‘Garion!’ Silk cried.
‘Ignore the face,’ Garion told him. ‘It isn’t real. Zandramas is trying to frighten us into madness. The face isn’t there. It doesn’t even have as much substance as a shadow.’
Zandramas flinched, and the enormous face behind her wavered and vanished. Her eyes darted this way and that, lingering, Garion seemed to perceive, upon the portal leading into the cave. As surely as if he could see it, Garion knew that there was something in that cave – something which was Zandramas’ last line of defense. Then, seemingly all unconcerned by the obliteration of the weapon which had always served the Child of Dark so well, she made a quick gesture to her remaining Grolims.
‘No.’ It was the light, clear voice of the Seeress of Kell. ‘I cannot permit this. The issue must be decided by the Choice, not by senseless brawling. Put up thy sword, Belgarion of Riva, and withdraw thy minions, Zandramas of Darshiva.’
Garion found that the muscles of his legs had suddenly cramped, and that he could no longer move even one step. Painfully, he twisted around. He saw Cyradis descending the stairs, guided now by Eriond. Immediately behind her came Aunt Pol, Poledra, and the Rivan Queen.
‘The task you both share here,’ Cyradis continued in an echoing choral voice, ‘is not to destroy each other, for should it come to pass that one of you destroyeth the other, your tasks will remain uncompleted, and I also will be unable to complete mine. Thus, all that is, all that was, and all that is yet to be will forever perish. Put up thy sword, Belgarion, and send away thy Grolims, Zandramas. Let us go even into the Place Which Is No More and make our choices. The universe grows weary of our delay.’
Regretfully, Garion sheathed his sword, but the Sorceress of Darshiva’s eyes narrowed. ‘Kill her,’ she commanded her Grolims in a chillingly flat voice. ‘Kill the blind Dalasion witch in the name of the new God of Angarak.’
The remaining Grolims, their faces filled with religious exaltation, started toward the foot of the stairs. Eriond sighed and resolutely stepped forward to place his body in front of that of Cyradis.
‘That will not be necessary, Bearer of the Orb,’ Cyradis told him. She bowed her head slightly, and the choral voice swelled to a crescendo. The Grolims faltered, and then began to grope around, staring with unseeing eyes at the daylight around them.
‘It’s the enchantment again,’ Zakath whispered, ‘the same one that surrounded Kell. They’re blind.’
This time, however, what the Grolims saw in their blindness was not the vision of the Face of God the gentle old priest of Torak they had met in the sheep-camp above Kell had seen, but something altogether different. The enchantment, it appeared, could cut two ways. The Grolims cried out first in alarm, then in fright. Then their cries became screams, and they turned, stumbling over each other and even crawling on hands and knees to escape that which they saw. They scrambled blindly down to the water’s edge, obviously bent on following the hulking Grolim into whose face Sadi had thrown that strange powder of his. They floundered out into the now gently rolling waves, and one by one stepped off into deep water.
A few could swim, but not very many. Those who could swam desperately out to sea and inevitable death. Those who could not sank beneath the surface, their imploring hands reaching upward even after their heads had gone under. Columns of bubbles rose to the top of the dark water for a few moments, and then they stopped.
The albatross, its great wings motionless, drifted over them for a moment and then returned to hover over the amphitheater.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘AND NOW ART thou, as thou hast ever chosen to be, alone, Child of Dark,’ Cyradis said sternly.
‘The ones who were here with me were of no moment, Cyradis,’ Zandramas replied indifferently. ‘They have served their purpose, and I no longer need them.’
‘Art thou then ready to enter through the portal into the Place Which Is No More to stand in the presence of the Sardion, there to make thy choice?’
‘Of course, Holy Seeress,’ Zandramas acquiesced with surprising mildness. ‘Gladly will I join with the Child of Light that together we may enter the Temple of Torak.’
‘Watch her, Garion,’ Silk whispered. ‘The whole tone of this is wrong. She’s up to something.’
But Cyradis, it appeared, had also detected the ruse. ‘Thy sudden acceptance is puzzling, Zandramas,’ she said. ‘Vainly hast thou striven for all these weary months to avoid this meeting, and now thou wouldst rush eagerly into the grotto. What hath so altered thee? Doth perchance some unseen peril lurk within yon grot? Seekest thou still to lure the Child of Light to his doom, thinking thereby to avoid the necessity of the Choice?’
