Enchanter's End Game

19

They remained for nearly a week in the Imperial compound as the personal guests of the Emperor ’Zakath, who for some strange reason seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in their company. Quarters were provided for them within the labyrinth of silken tents and pavilions that sheltered ’Zakath’s household staff, and their every comfort received the personal attention of the Emperor himself.

The strange, sad-eyed man puzzled Princess Ce’Nedra. Although he was the absolute soul of courtesy, the memory of his interview with King Gethell frightened her. His ruthlessness was all the more chilling because he never lost his temper. He never seemed to sleep either, and when, often in the middle of the night, he felt some obscure need for conversation, he would send for Ce’Nedra. He never apologized for having interrupted her rest. It apparently did not even occur to him that his summons might in some way inconvenience her.

“Where did King Rhodar receive his military training?” ’Zakath asked her during one of these midnight interviews. “None of my information about him even hints about any such talent.” The Emperor was seated deep in the purple cushions of a soft chair with golden candlelight playing over his face and his cat dozing in his lap.

“I really couldn’t say, your Majesty,” Ce’Nedra replied, toying absently with the sleeve of the pale silk gown that had been provided for her soon after her arrival. “I only met Rhodar last winter.”

“Very peculiar,” ’Zakath mused. “We had always assumed that he was just a foolish old man doting on his young wife. We had never even considered him a possible threat. We concentrated our attentions on Brand and Anheg. Brand is too self effacing to be a good leader, and Anheg seemed too erratic to give us much concern. Then Rhodar appeared out of nowhere to take charge of things. The Alorns are an enigma, aren’t they? How can a sensible Tolnedran girl stand them?”

She smiled briefly. “They have a certain charm, your Majesty,” she told him rather pertly.

“Where is Belgarion?” The question came without any warning.

“We don’t know, your Majesty,” Ce’Nedra answered evasively. “Lady Polgara was furious when he slipped away.”

“In the company of Belgarath and Kheldar,” the Emperor added. “We heard of the search for them. Tell me, Princess, does he by any chance have Cthrag Yaska with him?”

“Cthrag Yaska?”

“The burning stone—what you in the west call the Orb of Aldur.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, your Majesty,” she told him rather primly, “and I’m sure you’re too courteous to try to wring the information out of me.”

“Princess,” he said reprovingly.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty,” she apologized and gave him that quick, little girl smile that was always her weapon of last resort.

’Zakath smiled gently. “You’re a devious young woman, Ce’Nedra,” he said.

“Yes, your Majesty,” she acknowledged. “What prompted you and Taur Urgas to bury your enmity and unite against us?” Ce’Nedra wanted to demonstrate that she too could ask surprise questions.

“There was no unity in our attack, Princess,” he replied. “I was merely responding to Taur Urgas.”

“I don’t understand.”

“So long as he remained at Rak Goska, I was perfectly content to stay at Thull Zelik; but as soon as he began to march north, I had to respond. The land of the Thulls is of too much strategic importance to allow it to be occupied by a hostile force.”

“And what now, ’Zakath?” Ce’Nedra asked him impudently. “Taur Urgas is dead. Where will you turn now in search of an enemy?”

He smiled a wintry smile. “How little you understand us, Ce’Nedra. Taur Urgas was only the symbol of Murgo fanaticism. Ctuchik is dead, and Taur Urgas is dead, but Murgodom lives on—even as Mallorea will live on when I am gone. Our enmity goes back for eons. At last, however, a Mallorean Emperor is in a position to crush Cthol Murgos once and for all and make himself undisputed overking of Angarak.”

“It’s all for power, then?”

“What else is there?” he asked sadly. “When I was very young, I thought that there might be something else—but events proved that I was wrong.” A brief look of pain crossed his face, and he sighed. “In time you will discover that same truth. Your Belgarion will grow colder as the years pass and the chill satisfaction of power comes more and more to possess him. When it is complete, and only his love of power remains, then he and I will move against each other as inevitably as two great tides. I will not attack him until his education is complete. There is no satisfaction in destroying a man who does not fully comprehend reality. When all of his illusions are gone and only his love of power remains, then he will be a fit opponent.” His face had grown bleak. He looked at her, his eyes as dead and cold as ice. “I think I’ve kept you from your rest too long, Princess,” he said. “Go to bed and dream of love and other absurdities. The dreams will die all too soon, so enjoy them while you can.”

Early the next morning, Ce’Nedra entered the pavilion where Polgara rested, recuperating from the struggle with the Grolims at Thull Mardu. She was alert, but still dreadfully weak.

“He’s every bit as insane as Taur Urgas was,” Ce’Nedra reported. “He’s so obsessed with the idea of becoming overking of Angarak that he isn’t even paying any attention to what we’ve been doing.”

“That may change once Anheg starts sinking his troop ships,” Polgara replied. “There’s nothing we can do at the moment, so just keep listening to him and be polite.”

“Do you think we should try to escape?”

“No.”

Ce’Nedra looked at her, a bit startled.

“What’s happening is supposed to happen. There’s some reason that the four of us—you, Durnik, Errand, and I—are supposed to go to Mallorea. Let’s not tamper with it.”

“You knew this was going to happen?”

Polgara gave her a weary smile. “I knew that’s where we were going. I didn’t know how, exactly. ’Zakath isn’t interfering in any way, so don’t aggravate him.”

Ce’Nedra sighed in resignation. “Whatever you say, Lady Polgara,” she said.

It was early afternoon of that same day when the first reports of King Anheg’s activities in the Sea of the East reached the Emperor ’Zakath. Ce’Nedra, who was present when the dispatches were delivered, felt a secret sense of satisfaction as the icy man showed the first hint of irritation she had seen in him.

“Are you certain of this?” he demanded of the trembling messenger, holding up the parchment.

“I only carried the dispatch, dread Lord.” The messenger quailed, cringing back from his Emperor’s anger.

“Were you at Thull Zelik when the ships arrived?”

“There was only one ship, dread Lord.”

“One ship out of fifty?” ’Zakath’s tone was incredulous. “Weren’t there others—perhaps coming along the coast?”

“The sailors said there weren’t, your Imperial Majesty.”

“What kind of barbarian is this Anheg of Cherek?” ’Zakath exclaimed to Ce’Nedra. “Each of those ships carried two hundred men.”

“King Anheg is an Alorn, your Majesty,” Ce’Nedra replied coolly. “They’re an unpredictable people.”

With a great deal of effort, ’Zakath regained his composure. “I see,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “This was your plan from the beginning, wasn’t it, Princess? The entire attack on Thull Mardu was a subterfuge.”

“Not entirely, your Majesty. I was assured that the city had to be neutralized to permit the passage of the fleet.”

“But why is he drowning my soldiers? I bear the Alorns no malice.”

“Torak does—or so I’m told—and it is Torak who will command the combined armies of Angarak. We cannot allow your forces to land on this continent, your Majesty. We cannot give Torak that advantage.”

“Torak is asleep—and he’s likely to remain so for a number of years yet.”

“Our information indicates that it will not be nearly so long. Belgarath himself is convinced that the time is near at hand.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “I must hand you all over to the Grolims, then,” he said. “I’d hoped to wait until Polgara had regained her strength before subjecting her to the journey; but if what you say is true, there is little time to waste. Advise your friends to make their preparations, Princess. You will depart for Thull Zelik tomorrow morning.”

“As your Majesty wishes,” Ce’Nedra replied, a chill going down her spine as she bowed her head in acquiescence.

“I am a secular man, Princess,” he said by way of explanation. “I bow to the altar of Torak when the occasion demands it, but I make no pretence at excessive piety. I will not involve myself in a religious dispute between Belgarath and Zedar, and I most certainly will not stand between Torak and Aldur when they confront each other. I would strongly advise you to follow the same course.”

“That decision is not mine to make, your Majesty. My part in this was decided for me long before I was born.”

He looked amused. “The Prophecy, you mean? We Angaraks have one also, Princess, and I don’t imagine yours is any more reliable than ours. Prophecy is no more than a trick of the priesthood to maintain its grip on the gullible.”

“Then you believe in nothing, my Lord?”

“I believe in my own power. Nothing else makes any sense.”

The Grolims who escorted them in easy stages northward across the summer-browned plains of Mishrak ac Thull toward Thull Zelik were coldly proper. Ce’Nedra could not be sure if their behavior was the result of warnings from the Emperor of Mallorea or their fear of Polgara. The stifling heat was past now, and the air smelled faintly of the dusty end of summer. The Thullish plain was dotted with villages, random collections of thatch-roofed cottages and dirt streets. The villagers watched, sullen and afraid, as the priests of Torak rode through the little towns, their faces cold and aloof.

The plain to the west of Thull Zelik was covered with the red tents of the vast staging area that had been erected for the Mallorean army. With the exception of caretaker detachments, however, the huge camp was empty. The troops already in Mishrak ac Thull were with ’Zakath near Thull Mardu, and the steady stream of new arrivals had been quite suddenly cut off.

Thull Zelik itself was like any port town in the world, smelling of salt water, fish, tar, and rotting seaweed. The gray stone buildings were low and squat, almost like the Thulls themselves, and the cobblestoned streets all sloped down to the harbor, which lay in the curve of a broad estuary and faced a somewhat similar harbor on the other side.

“What city is that?” Ce’Nedra curiously asked one of the Grolims as she looked across the dirty water toward the far shore.

“Yar Marak,” the black-robed priest answered curtly.

“Ah,” she said, remembering now her tedious geography lessons. The two cities, one Thullish, the other Nadrak, faced each other across the estuary at the mouth of the River Cordu, and the boundary between Mishrak ac Thull and Gar og Nadrak ran down the precise center of the river.

“When the Emperor returns from Thull Mardu, I imagine he’ll take steps to eradicate that place over there,” one of the other Grolims added. “He was not pleased with the behavior of King Drosta on the battlefield, and some chastisement seems in order.”

They proceeded directly down a cobbled avenue to the harbor, where but a few ships were moored to the wharves.

“My crew absolutely refuses to put to sea,” the Mallorean captain of the ship upon which they were to embark reported to the Grolims. “The Chereks out there are like a pack of wolves, burning and sinking everything afloat.”

“The Cherek fleet is farther south,” the priest in charge of the detachment of Grolims declared.

“The Cherek fleet is everywhere, revered priest,” the captain disagreed. “Two days ago they burned four coastal towns two hundred leagues to the south of here, and yesterday they sank a dozen ships a hundred leagues to the north. You wouldn’t believe how fast they can move. They don’t even take the time to loot the towns they burn.” He shuddered. “They’re not men! They’re a natural disaster.”

“We will set sail within the hour,” the Grolim insisted.

“Not unless your priests know how to man oars and handle the rigging,” the captain told him. “My men are terrified. They won’t sail.”

“We’ll convince them,” the Grolim said darkly. He gave a few orders to his under-priests. An altar was quickly erected on the high stern deck, and a brazier filled with glowing coals was placed to one side of it. The leader of the Grolims took his place at the altar and began chanting in a deep, hollow voice, his arms raised to the sky. In his right hand he held a gleaming knife. At random, his cohorts selected a sailor and dragged him, screaming and struggling, to the stern deck. As Ce’Nedra watched with horror, he was bent backward across the altar and butchered with an almost casual efficiency. The Grolim who had wielded the knife lifted the dead man’s dripping heart.

“Behold our offering, Dragon-God of Angarak!” he cried in a great voice, then turned and deposited the heart in the smoking brazier. The heart steamed and sizzled horribly for a moment, then began to blacken and shrivel as the fire consumed it. From the bow of the ship a gong clanged in iron celebration of the sacrifice.

The Grolim at the altar, his bloody hands dripping, turned to confront the ashen-faced sailors crowded amidships.

“Our ceremonies will continue until the ship sails,” he told them. “Who will be the next to give his heart to our beloved God?”

The ship set sail immediately.

Ce’Nedra, sick with revulsion, turned her face away. She looked at Polgara, whose eyes burned with hatred and who seemed in the grip of an overpowering interior struggle. Ce’Nedra knew her, and she knew that it was only by a tremendous effort of her will that Polgara was able to keep herself from unleashing a terrible retribution on the bloodstained Grolim at the altar. Beside her, protected in the clasp of one of her arms, stood Errand. On the child’s face was an expression Ce’Nedra had never seen there before. His look was sad, compassionate, and at the same time filled with a kind of iron-hard resolution, as if, had he but the power, he would destroy every altar to Torak in all the world.

“You will go below decks now,” one of their Grolim captors told them. “It will be a matter of some days before we reach the shores of boundless Mallorea.”

