Zakath had placed his arm about the shoulders of the , and the look on his face rather clearly indicated that he had no real intention of ever removing it. Garion remembered with a smile how, in the first moments of their openly avowed love for each other, Ce'Nedra had continually wormed her way into a very similar embrace. He walked wearily over to where Eriond stood looking out across the sun-splashed waves. "Can I ask you something?" he asked.
"Of course, Garion."
Garion looked pointedly at Zakath and Cyradis. "Is that more or less a part of the way things are supposed to be?" he asked. "What I'm getting at is that Zakath lost someone very dear to him when he was young. If he loses Cyradis now, it might destroy him. I wouldn't want that to happen."
"Put your mind at rest, Garion." Eriond smiled. "Nothing will separate those two. It's one of the things that are preordained. “
"Good. Do they know?"
"Cyradis does. She'll explain it to Zakath in time."
"She's still a seeress then?"
"No. That part of her life ended when Polgara removed her blindfold. She has looked into the future, though, and Cyradis has a very good memory.”
Garion thought about that for a moment, and then his eyes opened very wide. "Are you trying to say that the fate of the entire universe depended on the choice of an ordinary human being?" he asked incredulously.
"I'd hardly call Cyradis ordinary. She's been preparing for that choice since infancy. But in a way you're right. The Choice had to be made by a human being, and it had to be made without any help. Not even her own people could help Cyradis at mat moment."
Garion shuddered. "That must have been terrifying for her. She had to have been desperately lonely.”
"She was, but the people who make choices always are."
"She didn't just select at random, did she?"
"No. She wasn't really choosing between your son and me, though. She was choosing between the Light and the Dark."
"I can't see where all the difficulty was then. Doesn't everybody prefer the light to the dark?”
"You and I might, but the Seers have always known that Light and Dark are simply opposite sides of the same thing. Don't worry too much about Zakath and Cyradis, Garion," Eriond said, returning to the original subject. He tapped his forehead with one finger. "Our mutual friend here has made a few arrangements about those two. Zakath's going to be very important for most of die rest of his life, and our friend has a way of encouraging people to do necessary things by rewarding them— sometimes in advance."
"Like Relg and Taiba?"
"Or you and Ce'Nedra—or Polgara and Durnik, for that matter."
"Can you tell me what it is that Zakath's supposed to do? What could you possibly need from him?"
"He's going to complete what you started."
"Wasn't I doing it right?"
"Of course you were, but you're not an Angarak. You'll understand in time, I think. It's not really very complicated."
A thought came to Garion, and in the instant it emerged he was sure it was absolutely correct. "You knew all along, didn't you? Who you really are, I mean."
"I knew that the potential was there. It didn't really happen until Cyradis made the Choice, though." He looked over to where the others were sadly gathering around Toth's still form. "I think they need us now," he said.
Toth's face was in repose, and his hands, folded across his chest, covered the wound Cthrek Goru had made when Mordja had killed him. Cyradis stood enfolded in Zakath's arms, her face wet with new tears.
"Are you sure this is the right idea?" Beldin asked Durnik.
"Yes," the smith said simply. "You see—"
"You don't have to explain it, Durnik," the hunchback told him. "I just wanted to know if you're sure. Let's build a litter for him. It has more dignity." He made a brief gesture, and a number of smooth, straight poles and a coil of rope appeared beside Toth's body. The two of them carefully lashed the poles together to form a litter and then lifted the mute's massive body onto it. "Belgarath," Beldin said, "Garion, we'll need some help here."
Although any one of them could have translocated Ibth's body into the grotto, the four sorcerers chose instead to carry it to its final resting place in a ceremony as old as mankind.
Since the upward explosion of the Sardion had unroofed the grotto, the noon sun filled the formerly dim cave with light. Cyradis quailed slightly when she saw the grim altar upon which the Sardion had lain. "It seemeth to me so dark and ugly," she mourned in a small voice.
"It isn't really very attractive, is it?" Ce'Nedra said critically. She turned to look at Eriond. "Do you suppose—?"
"Of course," he agreed. He glanced only briefly at the roughly squared-off altar. It blurred slightly and then became a smooth bier of snowy-white marble.
"That's much nicer," she said. "Thank you."
"He was my friend, too, Ce'Nedra," the young God responded.
It was not a formal funeral in any sense of the word. Garion and his friends simply gathered about the bier to gaze upon the fece of their departed friend. There was so much concentrated power in the small grot that Garion could not be sure exactly who created the first flower. Tendrils of ivylike vines grew suddenly up the walls, but unlike ivy, the vines were covered with fragrant white flowers. Then, between one breath and another, the floor was covered with a carpet of lush green moss. Flowers in profusion covered the bier, and then Cyradis stepped forward to lay the simple white rose Poledra had provided her upon the slumbering giant's chest. She kissed his cold forehead and then sighed. "All too soon, methinks, the flowers will wither and fede."
"No, Cyradis," Eriond said gently, "they won't. They'll remain fresh and forever new until the end of days.”
"I thank thee, God of Angarak," she said gratefully.
