‘Aunt Pol,’ Garion whispered, ‘is it my imagination, or is she really here this time?’
Polgara looked intently at the blindfolded Seeress. ‘It’s not a projection,’ she said. ‘It’s much more substantial. I couldn’t begin to guess how she got here, but I think you’re right, Garion. She’s really here.’
They followed the Seeress and her mute guide down the steeply descending road into a grassy basin surrounded on all sides by towering firs. In the center of the basin was a small mountain lake sparkling in the sunlight.
Polgara suddenly drew in her breath sharply. ‘We’re being watched,’ she said.
‘Who is it, Pol?’ Belgarath asked.
‘The mind is hidden, father. All I can get is the sense of watching—and anger.’ A smile touched her lips. ‘I’m sure it’s Zandramas. She’s shielding, so I can’t reach her mind, but she can’t shield out my sense of being watched, and she can’t control her anger enough to keep me from picking up the edges of it.’
‘Who’s she so angry with?’
‘Cyradis, I think. She went to a great deal of trouble to lay a trap for us, and Cyradis came along and spoiled it. She still might try something, so I think we’d all better be on our guard.’
He nodded bleakly. ‘Right,’ he agreed.
Toth led the horse his mistress was riding out into the basin and stopped at the edge of the lake. When the rest of them reached her, she pointed down through the crystal water. ‘The task lies there,’ she said. ‘Below lies a submerged grot. One of ye must enter that grot and then return. Much shall be revealed there.’
Belgarath looked hopefully at Beldin.
‘Not this time, old man,’ the dwarf said, shaking his head. ‘I’m a hawk, not a fish, and I don’t like cold water any more than you do.’
‘Pol?’ Belgarath said rather plaintively.
‘I don’t think so, father,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s your turn this time. Besides, I need to concentrate on Zandramas.’
He bent over and dipped his hand into the sparkling water. Then he shuddered. ‘This is cruel,’ he said.
Silk was grinning at him.
‘Don’t say it, Prince Kheldar.’ Belgarath scowled, starting to remove his clothing. ‘Just keep your mouth shut.’
They were perhaps all a bit surprised at how sleekly muscular the old man was. Despite his fondness for rich food and good brown ale, his stomach was as flat as a board; though he was as lean as a rail, his shoulders and chest rippled when he moved.
‘My, my,’ Velvet murmured appreciatively, eyeing the loincloth-clad old man.
He suddenly grinned at her impishly. ‘Would you care for another frolic in a pool, Liselle?’ he invited with a wicked look in his bright blue eyes.
She suddenly blushed a rosy red, glancing guiltily at Silk.
Belgarath laughed, arched himself forward, and split the water of the lake as cleanly as the blade of a knife. Several yards out, he broached, leaping high into the air with the sun gleaming on his silvery scales and his broad, forked tail flapping and shaking droplets like jewels across the sparkling surface of the lake. Then his dark, heavy body drove down and down into the depths of the crystal lake.
‘Oh, my,’ Durnik breathed, his hands twitching.
‘Never mind, dear.’ Polgara laughed. ‘He wouldn’t like it at all if you stuck a fishhook in his jaw.’
The great, silver-sided salmon swirled down and disappeared into an irregularly shaped opening near the bottom of the lake.
They waited, and Garion found himself unconsciously holding his breath.
After what seemed an eternity, the great fish shot from the mouth of the submerged cave, drove himself far out into the lake, and then returned, skipping across the surface of the water on his tail, shaking his head and almost seeming to balance himself with his fins. Then he plunged forward into the water near the shore, and Belgarath emerged dripping and shivering. ‘Invigorating,’ he observed, climbing back up onto the bank. ‘Have you got a blanket handy, Pol?’ he asked, stripping the water from his arms and legs with his hands.
‘Show-off,’ Beldin grunted.
‘What was down there?’ Garion asked.
‘It looks like an old temple of some kind,’ the old man answered, vigorously drying himself with the blanket Polgara had handed him. ‘Somebody took a natural cave and walled up the sides to give it some kind of shape. There was an altar there with a special kind of niche in it—empty, naturally—but the place was filled with an overpowering presence, and all the rocks glowed red.’
‘The Sardion?’ Beldin demanded intently.
‘Not any more,’ Belgarath replied, drying his hair. ‘It
was
there, though, for a long, long time—and it had built a barrier of some kind to keep anybody from finding it. It’s gone now, but I’ll recognize the signs of it the next time I get close.’
‘Garion!’ Ce’Nedra cried. ‘Look!’ With a trembling hand she was pointing at a nearby crag. High atop that rocky promontory stood a figure wrapped in shiny black satin. Even before the figure tossed back its hood with a gesture of supreme arrogance, he knew who it was. Without thinking, he reached for Iron-grip’s sword, his mind suddenly aflame.
