Rivan Codex Series

by Eddings, David

  “You were quite good back there,” the voice in Garion's mind congratulated him. “Our enemy is a bit off balance now. Don't get overconfident, though. We 're at a slight disadvantage here because the Spirit of the Child of Dark is very strong in this grotto. "

  “ Why didn 't you tell me that before ?”

  “ Would you have paid any attention ? Listen carefully, Gar-ion. My opposite has agreed that we should leave the matter in Cyradis' hands. Zandramas, however, has made no such commitment. She's very likely to make one last attempt. Put yourself between her and the Sardion. No matter what you have to do, don't let her reach that stone. "

  “All right,” Garion said bleakly. He reasoned that attempting to edge into position inch by inch would not deceive the Sorceress of Darshiva as to his intent. Instead, quite calmly and deliberately, he simply stepped in front of the altar, drew his sword, and set its point on the floor of the grotto in front of him with his crossed hands resting on the pommel.

  "What art thou about?" Zandramas demanded in a harsh, suspicious tone of voice.

  "You know exactly what I'm doing, Zandramas," Garion replied. "The two spirits have agreed to let Cyradis decide between them. I haven't heard you agree yet. Do you still think you can avoid the Choice?"

  Her light-speckled face twisted with hatred. "Thou wilt pay for this, Belgarion," she answered. "All that thou art and all that thou lovest will perish here.”

  "That's for Cyradis to decide, not you. In the meantime, nobody's going to touch the Sardion until after Cyradis makes her choice."

  Zandramas ground her teeth in sudden, impotent fury.

  And then Poledra came closer, her tawny hair stained by the light of the Sardion. "Very well done, young wolf," she said to Garion.

  "Thou no longer hast the power, Poledra." The strangely abstracted words came from Zandramas' unmoving mouth.

  "Point." The familiar dry voice spoke through Poledra's lips.

  "I perceive no point."

  "That's because you've always discarded your instruments when you were finished with them. Poledra was the Child of Light at Vo Mimbre. She was even able to defeat Torak there— if only temporarily. Once that power is bestowed, it can never be wholly taken away. Did not her control over the Demon Lord prove that to you?"

  Garion was almost staggered by that. Poledra? The Child of Light during that dreadful battle five hundred years ago?

  The voice went on. "Do you acknowledge the point?" it asked its opposite.

  "What difference can it make? The game will be played out soon."

  "I claim point. Our rules required that you acknowledge it."

  "Very well. I acknowledge the point. You've really become quite childish about this, you know."

  "A rule is a rule, and the game isn't finished yet."

  Garion went back to watching Zandramas very closely so that he might meet any sudden move she made toward the Sardion.

  "When is the time, Cyradis?" Belgarath quietly asked the Seeress of Keli.

  "Soon," she replied. "Very soon."

  "We're all here," Silk said, nervously looking up-at the ceiling. "Why don't we get on with it?"

  “This is the day, Kheldar,” she said,”but it is not the instant. In the instant of the Choice, a great light shall appear, a light which even Iwill see."

  It was the strange detached calm that came over him that alerted Garion to the fact that the ultimate Event was about to take place. It was the same calm that had enveloped him in the ruins of Cthol Mishrak when he had met Torak.

  Then, as if the thought of his name had aroused, if only briefly, the spirit of the One-Eyed God from its eternal slumber, Garion seemed to hear Torak's dreadful voice intoning that prophetic passage from the last page of the Ashabine Oracles:

  "Know that we are brothers, Belgarion, though our hate for each other may one day sunder the heavens. We are brothers in that we share a dreadful task. That thou art reading my words means that thou hast been my destroyer. Thus must I charge thee with the task. What is foretold in these pages is an abomination. Do not let it come to pass. Destroy the world. Destroy the universe if need be, but do not permit this to come to pass. In thy hand is now the fate of all that was, all that is, and all that is yet to be. Hail, my hated brother, and farewell. We will meet—or have met—in the City of Endless Night, and there will our dispute be concluded. The task, however, still lieth before us in the Place Which Is No More. One of us must go there to face the ultimate horror. Should it be thou, fail us not. Failing all else, thou must reave the life from thine only son, even as thou hast reft mine from me."

