"Let's move!" Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on the stones.

Garion smelled fresh blood as he loped past, and the smell brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth.

They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that had been the iron tower and crept silently through the open doorway into the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped, sniffing nervously at the tainted air, feeling his hackles rising on his ruffed neck. With an effort, he suppressed the low growl that rose involuntarily in his throat.

He felt Belgarath's shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided now by scent alone in the utter blackness. At the far end of the huge, empty, iron room there was another doorway.

Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his own will and let himself gradually flow back into his own form.

Silk was breathing a string of colorful curses, fervent but almost inaudible.

"What's the matter?" Belgarath whispered.

"I forgot to stop for my knife," Silk replied, grating his teeth together. "It's one of my favorites."

"What now, Grandfather?" Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.

"Just beyond this door, there's a flight of stairs leading down."

"What's at the bottom?"

"A cellar. It's a sort of tomb where Zedar's got Torak's body. Shall we go down?"

Garion sighed, then squared his shoulders. "I guess that's what we came for," he replied.

Chapter Twenty-two

"YOU DON'T ACTUALLY believe I'll accept that, do you, Zedar?" Garion froze in the act of putting his hand on the iron door at the foot of the stairs."You can't evade your responsibility with the pretence of necessity," the voice beyond the door continued.

"Aren't we all driven by necessity, Polgara?" a stranger's voice replied with a kind of weary sadness. "I won't say that I was blameless, but wasn't my apostacy predestined? The universe has been divided against itself since the beginning of time, and now the two Prophecies rush toward each other for their final meeting when all will be resolved. Who can say that what I have done was not essential to that meeting?"

"That's an evasion, Zedar," Aunt Pol told him.

"What's she doing here?" Garion whispered to Belgarath.

"She's supposed to be here," Belgarath whispered back with an odd note of satisfaction. "Listen."

"I don't think we'll gain anything by wrangling with each other, Polgara," Zedar the Apostate was saying. "We each believe that what we did was right. Neither of us could ever persuade the other to change sides at this point. Why don't we just let it go at that?"

"Very well, Zedar," Aunt Pol replied coolly.

"What now?" Silk breathed.