They sailed north, hugging the Nadrak coastline, fearfully ready to run for any beach that offered itself, should Cherek ships appear on the horizon. At a certain point, the Mallorean captain peered about at the empty sea, swallowed hard, and swung his tiller over for the quick, terrified dash across open water to the east.

Once, a day or more out from the Nadrak coast, they saw a dreadful column of thick black smoke rising far to the south, and a day or so farther on they sailed through a sea littered with charred debris where bodies, pale and bloated, bobbed in the dark waves of the eastern sea. The frightened sailors pulled their oars with all their strength, not even needing the encouragement of whips to row faster.

Then, one murky morning when the sky behind them threatened rain squalls and the air was oppressively heavy with the advancing storm, a low, dark smudge appeared on the horizon ahead of them, and the sailors doubled their efforts, rushing desperately toward the safety of the Mallorean coast ahead.

The beach upon which the small boats from their ship landed them was a sloping shingle of dark, salt-crusted gravel where the waves made a strange, mournful sighing as they receded. Awaiting them some distance up from the water’s edge sat a mounted party of Grolims, their black robes belted at the waist with crimson sashes.

“Archpriests,” Polgara noted coldly. “We’re to be escorted with some ceremony, I take it.”

The Grolim who had commanded their escort went quickly up the gravel stand toward the waiting group and prostrated himself before them, speaking with a hushed reverence. One of the Archpriests, an aged man with a deeply lined face and sunken eyes, dismounted rather stiffly and came down to where Ce’Nedra and her friends had just stepped from the small boat.

“My Queen,” he said to Polgara, bowing respectfully. “I am Urtag, Archpriest of the district of Camat. I am here with my brethren to escort you to the City of Night.”

“I’m disappointed not to find Zedar waiting,” the sorceress replied coldly. “I trust he’s not indisposed.”

Urtag gave her a quick look of irritation. “Do not rail against your foreordained fate, Queen of Angarak,” he advised her.

“I have two fates awaiting me, Urtag,” she said. “Which one I will follow has not yet been decided.”

“I do not have any doubts about the matter,” he declared.

“That’s probably because you’ve never dared to look at the alternatives,” she replied. “Shall we go, Urtag? A windy beach is hardly the place for philosophical discussion.”

The Grolim Archpriests had brought horses with them, and the party was soon mounted and riding away from the sea across a line of low, wooded hills in a generally northeasterly direction. The trees bordering the upper edge of the gravel beach had been dark-boughed spruces, but once they topped the first rise they entered a vast forest of white-barked aspens. To Ce’Nedra’s eyes, the stark, white trunks looked almost corpselike, and the entire forest had a gloomy, unhealthy quality about it.

“Mistress Pol,” Durnik said in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper, “shouldn’t we be working on some kind of plan?”

“For what, Durnik?” she asked him.

“For our escape, of course.”

“But we don’t want to escape, Durnik.”

“We don’t?”

“The Grolims are taking us to the place we want to go.”

“Why do we want to go to this Cthol Mishrak of theirs?”

“We have something to do there.”

“From everything I’ve heard it’s a bad sort of place,” he told her. “Are you sure you haven’t made some mistake?”

She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. “Dear Durnik,” she said, “you’ll just have to trust me.”

“Of course, Mistress Pol,” he replied immediately. “But shouldn’t I know what to expect? If I should have to take steps to protect you, I ought to be prepared.”

“I’d tell you if I knew, Durnik,” she said, “but I don’t know what we should expect. All I know is that the four of us are supposed to go to Cthol Mishrak. What’s going to happen there needs us in order for it to be complete. Each of us has something to do there.”

“Even me?”

“Especially you, Durnik. At first I didn’t understand who you really are. That’s why I tried to keep you from coming along. But now I do understand. You have to be there because you’re going to do the one thing that’s going to turn the entire outcome one way or the other.”

“What is it?”

“We don’t know.”

His eyes grew wide. “What if I do it wrong?” he asked in a worried voice.

“I don’t think you can,” she reassured him. “From everything I understand, what you’re going to do will flow very naturally out of who and what you are.” She gave him a brief, wry little smile. “You won’t be able to do it wrong, Durnik—any more than you’d be able to lie or cheat or steal. It’s built into you to do it right, so don’t worry about it.”

“That’s all very well for you to say, Mistress Pol,” he replied, “but if you don’t mind, I will worry about it just a bit—privately, of course.”

She laughed then, a light, fond little laugh. “You dear, dear man,” she said impulsively taking his hand. “Whatever would we do without you?”

Durnik blushed and tried to look away, but her glorious eyes held his, and he blushed even more.

After they had passed through the forest of aspen, they entered a strangely desolate landscape. White boulders stuck up out of tangled weeds like tombstones in a long-abandoned graveyard, and dead trees thrust their crooked limbs at the overcast sky like pleading fingers. The horizon ahead was covered with a bank of darker cloud, a cloud so intensely black that it seemed almost purple. Oddly, Ce’Nedra noted, the cloudbank did not seem to be moving at all. There was no sign anywhere of any human habitation, and the route they followed was not even marked by a trail.

“Does no one live there?” the princess asked Polgara.

“Cthol Mishrak is deserted except for a few Grolims,” the sorceress replied. “Torak smashed the city and drove its people out the day my father and King Cherek and his sons stole the Orb back from the iron tower.”

“When was that?”

“A very long time ago, Ce’Nedra. As nearly as we’ve been able to determine, it was precisely on the same day that Beldaran and I were born—and the day our mother died. It’s a bit hard to say for sure. We were a bit casual about keeping track of time in those days.”

“If your mother had died and Belgarath was here, who took care of you?”

“Beldin, of course.” Polgara smiled. “He wasn’t a very good mother, but he did the best he could until father returned.”

“Is that why you’re so fond of him?”

“One of the reasons, yes.”

The ominous cloudbank still did not move. It stretched across the sky as stationary as a range of mountains; as they rode toward it, it loomed higher and higher.

“That’s a very strange cloud,” Durnik noted, looking speculatively at the thick curtain of purple ahead. “The storm is coming in behind us, but that cloud doesn’t seem to be moving at all.”

“It doesn’t move, Durnik,” Polgara told him. “It never has moved. When the Angaraks built Cthol Mishrak, Torak put that cloud there to hide the city. It’s been there ever since.”

“How long is that?”

“About five thousand years.”

“The sun never shines there?”

“Never.”

The Grolim Archpriests had begun to look about with a certain apprehension, and finally Urtag called a halt. “We must make ourselves known,” he declared. “We don’t want the watchers to mistake us for intruders.”

The other Archpriests nodded nervously, and then all removed polished steel masks from beneath their robes and carefully covered their faces with them. Then each of them untied a thick torch from his saddle and ignited it with a brief, mumbled incantation. The torches burned with a peculiarly green-tinged flame and gave off a reeking, sulfurous smoke.

“I wonder what would happen if I were to blow out your torches,” Polgara suggested with a hint of a mischievous smile. “I could, you know.”

Urtag gave her a worried look. “This is no time for foolishness, my Lady,” he warned her. “The watchers are very savage with intruders. Our lives depend on those torches. Please don’t do anything to bring down a disaster on us all.”

She laughed lightly and let it go at that.

As they rode in beneath the cloud, it grew steadily darker. It was not precisely the clean darkness of night, but was rather a kind of dirty murkiness, a deep shade hovering in the air. They crested a rise and saw before them a cloud-enshrouded basin, and in its center, half obscured by the pervasive gloom, stood the ravaged City of Night. The vegetation around them had shrunk to a few sparse weeds and an unhealthy looking, stunted grass, pale and sick for want of sun. The boulders thrusting up out of the earth were splotched with a sort of leprous lichen that ate into the rock itself, and nodules of a white fungus lumped in grotesque profusion, spreading out across the dank soil as if the ground itself were diseased.

With a slow, careful pace, their sputtering torches held above their heads, the Grolim Archpriests led the way down into the gloomy basin and across the unwholesome plain toward the shattered walls of Cthol Mishrak.

As they entered the city, the princess saw furtive hints of movement among the tumbled stones. Shadowy forms scurried from place to place among the ruins, and the sound of their movements was the clicking scrape made by creatures whose feet were clawed. Some of the shapes were upright, others were not. Ce’Nedra grew cold and afraid. The watchers of Cthol Mishrak were neither beast nor human, and they seemed to exude a kind of indiscriminate malice toward all other living things. More than anything, she was afraid that one of them might suddenly turn and confront her with a face that might rip away her sanity by its hideousness.

As they passed down a broken street, Urtag began to intone an ancient prayer to Torak, his voice hollow and shaking. The dank air grew colder, and the diseaselike lichen ate at the tumbled stones of the ruined houses. Mold seemed to cling to everything, and the pale fungus grew in grotesque lumps in corners and crannies. The smell of decay was everywhere, a damp, rotten stench, and slimy pools of stagnant water lay among the ruins.

In the center of the city stood the rusted stump of a vast iron tower, the broken-off girders which had supported it thicker than a man’s waist. Just to the south of the stump lay a broad, rusted trail of total destruction where the tower had fallen, crushing everything beneath it. Over the eons, the iron had rusted down into a sort of damp red mud that outlined the enormous dimensions of the fallen structure.

The stump had eroded down, the years rounding off the broken edges. The rust mingled in places with a kind of thick black ooze that ran down the faces of the iron plates like gobbets of clotted blood.

Urtag, trembling visibly now, dismounted before a vast, arched portal and led them through a half open iron door. The echoing chamber they entered was as large as the Imperial throne room in Tol Honeth. Wordlessly, his torch held high over his head, Urtag led them across the pitted floor to another iron-arched doorway and then down a flight of clanging iron steps that reached into the darkness beneath. At the bottom of the stairs, perhaps fifty feet below the wreckage above, stood another door of black iron, studded with great, round rivetheads. Hesitantly, Urtag rapped his knuckles on the door, and the sound of his rapping echoed hollowly in the chamber beyond.

“Who comes to disturb the slumber of the Dragon-God of Angarak?” a muffled voice demanded from behind the door.

“I am Urtag, the Archpriest of Camat.” The Grolim’s voice was frightened. “As commanded, I bring the prisoners to the Disciple of Torak.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the rattling sound of an immense chain, followed by the grating of an enormous bolt. Then slowly, creakingly, the door opened.

Ce’Nedra gasped. Standing in the doorway was Belgarath! It was a moment before her startled eyes began to sort out the subtle differences that informed her that the white-haired man before her was not indeed the old sorcerer, but rather someone who looked so much like him that they could easily pass for brothers. Subtle though the differences were, they were nonetheless profound. In the eyes of the man in the doorway there was a haunted look—a look compounded of grief and horror and a dreadful self loathing, all overlaid with the helpless adoration of a man who has given himself utterly to a dreadful master.

“Welcome to the tomb of the one-eyed God, Polgara,” he greeted the sorceress.

“It’s been a long time, Belzedar,” she replied in an oddly neutral voice.

“I’ve given up the right to that name,” he told her, and his tone was faintly regretful.

“It was your decision, Zedar.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps not. Maybe what I’m doing is also necessary.” He pushed the door open wider. “Come inside, if you will. This crypt is habitable—if only barely.” He looked directly at Urtag then. “You have performed a service, Urtag, Archpriest of Torak, and a service should not be unrewarded. Come.” And he turned and led them back into the vaulted chamber beyond. The walls were of stone, massive blocks set without mortar, and bolted to the topmost tier were great iron arches supporting the ceiling and the immense ruin above. The great chill of masses of cold stone and iron was held off by large, glowing braziers set in each corner. In the center of the room stood a table and several chairs, and along one wall lay a cluster of loosely rolled pallets and a neat stack of gray woolen blankets. On the table stood a pair of large candles, their flame unwinking and steady in the dead air of the tomb.

Zedar paused briefly at the table to pick up one of the candles, then led them across the flagstone floor to an arched alcove set in the far wall. “Your reward, Urtag,” he said to the Grolim. “Come and behold the face of your God.” He lifted the candle.

Lying upon its back on a stone bier within the alcove lay a huge figure, robed and cowled in black. The face was concealed by a polished steel mask. The eyes of the mask were closed.

Urtag took one terrified look, then prostrated himself on the floor. There was a deep, rasping sigh, and the recumbent figure in the alcove moved slightly. As Ce’Nedra stared in horrified fascination, the vast, steel-covered face turned restlessly toward them. For a moment the polished left eyelid opened. Behind that eyelid burned the dreadful fire of the eye that was not. The steel face moved as if it were flesh, twisting into an expression of contempt at the priest groveling on the flagstones, and a hollow murmuring came from behind the polished lips.

