A little boy with pale blond hair stood in front of the table, and he was also staring at the cask. He wore a smudged linen smock and dirty little shoes. Though his expression seemed devoid of all thought, there was a sweet innocence about him that caught at the heart. His eyes were blue, large, and trusting, and he was quite the most beautiful child Garion had ever seen.
"What took you so long, Belgarath?" the man at the table asked, not even bothering to turn around. His voice sounded dusty. He closed the iron box with a faint click. "I was almost beginning to worry about you."
"A few minor delays, Ctuchik," Belgarath replied. "I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long."
"I managed to keep myself occupied. Come in. Come in - all of you." Ctuchik turned to look at them. His hair and beard were a yellowed white and were very long. His face was deeply lined, and his eyes glittered in their sockets. It was a face filled with an ancient and profound evil. Cruelty and arrogance had eroded all traces of decency or humanity from it, and a towering egotism had twisted it into a perpetual sneer of contempt for every other living thing. His eyes shifted to Aunt Pol. "Polgara," he greeted her with a mocking inclination of his head. "You're as lovely as ever. Have you come finally then to submit yourself to the will of my Master?" His leer was vile.
"No, Ctuchik," she replied coldly. "I came to see justice."
"Justice?" He laughed scornfully. "There's no such thing, Polgara. The strong do what they like; the weak submit. My Master taught me that."
"And his maimed face did not teach you otherwise?"
The High Priest's face darkened briefly, but he shrugged off his momentary irritation. "I'd offer you all a place to sit and some refreshment, perhaps," he continued in that same dusty voice, "but you won't be staying that long, I'm afraid." He glanced at the rest of them, his eyes noting each in turn. "Your party seems diminished, Belgarath," he observed. "I hope you haven't lost any of them along the way."
"They're all well, Ctuchik," Belgarath assured him. "I'm certain that they'll appreciate your concern, however."
"All?" Ctuchik drawled. "I see the Nimble Thief and the Man with Two Lives and the Blind Man, but I don't see the others. Where's the Dreadful Bear and the Knight Protector? The Horse Lord and the Bowman? And the ladies? Where are they-the Queen of the World and the Mother of the Race That Died?"
"All well, Ctuchik," Belgarath replied. "All well."
"How extraordinary. I was almost certain that you'd have lost one or two at least by now. I admire your dedication, old man - to keep intact for all these centuries a prophecy that would have collapsed if one single ancestor had died at the wrong time." His eyes grew distant momentarily. "Ah," he said. "I see. You left them below to stand guard. You didn't have to do that, Belgarath. I left orders that we weren't to be disturbed."
The High Priest's eyes stopped then on Garion's face. "Belgarion," he said almost politely. Despite the singing that still thrilled in his veins, Garion felt a chill as the evil force of the High Priest's mind touched him. "You're younger than I expected."
Garion stared defiantly at him, gathering his will to ward off any surprise move by the old man at the table.
"Would you pit your will against mine, Belgarion?" Ctuchik seemed amused. "You burned Chamdar, but he was a fool. You'll find me a bit more difficult. Tell me, boy, did you enjoy it?"
"No," Garion replied, still holding himself ready.
"In time you'll learn to enjoy it," Ctuchik said with an evil grin. "Watching your enemy writhe and shriek in your mind's grip is one of the more satisfying rewards of power." He turned his eyes back to Belgarath. "And so you've come at last to destroy me?" he said mockingly.
"If it comes down to that, yes. It's been a long time coming, Ctuchik."
"Hasn't it, though? We're very much alike, Belgarath. I've been looking forward to this meeting almost as much as you have. Yes, we're very much alike. Under different circumstances, we might even have been friends."
"I doubt that. I'm a simple man, and some of your amusements are a bit sophisticated for my taste."
"Spare me that, please. You know as well as I do that we're both beyond all restriction."
"Perhaps, but I prefer to choose my friends a bit more carefully."
"You're growing tiresome, Belgarath. Tell the others to come up." Ctuchik raised one eyebrow sardonically. "Don't you want to have them watch while you destroy me? Think of how sweet their admiration will be.
"They're fine just where they are," Belgarath told him.
"Don't be tedious. Surely you're not going to deny me the opportunity to pay homage to the Queen of the World." Ctuchik's voice was mocking. "I yearn to behold her exquisite perfection before you kill me."