‘The answer to thy question, blind witch, doth lie behind that portal,’ Zandramas replied in a harsh voice. She turned her glittering face toward Garion. ‘Surely the great Godslayer is without fear,’ she said. ‘Or is he who slew Torak become of a sudden timid and fearful? What threat could I, a mere woman, pose to the mightiest warrior in the world? Let us then investigate this grotto together. Confidently will I deliver my safety into thy hands, Belgarion.’
‘It may not be so, Zandramas,’ the Seeress of Kell declared. ‘It is too late now for subterfuge and deceit. Only the Choice will free thee now.’ She paused and briefly bowed her head. Again Garion heard that choral murmuring. ‘Ah,’ she said at last, ‘now we understand. The passage in the Book of the Heavens was obscure, but now it is clear.’ She turned toward the portal. ‘Come forth, Demon Lord. Lurk not in darkness awaiting prey, but come forth that we may see thee.’
‘No!’ Zandramas cried hoarsely.
But it was too late. Reluctantly, almost as if being driven, the battered and half-crippled dragon limped out of the grotto, roaring and belching billows of flame and smoke.
‘Not again,’ Zakath groaned.
Garion, however, saw more than just the dragon. Even as in the snow-clogged forest outside Val Alorn when he had seen the image of Barak superimposed upon that of the dreadful bear rushing to his rescue after he had speared the boar when he was no more than fourteen, he now saw the form of the Demon Lord Mordja within the shape of the dragon. Mordja, arch-foe of Nahaz, the demon who had borne the shrieking Urvon into the eternal pit of Hell. Mordja, who with a half-dozen snakelike arms grasped a huge sword – a sword which Garion recognized all too well. The Demon Lord, encased in the form of the dragon, strode forward with monstrous step wielding Cthrek Goru, Torak’s dread sword of shadows.
The burning red clouds overhead erupted with lightning as the hideously twinned beast came at them. ‘Spread out!’ Garion shouted. ‘Silk! Tell them what to do!’ He drew a deep breath as great bolts of lightning streaked down from the roiling red sky above to crash against the sides of the terraced pyramid with earth-shattering claps of thunder. ‘Let’s go!’ Garion cried to Zakath as he once more drew Iron-grip’s sword. But then he paused, dumbfounded. Poledra, as calmly as she would if crossing a meadow, approached the awful monstrosity. ‘Thy master is the Lord of Deception, Mordja,’ she said to the suddenly immobilized creature before her, ‘but it is time for deceit to end. Thou wilt speak only truth. What is thy purpose here? What is the purpose of all of thy kind in this place?’
The Demon Lord, frozen within the form of the dragon, snarled its hatred as it twisted and writhed, attempting to break free.
‘Speak, Mordja,’ Poledra commanded. Did anyone have that kind of power?
‘I will not.’ Mordja spat out the words.
‘Thou wilt,’ Garion’s grandmother said in a dreadfully quiet voice.
Mordja shrieked then, a shriek of total agony.
‘What is thy purpose?’ Poledra insisted.
‘I serve the King of Hell!’ the demon cried.
‘And what is the purpose of the King of Hell here?’
‘He would possess the stones of power,’ Mordja howled.
‘And why?’
‘That he may break his chains, the chains in which accursed UL bound him long
’ere any of this was made.’
‘Wherefore hast thou then aided the Child of Dark, and wherefore didst thy foe Nahaz aid the Disciple of Torak? Didst not thy Master know that each of them sought to raise a God? A God which would even more securely bind him?’
‘What they sought was of no moment,’ Mordja snarled. ‘Nahaz and I contended with each other, in truth, but our contention was not on behalf of mad Urvon or sluttish Zandramas. In the instant that either of them gained Sardion would the King of Hell reach forth with my hands – or with the hands of Nahaz – and seize the stone. Then, using its power, would the one of us or the other wrest Cthrag Yaska from the Godslayer and deliver both stones to our Master. In the instant that he took up the two stones would he become the new God. His chains would break and he would contend with UL as an equal – nay, an even mightier – God, and all that is, was, or will be would be his and his alone.’
