Rivan Codex Series

by Eddings, David

  "Then you know who it's going to be?"

  "Of course. I'm trying not to think about it, though. I don't want her to pick it out of my mind.”

  The old man made a face. "Do it your way, Garion. Just don't drag it out too long. Let's not irritate Cyradis as well as Zandramas."

  Garion nodded and moved past Sadi and Velvet, letting his mind push out toward that of Zandramas as he did. Her emotions were veering around wildly now, and it was clear that she was at a fever pitch. To draw things out any further would serve no purpose. He stopped at last in front of Silk and Eriond. "Keep your face straight," he warned the rat-faced little man. "Don't let Zandramas see any change of expression no matter what I seem to be doing.”

  "Don't make any mistakes here, Garion," Silk warned. "I'm not looking for a sudden promotion of any kind.”

  Garion nodded. It was nearly over now. He looked at Eriond, a young man who was almost his brother. “I 'm sorry about this, Eriond," he apologized in a low murmur. "You probably won't want to thank me for what I'm about to do."

  "It's all right, Belgarion." Eriond smiled. "I've known it was going to happen for quite some time now. I'm ready."

  And mat clinched it. Eriond had answered the ubiquitous question "Are you ready?" for probably the last time. Eriond, it appeared, was—and probably had been since the day he wasborn. Everything now slipped into place to fit together so tightly that nothing could ever take it apart again.

  "Choose, Belgarion," Cyradis urged.

  "I have, Cyradis," Garion said simply. He stretched out his hand and laid it on Eriond's shoulder. "Here is my choice. Here is the Child of Light."

  “Perfect!” Belgarath exclaimed.

  "Done!" the voice in Garion's mind agreed.

  Garion felt a peculiar wrench followed by a kind of regretful emptiness. He was no longer the Child of Light. It was Eriond's responsibility now, but Garion knew that he still had one last responsibility of his own. He turned slowly, trying to make it look casual. The expression on the light-speckled face of Zan-dramas was a mixture of rage, fear, and frustration. It confirmed mat what Garion had just done had been the right thing. He had made the proper choice. He had never actually done what he tried to do next before, although he had seen and felt Aunt Pol do it many times. This was not, however, a time for random experimentation. Carefully, he sent his mind out again, looking this time not so much for overall emotional responses from Zan-dramas as for specifics. He had to know exactly what she was going to try to do before she could put it into motion.

  The mind of the Sorceress of Darshiva was filled with a confused welter of thoughts and emotions. The wild hope Garion's subterfuge had raised in her seemed to have done its work. Zan-dramas floundered, unable to concentrate now on her next step. But step she must. Garion perceived that she simply could not leave the matter wholly in the hands of the .

  "Go thou then, Child of Light, to stand beside the Child of Dark that I may choose between ye," Cyradis said.

  Eriond nodded. Then he turned and crossed the grotto to stand beside Geran.

  "It's done, Cyradis," Poledra said. "All the choices have been made but yours. This is the appointed place and the appointed day. The moment for you to perform your task has arrived."

  “Not quite yet, Poledra," Cyradis said, her voice trembling with anxiety. "The signal that the instant of the Choice hath come must be delivered from the book of the heavens.”

  "But you cannot see the heavens, Cyradis," Garion's grandmother reminded her. "We stand beneath the earth. The book of the heavens is obscured.”

  "I need not go to the book of the heavens. It will come to me."

  "Consider, Cyradis," Zandramas urged in a wheedling tone. "Consider my words. There is no possible choice but Belgarion 's son.”

  Garion's mind suddenly became very alert. Zandramas had made a decision. She knew what she was going to do, but she had somehow managed to conceal it from him. He almost began to admire his enemy. She had prepared each of her moves from the very beginning—and each of her defenses in this place, as well—with an almost military precision. As each defense failed, she withdrew to the next. That was why he could not pick her thought from her mind. She already knew what she was going to do, so there was no need for her even to think about it. He could feel, however, that her next move had something to do with Cyradis herself. That was Zandramas' last line of defense. "Don't do that, Zandramas," he told the sorceress. "You know it's not the truth. Leave her alone.”