Urtag started violently and raised his suddenly stricken face, listening to the hollow muttering which he alone in the dim crypt could hear clearly. The hollow voice continued, murmuring in Urtag’s ears. The Archpriest’s face drained as he listened, and a look of unspeakable horror slowly twisted his features. The hollow muttering droned on. The words were indistinct, but the inflections were not. Desperately, Ce’Nedra covered her ears.

Finally Urtag screamed and scrambled to his feet. His face had gone absolutely white, and his eyes were starting from their sockets. Gibbering insanely, Urtag fled, and the sound of his screams echoed back down the iron stairway, as he ran in terror from the ruined tower.

20

The whispering had begun almost as soon as Belgarath, Silk, and Garion reached the coast of Mallorea. It was indistinct at first, little more than a sibilant breath sounding perpetually in Garion’s ears, but in the days that followed as they moved steadily south, occasional words began to emerge. The words were the sort to be reckoned with home, mother, love, and death—words upon which attention immediately fastened.

Unlike the land of the Morindim which they had left behind, northern—most Mallorea was a land of rolling hills covered with a toughstemmed, dark green grass. Occasional nameless rivers wound among those hills, roiling and turbulent beneath a lead gray sky. They had not seen the sun for what seemed weeks. A sort of dry overcast had moved in off the Sea of the East, and a stiff breeze, chill and smelling of the polar ice, pressed continually at their backs as they moved south.

Belgarath now rode with extreme caution. There was no sign of that half doze that was his custom in more civilized parts of the world, and Garion could feel the subtle push of the old man’s mind as he probed ahead for any hidden dangers. So delicate was the sorcerer’s searching that it seemed only a slowly expiring breath, light, tentative, concealed artfully in the sound of the breeze passing through the tall grass.

Silk also rode warily, pausing frequently to listen, and seeming on occasion to sniff at the air. Often he would even go so far as to dismount and put his ear to the turf, to see if he might pick up the muffled tread of unseen horses approaching.

“Nervous work,” the little man said as he remounted after one such pause.

“Better to be a little overcautious than to blunder into something,” Belgarath replied. “Did you hear anything?”

“I think I heard a worm crawling around down there,” Silk answered brightly. “He didn’t say anything, though. You know how worms are.”

“Do you mind?”

“You did ask, Belgarath.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“You heard him ask, didn’t you, Garion?”

“That is probably the most offensive habit I’ve ever encountered in anyone,” Belgarath told the little thief.

“I know,” Silk answered. “That’s why I do it. Infuriating, isn’t it? How far do we have to go before we come to woods again?”

“Several more days. We’re still a goodly distance north of the tree line. Winter’s too long and summer too short for trees to grow up here.”

“Boring sort of place, isn’t it?” Silk observed, looking around at the endless grass and the rounded hills that all looked the same.

“Under the circumstances, I can stand a little boredom. The alternatives aren’t all that pleasant.”

“I can accept that.”

They rode on, their horses wading through the knee-high, gray-green grass.

The whispering inside Garion’s head began again.

“Hear me, Child of Light.”

That sentence emerged quite clearly from the rest of the unintelligible sibilance. There was a dreadfully compelling quality in that single statement. Garion concentrated, trying to hear more.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the familiar dry voice told him.

“What?”

“Don’t do what he tells you to do.”

“Who is it?”

“Torak, of course. Who did you think it was?”

“He’s awake?”

“Not yet. Not fully at any rate—but then he’s never been entirely asleep either.”

“What’s he trying to do?”

“He’s trying to talk you out of killing him.”

“He’s not afraid of me, is he?”

“Of course he’s afraid. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen any more than you do, and he’s just as frightened of you as you are of him.”

That immediately made Garion feel better. “What should I do about the way he keeps whispering to me?”

“There’s not much you can do. Just don’t get into the habit of obeying his orders, that’s all. ”

They camped that evening as they usually did in a well-sheltered hollow between two hills and, as usual, they built no fire to give away their location.

“I’m getting a bit tired of cold suppers,” Silk complained, biting down hard on a piece of dried meat. “This beef’s like a strip of old leather.”

“The exercise is good for your jaws,” Belgarath told him.

“You can be a very unpleasant old man when you set your mind to it, do you know that?”

“The nights are getting longer, aren’t they?” Garion said to head off any further wrangling.

“The summer’s winding down,” Belgarath told him. “It will be autumn up here in another few weeks, and winter will be right on its heels.”

“I wonder where we’ll be when winter comes,” Garion said rather plaintively.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Silk advised. “Thinking about it isn’t going to help, and it’s only going to make you nervous.”

“Nervouser,” Garion corrected. “I’m already nervous.”

“Is there such a word as ‘nervouser?’” Silk asked Belgarath curiously.

“There is now,” Belgarath replied. “Garion just invented it.”

“I wish I could invent a word,” Silk said admiringly to Garion, his ferretlike little eyes gleaming mischievously.

“Please don’t poke fun at me, Silk. I’m having enough trouble as it is.”

“Let’s get some sleep,” Belgarath suggested. “This conversation isn’t going anywhere, and we’ve got a long way to ride tomorrow.”

That night the whispering invaded Garion’s sleep, and it seemed to convey its meaning in images rather than words. There was an offer of friendship—of a hand outstretched in love. The loneliness that had haunted his boyhood from the moment he had discovered that he was an orphan seemed to fade, to pass somehow behind him with that offer, and he found himself rather desperately wanting to run toward that hand reaching toward him.

Then, very clearly, he saw two figures standing side by side. The figure of the man was very tall and very powerful, and the figure of the woman was so familiar that the very sight of her caught at Garion’s heart. The tall, powerful man seemed to be a stranger, and yet was not. His face went far beyond mere human handsomeness. It was quite the most beautiful face Garion had ever seen. The woman, of course, was not a stranger. The white lock at the brow and the glorious eyes were the most familiar things in Garion’s life. Side by side, the beautiful stranger and Aunt Pol reached out their arms to him.

“You will be our son,” the whispering voice told him. “Our beloved son. I will be your father, and Polgara your mother. This will be no imaginary thing, Child of Light, for I can make all things happen. Polgara will really be your mother, and all of her love will be yours alone; and I, your father, will love and cherish you both. Will you turn away from us and face again the bitter loneliness of the orphan child? Does that chill emptiness compare with the warmth of loving parents? Come to us, Belgarion, and accept our love.”

Garion jerked himself out of sleep, sitting bolt upright, trembling and sweating.

“I need help,” he cried out silently, reaching into the vaults of his mind to find that other, nameless presence.

“What’s your problem now?” the dry voice asked him.

“He’s cheating,” Garion declared, outraged.

“Cheating? Did somebody come along and make up a set of rules while I wasn’t watching?”

“You know what I mean. He’s offering to make Aunt Pol my mother if I’ll do what he says. ”

“He’s lying. He can’t alter the past. Ignore him.”

“How can I? He keeps reaching into my mind and putting his hand on the most sensitive spots ”

“Think about Ce’Nedra. That’ll confuse him.”

“Ce’Nedra?”

“Every time he tries to tempt you with Polgara, think about your flighty little princess. Remember exactly how she looked when you peeked at her while she was bathing that time back in the Wood of the Dryads.”

“I did not peek!”

“Really? How is it that you remember every single detail so vividly, then?”

Garion blushed. He had forgotten that his daydreams were not entirely private.

“Just concentrate on Ce’Nedra. It will probably irritate Torak almost as much as it does me.” The voice paused. “Is that all you can really think about?” it asked then.

Garion did not try to answer that.

They pushed on southward under the dirty overcast and two days later they reached the first trees, scattered sparsely at the edge of the grassland where great herds of antlered creatures grazed as placidly and unafraid as cattle. As the three of them rode south, the scattered clumps of trees became thicker, and soon spread into a forest of dark-boughed evergreens.

The whispering blandishments of Torak continued, but Garion countered them with thoughts of his red-haired little princess. He could sense the irritation of his enemy each time he intruded these daydreams upon the carefully orchestrated images Torak kept trying to instill in his imagination. Torak wanted him to think of his loneliness and fear and of the possibility of becoming a part of a loving family, but the intrusion of Ce’Nedra into the picture confused and baffled the God. Garion soon perceived that Torak’s understanding of men was severely limited. Concerned more with elementals, with those towering compulsions and ambitions which had inflamed him for the endless eons, Torak could not cope with the scattered complexities and conflicting desires that motivated most men. Garion seized on his advantage to thwart the insidious and compelling whispers with which Torak tried to lure him from his purpose.

The whole business was somehow peculiarly familiar. This had happened before—not perhaps in exactly the same way, but very similarly. He sorted through his memories, trying to pin down this strange sense of repetition. It was the sight of a twisted tree stump, lightning-blasted and charred, that suddenly brought it all flooding back in on him. The stump, when seen from a certain angle, bore a vague resemblance to a man on horseback, a dark rider who seemed to watch them as they rode by. Because the sky was overcast, the stump cast no shadow, and the image clicked into place. Throughout his childhood, hovering always on the edge of his vision, Garion had seen the strange, menacing shape of a dark-cloaked rider on a black horse, shadowless even in the brightest sunlight. That had been Asharak the Murgo, of course, the Grolim whom Garion had destroyed in his first open act as a sorcerer. But had it? There had existed between Garion and that dark figure which had so haunted his childhood a strange bond. They had been enemies; Garion had always known that; but in their enmity there had always been a curious closeness, something that seemed to pull them together. Garion quite deliberately began to examine a startling possibility. Suppose that the dark rider had not in fact been Asharak—or if it had been, suppose that Asharak had somehow been suffused by another, more powerful awareness.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced Garion became that he had stumbled inadvertently across the truth of the matter. Torak had demonstrated that, even though his body slept, his awareness could still move about the world, twisting events to his own purposes. Asharak had been involved, certainly, but the dominating force had always been the consciousness of Torak. The Dark God had stood watch over him since infancy. The fear he had sensed in that dark shape that had hovered always on the edge of his boyhood had not been Asharak’s fear, but Torak’s. Torak had known who he was from the beginning, had known that one day Garion would take up the sword of the Rivan King and come to the meeting that had been ordained since before the world was made.

Acting upon a sudden impulse, Garion put his left hand inside his tunic and took hold of his amulet. Twisting slightly, he reached up and laid the marked palm of his right hand on the Orb, which stood on the pommel of the great sword strapped across his back.

“I know you now,” he declared silently, hurling the thought at the murky sky. “You might as well give up trying to win me over to your side, because I’m not going to change my mind. Aunt Pol is not your wife, and I’m not your son. You’d better stop trying to play games with my thoughts and get ready, because I in coming to kill you. ”

The Orb beneath his hand flared with a sudden exultation as Garion threw his challenge into the Dark God’s teeth, and the sword at Garion’s back suddenly burst into a blue flame that flickered through the sheath enclosing it.

There was a moment of deadly silence, and then what had been a whisper suddenly became a vast roar.

“Come, then, Belgarion, Child of Light,” Torak hurled back the challenge. “I await thee in the City of Night. Bring all thy will and all thy courage with thee, for I am ready for our meeting.”

“What in the name of the seven Gods do you think you’re doing?” Belgarath almost screamed at Garion, his face mottled with angry astonishment.

“Torak’s been whispering at me for almost a week now,” Garion explained calmly, taking his hand from the Orb. “He’s been offering me all kinds of things if I’d give up this whole idea. I got tired of it, so I told him to stop.”

Belgarath spluttered indignantly, waving his hands at Garion.

“He knows I’m coming, Grandfather,” Garion said, trying to placate the infuriated old man. “He’s known who I was since the day I was born. He’s been watching me all this time. We’re not going to be able to take him by surprise, so why try? I wanted to let him know that I was on to him. Maybe it’s time for him to start worrying and being afraid just a little bit, too.”

Silk was staring at Garion. “He’s an Alorn, all right,” he observed finally.

“He’s an idiot!” Belgarath snapped angrily. He turned back to Garion. “Did it ever occur to you that there might be something out here to worry about besides Torak?” he demanded.

Garion blinked.

“Cthol Mishrak is not unguarded, you young blockhead. You’ve just succeeded in announcing our presence to every Grolim within a hundred leagues.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Garion mumbled.

“I didn’t think you’d thought. Sometimes I don’t think you know how to think.”

Silk looked around apprehensively. “Now what do we do?” he asked.

