Garion felt an enormous wave of relief. Then something that he had felt since the moment in which Cyradis had made her Choice began to intrude itself increasingly upon his awareness. It was that overwhelming sense of presence which he had always felt when he had come face to face with a God. He looked more closely at Eriond, and that sense grew stronger. His young friend even looked different. Before, he had appeared to be a young man of probably not much over twenty. Now he appeared to be about the same age as Garion, although his face seemed strangely ageless. His expression, which before had been sweetly innocent, had now become grave and even wise. "We have one last thing to do here, Belgarion," he said in a solemn tone. He motioned to Zakath and then gently placed the still-weeping Cyradis into the Mallorean's arms. "Take care of her, please," he said.

"For all of my life, Eriond," Zakath promised, leading the sobbing girl back to the others.

"Now, Belgarion," Eriond continued, "give me my brother's Orb from off the hilt of Irongrip's sword. It's time to finish what was started here."

"Of course," Garion replied. He reached back over his shoulder and put his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Come off," he told the Orb. The stone came free in his hand, and he held it out to the young God.

Eriond took the glowing blue stone and turned to look at the Sardion and then down at the Orb in his hand. There was something inexplicable in his face as he looked at the two stones that were at the center of all division. He raised his face for a moment, his expression now serene. "So be it then," he said finally.

And then to Garion's horror, he gripped the Orb even more tightly and pushed his hand quite deliberately, Orb and all, into the glowing Sardion.

The reddish stone seemed to flinch. Like Ctuchik in his last moment, it first expanded, then contracted. Then it expanded one last time. And then, like Ctuchik, it exploded and yet that explosion was tightly confined, enclosed somehow within some unimaginable globe of force that came perhaps from Eriond's will or from the power of the Orb or from some other source. Garion knew that had that force not been in place, all the world would have been torn apart by what was happening in this tightly confined place.