The Seeress of Kell

Darshiva, however, did not falter, but continued her slow advance. "Wilt thou kill thy son, Belgarion of Riva?" she asked. "For thou canst not strike at me without destroying him."
    “I can't do it!” Garion cried out, his eyes suddenly full of tears. "I can't!"
    “You must. You've been warned that this might happen. If she succeeds and puts your son's hand on the Sardion, he will be worse than dead. Do what must be done, Garion. "
    Weeping uncontrollably, Garion raised his sword. Geran looked him steadily in the face, his eyes unafraid.
    “No!” It was Ce'Nedra. She dashed across the floor of the grotto and threw herself directly in front of Zandramas. Her face was deathly pale. "If you intend to kill my baby, you'll have to kill me, too, Garion," she said in a broken voice. She turned her back on Garion and bowed her head.
    "So much the better," Zandramas gloated. "Wilt thou kill thy son and thy wife both, Belgarion of Riva? Wilt thou carry that with thee to thy grave?"
    Garion's face twisted in agony as he gripped the hilt of his flaming sword more firmly. With one stroke, he would destroy his very life.
    Zandramas, still holding Geran, stared at him incredulously. "Thou wilt not!" she exclaimed. "Thou canst not!"
    Garion clenched his teeth and raised his sword even higher.
    Zandramas' incredulity suddenly turned to fright. Her advance stopped, and she began to shrink back from that awful stroke.
    "Now, Ce'Nedra!" Polgara's voice cracked like a whip.
    The Rivan Queen, who had been coiled like a spring beneath her apparent mute submission to her fate, exploded. With a single leap, she snatched Geran from the arms of Zandramas and fled with him back to Polgara's side.
    Zandramas howled and tried to follow, her face filled with rage.
    "No, Zandramas," Poledra said. "If thou turnest away, I will kill thee or Belgarion will. Thou hast inadvertently revealed thy decision. Thy choice hath been made, and thou art no longer the Child of Dark, but are only an ordinary Grolim priestess. There is no longer any need for thee here. Thou art free now to depart or to die."
    Zandramas froze.
    "Thus all thy subterfuge and evasion have come to naught, Zandramas. Thou hast no longer any choice. Wilt thou now submit to the decision of the Seeress of Kell?"
    Zandramas stared at her, the expression on her star-touched face a mixture of fear and towering hatred.
    "Well, Zandramas," Poledra said, "what is it to be? Wilt thou die this close to thy promised exaltation?" Poledra's golden eyes were penetrating as she looked into the face of the Grolim priestess. "Ah, no," she said quite calmly, "I perceive that thou wilt not. Thou canst not. But I would hear the words from thine own mouth, Zandramas. Wilt thou now accept the decision of Cyradis?"
    Zandramas clenched her teeth. "I will," she grated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    The thunder still cracked and rumbled outside, and the wind accompanying the storm that had been brewing since the earth had been made moaned in the passageway leading into the grotto from the amphitheater outside. In an abstract sort of way as he resheathed his sword, Garion recognized precisely what his mind was doing. It had happened so often in the past that he wondered why he had not expected it. The circumstances required that he make a decision. The fact that he no longer even considered the decision, but concentrated instead on a meticulous examination of his surroundings, indicated that he had already made his choice somewhere so deep in his mind that it did not even register on the surface. There was, he conceded, a very good reason for what he was doing. Dwelling upon an impending crisis or confrontation would only rattle him, lead him into that distracting series of "what ifs," and make him begin to have those second thoughts that could quite easily lock him into an agonized indecision. Right or wrong, the choice had been made now, and to continue to worry at it would serve no purpose. The choice, he knew, was based not only on careful reasoning but also on deep feelings. He had that serene inner peace which flowed from the knowledge that the choice, whatever it was, was right. Calmly, he turned his attention to the grotto itself.
    The stones of the walls appeared, though it was hard to be sure in the pervading red light of the Sardion, to be a kind of basalt that had fractured into a myriad of flat surfaces and sharp edges. The floor was peculiarly smooth, either as a result of eons of patiently eroding water