Dreadful flashes of the sleeping God's mind assailed Garion, and he saw clearly the terrible subterfuge that lay behind Torak's offer of friendship and love. Had his fear of their duel drawn him into yielding, fully half of creation would have shimmered and vanished. More than that, what Torak had offered was not love but an enslavement so vile that it was beyond imagining.

But he had not yielded. He had somehow evaded the overwhelming force of Torak's mind and had placed himself utterly in the hands of the Prophecy that had drawn him here. With an absolute denial of self, he had become the instrument of the Prophecy. He was no longer afraid. Sword in hand, the Child of Light awaited the moment when the Prophecy would release him to join in deadly struggle with the Dark God.

Then, even as Silk desperately tried to arouse either Garion or Polgara to action, the stones of the floor buckled upward, and Belgarath rose from the earth.

Garion, still abstracted and bemused, saw that all traces of the sometimes foolish old man he had known before were gone. The thieving old storyteller had vanished. Even the irritable old man who had led the quest for the Orb no longer existed. In their place stood the form of Belgarath the sorcerer, the Eternal Man, shimmering in the aura of his full power.

Chapter Twenty-three

"WHERE IS ZEDAR?" Aunt Pol asked, raising her tearstreaked face from Durnik's lifeless body to stare with a dreadful intensity at her father.

"I left him down there," Belgarath replied bleakly.

"Dead?"

"No."

"Bring him back."

"Why?"

"To face me." Her eyes burned.

The old man shook his head. "No, Pol," he said to her. "You've never killed anyone. Let's leave it that way."

She gently lowered Durnik's body to the floor and rose to her feet, her pale face twisted with grief and an awful need. "Then I will go to him," she declared, raising both arms as if to strike at the earth beneath her feet.

"No," Belgarath told her, extending his own hand, "you will not. "

They stood facing each other, locked in a dreadful, silent struggle. Aunt Pol's look at first was one of annoyance at her father's interference. She raised one arm again to bring the force of her will crashing down at the earth, but once again Belgarath put forth his hand.

"Let me go, father."

"No."

She redoubled her efforts, twisting as if trying to free herself from his unseen restraint. "Let me go, old man," she cried.

"No. Don't do this, Pol. I don't want to hurt you."

She tried again, more desperately this time, but once again Belgarath smothered her will with his. His face hardened, and he set his jaw.