‘And what then was to be the fate of the Child of Dark or the Disciple of Torak?’
‘They were to be our rewards. Even now doth Nahaz feed eternally upon mad Urvon in the darkest pit of Hell, even as I shall feed upon Zandramas. The ultimate reward of the King of Hell is eternal torment.’
The Sorceress of Darshiva gasped in horror as she heard her soul’s fate so cruelly pronounced.
‘Thou canst not stop me, Poledra,’ Mordja taunted, ‘for the King of Hell hath strengthened my hand.’
‘Thy hand, however, is confined in the body of this rude beast,’ Poledra said. ‘Thou hast made thy choice, and in this place, a choice, once made, cannot be unmade. Here wilt thou contend alone, and thine only ally will not be the King of Hell, but no more than this mindless creature which thou hast chosen.’
The demon raised its dreadful, fang-filled muzzle with a great howl, and it struggled, heaving its vast shoulders this way and that as it desperately tried to wrench itself free of the shape which enclosed it.
‘Does this mean we have to fight them both?’ Zakath asked Garion in a shaking voice.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Garion, have you lost your mind?’
‘It’s what we do, Zakath. At least Poledra has limited Mordja’s power – I don’t know how, but she has. Since he doesn’t have his full powers, we at least have a chance against him. Let’s get at it.’ Garion clapped down his visor and strode forward, swinging his flaming sword before him.
Silk and the others had separated, and they were approaching the dragon from the sides and from the rear.
As he and Zakath warily moved in, Garion saw something that might be an even greater advantage. The melding of the primitive mind of the dragon and the age-old one of the demon was not complete. The dragon, with stubborn stupidity, could only focus her single eye upon those enemies who stood directly before her, and she charged on, unmindful of Garion’s friends moving toward her flanks. Mordja, however, was all too much aware of the dangers advancing from the sides and from the rear. The division of the unnaturally joined mind of the vast, bat-winged creature gave it a kind of uncharacteristic hesitation, indecision even. Then Silk, the sword of a fallen Grolim in his hands, darted in from the rear and chopped manfully at the writhing tail.
The dragon bellowed in pain, and flames burst from her gaping mouth. Overriding what little control Mordja exerted upon her, she wheeled clumsily to respond to Silk’s attack. The little thief, however, skipped nimbly out of her way even as the others dashed in to attack her flanks. Durnik rhythmically hammered on one exposed flank while Toth chopped no less rhythmically at the other.
A desperate plan came unbidden to Garion as he saw that the dragon had turned almost completely around to meet Silk’s attack. ‘Work on her tail!’ he shouted to Zakath. He backed off a few paces to give himself running room, then lumbered forward, his movements made awkward by his armor. He leaped over the slashing tail and ran up the dragon’s back.
‘Garion!’ he heard Ce’Nedra scream in horror. He ignored her frightened cry and continued to scramble up the scaly back until he was finally able to plant his feet on the dragon’s shoulders between the bat-like wings. The dragon, he knew, would not fear or even feel the strokes of his burning sword. Mordja, however, would. He raised Iron-grip’s sword and struck a two-handed blow at the base of the scaly neck. The dragon, weaving her fearsome head and breathing fire and smoke as she sought out those who were attacking her, paid no heed. Mordja, however, screamed in agony as the power of the Orb seared him. That was their advantage. Left to herself, the dragon was incapable of meeting their many-pronged attack. It was the added intelligence of the Demon Lord that made her so dangerous in this situation, but Garion had seen evidence in the past that the Orb could inflict intolerable agony upon a demon. In that respect, it had even more power than did a God. Demons fled from the presence of the Gods, but they could not flee from the chastisement of Aldur’s Orb. ‘Hotter!’ he commanded the stone as he raised his blade again. He struck and struck and struck again. The great blade no longer bounced off the dragon’s scales but seared its way through them to bite into the dragon’s flesh. The half-indistinct image of Mordja, encased in the dragon, shrieked as the sword cut into his neck even as it slashed at that of the dragon. Almost in mid-stroke, Garion reversed his sword and, grasping the cross-piece of the hilt, drove it down into the dragon’s back between the vast shoulders.