"I doubt that she'd care much for you, Ctuchik. I'll convey your respects, however."
"I insist, Belgarath. It's a small request - easily granted. If you don't summon her, I will."
Belgarath's eyes narrowed, and then he suddenly grinned. "So that's it," he said softly. "I wondered why you'd gone to all the trouble to let us get through so easily."
"It doesn't really matter now, you know," Ctuchik almost purred. "You've made your last mistake, old man. You've brought her to Rak Cthol, and that's all I really needed. Your prophecy dies here and now, Belgarath - and you with it, I'd imagine." The High Priest's eyes flashed triumphantly, and Garion felt the evil force of Ctuchik's mind reaching out, searching with a terrible purpose.
Belgarath exchanged a quick look with Aunt Pol and slyly winked. Ctuchik's eyes widened suddenly as his mind swept through the lower levels of his grim turret and found it empty. "Where is she?" he demanded wildly in a voice that was almost a scream.
"The princess wasn't able to come with us," Belgarath replied blandly. "She sends her apologies, though."
"You're lying, Belgarath! You wouldn't have dared to leave her behind. There's no place in the world where she'd be safe."
"Not even in the caves of Ulgo?"
Ctuchik's face blanched. "Ulgo?" he gasped.
"Poor old Ctuchik," Belgarath said, shaking his head in mock regret. "You're slipping badly, I'm afraid. It wasn't a bad plan you had, but didn't it occur to you to make sure that the princess was actually with us before you let me get this close to you?"
"One of the others will do just as well," Ctuchik asserted, his eyes blazing with fury.
"No," Belgarath disagreed. "The others are all unassailable. Ce'Nedra's the only vulnerable one, and she's at Prolgu - under the protection of UL himself. You can attempt that if you'd like, but I wouldn't really advise it."
"Curse you, Belgarath!"
"Why don't you just give me the Orb now, Ctuchik?" Belgarath suggested. "You know I can take it away from you if I have to."
Ctuchik struggled to gain control of himself. "Let's not be hasty, Belgarath," he said after a moment. "What are we going to gain by destroying each other? We have Cthrag Yaska in our possession. We could divide the world between us."
"I don't want half the world, Ctuchik."
"You want it all for yourself?" A brief, knowing smile crossed Ctuchik's face. "So did I - at first - but I'll settle for half."
"Actually, I don't want any of it."
Ctuchik's expression became a bit desperate. "What do you want, Belgarath?"
"The Orb," Belgarath replied inexorably. "Give it to me, Ctuchik."
"Why don't we join forces and use the Orb to destroy Zedar?"
"Why?"
"You hate him as much as I do. He betrayed your Master. He stole Cthrag Yaska from you."
"He betrayed himself, Ctuchik, and I think that haunts him sometimes. His plan to steal the Orb was clever, though." Belgarath looked thoughtfully at the little boy standing in front of the table, his large eyes fixed on the iron cask. "I wonder where he found this child," he mused. "Innocence and purity are not exactly the same thing, of course, but they're very close. It must have cost Zedar a great deal of effort to raise a total innocent. Think of all the impulses he had to suppress."<
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"That's why I let him do it," Ctuchik said.
The little blond boy, seeming to know that they were discussing him, looked at the two old men, his eyes filled with absolute trust.
"The whole point is that I still have Cthrag Yaska - the Orb," Ctuchik said, leaning back in his chair and laying one hand on the cask. "If you try to take it, I'll fight you. Neither of us knows for sure how that would turn out. Why take chances?"
"What good is it doing you? Even if it would submit to you, what then? Would you raise Torak and surrender it to him?"
"I might think about it. But Torak's been asleep for five centuries now, and the world's run fairly well without him. I don't imagine there's all that much point in disturbing him just yet."
"Which would leave you in possession of the Orb."
Ctuchik shrugged. "Someone has to have it. Why not me?"
He was still leaning back in his chair, seeming almost completely at ease. There was no warning movement or even a flicker of emotion across his face as he struck.
