Free Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings Page B

most part, strictly utilitarian. Although it pains me to admit it, Beldin’s description of my tower was probably fairly accurate. It did look somewhat like a petrified tree-stump when I stepped back to look at it. It kept me out of the weather, though, and it got me up high enough so that I could see the horizon and look at the stars. What else is a tower supposed to do?
    It was at that point that we discovered that Belsambar had the soul of an artist. The last place in the world you would look for beauty would be in the mind of an Angarak. With surprising heat, given his retiring nature, he argued with Belmakor long and loud, insisting on his variations as opposed to the somewhat pedestrian notions of the Melcenes. Melcenes are builders, and they think in terms of stone and mortar and what your material will actually let you get away with. Angaraks think of the impossible, and then try to come up with ways to make it work.
    â€˜Why are you doing this, Belsambar?’ Beldin once asked our normally self-effacing brother. ‘It’s only a buttress, and you’ve been arguing about it for weeks now.’
    â€˜It’s the curve of it, Beldin,’ Belsambar explained, more fervently than I’d ever heard him say anything else. ‘It’s like this.’ And he created the illusion of the two opposing towers in the air in front of them for comparison. I’ve never known anyone else who could so fully build illusions as Belsambar. I think it’s an Angarak trait; their whole world is built on an illusion.
    Belmakor took one look and threw his hands in the air. ‘I bow to superior talent,’ he surrendered. ‘It’s beautiful, Belsambar. Now, how do we make it work? There’s not enough support.’
    â€˜I’ll support it, if necessary.’ It was Belzedar , of all people! ‘I’ll hold up our brother’s tower until the end of days, if need be.’ What a soul that man had!
    â€˜You still didn’t answer my question-any of you!’ Beldinrasped. ‘Why are you all taking so much trouble with all of this?’
    â€˜It is because thy brothers love thee, my son,’ Aldur, who had been standing in the shadows unobserved, told him gently. ‘Canst thou not accept their love?’
    Beldin’s ugly face suddenly contorted grotesquely, and he broke down and wept.
    â€˜And that is thy first lesson, my son,’ Aldur told him. ‘Thou wilt warily give love, all concealed beneath this gruff exterior of thine, but thou must also learn to accept love.’
    It all got a bit sentimental after that.
    And so we all joined together in the building of Beldin’s tower. It didn’t really take us all that long. I hope Durnik takes note of that. It’s not really immoral to use our gift on mundane things, Sendarian ethics notwithstanding.
    I missed having my grotesque little friend around in my own tower, but I’ll admit that I slept better. I wasn’t exaggerating in the least in my description of his snoring.
    Life settled down in the Vale after that. We continued our studies of the world around us and expanded our applications of our peculiar talent. I think it was one of the twins who discovered that it was possible for us to communicate with each other by thought alone. It would have been one - or both - of the twins, since they’d been sharing their thoughts since the day they were born. I do know that it was Beldin who discovered the trick of assuming the forms of other creatures. The main reason I can be so certain is that he startled several years’ growth out of me the first time he did it. A large hawk with a bright band of blue feathers across its tail came soaring in, settled on my window ledge, and blurred into Beldin. ‘How about that?’ he demanded. ‘It works after all.’
    I was drinking from a tankard at the time, and I dropped it and went into an extended fit of choking while he pounded me