  This time, however, the words of Torak did not fill Garion with weeping. They simply intensified his resolve as he finally began to understand. What Torak had seen in the vision that had come to him at Ashaba had been so terrifying that in the moment of his awakening from his prophetic dream the maimed God had felt impelled to lay the possibility of the dreadful task upon his most hated foe. That momentary horror had surpassed even

  Tbrak's towering pride. It had only been later, after the pride had reasserted itself, that Torak had mutilated the pages of his prophecy. In that one bleak moment of sanity, the maimed God had spoken truly for perhaps the one time in his life. Garion could only imagine the agony of self-abasement that single moment of truth had cost Tbrak. In the silence of his mind Garion pledged his fidelity to the task his most ancient foe had lain upon him. "I will do all that is in my power to keep this abomination from coming to pass, my brother," he threw out his thought to the spirit of Torak. “Return to thy rest, for here I take up the burden."

  The dusky red glow of the Sardion had muted the swirling tights in the flesh of Zandramas, and Garion could now see her features quite clearly. Her expression was troubled. She had quite obviously been unprepared for the sudden acquiescence of the spirit that dominated her. Her drive to win at any cost had been frustrated by the withdrawal of the support of that spirit. Her own mind—or what was left of it—still strove to evade facing the choice. The two prophecies had agreed at the beginning of time to place the entire matter in the hands of the . The evasions, the trickery, and the multitudinous atrocities mat had marked the passage of the Child of Dark through the wortd had all come from the twisted Grolim perceptions of the Sorceress of Darshiva herself. At this moment, Zandramas was more dangerous than she had ever been.

  "Well, Zandramas," Poledra said, "and is this the time thou hast chosen for our meeting? Shall we destroy each other now when we have come so close to the ultimate instant? If thou but await the Choice of Cyradis, thou wilt stand an even chance of obtaining that which thou hast so desperately sought. If thou shouldst confront me, however, thou wilt cast the entire matter into the lap of pure chance. Wilt thou throw away thy half chance of success in exchange for an absolute uncertainty?"

  "I am stronger than thou art, Poledra," Zandramas declared defiantly. "I am the Child of Dark."

  "And I was the Child of Light. How much art thou willing to gamble on the possibility that I can still call forth the strength and power? Wilt thou gamble all, Zandramas? All?"

  Zandramas' eyes narrowed, and Garion could clearly feel the clenching of her will. Then, with a blasting surge of energy and a vast roar, she released it. An aura of darkness suddenly surrounded her, and she seized Canon's son and lifted him. "Thus will I conquer, Poledra!" she hissed. She closed her hand about the struggling boy's wrist and pushed his Orb-marked hand out in front of her.”In the instant the hand of Belgarion's son touches the Sardion, I will triumph." Implacably, step by step, she started forward.

  Garion raised his sword and leveled its point at her. "Push her back,” he commanded the Orb. A bolt of intense blue light shot from the sword point, but it divided as it struck that dark aura, encasing the shadow but in no way interfering with Zan-dramas' advance. "Do something!" Garion shouted silently.

  “I can't interfere,” the voice told him.

  "Is that really the best thou canst do, Zandramas?" Poledra asked calmly
. Garion had often heard that same note in Aunt Pol's voice, but never with quite such indomitable determination. Poledra raised her hand almost indifferently and released her will. The surge and the sound nearly buckled Garion's knees. The aura of dark surrounding Zandramas and Geran vanished. The Sorceress of Darshiva, however, did not falter, but continued her slow advance. "Wilt thou kill thy son, Belgarion of Riva?" she asked. "For thou canst not strike at me without destroying him."

  “I can't do it!” Garion cried out, his eyes suddenly full of tears. "Ican't!"

  “You must. You 've been warned that this might happen. If she succeeds and puts your son's hand on the Sardion, he will be worse than dead. Do what must be done, Garion. "

  Weeping uncontrollably, Garion raised his sword. Geran looked him steadily in the face, his eyes unafraid.

