“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.