                            ENCHANTER'S END GAME




And finally,
for Leigh, my beloved wife,
whose hand and thought have touched every page,
and who has joined me in this making - even as she joins me in all that
I do.





PROLOGUE

Being an account of beginnings-and endings

                                           Excerpts from The Book of Torak~

HEAR ME, YE Angaraks,  for I am Torak, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Bow
before my  Name and worship me  with prayers and with  sacrifices, for I am
your God and I have dominion over all the realms of the Angaraks. And great
shall be my wrath if ye displease me.

I was,  before the world was made. I shall  be, after the mountains crumble
into sand,  the seas dwindle to stagnant pools,  and the world shrivels and
is no more. For I was before time and shall be after.

From  the timeless  reaches of  Infinity, I  gazed upon  the future.  And I
beheld that  there were two Destinies  and that they must  rush toward each
other from  the endless  corridors of Eternity. Each  Destiny was Absolute,
and in that final meeting, all that was divided should be made one. In that
instant, all  that was, all that  is, and all that was  yet to be should be
gathered into one Purpose.

#Editor's Note:  This version, said to be from the  dread Book of Torak, is
one of  several circulated among  the Nadraks. Since only  the high Grolims
were permitted  official copies of the work,  it is impossible to establish
that this version is authentic, though internal evidence suggests that much
of it may be.  A true copy of the complete Book of  Torak is believed to be
in  the library of  King Anheg of  Cherek, but  this was not  available for
comparison.

And because of  my Vision, I led my six brothers to  join hands to make all
that is, in fulfillment of the needs of the Destinies. Thus we set the moon
and the  sun in their courses  and we brought forth  this world. We covered
the world  with forests and grasses  and made beasts, fowls,  and fishes to
fill the lands and skies and waters which we had made.

But our  Father took no joy  in this creation which I  had caused to be. He
turned his  face from our labor  to contemplate the Absolute.  I went alone
into the high places of Korim, which are no more, and I cried out to him to
accept what  I had made.  But he rejected the  work I had caused  to be and
turned from  me. Then  I hardened my  heart against him and  went down from
that place, fatherless evermore.

Once  more I  counseled my brothers,  and we  joined our hands  and brought
forth man to be the instrument of our will. We created man as many peoples.
And to each people,  we gave a choice to select among us the one who should
be their God. And the peoples chose from us, save only that no people chose
Aldur, who  was ever contrary and discontented that  we would not grant him
dominion. Then  Aldur withdrew himself  from among us and  sought to entice
our servants away from us with enchantments. But few were they who accepted
him.

The  peoples who  were  mine called  themselves  the Angaraks.  I was  well
pleased with them and  I led them to the high places of Korim, which are no
more, and  to them  I revealed the  nature of the  Purpose for  which I had
caused the world to be.

Then they  worshipped me with prayers and  offered burnt offerings unto me.
And  I  blessed  them,  and they  prospered  and  grew  numerous. In  their
gratitude they  raised up an altar to me and there  made sacrifice to me of
their fairest maidens and a portion of their bravest youths. And I was well
pleased with  them and again I  blessed them, so that  they prospered above
all other men and multiplied exceedingly.

Now the heart of  Aldur was filled with envy for the worship that was given
to me, and he  was driven with despite for me. Then did he conspire against
me  within the  secret  places of  his soul,  and  he took  up a  stone and
breathed life  into it, that it might thwart my  Purpose. And in that stone
he sought to gain dominion over me. Thus Cthrag Yaska came to be. And there
was eternal  enmity sealed  within Cthrag Yaska  against me. And  Aldur sat
apart with  those whom  he called his  disciples and plotted  how the stone
should give him dominion.

I saw that the  accursed stone had divided Aldur from me and from his other
brothers. And  I went to Aldur  and remonstrated with him,  begging that he
lift the  wicked enchantment from the  stone and take back  the life he had
breathed into it. This I did that Aldur might no longer be divided from his
brothers.   Yea,  I   did   even  weep   and  abase   myself   before  him.

But already  the evil stone had  gained possession over the  soul of Aldur,
and he  had hardened  his heart against me.  And I saw then  that the stone
which Aldur had created  would forever hold my brother in thralldom. And he
spoke slightingly to me and would have driven me forth.

Then for the love  I bore him and to save him from the evil course which my
Vision  revealed, I  struck my  brother Aldur  down and  took from  him the
accursed rock. And I  bore Cthrag Yaska away to bend my will upon it and to
still  the malice  within  it and  quell the  wickedness  for which  it was
created. So  it was  that I took  the burden of  the thing  which Aldur had
created upon myself.

Aldur was wroth with  me. He went to our brothers and spoke to them falsely
against  me. And  each  of them  came to  me and  spoke slightingly  to me,
commanding that I return to Aldur that which had twisted his soul and which
I  had taken  to  free him  from the  enchantment  of it.  But  I resisted.

Then they  girded for  war. The sky  was blackened with the  smoke of their
forges as  their peoples beat out weapons of iron to  spill the blood of my
Angaraks upon  the ground. When the year  turned, their hosts marched forth
and  onto the lands  of the Angaraks.  And my  brothers loomed tall  in the
forefront of the hosts.

Now  was I  greatly loath  to lift my  hand against  them. Yet I  could not
permit that  they should despoil the lands of my  people or loose the blood
of  those who  worshipped  me. And  I knew  that from  such war  between my
brothers and me could come only evil. In that struggle, the Destinies I had
seen might be sent  against each other before it was time, and the universe
be shaken apart in that meeting.

And so I chose that which I feared, but which was less evil than the danger
I foresaw.  I took up the  accursed Cthrag Yaska and  raised it against the
earth itself.  And in me lay the Purpose of  one Destiny, while the Purpose
of the other was  affixed within the stone Aldur had created. The weight of
all  that was  or will be  was upon us,  and the  earth could not  bear our
weight. Then  did her mantle rend asunder before me,  and the sea rushed in
to drown the dry  land. Thus were the peoples separated one from the other,
that  they might  not  come upon  each other  and  their blood  be spilled.

But such  was the malice which  Aldur had wrought within  the stone that it
smote me  with fire  as I raised  it to divide  the world  and prevent evil
bloodshed. Even  as I  spoke the commands  unto it, it  burst into dreadful
fire and smote  me. The hand with which I held it  was consumed and the eye
with which I  beheld it was blinded. One half of my  face was marred by its
burning.  And  I, who  had  been the  fairest  among my  brothers, was  now
abhorrent to the  eyes of all, and I must cover my  face with a living mask
of steel, lest they shun me.

An agony  filled me from the  evil that was done  me, and pain lived within
me, which  could never be quenched  until the foul stone  could be freed of
its evil and could repent of its malice.

But the  dark sea stood between my people and  those who would come against
them, and my enemies  fled in terror of that which I had done. Yea, even my
brothers fled  from the world which  we had made, for  they dared no longer
come against me. Yet still did they conspire with their followers in spirit
form.

Then I  bore my people away to the wastelands  of Mallorea and there caused
them  to build  a mighty  city on  a sheltered  place. They named  it Cthol
Mishrak, as a remembrance  of the suffering I had undergone for them. And I
concealed  their  city  with   a  cloud  that  should  ever  be  above  it.

Then I had a  cask of iron forged, and in it I bound Cthrag Yaska, that the
evil  stone should  never again  be free  to unleash  its power  to destroy
flesh. For  a thousand  years and still  another thousand years  I labored,
contending with  the stone that I  might release the curse  of malice which
Aldur  had laid  upon it. Great  were the  enchantments and words  of power
which I  cast at the obdurate stone, but still its  evil fire burned when I
came  near  to  it,  and I  felt  its  curse  lying  ever  upon the  world.

Then Belar,  youngest and  most rash of  my brothers, conspired  against me
with Aldur,  who still bore hatred and jealousy  within his soul toward me.
And Belar  spoke in spirit to his uncouth people,  the Alorns, and set them
against me. The spirit of Aldur sent Belgarath, the disciple in whom he had
most wholly instilled his  despite, to join with them. And the foul counsel
of Belgarath prevailed upon Cherek, chief of the Alorns, and upon his three
sons.

By evil sorcery, they  passed the barrier of the sea I had caused to be and
they  came like  thieves  in the  night to  the city  of Cthol  Mishrak. By
stealth and low cunning, they crept through my tower of iron and made their
way to the chest that held the evil stone.

The youngest  son of  Cherek, whom men  called Riva Iron-grip,  had been so
woven about with spells and enchantments that he could take up the accursed
stone and not perish. And they fled with it to the west.

With the  warriors of  my people I  pursued them, that the  curse of Cthrag
Yaska not again be loosed upon the land. But the one called Riva raised the
stone and  loosed its evil fire  upon my people. Thus  the thieves escaped,
bearing  the evil  of the  stone with  them into  their lands of  the west.

Then I  pulled down the mighty  city of Cthol Mishrak,  that my people must
flee from its ruins.  And I divided the Angaraks into tribes. The Nadraks I
set  in the  north to  guard the ways  in which  the thieves had  come. The
Thulls,  broad of  back for  the bearing  of burdens,  I set in  the middle
lands. The Murgos, fiercest of my people, I sent to the south. And the most
numerous I kept with me in Mallorea, to serve me and multiply against a day
when I should have need of an army against the west.

Above  all  these  peoples  I  set  the  Grolims  and  instructed  them  in
enchantments and  wizardry, that they be a priesthood  to me and watch over
the zeal of all others. And them I instructed to keep my altars burning and
to be unceasing in their sacrifices to me.

Belgarath, in his wickedness, had sent Riva with the accursed stone to rule
an island in the  Sea of Winds. And there Belar caused two stars to fall to
earth.  From these,  Riva  forged a  sword and  set  Cthrag Yaska  into its
pommel.

And when  Riva gripped that sword,  the universe shuddered about  me, and I
cried out,  for my  Vision had opened  to me, revealing much  that had been
hidden before. I saw  that Belgarath's sorcerous daughter should in time be
my  bride, and  I rejoiced.  But I  also saw  that a  Child of  Light would
descend from  Riva's loins, and he  would be an instrument  of that Destiny
which opposed that other  Destiny which gave me my Purpose. Then would come
a day when I  must wake from some long sleep to face the sword of the Child
of Light.  And upon that day, the two Destinies  would clash, with only one
victor  alive and  one  Destiny thenceforth.  But which  was  not revealed.

Long I pondered this Vision, but no more was revealed. And a thousand years
passed, and even more.

Then I called to me Zedar, a wise and just man who had fled from the malice
of Aldur's  teachings and had come unto me with an  offer of service. And I
sent him  to the court of the Serpent People who  dwelt among swamps in the
west. Their  God was Issa, but  he was ever lazy  and he slept, leaving the
people who called themselves Ny-Issans to the sole rule of their queen. And
to her  Zedar did make certain offers, which were  pleasing to her. And she
sent her assassins as  emissaries to the court of Riva's descendants. There
did they  slay all  of that line,  save only one  child who  chose to drown
himself in the sea.

Thus did  the Vision  err, for what  Child of Light  can be  born when none
remain to bear him?

And thus  have I assured that my Purpose shall be  served and that the evil
of Aldur and his  brothers shall not destroy the world which I caused to be
created.

The  Kingdoms  of  the  West  which  have  harkened unto  the  counsel  and
beguilements of  wicked Gods  and evil sorcerers  will be brought  unto the
dust. And  I will  harry those who  sought to deny  me and  confound me and
multiply their suffering. And they shall be brought low and they shall fall
before   me,  offering   themselves   as  a   sacrifice  upon   my  altars.

And  the time shall  come when I  have Lordship  and dominion over  all the
earth, and all peoples shall be mine.

Hear me, ye peoples,  and fear me. Bow down before me and worship me. For I
am Torak, forever King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and God alone to this world
which I have caused to be.





                                  Part One

                               GAR OG NADRAK



                                  [Image]







Chapter One

THERE WAS, GARION decided, something definitely mournful about the sound of
mule bells. The mule  was not a particularly loveable animal to begin with,
and there  was a subtle difference  to his gait that  imparted a lugubrious
note  to a  bell hung  about his  neck. The  mules were  the property  of a
Drasnian merchant named Mulger,  a lanky, hard-eyed man in a green doublet,
who -  for a price -  had allowed Garion, Silk,  and Belgarath to accompany
him on  his trek into Gar  og Nadrak. Mulger's mules  were laden with trade
goods, and  Mulger himself seemed  to carry a burden  of preconceptions and
prejudices almost as heavy as a fully loaded mule pack. Silk and the worthy
merchant had disliked each other at first sight, and Silk amused himself by
baiting  his countryman  as  they rode  eastward across  the  rolling moors
toward the  jagged peaks that  marked the boundary between  Drasnia and the
land  of the  Nadraks.  Their discussions,  hovering just  on the  verge of
wrangling,  grated  on  Garion's  nerves almost  as  much  as the  tiresome
clanging of the bells on Mulger's mules.

Garion's edginess at this particular time came from a very specific source.
He  was afraid.  There was  no point  in trying  to conceal that  fact from
himself. The  cryptic words of the Mrin Codex had  been explained to him in
precise detail. He was riding toward a meeting that had been ordained since
the beginning  of time, and there was absolutely no  way he could avoid it.
The meeting was the end result of not one, but two distinct Prophecies, and
even  if he  could  persuade one  of them  that  there had  been  a mistake
someplace, the other would  drive him to the confrontation without mercy or
the slightest consideration for his personal feelings.

"I think  you're missing the point, Ambar," Mulger  was saying to Silk with
that kind of acid precision some men use when talking to someone they truly
despise. "My  patriotism or lack of  it has nothing to  do with the matter.
The  well-being of  Drasnia  depends on  trade, and  if  you people  in the
Foreign  Service keep  hiding your  activities by  posing as  merchants, it
won't be  long before  an honest Drasnian isn't  welcome anywhere." Mulger,
with  that instinct  that  seemed inborn  in all  Drasnians,  had instantly
recognized  the   fact  that  Silk  was  not   what  he  pretended  to  be.

"Oh, come now, Mulger,"  Silk replied with an airy condescension, "don't be
so naive.  Every kingdom in the  world conceals its intelligence activities
in exactly  the same way. The Tolnedrans do it; the  Murgos do it; even the
Thulls do  it. What do you  want me to do  - walk around with  a sign on my
chest reading 'spy'?"

"Frankly, Ambar, I don't  care what you do," Mulger retorted, his lean face
hardening. "All  I can say is that I'm getting  very tired of being watched
everyplace   I   go,   just  because   you   people   can't  be   trusted."

Silk shrugged  with an impudent grin.  "It's the way the  world is, Mulger.
You  might as  well  get used  to it,  because it's  not going  to change."

Mulger glared at the  rat-faced little man helplessly, then turned abruptly
and rode back to keep company with his mules.

"Aren't  you pushing it  a little?"  Belgarath suggested, lifting  his head
from  the apparent  doze in  which he  usually rode.  "If you  irritate him
enough, he'll  denounce you to the border guards,  and we'll never get into
Gar og Nadrak."

"Mulger's not  going to say a  word, old friend," Silk  assured him. "If he
does,  he'll be  held for  investigation, too,  and there's not  a merchant
alive  who doesn't  have a few  things concealed  in his packs  that aren't
supposed to be there."

"Why don't you just leave him alone?" Belgarath asked.

"It gives  me something to do,"  Silk replied with a  shrug. "Otherwise I'd
have to look at the scenery, and eastern Drasnia bores me."

Belgarath  grunted sourly,  pulled  his gray  hood  up over  his head,  and
settled back into his nap.

Garion returned to his  melancholy thoughts. The gorse bushes which covered
the rolling moors had  a depressing gray-green color to them, and the North
Caravan Route  wound like a dusty white scar across  them. The sky had been
overcast for nearly two  weeks, though there was no hint of moisture in the
clouds. They  plodded along  through a dreary, shadowless  world toward the
stark mountains looming on the horizon ahead.

It was  the unfairness of it  all that upset Garion  the most. He had never
asked for any of this. He did not want to be a sorcerer. He did not want to
be the  Rivan King.  He was not  even sure that  he really  wanted to marry
Princess Ce'Nedra  - although  he was of  two minds about  that. The little
Imperial Princess could be - usually when she wanted something - absolutely
adorable. Most  of the  time, however, she  did not want  anything, and her
true nature  emerged. If  he had consciously  sought any of  this, he could
have  accepted  the  duty  which  lay  on  him  with a  certain  amount  of
resignation.  He had  been given no  choice in  the matter, though,  and he
found  himself   wanting  to   demand  of  the  uncaring   sky,  "Why  me?"

He rode  on beside his dozing  grandfather with only the  murmuring song of
the Orb of Aldur for company, and even that was a source of irritation. The
Orb, which  stood on  the pommel of  the great sword strapped  to his back,
sang to him endlessly  with a kind of silly enthusiasm. It might be all ver
well for  the Orb to exult about the meeting with  Torak, but it was Garion
who was going to  have to face the Dragon-God of Angarak, and it was Garion
who was  going to have to do all the bleeding.  He felt that the unrelieved
cheerfulness of  the Orb was - all things considered  - in very poor taste,
to say the least.

The border  between Drasnia and  Gar og Nadrak straddled  the North Caravan
Route  in a  narrow, rocky gap  where two  garrisons, one Drasnian  and one
Nadrak, faced  each other across a simple gate  that consisted of a single,
horizontal  pole.  By  itself,  the  pole  was  an  insubstantial  barrier.
Symbolically, however, it was more intimidating than the gates of Vo Mimbre
or Tol  Honeth. On one side  of the gate stood the  West; on the other, the
East.  With a single  step, one could  move from  one world into  a totally
different one, and Garion wished with all his being that he did not have to
take that step.

As Silk  had predicted, Mulger said nothing  about his suspicions to either
the Drasnian pikemen or the leather-clad Nadrak soldiers at the border, and
they passed  without incident into the mountains of  Gar og Nadrak. Once it
passed  the border,  the caravan  route climbed  steeply up a  narrow gorge
beside a swiftly tumbling mountain stream. The rock walls of the gorge were
sheer, black,  and oppressive.  The sky overhead  narrowed to a  dirty gray
ribbon, and the clanging mule bells echoed back from the rocks to accompany
the rush and pounding gurgle of the stream.

Belgarath awoke  and looked around, his  eyes alert. He gave  Silk a quick,
sidelong glance that cautioned  the little man to keep his mouth shut, then
cleared his  throat. "We want to thank you, worthy  Mulger, and to wish you
good luck in your dealings here."

Mulger looked at the  old sorcerer sharply, his eyes questioning. "We'll be
leaving you  at the head of this  gorge," Belgarath continued smoothly, his
face bland.  "Our business  is off that  way." He gestured  rather vaguely.

Mulger  grunted. "I  don't want  to know  anything about it,"  he declared.

"You don't, really," Belgarath  assured him. "And please don't take Ambar's
remarks too  seriously. He has a  comic turn of mind  and he says things he
doesn't always  mean, because he enjoys irritating  people. Once you get to
know him, he's not quite so bad."

Mulger gave  Silk a long, hard look and let  it pass without comment. "Good
luck in whatever it  is you're doing," he said grudgingly, forced to say it
more out  of courtesy  than out of  any genuine good feeling.  "You and the
young man weren't bad traveling companions."

"We are in your debt, worthy Mulger," Silk added with mocking extravagance.
"Your hospitality has been exquisite."

Mulger looked directly at  Silk again. "I don't really like you, Ambar," he
said bluntly. "Why don't we just let it go at that?"

"I'm crushed." Silk grinned at him.

"Let it lie," Belgarath growled.

"I made every effort to win him over," Silk protested.

Belgarath turned his back on him.

"I  really did."  Silk  appealed to  Garion,  his eyes  brimming with  mock
sincerity.

"I don't believe you either," Garion told him.

Silk sighed.  "Nobody understands  me," he complained. Then  he laughed and
rode on up the gorge, whistling happily to himself.

At the  head of the gorge,  they left Mulger and struck  off to the left of
the caravan route through  a jumble of rock and stunted trees. At the crest
of  a stony ridge,  they stopped to  watch the  slow progress of  the mules
until they were out of sight.

"Where are we headed?" Silk asked, squinting up at the clouds scudding past
overhead. "I thought we were going to Yar Gurak."

"We  are," Belgarath replied,  scratching at  his beard, "but  we'll circle
around and  come at  the town from  the other side.  Mulger's opinions make
traveling with  him just a bit  chancy. He might let  something slip at the
wrong time. Besides, Garion  and I have something to take care of before we
get there."  The old man looked around. "Over there  ought to do," he said,
pointing at  a shallow green dale, concealed on the  far side of the ridge.
He led them down into the dale and dismounted.

Silk,  leading their  single packhorse,  pulled up  beside a small  pool of
spring water and tied the horses to a dead snag standing at its edge.

"What is it that  we have to do, Grandfather?" Garion asked, sliding out of
his saddle.

"That sword of yours is a trifle obvious," the old man told him. "Unless we
want to spend the whole trip answering questions, we're going to have to do
something about it."

"Are   you   going   to  make   it   invisible?"   Silk  asked   hopefully.

"In a manner of  speaking," Belgarath answered. "Open your mind to the Orb,
Garion. Just let it talk to you."

Garion frowned. "I don't understand."

"Just  relax. The Orb  will do the  rest. It's  very excited about  you, so
don't pay too much  attention to it if it starts making suggestions. It has
a severely limited understanding of the real world. Just relax and let your
mind sort of drift.  I've got to talk to it, and I can only do that through
you. It won't listen to anybody else."

Garion leaned  back against  a tree; in  a moment he found  his mind filled
with  all  manner  of  peculiar images.  The  world  he  perceived in  that
imagining was  tinged over  with a faint  blue haze, and  everything seemed
angular,  as if constructed  out of the  flat planes  and sharp edges  of a
crystal.  He caught  a  vivid picture  of himself,  flaming sword  in hand,
riding at great speed  with whole hordes of faceless men fleeing out of his
path. Belgarath's voice sounded  sharply in his mind then. "Stop that." The
words,  he realized,  were  not directed  at him,  but  instead at  the Orb
itself.  Then  the  old  man's  voice  dropped to  a  murmur,  instructing,
explaining something.  The responses  of that other,  crystalline awareness
seemed a trifle petulant; but eventually there seemed to be an agreement of
some kind, and then Garion's mind cleared.

Belgarath was shaking his  head with a rueful expression. "It's almost like
talking to  a child sometimes," he said. "It  has no conception of numbers,
and  it can't  even begin to  comprehend the  meaning of the  word danger."

"It's still  there," Silk noted, sounding a  bit disappointed. "I can still
see the sword."

"That's  because you know  it's there,"  Belgarath told him.  "Other people
will overlook it."

"How   can    you   overlook   something   that    big?"   Silk   objected.

"It's  very complicated," Belgarath  replied. "The  Orb is simply  going to
encourage people  not to see it - or the sword.  If they look very closely,
they might  realize that Garion's carrying something  on his back, but they
won't be curious enough about it to try to find out what it is. As a matter
of  fact,   quite  a   few  people  won't  even   notice  Garion  himself."

"Are you trying to say that Garion's invisible?"

"No.  He's just  sort of unremarkable  for the  time being. Let's  move on.
Night comes on quickly up in these mountains."

Yar Gurak was perhaps  the ugliest town Garion had ever seen. It was strung
out on  either side of a  roiling yellow creek, and  muddy, unpaved streets
ran up the steep  slopes of the cut the stream had gouged out of the hills.
The sides  of the cut beyond the town had  been stripped of all vegetation.
There were  shafts running  back into the hillsides,  and great, rooted-out
excavations. There were springs among the diggings, and they trickled muddy
water down the slopes to pollute the creek. The town had a slapdash quality
about  it, and  all the  buildings seemed somewhat  temporary. Construction
was, for  the most part, log and uncut rock, and  several of the houses had
been finished off with canvas.

The  streets  teemed with  lanky,  dark-faced  Nadraks, many  of whom  were
obviously drunk. A nasty brawl erupted out of a tavern door as they entered
the  town, and  they were forced  to stop  while perhaps two  dozen Nadraks
rolled  about  in  the  mud,  trying  with  a  fair amount  of  success  to
incapacitate or even maim each other.

The sun was going  down as they found an inn at the  end of a muddy street.
It was a large, square building with the main floor constructed of stone, a
second storey built of  logs, and stables attached to the rear. They put up
their  horses, took  a room for  the night,  and then entered  the barnlike
common room in search  of supper. The benches in the common room were a bit
unsteady, and  the tabletops were grease.  smeared and littered with crumbs
and  spilled food.  Oil  lamps hung  smoking on  chains,  and the  smell of
cooking cabbage  was overpowering. A fair  number of merchants from various
parts of the world sat at their evening meal in the room - wary-eyed men in
tight  little   groups,  with   walls  of  suspicion   drawn  around  them.

Belgarath, Silk,  and Garion  sat down at  an unoccupied table  and ate the
stew  brought to them  in wooden bowls  by a  tipsy servingman in  a greasy
apron. When  they had  finished, Silk glanced  at the open  doorway leading
into  the   noisy  taproom  and  then   looked  inquiringly  at  Belgarath.

The  old  man  shook  his head.  "Better  not,"  he  said.  "Nadraks are  a
high-strung people,  and relations  with the West  are a little  tense just
now. There's no point in asking for trouble."

Silk nodded his glum agreement and led the way up the stairs at the back of
the inn  to the  room they had  taken for the  night. Garion  held up their
guttering  candle  and looked  dubiously  at the  log-frame bunks  standing
against the  walls of the room.  The bunks had rope  springs and mattresses
stuffed with  straw; they looked lumpy  and not very clean.  The noise from
the taproom below was loud and raucous.

"I don't think we're going to get much sleep tonight," he observed. "Mining
towns aren't like farm  villages," Silk pointed out. "Farmers feel the need
for  decorum -  even when  they're drunk.  Miners tend  on the whole  to be
somewhat rowdier."

Belgarath  shrugged. "They'll  quiet down in  a bit.  Most of them  will be
unconscious long before midnight." He turned to Silk. "As soon as the shops
open up  in the  morning, I want  you to get  us some  different clothing -
used, preferably. If we  look like gold hunters, nobody's going to pay very
much attention to us. Get a pick handle and a couple of rock hammers. We'll
tie  them  to  the outside  of  the  pack on  our  spare  horse for  show."

"I get the feeling you've done this before."

"From time to time. It's a useful disguise. Gold hunters are crazy to begin
with, so  people aren't surprised if  they show up in  strange places." The
old man laughed shortly.  "I even found gold once - a vein as thick as your
arm."

Silk's face grew immediately intent. "Where?"

Belgarath  shrugged. "Off  that  way somewhere,"  he replied  with  a vague
gesture. "I forget exactly."

"Belgarath," Silk objected with a note of anguish in his voice.

"Don't get sidetracked," Belgarath  told him. "Let's get some sleep. I want
to   be   out   of   here  as   early   as   possible  tomorrow   morning."

The overcast  which had  lingered for weeks  cleared off during  the night;
when  Garion awoke,  the new-risen  sun streamed  golden through  the dirty
window.  Belgarath was seated  at the rough  table on  the far side  of the
room,   studying   a   parchment   map,   and  Silk   had   already   left.

"I thought for a while that you were going to sleep past noon," the old man
said as Garion sat up and stretched.

"I  had trouble  getting to sleep  last night,"  Garion replied. "It  was a
little noisy downstairs."

"Nadraks are like that."

A sudden  thought occurred to Garion. "What do you  think Aunt Pol is doing
just now?" he asked.

"Sleeping, probably."

"Not this late."

"It's much earlier where she is."

"I don't follow that."

"Riva's fifteen  hundred leagues  west of here,"  Belgarath explained. "The
sun won't get that far for several hours yet."

Garion blinked. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

"I didn't think you had."

The door opened, and  Silk came in, carrying several bundles and wearing an
outraged expression.  He threw his bundles down  and stamped to the window,
muttering curses under his breath.

"What's got you so worked up?" Belgarath asked mildly.

"Would you  look at this?" Silk waved a piece of  parchment at the old man.

"What's the problem?" Belgarath took the parchment and read it. "That whole
business was settled years  ago," Silk declared in an irntated voice. "What
are these things doing, still being circulated?"

"The description is colorful," Belgarath noted.

"Did you  see that?" Silk  sounded mortally offended. He  turned to Garion.
"Do I look like a weasel to you?"

"-an ill-favored, weasel-faced man,"  Belgarath read, "shifty-eyed and with
a long, pointed nose. A notorious cheat at dice."

"Do you mind?"

"What's this all about?" Garion asked.

"I had a slight misunderstanding with the authorities some years ago," Silk
explained deprecatingly.  "Nothing all that serious,  actually, but they're
still  circulating  that  thing."  He  gestured angrily  at  the  parchment
Belgarath was  still reading with an  amused expression. "They've even gone
so far  as to offer a  reward. " He considered for  a moment. "I'll have to
admit that the sum is flattering, though," he added.

"Did you get the things I sent you after?" Belgarath asked.

"Of course."

"Let's  change clothes,  then, and  leave before your  unexpected celebrity
attracts a crowd."

The worn  Nadrak clothing  was made mostly of  leather-snug black trousers,
tight-fitting vests, and short-sleeved linen tunics.

"I  didn't bother  with  the boots,"  Silk said.  "Nadrak boots  are pretty
uncomfortable - probably since  it hasn't occurred to them yet that there's
a difference  between the  right foot and  the left." He  settled a pointed
felt cap at a jaunty angle. "What do you think?" he asked, striking a pose.

"Doesn't look at all  like a weasel, does he?" Belgarath asked Garion. Silk
gave him a disgusted look, but said nothing.

They went  downstairs, led their horses out of  the stables attached to the
inn, and  mounted. Silk's expression remained sour as  they rode out of Yar
Gurak. When  they reached the top  of a hill to the  north of town, he slid
off  his horse,  picked  up a  rock, and  threw it  rather savagely  at the
buildings clustered below.

"Make you feel better?" Belgarath asked curiously.

Silk remounted with a  disdainful sniff and led the way down the other side
of the hill.





Chapter two

THEY RODE  FOR the next few days through a  wilderness of stone and stunted
trees. The  sun grew  warmer each day,  and the sky  overhead was intensely
blue as they pressed deeper and deeper into the snowcapped mountains. There
were trails  of sorts  up here, winding, vagrant  tracks meandering between
the  dazzling white  peaks and  across the  high, pale green  meadows where
wildflowers  nodded in  the mountain  breeze. The  air was spiced  with the
resinous  odor of  evergreens, and now  and then  they saw deer  grazing or
stopping  to  watch  them   with  large,  startled  eyes  as  they  passed.

Belgarath moved confidently in  a generally eastward course and he appeared
to be alert and  watchful. There were no signs of the half doze in which he
customarily  rode on  more  clearly defined  roads, and  he  seemed somehow
younger up here in the mountains.

They encountered other travelers - leather-clad Nadraks for the most part -
although they  did see a party of Drasnians laboring  up a steep slope and,
once, a long way off, what appeared to be a Tolnedran. Their exchanges with
these others  were brief and wary.  The mountains of Gar  og Nadrak were at
best sketchily policed, and it was necessary for every man who entered them
to provide for his own security.

The sole exception to  this suspicious taciturnity was a garrulous old gold
hunter mounted  on a  donkey, who appeared  out of the  blue-tinged shadows
under the  trees one morning. His tangled hair  was white, and his clothing
was mismatched, appearing to consist mostly of castoffs he had found beside
this  trail  or  that.  His tanned,  wrinkled  face  was  weathered like  a
well-cured old  hide, and  his blue eyes  twinkled merrily. He  joined them
without any  greeting or  hint of uncertainty  as to his  welcome and began
talking  immediately as  if taking  up a  conversation again that  had only
recently been interrupted.

There was  a sort of comic  turn to his voice  and manner that Garion found
immediately engaging.

"Must  be ten  years  or more  since I've  followed  this path,"  he began,
jouncing along  on his  donkey as he  fell in beside Garion.  "I don't come
down into  this part  of the mountains  very much any  more. The streambeds
down here have all been worked over a hundred times at least. Which way are
you bound?"

"I'm not really sure,"  Garion replied cautiously. "I've never been up here
before, so I'm just following along."

"You'd find  better gravel if you struck out to the  north," the man on the
donkey advised, "up near Morindland. Of course, you've got to be careful up
there, but,  like they say, no  risk, no profit." He  squinted curiously at
Garion. "You're not a Nadrak, are you?"

"Sendar," Garion responded shortly.

"Never been  to Sendaria," the old gold  hunter mused. "Never been anyplace
really -  except up  here." He looked  around at the  whitetopped peaks and
deep green forests with  a sort of abiding love. "Never really wanted to go
anyplace else. I've picked these mountains over from end to end for seventy
years now and never  made much at it except for the pleasure of being here.
Found a river bar one time, though, that had so much red gold in it that it
looked like it was  bleeding. Winter caught me up there, and I almost froze
to death trying to come out."

"Did you go back  the next spring?" Garion couldn't help asking. "Meant to,
but I  did a lot of  drinking that winter - I  had gold enough. Anyway, the
drink sort  of addled my brains. When I set out  the following year, I took
along a few kegs  for company. That's always a mistake. The drink takes you
harder  when  you get  up  into the  mountains,  and you  don't always  pay
attention  to things  the way  you should."  He leaned  back in  his donkey
saddle, scratching reflectively at his stomach. "I went out onto the plains
north of the mountains - up in Morindland. Seems that I thought at the time
that the going might  be easier out on flat ground. Well, to make it short,
I ran across  a band of Morindim and they took me  prisoner. I'd been up to
my ears  in an ale keg  for a day or so, and I was  far gone when they took
me.  Lucky, I  guess. Morindim  are superstitious,  and they thought  I was
possessed. That's probably all that saved my life. They kept me for five or
six years, trying to  puzzle out the meaning behind my ravings - once I got
sober and  saw the  situation, I took  quite a bit  of care to do  a lot of
raving.  Eventually they  got  tired of  it  and weren't  so careful  about
watching me, so I escaped. By then I'd sort of forgotten exactly where that
river was.  I look for  it now and then  when I'm up that  way." His speech
seemed rambling, but his old blue eyes were very penetrating. "That's a big
sword  you're   carrying,  boy,  Who   do  you  plan  to   kill  with  it?"

The  question  came so  fast  that  Garion did  not  even have  time to  be
startled.

"Funny thing about that sword of yours," the shabby old man added shrewdly.
"It seems to be going out of its way to make itself inconspicuous." Then he
turned to Belgarath, who was looking at him with a level gaze. "You haven't
hardly changed at all," he noted.

"And you still talk too much," Belgarath replied.

"I  get  hungry for  talk  every  few years,"  the  old man  on the  donkey
admitted. "Is your daughter well?"

Belgarath nodded.

"Fine-looking woman, your daughter - bad-tempered, though."

"That hasn't changed noticeably."

"Didn't imagine it had." The old gold hunter chuckled, then hesitated for a
moment. "If  you don't mind some advice, be careful in  case you plan to go
down into the low  country," he said seriously. "It looks like things might
be  coming to  a boil  down there.  A lot  of strangers  in red  tunics are
roaming  about, and  there's  been smoke  coming  up from  old altars  that
haven't been  used for years. The  Grolims are out again,  and their knives
are all new-sharpened. The  Nadraks who come up here keep looking back over
their shoulders." He paused,  looking directly at Belgarath. "There've been
some other  signs, too," he added.  "The animals are all  jumpy - like just
before a  big storm - and sometimes at night,  if you listen close, there's
something like thunder way off in the distance - like maybe from as far off
as  Mallorea. The whole  world seems to  be uneasy.  I've got a  hunch that
something pretty  big's about to happen - maybe the  sort of thing you'd be
involved in. The point  is that they know you're out here. I wouldn't count
too much  on being able to slip through  without somebody noticing you." He
shrugged then, as if washing his hands of the matter. "I just thought you'd
like to know."

"Thank you," Belgarath replied.

"Didn't cost  me anything to say it." The old  man shrugged again. "I think
I'll go that way."  He pointed off to the north. "Too many strangers coming
into the  mountains in the last  few months. It's starting  to get crowded.
I've about talked  myself out now, so I think I'll go  look myself up a bit
of privacy."  He turned his donkey  and trotted off. "Good  luck," he threw
back over his shoulder  by way of farewell and then he disappeared into the
blue shadows under the trees.

"You're acquainted with him, I take it," Silk observed to Belgarath.

The old  sorcerer nodded.  "I met him  about thirty years  ago. Polgara had
come to  Gar og Nadrak to  find out a few  things. After she'd gathered all
the information she wanted, she sent word to me, and I came here and bought
her from  the man  who owned her.  We started home, but  an early snowstorm
caught us  up here in the mountains. He found  us floundering along, and he
took us to the  cave where he holes up when the snow gets too deep. Quite a
comfortable cave  really -  except that he  insists on bringing  his donkey
inside.  He   and  Pol  argued  about  that   all  winter,  as  I  recall."

"What's his name?" Silk asked curiously.

Belgarath shrugged. "He never said, and it's not polite to ask."

Garion,  however, had  choked  on the  word  "bought." A  kind of  helpless
outrage  welled  up  in   him.  "Somebody  owned  Aunt  Pol?"  he  demanded
incredulously.

"It's  a  Nadrak custom,"  Silk  explained.  "In their  society, women  are
considered property.  It's not  seemly for a  woman to go  about without an
owner."

"She was  a slave?" Garion's knuckles grew white  as he clenched his fists.

"Of course she wasn't  a slave," Belgarath told him. "Can you even remotely
imagine your Aunt submitting to that sort of thing?"

"But you said-"

"I said  I bought her from the man who owned  her. Their relationship was a
formality -  nothing more. She needed  an owner in order  to function here,
and he  gained a great  deal of respect from  other men as a  result of his
ownership of  so remarkable a woman." Belgarath made  a sour face. "It cost
me a fortune to buy her back from him. I sometimes wonder if she was really
worth it."

"Grandfather! "

"I'm sure  she'd be fascinated by that  last observation, old friend," Silk
said slyly.

"I  don't   know  that  it's   necessary  to  repeat  it   to  her,  Silk."

"You never know." Silk  laughed. "I might need something from you someday."

"That's disgusting."

"I know." Silk grinned  and looked around. "Your friend took quite a bit of
trouble   to  look   you  up,"   he  suggested.   "What  was   behind  it?"

"He wanted to warn me."

"That things were tense in Gar og Nadrak? We knew that already."

"His warning was a great deal more urgent than that."

"He didn't sound very urgent."

"That's because you don't know him."

"Grandfather," Garion said suddenly,  "how did he manage to see my sword? I
thought we'd taken care of that."

"He sees  everything, Garion. He could  glance once at a  tree and tell you
ten years later exactly how many leaves were on it."

"Is he a sorcerer?"

"Not as far as I know. He's just a strange old man who likes the mountains.
He  doesn't know what's  going on because  he doesn't  want to know.  If he
really wanted to, he could probably find out everything that's happening in
the world."

"He could make a fortune as a spy, then," Silk mused.

"He doesn't want a fortune. Isn't that obvious? Any time he needs money, he
just goes back to that river bar he mentioned."

"But he said he'd forgotten how to find it," Garion protested.

Belgarath snorted.  "He's never  forgotten anything in his  life." Then his
eyes grew  distant. "There are a few people like him  in the world - people
who  have no  interest  whatsoever in  what other  people are  doing. Maybe
that's not  such a bad trait.  If I had my  life to live over,  I might not
mind doing it his  way." He looked around then, his eyes very alert. "Let's
take that  path over there,"  he suggested, pointing at  a scarcely visible
track angling off across an open meadow, littered with bits of log bleached
white by sun  and weather. "If what he says is true,  I think we'll want to
avoid any large settlements.  That path comes out farther north where there
aren't so many people."

Not long  afterward the terrain began  to slope downward, and  the three of
them  moved along  briskly,  riding down  out of  the mountains  toward the
vastness  of the  forest  of Nadrak.  The peaks  around them  subsided into
forested foothills. Once they  topped a rise, they were able to look out at
the ocean  of trees  lying below. The  forest stretched to  the horizon and
beyond, dark green beneath  a blue sky. A faint breeze was blowing, and the
sigh of its passage through the mile upon mile of trees below had a kind of
endless sadness to it,  a regretful memory of summers past and springs that
would never come again.

Some distance up the  slope from the forest stood a village, huddled at the
side of  a vast, open  pit that had been  gouged, raw and ugly,  in the red
dirt of the hillside.

"A  mine town,"  Belgarath noted. "Let's  nose about  a bit and  see what's
going on."

They rode warily down  the hill. As they drew closer, Garion could see that
the village had that same temporary kind of appearance he had noticed about
Yar Gurak.  The buildings were constructed in the  same way - unpeeled logs
and rough stone - and the low-pitched roofs had large rocks laid on them to
keep  the shingles from  blowing off  during the winter  blizzards. Nadraks
seemed  not  to  be  concerned  about  the  external  appearance  of  their
structures; once  the walls  and roofs were completed,  they appeared quite
content to  move in and  devote their attentions to  other matters, without
attending to those final  finishing touches which gave a house that look of
permanence that  a Sendar  or a Tolnedran would  feel absolutely necessary.
The entire  settlement seemed to reflect an  attitude of "good enough" that
offended Garion, for some reason.

Some of the miners  who lived in the village came out into the dirt streets
to watch  the strangers ride  in. Their black leather  clothing was stained
red  by  the  earth  in which  they  dug,  and  their  eyes  were hard  and
suspicious. An air of  fearful wariness hung over the whole place, seasoned
with a touch of defiant bellicosity.

Silk jerked his head  toward a large, low building with a crude painting of
a cluster of grapes  on a sign banging in the breeze by the double doors at
the front. A wide, roofed porch surrounded the building, and leather-garbed
Nadraks lounged on benches along the porch, watching a dogfight in progress
out in the middle of the street.

Belgarath nodded. "But let's go around to the side," he suggested, "in case
we have to leave in a hurry."

They dismounted  at the side porch,  tied their horses to  the railing, and
went inside.

The interior of the  tavern was smoky and dim, since windows seemed to be a
rare feature  in Nadrak buildings. The  tables and benches were rough-hewn,
and what  light there was came  from smoking oil lamps  that hung on chains
from the rafters. The floor was mud-stained and littered with bits of food.
Dogs roamed  at will under the tables and benches.  The smell of stale beer
and unwashed  bodies hung heavy in  the air, and, though  it was only early
afternoon, the  place was crowded. Many  of the men in  the large room were
already far  gone with drink. It  was noisy, since the  Nadraks lounging at
the tables  or stumbling about the  room seemed all habitually  to speak at
the top of their voices.

Belgarath pushed his way  toward a table in the corner where a solitary man
sat bleary-eyed and slack-lipped, staring into his ale cup. "You don't mind
if we  share the table, do  you?" the old man demanded  of him in an abrupt
manner, sitting down without awaiting a reply.

"Would  it do  any  good if  I did?"  the man  with the  cup asked.  He was
unshaven, and his eyes were pouchy and bloodshot.

"Not much," Belgarath told him bluntly.

"You're new here, aren't  you?" The Nadrak looked at the three of them with
only a  hint of curiosity, trying  with some difficulty to  focus his eyes.

"I don't  really see  that it's any  of your business,"  Belgarath retorted
rudely.

"You've got  a sour mouth for a man past  his prime," the Nadrak suggested,
flexing his fingers ominously.

"I came here to  drink, not fight," Silk declared in a harsh tone. "I might
change  my mind  later, but  right now,  I'm thirsty."  He reached  out and
caught the arm of  a passing servingman. "Ale," he ordered. "And don't take
all day."

"Keep your hands to yourself," the servingman told him. "Are you with him?"
He pointed at the Nadrak they had joined.

"We're sitting with him, aren't we?"

"You want three cups or four?"

"I want one-for now. Bring the others what they want, too. I'll pay for the
first time around."

The servingman  grunted sourly  and pushed his  way off through  the crowd,
pausing long enough to kick a dog out of his way.

Silk's offer seemed to quiet their Nadrak companion's belligerence. "You've
picked  a bad  time to  come to  town," he  told them. "The  whole region's
crawling with Mallorean recruiters."

"We've been  up in the mountains," Belgarath  said. "We'll probably go back
in a  day or  so. Whatever's happening  down here doesn't  interest us very
much."

"You'd better take an interest while you're here - unless you'd like to try
army life."

"Is there a war someplace?" Silk asked him.

"Likely  to  beer  so  they  say.  Someplace  down in  Mishrak  ac  Thull."

Silk snorted. "I've never met a Thull worth fighting."

"It's not the Thulls. It's supposed to be the Alorns. They've got a queen -
if you  can imagine such a thing - and she's  moving to invade the Thulls."

"A queen?"  Silk scoffed. "Can't be  much of an army,  then. Let the Thulls
fight her themselves."

"Tell that to the Mallorean recruiters," the Nadrak suggested.

"Did you  have to brew that ale?" Silk demanded  of the servingman, who was
returning with four large cups.

"There are  other taverns,  friend," the servingman replied.  "If you don't
like   this   one,   go  find   another.   That'll   be  twelve   pennies."

"Three pennies a cup?" Silk exclaimed.

"Times are hard."

Grumbling, Silk paid him.

"Thanks," the  Nadrak they were sitting with said,  taking one of the cups.

"Don't mention it," Silk said sourly.

"What are the Malloreans doing here?" Belgarath asked.

"Rounding up  everyone who can  stand up, see lightning,  and hear thunder.
They do  their recruiting with leg-irons, so it's  a little hard to refuse.
They've  got Grolims  with  them too,  and the  Grolims keep  their gutting
knives out  in plain sight as  a sort of a hint  about what might happen to
anybody who objects too much."

"Maybe you were  right when you said we picked a bad  time to come down out
of the mountains," Silk said.

The Nadrak  nodded. "The Grolims  say that Torak's stirring  in his sleep."

"That's not very good news," Silk replied.

"I think  we could all drink to that." The Nadrak  lifted his ale cup. "You
find anything worth digging for up there in the mountains?"

Silk  shook  his  head.  "A few  traces  is  all.  We've  been working  the
streambeds for free gold.  We don't have the equipment to drive shafts back
into the rock."

"You'll never get rich squatting beside a creek and sifting gravel."

"We  get by."  Silk shrugged. "Someday  maybe we'll  hit a good  pocket and
we'll be able to pick up enough to buy some equipment."

"And someday maybe it will rain beer, too."

Silk laughed.

"You ever thought about taking in another partner?"

Silk squinted  at the unshaven Nadrak. "Have you  been up there before?" he
asked.

The Nadrak nodded. "Often enough to know that I don't like it - but I think
I'd like a stint in the army a lot less."

"Let's have another drink and talk about it," Silk suggested.

Garion  leaned back,  putting  his shoulders  against the  rough  log wall.
Nadraks didn't  seem to be so  bad, once you got  past the crudity of their
nature, They were a  blunt-spoken people and a bit sour-faced, but they did
not seem to have that icy animosity toward outsiders he had noted among the
Murgos.

He let  his mind drift back  to what the Nadrak had  said about a queen. He
quickly dismissed the notion  that any of the queens staying at Riva might,
under any  circumstances, have assumed such  authority. That left only Aunt
Pol.  The  Nadrak's information  could  have  been garbled  a  bit; but  in
Belgarath's absence, Aunt Pol  might have taken charge of things - although
that was not like her, at all. What could possibly have happened back there
to force her to go to such extremes?

As  the afternoon  wore on,  more and more  of the  men in the  tavern grew
reeling  drunk,  and occasional  fights  broke  out -  although the  fights
usually  consisted of  shoving matches,  since few  in the room  were sober
enough to  aim a good  blow. Their companion drank  steadily and eventually
laid his head down on his arms and began to snore.

"I  think we've  got  just about  everything  we can  use here,"  Belgarath
suggested quietly.  "Let's drift on out. From what  our friend here says, I
don't think it'd be a good idea to sleep in town."

Silk nodded  his agreement, and the  three of them rose  from the table and
made their way through the crowd to the side door.

"Did you want to pick up any supplies?" the little man asked.

Belgarath shook his head. "I have a feeling that we want to get out of here
as soon as possible."

Silk  gave him a  quick look, and  the three  of them untied  their horses,
mounted and rode back out into the red dirt street. They moved at a walk to
avoid arousing suspicion, but  Garion could feel a sort of tense urgency to
put  this  raw,  mud-smeared  village  behind  them.  There  was  something
threatening in  the air, and  the golden late afternoon  sun seemed somehow
shadowed, as  if by an unseen cloud. As they  were passing the last rickety
house on the downhill edge of the village, they heard an alarmed shout from
somewhere back  near the  center of town.  Garion turned quickly  and saw a
party of perhaps twenty mounted men in red tunics plunging at a full gallop
toward the tavern the  three of them had just left. With a practiced skill,
the  scarlet-clad strangers  swung down  from their horses  and immediately
covered  all   the  doors   to  cut  off   an  escape  for   those  inside.

"Malloreans!"  Belgarath snapped. "Make  for the  trees!" And he  drove his
heels into his horse's flanks.

They galloped  across the  weedy, stump-cluttered clearing  that surrounded
the village,  toward the  edge of the  forest and safety, but  there was no
outcry or  pursuit. The tavern appeared to contain  enough fish to fill the
Mallorean  net. From  a safe  vantage point  beneath spreading  tree limbs,
Garion,  Silk, and  Belgarath watched  as a disconsolate-looking  string of
Nadraks, chained together at the ankle, were led out of the tavern into the
red dust  of the street to  stand under the watchful  eyes of the Mallorean
recruiters.

"It looks like our friend has joined the army, after all," Silk observed.

"Better him than us,"  Belgarath replied. "We might be just a little out of
place in the middle  of an Angarak horde." He squinted at the ruddy disk of
the setting  sun. "Let's  move out. We've  got a few hours  before dark. It
looks as  if military service might  be contagious in this  vicinity, and I
wouldn't want to catch it."





Chapter Three

THE FOREST OF Nadrak was unlike the Arendish forest lying far to the south.
The differences  were subtle,  and it took  Garion several days  to put his
finger on  them. For  one thing, the  trails they followed had  no sense of
permanence about  them. They  were so infrequently traveled  that they were
not beaten into the loamy soil of the forest floor. In the Arendish forest,
the  marks of  man were everywhere,  but here  man was an  intruder, merely
passing through.  Moreover, the forest in  Arendia had definite boundaries,
but this ocean of  trees went on to the farthest edge of the continent, and
it had stood so since the beginning of the world.

The  forest teemed  with life.  Tawny deer  flickered among the  trees, and
vast,  shaggy bison,  with  curved black  horns  shiny as  onyx, grazed  in
clearings. Once a bear,  grumbling and muttering irritably, lumbered across
the trail  in front of  them. Rabbits scurried through  the undergrowth and
partridges exploded into flight from underfoot with a heartstopping thunder
of wings.  The ponds  and streams abounded  with fish, muskrat,  otter, and
beaver. There  were also, they soon discovered,  smaller forms of life. The
mosquitoes  seemed only  slightly smaller  than sparrows,  and there  was a
nasty little brown fly that bit anything that moved.

The sun rose early and set late, dappling the dark forest floor with golden
light. Although it was midsummer now, it was never exactly hot, and the air
was rich with that smell of urgent growth common to the lands of the north,
where summer was short and winter very long.

Belgarath seemed  not to  sleep at all  once they entered  the forest. Each
evening, as  Silk and  Garion wearily rolled themselves  in their blankets,
the  old  sorcerer  threaded  his  way  back  into the  shadowy  trees  and
disappeared.  Once,  several  hours  past  dusk  on  a  night  filled  with
starlight,  Garion  awoke  briefly  and  heard  the loping  touch  of  paws
skittering lightly across a leaf carpeted clearing; even as he drifted back
to  sleep, he  understood. The  great silver  wolf who was  his grandfather
roamed the  night, scouring the surrounding forest  for any hint of pursuit
or danger.

The old man's nocturnal  roamings were as silent as smoke, but they did not
pass unnoticed. Early one  morning, before the sun rose and while the trees
were still  hazy and  half obscured by  ground fog, several  shadowy shapes
drifted among  the dark  trunks and stopped  not far away.  Garion, who had
just risen and was  preparing to stir up the fire, froze half bent over. As
he slowly  straightened, he could feel  eyes on him, and  his skin prickled
peculiarly. Perhaps ten feet  away stood a huge, dark gray wolf. The wolf's
expression was serious, and  its eyes were as yellow as sunlight. There was
an  unspoken question  in those  golden eyes,  and Garion realized  that he
understood that question.

"One wonders why you are doing that?"

"Doing  what?"  Garion  asked  politely, responding  automatically  in  the
language of wolves.

"Going about in that peculiar form."

"It's necessary to do it."

"Ah." With  exquisite courtesy the wolf did  not pursue the matter further.
"One  is curious  to know if  you don't  find it somewhat  restricting," he
noted however.

"It's   not  as  bad   as  it  looks   -  once   one  gets  used   to  it."

The wolf looked unconvinced. He sat down on his haunches. "One has seen the
other one several times  in the past few darknesses," he said in the manner
of wolves,  "and one is curious  to know why you and  he have come into our
range."

Garion knew instinctively that  his answer to that question was going to be
very  important. "We  are  going from  one  place to  another," he  replied
carefully. "It is not  our intention to seek dens or mates in your range or
to hunt  the creatures that are yours." He could  not have explained how he
knew what to say.

The wolf  seemed satisfied with his response. "One  would be pleased if you
would present our esteem to the one with fur like frost," he said formally.
"One has noted that he is worthy of great respect."

"One  would be  pleased to give  him your  words," Garion responded,  a bit
surprised   at   how   easily  the   elaborate   phrasing   came  to   him.

The wolf  lifted his  head and sniffed  at the air.  "It is time  for us to
hunt," he said. "May you find what you seek."

"May your hunt be successful," Garion returned.

The wolf  turned and padded back into the  fog, followed by his companions.

"On the  whole, you handled that rather  well, Garion," Belgarath said from
the deep shadows of a nearby thicket.

Garion jumped,  a bit  startled. "I didn't  know you were  there," he said.

"You should have," the old man replied, stepping out of the shadows.

"How  did he  know?" Garion  asked. "That  I'm a  wolf sometimes,  I mean?"

"It shows. A wolf is very alert to that sort of thing."

Silk came  out from under the  tree where he had  been sleeping. The little
man's step  was wary, but his nose twitched  with curiosity. "What was that
all about?" he asked.

"The  wolves  wanted  to  know what  we  were  doing  in their  territory,"
Belgarath replied.  "They were investigating  to see if they  were going to
have to fight us."

"Fight?" Garion was startled.

"It's customary  when a  strange wolf enters  the hunting range  of another
pack. Wolves prefer not  to fight - it's a waste of energy - but they will,
if the situation demands it."

"What  happened?"  Silk asked.  "Why  did  they just  go  away like  that?"

"Garion convinced them that we were just passing through."

"That was clever of him."

"Why don't you stir  up the fire, Garion?" Belgarath suggested. "Let's have
some breakfast and move on. It's still a long way to Mallorea, and we don't
want to run out of good weather."

Later that same day, they rode down into a valley where a collection of log
houses and tents stood  beside a fair-sized stream at the edge of a meadow.

"Fur traders," Silk explained  to Garion, pointing at the rough settlement.
"'There are places like  this on just about every major stream in this part
of the forest." The little man's pointed nose began to twitch, and his eyes
grew bright.  "A lot of buying and selling goes  on in these little towns."

"Never  mind," Belgarath told  him pointedly.  "Try to keep  your predatory
instincts under control."

"I wasn't even considering anything," Silk protested.

"Really? Aren't you feeling well?"

Silk loftily ignored that.

"Wouldn't it  be safer to go  around it?" Garion asked  as they rode across
the broad meadow.

Belgarath shook his head.  "I want to know what's going on ahead of us, and
the quickest way to  find out is to talk to people who've been there. We'll
drift in,  circulate for  an hour or so  and then drift on  out again. Just
keep  your ears open.  If anyone asks,  we're on  our way toward  the north
range to look for gold."

There  were differences  between the  hunters and  trappers who  roamed the
streets of this settlement and the miners they had met in the last village.
They  were  more open  for  one  thing -  less  surly  and distinctly  less
belligerent. Garion surmised that the enforced solitude of their occupation
made  them appreciate  companionship all  the more during  their infrequent
visits to the fur-trading  centers. Although they drank probably as much as
the  miners,  their drinking  seemed  to  lead more  often  to singing  and
laughter than to fighting.

A large  tavern stood near the center of the  village, and they rode slowly
along a dirt street  toward it. "Side door," Belgarath said tersely as they
dismounted in  front of  the tavern, and  they led their  horses around the
building and tied them at the porch railing.

The interior of the  tavern was cleaner, less crowded, and somewhat lighter
than  the miners' tavern  had been, and  it smelled  of woods and  open air
instead of damp, musty earth. The three of them sat at a table not far from
the door  and ordered cups of  ale from a polite  servingman. The ale was a
rich,   dark   brown,   well   chilled,   and   surprisingly   inexpensive.

"The fur buyers own  the place," Silk explained, wiping foam from his upper
lip. "They've discovered that a trapper is easier to bargain with if he's a
little drunk, so they make the ale cheap and plentiful."

"I suppose that makes sense," Garion admitted, "but don't the trappers know
that?"

"Of course they do."

"Why do they drink before they do business, then?"

Silk shrugged. "They like to drink."

The two trappers seated at the next table were renewing an acquaintanceship
that obviously stretched back a dozen years or more. Their beards were both
touched  with gray,  but they  spoke lightheartedly  in the manner  of much
younger men.

"You  have any  trouble with  Morindim while  you were  up there?"  one was
asking the other.

The second  shook his head. "I  put pestilence-markers on both  ends of the
valley where  I set  out my traps," he  replied. "A Morind will  go a dozen
leagues  out   of  his  way  to  avoid   a  spot  that's  got  pestilence."

The  first nodded  his  agreement. "That's  usually the  best  way. Gredder
always claimed  that curse-markers worked better; but  as it turned out, he
was wrong."

"I haven't seen him in the last few seasons."

"I'd be surprised if you had. The Morindim got him about three years ago. I
buried him myself - what was left of him anyway."

"Didn't know that. Spent  a winter with him once over on the head waters of
the Cordu.  He was  a mean-tempered sort  of a man. I'm  surprised that the
Morindim would cross a curse-marker, though."

"As  near as  I  could judge,  some magician  came  along and  uncursed his
markers. I found a dried weasel foot hung from one of them with three stems
of grass tied around each toe."

"That's  a potent  spell.  They must  have wanted  him  pretty badly  for a
magician to take that much trouble."

"You  know how  he  was. He  could irritate  people  ten leagues  away just
walking by."

"That's the truth."

"Not  any  more,  though. His  skull's  decorating  some Morind  magician's
quest-staff now."

Garion leaned  toward his  grandfather. "What do  they mean when  they talk
about markers?" he whispered.

"They're  warnings,"  Belgarath replied.  "Usually  sticks  poked into  the
ground and  decorated with bones  or feathers. The Morindim  can't read, so
you can't just put up a signboard for them."

A stooped  old trapper, his  leather clothing patched and  shiny from wear,
shuffled toward  the center  of the tavern.  His lined, bearded  face had a
slightly  apologetic expression  on it.  Following after  him came  a young
Nadrak  woman in  a heavy,  red felt  dress belted  about the waist  with a
glittering chain.  There was  a leash about  her neck, and  the old trapper
held the end of the tether firmly in his fist. Despite the leash, the young
woman's face had a proud, disdainful look, and she stared at the men in the
tavern  with barely concealed  contempt. When  the old trapper  reached the
center  of the  room, he  cleared his  throat to  get the attention  of the
crowd.  "I've   got  a  woman  I  want   to  sell,"  he  announced  loudly.

Without changing expression the woman spat upon him.

"Now you  know that's just going  to lower your price,  Vella," the old man
told her in a placating tone of voice.

"You're an  idiot, Tashor," she retorted. "No one here  can afford me - you
know that.  Why didn't you do  what I told you  to and offer me  to the fur
buyers?"

"The fur buyers aren't  interested in women, Vella," Tashor replied in that
same   mild  tone.   "The  price   will  be   better  here,   believe  me."

"I wouldn't believe you if you said the sun was going to rise tomorrow, you
old fool."

"The woman,  as you  can see, is  quite spirited," Tashor  announced rather
lamely.

"Is he trying to sell his wife?" Garion demanded, choking on his ale.

"She isn't his wife," Silk corrected. "He owns her, that's all."

Garion clenched  his fists and half rose, his  face mottled with anger, but
Belgarath's hand  closed firmly  about his wrist.  "Sit down," the  old man
ordered.

"But "

"I   said   sit   down,   Garion.  This   is   none   of  your   business."

"Unless  you want  to buy  the woman,  of course," Silk  suggested lightly.

"Is she healthy?" a  lean-faced trapper with a scar across one cheek called
to Tashor.

"She is,"  Tashor declared,  "and she's got  all her teeth,  too. Show them
your teeth, Vella."

"They aren't looking at my teeth, idiot," she told him, looking directly at
the scar-faced trapper with a sultry challenge in her black eyes.

"She's  an  excellent  cook,"  Tashor  continued quickly,  "and  she  knows
remedies  for rheumatism  and ague.  She can  dress and  tan hides  and she
doesn't eat  too much. Her breath  doesn't smell too bad  - unless she eats
onions  -   and  she  almost  never   snores,  except  when  she's  drunk."

"If she's  such a good woman,  why do you want  to sell her?" the leanfaced
trapper wanted to know.

"I'm  getting older,"  Tashor  replied, "and  I'd like  a little  peace and
quiet. Vella's  exciting to  be around, but  I've had all  the excitement I
need. I think I'd like to settle down someplace - maybe raise some chickens
or  goats."  The  bent  old trapper's  voice  sounded  a trifle  plaintive.

"Oh,  this is  impossible," Vella burst  out. "Do  I have to  do everything
myself? Get  out of  the way, Tashor."  Rudely, she pushed  the old trapper
aside and  glared at the crowd,  her black eyes flashing.  "All right," she
announced firmly, "let's get down to business. Tashor wants to sell me. I'm
strong  and healthy.  I  can cook,  cure hides  and  skins, tend  to common
illnesses, bargain closely when  I buy supplies, and I can brew good beer."
Her eyes narrowed grimly.  "I have not gone to any man's bed, and I keep my
daggers sharp  enough to persuade strangers  not to try to  force me. I can
play the  wood-flute and I know many old  stories. I can make curse-markers
and pestilence-markers  and dream-markers to frighten  off the Morindim and
once I killed a bear at thirty paces with a bow."

"Twenty paces," Tashor corrected mildly.

"It was closer to thirty," she insisted.

"Can you dance?" the lean trapper with the scarred face asked.

She looked directly at  him. "Only if you're seriously interested in buying
me," she replied.

"We can talk about that after I see you dance," he said.

"Can you hold a beat?" she demanded.

"I can."

"Very well." Her hands went to the chain about her waist, and it jingled as
she unfastened  it. She opened the heavy red dress,  stepped out of it, and
handed it  to Tashor.  Then she carefully  untied the leash  from about her
neck and bound a  ribbon of red silk about her head to hold back her wealth
of lustrous, blue-black hair.  Beneath the red felt dress, she wore a filmy
rose-colored gown of Mallorean  silk that whispered and clung to her as she
moved. The silk gown reached to midcalf, and she wore soft leather boots on
her feet.  Protruding from the top  of each boot was  the jeweled hilt of a
dagger, and  a third dagger rode  on the leather belt  about her waist. Her
gown was  caught in a tight  collar about her throat,  but it left her arms
bare to  the shoulder.  She wore a  half dozen narrow  gold bracelets about
each wrist. With a conscious grace, she bent and fastened a string of small
bells to  each ankle. Then she  lifted her smoothly rounded  arms until her
hands were  beside her  face. "This is  the beat, scar-face,"  she told the
trapper. "Try  to hold it." And  she began to clap  her hands together. The
beat was  three measured claps followed by  four staccato ones. Vella began
her dance  slowly with a kind of insolent strut.  Her gown whispered as she
moved, its hem sighing about her lush calves.

The lean  trapper took  up her beat,  his callused hands  clapping together
loudly in the sudden silence as Vella danced.

Garion began  to blush. Vella's movements were  subtle and fluid. The bells
at  her  ankles  and  the bracelets  about  her  wrists  played a  tinkling
counterpoint to  the trapper's beat.  Her feet seemed almost  to flicker in
the intricate  steps of her dance,  and her arms wove  patterns in the air.
Other, even more interesting,  things were going on inside the rosecolored,
gossamer  gown. Garion  swallowed hard  and discovered  that he  had almost
stopped breathing.

Vella began to whirl,  and her long black hair flared out, almost perfectly
matching the flare of her gown. Then she slowed and once again dropped back
into  that proud,  sensual  strut that  challenged every  man in  the room.

They cheered  when she  stopped, and she  smiled a slow,  mysterious little
smile.

"You dance very well,"  the scar-faced trapper observed in a neutral voice.

"Naturally," she replied. "I do everything very well."

"Are   you  in   love  with   anyone?"  The   question  was   bluntly  put.

"No man has won my heart," Vella declared flatly. "I haven't seen a man yet
who was worthy of me."

"That may  change," the  trapper suggested. "One  goldmark." It was  a firm
offer.

"You're not serious," she snorted. "Five goldmarks."

"One and a half," he countered.

"This is  just too insulting." Vella  raised both hands up  in the air, and
her face took on a tragic expression. "Not a copper less than four."

"Two goldmarks," the trapper offered.

"Unbelievable!" she exclaimed, spreading both arms. "Why don't you just cut
my heart out and  have done with it? I couldn't consider anything less than
three and a half."

"To  save time,  why don't  we just  say three?"  He said it  firmly. "With
intention that  the arrangement  become permanent," he added,  almost as an
afterthought.

"Permanent?" Vella's eyes widened.

"I like you," he replied. "Well, what do you say?"

"Stand  up and  let me  have a  look at  you," she  ordered him.  Slowly he
unwound himself  from the chair in which he had  lounged. His tall body was
as lean as his scarred face, and there was a hardmuscled quality about him.
Vella pursed  her lips and looked him over. "Not  bad, is he?" she murmured
to Tashor.

"You  could  do  worse, Vella,"  her  owner  answered encouragingly.  "I'll
consider your  offer of  three with intentions," Vella  declared. "Have you
got a name?"

"Tekk," the tall trapper introduced himself with a slight bow.

"Well then,  Tekk," Vella  told him, "don't  go away. Tashor and  I need to
talk over  your offer."  She gave him an  almost shy look. "I  think I like
you, too," she added in a much less challenging tone. Then she took hold of
the leash  that was still wrapped  around Tashor's fist and  led him out of
the tavern, glancing back over her shoulder once or twice at the lean-faced
Tekk.

"That is  a lot of woman,"  Silk murmured with a  note of profound respect.

Garion found that he  was able to breathe again, though his ears still felt
very  hot.  "What did  they  mean  by intention?"  he  quietly asked  Silk.

"Tekk  offered  an  arrangement  that  usually  leads  to  marriage,"  Silk
explained.

That baffled Garion. "I don't understand at all," he confessed.

"Just because  someone owns her doesn't give him  any special rights to her
person," Silk  told him, "and those daggers of  hers enforce that. One does
not approach  a Nadrak woman unless  one's tired of living.  She makes that
decision. The wedding customarily  takes place after the birth of her first
child."

"Why was she so interested in the price?"

"Because she gets half," Silk shrugged.

"She gets half of the money every time she's sold?" Garion was incredulous.

"Of course. It'd hardly be fair otherwise, would it?"

The servingman who was bringing them three more cups of ale had stopped and
was staring openly at Silk.

"Is something wrong, friend?" Silk asked him mildly.

The  servingman lowered  his  eyes quickly.  "Sorry," he  mumbled.  "I just
thought  - you  reminded me  of somebody,  that's all.  Now that I  see you
closer,  I realize  that I  was mistaken."  He put  down the  cups quickly,
turned, and  left without picking up the coins Silk  had laid on the table.

"I think we'd better leave," Silk said quietly.

"What's the matter?" Garion asked him.

"He  knows  who  I  am  -  and  there's  that reward  notice  that's  being
circulated."

"Maybe   you're   right,"   Belgarath   agreed,   rising   to   his   feet.

"He's  talking  with  those  men over  there,"  Garion  said, watching  the
servingman, who  was in urgent conversation with a  group of hunters on the
far side  of the  room and was  casting frequent looks  in their direction.

"We've got about a half a minute to get outside," Silk said tensely. "Let's
go."

The three of them moved quickly toward the door.

"You there!" someone behind them shouted. "Wait a minute!"

"Run!" Belgarath barked, and they bolted outside and hurled themselves into
their saddles just as a half dozen leather-garbed men burst out through the
tavern door.

The shout,  "Stop those  men!" went largely  unheeded as they  galloped off
down the  street. Trappers and hunters  as a breed were  seldom inclined to
mix themselves in other  men's affairs, and Garion, Silk, and Belgarath had
passed through the village and were splashing across a ford before any kind
of pursuit could be organized.

Silk was swearing as  they entered the forest on the far side of the river,
spitting  out  oaths like  melon  seeds.  His profanity  was colorful  arid
wide-ranging, reflecting  on the birth, parentage,  and uncleanly habits of
not only those pursuing  them, but of those responsible for circulating the
reward notice as well.

Belgarath reined  in sharply, raising his  hand as he did.  Silk and Garion
hauled their horses to a stop. Silk continued to swear.

"Do you suppose you could cut short your eloquence for a moment?" Belgarath
asked him. "I'm trying to listen."

Silk muttered  a few more choice oaths, then  clamped his teeth shut. There
were confused  shouts far  behind them and  a certain amount  of splashing.

"They're crossing  the stream," Belgarath noted. "It  looks as if they plan
to take the business seriously. Seriously enough to chase us, at any rate."

"Won't they give up when it gets dark?" Garion asked.

"These  are  Nadrak hunters,"  Silk  said,  sounding profoundly  disgusted.
"They'll  follow  us  for  days  just  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  hunt."

"There's not much we  can do about that now," Belgarath grunted. "Let's see
if  we  can  outrun   them."  And  he  thumped  his  heels  to  his  horse.

It was midafternoon as they rode at a gallop through the sunlit forest. The
undergrowth was scanty, and  the tall, straight trunks of fir and pine rose
like great  columns toward the blue  sky overhead. It was  a good day for a
ride,  but not  a good  day for  being chased.  No day  was good  for that.

They topped a rise and stopped again to listen.

"They   seem    to   be   falling   behind,"    Garion   noted   hopefully.

"That's  just the  drunk ones,"  Silk disagreed  sourly. "The ones  who are
serious  about all  this  are probably  much closer.  You don't  shout when
you're hunting. See - look back there." He pointed.

Garion looked.  There was a pale  flicker back among the  trees. A man on a
white horse  was riding in their direction, leaning  far over in his saddle
and looking intently at the ground as he rode.

"If he's  any kind of tracker  at all, it will take us  a week to shake him
off," Silk said disgustedly.

Somewhere, far  off among the trees  to their right, a  wolf howled. "Let's
keep going," Belgarath told them.

They galloped  on then, plunging down  the far side of  the rise, threading
their way  among the trees, The  thud of their horses'  hoofs was a muffled
drumming on  the thick loam of the forest floor,  and clots of half decayed
debris spattered out behind them as they fled.

"We're leaving a trail as wide as a house," Silk shouted to Belgarath.

"That can't  be helped  for now," the  old man replied. "We  need some more
distance before we start playing games with the tracks."

Another  howl drifted  mournfully through  the forest,  from the  left this
time. It seemed a bit closer than the first had been.

They rode on for  another quarter of an hour and then they suddenly heard a
great babble  of confusion to the  rear. Men were shouting  with alarm, and
horses  squealed  in  panic.  Garion  could  also hear  savage  growls.  At
Belgarath's  signal,  they slowed  their  horses to  listen. The  terrified
squeals  of horses  rang  sharply through  the trees,  punctuated  by their
riders'  curses and  frightened  shouts. A  chorus of  howls rose  from all
around. The forest seemed  suddenly full of wolves. The pursuit behind them
disintegrated  as  the horses  of  the  Nadrak reward  hunters bolted  with
screams of sheer panic in all directions.

With a  certain grim satisfaction, Belgarath  listened to the fading sounds
behind them.  Then, his tongue lolling from  his mouth, a huge, dark-furred
wolf trotted out of the woods about thirty yards away, stopped, and dropped
to   his   haunches,   his   yellow   eyes   gazing   intently   at   them.

"Keep a  tight grip on your  reins," Belgarath instructed quietly, stroking
the neck of his suddenly wild-eyed mount.

