Belgarath smiled at them. "There's not a single ounce of romance in either one of you, is there? Didn't it ever occur to you that this might just be a very special night?"

They looked at him oddly.

"Stop and think about it," he said. "Pol's devoted most of her life to raising children that weren't hers. I’ve watched her do it, and I could feel an obscure kind of pain in her each time she took a new baby in her arms. That's going to change tonight, so in a very real sense this is a special night. Tonight Polgara's going to get a baby of her very own. It may not mean all that much to the rest of the world, but I think it does to us."

"It does indeed," Durnik said fervently. Then a thoughtful expression came into the good man's eyes. "I’ve been sort of working on something lately, Belgarath."

"Yes. I’ve heard you."

"Doesn't it seem to you that we're all sort of coming back to the places where we started? It's not exactly the same, of course, but things sort of feel familiar.”

“I’ve been thinking sort of the same thing," Garion admitted. "I keep getting this strange feeling about it."

"It's only natural for people to go home after they’ve been on a long journey, isn't it?" Belgarath said, kicking at a lump of snow with one foot.

"I don't think it's that simple, Grandfather."

"Neither do I," Durnik agreed. "This seems more important for some reason."

Belgarath frowned. "I think it does to me, as well," he admitted. "I wish Beldin were here. He could explain it in a minute. Of course none of us would understand the explanation, but he'd explain it all the same." He scratched at his beard. “I’ve found something that might explain it," he said a bit dubiously.

"What's that?" Durnik asked him.

"Garion and I have had an extended conversation over the last year or so. He'd noticed that things kept happening over and over again. You probably heard us talking about it."

Durnik nodded.

"Between us, we came up with the notion that things kept repeating themselves because the accident made it impossible for the future to happen."

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Anyhow, that's changed now. Cyradis made her Choice, and the effects of the accident have been erased. The future can happen now."

"Then why is everybody going back to the place where he started?" Garion asked.

"It's only logical, Garion," Durnik told him quite seriously. "When you're starting something even the future you almost have to go back to the beginning, don't you?"

"Why don't we just assume that's the explanation," Belgarath said. "Things got stopped. Now they're moving again, and everybody got what he deserved. We got the good things, and the other side got the bad ones. It sort of proves that we picked the right side, doesn't it?"

Garion suddenly laughed.