Again, long centuries passed. And then new rumors came, this time to disturb those in the highest places of power. And it was whispered that somehow the Orb had been stolen. Then Belgarath and Polgara were seen to be moving through the lands of the West again. This time they took with them a young man named Garion who named Belgarath his grandfather and called Polgara his aunt. And as they moved through the kingdoms, they gathered upon them a strange company.

To the Alorn Kings who gathered in council, Belgarath revealed that it was the Apostate Zedar who had somehow contrived to steal the Orb from the sword and who was even then fleeing with it to the East, presumably to use it to awaken sleeping Torak. And it was there Belgarath must go with his company to rescue it.

Then Belgarath discovered that Zedar had found a boy of total innocence who could safely touch the Orb. But now the way led to the grim and dangerous headquarters of the Grolim priests of Torak, where the magician Ctuchik had seined the Orb and the boy from Zedar.

In time this quest of Belgarath and his company to regain the Orb would come to be known as the Belgariad. But the end thereof lay entangled within the Prophecy. And even to the Prophecy was the ultimate conclusion unknown.

Part One

ALGARIA

Map Here

Chapter One

CTUCHIK WAS DEAD - arid more than dead - and the earth itself heaved and groaned in the aftershock of his destruction. Garion and the others fled down through the dim galleries that honeycombed the swaying basalt pinnacle, with the rocks grinding and cracking about them and fragments shattering away from the ceilings and raining down on them in the darkness. Even as he ran, Garion's mind jerked and veered, his thoughts tumbling over each other chaotically, stunned out of all coherence by the enormity of what had just happened. Flight was a desperate need, and he fled without thought or even awareness, his running steps as mechanical as his heartbeat.