The  wolf did  not  say anything,  but  merely sat  and watched.  Belgarath
returned  that  steady  gaze  quite calmly,  then  finally  nodded once  in
acknowledgment. The  wolf rose, turned, and started  off into the trees. He
stopped once, glanced back over his shoulder at them, and raised his muzzle
to lift  the deep, bell-toned howl  that summoned the other  members of his
pack to return to their interrupted hunt. Then, with a flicker he was gone,
and only the echo of his howl remained.

                                Chapter Four

THEY  RODE EAST  for  the next  several days,  gradually descending  into a
broad,  marshy  valley  where  the  undergrowth  was  denser  and  the  air
noticeably  more humid.  A  brief summer  shower rolled  in  one afternoon,
accompanied  by great,  ripping crashes  of thunder,  a deluge  of pounding
rain, and  winds that howled among the trees,  bending and tossing them and
tearing leaves  and twigs  from the underbrush  to whirl and  fly among the
dark trunks.  The storm soon passed,  however, and the sun  came out again.
After  that,  the  weather   continued  fair,  and  they  made  good  time.

Garion felt a peculiar  sense of incompleteness as he rode and he sometimes
caught  himself looking  around for  missing friends.  The long  journey in
search of the Orb had established a sort of pattern in his mind, a sense of
rightness and wrongness, and this trip felt wrong. Barak was not with them,
for one  thing, and the big, red-bearded  Cherek's absence made Garion feel
oddly insecure. He also missed the hawkfaced, silent Hettar and the armored
form of  Mandorallen riding  always at the front,  with the silver-and-blue
pennon  snapping from  the tip of  his lance.  He was painfully  lonely for
Durnik the smith and he even missed Ce'Nedra's spiteful bickering. What had
happened at  Riva became less and  less real to him,  and all the elaborate
ceremony that had attended  his betrothal to the impossible little princess
began   to  fade   in  his   memory,  like   some  half   forgotten  dream.

It was one evening,  however, after the horses had been picketed and supper
was over  and they had rolled  themselves in their blankets  to sleep, that
Garion, staring  into the dying embers of their fire,  came at last to face
the central vacancy that  had entered his life. Aunt Pol was not with them,
and he  missed her terribly. Since childhood, he had  felt that, so long as
Aunt Pol was nearby,  nothing could really go wrong that she could not fix.
Her calm,  steady presence  had been the  one thing to which  he had always
clung. As  clearly as if she  stood before him, Garion  could see her face,
her glorious  eyes, and the white  lock at her brow;  the sudden loneliness
for her was as sharp as the edge of a knife.

Everything  felt  wrong without  her.  Belgarath was  here, certainly,  and
Garion  was fairly  sure that  his grandfather  could deal with  any purely
physical dangers,  but there were  other, less obvious perils  that the old
man either  did not consider or chose to ignore.  To whom could Garion turn
when he  was afraid,  for example? Being  afraid was not the  sort of thing
that  endangered life  or limb,  but it  was still  an injury of  sorts and
sometimes a  deeper and  more serious kind  of injury. Aunt  Pol had always
been able  to banish  his fears, but now  she was not here,  and Garion was
afraid and  he could not even  admit it. He sighed  and pulled his blankets
more  closely  about  him   and  slowly  drifted  into  a  troubled  sleep.

It was  about noon some days  later when they reached  the east fork of the
River Cordu, a broad, dirty brown flow running through a brushy valley in a
generally southerly  direction toward  the capital at Yar  Nadrak. The pale
green,  waist-high brush  extended back  several hundred yards  from either
bank of  the river  and was silt-smeared  by the high waters  of the spring
runoff. The  sultry air above the brush was alive  with clouds of gnats and
mosquitoes.

A sullen  boatman ferried  them across to  the village standing  on the far
bank. As they led  their horses off onto the ferry landing, Belgarath spoke
quietly.  "I think  we'll  want to  change direction  here," he  told them.
"Let's split up.  I'll go pick up supplies, and the two  of you go find the
town tavern.  See if you can  get some information about  passes leading up
through the  north range into the lands of the  Morindim. The sooner we get
up there, the better. The Malloreans seem to be getting the upper hand here
and they  could clamp  down without much  warning. I don't want  to have to
start explaining  my every move to  Mallorean Grolims - not  to mention the
fact that there's a great deal of interest in Silk's whereabouts just now."

Silk rather  glumly agreed. "I'd like to  get that matter straightened out,
but I don't suppose we really have the time, do we?"

"No, not really. The  summer is very, very short up north, and the crossing
to Mallorea  is unpleasant, even in  the best weather. When  you get to the
tavern, tell  everybody that we want to try our luck  in the gold fields of
the north  range. There's bound to  be somebody around who'll  want to show
off his familiarity with trails and passes-particularly if you offer to buy
him a few drinks."

"I thought you said you knew the way," Silk protested.

"I know  one way -  but it's a hundred  leagues east of here.  Let's see if
there's something a little  closer. I'll come by the tavern after I get the
supplies." The  old man  mounted and went  off up the  dirt street, leading
their packhorse behind him.

Silk and  Garion had  little trouble finding  someone in the  smelly tavern
willing to talk about trails and passes. Quite to the contrary, their first
question sparked a general debate.

"That's  the long way  around, Besher,"  one tipsy gold  hunter interrupted
another's  detailed description  of a  mountain pass.  "You go left  at the
falls of the stream. It saves you three days."

"I'm telling this, Varn," Besher retorted testily, banging his fist down on
the  scarred table.  "You  can tell  them about  the  way you  go  when I'm
finished."

"It'll take  you all day just like that trail you're  so fond of. They want
to go look for  gold, not admire scenery." Varn's long, stubbled jaw thrust
out belligerently.

"Which way do we  go when we get to the long meadow  up on top?" Silk asked
quickly, trying to head off the hostilities.

"You go right," Besher declared, glaring at Varn.

Varn thought about that as if looking for an excuse to disagree. Finally he
reluctantly nodded.  "Of course that's the only way  you can go," he added,
"but once you get  through the juniper grove, you turn left." He said it in
the tone of a man anticipating contradiction.

"Left?"  Besher objected loudly.  "You're a  blockhead, Varn. You  go right
again."

"Watch who you're calling a blockhead, you jackass!"

Without any  further discussion, Besher punched Varn  in the mouth, and the
two of  them began  to pummel each  other, reeling about  and knocking over
benches and tables.

"They're both  wrong, of course,"  another miner sitting at  a nearby table
observed calmly,  watching the fight with  a clinical detachment. "You keep
going straight after you get through the juniper grove."

Several  burly men,  wearing loose-fitting  red tunics over  their polished
mail shirts,  had entered the tavern  unnoticed during the altercation, and
they  stepped forward,  grinning, to  separate Varn  and Besher as  the two
rolled around on the dirty floor. Garion felt Silk stiffen beside him.

"Malloreans!" the little man said softly.

"What do we do?"  Garion whispered, looking around for a way of escape. But
before Silk  could answer,  a black-robed Grolim stepped  through the door.

"I  like to  see men who  are so eager  to fight,"  the Grolim purred  in a
peculiar accent. "The army needs such men."

"Recruiters!" Varn exclaimed, breaking  away from the red-garbed Malloreans
and  dashing toward  a side  door. For a  second it  looked as if  he might
escape; but  as he reached the doorway,  someone outside rapped him sharply
across  the  forehead  with  a  stout  cudgel.  He  reeled  back,  suddenly
rubber-legged and  vacant-eyed. The Mallorean who  had hit him came inside,
gave him a critical, appraising glance, and then judiciously clubbed him in
the head again.

"Well?" the Grolim asked,  looking around with amusement. "What's it to be?
Would any  more of you like  to run, or would you  all prefer to come along
quietly?"

"Where are  you taking us?" Besher demanded, trying to  pull his arm out of
the grip of one of the grinning recruiters.

"To Yar Nadrak first," the Grolim replied, "and then south to the plains of
Mishrak  ac  Thull and  the  encampment  of his  Imperial Majesty  'Zakath,
Emperor of  all Mallorea. You've just  joined the army, my  friends. All of
Angarak  rejoices in  your  courage and  patriotism, and  Torak  himself is
pleased with you." As  if to emphasize his words, the Grolim's hand strayed
to   the   hilt  of   the   sacrificial   knife  sheathed   at  his   belt.

The  chain clinked  spitefully as  Garion, fettered  at the  ankle, plodded
along, one  in a long line  of disconsolate-looking conscripts, following a
trail leading  generally southward  through the brush  along the riverbank.
The conscripts  had all  been roughly searched for  weapons-all but Garion,
who for some reason had been overlooked. He was painfully aware of the huge
sword strapped  to his  back as he  walked along; but, as  always seemed to
happen, no one else paid any attention to it.

Before  they had  left  the village,  while they  were all  being shackled,
Garion and  Silk had held a  brief, urgent discussion in  the minute finger
movements of the Drasnian secret language.

I  could  pick  this  lock  with  my  thumbnail-Silk had  asserted  with  a
disdainful  flip of  his fingers.  As soon  as it  gets dark  tonight, I'll
unhook us  and we'll leave. I don't really  think military life would agree
with me,  and it's  wildly inappropriate for  you to be  joining an Angarak
army just now - all things considered.

-Where's Grandfather? Garion had asked.

-Oh, I imagine he's about.

Garion, however, was worried, and a whole platoon of "what-ifs" immediately
jumped into his mind. To avoid thinking about them, he covertly studied the
Malloreans who guarded them.  The Grolim and the bulk of his detachment had
moved on,  once the captives had been  shackled, seeking other villages and
other recruits,  leaving only  five of their  number behind to  escort this
group south. Malloreans were  somewhat different from other Angaraks. Their
eyes  had that characteristic  angularity, but  their bodies seemed  not to
have the singleness of  purpose which so dominated the western tribes. They
were burly,  but they did not have  the broad-shouldered athleticism of the
Murgos. They  were tall, but did  not have the lean,  whippetlike frames of
the  Nadraks.  They  were  obviously strong,  but  they  did  not have  the
thick-waisted brute power of Thulls. There was about them, moreover, a kind
of disdainful superiority when  they looked at western Angaraks. They spoke
to their prisoners in short, barking commands, and when they talked to each
other, their  dialect was so thick that  it was nearly unintelligible. They
wore  mail shirts  covered by  coarse-woven red  tunics. They did  not ride
their horses  very well, Garion  noted, and their curved  swords and broad,
round shields seemed to  get in their way as they attempted to manage their
reins.

Garion carefully  kept his head down  to hide the fact  that his features -
even more  than Silk's - were  distinctly non-Angarak. The guards, however,
paid little  attention to the conscripts  as individuals, but seemed rather
to be more interested in them as numbers. They rode continually up and down
the  sweating column,  counting  bodies and  referring to  a  document they
carried  with concerned,  even  worried expressions.  Garion surmised  that
unpleasant  things would  happen  if the  numbers did  not match  when they
reached Yar Nadrak.

A faint, pale flicker in the underbrush some distance uphill from the trail
caught Garion's  eye, and he turned  his head sharply in  that direction. A
large, silver-gray  wolf was ghosting along just at  the edge of the trees,
his pace  exactly matching  theirs. Garion quickly lowered  his head again,
pretended  to stumble,  and fell  heavily against Silk.  "Grandfather's out
there," he whispered.

"Did you only just notice him?" Silk sounded surprised. "I've been watching
him for the last hour or more."

When the  trail turned  away from the  river and entered  the trees, Garion
felt the  tension building up in  him. He could not  be sure what Belgarath
was going  to do,  but he knew  that the concealment offered  by the forest
provided  the  opportunity for  which  his grandfather  had doubtless  been
waiting. He tried to hide his growing nervousness as he walked along behind
Silk,  but the  slightest sound  in the  woods around  them made  him start
uncontrollably.

The trail  dipped down into a fair-sized  clearing, surrounded on all sides
by tall  ferns, and the Mallorean  guards halted the column  to allow their
prisoners to rest. Garion  sank gratefully to the springy turf beside Silk.
The effort  of walking with one leg shackled to  the long chain which bound
the conscripts together was considerable, and he found that he was sweating
profusely.   "What's    he   waiting   for?"   he    whispered   to   Silk.

The rat-faced little man  shrugged. "It's still a few hours until dark," he
replied softly. "Maybe he wants to wait for that."

Then, some distance up the trail, they heard the sound of singing. The song
was  ribald and  badly  out of  tune, but  the  singer was  quite obviously
enjoying himself, and the slurring of the words as he drew closer indicated
that he was more than a little drunk.

The Malloreans  grinned at  each other. "Another patriot,  perhaps," one of
them smirked,  "coming to  enlist. Spread out,  and we'll gather  him up as
soon as he comes into the clearing."

The singing Nadrak rode  into view on a large roan horse. He wore the usual
dark, stained  leather clothing, and a fur  cap perched precariously on one
side of his head.  He had a scraggly black beard, and he carried a wineskin
in  one  hand. He  seemed to  be  swaying in  his  saddle as  he rode,  but
something  about  his eyes  showed  him  not to  be  quite so  drunk as  he
appeared. Garion  stared at him openly as he rode  into the clearing with a
string of  mules behind him. It  was Yarblek, the Nadrak  merchant they had
encountered on the South Caravan Route in Cthol Murgos.

"Ho, there!" Yarblek greeted  the Malloreans in a loud voice. "I see you've
had  good hunting. That's  a healthy-looking  bunch of recruits  you've got
there."

"The  hunting just  got  easier." One  of  the Malloreans  grinned at  him,
pulling   his   horse   across   the   trail  to   block   Yarblek's   way.

"You mean me?" Yarblek laughed uproariously. "Don't be a fool. I'm too busy
to play soldier."

"That's a shame," the Mallorean replied.

"I'm Yarblek, a merchant  of Yar Turak and a friend of King Drosta himself.
I'm acting  on a  commission that he  personally put into my  hands. If you
interfere with me in any way, Drosta will have you flayed and roasted alive
as soon as you get to Yar Nadrak."

The  Mallorean looked  a trifle  less sure  of himself  "We answer  only to
'Zakath," he asserted a bit defensively. "King Drosta has no authority over
us."

"You're in Gar og  Nadrak, friend," Yarblek pointed out to him, "and Drosta
does whatever  he likes here. He  might have to apologize  to 'Zakath after
it's all  over, but  by then the  five of you  will probably  be peeled and
cooked to a turn."

"I suppose  you can prove that you're  on official business?" the Mallorean
guard hedged.

"Of  course I  can," Yarblek replied.  He scratched  at his head,  his face
taking  on an  expression  of foolish  perplexity.  "Where did  I put  that
parchment?" he muttered to himself. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh, yes,"
he said, "now I  remember. It's in the pack on that last mule. Here, have a
drink, and I'll go get it." He tossed the wineskin to the Mallorean, turned
his horse  and rode back to  the end of his  pack string. He dismounted and
began rummaging through a canvas pack.

"We'd better  have a  look at his  documents before we decide,"  one of the
others advised. "King Drosta's not the sort you want to cross."

"We might  as well  have a drink  while we're waiting,"  another suggested,
eyeing the wineskin.

"That's one  thing we can agree  on," the first replied,  working loose the
stopper of  the leather bag. He raised the skin  with both hands and lifted
his chin to drink.

There was  a solid-sounding thud, and  the feathered shaft of  an arrow was
quite  suddenly protruding  from his  throat, just  at the  top of  his red
tunic. The wine gushed from the skin to pour down over his astonished face.
His companions  gaped at him, then reached for  their weapons with cries of
alarm, but it was  too late. Most of them tumbled from their saddles in the
sudden storm of arrows  that struck them from the concealment of the ferns.
One, however, wheeled his mount to flee, clutching at the shaft buried deep
in his side. The horse took no more than two leaps before three arrows sank
into the Mallorean's back. He stiffened, then toppled over limply, his foot
hanging  up in  his stirrup as  he fell,  and his frightened  horse bolted,
dragging   him,    bouncing   and   flopping,   back    down   the   trail.

"I can't seem to locate that document," Yarblek declared, walking back with
a wicked grin on  his face. He turned the Mallorean he had been speaking to
over with his foot.  "You didn't really want to see it anyway, did you?" he
asked the dead man.

The Mallorean  with the arrow in  his throat stared blankly  up at the sky,
his mouth  agape and a trickle of blood running out  of his nose. "I didn't
think so."  Yarblek laughed coarsely. He drew back  his foot and kicked the
dead man  back over onto his  face. Then he turned to  smirk at Silk as his
archers came out of the dark green ferns. "You certainly get around, Silk,"
he  said. "I  thought Taur Urgas  had finished  you back there  in stinking
Cthol Murgos."

"He miscalculated," Silk replied casually.

"How did  you manage to get yourself  conscripted into the Mallorean army?"
Yarblek asked  curiously, all  traces of his feigned  drunkenness gone now.

Silk shrugged. "I got careless."

"I've been following you for the last three days."

"I'm touched  by your concern." Silk lifted  his fettered ankle and jingled
the  chain.  "Would  it  be too  much  trouble  for  you  to unlock  this?"

"You're not going to do anything foolish, are you?"

"Of course not."

"Find the key," Yarblek told one of his archers.

"What are you going to do with us?" Besher asked nervously, eyeing the dead
guards with a certain apprehension.

Yarblek  laughed. "What  you do  once that  chain's off  is up to  you," he
answered indifferently. "I wouldn't recommend staying in the vicinity of so
many dead  Malloreans, though.  Somebody might come along  and start asking
questions."

"You're just going to let us go?" Besher demanded incredulously.

"I'm certainly not going to feed you," Yarblek told him.

The archers  went down the  chain, unlocking the shackles,  and each Nadrak
bolted into the bushes as soon as he was free.

"Well, then,"  Yarblek said,  rubbing his palms together,  "now that that's
been taken care of, why don't we have a drink?"

"That guard spilled all your wine when he fell off his horse," Silk pointed
out.

"That  wasn't my  wine,"  Yarblek snorted.  "I stole  it this  morning. You
should know  I wouldn't offer my own drink to  somebody I planned to kill."

"I wondered  about that." Silk grinned  at him. "I thought  that maybe your
manners had started to slip."

Yarblek's coarse face took on a faintly injured expression.

"Sorry," Silk apologized quickly. "I misjudged you."

"No harm  done." Yarblek shrugged.  "A lot of people  misunderstand me." He
sighed. "It's a  burden I have to bear." He opened a  pack on his lead mule
and hefted out a  small keg of ale. He set it on the ground and broached it
with  a practiced  skill,  bashing in  its top  with  his fist.  "Let's get
drunk," he suggested.

"We'd really  like to," Silk declined politely,  "but we've got some rather
urgent business to take care of."

"You  have no  idea how sorry  I am  about that," Yarblek  replied, fishing
several cups out of the pack.

"I knew you'd understand."

"Oh, I understand, all  right, Silk." Yarblek bent and dipped two cups into
the ale keg. "And  I'm as sorry as I can be that  your business is going to
have to  wait. Here."  He gave Silk one  cup and Garion the  other. Then he
turned and dipped out a cup for himself.

Silk looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

Yarblek sprawled on the  ground beside the ale keg, comfortably resting his
feet  on the  body  of one  of the  dead  Malloreans. "You  see,  Silk," he
explained,  "the whole  point of  all this  is that  Drosta wants  you very
badly. He's  offering a reward for  you that's just too  attractive to pass
up. Friendship is one  thing, but business is business, after all. Now, why
don't  you and  your young  friend make  yourselves comfortable? This  is a
nice, shady clearing with soft moss to lie on. We'll all get drunk, and you
can tell me how you managed to escape from Taur Urgas. Then you can tell me
what happened to that handsome woman you had with you down in Cthol Murgos.
Maybe I  can make enough money  from this to be able  to afford to buy her.
I'm  not the  marrying kind,  but by  Torak's teeth, that's  a fine-looking
woman.  I'd   almost  be   willing  to  give   up  my  freedom   for  her."

"I'm sure she'd be flattered," Silk replied. "What then?"

"What when?"

"After we get drunk. What do we do then?"

"We'll probably get sick  - that's what usually happens. After we get well,
we'll  run on  down to  Yar Nadrak.  I'll collect  the reward for  you, and
you'll be able to  find out why King Drosta lek Thun wants to get his hands
on you  so badly." He looked at Silk with  an amused expression. "You might
as well  sit down  and have a  drink, my friend. You  aren't going anywhere
just now."





Chapter Five

YAR NADRAK  WAS a walled city,  lying at the juncture  of the east and west
forks of  the River Cordu. The forests had been cleared  for a league or so
in every direction from the capital by the simple expedient of setting fire
to it,  and the approach to the city passed  through a wilderness of burned
black snags  and rank-growing  bramble thickets. The city  gates were stout
and smeared  with tar. Surmounting them was a stone  replica of the mask of
Torak. That beautiful, inhumanly  cruel face gazed down at all who entered,
and Garion suppressed a shudder as he rode under it.

The houses in the Nadrak capital were all very tall and had steeply sloping
roofs. The windows of  the second storeys all had shutters, and most of the
shutters were  closed. Any exposed wood on  the structures had been smeared
with tar to preserve  it, and the splotches of the black substance made all
the buildings look somehow diseased.

There was  a sullen, frightened air  in the narrow, crooked  streets of Yar
Nadrak, and  the inhabitants kept their eyes  lowered as they hurried about
their business. There appeared  to be less leather involved in the clothing
of the burghers of  the capital than had been the case in the back country,
but even  here most garments were black, and  only occasionally was there a
splash of blue or yellow. The sole exception to this rule was the red tunic
worn by  the Mallorean soldiers.  They seemed to be  everywhere, roaming at
will up  and down  the cobblestoned streets, accosting  citizens rudely and
talking   loudly  to   each  other   in  their  heavily   accented  speech.

While  the  soldiers seemed  for  the  most part  to  be merely  swaggering
bullies, young  men who concealed  their nervousness at being  in a strange
country  with an  outward show  of bluster  and braggadocio,  the Mallorean
Grolims were  quite another  matter. Unlike the western  Grolims Garion had
seen in Cthol Murgos,  they rarely wore the polished steel mask, but rather
assumed a  set, grim expression, thin-lipped  and narrow-eyed; as they went
about  the streets  in their  hooded black  robes, everyone,  Mallorean and
Nadrak alive, gave way to them.

Garion and  Silk, closely guarded and mounted on  a pair of mules, followed
the rangy Yarblek into  the city. Yarblek and Silk had kept up their banter
during the  entire ride  downriver, exchanging casual  insults and reliving
past indiscretions. Although he seemed friendly enough, Yarblek nonetheless
remained watchful,  and his men had  guarded Silk and Garion  every step of
the way.  Garion had covertly watched  the forest almost continually during
the three-day ride, but he had seen no sign of Belgarath and he entered the
city in  a state of  jumpy apprehension. Silk, however,  seemed relaxed and
confident  as always,  and  his behavior  and attitude  grated  at Garion's
nerves, for some reason.

After they had clattered  along a crooked street for some distance, Yarblek
turned down  a narrow, dirty alleyway leading  toward the river. "I thought
the palace  was that way," Silk said to him,  pointing toward the center of
town.

"It is," Yarblek replied,  "but we aren't going to the palace. Drosta's got
company there, and he prefers to do business in private." The alleyway soon
opened  out  into a  seedy-looking  street where  the tall,  narrow-looking
houses  had fallen somewhat  into disrepair.  The lanky Nadrak  clamped his
mouth shut as two Mallorean Grolims rounded a corner just ahead and came in
their  direction.  Yarblek's  expression  was  openly hostile  as  the  two
approached.

One  of them  stopped  to return  his gaze.  "You seem  to have  a problem,
friend," the Grolim suggested.

"That's my business, isn't it?" Yarblek retorted.

"Indeed it  is," the Grolim replied coolly. "Don't let  it get out of hand,
though. Open disrespect for  the priesthood is the sort of thing that could
get you into serious  trouble." The black-robed man's look was threatening.

On  a sudden  impulse,  Garion carefully  pushed  out his  mind toward  the
Grolim,  probing very  gently, but  the thoughts  he encountered  showed no
particular awareness  and certainly none of the  aura that always seemed to
emanate from the mind of a sorcerer.

"Don't do  that,"the voice in his mind cautioned  him. "It's like ringing a
bell or wearing a sign around your neck."

Garion  quickly  pulled back  his  thoughts.  "I thought  all Grolims  were
sorcerers," he replied silently. "These two are just ordinary men." But the
other awareness was gone.

The two  Grolims passed,  and Yarblek spat contemptuously  into the street.
"Pigs," he muttered. "I'm  starting to dislike Malloreans almost as much as
Murgos."

"They seem to be taking over your country, Yarblek," Silk observed.

Yarblek grunted.  "Let one Mallorean in,  and before long they're underfoot
everywhere."

"Why did you let them in to begin with?" Silk asked mildly.

"Silk," Yarblek  said bluntly, "I know  you're a spy, and  I'm not going to
discuss   politics   with   you,   so  quit   fishing   for   information."

"Just passing the time of day," Silk replied innocently.

"Why don't you mind your own business?"

"But this is my business, old friend."

Yarblek stared hard at him, then suddenly laughed.

"Where are we going?"  Silk asked him, looking around at the shabby street.
"This isn't the best part of town, as I recall."

"You'll find out," Yarblek told him.

They rode on down  toward the river where the smell of floating garbage and
open sewers  was quite nearly overpowering. Garion  saw rats feeding in the
gutters, and the men in the street wore shabby clothing and had the furtive
look of those who have reason to avoid the police.

Yarblek turned his horse  abruptly and led them into another narrow, filthy
alleyway. "We  walk from here," he said, dismounting. "I  want to go in the
back way." Leaving their  mounts with one of his men, they went on down the
alley, stepping carefully over piles of rotting garbage.

"Down there,"  Yarblek told  them, pointing at  a short, rickety  flight of
wooden stairs  leading down to a narrow doorway.  "Once we get inside, keep
your heads  down. We  don't want too  many people noticing  that you're not
Nadraks."

They went  down the creaking steps  and slipped through the  doorway into a
dim, smoky  tavern, reeking  of sweat, spilled  beer, and stale  vomit. The
fire pit in the center of the room was choked with ashes, and several large
logs  smoldered there,  giving off a  great deal  of smoke and  very little
light. Two  narrow, dirty windows at the  front appeared only slightly less
dark than  the walls  around them, and  a single oil  lamp hung  on a chain
nailed to one of the rafters.

"Sit here,"  Yarblek instructed  them, nudging at a  bench standing against
the back  wall. "I'll be right back." He went off  toward the front part of
the tavern.  Garion looked around quickly, but  saw immediately that a pair
of Yarblek's men lounged unobtrusively beside the door.

"What are we going to do?" he whispered to Silk.

"We don't have much choice but to wait and see what happens," Silk replied.

"You don't seem very worried."

"I'm not, really."

"But we've been arrested, haven't we?"

Silk shook  his head. "When you  arrest somebody, you put  shackles on him.
King Drosta wants to talk to me, that's all."

"But that reward notice said-"

"I wouldn't  pay too much attention to that,  Garion. The reward notice was
for the benefit of the Malloreans. Whatever Drosta's up to, he doesn't want
them finding out about it."

Yarblek threaded  his way back through the crowd  in the tavern and thumped
himself  down on  the  grimy bench  beside  them. "Drosta  should be  here,
shortly,"  he said.  "You  want something  to drink  while  we're waiting?"

Silk looked around with a faint expression of distaste. "I don't think so,"
he replied. "The ale barrels in places like this usually have a few drowned
rats  floating  in them  -  not to  mention  the dead  flies and  roaches."

"Suit yourself," Yarblek said.

"Isn't this a peculiar sort of place to find a king?" Garion asked, looking
around at the shabby interior of the tavern.

"You have  to know King Drosta to understand," Silk  told him. "He has some
rather  notorious   appetites,  and  these  riverfront   dives  suit  him."

Yarblek laughed  in agreement. "Our  monarch's a lusty sort  of fellow," he
noted, "but don't ever  make the mistake of thinking he's stupid - a little
crude, perhaps,  but not stupid. He  can come to a  place like this, and no
Mallorean will take the  trouble to follow him. He's found that it's a good
way  to conduct  business  that he  prefers not  to  have reported  back to
'Zakath."

There was  a stir  near the front  of the tavern,  and two heavy-shouldered
Nadraks  in  black leather  tunics  and  pointed helmets  pushed their  way
through the  door. "Make  way!" one of  them barked. "And  everybody rise!"

"Those who are able to rise," the other added dryly.

A  wave of  jeers and catcalls  ran through the  crowd as  a thin man  in a
yellow satin doublet and a fur-trimmed green velvet cloak entered. His eyes
were  bulging and  his  face was  deeply  scarred with  old pockmarks.  His
movements were quick and jerky, and his expression was a curious mixture of
sardonic   amusement  and   a  kind   of  desperate,   unsatisfied  hunger.

"All hail  his Majesty, Drosta lek Thun, King  of the Nadraks!" one drunken
man  proclaimed in  a  loud voice,  and the  others  in the  tavern laughed
coarsely, jeering and whistling and stamping their feet.

"My  faithful subjects,"  the pockmarked  man replied  with a  gross smirk.
"Drunks, thieves,  and procurers. I bask in the warm  glow of your love for
me."  His contempt  seemed directed  almost as  much at  himself as  at the
ragged, unwashed crowd.

They  whistled  in unison  and  stamped  their feet  derisively. "How  many
tonight, Drosta?" someone shouted.

"As  many  as I  can."  The  king leered.  "It's  my duty  to spread  royal
blessings wherever I go."

"Is that what you call it?" someone else demanded raucously.

"It's   as  good   a   name  as   any,"  Drosta   replied  with   a  shrug.

"The royal  bedchamber awaits,"  the tavern owner declaimed  with a mocking
bow.

"Along with the royal  bedbugs, I'm sure," Drosta added. "Ale for every man
not  too  drunk  to swill  it  down.  Let my  loyal  subjects  drink to  my
vitality."

The crowd cheered as the king pushed toward a stairway leading to the upper
storeys of the building.  "My duty awaits me," he proclaimed, pointing with
a grand  gesture up the stairs.  "Let all take note of  how eagerly I go to
embrace  that  stern responsibility."  And  he  mounted the  stairs to  the
derisive applause of the assembled riffraff.

"What now?" Silk asked.

"We'll wait  a bit," Yarblek replied.  "It would be a  little obvious if we
went up immediately."

Garion shifted  uncomfortably on the  bench. A very faint,  nervous kind of
tingle had  begun just behind his ears, a  sort of prickling sensation that
seemed to  crawl over his skin.  He had an unpleasant  thought or two about
the possibility  of lice or fleas migrating from the  scum in the tavern in
search of  fresh blood, but dismissed that idea.  The tingling did not seem
to be external.

At a  table not  far away, a  shabbily dressed man, apparently  far gone in
drink, had been snoring  with his head buried in his arms. In the middle of
a snore he raised his face briefly and winked. It was Belgarath. He let his
face  drop back onto  his arms as  a wave  of relief swept  through Garion.

The drunken  crowd in  the tavern grew  steadily more rowdy.  A short, ugly
fight broke out near  the fire pit, and the revelers at first cheered, then
joined  in,   kicking  at   the  two  who   rolled  about  on   the  floor.

"Let's go up," Yarblek  said shortly, rising to his feet. He pushed through
the crowd and started upstairs.

"Grandfather's here," Garion whispered to Silk as they followed.

"I saw him," Silk replied shortly.

The stairs  led to a dim upper hallway  with dirty, threadbare carpeting on
the floor.  At the far  end, King Drosta's two  bored-looking guards leaned
against the wall on either side of a solid door.

"My  name's Yarblek,"  Silk's  friend told  them  as he  reached the  door.
"Drosta's expecting me."

The guards  glanced at each other,  then one tapped on  the door. "That man
you wanted to see is here, your Majesty."

"Send him in." Drosta's voice was muffled.

"He isn't alone," the guard advised.

"That's all right."

"Go ahead,"  the guard said to Yarblek, unlatching  the door and pushing it
open.

The king  of the Nadraks was sprawled on a rumpled  bed with his arms about
the thin  shoulders of a pair  of dirty, scantily dressed  young girls with
tangled  hair and  hopeless-looking eyes.  "Yarblek," the  depraved monarch
greeted the merchant, "what kept you?"

"I didn't want to  attract attention by following you immediately, Drosta."

"I almost  got sidetracked." Drosta  leered at the two  girls. "Aren't they
luscious?"

"If  you  like  the  type."  Yarblek  shrugged.  "I prefer  a  little  more
maturity."

"That's good,  too," Drosta admitted, "but I love them  all. I fall in love
twenty times  a day. Run along, my pretties," he  told the girls. "I've got
some  business  to  take  care of  just  now.  I'll  send  for you  later."

The  two girls  immediately  left, closing  the door  quietly  behind them.
Drosta sat  up on the bed,  scratching absently at one  armpit. His stained
and rumpled  yellow doublet was unbuttoned, and  his bony chest was covered
with coarse black hair. He was thin, almost emaciated, and his scrawny arms
looked like two sticks.  His hair was lank and greasy, and his beard was so
thin  that it  was  little more  than  a few  scraggly-looking black  hairs
sprouting from  his chin.  The pockmarks on  his face were  deep, angry red
scars,  and   his  neck  and  hands   were  covered  with  an  unwholesome,
scabby-looking rash. There was a distinctly unpleasant odor about him. "Are
you sure  this is the man  I want?" he asked  Yarblek. Garion looked at the
Nadrak King sharply. The coarseness had gone out of his voice, and his tone
was incisive, direct, the tone of a man who was all business. Garion made a
few  quick mental  adjustments.  Drosta lek  Thun was  not  at all  what he
seemed.

"I've  known  him for  years,  Drosta,"  Yarblek replied.  "This is  Prince
Kheldar of Drasnia. He's  also known as Silk and sometimes Ambar of Kotu or
Radek of Boktor. He's a thief, a swindler, and a spy. Aside from that, he's
not too bad."

"We are delighted to meet so famous a man," King Drosta declared. "Welcome,
Prince Kheldar."

"Your Majesty," Silk replied, bowing.

"I'd have invited you  to the palace," Drosta continued, "but I've got some
house guests  with the  unfortunate habit of  sticking their noses  into my
business."  He  laughed  dryly.  "Luckily,  I  found  out  very  soon  that
Malloreans are a priggish race. They won't follow me into places like this,
so  we'll be able  to talk freely."  He looked  around at the  cheap, gaudy
furnishings and red draperies  with a sort of amused toleration. "Besides,"
he added, "I like it here."

Garion stood with his back against the wall near the door, trying to remain
as unobtrusive as possible,  but Drosta's nervous eyes picked him out. "Can
he be trusted?" the king demanded of Silk.

"Completely," Silk  assured him. "He's my  apprentice. I'm teaching him the
business."

"Which business? Stealing or spying?"

Silk shrugged.  "It amounts to the  same thing. Yarblek says  you wanted to
see me.  I assume it has  something to do with  current matters rather than
any past misunderstandings."

"You're quick, Kheldar," Drosta  replied approvingly. "I need your help and
I'm willing to pay for it."

Silk grinned. "I'm fond of the word pay."

"So  I've heard.  Do  you know  what's going  on  here in  Gar  og Nadrak?"
Drosta's eyes were penetrating, and his veneer of gross self indulgence had
fallen completely away.

"I am in the  intelligence service, your Majesty," Silk pointed out. Drosta
grunted, stood up, and went to a table where a decanter of wine and several
glasses stood. "Drink?" he asked.

"Why not?"

Drosta filled four glasses,  took one for himself and paced nervously about
the room with an  angry expression. "I don't need any of this, Kheldar," he
burst  out. "My  family's spent  generations -  centuries - weaning  Gar og
Nadrak away  from the domination of the Grolims.  Now they're about to drag
us back into howling barbarism again, and I don't have any choice but to go
along with it. I've got a quarter of a million Malloreans roaming around at
will inside  my borders and an  army I can't even  count poised just to the
south. If  I raise  so much as one  word of protest, 'Zakath  will crush my
kingdom with one fist."

"Would he really do that?" Silk asked, taking a chair at the table.

"With  just about  as much  emotion as  you'd feel  about swatting  a fly,"
Drosta replied. "Have you ever met him?"

Silk shook his head.

"You're lucky,"  Drosta told him with  a shudder. "Taur Urgas  is a madman,
but, much as I hate him, he's still human. 'Zakath is made out of ice. I've
got to get in touch with Rhodar."

"Ah," Silk said. "That's what this is all about, then."

"You're  a nice  enough  fellow, Kheldar,"  Drosta told  him dryly,  "but I
wouldn't  go to  all this trouble  just for  the pleasure of  your company.
You've got  to carry my message  to Rhodar. I've tried  to get word to him,
but I can't catch  up with him. He won't stay in one place long enough. How
can a fat man move so cursed fast?"

"He's deceptive,"  Silk said shortly. "Exactly what  have you got in mind?"

"An alliance," Drosta replied  bluntly. "My back's against the wall. Either
I ally myself with Rhodar, or I get swallowed up."

Silk carefully  set down his  glass. "That's a very  large suggestion, your
Majesty. In the present  situation, it's going to take a great deal of fast
talking to arrange."

"That's why  I sent  for you, Kheldar.  We're staring the end  of the world
right in the face. You've got to get to Rhodar and persuade him to pull his
army back from the Thull border. Make him stop this insanity before it goes
too far."

"Making my  uncle do things is a little  beyond my abilities, King Drosta,"
Silk replied  carefully. "I'm flattered  that you think I've  got that much
influence  with him,  but  things have  usually been  the other  way around
between us."

"Don't you  understand what's  going on, Kheldar?" King  Drosta's voice was
anguished, and he gesticulated almost wildly as he spoke. "Our only hope of
survival  lies in  not giving  the Murgos  and the  Malloreans any  kind of
reason to  unite. We  should work to  stir up trouble between  them, not to
provide them  with a common enemy.  Taur Urgas and 'Zakath  hate each other
with a passion so intense that it's almost holy. There are more Murgos than
grains of sand and more Malloreans than stars. The Grolims can babble their
gibberish about  the awakening of  Torak until their tongues  fall out, but
Taur Urgas  and 'Zakath have taken the field for just  one reason - each of
them  wants to  destroy  the other  and make  himself overking  of Angarak.
They're headed directly toward a war of mutual extinction. We can be rid of
both of them if we just don't interfere."

"I think I see what you mean," Silk murmured.

"'Zakath  is ferrying  his Malloreans  across the  Sea of  the East  to his
staging  area near  Thull  Zelik, and  Taur Urgas  has the  southern Murgos
massed near  Rak Goska.  Inevitably, they're going  to move on  each other.
We've got to stay  out of the way and let them fight. Make Rhodar pull back
before he spoils everything."

"Have   you   talked   with   the   Thulls   about   this?"   Silk   asked.

Drosta snorted with contempt. "What's the point? I've tried to explain this
to King  Gethell, but talking to  him is like talking  to a pile of manure.
The Thulls are so  afraid of the Grolims that all you have to do is mention
Torak's  name and  they go  all to  pieces. Gethell's  a Thull  through and
through. There's nothing between his ears but sand."

"There's just one problem with all of this, Drosta," Silk told the agitated
monarch. "I can't carry your message to King Rhodar."

"Can't?" Drosta exploded. "What do you mean, you can't?"

"My uncle and I  aren't on the best of terms just now," Silk lied smoothly.
"We had  a little  misunderstanding a few  months ago, and  about the first
thing he'd  do, if  he saw me  coming, is have  me put in chains  - and I'm
almost certain things would go downhill from there."

Drosta groaned.  "We're all doomed then," he  declared, seeming to slump in
on himself. "You were my last hope."

"Let me think a  moment," Silk said. "We might be able to salvage something
out of this yet."  He stared at the floor, chewing absently on a fingernail
as  he turned the  problem over in  his mind.  "I can't go,"  he concluded.
"That's  obvious.  But  that doesn't  mean  that  somebody else  couldn't."

"Who else would Rhodar trust?" Drosta demanded.

Silk turned to Yarblek, who had been listening to the conversation intently
with a  worried frown.  "Are you in any  kind of trouble in  Drasnia at the
moment?" he asked.

"Not that I know of."

"All right,"  Silk continued.  "There's a fur dealer  in Boktor. Geldahar's
his name."

"Fat man? Sort of cross-eyed?" Yarblek asked.

"That's him. Why don't  you take a shipment of furs and go to Boktor? While
you're trying  to sell Geldahar the  furs, tell him that  the salmon run is
late this year."

"I'm sure he'll be fascinated to hear that."

"It's a  code-word," Silk explained with  exaggerated patience. "As soon as
you say  that, he'll see  to it that you  get into the palace  to see Queen
Porenn."

"I've heard  that she's a lovely  woman," Yarblek said, "but  that's a long
trip just to see a pretty girl. I can probably find a pretty girl just down
the hall."

"You're  missing the point,  Yarblek," Silk  told him. "Porenn  is Rhodar's
queen, and  he trusts her even  more than he used  to trust me. She'll know
that I  sent you,  and she'll pass  anything you tell  her on  to my uncle.
Rhodar  will be  reading Drosta's  message three  days after you  ride into
Boktor. I guarantee it."

"You'd  let  a  woman  know about  all  this?"  Drosta objected  violently.
"Kheldar, you're insane. The only woman safe with a secret is one who's had
her tongue cut out."

Silk shook  his head firmly. "Porenn's  in control of Drasnian intelligence
right  now, Drosta.  She already knows  most of  the secrets in  the world.
You're never  going to get an emissary through an  Alorn army to Rhodar, so
forget that. There'll be  Chereks with him, and they'll kill any Angarak on
sight. If you want  to communicate with Rhodar, you're going to have to use
Drasnian  intelligence as  an  intermediary, and  that means  going through
Porenn."

Drosta  looked dubious.  "Maybe,"  he concluded  after a  moment's thought.
"I'll try anything at this point - but why should Yarblek get involved? Why
can't you carry my message to the Drasnian queen?"

Silk  looked a trifle  pained. "That wouldn't  be a  good idea at  all, I'm
afraid," he replied. "Porenn  was rather central to my difficulties with my
uncle. I'm definitely unwelcome at the palace just now."

One of King Drosta's shaggy eyebrows shot up. "So that's the way it is." He
laughed.  "Your reputation's  well-earned,  I see."  He turned  to Yarblek.
"It's  up to  you, then. Make  the necessary  arrangements for the  trip to
Boktor."

"You already  owe me  money, Drosta," Yarblek replied  bluntly, "the reward
for bringing in Kheldar, remember?"

Drosta shrugged. "Write it down someplace."

Yarblek  shook his head  stubbornly. "Not  hardly. Let's keep  your account
current.  You're known  as a slow  payer, once  you've got what  you want."

"Yarblek," Drosta said plaintively, "I'm your king."

Yarblek  inclined his head  somewhat mockingly.  "I honor and  respect your
Majesty,"   he    said,   "but   business   is    business,   after   all."

"I don't carry that much money with me," Drosta protested.

"That's all  right, Drosta. I can  wait." Yarblek crossed his  arms and sat
down in a large chair with the air of a man planning to stay for quite some
time.

The king of the Nadraks stared at him helplessly.

Then the door opened  and Belgarath stepped into the room, still dressed in
the rags  he had  worn in the  tavern downstairs. There  was no furtiveness
about  his  entrance,  and  he  moved  like  a  man  on  serious  business.

"What is  this?" Drosta exclaimed incredulously.  "Guards!" he bawled, "get
this drunken old man out of here."

"They're  asleep, Drosta,"  Belgarath replied  calmly. "Don't be  too harsh
with them, though. It's not their fault." He closed the door.

"Who are you? What do you think you're doing?" Drosta demanded. "Get out of
here!"

"I think you'd better  take a closer look, Drosta," Silk advised with a dry
little chuckle. "Appearances can  be deceiving sometimes, and you shouldn't
be so quick to try to throw somebody out. He might have something important
to say to you."

"Do you know him, Kheldar?" Drosta asked.

"Just about  everybody in the world knows him,"  Silk replied. "Or of him."

Drosta's face  creased into a  puzzled frown, but Yarblek  had started from
his chair, his lean  face suddenly pale. "Drosta!" he gasped. "Look at him.
Think a minute. You know who he is."

Drosta stared  at the shabby-looking  old man, and his  bulging eyes slowly
opened even wider. "You!" he blurted.

Yarblek was  still gaping at Belgarath. "He's been  involved in it from the
very beginning.  I should have put it together down  in Cthol Murgos - him,
the woman, all of it."

"What  are you  doing in  Gar og  Nadrak?" Drosta  asked in an  awed voice.

"Just  passing  through,  Drosta,"  Belgarath  replied.  "If  you're  quite
finished with  your discussion  here, I need  these two Alorns.  We have an
appointment,    and   we're    running    a   little    behind   schedule."

"I always thought you were a myth."

"I like to encourage  that as much as I can," Belgarath told him. "It makes
moving around a lot easier."

"Are you mixed up in what the Alorns are doing?"

"They're acting  more or less on my  suggestions, yes. Polgara's keeping an
eye on them."

"Can you get word to them and tell them to disengage?"

"That won't  really be necessary,  Drosta. I wouldn't worry  too much about
'Zakath  and Taur  Urgas, if I  were you.  There are more  important things
afoot than their squabbles."

"So that's  what Rhodar's doing," Drosta  said in sudden comprehension. "Is
it really that late?"

"It's even later than  you think," the old sorcerer answered. He crossed to
the  table  and poured  himself  some  of Drosta's  wine. "Torak's  already
stirring,  and the  whole  matter's likely  to be  settled before  the snow
flies."

"This is  going too far, Belgarath," Drosta said.  "I might try to maneuver
my way around Taur Urgas and 'Zakath, but I'm not going to cross Torak." He
turned decisively toward the door.

"Don't do anything rash,  Drosta," Belgarath advised him calmly, sitting in
a chair  and taking a sip  of his wine. "Grolims  can be most unreasonable,
and the fact that I'm here in Yar Nadrak could only be viewed as the result
of some collusion on your part. They'd have you bent backward over an altar
and  your heart sizzling  in the coals  before you  ever got the  chance to
explain - king or no king."

Drosta  froze in  his tracks, his  pockmarked face  going very pale.  For a
moment, he seemed to be struggling with himself. Then his shoulders slumped
and his  resolution seemed to wilt.  "You've got me by  the throat, haven't
you, Belgarath?"  he said  with a short  laugh. "You've managed  to make me
outsmart myself, and now you're going to use that to force me to betray the
God of Angarak."

"Are you really all that fond of him?"

"Nobody's fond  of Torak. I'm afraid of him, and  that's a better reason to
stay on  the good side of him than any  sentimental attachment. If he wakes
up-" The king of the Nadraks shuddered.

"Have you  ever given  much thought to  the kind of  world we'd  have if he
didn't exist?" Belgarath suggested.

"That's too much to even wish for. He's a God. No one could hope to 'defeat
him. He's too powerful for that."

"There are things more powerful than Gods, Drosta - two that I can think of
offhand,  and those  two are  rushing toward  a final meeting.  It probably
wouldn't  be a  good  idea to  put yourself  between  them at  this point."

But something else had  occurred to Drosta. He turned slowly with a look of
stunned incredulity  and stared directly  at Garion. He shook  his head and
wiped at  his eyes,  like a man trying  to clear away a  fog. Garion became
painfully  aware of  the  great sword  strapped across  his  back. Drosta's
bulging eyes  widened even  more as the  realization of what  he was seeing
erased the  Orb's suggestion that his brain not  record what stood in plain
sight before him. His  expression became awed, and desperate hope dawned on
his ugly face. "Your  Majesty," he stammered, bowing with profound respect.
"

"Your   Majesty,"   Garion    replied,   politely   inclining   his   head.

"It looks as  if I'm forced to wish you good luck,"  Drosta said in a quiet
voice.  "Despite what  Belgarath says,  I think  you're going to  need it."

"Thank you, King Drosta," Garion said.





Chapter Six

"DO  YOU THINK  we can trust  Drosta?" Garion  asked Silk as  they followed
Belgarath   along   the   garbage-littered   alley   behind   the   tavern.

"Probably about as far as we could throw him," Silk replied. "He was honest
about one thing though. His back's to the wall. That might make him bargain
with Rhodar in good faith - initially at least."

When they reached the  street at the end of the alley, Belgarath glanced up
once at  the evening sky. "We'd better hurry," he said.  "I want to get out
of the city  before they close the gates. I left our  horses in a thicket a
mile or so outside the walls."

"You   went   back   for   them?"   Silk  sounded   a   little   surprised.

"Of course I  did. I don't plan to walk all the  way to Morindland." He led
them up the street away from the river.

They  reached  the city  gates  in fading  light  just as  the guards  were
preparing to  close them for the  night. One of the  Nadrak soldiers raised
his  hand as  if to  bar their  way, then  apparently changed his  mind and
motioned  them through  irritably, muttering  curses under his  breath. The
huge, tar-smeared gate boomed  shut behind them, and there was the clinking
rattle of  heavy chains  from inside as  the bolts were  thrown and locked.
Garion glanced  up once at the  carved face of Torak  which brooded down at
them   from   above  the   gate,   then  deliberately   turned  his   back.

"Are we  likely to be followed?" Silk asked  Belgarath as they walked along
the dirt highway leading away from the city.

"I  wouldn't be  very  surprised," Belgarath  replied. "Drosta  knows  - or
suspects - a great  deal about what we're doing. Mallorean Grolims are very
subtle, and they can  pick the thoughts out of his head without his knowing
it. That's probably why they don't bother to follow him when he goes off on
his little excursions."

"Shouldn't you  take some steps?" Silk suggested  as they moved through the
gathering twilight.

"We're getting a bit too close to Mallorea to be making unnecessary noise,"
Belgarath told  him. "Zedar can hear me moving around  from a long way off,
and Torak's  only dozing now. I'd rather not take  the chance of waking him
up with any more loud clatter."

They walked  along the highway toward the  shadowy line of rank undergrowth
at the  edge of  the open fields  surrounding the city. The  sound of frogs
from  the marshy  ground  near the  river was  very  loud in  the twilight.

"Torak isn't  really asleep  any more then?"  Garion asked finally.  He had
harbored somewhere  at the back of his mind the  vague hope that they might
be  able  to  creep   up  on  the  sleeping  God  and  catch  him  unaware.

"No,  not  really,''  his  grandfather replied.  "The  sound  of your  hand
touching the Orb shook  the whole world. Not even Torak could sleep through
that. He  isn't really  awake yet, but  he's not entirely  asleep, either."

"Did it really make all that much noise?" Silk asked curiously.

"They  probably heard  it on  the other  side of  the universe. I  left the
horses  over there."  The  old man  pointed toward  a shadowy  willow grove
several hundred yards to the left of the road.

From behind them there was the rattle of a heavy chain, startling the frogs
into momentary silence.

"They're  opening  the gate,"  Silk  said.  "They wouldn't  do that  unless
somebody gave them an official reason to."

"Let's hurry," Belgarath said.

The  horses stirred  and nickered  as the  three of  them pushed  their way
through the  rustling willows in the  rapidly descending darkness. They led
the horses  out of  the grove, mounted,  and rode back  toward the highway.

"They  know we're out  here somewhere,"  Belgarath said. "There's  not much
point being coy about it."

"Just a  second," Silk said. He dismounted and  rummaged through one of the
canvas bags  tied to their packhorse.  He pulled something out  of the bag,
then climbed back on his horse. "Let's go then."

They pushed  into a  gallop, thudding along  the dirt road  under a starry,
moonless sky toward the denser shadows where the forest rose at the edge of
the   scrubby,   burned-off  expanse   surrounding   the  Nadrak   capital.

"Can you see them?"  Belgarath called to Silk, who was bringing up the rear
and looking back over his shoulder.

"I think so," Silk shouted back. "They're about a mile behind."

"That's too close."

"I'll  take care  of it  as soon as  we get  into the woods,"  Silk replied
confidently.

The  dark  forest loomed  closer  and  closer as  they  galloped along  the
hard-packed road. Garion could smell the trees now.

They plunged  into the black shadows  under the trees and  felt that slight
extra warmth  that always lies in  a forest. Silk reined  in sharply. "Keep
going,"  he  told  them,  swinging out  of  his  saddle.  "I'll catch  up."

Belgarath and  Garion rode on, slowing a bit in order  to pick the road out
of the darkness. After several minutes, Silk caught up with them. "Listen,"
the little man said,  pulling his horse to a stop. His teeth flashed in the
shadows as he grinned.

"They're coming,"  Garion warned  urgently as he  heard a rumble  of hoofs.
"Hadn't we better-"

"Listen," Silk whispered sharply.

From behind there were several startled exclamations and the heavy sound of
men falling. A horse squealed and ran off somewhere.

Silk laughed  wickedly. "I think we can press  on," he said gaily. "They'll
be delayed for a bit while they round up their horses."

"What did you do?" Garion asked him.

Silk shrugged.  "I stretched a rope across the  road, about chest-high on a
mounted  man. It's  an old trick,  but sometimes  old tricks are  the best.
They'll  have to  be cautious  now, so we  should be  able to lose  them by
morning."

"Let's go, then," Belgarath said.

"Where are we headed?" Silk asked as they moved into a canter.

"We'll make  directly for the north range," the  old man replied. "Too many
people know we're here, so let's get to the land of the Morindim as soon as
we can."

"If they're  really after us, they'll  follow us all the  way, won't they?"
Garion asked, looking back nervously.

"I don't  think so," Belgarath told  him. "They'll be a  long way behind by
the  time  we get  there.  I don't  think  they'll risk  going into  Morind
territory just to follow a cold trail."

"Is it that dangerous, Grandfather?"

"The Morindim do nasty things to strangers if they catch them."

Garion thought  about that. "Won't we be strangers  too?" he asked. "To the
Morindim, I mean?"

"I'll take care of that when we get there."

They galloped on through  the remainder of the velvety night, leaving their
now-cautious  pursuers  far behind.  The  blackness beneath  the trees  was
dotted  with the  pale,  winking glow  of fireflies,  and  crickets chirped
interminably. As  the first  light of morning  began to filter  through the
forest,  they reached the  edge of  another burned-off area,  and Belgarath
reined in  to peer cautiously out at the rank  scrub, dotted here and there
with charred snags. "We'd better have something to eat," he suggested. "The
horses need some rest, and we can catch a bit of sleep before we go on." He
looked around  in the gradually increasing light.  "Let's get away from the
road, though."  He turned his horse and led them off  along the edge of the
burn.  After several  hundred  yards, they  reached a  small  clearing that
jutted out into the coarse brush. A spring trickled water into a mossy pool
at the very edge  of the trees, and the grass in the clearing was intensely
green. The outer edge of the opening was hemmed in by brambles and a tangle
of  charred  limbs. "This  looks  like  a good  place," Belgarath  decided.

"Not really," Silk disagreed. He was staring at a crudely squared-off block
of  stone standing  in the center  of the  clearing. There were  ugly black
stains running down the sides of the stone.

"For our  purposes it  is," the old  man replied. "The altars  of Torak are
generally avoided, and we don't particularly want company." They dismounted
at the edge of  the trees, and Belgarath began rummaging through one of the
packs for bread and  dried meat. Garion was in a curiously abstracted mood.
He  was  tired,  and  his weariness  made  him  a  bit light-headed.  Quite
deliberately, he walked across the springy turf to the blood-stained altar;
he  stared   at  it,  his  eyes   meticulously  recording  details  without
considering  their  implication. The  blackened  stone sat  solidly in  the
center of the clearing, casting no shadow in the pale dawn light. It was an
old altar,  and had not been  used recently. The stains  that had sunk into
the  pores of the  rock were black  with age,  and the bones  littering the
ground  around it  were  half sunk  in the  earth and  were covered  with a
greenish  patina of  moss. A  scurrying spider  darted into the  vacant eye
socket of  a mossy  skull, seeking refuge  in the dark,  vaulted emptiness.
Many  of the bones  were broken and  showed the  marks of the  small, sharp
teeth  of forest  scavengers who would  feed on  anything that was  dead. A
cheap, tarnished  silver brooch  lay with its  chain tangled about  a lumpy
vertebra,  and not  far away  a brass  buckle, green with  verdigris, still
clung to a bit of moldering leather.

"Come away from that thing, Garion," Silk told him with a note of revulsion
in his voice.

"It  sort of  helps  to look  at it,"  Garion  replied quite  calmly, still
staring at  the altar and the bones. "It gives  me something to think about
beside being afraid." He squared his shoulders, and his great sword shifted
on  his back. "I  don't really think  the world  needs this sort  of thing.
Maybe it's time somebody did something about it."

When  he turned  around, Belgarath was  looking at  him, his wise  old eyes
narrowed. "It's  a start," the  sorcerer observed. "Let's eat  and get some
sleep."

They took  a quick breakfast, picketed  their horses, and rolled themselves
in their  blankets under some bushes at the edge  of the clearing. Not even
the presence of the Grolim altar nor the peculiar resolve it had stirred in
him   was  enough   to  keep   Garion  from  falling   asleep  immediately.

It was  almost noon when he awoke, pulled from  sleep by a faint whispering
sound in his mind.  He sat up quickly, looking around to find the source of
that disturbance, but neither the forest nor the brushchoked burn seemed to
hold any threat. Belgarath stood not far away, looking up at the summer sky
where a large, blue-banded hawk was circling.

"What are you doing  here?" The old sorcerer did not speak aloud but rather
cast the  question at the sky with his mind. The  hawk spiraled down to the
clearing, flared  his wings to avoid the altar, and  landed on the turf. He
looked directly  at Belgarath  with fierce yellow eyes,  then shimmered and
seemed to blur. When the shimmering was gone, the misshapen sorcerer Beldin
stood in his place.  He was still as ragged, dirty, and irritable as he had
been the last time Garion had seen him.

"Is this  all the farther you've  managed to come?" he  demanded harshly of
Belgarath. "What  have you been doing - stopping  at every tavern along the
way?"

"We ran into a small delay," Belgarath replied calmly.

Beldin grunted with a  sour look. "If you keep dawdling along like this, it
will take you the rest of the year to get to Cthol Mishrak."

"We'll get there, Beldin. You worry too much."

"Somebody has to. You're being followed, you know."

"How far back are they?"

"Five leagues or so."

Belgarath  shrugged. "That's  far enough.  They'll give  up when we  get to
Morindland."

"What if they don't?"

"Have you  been spending time with  Polgara lately?" Belgarath asked dryly.
"I thought I'd gotten away from all the 'what-ifs."'

Beldin shrugged,  a gesture made grotesque by the hump  on his back. "I saw
her last  week," he reported. "She has some  interesting plans for you, you
know."

"She came to the Vale?" Belgarath sounded surprised.

"Passed through. She was with the red-haired girl's army."

Garion threw off his blanket. "With whose army?" he demanded.

"What's going on down there?" Belgarath asked sharply.

Beldin scratched  at his tangled hair. "I never  really got the straight of
it," he admitted. "All  I know is that the Alorns are following that little
redheaded  Tolnedran. She  calls herself  the Rivan  Queen -  whatever that
means."

"Ce'Nedra?" Garion  was incredulous, though, for  some reason, he knew that
he shouldn't be.

"I  guess she went  through Arendia  like a pestilence,"  Beldin continued.
"After she  passed, there  wasn't an able-bodied  man left in  the kingdom.
Then she went on  down into Tolnedra and goaded her father into convulsions
- I didn't know that he was subject to fits."

"It crops  up in  the Borune line  once in a while,"  Belgarath said. "It's
nothing   all   that   serious,   but  they   try   to   keep  it   quiet."

"Anyway," the  hunchback went on,  "while Ran Borune was  still frothing at
the mouth,  his daughter stole his legions.  She's persuaded about half the
world to  take up  arms and follow  her." He gave Garion  a quizzical look.
"You're supposed to marry her, aren't you?"

Garion nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Beldin grinned  suddenly. "You might  want to give some  thought to running
away."

"Ce'Nedra?" Garion blurted again.

"His wits seem a bit scrambled," Beldin observed.

"He's  been under  a  strain, and  his nerves  aren't  too good  just now,"
Belgarath replied. "Are you going back to the Vale?"

Beldin nodded. "The twins and I are going to join Polgara when the campaign
starts.  She might need  some help if  the Grolims  come at her  in force."

"Campaign?" Belgarath exclaimed. "What  campaign? I told them just to march
up  and down  and make  a lot  of noise.  I specifically  told them  not to
invade."

"They  ignored you,  it seems.  Alorns aren't  noted for restraint  in such
matters. Apparently  they got together  and decided to take  steps. The fat
one seems  fairly intelligent. He wants to get a  Cherek fleet into the Sea
of the East to  commit a few constructive atrocities on Mallorean shipping.
The rest of it seems to be pretty much diversionary."

Belgarath started  to swear.  "You can't let  them out of your  sight for a
single instant," he raged. "How could Polgara lend herself to this idiocy?"

"The plan  does have a  certain merit, Belgarath. The  more Malloreans they
drown now, the fewer we have to fight later."

"We never  planned to fight  them, Beldin. The Angaraks  won't unite unless
Torak comes back to weld them together again - or unless they're faced with
a common  enemy. We just talked with Drosta lek  Thun, the Nadrak King, and
he's so sure that the Murgos and the Malloreans are about to go to war with
each other that he wants to ally himself with the west just to get clear of
it.  When you  get back,  see if you  can talk  some sense into  Rhodar and
Anheg. I've got enough problems already."

"Your problems  are only starting, Belgarath. The  twins had a visitation a
couple of days ago."

"A what?"

Beldin  shrugged.  "What else  would  you  call it?  They  were working  on
something -  quite unrelated  to all this  - and the pair  of them suddenly
went  into a  trance and  began to babble  at me.  At first they  were just
repeating that  gibberish from the Mrin Codex - you  know the place - where
the Mrin  Prophet's mind broke  down and he degenerated  into animal noises
for a while. Anyway, they went back over that part - only this time it came
out coherently."

"What did they say?" Belgarath demanded, his eyes burning.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Of course I want to know."

"All  right. It  went  like this:  'Behold, the  heart  of the  stone shall
relent, and  the beauty that was  destroyed shall be restored,  and the eye
that is not shall be made whole again."'

Belgarath stared at him. "That's it?" he asked.

"That's it," Beldin told him.

"But what does it mean?" Garion asked.

"Just what it says, Belgarion," Beldin replied. "For some reason the Orb is
going to restore Torak."

Garion began  to tremble as the  full impact of Beldin's  words struck him.
"Torak's going to win, then," he said numbly.

"It  didn't  say  anything  about  winning or  losing,  Belgarion,"  Beldin
corrected him. "All  it said was that the Orb is going  to undo what it did
to Torak when he  used it to crack the world. It doesn't say anything about
why."

"That's always been the trouble with the Prophecy," Belgarath observed. "It
can mean any one of a dozen different things."

"Or  all of  them," Beldin  added. "That's  what makes  it so  difficult to
understand  sometimes.  We  tend  to concentrate  on  just  one thing,  but
Prophecy includes everything at the same time. I'll work on it and see if I
can wring  some sense out of  it. If I come up  with anything, I'll let you
know. I'd  better be getting  back." He leaned slightly  forward and curled
his arms  out in a vaguely winglike gesture.  "Watch out for the Morindim,"
he  told  Belgarath.  "You're  a  fair  sorcerer,  but  magic's  altogether
different, and sometimes it gets away from you."

"I think I can handle it if I have to," Belgarath replied tartly.

"Maybe," Beldin said. "If  you can manage to stay sober." He shimmered back
into the form of the hawk, beat his wings twice, and spiraled up out of the
clearing and into the  sky. Garion watched him until he was only a circling
speck.

"That was  a strange  visit," Silk said,  rolling out of  his blankets. "It
looks as if quite a bit's been going on since we left."

"And  none of  it very  good," Belgarath  added sourly. "Let's  get moving.
We're really  going to have to hurry now. If Anheg  gets his fleet into the
Sea of  the East  and starts sinking  Mallorean troop ships,  'Zakath might
decide  to march north  and come across  the land  bridge. If we  don't get
there  first, it  could get  very crowded  up there."  The old  man scowled
darkly. "I'd like to  put my hands on your uncle just about now," he added.
"I'd sweat a few pounds off him."

They  quickly saddled  their horses  and rode  back along  the edge  of the
sunlit forest toward the road leading north.

Despite  the  rather lame  assurances  of  the two  sorcerers, Garion  rode
slumped in  despair. They were going  to lose, and Torak  was going to kill
him.

"Stop feeling sa sorry for yourself, " the inner voice told him finally.

"Why   did   you   get   me   into   this?"   Garion   demanded   bitterly.

"We've discussed that before. "

"He's going to kill me."

"What gives you that idea?"

"That's  what the  Prophecy  said." Garion  stopped abruptly  as  a thought
occurred to  him. "You said it yourself.  You're the Prophecy, aren't you?"

"It's a misleading term-,and I didn't say anything about winning or losing.
"

"Isn't that what it means?"

"No. It means exactly what it says."

"What else could it mean?"

"You're  getting  more stubborn  every  day.  Stop worrying  so much  about
meanings and  just do  what you have to  do. You almost had  it right, back
there. "

"If all you're  going to do is talk in riddles, why  bother with it at all?
Why  go  to  all  the  trouble  of  saying  things that  nobody's  able  to
understand?"

"Because it's necessary to  say it. The word determines the event. The word
puts  limits on the  event and shapes  it. Without  the word, the  event is
merely  a random  happening.  That's the  whole  purpose of  what you  call
prophecy   -   to   separate   the   significant   from   the   random.   "

"I don't understand."

"I  didn't think  you would, but  you asked,  after all. Now  stop worrying
about it. It has nothing to do with you."

Garion  wanted  to  protest,  but the  voice  was  gone. The  conversation,
however, had  made him  feel a little better  - not much, but  a little. To
take his  mind off  it, he pulled  his horse in beside  Belgarath's as they
reentered  the forest on  the far side  of the  burn. "Exactly who  are the
Morindim, Grandfather?" he asked. "Everybody keeps talking about them as if
they were terribly dangerous."

"They are,"  Belgarath replied, "but  you can get through  their country if
you're careful."

"Are they on Torak's side?"

"The Morindim  aren't on anybody's side.  They don't even live  in the same
world with us."

"I don't follow that."

"The  Morindim are like  the Ulgos used  to be  - before UL  accepted them.
There were several groups of Godless Ones. They all wandered off in various
directions.  The Ulgos  went to  the west,  the Morindim went  north. Other
groups went south or east and disappeared."

"Why didn't they just stay where they were?"

"They couldn't.  There's a kind of compulsion  involved in the decisions of
the Gods.  Anyway, the Ulgos  finally found themselves a  God. The Morindim
didn't.  The compulsion  to  remain separated  from other  people  is still
there. They live in that treeless emptiness up there beyond the north range
- small nomadic bands, mostly."

"What did  you mean  when you said that  they don't live in  the same world
with us?"

"The world is a pretty terrible place for a Morind - a demon-haunted place.
They worship  devils and they live more in dreams  than they do in reality.
Their   society  is   dominated  by   the  dreamers  and   the  magicians."

"There aren't really any devils, are there?" Garion asked skeptically.

"Oh, yes. The devils are very real."

"Where do they come from?"

Belgarath shrugged. "I haven't any idea. They do exist, though, and they're
completely  evil.  The  Morindim   control  them  by  the  use  of  magic."

"Magic? Is that different from what we do?"

"Quite a bit. We're  sorcerers - at least that's what we're called. What we
do  involves the  Will and  the Word,  but that's  not the  only way  to do
things."

"I don't quite follow."

"It's not  really all that  complicated, Garion. There are  several ways to
tamper with  the normal  order of things.  Vordai's a witch.  What she does
involves the  use of spirits - usually  benign, mischievous sometimes - but
not actually wicked. A magician uses devils - evil spirits."

"Isn't that sort of dangerous?"

Belgarath  nodded. "Very  dangerous,"  he replied.  "The magician  tries to
control  the demon  with spells  - formulas, incantations,  symbols, mystic
diagrams - that sort of thing. As long as he doesn't make any mistakes, the
demon is his absolute slave and has to do what he tells it to do. The demon
doesn't want  to be  a slave, so  it keeps looking  for a way  to break the
spell."

"What happens if it does?"

"It  generally  devours  the  magician on  the  spot.  That happens  rather
frequently. If you lose your concentration or summon a demon too strong for
you, you're in trouble."

"What did  Beldin mean when he  said that you weren't  very good at magic?"
Silk asked.

"I've  never  spent that  much  time trying  to  learn about  it," the  old
sorcerer replied.  "I have alternatives, after  all, and magic is dangerous
and not very dependable."

"Don't use it then," Silk suggested.

"I hadn't really planned  to. Usually the threat of magic is enough to keep
the  Morindim  at  a  distance.  Actual confrontations  are  rather  rare."

"I can see why."

"After we get through  the north range, we'll disguise ourselves. There are
a number  of markings  and symbols that  will make the  Morindim avoid us."

"That sounds promising."

"Of course  we have  to get there  first," the old man  pointed out. "Let's
pick up  the pace a bit.  We've still got a long way  to go." And he pushed
his horse into a gallop.





Chapter Seven

THEY RODE HARD for the better part of a week, moving steadily northward and
avoiding the  scattered settlements which dotted  the Nadrak forest. Garion
noticed that the nights grew steadily shorter; by the time they reached the
foothills of  the north range, darkness  had virtually disappeared. Evening
and morning merged into  a few hours of luminous twilight as the sun dipped
briefly   below  the   horizon  before   bursting  into  view   once  more.

The north  range marked the upper edge of the Nadrak  forest. It was not so
much a  mountainous region  as it was a  string of peaks, a  long finger of
upthrusting terrain reaching out toward the east from the broad ranges that
formed the spine of the continent. As they rode up a scarcely defined trail
toward a  saddle that stretched  between two snowy peaks,  the trees around
them grew more stunted and finally disappeared entirely. Beyond that point,
there would be no more trees. Belgarath stopped at the edge of one of these
last groves and cut a half dozen long saplings.

The wind that came down off the peaks had a bitter chill to it and the arid
smell  of perpetual  winter. When  they reached the  boulder-strewn summit,
Garion looked out for the first time at the immense plain stretching below.
The plain, unmarked by  trees, was covered with tall grass that bent before
the  vagrant  wind in  long,  undulating waves.  Rivers wandered  aimlessly
across that  emptiness, and  a thousand shallow lakes  and ponds scattered,
blue   and  glistening   under   a  northern   sun,  toward   the  horizon.

"How far does it reach?" Garion asked quietly.

"From here to the polar ice," Belgarath replied. "Several hundred leagues."

"And no one lives out there but the Morindim?"

"Nobody wants  to. For most of the year, it's  buried in snow and darkness.
You  can  go  for  six  months  up  here  without  ever  seeing  the  sun."

They  rode down  the rocky slope  toward the  plain and found  a lowroofed,
shallow  cave at  the  base of  the granite  cliff  that seemed  to  be the
demarcation line between the  mountains and the foothills. "We'll stop here
for a  while," Belgarath told them, reining in  his tired mount. "We've got
some   preparations   to   make,   and   the  horses   need   some   rest."

They were  all kept  quite busy for  the next several  days while Belgarath
radically altered their appearances. Silk set crude traps among the maze of
rabbit  runs  twisting  through  the  tall  grass, and  Garion  roamed  the
foothills in search of certain tuberous roots and a peculiar smelling white
flower.  Belgarath  sat  at  the  mouth  of the  cave,  fashioning  various
implements from his saplings.  The roots Garion had gathered yielded a dark
brown  stain,  and Belgarath  carefully  applied  it to  their skins.  "The
Morindim are dark-skinned," he explained as he sat painting Silk's arms and
back  with the stain.  "Somewhat darker  than Tolnedrans or  Nyissans. This
will wear  off after a  few weeks, but it  will last long enough  to get us
through."

After  he had  stained  all their  skins into  swarthiness, he  crushed the
odd-smelling flowers to produce  a jet black ink. "Silk's hair is the right
color already,"  he said,  "and mine will  get by, but  Garion's just won't
do." He  diluted some  of the ink  with water and dyed  Garion's sandy hair
black.  "That's better,"  he  grunted when  he had  finished,  "and there's
enough left for the tattoos."

"Tattoos?" Garion asked, startled at the thought.

"The Morindim decorate themselves extensively."

"Will it hurt?"

"We're not  really going  to tattoo ourselves, Garion,"  Belgarath told him
with a  pained look. "They take too long to  heal. Besides, I'm afraid your
Aunt  would go  into  hysterics if  I took  you  back to  her  with designs
engraved all over you. This ink will last long enough for us to get through
Morindland. It will wear off-eventually."

