"David Eddings. Castle of wizardry enchanters' end game (The Belgariad, Part two)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Now there came rumors of a prophecy that a Rivan King, true seed of the
line of Riva, should again appear and sit upon the throne in the Hall of
the Rivan King. And in later years, some claimed that each daughter of an
Emperor of Tolnedra appeared on her sixteenth birthday to be the bride of
the new king, should he appear. But few regarded such tales. Time passed
into centuries, and still the West was safe. The Orb remained, quiet and
dark upon the pommel of the sword. And somewhere fearful Torak was said to
sleep until the return of the Rivan King - which came to mean never.
And thus the account should be ended. But no true account can ever end.
And nothing can ever be safe or sure so long as cunning men plot to steal
or destroy.
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

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.
His ears seemed full of a swelling, exultant song that rang and soaxed
in the vaults of his mind, erasing thought and filling him with stupefied
wonder. Through all his confusion, however, he was sharply conscious of
the trusting touch of the small hand he held in his. The little boy they
had found in Ctuchik's grim turret ran beside him with the Orb of Aldur