  “No!” It was Ce'Nedra. She dashed across the floor of the grotto and threw herself directly in front of Zandramas. Her face was deathly pale. "If you intend to kill my baby, you'll have to kill me, too, Garion," she said in a broken voice. She turned her back on Garion and bowed her head.

  "So much the better," Zandramas gloated. "Wilt thou kill thy son and thy wife both, Belgarion of Riva? Wilt thou carry that with thee to thy grave?"

  Garion's face twisted in agony as he gripped the hilt of his flaming sword more firmly. With one stroke, he would destroy his very Hie.

  Zandramas, still holding Geran, stared at him incredulously. "Thou wilt not!" she exclaimed. "Thou canst not!"

  Garion clenched his teeth and raised his sword even higher.

  Zandramas' incredulity suddenly turned to fright. Her advance stopped, and she began to shrink back from that awful stroke.

  "Now, Ce'Nedra!" Polgara's voice cracked like a whip.

  The Rivan Queen, who had been coiled like a spring beneath her apparent mute submission to her fate, exploded. With a single leap, she snatched Geran from the arms of Zandramas and fled with him back to Polgara's side.

  Zandramas howled and tried to follow, her face filled with rage.

  "No, Zandramas," Poledra said. "If thou turnest away, I will kill thee—or Belgarion will. Thou hast inadvertently revealed thy decision. Thy choice hath been made, and thou art BO longer the Child of Dark, but are only an ordinary Grolim priestess. There is no longer any need for thee here. Thou art free now to depart—or to die."

  Zandramas froze.

  "Thus all thy subterfuge and evasion have come to naught, Zandramas. Thou hast no longer any choice. Wilt thou now submit to the decision of the ?"

  Zandramas stared at her, the expression on her star-touched fece a mixture of fear and towering hatred.

  "Well, Zandramas," Poledra said, "what is it to be? Wilt thou die this close to thy promised exaltation?" Poledra's golden eyes were penetrating as she looked into the face of the Grolim priestess. "Ah, no," she said quite calmly, "I perceive that thou wilt not. Thou canst not. But I would hear the words from thine own mouth, Zandramas. Wilt thou now accept the decision of Cyradis?"

  Zandramas clenched her teeth. "I will," she grated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The thunder still cracked and rumbled outside, and the wind accompanying the storm that had been brewing since the earth had been made moaned in the passageway leading into the grotto from the amphitheater outside. In an abstract sort of way as he resheathed his sword, Garion recognized precisely what his mind was doing. It had happened so often in the past that he wondered why he had not expected it. The circumstances required that he make a decision. The feet that he no longer even considered the decision, but concentrated instead on a meticulous examination of his surroundings, indicated that he had already made his choice somewhere so deep in his mind that it did not even register on the surface. There was, he conceded, a very good reason for what he was doing. Dwelling upon an impending crisis or confrontation would only rattle him, lead him into that distracting series of "what ifs," and make him begin to have those second thoughts that could quite easily lock him into an agonized indecision. Right or wrong, the choice had been made now, and to continue to worry at it would serve no purpose. The choice, he knew, was based not only on careful reasoning but also on deep feelings. He had that serene inner peace which flowed from the knowledge that the choice, whatever it was, was right. Calmly, he turned his attention to the grotto itself.

  The stones of the walls appeared, though it was hard to be sure in the pervading red light of the Sardion, to be a kind of basalt that had fractured into a myriad of flat surfaces and sharp edges. The floor was peculiarly smooth, either as a result of eons of patiently eroding water or of a single thought of Torak during his sojourn in this cave while he had contended with and ultimately rejected UL, his father. The trickle of water into the pool on the far side of the grotto was something of a mystery. This was the highest peak of the reef. Water should run down from here, not up to the hidden spring in the wall. Beldin could probably explain it—or Dumik. Garion knew that he needed to be alert in this strange place, and he did not want to break his concentration by pondering the ins and outs of hydraulics.

