have your trust in fate, Belgarath," Rhodar said gloomily.
"Rhodar, I've lived a long time. In the three eons since the Mrin Codex was written, I've never once heard of it getting something wrong. Torak may invade, but we'll be putting up a fight. Talk to Belar and see if he tells you anything different. In the meantime, we'll try and keep in touch with you, Cho-Hag. You'll always find at least one of us in the Vale if you need us."
"Until then, my old friend," the Chief of the Clan-Chiefs replied, taking Belgarath's hand in his. The old sorcerer clasped hands with each of the other kings in turn, and then he and his companions left for the Vale.
The journey to the Vale of Aldur was short, once they descended the Eastern Escarpment, and it was as if they had never left. Deer still grazed peacefully on the wide plains, otters dove and swam in the streams, and the occasional rabbit sat chewing on the leaves of a low bush, watching their passage with fearless eyes. The distinction from the war-torn landscape of Mishrak ac Thull was marked. Though Belgarath's tower lay further to the east, they went first to meet Beldin and the twins, whose towers were only a short distance apart.
Beldin came out to meet them. Though he had been with Rhodar and the other kings for a few days after the retreat started, Rhodar had told Belgarath that the little hunchback had left rather abruptly, saying only that his Master thought he could be more useful back in the Vale. Even compared to his usual vitriolic self, his greeting to Belgarath was somewhat less than gracious.
"You moron," he opened, or something not too far off that. "You've left us in a nice position now, haven't you?"
"Spare me the sarcasm, Beldin," Belgarath said wearily. "Anything you say to me I'll already have said to myself. My daughter and my grandson are both enslaved by Torak, and I haven't the slightest idea whether I'll ever see either of them alive and sane again, or how many people will have to die before I do. Nothing you can ever say could possibly be more punishment than that."
"That's as may be, but Torak's still poised on the brink of obliterating us all, simply because in your incompetence you didn't train that boy well enough to withstand him."
Belgarath's face clenched in pain, and tears welled up in his eyes. Poledra stepped between them. "Stop it, Beldin," she said firmly. "He's told you, he's suffered more than enough already, and will suffer more. There's little point in recriminations at this stage in the proceedings."
"Maybe not," Beldin admitted. "It's not over yet, though, is it? From the sound of what sense the twins have managed to wring out of that piece of unmitigated gibberish they call the Mrin, you'll have plenty of chances to make more mistakes."
"Thanks," Belgarath said sourly, calming somewhat, and seeming to accept Beldin's snide comments as nothing more than his usual manner. "What's this about the Mrin?"
"The twins have been studying it for pretty much a couple of thousand years straight. You didn't expect them to stop for a little thing like an EVENT, did you? Torak winning at Cthol Mishrak shook the Mrin to its foundations, from the look of it, and they've suddenly understood several dozen passages that they could never work out before."
"Are they that hard to understand?" asked Silk.
"Belgarath here studied the Mrin Codex for hundreds of years, and you could count the number of useful things he got out of it on the fingers of one foot. Then he gave up and passed it on to a couple of slightly more intelligent people - which is to say that they don't keep their brains in an ale keg - and even they usually only find a couple of comprehensible passages a century. Of course, 'comprehensible' is a slightly relative term when you're dealing with the Mrin."
"Haven't you ever tried it?"
"I don't like riddles, Kheldar, and the Mrin's a riddle from insane beginning to flea-infested end. Why don't you try it? A couple of millennia spent reading through an idiot's ravings might teach you a bit of patience."
"No thanks, Beldin."
"Are the twins in their tower?" Belgarath asked Beldin, cutting over their banter.
"Of course they are. About the only time they come out for air these days is when the Master decides to turn up in my tower instead of theirs."
"He's been appearing to you regularly?" Belgarath looked a bit surprised.
"Every couple of days since Torak won. I think it's just for moral support."
"We could have done with some moral support on the way back here."
"You chose to go, Belgarath. No-one asked you to. Come on, let's go over and see the twins before their brains atrophy so much from lack of air that they forget how to talk. And what are you doing here?" he demanded of Poledra.
"I've always been around," Poledra said. "You just never looked hard enough, and you should have read the Codex more. You might know then why I have to be here."
"That's a supremely unhelpful answer," Beldin muttered under his breath. "I hate riddles."