The stones of the plaza were thick with the illusory memory of uncounted scores of Marag dead lying beneath rolling clouds of dense smoke. But what stood in the center of the plaza was not an illusion, nor even a ghost. The figure towered and seemed to shimmer with a terrible presence, a reality that was in no way dependent upon the mind of the observer for its existence. In its arms it held the body of a slaughtered child that seemed somehow to be the sum and total of all the dead of haunted Maragor; and its face, lifted in anguish above the body of that dead child, was ravaged by an expression of inhuman grief. The figure wailed; and Garion, even in the half somnolent state that protected his sanity, felt the hair on the back of his neck trying to rise in honor.
Mister Wolf grimaced and climbed down from his saddle. Carefully stepping over the illusions of bodies littering the plaza, he approached the enormous presence. “Lord Mara,” he said, respectfully bowing to the figure.
Mara howled.
“Lord Mara,” Wolf said again. “I would not lightly intrude myself upon thy grief, but I must speak with thee.”
The dreadful face contorted, and great tears streamed down the God’s cheeks. Wordlessly, Mara held out the body of the child and lifted his face and wailed.
“Lord Mara!” Wolf tried once again, more insistent this time.
Mara closed his eyes and bowed his head, sobbing over the body of the child.
“It’s useless, father,” Aunt Pol told the old man. “When he’s like this, you can’t reach him.”
“Leave me, Belgarath,” Mara said, still weeping. His huge voice rolled and throbbed in Garion’s mind. “Leave me to my grief.”
“Lord Mara, the day of the fulfillment of the prophecy is at hand,” Wolf told him.
“What is that to me?” Mara sobbed, clutching the body of the child closer. “Will the prophecy restore my slaughtered children to me? I am beyond its reach. Leave me alone.”
“The fate of the world hinges upon the outcome of events which will happen very soon, Lord Mara,” Mister Wolf insisted. “The kingdoms of East and West are girding for the last war, and Torak One-Eye, thy accursed brother, stirs in his slumber and will soon awaken.”
“Let him awaken,” Mara replied and bowed down over the body in his arms as a storm of fresh weeping swept him.
“Wilt thou then submit to his dominion, Lord Mara?” Aunt Pol asked him.
“I am beyond his dominion, Polgara,” Mara answered. “I will not leave this land of my murdered children, and no man of God will intrude upon me here. Let Torak have the world if he wants it.”
“We might as well leave, father,” Aunt Pol said. “Nothing’s going to move him.”
“Lord Mara,” Mister Wolf said to the weeping God, “we have brought before thee the instruments of the prophecy. Wilt thou bless them before we go?”
“I have no blessings, Belgarath,” Mara replied. “Only curses for the savage children of Nedra. Take these strangers and go.”
“Lord Mara,” Aunt Pol said firmly, “a part is reserved for thee in the working-out of the prophecy. The iron destiny which compels us all compels thee as well. Each must play that part laid out for him from the beginning of days, for in the day that the prophecy is turned aside from its terrible course, the world will be unmade.”
“Let it be unmade,” Mara groaned. “It holds no more joy for me, so let it perish. My grief is eternal, and I will not abandon it, though the cost be the unmaking of all that has been made. Take these children of the prophecy and depart.”
Mister Wolf bowed with resignation, turned, and came back toward the rest of them. His expression registered a certain hopeless disgust.
“Wait!” Mara roared suddenly. The images of the city and its dead wavered and shimmered away. “What is this?” the God demanded.
Mister Wolf turned quickly.
“What hast thou done, Belgarath?” Mara accused, suddenly towering into immensity. “And thou, Polgara. Is my grief now an amusement for thee? Wilt thou cast my sorrow into my teeth?”
“My Lord?” Aunt Pol seemed taken aback by the God’s sudden fury.
