Let's get this done with before the chapter, so it won't spoil the dramatic emphasis. Thank you to everyone who reviewed TWICE instead of just ONCE like MOST of you are doing. Belgarion/The Sapphire Rose, Kell(who actually reviewed 3 times), Gani Tobashi, voidhawc, Raal the Sword Master(wait, that's me), and Littletiger, who reviewed my other story twice and this one once.
Chapter 16
It was a small group that gathered in the ancient ruins of the city of Eternal Night, the site of the titantic battle between the Rivan King and the Dragon God, now dead and quiet, the unnatural darkness lying heavy over the malignant city. The tomb of Torak, where he had awakened, was permeated with a musty, heavy smell, as if the air were too thick to breathe, and it the view of the sky was clear through the broken roof, mute testimony to the powers that had been used in the battle. A chill was present in the room, and all there felt it not only as a physical chill, but a mental and emotional one as well.
Durnik's ordinary face was calm and grave as he looked around the room where he had lost his first life, showing only emotion of regret. His solid, familiar presence filled the others with a comforting certainty.
Beltira and Belkira had drawn close together, conflicting, yet identical, emotions flickering over their faces. At one moment they had sadness written over their faces, then annoyance, than apprehensive waiting. They bit their lips and looked at Belgarath, who stood in the middle of the floor, scowling.
He wore his old shabby clothes, and held nothing, but he seemed to radiate the sense that something was going to happen, something important. His silvery hair and beard glinted in the dim light of the candle that they had carried in, and for a moment his eyes seemed filled with some unbearable grief.
Polgara stood beside Durnik, and her face was like a thundercloud. Garion remembered the time right after Durnik had died, and she had wanted Belgarath to bring Zedar back up so she could kill him. He worried about what she might do. Hurl herself at Zedar with rage? But it had been Zedar's act that had fulfilled the prophecy by giving Durnik two lives, and strengthened Aunt Pol to be able to resist Torak's crushing might. It was Zedar that had ultimately defeated Torak. The servant defeated the master. The irony of it, Garion thought, was somehow not funny at all.
Garion, himself, as he looked around the room, felt as if he had returned to a dream. The events of Cthol Mishrak, and his titantic battle with Torak, were there in his mind, but they seemed like they had happened to someone else, someone who had taken over while Garion stood by. In truth, Garion realized, they all had two identities: that of their outward identity, and the identity given to them by the Prophecy. During that fateful battle, Garion had stepped aside, and the Rivan King had taken over.
The last member of the gathering was glowing slightly as he always did, his blond curls framing his face in an innocent way that reminded Garion of the little boy who he had saved from the crumbling Rak Cthol. He stepped forward.
"I'll go tell him what he's to do."
"Good," Belgarath growled. "I don't want to have to."
Eriond stepped to the center of the room, and slowly sunk into the floor. Good thing Silk's not here, Garion thought as he watched the spot where Eriond had disappeared. How would Zedar feel, being released after so long? Would he rage? Scream? Try to kill Belgarath? Refuse to help? Escape and go help the Morindim? Destroy all of them there in revenge? Garion tensed, waiting.
Eriond began his long descent through the earth, his incandescent form passing through the rock, descending to the mind he could feel below, a mind fluttering like a caged butterfly, weak from endless nothingness. Zedar's heart beat slowly, confined within the rock, and he did not breathe, for he did not have to. And finally Eriond saw through the rock the imprisoned form of Zedar, his eyes wide and unseeing, his body spread-eagled in his stone prison.
Eriond looked at the fallen sorcerer, his eyes sad. This man had found him when he was a little boy, and raised him. He had not been a father to him, but he was the only person Errand had ever known. It was for Zedar Errand had stolen the Orb, even though the very hints of his future had been touching his mind, and he knew there was something deeper. This man, sentenced to this horrible prison, was the one Errand had grown up with, and the one man in the world Eriond knew best. He understood all men, but Zedar had raised him, and he could see his mind as clearly as his own.
He just watched for a moment, feeling emotion radiating through Zedar. Torak's hold was gone, that iron barrier that had prevented his conscience, his memories, his love for Aldur, to surface. His mind was in turmoil now. He felt anguish, horrible anguish at what he had done, but no way to pay for it. Maybe it would be kinder to leave him here... But Eriond knew the world had to be saved. And Zedar, apostate or not, clumsy or not, was a sorcerer. The tenth sorcerer.
"Zedar."
In some way, the sorcerer's eyes focused, and came to rest on the glowing form of Eriond through the rock. He tried to speak, but then sent his thought out.
"Errand?"
"Eriond now, Zedar." The young god's eyes were full of compassion. "I fulfilled my destiny as Errand, and became my true self, Eriond."
Somehow Zedar knew. "A god..."
"After Belgarath left you here, Zedar, Torak woke. He rose and moved to confront Belgarion, but Belgarath flew in his way."
"He must not..."
"He was flung aside side like a wisp, and Torak advanced. He bent his will upon Polgara, commanding her to submit to him, to be his wife. But Durnik, the man she loved... his body was on the floor, and Belgarion filled her mind with his memories. And she stood fast, and Torak turned in rage to Belgarion."
"I felt the earth shake. The final outcome..."
"Or so it seemed. Belgarion killed Torak, and his brothers came to mourn him, and Durnik was restored life, his second life."
"The Man With Two Lives."