Mordja screamed.
Garion wrenched the sword back and forth, tearing the wound even wider.
Even the dragon felt that. She screamed.
Garion raised his sword again, and once again sank it into the bleeding wound, deeper this time.
The dragon and Mordja screamed in unison.
Ludicrously, Garion remembered a time in his bygone youth when he had watched old Cralto digging holes for fence posts. He consciously imitated the old farmworker’s rhythmic motion, raising his reversed sword high overhead as Cralto had his shovel, and driving the blade down into the dragon’s flesh. With each driving blow the wound grew deeper, and blood gushed and spurted from the quivering flesh. He momentarily saw the white of bone and altered his point of aim. Not even Iron-grip’s sword could shear through that tree-trunk sized backbone.
His friends had momentarily fallen back, astonished at the Rivan King’s insane-appearing audacity. Then they saw that the dragon’s almost serpentlike head was raised high in the air as she tried desperately to writhe her neck around to bite at the tormenter digging a huge hole between her shoulder-blades. They rushed back into the attack, hacking and stabbing at the softer scales covering the dragon’s throat, belly and flanks. Darting in and out quickly to avoid being trampled by the huge beast, Silk, Velvet, and Sadi attacked the unprotected underside of the distracted dragon. Durnik was steadily pounding on the dragon’s side, methodically breaking ribs one by one as Toth chopped at the other side. Belgarath and Poledra, once again as wolves, were gnawing on the writhing tail.
Then Garion saw what he had been searching for – the hawser-like tendon leading down into one of the dragon’s huge wings. ‘Hotter!’ he shouted again at the Orb.
The sword flared anew, and this time Garion did not strike. Instead he set the edge of his weapon against the tendon and began to saw back and forth with it, burning through the tough ligament rather than chopping. The tendon, finally severed, snapped, its cut ends slithering snakelike back into the bleeding flesh.
The bellow of pain that emerged from that flame-filled mouth was shattering. The dragon lurched, then fell, thrashing its huge limbs in terrible agony.
Garion was thrown clear when the dragon fell. Desperately he rolled, trying to get away from those flailing claws. Then Zakath was there, yanking him to his feet. ‘You’re insane, Garion!’ he shouted in a shrill voice. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Garion said in a tight voice. ‘Let’s finish it.’
Toth, however, was already there. In the very shadow of the dragon’s huge head he stood, his feet planted wide apart, chopping at the base of the dragon’s throat.
Great gushes of blood spurted from severed arteries as the huge mute, his heavy shoulders surging, sought to find and cut the barrel-like windpipe. Despite the concerted efforts of Garion and his friends, there had been little more than pain before, Toth’s single-minded attack, however, threatened the dragon’s very life. Were he to succeed in severing or even broaching the thick gristle of that windpipe, the dragon would die, choking for lack of breath or drowning in her own blood. She clawed her way back onto her forelegs and reared high over the huge mute.
‘Toth!’ Durnik shouted. ‘Get out of there! She’s going to strike!’
But it was not the fanged mouth that struck. Dimly, within the bleeding body of the dragon, Garion saw the indistinct shape of Mordja desperately raise Cthrek Goru, the sword of shadows. Then the Demon Lord thrust out with the sword. The blade, as if insubstantial, emerged from the dragon’s chest and, as smoothly, plunged into Toth to emerge from his back. The mute stiffened, then slid limply off the sword, unable even in death to cry out.
‘No!’ Durnik roared in a voice filled with indescribable loss.
Garion’s mind went absolutely cold. ‘Keep her teeth off me,’ he told Zakath in a flat, unemotional tone. Then he dashed forward, reversing his sword once again in preparation for a thrust such as he had never delivered before. He aimed that thrust not at the wound Toth had opened but at the dragon’s broad chest instead.
Cthrek Goru flickered out to ward him off, but Garion parried that desperate defensive stroke, then set his shoulder against the massive crosspiece of his sword’s hilt. He fixed the now-shrinking demon with a look of pure hatred and then he drove his sword into the dragon’s chest with all his strength, and the great surge as the Orb unleashed its power almost staggered him.