  And then, since it was the only source of light in this dim grotto, Garion's almost indifferent eyes were drawn inevitably to the Sardion. It was not a pretty stone. It was streaked with pale orange and milky white in alternating stripes banded closely together, and it was now stained with the wavering blue light emanating from the Orb. It was as smooth and polished as the Orb. The Orb had been polished by the hand of Aldur, but who had polished the Sardion? Some God unknown? Some shaggy clan of the brutish precursors of man squatting in dull-eyed patience over the stone, devoting generation after generation to the single incomprehensible task of rubbing the orange and white surface smooth with calloused and broken-nailed hands that were more like paws than human appendages? Even such unthinking creatures would have felt the power of the stone, and, feeling it to be a God—or at the very least, some object descended from a God—might not their mindless polishing have been some obscure act of worship?

  Then Garion let his eyes wander over the faces of his companions, the familiar faces of those who had, in response to destinies that had been written large in the stars since the-beginning of days, accompanied him to this place on this particular day. The death of loth had answered the one unanswered question, and now all was in place.

  Cyradis, her face still tearstained and marked by her grief, stepped to the altar to face them. "The time draws nigh," she said in a clear, unwavering voice. "Now must the choices of the Child of Light and the Child of Dark be made. All must be in readiness when the instant of my Choice arrives. Know ye both that your choices, once made, cannot be unmade."

  “My choice was made at the beginning of days-,” Zandramas declared. "Adown all the endless corridors of time hath the name of Belgarion's son echoed, for he hath touched Cthrag Yaska, which spurneth all other hands save the hand of Belga-rion himself. In the instant that Geran touches Cthrag Sardius, will he become an omnipotent God, higher than all the rest, and he shall have lordship and dominion over all of creation. Stand forth, Child of Dark. Take thy place before the altar of Torak to await the Choice of the Seeress of Kelt. In the instant that she chooses thee, reach forth thy hand and seize thy destiny."

  It was the last clue. Now Garion knew what the choice he had made in die deep silences of his mind had been, and he knew why it was so perfectly right. Reluctantly, Geran walked toward the altar, stopped and then turned, his small face grave.

  "And now, Child of Light," Cyradis said, "the time hath come for thee to make thy choice. Upon which of thy companions wilt thou lay the burden?"

  Garion had little sense of the melodramatic. Ce'Nedra, and even on occasion Aunt Pol, were, he knew, quite capable of extracting the last ounce of theatricality from any given situation, whereas he, a solid, practical Sendar, was more inclined toward matter-of-fact unostentation. He was quite certain, however, that Zandramas somehow knew what his choice should be. He also knew that, despite her reluctant agreement to l
eave the Choice in the hands of the , the black-robed sorceress was still perfectly capable of some desperate final ploy. He had to do something to throw her off balance so that she would hesitate at the crucial moment. If he appeared to be on the verge of making the wrong choice, the Sorceress would exult and she would think that she had finally won. Then, at the last possible instant, he could make the correct choice. The Child of Dark's momentary chagrin might well freeze her hand and give him time to block her. Carefully, he noted her position and that of Geran and Otrath. Geran stood perhaps ten feet in front of the altar with Zandramas no more than a few feet from him. Otrath was cowering back against the rough stone wall at the back of the grotto.

  It would have to be exactly right. He would have to build up an almost unbearable suspense in the mind of Zandramas, then dash her hopes all at once. Rather artfully, he drew his face into an expression of agonized indecision. He wandered among his friends, his face filled with a purely feigned bafflement. He Slopped from time to time to look deeply into their faces, even going so far as to occasionally half raise his hand as if on the very verge of choosing the wrong person. Each time he did that, be clearly felt a wild surge of glee coming from Zandramas. She was not even attempting to hide her emotions. Better and better. His enemy by now was no longer even rational.

  "What are you doing?" Polgara whispered when he stopped in front of her.

  *Tll explain later," he murmured. "It's necessary—and important. You Ve got to trust me, Aunt Pol." He moved on. When be reached Belgarath, he felt a momentary apprehension emanating from Zandramas. The Eternal Man was certainly someone to be reckoned with, and should the eminence of the Child of Light be added to that—and the potential for divinity, as well—the old man could be a serious adversary.

  "Will you move on with it, Garion?" his grandfather muttered.

  "I'm trying to push Zandramas off balance," Garion whispered. "Please watch her closely after I choose. She might try something."