Silk was  sitting cross-legged  in front of  the cave, looking  for all the
world  like a  tailor as  he sewed  fresh rabbit  pelts to  their clothing.

"Won't they  start to smell after a few  days?" Garion asked, wrinkling his
nose.

"Probably,"  Silk admitted,  "but  I don't  have time  to cure  the pelts."
Later, as  Belgarath was carefully  drawing the tattoos on  their faces, he
explained  the  guise  they  were going  to  assume.  "Garion  will be  the
quester," he said.

"What's that?" Garion asked.

"Don't move your face," Belgarath told him, frowning as he drew lines under
Garion's eyes  with a raven-feather  quill. "The quest is  a Morind ritual.
It's customary  for a young Morind  of a certain rank  to undertake a quest
before he assumes a  position of authority in his clan. You'll wear a white
fur headband and carry that red spear I fixed up for you. It's ceremonial,"
he cautioned, "so don't try to stab anybody with it. That's very bad form."

"I'll remember that."

"We'll disguise your sword  to look like some sort of relic or something. A
magician  might  see  past  the Orb's  suggestion  that  it's  not there  -
depending on  how good he is.  One other thing -  the quester is absolutely
forbidden to  speak under any circumstances, so  keep your mouth shut. Silk
will be your dreamer. He'll wear a white fur band on his left arm. Dreamers
speak in  riddles and  gibberish for the  most part, and they  tend to fall
into trances and have fits." He glanced over at Silk. "Do you think you can
handle that?"

"Trust me," Silk replied, grinning.

"Not  very likely,"  Belgarath  grunted. "I'll  be Garion's  magician. I'll
carry a staff with  a horned skull on it that will make most Morindim avoid
us."

"Most?" Silk asked quickly.

"It's considered bad manners  to interfere with a quest, but it happens now
and  then."  The  old  man looked  critically  at  Garion's tattoos.  "Good
enough," he said and turned to Silk with his quill.

When it  was all  done, the three  of them were  scarcely recognizable. The
markings the  old man had carefully drawn on their  arms and faces were not
pictures so  much as they were  designs. Their faces had  been changed into
hideous devil  masks, and  the exposed parts  of their bodies  were covered
with symbols etched in  black ink. They wore fur-covered trousers and vests
and  bone necklaces  clattered about  their necks.  Their stained  arms and
shoulders were bared and intricately marked.

Then Belgarath went down into the valley lying just below the cave, seeking
something. It did not take his probing mind long to find what he needed. As
Garion watched  with revulsion, the  old man casually violated  a grave. He
dug  up a grinning  human skull and  carefully tapped  the dirt out  of it.
"I'll  need some  deer horns," he  told Garion.  "Not too large  and fairly
well-matched."  He squatted,  fierce-looking in  his furs and  tattoos, and
began to scrub at the skull with handfuls of dry sand.

There were  weather-bleached horns lying here and  there in the tall grass,
since  the  deer of  the  region  shed their  antlers  each winter.  Garion
gathered a  dozen or  so and returned  to the cave to  find his grandfather
boring a pair of  holes in the top of the skull. He critically examined the
horns Garion had brought him, selected a pair of them and screwed them down
into the  holes. The grating sound of horn  against bone set Garion's teeth
on edge. "What do you think?" Belgarath asked, holding up the horned skull.

"It's grotesque," Garion shuddered.

"That was  the general  idea," the old  man replied. He  attached the skull
firmly to  the top of a long staff, decorated  it with several feathers and
then   rose  to   his   feet.  "Let's   pack  up   and  leave,"   he  said.

They rode  down through  the treeless foothills  and out into  the bending,
waist-high grass  as the sun swung down  toward the southwestern horizon to
dip briefly behind the  peaks of the range they had just crossed. The smell
of the uncured pelts Silk had sewn to their clothing was not very pleasant,
and  Garion  did his  best  not  to look  at  the  hideously altered  skull
surmounting Belgarath's staff as they rode.

"We're being  watched," Silk mentioned rather casually  after an hour or so
of riding.

"I  was   sure  we  would  be,"   Belgarath  replied.  "Just  keep  going."

Their first  meeting with the Morindim came just as  the sun rose. They had
paused on  the sloping  gravel bank of  a meandering stream  to water their
mounts, and  a dozen or so fur-clad riders,  their dark faces tattooed into
devil masks,  cantered up  to the opposite  bank and stopped.  They did not
speak,  but  looked  hard   at  the  identifying  marks  Belgarath  had  so
painstakingly contrived. After a brief, whispered consultation, they turned
their horses and rode back away from the stream. Several minutes later, one
came galloping  back, carrying a bundle  wrapped in a fox  skin. He paused,
dropped  the bundle  on the  bank of  the stream,  and then rode  off again
without looking back.

"What was that all about?" Garion asked.

"The bundle's  a gift-of  sorts," Belgarath answered. "It's  an offering to
any devils who might be accompanying us. Go pick it up."

"What's in it?"

"A bit  of this, a bit  of that. I wouldn't open it,  if I were you. You're
forgetting that you're not supposed to talk."

"There's  nobody around,"  Garion replied,  turning his  head this  way and
that, looking for any sign of their being watched.

"Don't be too sure of that," the old man replied. "There could be a hundred
of them  hiding in  the grass. Go  pick up the  gift and  we'll move along.
They're polite enough, but they'll be a lot happier when we take our devils
out of their territory."

They  rode on  across the flat,  featureless plain  with a cloud  of flies,
drawn by  the smell  of their untanned  fur garments, plaguing  them. Their
next meeting, several days later, was less congenial. They had moved into a
hilly region where huge,  rounded, white boulders rose out of the grass and
where  shaggy-coated wild oxen  with great,  sweeping horns grazed.  A high
overcast  had moved  in, and the  gray sky  diffused the light,  making the
brief twilight  that marked  the passage of  one day into the  next an only
slightly perceptible darkening. They were riding down a gentle slope toward
a large  lake, which  lay like a sheet  of lead under the  cloudy sky, when
there  suddenly arose  from  the tall  grass all  around them  tattooed and
fur-clad warriors  holding long spears  and short bows that  appeared to be
made of bone.

Garion  reined in sharply  and looked  at Belgarath for  instruction. "Just
look  straight at them,"  his grandfather  told him quietly,  "and remember
that you're not permitted to speak."

"More of them coming," Silk said tersely, jerking his chin toward the crest
of a nearby hill where perhaps a dozen Morindim, mounted on paint-decorated
ponies, were approaching at a walk.

"Let me do the talking," Belgarath said.

"Gladly."

The  man in  the lead  of the mounted  group was  burlier than most  of his
companions, and the black  tattooing on his face had been outlined with red
and blue, marking him  as a man of some significance in his clan and making
the devil  mask of  his features all  the more hideous. He  carried a large
wooden club,  painted with  strange symbols and  inlaid with rows  of sharp
teeth taken  from various animals. The way he  carried it indicated that it
was more a badge of office than a weapon. He rode without a saddle and with
a single  bridle strap. He pulled  his pony to a  stop perhaps thirty yards
away. "Why  have you come into  the lands of the  Weasel Clan?" he demanded
abruptly. His  accent was  strange and his  eyes were flat  with hostility.

Belgarath drew  himself up  indignantly. "Surely the Headman  of the Weasel
Clan  has seen  the  quest-mark before,"  he  replied coldly.  "We have  no
interest in  the lands of the  Weasel Clan, but follow  the commands of the
Devil-Spirit  of  the  Wolf  Clan  in  the  quest  he has  laid  upon  us."

"I have not heard  of the Wolf Clan," the Headman replied. "Where are their
lands?"

"To the  west," Belgarath  replied. "We have  traveled for two  waxings and
wanings of the Moon-Spirit to reach this place."

The Headman seemed impressed by that.

A Morind  with long white braids and with  a thin, dirty-looking beard drew
his pony  in beside  that of the  Headman. In his  right hand  he carried a
staff surmounted by the skull of a large bird. The gaping beak of the skull
had been  decorated with teeth, giving it  a ferocious appearance. "What is
the name  of the Devil-Spirit of  the Wolf Clan?" he  demanded. "I may know
him."

"That  is  doubtful,  Magician  of  the Weasel  Clan,"  Belgarath  answered
politely. "He seldom goes  far from his people. In any case, I cannot speak
his  name,   since  he  has   forbidden  it  to  any   but  the  dreamers."

"Can  you say  what  his aspect  is and  his attributes?"  the whitebraided
magician asked.

Silk made a long-gurgling sound in the back of his throat, stiffened in his
saddle  and rolled  his eyes  gruesomely back  in his  head until  only the
whites showed. With a  convulsive, jerking motion, he thrust both arms into
the  air. "Beware  the  Devil Agrinja,  who  stalks unseen  behind us,"  he
intoned in  a hollow, oracular voice. "I have  seen his three-eyed face and
his hundred-fanged mouth in my dreams. The eye of mortal man may not behold
him, but  his seven-clawed hands reach  out even now to  rend apart all who
would stand in the path of his chosen quester, the spear-bearer of the Wolf
Clan. I have seen  him feed in my nightmares. The ravener approaches and he
hungers for man-meat. Flee his hunger." He shuddered, dropping his arms and
slumping forward in his saddle as if suddenly exhausted.

"You've been here before, I see," Belgarath muttered under his breath. "Try
to restrain your creativity,  though. Remember that I might have to produce
what you dream up."

Silk  cast him a  sidelong wink. His  description of  the Devil had  made a
distinct  impression  on  the   Morindim.  The  mounted  men  looked  about
nervously, and  those standing in the  waist-high grass moved involuntarily
closer   together,    grasping   their   weapons    in   trembling   hands.

Then a thin Morind with a white fur band around his left arm pushed through
the cluster of frightened  warriors. His right leg ended in a clubfoot, and
he lurched  grotesquely as  he walked. He  fixed Silk with a  glare of pure
hatred, then threw both  hands wide, quivering and jerking. His back arched
and he  toppled over, threshing in  the grass in the  throes of an apparent
seizure.  He went  completely  stiff and  then  he started  to speak.  "The
Devil-Spirit of  the Weasel Clan, dread Horja, speaks  to me. He demands to
know why  the Devil Agrinja sends his quester into  the lands of the Weasel
Clan. The  Devil Horja is  too awful to look  upon. He has four  eyes and a
hundred and ten teeth,  and each of his six hands has eight claws. He feeds
on the bellies of men and he hungers."

"An imitator,"  Silk sniffed  disdainfully, his head still  down. "He can't
even think up his own dream."

The magician of the  Weasel Clan gave the dreamer lying supine in the grass
a look  of disgust, then turned back  to Belgarath. "The Devil-Spirit Horja
defies the Devil-Spirit Agrinja," he declared. "He bids him to begone or he
will rip out the belly of the quester of Agrinja."

Belgarath swore under his breath.

"What now?" Silk muttered.

"I  have to  fight him,"  Belgarath replied  sourly. "That's what  this was
leading up  to from the beginning.  White-braids there is trying  to make a
name for  himself. He's probably been  attacking every magician who crosses
his path."

"Can you handle him?"

"We're about to find out." Belgarath slid out of his saddle. "I warn you to
stand aside," he boomed,  "lest I loose the hunger of our Devil Spirit upon
you."  With the  tip of  his staff  he drew  a circle  on the ground  and a
five-pointed star within the  circle. Grimly, he stepped into the center of
the design.

The white-braided magician of the Weasel Clan sneered and also slid off his
pony. Quickly  he drew a similar symbol on the  ground and stepped into its
protection.

"That's it," Silk muttered  to Garion. "Once the symbols are drawn, neither
one can back down."

Belgarath  and   the  white-braided  magician  had   each  begun  muttering
incantations  in  a  language Garion  had  never  heard, brandishing  their
skull-surmounted  staffs at  each other.  The dreamer  of the  Weasel Clan,
suddenly  realizing that  he  was in  the middle  of the  impending battle,
miraculously recovered from his seizure, scrambled to his feet, and lurched
away with a terrified expression.

The Headman, trying to  maintain his dignity, carefully backed his pony out
of the immediate vicinity of the two muttering old men. Atop a large, white
boulder, twenty  yards or so to the left of the  two magicians, there was a
shimmering disturbance  in the  air, somewhat like heatwaves  rising from a
red tile roof on a hot day. The movement caught Garion's eye, and he stared
in  puzzlement at  the strange  phenomenon. As  he watched,  the shimmering
became  more pronounced,  and  it seemed  that  the shattered  pieces of  a
rainbow infused  it, flickering, shifting, undulating  in waves almost like
varihued  flames  rising  from   an  invisible  fire.  As  Garion  watched,
fascinated,  a second  shimmering  became apparent,  rising above  the tall
grass off to the  right. The second disturbance also began to gather shards
of color into itself. As he stared, first at one, then at the other, Garion
saw - or  imagined that he saw - a shape beginning  to emerge in the center
of each. The shapes  at first were amorphous, shifting, changing, gathering
form from the coruscating colors flashing about them in the shimmering air.
Then it seemed that  the shapes, having reached a certain point, flashed to
completion, coalescing  quite suddenly  with a great  rushing together, and
two towering  forms faced each other,  snarling and slavering with mindless
hatred. Each  stood as  high as a  house, and their  shoulders bulked wide.
Their  skins were  multihued, with  waves of  color rippling  through them.

The  one standing  in  the grass  had a  third  eye glaring  balefully from
between  its other  two,  and his  great arms  ended in  seven-clawed hands
stretched  out with  a  hideously hungry  curving. His  jutting, muzzlelike
mouth gaped wide, filled with row upon row of needlelike teeth as he roared
a thunderous howl of hatred and dreadful hunger.

Crouched  upon the  boulder  stood the  other. He  had  a great  cluster of
shoulders at  the top  of his trunk,  and a nest  of long,  scaly arms that
writhed  out in  all  directions like  snakes,  each arm  terminating in  a
widespread, many-clawed hand. Two  sets of eyes, one atop the other, glared
insanely from  beneath heavy brow-ridges, and his  muzzle, like that of the
other figure,  sprouted a  forest of teeth.  He raised that  awful face and
bellowed, his jaws drooling foam.

But even  as the  two monsters glared at  each other, there seemed  to be a
kind of  writhing struggle going  on inside them. Their  skins rippled, and
large moving lumps appeared in odd places on their chests and sides. Garion
had the  peculiar feeling that  there was something else  - something quite
different  and  perhaps  even  worse  -  trapped  inside  each  apparition.
Growling,  the  two devils  advanced  upon  each other,  but despite  their
apparent eagerness to fight,  they seemed almost driven, whipped toward the
struggle. It  was as if there was a dreadful  reluctance in them, and their
grotesque  faces jerked  this  way and  that,  each snarling  first at  his
opponent  and then  at the  magician who  controlled him.  That reluctance,
Garion  perceived, stemmed from  something deep  inside the nature  of each
Devil. It was the enslavement, the compulsion to do the bidding of another,
that they hated. The chains of spell and incantation in which Belgarath and
the  white-braided Morind  had bound  them were  an intolerable  agony, and
there   were   whimpers  of   that   agony  mingled   with  their   snarls.

Belgarath  was  sweating.  Droplets   of  perspiration  trickled  down  his
dark-stained  face. The  incantations which  held the Devil  Agrinja locked
within the apparition he  had created to bind it rippled endlessly from his
tongue. The  slightest faltering  of either the  words or the  image he had
formed in  his mind would break  his power over the  beast he had summoned,
and it would turn upon him.

Writhing  like  things attempting  to  tear themselves  apart from  within,
Agrinja  and Horja closed  on each  other, grappling, clawing,  tearing out
chunks of  scaly flesh with  their awful jaws. The  earth shuddered beneath
them as they fought.

Too stunned  to even be afraid,  Garion watched the savage  struggle. As he
watched,  he  noted  a peculiar  difference  between  the two  apparitions.
Agrinja was  bleeding from his wounds - a strange,  dark blood, so deep red
as to  be almost black. Horja,  however, did not bleed.  Chunks ripped from
his arms  and shoulders were  like bits of wood.  The whitebraided magician
saw that  difference as well, and his eyes  grew suddenly afraid. His voice
became shrill  as he desperately cast  incantations at Horja, struggling to
keep the  Devil under  his control. The  moving lumps beneath  Horja's skin
became larger,  more agitated. The  vast Devil broke free  from Agrinja and
stood,  his  chest  heaving  and  a  dreadful  hope burning  in  his  eyes.

White-braids was  screaming now.  The incantations tumbled  from his mouth,
faltering,  stumbling. And  then  one unpronounceable  formula tangled  his
tongue.  Desperately he  tried it  again, and  once again  it stuck  in his
teeth.

With  a  bellow of  triumph  the  Devil Horja  straightened  and seemed  to
explode. Bits  and fragments  of scaly hide  flew in all  directions as the
monster  shuddered free  of the illusion  which had  bound him. He  had two
great  arms and  an  almost human  face surmounted  by  a pair  of curving,
needle-pointed horns.  He had hoofs  instead of feet, and  his grayish skin
dripped slime. He turned slowly and his burning eyes fixed on the gibbering
magician.

"Horja!" the  white-braided Morind shrieked, "I  command you to-" The words
faltered as he gaped  in horror at the Devil which had suddenly escaped his
control. "Horja!  I am your master!" But  Horja was already stalking toward
him, his  great hoofs crushing the grass as, step  by step, he moved toward
his former master.

In  wild-eyed  panic,  the  white-braided Morind  flinched  back,  stepping
unconsciously  and fatally  out of  the protection  of the circle  and star
drawn upon the ground.

Horja smiled then, a chilling smile, bent and caught the shrieking magician
by each  ankle, ignoring the blows rained on his  head and shoulders by the
skull-topped staff.  Then the monster stood  up, lifting the struggling man
to hang  upside down by the  legs. The huge shoulders  surged with an awful
power,  and, leering  hideously, the  Devil deliberately  and with  a cruel
slowness tore the magician in two.

The Morindim fled.

Contemptuously  the immense Devil  hurled the  chunks of his  former master
after them, spattering the  grass with blood and worse. Then, with a savage
hunting cry, he leaped in pursuit of them.

The three-eyed  Agrinja had stood, still locked  in a half crouch, watching
the destruction of the  white-braided Morind almost with indifference. When
it was  aver, he  turned to cast  eyes burning with  hatred upon Belgarath.

The old  sorcerer, drenched with sweat, raised  his skull-staff in front of
him, his face set with extreme concentration. The interior struggle rippled
more intensely  within the  form of the monster,  but gradually Belgarath's
will  mastered and  solidified  the shape.  Agrinja howled  in frustration,
clawing at  the air until all  hint of shifting or  changing was gone. Then
the  dreadful  hands  dropped,  and the  monster's  head  bowed in  defeat.

"Begone,"  Belgarath commanded  almost  negligently, and  Agrinja instantly
vanished.

Garion suddenly began to  tremble violently. His stomach heaved; he turned,
tottered  a few  feet  away, and  fell to  his  knees and  began  to retch.

"What happened?" Silk demanded in a shaking voice.

"It got away from him," Belgarath replied calmly. "I think it was the blood
that did  it. When he saw that Agrinja was  bleeding and that Horja wasn't,
he realized  that he'd forgotten something.  That shook his confidence, and
he lost his concentration. Garion, stop that."

"I can't,"  Garion groaned, his stomach  heaving violently again. "How long
will Horja chase the others?" Silk asked.

"Until the  sun goes down," Belgarath told him.  "I imagine that the Weasel
Clan is in for a bad afternoon."

"Is there any chance that he'll turn around and come after us?"

"He has no reason  to. We didn't try to enslave him. As soon as Garion gets
his stomach  under control  again, we can  go on. We won't  be bothered any
more."

Garion stumbled to his  feet, weakly wiping his mouth. "Are you all right?"
Belgarath asked him.

"Not really," Garion replied, "but there's nothing left to come up."

"Get a drink of water and try riot to think about it."

"Will  you have  to do  that any more?"  Silk asked,  his eyes a  bit wild.

"No." Belgarath  pointed. There  were several riders  along the crest  of a
hill perhaps a mile away. "The other Morindim in the area watched the whole
thing. The  word will  spread, and nobody  will come anywhere  near us now.
Let's  mount  up and  get  going.  It's still  a  long way  to the  coast."

In bits  and pieces, as they rode for the  next several days, Garion picked
up as  much information as he  really wanted about the  dreadful contest he
had witnessed.

"It's the  shape that's the  key to the whole  thing," Belgarath concluded.
"What the  Morindim call Devil-Spirits don't  look that much different from
humans. You  form an illusion drawn  out of your imagination  and force the
spirit into it.  As long as you can keep it locked  up in that illusion, it
has to do what  you tell it to. If the illusion falters for any reason, the
spirit  breaks free  and resumes  its real  form. After  that, you  have no
control over  it whatsoever. I  have a certain advantage  in these matters.
Changing back and forth from a man to a wolf has sharpened my imagination a
bit."

"Why did  Beldin say you were  a bad magician then?"  Silk asked curiously.

"Beldin's a purist," the old man shrugged. "He feels that it's necessary to
get  everything into the  shape - down  to the  last scale and  toenail. It
isn't, really, but he feels that way about it."

"Do you suppose we could talk about something else?" Garion asked.

They  reached  the coastline  a  day  or so  later.  The  sky had  remained
overcast, and  the Sea of the East lay sullen  and rolling under dirty gray
clouds. The beach along which they rode was a broad shingle of black, round
stones  littered with  chunks  of white,  bleached driftwood.  Waves rolled
foaming up the beach,  only to slither back with an endless, mournful sigh.
Sea birds hung in the stiff breeze, screaming.

"Which way?" Silk asked.

Belgarath looked around. "North," he replied.

"How far?"

"I'm not positive. It's been a long time, and I can't be sure exactly where
we are."

"You're not the best guide in the world, old friend," Silk complained.

"You can't have everything."

They reached  the land  bridge two days  later, and Garion stared  at it in
dismay. It  was not at all what he had expected,  but consisted of a series
of round, wave-eroded white  boulders sticking up out of the dark water and
running in  an irregular line off toward a dark  smudge on the horizon. The
wind was blowing out  of the north, carrying with it a bitter chill and the
smell  of polar  ice.  Patches of  white  froth stretched  from boulder  to
boulder  as the  swells ripped  themselves to  tatters on  submerged reefs.

"How are we supposed to cross that?" Silk objected.

"We wait until low tide," Belgarath explained. "The reefs are mostly out of
the water then."

"Mostly?"

"We might have to  wade a bit from time to time. Let's strip these furs off
our clothes  before we start. It  will give us something  to do while we're
waiting for the tide  to turn, and they're starting to get a bit fragrant."

They  took shelter  behind  a pile  of driftwood  far up  on the  beach and
removed the stiff, smelly  furs from their clothing. Then they dug food out
of their  packs and ate. Garion noted that the  stain that had darkened the
skin on his hands had begun to wear thin and that the tattoodrawings on the
faces of his companions had grown noticeably fainter.

It grew darker, and  the period of twilight that separated one day from the
next seemed longer than it had no more than a week ago.

"Summer's  nearly  over  up  here," Belgarath  noted,  looking  out at  the
boulders gradually emerging from  the receding water in the murky twilight.

"How much longer before low tide?" Silk asked.

"Another hour or so."

They  waited. The  wind  pushed at  the pile  of driftwood  erratically and
brushed  the tall  grass along  the upper  edge of  the beach,  bending and
tossing it.

Finally Belgarath  stood up. "Let's  go," he said shortly.  "We'll lead the
horses. The reefs are  slippery, so be careful how you set your feet down."

The passage  along the  reef between the  first steppingstones was  not all
that  bad, but  once they  moved farther  out, the  wind became  a definite
factor.  They were frequently  drenched with  stinging spray, and  every so
often a  wave, larger than the  others, broke over the  top of the reef and
swirled about  their legs,  tugging at them.  The water was  brutally cold.

"Do you think  we'll be able to make it all the  way across before the tide
comes back in again?" Silk shouted over the noise.

"No," Belgarath  shouted back. "We'll have  to sit it out  on top of one of
the larger rocks."

"That sounds unpleasant."

"Not nearly so unpleasant as swimming."

They  were perhaps  halfway  across when  it became  evident that  the tide
turned. Waves  more and more frequently  broke across the top  of the reef,
and one particularly large pulled the legs of Garion's horse out from under
him. Garion struggled to get the frightened animal up again, pulling at the
reins as the horse's  hoofs scrambled and slid on the slippery rocks of the
reef. "We'd better find  a place to stop, Grandfather," he yelled above the
crash   of  the  waves.   "We'll  be   neck-deep  in  this   before  long."

"Two  more islands,"  Belgarath  told .  "'here's a  bigger one  up ahead."

The last  stretch of reef was completely  submerged, and Garion flinched as
he stepped down into  the icy water, The breaking waves covered the surface
with froth, making it impossible to see the bottom. He moved along blindly,
probing the unseen path with numb feet. A large wave swelled and rose up as
far as his armpits,  and its powerful surge swept him of his feet. He clung
to the  reins of his horse, floundering and sputtering  as he fought to get
back up.

And then they were past the worst of it. They moved along the reef with the
water only  ankle-deep now; a few  moments later, they climbed  up onto the
large, white boulder. Garion let out a long, explosive breath as he reached
safety. The wind, blowing against his wet clothing, chilled him to the bone
but at least they were out of the water.

Later, as  they sat  huddled together on  the leeward side  of the boulder,
Garion looked  out across the  sullen black sea toward  the low, forbidding
coastline lying  ahead. The beaches, like  those of Morindland behind them,
were  black gravel,  and  the low  hills behind  them  were dark  under the
scudding gray  cloud. Nowhere was there any sign of  life, but there was an
implicit threat in the very shape of the land itself.

"Is that it?" he asked finally in a hushed voice.

Belgarath's face  was unreadable as  he gazed across the  open water toward
the coast ahead. "Yes," he replied. "That's Mallorea."





                                  PART TWO

                              MISHRAK AC THULL







                                  [Image]





Chapter Eight

THE CROWN HAD been Queen Islena's first mistake. It was heavy and it always
gave her  a headache. Her decision to wear it had  come originally out of a
sense of insecurity. The bearded warnors in Anheg's throne room intimidated
her, and  she felt the need  of a visible symbol  of her authority. Now she
was afraid to appear  without it. Each day she put it on with less pleasure
and  entered  the  main   hall  of  Anheg's  palace  with  less  certainty.

The sad truth was  that Queen Islena of Cherek was completely unprepared to
rule. Until the day when, dressed in regal crimson velvet and with her gold
crown firmly in place,  she had marched into the vaulted throne room at Val
Alorn to announce that she would rule the kingdom in her husband's absence,
Islena's most  momentous decisions  had involved which gown  she would wear
and how her hair  was to be arranged. Now it seemed that the fate of Cherek
hung   in  the   balance   each  time   she  was   faced  with   a  choice.

The warriors  lounging indolently with their ale  cups about the huge, open
fire pit or wandering aimlessly about on the rush-strewn floor were no help
whatsoever. Each  time she entered the  throne room, all conversation broke
off and  they rose  to watch as  she marched to the  bannerhung throne, but
their faces  gave no hint of their  true feelings toward her. Irrationally,
she concluded  that the whole problem had to do  with the beards. How could
she possibly know what  a man was thinking when his face was sunk up to the
ears in  hair? Only  the quick intervention  of Lady Merel,  the cool blond
wife of  the Earl of Trellheim,  had stopped her from  ordering a universal
shave.

"You can't, Islena," Merel had told her flatly, removing the quill from the
queen's  hand, even  as  she had  been in  the act  of signing  the hastily
drawn-up proclamation.  "They're attached to their  beards like little boys
attached to  a favorite toy. You  can't make them cut  off their whiskers."

"I'm the Queen."

"Only as long as  they permit you to be. They accept you out of respect for
Anheg,  and that's  as  far as  it goes.  If you  tamper with  their pride,
they'll take  you off the throne."  And that dreadful threat  had ended the
matter then and there.

Islena found herself relying  more and more on Barak's wife, and it was not
long before  the two of them, one in green and  the other in royal crimson,
were seldom apart. Even when Islena faltered, Merel's icy stare quelled the
hints of  disrespect which cropped up from time to  time - usually when the
ale had  been distributed a bit  too freely. It was  Merel, ultimately, who
made the  day-to-day decisions which ran the  kingdom. When IsIena sat upon
the throne,  Merel, her blond braids coiled about her  head to form her own
crown, stood  to one side in  plain view of the  hesitant queen. Cherek was
ruled by the expressions on her face. A faint smile meant yes; a frown, no;
a  scarcely   perceptible  shrug,   maybe.  It  worked   out  fairly  well.

But  there was  one person who  was not  intimidated by Merel's  cool gaze.
Grodeg,  the  towering,  white-bearded  High Priest  of  Belar,  inevitably
requested private audience with  the queen, and once Merel left the council
room, Islena was lost.

Despite  Anheg's  call  for  a general  mobilization,  the  members of  the
Bear-cult had not yet left to join the campaign. Their promises to join the
fleet later all sounded sincere, but their excuses and delays grew more and
more obvious  as time went on.  Islena knew that Grodeg  was behind it all.
Nearly every  able-bodied man in the kingdom was  off with the fleet, which
was even  now rowing up the broad expanse of the  Aldur River to join Anheg
in central Algaria. The household guard in the palace at Val Alorn had been
reduced  to grizzled  old men  and downy-cheeked  boys. Only  the Bear-cult
remained, and Grodeg pushed his advantage to the limit.

He was  polite enough, bowing to the queen  when the occasion demanded, and
never  mentioning her  past links  with the  cult, but  his offers  to help
became more and more insistent; and when Islena faltered at his suggestions
concerning this  matter or that, he smoothly acted  to implement them as if
her  hesitancy had  been acceptance.  Little by  little, Islena  was losing
control,  and Grodeg,  with the  armed might  of the  cult behind  him, was
taking charge.  More and more the cult  members infested the palace, giving
orders, lounging about the  throne room and openly grinning as they watched
Islena's attempts to rule.

"You're  going to  have  to do  something, Islena,"  Merel said  firmly one
evening when  the two were alone in the  queen's private apartment. She was
striding about  the carpeted room, her hair gleaming  like soft gold in the
candlelight,   but   there   was    nothing   soft   in   her   expression.

"What can  I do?"  Islena pleaded, wringing  her hands. "He's  never openly
disrespectful, and his decisions always seem to be in the best interests of
Cherek."

"You need help, Islena," Merel told her.

"Whom can  I turn  to?" The Queen of  Cherek was almost in  tears. The Lady
Merel smoothed the front of her green velvet gown.

"I   think  it's   time   that  you   wrote  to   Porenn,"   she  declared.

"What do I say?" Islena begged of her.

Merel pointed at the  small table in the corner where parchment and ink lay
waiting. "Sit down," she  instructed, "and write what I tell you to write."

Count Brador,  the Tolnedran  ambassador, was definitely  growing tiresome,
Queen Layla decided. The plump little queen marched purposefully toward the
chamber  where  she customarily  gave  audiences and  where the  ambassador
awaited her with his satchel full of documents.

The courtiers  in the halls bowed  as she passed, her  crown slightly askew
and  her  heels  clicking  on the  polished  oak  floors,  but Queen  Layla
uncharacteristically  ignored  them.  This  was  not the  time  for  polite
exchanges or idle chitchat. The Tolnedran had to be dealt with, and she had
delayed too long already.

The ambassador  was an  olive-skinned man with  receding hair and  a hooked
nose.  He  wore  a  brown mantle  with  the  old  trim  that indicated  his
relationship  to  the Borunes.  He  lounged  rather indolently  in a  large
cushioned chair near the  window of the sunny room where he and Queen Layla
were to meet. He  rose as she entered and bowed with exquisite grace. "Your
Highness," he murmured politely.

"My  dear Count  Brador," Queen Layla  gushed at  him, putting on  her most
helpless and  scatterbrained expression,  "please do sit down.  I'm sure we
know each other well  enough by now to skip all these tedious formalities."
She sank  into a chair, fanning  herself with one hand.  "It's turned warm,
hasn't it?"

"Summers are  lovely here  in Sendaria, your Highness,"  the count replied,
settling back  in his chair. "I  wonder - have you  had the chance to think
over the proposals I gave you at our last meeting?"

Queen  Layla stared  at  him blankly.  "Which proposals  were  those, Count
Brador?" She gave a helpless little giggle. "Please forgive me, but my mind
seems to be absolutely gone these days. There are so many details. I wonder
how my husband keeps them all straight."

"We  were  discussing  the  administration  of  the port  at  Camaar,  your
Highness," the count reminded her gently.

"We  were?" The  queen  gave him  a  blank look  of total  incomprehension,
secretly delighted  at the flicker  of annoyance that crossed  his face. It
was  her   best  ploy.  By  pretending   to  have  forgotten  all  previous
conversations, she  forced him  to begin at  the beginning every  time they
met. The  count's strategy, she  knew, depended upon a  gradual build-up to
his final  proposal, and her pretended  forgetfulness neatly defeated that.
"Whatever  led  us  into  such  a  tedious  subject as  that?"  she  added.

"Surely your Highness recalls," the count protested with just the slightest
hint of  annoyance. "The Tolnedran  merchant vessel, Star of  Tol Horb, was
kept standing at anchor  for a week and a half in the harbor before moorage
could be  found for her. Every  day's delay in unloading  her was costing a
fortune."

"Things are so hectic  these days," the queen of Sendaria sighed. "It's the
manpower shortage, you understand.  Everybody who hasn't gone off to war is
busy freighting  supplies to the army.  I'll send a very  stern note to the
port authorities about it,  though. Was there anything else, Count Brador?"

Brador  coughed uncomfortably.  "Uh -  your Highness has  already forwarded
just such a note," he reminded her.

"I have?" Queen Layla  feigned astonishment. "Wonderful. That takes care of
everything then, doesn't it? And you've dropped by to thank me." She smiled
girlishly. "How  exquisitely courteous  of you." She leaned  forward to put
one hand  impulsively on his wrist,  quite deliberately knocking the rolled
parchment  he  was  holding  out of  his  hand.  "How  clumsy  of me,"  she
exclaimed,  bending  quickly  to  pick up  the  parchment  before he  could
retrieve it.  Then she sat back  in her chair, tapping  the rolled document
absently against her cheek as if lost in thought.

"Uh -  actually, your  Highness, our discussions had  moved somewhat beyond
your note  to the port authorities," Brador  told her, nervously eyeing the
parchment she had so  deftly taken from him. "You may recall that I offered
Tolnedran assistance  in administering  the port. I believe  we agreed that
such assistance might help to alleviate the manpower shortage your Highness
just mentioned."

"What an absolutely marvelous idea," Layla exclaimed. She brought her plump
little  fist  down  on  the arm  of  her  chair as  if  in  an outburst  of
enthusiasm. At  that prearranged signal, two  of her younger children burst
into the room, arguing loudly.

"Mother!" Princess  Gelda wailed in outrage,  "Fernie stole my red ribbon!"

"I did not!" Princess  Ferna denied the charge indignantly. "She gave it to
me for my blue beads."

"Did not!" Gelda snapped.

"Did so!" Ferna replied.

"Children, children," Layla chided them. "Can't you see that Mother's busy?
What will the dear count think of us?"

"But she  stole it,  Mother!" Gelda protested.  "She stole my  red ribbon."

"Did not!" Ferna said, spitefully sticking her tongue out at her sister.

Trailing behind  them with a look of  wide-eyed interest came little Prince
Meldig, Queen  Layla's youngest  child. In one  hand the prince  held a jam
pot, and his face was liberally smeared with the contents.

"Oh, that's  just impossible,"  Layla exclaimed, jumping to  her feet. "You
girls  are  supposed  to   be  watching  him."  She  bustled  over  to  the
jam-decorated  prince, crumpled  the  parchment she  was holding  and began
wiping his  face with it. Abruptly  she stopped. "Oh dear,"  she said as if
suddenly realizing what she  was doing. "Was this important, Count Brador?"
she  asked  the  Tolnedran,  holding  out  the  rumpled,  sticky  document.

Brador's shoulders, however, had slumped in defeat. "No, your Highness," he
replied in a voice filled with resignation, "not really. The royal house of
Sendaria  has me  quite  outnumbered, it  appears."  He rose  to his  feet.
"Perhaps  another  time,"  he   murmured,  bowing.  "With  your  Highness's
permission," he said, preparing to leave.

"You mustn't forget this, Count Brador," Layla said, pressing the parchment
into his cringing hands.

The count's  face had a  faintly martyred expression as  he withdrew. Queen
Layla turned  back to her children, who were  grinning impishly at her. She
began to  scold them  in a loud voice  until she was certain  the count was
well out of earshot,  then she knelt, embraced them all and began to laugh.

"Did we do it right, Mother?" Princess Gelda asked.

"You  were  absolutely  perfect,"  Queen  Layla  replied,  still  laughing.

Sadi the  eunuch had grown careless,  lulled somewhat by the  air of polite
civility that had pervaded  the palace at Sthiss Tor for the past year, and
one  of  his  associates,  seizing  upon  his  unwariness,  had  taken  the
opportunity  to  poison  him.  Sadi  definitely did  not  appreciate  being
poisoned. The antidotes all tasted vile, and the aftereffects left him weak
and  light-headed.  Thus  it  was that  he  viewed  the  appearance of  the
mail-skirted  emissary of  King Taur  Urgas with thinly  veiled irritation.

"Taur Urgas,  King of  the Murgos, greets  Sadi, chief servant  of Immortal
Salmissra," the  Murgo declaimed  with a deep  bow as he  entered the cool,
dimly lighted study from which Sadi conducted most of the nation's affairs.

"The servant of the Serpent Queen returns the greetings of the right arm of
the  Dragon-God  of  Angarak."  Sadi  mouthed the  formula  phrases  almost
indifferently. "Do you suppose we could get to the point? I'm feeling a bit
indisposed at the moment."

"I was  very pleased  at your recovery,"  the ambassador lied,  his scarred
face carefully expressionless. "Has  the poisoner been apprehended yet?" He
drew up  a chair and sat  down at the polished table  Sadi used for a desk.

"Naturally," Sadi replied,absently rubbing  his hand over his shaved scalp.

"And executed?"

"Why would  we want to do  that? The man's a  professional poisoner. He was
only doing his job."

The Murgo looked a bit startled.

"We look  upon a good poisoner as a national asset,"  Sadi told him. "If we
start killing  them every time they poison  somebody, very soon there won't
be  any  of them  left,  and  you never  know  when I  might want  somebody
poisoned."

The  Murgo ambassador  shook his  head incredulously.  "You people  have an
amazing amount of tolerance,  Sadi," he said in his harshly accented voice.
"What about his employer?"

"That's  another   matter,"  Sadi  replied.  "His   employer  is  currently
entertaining  the  leeches  at  the bottom  of  the  river.  Is your  visit
official,  or  did  you  merely  stop  by  to  inquire  after  my  health?"

"A bit of each, Excellency."

"You Murgos  are an economical race," Sadi  observed dryly. "What does Taur
Urgas want this time?"

"The  Alorns are preparing  to invade  Mishrak ac Thull,  your Excellency."

"So I've heard. What's that got to do with Nyissa?"

"Nyissans have no reason to be fond of Alorns."

"Nor   any   to   be   fond  of   Murgos,   either,"   Sadi  pointed   out.

"It was Aloria that  invaded Nyissa following the death of the Rivan King,"
the Murgo  reminded him, "and it was Cthol  Murgos that provided the market
for Nyissa's primary export."

"My dear  fellow, please  get to the  point," Sadi said,  rubbing his scalp
wearily. "I'm  not going  to operate on  the basis of  long-past insults or
long-forgotten favors.  The slave  trade is no longer  significant, and the
scars left by the  Alorn invasion disappeared centuries ago. What does Taur
Urgas want?"

"My  king wishes  to  avoid bloodshed,"  the Murgo  stated.  "The Tolnedran
legions  form a  significant part of  the armies  massing in Algaria.  If a
threat just  a threat, mind you -  of unfriendly activity suddenly appeared
on  his  unprotected  southern  frontier,  Ran Borune  would  recall  those
legions. Their  loss would persuade the  Alorns to abandon this adventure."

"You want me to invade Tolnedra?" Sadi demanded incredulously.

"Naturally  not, Lord Sadi.  His Majesty  merely wishes your  permission to
move certain forces through your territory to pose the threat on Tolnedra's
southern border. No blood need be shed at all."

"Except  Nyissan blood, once  the Murgo  army withdraws. The  legions would
swarm   down  across  the   River  of   the  Woods  like   angry  hornets."

"Taur  Urgas  would be  more  than  willing to  leave  garrisons behind  to
guarantee the integrity of Nyissan territory."

"I'm  sure he  would,"  Sadi observed  dryly.  "Advise your  king that  his
proposal is quite unacceptable at this particular time."

"The King  of Cthol Murgos is a powerful man,"  the Murgo said firmly, "and
he remembers  those who thwart him  even more keenly than  he remembers his
friends."

"Taur Urgas is a madman," Sadi told him bluntly. "He wants to avoid trouble
with  the  Alorns  so  that he  can  concentrate  on  'Zakath. Despite  his
insanity,  however, he's  not so  foolish as  to send  an army  into Nyissa
uninvited. An army must  eat, and Nyissa's a bad place to forage for food -
as  history has demonstrated.  The most  tempting fruit has  bitter juice."

"A Murgo army carries its own food," the ambassador replied stiffly.

"Good  for them. But  where do they  plan to  find drinking water?  I don't
believe we're getting anywhere  with this. I'll convey your proposal to her
Majesty. She, of course,  will make the final decision. I suspect, however,
that you'll  need to offer something much  more attractive than a permanent
Murgo occupation to persuade her to consider the matter favorably. Was that
all?"

The Murgo rose to his feet, his scarred face angry. He bowed coldly to Sadi
and withdrew without further conversation.

Sadi thought about it  for a while. He could gain a great deal of advantage
at  a  minimal  cost  if he  played  this  right.  A  few carefully  worded
dispatches to King Rhodar  in Algaria would put Nyissa among the friends of
the west. If Rhodar's  army should happen to win, Nyissa would benefit. If,
on  the other  hand,  it appeared  that the  west  was about  to  lose, the
proposal of  Taur Urgas could be accepted. In  either case, Nyissa would be
on the winning side. The whole notion appealed to Sadi enormously. He stood
up, his  iridescent silk  robe rustling, and  went to a  nearby cabinet. He
took out  a crystal  decanter containing a  dark blue liquid  and carefully
measured some  of the thick syrup  into a small glass  and drank it. Almost
immediately a euphoric calm came over him as his favorite drug took effect.
A moment or two  later, he felt that he was ready to face his queen. He was
even smiling  as he walked from his study into  the dim corridor leading to
the throne room.

As always,  Salmissra's chamber was  dimly lighted by oil  lamps hanging on
long silver  chains from the  shadowy ceiling. The chorus  of eunuchs still
knelt  adoringly in  the  queen's presence,  but  they no  longer sang  her
praises. Noise of any  kind irritated Salmissra now, and it was wise not to
irritate her. The Serpent Queen still occupied the divanlike throne beneath
the towering  statue of Issa. She  dozed interminably, stirring her mottled
coils with  the seething dry hiss of scale  rubbing against scale. But even
in  restless  doze, her  tongue  flickered nervously.  Sadi approached  the
throne, perfunctorily  prostrated himself on the  polished stone floor, and
waited. His  scent on the air would announce him  to the hooded serpent who
was his queen.

"Yes,   Sadi?"   she   whispered  finally,   her   voice   a  dusty   hiss.

"The Murgos  wish an  alliance, my Queen,"  Sadi informed her.  "Taur Urgas
wants  to threaten  the Tolnedrans from  the south  to force Ran  Borune to
withdraw his legions from the Thullish border."

"Interesting," she replied indifferently.  Her dead eyes bored into him and
her coils rustled. "What do you think?"

"Neutrality costs nothing, Divine  Salmissra," Sadi replied. "Alliance with
either side would be premature."

Salmissra turned,  her mottled hood flaring  as she regarded her reflection
in  the mirror beside  her throne. The  crown still  rested on her  head as
polished and glistening as  her scales. Her tongue flickered, and her eyes,
flat as  glass, looked at the mirror. "Do what  you think best, Sadi,'' she
told him in an uncaring tone.

"I'll deal  with the matter, my Queen," Sadi said,  putting his face to the
floor in preparation to leave.

"I  have no need  of Torak now,"  she mused,  still staring at  the mirror.
"Polgara saw to that."

"Yes, my Queen," Sadi agreed in a neutral voice, beginning to rise.

She  turned   to  look   at  him.  "Stay   a  while,  Sadi.   I'm  lonely."

Sadi sank immediately back to the polished floor.

"I  have  such strange  dreams  sometimes,  Sadi," she  hissed. "Such  very
strange dreams.  I seem to remember  things - things that  happened when my
blood was warm and I was a woman. Strange thoughts come to me in my dreams,
and strange hungers." She looked directly at him, her hood flaring again as
her pointed  face stretched out toward him. "Was  I really like that, Sadi?
It all seems like something seen through smoke."

"It was  a difficult  time, my Queen,"  Sadi replied candidly.  "For all of
us."

"Polgara was right, you know," she continued in that expiring whisper. "The
potions  enflamed  me. I  think  it's better  this  way -  no passions,  no
hungers, no fears." She  turned back to her mirror. "You may go now, Sadi."

He rose and started toward the door.

"Oh, Sadi."

"Yes, my Queen?"

"If I caused you trouble before, I'm sorry."

He stared at her.

"Not very  much, of course -  but just a little."  Then she returned to her
reflection.

Sadi was  trembling as  he closed the  door behind him.  Sometime later, he
sent for  Issus. The  shabby, one-eyed hireling entered  the chief eunuch's
study  with a  certain  hesitancy, and  his  face was  a bit  apprehensive.

"Come in, Issus," Sadi told him calmly.

"I  hope  you aren't  holding  any  grudges, Sadi,"  Issus said  nervously,
looking about  to be sure they  were alone. "There was  nothing personal in
it, you know."

"It's all  right, Issus," Sadi assured  him. "You were only  doing what you
were paid to do."

"How did you manage  to detect it?" Issus asked with a certain professional
curiosity. "Most men are  too far gone for the antidote to work before they
realize they've been poisoned."

"Your  concoction  leaves  just the  faintest  aftertaste  of lemon,"  Sadi
replied. "I've been trained to recognize it."

"Ah," Issus  said. "I'll have to  work on that. Otherwise  it's a very good
poison."

"An excellent poison, Issus,"  Sadi agreed. "That brings us to the reason I
sent   for  you.   There's   a  man   I   think  I   can  dispense   with."

Issus' single eye brightened,  and he rubbed his hands together. "The usual
fee?"

"Naturally."

"Who is he?"

"The Murgo ambassador."

Issus'  face clouded  for  a moment.  "He'll be  difficult  to get  to." He
scratched at his stubbled scalp.

"You'll find a way. I have the utmost confidence in you."

"I'm   the  best,"   Issus  agreed   with  no   trace  of   false  modesty.

"The  ambassador's  pressing me  in  certain  negotiations that  I need  to
delay," Sadi continued. "His  sudden demise should interrupt things a bit."

"You don't really have  to explain, Sadi," Issus told him. "I don't need to
know why you want him killed."

"But you  do need  to know how. For  various reasons, I'd like  for this to
look very  natural. Could you arrange  for him-and perhaps a  few others in
his  household-to come  down with  some kind  of fever?  Something suitably
virulent?"

Issus frowned. "That's tricky. Something like that can get out of hand. You
might end up infecting  an entire neighborhood, and there would be very few
survivors."

Sadi  shrugged.  "One  sometimes  must make  sacrifices.  Can  you do  it?"

Issus nodded gravely.

"Do it  then, and I'll compose a letter expressing  my regrets to King Taur
Urgas."

Queen  Silar sat at  her loom in  the great  hall of the  Algar Stronghold,
humming softly to herself  as her fingers passed the shuttle back and forth
with  a drowsy,  clicking  sound. Sunlight  streamed down  from  the narrow
windows  set high  up in  the wall,  filling the  huge, narrow room  with a
diffused  golden  light.  King  Cho-Hag  and  Hettar  were  away  from  the
Stronghold, preparing a huge  encampment some few leagues out from the base
of  the eastern  escarpment for  the army  of Alorns, Arends,  Sendars, and
Tolnedrans  approaching from  the west.  Although he  was still  within the
borders of  the kingdom, Cho-Hag had  formally transferred authority to his
wife, extracting a pledge of support from all of the assembled Clan-Chiefs.

The Queen of Algaria  was a silent woman, and her calm face seldom betrayed
her emotions.  She had  spent her entire  life in the  background, often so
unobtrusively that  people did not  even realize that she  was present. She
had,  however, kept  her  eyes and  her  ears open.  Her crippled  husband,
moreover, had  confided in  her. His quiet, dark-haired  queen knew exactly
what was going on.

Elvar, Archpriest  of Algaria,  stood, white-robed and  much puffed-up with
his  own  importance,  reading   to  her  the  set  of  carefully  prepared
proclamations which  would effectively transfer all  power to him. His tone
was condescending as he explained them to her.

"Is that all?" she asked when he had finished.

"It's really  for the best, your  Highness," he told her  loftily. "All the
world knows that women are unsuited to rule. Shall I send for pen and ink?"

"Not just yet, Elvar," she replied calmly, her hands busy at her loom.

"But "

"You know,  I just had the  oddest thought," she said,  looking directly at
him. "You're the Archpriest  of Belar here in Algaria, but you never go out
of the Stronghold. Isn't that a bit peculiar?"

"My duties, your Highness, compell me-"

"Isn't your first duty  to the people - and to the children of Belar? We've
been terribly selfish keeping  you here when your heart must be yearning to
be  out  among  the  clans, overseeing  the  religious  instruction of  the
children."

He stared at her, his mouth suddenly agape.

"And all  the other priests as  well," she continued. "They  all seem to be
concentrated here at the  Stronghold, pressed into administrative duties. A
priest  is  too valuable  a  man for  such  tasks. This  situation must  be
corrected immediately."

"But "

"No, Elvar.  My duty as queen is absolutely  clear. The children of Algaria
must come first. I  release you from all your duties here at the Stronghold
so that you may return to your chosen vocation." She smiled suddenly. "I'll
even draw up an itinerary for you myself," she said brightly. She thought a
moment. "The times are troubled," she added, "so perhaps I'd better provide
you with  an escort - several  trustworthy men from my  own clan who can be
depended upon  to make sure that you aren't  interrupted in your travels or
distracted from your preaching by any disturbing messages from abroad." She
looked at  him again.  "That will be  all, Elvar. You'd  probably better go
pack.  It  will be  a  number of  seasons  before you  return, I  imagine."

The Archpriest of Belar was making strangled noises.

"Oh, one other thing."  The queen carefully chose another skein of yarn and
held it up to  the sunlight. "It's been years since anyone made a survey of
the herds. As long as you're going to be out there anyway, I think I'd like
an accurate count of  all the calves and colts in Algaria. It will give you
something to  occupy your mind. Send  me a report from  time to time, won't
you?"  She returned  to her  weaving. "You're  dismissed, Elvar,"  she said
placidly, not  even bothering  to look up  as the Archpriest,  shaking with
rage,  tottered  away to  make  preparations for  his roving  imprisonment.

Lord  Morin, High Chamberlain  to his  Imperial Majesty, Ran  Borune XXIII,
sighed  as he  entered  the Emperor's  private garden.  Another  tirade was
undoubtedly in the offing, and Morin had already heard it all a dozen times
at least.  The Emperor had an  extraordinary capacity for repeating himself
sometimes.

Ran  Borune, however,  was  in an  odd  mood. The  bald, beak-nosed  little
Emperor sat pensively in  his chair beneath a shady arbor, listening to the
trilling  of his  canary.  "He's never  spoken  again, did  you know  that,
Morin?"  the  Emperor  said   as  his  chamberlain  approached  across  the
close-clipped grass. "Just that  one time when Polgara was here." He looked
at the  little golden bird again, his eyes sad. Then  he sighed. "I think I
came out  second best  in that bargain.  Polgara gave me a  canary and took
Ce'Nedra in  exchange." He looked around at  his sundrenched garden and the
cool marble  walls surrounding  it. "Is it  just my imagination,  Morin, or
does the palace seem  sort of cold and empty now?" He lapsed once more into
moody  silence, staring  with  unseeing eyes  at  a bed  of crimson  roses.

Then there was an  odd sound, and Lord Morin looked sharply at the Emperor,
half afraid that his  ruler was about to go into another seizure. But there
was  no evidence  of  that. Instead,  Morin perceived  that Ran  Borune was
chuckling. "Did  you see how  she tricked me, Morin?"  The Emperor laughed.
"She deliberately goaded me  into that fit. What a son she would have made!
She could have been the greatest Emperor in Tolnedra's history." Ran Borune
was  laughing  openly  now, his  secret  delight  at Ce'Nedra's  cleverness
suddenly emerging.

"She is your daughter after all, your Majesty," Lord Morin observed.

"To  think that  she could  raise an  army of  that size when  she's barely
sixteen," the  Emperor marveled.  "What a splendid child!"  He seemed quite
suddenly to have recovered  from the gloomy peevishness that had dogged him
since his  return to  ToI Honeth. His  laughter trailed away  after several
moments, and  his bright little eyes  narrowed shrewdly. "Those legions she
stole  from  me  are   likely  to  become  fractious  without  professional
leadership," he mused.

"I'd  say  that's Ce'Nedra's  problem,  your Majesty,"  Morin replied.  "Or
Polgara's."

"Well-" The Emperor scratched  one ear. "I don't know, Morin. The situation
out  there  isn't  too  clear." He  looked  at  his  chamberlain. "Are  you
acquainted with General Varana?"

"The Duke  of Anadile?  Of course, your Majesty.  A thoroughly professional
sort of fellow - solid, unassuming, extremely intelligent."

"He's an  old friend of  the family," Ran Borune  confided. "Ce'Nedra knows
him and she would listen to his advice. Why don't you go to him, Morin, and
suggest  that he  might want  to take a  leave of  absence - perhaps  go to
Algaria and have a look at things?"

"I'm certain that he'd  be overjoyed at the idea of a vacation," Lord Morin
agreed. "Garrison life in the summertime can be very tedious."

"It's just  a suggestion," the  Emperor stressed. "His presence  in the war
zone would have to be strictly unofficial."

"Naturally, your Majesty."

"And if he just  happened to make a few suggestions - or even provide a bit
of leadership,  we certainly wouldn't  have any knowledge of  it, would we?
After all,  what a private citizen does with his  own time is his business,
right?"

"Absolutely, your Majesty."

The Emperor grinned broadly.  "And we'll all stick to that story, won't we,
Morin?"

"Like glue, your Majesty," Morin replied gravely..

The crown prince of Drasnia burped noisily in his mother's ear, sighed, and
promptly fell  asleep on her  shoulder. Queen Porenn smiled  at him, tucked
him back  in his cradle, and  turned again to the  stringy-appearing man in
nondescript clothing who sprawled  in a nearby chair. The emaciated man was
known only  by the  peculiar name "Javelin."  Javelin was the  chief of the
Drasnian  intelligence  service  and  one  of  Porenn's  closest  advisers.

"Anyway," he continued his  report, "the Tolnedran girl's army is about two
days' march  from the Stronghold.  The engineers are moving  along ahead of
schedule  with the  hoists on top  of the  escarpment, and the  Chereks are
preparing  to  begin  the  portage  from  the  east  bank  of  the  Aldur."

"Everything seems  to be  going according to  plan, then," the  queen said,
resuming her seat at the polished table near the window.

"There's a  bit of trouble in Arendia,"  Javelin noted. "The usual ambushes
and bickerings  - nothing really serious.  Queen Layla's got the Tolnedran,
Bravor,  so completely off  balance that he  might as  well not even  be in
Sendaria."  He  scratched  at  his  long, pointed  jaw.  "There's  peculiar
information coming  out of Sthiss  Tor. The Murgos are  trying to negotiate
something,  but their  emissaries  keep dying.  We'll try  to  get somebody
closer to Sadi to  find out exactly what's going on. Let's see - what else?
Oh,  the  Honeths  have  finally  united behind  one  candidate-a  pompous,
arrogant jackass who's offended just about everybody in Tol Honeth. They'll
try  to  buy the  crown  for him,  but  he'd be  hopelessly incompetent  as
emperor. Even with all  their money, it's going to be difficult for them to
put  him  on  the  throne.  I  guess  that's  about  all,  your  Highness."

"I've had a letter from Islena in Val Alorn," Queen Porenn told him.

"Yes,    your   Highness,"    Javelin    replied   urbanely,    "I   know."

"Javelin, have you been  reading my mail again?" she demanded with a sudden
flash of irritation.

"Just trying  to stay current with  what's going on in  the world, Porenn."

"I've told you to stop that."

"You  didn't  really expect  me  to do  it,  did you?"  He seemed  actually
surprised.

She laughed. "You're impossible."

"Of course I am. I'm supposed to be."

"Can we get any help to Islena?"

"I'll put some people on it," he assured her. "We can probably work through
Merel, the wife of the Earl of Trellheim. She's starting to show some signs
of maturity and she's close to Islena."

"I think  we'd better  have a close  look at our  own intelligence service,
too,"  Porenn  suggested.  "Let's  pin down  everyone  who  might have  any
connections with the Bear-cult. The time might come when we'll have to take
steps."

Javelin nodded his agreement.

There was a light tapping at the door.

"Yes?" Porenn answered.

The door  opened and a servant  thrust his head into  the room. "Excuse me,
your Highness," he said,  "but there's a Nadrak merchant here - a man named
Yarblek. He  says he wants to  discuss the salmon run."  The servant looked
perplexed.

Queen Porenn  straightened in  her chair. "Send  him in," she  ordered, "at
once."





Chapter Nine

THE SPEECHES WERE over. The orations that had caused Princess Ce'Nedra such
agony  had done  their work,  and she  found herself  less and less  in the
center  of things.  At first the  days opened  before her full  of glorious
freedom.  The dreadful  anxiety  that had  filled  her at  the prospect  of
addressing vast  crowds of men two  or three times a  day was gone now. Her
nervous exhaustion  disappeared, and she  no longer awoke in  the middle of
the night trembling and terrified. For almost an entire week she reveled in
it,  luxuriated  in  it.  Then, of  course,  she  became dreadfully  bored.

The army  she had  gathered in Arendia  and northern Tolnedra  moved like a
great sea  in the foothills of Ulgoland.  The Mimbrate knights, their armor
glittering in  the bright sunlight and  their long, streaming, many-colored
pennons snapping  in the  breeze, moved at  the forefront of  the host, and
behind  them, spreading  out across  the rolling  green hills,  marched the
solid mass  of Ce'Nedra's  infantry, Sendars, Asturians, Rivans,  and a few
Chereks. And  there, solidly in the center,  forming the very core, marched
the  gleaming ranks  of  the legions  of Imperial  Tolnedra,  their crimson
standards aloft  and the  white plumes on  their helmets waving  in time to
their measured  steps. It was very stirring for the  first few days to ride
at the  head of the enormous force, moving at  her command toward the east,
but the novelty of it all soon wore thin.

Princess  Ce'Nedra's gradual  drift  away from  the center  of  command was
largely her own fault. The decisions now had to do more often than not with
logistics   -  tedious   little  details   concerning  bivouac   areas  and
field-kitchens -  and Ce'Nedra found discussions  of such matters tiresome.
Those   details,  however,   dictated  the   snail's  pace  of   her  army.

Quite suddenly, to everyone's astonishment, King Fulrach of Sendaria became
the  absolute commander of  the host. It  was he  who decided how  far they
would march each day, when they would rest and where they would set up each
night's encampment.  His authority derived directly  from the fact that the
supply wagons were his.  Quite early during the march down through northern
Arendia,  the dumpy-looking  Sendarian monarch  had taken  one look  at the
rather sketchy  plans the Alorn kings had drawn  up for feeding the troops,
had  shaken his  head in  disapproval, and  then had  taken charge  of that
aspect  of the  campaign himself.  Sendaria was  a land  of farms,  and her
storehouses bulged.  Moreover, at  certain seasons, every road  and lane in
Sendaria  crawled  with  wagons. With  an  almost  casual efficiency,  King
Fulrach  issued a  few  orders, and  soon whole  caravans of  heavily laden
wagons moved  down through Arendia to Tolnedra  and then turned eastward to
follow the army. The pace of the army was dictated by those creaking supply
wagons.

They were  only a few days into the Ulgo foothills  when the full weight of
King Fulrach's authority became clear.

"Fulrach," King  Rhodar of  Drasnia objected when  the King of  the Sendars
called a  halt for  yet another rest  period, "if we don't  move any faster
than this,  it will take us  all summer to get  to the eastern escarpment."

"You're exaggerating,  Rhodar," King Fulrach replied  mildly. "We're making
pretty good time. The supply wagons are heavy, and the wagon horses have to
be rested every hour."

"This  is impossible,"  Rhodar declared.  "I'm going  to pick up  the per,"

"That's up  to you,  of course." The brown-bearded  Sendar shrugged, coolly
eyeing Rhodar's vast paunch. "But if you exhaust my wagon horses today, you
won't eat tomorrow."

And that ended that.

The going in the steep passes of Ulgoland was even slower. Ce'Nedra entered
that land  of thick forests and rocky  crags with apprehension. She vividly
remembered the flight with  Grul the Eldrak and the attacks of the Algroths
and the Hrulgin that  had so terrified her that previous winter. There were
few meetings with the  monsters that lurked in the Ulgo mountains, however.
The  army  was  so  large that  even  the  fiercest  creatures avoided  it.
Mandorallen, the Baron of Vo Mandor, rather regretfully reported only brief
sightings.

"Mayhap if  I were to  ride a day's march  in advance of our  main force, I
might find  opportunity to engage  some of the more  frolicsome beasts," he
mused   aloud   one   evening,   staring  thoughtfully   into   the   fire.

"You never get enough, do you?" Barak asked him pointedly.

"Never mind,  Mandorallen," Polgara  told the great  knight. "The creatures
aren't  hurting us, and  the Gorim of  Ulgo would  be happier if  we didn't
bother them."

Mandorallen sighed.

"Is he always like that?" King Anheg asked Barak curiously.

"You have absolutely no idea," Barak replied.

The slow  march through Ulgoland, regardless of  how much it chafed Rhodar,
Brand, and Anheg, did, however, conserve the strength of the army, and they
came  down  onto  the   plains  of  Algaria  in  surprisingly  good  shape.

"We'll go  on to the Algarian Stronghold," King  Rhodar decided as the army
poured  down  out of  the  last  pass and  fanned  out  across the  rolling
grasslands. "We need to  regroup a bit, and I don't see any point in moving
to  the  base of  the  escarpment until  the  engineers are  ready for  us.
Besides, I'd  prefer not to announce the size of our  army to any Thull who
happens to glance down from the top of the cliff."

And  so, in  easy  stages, the  army  marched across  Algaria, trampling  a
mile-wide swath through the tall grass. Vast herds of cattle paused briefly
in their grazing to  watch with mild-eyed astonishment as the horde marched
by, then  returned to their  feeding under the protective  watch of mounted
Algar clansmen.

The  encampment that  was set  up around  the towering Stronghold  in south
central Algaria  stretched for miles,  and the watch fires  at night seemed
almost a reflection of the stars. Once she was comfortably quartered in the
Stronghold,  Princess Ce'Nedra  found  herself even  more removed  from the
day-to-day command of her troops. Her hours seemed filled with tedium. This
is  not to say  that she did  not receive  reports. A rigorous  schedule of
training was  instituted, in part  because large portions of  the army were
not professional soldiers, but  primarily to avoid the idleness that led to
discipline  problems.  Each   morning,  Colonel  Brendig,  the  sober-faced
Sendarian baronet who seemed utterly devoid of humor, reported the progress
of the  previous day's training with  excruciating thoroughness, along with
all sorts  of other tedious little  details - most of  which Ce'Nedra found
extremely distasteful.

One  morning after  Brendig  had respectfully  withdrawn, Ce'Nedra  finally
exploded. "If he mentions the word 'sanitation' one more time, I think I'll
scream," she declared to  Adara and Polgara. The princess was pacing up and
down, flinging her arms in the air in exasperation.

"It is  fairly important in an  army of this size,  Ce'Nedra," Adara calmly
pointed out.

"But  does  he have  to  talk  about it  all  the time?  It's a  disgusting
subject."

Polgara, who had been patiently teaching the little blond waif, Errand, how
to  lace up  his boots,  looked up,  assessed Ce'Nedra's  mood in  a single
glance, and  then made a suggestion. "Why don't  you young ladies take some
horses and go for  a ride? A bit of fresh air and exercise seems definitely
to be in order."

It  took only  a  short while  for them  to find  the blond  Mimbrate girl,
Ariana. They knew exactly  where to look. It took a bit longer, however, to
wrench  her away  from her  rapt contemplation  of Lelldorin  of Wildantor.
Lelldorin, with  the aid of his  cousin Torasin, was struggling  to teach a
group  of Arendish  serfs  the basics  of archery.  Torasin, a  fiery young
Asturian  patriot,  had joined  the  army  late. There  had been,  Ce'Nedra
gathered, some  unpleasantness between  two young men, but  the prospect of
war  and glory  had finally  been too  much for  Torasin to resist.  He had
overtaken the army in the western foothills of Ulgoland, mounted on a horse
half  dead from  hard riding.  His reconciliation  with Lelldorin  had been
emotional, and now the  two were closer than ever. Ariana, however, watched
only Lelldorin.  Her eyes glowed as  she gazed at him  with an adoration so
totally mindless that it was frightening.

The three girls, dressed in soft leather Algar riding clothes, cantered out
through the  encampment in bright midmorning  sunlight, followed inevitably
by Olban,  youngest son  of the Rivan  Warder, and a  detachment of guards.
Ce'Nedra did  not know exactly what to make of  Olban. Since a hidden Murgo
had made an attempt on her life in the Arendish forest, the young Rivan had
appointed  himself the  chief  of her  personal bodyguards,  and absolutely
nothing could  move him  to abandon that  duty. For some  reason, he seemed
almost  grateful for  the  opportunity to  serve, and  Ce'Nedra  was glumly
certain that only physical force could make him stop.

It  was  a  warm,  cloudless day,  and  the  blue  sky  stretched over  the
incredible expanse  of the Algarian  plain, where tall grass  bent before a
vagrant breeze.  Once they were out of  sight of the encampment, Ce'Nedra's
spirits rose  enormously. She rode  the white horse King  Cho-Hag had given
her,  a  patient,  even-tempered  animal she  had  named  Noble. Noble  was
probably not a  good name for him, since he was a  lazy horse. A great part
of his  placidity arose from the  fact that his new  owner was so tiny that
she had virtually no  weight. Moreover, in an excess of affection, Ce'Nedra
babied him outrageously, slipping apples and bits of sweets to him whenever
possible.  As a  result  of his  light exercise  and  rich diet,  Noble was
developing a noticeable portliness.

In the company of her two friends, and trailed by the watchful young Olban,
the  princess,  mounted on  her  stout  white horse,  rode  out across  the
grassland,  exulting in  the sense  of freedom  their ride brought  to her.

They reined  in at  the base of a  long, sloping hih to  rest their mounts.
Noble, pumping like a bellows, cast a reproachful look over his shoulder at
his  tiny mistress,  but  she heartlessly  ignored his  unspoken complaint.
"It's   an   absolutely   wonderful  day   for   a   ride,"  she   exclamed
enthusiastically.

Ariana sighed.

Ce'Nedra laughed at her. "Oh, come now, it's not as if Lelldorin were going
someplace, Ariana,  and it's  good for men  to miss us  a little  once in a
while."

Ariana smiled rather wanly, then sighed again.

"Perhaps it's  not as  good for us  to miss them,  however," Adara murmured
without any trace of a smile.

"What    is   that    lovely    fragrance?"   Ce'Nedra    asked   suddenly.

Adam lifted her porcelain  face to sniff at the light breeze, then suddenly
looked around  as if  trying to pinpoint  their exact location.  "Come with
me," she  said with an uncharacteristic  note of command in  her voice, and
she led them around  the base of the hill to the far side. About halfway up
the grassy  slope there was a patch of law,  dark green bushes covered with
pale  lavender  flowers.  There  had been  that  morning  a  hatch of  blue
butterflies, and the winged creatures hovered in an eostatic cloud over the
flowers. Without  pausing, Adara pressed  her mount up the  slope and swung
down from  her saddle.  There with a  low cry she  knelt almost reverently,
gathering the bushes in her arms as if embracing them.

When Ce'Nedra  drew closer, she was  amazed to see tears  welling up in her
gentle friend's  gray eyes, although Adara  was actually smifing. "Whatever
is wrong, Adara?" she asked.

"They're my  flowers," Adara replied in a  vibrant voice. "I didn't realize
that they'd grow and spread this way."

"What are you talking about?"

"Garion created  this flower last winter just for me.  There was only one -
just  one. I  saw  it come  into existence  right  there in  his  hand. I'd
forgotten it until just  now. Look how far it's spread in just one season."

Ce'Nedra felt a sudden  pang of jealousy. Garion had never created a flower
for  her. She  bent  and pulled  one of  the lavender  blooms from  a bush,
tugging  perhaps just  a bit  harder than  necessary. "It's  lopsided," she
sniffed, looking  at the flower  critically. Then she bit  her lip, wishing
she hadn't said that.

Adara gave her a quick look of protest.

"I'm only teasing, Adara," Ce'Nedra said quickly with a false little laugh.
In spite  of herself, still wanting  to find something else  wrong with the
flower, she  bent her face to  the small, crooked blossom  in her hand. Its
fragrance  seemed  to erase  all  of  her cares  and  to  lift her  spirits
tremendously.

Ariana had also dismounted, and she too was breathing in the gentle odor of
the flowers, although there was a slight frown on her face. "Might I gather
some few  of thy blossoms,  Lady Adara?" she inquired.  "Methinks they have
some strange property concealed within their blushing petals that may be of
some  interest to  Lady  Polgara -  some healing  agent  too subtle  for my
limited  familiarity   with  unguents  and  aromatic   herbs  to  discern."

Rather  predictably,  Ce'Nedra,  having  gone one  way,  suddenly  reversed
herself.  "Marvelous!"  she exclaimed,  clapping  her  hands with  delight.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if your flower turned out to be a great medicine,
Adara? Some miraculous cure?  We could call it 'Adara's rose,' and sick men
would bless your name forever."

"It doesn't exactly look like a rose, Ce'Nedra," Adara pointed out.

"Nonsense," Ce'Nedra  brushed the distinction aside.  "I'm supposed to be a
queen, after  all, so if  I say it's a  rose, then it's a  rose, and that's
that. We'll take the flowers back to Lady Polgara at once." She turned back
to her  tubby horse, who was  lazily regarding the flowers  as if wondering
whether or  not to eat a  few of them. "Come,  Noble," the princess said to
him with extravagant overstatement.  "We'll gallop back to the Stronghold."

Noble winced visibly at the word "gallop."

Polgara examined  the flowers carefully, but,  to the disappointment of the
princess  and  her  friends,  she  would  not  commit  herself  immediately
concerning  their  medicinal  value. A  bit  subdued,  the little  princess
returned quietly to her quarters and her duties.

Colonel Brendig was awaiting  her. Upon reflection, Ce'Nedra concluded that
Colonel  Brendig was by  far the most  practical man  she had ever  met. No
detail was  too small  for him. In  a lesser man, such  concern with little
things  might have  been passed  off as  mere fussiness, but  the colonel's
belief  that big  things were  made up  of little  things gave  his patient
attention to  detail a certain dignity.  He seemed to be  everywhere in the
camp; in his wake,  tent-ropes were tightened, cluttered heaps of equipment
were  arranged into neat  stacks, and  casually open doublets  were quickly
buttoned up.

"I  hope that  her  Majesty found  her ride  refreshing," the  colonel said
politely, bowing as Ce'Nedra entered the room.

"Thank you,  Colonel Brendig," the princess  replied. "My majesty did." She
was in a whimsical frame of mind, and it was always a delight to tease this
sober-faced Sendar.

A brief  smile touched Brendig's lips, and then  he immediately got down to
the business of the midday report. "I'm pleased to advise your majesty that
the  Drasnian   engineers  have  nearly  completed   the  hoists  atop  the
escarpment,"  he  reported.  "All  that  remains  is  the  rigging  of  the
counterweights   which   will   help   to  lift   the   Cherek   warships."

"That's nice,"  Ce'Nedra said with the  vacant, empty-headed smile she knew
drove him absolutely wild.

