Anonymous

Zandranias stole King Garion's infant son, planning to use the child in a ritual that would make the Dark Destiny supreme. Garion and his friends followed, but now they were captives of Zakath, Emperor of Mallorea.

Garion has slain the evil God Torak and been crowned King of Riva. The Prophecy has been fulfilled - or so it seems.

The quest was over. The Orb of Aldur was restored. And once again, with the crowning of Garion, there was a descendant of Riva Iron-grip to rule as Overlord of the West. And yet the prophecy was unfulfilled. In the east, the evil god Torak was about to awaken and seek dominion. Somehow, Garion had to face the god, to kill or be killed. On the outcome of that dread duel rested the destiny of the world.

It all began with the theft of the Orb that protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy. Afterward, he discovered he's a sorcerer. Now, at last, the Orb has been regained and the quest nears its end. Of course, the questors must still escape from a crumbling enemy fortress, flee across a desert filled with Murgo soldiers, and avoid the Grolim Hierarchs seeking to destroy them with dark magic.

Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, is confused. Everyone knows the tales of the Orb protecting the West from the evil god Torak are just silly legends. But here she is, forced to join a quest to recover that stolen Orb. No one believes in sorcery, but Garion's aunt and grandfather seem to be the fabled sorcerers Polgara and Belgarath. Even young Garion is learning to do sorcery. He's just a farm boy, totally unsuitable for an Imperial Princess. Yet for some reason, she has the urge to comfort him.

Legends tell of the evil god Torak coveting the power of the Orb of Aldur. Prophecy also speaks of a time when he will again awaken to seek dominance over all the world. Now the Orb has been stolen by a priest of Torak, and that time is at hand. Belgarath the Sorcerer and his daughter, Polgara the arch-Sorceress, are on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain it before the final disaster. With them goes Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle.

Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil god Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgrath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe. That was only a story, and Garion did not believe in magic dooms, even though the man without a shadow had haunted him for years.

Best-selling authors David and Leigh Eddings welcome fans back to the time before The Belgariad and The Malloreon series. Join them as they chronicle that fateful conflict between two mortally opposed Destinies, in a monumental war of men and kings and gods.

In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford, the foremost expert on National Security Agency, charts its transformation since 9/11, as the legendary code breakers turned their ears away from outside enemies, such as the Soviet Union, and inward to enemies whose communications increasingly crisscross America.