Enchanters' End Game

by David Eddings

  The child, Errand, pulled himself free from Ce’Nedra’s trembling arms and crossed the flagstone floor of the tomb, his small face intent. He stopped, bent and put his hand on Durnik’s shoulder. Gently he shook the dead man as if trying to wake him. His little face became puzzled when the smith did not respond. He shook again, a bit harder, his eyes uncomprehending.

  ‘Errand,’ Ce’Nedra called to him, her voice breaking, ‘come back. There’s nothing we can do.’

  Errand looked at her, then back at Durnik. Then he gently patted the smith’s shoulder with a peculiar little gesture, sighed, and went back to the princess. She caught him suddenly in her arms and began to weep, burying her face against his small body. Once again with that same curious little gesture, he patted her flaming hair.

  Then from the alcove in the far wall there came a long, rasping sigh, a shuddering expiration of breath. Garion looked sharply toward the alcove, his hand tightening on the hilt of his cold sword. Torak had turned his head, and his eyes were open. The hideous fire burned in the eye that was not as the God came awake.

  Belgarath drew in his breath in a sharp hiss as Torak raised the charred stump of his left hand as if to brush away the last of his sleep, even as his right hand groped for the massive hilt of Cthrek Goru, his black sword. ‘Garion!’ Belgarath said sharply.

  But Garion, still locked in stasis by the forces focusing upon him, could only stare at the awakening God. A part of him struggled to shake free, and his hand trembled as he fought to lift his sword.

  ‘Not yet,’ the voice whispered.

  ‘Garion!’ Belgarath actually shouted this time. Then, in a move seemingly born of desperation, the old sorcerer lunged past the bemused young man to fling himself upon the still recumbent form of the Dark God.

  Torak’s hand released the hilt of his sword and almost contemptuously grasped the front of Belgarath’s tunic, lifting the struggling old man from him as one might lift a child. The steel mask twisted into an ugly sneer as the God held the helpless sorcerer out from him. Then, like a great wind, the force of Torak’s mind struck, hurling Belgarath across the room, ripping away the front of his tunic. Something glittered across Torak’s knuckles, and Garion realized that it was the silver chain of Belgarath’s amulet – the polished medallion of the standing wolf. In a very peculiar way the medallion had always been the center of Belgarath’s power, and now it lay in the grip of his ancient enemy.

  With a dreadfully slow deliberation, the Dark God rose from his bier, towering over all of them, Cthrek Goru in his hand.

  ‘Garion!’ Ce’Nedra screamed. ‘Do something!’

  With deadly pace Torak strode toward the dazed Belgarath, raising his sword. But Aunt Pol sprang to her feet and threw herself between them.

  Slowly Torak lowered his sword, and then he smiled a loathsome smile. ‘My bride,’ he rasped in a horrid voice.

  ‘Never, Torak,’ she declared.

  He ignored her defiance. ‘Thou hast come to me at last, Polgara,’ he gloated.

  ‘I have come to watch you die.’

  ‘Die, Polgara? Me? No, my bride, that is not why thou hast come. My will has drawn thee to me as was foretold. And now thou art mine. Come to me, my beloved.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Never, Polgara?’ There was a dreadful insinuation in the God’s rasping voice. ‘Thou wilt submit to me, my bride. I will bend thee to my will. Thy struggles shall but make my victory over thee the sweeter. In the end, I will have thee. Come here.’

  So overwhelming was the force of his mind that she swayed almost as a tree sways in the grip of a great wind. ‘No,’ she gasped, closing her eyes and turning her face away sharply.

  ‘Look at me, Polgara,’ he commanded, his voice almost purring. ‘I am thy fate. All that thou didst think to love before me shall fall away, and thou shalt love only me. Look at me.’

  Helplessly she turned her head and opened her eyes to stare at him. The hatred and defiance seemed to melt out of her, and a terrible fear came into her face.

  ‘Thy will crumbles, my beloved,’ he told her. ‘Now come to me.’

  She must resist! All the confusion was gone now, and Garion understood at last. This was the real battle. If Aunt Pol succumbed, they were all lost. It had all been for this.

  ‘Help her,’ the voice within him said.

  ‘Aunt Pol!’ Garion threw the thought at her, ‘Remember Durnik!’ He knew without knowing how he knew that this was the one thing that could sustain her in her deadly struggle. He ranged through his memory, throwing images of Durnik at her – of the smith’s strong hands at work at his forge – of his serious eyes – of the quiet sound of his voice – and most of all of the good man’s unspoken love for her, the love that had been the center of Durnik’s entire life.

  She had begun involuntarily to move, no more than a slight shifting of her weight in preparation for that first fatal step in response to Torak’s overpowering command. Once she had made that step, she would be lost. But Garion’s memories of Durnik struck her like a blow. Her shoulders, which had already begun to droop in defeat, suddenly straightened, and her eyes flashed with renewed defiance. ‘Never!’ she told the expectantly waiting God. ‘I will not!’

  Torak’s face slowly stiffened. His eyes blazed as he brought the full, crushing force of his will to bear upon her, but she stood firmly against all that he could do, clinging to the memory of Durnik as if to something so solid that not even the will of the Dark God could tear her from it.

  A look of baffled frustration contorted Torak’s face as he perceived that she would never yield – that her love would be for ever denied to him. She had won, and her victory was like a knife twisting slowly inside him. Thwarted, enraged, maddened by her now-unalterable will to resist, Torak raised his face and suddenly howled – a shocking, animallike sound of overwhelming frustration.

  ‘Then perish both!’ he raged. ‘Die with thy father!’ And with that, he once more raised his deadly sword.

  Unflinching, Aunt Pol faced the raging God.

