ridiculous tin castle by now, and Brand’s challenge didn’t seem to sit too
well with the God of Angarak. He roared out his rage and lashed
out with his massive sword, shattering boulders and showering the
area around him with sparks. That’s when Zedar bolted.
‘Who among mortal kind is so foolish as to thus defy the King of
the World?’ Torak bellowed. ‘Who among ye would contend with
a God?’
‘I am Brand, Warder of Riva, and I defy thee, foul and misshapen
Godling, and all thy putrid host! Bring forth thy might! Take up
my gage or slink away and come no more against the kingdoms of
the west!’
The entire purpose of the challenge, of course, had been to so
enrage Torak that his mind would stop functioning. Had the God
of Angarak been thinking clearly, he’d have smelled the trap being
set for him His rage, however, seems to have obliterated any
suspicion or even any traces of sanity. ‘BEHOLD!’ he said in a mighty
voice, ‘I am Torak, King of Kings and Lord of Lords! I fear no man
of mortal kind nor the dim shades of long-forgotten gods! I will go
forth and destroy this loud-mouthed Rivan fool, and mine enemies
shall fall away before my wrath, and Cthrag Yaska shall be mine
again, and the world also!’
And that, of course, was what the entire battle, the whole war,
had been all about. Everything we’d suffered had only had one goal
– to get Torak close enough to the Master’s Orb so that it could
dispose of him.
The thunderous exchange had stunned both armies into
immobility. The fighting broke off as Kal Torak strode north through his
cringing troops and Brand, with my wolfish father trotting along
beside him and mother and I in our combined owl hovering over
his head, marched south to meet his enemy.
When they were about twenty paces apart, an EVENT occurred
an EVENT that father didn’t even notice. Brand identified himself
and added a few more insults just for good measure to keep Torak’s
brain on fire.
Torak, however, spoke to father. ‘Begone, Belgarath,’ he warned.
‘Flee if thou wouldst save thy life.’
Father responded appropriately, snarling his defiance.
Then Torak fixed his single eye on me, but he did not threaten.
His tone was honeyed, and the force of his Will overpowering.
,Abjure thy father, Polgara, and come with me. I will wed thee and
make thee Queen of all the world, and thy might and thy power
shall be second only to mine.’
I’ve seen small, helpless creatures in the presence of a snake on
occasion. The mouse or rabbit knows that the snake is there, and
he knows that it’s dangerous, but he seems frozen in place, unable
to move as the reptile slowly approaches. I found myself in much
the same condition. Torak’s Will had simply overwhelmed me.
The histories of that brief encounter all state that I screamed my
defiance of the One-eyed God, but I didn’t. I was unable to utter
even a single sound. Torak had met me, and he had conquered me.
His single eye burned with triumph as he felt all of my defenses
crumble.
What Torak didn’t know, and could not know, was that he faced
three of the Master’s disciples in that moment rather than just two,
and he didn’t even know of the existence of the third. It was the
third disciple who defeated him at Vo Mimbre, probably because
the third disciple had ties not only to Aldur, but also to UL, Torak’s
own father.
Our owl, trembling in every feather, hovered indecisively over
Brand’s head, and then I felt the whole of my awareness shunted
off into a very small corner of our shared form, and the third disciple,
my mother, took over. I’ve been in the presence of Gods many times,
but I’ve never felt anything as overpowering as mother’s Will on
that day. She drew that force about her and hurled it directly into
Torak’s teeth. Had he been human, that force would have exploded
him into atoms. The vehicle of her Will was our shared voice, and
had it not been so carefully directed, it probably would have
shattered glass in all the kingdoms of the west. Because that voice was
so tightly controlled and directed, I don’t think anyone actually
recognized just how enormous it really was. Birds squawk, warble,
tweet, and scream all the time, and nobody really pays much
attention. Torak didn’t shrug it off, though. Mother’s shriek of defiance
carried overtones of the voice of Aldur, and it also was the voice of
Ull. Torak’s Will, which he thought to be so overwhelming, had
been directed at me, since he didn’t even know that mother was
there. The shriek of response, which he thought was coming from
me, was so vast that it made the blow he’d aimed at me seem puny
by comparison. The maimed God of Angarak was suddenly made
uncertain and afraid. I think I may be the only one who saw him
visibly flinch when it struck him or saw the burning’-of the Eye that
Was Not flicker with fear and indecision. It was at that point that
Torak’s supreme self-confidence shriveled within him, and he was
filled with self-doubt when he faced the Rivan Warder. That doubt
and fear made the outcome inevitable.
History reports that it was Brand who defeated Torak that day
before the walls of Vo Mimbre, but history is wrong. It was mother
who defeated him, and she used our combined voice to do it. In a
peculiar way, my mother won the Battle of Vo Mimbre.
PART SEVEN
Annath
*CHAPTER34
‘Prepare then to perish all!’ Torak thundered, but the faint hint of
doubt in his voice suggested that he was not as absolutely certain
as his doomsday pronouncement seemed to indicate. The Ashabine
Oracles had warned him about the third day of the battle, but so
firm was his belief that he’d face the Rivan King and his star-born
sword on that day that when it was Brand who offered the challenge,
Torak exultantly believed that he’d won and that the warning about
the third day was no longer valid. It was that and only that that
persuaded him to come out of the iron pavilion on that fatal day.
What he failed to realize was that Brand wasn’t his opponent on
that field, it was the Master’s Orb.
He’d emerged from his pavilion sublimely convinced that he was
going to get everything he wanted on this day, and it was that
conviction that led him to hurl his Will at me; but mother had simply
shunted me out of the way and had answered for me, disdainfully
rejecting him. The appearance of Brand instead of the Rivan King
suggested to Torak that he’d win; mother’s scornful rejection
suggested that he’d lose. Torak was a God, and he wasn’t equipped to
deal with uncertainty. Thus it was with doubt gnawing at his soul
that he rushed at Brand, flailing at him with that huge sword. There
almost seemed to be a kind of desperation in his charge. Brand, on
the other hand, seemed calm, even abstracted. His responses were
studied, one might almost say slightly bored.
The duel seemed to last forever, with Torak growing more
frenzied and Brand growing progressively more indifferent. Finally, the
dragon-God hacked his way through Brand’s defenses and cut a
deep gash in Brand’s shoulder, and that was the signal we’d been
waiting for without even knowing that we were waiting for it. I
strongly suspect that it was part of the agreement between the
contending Purposes that Torak had to draw blood before Brand could
overwhelm him. Brand’s shoulder gushed blood and father howled
even as I screamed.
Then Brand was unleashed. His studied, almost bored expression
vanished, replaced with an intent alertness. He scraped his
sword edge down across the face of his shield, cutting away the soldier’s
cloak which had hidden what was embedded in the shield’s center.
The Master’s Orb, all ablaze, struck the Dragon-God full in the face
with its fire.
Of course that had been what the whole war had been about.
We’d spent ten years and sacrificed thousands of lives with no other
purpose than to bring Torak to a place where he’d be forced to face
the Orb at a certain predetermined place and time.
I don’t think any of us had fully understood just how painful the
presence of the Orb would be for the God of Angarak. He screamed
as its baleful fire struck him and seared his face again. Screaming
still, he cast off his shield and threw away his sword, desperately
trying to cover his face.
And that’s when Brand struck him down. Swiftly seizing his
sword-hilt in both hands, the Rivan Warder drove his blade directly
into the maimed God’s left eye-socket where the Eye that was Not