  "Then choose, Cyradis," the sorceress commanded.

  "I may not. The instant hath not yet arrived." The face of Cyradis was twisted with an inhuman agony.

  Then Garion felt it. Wave upon wave of indecision and doubt were emanating from Zandramas, all focusing on the blindfolded Seeress. This was the final desperate attempt. Failing to attack them successfully, Zandramas was now attacking Cyradis. “Help her, Aunt Pol,” Garion threw the thought out desperately. "Zandramas is trying to keep her from making the Choice."

  "Yes, Garion, "Polgarai's voice came back calmly, "Iknow. "

  "Do something!"

  “It's not time yet. It has to come at the moment of the Choice. If I try to do anything earlier, Zandramas will feel it and take steps to counteract me. "

  "Something's happening outside," Durnik said urgently. "There's a light of some kind coming down the corridor."

  Garion looked quickly. The light was still dim and indistinct, but ft was like no other light he had ever seen.

  "The time for the Choice hath come, Cyradis," Zandramas said, her voice cruel. "Choose!”

  "I cannot!" the Seeress wailed, turning toward the growing light, "Not yet! I'm not ready yet!" She stumbled across the floor, wringing her hands. "I'm not ready! I can't choose! Send another!"

  "Choose!" Zandramas repeated implacably.

  "If only I could see them!" Cyradis sobbed. "If only I could see them!"

  And then at last, Polgara moved. "That's easily arranged, Cyradis," she said in a calm and oddly comforting tone. "Your vision has clouded your sight, that's all." She reached.out and gently removed the blindfold. "Look then with human eyes and make your choice.”

  "That is forbidden!" Zandramas protested shrilly as her advantage crumbled,

  "No," Polgara said. "If it were forbidden, I would not have been able to do it."

  Cyradis had flinched back from even the faint light in the grotto. "I cannot!" she cried, covering her eyes with her hands. "I cannot!"

  Zandramas' eyes came suddenly alight. "I triumph!" she exulted. "The Choice must be made, but now will it be made by another. It no longer lieth in the hands of Cyradis, for the decision not to choose is also a choice."

  "Is that true?" Garion quickly asked Beldin.

  "There are two schools of thought on that.”

  "Yes or no, Beldin."

  "I don't know. I really don't, Garion."

  There was suddenly a soundless burst of intense light from the mouth of the passageway leading to the outside. Brighter than the sun, the light swelled and grew. It was so impossibly intense that even the cracks between the stones in the grotto blazed incandescently.

  "It has come at last," Garion's inner companion said unemotionally through Eriond's lips. "It is the instant of the Choice. Choose, Cyradis, lest all be destroyed."

  "It has come," another equally unemotional voice spoke through the hps of Garion's son. "It is the instant of the Choice. Choose, Cyradis, lest all be destroyed."

  Cyradis swayed, torn by indecision, her eyes darting back and forth to the two faces before her. Again she wrung her hands.

  "She cannot!” the Emperor of Mallorea exclaimed, starting forward impulsively.

  "She must!" Garion said, catching his friend's arm. "If she doesn't, everything will be lost!"

  Again the eyes of Zandramas filled with that unholy joy. "It is too much for her!" the priestess almost crowed. "Thou hast made thy choice, Cyradis," she cried. "It cannot be unmade. Now will I make the Choice for thee,
and I will be exalted when the Dark God comes again!"

  And that may have been Zandramas' last and fatal error. Cyradis straightened and, eyes flashing, she looked full into the starry face of the sorceress. "Not so, Zandramas," the Seeress said in an icy voice. "What passed before was indecision, not choice, and the moment hath not yet passed." She lifted her beautiful face and closed her eyes. The vast chorus of the Seers of Kel] swelled its organ note in the tight confines of the grotto, but it ended on a questioning note.

  "Then the decision is wholly mine," Cyradis said. "Are all the conditions met?" She addressed the question to the two awarenesses standing unseen behind Eriond and Geran.

  "They are," the one said from Eriond's lips.

  "They are," the other said from Geran's.