  ‘Now, Belgarion!’ The voice cracked in Garion’s mind.

  The Orb, which had remained cold and dead throughout all the dreadful confrontation between Aunt Pol and the maimed God, suddenly flared into life, and the sword of the Rivan King exploded into fire, filling the crypt with an intense blue light. Garion leaped forward, extending his sword to catch the deadly blow which was already descending upon Aunt Pol’s unprotected face.

  The steel sound of blade against blade was like the striking of a great bell, and it rang within the crypt, shimmering and echoing from the walls. Torak’s sword, deflected by the flaming blade, plowed a shower of sparks from the flagstone floor. The God’s single eye widened as he recognized all in one glance the Rivan King, the flaming sword and the blazing Orb of Aldur. Garion saw in the look that Torak had already forgotten Aunt Pol and that now the maimed God’s full attention was focused on him.

  ‘And so thou hast come at last, Belgarion,’ the God greeted him gravely. ‘I have awaited thy coming since the beginning of days. Thy fate awaits thee here. Hail, Belgarion, and farewell.’ His arm lashed back, and he swung a vast blow, but Garion, without even thinking, raised his own sword and once again the crypt rang with the bell note of blade against blade.

  ‘Thou art but a boy, Belgarion,’ Torak said. ‘Wilt thou pit thyself against the might and invincible will of a God? Submit to me, and I will spare thy life.’

  The will of the God of Angarak was now directed at him, and in that instant, Garion fully understood how hard Aunt Pol’s struggle had been. He felt the terrible compulsion to obey draining the strength from him. But suddenly a vast chorus of voices rang down through all the centuries to him, crying out the single word, ‘No!’ All the lives of all who preceeded him had been directed at this one moment, and those lives infused him now. Though he alone held Iron-grip’s sword, Belgarion of Riva was not alone, and Torak’s will could not sway him.

  In a move of absolute defiance, G
arion again raised his flaming sword.

  ‘So be it, then,’ Torak roared. ‘To the death, Belgarion!’

  At first it seemed but some trick of the flickering light that filled the tomb, but almost as soon as that thought occurred, Garion saw that Torak was growing larger, swelling upward, towering, expanding. With an awful wrenching sound, he shouldered aside the rusted iron roof of the tomb, bursting upward.

  Once again without thinking, without even stopping to consider how to do it, Garion also began to expand, and he too exploded through the confining ceiling, shuddering away the rusty debris as he rose.

  In open air among the decaying ruins of the City of Night the two titanic adversaries faced each other beneath the perpetual cloud that blotted out the sky.

  ‘The conditions are met,’ the dry voice spoke through Garion’s lips.

  ‘So it would seem,’ another, equally unemotional voice came from Torak’s steel-encased mouth.

  ‘Do you wish to involve others?’ Garion’s voice asked.

  ‘It hardly seems necessary. These two have sufficient capacity for what must be brought to bear upon them.’

  ‘Then let it be decided here.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  And with that Garion felt a sudden release as all constraint was removed from him. Torak, also released, raised Cthrek Goru, his lips drawn back in a snarl of hate.

  Their struggle was immense. Rocks shattered beneath the colossal force of deflected blows. The sword of the Rivan King danced in blue flames, and Cthrek Goru, Torak’s blade of shadows, swept a visible darkness with it at every blow. Beyond thought, beyond any emotion but blind hatred, the two swung and parried and lurched through the broken ruins, crushing all beneath them. The elements themselves erupted as the fight continued. The wind shrieked through the rotting city, tearing at the trembling stones. Lightning seethed about them, glaring and flickering. The earth rumbled and shook beneath their massive feet. The featureless cloud that had concealed the City of Night beneath its dark mantle for five millenia began to boil and race above them. Great patches of stars appeared and disappeared in the roiling middle of the surging cloud. The Grolims, both human and nonhuman, aghast at the towering struggle that had suddenly erupted in their very midst, fled shrieking in terror.

  Garion’s blows were directed at Torak’s blind side, and the Dark God flinched from the fire of the Orb each time the flaming sword struck, but the shadow of Cthrek Goru put a deathly chill into Garion’s blood each time it passed over him.

  They were more evenly matched than Garion had imagined possible. Torak’s advantage of size had been erased when they had both swelled into immensity, and Garion’s inexperience was offset by Torak’s maiming.

  It was the uneven ground that betrayed Garion. Retreating before a sudden flurry of massive blows, he felt one heel catch on a heap of tumbled rock, and the rotten stones crumbled and rolled beneath his feet. Despite his scrambling attempt to keep his balance, he fell.

  Torak’s single eye blazed in triumph as he raised the dark sword. But, seizing his sword hilt in both hands, Garion raised his burning blade to meet that vast blow. When the swords struck, edge to edge, a huge shower of sparks cascaded down over Garion.

  Again Torak raised Cthrek Goru, but a strange hunger flickered across his steel-encased face. ‘Yield!’ he roared.

  Garion stared up at the huge form towering over him, his mind racing.

  ‘I have no wish to kill thee, boy,’ Torak said, almost pleading. ‘Yield and I will spare thy life.’

  And then Garion understood. His enemy was not trying to kill him, but was striving instead to force him to submit. Torak’s driving need was for domination! This was where the real struggle between them lay!

  ‘Throw down thy sword, Child of Light, and bow before me,’ the God commanded, and the force of his mind was like a crushing weight.

  ‘I will not,’ Garion gasped, wrenching away from that awful compulsion. ‘You may kill me, but I will not yield.’

  Torak’s face twisted as if his perpetual agony had been doubled by Garion’s refusal. ‘Thou must,’ he almost sobbed. ‘Thou art helpless before me. Submit to me.’

  ‘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 em
erged, 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!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  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?’