David Eddings - Enchanter's End Game

“It was necessary, you understand,” Belgarath said sadly.

“Why? Why did Durnik have to die, Grandfather?” Garion’s voice was anguished, and tears stood openly in his eyes.

“Because his death gave your Aunt the will to resist Torak. That’s always been the one flaw in the Prophecy—the possibility that Pol might yield. All Torak needed was one person to love him. It would have made him invincible.”

“What would have happened if she had gone to him?”

“You’d have lost the fight. That’s why Durnik had to die.” The old man sighed regretfully. “I wish it could have been otherwise, but it was inevitable.”

The three who had borne Durnik from the broken tomb gently laid his still form on the ground, and Ce’Nedra sadly joined Belgarath and Garion. Wordlessly, the tiny girl slipped her hand into Garion’s, and the three of them stood, silently watching as Aunt Pol, past tears now, gently straightened Durnik’s arms at his sides and then covered him with her cloak. She sat then upon the earth, took his head into her lap and almost absently stoked his hair, her head bowed over his in her grief.

“I can’t bear it,” Ce’Nedra suddenly sobbed, and she buried her face in Garion’s shoulder and began to weep.

And then there was light where there had been only darkness before. As Garion stared, a single beam of brilliant blue light descended from the broken and tattered cloud rolling overhead. The entire ruin seemed bathed in its intense radiance as the light touched the earth. Like a great, glowing column, the beam of light reached down to the earth from the night sky, was joined by other beams, red and yellow and green and shades Garion could not even name. Like the colors at the foot of a sudden rainbow, the great columns of light stood side by side on the other side of Torak’s fallen body. Then, indistinctly, Garion perceived that a glowing, incandescent figure stood within the center of each column of light. The Gods had returned to mourn the passing of their brother. Garion recognized Aldur, and he could easily identify each of the others. Mara still wept, and dead-eyed Issa seemed to undulate, serpentlike, as he stood within his glowing column of pale green light. Nedra’s face was shrewd, and Chaldan’s proud. Belar, the blondhaired, boyish God of the Alorns had a roguish, impudent look about him, though his face, like those of his brothers, was sad at the death of Torak. The Gods had returned to earth in glowing light and with sound as well. The reeking air of Cthol Mishrak was suddenly alive with that sound as each colored beam of light gave off a different note, the notes joining in a harmony so profound that it seemed the answer to every question that had ever been asked.

And finally, joining the other columns of light, a single, blindingly white beam slowly descended, and within the center of that radiance stood the white-robed form of UL, that strange God whom Garion had seen once in Prolgu.

The figure of Aldur, still embraced in its glowing blue nimbus, approached the ancient God of Ulgo.

“Father,” Aldur said sadly, “our brother, thy son Torak, is slain.”

Shimmering and incandescent, the form of UL, father of the other Gods, moved across the rubble-strewn ground to stand over the silent body of Torak.

“I tried to turn thee from this path, my son,” he said softly, and a single tear coursed its way down his eternal cheek. Then he turned back to Aldur. “Take up the form of thy bother, my son, and place it upon some more suitable resting place. It grieves me to see him lie so low upon the earth.”

Aldur, joined by his brethren, took up the body of Torak and placed it upon a large block of stone lying amid the ancient ruins, and then, standing in a quiet gleaming circle about the bier, they mourned the passing of the God of Angarak.

Unafraid as always, seemingly not even aware that the glowing figures which had descended from the sky were not human, Errand walked quite confidently to the shining form of UL. He reached out his small hand and tugged insistently at the God’s robe.

“Father,” he said.

UL looked down at the small face.

“Father,” Errand repeated, perhaps echoing Aldur, who had, in his use of that name, revealed at last the true identity of the God of Ulgo. “Father,” the little boy said again. Then he turned and pointed at the silent form of Durnik. “Errand!” It was in some strange way more a command than a request.

The face of UL became troubled. “It is not possible, child,” he replied.

“Father,” the little boy insisted, “Errand.”

UL looked inquiringly at Garion, his eyes profoundly unsettled. “The child’s request is serious,” he said gravely, speaking not to Garion but to that other awareness, “and it places an obligation upon me—but it crosses the uncrossable boundary.”

“The boundary must remain intact,” the dry voice replied through Garion’s lips. “Thy sons are passionate, Holy UL, and having once crossed this line, they may be tempted to do so again, and perhaps in one such crossing they may change that which must not be changed. Let us not provide the instrumentality whereby Destiny must once more follow two divergent paths.”

UL sighed.

“Wilt thou and thy sons, however, lend of your power to my instrument so that he may cross the boundary?”

UL looked startled at that.

“Thus will the boundary be protected, and thy obligation shall be met. It can happen in no other way.”

“Let it be as thou wilt,” UL agreed. He turned then and a peculiar look passed between the father of the Gods and his eldest son, Aldur. Aldur, still bathed in blue light, turned from his sad contemplation of his dead brother toward Aunt Pol, who was still bowed over Durnik’s body.

“Be comforted, my daughter,” he told her. “His sacrifice was for thee and for all mankind.”

“That is slight comfort, Master,” she replied, her eyes full of tears. “This was the best of men.”

“All men die, my daughter, the best as well as the worst. In thy life thou halt seen this many times.”

“Yes, Master, but this is different.”

“In what way, beloved Polgara?” Aldur seemed to be pressing her for some reason.

Aunt Pol bit her lip. “Because I loved him, Master,” she replied finally.

The faintest touch of a smile appeared on Aldur’s lips. “Is that so difficult to say, my daughter?”

She could not answer, but bowed again over Durnik’s lifeless form.

“Wouldst thou have us restore this man to thee, my daughter?” Aldur asked then.

Her face came up sharply. “That isn’t possible, Master,” she said. “Please don’t toy with my grief like this.”

“Let us however, consider that it may be possible,” he told her. “Wouldst thou have us restore him?”

“With all my heart, Master.”

“To what end? What task hast thou for this man that demands his restoration?”

She bit her lip again. “To be my husband, Master,” she blurted finally with a trace of defiance in her voice.

“And was that also so very difficult to say? Art thou sure, however, that this love of throe derives not from thy grief, and that once this good man is restored, thy mind might not turn away from him? He is, thou must admit, most ordinary.”

“Durnik has never been ordinary,” she flared with sudden heat. “He is the best and bravest man in the world.”

“I meant him no disrespect, Polgara, but no power loth infuse him. The force of the Will and the Word is not in him.”

“Is that so important, Master?”

“Marriage must be a joining of equals, my daughter. How could this good, brave man be husband to thee, so long as thy power remains?”

She looked at him helplessly.

“Couldst thou, Polgara, limit thyself? Wouldst thou become his equal? With power no more than his?”