Brendig's jaw  tightened slightly, but  his face betrayed no  other sign of
his momentary flash of irritation. "The Chereks are beginning to remove the
masts  and rigging  from their  ships in  preparation for the  portage," he
continued, "and  the fortified  positions up on  top of the  escarpment are
several days ahead of schedule."

"How wonderful!"  Ce'Nedra exclaimed, clapping her  hands with a great show
of girlish delight.

"Your Majesty, please, " Brendig complained.

"I'm sorry,  Colonel Brendig," Ce'Nedra  apologized, affectionately patting
his hand.  "For some reason you  bring out the very  worst in me. Don't you
ever smile?"

He  looked at  her with an  absolutely straight  face. "I am  smiling, your
Majesty,"   he  said.   "Oh   -  you   have  a   visitor   from  Tolnedra."

"A visitor? Who?"

"A General Varana, the Duke of Anadile."

"Varana? Here? What on earth is he doing in Algaria? Is he alone?"

"There  are  a  number  of other  Tolnedran  gentlemen  with him,"  Brendig
replied.  "They aren't  in uniform,  but they  have the general  bearing of
military  men. They  say that  they're here  as private  observers. General
Varana  expressed  a  desire  to pay  his  respects  whenever  it might  be
convenient."

"Of course, Colonel Brendig,"  Ce'Nedra said with an enthusiasm that was no
longer feigned. "Please send for him at once."

Ce'Nedra had  known General Varana  since her earliest childhood.  He was a
stocky man  with graying, curly hair and a stiff left  knee that gave him a
noticeable limp.  He was blessed with that  wry, understated sense of humor
so  characteristic of  the  Anadilian family.  Of all  the noble  houses of
Tolnedra,  the  Borunes  were  most  comfortable with  the  Anadiles.  Both
families were southern, for  one thing, and the Anadiles usually sided with
the Borunes  in disputes with the powerful  families of the north. Although
Anadile was only a  duchy, there had never been any hint of subservience in
the family's alliances with the Grand Dukes of the House of Borune. Indeed,
Anadilian  dukes, more  often  than not,  poked  gentle fun  at their  more
powerful neighbors. Serious historians and statesmen had long considered it
a  misfortune for  the Empire that  the talented  House of Anadile  had not
enough   wealth  to   make  a   serious  bid   for  the   Imperial  Throne.

When  General   Varana  politely  limped  into   the  room  where  Ce'Nedra
impatiently awaited him, there was a faint smile hovering on his lips and a
quizzical lift to one  of his eyebrows. "Your Majesty," he greeted her with
a bow,

"Uncle Varana,"  the princess exclaimed, flying  to embrace him. Varana was
not,  in fact,  her  uncle, but  she had  always  thought of  him  as such.

"What  have  you  gone  and done  now,  my  little  Ce'Nedra?" He  laughed,
enfolding  her  in  his  thick-muscled  arms.  "You're  turning  the  world
upside-down, you know. What's  a Borune doing in the middle of Algaria with
an Alorn army at her back?"

"I'm going to invade Mishrak ac Thull," she declared impishly.

"Really? Whatever  for? Did  King Gethell of  Thulldom insult the  House of
Borune in some way? I hadn't heard about it."

"It's an Alorn matter," Ce'Nedra replied airily.

"Oh, I see. That  explains it, I suppose. Alorns don't need reasons for the
things they do."

"You're laughing at me," she accused him.

"Of course  I am, Ce'Nedra. The Anadiles have  been laughing at the Borunes
for thousands of years."

She pouted. "It's very serious, Uncle Varana."

"Naturally it is," he agreed, gently touching her out-thrust lower lip with
one thick finger, "but that's no reason not to laugh about it."

"You're  impossible,"  Ce'Nedra  said  helplessly,  laughing  in  spite  of
herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Observing," he told her.  "Generals do that a lot. You've got the only war
that's going on just  now, so several of us thought we'd drop by and have a
look. Morin suggested it."

"My father's chamberlain?"

"I think that's his function, yes."

"Morin wouldn't do that - not on his own."

"Really? What astonishing news."

Ce'Nedra frowned,  nibbling absently at a lock  of her hair. Varana reached
out  and  took the  lock  out from  between  her teeth.  "Morin doesn't  do
anything unless my father tells him to," Ce'Nedra mused, once again lifting
the curl to her lips.

Varana took the lock out of her fingers again.

"Don't do that," she told him.

"Why not? That's the way I broke you of sucking your thumb."

"This is different. I'm thinking."

"Think with your mouth closed."

"This was my father's idea, wasn't it?"

"I wouldn't presume to say I knew the Emperor's mind," he replied.

"Well, I would. What's that old fox up to?"

"That's hardly respectful, child."

"You say you're here to observe?''

He nodded.

"And perhaps make a few suggestions?"

He  shrugged. "If  anyone  cares to  listen. I'm  not here  officially, you
understand. Imperial policy forbids that. Your claim to the Riven throne is
not formally recognized in Tol Honeth."

She  cast a  sidelong  glance at  him through  her thick  eyelashes. "These
suggestions you might make  - if you happened to be near a Tolnedran legion
that seemed to  need a bit of direction, is it at  all possible that one of
these suggestions might be 'forward march?' "

"That situation might arise, yes," he admitted gravely.

"And you  have a number of  other officers of the  general staff with you?"

"I think several of them do, in fact, serve occasionally on that body." His
eyes were twinkling with suppressed mirth.

Ce'Nedra lifted  the lock again, and  General Varana took it  away from her
once more.

"How  would  you like  to  meet King  Rhodar  of Drasnia?"  she asked  him.

"I'd be honored to meet his Majesty."

"Why don't we go see him, then?"

"Why don't we?"

"Oh, I love you, Uncle." She laughed, throwing her arms about him again.

They found King Rhodar  in conference with the other leaders of the army in
a large airy chamber King Cho-Hag had set aside for their use. There was no
longer any pretence of formality among the leaders of the army, and most of
them   sprawled  in   comfortable   horsehide  chairs,   watching  as   the
crimson-robed Rhodar  measured off  distances with a  piece of string  on a
large map that covered one entire wall.

"It doesn't really seem all that far to me," he was saying to King Cho-Hag.

"That's because your map  is flat, Rhodar," Cho-Hag replied. "The country's
very hilly through there. Believe me, it will take three days."

King Rhodar  made an  indelicate sound of  disgust. "I guess  we'll have to
give up the idea, then. I'd like to burn out those forts, but I'm not going
to start ordering suicide missions. Three days' ride is just too far."

"Your Majesty," Ce'Nedra said politely.

"Yes, child?" Rhodar was still frowning at the map.

"I'd like for you to meet someone."

King Rhodar turned.

"Your Majesty," Ce'Nedra said  formally, "may I present his Grace, the Duke
of  Anadile?  General  Varana,   his  Majesty,  King  Rhodar  of  Drasnia."

The two  men bowed politely  to each other, their  eyes probing, assessing.

"The   general's    reputation   precedes   him,"    King   Rhodar   noted.

"But his Majesty's skill  as a military man has been kept a secret," Varana
replied.

"Do  you  think that  satisfies  the  demands of  courtesy?" Rhodar  asked.

"If not,  we can  both lie a  little bit later on  about how excruciatingly
polite we were to each other," Varana suggested.

King Rhodar flashed him a quick grin. "All right, what's Tolnedra's leading
tactician doing in Algaria?"

"Observing, your Majesty."

"You're going to stick to that story?"

"Naturally. For political reasons, Tolnedra must maintain a neutral posture
in  this affair. I'm  certain that  Drasnian intelligence has  briefed your
Majesty on  the realities of the situation. The five  spies you have in the
Imperial palace are thoroughly professional."

"Six, actually," King Rhodar noted in passing.

General Varana  raised one  eyebrow. "I suppose  we should have  known," he
said.

"It changes  from time to  time." Rhodar shrugged. "You  know our strategic
situation?"

"I've been filled in, yes."

"What's your assessment - as an observer?"

"You're in trouble."

"Thanks," Rhodar said dryly.

"The numbers dictate that you take a defensive posture."

Rhodar shook  his head. "That might  work if all we  had to worry about was
Taur Urgas  and the Southern Murgos, but 'Zakath  is landing more troops at
Thull Zelik  every day. If we fortify and try to  sit tight, and he decides
to move  against us, he'll be able to bury us  in Malloreans by autumn. The
key to  the whole  situation is putting  Anheg's fleet into the  Sea of the
East to  stop those  troop ships. We're  going to have  to gamble  a bit in
order to pull that off."

Varana studied the map. "If you're going to go down the River Mardu, you'll
have  to neutralize  the  Thullish capital,"  he said,  pointing  at T'hull
Mardu. "It's an island  - like Tol Honeth - and it's right in the middle of
the river.  You'll never  get a fleet  past it as  long as  a hostile force
holds it. You'll have to take the city."

"That had  already occurred to us," King Anheg  said from where he sprawled
in his chair with his ever-present ale cup in his hand.

"You know Anheg?" Rhodar asked the general.

Varana nodded.  "By reputation," he replied. He  bowed to King Anheg. "Your
Majesty," he said.

"General," Anheg responded, inclining his head.

"If Thull Mardu is  heavily defended, it will cost you a third of your army
to take it," Varana continued.

"We're going to lure the garrison out," Rhodar told him.

"How?"

"That's going  to be up to  Korodullin and me," King  Cho-Hag said quietly.
"Once we  get to the top of the escarpment,  the Mimbrate knights are going
to move  out and crush every city and town in  the uplands, and my clansmen
will strike  down into  the farming regions  to burn every  standing crop."

"They'll  realize that's  only a  diversion, your Majesty,"  Varana pointed
out.

"Naturally,"  Brand agreed  in his  rumbling voice,  "but a  diversion from
what? We  don't think  they'll fully realize  that Thull Mardu  is our main
objective.  We'll try  our  best to  make  our depredations  as general  as
possible. The  loss of those towns and crops  might be acceptable at first,
but it  won't be long before  they'll have to take  steps to protect them."

"And you  think they'll pull the garrison out of  Thull Mardu to meet you?"

"That's the idea," King Rhodar replied.

Varana  shook  his  head.  "They'll bring  Murgos  up  from  Rak Goska  and
Malloreans from  Thull Zelik. Then instead of a  quick raid on Thull Mardu,
you'll have a general war on your hands."

"That's  what you'd do,  General Varana,"  King Rhodar disagreed,  "but you
aren't 'Zakath  or Taur  Urgas. Our strategy's  based on our  assessment of
those two men. Neither of them will commit his forces unless he's convinced
that we pose a major threat. Each of them wants to save as much of his army
as possible.  In their  view, we're only  an incidental annoyance  - and an
excuse to  put an army into  the field. For them,  the real war starts when
they attack  each other. Each of  them will hold back,  and King Gethell of
the Thulls will have to meet us on his own with only token support from the
Murgos and the Malloreans. If we move fast enough, we'll have Anheg's fleet
into the  Sea of the East and all our troops  pulled back to the escarpment
before they realize what we're up to."

"And then?"

"And then Taur  Urgas will stay in Rak Goska as if  his foot were nailed to
the floor."  King Anheg chuckled. "I'll be in the  Sea of the East drowning
Malloreans by  the shipload, and he'll be cheering me  on every step of the
way."

"And 'Zakath won't dare  risk those troops he already has at Thull Zelik by
moving against us," Brand added. "If he loses too many men, Taur Urgas will
have the upper hand."

General  Varana considered  that. "A  three-way deadlock, then,"  he mused.
"Three armies  in the  same region, and  not one of them  willing to move."

"The  very best  kind  of war."  King Rhodar  grinned. "Nobody  gets hurt."

"Tactically, your only problem is gauging the severity of your raids before
you attack  Thull Mardu," Varana noted. "They'll  have to be serious enough
to  pull the  garrison out  of the  city, but  not so  serious as  to alarm
'Zakath  or  Taur Urgas.  That's  a  very fine  line  to walk,  gentlemen."

Rhodar nodded.  "That's why we're so  delighted to have Tolnedra's foremost
tactician here to advise us," he said, bowing floridly.

"Please,   your   Majesty,"   General   Varana  interposed,   lifting   one
hand."Suggest, not  advise. An  observer can only suggest.  The term advice
implies  partisanship that  is not  in line  with the Empire's  position of
strict neutrality."

"Ah,"  King  Rhodar  said.  He  turned  to  King  Cho-Hag.  "We  must  make
arrangements for  the comfort of the Imperial  suggester and his staff," he
declared with a broad grin.

Ce'Nedra watched with secret  delight as these two brilliant men began what
was obviously  going to be a firm friendship.  "I'll leave you gentlemen to
your  entertainments,"  she  told them.  "Military  discussions  give me  a
headache, so  I'll rely on you  not to get me  in trouble." She curtsied to
them with a winsome little smile and withdrew.

Two days later, Relg  arrived from Ulgoland with the contingent of his leaf
mailed countrymen sent by the Gorim. Taiba, who had hovered silently in the
background since  the army  had arrived at the  Stronghold, joined Ce'Nedra
and  Lady Polgara  to  greet the  Ulgos as  the  wagons which  carried them
creaked up the hill  toward the main gate. The beautiful Marag woman wore a
plain, even  severe, linen dress,  but her violet eyes  were glowing. Relg,
his  cowled leaf  mail shirt  covering his  head and shoulders  like lizard
skin, climbed down from  the lead wagon and only perfunctorily answered the
greetings  of Barak  and  Mandorallen. His  large eyes  searched  the group
gathered at  the gate  until they found  Taiba, and then a  kind of tension
seemed  to go  out of him.  Without speaking,  he walked toward  her. Their
meeting  was silent,  and  they did  not touch,  though Taiba's  hand moved
involuntarily toward  him several times. They  stood in the golden sunlight
with their  eyes lost in each other's faces,  drawing about them a profound
kind  of privacy that  absolutely ignored  the presence of  others. Taiba's
eyes remained  constantly on Relg's face, but there  was in them nothing of
that vacant, placid adoration  that filled Ariana's eyes when she looked at
Lelldorin. There was rather a question - even a challenge. Relg's answering
look  was  the  troubled  gaze  of  a  man torn  between  two  overpowering
compulsions.  Ce'Nedra watched  them  for a  few moments,  but  was finally
forced to avert her eyes.

The Ulgos were quartered in dim, cavernous rooms built into the foundations
of the Stronghold where  Relg could lead his countrymen through the painful
process of  adjusting their eyes to  the light of day  and training them to
ignore  the  unreasoning panic  which  assailed  all Ulgos  when they  were
exposed to the open sky.

That evening another smaller  contingent arrived from the south. Three men,
two in  white robes and one in filthy rags,  appeared at the gate demanding
entrance. The  Algars at the gate admitted  them immediately, and one guard
was  sent to  Lady  Polgara's candlelit  apartment to  inform her  of their
arrival.

"You'd  better  bring  them  here,"  she  advised  the poor  man,  who  was
ashen-faced and  trembling. "They haven't been in  the company of other men
for   a   very  long   time,   and   crowds  might   make  them   nervous."

"At once, Lady Polgara," the shaking Algar said, bowing. He hesitated for a
moment. "Would he really do that to me?" he blurted.

"Would who do what to you?"

"The ugly  one. He  said that he  was going to-" The  man stopped, suddenly
realizing to  whom he was speaking.  His face turned red.  "I don't think I
should repeat  what he  said, Lady Polgara -  but it was an  awful thing to
threaten a man with."

"Oh," she  said. "I believe I know what you mean.  It's one of his favorite
expressions.  I  think you're  safe.  He  only says  that  to get  people's
attention. I'm  not even sure you can do it to  somebody and keep him alive
at the same time."

"I'll bring them at once, Lady Polgara."

The sorceress turned to look at Ce'Nedra, Adara, and Ariana, who had joined
her for  supper. "Ladies," she  said gravely, "we're about  to have guests.
Two  of them  are the sweetest  men in the  world, but  the third is  a bit
uncontrolled in his use  of language. If you're at all sensitive about such
things, you'd better leave."

Ce'Nedra, remembering  her encounter with  the three in the  Vale of Aldur,
rose immediately.

"Not you,  Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her. "You'll  have to stay, I'm afraid."

Ce'Nedra swallowed hard. "I really would leave, if I were you," she advised
her friends.

"Is he that bad?" Adara asked. "I've heard men swear before."

"Not like this one," Ce'Nedra warned.

"You've  managed to  make  me very  curious." Adara  smiled. "I  think I'll
stay."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Ce'Nedra murmured.

Beltira and  Belkira were as  saintly as Ce'Nedra remembered  them, but the
misshapen Beldin  was even  uglier and nastier.  Ariana fled before  he had
even finished greeting Lady Polgara. Adara turned deathly pale, but bravely
kept her seat. Then  the hideous little man turned to greet Ce'Nedra with a
few  raucous questions  that made the  princess blush  to the roots  of her
hair. Adara prudently withdrew at that point.

"What's wrong with your  wenches, Pol?" Beldin asked innocently, scratching
at his matted hair. "They seemed a little vaporish."

"They're  well-bred ladies,  Uncle," Polgara replied.  "Certain expressions
are offensive to their ears."

"Is that  all?" He laughed coarsely.  "This redheaded one seems  a bit less
delicate."

"Your  remarks offend  me  as much  as  they offend  my companions,  Master
Beldin," Ce'Nedra  retorted stiffly, "but  I don't think I'll  be routed by
the foul mouthings of an ill-bred hunchback."

"Not bad," he complimented her, sprawling uncouthly in a chair, "but you've
got to learn to relax. An insult's got a certain rhythm and flow to it that
you haven't quite picked up yet."

"She's very young, Uncle," Polgara reminded him.

Beldin leered at the princess. "Isn't she, though?"

"Stop that," Polgara told him.

"We've come-"

"-to join your expedition," the twins said.

"Beldin feels-"

"-that you might encounter Grolims, and-"

"-need our help."

"Isn't that pathetic?" Beldin demanded. "They still haven't learned to talk
straight."  He  looked at  Polgara.  "Is  this all  the  army you've  got?"

"The   Chereks  will   be   joining  us   at  the   river,"   she  replied.

"You should have talked  faster," he told Ce'Nedra. "You haven't got nearly
enough  men. Southern  Murgos proliferate  like maggots  in dead  meat, and
Malloreans spawn like blowflies."

"We'll explain  our strategy to you in  good time, Uncle," Polgara promised
him. "We  are not going to  meet the armies of  Angarak head on. What we're
doing here is only diversionary."

He grinned  a hideous little grin.  "I'd have given a  lot to see your face
when  you found  out that Belgarath  had slipped  away from you,"  he said.

"I wouldn't dwell on  that, Master Beldin," Ce'Nedra advised. "Lady Polgara
was not  pleased by  Belgarath's decision, and  it might not  be prudent to
raise it again."

"I've seen Pol's little  tantrums before." He shrugged. "Why don't you send
somebody out for a pig or a sheep, Pol? I'm hungry."

"It's customary to cook it first, Uncle."

He looked puzzled. "What for?" he asked.





Chapter Ten

THREE  DAYS LATER  the army  began to  move out  from the  Algar Stronghold
toward the temporary encampment  the Algars had erected on the east bank of
the Aldur River. The troops of each nation moved in separate broad columns,
trampling a  vast track through  the knee-high grass. In  the center column
the  legions  of Tolnedra,  standards  raised,  marched with  parade-ground
perfection. The appearance of the legions had improved noticeably since the
arrival of General Varana  and his staff. The mutiny on the plains near Tol
Vordue had given Ce'Nedra  a large body of men, but no senior officers, and
once the danger of  surprise inspections was past, a certain laxity had set
in. General Varana had not mentioned the rust spots on the breastplates nor
the  generally unshaven  condition of  the troops.  His expression  of mild
disapproval  had seemed  to be  enough. The  hard-bitten sergeants  who now
commanded the  legions had taken one  look at his face  and had immediately
taken  steps. The  rust spots  vanished, and  shaving regularly  once again
became popular. There were,  to be sure, a few contusions here and there on
some freshly  shaved faces,  mute evidence that  the heavy-fisted sergeants
had found it necessary to vigorously persuade their troops that the holiday
was over.

To  one side  of the  legions rode  the glittering Mimbrate  knights, their
varicolored  pennons snapping in  the breeze  from the up-raised  forest of
their lances.  Their faces shone with  enthusiasm and little else. Ce'Nedra
privately suspected that a  large part of their fearsome reputation stemmed
from that abysmal lack of anything remotely resembling thought. With only a
little  encouragement,  a  force of  Mimbrates  would  cheerfully mount  an
assault on winter or a changing tide.

On the  other flank  of the marching legions  came the green -  and brown -
clad bowmen  of Asturia. The placement  was quite deliberate. The Asturians
were no more blessed  with intelligence than their Mimbrate cousins, and it
was generally considered prudent  to interpose other troops between the two
Arendish forces to avoid unpleasantness.

Beyond  the  Asturians marched  the  grim-faced  Rivans, all  in gray,  and
accompanying them  were the few Chereks who were  not with the fleet, which
even now  was in the process of being prepared for  the portage to the base
of the escarpment. Flanking  the Mimbrates marched the Sendarian militiamen
in their homemade uniforms, and at the rear of the host, the creaking lines
of King  Fulrach's supply wagons  stretched back to the  horizon. The Algar
clans,  however, did  not  ride in  orderly columns,  but rather  in little
groups  and clusters  as they  drove herds  of spare  horses and  half wild
cattle along on the extreme flanks of the host.

Ce'Nedra, in her armor  and mounted on her white horse, rode in the company
of General  Varana. She  was trying, without  much success, to  explain her
cause to him.

"My dear child," the  general said finally, "I'm a Tolnedran and a soldier.
Neither of those conditions  encourages me to accept any kind of mysticism.
My primary concerns at  this moment have to do with feeding this multitude.
Your supply lines stretch all the way back across the mountains and then up
through Arendia. That's a very long way, Ce'Nedra."

"King Fulrach's  taken care  of that, Uncle,"  she told him  rather smugly.
"All  the  time  we've  been marching,  his  Sendars  have been  freighting
supplies  along the  Great North  Road to  Aldurford and then  barging them
upriver to the camp. There are whole acres of supply dumps waiting for us."

General Varana  nodded approvingly.  "It appears that  Sendars make perfect
quartermasters," he observed. "Is he bringing weapons as well?"

"I think they said  something about that," Ce'Nedra replied. "Arrows, spare
lances for  the knights, that sort of thing. They  seemed to know what they
were doing, so I didn't ask too many questions."

"That's foolish,  Ce'Nedra," Varana  said bluntly. "When  you're running an
army, you should know every detail."

"I'm not  running the army, Uncle," she pointed  out. "I'm leading it. King
Rhodar's running it."

"And what will you do if something happens to him?"

Ce'Nedra suddenly went cold.

"You are  going to war, Ce'Nedra,  and people do get  killed and injured in
wars. You'd better start  taking an interest in what's going on around you,
my little  princess. Going  off to war  with your head wrapped  in a pillow
isn't going  to improve your chances  of success, you know."  He gave her a
very direct  look. "Don't  chew your fingernails, Ce'Nedra,"  he added. "It
makes your hands unsightly."

The encampment  at the  river was vast,  and in the very  center stood King
Fulrach's  main supply  dump, a  virtual city  of tents and  neatly stacked
equipment.  A  long  string  of flat-bottomed  barges  were  moored to  the
riverbank, patiently waiting to be unloaded.

"Your  people have been  busy," King  Rhodar observed to  the dumpy-looking
Sendarian monarch as they  rode along a narrow alleyway between mountainous
heaps of canvas-covered produce and stacks of stoutly boxed equipment. "How
did you know what to have them bring?"

"I  took notes  while we  were coming  down through Arendia,"  King Fulrach
replied. "It  wasn't too  hard to see what  we were going to  need - boots,
arrows, spare swords, and the like. At present, about all we're bringing in
is food.  The Algar  herds will provide fresh  meat, but men get  sick on a
steady diet of nothing but meat."

"You've already  got enough  food here to  feed the army for  a year," King
Anheg noted.

Fulrach shook  his head.  "Forty-five days," he  corrected meticulously. "I
want  thirty  days' worth  here  and  two weeks'  worth  in  the forts  the
Drasnians are  building up on top  of the escarpment. That's  our margin of
safety.  As long  as the  barges replenish  our food supplies  daily, we'll
always have  that much  on hand. Once  you decide what your  goals are, the
rest is just simple mathematics."

"How do you  know how much a man's going to eat  in one day?" Rhodar asked,
eyeing  the high-piled  foodstuffs. "Some  days I'm hungrier  than others."

Fulrach shrugged.  "It averages out. Some  eat more, some eat  less; but in
the end, it all comes out about the same."

"Fulrach, sometimes  you're so  practical, you almost make  me sick," Anheg
said.

"Somebody has to be."

"Don't you Sendars have any sense of adventure? Don't you ever do something
without planning it all out in advance?"

"Not  if   we  can  help   it,"  the  King  of   Sendaria  replied  mildly.

Near the  center of  the supply-dump a  number of large  pavilions had been
erected for the use  of the leaders of the army and their supporting staff.
About  midafternoon, after  she  had bathed  and changed  clothes, Princess
Ce'Nedra  went   over  to  the  main  tent   to  see  what  was  happening.

"They're  anchored about  a  mile downriver,"  Barak was  reporting  to his
cousin. "They've been here  for about four days now. Greldik's more or less
in charge."

"Greldik?" Anheg looked surprised. "He doesn't have any official position."

"He  knows the  river." Barak  shrugged. "Over  the years he's  sailed just
about any  place where there's water  and a chance to  make some profit. He
tells me  that the  sailors have been  drinking pretty steadily  since they
anchored. They know what's coming."

Anheg chuckled.  "We'd better  not disappoint them, then.  Rhodar, how much
longer will it be before your engineers are ready to start lifting my ships
ap the escarpment?"

"A  week or  so,"  King Rhodar  replied, looking  up from  his midafternoon
snack.

"It will be close  enough," Anheg concluded. He turned back to Barak. "Tell
Greldik that we'll start  the portage tomorrow morning - before the sailors
have time to sober up."

Ce'Nedra had  not fully understood the meaning  of the word "portage" until
she arrived  the following  morning at the  riverbank to find  the sweating
Chereks hauling their ships  out of the water and manhandling them along by
main strength  on wooden rollers. She was appalled  at the amount of effort
required to move a ship even a few inches.

She was  not alone in that.  Durnik the smith took  one shocked look at the
procedure  and immediately went  looking for  King Anheg. "Excuse  me, your
Honor," he said respectfully, "but isn't this bad for the boats -as well as
the men?"

"Ships," Anheg corrected. "They're called ships. A boat is something else."

"Whatever you  call them - won't banging them  along over those logs spring
their seams?"

Anheg shrugged.  "They all leak quite a bit  anyway," he replied. "And it's
always been done this way."

Durnik quickly saw the futility of trying to talk to the King of Cherek. He
went instead to Barak,  who was rather glumly considering the huge ship his
crew had  rowed upriver to meet him. "She  looks very impressive when she's
afloat," the big red-bearded man was saying to his friend, Captain Greldik,
"but I think she'll be even more impressive when we have to pick her up and
carry her."

"You're the  one who  wanted the biggest warship  afloat," Greldik reminded
him with a broad  smirk. "You'll have to buy enough ale to float that whale
of yours  before your  crew's drunk enough to  try to portage her  - not to
mention the fact that it's customary for a captain to join in when the time
comes to portage."

"Stupid custom," Barak growled sourly.

"I'd  say  that you're  in  for a  bad  week, Barak."  Greldik's grin  grew
broader.

Durnik took  the two  seamen aside and  began talking earnestly  with them,
drawing diagrams  on the sandy riverbank with a  stick. The more he talked,
the more interested they became.

What emerged  from their  discussions a day  later were a  pair of lowslung
cradles  with a  dozen  wheels on  each side.  As the  rest of  the Chereks
jeered, the two ships were carefully slid out of the water onto the cradles
and firmly lashed in place. The jeering faded noticeably, however, when the
crews  of the  two  ships began  trundling  their craft  across the  plain.
Hettar, who  happened to ride by, watched for a  few moments with a puzzled
frown. "Why  are you pulling them  by hand," he asked,  "when you're in the
middle of the largest herd of horses in the world?"

Barak's eyes went very wide, and then an almost reverent grin dawned on his
face.

The jeers that had risen as Barak's and Greldik's ships had been maneuvered
onto their wheeled carriages turned rather quickly into angry mutterings as
the carnages,  pulled by teams of  Algar horses, rolled effortlessly toward
the  escarpment past  men straining  with every  ounce of strength  to move
their ships a few  inches at a time. To leave it all to artistry, Barak and
Greldik ordered their men to lounge indolently on the decks of their ships,
drinking ale and playing dice.

King Anheg  stared very hard at  his impudently grinning cousin  as the big
ship rolled past. His expression was profoundly offended. "That's going too
far!" he exploded, jerking off his dented crown and throwing it down on the
ground.

King Rhodar  put on a perfectly  straight face. "I'd be  the first to admit
that it's  probably not nearly as  good as moving them  by hand, Anheg. I'm
sure  there are  some rather  profound philosophical  reasons for  all that
sweating and grunting and  cursing, but it is faster, wouldn't you say? And
we really ought to move right along with this."

"It's unnatural," Anheg growled, still glaring at the two ships, which were
already several hundred yards away.

Rhodar shrugged. "Anything's unnatural the first time you try it."

"I'll think about it," Anheg said darkly.

"I wouldn't  think for too  long," Rhodar suggested. "Your  popularity as a
monarch is  going to go downhill with every mile -  and Barak's the sort of
man who'll  parade that contraption of his back and  forth in front of your
sailors every step of the way to the escarpment."

"He would do that, wouldn't he?"

"I think you can count on it."

King Anheg sighed bitterly.  "Go fetch that unwhole-somely clever Sendarian
blacksmith,"  he sourly  instructed one  of his  men. "Let's get  this over
with."

Later that day the  leaders of the army gathered again in the main tent for
a strategy meeting. "Our  biggest problem now is to conceal the size of our
forces," King  Rhodar told them all. "Instead  of marching everybody to the
escarpment all at once and then milling around at the base of the cliff, it
might be  better to move the  troops in small contingents  and have them go
directly up to the forts on top as soon as they arrive."

"Will  such  a piecemeal  approach  not  unduly delay  our progress?"  King
Korodullin asked.

"Not all that much," Rhodar replied. "We'll move your knights and Cho-Hag's
clansmen up first so you can start burning cities and crops. That will give
the  Thulls something  to think  about beside  how many  infantry regiments
we're  bringing   up.  We  don't  want   them  to  start  counting  noses."

"Couldn't we build false campfires and so on to make it appear that we have
more men?" Lelldorin suggested brightly.

"The  whole idea  is to make  our army  appear smaller, not  bigger," Brand
explained gently  in his deep voice. "We don't want  to alarm Taur Urgas or
'Zakath sufficiently  to make them commit their forces.  It will be an easy
campaign  if all we  have to deal  with are  King Gethell's Thulls.  If the
Murgos  and the  Malloreans intervene,  we'll be  in for a  serious fight."

"And that's the one  thing we definitely want to avoid," King Rhodar added.

"Oh," Lelldorin said, a bit abashed, "I didn't think of that." A slow flush
rose in his cheeks.

"Lelldorin," Ce'Nedra said, hoping  to help him cover his embarrassment, "I
think I'd  like to go  out and visit with  the troops for a  bit. Would you
accompany me?"

"Of course, your Majesty," the young Asturian agreed, quickly rising to his
feet.

"That's not  a bad idea,"  Rhodar agreed. "Encourage them  a bit, Ce'Nedra.
They've   walked  a  long   way,  and   their  spirits  may   be  sagging."

Lelldorin's  cousin Torasin,  dressed  in his  customary black  doublet and
hose, also rose to his feet. "I'll go along, if I may," he said. He grinned
rather  impudently at  King Korodullin.  "Asturians are good  plotters, but
rather poor strategists, so  I probably wouldn't be able to add much to the
discussions."

The King of Arendia smiled at the young man's remark. "Thou art pert, young
Torasin,  but methinks thou  art not so  fervent an  enemy of the  crown of
Arendia as thou dost pretend."

Torasin  bowed extravagantly,  still grinning.  Once they were  outside the
tent, he  turned to Lelldorin. "I could almost learn to  like that man - if
it weren't for all those thees and thous," he declared.

"It's not  so bad  - once you  get used to it,"  Lelldorin replied. Torasin
laughed. "If I had someone as pretty as Lady Ariana for a friend, she could
thee me and thou me all she wanted," he said. He looked archly at Ce'Nedra.
"Which  troops  did you  wish  to  encourage, your  Majesty?" he  bantered.

"Let's  visit your Asturian  countrymen," she  decided. "I don't  think I'd
care to  take you two into the Mimbrate camp -  unless your swords had been
taken   away   from   you   and  your   mouths   had   been  bricked   up."

"Don't you trust us?" Lelldorin asked.

"I know  you," she replied with  a little toss of  her head. "Where are the
Asturians encamped?"

"That way,"  Torasin answered, pointing toward the  south end of the supply
dump.

Smells  of cooking  were  carried by  the breeze  from the  Sendarian field
kitchens, and  those smells reminded the  princess of something. Instead of
randomly  circulating among  the  Asturian tents,  she found  herself quite
deliberately searching for some specific people.

She found  Lammer and Detton, the two serfs who had  joined her army on the
outskirts  of Vo  Wacune,  finishing their  afternoon  meal in  front of  a
patched tent. They both  looked better fed than they had when she had first
seen  them, and  they were  no longer  dressed in  rags. When they  saw her
approaching, they scrambled awkwardly to their feet.

"Well, my friends," she asked, trying to put them at ease, "how do you find
army life?"

"We don't  have anything to complain  about, your Ladyship," Detton replied
respectfully.

"Except for  all the  walking," Lammer added.  "I hadn't realized  that the
world was this big."

"They  gave us boots,"  Detton told her,  holding up  one foot so  that she
could see his boot.  "They were a bit stiff at first, but the blisters have
all healed now."

"Are you getting enough to eat?" Ce'Nedra asked them.

"Plenty," Lammer said. "The  Sendars even cook it for us. Did you know that
there aren't  any serfs in the kingdom of the  Sendars, my Lady? Isn't that
astonishing? It gives a man something to think about."

"It does  indeed," Detton agreed.  "They grow all that  food, and everybody
always has plenty  to eat and clothes to wear and a  house to sleep in, and
there's not a single serf in the whole kingdom."

"I see  that they've given  you equipment, too," the  princess said, noting
that  the two  now wore  conical leather  helmets and stiff  leather vests.

Lammer nodded  and pulled off his  helmet. "It's got steel  plates in it to
keep a  man from getting his brains knocked out,"  he told her. "They lined
us all up as soon as we got here and gave every man a helmet and these hard
leather tunics."

"They gave each of us a spear and a dagger, too," Detton said.

"Have they showed you how to use them?" Ce'Nedra asked.

"Not  yet, your  Ladyship,"  Detton replied.  "We've been  concentrating on
learning how to shoot arrows."

Ce'Nedra turned  to her two companions. "Could  you see that somebody takes
care of  that?" she  said. "I want  to e sure  that everybody  knows how to
defend himself, at least."

"We'll see to it, your Majesty," Lelldorin answered.

Not  far away,  a young serf  was seated  cross-legged in front  of another
tent. He  lifted a handmade flute  to his lips and  began to play. Ce'Nedra
had  heard some  of the  finest musicians  in the  world performing  at the
palace  in Tol Honeth,  but the serf  boy's flute  caught at her  heart and
brought tears  to her eyes. His melody soared toward  the azure sky like an
unfettered lark.

"How exquisite," she exclaimed.

Lammer nodded. "I don't know much about music," he said, "but the boy seems
to play well. It's a shame he's not right in the head."

Ce'Nedra looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"He comes from a village in the southern part of the forest of Arendia. I'm
told it's a very poor village and that the lord of the region is very harsh
with his  serfs. The boy's an  orphan, and he was  put to watching the cows
when he was young. One time one of the cows strayed, and the boy was beaten
half to death. He can't talk any more."

"Do you know his name?"

"Nobody seems  to know it," Detton replied. "We  take turns looking out for
him - making sure  he's fed and has a place to sleep. There's not much else
you can do for him."

A small  sound came from Lelldorin, and Ce'Nedra  was startled to see tears
streaming openly down the earnest young man's face.

The  boy continued his  playing, his  melody heartbreakingly true,  and his
eyes sought  out Ce'Nedra's and met them with  a kind of grave recognition.

They did not stay much longer. The princess knew that her rank and position
made  the two  serfs uncomfortable. She  had made  sure that they  were all
right and  that her promise to  them was being kept,  and that was all that
really mattered.

As Ce'Nedra, Lelldorin, and  Torasin walked toward the camp of the Sendars,
they suddenly  heard the sound of  squabbling on the other  side of a large
tent.

"I'll pile it any place I want to," one man was saying belligerently.

"You're blocking the street," another man replied.

"Street?"  the first  snorted. "What  are you  talking about? This  isn't a
town. There aren't any streets."

"Friend," the  second man explained with  exaggerated patience, "we have to
bring the  wagons through here to  get to the main  supply dump. Now please
move your equipment so  I can get through. I still have a lot to do today."

"I'm not going to take orders from a Sendarian teamster who's found an easy
way to avoid fighting. I'm a soldier."

"Really?"  the Sendar  replied dryly.  "How much  fighting have  you seen?"

"I'll fight when the time comes."

"It may come quicker  than you'd expected if you don't get your gear out of
my way. If I have to get down off this wagon to move it myself, it's likely
to make me irritable."

"I'm all weak with fright," the soldier retorted sarcastically.

"Are you going to move it?"

"No."

"I tried to warn you, friend," the teamster said in a resigned tone.

"If you touch my gear, I'll break your head."

"No. You'll try to break my head."

There was a sudden  sound of scuffling and several heavy blows. "Now get up
and move  your gear like I  told you to," the  teamster said. "I don't have
all day to stand around and argue with you."

"You hit me when I wasn't looking," the soldier complained.

"Do you want to watch the next one coming?"

"All right, don't get excited. I'm moving it."

"I'm glad we understand each other."

"Does that sort of thing happen very often?" Ce'Nedra asked quietly.

Torasin, grinning  broadly, nodded. "Some  of your troops feel  the need to
bluster, your  Majesty," he  replied, "and the  Sendarian wagoneers usually
don't  have the time  to listen.  Fistfights and streetbrawling  are second
nature to those fellows, so their squabbles with the soldiers almost always
end up the same way. It's very educational, really."

"Men!" Ce'Nedra said.

In the  camp of  the Sendars they met  Durnik. With him there  was an oddly
matched pair of young men.

"A couple of old friends," Durnik said as he introduced them. "Just arrived
on  the supply  barges. I think  you've met  Rundorig, Princess. He  was at
Faldor's farm when we visited there last winter."

Ce'Nedra did  in fact remember  Rundorig. The tall, hulking  young man, she
recalled, was the one who was going to marry Garion's childhood sweetheart,
Zubrette. She greeted him  warmly and gently reminded him that they had met
before. Rundorig's  Arendish background  made his mind  move rather slowly.
His  companion, however, was  anything but  slow. Durnik introduced  him as
Doroon, another of Garion's boyhood friends. Doroon was a small, wiry young
man with  a protruding Adam's apple and slightly  bulging eyes. After a few
moments of  shyness, his  tongue began to run  away with him. It  was a bit
hard to  follow Doroon. His mind  flitted from idea to  idea, and his mouth
raced along breathlessly, trying to keep up.

"It was sort of rough going up in the mountains, your Ladyship," he replied
in answer  to her question about  their trip from Sendaria,  "what with how
steep the road was and all. You'd think that as long as the Tolnedrans were
building a highway, they'd have picked leveler ground - but they seem to be
fascinated by  straight lines - only  that's not always the  easiest way. I
wonder why they're like that." The fact that Ce'Nedra herself was Tolnedran
seemed not to have registered on Doroon.

"You came along the Great North Road?" she asked him.

"Yes -  until we  got to a place  called Aldurford. That's a  funny kind of
name, isn't it? Although it makes sense if you stop and think about it. But
that was  after we got out  of the mountains where  the Murgos attacked us.
You've never seen such a fight."

"Murgos?"  Ce'Nedra asked him  sharply, trying  to pin down  his skittering
thoughts.

He nodded eagerly. "The  man who was in charge of the wagons - he's a great
big fellow  from Muros, I think  he said - wasn't it  Muros he said he came
from, Rundorig?  Or maybe it was Camaar - for some  reason I always get the
two mixed up. What was I talking about?"

"The Murgos," Durnik supplied helpfully.

"Oh, yes. Anyway, the  man in charge of the wagons said that there had been
a lot  of Murgos in Sendaria before the war.  They pretended that they were
merchants, but  they weren't - they were spies.  When the war started, they
all went up into  the mountains, and now they come out of the woods and try
to  ambush our  supply  wagons -  but we  were ready  for them,  weren't we
Rundorig? Rundorig  hit one of the  Murgos with a big  stick when the Murgo
rode past  our wagon  - knocked him  clear off his horse.  Whack! Just like
that! Knocked  him clear off his horse. I'll  bet he was surprised." Doroon
laughed  a  short  little  laugh, and  then  his  tongue  raced off  again,
describing  in  jerky,  helter-skelter   detail  the  trip  from  Sendaria.

Princess Ce'Nedra  was strangely  touched by her meeting  with Garion's two
old friends.  She felt, moreover, a  tremendous burden of responsibility as
she realized  that she had reached into almost every  life in the west with
her campaign. She had  separated husbands from their wives and fathers from
their children; and she  had carried simple men, who had never been further
than the  next village, a thousand leagues and more to  fight in a war they
probably did not even begin to understand.

The next morning the  leaders of the army rode the few remaining leagues to
the installations  at the  base of the  escarpment. As they  topped a rise,
Ce'Nedra reined  Noble in sharply and  gaped in openmouthed astonishment as
she  saw the  eastern  escarpment for  the first  time. It  was impossible!
Nothing could  be so vast! The  great black cliff reared  itself above them
like  an enormous  wave of  rock, frozen  and forever marking  the boundary
between  east and  west,  and seemingly  blocking any  possibility  of ever
passing in either direction. It immediately stood as a kind of stark symbol
of the division between  the two parts of the world - a division that could
no  more   be  resolved   than  that  enormous  cliff   could  be  leveled.

As they rode closer,  Ce'Nedra noted a great deal of bustling activity both
at  the foot  of  the escarpment  and along  its  upper rim.  Great hawsers
stretched  down from  overhead,  and Ce'Nedra  saw elaborately  intertwined
pulleys along the foot of the huge cliffs.

"Why  are the  pulleys at  the bottom?"  King Anheg  demanded suspiciously.

King Rhodar shrugged. "How should I know? I'm not an engineer."

"All right, if  you're going to be that way about it,  I'm not going to let
your people touch a  single one of my ships until somebody tells me why the
pulleys are down here instead of up there."

King  Rhodar  sighed  and  beckoned to  an  engineer  who was  meticulously
greasing a huge pulley block. "Have you got a sketch of the rigging handy?"
the portly monarch asked the grease-spattered workman.

The  engineer nodded,  pulled a  rolled sheet  of grimy parchment  out from
under his tunic, and handed it to his king. Rhodar glanced at it and handed
it to Anheg.

Anheg stared  at the  complex drawing, struggling  to trace out  which line
went where, and more importantly why it went there. "I can't read this," he
complained.

"Neither can  I," Rhodar told him  pleasantly, "but you wanted  to know why
the pulleys are down  here instead of up there. The drawing tells you why."

"But I can't read it."

"That's not my fault."

Not far  away a  cheer went up  as a boulder  half the size of  a house and
entwined in  a nest of ropes rose majestically up the  face of the cliff to
the accompaniment of a vast creaking of hawsers.

"You'll  have  to  admit  that  that's  impressive,  Anheg,"  Rhodar  said.
"Particularly when  you note that the entire rock  is being lifted by those
eight horses over there  - with the help of that counterweight, of course."
He pointed at another  block of stone which was just as majestically coming
down from the top of the escarpment.

Anheg squinted  at the two rocks. "Durnik," he  said over his shoulder, "do
you understand how all those work?"

"Yes,  King Anheg,"  the  smith replied.  "You see,  the  counterweight off
balances the-"

"Don't explain  it to me, please," Anheg said. "As  long as somebody I know
and   trust    understands,   that's   all    that's   really   important."

Later that  same day,  the first Cherek ship  was lifted to the  top of the
escarpment.  King Anheg  watched the  procedure for  a moment or  two, then
winced  and  turned  his  back. "It's  unnatural,"  he  muttered to  Barak.

"You've taken  to using that expression a  great deal lately," Barak noted.

Anheg scowled at his cousin.

"I just mentioned it, that's all," Barak said innocently.

"I don't like changes, Barak. They make me nervous."

"The world moves on, Anheg. Things change every day."

"That doesn't necessarily mean  that I have to like it," the King of Cherek
growled. "I think I'll go to my tent for a drink or two."

"Want some company?" Barak offered.

"I  thought  you  wanted  to stand  around  and  watch  the world  change."

"It can do that without my supervision."

"And probably  will," Anheg  added moodily. "All  right, let's go.  I don't
want to  watch this  anymore." And the  two of them  went off  in search of
something to drink.





Chapter Eleven

MAYASERANA,  QUEEN  OF Arendia,  was  in a  pensive  mood. She  sat at  her
embroidery in the large, sunny nursery high in the palace at Vo Mimbre. Her
infant son, the crown prince of Arendia, cooed and gurgled in his cradle as
he  played with  the string  of brightly  colored beads  that had  been the
ostensible gift  of the crown  prince of Drasnia. Mayaserana  had never met
Queen Porenn,  but the shared  experience of motherhood made  her feel very
close to the reputedly  exquisite little blonde on her far northern throne.

Seated in  a chair not far from the queen sat  Nerina, Baroness of Vo Ebor.
Each lady  wore velvet, the queen in deep purple,  and the Baroness in pale
blue, and  each wore the high,  conical white head-dress so  admired by the
Mimbrate  nobility. At  the  far end  of the  nursery, an  elderly lutanist
softly played a mournful air in a minor key.

The Baroness Nerina appeared to be even more melancholy than her queen. The
circles beneath her eyes had grown deeper and deeper in the weeks since the
departure  of the  Mimbrate  knights, and  she seldom  smiled.  Finally she
sighed and laid aside her embroidery.

"The sadness  of thy heart doth resound in  thy sighing, Nerina," the queen
said gently. "Think not so of dangers and separation, lest thy spirits fail
thee utterly."

"Instruct me in the  art of banishing care, Highness," Nerina replied, "for
I am in  sore need of such teaching. My heart is  bowed beneath a burden of
concern, and  try though I might to control  them, my thoughts, like unruly
children,  return ever  to the  dreadful peril  of my  absent lord  and our
dearest friend."

"Be comforted  in the knowledge that thy burden is  shared by every lady in
all of Mimbre, Nerina."

Nerina sighed  again. "My  care, however, lies in  more mournful certainty.
Other ladies, their affections  firm-fixed on one beloved, can dare to hope
that he might return  from dreadful war unscathed; but I, who love two, can
find no  reason for such optimism. I must needs lose  one at the least, and
the prospect doth crush my soul."

There was  a quiet dignity in Nerina's  open acceptance of the implications
of the  two loves that had become so entwined in  her heart that they could
no  longer be  separated.  Mayaserana, in  one  of those  brief flashes  of
insight which so sharply illuminated understanding, perceived that Nerina's
divided heart lay at  the very core of the tragedy that had lifted her, her
husband, and Sir Mandorallen into the realms of sad legend. If Nerina could
but love  one more than the other, the tragedy  would end, but so perfectly
balanced was  her love  for her husband  with her love  for Sir Mandorallen
that she had reached a point of absolute stasis, forever frozen between the
two of them.

The queen sighed. Nerina's divided heart seemed somehow a symbol of divided
Arendia, but, though the gentle heart of the suffering baroness might never
be  made one, Mayaserana  was resolved to  make a  last effort to  heal the
breach between  Mimbre and  Asturia. To that  end, she had  summoned to the
palace a deputation of the more stable leaders of the rebellious north, and
her summons had appeared  over a title she rarely used, Duchess of Asturia.
At her instruction, the  Asturians were even now drawing up a list of their
grievances for her consideration.

Later  on that  same sunny  afternoon, Mayaserana  sat alone on  the double
throne of  Arendia, painfully aware  of the vacancy beside  her. The leader
and spokesman  of the  group of Asturian  noblemen was a  Count Reldegen, a
tall, thin man with  iron gray hair and beard, who walked with the aid of a
stout cane.  Reldegen wore a rich  green doublet and black  hose, and, like
the rest of the deputation, his sword was belted at his side. The fact that
the Asturians  came armed into the queen's  presence had stirred some angry
muttering,  but Mayaserana  had  refused to  listen to  urgings  that their
weapons be taken from them.

"My Lord Reldegen," the  queen greeted the Asturian as he limped toward the
throne.

"Your Grace," he replied with a bow.

"Your  Majesty, "  a Mimbrate  courtier corrected  him in a  shocked voice.

"Her Grace  summoned us as  the Duchess of Asturia,"  Reldegen informed the
courtier coolly. "That title commands more respect from us than other, more
recent embellishments."

"Gentlemen, please,"  the queen said firmly.  "Prithee, let us not commence
hostilities  anew. Our  purpose  here is  to examine  the  possibilities of
peace. I  entreat thee,  my Lord Reldegen,  speak to the  purpose. Unburden
thyself of  the causes of that  rancor which hath so  hardened the heart of
Asturia.  Speak freely,  my  Lord, and  with no  fear  of reprisal  for thy
words." She  looked quite sternly at her advisers.  "It is our command that
no man be taken to task for what is spoken here."

The Mimbrates  glowered at  the Asturians, and the  Asturians scowled back.

"Your Grace,"  Reldegen began, "our  chief complaint lies, I  think, in the
simple fact  that our Mimbrate overlords refuse  to recognize our titles. A
title's an  empty thing, really, but it  implies a responsibility which has
been denied  to us.  Most of us  here are indifferent to  the privileges of
rank, but  we keenly  feel the frustration  of being refused  the chance to
discharge  our obligations. Our  most talented  men are compelled  to waste
their lives  in idleness, and might I point out,  your Grace, that the loss
of   that  talent  injures   Arendia  even   more  than  it   injures  us."

"Well spoken, my Lord," the queen murmured.

"Might I respond, your  Majesty," the aged, white-bearded Baron of Vo Serin
inquired.

"Certainly, my Lord," Mayaserana replied. "Let us all be free and open with
one another."

"The titles of the Asturian gentlemen are theirs for the asking," the baron
declared. "For five centuries  the crown hath awaited but the required oath
of fealty  to bestow them. No title may be  granted or recognized until its
owner swears allegiance to the crown."

"Unfortunately, my  Lord," Reldegen said,  "we are unable to  so swear. The
oaths of  our ancestors to the  Duke of Asturia are  still in force, and we
are still bound by them."

"The Asturian Duke of  whom thou speakest died five hundred years ago," the
old baron reminded him.

"But his  line did not die  with him," Reldegen pointed  out. "Her Grace is
his  direct descendant,  and our  pledges of  loyalty are still  in force."

The queen  stared first  at one and then  at the other. "I  pray thee," she
said, "correct me if my perception is awry. Is the import of what hath been
revealed here  that Arendia hath been  divided for half a  millennium by an
ancient formality?"

Reldegen pursed his lips thoughtfully. "There's a bit more to it than that,
your  Grace,  but  that   does  seem  to  be  the  core  of  the  problem."

"Five hundred years of strife and bloodshed over a technicality?"

Count Reldegen  struggled with it.  He started to speak  several times, but
broke off each time with a look of helpless perplexity. In the end he began
to laugh. "It is  sort of Arendish, isn't it?" he asked rather whimsically.

The  old Baron  of Vo Serin  gave him a  quick look,  then he too  began to
chuckle. "I  pray thee, my Lord Reldegen, lock  this discovery in thy heart
lest we  all become  the subject of  general mirth. Let us  not confirm the
suspicion   that  abject   stupidity   is  our   most  prevailing   trait."

"Why was  this absurdity  not discovered previously?"  Mayaserana demanded.

Count Reldegen  shrugged sadly. "I suppose  because Asturians and Mimbrates
don't talk  to each other, your  Grace. We were always  too eager to get to
the fighting."

"Very  well," the  queen said  crisply, "what  is required to  rectify this
sorry confusion?"

Count Reldegen looked at the Baron. "A proclamation perhaps?" he suggested.

The old  man nodded thoughtfully. "Her Majesty  could release thee from thy
previous oath. It hath not been common practice, but there are precedents."

"And   then  we   all   swear  fealty   to  her   as  Queen   of  Arendia?"

"That would seem to satisfy all the demands of honor and propriety."

"But I'm the same person, am I not?" the queen objected.

"Technically thou art not, your Majesty," the baron explained. "The Duchess
of Asturia and the  Queen of Arendia are separate entities. Thou art indeed
two persons in one body."

"This is most confusing, gentlemen," Mayaserana observed.

"That's probably  why no one noticed it  before, your Grace," Reldegen told
her. "Both  you and  your husband have  two titles and  two separate formal
identities." He  smiled briefly. "I'm surprised that  there was room on the
throne for  such a crowd." His face grew serious.  "It won't be a cure-all,
your Grace,"  he added.  "The divisions between  Mimbre and Asturia  are so
deep-seated that they'll take generations to erase."

"And wilt thou also swear fealty to my husband?" the queen asked.

"As the King of Arendia, yes; as the Duke of Mimbre, never."

"That will  do for a start, my Lord. Let us  see then to this proclamation.
Let  us with  ink  and parchment  bandage  our poor  Arendia's most  gaping
wound."

"Beautifully put, your Grace," Reldegen said admiringly.

Ran  Borune XXIII  had  spent almost  his entire  life inside  the Imperial
compound  at  Tol Honeth.  His  infrequent  trips to  the  major cities  of
Tolnedra had,  for the most part been made  inside closed carriages. It was
entirely probable that Ran Borune had never walked a continuous mile in his
life, and a man  who has not walked a mile has no real conception of what a
mile is.  From the very outset,  his advisers despaired of  ever making him
understand the concept of distance.

The suggestion  that ultimately resolved the  difficulty came from a rather
surprising source. A sometime  tutor named Jeebers - a man who had narrowly
escaped  imprisonment  or  worse  the  previous  summer  -  put  forth  the
suggestion diffidently. Master Jeebers  now did everything diffidently. His
near brush  with Imperial displeasure had  forever extinguished the pompous
self importance  that had previously marred his  character. A number of his
acquaintances were surprised to  discover that they even liked the balding,
skinny man now.

Master Jeebers had pointed out that if the Emperor could only see things in
exact scale,  he might  then understand. Like  so many good  ideas that had
surfaced from  time to  time in Tolnedra,  this one immediately  got out of
hand. An  entire acre  of the Imperial  grounds was converted  into a scale
replica of the border  region of eastern Algaria and the opposing stretches
of  Mishrak ac  Thull. To give  it all  perspective, a number  of inch-high
human figures  were cast in lead to aid  the Emperor in conceptualizing the
field of operations.

The Emperor immediately announced that he'd really like to have more of the
lead figures to aid  his understanding of the masses of men involved, and a
new industry  was born  in Tol Honeth. Overnight  lead became astonishingly
scarce.

In  order that  he might  better see  the field,  the Emperor  mounted each
morning  to the  top  of a  thirty-foot-high  tower that  had hastily  been
erected for that purpose. There, with the aid of a great-voiced sergeant of
the Imperial  guard, the Emperor deployed  his leaden regiments of infantry
and cavalry in precise  accordance with the latest dispatches from Algaria.

The  general staff very  nearly resigned  their commissions en  masse. They
were,  for the  most  part, men  of advanced  middle  age, and  joining the
Emperor atop his tower  each morning involved some strenuous climbing. They
all tried  at various  times to explain  to the beak-nosed  little man that
they could see just as well from the ground, but Ran Borune would have none
of it.

"Morin,  he's killing us,"  one portly  general complained bitterly  to the
Emperor's chamberlain.  "I'd rather  go off to  war than climb  that ladder
four times a day."

"Move the  Drasnian pikemen four paces to  the left!" the sergeant bellowed
from the top of  the tower, and a dozen men on the ground began redeploying
the tiny lead figures.

"We all must serve  in the capacity our Emperor chooses for us," Lord Morin
replied philosophically.

"I   don't   see   you  climbing   the   ladder,"   the  general   accused.

"Our Emperor has chosen another capacity for me," Morin said rather smugly.

That evening the weary  little Emperor sought his bed. "It's very exciting,
Morin," he murmured drowsily,  holding the velvet-lined case that contained
the solid gold figures representing Ce'Nedra and Rhodar and the rest of the
army's  leaders   close  to.his   chest,  "but  it's   very  tiring,  too."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"There always seems to be so much that I still have to do."

"That's  the nature  of  command, your  Majesty," Morin  observed.  But the
Emperor had already dropped off.

Lord Morin  removed the case from the  Emperor's hands and carefully pulled
the covers up around  the sleeping man's shoulders. "Sleep, Ran Borune," he
said  very  gently. "You  can  play  with your  little  toy soldiers  again
tomorrow."

Sadi  the eunuch  had quietly  left the  palace at  Sthiss Tor by  a secret
doorway that  opened behind the slaves' quarters  onto a shabby back street
that  twisted and  turned in the  general direction  of the harbor.  He had
quite deliberately waited for  the cover of the afternoon rainstorm and had
dressed himself  in the  shabby clothing of a  dockworker. Accompanying him
was  the  one-eyed assassin,  Issus,  who also  wore nondescript  clothing.
Sadi's security  precautions were routine,  but his choice of  Issus as his
companion was not. Issus was not a member of the palace guard nor of Sadi's
personal  retinue, but Sadi  was not  concerned on this  afternoon's outing
with  appearances or  proprieties. Issus  was by  and large  uncorrupted by
palace politics and had a reputation for unswerving loyalty to whomever was
paying him at the moment.

The  two  passed  down  the  rainswept  street to  a  certain  disreputable
establishment frequented by lower-class  workers, and went through a rather
noisy  taproom   to  the  maze  of  cubicles   at  the  back,  where  other
entertainments  were provided.  At the  end of  a foul-smelling  hallway, a
lean, hard-eyed  woman, whose  arms were covered  from wrist to  elbow with
cheap, gaudy  bracelets, pointed wordlessly at  a scarred door, then turned
abruptly and disappeared through another doorway.

Behind the door lay a filthy room with only a bed for furniture. On the bed
were two  sets of clothing that smelled of tar  and salt water, and sitting
on the floor were  two large tankards of lukewarm ale. Wordlessly, Sadi and
Issus changed clothes. From  beneath the soiled pillow, Issus pulled a pair
of wigs and two sets of false whiskers.

"How can  they drink this?" Sadi demanded, sniffing  at one of the tankards
and wrinkling his nose.

Issus shrugged.  "Alorns have peculiar  tastes. You don't have  to drink it
all, Sadi. Splash most  of it on your clothes. Drasnian sailors spill a lot
of  ale  when  they're  out  in  search  of  amusement.  How  do  I  look?"

Sadi gave  him a quick glance. "Ridiculous," he  replied. "Hair and a beard
don't really suit you, Issus."

Issus  laughed. "And  they  look particularly  out of  place  on you.  " He
shrugged  and carefully  poured  ale down  the front  of  his tar-spattered
tunic. "I suppose we look enough like Drasnians to get by, and we certainly
smell like  Drasnians. Hook your beard  on a little tighter,  and let's get
moving before it stops raining."

"Are we going out the back?"

Issus shook  his head. "If we're being followed,  the back will be watched.
We'll leave the way ordinary Drasnian sailors leave."

"And how is that?"

"I've made arrangements to have us thrown out."

Sadi  had never  been  thrown out  of any  place before,  and he  found the
experience   not  particularly   amusing.  The   two  burly   ruffians  who
unceremoniously pitched him into  the street were a bit rough about it, and
Sadi   picked   up  several   scrapes   and  abrasions   in  the   process.

Issus staggered  to his feet and  stood bawling curses at  the closed door,
then lurched  over and pulled Sadi up out of  the mud. Together they reeled
in apparent  drunkenness down the street  toward the Drasnian enclave. Sadi
noted that  there had been two  men in a doorway  across the street when he
and  Issus had  been  ejected and  that the  two  did not  move  to follow.

Once they entered the Drasnian enclave, Issus led the way rather quickly to
the  house of  Droblek,  the Drasnian  port authority.  They  were admitted
immediately and  conveyed at once  to a dimly lighted  but comfortable room
where the  enormously fat Droblek sat sweating.  With him was Count Melgon,
the aristocratic ambassador from Tolnedra.

"Novel attire for the  chief eunuch of Salmissra's household," Count Melgon
observed as Sadi pulled off his wig and false beard.

"Just  a bit  of deception,  my Lord  Ambassador," Sadi replied.  "I didn't
particularly want this meeting to become general knowledge."

"Can he be trusted?" Droblek asked bluntly, pointing at Issus.

Sadi's expression became whimsical.  "Can you be trusted, Issus?" he asked.

"You've paid  me for  up to the  end of the month."  Issus shrugged. "After
that, we'll see. I might get a better offer."

"You see?" Sadi said to the two seated men. "Issus can be trusted until the
end  of the  month  - at  least as  much as  anybody in  Sthiss Tor  can be
trusted. One thing I've  noticed about Issus - he's a simple, uncomplicated
man.  Once you  buy  him, he  stays bought.  I  think it's  referred  to as
professional ethics."

Droblek grunted sourly. "Do  you suppose we could get to the point? Why did
you  go to so  much trouble to  arrange this  meeting? Why didn't  you just
summon us to the palace?"

"My  dear Droblek,"  Sadi  murmured, "you  know the  kind of  intrigue that
infests the  palace. I'd prefer that what passes  between us remain more or
less  confidential. The  matter itself  is rather uncomplicated.  I've been
approached by the emissary of Taur Urgas."

The two regarded him with no show of surprise.

"I gather that you already knew."

"We're hardly children, Sadi," Count Melgon told him.

"I am  at present in negotiations with the  new ambassador from Rak Goska,"
Sadi mentioned.

"Isn't   that  the   third  one   so  far   this  summer?"   Melgon  asked.

Sadi  nodded. "The Murgos  seem to  be particularly susceptible  to certain
fevers which abound in the swamps."

"We've noticed  that," Droblek said dryly. "What  is your prognosis for the
present emissary's continued good health?"

"I don't  imagine he's  any more immune  than his countrymen.  He's already
beginning to feel unwell."

"Maybe he'll be lucky and recover," Droblek suggested.

"Not very likely," Issus said with an ugly laugh.

"The  tendency of Murgo  ambassadors to  die unexpectedly has  succeeded in
keeping the negotiations moving very slowly," Sadi continued. "I'd like for
you gentlemen  to inform King Rhodar and Ran  Borune that these delays will
probably continue."

"Why?" Droblek asked.

"I  want them  to  understand and  appreciate my  efforts in  their present
campaign against the Angarak kingdoms."

"Tolnedra has  no involvement  in that campaign,"  Melgon asserted quickly.

"Of course not." Sadi smiled.

"Just how far are you willing to go, Sadi?" Droblek asked curiously.

"That depends almost entirely upon who's winning at any given moment," Sadi
replied urbanely. "If the  Rivan Queen's campaign in the east begins to run
into difficulties, I suspect that the pestilence will subside and the Murgo
emissaries  will stop  dying so  conveniently. I'd  almost have to  make an
accommodation with Taur Urgas at that point."

"Don't you find that  just a bit contemptible, Sadi?" Droblek asked acidly.

Sadi shrugged. "We're a contemptible sort of people, Droblek," he admitted,
"but  we survive.  That's no  mean accomplishment  for a weak  nation lying
between two  major powers. Tell Rhodar  and Ran Borune that  I'll stall the
Murgos off for as long as things continue to go in their favor. I want them
both to be aware of their obligation to me."

"And will  you advise them when  your position is about  to change?" Melgon
asked.

"Of course not," Sadi replied. "I'm corrupt, Melgon. I'm not stupid."

"You're not much of an ally, Sadi," Droblek told him.

"I never  pretended to  be. I'm looking  out for myself. At  the moment, my
interests and  yours happen to coincide, that's  all. I do, however, expect
to be remembered for my assistance."

"You're trying  to play it  both ways, Sadi," Droblek  accused him bluntly.

"I know." Sadi smiled. "Disgusting, isn't it?"

Queen Islena  of Cherek was in an absolute panic.  This time Merel had gone
too far. The advice  they had received from Porenn had seemed quite sound -
had indeed raised the  possibility of a brilliant stroke which would disarm
Grodeg and  the Bear-cult  once and for  all. The imagined  prospect of the
helpless  rage into which  this would  plummet the towering  ecclesiast was
almost a  satisfaction in  itself. Like so  many people, Queen  Islena took
such pleasure in an  imagined triumph that the real thing became almost too
much trouble.  The victories  of the imagination  involved no risks,  and a
confrontation with an enemy  always ended satisfactorily when both sides of
the conversation  came from one's  own daydreams. Left to  her own devices,
Islena  would   probably  have  been   content  to  let  it   go  at  that.

Merel, however,  was less easily satisfied. The  plan devised by the little
queen of Drasnia had been quite sound, but it suffered from one flaw - they
did not  have enough  men to bring  it off. Merel, however,  had located an
ally  with certain  resources and  had brought  him into the  queen's inner
circle. A group of men in Cherek had not accompanied Anheg and the fleet to
Algaria  largely  because they  were  not the  sort  of men  who made  good
sailors. At  Merel's stern-faced  insistence, the Queen  of Cherek suddenly
developed  an overpowering enthusiasm  for hunting.  It was in  the forest,
safe  from prying  ears,  that the  details of  the  coup were  worked out.

"When  you kill a  snake, you cut  off its  head," Torvik the  huntsman had
pointed out  as he, Merel, and Islena sat in  a forest glade while Torvik's
men roved  through the woods harvesting enough game  to make it appear that
Islena had  spent her day in  a frenzy of slaughter.  "You don't accomplish
all that much by snipping pieces off its tail an inch or so at a time," the
broad-shouldered  huntsman  continued.  "The  Bear-cult isn't  really  that
concentrated in  one place.  With a little  luck, we can gather  up all the
important members presently in Val Alorn in one sweep. That should irritate
our snake enough to make him stick his neck out. Then we'll simply chop off
his head."

Torvik's use of such terminology had made the queen wince. She had not been
entirely  sure  that  the   blunt,  grizzled  forester  had  been  speaking
figuratively.

And now it had been done. Torvik and his huntsmen had moved quietly through
the  dark streets  of  Val Alorn  for the  entire  night, gathering  up the
sleeping members  of the Bear-cult,  marching them in groups  to the harbor
and then locking them in the holds of waiting ships. Because of their years
of  experience, the  hunters had  been very  thorough in rounding  up their
quarry. By morning, the only members of the Bear-cult left in the city were
the High  Priest of  Belar and the  dozen or so underpriests  lodged in the
temple.

Queen Islena sat, pale and trembling, on the throne of Cherek. She wore her
purple gown and her gold crown. In her hand she held a scepter. The scepter
had a comforting weight  to it and could possibly be used as a weapon in an
emergency. The queen was positive that an emergency was about to descend on
her.

"This is all your fault, Merel," she bitterly accused her blond friend. "If
you'd   just  left   things   alone,  we   wouldn't  be   in   this  mess."

"We'd  be a  worse  one," Merel  replied coldly.  "Pull  yourself together,
Islena. It's done now, and you can't undo it."

"Grodeg terrifies me," Islena blurted.

"He won't be armed. He won't be able to hurt you."

"I'm only  a woman," Islena quailed. "He'll roar at  me in that awful voice
of his, and I'll go absolutely to pieces."

"Stop being such a coward, Islena," Merel snapped. "Your timidity's brought
Cherek right to the  edge of disaster. Every time Grodeg's raised his voice
to you,  you've given him anything he wanted  just because you're afraid of
harsh  talk.  Are  you  a  child?  Does  noise  frighten  you  that  much?"

"You forget  yourself, Merel,"  Islena flared suddenly. "I  am queen, after
alL"

"Then by  all the  Gods, be queen!  Stop behaving like  a silly, frightened
serving girl.  Sit up  straight on your throne  as if you had  some iron in
your  backbone -  and pinch  your cheeks.  You're as  pale as  a bedsheet."
Merel's face hardened. "Listen  to me, Islena," she said. "If you give even
one hint  that you're  starting to weaken,  I'll have Torvik  run his spear
into Grodeg right here in the throne room."

"You   wouldn't!"    Islena   gasped.   "You   can't    kill   a   priest."

"He's a man just like any other man," Merel declared harshly. "If you stick
a spear in his belly, he'll die."

"Not even Anheg would dare to do that."

"I'm not Anheg."

"You'll be cursed!"

"I'm not afraid of curses."

Torvik came into the throne room, a broad-bladed boarspear held negligently
in one big hand. "He's coming," he announced laconically.

"Oh, dear," Islena quavered.

"Stop that!" Merel snapped.

Grodeg was  livid with  rage as he  strode into the throne  room. His white
robe was rumpled as  if he had thrown it on hastily, and his white hair and
beard were  uncombed. "I will speak with the  queen alone!" he thundered as
he approached across the rush-strewn floor.

"That is  the queen's  decision to make,  not yours, my  Lord High Priest,"
Merel advised him in a flinty voice.

"Does  the wife  of the  Earl of  Trellheim speak  for the  throne?" Grodeg
demanded of Islena.

Islena faltered, then saw  Torvik standing directly behind the tall priest.
The  boarspear in  his  hand was  no longer  so negligently  grasped. "Calm
yourself, revered  Grodeg," the  queen said, quite  suddenly convinced that
the life of the  infuriated priest hinged not only on her words but even on
her tone of voice.  At the tiniest quaver, Merel would give the signal, and
Torvik would sink that  broad, sharp blade into Grodeg's back with about as
much emotion as he showed about swatting a fly.

"I want to see you alone," Grodeg repeated stubbornly. "

"No."

"No?" he roared incredulously.

"You heard me, Grodeg,"  she told him. "And stop shouting at me. My hearing
is quite good."

He  gaped at  her, then quickly  recovered. "Why  have all my  friends been
arrested?" he demanded.

"They were  not arrested,  my Lord High  Priest," the queen  replied. "They
have all volunteered to join my husband's fleet."

"Ridiculous!" he snorted.

"I  think you'd  better choose  your words  a bit more  carefully, Grodeg,"
Merel  told him. "The  queen's patience  with your impertinence  is wearing
thin."

"Impertinence?" he exclaimed. "How  dare you speak that way to me?" He drew
himself up  and fixed  a stern eye on  the queen. "I insist  upon a private
audience," he told her in a thunderous voice.

The  voice  which had  always  cowed  her before  quite suddenly  irritated
Islena. She  was trying to save this idiot's life,  and he kept shouting at
her. "My  Lord Grodeg," she said with an unaccustomed  hint of steel in her
voice,  "if  you bellow  at  me  one more  time,  I'll  have you  muzzled."

His eyes widened in amazement.

"We have nothing to discuss in private, my Lord," the queen continued. "All
that  remains is  for you  to receive  your instructions  - which  you will
follow to  the letter. It is  our decree that you  will proceed directly to
the harbor, where you will board the ship which is waiting to transport you
to  Algaria. There  you  will join  the forces  of  Cherek in  the campaign
against the Angaraks."

"I refuse!" Grodeg retorted.

"Think carefully, my Lord Grodeg," Merel purred. "The queen has given you a
royal command. Refusal could be considered treason."

"I am the High  Priest of Belar," Grodeg ground out between clenched teeth,
obviously having  great difficulty  in modulating his  voice. "You wouldn't
dare ship me off like some peasant conscript."

"I wonder if  the High Priest of Belar might like to  make a small wager on
that," Torvik said with deceptive mildness. He set the butt of his spear on
the floor,  took a stone from  the pouch at his belt  and began to hone the
already  razor-sharp  blade. The  steely  sound had  an obviously  chilling
effect on Grodeg.

"You will go to the harbor now, Grodeg," Islena told him, "and you will get
on that  ship. If you  do not, you will  go to the dungeon,  where you will
keep the  rats company  until my husband  returns. Those are  your choices;
join Anheg  or join the rats.  Decide quickly. You're starting  to bore me,
and quite frankly, I'm sick of the sight of you."

