No, he’s not! – My passenger sounded suddenly very angry. – He’s cheating! –
– Does that mean that the rules have been suspended? –
– I think it does. Be careful though. We don’t want to blow up this whole side of the universe. –
I choked a little on that – Do you want me to do it? –
– Absolutely not! If you take up the Orb, it’ll attach itself to you, and you’ll never be able to get rid of it. You’d have to become its guardian, and you don’t have time for that. Tell Riva what to do. Don’t let him destroy Torak, whatever happens. He’s not the one who’s supposed to do that. –
‘Cherek!’ I said sharply, ‘Take Dras and Algar! Hold those people back while I talk to Riva!’
The King of Aloria nodded grimly, and the three of them spread out on the ice, their weapons ready. The Murgo skirmishers in the forefront of the advancing Angaraks got a quick lesson in the virtue of prudence at that point. It’s not a good idea to try to attack large Alorns when they’re ready for you.
‘Listen very carefully, Riva,’ I told Iron-grip. ‘I want you to concentrate on your hand.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t have to understand. Just look at the Angaraks and think about what you’d like to do to them, but think about your hand at the same time. The Orb’s a weapon, but you don’t have to swing it. Just be aware of it, and it’ll do what you want it to do.’
‘I thought you said that I wasn’t supposed to do that,’ he objected.
‘The rules have changed. The other side’s cheating, so we’re going to cheat a little, too. Don’t try to hurt Torak, though. You’ll destroy the world if you do.’
‘I’ll do what?’
‘You heard me. Concentrate on obliterating the Angaraks instead. Torak’s clever enough to get the point – eventually. He probably won’t cheat again.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’ Riva didn’t sound too sure of himself. He raised the Orb, though, and I could feel his Will building as he concentrated on the advancing Angaraks.
But nothing happened.
‘You’ve got to release it!’ I shouted at him.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got the thought right, but you’ve got to turn it loose!’
‘How?’
‘Say something!’
‘What do I say?’
‘I don’t care! Try “now”, or “burn”, or “kill”! Just say something!’
‘Go.’ He said it rather tentatively.
I controlled myself with a certain amount of effort. ‘You’re giving orders here, Riva,’ I told him. ‘Don’t make it sound like a question.’
‘Go!’ he thundered.
It wasn’t the Word I’d have used, but it turned the trick. The advancing Angaraks began exploding. Whole strings of them blew up one after another – bright flashes and sharp detonations running in sequence from one riverbank to the other. Cherek’s youngest son obliterated the front rank. Then he went back and methodically destroyed the second rank, then the third.
‘Can’t you do more than one at a time?’ I asked him.
‘Do you want to do this?’ he demanded from between clenched teeth.
‘No. It’s not allowed.’
‘Then do you want to shut up and let me do it?’
Now do you see how Garion comes by his short temper? Riva was normally the most even-tempered Alorn I’ve ever come across, but you didn’t want to irritate him.
After he’d turned the first five or six ranks of Angaraks into puffs of smoke and floating ashes, the rest of them got the message. They turned and fled, giving the raging Torak a wide berth.
Torak may have been raging, but I noticed that he was covering his steel-encased face with his remaining hand. He definitely didn’t want to lose his other eye. Finally, even he turned and fled howling.
‘You can turn it off now,’ I suggested to Riva.
‘I could go after them,’ he offered eagerly. ‘I could chase down every Angarak on the whole continent. Torak wouldn’t have a single worshiper left.’
‘Never mind,’ I told him. ‘You’ve gone as far as you’re supposed to. Put the Orb away.’
Cherek, Dras, and Algar came back. ‘Nice little fight,’ the King of Aloria noted. ‘That Orb’s a handy thing to have along, isn’t it?’
Alorns!
It seems to me I’ve said that before. You might as well get used to it. I’ve been rolling my eyes up at the sky and sighing, ‘Alorns’ for so long now that I don’t even know I’m doing it any more.
We went down to the mouth of the river and started slogging out across the ice. The Hounds were keeping their distance now, but they were still following us.
– Are they going to be a problem? – I asked my friend.
– Not for long. They’ll have to turn back when we get about half-way across. –
– Why? –
– They’re Grolims, Belgarath. They don’t have any power on your side of the Sea of the East. –
– Zedar did. –
– That’s because he’s a disciple. Different rules apply to disciples. Ctuchik or Urvon could keep coming, but ordinary Grolims can’t. –
– Why not? –
– Beldin explained it to you once, remember? –
– Oh, now that you mention it, I guess I do. Grolims don’t have any power in a place where there aren’t any Angaraks. –
– Amazing. You remembered after all. –
– What now? –
– Pick up one foot and put it in front of the other one. I’ll let you decide which foot. Don’t try to pick them both up at the same time, though. –
– Very funny. –
We continued across that awful broken sea-ice for the next couple of days with the Hounds still not too far behind us.
There