Durnik and Beldin had retired to a corner near the pool to confer. Then they both looked up, concentrated for a moment, and roofed the grotto with gleaming quartz that refracted the sunlight into rainbows.
"It's time to leave now, Cyradis," Polgara told the slim girl. "We've done all we can." Then she and her mother took the still-weeping Seeress by the arms and slowly led her back to the passage with the others following behind.
Durnik was the last to leave. He stood at the bier with his hand lying on Toth's motionless shoulder. Finally, he put out his hand and took Toth's fishing pole out of midair. He carefully laid it on the bier beside his friend's body and patted the huge crossed hands once. Then he turned and left.
When they were outside again, Beldin and the smith sealed the passageway with more quartz.
"There's a nice touch," Silk observed sadly to Garion, pointing to the image above the portal. "Which one of you thought of that?"
Garion turned to look. The face of Torak was gone, and in its place the image of Eriond's face smiled its benediction. "I'm not really sure," he replied, "and I don't think it really matters." He tapped his fingers against the breastplate of his armor. "Do you suppose you could help me out of this?" he asked. "I don't think I need it anymore."
, "No," Silk agreed, "probably not. From the look of things, iy say you've run out of people to fight."
"Let's hope so."
It was much later. They had removed the Grolims from the amphitheater and cleaned up the debris that had littered the stone floor. There was very little they could do about the vast carcass of the dragon, however. Garion sat on the lowest step of the stairway leading down into the amphitheater. Ce'Nedra, still holding her sleeping child, dozed in his arms.
"Not bad at all," the familiar voice said to him. This time, however, the voice did not echo in the vaults of his mind, but seemed instead to be right beside him.
"I thought you were gone," Garion said, speaking quietly to avoid waking his wife and son.
"No, not really," the voice replied.
"I seem to remember that you once said that there was going to be a new voice—awareness, I suppose would be a better term—after this was decided.”
&
nbsp; "There is, actually, but I'm a part of it."
"I don't quite understand."
"It's not too complicated, Garion. Before the accident there was only one awareness, but then it was divided in the same way everything else was. Now it's back, but since I was part of the original, I’ve rejoined it. We're one again."
“ That's your idea of not too complicated?”
"Do you really want me to explain further?"
Garion started to say something but then he decided against it. "You can still separate yourself, though?"
"No. That would only lead to another division."
* "Then how—” Garion decided at the last instant that he didn't really want to ask that question. "Why don't we just let this drop?" he suggested. "What was that light?"
"That was the accident, the thing that divided the universe. It also divided me from my opposite and the Orb from the Sar-dion."
"I thought that happened a long time ago."
"It did—a very long time ago."
"But—"
"Try to listen for a change, Garion. Do you know very much about light?"
"It's just light, isn't it?"
"There's a little more. Have you ever stood a long way from somebody who's chopping wood?"
"Yes."
"Did you notice that he'd chop and that then, a moment or so later, you heard the sound?"
"Yes, now that you mention it, I did. What causes that?"
"The interval is the amount of time the sound takes to reach you. Light moves much faster than sound, but it still takes time to go from one place to another."
"I'll take your word for it."
"Do you know what the accident was?"
"Something out among the stars, I understand."
"Exactly. A star was dying, and it died in a place where that wasn't supposed to happen. The dying star was in the wrong place when it exploded, and it ignited an entire cluster of stars— a galaxy. When the galaxy exploded, it tore the fabric of the universe. She protected herself by dividing. That's what led to all of this."
"All right. Why were we talking about light then?"
"That's what that sudden light was—the light from that exploding galaxy—the accident. It only just now reached this place."
Garion swallowed hard. "Just how far away was the accident?"
"The numbers wouldn't mean anything to you."
"How long ago did it happen?"
"That's another number you wouldn't understand. You might ask Cyradis. She could probably tell you. She had a very special reason to have it calculated rather precisely."
Garion slowly began to understand. "That's it then," he said, excited in spite of himself. "The instant of the Choice was the instant when the light from the accident reached this world."
"Very good, Garion."
“Did that cluster of stars that exploded come back again after Cyradis made the Choice? I mean there has to be something to patch that hole in the universe, doesn't there?"
"Better and better. Garion, I'm proud of you. You remember how the Sardion and Zandramas broke up into little flecks of intense light when they blew the roof off the grotto?"
"It's not the sort of thing I'd be likely to forget." Garion shuddered.
"There was a reason for that. Zandramas and the Sardion— or the pieces of them, at any rate—are on their way back toward that 'hole,* as you put it. They're going to be the patch. They'll get bigger along the way, of course."
"And how long—" Garion broke off. "Another meaningless number, I suppose?"
"Very meaningless."
“I noticed some things about Zandramas back there. She had this all worked out, didn't she? Right from the very beginning?”
"My opposite was always very methodical."
"What I'm getting at is that she made all of her arrangements in advance. She had everything in place in Nyissa before she ever went to Cherek to pick up those Bear-cultists. Then, when she went to Riva to steal Geran, everything was ready. She'd even put things in place so that we ail suspected the cult instead of her.”
"She'd have probably made a very good general."