"Yes. And Polgara and Durnik were married. And many years passed, and I grew up with them. But then turmoil came, and Belgarion's firstborn was kidnapped, and the Prophecy spoke and said, 'Beware of Zandramas', and the entire company went off on a chase for the missing boy, with Cyradis, prophetess of the Dals, guiding them. Many more companions joined them, and they met many people and changed their perceptions on many things."
"The Dark Prophecy rose again?"
"It did. But the Child of Light and the Child of Dark met for the last time in the cave at Korim, and transferred their positions on two who might be the new Gods of Angarak: Belgarion's son and I. And Cyradis Chose me, and the Sardion was destroyed, and Zandramas was obliterated, the Dark Prophecy with her, and there was one new Prophecy. Belgarion's son was returned to his parents."
There was a long silence, and then Zedar said, "So many years have past. I have been trapped for so many years, so many things."
"But now, another conflict has risen, Zedar. The Morindim and an unknown leader march on Sendaria, and the Orb refuses to help, and nine sorcerers cannot stop them. Sendaria is doomed to fall beneath their marching feet if we cannot find some way to stop them."
"You could do it."
Eriond shook his head. "I am the guardian of the world. I cannot intercede with something the Prophecy may have planned. We only have one more option, Zedar. We need a tenth sorcerer." He let a long pause slide by. "We need you, Zedar." Zedar's face crumpled. "I can't. I can't face them. I betrayed them. They'll hate me, scorn me." "Do you wish to let the world be destroyed?" "The Morindim are not that powerful." "You underestimate them, Zedar. They are that powerful, under their leader, that nothing but ten sorcerers can stop them. Will you come?" Zedar paused, and Eriond felt his mind roil in uncertainty. But suddenly it calmed, and there was a determination at the center. Eriond tried to see the cause of the determination, but Zedar sent his thought, and it slipped away. "I will."
Eriond slowly rose out of the floor again. "He's ready."
Belgarath sighed deeply. Raising an arm, he brought it down, and with a crushing, wrenching noise like a thunderclap, a huge vertical crack appeared in the floor, stretching deep into the earth. And Belgarath leaped into the void, and the crack closed again.
The small room was silent again, as each breathed in the heavy air. Aunt Pol was looking at her husband, and Beltira and Belkira were looking at them both, but Durnik's calm eyes were only fixed on the spot where Belgarath had vanished. Apprehension filled the room.
Then the thunderclap sounded again, and this time two rose out of the earth.
One was Belgarath, still glowering, but this time with an indefinable sadness about him.
The other was Zedar.
Zedar's silvery beard and hair were so much like Belgarath's that the sorcerers looked almost exactly the same. His clothes were still torn and ragged, almost exactly as they had been when they had last seen him, but now his head was bowed, and he looked only at the floor, unwilling to meet any of their eyes. There was an air of sorrow, of grief, of loss, about him, and his eyes were shadowed. He stood there silently, waiting for their choice.
Beltira and Belkira were the first to speak.
"Belzedar."
"Our brother."
"I have no right to that name," Zedar's voice was barely audible as he turned his head away. They all watched him, and the anger in Aunt Pol's eyes was replaced by suspicion. She stepped forward, her face hard, and jabbed the sorcerer in the chest.
"Listen, Zedar. You're here because we need you, not because we've decided to let you out. We need your help to keep the Morindim from reaching Sendaria, and leaving destruction in their wake. Otherwise, you'd be under in rock, where you should still be." Her eyes were steely grey.
Zedar looked up, and his eyes met Aunt Pol's squarely. He stared into her face, bitterness in his eyes. His voice was soft. "Do you think I don't know that, Polgara? Do you think I would believe you would forgive me for what I did? I killed your husband."
"And for that you should die!" snarled Aunt Pol, starting forward. Durnik put his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stop.
"Durnik," Zedar said calmly, nodding to him. His glance flickered around the room, then returned. "It was you, wasn't it? It was you who said yes."
Durnik looked into his eyes, then nodded slowly.
"I thought so," Zedar's voice changed, became bitter, mocking, sardonic. "I killed you, and through your death the Child of Light triumphed. But that doesn't matter, does it? None of you care that I did what had to be done. All you think of is exactly what I did. Apostate. Apostate. Apostate. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?" His bitter eyes spun over all of them, and he turned to look at Belgarath. "And you. Only you could reverse what you'd done. But you didn't do it because you wanted to. You did it because if you didn't, the world would die." He stepped forward, closer to Belgarath. "You, so self-righteous, because you were Aldur's first disciple, you didn't betray him, you never were an apostate. You weren't chosen by the Prophecies to be the doom of the Children of Light. The Prophecies. Not the Dark, not the Light. Both of them. Both of them chose me to be the one person who would really lose everything. To Torak, death was a relief. Nothing loved him. Nothing cared. Zandramas never had anything. But I?" His mocking expression suddenly vanished. "I had everything. I had a Master who loved me, I had power, I had six brothers whom I loved and who loved me. I never had anyone who loved me before, but now I was basking in it. And then..." He went silent. Finally he pointed to the Orb strapped to Garion's back, which was glowing faintly blue. "Then that thing entered my life, and I lost everything." His mocking tone came back. "So keep your little self-righteousness around you, all of you. You don't understand. You never will."
He turned and walked past them, out through the doorway, and left the seven sorcerers in silence behind.
Eriond watched them all, his glowing face sad, then bowed his head. "The Morindim are marching. We must go now to stop them."