It came so quickly that it was not a surge but a blow, and the sound of it was not the now-familiar roaring in the mind but a thunderclap. Garion knew that, had it been directed at him, it would have destroyed him. But it was not directed at him. It lashed instead at Belgarath. For a dreadful instant Garion saw his grandfather engulfed in a shadow blacker than night itself. Then the shadow shattered like a goblet of delicate crystal, scattering shards of darkness as it blew apart. Now grim-faced, Belgarath still faced his ancient enemy.
"Is that the best you can do, Ctuchik?" he asked, even as his own will struck.
A searing blue light suddenly surrounded the Grolim, closing in upon him, seeming to crush him with its intensity. The stout chair upon which he sat burst into chunks and splinters, as if a sudden vast weight had settled down upon it. Ctuchik fell among the fragments of his chair and pushed back the blue incandescence with both hands. He lurched to his feet and answered with flames. For a dreadful instant Garion remembered Asharak, burning in the Wood of the Dryads, but Belgarath brushed the fire away and, despite his once-stated assertion that the Will and Word needed no gesture, he raised his hand and smashed at Ctuchik with lightning.
The sorcerer and the magician faced each other in the center of the room, surrounded by blazing lights and waves of flame and darkness. Garion's mind grew numb under the repeated detonations of raw energy as the two struggled. He sensed that their battle was only partially visible and that blows were being struck which he could not see - could not even imagine. The air in the turret room seemed to crackle and hiss. Strange images appeared and vanished, flickering at the extreme limits of visibility - vast faces, enormous hands, and things Garion could not name. The turret itself trembled as the two dreadful old men ripped open the fabric of reality itself to grasp weapons of imagination or delusion.
Without even thinking, Garion began to gather his will, drawing his mind into focus. He had to stop it. The edges of the blows were smashing at him and at the others. Beyond thought now, Belgarath and Ctuchik, consumed with their hatred for each other, were unleashing forces that could kill them all.
"Garion! Stay out of it!" Aunt Pol told him in a voice so harsh that he could not believe it was hers. "They're at the limit. If you throw anything else into it, you'll destroy them both." She gestured sharply to the others. "Get back - all of you. The air around them is alive."
Fearfully, they all backed toward the rear wall of the turret room. The sorcerer and the magician stood no more than a few feet apart now, their eyes blazing and their power surging back and forth in waves. The air sizzled around them, and their robes smoked.
Then Garion's eyes fell upon the little boy. He stood watching with calm, uncomprehending eyes. He neither started nor flinched at the dreadful sounds and sights that crashed around him. Garion tensed himself to dash forward and yank the child to safety, but at that moment the little boy turned toward the table. Quite calmly, he walked through a sudden wall of green flame that shot up in front of him. Either he did not see the fire, or he did not fear it. He reached the table, stood on his tiptoes and, raising the lid, he put his hand into the iron cask over which Ctuchik had been gloating. He lifted a round, polished, gray stone out of the cask. Garion instantly felt that strange tingling glow again, so strong now that it was almost overwhelming, and his ears filled with the haunting song.
He heard Aunt Pol gasp.
Holding the gray stone in both hands like a ball, the little boy turned and walked directly toward Garion, his eyes filled with trust and the expression on his small face confident. The polished stone reflected the flashing lights of the terrible conflict raging in the center of the room, but there was another light within it as well. Deep within it stood an intense azure glow - a light that neither flickered nor changed, a light that grew steadily stronger as the boy approached Garion. The child stopped and raised the stone in his hands, offering it to Garion. He smiled and spoke a single word, "Errand."
An instant image filled Garion's mind, an image of a dreadful fear. He knew that he was looking directly into the mind of Ctuchik. There was a picture in Ctuchik's mind - a picture of Garion holding the glowing stone in his hand - and that picture terrified the Grolim. Garion felt waves of fear spilling out toward him. Deliberately and quite slowly he reached his right hand toward the stone the child was offering. The mark on his palm yearned toward the stone, and the chorus of song in his mind swelled to a mighty crescendo. Even as he stretched out his hand, he felt the sudden, unthinking, animal panic in Ctuchik.
The Grolim's voice was a hoarse shriek. "Be not!" he cried out desperately, directing all his terrible power at the stone in the little boy's hands.
For a shocking instant, a deadly silence filled the turret. Even Belgarath's face, drawn by his terrible struggle, was shocked and unbelieving.
