His arm lashed back, and he swung a vast blow, but Garion, without even thinking, raised his own sword and once again the crypt rang with the bell note of blade against blade.

"Thou art but a boy, Belgarion," Torak said. "Wilt thou pit thyself against the might and invincible will of a God? Submit to me, and I will spare thy life."

The will of the God of Angarak was now directed at him, and in that instant, Garion fully understood how hard Aunt Pol's struggle had been. He felt the terrible compulsion to obey draining the strength from him. But suddenly a vast chorus of voices rang down through all the centuries to him, crying out the single word, "No!" All the lives of all who preceded him had been directed at this one moment, and those lives infused him now. Though he alone held Iron-grip's sword, Belgarion of Riva was not alone, and Torak's will could not sway him.

In a move of absolute defiance, Garion again raised his flaming sword.

"So be it, then," Torak roared. "To the death, Belgarion!"

At first it seemed but some trick of the flickering light that filled the tomb, but almost as soon as that thought occurred, Garion saw that Torak was growing larger, swelling upward, towering, expanding. With an awful wrenching sound, he shouldered aside the rusted iron roof of the tomb, bursting upward.

Once again without thinking, without even stopping to consider how to do it, Garion also began to expand, and he too exploded through the confining ceiling, shuddering away the rusty debris as he rose.

In open air among the decaying ruins of the City of Night the two titanic adversaries faced each other beneath the perpetual cloud that blotted out the sky.

"The conditions are met," the dry voice spoke through Garion's lips.

"So it would seem," another, equally unemotional voice came from Torak's steel-encased mouth.

"Do you wish to involve others?" Garion's voice asked.

"It hardly seems necessary. These two have sufficient capacity for what must be brought to bear upon them."

"Then let it be decided here."

"Agreed."

And with that Garion felt a sudden release as all constraint was removed from him. Torak, also released, raised Cthrek Goru, his lips drawn back in a snarl of hate.