Garion found himself powerless in the grip of that clear voice and he fell in beside satin-robed Zandramas to follow the slender Seeress. He felt a faint brush against his armored right shoulder as he and the Child of Dark entered the portal. It was almost with a wry amusement that he realized that the forces controlling this meeting were not so entirely sure of themselves. They had placed a barrier between him and the Sorceress of Darshiva. Zandramas’ unprotected throat lay quite easily within the reach of his vengeful hands, but the barrier made her as unassailable as if she had been on the far side of the moon. Faintly, he was aware that the others were coming up behind, his friends following him, and Geran and the violently trembling Otrath trailing after Zandramas.

‘This need not be so, Belgarion of Riva,’ Zandramas whispered urgently. ‘Will we, the two most powerful ones in all the universe, submit to the haphazard choice of this brain-sickly girl? Let us bestow our choices upon ourselves. Thus will we both become Gods. Easily will we be able to set aside UL and the others and rule all creation jointly.’ The swirling lights beneath the skin of her face spun faster now, and her eyes glowed red. ‘Once we have achieved divinity, thou canst put aside thine earthly wife, who is not, after all, human, and thou and I could mate. Thou couldst father a race of Gods upon me, Belgarion, and we could sate each other with unearthly delights. Thou wilt find me fair, King of Riva, as all men have, and I will consume thy days with the passion of Gods, and we will share in the meeting of Light and Dark.’

Garion was startled, even a little awed by the single-mindedness of the Spirit of the Child of Dark. The thing was as implacable and as unchangeable as adamantine rock. He perceived that it did not change because it could not. He began to grope his way toward something which seemed significant. Light could change. Every day was testimony to that. Dark could not. Then it was at last that he understood the true meaning of the eternal division which had rent the universe apart. The Dark sought immobile stasis; the Light sought progression. The Dark crouched in a perceived perfection; the Light, however, moved on, informed by the concept of perfectability. When Garion spoke, it was not in reply to the blatant inducements of Zandramas, but rather to the Spirit of Dark itself. ‘It will change, you know,’ he said. ‘Nothing you can do will stop me from believing that. Torak offered to be my father, and now Zandramas offers to be my wife. I rejected Torak, and I reject Zandramas. You cannot lock me into immobility. If I change only one little thing, you’ve lost. Go stop the tide if you can, and leave me alone to do my work.’

The gasp which came from the mouth of Zandramas was more than human. Garion’s sudden understanding had actually stung the Dark, not merely its instrument. He felt a faint, almost featherlike probing, and made no effort to repel it.

Zandramas hissed, her eyes aflame with hate-filled frustration.

‘Didn’t you find what you wanted?’ Garion asked.

The voice which came from her lips was dry, unemotional. ‘You’ll have to make your choice eventually, you know,’ it said.

The voice which came from Garion’s lips was not his own, and it was just as dry and clinical. ‘There’s plenty of time,’ it replied. ‘My instrument will choose when it is needful.’

‘A clever move, but it does not yet signify the end of the game.’

‘Of course not. The last move lies in the hands of the Seeress of Kell.’

‘So be it, then.’

They were walking down a long, musty-smelling corridor.

‘I absolutely hate this,’ Garion heard Silk murmur from behind him.

‘It’s going to be all right, Kheldar,’ Velvet told the little man comfortingly. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you.’

Then the corridor opened out into a submerged grotto. The walls were rough, irregular, for this was not a construction but a natural cavern. Water oozed down a far wall to trickle endlessly with silvery note into a dark pool. The grotto had a faintly reptilian smell overlaid by the odor of long dead meat, and the floor was littered with gnawed white bones. By some ironic twist, the lair of the Dragon God had become the lair of the dragon herself. No better guard had been necessary to protect this place.

On the near wall stood a massive throne carved from a single rock, and before the throne there was one of the now all-too-familiar altars. Lying on the center of that altar was an oblong stone somewhat larger than a man’s head. The stone glowed red, and its ugly light illuminated the grotto. Just to one side of the altar lay a human skeleton, its bony arm extended in a gesture of longing. Garion frowned. Some sacrifice to Torak, perhaps? Some victim of the dragon? Then he knew. It was the Melcene scholar who had stolen the Sardion from the university and fled with it to this place to die here in unthinking adoration of the stone which had killed him.

Just over his shoulder, Garion heard a sudden animal-like snarl coming from the Orb, and a similar sound came from the red stone, the Sardion, which lay on the altar. There was a confused babble of sound in a multitude of languages, some drawn, for all Garion knew, from the farthest reaches of the universe. Flickering streaks of blue shot up through the milky-red Sardion, and similarly, angry red bathed the Orb in undulant waves as all the conflicts of all the ages came together in this small, confined space.

‘Control it, Garion!’ Belgarath said sharply. ‘If you don’t, they’ll destroy each other – and the universe as well!’

Garion reached back over his shoulder and placed his marked palm over the Orb, speaking silently to the vengeful stone. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘All in good time.’ He could not have explained why he had chosen those precise words. Grumbling almost like a petulant child, the Orb fell silent, and the Sardion also grudgingly broke off its snarl. The lights, however, continued to stain the surfaces of both stones.

‘You were quite good back there,’ the voice in Garion’s mind congratulated him. ‘Our enemy is a bit off balance now. Don’t get overconfident, though. We’re at a slight disadvantage here because the Spirit of the Child of Dark is very strong in this grotto.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

‘Would you have paid any attention? Listen carefully, Garion. My opposite has agreed that we should leave the matter in Cyradis’ hands. Zandramas, however, has made no such commitment. She’s very likely to make one last attempt. Put yourself between her and the Sardion. No matter what you have to do, don’t let her reach that stone.’