The blue glow within the heart of the stone seemed to contract. Then it flared again.
Ctuchik, his long hair and beard disheveled, stood gaping in wide-eyed and open-mouthed horror. "I didn't mean it!" he howled. "I didn't- I-"
But a new and even more stupendous force had already entered the round room. The force flashed no light, nor did it push against Garion's mind. It seemed instead to pull out, drawing at him as it closed about the horrified Ctuchik.
The High Priest of the Grolims shrieked mindlessly. Then he seemed to expand, then contract, then expand again. Cracks appeared on his face as if he had suddenly solidified into stone and the stone was disintegrating under the awful force welling up within him. Within those hideous cracks Garion saw, not flesh and blood and bone, but blazing energy. Ctuchik began to glow, brighter and brighter. He raised his hands imploringly. "Help me!" he screamed. He shrieked out a long, despairing, "NO!" And then, with a shattering sound that was beyond noise, the Disciple of Torak exploded into nothingness.
Hurled to the floor by that awesome blast, Garion tumbled against the wall. Without thinking, he caught the little boy, who was flung against him like a rag doll. The round stone clattered as it bounced against the rocks of the wall. Garion reached out to catch it, but Aunt Pol's hand closed on his wrist. "No!" she said. "Don't touch it. It's the Orb."
Garion's hand froze.
The little boy squirmed out of his grasp and ran after the rolling Orb. "Errand." He laughed triumphantly as he caught it.
"What happened?" Silk muttered, struggling to his feet and shaking his head.
"Ctuchik destroyed himself," Aunt Pol replied, also rising. "He tried to unmake the Orb. The Mother of the Gods will not permit unmaking." She looked quickly at Garion. "Help me with your grandfather."
Belgarath had been standing almost in the center of the explosion that had destroyed Ctuchik. The blast had thrown him halfway across the room, and he lay in a stunned heap, his eyes glazed and his hair and beard singed.
"Get up, father," Aunt Pol said urgently, bending over him.
The turret began to shudder, and the basalt pinnacle from which it hung
swayed. A vast booming sound echoed up out of the earth. Bits of rock and mortar showered down from the walls of the room as the earth quivered in the aftershock of Ctuchik's destruction.
In the rooms below, the stout door banged open and Garion heard pounding feet. "Where are you?" Barak's voice bellowed.
"Up here," Silk shouted down the stairway.
Barak and Mandorallen rushed up the stone stairs. "Get out of here!" Barak roared. "The turret's starting to break away from the rock. The Temple up there's collapsing, and there's a crack two feet wide in the ceiling where the turret joins the rock."
"Father!" Aunt Pol said sharply, "you must get up!"
Belgarath stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Pick him up," she snapped at Barak.
There was a dreadful tearing sound as the rocks that held the turret against the side of the peak began to rip away under the pressures of the convulsing earth.
"There!" Relg said in a ringing voice. He was pointing at the back wall of the turret where the stones were cracking and shattering. "Can you open it? There's a cave beyond."
Aunt Pol looked up quickly, focused her eyes on the wall and pointed one finger. "Burst!" she commanded. The stone wall blew back into the echoing cave like a wall of straw struck by a hurricane.
"It's pulling loose!" Silk yelled, his voice shrill. He pointed at a widening crack between the turret and the solid face of the peak. "Jump!" Barak shouted. "Hurry!"
Silk flung himself across the crack and spun to catch Relg, who had followed him blindly. Durnik and Mandorallen, with Aunt Pol between them, leaped across as the groaning crack yawned wider. "Go, boy!" Barak commanded Garion. Carrying the still-dazed Belgarath, the big Cherek was lumbering toward the opening.
"The child!" the voice in Garion's mind crackled, no longer dry or disinterested. "Save the child or everything that has ever happened is meaningless!"
Garion gasped, suddenly remembering the little boy. He turned and ran back into the slowly toppling turret. He swept up the boy in his arms and ran for the hole Aunt Pol had blown in the rock.
Barak jumped across, and his feet scrambled for an awful second on the very edge of the far side. Even as he ran, Garion pulled in his strength. At the instant he jumped, he pushed back with every ounce of his will. With the little boy in his arms he literally flew across the awful gap and crashed directly into Barak's broad back.
Magician's Gambit Page 30