“We’d better get out of here—as fast as our horses can carry us,” Belgarath said. He glared at Garion. “Are you sure you don’t have a trumpet somewhere under your clothes?” he asked with heavy sarcasm. “Maybe you’d like to blow a few fanfares as we go along.” He shook his head in disgust and then gathered up his reins. “Let’s ride,” he said.

21

The aspens were stark white and motionless under the dead sky, and they rose, straight and slender, like the bars of an interminable cage. Belgarath led them at a walk, carefully weaving his way through the endless stretches of this vast, silent forest.

“How much farther?” Silk asked the old man tensely.

“Not much more than a day, now,” Belgarath replied. “The clouds ahead are getting thicker.”

“You say the cloudbank never moves?”

“Never. It’s been stationary since Torak put it there.”

“What if a wind came along? Wouldn’t that move it?”

Belgarath shook his head. “The normal rules have been suspended in that region. For all I know, the cloud might not actually be cloud. It might be something else.”

“Like what?”

“An illusion of some kind, perhaps. The Gods are very good at illusions.”

“Are they looking for us? The Grolims, I mean.”

Belgarath nodded.

“Are you taking steps to keep them from finding us?”

“Naturally.” The old man looked at him. “Why this sudden urge for conversation? You’ve been talking steadily for the last hour.”

“I’m a little edgy,” Silk admitted. “This is unfamiliar territory, and that always makes me nervous. I’m much more comfortable when I’ve got my escape routes worked out in advance.”

“Are you always ready to run?”

“In my profession you have to be. What was that?”

Garion heard it too. Faintly, somewhere far off behind them, there was a deep-toned baying—one animal at first, but soon joined by several others. “Wolves?” he suggested.

Belgarath’s face had grown bleak. “No,” he replied, “not wolves.” He shook his reins, and his nervous horse began to trot, the sound of its hoofs muffled by the rotting loam lying thick beneath the aspens.

“What is it then, Grandfather?” Garion asked, also pushing his horse into a trot.

“Torak’s Hounds,” Belgarath replied tersely.

“Dogs?”

“Not really. They’re Grolims—rather specialized ones. When the Angaraks built the city, Torak decided that he needed something to guard the surrounding countryside. Certain Grolims volunteered to take on nonhuman shapes. The change was permanent.”

“I’ve dealt with watchdogs before,” Silk said confidently.

“Not like these. Let’s see if we can outrun them.” Belgarath didn’t sound very hopeful.

They pushed their horses into a gallop, weaving in and out among the tree trunks. The limbs slapped against their faces as they rode, and Garion raised his arm to ward them off as the three of them plunged on.

They crested a low ridge and galloped down the far side. The baying behind them seemed to be closer now.

Then Silk’s horse stumbled, and the little man was almost thrown from his saddle.

“This isn’t working, Belgarath,” he said as the old man and Garion reined in. “This ground’s too treacherous for us to keep this pace.”

Belgarath held up his hand and listened for a moment. The deep-toned baying was definitely closer.

“They’re outrunning us anyway,” the old man agreed.

“You’d better think of something,” Silk said, looking back nervously.

“I’m working on it.” Belgarath raised his face to sniff at the air. “Let’s keep going. I just got a whiff of stagnant water. The area’s dotted with swampy places. We might be able to hide our scent if we can get into a big enough patch of water.”

They moved on down the slope toward the bottom of the valley. The odor of standing water grew steadily stronger as they rode.

“Just ahead.” Garion pointed toward a patch of brown water intermittently visible among the white tree trunks.

The swamp was quite extensive, a broad patch of reeking, oily water trapped in the bottom of a thickly grown basin. Dead trees thrust up out of the water, their leafless branches seeming almost tike clawed hands reaching up in mute supplication to the indifferent sky.

Silk wrinkled his nose. “It stinks bad enough to hide our scent from almost anything,” he said.

“We’ll see,” Belgarath replied. “This would probably throw off an ordinary dog, but don’t forget that the Hounds are really Grolims. They have the ability to reason, so they won’t be relying on scent alone.”

They pushed their reluctant horses into the murky water and began to splash along, changing direction frequently, weaving in and out among the dead tree trunks. Their horses’ hoofs stirred up rotting vegetation from the bottom, filling the air with an even more powerful stench.

The sound of the baying Hounds drew closer, filled now with an excitement and a terrible hunger.

“I think they’ve hit the edge of the swamp,” Silk said, cocking his head to listen.

There was a momentary bafflement in the baying behind them.

“Grandfather!” Garion cried, reining in sharply.

Directly before them, knee-deep in the brown water stood a slavering black dog-shape. It was enormous—fully as large as a horse, and its eyes actually burned with a malevolent green fire. Its front shoulders and chest were massive, and the fangs protruding from its mouth were at least a foot long, curving down cruelly and dripping foam.

“We have you now,” it growled, seeming almost to chew on the words as it twisted its muzzle into speech. The voice issuing from its mouth was a rasping, tearing sound.

Silk’s hand instantly flashed toward one of his hidden daggers.

“Never mind,” Belgarath told him. “It’s only a projection—a shadow.”

“It can do that?” Silk’s tone was startled.

“I told you that they’re Grolims.”

“We hunger,” the fiery-eyed Hound rumbled. “I will return soon with my pack-mates, and we will feed on man-meat.” Then the shape flickered and vanished.

“They know where we are now.” Silk’s voice was alarmed. “You’d better do something, Belgarath. Can’t you use sorcery?”

“That would just pinpoint our location. There are other things out there as well as the Hounds.”

“I’d say we’ll have to chance it. Let’s worry about one thing at a time. Did you see those teeth?”

“They’re coming,” Garion said tensely. From far back in the sway he could clearly hear the sound of splashing.

“Do something, Belgarath!”

The sky overhead had grown darker, and the air seemed suddenly oppressively heavy. From far off there was an angry mutter of thunder. A vast sigh seemed to pass through the forest.

“Keep going,” Belgarath said, and they splashed off through the slimy brown water toward the far side of the swamp. The aspen trees on the solid ground ahead of them quite suddenly turned the silvery undersides of their leaves upward, and it was almost as if a great, pale wave had shuddered through the forest.

The Hounds were very close now, and their baying was triumphant as they plunged through the oily, reeking swamp.

And then there was a brilliant blue-white flash, and a shattering clap of thunder. The sky ripped open above them. With a sound nearly as loud as the thunder, they were engulfed in a sudden deluge. The wind howled, ripping away the aspen leaves in great sheets and whirling them through the air. The rain drove horizontally before the sudden gale, churning the swamp to froth and obliterating everything more than a few feet away.

“Did you do this?” Silk shouted at Belgarath.

But Belgarath’s stunned face clearly said that the storm was as much a surprise to him as to Silk. They both turned to look at Garion.

“Did you do it?” Belgarath demanded.

“He didn’t. I did.” The voice which came from Garion’s mouth was not his. “I’ve labored too long at this to be thwarted by a pack of dogs.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Belgarath marveled, wiping at his streaming face. “Not even a whisper.”

“You were listening at the wrong time,” the voice of Garion’s inner companion replied. “I set it in motion early last spring. It’s just now getting here.”

“You knew we’d need it?”

“Obviously. Turn east. The Hounds won’t be able to track you in all this. Swing around and come at the city from the east side. There are fewer watchers on that flank.”

The downpour continued, punctuated by ripping claps of thunder and flashes of lightning.

“How long will the rain last?” Belgarath shouted over the noise.

“Long enough. It’s been building in the Sea of the East for a week. It hit the coast this morning. Turn east.”

“Can we talk as we ride?” Belgarath asked. “I have a great many questions.”

“This is hardly the time for discussion, Belgarath. You have to hurry. The others arrived at Cthol Mishrak this morning, just ahead of the storm. Everything’s ready there, so move.”

“It’s going to be tonight?”

“It will, if you get there in time. Torak’s almost awake now. I think you’d better be there when he opens his eyes.”

Belgarath wiped his streaming face again, and his eyes had a worried look. “Let’s go,” he said sharply and he led them splashing off through the driving rain to solid ground.

The rain continued for several hours, driven before a screaming wind. Sodden, miserable, and half blinded by flying leaves and twigs, the three of them cantered toward the east. The baying of the Hounds trapped in the swamp faded behind them, taking on a baffled, frustrated note as the thunderous deluge obliterated all scents from the swamp and the forest.

When night fell, they had reached a low range of hills far to the east, and the rain had subsided into a steady, unpleasant drizzle, punctuated by periodic squalls of chilly, gusting wind and erratic downpours that swept in randomly off the Sea of the East.

“Are you sure you know the way?” Silk asked Belgarath.

“I can find it,” Belgarath said grimly. “Cthol Mishrak’s got a peculiar smell to it.”

The rain slackened into a few scattered droplets pattering on the leaves overhead and died out entirely by the time they reached the edge of the wood. The smell of which Belgarath had spoken was not a sharp reek, but rather was a muted, dank compound of odors. Damp rust seemed to be a major part of it, although the reek of stagnant water was also present, and the musty scent of fungus. The overall effect was one of decay. When they reached the last of the trees, Belgarath reined in.

“Well, there it is,” he said in a quiet voice.

The basin before them was faintly illuminated by a kind of pale, sickly radiance that seemed to emanate from the ground itself, and in the center of that large depression reared the jagged, broken remains of the city.

“What’s that strange light?” Garion whispered tensely.

Belgarath grunted. “Phosphorescence. It comes from the fungus that grows everywhere out there. The sun never shines on Cthol Mishrak, so it’s a natural breeding ground for unwholesome things that grow in the dark. We’ll leave the horses here.” He dismounted.

“Is that a very good idea?” Silk asked him as he too swung down from his saddle. “We might want to leave in a hurry.” The little man was still wet and shivering.

“No,” Belgarath said calmly. “If things go well, nothing in the city’s going to be interested in giving us any trouble. If things don’t go well, it’s not going to matter anyway.”

“I don’t like unalterable commitments,” Silk muttered sourly.

“You picked the wrong journey, then,” Belgarath replied. “What we’re about to do is just about as unalterable as things ever get. Once we start, there won’t be any possible way to turn back.”

“I still don’t have to like it, do I? What now?”

“Garion and I are going to change into something a bit less conspicuous. You’re an expert at moving about in the dark without being seen or heard, but we aren’t that skilled at it.”

“You’re going to use sorcery—this close to Torak?” Silk asked him incredulously.

“We’re going to be very quiet about it,” Belgarath assured him. “A shape-change is directed almost entirely inward, so there isn’t that much noise involved anyway.” He turned to Garion. “We’re going to do it slowly,” he said. “That spreads out what little sound there is and makes it even fainter. Do you understand?”

“I think so, Grandfather.”

“I’ll go first. Watch me.” The old man glanced at their horses. “Let’s move away a bit. Horses are afraid of wolves. We don’t want them to get hysterical and start crashing around.”

They crept along the edge of the trees until they were some distance from the horses.

“This ought to be far enough,” Belgarath said. “Now watch.” He concentrated for a moment, and then his form began to shimmer and blur. The change-over was very gradual, and for several moments his face and the wolf’s face seemed to coexist in the same place. The sound it made was only the faintest of whispers. Then it was done, and the great silver wolf sat on his haunches.

“Now you do it,” he told Garion with the slight change of expression that is so much a part of the speech of wolves.

Garion concentrated very hard, holding the shape firmly in his mind. He did it so slowly that it seemed that he could actually feel the fur growing on his body.

Silk had been rubbing dirt on his face and hands to reduce the visibility of his skin. He looked at the two wolves, his eyes questioning. Belgarath nodded once and led the way out onto the bare earth of the basin that sloped down toward the rotting ruins of Cthol Mishrak. There were other shapes moving in the faint light, prowling, snuffling. Some of the shapes had a dog smell to them; others smelled faintly reptilian. Grolims, robed and cowled, stood watch on various hummocks and rocks, searching the darkness with their eyes and their minds for intruders.

The earth beneath Garion’s paws felt dead. There was no growth, no life on this wasted heath. With Silk crouched low between them, the two wolves crept, belly low, toward the ruin, taking full advantage of rocky outcrops and eroded gullies. Their pace seemed excruciatingly slow to Garion, but Belgarath paid little attention to the passage of time. Occasionally, when they passed near one of the watching Grolims, they moved but one paw at a time. The minutes dragged by as they crept closer and closer to the broken City of Night.

Near the shattered wall, two of the hooded priests of Torak stood in quiet conversation. Their muted voices fell clearly upon Garion’s intensely sharpened ears.

“The Hounds seem nervous tonight,” one of them said.