  "Then hear my Choice," she said. Once again she looked full into the faces of the little boy and the young man. Then with a cry of inhuman despair, she fell into Eriond's arms. "I choose thee!" she wept. "For good or for ill, I choose thee!"

  There was a titanic lateral lurch—not an earthquake certainly, for not one single pebble was dislodged from the walls or ceiling of the grotto. For some reason, Garion was positive that the entire world had moved—inches perhaps, or yards or even thousands of leagues—to one side. And as corollary to that certainty, he was equally sure that the same movement had been universal. The amount of power Cyradis' agonized decision had released was beyond human comprehension.

  Gradually, the blazing light diminished somewhat, and the Saidion's glow became wan and sickly. In the instant of the Choice of the , Zandramas had shrunk back, and the whirling lights beneath the skin of her face seemed to flicker. Then they began to whirl and to glow more and more brightly. "No!" she shrieked. "No!"

  "Perhaps these lights in thy flesh are thine exaltation, Zandramas," Poledra said. "Even now it may be that thou wilt shine brighter than any constellation. Well hast thou served the Prophecy of Dark, and it may yet find some way to exalt thee.” Then Garion's grandmother crossed the grotto floor to the satin-robed sorceress.

  Zandramas shrank back even more. "Don't touch me," she said.

  "It is not thee I would touch, Zandramas, but thy raiment. I would see thee receive thy reward and thine exaltation.” Poledra tore back the satin hood and ripped the black robe away. Zandramas made no attempt to conceal her nakedness, for indeed, there was no nakedness. She was now no more than a faint outline, a husk filled with swirling, sparkling light that grew brighter and brighter.

  Geran ran on sturdy little legs to his mother's arms, and Ce'Nedra, weeping with joy, enfolded him and held him close to her. "Is anything going to happen to him?" Garion demanded of Eriond. "He's the Child of Dark, after all."

  "There is no Child of Dark anymore, Garion." Eriond answered the question. "Your son is safe."

  Garion felt an enormous wave of relief. Then something that he had felt since the moment in which Cyradis had made her Choice began to intrude itself increasingly upon his awareness. It was that overwhelming sense of presence which he had always felt when he had come face to face with a God. He looked more closely at Eriond, and that sense grew stronger. His young friend even looked different. Before, he had appeared to be a young man of probably not much over twenty. Now he appeared to be about the same age as Garion, although his face seemed strangely ageless. His expression, which before had been sweetly innocent, had now become grave and even wise. "We have one last thing to do here, Belgarion," he said in a solemn tone. He motioned to Zakath and then gently placed the still-weeping Cyradis into the Mallorean's arms. "Take care of her, please," he said.

  "For all of my life, Eriond," Zakath promised, leading the sobbing girl back to the others.

  "Now, Belgarion," Eriond continued, "give me my brother's Orb from off the hilt of Iron-grip's sword. It's time to finish what was started here."

  "Of course," Garion replied. He reached back over his shoulder and put his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Come off," he told the Orb. The stone came free in his hand, and he held it out to the young God.

  Eriond took the glowing blue stone and turned to look at the Sardion and then down at the Orb in his hand. There was something inexplicable in his face as he looked at the two stones that were at the center of all division. He raised his face for a moment, his expression now serene. "So be it then," he said finally.

  And men to Garion's horror, he gripped the Orb even more tightly and pushed his hand quite deliberately, Orb and all, into the glowing Sardion.

  The reddish stone seemed to flinch. Like Ctuchik in his last moment, it first expanded, then contracted. Then it expanded one last time. And then, like Ctuchik, it exploded—and yet that explosion was tightly confined, enclosed somehow within some unimaginable globe of force that came perhaps from Eriond's will or from the power of the Orb or from some other source. Garion knew that had that force not been in place, all the world would have been torn apart by what was happening in this tightly confined place.

  Even though it was partially muffled by Eriond's immortal and indestructible body, the concussion was titanic, and they were all hurled to the floor by its force. Rocks and pebbles rained down from the ceiling, and the entire pyramidal islet that was all that was left of Korim shuddered in an earthquake even more powerful than that which had destroyed Rak Cthol. Confined within the grotto, the sound was beyond belief. Without thinking, Garion rolled across the surging floor to cover Ce'Nedra and Geran with his armored body, noting as he did so that many of his companions were also protecting loved ones in the same fashion.