Queen Porenn  of Drasnia was in the  nursery, ostensibly feeding her infant
son. Out of respect  for the queen's person, she was unspied upon while she
was nursing.  Porenn, however, was not  alone. Javelin, the bone-thin chief
of Drasnian intelligence, was with her. For the sake of appearance, Javelin
was dressed  in a serving maid's  gown and cap, and  he looked surprisingly
feminine  in  the  disguise   he  wore  with  no  apparent  trace  of  self
consciousness.

"Are  there really  that many  cultists in  the intelligence  service?" the
queen asked, a little dismayed.

Javelin sat  with his back politely turned.  "I'm afraid so, your Highness.
We  should have been  more alert, but  we had  other things on  our minds."

Porenn thought  about it  for a moment, unconsciously  rocking her suckling
baby. "Islena's moving already, isn't she?" she asked.

"That's the  word I  received this morning," Javelin  replied. "Grodeg's on
his way  to the mouth of  the Aldur River already,  and the queen's men are
moving out  into the countryside, rounding  up every member of  the cult as
they go."

"Will it  in any way hamper our operations to jerk  that many people out of
Boktor?"

"We  can manage,  your Highness,"  Javelin assured  her. "We might  have to
speed  up the  graduation of the  current class  at the academy  and finish
their training on the job, but we'll manage."

"Very well  then, Javelin," Porenn  decided. "Ship them all  out. Get every
cult member out of  Boktor, and separate them. I want them sent to the most
miserable duty  posts you can devise,  and I don't want  any of them within
fifty  leagues  of any  other  one. There  will  be no  excuses, no  sudden
illnesses, and no resignations. Give each of them something to do, and then
make him do it. I want every Bear-cultist who's crept into the intelligence
service out of Boktor by nightfall."

"It  will be my  pleasure, Porenn,"  Javelin said. "Oh,  incidentally, that
Nadrak merchant,  Yarblek is back from Yar Nadrak, and  he wants to talk to
you about  the salmon runs again. He seems  to have this obsessive interest
in fish."





Chapter Twelve

THE RAISING OF the Cherek fleet to the top of the eastern escarpment took a
full  two  weeks,  and  King Rhodar  chafed  visibly  at  the  pace of  the
operation.

"You knew this was  going to take time, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra said to him as he
fumed and  sweated, pacing back and  forth with frequent dark  looks at the
towering cliff face. "Why are you so upset?"

"Because  the  ships are  right  out  in the  open,  Ce'Nedra," he  replied
testily. "There's no way  to hide them or disguise them while they're being
raised. Those  ships are the key to our whole  campaign, and if somebody on
the other side starts  putting a few things together, we might have to meet
all of Angarak instead of just the Thulls."

"You worry  too much,"  she told him.  "Cho-Hag and Korodullin  are burning
everything in  sight up there. 'Zakath and Taur  Urgas have other things to
think about beside what we're hauling up the cliff."

"It  must  be  wonderful  to  be  so  unconcerned about  things,"  he  said
sarcastically.

"Be nice, Rhodar," she said.

General Varana, still scrupulously  dressed in his Tolnedran mantle, limped
toward them with that studiously diffident expression that indicated he was
about to make another suggestion.

"Varana,"  King Rhodar  burst  out irritably,  "why don't  you put  on your
uniform?"

"Because I'm not really officially here, your Majesty," the general replied
calmly.   "Tolnedra   is   neutral   in  this   affair,   you'll   recall."

"That's a fiction, and we all know it."

"A necessary one, however. The Emperor is still holding diplomatic channels
open  to Taur  Urgas and  'Zakath. Those  discussions would  deteriorate if
someone  saw a  Tolnedran general  swaggering around  in full  uniform." He
paused briefly.  "Would a small suggestion  offend your Majesty?" he asked.

"That all depends on  the suggestion," Rhodar retorted. Then he made a face
and apologized.  "I'm sorry,  Varana. This delay's  making me bad-tempered.
What did you have in mind?"

"I  think  you might  want  to give  some  thought to  moving your  command
operations up to the  top about now. You'll want things running smoothly by
the time  the bulk of your infantry arrives, and  it usually takes a couple
of   days  to   iron   out  the   wrinkles   when  you   set  things   up."

King Rhodar stared at  a Cherek ship being hoisted ponderously up the cliff
face.  "I'm not  going to  ride up  on one  of those, Varana,"  he declared
flatly.

"It's absolutely  safe, your  Majesty," Varana assured him.  "I've made the
trip myself  several times.  Even Lady Polgara  went up that  way just this
morning."

"Polgara could  fly down  if something went  wrong," Rhodar said.  "I don't
have her  advantages. Can you imagine the size of the  hole I'd make in the
ground if I fell that far?"

"The alternative  is extremely  strenuous, your Majesty.  There are several
ravines running  down from the top. They've been leveled  out a bit so that
the horses can go up, but they're still very steep."

"A little sweating won't hurt me."

Varana shrugged. "As your Majesty wishes."

"I'll keep  you company, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra offered  brightly. He gave her a
suspicious look.

"I  don't really  trust machines  either," she  confessed. "I'll  go change
clothes, and then we can start."

"You want to do it today?" His voice was plaintive.

"Why put it off?"

"I can think of a dozen reasons."

The  term   "very  steep"   turned  out  to  be   a  gross  understatement.
"Precipitous" might have been more accurate. The incline made riding horses
out of the question,  but ropes had been strung along the steeper stretches
to aid  in the climb. Ce'Nedra,  dressed in one of  her short Dryad tunics,
scampered hand over hand  up the ropes with the agility of a squirrel. King
Rhodar's pace, however, was much slower.

"Please stop groaning, Rhodar,"  she told him after they had climbed for an
hour or so. "You sound like a sick cow."

"That's hardly  fair, Ce'Nedra," he wheezed,  stopping to mop his streaming
face.

"I  never promised  to be fair,"  she retorted  with an impish  grin. "Come
along, we  still have a long  way to go." And  she flitted up another fifty
yards or so.

"Don't you  think you're a little  underdressed?" he puffed disapprovingly,
staring up at her. "Proper ladies don't show off so much leg."

"What's wrong with my legs?"

"They're bare - that's what's wrong with them."

"Don't be  such a prig. I'm  comfortable. That's all that  matters. Are you
coming or not?"

Rhodar groaned again. "Isn't it almost time for lunch?"

"We just had lunch."

"Did we? I'd forgotten already."

"You always seem to  forget your last meal - usually before the crumbs have
been brushed away."

"That's the  nature of a fat  man, Ce'Nedra." He sighed.  "The last meal is
history. It's  the next one that's important."  He stared mournfully up the
brutal trail ahead and groaned again.

"This was all your idea," she heartlessly reminded him.

The  sun was  low in  the west when  they reached  the top. As  King Rhodar
collapsed,  Princess Ce'Nedra  looked around curiously.  The fortifications
which had  been erected along the top of  the escarpment were extensive and
quite imposing.  The walls were of earth and  stone and were perhaps thirty
feet high.  Through an open gate the princess saw  a series of other, lower
walls, each  fronted by a ditch bristling  with sharpened stakes and thorny
brambles. At various points  along the main wall rose imposing blockhouses,
and  within   the  walls  were   neat  rows  of  huts   for  the  soldiers.

The forts  swarmed with men, and their  various activities raised an almost
perpetual  cloud  of dust.  A  party  of Algar  clansmen, smokestained  and
mounted on spent-looking horses, rode slowly in through the gate; and a few
moments later, a contingent  of gleaming Mimbrate knights, pennons snapping
from their  lances and the great hoofs of  their chargers clattering on the
stony  ground,  rode  out  in  search  of  yet  another  town  to  destroy.

The huge hoists at the edge of the escarpment creaked and groaned under the
weight of the Cherek ships being raised from the plain below; some distance
away, within the fortified  walls, the growing fleet sat awaiting the final
portage  to the  headwaters of  the upper  River Mardu, some  fifty leagues
distant.

Polgara, accompanied by Durnik  and the towering Barak, approached to greet
the princess and the prostrate King of Drasnia.

"How was the climb?" Barak inquired.

"Ghastly," Rhodar wheezed. "Does anybody have anything to eat? I think I've
melted off about ten pounds."

"It doesn't show," Barak told him.

"That sort of exertion isn't really good for you, Rhodar," Polgara told the
gasping monarch. "Why were you so stubborn about it?"

"Because I have an  absolute horror of heights," Rhodar replied. "I'd climb
ten times as far to avoid being hauled up that cliff by those contraptions.
The  idea  of  all   that  empty  air  under  me  makes  my  flesh  creep."

Barak grinned. "That's a lot of creeping."

"Will  somebody  please give  me  something  to eat?"  Rhodar  asked in  an
anguished tone of voice.

"A  bit  of  cold  chicken?" Durnik  offered  solicitously,  handing him  a
well-browned chicken leg.

"Where did you ever  find a chicken?" Rhodar exclaimed, eagerly seizing the
leg.

"The Thulls brought some with them," Durnik told him.

"Thulls?" Ce'Nedra gasped. "What are Thulls doing here?"

"Surrendering," Durnik  replied. "Whole villages of  them have been showing
up for the past  week or so. They walk up to the  edge of the ditches along
the  front of  the  fortification and  sit down  and  wait to  be captured.
They're very  patient about it. Sometimes  it's a day or  so before anybody
has the  time to  go out and  capture them, but  they don't  seem to mind."

"Why do they want to be captured?" Ce'Nedra asked him.

"There aren't any Grolims  here," Durnik explained. "No altars to Torak and
no sacrificial knives. The  Thulls seem to feel that getting away from that
sort of thing is worth the inconvenience of being captured. We take them in
and put  them to work on  the fortifications. They're good  workers, if you
give them the proper supervision."

"Is that entirely safe?"  Rhodar asked around a mouthful of chicken. "There
might be spies among them."

Durnik nodded.  "We know," he said,  "but the spies are  usually Grolims. A
Thull doesn't have the mental equipment to be a spy, so the Grolims have to
do it themselves."

Rhodar  lowered his  chicken leg  in astonishment. "You're  letting Grolims
inside the fortifications?" he demanded.

"It's nothing all that  serious," Durnik told him. "The Thulls know who the
Grolims are, and we  let them deal with the problem. They usually take them
a mile  or so along the  escarpment and then throw  them off. At first they
wanted to  do it right here,  but some of their  elders pointed out that it
might not  be polite to drop Grolims down on top  of the men working below,
so  they take  them some place  where they  won't bother anybody  when they
fall. A  very considerate people, the Thulls. One  could almost get to like
them."

"You've sunburned  your nose, Ce'Nedra," Polgara  told the little princess.
"Didn't you think of wearing a hat?"

"Hats give me a  headache." Ce'Nedra shrugged. "A little sunburn won't hurt
me."

"You have  an appearance  to maintain, dear," Polgara  pointed out. "You're
not going to look very queenly with your nose peeling."

"It's nothing to worry  about, Lady Polgara. You can fix it, can't you? You
know-" Ce'Nedra made a  little gesture with her hand that was meant to look
magical.

Polgara gave her a long, chilly look.

King  Anheg of  Cherek, accompanied  by the broad-shouldered  Rivan Warder,
approached them.  "Did you have a nice  climb?" he asked Rhodar pleasantly.

"How  would you like  a punch in  the nose?"  Rhodar asked him.  King Anheg
laughed coarsely.

"My," he  said, "aren't we grumpy today? I've just  had some news from home
that ought to brighten your disposition a bit."

"Dispatches?" Rhodar  groaned, hauling  himself wearily to  his feet. Anheg
nodded.  "They sent  them up from  down below  while you were  getting your
exercise. You're  not going  to believe what's  been going on  back there."

"Try me."

"You absolutely won't believe it."

"Anheg, spit it out."

"We're about  to get some reinforcements. Islena  and Porenn have been very
busy these last few weeks."

Polgara looked at him sharply.

"Do  you know  something?" Anheg  said, holding  out a folded  dispatch. "I
wasn't even  aware of the fact that Islena knew how  to read and write, and
now I get this."

"Don't be cryptic, Anheg,"  Polgara told him. "What have the ladies been up
to?"

"I  gather that after  we left, the  Bear-cult began  to make itself  a bit
obnoxious.  Grodeg apparently  felt that with  the men  out of the  way, he
could take  over. He started throwing  his weight around in  Val Alorn, and
cult members began to  surface in the headquarters of Drasnian intelligence
in Boktor.  It looks as  if they've been making  preparations for something
for  years. Anyway, Porenn  and Islena  began passing information  back and
forth, and when they  realized how close Grodeg was to getting his hands on
real power  in the  two kingdoms, they  took steps. Porenn  ordered all the
cult members out of Boktor - sent them to the most miserable duty posts she
could think  of - and Islena rounded up the Bear-cult  in Val Alorn - every
last   one  of   them  -  and   shipped  them   out  to  join   the  army."

"They did what?" Rhodar gasped.

"Isn't it  amazing?" A  slow grin spread  across Anheg's coarse  face. "The
beauty of  the whole thing is  that Islena could get  away with it, while I
couldn't. Women  aren't supposed to be aware  of the subtleties involved in
arresting priests and noblemen  - the need for evidence against them and so
on - so  what would be gross impropriety on my part  will be laughed off as
ignorance on hers. I'll have to apologize to Grodeg, of course, but it will
be after the fact. The cult will be here, and they'll have no honest reason
to go back home."

Rhodar's answering grin was every bit as wicked as Anheg's. "How did Grodeg
take it?"

"He was  absolutely livid.  I guess Islena  faced him down  personally. She
gave   him  the   choice  of   joining  us   or  going  to   the  dungeon."

"You can't  put the High Priest  of Belar in a  dungeon," Rhodar exclaimed.

"Islena didn't  know that, and Grodeg knew that  she didn't. She'd have had
him chained  to the wall in the deepest hole  she could find before anybody
had gotten around to telling her that it was illegal. Can't you just see my
Islena delivering  that kind of ultimatum to the  old windbag?" There was a
note of fierce pride in Anheg's voice.

King  Rhodar's face  grew very sly.  "There's bound  to be some  rather hot
fighting in this campaign sooner or later," he noted.

Anheg nodded.

"The Bear-cult  prides itself  on its fighting ability,  doesn't it?" Anheg
nodded again, grinning.

"They'd be  perfect for  spearheading any attacks,  wouldn't they?" Anheg's
grin grew positively vicious.

"I  imagine that  their  casualties will  be  heavy," the  King of  Drasnia
suggested.

"It's   in   a   good   cause,   after   all,"   Anheg   replied   piously.

"If  you two  have quite  finished gloating,  I think  it's time I  got the
princess  in out  of  the sun,"  Polgara  told the  two grinning  monarchs.

The fortified  positions atop the escarpment  bustled with activity for the
next several days. Even  as the last of the Cherek ships were raised up the
cliffs, the  Algars and Mimbrates extended  their depredations out into the
Thullish countryside.

"There  aren't any  crops  standing for  fifty leagues  in  any direction,"
Hettar reported  back. "We'll have to go out  farther to find anything else
to burn."

"You find many Murgos?" Barak asked the hawk-faced man.

"A few."  Hettar shrugged. "Not enough  to make it interesting,  but we run
across one every now and then."

"How's Mandorallen doing?"

"I  haven't seen him  for a few  days," Hettar  replied. "There's a  lot of
smoke coming from the  direction he went, though, so I imagine he's keeping
busy."

"What's the country like out there?" King Anheg asked.

"Not bad,  once you  get past the  uplands. The part of  Thulldom along the
escarpment here is pretty forbidding."

"What  do you  mean  by forbidding?  I've got  to  haul ships  through that
country."

"Rock, sand,  a few  thornbushes and no  water," Hettar replied.  "And it's
hotter than the backdoor of a furnace."

"Thanks," Anheg said.

"You wanted to know," Hettar told him. "Excuse me. I need a fresh horse and
some more torches."

"You're going out again?" Barak asked him.

"It's something to do."

Once  the last  of the  ships had  been raised,  the Drasnian  hoists began
lifting tons of food  and equipment that soon swelled King Fulrach's supply
dumps within the forts  to overflowing. The Thullish prisoners proved to be
an  invaluable asset,  carrying  whatever burden  they were  told  to carry
without  complaint or  hesitation.  Their coarse  features shone  with such
simpleminded  gratitude  and eagerness  to  please that  Ce'Nedra found  it
impossible  to hate  them,  even though  they were  technically  the enemy.
Slowly, bit  by bit, the princess discovered the  facts that made the lives
of the  Thullish people such an  unrelieved horror. There was  not a family
among them that had not lost several members to the knives of the Grolims -
husbands, wives, children, and parents had all been selected for sacrifice,
and the thought uppermost  in every Thull's life was to avoid the same fate
at any cost. The  perpetual terror had erased every hint of human affection
from  the Thull's  makeup. He  lived in  dreadful isolation,  without love,
without companionship, without any  feeling but constant anxiety and dread.
The reputedly insatiable appetite  of Thullish women had nothing whatsoever
to do with  morals or lack of them. It was a  simple matter of survival. To
escape  the  knife,  a  Thullish woman  was  forced  to remain  perpetually
pregnant. She was not driven by lust, but by fear, and her fear dehumanized
her entirely.

"How can they live that way?" the princess burst out to Lady Polgara as the
two of  them returned to  their makeshift quarters in  the stout blockhouse
which had  been erected inside the walls for the use  of the leaders of the
army. "Why don't they rebel and drive the Grolims out?"

"And just who's supposed  to lead a rebellion, Ce'Nedra?" Polgara asked her
calmly. "The  Thulls know that there are Grolims  who can pick the thoughts
from a man's  mind as easily as you'd pick fruit in  an orchard. If a Thull
even considered  organizing some kind  of resistance, he'd be  the next one
dragged to the altar."

"But their lives are so horrible, " Ce'Nedra objected.

"Perhaps we can change  that," Polgara said. "In a way what we're trying to
do is not  only for the benefit of the west, but  for the Angaraks as well.
If we  win, they'll be liberated from the Grolims.  They might not thank us
at first, but in time they might learn to appreciate it."

"Why shouldn't they thank us?"

"Because if we win, dear, it will be because we've killed their God. That's
a very hard thing to thank someone for."

"But Torak is a monster."

"He's still  their God," Polgara replied. "The loss of  one's God is a very
subtle and  terrible injury. Ask the  Ulgos what it's like  to live without
one.  It's been  five thousand years  since UL  became their God,  and they
still   remember   what   it   was   like   before   he   accepted   them."

"We are  going to win, aren't  we?" Ce'Nedra asked suddenly,  all her fears
flooding to the surface.

"I don't know, Ce'Nedra,"  Polgara answered quietly. "No one does - not me,
not  Beldin,  not  my father,  not  even  Aldur. All  we  can  do is  try,"

"What will  happen if  we lose?" the  princess asked in  a tiny, frightened
voice.

"We'll be enslaved in exactly the same way the Thulls are," Polgara replied
quietly. "Torak  will become King and God over  the entire world. The other
Gods will  be banished forever, and  the Grolims will be  unleashed upon us
all."

"I won't live in that kind of world," Ce'Nedra declared.

"None of us would care to."

"Did you ever meet Torak?" the princess asked suddenly.

Polgara nodded. "Once or twice - the last time was at Vo Mimbre just before
his duel with Brand."

"What's he really like?"

"He's a God. The  force of his mind is overwhelming. When he speaks to you,
you  must  listen to  him  -  and when  he  commands, you  must obey  him."

"Not you, certainly."

"I don't  think you  understand, dear." Polgara's  face was grave,  and her
glorious eyes  were as distant as the moon.  Without seeming to think about
it, she  reached out,  picked up Errand and  sat him on her  lap. The child
smiled at her and, as he so often did, he reached out and touched the white
lock  at her  brow. "There's  a compulsion  in Torak's voice  that's almost
impossible to resist," she continued. "You know that he's twisted and evil,
but  when  he speaks  to  you, your  will  to resist  crumbles, and  you're
suddenly very weak and afraid."

"Surely you weren't afraid."

"You still don't understand.  Of course I was afraid. We all were - even my
father. Pray  that you  never meet Torak.  He's not some  petty Grolim like
Chamdar or  a scheming old wizard like Ctuchik.  He's a God. He's hideously
maimed, and at some  point he was thwarted. Something he needed - something
so profound  that no human could  even conceive of it  - was denied to him,
and that  refusal or rejection drove  him mad. His madness  is not like the
madness of Taur Urgas,  who, in spite of everything is still human. Torak's
madness  is the  madness  of a  God -  a  being who  can make  his diseased
imaginings  come to  pass. Only the  Orb can  truly withstand him.  I could
perhaps resist  him for a time,  but if he lays the  full force of his will
upon me, ultimately I'll have to give him what he wants - and what he wants
from me is too dreadful to think about."

"I don't exactly follow you, Lady Polgara."

Garion's Aunt looked gravely at the tiny girl. "Perhaps you don't at that,"
she  said.  "It has  to do  with  a part  of  the past  that the  Tolnedran
Historical Society  chooses to ignore. Sit down,  Ce'Nedra, and I'll try to
explain."

The princess sat on a rude bench in their rough chamber. Polgara's mood was
unusual -  very quiet, even pensive.  She placed her arms  about Errand and
held him  close, nestling  her cheek against  his blond curls  as if taking
comfort from  the contact with  this small boy. "There  are two Prophecies,
Ce'Nedra," she  explained in her rich  voice, "but the time  is coming when
there will  only be  one. Everything that  is or was  or is yet  to be will
become a part of whichever Prophecy prevails. Every man, every woman, every
child has  two possible  destinies. For some,  the differences are  not all
that great, but in my case, they're rather profound."

"I don't quite understand."

"In the Prophecy which  we serve - the one that has brought  us here - I am
Polgara the  sorceress, daughter  to Belgarath and  guardian to Belgarion."

"And in the other?"

"In the other, I am the bride of Torak."

Ce'Nedra gasped.

"And now you see why I was afraid," Polgara continued. "I've been terrified
of Torak  since my  father first explained this  to me when I  was no older
than you  are now.  I'm not so much  afraid for myself, but  more because I
know that if I falter - if Torak's will overpowers mine - then the Prophecy
we serve will fail. Torak will not only win me, but all of mankind as well.
At  Vo Mimbre,  he called  to me,  and I  felt -  very briefly -  the awful
compulsion to run to  him. But I defied him. I've never done anything in my
life that  was so hard to  do. It was my  defiance, however, that drove him
into the duel with  Brand, and only in that duel could the power of the Orb
be released against him. My father gambled everything on the strength of my
will. The old wolf is a great gambler sometimes."

"Then if-" Ce'Nedra could not say it.

"If Garion loses?" Polgara said it so calmly that it was quite obvious that
she had considered the possibility many times before. "Then Torak will come
to claim his bride,  and there will be no power on earth sufficient to stop
him."

"I would sooner die," the princess blurted.

"So would I, Ce'Nedra,  but that option may not be open to me. Torak's will
is  so much  stronger than mine  that he may  be able  to take from  me the
ability or  even the desire to  will myself out of  existence. If it should
happen, it may very well be that I'll be deliriously happy to be his chosen
and beloved - but  deep inside, I think that a part of me will be screaming
and  will  continue  to  scream in  horror  down  through  all the  endless
centuries to the very end of days."

It  was  too horrible  to  think  about. Unable  to  restrain herself,  the
princess threw  herself on  her knees, clasped  her arms about  Polgara and
Errand, and burst into tears.

"Now,  now, there's  no need  to cry,  Ce'Nedra," Polgara told  her gently,
smoothing  the sobbing  girl's hair  with her  hand. "Garion has  still not
reached the  City of  Endless Night, and  Torak is still  asleep. There's a
little time left. And who knows? We might even win."





Chapter Thirteen

ONCE THE  CHEREK fleet had been  raised, the pace of  activities within the
fortifications  began to  quicken.  King Rhodar's  infantry units  began to
arrive from the encampment at the Aldur River to make the tortuous climb up
the narrow  ravines to the top of the escarpment;  lines of wagons from the
main supply  dumps freighted  food and equipment  to the base  of the cliff
where the great hoists  waited to lift the supplies up the mile-high basalt
face; and the Mimbrate  and Algar raiding parties moved out, usually before
dawn, in  their now far-flung search for as  yet unravaged towns and crops.
The  depredations of  the  raiders, their  short, savage  sieges  of poorly
fortified  Thullish towns and  villages, and  the mile-wide swaths  of fire
that they  cut through fields of ripe grain  had finally swung the sluggish
Thulls into  poorly organized attempts at  resistance. The Thulls, however,
inevitably raced to the  last point of Mimbrate attack and arrived hours or
even  days too  late, to  discover only  smoking ruins, dead  soldiers, and
terrified and  dispossessed townsmen, or, when  they attempted to intercept
the  swiftly moving  Algars,  they normally  found only  acre upon  acre of
blackened earth.  The raiders had  moved on, and the  desperate attempts of
the Thulls to catch up with them were entirely futile.

The notion  of attacking the forts from which  the raiders operated did not
occur to  the Thulls,  or if it  did, it was quickly  dismissed. The Thulls
were not  emotionally suited to attacking  heavily defended fortifications.
They much preferred dashing  about, chasing fires, and complaining bitterly
to their  Murgo and  Mallorean allies about  the lack of  support they were
receiving. The Malloreans of  Emperor 'Zakath steadfastly refused to emerge
from  their staging  areas around  Thull Zelik.  The Murgos of  Taur Urgas,
however, did make a  few sorties in southern Thulldom, in part as a gesture
toward the  notion of Angarak unity - but more,  King Rhodar surmised, as a
part  of their  overall maneuvering  for position.  Murgo scouts  were even
occasionally discovered  in the vicinity of  the forts themselves. In order
to sweep the area  clear of these prying Murgo eyes, patrols went out every
day  from the  forts to range  through the  arid hills. The  parched, rocky
valleys  near the  forts  were randomly  searched by  Drasnian  pikemen and
platoons  of legionnaires.  Algar clansmen,  supposedly resting  from their
long-range  raids, amused  themselves  with an  impromptu game  they called
"Murgo hunting."  They made a  great show of their  frequent excursions and
piously insisted that they  were sacrificing their rest time out of a sense
of responsibility  for the security of the forts.  They did not, of course,
fool anybody with their protestations.

"The area  does need to  be patrolled, Rhodar," King  Cho-Hag insisted. "My
children are performing a necessary duty, after all."

"Duty?" Rhodar  snorted. "Put  an Algar on a  horse and show him  a hill he
hasn't seen the backside of yet, and he'll always find an excuse to go take
a look."

"You wrong us," Cho-Hag replied with a look of hurt innocence.

"I know you."

Ce'Nedra and her two  closest companions had watched the periodic departure
of  the lighthearted  Algar  horsemen with  increasingly sour  expressions.
Though Ariana was perhaps  more sedentary in her habits and was accustomed,
as all Mimbrate ladies  were, to waiting quite patiently while the men were
out  playing,  Adara,  Garion's Algar  cousin,  felt  her confinement  most
keenly. Like  all Algars, she felt  a deep-seated need to  have the wind in
her face  and the thunder of  hoofs in her ears.  She grew petulant after a
time and sighed often.

"And  what shall  we  do today,  ladies?" Ce'Nedra  asked  the two  of them
brightly one  morning after breakfast. "How  shall we amuse ourselves until
lunchtime?" She  said it rather extravagantly,  since she already had plans
for the day.

"There is always embroidery,"  Ariana suggested. "It doth pleasantly occupy
the  fingers   and  eyes  while   leaving  the  mind  and   lips  free  for
conversation."

Adara sighed deeply.

"Or maybe  we might  go and observe  my lord as  he instructs  his serfs in
their  warlike preparations."  Ariana  usually found  some excuse  to watch
Lelldorin for at least half of each day.

"I'm not sure that  I'm up to watching a group of men murder hay bales with
arrows again today," Adara said a bit waspishly.

Ce'Nedra moved quickly to  head off any incipient bickering. "We could make
an inspection tour," she suggested archly.

"Ce'Nedra, we've looked at  every blockhouse and every hut within the walls
a dozen times already,"  Adara said with some asperity, "and if I have some
polite old sergeant explain the workings of a catapult to me one more time,
I think I'll scream."

"We have  not, however,  inspected the outer fortifications,  have we?" the
princess asked slyly. "Wouldn't you say that's part of our duty too?"

Adara looked  at her quickly, and  then a slow smile  appeared on her face.
"Absolutely,"  she agreed. "I'm  surprised that  we hadn't thought  of that
before. We've been most neglectful, haven't we?"

Ariana's face  took on a worned frown. "King Rhodar,  I fear, would be most
strenuous in his objections to such a plan."

"Rhodar  isn't here,"  Ce'Nedra pointed  out. "He's  off with  King Fulrach
taking an inventory of the supply dumps."

"Lady Polgara  would most certainly not  approve," Ariana suggested, though
her tone indicated that she was weakening.

"Lady Polgara is conferring with Beldin the sorcerer," Adara mentioned, her
eyes dancing mischievously.

Ce'Nedra smirked.  "That rather leaves  us to our own  devices, doesn't it,
ladies?"

"We shall  be soundly scolded upon  our return," Ariana said.  "And we will
all be very contrite, won't we?" Ce'Nedra giggled.

A quarter  of an hour later,  the princess and her  two friends, dressed in
soft black leather Algar riding clothes, passed at a canter out through the
central gate of the vast fort. They were accompanied by Olban, the youngest
son of  the Rivan  Warder. Olban had  not liked the idea,  but Ce'Nedra had
given him  no time  to object and definitely  no time to send  a message to
anyone  who  could step  in  and  stop the  whole  excursion. Olban  looked
worried,  but, as  always, he  accompanied the  little Rivan  Queen without
question.

The stake-studded trenches in front of the walls were very interesting, but
one trench looked much like another, and it took a rare mind indeed to find
much pleasure in the finer points of excavation.

"Very nice,"  Ce'Nedra said  brightly to a Drasnian  pikeman standing guard
atop a  high mound of dirt.  "Splendid ditches - and  all those excellently
sharp  stakes."   She  looked   out  at  the  arid   landscape  before  the
fortifications.  "Where  did  you   ever  find  all  the  wood  for  them?"

"The Sendars  brought it in, your Majesty,"  he replied, "from someplace up
north,  I think.  We  had the  Thulls cut  and sharpen  the stakes  for us.
They're  quite  good  stake-makers  - if  you  tell  them  what you  want."

"Didn't  a mounted  patrol  go out  this way  about  a half  an  hour ago?"
Ce'Nedra asked him.

"Yes, your  Majesty. Lord Hettar of Algaria and some  of his men. They went
off that way." The guard pointed toward the south.

"Ah," Ce'Nedra said. "If  anyone should ask, tell them that we're going out
to join him. We should return in a few hours."

The guard  looked a bit dubious  about that, but Ce'Nedra  moved quickly to
head off  any objections. "Lord Hettar promised to  wait for us just beyond
the  south end  of the  fortifications," she  told him.  She turned  to her
companions. "We  really mustn't keep him waiting  too long. You ladies took
absolutely  too much time  changing clothes."  She smiled winsomely  at the
guard. "You  know how it is," she said. "The riding  habit must be just so,
and the hair absolutely has to be brushed one last time. Sometimes it takes
forever. Come  along, ladies. We must  hurry, or Lord Hettar  will be vexed
with us."  With a brainless  little giggle, the princess  wheeled Noble and
rode south at a gallop.

"Ce'Nedra,  "Ariana exclaimed  in  a shocked  voice once  they were  out of
earshot, "you lied to him."

"Of course."

"But that's dreadful."

"Not nearly  as dreadful as spending another  day embroidering daisies on a
stupid petticoat," the princess replied.

They  left the  fortifications and  crossed a  low, burned-brown  string of
hills.  The  broad  valley  beyond was  enormous.  Dun  brown and  treeless
mountains reared  up fully twenty miles away at  the valley's far end. They
cantered down into that vast emptiness, feeling dwarfed into insignificance
by the  colossal landscape. Their horses seemed  no more than ants crawling
toward the indifferent mountains.

"I hadn't  realized it was so big," Ce'Nedra  murmured, shading her eyes to
gaze at the distant hilltops.

The floor of the valley was as flat as a tabletop, and it was only sparsely
sprinkled  with low, thorny  bushes. The  ground was scattered  with round,
fist-sized rocks, and the  dust spurted, yellow and powdery, from each step
of their  horses' hoofs. Although  it was scarcely midmorning,  the sun was
already a furnace, and shimmering heatwaves rippled the valley floor ahead,
making  the dusty,  gray-green bushes  seem to  dance in the  windless air.

It  grew hotter.  There was no  trace of  moisture anywhere, and  the sweat
dried   almost  instantly   on   the  flanks   of  their   panting  horses.

"I think we should give some thought to going back," Adara said, reining in
her  mount. "There's  no way  we can reach  those hills  at the end  of the
valley."

"She's right,  your Majesty," Olban told  the princess. "We've already come
too far."

Ce'Nedra pulled Noble to a stop, and the white horse drooped his head as if
on the verge of absolute exhaustion. "Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself,"
she chided  him irritably. This was  not going at all  as she had expected.
She looked  around. "I wonder if  we could find some  shade somewhere," she
said.  Her  lips  were dry,  and  the  sun seemed  to  hammer  down on  her
unprotected head.

"The terrain doth not suggest such comfort, princess," Ariana said, looking
around at the flat emptiness of the rock-strewn valley floor.

"Did  anyone think  to  bring any  water?" Ce'Nedra  asked, dabbing  at her
forehead with a kerchief.

No one had.

"Maybe we  should go back," she  decided, looking about rather regretfully.
"There's nothing to see out here, anyway."

"Riders coming," Adara said sharply, pointing toward a mounted group of men
emerging from  an indented galley that  lay like a fold  on the flanks of a
rounded hill a mile or so away.

"Murgos?" Olban  demanded with a sharp intake of  his breath. His hand went
immediately to his sword.

Adara  raised her  hand to  shade her  eyes and  stared at  the approaching
horsemen intently.

"No,"  she replied.  "They're Algars.  I can  tell by  the way  they ride."

"I hope they have some water with them," Ce'Nedra said.

The dozen  or so Algar riders rode directly toward  them with a great cloud
of yellow dust rising behind them. Adara suddenly gasped, and her face went
very pale.

"What is it?" Ce'Nedra asked her.

"Lord Hettar is with them," Adara said in a choked voice.

"How can you possibly recognize anybody at that distance?"

Adara bit her lip, but did not reply.

Hettar's  face was  fierce  and unforgiving  as he  reined in  his sweating
horse. "What are you doing out here?" he demanded bluntly. His hawkface and
black   scalp  lock   gave  him   a  wild,  even   frightening  appearance.

"We thought we'd go riding, Lord Hettar," Ce'Nedra replied brightly, trying
to outface him.

Hettar ignored that. "Have you lost your mind, Olban?" he harshly asked the
young  Rivan.  "Why  did  you  permit  the  ladies  to  leave  the  forts?"

"I do  not tell her Majesty  what to do," Olban  answered stiffly, his face
red.

"Oh, come now, Hettar,"  Ce'Nedra protested. "What's the harm in our taking
a little ride?"

"We killed  three Murgos not a mile from  here just yesterday," Hettar told
her. "If  you want exercise, run  around the inside of  the forts for a few
hours. Don't  just ride out unprotected  in hostile territory. You've acted
very foolishly, Ce'Nedra. We'll go back now." His face was grim as a winter
sea, and his tone left no room for discussion.

"We had  just made  the same decision,  my Lord," Adara  murmured, her eyes
downcast.

Hettar looked  sternly at the condition of  their horses. "You're an Algar,
Lady Adara," he said  pointedly. "Didn't it occur to you to bring water for
your mounts?  Surely you know better than to take a  horse out in this kind
of heat without any precautions at all."

Adara's pale face grew stricken.

Hettar shook his head  in disgust. "Water their horses," he curtly told one
of  his men,  "and then  we'll escort  them back.  Your excursion  is over,
ladies."

Adara's  face was  flaming  with a  look  of almost  unbearable shame.  She
twisted this  way and that in  her saddle, trying to  avoid Hettar's stern,
unforgiving stare. No sooner had her horse been watered than she jerked her
reins and  dug her heels into his flanks.  Her startled mount scrambled his
hoofs in  the gravel  and leaped away,  running back the way  they had come
across the rock-littered valley floor.

Hettar swore and drove his mount after her.

"Whatever is she doing?" Ce'Nedra exclaimed.

"Lord  Hettar's   rebuke  hath  stung  our   gentle  companion  beyond  her
endurance," Ariana  observed. "His good opinion is  dearer to her than leer
life itself."

"Hettar?" Ce'Nedra was stunned.

"Hath not throe eye  informed thee how it doth stand with our dear friend?"
Ariana asked in mild  surprise. "Thou art strangely unobservant, Princess."

"Hettar?" Ce'Nedra repeated. "I had no idea."

"Mayhap it  is because I am Mimbrate," Ariana  concluded. "The ladies of my
people  are most  sensitive to  the signs  of gentle affection  in others."

It took  perhaps a  hundred yards for  Hettar to overtake  Adara's plunging
horse. He  seized her reins in  one fist and jerked  her roughly to a stop,
speaking  sharply to  her,  demanding to  know  what she  was doing.  Adara
twisted this way and that in her saddle, trying to keep him from seeing her
face as he continued to chide her.

Then a  flicker of movement no  more than twenty feet  from the two of them
caught Ce'Nedra's  eye. Astonishingly,  a mail-shined Murgo rose  up out of
the   sand  between  two   scrubby  bushes,   shaking  off  the   sheet  of
brown-splotched canvas beneath which he had lain concealed. As he rose, his
short bow was already drawn.

"Hettar!" Ce'Nedra screamed as  the Murgo raised his bow. Hettar's back was
to  the Murgo,  but  Adara saw  the man  aiming  his arrow  at  the Algar's
unprotected back. With a desperate move, she ripped her reins from Hettar's
grip and  drove her  horse into his.  His mount lurched  back, stumbled and
fell, throwing the unprepared man to the ground even as Adara, flailing her
horse's flanks  with the ends of her reins,  plunged directly at the Murgo.

With only  the faintest flicker of annoyance,  the Murgo released his arrow
at the charging girl.

Even at  that distance,  Ce'Nedra could hear  the distinct sound  the arrow
made when  it struck Adara. It  was a sound she  would remember with horror
for  the  remainder of  her  life.  Adara doubled  sharply,  her free  hand
clutching at the arrow buried low in her chest, but her plunging gallop did
not falter  nor change  as she rode  the Murgo down. He  tumbled and rolled
beneath the churning hoofs  of her horse, then lurched again to his feet as
soon as  she had passed over  him, his hand jerking  at his sheathed sword.
But Hettar  was already upon  him, sabre flashing in  the glaring sunlight.
The Murgo screamed once as he fell.

Hettar,  his dripping  sabre still  in his  hand, turned angrily  to Adara.
"What a  stupid thing," he roared  at her, but his  shout cut off suddenly.
Her horse had come  to a stop a few yards beyond the Murgo, and she drooped
in her  saddle, her dark hair falling like a veil  across her pale face and
both of her hands  pressed to her chest. Then, slowly, she toppled from her
saddle.

With a strangled cry, Hettar dropped his sabre and ran to her.

"Adara!" the princess wailed, her hands going to her face in horror even as
Hettar gently turned the  stricken girl over. The arrow, still standing out
of her  lower chest, throbbed  with the rhythm of  her faltering heartbeat.

When the  rest of  them reached the  pair, Hettar was holding  Adara in his
arms, staring  into her pale face with a  stricken look. "You little fool,"
he was murmuring in a broken voice. "You little fool."

Ariana slid from her saddle even before her horse stopped moving and ran to
Hettar's side. "Do not move her, my Lord," she told him sharply. "The arrow
hath pierced her lung,  and shouldst thou move her, its keen edge will gash
out her life."

"Take it out," Hettar said from between clenched teeth.

"Nay, my Lord. To pull the arrow now will do more damage than to leave it."

"I can't bear to see it sticking out of her like that," he almost sobbed.

"Then don't look, my  Lord," Ariana said bluntly, kneeling beside Adara and
placing  a   cool,  professional   hand  on  the   wounded  girl's  throat.

"She's not dead, is she?" Hettar almost begged.

Ariana  shook her  head. "Gravely  wounded, but  her life doth  still pulse
within her.  Instruct thy  men to improvise  a litter at once,  my Lord. We
must  convey   our  dear   friend  to  the  fortress   and  Lady  Polgara's
ministrations immediately, lest her life drain away."

"Can't you do something?" he croaked.

"Not  here  in  this  sun-blasted  desolation,  my  Lord.  I  have  neither
instruments nor  medications, and the wound may be  past my skill. The Lady
Polgara is her only hope. The litter, my Lord. Quickly!"

Polgara's face  was somber, and her eyes as hard  as flint when she emerged
from Adara's sickroom late that afternoon.

"How is  she?" Hettar demanded. He had been pacing up  and down in the main
corridor of  the blockhouse  for hours, stopping  every so often  to strike
savagely  at  the  crudely  built  stone  walls with  his  impotent  fists.

"Somewhat improved," Polgara replied.  "The crisis is past, but she's still
terribly weak. She's asking for you."

"She will recover, won't  she?" Hettar's question had a note of fear in it.

"Probably -  if there aren't any complications.  She's young, and the wound
looked more  serious than it actually  was. I gave her  something that will
make  her  very  talkative,  but don't  stay  too  long.  She needs  rest."
Polgara's  eyes moved to  Ce'Nedra's tear-streaked  face. "Come to  my room
after  you've seen  her, your Majesty,"  she said  firmly. "You and  I have
something to discuss."

Adara's porcelain  face was  framed by the  tumbled mass of  her dark brown
hair spreading  across the pillow. She was very  pale, but, though her eyes
had a slightly unfocused look about them, they were very bright. Ariana sat
quietly at the bedside.

"How do  you feel, Adara?" Ce'Nedra  asked in the quiet  but cheerful voice
one always assumes with the sick.

Adara gave her a wan little smile.

"Are you in any pain?"

"No," Adara's  voice had  a little dying fall  to it. "No pain,  but I feel
very light-headed and strange."

"Why did you do  that, Adara?" Hettar asked very directly. "You didn't have
to ride right at the Murgo like that."

"You spend too much time with horses, my Lord Sha-dar," Adara told him with
a faint smile. "You've forgotten how to understand the feelings of your own
kind."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He sounded puzzled.

"Exactly what  it says,  my Lord Hettar.  If a mare looked  admiringly at a
stallion, you'd  know how things stood  immediately, wouldn't you? But when
it  comes to people,  you simply can't  see at  all, can you?"  She coughed
weakly.

"Are you all right?" he asked sharply.

"I'm surprisingly well - considering the fact that I'm dying."

"What are you talking about? You're not dying."

She smiled slightly. "Please don't," she told him. "I know what an arrow in
the chest means.  That's why I wanted to see you. I  wanted to look at your
face once  more. I've  been watching your  face for such a  long time now."

"You're tired," he said brusquely. "You'll feel better after you've slept."

"I'll sleep,  all right,"  she said ruefully,  "but I doubt  that I'll feel
anything afterward. The sleep I'm going to is the sleep one doesn't wake up
from."

"Nonsense."

"Of  course it  is,  but it's  true nonetheless."  She sighed.  "Well, dear
Hettar, you've  finally escaped me, haven't  you? I gave you  a good chase,
though. I even asked Garion to see if he could use sorcery on you."

"Garion?"

She nodded  slightly. "You  see how desperate  I was? He  said he couldn't,
though." She made a  little face. "What good is sorcery if you can't use it
to make someone fall in love?"

"Love?" he repeated in a startled voice.

"What did  you think we were talking about,  Lord Hettar? The weather?" She
smiled   fondly  at   him.  "Sometimes   you  can  be   impossibly  dense."

He stared at her in amazement.

"Don't be  alarmed, my Lord. In a little while,  I'll stop chasing you, and
you'll be free."

"We'll  talk  about  that   when  you're  better,"  he  told  her  gravely.

"I'm  not going  to  get better.  Haven't  you been  listening? I'm  dying,
Hettar."

"No," he  said, "as a matter of fact, you're  not dying. Polgara assured us
that you're going to be all right."

Adara looked quickly at  Ariana. "Throe injury is not mortal, dear friend,"
Ariana confirmed gently. "Truly, thou art not dying."

Adara  closed her  eyes. "How  inconvenient," she  murmured, a  faint blush
coming to  her cheeks. She opened  her eyes again. "I  apologize, Hettar. I
wouldn't have  said any  of this if  I'd known that  my meddling physicians
were going to save  my life. As soon as I'm up and about, I'll return to my
own  clan.   I  won't   bother  you  again  with   my  foolish  outbursts."

Hettar looked  down at  her, his hard-angled face  expressionless. "I don't
think  I'd like  that," he  told her,  gently taking  her hand.  "There are
things you and I  need to talk about. This isn't the time or the place, but
don't go trying to make yourself unaccessible."

"You're just being kind." She sighed.

"No.  Practical. You've given  me something  to think about  beside killing
Murgos. It's probably going to take me a while to get used to the idea, but
after   I've   thought   it  over,   we'll   definitely   need  to   talk."

She bit her  lip and tried to hide her face. "What  a stupid mess I've made
of things,"  she said. "If I were somebody else, I'd  laugh at me. It would
really be better if we didn't see each other again."

"No," he  said firmly, still holding her hand,  "it wouldn't. And don't try
to hide from me, because I'll find you - even if I have to have every horse
in Algaria go looking for you."

She gave him a startled look.

"I am a Sha-dar, remember? Horses do what I tell them to."

"That's not fair," she objected.

He  gave her  a  quizzical little  smile. "And  trying  to have  Garion use
sorcery on me was?" he asked her.

"Oh, dear!" She blushed.

"She must  rest now," Ariana told them. "Thou  canst speak with her further
on the morrow."

When they  were back out in  the hallway, Ce'Nedra turned  on the tall man.
"You might  have said something  a bit more encouraging,"  she scolded him.

"It  would  have been  premature,"  he  replied. "We're  a rather  reserved
people, Princess. We don't say things just to be talking. Adara understands
the  situation." Hettar  seemed as  fierce as  ever, his  sharp-angled face
hard,  and  his  manelike  scalp  lock  flowing  over  one  leather-armored
shoulder. His eyes, however, had softened slightly, and there was a faintly
puzzled  crease between  his brows.  "Didn't Polgara  want to see  you?" he
asked.   It   was   polite,   but   it   was   a   dismissal   nonetheless.

Ce'Nedra stalked away, muttering to herself about the lack of consideration
that seemed to infect the male half of the population.

Lady Polgara  sat quietly in her  room, waiting. "Well?" she  said when the
princess entered. "Would you care to explain?"

"Explain what?"

"The reason for the idiocy that almost cost Adara her life."

"Surely you don't think it was my fault," Ce'Nedra protested.

"Whose   fault   was  it,   then?   What   were  you   doing  out   there?"

"We just  went for  a little ride. It's  so boring being cooped  up all the
time."

"Boring. What a fascinating reason to kill your friends."

Ce'Nedra gaped at her, her face suddenly very pale.

"Why do you think we built these fortifications to begin with, Ce'Nedra? It
was to provide us with some measure of protection."

"I didn't know there were Murgos out there," the princess wailed.

"Did you bother to find out?"

The entire implication of what she had done quite suddenly came crashing in
on Ce'Nedra.  She began to tremble violently, and  her shaking hand went to
her mouth. It was her fault! No matter how she might twist and turn and try
to evade  the responsibility, her foolishness had  nearly killed one of her
dearest friends. Adara had  almost paid with her life for a bit of childish
thoughtlessness. Ce'Nedra buried her face in her hands in a sudden storm of
weeping.

Polgara let  her cry for several  moments, giving her ample  time to accept
her guilt; and when  she finally spoke, there was no hint of forgiveness in
her voice.  "Tears won't wash out blood, Ce'Nedra,"  she said. "I thought I
could  at least begin  to trust your  judgment, but  it appears that  I was
wrong. You  may leave now. I  don't believe I have  anything more to say to
you this evening."

Sobbing, the princess fled.





Chapter Fourteen

"IS THIS PLACE all like this?" King Anheg asked as the army trudged through
one of  the flat, gravel-strewn valleys  with the bare, sun-baked mountains
around it  dancing in the shimmering heat. "I haven't  seen a tree since we
left the forts."

"The  country  changes  about twenty  leagues  out,  your Majesty,"  Hettar
replied  quietly,  lounging in  his  saddle  as they  rode  in the  blazing
sunlight.  "We start  to hit  trees when  we begin  coming down out  of the
uplands.  They're a  kind of low,  scraggly spruce,  but they break  up the
monotony a bit."

The column behind them stretched out for miles, dwarfed into a thin line by
the enormous  emptiness and marked more by the  cloud of yellow dust raised
by thousands  of feet  than by the  presence of men and  horses. The Cherek
ships, covered  with canvas,  jolted along over  the rocky ground  on their
low, wheeled cradles, and the dust hung over them in the stifling heat like
a gritty blanket.

"I'd pay  a lot for a  breeze right now," Anheg  said wistfully, wiping his
face.

"Just  leave  things the  way  they  are, Anheg,"  Barak  advised him.  "It
wouldn't take much to start a dust storm."

"How  much farther  is  it to  the river?"  King Rhodar  asked plaintively,
looking at the unchanging landscape. The heat was having a brutal effect on
the  corpulent  monarch. His  face  was beet  red,  and he  was soaked  and
dripping with sweat.

"Still about forty leagues," Hettar replied.

General Varana, mounted on a roan stallion, cantered back from the vanguard
of  the  column.  The  general  wore  a  short  leather kilt  and  a  plain
breastplate and helmet bearing  no marks of his rank. "The Mimbrate knights
just flushed out another pocket of Murgos," he reported.

"How many?" King Rhodar asked.

"Twenty or  so. Three or four  got away, but the  Algars are chasing them."

"Shouldn't  our patrols be  farther out?"  King Anheg fretted,  mopping his
face again.  "Those ships don't look that much  like wagons. I'd rather not
have  to  fight  my  way  down  the  River  Mardu-if we  ever  get  there."

"I've got people moving around out there, Anheg," King Cho-Hag assured him.

"Has anyone run across any Malloreans yet?" Anheg asked.

"Not  so far,"  Cho-Hag  replied. "All  we've seen  so  far are  Thulls and
Murgos."

"It looks as if 'Zakath is holding firm at Thull Zelik," Varana added.

"I wish I knew more about him," Rhodar said.

"The Emperor's  emissaries report  that he's a very  civilized man," Varana
said. "Cultured, urbane, very polite."

"I'm sure there's another  side to him," Rhodar disagreed. "The Nadraks are
terrified of him, and it takes a lot to frighten a Nadrak."

"As long as he  stays at Thull Zelik, I don't care what kind of man he is,"
Anheg declared.

Colonel Brendig rode forward from the toiling column of infantry and wagons
stretched out behind them. "King Fulrach asks that we halt the column for a
rest period," he reported.

"Again?" Anheg demanded irritably.

"We've marched for two hours, your Majesty," Brendig pointed out. "Marching
in all this heat and dust is very exhausting for infantry. The men won't be
much  good   in  a   fight  if  they're   all  wrung  out   from  walking."

"Halt  the column, Colonel,"  Polgara told  the Sendarian baronet.  "We can
rely on  Fulrach's judgment  in these matters."  She turned to  the King of
Cherek. "Stop being so peevish, Anheg," she chided him.

"I'm being broiled alive, Polgara," he complained.

"Try walking  for a  few miles," she  told him sweetly. "That  may give you
some insight into how the infantry feels "

Anheg scowled, but remained silent.

Princess Ce'Nedra  pulled in her  sweating mount as the  column halted. The
princess had spoken very  little since Adara had been wounded. The dreadful
sense  of  her responsibility  for  her  friend's nearly  fatal injury  had
sobered her enormously, and she had retreated into a kind of shell that was
totally  unnatural for  her. She  removed the  loosewoven straw hat  that a
captive  Thull had  made  for her  back at  the  fort and  squinted  at the
blistering sky.

"Put the  hat back on, Ce'Nedra," Lady Polgara told  her. "I don't want you
getting sunstroke."

Ce'Nedra obediently put her  hat back on. "He's coming back," she reported,
pointing at a speck in the sky high above them.

"Will  you excuse  me?" General  Varana said,  turning his horse  to leave.

"You're being absurd, Varana,"  King Rhodar told the Tolnedran. "Why do you
insist on refusing to admit he can do things you don't want to believe in?"

"It's  a   matter  of  principle,  your   Majesty,"  the  general  replied.
"Tolnedrans do not believe in sorcery. I am a Tolnedran, therefore I do not
admit that  it exists."  He hesitated. "I  must concede, however,  that his
information   is   surprisingly   accurate   -   however   he   gets   it."

A  large, blue-banded  hawk fell suddenly  out of  the broiling air  like a
stone,  flared his  wings at  the last  moment, and  settled on  the ground
directly in front of them.

General Varana  resolutely turned his back  and stared with apparently deep
interest at a featureless hill some five miles distant.

The hawk began to  shimmer and change even as he folded his wings. "Are you
stopping again?" Beldin demanded irascibly.

"We have to rest the troops, Uncle," Polgara replied.

"This isn't a Sunday stroll, Pol," Beldin retorted. He began to scratch one
armpit, befouling the air around him with a string of rancid curses.

"What's the matter?" Polgara asked mildly.

"Lice," he grunted.

"How did he get lice?"

"I  visited some  other birds  to ask  if they'd  seen anything. I  think I
picked them up in a vulture's nest."

"What could possibly possess you to go consorting with vultures?"

"Vultures aren't that bad,  Pol. They perform a necessary function, and the
chicks do have a  certain charm. The she-vulture had been picking at a dead
horse about  twenty leagues  south of here.  After she told me  about it, I
went  down  to take  a  look.  There's a  Murgo  column  coming this  way."

"How many?"  General Varana asked  quickly, his back still  turned to them.

"A  thousand  or  so,"  Beldin  shrugged. "They're  pushing  hard.  They'll
probably intercept you tomorrow morning."

"A  thousand Murgos  aren't that  much to  worry about," King  Rhodar said,
frowning. "Not to an  army of this size. But what's the point of throwing a
thousand men  away? What does Taur Urgas hope  to accomplish?" He turned to
Hettar. "Do  you suppose  you could ride  ahead and ask  Korodullin and the
Baron of  Vo Mandor  to join us.  I think we  ought to  have a conference."

Hettar nodded  and loped his horse  ahead toward the gleaming  ranks of the
Mimbrate knights at the head of the column.

"Were there  any Grolims with the Murgos,  Uncle?" Polgara asked the filthy
hunchback.

"Not unless  they were well-hidden," he replied.  "I didn't probe too much,
though. I didn't want to give myself away."

General  Varana abruptly abandoned  his careful  study of the  hills around
them and turned his horse about to join them. "My first guess would be that
the Murgo  column is a token gesture from Taur  Urgas. He probably wants to
get on the good  side of King Gethell; and since the Malloreans won't leave
Thull Zelik,  he can pick up  some advantage by committing  a few troops to
aid  in  the  defense  of  the  Thullish  towns  and  villages  we've  been
destroying."

"That makes sense, Rhodar," Anheg agreed.

"Maybe," Rhodar  said dubiously. "Taur Urgas  doesn't think like a rational
man, though."

King Korodullin, flanked by Mandorallen and the Baron of Vo Ebor, thundered
back  to join  them. Their  armor flashed  in the  sun, and all  three were
flushed and miserable-looking in their steel casings.

"How can you stand all that?" Rhodar asked.

"Custom, your  Majesty," Korodullin  replied. "The armor  doth inflict some
discomfort, but we have learned to endure it."

General  Varana quickly  sketched  in the  situation for  them. Mandorallen
shrugged. "It  is of  no moment. I will  take some few dozen  men and smash
this threat from the south."

Barak looked at King  Anheg. "You see what I mean about him?" he said. "Now
you can understand why I was so nervous all the time we were chasing across
Cthol Murgos."

King Fulrach had ridden  forward to join the conference, and he cleared his
throat diffidently. "Might I make a suggestion?" he asked.

"We  eagerly  await the  practical  wisdom  of the  King  of the  Sendars,"
Korodullin replied with extravagant courtesy.

"The Murgo  column doesn't really pose much of  a threat, does it?" Fulrach
inquired.

"Not really,  your Majesty,"  Varana replied. "At  least, now that  we know
that they're  out there.  We think that  they're some kind  of minor relief
column  sent to  placate  the Thulls.  Their  presence in  our vicinity  is
probably entirely accidental."

"I don't  want them  getting close enough  to recognize my  ships, though,"
Anheg declared firmly.

"We'll take care of that, Anheg," Rhodar told him.

"Any  one of the  elements of our  army might  easily overcome so  slight a
threat,"  Fulrach continued,  "but mightn't  it be  better - from  a morale
standpoint - to give the victory to the entire army?"

"I don't quite follow you, Fulrach," Anheg said.

"Instead of letting Sir Mandorallen annihilate these thousand Murgos all by
himself, why  not select  a contingent from  each part of the  army to deal
with  them?  Not  only  will  that  give  us some  experience  in  tactical
coordination, but it'll give  all the men a sense of pride. An easy victory
now will stiffen their  backs when we run into more difficult times later."

"Fulrach, sometimes you positively amaze me," Rhodar declared. "I think the
whole trouble is that you don't look that clever."

The contingents that were to turn south to meet the approaching Murgos were
selected by  lot, once again at  the suggestion of King  Fulrach. "That way
there'll  be no  suspicion  in the  army that  this is  some kind  of elite
force," he noted.

While the  rest of the column pushed on toward  the headwaters of the River
Mardu,  the  miniature  army  under  the  command  of  Barak,  Hettar,  and
Mandorallen  veered  to  the   south  to  intercept  the  enemy  spearhead.

"They'll be all right, won't they?" Ce'Nedra nervously asked Polgara as she
watched them  growing smaller and smaller as they  rode off across the arid
valley toward the solid line of mountains to the south.

"I'm   certain    they   will,   dear,"    Polgara   replied   confidently.

The  princess, however,  did  not sleep  that  night. For  the first  time,
members of  her army  were committed to  a real battle, and  she tossed and
turned   the   entire   night,   imagining   all   manner   of   disasters.

About midmorning of the following day, however, the special force returned.
There were a few bandages here and there and perhaps a dozen empty saddles,
but the look of victory shone on every face.

"Very  nice  little  fight,"  Barak reported.  The  huge  man was  grinning
broadly.  "We caught  them just  before sundown.  They never knew  what hit
them."

General Varana,  who had accompanied the  force to observe, was  a bit more
precise   as  he   described  the   engagement  to  the   assembled  kings.

"The general  tactics did work pretty much as  we'd planned," he said. "The
Asturian archers  swept the column with  an arrow storm to  begin with, and
then the infantry units  moved into position at the top of a long slope. We
interspersed legionnaires, Drasnian pikemen,  Sendars and the Arendish serf
units  evenly  along the  entire  front  with the  archers  behind them  to
continue  harassing  the enemy  with  arrows.  As we  expected, the  Murgos
charged.  As soon as  they'd committed  themselves, the Chereks  and Rivans
moved  into  position behind  them,  and  the Algars  began slashing  their
flanks. When  the Murgo assault began to  falter, the Mimbrate knights made
their charge."

"It was  absolutely splendid!"  Lelldorin exclaimed, his  eyes very bright.
There was a bandage around the young Asturian's upper arm, but he seemed to
have forgotten  that it was there  as he gesticulated wildly.  "Just at the
point  when the  Murgos were  completely confused,  there was a  sound like
thunder, and the knights  came curving around the side of a hill with their
lances advanced and their pennons streaming. They bore down on the Murgos -
a wave of solid  steel - and the hoofs of their horses shook the earth. And
then  at  the last  moment,  they all  lowered  their lances.  It was  like
watching a wave break. And then they hit the Murgos with a great crash, and
they didn't even slow  down. They rode through them as if they weren't even
there! They  absolutely crushed them, and then we all  ran in to finish up.
It was glorious!"

"He's as bad as Mandorallen, isn't he?" Barak observed to Hettar.

"I think it's in their blood," Hettar replied sagely.

"Did any of them get away?" Anheg asked.

Barak gave his cousin an evil grin. "After it got dark, we could hear a few
of them  trying to crawl away.  That's when Relg and  his Ulgos went out to
tidy up. Don't worry,  Anheg. Nobody's going to report back to Taur Urgas."

"He  is  likely  to   be  waiting  for  news,  isn't  he?"  Anheg  grinned.

"I hope he's patient, then," Barak replied, "because he'll be waiting for a
long time."

Ariana, her face somber, took Lelldorin to task very firmly for his lack of
discretion, even as she  tended his wound. Her words far surpassed a simple
scolding. She grew eloquent,  and her lengthy, involuted sentences gave her
remonstrance a  depth and scope that  reduced her young man  very nearly to
tears. His wound, admittedly minor, became a symbol of his careless lack of
regard  for her.  Her  expression grew  martyred, and  his  grew anguished.
Ce'Nedra observed  how neatly Ariana  twisted each of the  young man's lame
excuses  into an  even greater  personal injury,  and filed  this excellent
technique away in a  compartment of her complex little mind for future use.
True,  Garion was somewhat  brighter than  Lelldorin, but the  tactic would
probably work on him too, if she practiced a little.

Taiba's  meeting with  Relg,  on the  other  hand, involved  no words.  The
beautiful Marag woman who had emerged from the slave pens beneath Rak Cthol
only to enter a slavery even more profound, flew to the Ulgo fanatic's side
upon  his return.  With  a low  cry,  she unthinkingly  embraced him.  Relg
flinched away from her,  but the almost automatic, "Don't touch me," seemed
to die on his  lips, and his eyes went very wide as  she clung to him. Then
Taiba remembered  his aversion  and helplessly let  her arms drop,  but her
violet eyes glowed as they drank in his pale, large-eyed face. Then slowly,
almost as if he were putting his arm into a fire, Relg reached out and took
her hand.  A brief  look of incredulity  crossed her face,  followed almost
immediately  by a  slow blush.  They looked  into each  other's eyes  for a
moment, then walked off  together, hand in hand. Taiba's eyes were demurely
downcast, but  there hovered  about her rich,  sensual mouth a  tiny little
smile of triumph.

The  victory  over  the  Murgo  column  raised  the  spirits  of  the  army
tremendously. The heat and  dust no longer seemed to sap their energy as it
had  during  the first  few  days  of the  march,  and a  growing sense  of
camaraderie  grew between  the  diversified units  as they  pushed steadily
eastward.

It took  them four more days of steady marching  to reach the headwaters of
the River Mardu and  another day to push on down along the tumbling flow to
a  spot where  the ships  could safely  be launched.  Hettar and  his Algar
patrols ranged  far ahead  and reported that  there remained only  one more
stretch of  rapids about  ten leagues ahead  before the river  settled into
tranquility on the Thullish plain.

"We can  portage around the rapids," King  Anheg declared. "Let's get these
ships into the water. We've lost enough time already."

There was  a rather high earthbank at that point,  but the army attacked it
vigorously with shovels and  mattocks, and it was soon reduced to a sloping
ramp.  One by  one  the ships  were rolled  down the  ramp into  the water.

"We'll need a while to raise the masts," Anheg said.

"Leave that until later," Rhodar told him.

Anheg looked at him sharply.

"You're not going to be able to use your sails anyway, Anheg, and the masts
stick up too high.  The stupidest Thull in the world will know what's going
on if  he sees  a forest of ship  masts coming down the  river toward him."

It was evening by  the time the ships had all been launched and Polgara led
the  princess, Ariana  and  Taiba on  board Barak's  ship. A  breeze coming
upriver gently rippled the surface of the water and set the ship to rocking
slowly.  Beyond  the watchfires,  the  Thullish grassland  stretched as  if
forever beneath a purpling  sky where, one by one, the stars were emerging.

"How far is it to Thull Mardu?" Ce'Nedra asked Barak.

The  big man  pulled at  his beard,  squinting downriver.  "One day  to the
rapids," he  replied, "then one day  to make the portage  around them. Then
about two days after that."

"Four days," she said in a small voice. He nodded.

"I wish it was over," she sighed.

"All  in   good  time,  Ce'Nedra,"  he  told   her.  "All  in  good  time."





Chapter Fifteen

THE SHIPS  WERE horribly crowded, even though  scarcely half the army could
squeeze aboard them. The  Algar clansmen and the Mimbrate knights patrolled
the  banks as  the  Chereks rowed  downriver toward  the rapids,  and those
infantry  elements that  could not be  carried by  the ships rode  in close
files on the spare horses of the cavalry.

The Thullish  grasslands on either  side of the river  were gently rolling,
long  hillsides covered with  deep, sun-browned  grass. Just back  from the
river there were sparse  clusters of the twisted, sprucelike trees that had
dotted  the lower  foothills, and  near the  water itself rose  thickets of
willow and creeping brambles. The sky remained clear, and it was still hot,
though the river added  enough moisture to the air to alleviate the parched
aridity that  had plagued men and horses alike  in the vast, stony uplands.
It was  an alien landscape for all of them,  and the cavalry patrolling the
banks   rode   warily   with   their   hands  close   to   their   weapons.

And then they rounded  a wide bend and saw the white, tumbling water of the
rapids ahead. Barak swung  the tiller of his big ship over and beached her.
"Looks like it's time to get out and walk," he grunted.

A  dispute had  arisen near  the bow  of the  ship. The  brown-bearded King
Fulrach  was loudly  protesting  the decision  to leave  his  supply wagons
behind at the rapids.  "I didn't bring them all this way just to leave them
sitting here," he declared with uncharacteristic heat.

"They take  too long to get  anyplace," Anheg told him.  "We're in a hurry,
Fulrach. I've got to get my ships past Thull Mardu before the Murgos or the
Malloreans wake up to what we're doing."

"You didn't  object to having them along when you  got hungry or thirsty in
the uplands," Fulrach told him angrily.

"That was then. This is now. I've got to take care of my ships."

"And I'm going to take care of my wagons."

"They'll be  all right, Fulrach,"  Rhodar said placatingly. "We  do have to
hurry,   and   your  wagons   can't   move   fast  enough   to  keep   up."

"If somebody  comes along and burns  them, you're going to  get very hungry
before we get back to the forts, Rhodar."

"We'll  leave men  to  guard them,  Fulrach. Be  reasonable. You  worry too
much."

"Somebody's got to. You Alorns seem to forget that the fighting's only half
of it."

"Stop  acting like an  old woman,  Fulrach," Anheg said  bluntly. Fulrach's
face  grew very  cold.  "I don't  know that  I care  for that  last remark,
Anheg,"  he said  stiffly. Then  he turned  on his  heel and  stalked away.

"What's got into him?" the King of Cherek asked innocently.

"Anheg, if  you don't learn how  to keep your mouth  shut, we might have to
muzzle you," Rhodar told him.

"I thought  we came here to  fight Angaraks," Brand said  mildly. "Have the
rules been changed?"

The irritable bickering among her friends worried Ce'Nedra, and she went to
Polgara with her concern.

"It's nothing  all that important, dear," the  lady replied as she scrubbed
Errand's neck.  "The upcoming  battle's got them  a bit edgy,  that's all."

"But    they're    men,"    Ce'Nedra    protested,   "trained    warriors."

"What does  that have to do with it?" Polgara  asked, reaching for a towel.

The princess couldn't think of an answer.

The portage at the  rapids went smoothly, and the ships reentered the river
below  the  tumbling stretch  of  seething white-water  by late  afternoon.
Ce'Nedra  by now  was virtually ill  as a  result of the  almost unbearable
tension.  All the  months she had  spent in  raising the army  and marching
eastward were  about to come to a final  culmination. Within two days, they
would hurl  themselves at the walls of Thull Mardu.  Was it the right time?
Was it,  in fact, really  necessary? Couldn't they just  portage around the
city and  avoid the battle  entirely? Although the Alorn  kings had assured
her that  the city had to be neutralized,  Ce'Nedra's doubts grew with each
mile. What if this was a mistake?

The princess worried and  fretted and worried some more as she stood at the
prow  of Barak's  ship,  staring at  the  broad river  winding through  the
Thullish grasslands.

Finally,  just at  evening  of the  second  day after  the portage,  Hettar
galloped back  and reined in his  horse on the north  bank of the river. He
motioned with  his arm,  and Barak swung  his tiller over,  angling the big
ship in closer to the bank.

"The  city's about  two leagues  ahead," the  tall Algar called  across the
intervening space.  "If you get too  much closer, they'll see  you from the
walls."

"This is close enough,  then," Rhodar decided. "Pass the word to anchor the
ships. We'll wait here until dark."

Barak nodded and made  a quick gesture to a waiting sailor. The man quickly
raised a tall pole  with a bit of bright red bunting nailed to its tip, and
the fleet behind them  slowed in answer to the signal. There was a creaking
of windlasses  as the anchors settled  to the bottom, and  the ships rocked
and swung sluggishly in the current.

"I still  don't like this  part," Anheg growled morosely.  "Too many things
can go wrong in the dark."

"They'll go wrong for them, too," Brand told him.

"We've been over it a dozen times, Anheg," Rhodar said. "We all agreed that
it's the best plan."

"It's never been done before," Anheg said.

"That's the  whole point,  isn't it?" Varana suggested.  "The people inside
the city won't expect it."

"Are  you sure your  men will be  able to  see where they're  going?" Anheg
demanded of Relg.

The  zealot nodded.  He  was wearing  his cowled  leaf  mail shirt  and was
carefully testing the edge of his hook-pointed knife. "What you think of as
darkness is normal light for us," he replied.

Anheg scowled at the  purpling sky overhead. "I hate being the first one to
try something new," he announced.

They  waited as  evening settled  on the  plain. From  the thickets  at the
river's  edge, birds clucked  sleepily, and  the frogs began  their evening
symphony. Slowly out of  the gathering darkness, the cavalry units began to
group  up along  the banks.  The Mimbrate  knights on their  great chargers
massed into  ranks, and  the Algar clansmen  spread like a  dark sea beyond
them. Commanding the south  bank were Cho-Hag and Korodullin. The north was
led by Hettar and Mandorallen.

Slowly it grew darker.

A young Mimbrate knight who had been injured during the attack on the Murgo
column  stood leaning  against  the rail,  looking pensively  out  into the
twilight. The  knight had  dark, curly hair  and the snowy  complexion of a
young girl.  His shoulders were broad, his neck  columnar, and his eyes had
an open innocence in them. His expression, however, was faintly melancholy.

The waiting had become unbearable, and Ce'Nedra had to talk to someone. She
leaned  on the rail  beside the young  man. "Why  so sad, Sir  Knight?" she
asked him quietly.

"Because I am forbidden to take part in this night's adventure by reason of
this slight  injury, your Majesty," he  replied, touching his splinted arm.
He seemed unsurprised by her presence or by the fact that she had spoken to
him.

"Do  you hate the  Angaraks so much  that missing  the chance to  kill them
causes you pain?" Ce'Nedra's question was gently mocking.

"Nay, my Lady," he  answered. "I have no malice in me for any man, whatever
his race. What I  lament is being denied the chance to try my skills in the
contest."

"Contest? Is that how you think of it?"

"Assuredly, your  Majesty. In what  other light should it  be considered? I
hold no  personal rancor toward the  men of Angarak, and  it is improper to
hate throe opponent in  a test of arms. Some few men have fallen beneath my
lance or my sword  at diverse tourneys, but I have never hated any of them.
Much to the contrary,  I have had some affection for them as we strove with
one another."

"But you  were trying to cripple them." Ce'Nedra  was startled at the young
man's casual attitude.

"It is a part  of the contest, your Majesty. A true test of arms may not be
decided save by the injury or death of one of the combatants."

"What's your name, Sir Knight?" she asked him.

"I am Sir Beridel,"  he replied, "son of Sir Andorig, Baron of Vo Enderig."

"The man with the apple tree?"

"The very  same, your Majesty." The  young man seemed pleased  that she had
heard of his father  and the strange duty Belgarath had imposed on him. "My
father now  rides at the right  hand of King Korodullin.  I would ride with
them this night but for this stroke of ill fortune." He looked sadly at his
broken arm.

"There  will be  other nights,  Sir Beridel,"  she assured him,  "and other
contests."

"Truly, your Majesty," he agreed. His face brightened momentarily, but then
he sighed and went back to his somber brooding.

Ce'Nedra drifted away, leaving him to his thoughts.

"You can't  really talk to them, you know," a rough  voice said to her from
the shadows. It was Beldin, the ugly hunchback.

"He doesn't seem to  be afraid of anything," Ce'Nedra said a bit nervously.
The foul-mouthed sorcerer always made her nervous.

"He's a Mimbrate Arend,"  Beldin snorted. "He doesn't have enough brains to
be afraid."

"Are all the men in the army like him?"