But then Cyradis spoke in a clear, firm voice. ‘I am wroth with thee, Zandramas,’ she declared. ‘Seek not to interfere with that which must come to pass, lest I make my choice here and now.’
‘And if thou dost, sightless, creeping worm, then all will turn to chaos, and thy task will be incomplete, and blind chance will supplant prophecy. Behold, I am the Child of Dark, and I fear not the hand of chance, for chance is
my
servant even more than it is the servant of the Child of Light.’
Then Garion heard a low snarl, a dreadful sound—more dreadful yet because it came from his wife’s throat. Moving faster than he thought was possible, Ce’Nedra dashed to Durnik’s horse and ripped the smith’s axe from the rope sling which held it. With a scream of rage, she ran around the edge of the tiny mountain lake brandishing the axe.
‘Ce’Nedra!’ he shouted, lunging after her. ‘No!’
Zandramas laughed with cruel glee. ‘Choose, Cyradis!’ she shouted. ‘Make thine empty choice, for in the death of the Rivan Queen, I triumph!’ and she raised both hands over her head.
Though he was running as fast as he could, Garion saw that he had no hope of catching Ce’Nedra before she moved fatally close to the satin-robed sorceress atop the crag. Even now, his wife had begun scrambling up the rocks, screeching curses and hacking at the boulders that got in her way with Durnik’s axe.
Then the form of a glowing blue wolf suddenly appeared between Ce’Nedra and the object of her fury. Ce’Nedra stopped as if frozen, and Zandramas recoiled from the snarling wolf. The light around the wolf flickered briefly, and there, still standing between Ce’Nedra and Zandramas stood the form of Garion’s ultimate grandmother, Belgarath’s wife and Polgara’s mother. Her tawny hair was aflame with blue light, and her golden eyes blazed with unearthly fire.
‘You!’ Zandramas gasped, shrinking back even further.
Poledra reached back, took Ce’Nedra to her side, and protectively put one arm about her tiny shoulders. With her other hand she gently removed the axe from the little Queen’s suddenly nerveless fingers. Ce’Nedra’s eyes were wide and unseeing, and she stood immobilized as if in a trance.
‘She is under my protection, Zandramas,’ Poledra said, ‘and you may not harm her.’
The sorceress atop the crag howled in sudden, frustrated rage. Her eyes ablaze, she once again drew herself erect.
‘Will it be now, Zandramas?’ Poledra asked in a deadly voice. ‘Is this the time you have chosen for our meeting? You know even as I that should we meet at the wrong time and in the wrong place, we will
both
be destroyed.’
‘I do not fear thee, Poledra!’ the sorceress shrieked.
‘Nor I you. Come then, Zandramas, let us destroy each other here and now—for should the Child of Light go on to the Place Which Is No More unopposed and find no Child of Dark awaiting him there, then
I
triumph! If this be the time and place of your choosing, bring forth your power and let it happen—for I grow weary of you.’
The face of Zandramas was twisted with rage, and Garion could feel the force of her will building up. He tried to reach over his shoulder for his sword, thinking to unleash its fire and blast the hated sorceress from atop her crag, but even as Ce’Nedra’s apparently were, he found that his muscles were all locked in stasis. From behind him he could feel the others also struggling to shake free of the force which seemed to hold them in place as well.
‘No,’ Poledra’s voice sounded firmly in the vaults of his mind. ‘This is between Zandramas and me. Don’t interfere.’
‘Well, Zandramas,’ she said aloud then, ‘what is your decision? Will you cling to life a while longer, or will you die now?’
The sorceress struggled to regain her composure, even as the glowing nimbus about Poledra grew more intense. Then Zandramas howled with enraged disappointment and disappeared in a flash of orange fire.
‘I thought she might see it my way,’ Poledra said calmly. She turned to face Garion and the others. There was a twinkle in her golden eyes. ‘What took you all so long?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been waiting for you here for months.’ She looked rather critically at the half-naked Belgarath, who was staring at her with a look of undisguised adoration. ‘You’re as thin as a bone, Old Wolf,’ she told him. ‘You really ought to eat more, you know.’ She smiled fondly at him. ‘Would you like to have me go catch you a nice fat rabbit?’ she asked. Then she laughed, shimmered back into the form of the blue wolf, and loped away, her paws seeming scarcely to touch the earth.
Here ends Book III of
The Malloreon
.
Book IV,
Sorceress of Darshiva
continues the search for Zandramas and for the Sardion which has been at many sites, but is now to be found at the ‘Place Which Is No More’—whatever that means!