"But she went even further. No matter how good her plans were, she always had a contingency to fall back on in case the original plan failed." A thought came to him. "Did Mordja get her? I mean, she blew all apart when the Sardion exploded, didn't she? Is her spirit still mixed up in those stars, or did it get pulled down into Hell? She sounded so very much afraid just before she dissolved."
"I really wouldn't know, Garion. My opposite and I dealt with this universe, not with Hell—which, of course, is a universe all its own."
“What would have happened if Cyradis had chosen Geran instead of Eriond?"
"You and the Orb would be moving to a new address about now."
Garion felt his skin begin to crawl. "And you didn't warn me?" he demanded incredulously.
"Would you really have wanted to know? And what difference would it have made?"
Garion decided to let that pass. "Was Eriond always a God?" he asked.
"Weren't you listening earlier when he explained? Eriond was intended to be the seventh God. Torak was a mistake caused by the accident."
"He's always been around then? Eriond, I mean?"
"Always is a long time, Garion. Eriond was present—in spirit— since the accident. When you were born, he began to move around in the world."
"We're the same age then?"
"Age is a meaningless concept to the Gods. They can be any age they choose to be. It was the theft of the Orb that started
tilings moving toward what happened here today. Zedar wanted to steal the Orb, so Eriond found him and showed him how to do it. That's what got you moving in the first place. If Zedar hadn't stolen the Orb, you'd probably still be at Faldor's farm-married to Zubrette, I'd imagine. Try to keep your perspective about this, Garion, but in a very peculiar way mis world was created just to give you something to stand on while you were fixing things."
“ Please stop joking.”
"I'm not joking, Garion. You're the most important person who's ever lived—or ever will—with the possible exception of Cyradis. You killed a bad God and replaced him with a good one. You did a lot of floundering around in the process, but you finally managed to get it all done. I 'm sort of proud of you, actually. All hi all, you turned out rather well."
"I had a lot of help."
"Granted, but you're entitled to a bit of conceit—for a moment or two, anyway. I wouldn't overdo it, though. It's not a very becoming sort of thing."
Garion concealed a smile. "Why me?" he asked, making it sound as plaintive and imbecilic as possible.
There was a startled silence, and then the voice actually laughed. "Please don't go back to asking that, Garion."
"I'm sorry. What happens now?"
"You get to go home."
"No, I mean to the world?"
"A lot of that's going to depend on Zakath. Eriond is the God of Angarak now, and despite Urgit and Drosta and Nathel, Zak-ath's the real overking of Angarak. It might take a bit of doing and he may have to use up a large number of Grolims in the process, but before he's done, Zakath is going to have to ram Eriond down the throats of all the Angaraks in the world."
"He'll manage." Garion shrugged. "Zakath's very good at ramming things down people's throats."
"Cyradis will be able to soften that side of him, I expect."
"All right, then. What about afterward? After all the Angaraks have accepted Eriond?"
"The movement will spread. You'll probably live long enough to see the day when Eriond is the God of the whole world. That's what was intended from the beginning."
*”And he shall have Lordship and Dominion'?" Garion quoted with a sinking feeling, remembering certain Grolim prophecies.
"You know Eriond better than that. Can you possibly see him sitting on a throne gloating over sacrifices?"
"No, not really. What happens to the other Gods then? Aldur and the rest of
them?”
"They'll move on. They Ve finished with what they came here to do, and there are many, many other worlds in the universe.”
"What about UL? Will he leave, too?"
"UL doesn't leave any place, Garion. He's everywhere. Does that more or less answer all the questions? I have some other things that need to be attended to. There are a number of people I have to make arrangements for. Oh, incidentally, congratulations on your daughters.”
"Daughters?"
"Small female children. They're devious, but they're prettier than sons, and they smell better."
"How many?" Garion asked breathlessly.
"Quite a few, actually. I won't tell you the exact number. I wouldn't want to spoil any surprises for you, but when you get back to Riva, you'd better start expanding the royal nursery." There was a long pause. "Good-bye for now, Garion," the voice said, its tone no longer dry. "Be well."
And then the voice was gone.
The sun was slipping down, and Garion, Ce'Nedra, and Geran had rejoined the others near the portal to the grotto. They were all subdued as they sat not far from the vast carcass of the dragon.
"We ought to do something about her," Belgarath murmured. "She wasn't really a bad brute. She was just stupid, and that's not really a crime. I’ve always felt rather sorry for her, and I'd sort of hate to just leave her out here in the open for the birds to pick over."
"You've got a sentimental streak in you, Belgarath," Beldin noted. "That's very disappointing, you know."
“We all get sentimental as we get older.” Belgarath shrugged.
"Is she all right?" Velvet asked Sadi as the eunuch returned with Zith's little bottle. "You took quite a long time."
"She's fine," Sadi replied. "One of the babies wanted to play. He thought it was funny to hide from me. It took me awhile to locate him."
"Is there any real reason for us to stay here?" 'Silk asked. "We could light that beacon, and maybe Captain Kresca could pick us up before dark.”
"We're expecting company, Kheldar," Eriond told him.
"We are? Whom are we expecting?"
"Some friends are planning to stop by."
“ Your friends or ours?”
Rivan Codex Series Page 400
