Enchanter's End Game

it?" Aunt Pol asked him. "It flickered. In some peculiar way it seemed to recognize him, and something seemed to pass between them when he laid his hand on it." He sighed. "No, Polgara, I don't know who the child is - or even what he is. For all I know, he may even be an illusion. The idea to use him in the first place came to me so suddenly that I sometimes wonder if perhaps it was placed in my mind. It's entirely possible, I suppose, that I didn't find him, but that he found me. " He fell silent again.
    There was a long pause on the other side of the iron door.
    "Why, Zedar?" Aunt Pol asked him very quietly. "Why did you betray our Master?" Her voice was strangely compassionate.
    "To save the Orb," he replied sadly. "At least, at first that was the idea. From the moment I first saw it, it owned me. After Torak took it from our Master, Belgarath and the others began making their plans to regain it by force, but I knew that if Aldur himself did not join his hand with theirs to strike directly at Torak, they would fail - and Aldur would not do that. I reasoned that if force must fail, then guile might succeed. I thought that by pretending allegiance to Torak, I might gain his confidence and steal it back from him."
    "What happened, Zedar?" Her question was very direct. There was another long, painful pause.
    "Oh, Polgara!" Zedar's voice came in a strangled sob. "You cannot know! I was so sure of myself - so certain that I could keep a part of my mind free from Torak's domination - but I was wrong - wrong! His mind and will overwhelm me. He took me in his hand and he crushed out all of my resistance. The touch of his hand, Polgara!" There was horror in Zedar's voice. "It reaches down into the very depths of your soul. I know Torak for what he is - loathsome, twisted, evil beyond your understanding of the word - but when he calls me, I must go; and what he bids me do, I must do - even though my soul shrieks within me against it. Even now, as he sleeps, his fist is around my heart." There was another hoarse sob.
    "Didn't you know that it's impossible to resist a God?" Aunt Pol asked in that same compassionate voice. "Was it pride, Zedar? Were you so sure of your power that you thought you could trick him - that you could conceal your intention from him?"
    Zedar sighed. "Perhaps," he admitted. "Aldur was a gentle Master. He never brought his mind down on me, so I was not prepared for what Torak did to me. Torak is not gentle. What he wants, he takes - and if he must rip out your soul in the taking, it does not matter to him in the slightest. You'll discover his power, Polgara. Soon he'll awaken and he'll destroy Belgarion. Not even the Rivan King is a match for that awful mind. And then Torak will take you as his bride - as he has always said he would. Don't resist him, Polgara. Save yourself that agony. In the end, you'll go to him anyway. You'll go willingly - even eagerly."
    There was a sudden scraping sound in the room beyond the iron door, and a quick rush of feet.
    "Durnik!" Aunt Pol cried sharply. "No!"
    "What's happening?" Garion demanded of Belgarath.
    "That's what it means!" Belgarath gasped. "Get that door open!"
    "Get back, you fool!" Zedar was shouting.
    There was a sudden crash, the sound of bodies locked in struggle smashing into furniture.
    "I warn you," Zedar cried again. "Get back!"
    There was the sharp sound of a blow, of a fist striking solid bone.
    "Zedar!" Belgarath roared, yanking at the iron door.
    Then within the room there was a thunderous detonation.
    "Durnik!" Aunt Pol shrieked.
    In a sudden burst of fury, Belgarath raised his clenched hand, joined his flaming will with his arm and drove his fist at the locked door. The massive force of his blow ripped the iron door from its hinges as if it had been no more than paper.
    The room beyond had a vaulted, curved ceiling supported by great iron girders, black with age. Garion seemed to see everything in the room at once with a curious kind of detachment, as if all emotion had been drained from him. He saw Ce'Nedra and Errand clinging to each other in fright beside one wall. Aunt Pol was standing as if locked in place, her eyes wide as she stared in stunned disbelief at the still form of Durnik the smith, who lay crumpled on the floor, and whose face had that deadly pale cast to it that could only mean one thing. A terrible flood of realization suddenly swept her face - a realization of an irrevocable loss.
    "No!" she cried out. "My Durnik - No!"
    She