Zakath had placed his arm about the shoulders of the Seeress of Kell, and the look on his face rather clearly indicated that he had no real intention of ever removing it. Garion remembered with a smile how, in the first moments of their openly avowed love for each other, Ce'Nedra had continually wormed her way into a very similar embrace. He walked wearily over to where Eriond stood looking out across the sun-splashed waves. "Can I ask you something?" he asked.

"Of course, Garion."

Garion looked pointedly at Zakath and Cyradis. "Is that more or less a part of the way things are supposed to be?" he asked. "What I'm getting at is that Zakath lost someone very dear to him when he was young. If he loses Cyradis now, it might destroy him. I wouldn't want that to happen."

"Put your mind at rest, Garion." Eriond smiled. "Nothing will separate those two. It's one of the things that are preordained. “

"Good. Do they know?"

"Cyradis does. She'll explain it to Zakath in time."

"She's still a seeress then?"

"No. That part of her life ended when Polgara removed her blindfold. She has looked into the future, though, and Cyradis has a very good memory.”

Garion thought about that for a moment, and then his eyes opened very wide. "Are you trying to say that the fate of the entire universe depended on the choice of an ordinary human being?" he asked incredulously.

"I'd hardly call Cyradis ordinary. She's been preparing for that choice since infancy. But in a way you're right. The Choice had to be made by a human being, and it had to be made without any help. Not even her own people could help Cyradis at that moment."

Garion shuddered. "That must have been terrifying for her. She had to have been desperately lonely.”

"She was, but the people who make choices always are."

"She didn't just select at random, did she?"

"No. She wasn't really choosing between your son and me, though. She was choosing between the Light and the Dark."

"I can't see where all the difficulty was then. Doesn't everybody prefer the light to the dark?”

"You and I might, but the Seers have always known that Light and Dark are simply opposite sides of the same thing. Don't worry too much about Zakath and Cyradis, Garion," Eriond said, returning to the original subject. He tapped his forehead with one finger. "Our mutual friend here has made a few arrangements about those two. Zakath's going to be very important for most of the rest of his life, and our friend has a way of encouraging people to do necessary things by rewarding them sometimes in advance."

"Like Relg and Taiba?"

"Or you and Ce'Nedra or Polgara and Durnik, for that matter."

"Can you tell me what it is that Zakath's supposed to do? What could you possibly need from him?"

"He's going to complete what you started."

"Wasn't I doing it right?"