"No. Most of them are afraid, but they'll go through with the attack anyway
- for a variety of reasons."

"And you?" she could not help asking. "Are you afraid too?"

"My fears are a bit more exotic," he said dryly.

"Such as?"

"We've been at this  for a very long time - Belgarath, Pol, the twins and I
- and I'm more concerned about something going wrong than I am about my own
personal safety."

"How do you mean, wrong?"

"The  Prophecy is  very complex -  and it  doesn't say everything.  The two
possible outcomes of all this are still absolutely balanced as far as I can
tell. Something  very, very  slight could tip  that balance one  way or the
other. It  could be something that I've  overlooked. That's what I'm afraid
of."

"All we can do is the best we can."

"That might not be enough."

"What else can we do?"

"I don't know - and that's what worries me."

"Why worry about something if you can't do anything about it?"

"Now you're starting to  sound like Belgarath. He tends to shrug things off
and trust to his  luck sometimes. I like things a little neater." He stared
off into  the darkness. "Stay close  to Pol tonight, little  girl," he said
after a moment. "Don't  get separated from her. It might take you someplace
you hadn't  planned to go, but you're supposed to  stay with her, no matter
what."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't  know what it means,"  he retorted irritably. "All  I know is that
you  and she  and the  blacksmith and  that stray  child you picked  up are
supposed  to  stay  together. Something  unexpected  is  going to  happen."

"You mean a disaster? We must warn the others."

"We  don't  know that  it's  a  disaster," he  replied.  "That's the  whole
problem. It might be  necessary, and if it is, we don't want to tamper with
it.  I think  we've  about run  this discussion  into  the ground.  Go find
Polgara and stay with her."

"Yes, Beldin," Ce'Nedra said meekly.

As  the stars began  to come out,  the anchors  were raised and  the Cherek
fleet began to slip  quietly downriver toward Thull Mardu. Though they were
still some  miles above the city, commands  were issued in hoarse whispers,
and the men all took great care to avoid making noise as they shifted their
weapons  and  equipment,  tightening   belts,  giving  their  armor  quick,
last-minute checks  and settling their helmets  more firmly on their heads.

Amid  ships, Relg  was  leading his  Ulgos  in a  quiet religious  service,
muttering  the harsh  gutturals of  the Ulgo  tongue in a  scarcely audible
murmur. Their  pale faces had been smeared with  soot, and they looked like
so  many   shadows  as  they   knelt  in  prayer  to   their  strange  God.

"They're the key to the whole thing," Rhodar observed quietly to Polgara as
he watched the devotions of the Ulgos. "Are you sure that Relg is all right
for this? Sometimes he seems a bit unstable."

"He'll be fine," Polgara  replied. "The Ulgos have even more reason to hate
Torak than you Alorns do."

The drifting  ships slowly rounded a  wide bend in the  river, and there, a
half mile downstream, stood the walled city of Thull Mardu, rising from its
island in the middle of the river. There were a few torches atop the walls,
and a  faint glow rising from  within. Barak turned and,  shielding it with
his  body, he  briefly uncovered  a muffled  lantern, letting out  a single
flicker  of light.  The anchors  sank very  slowly through the  dark waters
toward the riverbottom; with a very faint creak of ropes, the ships slowed,
then stopped.

Somewhere inside the city a dog began to bark excitedly. Then a door banged
open,   and  the   barking  cut   off  suddenly   with  a  yelp   of  pain.

"I don't  have much use for  a man who kicks  his own dog," Barak muttered.

Relg and  his men moved very quietly to the rail  and began to clamber down
ropes into the small boats waiting below.

Ce'Nedra  watched  breathlessly, straining  with  her  eyes to  see in  the
darkness.  The  very faint  starlight  briefly showed  her several  shadows
drifting  down toward  the city.  Then the  shadows were gone.  Behind them
there  was  a  faint  splash of  an  oar,  followed  by  an angrily  hissed
admonition. The princess turned and saw a moving tide of small boats coming
downriver  from  the anchored  fleet.  The  spearhead of  the assault  slid
silently by, following Relg  and his Ulgos toward the fortified island city
of the Thulls.

"Are  you  sure there  are  enough  of them?"  Anheg  whispered to  Rhodar.

The rotund King of Drasnia nodded. "All they have to do is secure a landing
place for  us and hold the  gate once the Ulgos  get it open," he murmured.
"There's enough of them for that."

A faint night breeze  rippled the surface of the river, setting the ship to
rocking.  Unable  to bear  the  suspense  any longer,  Ce'Nedra lifted  her
fingertips to  the amulet  Garion had given  her so many  months before. As
always, a buzz of conversation filled her ears.

"Yaga, for gohek vilta."  It was Relg's harsh voice, speaking in a whisper.
"Ka tak. feedh."

"Well?" Polgara asked, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"I can't  tell what they're saying,"  Ce'Nedra replied helplessly. "They're
talking in Ulgo."

A strangled groan quite  suddenly seemed to come from the amulet itself and
then was quickly and horribly cut off.

"I  - I  think they  just killed  somebody," Ce'Nedra  said in  a quavering
voice.

"It's started then," Anheg  said with a certain grim satisfaction. Ce'Nedra
pulled her  fingertips from the amulet. She could  no longer bear to listen
to the sound of men dying in the dark.

They waited.

Then someone screamed, a scream filled with a terrible agony.

"That's  it!" Barak  declared.  "That's the  signal! Pull  the  anchor!" he
shouted to his men.

Very suddenly  beneath the  high, dark walls  of Thull Mardu,  two separate
fires flared  up, and shadowy figures  could be seen moving  about them. At
the same  moment, there  was a clanking  rattle of heavy  chains inside the
city and a creaking  groan as a broad gate swung ponderously down to form a
bridge across the narrow north channel of the river.

"Man your  oars!" Barak roared to his crew. He  swung his tiller hard over,
steering toward the rapidly lowering bridge.

More torches appeared along the tops of the walls, and there were shouts of
alarm. Somewhere  an iron bell began to clang  a note of desperate urgency.

"It worked!"  Anheg exclaimed,  gleefully pounding Rhodar on  the back. "It
actually worked!"

"Of  course it  worked," Rhodar  replied, his  voice also  jubilant. "Don't
pound on me so hard, Anheg. I bruise easily."

All need for silence was gone now, and a great roar went up from the massed
fleet  following in  Barak's  wake. Torches  flared, and  the faces  of the
troops lining the rails were bathed in their ruddy glow.

A great splash suddenly erupted from the river twenty yards to the right of
Barak's  ship,  showering  everyone   on  deck  with  a  deluge  of  water.

"Catapult!"  Barak shouted,  pointing at  the walls  looming ahead.  Like a
huge, preying  insect, the heavy-beamed frame  of the siege-engine balanced
atop the  wall, its long throwing arm already  cocking back to cast another
boulder at the approaching fleet. Then the arm stopped as a storm of arrows
swept the top of  the wall clean. A crowd of Drasnians, easily identifiable
by the long pikes they carried, overran the position.

"Watch out, down there,"  one of them roared into the confusion at the base
of the wall, and the siege engine ponderously toppled outward and fell with
a crash onto the rocks below.

There  was  a thunder  of  hoofs  across the  now-lowered  bridge, and  the
Mimbrate knights crashed into the city.

"As soon  as we tie up  to the bridge, I want you  and the princess and the
other ladies to go to the north bank," King Rhodar said tersely to Polgara.
"Get back out of harm's way. This will probably take the rest of the night,
and  there's   no  point  in  exposing  any   of  you  to  any  accidents."

"Very well,  Rhodar," Polgara  agreed. "And don't you  do anything foolish,
either. You're a rather large target, you know."

"I'll be  all right, Polgara - but I'm not going  to miss this." He laughed
then, a  strangely boyish laugh. "I  haven't had so much  fun in years," he
declared.

Polgara  gave  him a  quick  look.  "Men!" she  said  in a  tone that  said
everything.

A  guard of  Mimbrate  knights escorted  the  ladies and  Errand perhaps  a
thousand  yards upstream  to  an indented  cove on  the  north bank  of the
stream,  well  away from  the  press  of the  horsemen  rushing toward  the
beleaguered  city.  The  cove  had a  gently  sloping  sand  beach and  was
protected on  three sides  by steep, grass-covered banks.  Durnik the smith
and  Olban quickly raised  a tent for  them, built  a small fire,  and then
climbed up the bank to watch the attack.

"It's  going according to  plan," Durnik  reported from his  vantage point.
"The Cherek  ships are lining up side by side  across the south channel. As
soon as  they get the planking in place, the troops  on the other side will
be able to cross."

"Can  you tell  if the  men inside  have taken  the south gate  yet?" Olban
demanded, peering toward the city.

"I can't tell for sure," Durnik replied. "There's fighting going on in that
part of the city, though."

"I'd give anything to be there," Olban lamented.

"You stay  right where you are,  young man," Polgara told  him firmly. "You
appointed yourself bodyguard to the Rivan Queen, and you're not going to go
running  off  just because  things  are more  interesting someplace  else."

"Yes, Lady Polgara," the young Rivan answered, suddenly abashed. "It's just
"

"Just what?"

"I wish  I knew what was  happening, that's all. My  father and my brothers
are in  the middle  of the fighting, and  I have to stand  here and watch."

A sudden  great belch of flame shot up from  inside the walls to illuminate
the river with sooty red light.

Polgara sighed.  "Why do they always have to  bum things?" she asked sadly.

"It adds to the confusion, I suppose," Durnik replied.

"Perhaps," Polgara said, "but  I've seen this happen too many times before.
It's always the same. There always has to be a fire. I don't believe I care
to watch  any more  of this." She turned  her back on the  burning city and
walked slowly away from the riverbank.

The night  was interminable. Toward dawn,  as the stars began  to fade from
the paling  sky, the  Princess Ce'Nedra, drawn  with fatigue, stood  atop a
grassy bank near the  cove, watching with a kind of sick fascination as the
city  of Thull  Mardu died. Entire  districts seemed  to be in  flames, and
great fountains  of orange sparks belched toward the  sky as roofs caved in
and buildings  collapsed. What had  seemed so stirring, so  glorious in her
anticipation had turned out to be something quite different in reality, and
she  was sick  at what she  had done.  She still, nonetheless,  brought her
fingertips up  to touch the amulet at her throat. She  had to know what was
happening. No matter how  horrible the events were in the city, not knowing
what was happening was even worse.

"Sort of a nice little fight," she heard King Anheg say. The King of Cherek
seemed  to be someplace  very high -  atop the  walls of the  city perhaps.

"Pretty routine,"  Barak, Earl  of Trellheim, replied.  "The Murgo garrison
fought pretty well, but  the Thulls kept falling all over themselves trying
to surrender."

"What did you do with all of them?" King Cho-Hag asked.

"We  herded them into  the central  square," Barak answered.  "They've been
amusing themselves  by killing the  Grolims we flushed out  of the temple."

Anheg suddenly  chuckled, an evil sort of  sound. "How's Grodeg?" he asked.

"It looks like he's going to live," Barak said.

"That's a  shame. When I saw  that axe sticking out  of his back, I thought
somebody's solved one of my problems for me."

"It was too low," Barak said rather mournfully. "It broke his spine, but it
didn't hit  anything else  significant. He won't  be walking any  more, but
he's still breathing."

"You can't depend on  a Murgo to do anything right," Anheg said in disgust.

"They  did   thin  out  the  Bear-cult   pretty  thoroughly,"  Barak  noted
cheerfully. "I don't think there are more than two dozen of them left. They
fought pretty well, though."

"That's what  they were here for.  How long do you  think it will be before
daylight?"

"Half an hour, maybe."

"Where's Rhodar?"

"He  and Fulrach are  sacking the  warehouses," King Cho-Hag  replied. "The
Murgos  had some  supply  dumps here.  Fulrach wants  to  confiscate them."

"He would,"  Anheg said.  "Maybe we'd better  send somebody for  them. It's
getting on  toward the time when  we'll want to think  about pulling out of
here. As  soon as  it gets light,  all this smoke's going  to announce what
we've done  to anyone within twenty  leagues. It's about time  to start the
fleet  moving, and  it's  a long  march back  to  the forts  on top  of the
escarpment."

"How long will  it take you to get to the Sea  of the East?" Cho-Hag asked.

"A couple  of days," Anheg told him. "You can move  a ship pretty fast when
you've got  the current behind you. It will take your  army a week at least
to get back to the forts, won't it?"

"Probably," Cho-Hag  said. "The infantry can't  move all that fast. There's
Brendig! I'll  send him  to fetch Rhodar."  He shouted down  to the Sendar.
"Colonel  Brendig,  see if  you  can  find Rhodar.  Ask  him  to join  us."

"What's that?" Barak asked suddenly.

"What's what?" Anheg demanded.

"I thought  I saw something  out there - way  to the south -  where you can
just start to make out that hilltop."

"I don't see anything."

"It was just a flicker - something moving."

"Probably a Murgo scout  creeping in for a look." Anheg laughed shortly. "I
don't imagine  we'll be able to  keep what happened here  a secret for very
long."

"There it is again," Barak said.

"I saw it that time, too," King Cho-Hag agreed.

There was  a long silence  as the sky imperceptibly  grew lighter. Ce'Nedra
held her breath.

"Belar!" Anheg swore in a stunned voice. "They stretch for miles!"

"Lelldorin!"  Barak shouted  down  from the  wall. "Brendig's  gone  to get
Rhodar. Go find them and tell them to get up here at once. The plain to the
south is covered with Murgos."





Chapter Sixteen

"LADY POLGARA!"  CE'NEDRA Cried, jerking  back the flap of  the tent. "Lady
Polgara!"

"What is  it, Ce'Nedra?" Polgara's voice came  from the darkness inside the
tent.

"Barak and Anheg  are up on the walls of the city,"  the princess said in a
frightened voice.  "They just saw a  Murgo army coming up  from the south."

Polgara came  quickly out into the firelight,  holding the sleepy Errand by
the hand. "Where's Beldin?" she demanded.

"I haven't seen him since early last night."

Polgara raised her face and closed her eyes. A moment or so later there was
a rushing  sound of wings, and  the large hawk settled  to the sand not far
from their flickering fire.

Beldin was swearing sulfurously  even as he shimmered and blurred back into
his natural shape.

"How did they slip past you, Uncle?" Polgara asked him.

"There are  Grolims with them,"  he growled, still sizzling  the air around
him with  oaths. "The Grolims could  feel me watching, so  the troops moved
only at night, and the Grolims shielded them."

"Where did they hide in the daytime?"

"In the Thullish villages,  apparently. There are dozens of communities out
there. It never occurred  to me to pay all that much attention to them." He
began  to swear  again,  berating himself  savagely for  having  missed the
movement of the Murgo army.

"There's no  point in swearing  about it, Uncle," Polgara  told him coolly.
"It's done, now."

"Unfortunately there's  a bit  more, Pol," the sorcerer  told her. "There's
another  army  at least  as  big coming  in  from the  north -  Malloreans,
Nadraks, and Thulls. We're caught right between them."

"How  long  have  we  got before  they  reach  us?"  Polgara asked.  Beldin
shrugged. "Not long. The  Murgos have some rough ground to cross - probably
about  an  hour.  The  Malloreans  will  be  here  in quite  a  bit  less."

Polgara began to curse fervently under her breath. "Go to Rhodar," she told
the hunchback. "Tell him  that we have to release Anheg's fleet immediately
- before  the Angaraks can bring  up catapults and destroy  the ships where
they're anchored."

The deformed  man nodded  and stooped slightly,  curving his arms  out like
wings even as he began to waver and change.

"Olban," Polgara  called to the  young Rivan, "go find  Sir Mandorallen and
Lord Hettar. Send them to me at once. Hurry."

Olban   gave   her   one   startled  look,   then   ran   for  his   horse.

Durnik the smith came sliding down the grassy bank onto their little beach.
His face was grave.  "You and the ladies must leave at once, Mistress Pol,"
he  told her.  "There's  going to  be fighting  here, and  the middle  of a
battle's no place for any of you."

"I'm not  going anywhere, Durnik," she replied  with a trace of irritation.
"I started all this, and I'm going to see it through."

Ariana had gone back into the tent as soon as the situation became clear to
her. She now emerged again, carrying the stout canvas bag in which she kept
her medical  supplies. "Have I thy permission  to leave, Lady Polgara?" she
asked with a certain  cool professionalism. "In battle men are injured, and
I  must go  make preparations  for their  care. This  spot is  somewhat too
remote and confined to receive the wounded."

Polgara gave  her a quick look.  "All right," she agreed.  "Just be careful
not to get too close to the fighting."

Taiba pulled  on her cloak. "I'll  go with you," she  told Ariana. "I don't
know that much about it, but you can teach me as we go along."

"Go help them get  set up, Durnik," Polgara told the smith. "Then come back
here."

Durnik  nodded  gravely  and  helped  the  two  women up  the  steep  bank.
Mandorallen thundered up on  his charger with Hettar at his side. "You know
what's happened?" Polgara demanded.

Mandorallen nodded.

"Is there  any possibility of withdrawing  before the enemy forces arrive?"

"Nay,  my Lady  Polgara," the  great knight  replied. "They are  too close.
Moreover, our purpose has ever been to gain passage for the ships of Cherek
into the Sea of the East. We must buy them time to sail beyond the reach of
the siege engines of the Angaraks."

"I didn't  want this," Polgara said angrily and  she began to mutter curses
again.

Brand, the  gray-cloaked Rivan Warder, accompanied  by General Varana, rode
up to join Mandorallen and Hettar at the top of the steep bank. The four of
them dismounted and slid down the bank to the sand.

"We've begun  evacuating the city," the  big Rivan said in  his deep voice,
"and most  of the fleet is pulling anchor.  We're holding just enough ships
to maintain the bridges across the south channel."

"Is there  any possibility  of putting the  entire army on one  bank or the
other?" Polgara asked him.

He shook his head. "There isn't time, Polgara."

"We're going  to be  divided by the  river," she pointed  out, "and neither
force is going to be strong enough to meet the Angaraks coming against it."

"A tactical necessity, my  dear Lady Polgara," General Varana told her. "We
have to hold both banks until the fleet is clear."

"I think  Rhodar misjudged the Angarak intentions,"  Brand said. "He was so
sure that Taur Urgas and 'Zakath would both want to avoid taking casualties
that he didn't consider this possibility."

General Varana  clasped his muscular hands behind  his back and limped back
and forth along the little beach, his face creased with thought. "I think I
begin to  understand the meaning of  that Murgo column we  destroyed in the
uplands," he said.

"Your Grace?" Mandorallen asked, puzzled.

"It was  a test of our commitment,"  Varana explained. "The Angaraks needed
to know when  we were making our major move. One of  the basic rules of war
is  not to  become involved in  serious conflicts  if what you're  doing is
merely  diversionary. That  column  was bait.  Unfortunately, we  took it."

"You  mean  we  shouldn't  have attacked  the  column?"  Hettar asked  him.

Varana made  a rueful face. "Apparently not. It  gave away our intentions -
let them  know that this  expedition was not a  diversion. I underestimated
Taur Urgas. He  threw away a thousand men just to find  out what we were up
to."

"What now?" Hettar asked.

"We get ready to fight," Varana said. "I wish we had better terrain for it,
but I suppose we'll have to make do with what we have."

Hettar looked out across the river, his hawk-face hungry. "I wonder if I've
got time to make it over to the south bank," he mused.

"One  side  or  the  other,"  Brand  said,  looking  puzzled.  "What's  the
difference?"

"The Murgos are over  there," Hettar replied. "I don't really have anything
against Malloreans."

"This isn't a personal fight, Lord Hettar," Varana pointed out.

"It is with me," Hettar said grimly.

"We  must  needs see  to  the safety  of  Lady Polgara  and the  princess,"
Mandorallen said. "Mayhap an  escort should be provided to convey them back
to the forts atop the escarpment."

Brand shook  his head. "The region  is likely to be  patrolled heavily," he
disagreed. "It wouldn't be safe."

"He's  right, Mandorallen,"  Polgara  told the  knight. "Besides,  you need
every  man you've  got right  here." She  looked off toward  the northeast.
"Then, too,  there's that." She  pointed toward a heavy  cloudbank that had
begun  to stain the  sky just above  the horizon.  The clouds were  an inky
black, seething and rolling  and illuminated from within by fitful flickers
of lightning.

"A   storm?"    General   Varana   asked,   looking    a   bit   surprised.

"Not at this time of year - and certainly not from that direction," Polgara
replied. "The Grolims are up to something, and that's going to be my fight.
Deploy your  forces, gentlemen. If there's  going to be a  battle, let's be
ready for it."

"The ships  are moving," Durnik reported  as he and Olban  came back to the
sheltered little cove, "and the troops are leaving the city."

King  Rhodar   rode  up.  His  broad  face   was  streaked  with  soot  and
perspiration.  "Anheg's leaving,"  he said,  swinging down from  his saddle
with a grunt.

"Where's Fulrach?" Brand asked.

"He's taking the bulk of the troops across to the south bank."

"Isn't that  going to leave us a little  undermanned on this side?" General
Varana inquired politely.

"That bridge is too narrow," Rhodar told him. "It would take hours to bring
enough  men across  to make  any difference.  Brendig's already got  a crew
undermining the  supports so that we  can bring the bridge  down before the
Angaraks get here."

"What for?" Ce'Nedra asked him.

"Thull  Mardu's too good  a vantage  point, your Highness,"  General Varana
explained. "We don't want any Angaraks on the island if we can help it." He
looked at  King Rhodar. "Have you given any  thought to tactics?" he asked.

"We want  to give  Anheg a half  a day, if possible,"  Rhodar replied. "The
ground along the river gets marshy about twenty leagues downstream, and the
Angaraks won't be able to get close enough to pester him, once he gets that
far.  Let's  form  up a  conventional  infantry  linepikemen, the  legions,
Sendars, and so on.  We'll put the archers in support and use the Algars to
slash at  the flanks. I want to hold the  Mimbrate knights in reserve until
the Malloreans mass up for their first charge."

"That's not  a winning tactic, if your Majesty  will forgive my saying so,"
General Varana said.

"We aren't here to  win, Varana," Rhodar told him. "We're here to delay the
Angaraks  for about  six hours and  then withdraw.  I'm not going  to waste
lives trying to win a battle I haven't any chance of winning." He turned to
Hettar. "I want you  to send a force of your clansmen on a sweep downriver.
Tell them to uproot  any Malloreans they find emplaced along the riverbank.
The  significance of  the  fleet still  may have  escaped 'Zakath  and Taur
Urgas. Angaraks  aren't good  sailors, so they probably  don't realize what
Anheg can do, once he gets into the Sea of the East."

"Excuse me,  your Majesty,"  Varana objected, "but  all of your  strategy -
even the fleet - is merely a delaying action."

"That's the whole point,  Varana," Rhodar told him bluntly. "All of this is
really rather insignificant. What's  really important is going to happen in
Mallorea when Belgarion reaches Cthol Mishrak. We'd better move, gentlemen.
The Malloreans will be here before long, and we want to be ready for them."

The  cloudbank Polgara  had pointed  out was  sweeping toward them  with an
alarming speed, a seething  darkness of rolling purple, stalking forward on
crooked  legs of  lightning. A  hot wind  seemed to  flee out ahead  of it,
flattening the grass and whipping the manes and tails of the horses wildly.
As King  Rhodar and the others moved out  to meet the approaching Mallorean
army, Polgara,  her face pale and her hair tossing  behind her in the wind,
climbed  the grassy  bank  with Ce'Nedra  and Durnik  behind her  and stood
watching the  approach of the  cloud. "Take the child,  Ce'Nedra," she said
quite   calmly.  "Don't   let  go   of  him,   no  matter   what  happens."

"Yes, Lady  Polgara," Ce'Nedra  said, holding out  her arms to  Errand. The
child came to her immediately, his serious little face unafraid. She picked
him up and held him close, her cheek against his.

"Errand?" he said, pointing at the approaching storm.

Then, among  the ranks  of their army,  shadowy figures rose up  out of the
ground. The  figures wore black robes and  polished steel masks and carried
cruel-pointed short spears. Without  pausing to even think, a mounted young
Mimbrate  knight  swept his  broadsword  from  its scabbard  and swung  the
whistling  blade  at one  of  the  steel-masked figures.  His sword  passed
through the  figure with no effect. As he  struck, however, a sizzling bolt
of  lightning struck  him, seeming  to attach  itself to  the point  of his
helmet. He  stiffened convulsively as the  lightning, like a writhing snake
of intense  light, clung to the tip of his steel  helm. Smoke boiled out of
the slits  of his visor as  he roasted inside his  armor. His horse lurched
forward onto  its knees  while the ghastly, flickering  light engulfed them
both. Then the lightning was gone, and horse and man collapsed, stone dead.

Polgara hissed  and then raised her voice. She did  not seem to be speaking
that loudly, but the  effect of her words reached the farthest edges of the
army. "Do not touch the shadows," she warned. "They're Grolim illusions and
can't hurt you unless you touch them. They're here to draw the lightning to
you, so stay clear of them."

"But, Mistress  Pol," Durnik protested,  "the troops won't be  able to hold
ranks if they have to keep dodging the shadows."

"I'll take  care of the shadows," she replied  grimly. She raised both arms
above her head, her fists clenched. A look of dreadful concentration filled
her face,  and then she spoke  a single word, opening  her hands as she did
so. The grass, which had been bending toward them in the hot wind preceding
the storm,  suddenly flattened  in the opposite  direction as the  force of
Polgara's  will rippled  outward. As  that force  passed over  each shadowy
Grolim illusion, the figures  seemed to flinch, then shrivel, and then with
silent  detonations,  each shadow  exploded  into shards  and fragments  of
darkness.

Polgara was gasping as  the last of the shadows on the farthest edge of the
army vanished,  and she would have  collapsed had Durnik not  jumped to her
side   to  support  her.   "Are  you   all  right?"  he   asked  worriedly.

"Just give me a  moment," she said, wilting against him. "That took a great
deal of  effort." She smiled at him, a wan little  smile, and then her head
drooped wearily.

"Won't  they come  back?"  Ce'Nedra demanded.  "What I  mean is,  it didn't
actually hurt the real Grolims, did it? Just their shadows."

Polgara laughed weakly. "Oh,  it hurt them, all right," she replied. "Those
Grolims  don't have  shadows any  more. Not  one of  them will ever  cast a
shadow again."

"Not ever?" the princess gasped.

"Not ever."

Then Beldin joined them, swooping in with the wind tearing at his feathers.
"We've got  work to do, Polgara," he growled even  as he shimmered into his
natural shape. "We're going to have to break up this storm they're bringing
in from  the west.  I talked with  the twins. They'll work  on the southern
side of it, and you and I'll take this side."

She looked at him inquiringly.

"Their army's going to  be advancing right behind the storm," he explained.
"There's  no  point in  trying  to  hold it  back  now. It's  got too  much
momentum. What we want  to do is break open the rear edge  of it and let it
spill back over the Angaraks."

"How  many  Grolims  are  working on  the  storm,  Uncle?"  she asked  him.

"Who knows?"  He shrugged.  "But it's taking  every bit of  effort they can
muster just to  keep it under control. If the four of  us hit the back side
all  at  once,  the  pressures in  the  storm  itself  will  do the  rest."

"Why not just let it pass over?" Durnik asked. "Our troops aren't children.
They won't fall apart just because of a little squall."

"This  isn't  just  a  little  squall,  blacksmith,"  Beldin  said  acidly.
Something large  and white thudded to  the ground a few  feet away. "If you
get four or five of those hailstones on top of the head, you won't care how
the battle turns out."

"They're   as   big  as   hens'   eggs,"  Durnik   said  in   astonishment.

"And they'll probably get  bigger." Beldin turned back to Polgara. "Give me
your hand,"  he told her. "I'll  pass the signal to  Beltira, and we'll all
strike at the same time. Get ready."

More of the hailstones  thudded into the springy turf, and one particularly
large one shattered into a thousand fragments as it crashed down on a large
rock  with  stunning  force.  From  the  direction  of  the  army  came  an
intermittent  banging  as  the  hailstones bounced  off  the  armor of  the
Mimbrate  knights or  clanged  down on  the hastily  raised shields  of the
infantry.

And then,  mixed with the hail, the  rain squalls struck-seething sheets of
water driven  before the wind like raging waves.  It was impossible to see,
and  almost impossible  to breathe.  Olban jumped  forward with  his shield
raised to protect Ce'Nedra  and Errand. He winced once as a large hailstone
struck his shoulder, but his shield arm did not waver.

"It's breaking,  Pol!" Beldin shouted.  "Let's push it once  more. Let them
eat their own storm for a while."

Polgara's face  twisted into an  agony of concentration, and  then she half
slumped as  she and  Beldin unleashed their  combined wills at  the rolling
sky. The sound of it was beyond belief as the vast forces collided. The sky
ripped  suddenly  apart and  lightning  staggered and  lurched through  the
smoking air. Great, incandescent  bolts crashed into each other high above,
showering  the earth  beneath with  fireballs. Men fell,  charred instantly
into black, steaming husks in the driving downpour, but the casualties were
not only among the men of the west.

The  vast storm  with its  intolerable pressures  recoiled as  the combined
wills of  Polgara and Beldin on  the north bank and  the twins on the south
bank ripped open the back edge of it, and the advancing Malloreans received
that recoil  full in  the teeth. A  curtain of lightning  swept back across
their close-packed  ranks like  an enormous, blinding  broom, littering the
earth with  their smoking dead. As  the fabric of Grolim  sorcery which had
driven  the  stormfront  toward  the river  ripped  apart,  the gale  winds
suddenly reversed  and flowed back, shrieking  and howling, confounding the
advancing Angaraks with rain and hail.

From out of the  center of the dreadful cloud overhead, swirling fingers of
murky black twitched and reached down toward the earth with hideous roaring
sounds. With  a last, almost  convulsive jerk, one of  those huge, swirling
funnels touched  the earth in  the midst of the  redclad Malloreans. Debris
sprayed up and out from the point of the dreadful vortex as, with ponderous
immensity, it cut an erratic course two hundred yards wide directly through
the enemy  ranks. Men and horses were ripped to  pieces by the insane winds
within the  swirling column of cloud,  and bits of armor  and shreds of red
tunics - and worse  - showered down on the stunned and terrified Malloreans
on  either side  of  the swath  of absolute  destruction  moving inexorably
through their midst.

"Beautiful!" Beldin exulted, hopping  up and down in a grotesque display of
glee.

There was  the sudden sound of a great horn,  and the close-packed ranks of
Drasnian pikemen  and Tolnedran legionnaires facing  the faltering ranks of
the  Malloreans  opened.  From  behind  them, his  armor  streaming  water,
Mandorallen led the charge  of the Mimbrate knights. Full upon the confused
and demoralized  Malloreans they fell, and the sound  of the impact as they
struck was a terrible, rending crash, punctuated by screams. Rank upon rank
was crushed  beneath the  charge, and the terrified  Malloreans wavered and
then broke  and fled. Even as  they ran, the clans  of Algar swept in among
them from the flanks, their sabres flashing in the rain.

At a second blast  of Mandorallen's horn, the charging Mimbrates reined in,
wheeled  and   galloped  back,   leaving  a  vast   wreckage  behind  them.

The rain slackened fitfully, little more than errantly passing showers now,
and patches  of blue appeared among the  racing clouds overhead. The Grolim
storm had broken and  dispersed back across the plains of Mishrak ac Thull.

Ce'Nedra looked toward the south bank and saw that the storm there had also
dispersed and  that the forces under  the command of King  Cho-Hag and King
Korodullin were  assaulting the front ranks  of the demoralized Murgo army.
Then the  princess looked  sharply at the  south channel of  the river. The
last bridges of Cherek ships had broken loose during the violent storm, and
there was  now only open water on that side of  the island. The last troops
remaining  in the  city  were streaming  across the  bridge over  the north
channel. A  tall Sendarian lad was  among the last to  cross. As soon as he
reached the bank, he  came immediately upriver. As he drew nearer, Ce'Nedra
recognized  him. It  was  Rundorig, Garion's  boyhood friend  from Faldor's
farm, and he was openly weeping.

"Goodman  Durnik,"   he  sobbed  as  he   reached  them,  "Doroon's  dead."

"What did you say?" Lady Polgara demanded, raising her tired face suddenly.

"Doroon, Mistress  Pol," Rundorig wept. "He  drowned. We were crossing over
to the south bank  when the storm broke the ropes holding the ships. Doroon
fell into the  river, and he didn't know how to swim.  I tried to save him,
but he went under  before I could reach him." The tall young man buried his
face in his hands.

Polgara's  face went  absolutely  white, and  her eyes  filled  with sudden
tears.  "Take care  of him, Durnik,"  she told  the smith, then  turned and
walked away, her head bowed in her grief.

"I  tried, Durnik,"  Rundorig blurted,  still sobbing.  "I really  tried to
reach him - but there were too many people in my way. I couldn't get to him
in  time.  I  saw  him  go  under,  and  there  was nothing  I  could  do."

Durnik's  face was very  grave as he  put his  arm about the  weeping boy's
shoulders.  The  smith's  eyes  were  also  filled, and  he  said  nothing.
Ce'Nedra, however, could not weep. She had reached out her hand and plucked
these unwarlike young men  from their homes and dragged them halfway across
the world,  and now  one of Garion's  oldest friends had died  in the chill
waters of  the River  Mardu. His death was  on her head, but  she could not
weep.  A terrible  fury  suddenly filled  her. She  turned to  Olban. "Kill
them!" she hissed from between clenched teeth.

"My Queen?" Olban gaped at her.

"Go!" she commanded. "Take  your sword and go. Kill as many Angaraks as you
can  -  for  me,  Olban. Kill  them  for  me!"  And  then  she could  weep.

Olban looked  first at the sobbing little princess  and then at the milling
ranks of  the Malloreans, still  reeling from the savagery  of the Mimbrate
assault.  His  face grew  exultant  as  he drew  his  sword.  "As my  Queen
commands!" he shouted and ran to his horse.

Even as  the decimated front ranks  of the Malloreans fled,  hurried by the
sabre-wielding  Algars, greater  and  greater numbers  of their  countrymen
reached the  field, and soon the  low hills to the  north were covered with
them.  Their red tunics  made it look  almost as  if the earth  itself were
bleeding. It was not  the Malloreans, however, who mounted the next attack.
Instead, thick-bodied Thulls in mud-colored smocks marched reluctantly into
position. Directly behind the Thulls, mounted Malloreans urged them on with
whips.

"Basic  Mallorean  strategy," Beldin  growled.  "'Zakath wants  to let  the
Thulls  do most  of the  dying. He'll try  to save  his own troops  for the
campaign against Taur Urgas."

Ce'Nedra raised her tear-streaked  face. "What do we do now?" she asked the
misshapen sorcerer.

"We kill Thulls," he  said bluntly. "A charge or two by the Mimbrates ought
to break  their spirits. Thulls don't make  very good soldiers, and they'll
run away as soon as we give them the chance."

Even  as the  sluggish forces of  Mishrak ac  Thull flowed like  a mudslide
downhill toward  the solid  line of pikemen and  legionnaires, the Asturian
archers just  to the rear of the infantry raised  their bows and filled the
air with a solid,  arching sheet of yard-long arrows. The Thulls quailed as
rank after  rank melted under the withering storm  of arrows. The shouts of
the Malloreans  at the rear became  more desperate, and the  crack of their
whips filled the air.

And then Mandorallen's horn  sounded, the ranks of infantry opened, and the
armored knights  of Mimbre charged again.  The Thulls took one  look at the
steel-clad men and horses  crashing toward them and immediately bolted. The
Mallorean whip-men  were swarmed  under and trampled  in the panic-stricken
flight of the Thull army.

"So much  for the Thulls."  Beldin grunted with satisfaction  as he watched
the  rout. He  grinned an  evil grin.  "I imagine  that 'Zakath  will speak
firmly to King Gethell about this."

Mandorallen's  knights  thundered  back   to  their  positions  behind  the
infantry, and  the two armies glared at each  other across a field littered
with Angarak dead.

Ce'Nedra  began  to  shiver  as  a  sudden  chill  swept  the  battlefield.

Although the  sun had broken through the ragged  clouds as the Grolim storm
rapidly dispersed, there was no warmth to it. Even though all trace of wind
had died, it grew colder. Then from the ground and from the dark surface of
the river, tendrils of fog began to rise.

Beldin  hissed. "Polgara," he  snapped to  the grieving sorceress,  "I need
you."

"Leave me  alone, Uncle," she replied in a  voice still choked with sorrow.

"You can cry later," he told her harshly. "The Grolims are drawing the heat
out of the air. If we don't stir up a wind, the fog's going to get so thick
you'll be able to walk on it."

She turned,  and her  face was very  cold. "You don't  respect anything, do
you?" she said flatly.

"Not much,"  he admitted, "but that's beside the  point. If the Grolims can
build up  a good fog bank, we'll have the  whole stinking Mallorean army on
top of  us before  we can even see  them coming. Let's go,  Pol. People get
killed; it  happens. You can get  sentimental about it later."  He held out
his gnarled, lumpy hand to her.

The tendrils of fog  had begun to thicken, lying in little pockets now. The
littered battlefield  in front of  the infantry lines seemed  to waver, and
then disappeared entirely as  the fog congealed into a solid wall of white.

"Wind, Pol," Beldin said, taking hold of her hand. "As much wind as you can
raise."

The struggle which ensued  then was a silent one. Polgara and Beldin, their
hands joined  together, gathered in  their wills and then  reached out with
them, probing, searching for some weakness in the mass of deadcalm air that
imprisoned the  thickening fog along the banks  of the river. Fitful little
gusts of  breeze swirled the eddying fog, then died  as quickly as they had
arisen.

"Harder, Pol," Beldin urged.  His ugly face streamed with rivulets of sweat
as he struggled with the vast inertness of unmoving air.

"It's not  going to work this  way, Uncle," she declared,  pulling her hand
free. Her face showed her own strain. "There's nothing to get hold of. What
are the twins doing?"

"The  Hierarchs of  Rak Cthol  are riding  with Taur Urgas,"  the hunchback
replied. "The twins have  their hands full dealing with them. They won't be
able to help."

Polgara  straightened then,  steeling  herself. "We're  trying to  work too
close,"  she said.  "Every time  we start  a little  local breeze,  a dozen
Grolims jump in and smother it."

"All right," Beldin agreed.

"We'll have  to reach  out farther," she  continued. "Start the  air moving
somewhere out  beyond their range so that by the time  it gets here, it has
so much momentum that they can't stop it."

Beldin's eyes  narrowed. "That's dangerous, Pol," he  told her. "Even if we
can do  it, it's  going to exhaust the  both of us. If  they throw anything
else  at us,  neither of  us will  have any  strength left to  fight them."

"It's  a  gamble, Uncle,"  she  admitted,  "but the  Grolims are  stubborn.
They'll try  to protect this fog bank even  after all chance of maintaining
it has gone. They'll get tired, too. Maybe too tired to try anything else."

"I don't like maybes."

"Have you got a better idea?"

"Not right now, no."

"All right, then."

They joined hands again.

It  took, it seemed  to the princess,  an eternity.  With her heart  in her
throat she stared at  the two of them as they stood with their hands joined
and  their eyes  closed -  reaching out  with their  minds toward  the hot,
barren uplands  to the  west, trying with  all their strength  to pull that
heated air  down into the broad valley of the  River Mardu. All around her,
Ce'Nedra  seemed  to feel  the  oppressive  chill of  Grolim thought  lying
heavily on the stagnant  air, holding it, resisting all effort to dissipate
the choking fog.

Polgara  was breathing  in  short gasps,  her  chest heaving  and her  face
twisted  with an  inhuman striving.  Beldin, his knotted  shoulders hunched
forward,   struggled   like  a   man   attempting  to   lift  a   mountain.

And then  Ce'Nedra caught  the faintest scent  of dust and  dry, sunparched
grass.  It  was only  momentary,  and she  thought  at first  that she  had
imagined it.  Then it  came again, stronger  this time, and  the fog eddied
sluggishly. But once more  that faint scent died, and with it the breath of
air that had carried it.

Polgara  groaned then,  an  almost strangled  sound, and  the fog  began to
swirl. The  wet grass at  Ce'Nedra's feet, drenched with  droplets of mist,
bent slightly,  and the dusty smell of  the Thullish uplands grew stronger.

It  seemed  that  the  blanket  of  concentration  that had  held  the  fog
motionless  became  more  desperate  as  the  Grolims fought  to  stop  the
quickening breeze  pouring down the valley from  the acrid stretches to the
west. The  blanket began to tatter  and to fall apart  as the weaker of the
Grolims,   pushed   beyond  their   capacity,   collapsed  in   exhaustion.

The breeze grew stronger, became a hot wind that rippled the surface of the
river. The grass bent before it, and the fog began to seethe like some vast
living thing, writhing at the touch of the arid wind.

Ce'Nedra  could see  the  still-burning city  of Thull  Mardu now,  and the
infantry lines drawn up on the plain beside the river.

The hot,  dusty wind  blew stronger, and  the fog, as  insubstantial as the
thought that  had raised it from the earth,  dissolved, and the morning sun
broke through to bathe the field in golden light.

"Polgara!" Durnik cried in sudden alarm.

Ce'Nedra whirled  in time to  see Polgara, her face  drained deathly white,
slowly toppling to the earth.







Chapter Seventeen

LELLDORIN OF  WILDANTOR had been nervously pacing  back and forth along the
ranks of  his bowmen, stopping often to listen for  any sound coming out of
the fog from the field lying in front of the massed infantry. "Can you hear
anything?" he  asked urgently  of a Tolnedran  legionnaire standing nearby.

The Tolnedran shook his head.

That same whisper came out of the fog from a dozen different places.

"Can you hear anything?"

"Can you hear anything?"

"What are they doing?"

Somewhere to the front, there was a faint clink.

"There!" everyone cried almost in unison.

"Not yet!"  Lelldorin snapped to one of his  countrymen who was raising his
bow.  "It could  be  just a  wounded Thull  out  there. Save  your arrows."

"Is that  a breeze?" a Drasnian pikeman asked. "Please,  Belar, let it be a
breeze."

Lelldorin stared  into the fog, nervously  fingering his bowstring. Then he
felt a faint touch of air on his cheek.

"A breeze," someone exulted.

"A breeze." The phrase raced through the massed army.

Then  the faint  breath of  air died,  and the  fog settled  again, seeming
thicker than ever.

Someone groaned bitterly.

The  fog  stirred then  and  began to  eddy  sluggishly. It  was a  breeze!
Lelldorin held his breath.

The fog began to move, flowing gray over the ground like water.

"There's  something moving  out  there!" a  Tolnedran barked.  "Get ready!"

The flowing  fog moved faster,  thinning, melting in the  hot, dusty breeze
blowing down  the valley. Lelldorin  strained his eyes to  the front. There
were moving shapes out there, no more than seventy paces from the infantry.

Then,  as  if all  its  stubborn resistance  had  broken at  once, the  fog
shimmered and dissolved, and the sun broke through. The entire field before
them  was  filled  with  Malloreans.  Their  stealthy  forward  pace  froze
momentarily   as  they   flinched  in   the  sudden   light  of   the  sun.

"Now!" Lelldorin shouted, raising his bow. Behind him, his archers with one
universal motion followed his  action, and the sudden release of a thousand
bowstrings  all at  once was  like some  vast, thrumming note.  A whistling
sheet of  arrows soared  over the heads  of the solidly  standing infantry,
seemed to  hang motionless in the  air for a moment,  then hurtled into the
close-packed Mallorean ranks.

The creeping  attack of the Malloreans  did not waver or  falter; it simply
dissolved.  With a  vast,  sighing groan,  entire regiments  fell  in their
tracks under the Asturian arrow storm.

Lelldorin's hand  flickered to  the forest of  arrows thrust point  - first
into  the turf  at his  feet. He  smoothly nocked  another shaft,  drew and
released. And then again - and again. The sheet of arrows overhead was like
some  great slithering bridge  arching over  the infantry and  riddling the
Malloreans as it fell among them.

The storm  of Asturian  arrows crept inexorably  across the field,  and the
Mallorean dead  piled up in windrows as if  some enormous scythe had passed
through their ranks.

And then  Sir Mandorallen's  brazen horn sounded its  mighty challenge, the
ranks  of archers  and  infantry opened,  and the  earth shook  beneath the
thunder of the charge of the Mimbrate knights.

Demoralized  by the  arrow storm  and the  sight of that  inexorable charge
descending upon them, the  Malloreans broke and fled. Laughing delightedly,
Lelldorin's  cousin Torasin  lowered his bow  to jeer  at the backs  of the
routed Angaraks.

"We did it, Lelldorin!" he shouted, still laughing. "We broke their backs!"
He was  half turned now, not facing the littered field.  His bow was in his
hands; his  dark hair was thrown back; and  his face reflected his exultant
delight. Lelldorin would always remember him so.

"Tor!  Look out!"  Lelldorin shouted,  but it  was too late.  The Mallorean
answer to the Asturian arrow storm was a storm of their own. From a hundred
catapults concealed  behind the  low hills to  the north, a  great cloud of
rocks hurtled  into the  air and crashed  down into the  close-packed ranks
along  the riverbank.  A stone  perhaps somewhat  larger than a  man's head
struck   Torasin  full  in   the  chest,   smashing  him  to   the  ground.

"Tor!"  Lelldorin's cry  was anguished  as he  ran to his  stricken cousin.
Torasin's eyes were closed,  and blood was flowing from his nose. His chest
was crushed.

"Help me!"  Lelldorin cried to a group of  serfs standing nearby. The serfs
obediently moved  to assist him,  but their eyes, speaking  louder than any
words, said that Torasin was already dead.

Barak's  face was  bleak as  he stood at  the tiller  of his big  ship. His
oarsmen  stroked  to  the  beat of  a  muffled  drum,  and  the ship  raced
downriver.

King Anheg of Cherek lounged against the rail. He had pulled off his helmet
so that the  cool river air could blow the stink of  smoke out of his hair.
His coarse-featured  face was as grim  as his cousin's. "What  do you think
their chances are?" he asked.

"Not very good," Barak replied bluntly. "We never counted on the Murgos and
Malloreans hitting us at Thull Mardu. The army's split in two by the river,
and both halves of  it are outnumbered. They're going to have a bad time of
it,  I'm afraid."  He glanced over  his shoulder  at the half  dozen small,
narrow-beamed boats trailing in the wake of his big ship. "Close it up!" he
bellowed at the men in the smaller boats.

"Malloreans ahead!  On the  north bank!" the  lookout at the  mast shouted.
"About a half a mile!"

"Wet down the decks," Barak ordered.

The sailors  tossed buckets on long  ropes over the side,  hauled up water,
and soaked the wooden decks.

"Signal the ships behind us," Anheg told the bearded sailor standing in the
very stern  of the ship. The sailor nodded, turned  and lifted a large flag
attached to a long pole. He began to wave it vigorously at the ships strung
out behind them.

"Be careful  with that fire!" Barak  shouted to the men  clustered around a
raised platform filled with  gravel and covered with glowing coals. "If you
set  us  ablaze,  you'll  all  have  to  swim  to  the Sea  of  the  East."

Just  to the  front  of the  platform stood  three  heavy-limbed catapults,
cocked and ready.

King Anheg  squinted ahead at the Malloreans gathered  around a dozen or so
siege  engines standing  solidly on  the north  bank. "Better send  in your
arrow-boats now," he suggested.

Barak  grunted and  waved his  arm in  a broad  chopping motion to  the six
narrow boats  in his wake. In  answer, the lean little  boats leaped ahead,
cutting through  the water. Mounted at  the prow of each  arrowboat stood a
long-armed catapult armed with  a loosely packed bundle of arrows. Aided by
the  current,  the  narrow  little boats  sped  past,  their oars  bending.

"Load the  engines!" Barak roared  to the men around  the gravelbased fire.
"And don't slop any of that tar on my decks."

With long  iron hooks, the sailors lifted  three large earthenware pots out
of  the coals.  The pots contained  a seething  mixture of tar,  pitch, and
naptha. They were quickly dipped in tar barrels and then hastily wrapped in
naptha-soaked rags.  Then they  were placed in  the baskets of  the waiting
engines.

As the arrow-boats, speeding like greyhounds, swept in close to shore where
the  Malloreans struggled  to aim  their catapults, the  arrow-bundles were
suddenly  hurled  high into  the  air by  the  lashing arms  of the  Cherek
engines. The  arrows rose swiftly, then slowed at  the top of their arching
flight, separating and spreading  out as they flew. Then, in a deadly rain,
they fell upon the red-tunicked Malloreans.

Barak's ship,  trailing just  behind the arrow-boats,  ran in close  to the
brush-covered riverbank, and the red-bearded man stood with both of his big
hands  on   the  tiller,  staring  intently   at  his  catapult  master,  a
gray-bearded old sailor with  arms like oak stumps. The catapult master was
squinting at  a line  of notches chipped  into the railing in  front of his
engines.  Over  his head  he  held  a long  white  baton  and he  indicated
direction by  pointing it either to the right or  the left. Barak moved his
tiller delicately in response to the movements of the baton. Then the baton
cut sharply straight down, and Barak locked his tiller in an iron grip. The
rags  wrapped around  the pots leaped  into flame  as they were  touched by
waiting torches.

"Shoot!"  the catapult  master  barked. With  a thudding  crash,  the beams
lashed forward,  hurling the  flaming pots and  their deadly contents  in a
high  arch toward the  struggling Malloreans  and their siege  engines. The
pots burst open upon  impact, spraying fire in front of them. The Mallorean
catapults were engulfed in flame.

"Good shooting," Anheg noted professionally.

"Child's play,"  Barak shrugged.  "A shoreline emplacement isn't  much of a
challenge, really." He glanced back. The arrow-boats of Greldik's ship were
sweeping in  to rake the Malloreans with more  arrows, and the catapults on
his bearded friend's decks were cocked and loaded. "Malloreans don't appear
to be any brighter  than Murgos. Didn't it ever occur to them that we might
shoot back?"

"It's  an  Angarak failing,"  Anheg  replied.  "It shows  up  in all  their
writings. Torak never encouraged creative thinking."

Barak gave his cousin  a speculative look. "You know what I think, Anheg? I
think that  all that fuss you raised back at  Riva - about Ce'Nedra leading
the  army, I mean  - I think  that it  wasn't entirely sincere.  You're too
intelligent to be so  stubborn about something that wasn't that important."

Anheg winked broadly.

"No wonder  they call you Anheg the sly," Barak  chuckled. "What was it all
about?"

"It pulled  Brand's teeth." The King  of Cherek grinned. "He's  the one who
could have  stopped Ce'Nedra cold if  I'd given him the  chance. Rivans are
very conservative, Barak. I  sided with Brand and did all the talking. Then
when  I   gave  in,   he  didn't  have   any  ground  left   to  stand  on.

"You  were very  convincing. I  thought for  a while  that your  reason had
slipped."

"Thank you,"  the Cherek King replied  with a mock bow.  "When you've got a
face like  mine, it's  easy for people  to think the worst  about you. I've
found that  useful from time to time. Here come  the Algars." He pointed at
the hills just behind the burning Mallorean siege engines. A great crowd of
horsemen came surging over the hilltops to sweep down like a wolf pack upon
the confounded Malloreans.

Anheg sighed then. "I'd like to know what's happening to them back there at
Thull  Mardu," he  said.  "I don't  suppose we'll  ever find  out, though."

"Not very  likely," Barak agreed.  "We'll all get sunk  eventually, once we
get out into the Sea of the East."

"We'll take a lot of Malloreans with us, though, won't we, Barak?"

Barak's reply was an evil grin.

"I don't really care much for the notion of drowning," Anheg said, making a
face.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and catch an arrow in the belly."

"Thanks," Anheg said sourly.

An hour  or so later, after three more  Angarak positions on the riverbanks
had  been  destroyed,  the  land  along  the  River  Mardu  turned  marshy,
flattening out into a sea of reeds and bending cattails. At Anheg's orders,
a raft  piled high with firewood  was moored to a  dead snag and set afire.
Once the  blaze was  going well, buckets  of greenish crystals  were hurled
into the flames. A thick pillar of green smoke began to climb into the blue
sky.

"I   hope   Rhodar   can   see  that."   The   King   of  Cherek   frowned.

"If he  can't, the Algars will,"  Barak replied. "They'll get  word back to
him."

"I  just   hope  he's   got  enough  time   left  to  make   his  retreat."

"Me  too,"  Barak  said.  "But as  you  say,  we'll  probably never  know."

King Cho-Hag,  Chief of  the Clan-Chiefs of  Algaria, sat his  horse beside
King Korodullin  of Arendia. The fog was nearly gone  now, and only a filmy
haze  remained. Not  far  away, the  twin sorcerers,  Beltira  and Belkira,
exhausted by  their efforts,  sat side by  side on the  ground, their heads
bowed and  their chests heaving. Cho-Hag  shuddered inwardly at the thought
of what might have  happened if the two saintly old men had not been there.
The hideous  illusions of  the Grolims that  had risen from  the earth just
before the storm had struck terror into the hearts of the bravest warriors.
Then the storm, its  intensity deafening, had smashed down on the army, and
after  that  had  come  the choking  fog.  The  two sweet-faced  sorcerers,
however, had  met and overcome each  Grolim attack with calm determination.
Now the  Murgos were coming, and it was time  for steel instead of sorcery.

"I'd let  them get a little closer," Cho-Hag advised  in his quiet voice as
he and Korodullin watched the veritable sea of Murgos advancing against the
emplaced   ranks   of   Drasnian   pikemen  and   Tolnedran   legionnaires.

"Art thou  sure of  thy strategy, Cho-Hag?"  the young Arendish  King asked
with  a worried  frown. "It  hath ever  been the  custom of the  knights of
Mimbre to meet an attack head-on. Thy proposal to charge the flanks puzzles
me."

"It will kill more  Murgos, Korodullin," Cho-Hag replied, shifting his weak
legs in  their stirrups.  "When your knights  charge in from  either flank,
you'll cut  off whole  regiments of the  enemy. Then we can  grind the ones
who've been cut off up against the infantry."

"It is  passing strange  to me to  work thus with  foot troops," Korodullin
confessed.   "I    have   a   vast   ignorance    of   unmounted   combat."

"You aren't alone, my friend," Cho-Hag told him. "It's as alien to me as it
is to  you. It would  be unfair of us,  though, not to let  the foot troops
have  a few  Murgos, wouldn't  it? They  did walk  a long way,  after all."

The  King  of  Arendia  considered that  gravely.  He  was quite  obviously
incapable  of anything  remotely  resembling humor.  "I had  not considered
that," he confessed. "'Twould  be selfish in the extreme of us to deny them
some  part in the  battle, I must  agree. How  many Murgos dost  thou think
would be their fair portion?"

"Oh, I  don't know," Cho-Hag replied with a  straight face. "A few thousand
or so, I imagine.  We wouldn't want to appear stingy - but it doesn't do to
be over generous, either."

Korodullin sighed.  "It is  a difficult line  to walk, King  Cho-Hag - this
fine    division    between    parsimony    and    foolish    prodigality."

"One of the prices of kingship, Korodullin."

"Very true, Cho-Hag, very true." The young King of Arendia sighed again and
bent  all his  concentration to the  problem of  how many of  the advancing
Murgos he could really  afford to give away. "Thinkest thou that two Murgos
apiece might  content those  who fight afoot?" he  asked rather hesitantly.

"Sounds fair to me."

Korodullin smiled then with happy relief. "Then that is what we shall allot
them," he  declared. "I  have not divided  up Murgos before, but  it is not
nearly so difficult as I had imagined."

King Cho-Hag began to laugh.

Lady Ariana  put her arms about Lelldorin's  shaking shoulders and drew him
gently   away  from  the   pallet  upon   which  his  cousin's   body  lay.

"Can't  you do  something, Ariana?"  he pleaded,  tears streaming  down his
face. "Perhaps a bandage of some sort-and a poultice."

"He is  beyond my  art, my Lord,"  Ariana replied gently, "and  I share thy
sorrow at his death."

"Don't say that word, Ariana. Torasin can't be dead."

"I'm sorry, my Lord," she said simply. "He is gone, and none of my remedies
or skill can bring him back."

"Polgara  can  do  it," Lelldorin  declared  suddenly,  an impossible  hope
leaping into his eyes. "Send for Polgara."

"I  have no  one to  send, my  Lord," Ariana  told him, looking  around the
makeshift tent  where she  and Taiba and  a few others were  caring for the
wounded.  "The  injured  men  here command  all  our  attention and  care."

"I'll go then," Lelldorin declared, his eyes still streaming tears. He spun
and dashed from the tent.

Ariana sighed mournfully and  drew a blanket over Torasin's pale face. Then
she  turned back  to the  wounded men  who were  being carried in  a steady
stream into her tent.

"Don't bother yourself with  him, my Lady," a lean-faced Arendish serf told
her as she bent  over the body of the man's companion. Ariana looked at the
thin serf inquiringly.

"He's dead,"  the serf explained. "He took  a Mallorean arrow right through
the  chest." He  looked  down at  the dead  man's  face. "Poor  Detton," he
sighed.  "He died  in  my arms.  Do you  know  what his  last  words were?"

Ariana shook her head.

"He said, 'At least I had a good breakfast.' And then he died."

"Why didst thou bring him here, since thou didst know he was already dead?"
Ariana asked him gently.

The  lean, bitter-faced  serf shrugged.  "I didn't  want to leave  him just
lying in  a muddy ditch like  a dead dog," he  replied. "In his whole life,
nobody ever treated  him as if he mattered at all. He  was my friend, and I
didn't want to leave him there like a pile of garbage." He laughed a short,
bitter laugh.  "I don't suppose it  matters very much to  him, but at least
there's a  little bit of dignity here." He  awkwardly patted the dead man's
shoulder. "Sorry, Detton," he  said, "but I guess I'd better go back to the
fighting."

"What is thy name, friend?" Ariana asked.

"I'm called Lammer, my Lady."

"Is the need for thee in the battle urgent?"

"I doubt it, my  Lady. I've been shooting arrows at the Malloreans. I'm not
very good at it, but it's what I'm supposed to do."

"My need  for thee  is greater, then,"  she declared. "I  have many wounded
here and  few hands to help with their care.  Despite thy surly exterior, I
sense a great compassion in thee. Wilt thou help me?"

He  regarded her  for  a moment.  "What do  you  want me  to do?"  he said.

"Taiba is  boiling cloth for  bandages over that fire  there," she replied.
"See  to the  fire  first, then  thou wilt  find a  cart just  outside with
blankets in it. Bring  in the blankets, good Lammer. After that I will have
other tasks for thee."

"All  right,"   Lammer  replied   laconically,  moving  toward   the  fire.

"What can  we do for her?" the Princess  Ce'Nedra demanded of the misshapen
Beldin. The princess was  staring intently into Polgara's pale, unconscious
face  as the  sorceress  lay exhausted  in the  arms  of Durnik  the smith.

"Let her sleep," Beldin grunted. "She'll be all right in a day or so."

"What's the matter with her?" Durnik asked in a worried voice.

"She's exhausted," Beldin snapped. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Just  from raising a  breeze? I've seen  her do  things that looked  a lot
harder."

"You  don't   have  the  faintest  idea   of  what  you're  talking  about,
blacksmith," Beldin growled. The  hunchbacked sorcerer was himself pale and
shaking. "When  you start  tampering with the weather,  you're putting your
hands on  the most powerful forces  in the world. I'd  rather try to stop a
tide  or   uproot  a  mountain  than  stir  up   a  breeze  in  dead  air."

"The Grolims brought in that storm," Durnik said.

"The air was already  moving. Dead-calm air is altogether different. Do you
have the remotest idea  of how much air you've got to move to stir even the
faintest breath  of air? Do you know what kind  of pressures are involved -
how much all that air weighs?"

"Air doesn't weigh anything," Ce'Nedra protested.

"Really?"  Beldin replied  with heavy  sarcasm. "I'm  so glad you  told me.
Would the two of you shut up and let me get my breath?"

"But  how is  it that  she collapsed  and you didn't?"  Ce'Nedra protested.

"I'm stronger  than she is," Beldin replied,  "and more vicious. Pol throws
her  whole heart  into things when  she gets  excited. She always  did. She
pushed beyond  her strength, and it exhausted  her." The twisted little man
straightened,  shook himself  like  a dog  coming out  of water  and looked
around,  his face bleak.  "I've got work  to do,"  he said. "I  think we've
pretty much  worn out the Mallorean Grolims, but I'd  better keep an eye on
them, just to be safe. You two stay here with Pol - and keep an eye on that
child." He  pointed at Errand, who stood on the  sandy beach with his small
face very serious.

Then  Beldin crouched,  shimmering  already into  the form  of a  hawk, and
launched himself into the air almost before his feathers were fully formed.

Ce'Nedra stared  after him as  he spiraled upward over  the battlefield and
then   turned   her   attention    back   to   the   unconscious   Polgara.

The  charge of  Korodullin's  Mimbrate knights  came at  the  last possible
moment. Like  two great scythes, the armored  men on their massive chargers
sliced in at a  thundering gallop from the flanks with their lances leveled
and cut through the  horde of Murgos rushing toward the waiting pikemen and
legionnaires. The results were devastating. The air was filled with screams
and the sounds of steel striking steel with stunning impact. In the wake of
the charge  lay a path of  slaughtered Murgos, a trail  of human wreckage a
hundred yards wide.

King Cho-Hag, sitting on  his horse on a hilltop some distance to the west,
nodded his approval as  he watched the carnage. "Good," he said finally. He
looked around  at the  eager faces of  the Algar clansmen  clustered around
him. "All  right, my children," he said calmly, "let's  go cut up the Murgo
reserves." And  he led them at  a gallop as they  poured down off the hill,
smoothly swung around the outer flanks of the tightly packed assault forces
and  then slashed  into the  unprepared Murgo  units bringing up  the rear.

The slash-and-run  tactics of the clans of the  Algars left heaps of sabred
dead in  their wake as they  darted in and out  of the milling confusion of
terrified Murgos.  King Cho-Hag himself led  several charges, and his skill
with the  sabre, which was legendary in  Algaria, filled his followers with
an  awed pride  as they watched  his whiplike  blows raining down  on Murgo
heads and shoulders. The  whole thrust of Algar strategy was based on speed
-  a sudden  dash  on a  fast horse  and  a series  of  lightninglike sabre
slashes,  and  then  out  before the  enemy  could  gather  his wits.  King
Cho-Hag's sabre arm was the fastest in Algaria.

"My King!"  one of his men  shouted, pointing toward the  center of several
close-packed  Murgo  regiments milling  about  in  a shallow  valley a  few
hundred yards away. "There's the black banner!"

King Cho-Hag's  eyes suddenly  gleamed as a  wild hope surged  through him.
"Bring my banner to the front!" he roared, and the clansman who carried the
burgundy-and-white banner of the  Chief of the Clan-Chiefs galloped forward
with  the  standard streaming  above  his  head. "Let's  go, my  children!"
Cho-Hag shouted  and drove his horse directly at  the Murgos in the valley.
With sabre  raised, the crippled King  of the Algars led  his men down into
the Murgo  horde. His  warriors slashed to  the right and to  the left, but
Cho-Hag plunged  directly at the center, his eyes  feed on the black banner
of Taur Urgas, King of the Murgos.

And then,  in the midst of  the household guard, Cho-Hag  saw the blood-red
mail of  Taur Urgas himself. Cho-Hag raised his  bloody sabre and shouted a
ringing challenge.

"Stand and fight, you Murgo dog!" he roared.

Startled by that shout, Taur Urgas wheeled his horse to stare incredulously
at the  charging King of Algaria. His eyes  suddenly bulged with the fervid
light  of insanity,  and his lips,  foam-flacked, drew  back in a  snarl of
hatred.   "Let  him   come!"   he  grated.   "Clear  the   way   for  himl"

The   startled   members   of   his   personal   guard   stared   at   him.

"Make way for the King of Algaria!" Taur Urgas shrieked. "He is mine!"

And the Murgo troops melted out of Cho-Hag's path.

The Algar King reined in his horse. "And so it's finally come, Taur Urgas,"
he said coldly.

"It has indeed, Cho-Hag,"  Taur Urgas replied. "I've waited for this moment
for years."

"If I'd known you were waiting, I'd have come sooner."

"Today is  your last day,  Cho-Hag." The Murgo King's  eyes were completely
mad now, and foam drooled from the corners of his mouth.

"Do you  plan to fight with  threats and hollow words,  Taur Urgas? Or have
you forgotten how to draw your sword?"

With an  insane shriek, Taur  Urgas ripped his broad-bladed  sword from its
scabbard and drove his black horse toward the Algar King.

"Die!" he  howled, slashing at the  air even as he  charged. "Die, ChoHag!"

It was  not a  duel, for there  were proprieties in  a duel.  The two kings
hacked at  each other  with an elemental  brutality, thousands of  years of
pent-up hatred boiling in  their blood. Taur Urgas, totally mad now, sobbed
and gibbered as he  swung his heavy sword at his enemy. ChoHag, cold as ice
and  with an  arm as  fast as the  flickering tongue  of a snake,  slid the
crushing Murgo blows aside, catching them on his sliding sabre and flicking
his blade  like a whip, its edge biting again  and again into the shoulders
and face of the King of the Murgos.

The two armies, stunned by the savagery of the encounter, recoiled and gave
the mounted kings room for their deadly struggle.

Frothing obscenities, Taur Urgas hacked insanely at the elusive form of his
foe, but Cho-Hag, colder yet, feinted and parried and flicked his whistling
sabre at the Murgo's bleeding face.

Finally, driven past even  what few traces of reason were left to him, Taur
Urgas  hurled his  horse  directly at  Cho-Hag with  a wild  animal scream.
Standing in his stirrups,  he grasped his sword hilt in both hands, raising
it like an axe  to smash his enemy forever. But Cho-Hag danced his horse to
one side  and thrust  with all his  strength, even as Taur  Urgas began his
massive  blow.  With a  steely  rasp,  his sabre  ran  through the  Murgo's
blood-red mail  and through  the tensed body,  to emerge dripping  from his
back.

Unaware in his madness that he had just received a mortal wound, Taur Urgas
raised  his sword  again, but the  strength drained  from his arms  and the
sword fell  from his grasp. With  stunned disbelief, he gaped  at the sabre
emerging from his chest, and a bloody froth burst from his mouth. He lifted
his hands like claws  as if to tear away the face of his enemy, but Cho-Hag
contemptuously  slapped his  hands  away, even  as he  pulled  his slender,
curved  blade   out  of  the  Murgo's   body  with  a  slithering  whistle.

"And   so  it   ends,   Taur  Urgas,"   he  declared   in  an   icy  voice.

"No!"  Taur Urgas  croaked, trying to  pull a  heavy dagger from  his belt.

Cho-Hag watched his feeble efforts coldly. Dark blood suddenly spurted from
the open  mouth of the Murgo  King, and he toppled  weakly from his saddle.
Struggling, coughing blood, Taur Urgas lurched to his feet, gurgling curses
at the man who had just killed him.

"Good  fight, though,"  Cho-Hag told him  with a  bleak smile, and  then he
turned to ride away.

Taur  Urgas fell,  clawing at  the turf  in impotent  rage. "Come  back and
fight," he sobbed. "Come back."

Cho-Hag glanced over his  shoulder. "Sorry, your Majesty," he replied, "but
I have pressing business elsewhere. I'm sure you understand." And with that
he began to ride away.

"Come back!"  Taur Urgas wailed, belching blood  and curses and digging his
fingers  into the  earth. "Come  back!" Then  he collapsed facedown  in the
bloody  grass.   "Come  back   and  fight,  Cho-Hag!"   he  gasped  weakly.

The last that Cho-Hag saw of him, the dying King of Cthol Murgos was biting
at the  sod and  clawing at the  earth with trembling fingers.  A vast moan
shuddered through  the tight-packed  regiments of the Murgos,  and a sudden
cheer rose from the ranks of the Algars as ChoHag, victorious, rode back to
join the army.

"They're coming again," General  Varana announced with cool professionalism
as he watched the waves of oncoming Malloreans.

"Where  is  that  signal?"  Rhodar demanded,  staring  intently  downriver.
"What's Anheg doing down there?"

The front  ranks of the  Mallorean assault struck with  a resounding crash.
The Drasnian  pikemen began  to thrust with their  long, widebladed spears,
wreaking havoc among the red-garbed attackers, and the legions raised their
shields  in the interlocked  position that  presented a solid  wall against
which  the Malloreans  beat  futilely. Upon  a sharp,  barked  command, the
legionnaires turned  their shields  slightly and each man  thrust his lance
out  through the  opening between  his shield  and the next.  The Tolnedran
lances were not as long as the Drasnian pikes, but they were long enough. A
huge, shuddering  cry went through  the front ranks of  the Malloreans, and
they fell in heaps beneath the feet of the men behind.

"Are they  going to break through?"  Rhodar puffed. Even though  he was not
directly involved in the  fighting, the Drasnian King began to pant at each
Mallorean charge.

Varana carefully assessed the  strength of the assault. "No," he concluded,
"not  this  time.  Have  you worked  out  how  you're  going  to make  your
withdrawal?  It's a  little  difficult to  pull back  when your  troops are
engaged."

"That's  why I'm  saving the  Mimbrates," Rhodar replied.  "They're resting
their horses  now for  one last charge. As  soon as we get  the signal from
Anheg, Mandorallen and his men will shove the Malloreans back, and the rest
of us will run like rabbits."

"The charge  will only  hold them back  for so long,"  Varana advised, "and
then they'll come after you again."

"We'll form up again upriver a ways," Rhodar said.

"It's going  to take  a long time to  get back to the  escarpment if you're
going to have to stop and fight every half mile or so," Varana told him.

"I know  that," Rhodar snapped peevishly. "Have  you got any better ideas?"

"No," Varana replied. "I was just pointing it out, that's all."

"Where is that signal?" Rhodar demanded again.

On a  quiet hillside  some distance from  the struggle taking  place on the
north bank, the simpleminded  serf boy from the Arendish forest was playing
his flute.  His melody was mournful, but even in  its sadness, it soared to
the sky.  The boy did not understand the fighting  and he had wandered away
unnoticed. Now he sat  alone on the grassy hillside in the warm, midmorning
sunlight with his entire soul pouring out of his flute.

The Mallorean  soldier who was creeping up behind  him with drawn sword had
no ear for music.  He did not know - or care - that the song the boy played
was the most beautiful song any man had ever heard.

The song ended very suddenly, never to begin again.

The stream of casualties  being carried to Ariana's makeshift hospital grew
heavier, and  the overtaxed Mimbrate girl was  soon forced into making some
cruel  decisions. Only  those  men with  some chance  of survival  could be
treated. The  mortally hurt were quickly given  a drink of a bitter-tasting
potion of herbs that  would ease their pain and then were left to die. Each
such decision  wrung Ariana's heart, and she  worked with tears standing in
her eyes.

And then  Brand, the Rivan Warder,  entered the tent with  a stricken face.
The big Rivan's mail shirt was blood-spattered, and there were savage sword
cuts along  the edge of his  broad, round shield. Behind  him, three of his
sons  bore  the  limp,  bleeding  form  of their  younger  brother,  Olban.

"Can you see to him?" Brand asked Ariana hoarsely.

A single  glance, however,  told the blond  girl that the  wound in Olban's
chest  was  mortal.  "I  can  make  him  comfortable," she  replied  a  bit
evasively.  She quickly  knelt beside  the bleeding  young man,  lifted his
head, and held a cup to his lips.

"Father," Olban said weakly after he had drunk, "I have something I have to
tell you."

"Time  enough  for  that  later," Brand  told  him  gruffly, "after  you're
better."

"I'm not going to  get better, father," Olban said in a voice scarcely more
than a whisper.

"Nonsense,"  Brand told  him,  but there  was no  conviction in  his voice.

"There's  not  much time,  father,"  Olban said,  coughing weakly.  "Please
listen."

"Very well,  Olban," the  Warder said, leaning  forward to catch  his son's
words.

"At Riva  - after  Belgarion came -  I was humiliated because  you had been
deposed. I  couldn't bear  it, father." Olban  coughed again, and  a bloody
froth came to his lips.

"You  should have  known me  better than  that, Olban," Brand  said gently.

"I do -  now." Olban sighed. "But I was young and  proud, and Belgarion - a
nobody  from  Sendaria  -   had  pushed  you  from  your  rightful  place."

"It wasn't  my place  to begin with,  Olban," Brand told him.  "It was his.
Belgarion's the Rivan King.  That has nothing to do with position or place.
It's a duty - and it's his, not mine."

