Magician's Gambit Part 36

"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 a.s.sertion 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 smas.h.i.+ng at him and at the others. Beyond thought now, Belgarath and Ctuchik, consumed with their hatred for each other, were unleas.h.i.+ng 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 wideeyed and openmouthed 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 G.o.ds 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 childl" the voice in Garion's mind crackled, no longer dry or disinterested. "Save the child or everything that has ever happened is meaninglessl"

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.

The little boy in his arms with the Orb of Aldur cradled protectively against his chest smiled up at him. "Errand?" he asked.

Garion turned. The turret was leaning far out from the basalt wall, its supporting stones cracking, ripping away from the sheer face. Ponderously, it toppled outward. And then, with the shards and fragments of the Temple of Torak hurtling past it, it sheared free of the wall and fell into the awful gulf beneath.

The floor of the cave they had entered was heaving as the earth shuddered and shock after shock reverberated up through the basalt pinnacle. Huge chunks of the walls of Rak Cthol were ripping free and plunging past the cave mouth, flickering down through the red light of the newly risen sun.

"Is everybody here?" Silk demanded, looking quickly around. Then, satisfied that they were all safe, he added, "We'd better get back from the opening a bit. This part of the peak doesn't feel all that stable."

"Do you want to go down now?" Relg asked Aunt Pol. "Or do you want to wait until the shaking subsides?"

"We'd better move," Barak advised. "These caves will be swarming with Murgos as soon as the quake stops."

Aunt Pol glanced at the half conscious Belgarath and then seemed to gather herself. "We'll go down," she decided firmly. "We still have to stop to pick up the slave woman."

"She's almost certain to be dead," Relg a.s.serted quickly. "The earthquake's probably brought the roof of that cave down on her."

Aunt Pol's eyes were flinty as she looked him full in the face.

No man alive could face that gaze for long. Relg dropped his eyes. "All right," he said sullenly. He turned and led them back into the dark cave with the earthquake rumbling beneath their feet.

Here ends Book Three of The Belgariad.

Book Four, Castle of Wizardry, brings Garion and Ce'Nedra to the first realization of their heritage as the Prophecy moves them toward its fulfillment, and Garion discovers there are powers more difficult than sorcery.

About the Author.

David Eddings was born in Spokane, Was.h.i.+ngton, in 1931, and was raised in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1954 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Was.h.i.+ngton in 1961. He has served in the United States Army, worked as a buyer for the Boeing Company, has been a grocery clerk, and has taught college English. He has lived in many parts of the United States.

His first novel, High Hunt (published by Putnam in 1973), was a contemporary adventure story. The field of fantasy has always been of interest to him, however, and he turned to The Belgariad in an effort to develop certain technical and philosophical ideas concerning that genre.

Eddings currently resides with his wife, Leigh, in the northwest.