“The storm,” the other replied. “Bad weather always makes them edgy.”

“I wonder what it’s like to be a Hound,” the first Grolim mused.

“If you like, perhaps they’ll let you join them.”

“I don’t think I’m that curious.”

Silk and the two wolves, moving as silently as smoke, passed no more than ten yards from the two idly chatting guards, and crept over the fallen stones into the dead City of Night. Once among the ruins, they were able to move faster. The shadows concealed their movements, and they flitted among the blasted stones in Belgarath’s wake, moving steadily toward the center of the city where the stump of the iron tower now reared stark and black toward the murky sky.

The reek of rust, stagnation, and decay was much stronger, coming to Garion’s wolf sharp nose in almost overpowering waves. It was a gagging smell, and he clamped his muzzle shut and tried not to think about it.

“Who’s there?” a voice came sharply from just ahead of them. A Grolim with a drawn sword stepped out into the rubble-strewn street, peering intently into the deep shadows where the three crouched, frozen into immobility. Garion sensed rather than heard or saw Silk’s slow, deliberate reach toward the dagger sheathed at the back of his neck. Then the little man’s arm swung sharply down, and his knife made a fluttering whistle as it sped with deadly accuracy, turning end for end as it flew.

The Grolim grunted, doubling over sharply, then he sighed and toppled forward, his sword clanging as it fell.

“Let’s move!” Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on the stones.

Garion smelled fresh blood as he loped past, and the smell brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth.

They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that had been the iron tower and crept silently through the open doorway into the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped, sniffing nervously at the tainted air, feeling his hackles rising on his ruffed neck. With an effort, he suppressed the low growl that rose involuntarily in his throat.

He felt Belgarath’s shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided now by scent alone in the utter blackness. At the far end of the huge, empty, iron room there was another doorway.

Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his own will and let himself gradually flow back into his own form.

Silk was breathing a string of colorful curses, fervent but almost inaudible.

“What’s the matter?” Belgarath whispered.

“I forgot to stop for my knife,” Silk replied, grating his teeth together. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“What now, Grandfather?” Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.

“Just beyond this door, there’s a flight of stairs leading down.”

“What’s at the bottom?”

“A cellar. It’s a sort of tomb where Zedar’s got Torak’s body. Shall we go down?”

Garion sighed, then squared his shoulders. “I guess that’s what we came for,” he replied.

22

“You don’t actually believe I’ll accept that, do you, Zedar?” Garion froze in the act of putting his hand on the iron door at the foot of the stairs. “You can’t evade your responsibility with the pretence of necessity,” the voice beyond the door continued.

“Aren’t we all driven by necessity, Polgara?” a stranger’s voice replied with a kind of weary sadness. “I won’t say that I was blameless, but wasn’t my apostacy predestined? The universe has been divided against itself since the beginning of time, and now the two Prophecies rush toward each other for their final meeting when all will be resolved. Who can say that what I have done was not essential to that meeting?”

“That’s an evasion, Zedar,” Aunt Pol told him.

“What’s she doing here?” Garion whispered to Belgarath.

“She’s supposed to be here,” Belgarath whispered back with an odd note of satisfaction. “Listen.”

“I don’t think we’ll gain anything by wrangling with each other, Polgara,” Zedar the Apostate was saying. “We each believe that what we did was right. Neither of us could ever persuade the other to change sides at this point. Why don’t we just let it go at that?”

“Very well, Zedar,” Aunt Pol replied coolly.

“What now?” Silk breathed.

“There should be others in there, too,” Belgarath answered softly. “Let’s make sure before we go bursting in.”

The iron door in front of them did not fit tightly, and faint light seeped through the cracks around the frame. Garion could make out Belgarath’s intent face in that dim light.

“How’s your father?” Zedar asked in a neutral tone.

“About the same as always. He’s very angry with you, you know.”

“That was to be expected, I suppose.”

“He’s finished eating, Lady Polgara,” Garion heard Ce’Nedra say. He looked sharply at Belgarath, but the old man put one finger to his lips.

“Spread one of those pallets out for him, dear,” Aunt Pol instructed, “and cover him with some blankets. It’s very late, and he’s sleepy.”

“I’ll do that,” Durnik offered.

“Good,” Belgarath breathed. “They’re all here.”

“How did they get here?” Silk whispered.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, and I’m not going to worry about it. The important thing is that they’re here.”

“I’m glad you were able to rescue him from Ctuchik,” Zedar said. “I grew rather fond of him during the years we spent together.”

“Where did you find him?” Aunt Pol asked. “We’ve never been able to pin down what country he’s from.”

“I forgot precisely,” Zedar answered, and his voice was faintly troubled. “Perhaps it was Camaar or Tol Honeth or maybe some city on the other side of Mallorea. The details keep slipping away from me almost as if I weren’t supposed to examine them too closely.”

“Try to remember,” she said. “It might be important.”

Zedar sighed. “If it amuses you,” he said. He paused as if thinking. “I’d grown restless for some reason,” he began. “It was—oh, fifty or sixty years ago. My studies no longer interested me, and the bickering of the various Grolim factions began to irritate me. I took to wandering about—not really paying much attention to where I was. I must have crossed and crisscrossed the Kingdoms of the West and the Angarak Kingdoms a half dozen times in those years.

“Anyway, I was passing through some city somewhere when the idea struck me all at once. We all know that the Orb will destroy anyone who touches it with the slightest trace of evil in his heart, but what would it do to someone who touched it in total innocence? I was stunned by the simplicity of the idea. The street I was on was full of people, and I needed quiet to consider this remarkable idea, so I turned a corner into some forgotten alley, and there the child was—almost as if he’d been waiting for me. He seemed to be about two years old at the time—old enough to walk and not much more. I held out my hand to him and said, ‘I have a little errand for you, my boy.’ He came to me and repeated the word, ‘Errand.’ It’s the only word I’ve ever heard him say.”

“What did the Orb do when he first touched it?” Aunt Pol asked him. “It flickered. In some peculiar way it seemed to recognize him, and something seemed to pass between them when he laid his hand on it.” He sighed. “No, Polgara, I don’t know who the child is—or even what he is. For all I know, he may even be an illusion. The idea to use him in the first place came to me so suddenly that I sometimes wonder if perhaps it was placed in my mind. It’s entirely possible, I suppose, that I didn’t find him, but that he found me.” He fell silent again.

There was a long pause on the other side of the iron door.

“Why, Zedar?” Aunt Pol asked him very quietly. “Why did you betray our Master?” Her voice was strangely compassionate.

“To save the Orb,” he replied sadly. “At least, at first that was the idea. From the moment I first saw it, it owned me. After Torak took it from our Master, Belgarath and the others began making their plans to regain it by force, but I knew that if Aldur himself did not join his hand with theirs to strike directly at Torak, they would fail—and Aldur would not do that. I reasoned that if force must fail, then guile might succeed. I thought that by pretending allegiance to Torak, I might gain his confidence and steal it back from him.”

“What happened, Zedar?” Her question was very direct. There was another long, painful pause.

“Oh, Polgara!” Zedar’s voice came in a strangled sob. “You cannot know! I was so sure of myself—so certain that I could keep a part of my mind free from Torak’s domination—but I was wrong—wrong! His mind and will overwhelm me. He took me in his hand and he crushed out all of my resistance. The touch of his hand, Polgara!” There was horror in Zedar’s voice. “It reaches down into the very depths of your soul. I know Torak for what he is—loathsome, twisted, evil beyond your understanding of the word—but when he calls me, I must go; and what he bids me do, I must do—even though my soul shrieks within me against it. Even now, as he sleeps, his fist is around my heart.” There was another hoarse sob.

“Didn’t you know that it’s impossible to resist a God?” Aunt Pol asked in that same compassionate voice. “Was it pride, Zedar? Were you so sure of your power that you thought you could trick him—that you could conceal your intention from him?”

Zedar sighed. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “Aldur was a gentle Master. He never brought his mind down on me, so I was not prepared for what Torak did to me. Torak is not gentle. What he wants, he takes—and if he must rip out your soul in the taking, it does not matter to him in the slightest. You’ll discover his power, Polgara. Soon he’ll awaken and he’ll destroy Belgarion. Not even the Rivan King is a match for that awful mind. And then Torak will take you as his bride—as he has always said he would. Don’t resist him, Polgara. Save yourself that agony. In the end, you’ll go to him anyway. You’ll go willingly—even eagerly.”

There was a sudden scraping sound in the room beyond the iron door, and a quick rush of feet.

“Durnik!” Aunt Pol cried sharply. “No!”

“What’s happening?” Garion demanded of Belgarath.

“That’s what it means!” Belgarath gasped. “Get that door open!”

“Get back, you fool!” Zedar was shouting.

There was a sudden crash, the sound of bodies locked in struggle smashing into furniture.

“I warn you,” Zedar cried again. “Get back!”

There was the sharp sound of a blow, of a fist striking solid bone.

“Zedar!” Belgarath roared, yanking at the iron door.

Then within the room there was a thunderous detonation.

“Durnik!” Aunt Pol shrieked.

In a sudden burst of fury, Belgarath raised his clenched hand, joined his flaming will with his arm and drove his fist at the locked door. The massive force of his blow ripped the iron door from its hinges as if it had been no more than paper.

The room beyond had a vaulted, curved ceiling supported by great iron girders, black with age. Garion seemed to see everything in the room at once with a curious kind of detachment, as if all emotion had been drained from him. He saw Ce’Nedra and Errand clinging to each other in fright beside one wall. Aunt Pol was standing as if locked in place, her eyes wide as she stared in stunned disbelief at the still form of Durnik the smith, who lay crumpled on the floor, and whose face had that deadly pale cast to it that could only mean one thing. A terrible flood of realization suddenly swept her face—a realization of an irrevocable loss.

“No!” she cried out. “My Durnik—No!”

She rushed to the fallen man, fell on her knees beside him and gathered his still form into her arms with a heartbroken wail of grief and despair.

And then Garion saw Zedar the Apostate for the first time. The sorcerer was also staring at Durnik’s body. There was a desperate regret on his face—a knowledge that he had finally committed the one act that forever put him past all hope of redemption.

“You fool,” he muttered. “Why? Why did you make me kill you? That’s the one thing above all others I didn’t want to do.”

Then Belgarath, as inexorable as death itself, lunged through the shattered remains of the door and rushed upon the man he had once called brother.

Zedar flinched back from the old sorcerer’s awful rage.

“I didn’t mean to do it, Belgarath,” he quavered, his hands raised to ward off Belgarath’s rush. “The fool tried to attack me. He was—”

“You—” Belgarath grated at him from between teeth clenched with hate. “You—you—” But he was past speech. No word could contain his rage. He raised both arms and struck at Zedar’s face with his fists. Zedar reeled back, but Belgarath was upon him, grappling, pounding at him with his hands.

Garion could feel flickers of will from one or the other of them; but caught up in emotions so powerful that they erased thought, neither was coherent enough to focus the force within him. And so, like two tavern brawlers, they rolled on the floor, kicking, gouging, pounding at each other, Belgarath consumed with fury and Zedar with fear and chagrin.

Desperately, the Apostate jerked a dagger from the sheath at his waist, and Belgarath seized his wrist in both hands and pounded it on the floor until the knife went skittering away. Then each struggled to reach the dagger, clawing and jerking at each other, their faces frozen into intense grimaces as each strove to reach the dagger first.

At some point during the frenzied seconds when they had burst into the room, Garion had, unthinking, drawn the great sword from its sheath across his back, but the Orb and the blade were cold and unresponsive in his hand as he stood watching the deadly struggle between the two sorcerers.

Belgarath’s hands were locked about Zedar’s throat, and Zedar, strangling, clawed desperately at the old man’s arms. Belgarath’s face was contorted into an animal snarl, his lips drawn back from clenched teeth as he throttled his ancient enemy. As if finally driven past all hope of sanity, he struggled to his feet, dragging Zedar up with him. Holding the Apostate by the throat with one hand, he began to rain blows on him with the other. Then, between one blow and the next, he swung his arm down and pointed at the stones beneath their feet. With a dreadful grinding, a great crack appeared, zigzagging across the floor. The rocks shrieked in protest as the crack widened. Still struggling, the two men toppled and fell into the yawning fissure. The earth seemed to shudder. With a terrible sound, the crack ground shut.

Incredulously, his mouth suddenly agape, Garion stared in stunned disbelief at the scarcely discernible crack through which the two men had fallen.

Ce’Nedra screamed, her hands going to her face in horror.

“Do something!” Silk shouted at Garion, but Garion could only stare at him in blank incomprehension.