"I  hated  him," Olban  whispered.  "I  began to  follow  him every  place.
Wherever he went, I wasn't far behind him."

"What for?" Brand asked.

"At  first I  didn't know.  Then one  day he  came out  of the  throne room
wearing his robe and  crown. He seemed so puffed-up with his own importance
- as  if he really was a king instead of  just a common Sendarian scullion.
Then I knew what I had to do. I took my dagger and I threw it at his back."

Brand's face suddenly froze.

"For a  long time  after that, I  tried to avoid him,"  Olban continued. "I
knew that what I had done was wrong - even as the dagger left my fingers. I
thought that if I  stayed away from him, he'd never find out that I was the
one who'd  tried to  kill him. But  he has powers,  father. He  has ways of
knowing things  no man  could possibly know.  He sought me out  one day and
gave me  back the  dagger I'd thrown  at him and  he told me  that I should
never tell anyone  what I'd done. He did that for you,  father - to keep my
disgrace from you."

Grim-faced,  Brand rose  to his feet.  "Come," he  said to his  other three
sons. "We  have fighting to do  - and no time  to waste on traitors." Quite
deliberately he turned his back on his dying son.

"I tried to repay  his mercy, father," Olban pleaded. "I pledged my life to
protecting his  queen. Doesn't  that count for anything?"  Brand's face was
stony, and he kept  his back turned in grim silence. "Belgarion forgave me,
father.   Can't  you   find  it   in  your   heart  to  forgive   me  too?"

"No," Brand said harshly, "I cannot."

"Please, father," Olban begged. "Don't you have one tear for me?"

"Not one,"  Brand told him, but  Ariana saw that his  words were a lie. The
grim, gray-clad  man's eyes  were full, but his  face remained granitelike.
Without another word, he strode from the tent.

Wordlessly, each  of Olban's  brothers clasped his  hand in turn,  and then
they left to follow their father.

Olban wept  quietly for a time, but then his  growing weakness and the drug
Ariana had  given him  drained away his  grief. He lay, half  dozing on his
pallet  for a  time, then struggled  to raise  himself and beckoned  to the
Mimbrate girl. She knelt  beside him, supporting him with one arm about his
shoulders  and her  head bent  to catch  his faltering words.  "Please," he
whispered. "Please tell her Majesty what I said to my father - and tell her
how sorry  I was."  And then his  head fell forward against  Ariana, and he
quietly died in her arms.

Ariana  had no  time  to mourn,  for precisely  then three  Sendars carried
Colonel Brendig  into her tent.  The colonel's left arm  was mangled beyond
all hope of repair.

"We were  bringing down  the bridge that  crosses to the city,"  one of the
Sendars reported  tersely. "There was a support  that wouldn't give way, so
the colonel  went down himself to chop it away.  When it finally broke, the
timbers of the bridge fell on him."

Ariana  gravely  examined Brendig's  shattered  arm.  "I fear  there is  no
recourse, my  Lord," she told him. "The arm will have  to come off, lest it
mortify and carry thy life away with it."

Brendig nodded  soberly. "That's  about what I'd expected,"  he replied. "I
suppose we'd better get on with it then."

"There!" King Rhodar shouted,  pointing downriver. "The smoke - it's green!
That's the signal. We can start the retreat now."

General Varana,  however, was staring at  the riverbank upstream. "It's too
late, I'm  afraid, your Majesty," he said  quietly. "A column of Malloreans
and Nadraks  have just  reached the river to  the west of us.  It very much
looks as if we've been cut off."





Chapter Eighteen

THE NEWS OF the death of Taur Urgas spread through the Murgo army in a vast
groan, and  the heart  went out of  the black-robed troops.  Taur Urgas had
been feared by his men, but his savage madness had lent them all a peculiar
sense that  they were invincible. They had  felt somehow that nothing could
stand in  his path, and that  they, as the instruments  of his brutal will,
shared in  some measure  his apparent invulnerability. But  with his death,
each Murgo became aware with a sudden cold touch of fear that he also could
die,  and the  assault  on the  armies of  the  west along  the  south bank
faltered.

King Cho-Hag watched the crumbling of the Murgo resolve with a certain grim
satisfaction,  then rode  down  to the  lines of  infantry and  the milling
Mimbrate  knights to  confer with  the other  leaders. King  Fulrach strode
forward  from the ranks  of his  Sendars. The dumpy,  brown-bearded monarch
looked almost  comical in  his burnished breastplate, but  his sword showed
signs of recent use,  and his helmet was dented in a couple of places, mute
evidence  that  the  King  of  Sendaria  had  participated  in  the  fight.

"Have  you seen  Anheg's signal  yet?" Fulrach  demanded as  he approached.

Cho-Hag shook his head.  "It should come any time now, though," he replied.
"We'd better make some plans. Have you seen Korodullin?"

"The physicians are working on him," Fulrach said.

"Is he hurt?" Cho-Hag was startled.

"I don't  think it's too serious. He went to help  his friend, the Baron of
Vo Ebor, and  a Murgo hit him in the head with  a mace. His helmet absorbed
most of  the blow. He's bleeding out of the ears  a bit, but the physicians
say he'll recover. The baron's in worse shape, though."

"Who's in charge of the Mimbrates, then?"

"Sir Andorig.  He's a good man  in a fight, but  his understanding is a bit
limited."

Cho-Hag laughed shortly. "You've just described most of Arendia, my friend.
They're  all good  in a  fight, and  they all have  limited understanding."
Carefully he  dismounted, holding onto  his saddle as his  weak legs nearly
buckled. "We  can make our  decisions without Andorig's help,  I think." He
looked at the retreating Murgos. "As soon as we see Anheg's signal, I think
we're  going  to want  to  get  out of  here  in  a hurry.  The Murgos  are
demoralized right now, but they'll probably stiffen up again as soon as the
shock wears off."

Fulrach  nodded. "Did  you really  kill Taur  Urgas in  a duel?"  he asked.

Cho-Hag nodded.  "It wasn't really all  that much of a  duel. He was raving
when  he came  at  me and  didn't even  try to  defend himself.  When Anheg
signals, we'll  have the Mimbrates charge the  Murgo front. The Murgos will
probably break  and run. I'll follow  after them with my  clansmen to hurry
them  along.  That should  give  you and  your  foot troops  time to  start
upriver.  Andorig and  I'll keep  the Murgos  off your  back until  you get
clear. How does that sound?"

King Fulrach nodded. "It sounds workable," he agreed. "Do you think they'll
try to follow us?"

Cho-Hag grinned.  "I'll encourage them  not to," he replied.  "Have you got
any idea of what's going on across the river?"

"It's hard to say, but things don't look very good."

"Can you think of any way we can send them help?"

"Not on short notice," Fulrach answered.

"Neither can  I," Cho-Hag said. He  began to pull himself  back up into his
saddle. "I'll  go give  Andorig his instructions.  Keep your eyes  open for
Anheg's signal."

"Belgarath!" Ce'Nedra  called out silently, her  hand tightly clasped about
the amulet  at her throat. "Belgarath,  can you hear me?"  She was standing
several yards  away from  where Durnik was  trying to make  the unconscious
Polgara  as comfortable  as  possible. The  princess had  her  eyes tightly
closed and  she was putting  every ounce of concentration  into casting her
thought  to the  sky, reaching out  with all  her heart toward  the ancient
sorcerer.

"Ce'Nedra?" The old man's  voice was as clear as if he were standing beside
her. "What are you doing? Where's Polgara?"

"Oh,  Belgarath!" The princess  almost sobbed  with relief. "Help  us. Lady
Polgara's unconscious, and the  Malloreans are attacking again. We're being
slaughtered, Belgarath. Help us."

"Slow down," he commanded brusquely. "What happened to Pol? Where are you?"

"We're at Thull Mardu,"  Ce'Nedra replied. "We had to take the city so that
the Cherek fleet could  go on down the river. The Malloreans and the Murgos
crept  up  on  us.  They've  been  attacking  since  early  this  morning."

Belgarath started  to swear. "What's wrong  with Pol?" he demanded harshly.

"The  Grolims brought  in  an awful  storm, and  then  there was  fog. Lady
Polgara and Beldin made  the wind blow, and then she just collapsed. Beldin
said  that  she exhausted  herself  and that  we  have to  let her  sleep."

"Where's Beldin?"

"He  said that  he had to  keep an eye  on the  Grolims. Can you  help us?"

"Ce'Nedra, I'm a thousand leagues away from you. Garion, Silk, and I are in
Mallorea - practically on  Torak's doorstep. If I so much as raise my hand,
it   will  wake   him,   and  Garion's   not  ready   to  meet   him  yet."

"We're doomed, then," Ce'Nedra wailed.

"Stop that,"  he snapped. "This isn't the  time for hysterics. You're going
to have to wake Polgara."

"We've  tried  -  and  Beldin  says  that  we've  got  to  let  her  rest."

"She can  rest later," Belgarath retorted. "Is  that bag she always carries
somewhere about - the one she keeps all those herbs in?"

"I - I think so. Durnik was carrying it a little while ago."

"Durnik's with you? Good. Now listen, and listen carefully. Get the bag and
open it.  What you  want will be  in a silk  pouch. Don't open  any jars or
bottles. She  keeps her  poisons in those.  In one of the  silk bags you'll
find  a yellow-colored  powder.  It has  a very  acrid  odor to  it.  Put a
spoonful or  so of  that powder into  a pot of  boiling water.  Put the pot
beside Pol's head and cover her face with a cloak so she has to breathe the
fumes."

"What will that do?"

"It will wake her up."

"Are you sure?"

"Don't argue  with me,  Ce'Nedra. She'll wake  up, believe me.  Those fumes
would wake  up a  dead stick. As soon  as she's awake, she'll  know what to
do."

Ce'Nedra hesitated. "Is Garion there?" she blurted finally.

"He's asleep. We had a rough time last night."

"When he wakes up,  tell him that I love him." She said it very fast, as if
afraid that if she thought about it at all, she wouldn't be able to say it.

"Why confuse him?" the old man asked her.

"Belgarath!" Ce'Nedra's voice was stricken.

"I was  teasing. I'll  tell him. Now  get to work  - and don't  do this any
more. I'm trying to sneak up on Torak, and it's a little hard to sneak when
you're shouting at somebody a thousand leagues away."

"We aren't shouting."

"Oh yes we are - it's a special kind of shouting, but it's shouting all the
same. Now  take your  hand off that amulet  and get to work."  And then his
voice was gone.

Durnik,  of  course,  would  never understand,  so  Ce'Nedra  did what  was
necessary by herself. She  rummaged around until she found a small pot. She
filled it with  water and set it on the small fire  the smith had built the
night before. Then she  opened Polgara's herb bag. The blond child, Errand,
stood at her side, watching her curiously.

"What are you doing, Princess?" Durnik asked, still hovering anxiously over
the sleeping Polgara.

"I'm fixing something to make her rest easier," Ce'Nedra lied.

"Are  you  sure  you  know  what  you're  doing?  Some of  those  are  very
dangerous."

"I  know which  one  I'm looking  for,"  she replied.  "Trust me,  Durnik."

The powder  she finally located was  so acrid that it  made her eyes water.
She carefully  measured out  a bit of  it and dumped  it into  the pot. The
steaming fumes  were awful, and the  princess kept her face  averted as she
carried the  pot to  where Polgara lay.  She set the pot  beside the lady's
pale, sleeping  face and then laid  a cloak across her.  "Give me a stick,"
the princess said to the smith.

Durnik, his face dubious, handed her a broken-off arrow.

Ce'Nedra carefully  propped up the cloak, making a  small tent over the pot
and Polgara's face.

"What now?" Durnik asked.

"Now we wait," Ce'Nedra told him.

Then,  coming  from the  direction  of  the battle,  a  group of  Sendarian
soldiers,  evidently  wounded,  appeared  at the  top  of  the grassy  bank
surrounding the secluded little beach. Their jerkins all had bloodstains on
them, and several of  the men wore bandages. Unlike most of the wounded who
had  already passed that  morning, however,  these men still  carried their
weapons.

Under the tented cloak, Polgara began to cough.

"What have you done?" Durnik cried, snatching the cloak away.

"It was necessary," Ce'Nedra  replied. "I talked with Belgarath. He told me
that I had to wake her up - and how to do it."

"You'll hurt her," Durnik  accused. With sudden, uncharacteristic anger, he
kicked the fuming pot, sending it rolling down the beach toward the water's
edge.

Polgara's  eyelids were  fluttering  as she  continued to  cough.  When she
opened her eyes, however, her look was blank, uncomprehending.

"Can  you spare us  some water?" one  of the  wounded Sendars asked  as the
group of men approached.

"There's a  whole river  right there," Ce'Nedra  replied absently, pointing
even as she intently stared into Polgara's eyes.

Durnik, however,  gave the men  a startled look, then  suddenly reached for
his sword.

But the  men in  Sendarian jerkins had  jumped down from the  bank and were
already upon  them. It took three of them to  disarm the powerful smith and
to hold his arms.

"You're not Sendars," Durnik exclaimed, struggling with his captors.

"How clever of you to notice," one of them replied in an accent so guttural
that it was almost unintelligible. Another of them drew his sword and stood
over the  dazed Polgara.  "Stop fighting, friend,"  he told Durnik  with an
ugly smirk, "or I'll kill this woman."

"Who  are you?" Ce'Nedra  demanded indignantly.  "What do you  think you're
doing?"

"Actually, we're  members of  the Imperial Elite  Guard," the man  with the
sword answered  urbanely. "And we're here, your  Highness, to extend to you
the invitation  of his  Imperial Majesty 'Zakath, Emperor  of Mallorea. His
Majesty  requests the  honor of  your presence  in his pavilion."  His face
hardened, and  he looked at his  men. "Bring them," he  ordered. "Let's get
out  of  here before  someone  comes  along and  starts asking  questions."

"They're digging in," Hettar  reported to King Rhodar, gesturing toward the
west and their now-blocked escape route. "They've already got a trench-line
running from the river for about a half a mile."

"Is   there   any   chance   of   going   around   them?"   Rhodar   asked.

Hettar shook his head. "That whole flank's seething with Nadraks."

"We'll  have to  go through them,  then," the  King of Drasnia  decided. "I
can't  very  well  attack  trenches  with  cavalry,"  Hettar  pointed  out.

"We'll storm them with  the infantry units," Rhodar declared. "We'll have a
certain advantage.  The Asturian  bows have a  longer range than  the short
ones the Malloreans use. We'll move the archers to the front as we advance.
They can rake the trenches and then harass the Mallorean archers behind the
lines.  The pikemen  will  go in  first." The  sweating  fat man  looked at
General Varana.  "Can your legionnaires  clear the trenches once  we open a
hole for you?"

Varana  nodded.  "We train  extensively  for trench  fighting," he  replied
confidently. "We'll clear the trenches."

"We'll  bring the  wounded  with the  main force,"  Rhodar  said. "Somebody
locate Polgara and the princess. It's time to leave."

"What task  hast thou  for Lord Hettar  and me," Mandorallen  inquired. The
great knight's armor showed a number of dents, but he spoke as calmly as if
he  had   not  spent  the  entire   morning  involved  in  heavy  fighting.

"I want you and your knights to hold the rear," Rhodar told him. "Keep that
army out there off  my back." He turned to Hettar. "And I want you and your
clansmen to  go to work on the Nadraks. I don't  want them to come swarming
in while we're working in the trenches."

"It's  a  desperate  move, King  Rhodar,"  General  Varana said  seriously.
"Attacking even hasty fortifications  is always costly, and you're going to
do it  with another  army coming at  you from the  rear. If  your attack is
beaten back,  you'll be  caught between two superior  forces. They'll grind
you to dogmeat right on the spot."

"I know," Rhodar admitted  glumly, "but our only hope of escape is breaking
through  those  lines that  have  us blocked  off.  We've got  to get  back
upriver. Tell  your men  that we have  to take those trenches  on the first
charge. Otherwise, we're all going to die right here. All right, gentlemen,
good luck."

Once again Mandorallen led his steel-clad knights in their fearsome charge,
and  once  again the  attacking  Malloreans  recoiled, driven  back by  the
dreadful shock as the  mounted men of Mimbre struck their front ranks. This
time,  however,  the  pikemen  and  legionnaires,  as  soon  as  they  were
disengaged from  the enemy, turned sharply  to the left and,  at a jingling
trot,  abandoned their positions  to follow  the Sendars and  Asturians who
were already withdrawing from the field toward the west.

The delaying  action of  the Mimbrate knights was  costly. Riderless horses
galloped wildly about the battlefield, quite frequently adding to the havoc
by  trampling through  the Mallorean  ranks. Here  and there among  the red
tunics that  carpeted the  field lay the  single gleaming form  of a fallen
knight.  Again  and  again  the  Mimbrates hurled  themselves  against  the
advancing  red tide,  slowing the  Malloreans, but  not quite able  to stop
them.

"It's going  to be tight, your  Majesty," General Varana advised  as he and
King  Rhodar rode  toward the  hastily drawn  lines blocking  their escape.
"Even if we break through, the bulk of the Mallorean forces are going to be
hot on our heels."

"You've got  a great talent for the  obvious, General," Rhodar replied. "As
soon  as we  get through,  we'll put the  archers at  the rear and  let the
Malloreans  march through  a  rain of  arrows. That  will hold  them back."

"Until the archers run out of arrows," Varana added.

"After we break through, I'll send the Algars on ahead. Fulrach's got whole
wagonloads of arrows at the rapids."

"Which is two days march ahead."

"Do you always look at the dark side of things?"

"Just trying to anticipate, your Majesty."

"Would you mind anticipating someplace else?"

The Algars had moved out to the right flank of the retreating army and were
gathering  in their  characteristic  small bands,  preparing to  charge the
Nadraks  drawn up  on the  hills above  the river.  Hettar, his  scalp lock
streaming, moved  forward at  a steady lope,  his sabre drawn  and his eyes
like flint.  The Nadraks appeared at  first to be awaiting  his charge, but
then,  amazingly,  they turned  away  and  rode rapidly  toward the  river.

From  the midst of  that sudden surge,  a half  dozen men riding  under the
Nadrak banner  swerved out toward  the advancing Algars. One  of the riders
was waving a  short stick with a white rag tied to  it. The group reined in
sharply   about   a   hundred   yards   in   front   of   Hettar's   horse.

"I've  got to  talk to  Rhodar," one  of the  Nadraks bellowed in  a shrill
voice. He  was a tall, emaciated man with a  pockmarked face and a scraggly
beard, but on his head he wore a crown.

"Is this some trick?" Hettar shouted back.

"Of course  it is, you jackass," the scrawny man  replied. "But it's not on
you this time. Get me to Rhodar at once."

"Keep an  eye on  them," Hettar told  a nearby Clan-Chief,  pointing at the
Nadrak forces now streaming toward the Mallorean trenches lying in the path
of  the retreating  army. "I'll take  this maniac  to see King  Rhodar." He
turned and  led the group of Nadrak  warnors toward the advancing infantry.

"Rhodar!" the  thin man wearing  the crown shrieked as  they approached the
Drasnian King. "Don't you ever answer your mail?"

"What are you doing, Drosta?" King Rhodar shouted back.

"I'm changing  sides, Rhodar," King Drosta lek  Thun replied with an almost
hysterical laugh.  "I'm joining  forces with you.  I've been in  touch with
your queen for weeks. Didn't you get her messages?"

"I thought you were playing games."

"Naturally I'm  playing games."  The Nadrak King giggled.  "I've always got
something up  my sleeve.  Right now my  army's opening an  escape route for
you. You do want to escape, don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"So do I. My troops will butcher the Malloreans in those trenches, and then
we can all make a run for it."

"I don't trust you, Drosta," Rhodar said bluntly.

"Rhodar,"  Drosta said in  mock chagrin, "how  can you  say that to  an old
friend?" He giggled again, his voice shrill and nervous.

"I  want to  know why  you're changing sides  in the  middle of a  battle -
particularly when your side's winning."

"Rhodar, my kingdom's awash  with Malloreans. If I don't help you to defeat
them,  'Zakath will  simply absorb Gar  og Nadrak.  It's much too  long and
involved to talk about now. Will you accept my aid?"

"I'll take all the help I can get."

"Good. Maybe later we  can get drunk together and talk things over, but for
right now, let's get  out of here before 'Zakath hears about this and comes
after me  personally." The  King of Gar  og Nadrak laughed  again, the same
shrill, almost hysterical laugh  as before. "I did it, Rhodar," he exulted.
"I  actually   betrayed  'Zakath  of  Mallorea   and  got  away  with  it."

"You  haven't gotten  away  with it  yet, Drosta,"  Rhodar told  him dryly.

"I will  if we  run fast enough, Rhodar,  and right now I  really feel like
running."

'Zakath, dread  Emperor of boundless  Mallorea, was a man  of medium height
with glossy  black hair  and a pale, olive-tinged  complexion. His features
were  regular, even  handsome,  but his  eyes  were haunted  by a  profound
melancholy. He  appeared to be about  thirty-five years old, and  he wore a
plain linen  robe with  no ornament or  decoration upon it  to indicate his
exalted rank.

His pavilion stood in  the center of the camp of the Malloreans, a vast sea
of tents  standing on the plains of Mishrak ac  Thull. The earthen floor of
the pavilion was covered with priceless Mallorean carpets, and the polished
tables and  chairs were inlaid with gold and  with mother of pearl. Candles
filled the pavilion with  glowing light. Somewhere nearby, a small group of
musicians played subdued melodies set in a minor key.

The   Emperor's  only   companion  was   a  half   grown  cat,   a  common,
mackerel-striped tabby  with that gangling, long-legged  awkwardness of the
adolescent feline. While 'Zakath watched with a sort of sad-eyed amusement,
the young cat stalked a scrap of balled-up parchment, her feet noiseless on
the  carpet   and  her  face  set  in   a  look  of  intent  concentration.

As Princess  Ce'Nedra and  her companions were escorted  into the pavilion,
'Zakath, seated  on a low, cushioned  divan, held up his  hand for silence,
his eyes still fixed on the cat.

"She hunts," the Emperor murmured in a dead voice.

The cat  crept nearer to her  intended prey, crouched and  shifted her hind
feet  nervously,  her bottom  twitching  from  side to  side  and her  tail
lashing. Then she leaped at the parchment. The ball crackled as she pounced
on it,  and, startled,  she jumped high  into the air. She  batted the ball
experimentally with  one paw; suddenly  finding a new game,  she bounded it
across the floor with a series of soft-pawed jabs, scampering after it with
awkward enthusiasm.

'Zakath smiled sadly. "A  young cat," he said, "with much yet to learn." He
rose  gracefully  to  his  feet  and  bowed  to  Ce'Nedra.  "Your  Imperial
Highness," he  greeted her formally. His voice  was resonant, but there was
that peculiar deadness in it.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Ce'Nedra  replied, inclining her head in response.

"Please,  Goodman,"  'Zakath  said   to  Durnik,  who  was  supporting  the
still-dazed  Polgara, "let  the lady  rest here."  He indicated  the divan.
"I'll  send for  my physicians,  and they  will see to  her indisposition."

"Your Majesty  is too  kind." Ce'Nedra mouthed  the ritual phrase,  but her
eyes were  searching 'Zakath's face  for some hint of  his real intentions.
"One  is   surprised  to  meet  such   courtesy-under  the  circumstances."

He smiled  again, rather  whimsically. "And, of course,  all Malloreans are
supposed to be raving fanatics - like Murgos. Courtesy is out of character,
right?"

"We  have  very little  information  about  Mallorea and  its people,"  the
princess responded. "I was not certain what to expect."

"That's  surprising,"  the  Emperor  observed.  "I  have a  great  deal  of
information about your father and your Alorn friends."

"Your Majesty  has the aid of  Grolims in gathering intelligence," Ce'Nedra
said, "while we must rely on ordinary men."

"The  Grolims are  overrated, Princess.  Their first  loyalty is  to Torak;
their second  to their own hierarchy.  They tell me only  what they want to
tell  me -  although  periodically I  manage to  have  a bit  of additional
information extracted  from one of them. It helps to  keep the rest of them
honest."

An attendant entered the  pavilion, fell to his knees, and pressed his face
to the carpet.

"Yes?" 'Zakath inquired.

"Your Imperial  Majesty asked that  the King of Thulldom  be brought here,"
the attendant replied.

"Ah, yes.  I'd nearly  forgotten. Please excuse  me for a  moment, Princess
Ce'Nedra  - a  small matter  requiring my  attention. Please, you  and your
friends make  yourselves comfortable."  He looked critically  at Ce'Nedra's
armor. "After we've dined,  I'll have the women of my household see to more
suitable  clothing for  you and  for Lady  Polgara. Does the  child require
anything?"  He looked curiously  at Errand,  who was intently  watching the
cat.

"He'll be all right,  your Majesty," Ce'Nedra replied. Her mind was working
very rapidly. This urbane,  polished gentleman might be easier to deal with
than she had anticipated.

"Bring  in the  King  of the  Thulls,"  'Zakath ordered,  his hand  wearily
shading his eyes.

"At  once, your Imperial  Majesty," the  attendant said, scrambling  to his
feet   and  backing   out   of  the   pavilion,   bent  in   a  deep   bow.

Gethell, the  King of Mishrak ac  Thull, was a thick-bodied  man with lank,
mud-colored hair. His  face was a pasty white as he was  led in, and he was
trembling violently. "Y-Your Imperial  Majesty," he stammered in a croaking
voice.

"You  forgot to  bow,  Gethell," 'Zakath  reminded him  gently. One  of the
Mallorean guards doubled his  fist and drove it into Gethell's stomach. The
Thull monarch doubled over.

"Much better," 'Zakath said  approvingly. "I've asked you here in regard to
some  distressing  news  I  received  from  the  battlefield,  Gethell.  My
commanders  report  that  your  troops  did  not  behave  well  during  the
engagement at  Thull Mardu. I am  no soldier, but it  seems to me that your
men might  have stood  at least one  charge by the  Mimbrate knights before
they  ran away.  I'm  informed however,  that they  did  not. Have  you any
explanation for that?"

Gethell began to babble incoherently.

"I  thought not,"  'Zakath  told him.  "It's  been my  experience that  the
failure  of people  to do  what's expected  of them  is the result  of poor
leadership. It appears that  you've not taken the trouble to encourage your
men  to be  brave. That  was a  serious oversight  on your  part, Gethell."

"Forgive me, dread 'Zakath,"  the King of the Thulls wailed, falling to his
knees in terror.

"But  of course  I forgive  you, my  dear fellow,"  'Zakath told  him. "How
absurd of  you to  think that I  wouldn't. A reprimand  of some  sort is in
order, though, don't you think?"

"I  freely  accept full  responsibility,"  Gethell declared,  still on  his
knees.

"Splendid, Gethell. Absolutely splendid. I'm so glad that this interview is
going  so well.  We've managed  to avoid  all kinds of  unpleasantness." He
turned to the attendant.  "Would you be so good as to take King Gethell out
and have him flogged?" he asked.

"At once, your Imperial Majesty."

Gethell's eyes started from his head as the two soldiers dragged him to his
feet.

"Now," 'Zakath mused. "What  do we do with him after we've flogged him?" He
thought a moment. "Ah,  I know. Is there any stout timber in the vicinity?"

"It's all open grassland, your Imperial Majesty."

"What a pity." 'Zakath sighed. "I was going to have you crucified, Gethell,
but I  suppose I'll have to forgo that. Perhaps  an extra fifty lashes will
serve as well."

Gethell began to blubber.

"Oh, come  now, my dear fellow,  that just won't do.  You are a king, after
all, and you absolutely must provide a good example for your men. Run along
now. I  have guests. One hopes that the sight  of your public flogging will
give your troops greater incentive to do better. They'll reason that if I'd
do that  to you, then what  I'll do to them  will be infinitely worse. When
you  recover, encourage  them in  that belief,  because the next  time this
happens, I'll have made  arrangements to have the necessary timber on hand.
Take him  away," he said  to his men without  so much as a  glance over his
shoulder.

"Forgive  me for  the interruption,  your Highness," he  apologized. "These
little administrative  details consume so much of  one's time." The King of
the Thulls  was dragged  sobbing from the  pavilion. "I've ordered  a small
supper  for you  and your  friends, Princess Ce'Nedra,"  'Zakath continued.
"All the  finest delicacies.  Then I'll make arrangements  for the absolute
comfort of you and your companions."

"I  hope that  this  won't offend  your Imperial  Majesty,"  Ce'Nedra began
bravely, "but  one is  curious about your  plans in regard  to our future."

"Please  set your  mind  at rest,  your Highness,"  'Zakath replied  in his
dead-sounding voice.  "Word has reached me that  the madman, Taur Urgas, is
dead. I  will never be able  to repay you for that  service, and I bear you
absolutely no  ill will  whatsoever." He glanced  toward one corner  of his
tent where his cat, purring ecstatically, was lying on her back in Errand's
lap with  all four paws in  the air. The smiling  child was gently stroking
her furry  belly. "How  charming," 'Zakath murmured in  an oddly melancholy
voice.

Then the Emperor of  boundless Mallorea rose and approached the divan where
Durnik  supported Lady  Polgara. "My  Queen," he  said, bowing to  her with
profound   respect.   "Your   beauty   quite   transcends   all   reports."

Polgara opened  her eyes and gave  him a level gaze.  A wild hope leaped in
Ce'Nedra's heart. Polgara was conscious.

"You are courteous, my Lord," Polgara told him in a weak voice.

"You are my queen, Polgara," 'Zakath told her, "and I can now understand my
God's ages-old longing for  you." He sighed then as his apparently habitual
melancholy descended upon him once again.

"What are  you going to do  with us?" Durnik asked,  his arms still holding
Polgara protectively.

'Zakath sighed  again. "The God of my people is not  a good or kindly God,"
he told  the smith.  "If the arranging of  things had been left  to me, all
might have been different.  I was not consulted, however. I am Angarak, and
I must bow to  the will of Torak. The sleep of the Dragon God grows fitful,
and I  must obey his commands. Though it wounds me  deeply, I must turn you
and your companions over to the Grolims. They will deliver you up to Zedar,
disciple of  Torak in  Cthol Mishrak, City  of Night, where  he will decide
your fate."





                                 Part Three

                                  MALLOREA





                                  [Image]





Chapter Nineteen

THEY REMAINED  FOR nearly a week  in the Imperial compound  as the personal
guests of the Emperor 'Zakath, who for some strange reason seemed to take a
melancholy  pleasure  in their  company.  Quarters were  provided for  them
within the labyrinth of silken tents and pavilions that sheltered 'Zakath's
household staff, and their every comfort received the personal attention of
the Emperor himself.

The strange,  sad-eyed man  puzzled Princess Ce'Nedra. Although  he was the
absolute soul  of courtesy, the  memory of his interview  with King Gethell
frightened her. His ruthlessness was all the more chilling because he never
lost his  temper. He never seemed  to sleep either, and  when, often in the
middle of  the night, he felt some obscure  need for conversation, he would
send for Ce'Nedra. He  never apologized for having interrupted her rest. It
apparently did  not even  occur to him  that his summons might  in some way
inconvenience her.

"Where did  King Rhodar  receive his military training?"  'Zakath asked her
during one of these  midnight interviews. "None of my information about him
even  hints about  any such  talent." The  Emperor was  seated deep  in the
purple cushions  of a soft  chair with golden candlelight  playing over his
face and his cat dozing in his lap.

"I really  couldn't say,  your Majesty," Ce'Nedra  replied, toying absently
with the  sleeve of the pale silk gown that had  been provided for her soon
after her arrival. "I only met Rhodar last winter."

"Very peculiar,"  'Zakath mused. "We had always assumed  that he was just a
foolish old man doting  on his young wife. We had never even considered him
a possible threat. We concentrated our attentions on Brand and Anheg. Brand
is too  self effacing to be a good leader, and  Anheg seemed too erratic to
give us much concern. Then Rhodar appeared out of nowhere to take charge of
things. The Alorns are an enigma, aren't they? How can a sensible Tolnedran
girl stand them?"

She smiled briefly. "They have a certain charm, your Majesty," she told him
rather pertly.

"Where is Belgarion?" The question came without any warning. ''

"We don't  know, your Majesty," Ce'Nedra  answered evasively. "Lady Polgara
was furious when he slipped away."

"In the  company of Belgarath and Kheldar,"  the Emperor added."We heard of
the search  for them. Tell me, Princess, does he  by any chance have Cthrag
Yaska with him?"

"Cthrag Yaska?"

"The burning stone - what you in the west call the Orb of Aldur "

"I'm not  at liberty  to discuss that,  your Majesty," she  told him rather
primly, "and I'm sure  you're too courteous to try to wring the information
out of me."

"Princess," he said reprovingly.

"I'm sorry,  your Majesty," she apologized and  gave him that quick, little
girl smile that was always her weapon of last resort.

'Zakath smiled  gently. "You're a devious  young woman, Ce'Nedra," he said.

"Yes, your Majesty," she acknowledged. "What prompted you and Taur Urgas to
bury your enmity and unite against us?" Ce'Nedra wanted to demonstrate that
she too could ask surprise questions.

"There was  no unity  in our attack,  Princess," he replied.  "I was merely
responding to Taur Urgas."

"I don't understand."

"So long  as he remained at  Rak Goska, I was  perfectly content to stay at
Thull Zelik; but as  soon as he began to march north, I had to respond. The
land of  the Thulls is of  too much strategic importance  to allow it to be
occupied by a hostile force."

"And  what now,  'Zakath?" Ce'Nedra  asked him  impudently. "Taur  Urgas is
dead. Where will you turn now in search of an enemy?"

He smiled  a wintry  smile. "How little  you understand us,  Ce'Nedra. Taur
Urgas was  only the symbol of  Murgo fanaticism. Ctuchik is  dead, and Taur
Urgas is dead, but Murgodom lives on - even as Mallorea will live on when I
am  gone. Our  enmity goes back  for eons.  At last, how-ever,  a Mallorean
Emperor is  in a position to  crush Cthol Murgos once  and for all and make
himself undisputed overking of Angarak."

"It's all for power, then?"

"What else  is there?"  he asked sadly.  "When I was very  young, I thought
that there  might be something else-but events proved  that I was wrong." A
brief  look of  pain crossed  his face,  and he  sighed. "In time  you will
discover that same truth. Your Belgarion will grow colder as the years pass
and the  chill satisfaction  of power comes  more and more  to possess him.
When it is complete, and only his love of power remains, then he and I will
move against each other as inevitably as two great tides. I will not attack
him until his education is complete. There is no satisfaction in destroying
a man who does  not fully comprehend reality. When all of his illusions are
gone and  only his love of power remains, then he  will be a fit opponent."
His face  had grown bleak. He  looked at her, his eyes  as dead and cold as
ice. "I  think I've kept you  from your rest too  long, Princess," he said.
"Go to bed and dream of love and other absurdities. The dreams will die all
too soon, so enjoy them while you can."

Early the next morning, Ce'Nedra entered the pavilion where Polgara rested,
recuperating from  the struggle  with the Grolims  at Thull Mardu.  She was
alert, but still dreadfully weak.

"He's every  bit as insane as Taur Urgas  was," Ce'Nedra reported. "He's so
obsessed with  the idea of becoming overking of  Angarak that he isn't even
paying any attention to what we've been doing."

"That  may  change once  Anheg  starts  sinking his  troop ships,"  Polgara
replied. "There's  nothing we can do at the  moment, so just keep listening
to him and be polite."

"Do you think we should try to escape?"

"No."

Ce'Nedra looked at her, a bit startled.

"What's happening is supposed  to happen. There's some reason that the four
of us - you,  Durnik, Errand, and I - are supposed to go to Mallorea. Let's
not tamper with it."

"You knew this was going to happen?"

Polgara  gave her  a weary  smile. "I  knew that's  where we were  going. I
didn't know  how, exactly. 'Zakath  isn't interfering in any  way, so don't
aggravate him."

Ce'Nedra sighed in resignation. "Whatever you say, Lady Polgara," she said.

It  was early afternoon  of that same  day when  the first reports  of King
Anheg's  activities in  the Sea  of the  East reached the  Emperor 'Zakath.
Ce'Nedra, who was present when the dispatches were delivered, felt a secret
sense of  satisfaction as the icy  man showed the first  hint of irritation
she had seen in him.

"Are you certain of  this?" he demanded of the trembling messenger, holding
up the parchment.

"I only carried the  dispatch, dread Lord." The messenger quailed, cringing
back from his Emperor's anger.

"Were you at Thull Zelik when the ships arnved?"

"There was only one ship, dread Lord."

"One  ship out of  fifty?" 'Zakath's  tone was incredulous.  "Weren't there
others - perhaps coming along the coast?"

"The sailors said there weren't, your Imperial Majesty."

"What  kind of  barbarian is  this Anheg  of Cherek?" 'Zakath  exclaimed to
Ce'Nedra. "Each of those ships carried two hundred men."

"King Anheg  is an Alorn, your  Majesty," Ce'Nedra replied coolly. "They're
an unpredictable people."

With a  great deal of effort,  'Zakath regained his composure.  "I see," he
said after  a moment's reflection. "This was  your plan from the beginning,
wasn't it,  Princess? The entire  attack on Thull Mardu  was a subterfuge."

"Not  entirely,  your Majesty.  I  was  assured that  the  city  had to  be
neutralized to permit the passage of the fleet."

"But why is he drowning my soldiers? I bear the Alorns no malice."

"Torak  does -  or  so I'm  told -  and it  is Torak  who will  command the
combined armies  of Angarak.  We cannot allow  your forces to  land on this
continent,   your  Majesty.   We   cannot  give   Torak  that   advantage."

"Torak is asleep - and he's likely to remain so for a number of years yet."

"Our information  indicates that it  will not be nearly  so long. Belgarath
himself is convinced that the time is near at hand."

His  eyes narrowed  slightly. "I  must hand  you all  over to  the Grolims,
then," he said. "I'd  hoped to wait until Polgara had regained her strength
before subjecting her to the journey; but if what you say is true, there is
little  time to  waste.  Advise your  friends to  make  their preparations,
Princess.   You   will   depart   for  Thull   Zelik   tomorrow   morning."

"As your Majesty wishes," Ce'Nedra replied, a chill going down her spine as
she bowed her head in acquiescence.

"I am  a secular man, Princess,"  he said by way  of explanation. "I bow to
the altar of Torak  when the occasion demands it, but I make no pretence at
excessive piety.  I will not involve myself  in a religious dispute between
Belgarath and Zedar, and  I most certainly will not stand between Torak and
Aldur when they confront  each other. I would strongly advise you to follow
the same course."

"That  decision is  not mine  to make,  your Majesty.  My part in  this was
decided for me long before I was born."

He  looked amused.  "The  Prophecy, you  mean? We  Angaraks have  one also,
Princess,  and  I don't  imagine  yours  is any  more  reliable than  ours.
Prophecy is no more  than a trick of the priesthood to maintain its grip on
the gullible."

"Then you believe in nothing, my Lord?"

"I   believe   in  my   own   power.   Nothing  else   makes  any   sense."

The  Grolims  who  escorted  them  in  easy  stages  northward  across  the
summer-browned plains  of Mishrak  ac Thull toward Thull  Zelik were coldly
proper.  Ce'Nedra could  not be sure  if their  behavior was the  result of
warnings  from  the Emperor  of  Mallorea  or their  fear  of Polgara.  The
stifling heat was past now, and the air smelled faintly of the dusty end of
summer. The Thullish plain  was dotted with villages, random collections of
thatch-roofed cottages and dirt  streets. The villagers watched, sullen and
afraid, as the priests  of Torak rode through the little towns, their faces
cold and aloof.

The plain to the  west of Thull Zelik was covered with the red tents of the
vast staging  area that had been  erected for the Mallorean  army. With the
exception of  caretaker detachments, however, the  huge camp was empty. The
troops already in Mishrak  ac Thull were with 'Zakath near Thull Mardu, and
the  steady  stream  of  new arrivals  had  been  quite  suddenly cut  off.

Thull Zelik  itself was like any  port town in the  world, smelling of salt
water, fish,  tar, and rotting  seaweed. The gray stone  buildings were low
and squat, almost like  the Thulls themselves, and the cobblestoned streets
all sloped  down to the harbor,  which lay in the  curve of a broad estuary
and faced a somewhat similar harbor on the other side.

"What city  is that?"  Ce'Nedra curiously asked  one of the  Grolims as she
looked across the dirty water toward the far shore.

"Yar Marak," the black-robed priest answered curtly.

"Ah,"  she said,  remembering now  her tedious  geography lessons.  The two
cities, one Thullish, the other Nadrak, faced each other across the estuary
at the mouth of  the River Cordu, and the boundary between Mishrak ac Thull
and   Gar  og   Nadrak  ran   down  the   precise  center  of   the  river.

"When the  Emperor returns from Thull Mardu, I  imagine he'll take steps to
eradicate that  place over there," one of the  other Grolims added. "He was
not pleased  with the behavior of King Drosta  on the battlefield, and some
chastisement seems in order."

They proceeded  directly down a cobbled  avenue to the harbor,  where but a
few ships were moored to the wharves.

"My crew  absolutely refuses to put  to sea," the Mallorean  captain of the
ship upon  which they were to embark reported  to the Grolims. "The Chereks
out  there  are like  a  pack  of wolves,  burning  and sinking  everything
afloat."

"The Cherek fleet is farther south," the priest in charge of the detachment
of Grolims declared.

"The Cherek  fleet is  everywhere, revered priest,"  the captain disagreed.
"Two days  ago they  burned four coastal  towns two hundred  leagues to the
south of  here, and yesterday they sank a dozen  ships a hundred leagues to
the north.  You wouldn't  believe how fast  they can move.  They don't even
take the time to loot the towns they burn." He shuddered. "They're not men!
They're a natural disaster."

"We will set sail within the hour," the Grolim insisted.

"Not unless your priests  know how to man oars and handle the rigging," the
captain told him. "My men are terrified. They won't sail."

"We'll convince them," the  Grolim said darkly. He gave a few orders to his
under-priests. An  altar was quickly erected on the  high stern deck, and a
brazier filled with glowing  coals was placed to one side of it. The leader
of the  Grolims took his place  at the altar and  began chanting in a deep,
hollow  voice, his  arms raised  to the sky.  In his  right hand he  held a
gleaming knife.  At random, his cohorts selected  a sailor and dragged him,
screaming  and struggling,  to  the stern  deck. As  Ce'Nedra  watched with
horror, he was bent  backward across the altar and butchered with an almost
casual efficiency.  The Grolim  who had wielded  the knife lifted  the dead
man's dripping heart.

"Behold our  offering, Dragon-God of  Angarak!" he cried in  a great voice,
then  turned and  deposited  the heart  in the  smoking brazier.  The heart
steamed  and sizzled  horribly  for a  moment,  then began  to blacken  and
shrivel as the fire consumed it. From the bow of the ship a gong clanged in
iron celebration of the sacrifice.

The Grolim at the  altar, his bloody hands dripping, turned to confront the
ashen-faced sailors crowded amidships.

"Our ceremonies  will continue  until the ship  sails," he told  them. "Who
will be the next to give his heart to our beloved God?"

The ship set sail immediately.

Ce'Nedra, sick with revulsion, turned her face away. She looked at Polgara,
whose eyes burned with hatred and who seemed in the grip of an overpowering
interior struggle.  Ce'Nedra knew her, and  she knew that it  was only by a
tremendous effort  of her will that  Polgara was able to  keep herself from
unleashing a terrible retribution  on the bloodstained Grolim at the altar.
Beside her, protected in the clasp of one of her arms, stood Errand. On the
child's face  was an expression  Ce'Nedra had never seen  there before. His
look was  sad, compassionate,  and at the  same time filled with  a kind of
iron-hard resolution,  as if, had he but the  power, he would destroy every
altar to Torak in all the world.

"You will  go below decks now," one of their  Grolim captors told them. "It
will  be a  matter of  some days  before we  reach the shores  of boundless
Mallorea."

They sailed north, hugging the Nadrak coastline, fearfully ready to run for
any beach  that offered itself, should Cherek  ships appear on the horizon.
At a  certain point, the Mallorean  captain peered about at  the empty sea,
swallowed hard,  and swung  his tiller over  for the quick,  terrified dash
across open water to the east.

Once, a  day or more out from the Nadrak coast,  they saw a dreadful column
of thick  black smoke rising far  to the south, and a  day or so farther on
they sailed  through a sea littered with  charred debris where bodies, pale
and bloated,  bobbed in the dark  waves of the eastern  sea. The frightened
sailors pulled  their oars  with all their  strength, not even  needing the
encouragement of whips to row faster.

Then, one  murky morning when  the sky behind them  threatened rain squalls
and the  air was oppressively heavy  with the advancing storm,  a low, dark
smudge appeared on the horizon ahead of them, and the sailors doubled their
efforts,  rushing  desperately toward  the  safety of  the Mallorean  coast
ahead.

The  beach upon which  the small boats  from their  ship landed them  was a
sloping  shingle  of  dark,  salt-crusted gravel  where  the  waves made  a
strange, mournful  sighing as they receded.  Awaiting them some distance up
from the  water's edge  sat a mounted  party of Grolims,  their black robes
belted at the waist with crimson sashes.

"Archpriests,"  Polgara  noted  coldly. "We're  to  be  escorted with  some
ceremony, I take it."

The Grolim who had  commanded their escort went quickly up the gravel stand
toward the waiting group  and prostrated himself before them, speaking with
a hushed reverence. One of the Archpriests, an aged man with a deeply lined
face  and sunken  eyes, dismounted  rather stiffly  and came down  to where
Ce'Nedra  and   her  friends   had  just  stepped  from   the  small  boat.

"My  Queen,"  he  said  to  Polgara,  bowing  respectfully.  "I  am  Urtag,
Archpriest of  the district of Camat. I am here  with my brethren to escort
you to the City of Night."

"I'm disappointed not to find Zedar waiting," the sorceress replied coldly.
"I trust he's not indisposed."

Urtag  gave her  a  quick look  of irritation.  "Do  not rail  against your
foreordained fate, Queen of Angarak," he advised her.

"I have  two fates awaiting me, Urtag," she said.  "Which one I will follow
has not yet been decided."

"I   do   not   have   any  doubts   about   the   matter,"  he   declared.

"That's probably  because you've never dared  to look at the alternatives,"
she replied.  "Shall we  go, Urtag? A  windy beach is hardly  the place for
philosophical discussion."

The Grolim Archpriests had brought horses with them, and the party was soon
mounted and riding away  from the sea across a line of low, wooded hills in
a generally northeasterly direction.  The trees bordering the upper edge of
the gravel  beach had been  dark-boughed spruces, but once  they topped the
first rise they entered a vast forest of white-barked aspens. To Ce'Nedra's
eyes,  the stark,  white trunks  looked almost  corpselike, and  the entire
forest had a gloomy, unhealthy quality about it.

"Mistress  Pol," Durnik  said  in a  voice that  was  scarcely more  than a
whisper, "shouldn't we be working on some kind of plan?"

"For what, Durnik?" she asked him.

"For our escape, of course."

"But we don't want to escape, Durnik."

"We don't?"

"The Grolims are taking us to the place we want to go."

"Why do we want to go to this Cthol Mishrak of theirs?"

"We have something to do there."

"From everything  I've heard it's a  bad sort of place,"  he told her. "Are
you sure you haven't made some mistake?"

She  reached out and  laid her hand  on his  arm. "Dear Durnik,"  she said,
"you'll just have to trust me."

"Of course,  Mistress Pol,"  he replied immediately. "But  shouldn't I know
what to expect?  If I should have to take steps to  protect you, I ought to
be prepared."

"I'd  tell you  if I  knew, Durnik," she  said, "but  I don't know  what we
should expect.  All I  know is that  the four of  us are supposed  to go to
Cthol Mishrak. What's going  to happen there needs us in order for it to be
complete. Each of us has something to do there."

"Even me?"

"Especially you,  Durnik. At first I didn't  understand who you really are.
That's why I tried  to keep you from coming along. But now I do understand.
You have to be  there because you're going to do the one thing that's going
to turn the entire outcome one way or the other."

"What is it?"

"We don't know."

His eyes grew wide. "What if I do it wrong?" he asked in a worried voice.

"I don't think you  can," she reassured him. "From everything I understand,
what you're  going to do will  flow very naturally out  of who and what you
are." She gave  him a brief, wry little smile. "You won't  be able to do it
wrong, Durnik - any  more than you'd be able to lie or cheat or steal. It's
built into you to do it right, so don't worry about it."

"That's all  very well for you  to say, Mistress Pol,"  he replied, "but if
you don't  mind, I will worry about it just a  bit - privately, of course."

She laughed  then, a  light, fond little  laugh. "You dear,  dear man," she
said impulsively taking his hand. "Whatever would we do without you?"

Durnik blushed and tried  to look away, but her glorious eyes held his, and
he blushed even more.

After they had passed through the forest of aspen, they entered a strangely
desolate  landscape. White  boulders  stuck up  out of  tangled  weeds like
tombstones  in  a long-abandoned  graveyard,  and dead  trees thrust  their
crooked limbs at the  overcast sky like pleading fingers. The horizon ahead
was covered with a bank of darker cloud, a cloud so intensely black that it
seemed almost purple. Oddly,  Ce'Nedra noted, the cloudbank did not seem to
be moving  at all. There was no sign anywhere  of any human habitation, and
the route they followed was not even marked by a trail.

"Does no one live there?" the princess asked Polgara.

"Cthol  Mishrak  is  deserted  except for  a  few  Grolims," the  sorceress
replied. "Torak smashed the city and drove its people out the day my father
and King Cherek and his sons stole the Orb back from the iron tower."

"When was that?"

"A very long time ago, Ce'Nedra. As nearly as we've been able to determine,
it was  precisely on the same  day that Beldaran and I  were born - and the
day our mother died.  It's a bit hard to say for sure. We were a bit casual
about keeping track of time in those days."

"If your  mother had  died and Belgarath  was here, who took  care of you?"

"Beldin, of course." Polgara  smiled. "He wasn't a very good mother, but he
did the best he could until father returned."

"Is that why you're so fond of him?"

"One of the reasons, yes."

The ominous  cloudbank still did not  move. It stretched across  the sky as
stationary  as a  range of  mountains; as  they rode  toward it,  it loomed
higher and higher.

"That's a  very strange cloud," Durnik  noted, looking speculatively at the
thick curtain of purple  ahead. "The storm is coming in behind us, but that
cloud doesn't seem to be moving at all."

"It doesn't move, Durnik,"  Polgara told him. "It never has moved. When the
Angaraks built Cthol Mishrak,  Torak put that cloud there to hide the city.
It's been there ever since."

"How long is that?"

"About five thousand years."

"The sun never shines there?"

"Never."

The Grolim Archpriests had begun to look about with a certain apprehension,
and  finally  Urtag called  a  halt.  "We must  make  ourselves known,"  he
declared.  "We  don't  want  the watchers  to  mistake  us for  intruders."

The other Archpriests nodded nervously, and then all removed polished steel
masks from beneath their robes and carefully covered their faces with them.
Then each of them  untied a thick torch from his saddle and ignited it with
a  brief,  mumbled  incantation.  The  torches  burned  with  a  peculiarly
green-tinged   flame   and   gave   off   a   reeking,   sulfurous   smoke.

"I wonder  what would happen if  I were to blow  out your torches," Polgara
suggested  with  a  hint  of a  mischievous  smile.  "I  could, you  know."

Urtag gave her a  worried look. "This is no time for foolishness, my Lady,"
he  warned her.  "The watchers  are very  savage with intruders.  Our lives
depend on those torches.  Please don't do anything to bring down a disaster
on us all."

She laughed lightly and let it go at that.

As  they rode in  beneath the cloud,  it grew  steadily darker. It  was not
precisely  the clean  darkness of  night, but  was rather  a kind  of dirty
murkiness, a  deep shade hovering in  the air. They crested  a rise and saw
before them  a cloud-enshrouded basin, and in  its center, half obscured by
the pervasive gloom, stood the ravaged City of Night. The vegetation around
them had  shrunk to  a few sparse  weeds and an  unhealthy looking, stunted
grass, pale and sick  for want of sun. The boulders thrusting up out of the
earth were  splotched with a sort of leprous lichen  that ate into the rock
itself,  and  nodules of  a  white  fungus lumped  in grotesque  profusion,
spreading out  across the dank soil as if  the ground itself were diseased.

With a slow, careful pace, their sputtering torches held above their heads,
the Grolim  Archpriests led the way  down into the gloomy  basin and across
the  unwholesome  plain  toward  the  shattered  walls  of  Cthol  Mishrak.

As they entered the  city, the princess saw furtive hints of movement among
the tumbled  stones. Shadowy forms  scurried from place to  place among the
ruins, and  the sound  of their movements  was the clicking  scrape made by
creatures whose  feet were clawed. Some of  the shapes were upright, others
were not. Ce'Nedra grew cold and afraid. The watchers of Cthol Mishrak were
neither beast nor human,  and they seemed to exude a kind of indiscriminate
malice toward  all other living things. More  than anything, she was afraid
that  one of them  might suddenly turn  and confront  her with a  face that
might rip away her sanity by its hideousness.

As  they passed  down a  broken street,  Urtag began  to intone  an ancient
prayer to  Torak, his voice hollow  and shaking. The dank  air grew colder,
and the diseaselike lichen  ate at the tumbled stones of the ruined houses.
Mold seemed  to cling to everything, and the  pale fungus grew in grotesque
lumps in  corners and crannies. The smell of  decay was everywhere, a damp,
rotten  stench, and  slimy  pools of  stagnant water  lay among  the ruins.

In the center of  the city stood the rusted stump of a vast iron tower, the
broken-off girders which had  supported it thicker than a man's waist. Just
to the  south of the stump  lay a broad, rusted  trail of total destruction
where the tower had  fallen, crushing everything beneath it. Over the eons,
the iron  had rusted  down into a  sort of damp  red mud  that outlined the
enormous dimensions of the fallen structure.

The stump  had eroded  down, the years  rounding off the  broken edges. The
rust mingled  in places with a  kind of thick black  ooze that ran down the
faces of the iron plates like gobbets of clotted blood.

Urtag, trembling  visibly now, dismounted before  a vast, arched portal and
led them  through a half open  iron door. The echoing  chamber they entered
was as  large as  the Imperial throne  room in Tol  Honeth. Wordlessly, his
torch held  high over his head,  Urtag led them across  the pitted floor to
another iron-arched  doorway and then down a  flight of clanging iron steps
that  reached into  the  darkness beneath.  At  the bottom  of the  stairs,
perhaps fifty  feet below the  wreckage above, stood another  door of black
iron, studded  with great,  round rivetheads. Hesitantly,  Urtag rapped his
knuckles on  the door, and the sound of his  rapping echoed hollowly in the
chamber beyond.

"Who comes to disturb  the slumber of the Dragon-God of Angarak?" a muffled
voice demanded from behind the door.

"I am Urtag, the  Archpriest of Camat." The Grolim's voice was friughtened.
"As  commanded,   I  bring  the  prisoners   to  the  Disciple  of  Torak."

There was  a moment of silence,  and then the rattling  sound of an immense
chain,  followed  by  the   grating  of  an  enormous  bolt.  Then  slowly,
creakingly, the door opened.

Ce'Nedra gasped.  Standing in  the doorway was  Belgarath! It was  a moment
before  her startled  eyes began  to sort  out the subtle  differences that
informed her  that the white-haired man  before her was not  indeed the old
sorcerer, but  rather someone who looked  so much like him  that they could
easily  pass for brothers.  Subtle though  the differences were,  they were
nonetheless profound.  In the  eyes of the  man in the doorway  there was a
haunted look  - a look compounded  of grief and horror  and a dreadful self
loathing, all  overlaid with the helpless adoration of  a man who has given
himself utterly to a dreadful master.

"Welcome  to  the  tomb  of the  one-eyed  God,  Polgara,"  he greeted  the
sorceress.

"It's been  a long time, Belzedar," she replied  in an oddly neutral voice.

"I've  given up  the right  to that name,"  he told  her, and his  tone was
faintly regretful.

"It was your decision, Zedar."

He shrugged. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps not. Maybe what I'm doing is also
necessary." He pushed the  door open wider. "Come inside, if you will. This
crypt is  habitable -  if only barely."  He looked directly  at Urtag then.
"You have  performed a service,  Urtag, Archpriest of Torak,  and a service
should not  be unrewarded. Come." And he turned and  led them back into the
vaulted chamber beyond. The walls were of stone, massive blocks set without
mortar, and  bolted to the  topmost tier were great  iron arches supporting
the ceiling  and the immense ruin above. The great  chill of masses of cold
stone and iron was  held off by large, glowing braziers set in each corner.
In the  center of the room stood a table and  several chairs, and along one
wall  lay a  cluster of  loosely rolled  pallets and  a neat stack  of gray
woolen blankets.  On the table stood  a pair of large  candles, their flame
unwinking and steady in the dead air of the tomb.

Zedar paused  briefly at the table to pick up one  of the candles, then led
them across  the flagstone floor to  an arched alcove set  in the far wall.
"Your reward,  Urtag," he said to the Grolim. "Come  and behold the face of
your God." He lifted the candle.

Lying upon  its back on a  stone bier within the  alcove lay a huge figure,
robed and cowled in black. The face was concealed by a polished steel mask.
The eyes of the mask were closed.

Urtag took one terrified  look, then prostrated himself on the floor. There
was  a deep,  rasping sigh, and  the recumbent  figure in the  alcove moved
slightly.  As   Ce'Nedra  stared   in  horrified  fascination,   the  vast,
steel-covered face turned restlessly toward them. For a moment the polished
left eyelid opened. Behind  that eyelid burned the dreadful fire of the eye
that was  not. The steel face  moved as if it  were flesh, twisting into an
expression of  contempt at  the priest groveling  on the flagstones,  and a
hollow murmuring came from behind the polished lips.

Urtag started violently and raised his suddenly stricken face, listening to
the hollow  muttering which he alone  in the dim crypt  could hear clearly.
The  hollow voice  continued, murmuring  in Urtag's ears.  The Archpriest's
face  drained as  he  listened, and  a  look of  unspeakable horror  slowly
twisted  his  features. The  hollow  muttering  droned on.  The words  were
indistinct, but the inflections were not. Desperately, Ce'Nedra covered her
ears.

Finally  Urtag  screamed and  scrambled  to  his feet.  His  face had  gone
absolutely white, and his  eyes were starting from their sockets. Gibbering
insanely, Urtag  fled, and  the sound of  his screams echoed  back down the
iron   stairway,   as   he   ran  in   terror   from   the  ruined   tower.





Chapter Twenty

THE  WHISPERING HAD  begun almost  as soon  as Belgarath, Silk,  and Garion
reached the coast of Mallorea. It was indistinct at first, little more than
a sibilant  breath sounding perpetually  in Garion's ears, but  in the days
that  followed as  they  moved steadily  south, occasional  words  began to
emerge. The words were the sort to be reckoned with home, mother, love, and
death - words upon which attention immediately fastened.

Unlike the land of the Morindim which they had left behind, northern - most
Mallorea  was a  land of  rolling hills  covered with a  toughstemmed, dark
green grass.  Occasional nameless  rivers wound among  those hills, roiling
and turbulent  beneath a lead gray sky. They had not  seen the sun for what
seemed weeks. A sort  of dry overcast had moved in off the Sea of the East,
and  a  stiff  breeze,  chill  and  smelling  of  the  polar  ice,  pressed
continually at their backs as they moved south.

Belgarath now  rode with  extreme caution. There  was no sign  of that half
doze that  was his custom in more civilized parts  of the world, and Garion
could feel the subtle push of the old man's mind as he probed ahead for any
hidden  dangers. So delicate  was the  sorcerer's searching that  it seemed
only a slowly expiring  breath, light, tentative, concealed artfully in the
sound of the breeze passing through the tall grass.

Silk  also  rode  warily,  pausing frequently  to  listen,  and seeming  on
occasion to sniff at  the air. Often he would even go so far as to dismount
and put his ear  to the turf, to see if he might  pick up the muffled tread
of unseen horses approaching.

"Nervous work,"  the little man said as he  remounted after one such pause.

"Better  to  be a  little  overcautious  than to  blunder into  something,"
Belgarath replied. "Did you hear anything?"

"I  think  I  heard  a worm  crawling  around  down  there," Silk  answered
brightly. "He didn't say anything, though. You know how worms are."

"Do you mind?"

"You did ask, Belgarath."

"Oh, shut up!"

"You heard him ask, didn't you, Garion?"

"That  is  probably  the  most offensive  habit  I've  ever encountered  in
anyone," Belgarath told the little thief.

"I know,"  Silk answered. "That's why  I do it. Infuriating,  isn't it? How
far do we have to go before we come to woods again?"

"Several more  days. We're still a goodly distance  north of the tree line.
Winter's too long and summer too short for trees to grow up here."

"Boring  sort of  place, isn't  it?" Silk  observed, looking around  at the
endless   grass  and  the   rounded  hills   that  all  looked   the  same.

"Under the  circumstances, I  can stand a little  boredom. The alternatives
aren't all that pleasant."

"I can accept that."

They rode on, their  horses wading through the knee-high, gray-green grass.

The whispering inside Garion's head began again.

"Hear me, Child of Light."

That  sentence emerged quite  clearly from  the rest of  the unintelligible
sibilance.  There  was  a  dreadfully  compelling quality  in  that  single
statement. Garion concentrated, trying to hear more.

"I wouldn't do that, " the familiar dry voice told him.

"What?"

"Don't do what he tells you to do. "

"Who is it?"

"Torak, of course. Who did you think it was?"

"He's awake?"

"Not yet. Not fully  at any rate - but then he's never been entirely asleep
either."

"What's he trying to do?"

"He's trying to talk you out of killing him."

"He's not afraid of me, is he?"

"Of course  he's afraid.  He doesn't know  what's going to  happen any more
than  you do,  and  he's just  as frightened  of  you as  you are  of him."

That immediately  made Garion feel better. "What should  I do about the way
he keeps whispering to me?"

"There's not much you  can do. Just don't get into the habit of obeying his
orders, that's all. "

They camped  that evening  as they usually  did in a  well-sheltered hollow
between  two hills and,  as usual, they  built no  fire to give  away their
location.

"I'm getting  a bit  tired of cold  suppers," Silk complained,  biting down
hard on  a piece of dried meat. "This beef's like  a strip of old leather."

"The   exercise   is   good   for   your   jaws,"   Belgarath   told   him.

"You can be a  very unpleasant old man when you set your mind to it, do you
know that?"

"The nights  are getting longer, aren't they?" Garion  said to head off any
further wrangling.

"The summer's winding down," Belgarath told him. "It will be autumn up here
in  another   few  weeks,  and   winter  will  be  right   on  its  heels."

"I  wonder   where  we'll  be  when   winter  comes,"  Garion  said  rather
plaintively.

"I wouldn't do that," Silk advised. "Thinking about it isn't going to help,
and it's only going to make you nervous."

"Nervouser," Garion corrected. "I'm already nervous."

"Is there  such a  word as 'nervouser?'  " Silk asked  Belgarath curiously.

"There   is   now,"  Belgarath   replied.   "Garion   just  invented   it."

"I  wish  I could  invent  a word,"  Silk  said admiringly  to Garion,  his
ferretlike little eyes gleaming mischievously.

"Please don't  poke fun at me,  Silk. I'm having enough  trouble as it is."

"Let's get some sleep," Belgarath suggested. "This conversation isn't going
anywhere, and we've got a long way to ride tomorrow."

That night  the whispering invaded Garion's sleep,  and it seemed to convey
its meaning in images rather than words. There was an offer of friendship -
of a hand outstretched in love. The loneliness that had haunted his boyhood
from the moment he  had discovered that he was an orphan seemed to fade, to
pass  somehow behind  him  with that  offer,  and he  found himself  rather
desperately  wanting   to  run  toward  that   hand  reaching  toward  him.

Then, very clearly, he saw two figures standing side by side. The figure of
the man was very tall and very powerful, and the figure of the woman was so
familiar that  the very  sight of her  caught at Garion's  heart. The tall,
powerful man  seemed to be a  stranger, and yet was  not. His face went far
beyond mere human handsomeness. It was quite the most beautiful face Garion
had ever seen. The  woman, of course, was not a stranger. The white lock at
the brow  and the glorious eyes  were the most familiar  things in Garion's
life. Side  by side, the beautiful stranger and  Aunt Pol reached out their
arms to him.

"You will  be our son," the whispering voice told  him. "Our beloved son. I
will be  your father,  and Polgara your  mother. This will  be no imaginary
thing,  Child of  Light, for  I can  make all  things happen.  Polgara will
really be your mother, and all of her love will be yours alone; and I, your
father, will love and cherish you both. Will you turn away from us and face
again the bitter loneliness  of the orphan child? Does that chill emptiness
compare  with the  warmth  of loving  parents? Come  to us,  Belgarion, and
accept our love."

Garion  jerked himself out  of sleep,  sitting bolt upright,  trembling and
sweating.

"I need help, " he cried out silently, reaching into the vaults of his mind
to find that other, nameless presence.

"What's your problem now?" the dry voice asked him.

"He's cheating, " Garion declared, outraged.

"Cheating?  Did somebody  come along  and make  up a  set of rules  while I
wasn't watching?"

"You know what I  mean. He's offering to make Aunt Pol my mother if I'll do
what he says. "

"He's lying. He can't alter the past. Ignore him."

"How can I? He keeps reaching into my mind and putting his hand on the most
sensitive spots "

"Think about Ce'Nedra. That'll confuse him. "

"Ce'Nedra?"

"Every time  he tries to tempt  you with Polgara, think  about your flighty
little princess.  Remember exactly  how she looked  when you peeked  at her
while she was bathing that time back in the Wood of the Dryads."

"I did not peekl"

"Really? How is it that you remember every single detail so vividly, then?"

Garion  blushed. He  had  forgotten that  his daydreams  were  not entirely
private.

"Just concentrate  on Ce'Nedra.  It will probably irritate  Torak almost as
much as it  does me. " The voice paused. "Is that  all you can really think
about?" it asked then.

Garion did not try to answer that.

They pushed  on southward under the dirty overcast  and two days later they
reached the  first trees, scattered  sparsely at the edge  of the grassland
where great herds of  antlered creatures grazed as placidly and unafraid as
cattle.  As the  three of them  rode south,  the scattered clumps  of trees
became thicker,  and soon spread into  a forest of dark-boughed evergreens.

The whispering blandishments of  Torak continued, but Garion countered them
with  thoughts  of  his  red-haired little  princess.  He  could sense  the
irritation  of his  enemy each  time he  intruded these daydreams  upon the
carefully  orchestrated  images  Torak   kept  trying  to  instill  in  his
imagination. Torak  wanted him to think  of his loneliness and  fear and of
the possibility of becoming a part of a loving family, but the intrusion of
Ce'Nedra  into  the  picture  confused and  baffled  the  God. Garion  soon
perceived that Torak's understanding of men was severely limited. Concerned
more with  elementals, with those towering  compulsions and ambitions which
had  inflamed him  for  the endless  eons, Torak  could  not cope  with the
scattered  complexities and  conflicting desires  that motivated  most men.
Garion  seized on  his  advantage to  thwart the  insidious  and compelling
whispers   with  which  Torak   tried  to   lure  him  from   his  purpose.

The  whole  business was  somehow  peculiarly familiar.  This had  happened
before - not perhaps in exactly the same way, but very similarly. He sorted
through his memories, trying  to pin down this strange sense of repetition.
It was  the sight of  a twisted tree stump,  lightning-blasted and charred,
that suddenly brought it  all flooding back in on him. The stump, when seen
from a  certain angle,  bore a vague  resemblance to a man  on horseback, a
dark rider  who seemed to watch  them as they rode  by. Because the sky was
overcast,  the stump  cast  no shadow,  and the  image clicked  into place.
Throughout his childhood, hovering always on the edge of his vision, Garion
had seen  the strange,  menacing shape of  a dark-cloaked rider  on a black
horse, shadowless even in the brightest sunlight. That had been Asharak the
Murgo, of  course, the Grolim whom  Garion had destroyed in  his first open
act as  a sorcerer. But had  it? There had existed  between Garion and that
dark figure  which had  so haunted his  childhood a strange  bond. They had
been enemies;  Garion had always known that; but  in their enmity there had
always  been  a  curious  closeness, something  that  seemed  to pull  them
together.  Garion   quite  deliberately   began  to  examine   a  startling
possibility. Suppose that the  dark rider had not in fact been Asharak - or
if it had been,  suppose that Asharak had somehow been suffused by another,
more powerful awareness.

The more he thought  about it, the more convinced Garion became that he had
stumbled  inadvertently   across  the  truth  of   the  matter.  Torak  had
demonstrated that,  even though  his body slept, his  awareness could still
move about the world, twisting events to his own purposes. Asharak had been
involved,  certainly,  but  the   dominating  force  had  always  been  the
consciousness  of  Torak. The  Dark  God  had stood  watch  over him  since
infancy. The fear he  had sensed in that dark shape that had hovered always
on the edge of  his boyhood had not been Asharak's fear, but Torak's. Torak
had  known who he  was from the  beginning, had  known that one  day Garion
would take up the  sword of the Rivan King and come to the meeting that had
been ordained since before the world was made.

Acting upon a sudden impulse, Garion put his left hand inside his tunic and
took  hold of  his amulet. Twisting  slightly, he  reached up and  laid the
marked palm of his  right hand on the Orb, which stood on the pommel of the
great sword strapped across his back.

"I know  you now, " he declared silently, hurling  the thought at the murky
sky. "You might as well give up trying to win me over to your side, because
I'm not  going to change  my mind. Aunt Pol  is not your wife,  and I'm not
your son.  You'd better stop trying to play games  with my thoughts and get
ready, because I in coming to kill you. "

The Orb  beneath his hand flared  with a sudden exultation  as Garion threw
his challenge  into the  Dark God's teeth,  and the sword  at Garion's back
suddenly  burst  into  a  blue  flame  that flickered  through  the  sheath
enclosing it.

There  was a moment  of deadly silence,  and then  what had been  a whisper
suddenly became a vast roar.

"Come, then, Belgarion, Child  of Light, " Torak hurled back the challenge.
"I await thee in  the City of Night. Bring all thy will and all thy courage
with thee, for I am ready for our meeting."

"What in  the name of the seven Gods do  you think you're doing?" Belgarath
almost  screamed  at  Garion, his  face  mottled  with angry  astonishment.

"Torak's been  whispering at  me for almost  a week now,"  Garion explained
calmly, taking  his hand from the Orb. "He's been  offering me all kinds of
things if I'd give  up this whole idea. I got tired of it, so I told him to
stop."

Belgarath   spluttered   indignantly,   waving   his   hands   at   Garion.

"He  knows I'm  coming, Grandfather,"  Garion said,  trying to  placate the
infuriated old  man. "He's known who  I was since the  day I was born. He's
been watching me  all this time. We're not going to be  able to take him by
surprise, so why try?  I wanted to let him know that I was on to him. Maybe
it's time  for him  to start worrying  and being afraid just  a little bit,
too."

Silk  was  staring at  Garion.  "He's  an Alorn,  all  right," he  observed
finally.

"He's an idiot!" Belgarath  snapped angrily. He turned back to Garion. "Did
it ever occur to  you that there might be something out here to worry about
besides Torak?" he demanded.

Garion blinked.

"Cthol Mishrak is not unguarded, you young blockhead. You've just succeeded
in  announcing our  presence  to every  Grolim within  a  hundred leagues."

"I didn't think of that," Garion mumbled.

"I  didn't think  you'd thought. Sometimes  I don't  think you know  how to
think."

Silk looked around apprehensively. "Now what do we do?" he asked.

"We'd  better get  out  of here  - as  fast  as our  horses can  carry us,"
Belgarath said. He glared at Garion. "Are you sure you don't have a trumpet
somewhere under  your clothes?"  he asked with heavy  sarcasm. "Maybe you'd
like to blow  a few fanfares as we go along." He  shook his head in disgust
and then gathered up his reins. "Let's ride," he said.





Chapter Twenty-one

THE ASPENS  WERE stark  white and motionless  under the dead  sky, and they
rose,  straight  and  slender,  like  the  bars of  an  interminable  cage.
Belgarath led them at a walk, carefully weaving his way through the endless
stretches of this vast, silent forest.

"How much farther?" Silk asked the old man tensely.

"Not much  more than a day, now," Belgarath  replied. "The clouds ahead are
getting thicker."

"You say the cloudbank never moves?"

"Never. It's been stationary since Torak put it there."

"What if a wind came along? Wouldn't that move it?"

Belgarath shook  his head.  "The normal rules  have been suspended  in that
region. For all I  know, the cloud might not actually be cloud. It might be
something else."