  The earth continued its convulsive shuddering, and what lay confined on the altar now with Eriond's hand still buried within h was no longer the Sardion but an intense ball of energy a thousand times brighter than the sun.

  Then Eriond, his face still calm, removed the Orb from the center of the incandescent ball that once had been the Sardion. As if the removal of Aldur's Orb had also removed the constraint mat had held the Sardion in one shape and place, the blazing fragments of Cthrag Sardius blasted upward through the roof of the grotto, ripping the top off the shuddering pyramid and sending the huge stone blocks out in all directions as if they were no more than pebbles.

  The suddenly revealed sky was filled with a light brighter than the sun, a light that extended from horizon to horizon. The fragments of the Sardion streamed upward to lose themselves in that light.

  Zandramas wailed, an inhuman, animallike sound. The faint outline that was all that was left of her was writhing, twisting. 'Wo.'" she cried, "It cannot be! You promised!" Garion did not know, could not know, to whom she spoke. She extended her hands to Eriond in supplication. "Help me, God of An-garak!" she cried. "Do not let me fall into the hands of Mordja or the foul embrace of the King of Hell! Save me!”

  And then her shadowy husk split apart, and the swirling lights that had become her substance streamed inexorably upward to follow the fragments of the Sardion into that vast light in the sky.

  What was left of the Sorceress of Darshiva fell to the floor like a discarded garment, shriveled and tattered like a rag no longer of any use to anyone.

  The voice that came from Eriond's lips was very familiar to Garion. He had been listening to it for all his life.

  "Point," it said in a detached, emotionless tone, as if merely stating a fact. "Point and game."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The sudden silence in the grotto was almost eerie. Gar-ion rose and helped Ce' Nedra to her feet. “Are you all right?” he asked her, his voice hushed. Ce'Nedra nodded absently. She was examining their little boy, a look of concern on her smudged face. Garion looked around. "Is everyone all right?" he asked.

  "Is that earthquake finished yet?" Silk demanded, still covering Velvet's body with his own.

  "It's passed, Kheldar," Eriond told him. The young God turned and gravely handed the Orb back to Garion.

  "Aren't you supposed to keep it?" Garion asked him. "I thought—"

  "No, Garion. You're still the Guardian of t
he Orb."

  For some reason, that made Garion feel better. Even in the midst of what had just happened, he had felt an empty sense of loss. Somehow he had become convinced that he would be obliged to give up the jewel now. Covetousness was not a part of Canon's nature, but over the years the Orb had become more a friend than a possession.

  "May we not go forth from this place?" Cyradis asked, her voice filled with a deep sadness. "I would not leave my dear companion alone and untended."

  Durnik touched her shoulder gently, and then they all turned and silently left the shattered grotto.

  They emerged from the portal into the light that was more than the light of day. The intense brilliance that had even penetrated the dim grotto behind them had faded to the point where it was no longer blinding. Garion looked around. Though the time of day was certainly different, there was that peculiar sense that he had been through all of this before. The storm and lightning that had raged over the Place Which Is No More had passed. The clouds had rolled back, and the wind that had swept the reef during the fight with the dragon and the demon Mordja had subsided to a gentle breeze. Following the death of Torak at Cthol Mishrak, Garion had felt in a strange way that he had been witnessing the dawn of the first day. Now it was noon—years later, to be sure—but somehow the noon of that selfsame day. What had begun at Cthol Mishrak was only now complete. It was over, and he felt a vast sense of relief. He also felt a bit light-headed. The emotional and physical energy he had expended since the first light of this most momentous of days had crept slowly over a fogbound sea had left him weak and near to exhaustion. More than anything right now he wanted to get out of his armor, but the thought of the amount of effort that would cost made him almost quail. He settled for wearily removing his helmet. He looked around again at the faces of his friends.

  Although Geran could obviously walk now, Ce'Nedra had insisted on carrying him, and she kept her cheek pressed tightly to his, pulling back only long enough to kiss him from time to time. Geran did not seem to mind.