“Polgara!” Silk said desperately, turning to Aunt Pol.

Still incapacitated by her sudden, overwhelming grief, she could not respond, but knelt with Durnik’s lifeless body in her arms, weeping uncontrollably as she rocked back and forth, holding him tightly against her.

From infinitely far beneath there was a sullen detonation, and then another. Even in the bowels of the earth, the deadly struggle continued. As if compelled, Garion’s eyes sought out the embrasure in the far wall; there in the dim light he could make out the recumbent form of Kal Torak. Strangely emotionless, Garion stared at the form of his enemy, meticulously noting every detail. He saw the black robe and the polished mask. And he saw Cthrek Goru, Torak’s great black sword.

Although he did not—could not—move or even feel, a struggle, nonetheless, raged inside him—a struggle perhaps even more dreadful than that which had just plunged Belgarath and Zedar into the depths of the earth. The two forces which had first diverged and then turned and rushed at each other down the endless corridors of time had finally met within him. The EVENT which was the ultimate conclusion of the two Prophecies, had begun, and its first skirmishes were taking place within Garion’s mind. Minute and very subtle adjustments were shifting some of his most deeply ingrained attitudes and perceptions.

Torak moved, stirring restlessly, as those same two forces met within him.

Dreadful flashes of the sleeping God’s mind assailed Garion, and he saw clearly the terrible subterfuge that lay behind Torak’s offer of friendship and love. Had his fear of their duel drawn him into yielding, fully half of creation would have shimmered and vanished. More than that, what Torak had offered was not love but an enslavement so vile that it was beyond imagining.

But he had not yielded. He had somehow evaded the overwhelming force of Torak’s mind and had placed himself utterly in the hands of the Prophecy that had drawn him here. With an absolute denial of self, he had become the instrument of the Prophecy. He was no longer afraid. Sword in hand, the Child of Light awaited the moment when the Prophecy would release him to join in deadly struggle with the Dark God.

Then, even as Silk desperately tried to arouse either Garion or Polgara to action, the stones of the floor buckled upward, and Belgarath rose from the earth.

Garion, still abstracted and bemused, saw that all traces of the sometimes foolish old man he had known before were gone. The thieving old storyteller had vanished. Even the irritable old man who had led the quest for the Orb no longer existed. In their place stood the form of Belgarath the sorcerer, the Eternal Man, shimmering in the aura of his full power.

23

“Where is Zedar?” Aunt Pol asked, raising her tear-streaked face from Durnik’s lifeless body to stare with a dreadful intensity at her father.

“I left him down there,” Belgarath replied bleakly.

“Dead?”

“No.”

“Bring him back.”

“Why?”

“To face me.” Her eyes burned.

The old man shook his head. “No, Pol,” he said to her. “You’ve never killed anyone. Let’s leave it that way.”

She gently lowered Durnik’s body to the floor and rose to her feet, her pale face twisted with grief and an awful need. “Then I will go to him,” she declared, raising both arms as if to strike at the earth beneath her feet.

“No,” Belgarath told her, extending his own hand, “you will not.”

They stood facing each other, locked in a dreadful, silent struggle. Aunt Pol’s look at first was one of annoyance at her father’s interference. She raised one arm again to bring the force of her will crashing down at the earth, but once again Belgarath put forth his hand.

“Let me go, father.”

“No.”

She redoubled her efforts, twisting as if trying to free herself from his unseen restraint. “Let me go, old man,” she cried.

“No. Don’t do this, Pol. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She tried again, more desperately this time, but once again Belgarath smothered her will with his. His face hardened, and he set his jaw.

In a last effort, she flung the whole force of her mind against the barrier he had erected. Like some great rock, however, the old man remained firm. Finally her shoulders slumped, and she turned, knelt beside Durnik’s body, and began to weep again.

“I’m sorry, Pol,” he said gently. “I never wanted to have to do that. Are you all right?”

“How can you ask that?” she demanded brokenly, wringing her hands over Durnik’s silent body.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She turned her back on him and buried her face in her hands.

“I don’t think you could have reached him anyway, Pol,” the old man told her. “You know as well as I that what one of us does, another cannot undo.”

Silk, his ferretlike face shocked, spoke in a hushed voice. “What did you do to him?”

“I took him down until we came to solid rock. And then I sealed him up in it.”

“Can’t he just come up out of the earth the way you did?”

“No. That’s impossible for him now. Sorcery is thought, and no man can exactly duplicate the thought of another. Zedar’s imprisoned inside the rock forever—or until I choose to free him.” The old man looked mournfully at Durnik’s body. “And I don’t think I’ll choose to do that.”

“He’ll die, won’t he?” Silk asked.

Belgarath shook his head. “No. That was part of what I did to him. He’ll lie inside the rock until the end of days.”

“That’s monstrous, Belgarath,” Silk said in a sick voice.

“So was that,” Belgarath replied grimly, pointing at Durnik.

Garion could hear what they were saying and could see them all quite clearly, but it seemed somehow that they were actually someplace else. The others in the underground crypt seemed to be on the periphery of his attention. For him there was only one other in the vaulted chamber, and that other was Kal Torak, his enemy.

The restless stirring of the drowsing God became more evident. Garion’s peculiarly multiple awareness—in part his own, in part derived from the Orb, and as ever overlaid by the consciousness which he had always called the dry voice in his mind—perceived in that stirring the pain that lay beneath the maimed God’s movements. Torak was actually writhing as he half slept. An injured man would heal in time, and his pain would gradually diminish and ultimately disappear, because injury was a part of the human condition. A man was born to be hurt from time to time, and the mechanism for recovery was born with him. A God, on the other hand, was invulnerable, and he had no need for the ability to heal. Thus it was with Torak. The fire which the Orb had loosed upon him when he had used it to crack the world still seared his flesh, and his pain had not diminished in the slightest down through all the endless centuries since his maiming. Behind that steel mask, the flesh of the Dragon-God’s face still smoked, and his burned eye still boiled endlessly in its socket. Garion shuddered, almost pitying that perpetual agony.

The child, Errand, pulled himself free from Ce’Nedra’s trembling arms and crossed the flagstone floor of the tomb, his small face intent. He stopped, bent and put his hand on Durnik’s shoulder. Gently he shook the dead man as if trying to wake him. His little face became puzzled when the smith did not respond. He shook again, a bit harder, his eyes uncomprehending.

“Errand,” Ce’Nedra called to him, her voice breaking, “come back. There’s nothing we can do.”

Errand looked at her, then back at Durnik. Then he gently patted the smith’s shoulder with a peculiar little gesture, sighed, and went back to the princess. She caught him suddenly in her arms and began to weep, burying her face against his small body. Once again with that same curious little gesture, he patted her flaming hair.

Then from the alcove in the far wall there came a long, rasping sigh, a shuddering expiration of breath. Garion looked sharply toward the alcove, his hand tightening on the hilt of his cold sword. Torak had turned his head, and his eyes were open. The hideous fire burned in the eye that was not as the God came awake.

Belgarath drew in his breath in a sharp hiss as Torak raised the charred stump of his left hand as if to brush away the last of his sleep, even as his right hand groped for the massive hilt of Cthrek Goru, his black sword. “Garion!” Belgarath said sharply.

But Garion, still locked in stasis by the forces focusing upon him, could only stare at the awakening God. A part of him struggled to shake free, and his hand trembled as he fought to lift his sword.

“Not yet,” the voice whispered.

“Garion!” Belgarath actually shouted this time. Then, in a move seemingly born of desperation, the old sorcerer lunged past the bemused young man to fling himself upon the still recumbent form of the Dark God.

Torak’s hand released the hilt of his sword and almost contemptuously grasped the front of Belgarath’s tunic, lifting the struggling old man from him as one might lift a child. The steel mask twisted into an ugly sneer as the God held the helpless sorcerer out from him. Then, like a great wind, the force of Torak’s mind struck, hurling Belgarath across the room, ripping away the front of his tunic. Something glittered across Torak’s knuckles, and Garion realized that it was the silver chain of Belgarath’s amulet—the polished medallion of the standing wolf. In a very peculiar way the medallion had always been the center of Belgarath’s power, and now it lay in the grip of his ancient enemy.

With a dreadfully slow deliberation, the Dark God rose from his bier, towering over all of them, Cthrek Goru in his hand.

“Garion!” Ce’Nedra screamed. “Do something!”

With deadly pace Torak strode toward the dazed Belgarath, raising his sword. But Aunt Pol sprang to her feet and threw herself between them.

Slowly Torak lowered his sword, and then he smiled a loathsome smile. “My bride,” he rasped in a horrid voice.

“Never, Torak,” she declared.

He ignored her defiance. “Thou hast come to me at last, Polgara,” he gloated.

“I have come to watch you die.”

“Die, Polgara? Me? No, my bride, that is not why thou hast come. My will has drawn thee to me as was foretold. And now thou art mine. Come to me, my beloved.”

“Never!”

“Never, Polgara?” There was a dreadful insinuation in the God’s rasping voice. “Thou wilt submit to me, my bride. I will bend thee to my will. Thy struggles shall but make my victory over thee the sweeter. In the end, I will have thee. Come here.”

So overwhelming was the force of his mind that she swayed almost as a tree sways in the grip of a great wind. “No,” she gasped, closing her eyes and turning her face away sharply.

“Look at me, Polgara,” he commanded, his voice almost purring. “I am thy fate. All that thou didst think to love before me shall fall away, and thou shall love only me. Look at me.”

Helplessly she turned her head and opened her eyes to stare at him. The hatred and defiance seemed to melt out of her, and a terrible fear came into her face.

“Thy will crumbles, my beloved,” he told her. “Now come to me.”

She must resist! All the confusion was gone now, and Garion understood at last. This was the real battle. If Aunt Pol succumbed, they were all lost. It had all been for this.

“Help her,” the voice within him said.

“Aunt Poll” Garion threw the thought at her, “Remember Durnik!”

He knew without knowing how he knew that this was the one thing that could sustain her in her deadly struggle. He ranged through his memory, throwing images of Durnik at her—of the smith’s strong hands at work at his forge—of his serious eyes—of the quiet sound of his voice—and most of all of the good man’s unspoken love for her, the love that had been the center of Durnik’s entire life.

She had begun involuntarily to move, no more than a slight shifting of her weight in preparation for that first fatal step in response to Torak’s overpowering command. Once she had made that step, she would be lost. But Garion’s memories of Durnik struck her like a blow. Her shoulders, which had already begun to droop in defeat, suddenly straightened, and her eyes flashed with renewed defiance.

“Never!” she told the expectantly waiting God. “I will not!”

Torak’s face slowly stiffened. His eyes blazed as he brought the full, crushing force of his will to bear upon her, but she stood firmly against all that he could do, clinging to the memory of Durnik as if to something so solid that not even the will of the Dark God could tear her from it.

A look of baffled frustration contorted Torak’s face as he perceived that she would never yield—that her love would be forever denied to him. She had won, and her victory was like a knife twisting slowly inside him. Thwarted, enraged, maddened by her now-unalterable will to resist, Torak raised his face and suddenly howled—a shocking, animallike sound of overwhelming frustration.

“Then perish both!” he raged. “Die with thy father!”

And with that, he once more raised his deadly sword.

Unflinching, Aunt Pol faced the raging God.

“Now, Belgarion!” The voice cracked in Garion’s mind.

The Orb, which had remained cold and dead throughout all the dreadful confrontation between Aunt Pol and the maimed God, suddenly flared into life, and the sword of the Rivan King exploded into fire, filling the crypt with an intense blue light. Garion leaped forward, extending his sword to catch the deadly blow which was already descending upon Aunt Pol’s unprotected face.

The steel sound of blade against blade was like the striking of a great bell, and it rang within the crypt, shimmering and echoing from the walls. Torak’s sword, deflected by the flaming blade, plowed a shower of sparks from the flagstone floor. The God’s single eye widened as he recognized all in one glance the Rivan King, the flaming sword and the blazing Orb of Aldur. Garion saw in the look that Torak had already forgotten Aunt Pol and that now the maimed God’s full attention was focused on him.

“And so thou hast come at last, Belgarion,” the God greeted him gravely. “I have awaited thy coming since the beginning of days. Thy fate awaits thee here. Hail, Belgarion, and farewell.”

His arm lashed back, and he swung a vast blow, but Garion, without even thinking, raised his own sword and once again the crypt rang with the bell note of blade against blade.

“Thou art but a boy, Belgarion,” Torak said. “Wilt thou pit thyself against the might and invincible will of a God? Submit to me, and I will spare thy life.”

