"Something's happening outside," Durnik said urgently. "There's a light of some kind coming down the corridor."

Garion looked quickly. The light was still dim and indistinct, but it was like no other light he had ever seen.

"The time for the Choice hath come, Cyradis," Zandramas said, her voice cruel. "Choose!”

"I cannot!" the Seeress wailed, turning toward the growing light, "Not yet! I'm not ready yet!" She stumbled across the floor, wringing her hands. "I'm not ready! I can't choose! Send another!"

"Choose!" Zandramas repeated implacably.

"If only I could see them!" Cyradis sobbed. "If only I could see them!"

And then at last, Polgara moved. "That's easily arranged, Cyradis," she said in a calm and oddly comforting tone. "Your vision has clouded your sight, that's all." She reached out and gently removed the blindfold. "Look then with human eyes and make your choice.”

"That is forbidden!" Zandramas protested shrilly as her advantage crumbled,

"No," Polgara said. "If it were forbidden, I would not have been able to do it."

Cyradis had flinched back from even the faint light in the grotto. "I cannot!" she cried, covering her eyes with her hands. "I cannot!"

Zandramas' eyes came suddenly alight. "I triumph!" she exulted. "The Choice must be made, but now will it be made by another. It no longer lieth in the hands of Cyradis, for the decision not to choose is also a choice."

"Is that true?" Garion quickly asked Beldin.

"There are two schools of thought on that.”

"Yes or no, Beldin."

"I don't know. I really don't, Garion."

There was suddenly a soundless burst of intense light from the mouth of the passageway leading to the outside. Brighter than the sun, the light swelled and grew. It was so impossibly intense that even the cracks between the stones in the grotto blazed incandescently.

"It has come at last," Garion's inner companion said unemotionally through Eriond's lips. "It is the instant of the Choice. Choose, Cyradis, lest all be destroyed."

"It has come," another equally unemotional voice spoke through the lips of Garion's son. "It is the instant of the Choice. Choose, Cyradis, lest all be destroyed."

Cyradis swayed, torn by indecision, her eyes darting back and forth to the two faces before her. Again she wrung her hands.

"She cannot!” the Emperor of Mallorea exclaimed, starting forward impulsively.

"She must!" Garion said, catching his friend's arm. "If she doesn't, everything will be lost!"

Again the eyes of Zandramas filled with that unholy joy. "It is too much for her!" the priestess almost crowed. "Thou hast made thy choice, Cyradis," she cried. "It cannot be unmade. Now will I make the Choice for thee, and I will be exalted when the Dark God comes again!"