“Monstrous!” Mara roared. “Monstrous!” His huge face convulsed with rage. In terrible anger, he strode toward them and then stopped directly in front of the horse of Princess Ce’Nedra. “I will rend thy flesh!” he shrieked at her. “I will fill thy brain with the worms of madness, daughter of Nedra. I will sink thee in torment and horror for all the days of thy life.”
“Leave her alone!” Aunt Pol said sharply.
“Nay, Polgara,” he raged. “Upon her will fall the brunt of my wrath.” His dreadful, clutching fingers reached out toward the uncomprehending princess, but she stared blankly through him, unflinching and unaware.
The God hissed with frustration and whirled to confront Mister Wolf. “Tricked!” he howled. “Her mind is asleep.”
“They’re all asleep, Lord Mara,” Wolf replied. “Threats and horrors don’t mean anything to them. Shriek and howl until the sky falls down; she cannot hear thee.”
“I will punish thee for this, Belgarath,” Mara snarled, “and Polgara as well. You will all taste pain and terror for this arrogant despite of me. I will wring the sleep from the minds of these intruders, and they will know the agony and madness I will visit upon them all.” He swelled suddenly into vastness.
“That’s enough! Mara! Stop!” The voice was Garion’s, but Garion knew that it was not he who spoke.
The Spirit of Mara turned on him, raising his vast arm to strike, but Garion felt himself slide from his horse to approach the vast threatening figure. “Your vengeance stops here, Mara,” the voice coming from Garion’s mouth said. “The girl is bound to my purpose. You will not touch her.” Garion realized with a certain alarm that he had been placed between the raging God and the sleeping princess.
“Move out of my way, boy, lest I slay thee,” Mara threatened.
“Use your mind, Mara,” the voice told him, “if you haven’t howled it empty by now. You know who I am.”
“I will have her!” Mara howled. “I will give her a multitude of lives and tear each one from her quivering flesh.”
“No,” the voice replied, “you won’t. ”
The God Mara drew himself up again, raising his dreadful arms; but at the same time, his eyes were probing – and more than his eyes. Garion once again felt a vast touch on his mind as he had in Queen Salmissra’s throne room when the Spirit of Issa had touched him. A dreadful recognition began to dawn in Mara’s weeping eyes. His raised arms fell. “Give her to me,” he pleaded. “Take the others and go, but give the Tolnedran to me. I beg it of thee.”
“No.” What happened then was not sorcery – Garion knew it instantly. The noise was not there nor that strange, rushing surge that always accompanied sorcery. Instead, there seemed to be a terrible pressure as the full force of Mara’s mind was directed crushingly at him. Then the mind within his mind responded. The power was so vast that the world itself was not large enough to contain it. It did not strike back at Mara, for that dreadful collision would have shattered the world, but it stood rather, calmly unmoved and immovable against the raging torrent of Mara’s fury. For a fleeting moment, Garion shared the awareness of the mind within his mind, and he shuddered back from its immensity. In that instant, he saw the birth of uncounted suns swirling in vast spirals against the velvet blackness of the void, their birth and gathering into galaxies and ponderously turning nebulae encompassing but a moment. And beyond that, he looked full in the face of time itself – seeing its beginning and its ending in one awful glimpse.
Mara fell back. “I must submit,” he said hoarsely, and then he bowed to Garion, his ravaged face strangely humble. He turned away and buried his face in his hands, weeping uncontrollably.
“Your grief will end, Mara,” the voice said gently. “One day you will find joy again.”
“Never,” the God sobbed. “My grief will last forever.”
“Forever is a very long time, Mara,” the voice replied, “and only I can see to the end of it.”
The weeping God did not answer, but moved away from them, and the sound of his wailing echoed again through the ruins of Mar Amon. Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol were both staring at Garion with stunned faces. When the old man spoke, his voice was awed. “Is it possible?”
“Aren’t you the one who keeps saying that anything is possible, Belgarath?”
“We didn’t know you could intervene directly,” Aunt Pol said.
“I nudge things a bit from time to time – make a few suggestions. If you think back carefully, you might even remember some of them.”