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 emerged, 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?”
Belgarath nodded gravely.
“It’s just that he was so alone at the end. I took everything away from him before I killed him. I’m not very proud of that.”
“As you say, it had to be done. It was the only way you could beat him.”
“I just wish I could have left him something, that’s all.”
From the ruins of the shattered iron tower, a sad little procession emerged. Aunt Pol, Silk, and Ce’Nedra were bringing out the body of Durnik the smith, and walking gravely beside them came Errand.
A pang of almost unbearable grief ran through Garion. Durnik, his oldest friend, was pale and dead, and in that vast internal upheaval that had preceded the duel with Torak, Garion had not even been able to mourn.
“It was necessary, you understand,” Belgarath said sadly.
“Why? Why did Durnik have to die, Grandfather?” Garion’s voice was anguished, and tears stood openly in his eyes.
“Because his death gave your Aunt the will to resist Torak. That’s always been the one flaw in the Prophecy – the possibility that Pol might yield. All Torak needed was one person to love him. It would have made him invincible.”
“What would have happened if she had gone to him?”
“You’d have lost the fight. That’s why Durnik had to die.” The old man sighed regretfully. “I wish it could have been otherwise, but it was inevitable.”