Magician's Gambit

[sawyl]

The third book in David Eddings' Belgariad series, Magician's Gambit marks a turning point in the middle of series, when Garion and his grandfather finally catch up with the object of their quest — the all-powerful Orb of Aldur — ready to return it to its rightful place. The book also marks the point when Garion stops fighting his role and accepts that he is starting to become Belgarion, sorcerer and instrument of destiny.

As with the previous volumes, the book opens with a prologue which imparts an important piece of history; this time the story of how the first Gorim managed to persuade UL, the great spirit that withheld itself when the gods created the world, to chose the people left godless by Aldur's decision to keep himself apart and to live a life of quiet study. Having eventually achieved his goal, the Gorim and his people build a city called Prolgu high in the mountains where they lived peacefully with the rest of the god's rejects — the various monsters created as a consequence of the seven gods' flawed natures — until Torak used the power of the Orb of Aldur to crack the world, causing the monsters to go mad and forcing the Ulgo to take refuge in the mountain caverns below their city.

Clearly, given that most of this information is new, the world-building in the prologue is there to pave the way for the later sections in the book when the party travel to Ulgo; because without it the Ulgo dedication to religion and the absolute authority of the Gorim doesn't really make sense. Interestingly the Book of Ulgo also marks the introduction of UL to Eddings' narrative along with the gnostic idea that the flaws in creation are there because the gods who created it are flawed beings — something that was previously only implied by the behaviour of the god Torak and his overweening pride and vanity.

The action proper begins with the company — Garion, Belgarath, Polgara, Barak, Silk, Hettar, Mandorallen and Ce'Nedra — travelling up the Nyissan River of the Serpent bound for Algaria. Having established that Zedar the Thief has entered Cthol Murgos with the stolen Orb only for his prize to be taken from him by the forces to Ctutchik, another disciple of the god Torak, Belgarath has received a summons from his master, the god Aldur, and has altered course to head north again. In order to speed their passage and to escape Murgo raiding parties, Belgarath and Polgara are forced to take their party through the ruins of Maragor, a province haunted by the ghosts of the Marags who were killed many centuries ago during a Tolnedran invasion, where the spirit of the god Mara rages in eternal grief.

On the river, the prince begins to accept that she might actually feel something for Garion and, when she adopts Mandorallen as her knight — he kills a lion with his bare hands for her — Garion realises that he feels jealous that Ce'Nedra has someone to fetch and carry for her, no matter how much he has previously resented it. The journey through Maragor marks a shift in Garion's thinking. With the emotional part of him still asleep thanks to Belgarath's enchantment, the more rational parts of his mind and a prophetic voice that seems to live apart from him finally have a chance to discuss things sensibly, with the voice explaining that there are two prophecies, that one of them will restore the world while the other will force it further down the wrong road, and that Garion can only play his part by burying his childish resentment and listing to the advice his aunt and his grandfather have been trying to give him.

Thanks to being put in a sorcerous sleep, the group survive their trip through Maragor only to find themselves confronted with an autumn trip through the mountains. Along they way they find an ancient cave where the gods held their discussions while creating the world and where Garion brings a still-born foal back to life. Arriving in the Vale of Aldur, the party meet the god and his disciples — a very mixed bunch! — and while Belgarath and Polgara receive instruction from Aldur, Garion begins to experiment with his own magical abilities with mixed results.

Glossing over the journey through the mountains, the events in the cave don't make a great deal of sense at present — just another unexplained stop along the way — suggesting that they are intended to prefigure something important that happens later on. The scenes in the Vale add an important element of domesticity to Belgarath's character — we get to see his tower with all its clutter and the results thousands of years of experiments, as well as seeing how much he genuinely cares about his master and his fellow disciples. This also marks the first introduction of the foul-mouthed hunchbacked sorcerer Beldin, whose mind is as brilliant as his manners are terrible.

Knowing that they have no choice but to travel to Rak Cthol, Belgarath decides to visit the Ulgos to pick up another of the people mentioned in the Mrin Codex. The journey to Prolgu involves an extended trip through a range of mountains infested with the monsters who were brought to UL by the first Gorim and who subsequently went wild when the world was cracked, and almost inevitably, the party find themselves forced to fight an eldrak, a hugely strong and semi-intelligent troll-like creature. Knowing that the warriors are seriously overmatched, Pol and Garion combine their power to reach into the past, summoning the wolf-spirit of Belgarath's long-dead wife Poledra to help. Eventually arriving in the underground city of the Ulgos they meet with the elderly Gorim who summons Relg, a fanatical zealot with the ability to detect caves and move through solid rock. Relg initially refuses to go with Belgarath until the spirit of UL appears and orders him to do so. The party depart for Algaria vai an underground route, leaving Ce'Nedra in Prolgu as advised by the god UL, and sending Hettar, who has a pathological hatred of all Murgos, with instructions to tell his father Cho-Hag to prepare his forces to offer cover should the party return from Cthol Murgos with the Orb of Aldur.

The trip to Prolgu is significant both because it is the first time the party find themselves seriously outmatched by opponent and also because it marks the appearance of Belgarath's wife, who seems to exist in state somewhere between death and life. It also shows how seriously Belgarath must have loved Poledra: he still feels her loss thousands of years after her death. The appearance of the great god UL is also significant, because it indicates that even the greatest force in the universe is interested enough in the outcome of Garion's quest to personally intervene to put Relg the Diviner on to the right path.

Travelling through northern Cthol Murgos, the party encounter a Tolnedran merchant on the trail who tells them that Taur Urgas, the Murgo king, is exterminating all foreigners in the city of Rak Goska on the flimsiest of pretexts and suggests that they travel instead to a small trading camp along the road. Realising that this is a sign that the Murgos are about to go to war, they hurry on the to the camp on discover that Taur Urgas has arrived and is about to start a purge. Silk, who has a bad history with the Murgo king, is captured and only escapes with the help of Relg and his unique ability to travel through stone.

Thanks to the events in the merchant camp, Relg moves from annoyingly burdensome god-botherer to someone who can step in and help when the situation demands it. The camp also marks the appearance of a couple of other important plot points: Yablek, a Nadrak merchant and an old friend of Silk's, makes his first appearance, while Silk's history with Taur Urgas comes back to haunt him in King of the Murgos, the second book in the Mallorean series.

After a hurried journey across the Wasteland of Murgos, dodging magical attacks from the priests of Torak, they eventually arrive at Rak Cthol — a great city built on a man-made pinacle over a mile high and many miles round. Here Relg uses his talent for finding caves to slip the party in to the city unseen, taking them up through the old slave pens where they discover a surprise: a woman of Marag descent who fulfils yet another of the criteria listed in Belgarath's codex. Evading the grolim priests of Torak, they slip through the temple and down to the quarters of the high priest, where they find Ctutchik brooding over the untouchable Orb of Aldur. Finally, after centuries of stepping carefully round each other because the timing wasn't quite right, Ctutchik and Belgarath finally engage in a titanic magical duel that all but destroys the city of Rak Cthol.

The long slow journey through the wasteland, with the constant fear of detection, adds a certain amount of tension to the plot, as does the slow climb up through the caverns of Rak Cthol. The decent to Ctutchik's lair — a turret that hangs off the side of the city — proves suspiciously easy, with doors unlocked and rooms empty, and guards at a minimum. Clearly this is the magician's gambit of the title. Fortunately, despite having hundreds of years of experience with his opponent, Ctutchik has misjudged Belgarath and his plan only brings him a spectacular death.