The will of the God of Angarak was now directed at him, and in that instant, Garion fully understood how hard Aunt Pol’s struggle had been. He felt the terrible compulsion to obey draining the strength from him. But suddenly a vast chorus of voices rang down through all the centuries to him, crying out the single word, “No!” All the lives of all who preceded him had been directed at this one moment, and those lives infused him now. Though he alone held Iron-grip’s sword, Belgarion of Riva was not alone, and Torak’s will could not sway him.

In a move of absolute defiance, Garion again raised his flaming sword.

“So be it, then,” Torak roared. “To the death, Belgarion!”

At first it seemed but some trick of the flickering light that filled the tomb, but almost as soon as that thought occurred, Garion saw that Torak was growing larger, swelling upward, towering, expanding. With an awful wrenching sound, he shouldered aside the rusted iron roof of the tomb, bursting upward.

Once again without thinking, without even stopping to consider how to do it, Garion also began to expand, and he too exploded through the confining ceiling, shuddering away the rusty debris as he rose.

In open air among the decaying ruins of the City of Night the two titanic adversaries faced each other beneath the perpetual cloud that blotted out the sky.

“The conditions are met,” the dry voice spoke through Garion’s lips.

“So it would seem,” another, equally unemotional voice came from Torak’s steel-encased mouth.

“Do you wish to involve others?” Garion’s voice asked.

“It hardly seems necessary. These two have sufficient capacity for what must be brought to bear upon them.”

“Then let it be decided here.”

“Agreed.”

And with that Garion felt a sudden release as all constraint was removed from him. Torak, also released, raised Cthrek Goru, his lips drawn back in a snarl of hate.

Their struggle was immense. Rocks shattered beneath the colossal force of deflected blows. The sword of the Rivan King danced in blue flames, and Cthrek Goru, Torak’s blade of shadows, swept a visible darkness with it at every blow. Beyond thought, beyond any emotion but blind hatred, the two swung and parried and lurched through the broken ruins, crushing all beneath them. The elements themselves erupted as the fight continued. The wind shrieked through the rotting city, tearing at the trembling stones. Lightning seethed about them, glaring and flickering. The earth rumbled and shook beneath their massive feet. The featureless cloud that had concealed the City of Night beneath its dark mantle for five millenia began to boil and race above them. Great patches of stars appeared and disappeared in the roiling middle of the surging cloud. The Grolims, both human and nonhuman, aghast at the towering struggle that had suddenly erupted in their very midst, fled shrieking in terror.

Garion’s blows were directed at Torak’s blind side, and the Dark God flinched from the fire of the Orb each time the flaming sword struck, but the shadow of Cthrek Goru put a deathly chill into Garion’s blood each time it passed over him.

They were more evenly matched than Garion had imagined possible. Torak’s advantage of size had been erased when they had both swelled into immensity, and Garion’s inexperience was offset by Torak’s maiming.

It was the uneven ground that betrayed Garion. Retreating before a sudden flurry of massive blows, he felt one heel catch on a heap of tumbled rock, and the rotten stones crumbled and rolled beneath his feet. Despite his scrambling attempt to keep his balance, he fell.

Torak’s single eye blazed in triumph as he raised the dark sword. But, seizing his sword hilt in both hands, Garion raised his burning blade to meet that vast blow. When the swords struck, edge to edge, a huge shower of sparks cascaded down over Garion.

Again Torak raised Cthrek Goru, but a strange hunger flickered across his steel-encased face.

“Yield!” he roared.

Garion stared up at the huge form towering over him, his mind racing.

“I have no wish to kill thee, boy,” Torak said, almost pleading. “Yield and I will spare thy life.”

And then Garion understood. His enemy was not trying to kill him, but was striving instead to force him to submit. Torak’s driving need was for domination! This was where the real struggle between them lay!

“Throw down thy sword, Child of Light, and bow before me,” the God commanded, and the force of his mind was like a crushing weight.

“I will not,” Garion gasped, wrenching away from that awful compulsion. “You may kill me, but I will not yield.”

Torak’s face twisted as if his perpetual agony had been doubled by Garion’s refusal.

“Thou must,” he almost sobbed. “Thou art helpless before me. Submit to me.”

“No!” Garion shouted, and, taking advantage of Torak’s chagrin at that violent rejection, he rolled out from under the shadow of Cthrek Goru and sprang to his feet. Everything was clear now, and he knew at last how he could win.

“Hear me, maimed and despised God,” he grated from between clenched teeth. “You are nothing. Your people fear you, but they do not love you. You tried to deceive me into loving you; you tried to force Aunt Pol to love you; but I refuse you even as she did. You’re a God, but you are nothing. In all the universe there is not one person—not one thing—that loves you. You are alone and empty, and even if you kill me, I will still win. Unloved and despised, you will howl out your miserable life to the end of days.”

Garion’s words struck the maimed God like blows, and the Orb, as if echoing those words, blazed anew, lashing at the Dragon-God with its consuming hatred. This was the EVENT for which the Universe had waited since the beginning of time. This was why Garion had come to this decaying ruin—not to fight Torak, but to reject him.

With an animal howl of anguish and rage, the Child of Dark raised Cthrek Goru above his head and ran at the Rivan King. Garion made no attempt to ward off the blow, but gripped the hilt of his flaming sword in both hands and, extending his blade before him, he lunged at his charging enemy.

It was so easy. The sword of the Rivan King slid into Torak’s chest like a stick into water, and as it ran into the God’s suddenly stiffening body, the power of the Orb surged up the flaring blade.

Torak’s vast hand opened convulsively, and Cthrek Goru tumbled harmlessly from his grip. He opened his mouth to cry out, and blue flame gushed like blood from his mouth. He clawed at his face, ripping away the polished steel mask to reveal the hideously maimed features that had lain beneath. Tears started from his eyes, both the eye that was and the eye that was not, but the tears were also fire, for the sword of the Rivan King buried in his chest filled him with its flame.

He lurched backward. With a steely slither, the sword slid out of his body. But the fire the blade had ignited within him did not go out. He clutched at the gaping wound, and blue flame spurted out between his fingers, spattering in little burning pools among the rotting stones about him.

His maimed face, still streaked with fiery tears, contorted in agony. He lifted that burning face to the heaving sky and raised his vast arms. In mortal anguish, the stricken God cried to heaven, “Mother!” and the sound of his voice echoed from the farthest star.

He stood so for a frozen moment, his arms upraised in supplication, and then he tottered and fell dead at Garion’s feet.

For an instant there was absolute silence. Then a howling cry started at Torak’s dead lips, fading into unimaginable distance as the dark Prophecy fled, taking the inky shadow of Cthrek Goru with it.

Again there was silence. The racing clouds overhead stopped in their mad plunge, and the stars that had appeared among the tatters of that cloud went out. The entire universe shuddered—and stopped. There was a moment of absolute darkness as all light everywhere went out and all motion ceased. In that dreadful instant all that existed—all that had been, all that was, all that was yet to be was wrenched suddenly into the course of one Prophecy. Where there had always been two, there was now but one.

And then, faint at first, the wind began to blow, purging away the rotten stink of the City of Night, and the stars came on again like suddenly reilluminated jewels on the velvety throat of night. As the light returned, Garion stood wearily over the body of the God he had just killed. His sword still flickered blue in his hand, and the Orb exulted in the vaults of his mind. Vaguely he was aware that in that shuddering moment when all light had died, both he and Torak had returned to their normal size, but he was too tired to wonder about it.

From the shattered tomb not far away, Belgarath emerged, shaken and drawn. The broken chain of his medallion dangled from his tightly clenched hand, and he stopped to stare for a moment at Garion and the fallen God.

The wind moaned in the shattered ruins, and somewhere, far off in the night, the Hounds of Torak howled a mournful dirge for their fallen master.

Belgarath straightened his shoulders; then, in a gesture peculiarly like that which Torak had made in the moment of his death, he raised his arms to the sky.

“Master!” he cried out in a huge voice. “It is finished!”

24

It was over, but there was a bitterness in the taste of Garion’s victory. A man did not lightly kill a God, no matter how twisted or evil the God might be. And so Belgarion of Riva stood sadly over the body of his fallen enemy as the wind, smelling faintly of the approaching dawn, washed over the decaying ruins of the City of Night.

“Regrets, Garion?” Belgarath asked quietly, putting his hand on his grandson’s shoulder.

Garion sighed. “No, Grandfather,” he said. “I suppose not—not really. It had to be done, didn’t it?”

Belgarath nodded gravely.

“It’s just that he was so alone at the end. I took everything away from him before I killed him. I’m not very proud of that.”

“As you say, it had to be done. It was the only way you could beat him.”

“I just wish I could have left him something, that’s all.”

From the ruins of the shattered iron tower, a sad little procession emerged. Aunt Pol, Silk, and Ce’Nedra were bringing out the body of Durnik the smith, and walking gravely beside them came Errand.

A pang of almost unbearable grief ran through Garion. Durnik, his oldest friend, was pale and dead, and in that vast internal upheaval that had preceded the duel with Torak, Garion had not even been able to mourn.

“It was necessary, you understand,” Belgarath said sadly.

“Why? Why did Durnik have to die, Grandfather?” Garion’s voice was anguished, and tears stood openly in his eyes.

“Because his death gave your Aunt the will to resist Torak. That’s always been the one flaw in the Prophecy—the possibility that Pol might yield. All Torak needed was one person to love him. It would have made him invincible.”

“What would have happened if she had gone to him?”

“You’d have lost the fight. That’s why Durnik had to die.” The old man sighed regretfully. “I wish it could have been otherwise, but it was inevitable.”

The three who had borne Durnik from the broken tomb gently laid his still form on the ground, and Ce’Nedra sadly joined Belgarath and Garion. Wordlessly, the tiny girl slipped her hand into Garion’s, and the three of them stood, silently watching as Aunt Pol, past tears now, gently straightened Durnik’s arms at his sides and then covered him with her cloak. She sat then upon the earth, took his head into her lap and almost absently stoked his hair, her head bowed over his in her grief.

“I can’t bear it,” Ce’Nedra suddenly sobbed, and she buried her face in Garion’s shoulder and began to weep.

And then there was light where there had been only darkness before. As Garion stared, a single beam of brilliant blue light descended from the broken and tattered cloud rolling overhead. The entire ruin seemed bathed in its intense radiance as the light touched the earth. Like a great, glowing column, the beam of light reached down to the earth from the night sky, was joined by other beams, red and yellow and green and shades Garion could not even name. Like the colors at the foot of a sudden rainbow, the great columns of light stood side by side on the other side of Torak’s fallen body. Then, indistinctly, Garion perceived that a glowing, incandescent figure stood within the center of each column of light. The Gods had returned to mourn the passing of their brother. Garion recognized Aldur, and he could easily identify each of the others. Mara still wept, and dead-eyed Issa seemed to undulate, serpentlike, as he stood within his glowing column of pale green light. Nedra’s face was shrewd, and Chaldan’s proud. Belar, the blondhaired, boyish God of the Alorns had a roguish, impudent look about him, though his face, like those of his brothers, was sad at the death of Torak. The Gods had returned to earth in glowing light and with sound as well. The reeking air of Cthol Mishrak was suddenly alive with that sound as each colored beam of light gave off a different note, the notes joining in a harmony so profound that it seemed the answer to every question that had ever been asked.

And finally, joining the other columns of light, a single, blindingly white beam slowly descended, and within the center of that radiance stood the white-robed form of UL, that strange God whom Garion had seen once in Prolgu.

The figure of Aldur, still embraced in its glowing blue nimbus, approached the ancient God of Ulgo.

“Father,” Aldur said sadly, “our brother, thy son Torak, is slain.”

Shimmering and incandescent, the form of UL, father of the other Gods, moved across the rubble-strewn ground to stand over the silent body of Torak.

“I tried to turn thee from this path, my son,” he said softly, and a single tear coursed its way down his eternal cheek. Then he turned back to Aldur. “Take up the form of thy bother, my son, and place it upon some more suitable resting place. It grieves me to see him lie so low upon the earth.”

Aldur, joined by his brethren, took up the body of Torak and placed it upon a large block of stone lying amid the ancient ruins, and then, standing in a quiet gleaming circle about the bier, they mourned the passing of the God of Angarak.

Unafraid as always, seemingly not even aware that the glowing figures which had descended from the sky were not human, Errand walked quite confidently to the shining form of UL. He reached out his small hand and tugged insistently at the God’s robe.

“Father,” he said.

UL looked down at the small face.

