Enchanters' End Game

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘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 forget 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 ar
m 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 for ever 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.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Where is Zedar?’ Aunt Pol asked, raising her tearstreaked 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 w
ith 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 for ever – or until I choose to free him.’ The old man looked mournfully at Durnik’s body. ‘And I don’t think I’ll chose 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.