“Father,” Errand repeated, perhaps echoing Aldur, who had, in his use of that name, revealed at last the true identity of the God of Ulgo. “Father,” the little boy said again. Then he turned and pointed at the silent form of Durnik. “Errand!” It was in some strange way more a command than a request.

The face of UL became troubled. “It is not possible, child,” he replied.

“Father,” the little boy insisted, “Errand.”

UL looked inquiringly at Garion, his eyes profoundly unsettled. “The child’s request is serious,” he said gravely, speaking not to Garion but to that other awareness, “and it places an obligation upon me—but it crosses the uncrossable boundary.”

“The boundary must remain intact,” the dry voice replied through Garion’s lips. “Thy sons are passionate, Holy UL, and having once crossed this line, they may be tempted to do so again, and perhaps in one such crossing they may change that which must not be changed. Let us not provide the instrumentality whereby Destiny must once more follow two divergent paths.”

UL sighed.

“Wilt thou and thy sons, however, lend of your power to my instrument so that he may cross the boundary?”

UL looked startled at that.

“Thus will the boundary be protected, and thy obligation shall be met. It can happen in no other way.”

“Let it be as thou wilt,” UL agreed. He turned then and a peculiar look passed between the father of the Gods and his eldest son, Aldur. Aldur, still bathed in blue light, turned from his sad contemplation of his dead brother toward Aunt Pol, who was still bowed over Durnik’s body.

“Be comforted, my daughter,” he told her. “His sacrifice was for thee and for all mankind.”

“That is slight comfort, Master,” she replied, her eyes full of tears. “This was the best of men.”

“All men die, my daughter, the best as well as the worst. In thy life thou halt seen this many times.”

“Yes, Master, but this is different.”

“In what way, beloved Polgara?” Aldur seemed to be pressing her for some reason.

Aunt Pol bit her lip. “Because I loved him, Master,” she replied finally.

The faintest touch of a smile appeared on Aldur’s lips. “Is that so difficult to say, my daughter?”

She could not answer, but bowed again over Durnik’s lifeless form.

“Wouldst thou have us restore this man to thee, my daughter?” Aldur asked then.

Her face came up sharply. “That isn’t possible, Master,” she said. “Please don’t toy with my grief like this.”

“Let us however, consider that it may be possible,” he told her. “Wouldst thou have us restore him?”

“With all my heart, Master.”

“To what end? What task hast thou for this man that demands his restoration?”

She bit her lip again. “To be my husband, Master,” she blurted finally with a trace of defiance in her voice.

“And was that also so very difficult to say? Art thou sure, however, that this love of throe derives not from thy grief, and that once this good man is restored, thy mind might not turn away from him? He is, thou must admit, most ordinary.”

“Durnik has never been ordinary,” she flared with sudden heat. “He is the best and bravest man in the world.”

“I meant him no disrespect, Polgara, but no power loth infuse him. The force of the Will and the Word is not in him.”

“Is that so important, Master?”

“Marriage must be a joining of equals, my daughter. How could this good, brave man be husband to thee, so long as thy power remains?”

She looked at him helplessly.

“Couldst thou, Polgara, limit thyself? Wouldst thou become his equal? With power no more than his?”

She stared at him, hesitated, then blurted the one word, “Yes.”

Garion was shocked—not so much by Aunt Pol’s acceptance but rather by Aldur’s request. Aunt Pol’s power was central to her very being. To remove it from her would leave her with nothing. What would she be without it? How could she even live without it? It was a cruel price to demand, and Garion had believed that Aldur was a kindly God.

“I will accept thy sacrifice, Polgara,” Aldur was saying. “I will speak with my father and my brothers. For good and proper reasons, we have denied ourselves this power, and we must all agree to it before any of us might attempt this violation of the natural order of things.” And he returned to the sorrowful gathering about Torak’s bier.

“How could he do that?” Garion, his arm still about Ce’Nedra, demanded of his grandfather.

“Do what?”

“Ask her to give up her power like that? It will destroy her.”

“She’s much stronger than you think, Garion,” Belgarath assured him, “and Aldur’s reasoning is sound. No marriage could survive that kind of inequality.”

Among the glowing Gods, however, one angry voice was raised. “No!” It was Mara, the weeping God of the Marags, who were no more. “Why should one man be restored when all my slaughtered children still lie cold and dead? Did Aldur hear my pleas? Did he come to my aid when my children died? I will not consent.”

“I hadn’t counted on that,” Belgarath muttered. “I’d better take steps before this goes any further.” He crossed the littered ground and bowed respectfully. “Forgive my intrusion,” he said, “but would my Master’s brother accept a woman of the Marags as a gift in exchange for his aid in restoring Durnik?”

Mara’s tears, which had been perpetual, suddenly stopped, and his face became incredulous. “A Marag woman?” he demanded sharply. “None such exist. I would have known in my heart if one of my children had survived in Maragor.”

“Of a certainty, Lord Mara,” Belgarath agreed quickly. “But what of those few who were carried out of Maragor to dwell in perpetual slavery—”

“Knowest thou of such a one, Belgarath?” Mara asked with a desperate eagerness.

The old man nodded. “We discovered her in the slave pens beneath Rak Cthol, Lord Mara. Her name is Taiba. She is but one, but a race may be restored by such a one as she—particularly if she be watched over by a loving God.”

“Where is Taiba, my daughter?”

“In the care of Relg, the Ulgo,” Belgarath replied. “They seem quite attached to each other,” he added blandly.

Mara looked at him thoughtfully. “A race may not be restored by one,” he said, “even in the care of the most loving God. It requires two.” He turned to UL. “Wilt thou give me this Ulgo, Father?” he asked. “He shall become the sire of my people.”

UL gave Belgarath a rather penetrating look. “Thou knowest that Relg hath another duty to perform,” he said pointedly.

Belgarath’s expression was almost impish. “I’m certain that the Gorim and I can work out the details, Most Holy,” he declared with utmost self confidence.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Belgarath?” Silk asked diffidently, as if not wanting to intrude. “Relg has this little problem, remember?”

Belgarath gave the little man a hard look.

“I just thought I ought to mention it,” Silk said innocently.

Mara looked sharply at them. “What is this?”

“A minor difficulty, Lord Mara,” Belgarath said quickly. “One I’m certain Taiba can overcome. I have the utmost confidence in her in that particular area.”

“I will have the truth of this,” Mara said firmly.

Belgarath sighed and gave Silk another grim look. “Relg is a zealot, Lord Mara,” he explained. “For religious reasons, he avoids certain—ah—forms of human contact.”

“Fatherhood is his destiny,” UL said. “From him will issue a special child. I will explain this to him. He is an obedient man, and he will put aside his aversions for my sake.”

“Then thou wilt give him to me, Father?” Mara asked eagerly.

“He is throe—with but one restriction—of which we will speak later.”

“Let us see this brave Sendar, then,” Mara said, and all traces of his weeping were now gone.

“Belgarion,” the voice in Garion’s mind said.

“What?”

“The restoration of your friend is in your hands now.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Must you always say that? Do you want Durnik’s life restored?”

“Of course, but I can’t do it. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“You did it before. Remember the colt in the cave of the Gods?”

Garion had almost forgotten that.

“You are my instrument, Belgarion. I can keep you from making mistakes—most of the time anyway. Just relax; I’ll show you what to do.” Garion was already moving without conscious volition. He let his arm fall from about Ce’Nedra’s shoulders, and, his sword still in his hand, he walked slowly toward Aunt Pol and Durnik’s body. He looked once into her eyes as she sat with the dead man’s head in her lap, and then he knelt beside the body.

“For me, Garion,” she murmured to him.

“If I can, Aunt Pol,” he said.

Then, without knowing why, he laid the sword of the Rivan King upon the ground and took hold of the Orb at its pommel. With a faint click, the Orb came free in his hand. Errand, smiling now, approached from the other side and also knelt, taking up Durnik’s lifeless hand in his. Holding the Orb in both hands, Garion reached out and put it against the dead man’s chest. He was faintly conscious of the fact that the Gods had gathered about in a circle and that they had reached out their arms, palm to palm, forming an unbroken ring. Within that circle, a great light began to pulsate, and the Orb, as if in answer, glowed between his hands.

The blank wall he had seen once before was there again, still black, impenetrable, and silent. As he had before in the cave of the Gods, Garion pushed tentatively against the substance of death itself, striving to reach through and pull his friend back into the world of the living.

It was different this time. The colt he had brought to life in the cave had never lived except within its mother’s body. Its death had been as tenuous as its life, and it lay but a short distance beyond the barrier. Durnik, however, had been a man full grown, and his death, like his life, was far more profound. With all his strength, Garion pushed. He could feel the enormous force of the combined wills of the Gods joining with his in the silent struggle, but the barrier would not yield.

“Use the Orb!” the voice commanded.

This time Garion focused all the power, his own and that of the Gods upon the round stone between his hands. It flickered, then glowed, then flickered again.

“Help me!” Garion commanded it.

As if suddenly understanding, the Orb flared into a coruscating eruption of colored light. The barrier was weakening.

With an encouraging little smile, Errand reached out and laid one hand upon the blazing Orb.

The barrier broke. Durnik’s chest heaved, and he coughed once. With profoundly respectful expression upon their eternal faces, the Gods stepped back. Aunt Pol cried out in sudden relief and clasped her arms about Durnik, cradling him against her.

“Errand,” the child said to Garion with a peculiar note of satisfaction. Garion stumbled to his feet, exhausted by the struggle and nearly staggering as he moved away.

“Are you all right?” Ce’Nedra demanded of him, even as she ducked her head beneath his arm and firmly pulled it about her tiny shoulders. He nodded, though his knees almost buckled.

“Lean on me,” she told him.

He was about to protest, but she put her hand firmly to his lips. “Don’t argue, Garion,” she told him. “You know that I love you and that you’re going to be leaning on me for the rest of your life anyway, so you might as well get used to the idea.”

“I think my life’s going to be different now, Master,” Belgarath was saying to Aldur. “Pol’s always been there, ready to come when I called her—not always willingly, perhaps—but she always came. Now she’ll have other concerns.” He sighed. “I suppose our children all grow up and get married sometime.”

“This particular pose doth not become thee, my son,” Aldur told him.

Belgarath grinned. “I’ve never been able to slip anything past you, Master,” he said. Then his face grew serious again. “Polgara’s been almost like a son to me,” he told Aldur, “but perhaps it’s time that I let her be a woman. I’ve denied her that for too long.”

“As it seems best to thee, my son,” Aldur said. “And now, I pray thee, go apart a little way and permit us our family grief.” He looked at Torak’s body lying on the bier and then at Garion. “I have but one more task for thee, Belgarion,” he said. “Take the Orb and place it upon my brother’s breast.”

“Yes, Master,” Garion replied immediately. He removed his arm from about Ce’Nedra’s shoulders and walked to the bier, trying not to look at the dead God’s seared and twisted face. He reached out and laid the round blue stone upon the motionless chest of Kal Torak. Then he stepped back. Once again his little princess wormed her way beneath his arm and clasped him about the waist. It was not unpleasant, but he had the brief, irrational thought that things would be awkward if she were going to insist on this close embrace for the rest of their lives.

Once again the Gods formed their circle, and once again the Orb began to glow. Gradually, the seared face started to change, its maiming slowly disappearing. The light surrounding the Gods and the bier grew stronger, and the glow of the Orb became incandescent. The last Garion saw of the face of Torak, it was calm, composed and unmarked. It was a beautiful face, but it was nonetheless still a dead face.

And then the light grew so intense that Garion could no longer look at it. When it subsided, and when Garion looked back at the bier, the Gods and the body of Torak were gone. Only the Orb remained, glowing slightly as it lay on the rough stone.

Errand, once again with that confident look, went to the bier. Standing on his tiptoes, he reached across the block to retrieve the glowing stone. Then he carried it to Garion. “Errand, Belgarion,” he said firmly, handing the Orb back, and in their touch as the Orb exchanged hands, Garion felt something profoundly different.

Drawn together by what had happened, the little group silently gathered about Aunt Pol and Durnik. To the east, the sky had begun to lighten, and the rosy blush of dawn touched the few last remaining tatters of the cloud that had covered Cthol Mishrak. The events of the dreadful night had been titanic, but now the night was nearly over, and they stood together, not speaking as they watched the dawn.

The storm that had raged through the long night had passed. For years beyond counting, the universe had been divided against itself, but now it was one again. If there were such things as beginnings, this was a beginning. And so it was, through broken cloud, that the sun rose on the morning of the first day.