"Like what?"

"An illusion  of some kind, perhaps. The Gods  are very good at illusions."

"Are they looking for us? The Grolims, I mean."

Belgarath nodded.

"Are you taking steps to keep them from finding us?"

"Naturally."  The  old  man  looked  at  him.  "Why this  sudden  urge  for
conversation?   You've  been   talking   steadily  for   the  last   hour."

"I'm a little edgy," Silk admitted. "This is unfamiliar territory, and that
always makes me nervous.  I'm much more comfortable when I've got my escape
routes worked out in advance."

"Are you always ready to run?"

"In my profession you have to be. What was that?"

Garion heard  it too. Faintly, somewhere  far off behind them,  there was a
deep-toned baying - one animal at first, but soon joined by several others.
"Wolves?" he suggested.

Belgarath's face had grown  bleak. "No," he replied, "not wolves." He shook
his  reins, and his  nervous horse began  to trot,  the sound of  its hoofs
muffled   by   the   rotting  loam   lying   thick   beneath  the   aspens.

"What is it then, Grandfather?" Garion asked, also pushing his horse into a
trot.

"Torak's Hounds," Belgarath replied tersely.

"Dogs?"

"Not really.  They're Grolims - rather  specialized ones. When the Angaraks
built  the  city, Torak  decided  that  he needed  something  to guard  the
surrounding countryside.  Certain Grolims  volunteered to take  on nonhuman
shapes. The change was permanent."

"I've    dealt   with    watchdogs   before,"   Silk    said   confidently.

"Not like  these. Let's see if we can  outrun them." Belgarath didn't sound
very hopeful.

They pushed  their horses into a gallop, weaving in  and out among the tree
trunks.  The limbs  slapped against  their faces  as they rode,  and Garion
raised  his  arm  to  ward them  off  as  the  three  of  them plunged  on.

They crested a low  ridge and galloped down the far side. The baying behind
them seemed to be closer now.

Then Silk's  horse stumbled, and the little man  was almost thrown from his
saddle.

"T'his isn't working, Belgarath,"  he said as the old man and Garion reined
in.   "This  ground's  too   treacherous  for   us  to  keep   this  pace."

Belgarath held up his  hand and listened for a moment. The deeptoned baying
was definitely closer.

"They're outrunning us anyway," the old man agreed.

"You'd better think of something," Silk said, looking back nervously.

"I'm working on it."  Belgarath raised his face to sniff at the air. "Let's
keep going.  I just got a  whiff of stagnant water.  The area's dotted with
swampy places. We might  be able to hide our scent if we can get into a big
enough patch of water."

They moved  on down the slope toward the bottom of  the valley. The odor of
standing water grew steadily stronger as they rode.

"Just ahead."  Garion pointed toward a  patch of brown water intermittently
visible among the white tree trunks.

The swamp was quite extensive, a broad patch of reeking, oily water trapped
in the  bottom of  a thickly grown basin.  Dead trees thrust up  out of the
water, their leafless branches seeming almost tike clawed hands reaching up
in mute supplication to the indifferent sky.

Silk wrinkled his nose. "It stinks bad enough to hide our scent from almost
anything," he said.

"We'll see," Belgarath replied.  "This would probably throw off an ordinary
dog, but  don't forget  that the Hounds  are really Grolims.  They have the
ability   to  reason,   so  they   won't  be   relying  on   scent  alone."

They pushed their reluctant horses into the murky water and began to splash
along,  changing direction frequently,  weaving in  and out among  the dead
tree  trunks. Their horses'  hoofs stirred  up rotting vegetation  from the
bottom,   filling   the   air   with   an  even   more   powerful   stench.

The sound  of the baying Hounds drew closer,  filled now with an excitement
and a terrible hunger.

"I think they've hit the edge of the swamp," Silk said, cocking his head to
listen.

There was a momentary bafflement in the baying behind them.

"Grandfather!" Garion cried, reining in sharply.

Directly before them, knee-deep  in the brown water stood a slavering black
dog-shape.  It was  enormous  - fully  as large  as a  horse, and  its eyes
actually burned with a malevolent green fire. Its front shoulders and chest
were massive, and the  fangs protruding from its mouth were at least a foot
long, curving down cruelly and dripping foam.

"We have  you now," it growled,  seeming almost to chew  on the words as it
twisted  its muzzle  into speech. The  voice issuing  from its mouth  was a
rasping, tearing sound.

Silk's hand instantly flashed toward one of his hidden daggers.

"Never  mind," Belgarath  told him.  "It's only  a projection -  a shadow."

"It can do that?" Silk's tone was startled.

"I told you that they're Grolims."

"We  hunger," the  fiery-eyed Hound  rumbled. "I  will return soon  with my
pack-mates, and  we will  feed on man-meat."  Then the shape  flickered and
vanished.

"They know  where we are now."  Silk's voice was alarmed.  "You'd better do
something, Belgarath. Can't you use sorcery?"

"That would just pinpoint our location. There are other things out there as
well as the Hounds."

"I'd say  we'll have to chance  it. Let's worry about  one thing at a time.
Did you see those teeth?"

"They're coming,"  Garion said tensely. From far back  in the sway he could
clearly hear the sound of splashing.

"Do something, Belgarath!"

The sky overhead had grown darker, and the air seemed suddenly oppressively
heavy.  From far  off there  was an  angry mutter  of thunder. A  vast sigh
seemed to pass through the forest.

"Keep going," Belgarath said, and they splashed off through the slimy brown
water toward the far side of the swamp. The aspen trees on the solid ground
ahead of them quite  suddenly turned the silvery undersides of their leaves
upward, and  it was almost as  if a great, pale  wave had shuddered through
the forest.

The Hounds  were very  close now, and  their baying was  triumphant as they
plunged through the oily, reeking swamp.

And then  there was a brilliant blue-white flash,  and a shattering clap of
thunder. The sky ripped open above them. With a sound nearly as loud as the
thunder, they  were engulfed in  a sudden deluge. The  wind howled, ripping
away the  aspen leaves in great  sheets and whirling them  through the air.
The rain  drove horizontally before the sudden  gale, churning the swamp to
froth   and   obliterating  everything   more   than  a   few  feet   away.

"Did you do this?" Silk shouted at Belgarath.

But  Belgarath's stunned  face clearly said  that the  storm was as  much a
surprise to him as to Silk. They both turned to look at Garion.

"Did you do it?" Belgarath demanded.

"He didn't.  I did." The voice which came from  Garion's mouth was not his.
"I've labored too long at this to be thwarted by a pack of dogs."

"I didn't hear a  thing," Belgarath marveled, wiping at his streaming face.
"Not even a whisper."

"You  were  listening at  the  wrong  time," the  voice  of Garion's  inner
companion replied.  "I set  it in motion  early last spring.  It's just now
getting here."

"You knew we'd need it?"

"Obviously. Turn  east. The Hounds won't be able to  track you in all this.
Swing  around and  come at  the city  from the  east side. There  are fewer
watchers on that flank."

The downpour continued, punctuated  by ripping claps of thunder and flashes
of lightning.

"How long will the rain last?" Belgarath shouted over the noise.

"Long enough. It's been  building in the Sea of the East for a week. It hit
the coast this morning. Turn east."

"Can we talk as we ride?" Belgarath asked. "I have a great many questions."

"This is hardly the  time for discussion, Belgarath. You have to hurry. The
others  arrived at  Cthol Mishrak  this morning,  just ahead of  the storm.
Everything's ready there, so move."

"It's going to be tonight?"

"It will, if you get there in time. Torak's almost awake now. I think you'd
better be there when he opens his eyes."

Belgarath wiped his streaming  face again, and his eyes had a worried look.
"Let's  go," he  said sharply  and he  led them  splashing off  through the
driving rain to solid ground.

The  rain continued  for  several hours,  driven before  a  screaming wind.
Sodden, miserable,  and half blinded by flying  leaves and twigs, the three
of them  cantered toward the east. The baying of  the Hounds trapped in the
swamp  faded behind  them,  taking on  a  baffled, frustrated  note as  the
thunderous  deluge obliterated all  scents from  the swamp and  the forest.

When night fell, they had reached a low range of hills far to the east, and
the  rain had  subsided into  a steady,  unpleasant drizzle,  punctuated by
periodic squalls  of chilly, gusting wind  and erratic downpours that swept
in randomly off the Sea of the East.

"Are you sure you know the way?" Silk asked Belgarath.

"I can  find it,"  Belgarath said grimly.  "Cthol Mishrak's got  a peculiar
smell to it."

The rain  slackened into a  few scattered droplets pattering  on the leaves
overhead and  died out  entirely by the  time they reached the  edge of the
wood. The  smell of  which Belgarath had  spoken was not a  sharp reek, but
rather was a muted,  dank compound of odors. Damp rust seemed to be a major
part of  it, although the reek of stagnant water  was also present, and the
musty  scent of  fungus. The  overall effect  was one  of decay.  When they
reached the last of the trees, Belgarath reined in.

"Well, there it is," he said in a quiet voice.

The basin  before them  was faintly illuminated  by a kind  of pale, sickly
radiance that  seemed to emanate from the ground  itself, and in the center
of that  large depression  reared the jagged,  broken remains of  the city.

"What's that strange light?" Garion whispered tensely.

Belgarath grunted.  "Phosphorescence. It  comes from the  fungus that grows
everywhere  out there.  The sun never  shines on  Cthol Mishrak, so  it's a
natural breeding ground for unwholesome things that grow in the dark. We'll
leave the horses here." He dismounted.

"Is that  a very good idea?"  Silk asked him as he  too swung down from his
saddle. "We  might want to leave in a hurry." The  little man was still wet
and shivering.

"No,"  Belgarath said  calmly. "If  things go  well, nothing in  the city's
going to  be interested in giving us any trouble.  If things don't go well,
it's not going to matter anyway."

"I don't like unalterable commitments," Silk muttered sourly.

"You picked the wrong  journey, then," Belgarath replied. "What we're about
to do is just about as unalterable as things ever get. Once we start, there
won't be any possible way to turn back."

"I still don't have to like it, do I? What now?"

"Garion and  I are going to  change into something a  bit less conspicuous.
You're an  expert at moving about in the dark  without being seen or heard,
but we aren't that skilled at it."

"You're  going  to use  sorcery  - this  close  to Torak?"  Silk asked  him
incredulously.

"We're  going  to  be  very quiet  about  it,"  Belgarath  assured him.  "A
shape-change is  directed almost entirely inward,  so there isn't that much
noise involved anyway." He turned to Garion. "We're going to do it slowly,"
he said.  "That spreads  out what little  sound there is and  makes it even
fainter. Do you understand?"

"I think so, Grandfather."

"I'll go first. Watch me." The old man glanced at their horses. "Let's move
away  a  bit. Horses  are  afraid  of wolves.  We  don't want  them to  get
hysterical and start crashing around."

They crept  along the edge of the trees until  they were some distance from
the horses.

"This ought to be far enough," Belgarath said. "Now watch." He concentrated
for a moment, and  then his form began to shimmer and blur. The change-over
was  very gradual,  and for several  moments his  face and the  wolf's face
seemed  to coexist  in  the same  place. The  sound  it made  was  only the
faintest of  whispers. Then it was  done, and the great  silver wolf sat on
his haunches.

"Now you  do it," he told Garion with the  slight change of expression that
is so much a part of the speech of wolves.

Garion concentrated very hard, holding the shape firmly in his mind. He did
it so slowly that  it seemed that he could actually feel the fur growing on
his body.

Silk had  been rubbing dirt on his face and  hands to reduce the visibility
of his  skin. He looked at the two  wolves, his eyes questioning. Belgarath
nodded  once and  led the  way out onto  the bare  earth of the  basin that
sloped down  toward the  rotting ruins of  Cthol Mishrak. There  were other
shapes moving  in the faint light, prowling,  snuffling. Some of the shapes
had a  dog smell to them; others  smelled faintly reptilian. Grolims, robed
and  cowled,  stood watch  on  various  hummocks and  rocks, searching  the
darkness with their eyes and their minds for intruders.

The earth beneath Garion's  paws felt dead. There was no growth, no life on
this  wasted heath.  With Silk  crouched low  between them, the  two wolves
crept, belly low, toward  the ruin, taking full advantage of rocky outcrops
and eroded  gullies. Their  pace seemed excruciatingly slow  to Garion, but
Belgarath paid little attention  to the passage of time. Occasionally, when
they passed  near one of the watching Grolims, they moved  but one paw at a
time. The minutes dragged  by as they crept closer and closer to the broken
City of Night.

Near the shattered wall,  two of the hooded priests of Torak stood in quiet
conversation.  Their  muted voices  fell  clearly  upon Garion's  intensely
sharpened ears.

"The Hounds seem nervous tonight," one of them said.

"The  storm," the  other  replied. "Bad  weather always  makes  them edgy."

"I wonder what it's like to be a Hound," the first Grolim mused.

"If you like, perhaps they'll let you join them."

"I don't think I'm that curious."

Silk and  the two wolves, moving as silently as  smoke, passed no more than
ten  yards from  the two idly  chatting guards,  and crept over  the fallen
stones into the dead City of Night. Once among the ruins, they were able to
move faster. The shadows  concealed their movements, and they flitted among
the blasted  stones in Belgarath's wake,  moving steadily toward the center
of the  city where the stump  of the iron tower  now reared stark and black
toward the murky sky.

The  reek of  rust,  stagnation, and  decay  was much  stronger, coming  to
Garion's wolf  sharp nose  in almost overpowering  waves. It was  a gagging
smell,  and he clamped  his muzzle shut  and tried  not to think  about it.

"Who's there?" a voice  came sharply from just ahead of them. A Grolim with
a drawn  sword stepped out into  the rubble-strewn street, peering intently
into  the deep shadows  where the  three crouched, frozen  into immobility.
Garion sensed rather than heard or saw Silk's slow, deliberate reach toward
the  dagger sheathed at  the back of  his neck.  Then the little  man's arm
swung sharply down, and his knife made a fluttering whistle as it sped with
deadly accuracy, turning end for end as it flew.

The  Grolim grunted,  doubling  over sharply,  then he  sighed  and toppled
forward, his sword clanging as it fell.

"Let's move!" Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on
the stones.

Garion  smelled fresh  blood  as he  loped past,  and  the smell  brought a
sudden, hot taste to his mouth.

They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that
had been  the iron tower and  crept silently through the  open doorway into
the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere
now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped,
sniffing nervously  at the tainted  air, feeling his hackles  rising on his
ruffed  neck.  With  an  effort, he  suppressed  the  low  growl that  rose
involuntarily in his throat.

He felt Belgarath's shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided
now by  scent alone  in the utter  blackness. At the  far end  of the huge,
empty, iron room there was another doorway.

Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the
old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his
own  will  and  let   himself  gradually  flow  back  into  his  own  form.

Silk  was  breathing  a  string  of  colorful curses,  fervent  but  almost
inaudible.

"What's the matter?" Belgarath whispered.

"I forgot to stop  for my knife," Silk replied, grating his teeth together.
"It's one of my favorites."

"What now, Grandfather?" Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.

"Just beyond this door, there's a flight of stairs leading down."

"What's at the bottom?"

"A cellar. It's a  sort of tomb where Zedar's got Torak's body. Shall we go
down?"

Garion sighed,  then squared  his shoulders. "I  guess that's what  we came
for," he replied.





Chapter Twenty-two

"YOU DON'T ACTUALLY believe  I'll accept that, do you, Zedar?" Garion froze
in  the act  of  putting his  hand on  the  iron door  at  the foot  of the
stairs."You  can't   evade  your   responsibility  with  the   pretence  of
necessity," the voice beyond the door continued.

"Aren't we  all driven  by necessity, Polgara?" a  stranger's voice replied
with a kind of weary sadness. "I won't say that I was blameless, but wasn't
my apostacy predestined? The universe has been divided against itself since
the beginning  of time, and now  the two Prophecies rush  toward each other
for their final meeting  when all will be resolved. Who can say that what I
have done was not essential to that meeting?"

"That's an evasion, Zedar," Aunt Pol told him.

"What's she doing here?" Garion whispered to Belgarath.

"She's supposed  to be here," Belgarath whispered back  with an odd note of
satisfaction. "Listen."

"I don't think we'll  gain anything by wrangling with each other, Polgara,"
Zedar the Apostate was saying. "We each believe that what we did was right.
Neither of us could  ever persuade the other to change sides at this point.
Why don't we just let it go at that?"

"Very well, Zedar," Aunt Pol replied coolly.

"What now?" Silk breathed.

"There should  be others in there,  too," Belgarath answered softly. "Let's
make sure before we go bursting in."

The iron door in  front of them did not fit tightly, and faint light seeped
through  the cracks  around the  frame. Garion  could make  out Belgarath's
intent face in that dim light.

"How's your father?" Zedar asked in a neutral tone.

"About the same as always. He's very angry with you, you know."

"That was to be expected, I suppose."

"He's finished eating, Lady  Polgara," Garion heard Ce'Nedra say. He looked
sharply  at  Belgarath,  but  the old  man  put  one  finger  to his  lips.

"Spread one of those  pallets out for him, dear," Aunt Pol instructed, "and
cover him with some blankets. It's very late, and he's sleepy."

"I'll do that," Durnik offered.

"Good," Belgarath breathed. "They're all here."

"How did they get here?" Silk whispered.

"I  haven't the faintest  idea, and I'm  not going  to worry about  it. The
important thing is that they're here."

"I'm glad  you were able to  rescue him from Ctuchik,"  Zedar said. "I grew
rather fond of him during the years we spent together."

"Where did  you find  him?" Aunt Pol  asked. "We've never been  able to pin
down what country he's from."

"I forgot  precisely," Zedar answered, and  his voice was faintly troubled.
"Perhaps it  was Camaar or Tol Honeth or maybe some  city on the other side
of Mallorea. The details  keep slipping away from me almost as if I weren't
supposed to examine them too closely."

"Try to remember," she said. "It might be important."

Zedar sighed.  "If it amuses you," he said. He  paused as if thinking. "I'd
grown restless  for some  reason," he began.  "It was - oh,  fifty or sixty
years ago.  My studies  no longer interested  me, and the  bickering of the
various Grolim  factions began to irritate me. I  took to wandering about -
not really  paying much attention to  where I was. I  must have crossed and
crisscrossed the Kingdoms of the West and the Angarak Kingdoms a half dozen
times in those years.

"Anyway, I was passing  through some city somewhere when the idea struck me
all at  once. We all know  that the Orb will  destroy anyone who touches it
with the  slightest trace  of evil in  his heart, but  what would  it do to
someone who touched it  in total innocence? I was stunned by the simplicity
of the idea. The  street I was on was full of people, and I needed quiet to
consider this  remarkable idea,  so I turned  a corner into  some forgotten
alley, and there the  child was - almost as if he'd been waiting for me. He
seemed to be about  two years old at the time - old  enough to walk and not
much more. I held  out my hand to him and said, 'I have a little errand for
you, my boy.' He  came to me and repeated the word, 'Errand.' It's the only
word I've ever heard him say."

"What did  the Orb  do when he first  touched 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 rushed to the fallen man, fell on her knees beside him and gathered his
still  form into  her arms with  a heartbroken  wail of grief  and despair.

And then Garion saw Zedar the Apostate for the first time. The sorcerer was
also staring at Durnik's body. There was a desperate regret on his face - a
knowledge that  he had finally committed  the one act that  forever put him
past all hope of redemption.

"You fool," he muttered. "Why? Why did you make me kill you? That's the one
thing above all others I didn't want to do."

Then Belgarath, as inexorable as death itself, lunged through the shattered
remains of  the door  and rushed upon  the man he had  once called brother.

Zedar flinched back from the old sorcerer's awful rage.

"I didn't mean to  do it, Belgarath," he quavered, his hands raised to ward
off   Belgarath's  rush.   "The  fool   tried  to   attack  me.   He  was-"

"You-" Belgarath grated at  him from between teeth clenched with hate. "You
- you -" But  he was past speech. No word could contain his rage. He raised
both arms and struck at Zedar's face with his fists. Zedar reeled back, but
Belgarath  was  upon  him,  grappling,  pounding  at him  with  his  hands.

Garion  could feel  flickers of  will from  one or  the other of  them; but
caught up  in emotions  so powerful that  they erased thought,  neither was
coherent  enough to  focus the force  within him.  And so, like  two tavern
brawlers,  they rolled  on the  floor, kicking,  gouging, pounding  at each
other,  Belgarath  consumed with  fury  and  Zedar with  fear and  chagrin.

Desperately, the Apostate jerked a dagger from the sheath at his waist, and
Belgarath seized his wrist  in both hands and pounded it on the floor until
the knife  went skittering away.  Then each struggled to  reach the dagger,
clawing and jerking at each other, their faces frozen into intense grimaces
as each strove to reach the dagger first.

At  some point  during the frenzied  seconds when  they had burst  into the
room, Garion had, unthinking,  drawn the great sword from its sheath across
his back, but the  Orb and the blade were cold and unresponsive in his hand
as  he  stood  watching  the deadly  struggle  between  the two  sorcerers.

Belgarath's hands were locked  about Zedar's throat, and Zedar, strangling,
clawed desperately  at the  old man's arms. Belgarath's  face was contorted
into  an  animal snarl,  his  lips drawn  back  from clenched  teeth as  he
throttled his ancient enemy.  As if finally driven past all hope of sanity,
he struggled to his  feet, dragging Zedar up with him. Holding the Apostate
by the throat with  one hand, he began to rain blows on him with the other.
Then, between  one blow and the next, he swung his  arm down and pointed at
the  stones beneath  their feet.  With a  dreadful grinding, a  great crack
appeared, zigzagging across the floor. The rocks shrieked in protest as the
crack  widened. Still  struggling, the  two men  toppled and fell  into the
yawning fissure.  The earth seemed  to shudder. With a  terrible sound, the
crack ground shut.

Incredulously, his mouth suddenly agape, Garion stared in stunned disbelief
at the  scarcely discernible  crack through which  the two men  had fallen.

Ce'Nedra   screamed,   her   hands   going   to   her   face   in   horror.

"Do something!" Silk shouted  at Garion, but Garion could only stare at him
in blank incomprehension.

"Polgara!" Silk said desperately, turning to Aunt Pol.

Still  incapacitated  by  her sudden,  overwhelming  grief,  she could  not
respond,  but  knelt  with  Durnik's lifeless  body  in  her arms,  weeping
uncontrollably as  she rocked  back and forth, holding  him tightly against
her.

From  infinitely  far  beneath  there was  a  sullen  detonation, and  then
another. Even in the bowels of the earth, the deadly struggle continued. As
if compelled, Garion's eyes sought out the embrasure in the far wall; there
in  the dim  light  he could  make out  the  recumbent form  of  Kal Torak.
Strangely emotionless, Garion stared at the form of his enemy, meticulously
noting every  detail. He saw the  black robe and the  polished mask. And he
saw Cthrek Goru, Torak's great black sword.

Although  he  did  not  - could  not  -  move  or  even  feel, a  struggle,
nonetheless, raged inside him  - a struggle perhaps even more dreadful than
that  which had  just plunged Belgarath  and Zedar  into the depths  of the
earth. The  two forces which had first diverged  and then turned and rushed
at each  other down  the endless corridors  of time had  finally met within
him. The EVENT which was the ultimate conclusion of the two Prophecies, had
begun,  and its first  skirmishes were  taking place within  Garion's mind.
Minute and  very subtle adjustments  were shifting some of  his most deeply
ingrained attitudes and perceptions.

Torak moved, stirring restlessly,  as those same two forces met within him.

Dreadful flashes  of the  sleeping God's mind  assailed Garion, and  he saw
clearly the terrible subterfuge that lay behind Torak's offer of friendship
and love. Had his fear of their duel drawn him into yielding, fully half of
creation would have shimmered  and vanished. More than that, what Torak had
offered  was  not love  but  an  enslavement so  vile  that  it was  beyond
imagining.

But he  had not  yielded. He had  somehow evaded the  overwhelming force of
Torak's mind  and had placed himself  utterly in the hands  of the Prophecy
that had drawn him here. With an absolute denial of self, he had become the
instrument of  the Prophecy.  He was no  longer afraid. Sword  in hand, the
Child of  Light awaited the moment  when the Prophecy would  release him to
join in deadly struggle with the Dark God.

Then, even as Silk  desperately tried to arouse either Garion or Polgara to
action, the stones of the floor buckled upward, and Belgarath rose from the
earth.

Garion, still abstracted and  bemused, saw that all traces of the sometimes
foolish old man he had known before were gone. The thieving old storyteller
had vanished. Even the  irritable old man who had led the quest for the Orb
no longer existed. In their place stood the form of Belgarath the sorcerer,
the   Eternal   Man,  shimmering   in   the   aura  of   his  full   power.





Chapter Twenty-three

"WHERE  IS  ZEDAR?" Aunt  Pol  asked,  raising her  tearstreaked face  from
Durnik's lifeless  body to stare  with a dreadful intensity  at her father.

"I left him down there," Belgarath replied bleakly.

"Dead?"

"No."

"Bring him back."

"Why?"

"To face me." Her eyes burned.

The old man shook his head. "No, Pol," he said to her. "You've never killed
anyone. Let's leave it that way."

She gently  lowered Durnik's  body to the  floor and rose to  her feet, her
pale face  twisted with grief and  an awful need. "Then  I will go to him,"
she declared,  raising both arms as  if to strike at  the earth beneath her
feet.

"No," Belgarath told her, extending his own hand, "you will not. "

They stood  facing each other, locked in  a dreadful, silent struggle. Aunt
Pol's look at first  was one of annoyance at her father's interference. She
raised one  arm again to bring  the force of her  will crashing down at the
earth, but once again Belgarath put forth his hand.

"Let me go, father."

"No."

She redoubled  her efforts, twisting as if trying  to free herself from his
unseen restraint. "Let me go, old man," she cried.

"No. Don't do this, Pol. I don't want to hurt you."

She  tried again,  more  desperately this  time, but  once  again Belgarath
smothered  her  will with  his.  His face  hardened,  and he  set his  jaw.

In a last effort, she flung the whole force of her mind against the barrier
he had  erected. Like some great rock, however,  the old man remained firm.
Finally her shoulders slumped,  and she turned, knelt beside Durnik's body,
and began to weep again.

"I'm sorry,  Pol," he said gently. "I never wanted to  have to do that. Are
you all right?"

"How  can you  ask that?"  she demanded  brokenly, wringing her  hands over
Durnik's silent body.

"That's not what I meant."

She  turned   her  back  on  him   and  buried  her  face   in  her  hands.

"I don't  think you could have  reached him anyway, Pol,"  the old man told
her. "You know as well as I that what one of us does, another cannot undo."

Silk, his  ferretlike face shocked, spoke in a  hushed voice. "What did you
do to him?"

"I took him down  until we came to solid rock. And then  I sealed him up in
it."

"Can't   he  just   come  up   out  of   the  earth   the  way   you  did?"

"No.  That's impossible  for him now.  Sorcery is  thought, and no  man can
exactly  duplicate the  thought of  another. Zedar's imprisoned  inside the
rock  forever  -  or until  I  choose  to free  him."  The  old man  looked
mournfully at  Durnik's body. "And I  don't think I'll choose  to do that."

"He'll die, won't he?" Silk asked.

Belgarath shook  his head. "No. That  was part of what  I did to him. He'll
lie inside the rock until the end of days."

"That's monstrous, Belgarath," Silk said in a sick voice.

"So was that," Belgarath replied grimly, pointing at Durnik.

Garion  could hear  what  they were  saying and  could  see them  all quite
clearly, but it seemed  somehow that they were actually someplace else. The
others  in the  underground  crypt seemed  to be  on  the periphery  of his
attention. For  him there  was only one  other in the  vaulted chamber, and
that other was Kal Torak, his enemy.

The  restless stirring of  the drowsing  God became more  evident. Garion's
peculiarly multiple  awareness - in part his own,  in part derived from the
Orb, and  as ever overlaid by the consciousness  which he had always called
the dry  voice in  his mind - perceived  in that stirnng the  pain that lay
beneath the maimed God's  movements. Torak was actually writhing as he half
slept.  An injured  man would heal  in time,  and his pain  would gradually
diminish and  ultimately disappear, because injury was  a part of the human
condition. A  man was born to be hurt from time  to time, and the mechanism
for recovery was born with him. A God, on the other hand, was invulnerable,
and he  had no need  for the ability to  heal. Thus it was  with Torak. The
fire which  the Orb had  loosed upon him when  he had used it  to crack the
world  still seared  his  flesh, and  his pain  had  not diminished  in the
slightest down through all  the endless centuries since his maiming. Behind
that steel  mask, the flesh of the Dragon-God's  face still smoked, and his
burned eye  still boiled endlessly in  its socket. Garion shuddered, almost
pitying that perpetual agony.

The child,  Errand, pulled himself free  from Ce'Nedra's trembling arms and
crossed the flagstone floor of the tomb, his small face intent. He stopped,
bent and put his hand on Durnik's shoulder. Gently he shook the dead man as
if trying  to wake him. His  little face became puzzled  when the smith did
not  respond.  He shook  again,  a  bit harder,  his eyes  uncomprehending.

"Errand," Ce'Nedra  called to him, her  voice breaking, "come back. There's
nothing we can do."

Errand  looked at  her,  then back  at Durnik.  Then  he gently  patted the
smith's shoulder  with a peculiar little gesture,  sighed, and went back to
the  princess. She  caught  him suddenly  in her  arms  and began  to weep,
burying her face against  his small body. Once again with that same curious
little gesture, he patted her flaming hair.

Then from  the alcove  in the far wall  there came a long,  rasping sigh, a
shuddering expiration  of breath. Garion looked  sharply toward the alcove,
his hand  tightening on  the hilt of  his cold sword. Torak  had turned his
head, and  his eyes were open. The hideous fire burned  in the eye that was
not as the God came awake.

Belgarath drew  in his breath in  a sharp hiss as  Torak raised the charred
stump of his left  hand as if to brush away the last  of his sleep, even as
his right hand groped for the massive hilt of Cthrek Goru, his black sword.
"Garion!" Belgarath said sharply.

But Garion,  still locked in stasis by the  forces focusing upon him, could
only stare at the awakening God. A part of him struggled to shake free, and
his hand trembled as he fought to lift his sword.

"Not yet," the voice whispered.

"Garion!" Belgarath  actually shouted this time.  Then, in a move seemingly
born of desperation, the  old sorcerer lunged past the bemused young man to
fling   himself  upon   the  still   recumbent  form   of  the   Dark  God.

Torak's  hand released  the  hilt of  his sword  and  almost contemptuously
grasped the front of Belgarath's tunic, lifting the struggling old man from
him as one might lift a child. The steel mask twisted into an ugly sneer as
the God  held the helpless sorcerer out from him.  Then, like a great wind,
the  force  of Torak's  mind  struck,  hurling Belgarath  across the  room,
ripping  away the front  of his  tunic. Something glittered  across Torak's
knuckles, and  Garion realized that it was  the silver chain of Belgarath's
amulet-the polished medallion of  the standing wolf. In a very peculiar way
the medallion  had always been the center of  Belgarath's power, and now it
lay in the grip of his ancient enemy.

With  a dreadfully  slow  deliberation, the  Dark God  rose from  his bier,
towering over all of them, Cthrek Goru in his hand.

"Garion!" Ce'Nedra screamed. "Do something!"

With  deadly pace  Torak  strode toward  the dazed  Belgarath,  raising his
sword.  But Aunt  Pol sprang to  her feet  and threw herself  between them.

Slowly Torak  lowered his sword, and then he  smiled a loathsome smile. "My
bride," he rasped in a horrid voice.

"Never, Torak," she declared.

He  ignored her  defiance.  "Thou hast  come to  me  at last,  Polgara," he
gloated.

"I have come to watch you die."

"Die, Polgara?  Me? No, my bride,  that is not why  thou hast come. My will
has drawn thee to me as was foretold. And now thou art mine. Come to me, my
beloved."

"Never!"

"Never,  Polgara?" There was  a dreadful  insinuation in the  God's rasping
voice. "Thou wilt submit  to me, my bride. I will bend thee to my will. Thy
struggles shall  but make my victory  over thee the sweeter.  In the end, I
will have thee. Come here."

So overwhelming was the  force of his mind that she swayed almost as a tree
sways in  the grip of a great wind. "No," she  gasped, closing her eyes and
turning her face away sharply.

"Look at  me, Polgara," he commanded,  his voice almost purring.  "I am thy
fate. All that thou didst think to love before me shall fall away, and thou
shall love only me. Look at me."

Helplessly she  turned her  head and opened  her eyes to stare  at him. The
hatred and  defiance seemed  to melt out  of her, and a  terrible fear came
into her face.

"Thy  will  crumbles,  my   beloved,"  he  told  her.  "Now  come  to  me."

She must  resist! All the confusion was gone  now, and Garion understood at
last. Thts was the  real battle. If Aunt Pol succumbed, they were all lost.
It had all been for this.

"Help her, " the voice within him said.

"Aunt Poll" Garion threw the thought at her, "Remember Durnik!"

He knew without knowing  how he knew that this was the one thing that could
sustain her in her  deadly struggle. He ranged through his memory, throwing
images of Durnik at  her - of the smith's strong hands at work at his forge
- of his serious  eyes - of the quiet sound of his  voice - and most of all
of the good man's  unspoken love for her, the love that had been the center
of Durnik's entire life.

She had begun involuntarily  to move, no more than a slight shifting of her
weight  in preparation  for that  first fatal  step in response  to Torak's
overpowering command.  Once she had made that step,  she would be lost. But
Garion's memories  of Durnik struck  her like a blow.  Her shoulders, which
had already  begun to droop in defeat,  suddenly straightened, and her eyes
flashed with renewed defiance.

"Never!"   she   told  the   expectantly   waiting  God.   "I  will   not!"

Torak's  face slowly  stiffened. His  eyes blazed  as he brought  the full,
crushing force  of his will to bear upon her,  but she stood firmly against
all that  he could do, clinging to the memory of  Durnik as if to something
so solid  that not even  the will of the  Dark God could tear  her from it.

A look  of baffled frustration contorted Torak's  face as he perceived that
she would  never yield - that her love would be  forever denied to him. She
had  won, and  her victory  was like  a knife  twisting slowly  inside him.
Thwarted, enraged,  maddened by  her now-unalterable will  to resist, Torak
raised  his face  and  suddenly howled  - a  shocking, animallike  sound of
overwhelming frustration.

"Then perish both!" he raged. "Die with thy father!"

And with that, he once more raised his deadly sword.

Unflinching, Aunt Pol faced the raging God.

"Now, Belgarionl" The voice cracked in Garion's mind.

The  Orb, which  had  remained cold  and dead  throughout all  the dreadful
confrontation  between Aunt Pol  and the  maimed God, suddenly  flared into
life, and the sword of the Rivan King exploded into fire, filling the crypt
with an  intense blue light. Garion leaped  forward, extending his sword to
catch  the  deadly  blow  which  was  already descending  upon  Aunt  Pol's
unprotected face.

The steel  sound of  blade against blade  was like the striking  of a great
bell, and it rang  within the crypt, shimmering and echoing from the walls.
Torak's sword,  deflected by the  flaming blade, plowed a  shower of sparks
from the flagstone floor. The God's single eye widened as he recognized all
in  one glance the  Rivan King, the  flaming sword  and the blazing  Orb of
Aldur. Garion saw in the look that Torak had already forgotten Aunt Pol and
that   now  the   maimed  God's   full  attention   was  focused   on  him.

"And so thou hast come at last, Belgarion," the God greeted him gravely. "I
have awaited  thy coming since the beginning of  days. Thy fate awaits thee
here. Hail, Belgarion, and farewell."

His arm  lashed back,  and he swung  a vast blow, but  Garion, without even
thinking, raised his own  sword and once again the crypt rang with the bell
note of blade against blade.

"Thou art but a boy, Belgarion," Torak said. "Wilt thou pit thyself against
the might and invincible  will of a God? Submit to me, and I will spare thy
life."

The  will of  the  God of  Angarak was  now  directed at  him, and  in that
instant, Garion fully understood  how hard Aunt Pol's struggle had been. He
felt the  terrible compulsion to  obey draining the strength  from him. But
suddenly a  vast chorus  of voices rang  down through all  the centuries to
him, crying  out the single word,  "No!" All the lives  of all who preceded
him had been directed  at this one moment, and those lives infused him now.
Though he  alone held Iron-grip's  sword, Belgarion of Riva  was not alone,
and Torak's will could not sway him.

In  a move  of absolute  defiance, Garion  again raised his  flaming sword.

"So   be   it,   then,"   Torak   roared.  "To   the   death,   Belgarion!"

At first  it seemed but some trick of the  flickering light that filled the
tomb, but  almost as soon as  that thought occurred, Garion  saw that Torak
was  growing larger,  swelling upward,  towering, expanding. With  an awful
wrenching  sound, he  shouldered aside  the rusted  iron roof of  the tomb,
bursting upward.

Once again  without thinking, without  even stopping to consider  how to do
it, Garion also began  to expand, and he too exploded through the confining
ceiling, shuddering away the rusty debris as he rose.

In open  air among the decaying ruins of the City  of Night the two titanic
adversaries faced  each other beneath the  perpetual cloud that blotted out
the sky.

"The conditions are met," the dry voice spoke through Garion's lips.

"So it  would seem,"  another, equally unemotional voice  came from Torak's
steel-encased mouth.

"Do you wish to involve others?" Garion's voice asked.

"It  hardly seems necessary.  These two  have sufficient capacity  for what
must be brought to bear upon them."

"Then let it be decided here."

"Agreed."

And with  that Garion felt a  sudden release as all  constraint was removed
from him. Torak, also  released, raised Cthrek Goru, his lips drawn back in
a snarl of hate.

Their struggle  was immense. Rocks shattered  beneath the colossal force of
deflected blows.  The sword  of the Rivan  King danced in  blue flames, and
Cthrek Goru, Torak's blade  of shadows, swept a visible darkness with it at
every blow.  Beyond thought, beyond  any emotion but blind  hatred, the two
swung  and  parried and  lurched  through  the broken  ruins, crushing  all
beneath them.  The elements themselves erupted  as the fight continued. The
wind shrieked  through the  rotting city, tearing at  the trembling stones.
Lightning seethed about them, glaring and flickering. The earth rumbled and
shook beneath their massive  feet. The featureless cloud that had concealed
the City  of Night beneath its dark mantle for  five millenia began to boil
and race above them. Great patches of stars appeared and disappeared in the
roiling middle of the  surging cloud. The Grolims, both human and nonhuman,
aghast at  the towering  struggle that had  suddenly erupted in  their very
midst, fled shrieking in terror.

Garion's  blows were  directed  at Torak's  blind  side, and  the Dark  God
flinched from  the fire of the Orb each time  the flaming sword struck, but
the shadow of Cthrek Goru put a deathly chill into Garion's blood each time
it passed over him.

They were  more evenly  matched than Garion had  imagined possible. Torak's
advantage  of  size  had  been  erased  when  they had  both  swelled  into
immensity,  and  Garion's  inexperience  was  offset  by  Torak's  maiming.

It was  the uneven ground that betrayed  Garion. Retreating before a sudden
flurry of massive blows,  he felt one heel catch on a heap of tumbled rock,
and the  rotten stones  crumbled and rolled  beneath his feet.  Despite his
scrambling attempt to keep his balance, he fell.

Torak's  single eye  blazed in triumph  as he  raised the dark  sword. But,
seizing his  sword hilt in both  hands, Garion raised his  burning blade to
meet that vast blow. When the swords struck, edge to edge, a huge shower of
sparks cascaded down over Garion.

Again Torak  raised Cthrek Goru, but a  strange hunger flickered across his
steel-encased face.

"Yield!" he roared.

Garion  stared up  at the  huge form  towering over  him, his  mind racing.

"I have no wish to kill thee, boy," Torak said, almost pleading. "Yield and
I will spare thy life."

And then  Garion understood. His enemy was not trying  to kill him, but was
striving  instead to  force  him to  submit. Torak's  driving need  was for
domination!   This  was   where  the   real  struggle  between   them  lay!

"Throw  down  thy sword,  Child  of  Light, and  bow  before  me," the  God
commanded, and the force of his mind was like a crushing weight.

"I  will not," Garion  gasped, wrenching  away from that  awful compulsion.
"You may kill me, but I will not yield."

Torak's face twisted as if his perpetual agony had been doubled by Garion's
refusal.

"Thou must,  " he  almost sobbed. "Thou  art helpless before  me. Submit to
me."

"No!"  Garion shouted,  and, taking  advantage of  Torak's chagrin  at that
violent rejection,  he rolled out from under the  shadow of Cthrek Goru and
sprang to  his feet. Everything was  clear now, and he  knew at last how he
could win.

"Hear me, maimed and  despised God," he grated from between clenched teeth.
"You are nothing. Your people fear you, but they do not love you. You tried
to deceive me into loving you; you tried to force Aunt Pol to love you; but
I refuse you even as she did. You're a God, but you are nothing. In all the
universe there is not  one person - not one thing - that loves you. You are
alone and  empty, and  even if you kill  me, I will still  win. Unloved and
despised,  you will  howl  out your  miserable life  to  the end  of days."

Garion's words struck the maimed God like blows, and the Orb, as if echoing
those  words, blazed  anew, lashing  at the  Dragon-God with  its consuming
hatred.  This was  the EVENT for  which the  Universe had waited  since the
beginning of time. This was why Garion had come to this decaying ruin - not
to fight Torak, but to reject him.

With an  animal howl of anguish  and rage, the Child  of Dark raised Cthrek
Goru above  his head and ran  at the Rivan King.  Garion made no attempt to
ward off the blow,  but gripped the hilt of his flaming sword in both hands
and,  extending his  blade  before him,  he lunged  at his  charging enemy.

It was so easy.  The sword of the Rivan King slid into Torak's chest like a
stick into  water, and as it  ran into the God's  suddenly stiffening body,
the power of the Orb surged up the flaring blade.

Torak's vast  hand opened convulsively, and  Cthrek Goru tumbled harmlessly
from his  grip. He opened his mouth to cry out,  and blue flame gushed like
blood  from his  mouth. He clawed  at his  face, ripping away  the polished
steel mask  to reveal the hideously maimed  features that had lain beneath.
Tears started  from his  eyes, both the eye  that was and the  eye that was
not, but  the tears were also fire, for the sword  of the Rivan King buried
in his chest filled him with its flame.

He lurched backward. With a steely slither, the sword slid out of his body.
But the  fire the blade had ignited within him did  not go out. He clutched
at  the gaping  wound,  and blue  flame  spurted out  between his  fingers,
spattering  in little  burning pools  among the  rotting stones  about him.

His maimed  face, still streaked  with fiery tears, contorted  in agony. He
lifted that  burning face to the  heaving sky and raised  his vast arms. In
mortal anguish,  the stricken God cried to  heaven, "Mother!" and the sound
of his voice echoed from the farthest star.

He stood  so for  a frozen moment,  his arms upraised  in supplication, and
then he tottered and fell dead at Garion's feet.

For an  instant there was absolute  silence. Then a howling  cry started at
Torak's dead  lips, fading into unimaginable  distance as the dark Prophecy
fled, taking the inky shadow of Cthrek Goru with it.

Again there  was silence. The  racing clouds overhead stopped  in their mad
plunge, and  the stars  that had appeared  among the tatters  of that cloud
went out.  The entire universe shuddered - and  stopped. There was a moment
of  absolute darkness  as  all light  everywhere  went out  and all  motion
ceased. In that dreadful  instant all that existed - all that had been, all
that was,  all that was yet to be was wrenched  suddenly into the course of
one  Prophecy. Where  there had  always been  two, there  was now  but one.

And then,  faint at first, the wind began to  blow, purging away the rotten
stink  of the  City of  Night, and  the stars  came on again  like suddenly
reilluminated jewels on the velvety throat of night. As the light returned,
Garion stood wearily over the body of the God he had just killed. His sword
still flickered blue in  his hand, and the Orb exulted in the vaults of his
mind. Vaguely  he was aware that  in that shuddering moment  when all light
had died,  both he and Torak had returned to their  normal size, but he was
too tired to wonder about it.

From the shattered tomb  not far away, Belgarath emerged, shaken and drawn.
The broken  chain of his medallion dangled  from his tightly clenched hand,
and  he  stopped to  stare  for  a moment  at  Garion and  the fallen  God.

The  wind moaned  in the  shattered ruins,  and somewhere,  far off  in the
night, the Hounds of Torak howled a mournful dirge for their fallen master.

Belgarath straightened  his shoulders;  then, in a  gesture peculiarly like
that which Torak had made in the moment of his death, he raised his arms to
the sky.

"Master!"   he   cried   out   in  a   huge   voice.   "It  is   finished!"





Chapter Twenty-four

IT WAS OVER, but there was a bitterness in the taste of Garion's victory. A
man did not lightly kill a God, no matter how twisted or evil the God might
be. And so Belgarion  of Riva stood sadly over the body of his fallen enemy
as  the wind,  smelling faintly  of the  approaching dawn, washed  over the
decaying ruins of the City of Night.

"Regrets,  Garion?"  Belgarath  asked  quietly,  putting his  hand  on  his
grandson's shoulder.

Garion sighed. "No, Grandfather,"  he said. "I suppose not - not really. It
had to be done, didn't it?"

Belgarath nodded gravely.

"It's just that he was so alone at the end. I took everything away from him
before I killed him. I'm not very proud of that."

"As you  say, it had to  be done. It was the only  way you could beat him."

"I   just   wish  I   could   have   left  him   something,  that's   all."

From  the  ruins of  the  shattered  iron tower,  a  sad little  procession
emerged. Aunt Pol, Silk,  and Ce'Nedra were bringing out the body of Durnik
the smith, and walking gravely beside them came Errand.

A pang  of almost unbearable  grief ran through Garion.  Durnik, his oldest
friend,  was pale  and dead, and  in that  vast internal upheaval  that had
preceded  the duel  with Torak,  Garion had  not even  been able  to mourn.

"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?"

She stared at him, hesitated, then blurted the one word, "Yes."

Garion was  shocked -  not so much  by Aunt Pol's acceptance  but rather by
Aldur's request. Aunt Pol's  power was central to her very being. To remove
it from her would leave her with nothing. What would she be without it? How
could she even live  without it? It was a cruel price to demand, and Garion
had believed that Aldur was a kindly God.

"I will  accept thy  sacrifice, Polgara," Aldur  was saying. "I  will speak
with my father and my brothers. For good and proper reasons, we have denied
ourselves this  power, and we must  all agree to it  before any of us might
attempt this violation of  the natural order of things." And he returned to
the sorrowful gathering about Torak's bier.

"How could  he do that?" Garion, his arm  still about Ce'Nedra, demanded of
his grandfather.

"Do what?"

"Ask her to give up her power like that? It will destroy her."

"She's much  stronger than you think,  Garion," Belgarath assured him, "and
Aldur's  reasoning  is  sound.  No  marriage  could survive  that  kind  of
inequality."

Among the  glowing Gods, however, one angry voice  was raised. "No!" It was
Mara, the weeping God  of the Marags, who were no more. "Why should one man
be restored  when all my slaughtered children still  lie cold and dead? Did
Aldur hear  my pleas? Did he  come to my aid when  my children died? I will
not consent."

"I  hadn't counted  on that,"  Belgarath muttered.  "I'd better  take steps
before this  goes any  further." He crossed  the littered ground  and bowed
respectfully.  "Forgive  my intrusion,"  he  said, "but  would my  Master's
brother accept a  woman of the Marags as a gift in  exchange for his aid in
restoring Durnik?"

Mara's  tears, which  had been  perpetual, suddenly  stopped, and  his face
became incredulous. "A Marag woman?" he demanded sharply. "None such exist.
I  would have  known in  my heart  if one  of my  children had  survived in
Maragor."

"Of a  certainty, Lord Mara," Belgarath agreed  quickly. "But what of those
few  who  were carried  out  of  Maragor to  dwell  in perpetual  slavery-"

"Knowest  thou of  such  a one,  Belgarath?"  Mara asked  with a  desperate
eagerness.

The old man nodded. "We discovered her in the slave pens beneath Rak Cthol,
Lord Mara. Her name is Taiba. She is but one, but a race may be restored by
such a one  as she - particularly if she be watched  over by a loving God."

"Where is Taiba, my daughter?"

"In  the care  of  Relg, the  Ulgo,"  Belgarath replied.  "They seem  quite
attached to each other," he added blandly.

Mara looked  at him thoughtfully. "A  race may not be  restored by one," he
said, "even in the care of the most loving God. It requires two." He turned
to UL.  "Wilt thou give me  this Ulgo, Father?" he  asked. "He shall become
the sire of my people."

UL gave  Belgarath a rather penetrating look.  "Thou knowest that Relg hath
another duty to perform," he said pointedly.

Belgarath's expression was almost impish. "I'm certain that the Gorim and I
can  work  out  the  details, Most  Holy,"  he  declared  with utmost  self
confidence.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Belgarath?" Silk asked diffidently, as if
not wanting to intrude. "Relg has this little problem, remember?"

Belgarath gave the little man a hard look.

"I just thought I ought to mention it," Silk said innocently.

Mara looked sharply at them. "What is this?"

"A minor  difficulty, Lord Mara," Belgarath  said quickly. "One I'm certain
Taiba can overcome. I  have the utmost confidence in her in that particular
area."

"I will have the truth of this," Mara said firmly.

Belgarath sighed  and gave Silk another grim look.  "Relg is a zealot, Lord
Mara," he explained. "For  religious reasons, he avoids certain -ah - forms
of human contact."

"Fatherhood is his destiny," UL said. "From him will issue a special child.
I will  explain this to him.  He is an obedient man,  and he will put aside
his aversions for my sake."

"Then thou wilt give him to me, Father?" Mara asked eagerly.

"He is  throe - with but  one restriction - of  which we will speak later."

"Let  us see this  brave Sendar, then,"  Mara said,  and all traces  of his
weeping were now gone.

"Belgarion, " the voice in Garion's mind said.

"What?"

"The restoration of your friend is in your hands now."

"Me? Why me?"

"Must you always say that? Do you want Durnik's life restored?"

"Of course, but I can't do it. I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"You did it before. Remember the colt in the cave of the Gods?"

Garion had almost forgotten that.

"You are  my instrument, Belgarion. I  can keep you from  making mistakes -
most of the time  anyway. Just relax; I'll show you what to do." Garion was
already moving  without conscious volition. He let  his arm fall from about
Ce'Nedra's shoulders,  and, his sword  still in his hand,  he walked slowly
toward Aunt Pol and  Durnik's body. He looked once into her eyes as she sat
with the  dead man's  head in her lap,  and then he knelt  beside the body.

"For me, Garion," she murmured to him.

"If I can, Aunt Pol," he said.

Then, without  knowing why,  he laid the  sword of the Rivan  King upon the
ground and took hold  of the Orb at its pommel. With a faint click, the Orb
came free in his  hand. Errand, smiling now, approached from the other side
and also knelt, taking up Durnik's lifeless hand in his. Holding the Orb in
both hands, Garion reached  out and put it against the dead man's chest. He
was faintly  conscious of  the fact that  the Gods had gathered  about in a
circle and  that they had reached out their arms,  palm to palm, forming an
unbroken ring. Within that  circle, a great light began to pulsate, and the
Orb, as if in answer, glowed between his hands.

The  blank wall  he  had seen  once before  was  there again,  still black,
impenetrable, and silent. As  he had before in the cave of the Gods, Garion
pushed tentatively against the substance of death itself, striving to reach
through  and   pull  his  friend  back  into   the  world  of  the  living.

It was different this time. The colt he had brought to life in the cave had
never lived except within  its mother's body. Its death had been as tenuous
as its  life, and it lay  but a short distance  beyond the barrier. Durnik,
however, had  been a man full grown, and his death,  like his life, was far
more  profound. With  all his  strength, Garion  pushed. He could  feel the
enormous force  of the combined wills  of the Gods joining  with his in the
silent struggle, but the barrier would not yield.

"Use the Orbl " the voice commanded.

This time  Garion focused all the power, his own and  that of the Gods upon
the  round  stone  between  his  hands.  It flickered,  then  glowed,  then
flickered again.

"Help me!" Garion commanded it.

As if suddenly understanding, the Orb flared into a coruscating eruption of
colored light. The barrier was weakening.

With an encouraging little smile, Errand reached out and laid one hand upon
the blazing Orb.

The  barrier  broke.  Durnik's  chest heaved,  and  he  coughed once.  With
profoundly respectful expression upon their eternal faces, the Gods stepped
back.  Aunt Pol  cried  out in  sudden relief  and  clasped her  arms about
Durnik, cradling him against her.

"Errand," the  child said to  Garion with a peculiar  note of satisfaction.
Garion  stumbled  to  his  feet,  exhausted  by  the  struggle  and  nearly
staggering as he moved away.

"Are you all right?"  Ce'Nedra demanded of him, even as she ducked her head
beneath his  arm and firmly pulled it about  her tiny shoulders. He nodded,
though his knees almost buckled.

"Lean on me," she told him.

He was  about to protest, but  she put her hand  firmly to his lips. "Don't
argue, Garion,"  she told  him. "You know  that I love you  and that you're
going to be leaning on me for the rest of your life anyway, so you might as
well get used to the idea."

"I think my life's going to be different now, Master," Belgarath was saying
to Aldur.  "Pol's always been there, ready to come when  I called her - not
always  willingly, perhaps  - but  she always  came. Now she'll  have other
concerns." He  sighed. "I suppose our children all  grow up and get married
sometime."

"This  particular pose  doth  not become  thee,  my son,"  Aldur told  him.

Belgarath  grinned.  "I've  never  been able  to  slip  anything past  you,
Master," he said. Then  his face grew serious again. "Polgara's been almost
like a son to  me," he told Aldur, "but perhaps it's time that I let her be
a woman. I've denied her that for too long."

"As it seems  best to thee, my son," Aldur said. "And  now, I pray thee, go
apart a  little way and permit  us our family grief."  He looked at Torak's
body lying  on the bier and  then at Garion. "I have  but one more task for
thee, Belgarion,"  he said.  "Take the Orb  and place it  upon my brother's
breast."

"Yes, Master,"  Garion replied  immediately. He removed his  arm from about
Ce'Nedra's shoulders and walked to the bier, trying not to look at the dead
God's seared and twisted face. He reached out and laid the round blue stone
upon the  motionless chest of Kal  Torak. Then he stepped  back. Once again
his little  princess wormed her way  beneath his arm and  clasped him about
the waist. It was  not unpleasant, but he had the brief, irrational thought
that  things would be  awkward if she  were going  to insist on  this close
embrace for the rest of their lives.

Once again  the Gods formed their  circle, and once again  the Orb began to
glow.  Gradually, the  seared face  started to  change, its  maiming slowly
disappearing. The  light surrounding  the Gods and the  bier grew stronger,
and the  glow of  the Orb became  incandescent. The last Garion  saw of the
face of Torak, it was calm, composed and unmarked. It was a beautiful face,
but it was nonetheless still a dead face.

And then the light  grew so intense that Garion could no longer look at it.
When it subsided, and when Garion looked back at the bier, the Gods and the
body of Torak were  gone. Only the Orb remained, glowing slightly as it lay
on the rough stone.

Errand, once again with  that confident look, went to the bier. Standing on
his tiptoes,  he reached  across the block  to retrieve the  glowing stone.
Then he carried it  to Garion. "Errand, Belgarion," he said firmly, handing
the Orb  back, and in their  touch as the Orb  exchanged hands, Garion felt
something profoundly different.

Drawn  together by what  had happened,  the little group  silently gathered
about Aunt  Pol and Durnik. To the east, the sky  had begun to lighten, and
the rosy blush of  dawn touched the few last remaining tatters of the cloud
that had  covered Cthol Mishrak. The events of  the dreadful night had been
titanic, but  now the night was  nearly over, and they  stood together, not
speaking as they watched the dawn.

The  storm that  had raged  through the  long night  had passed.  For years
beyond counting,  the universe had been divided  against itself, but now it
was  one  again. If  there  were  such things  as  beginnings,  this was  a
beginning. And  so it was, through  broken cloud, that the  sun rose on the
morning of the first day.





                                  Epilogue

                           THE ISLE OF THE WINDS







                                  [Image]





Chapter Twenty-five

BELGARION OF RIVA slept  very fitfully the night before his wedding. Had he
and Ce'Nedra  been married in some  simple, private little ceremony shortly
after his meeting with Torak, things might have gone more smoothly. At that
time both  he and  his flighty little  princess had been too  tired and too
overwhelmed  by  the  events  which had  taken  place  to  be anything  but
absolutely honest with each other. During those few short days he had found
her to be almost  a different person. She had watched his every move with a
kind of patient adoration, and she was forever touching him - his hair, his
face, his  arms - her fingers gentle and curious.  The peculiar way she had
of coming  up to him, no  matter who was present or  what was going on, and
worming her  way into the circle of his arm had  been, on the whole, rather
nice.

Those days had not, however, lasted. Once she had reassured herself that he
was all  right and  that he was  really there and  not some  figment of her
imagination  which  might be  snatched  away  at any  moment, Ce'Nedra  had
gradually changed. He felt somehow like a possession; following her initial
delight in  ownership, his  princess had rather  deliberately embarked upon
some grand plan of alteration.

And now  the day upon which her possession of him  was to be formalized was
only hours  away. His  sleep came in  fits and starts  with dreams mingling
peculiarly with  memories as he dipped in and out of  sleep like a sea bird
skimming across the waves.

He was at Faldor's  farm again. Even in his sleep he could hear the ringing
of  Durnik's hammer  and smell  the odors  coming from Aunt  Pol's kitchen.
Rundorig  was there  - and  Zubrette -  and Doroon  - and there  was Brill,
creeping around  a corner. He half woke and  turned restlessly in the royal
bed. That wasn't possible. Doroon was dead, drowned in the River Mardu, and
Brill  had  vanished  forever  over the  parapet  of  mile-high Rak  Cthol.

And then  he was  in the palace  at Sthiss Tor, and  Salmissra, her blatant
nudity glowing through her  filmy gown, was touching his face with her cold
fingers.

But Salmissra was no  longer a woman. He had watched her himself as she had
changed into a serpent.

Grul  the Eldrak  hammered at  the frozen  ground with his  iron-shod club,
bellowing, "Come 'Grat, fight!"  and Ce'Nedra was screaming. In the chaotic
world of dreams half mixed with memories he saw Ctuchik, his face contorted
with horror, exploding once  more into nothingness in the hanging turret at
Rak Cthol.

And then  he stood  once again in  the decaying ruin of  Cthol Mishrak, his
sword ablaze,  and watched as Torak  raised his arms to  the rolling cloud,
weeping tears  of fire,  and once again  he heard the  stricken God's final
cry, "Mother!"

He stirred,  half rousing and shuddering  as he always did  when that dream
recurred,    but   dipped    almost    immediately   into    sleep   again.

He was  standing on the deck of Barak's ship  just off the Mallorean coast,
listening  as King  Anheg  explained why  Barak  was chained  to the  mast.

"We  had to do  it, Belgarath,"  the coarse-faced monarch  said mournfully.
"Right during the middle of that storm, he turned into a bear! He drove the
crew to row toward Mallorea all night long, and then, just before daybreak,
he turned back into a man again."

"Unchain him,  Anheg," Belgarath said disgustedly.  "He's not going to turn
into a  bear again - not as long as Garion's  safe and well." Garion rolled
over and sat up. That had been a startling revelation.

There had been a purpose behind Barak's periodic alterations.

"You're Garion's defender," Belgarath had explained to the big man. "That's
why you were born. Any time Garion was in mortal danger, you changed into a
bear in order to protect him."

"You mean  to say that  I'm a sorcerer?" Barak  had demanded incredulously.

"Hardly. The  shape-change isn't all  that difficult, and you  didn't do it
consciously. The Prophecy did the work, not you."

Barak had  spent the rest of the voyage back to  Mishrak ac Thull trying to
come up  with a tastefully understated way to add  that concept to his coat
of arms.

Garion climbed  out of his high,  canopied bed and went  to the window. The
stars in  the spring sky looked  down at the sleeping  city of Rivan and at
the dark  waters of  the Sea of the  Winds beyond the harbor.  There was no
sign that dawn was anywhere near yet. Garion sighed, poured himself a drink
of  water from  the pitcher  on the  table, and  went back  to bed  and his
troubled sleep.

He was  at Thull  Zelik, and Hettar  and Mandorallen were  reporting on the
activities  of 'Zakath, the  Mallorean Emperor.  "He's laying siege  to Rak
Goska right  now," hawk-faced Hettar was saying.  There had been a peculiar
softening in Hettar's face  since Garion had last seen him, as if something
very significant had happened. The tall Algar turned to Garion. "Eventually
you're  going to  have to do  something about  'Zakath," he said.  "I don't
think  you want  him roaming  around at  will in  this part of  the world."

"Why me?" Garion asked without thinking.

"You're Overlord of the West, remember?"

Once  again  Garion awoke.  Sooner  or later  he  would have  to deal  with
'Zakath; there  was no question  about that. Maybe after  the wedding, he'd
have  time to  consider  the matter.  That thought,  however,  stopped him.
Strangely, he  had no  conception of anything  that might happen  after the
wedding. It  stood before him like some huge door that  led into a place he
had never  been. 'Zakath would have to wait. Garion  had to get through the
wedding first.

Half asleep,  somewhere between dreaming and  remembering, Garion relived a
significant  little exchange  between  himself and  her Imperial  Highness.

"It's  stupid,  Ce'Nedra,"  he  was protesting.  "I'm  not  going to  fight
anybody, so why should I ride in waving my sword?"

"They deserve to see  you, Garion," she explained as if talking to a child.
"They left their homes and rode into battle at your summons."

"I didn't summon anybody."

"I did  it in your behalf.  They're a very good  army, really, and I raised
them all by myself. Aren't you proud of me?"

"I didn't ask you to do that."

"You were  too proud to ask. That's one of  your failings, Garion. You must
never be  too proud to ask  the people who love you  for help. Every man in
the army loves you. They followed me because of you. Is it too much trouble
for the  great Overlord  of the West  to reward his  faithful soldiers with
just  a little bit  of a display  or appreciation?  Or have you  become too
grand and lofty for simple gratitude?"

"You're  twisting things,  Ce'Nedra.  You do  that  a lot,  you know."  But
Ce'Nedra had already moved on as if the entire matter were settled. "And of
course you will wear your crown - and some nice armor. I think a mail shirt
would be appropriate."

"I'm not going to  make a clown of myself just to satisfy your urges toward
cheap theatricality."

Her eyes filled. Her  lower lip trembled. "You don't love me any more," she
accused him in a quavering little voice.

Garion  groaned even in  his sleep. It  always came  down to that.  She won
every single argument with that artful bit of deception. He knew it was not
genuine.  He knew  that she  only did  it to  get her  own way, but  he was
absolutely defenseless  against it. It might  have nothing whatsoever to do
with the  matter under discussion,  but she always managed  to twist things
around until she could unleash that devastating accusation, and all hope of
his winning  even the  smallest point was  immediately lost. Where  had she
learned to be so heartlessly dishonest?

And  so it was  that Garion, dressed  in mail,  wearing his crown  and self
consciously holding his flaming sword aloft, had ridden into the forts atop
the  eastern  escarpment  to  the  thunderous cheers  of  Ce'Nedra's  army.

So much had happened since Garion and Silk and Belgarath had crept from the
citadel at Riva the previous spring. The young king lay musing in his high,
canopied bed, having almost  given up on sleep. Ce'Nedra had in fact raised
an army.  As he had  heard more of the  details, he had been  more and more
astonished -  not only by her  audacity but also by  the enormous amount of
energy and sheer will  she had expended in the process. She had been guided
and  assisted,  certainly,  but  the initial  concept  had  been hers.  His
admiration for  her was tinged slightly with  apprehension. He was going to
marry a very strongminded young woman - and one who was not overly troubled
by scruples.

He rolled  over and punched at his pillow,  hoping somehow by that familiar
act to bring on  more normal sleep, but once again he slipped into restless
dreaming. Relg  and Taiba  were walking toward  him, and they  were holding
hands!

And  then  he  was  at the  Stronghold,  sitting  at  Adara's bedside.  His
beautiful  cousin  was  even  paler  than  he  remembered, and  she  had  a
persistent, racking  cough. Even  as the two  of them talked,  Aunt Pol was
taking steps  to remedy  the last complications  of the wound  which had so
nearly claimed the girl's life.

"I was mortified, of  course," Adara was saying. "I'd taken so much care to
conceal it  from him,  and now I'd  gone and blurted  it out to  him, and I
wasn't even dying."

"Hettar?"   Garion  said   again.  He'd   already  said  it   three  times.

"If you  don't stop  that, Garion, I'm  going to be cross  with you," Adara
said quite firmly.

"I'm sorry,"  he apologized quickly. "It's  just that I've never considered
him  in that  light. He's  a good  friend, but  I never  thought of  him as
particularly loveable.  He's so  - I don't  know - implacable,  I suppose."

"I  have certain  reasons to believe  that may  change," Adara said  with a
faint blush. Then she began to cough again.

"Drink this,  dear," Aunt Pol ordered, coming to  the bedside with a fuming
cup.

"It's going to taste awful," Garion warned his cousin.

"That will  do, Garion," Aunt Pol told him. "I  can manage this without the
helpful comments."

And then  he was in the  caves beneath Prolgu, standing  beside Relg as the
Gorim performed the simple  ceremony uniting the zealot and the Marag woman
who had  so totally changed Relg's life.  Garion sensed another presence in
the underground chamber, and  he wondered if anyone had yet told Relg about
the  bargain that  had  been struck  in Cthol  Mishrak. He'd  thought about
saying  something   himself,  but  had  decided   against  it.  All  things
considered, it  might be  best to let Relg  adjust to one thing  at a time.
Marriage  to Taiba  was  probably going  to be  enough  of a  shock  to the
fanatic's system  for now. Garion could  feel Mara's gloating exultation as
the ceremony concluded. The weeping God no longer wept.

It was useless,  Garion decided. He was not going to be  able to sleep - at
least not  the kind of sleep  that would do him any  good. He threw off the
covers and  pulled on his robe.  The fire in his  fireplace had been banked
for the  night, and  he stirred it  up again. Then  he sat in  the chair in
front of it, staring pensively into the dancing flames.

Even  if his  wedding to  Ce'Nedra had  taken place immediately  upon their
arrival back at Riva, things might still have turned out all right, but the
arrangements for a royal  wedding of this magnitude were far too complex to
be made  overnight, and  many of those  who were to be  honored guests were
still recuperating  from wounds received during  the battle of Thull Mardu.

The interim  had given  Ce'Nedra time to  embark upon a  full-blown plan of
modification. She  had, it appeared, a certain concept  of him - some ideal
which only  she could perceive - and she  was absolutely determined to cram
him into  that mold despite all his  objections and protests. Nothing could
make  her relent  in her  singleminded drive  to make  him over. It  was so
unfair. He was quite  content to accept her exactly as she was. She had her
flaws -  many of them -  but he was willing to take  the good with the bad.
Why couldn't  she extend him the  same courtesy? But each  time he tried to
put his  foot down and absolutely  refuse one of her  whims, her eyes would
fill with  tears, her lip would tremble, and the  fatal, "You don't love me
any more," would drop quaveringly upon him.

Belgarion  of Riva  had considered  flight several  times during  that long
winter.

Now  it was spring  again, and the  storms which  isolated the Isle  of the
Winds during  the winter months were past. The  day which Garion felt would
never  come had suddenly  rushed upon him.  Today was  the day in  which he
would take  the Imperial Princess Ce'Nedra to wife, and  it was too late to
run.

He knew that if he brooded about it much longer, he'd push himself over the
edge into  total panic, and so  he stood up and  quickly dressed himself in
plain  tunic and hose,  ignoring the  more ostentatious garments  which his
valet  -  at Ce'Nedra's  explicit  instructions  - had  laid  out for  him.

It was  about an hour before daylight as the young  king of Riva opened the
door to  the royal apartment and slipped  into the silent corridor outside.

He wandered  for a  time through the  dim, empty halls of  the Citadel, and
then, inevitably, his undirected  steps led him to Aunt Pol's door. She was
already awake  and seated  by her fire  with a cup  of fragrant  tea in her
hands. She  wore a deep blue  dressing gown, and her  dark hair flowed down
across her shoulders in a lustrous wave.

"You're up early," she noted.

"I couldn't sleep."

"You should have. You have a very full day ahead of you."

"I know. That's why I couldn't sleep."

"Tea?"

"No,  thanks."  He  sat in  the  carved  chair on  the  other  side of  the
fireplace.  "Everything's changing, Aunt  Pol," he  said after a  moment of
thoughtful silence. "After today, nothing will ever be the same again, will
it?"

"Probably not,"  she said, "but that doesn't  necessarily mean that it will
be a change for the worse."

"How do you feel about the idea of getting married?"

"A bit nervous," she admitted calmly.

"You?"

"I've never been married before either, Garion."

Something had  been bothering  him about that.  "Was it really  such a good
idea, Aunt  Pol?" he asked her.  "I mean, arranging to  have you and Durnik
get married  on the same day  as Ce'Nedra and I? What  I'm trying to say is
that you're  the most important woman in  the world. Shouldn't your wedding
be a special occasion?"

"That was what we were trying to avoid, Garion," she replied. "Durnik and I
decided that we wanted  our wedding to be private, and we hope that it will
be lost in all  the confusion and ceremony that's going to surround yours."

"How is he? I haven't seen him for several days now."

"He's still a bit  strange. I don't think he'll ever be the same man we all
knew."

"He's   all   right,   isn't   he?"  Garion's   guestion   was   concerned.

"He's  fine,  Garion. He's  just  a  bit different,  that's all.  Something
happened to him that's never happened to any other man, and it changed him.
He's as practical as  ever, but now he looks at the other side of things as
well. I think I rather like that."

"Do  you really  have to leave  Riva?" he  asked suddenly. "You  and Durnik
could stay here in the Citadel."

"We want  our own place, Garion,"  she told him. "We  need to be alone with
each  other. Besides, if  I were here,  every time  you and Ce'Nedra  had a
squabble, I'd  have one or both  of you hammering on  my door. I've done my
best to raise you  two. Now you're going to have to work things out on your
own."

"Where will you go?"

"To  the Vale.  My mother's cottage  is still  standing there. It's  a very
solid house.  All it needs is  new thatching on the  roof and new doors and
windows. Durnik will  know how to take care of that, and  it will be a good
place for Errand to grow up."

"Errand? You're taking him with you?"

"Someone has  to care  for him, and I've  grown used to having  a small boy
around. Besides, father and  I've decided that we'd like for him to be some
distance from  the Orb. He's still  the only one besides  you who can touch
it. Someone  at some time might  seize upon that and try  to use him in the
same way Zedar did."

"What'd be the point?  I mean, Torak's gone now. What good would the Orb do
anybody else?" .

She looked  at him very gravely,  and the white lock  of her brow seemed to
glow in  the soft light. "I don't believe that was  the only reason for the
Orb's existence,  Garion," she  told him seriously.  "Something hasn't been
completed yet."

"What? What else is there left to do?"

"We don't  know. The Mrin Codex  does not end with  the meeting between the
Child of  Light and the Child of Dark. You're the  Guardian of the Orb now,
and it's still as important as ever, so don't just put it on the back shelf
of  a closet  somewhere and  forget about  it. Be  watchful, and  don't let
ordinary affairs dull your mind. Keeping the Orb is still your first duty -
and  I'm  not  going  to  be  here  to  remind  you about  it  every  day."

He didn't want to  think about that. "What will you do if somebody comes to
the Vale  and tries to take Errand away? You won't  be able to protect him,
now that-"  He faltered  to a stop.  He had not  spoken to  her about that.

"Go ahead  and say it, Garion," she said directly.  "Let's look it right in
the  face. You  were going  to say now  that I  no longer have  any power."

"What's  it  like, Aunt  Pol?  Is  it like  losing  something -  a sort  of
emptiness, maybe?"

"I feel the same  as always, dear. Of course I haven't tried to do anything
since  I agreed  to give  it up.  It might  be painful  if I tried  to make
something happen and failed.  I don't think I'd care for the experience, so
I simply  haven't tried." She shrugged.  "That part of my  life is over, so
I'll just  have to put it behind me. Errand  will be safe, though. Beldin's
in the Vale -  and the twins. That's enough power in one place to keep away
anything that might want to harm him."

"Why's  Durnik  spending  so  much  time with  Grandfather?"  Garion  asked
suddenly. "Ever since we got back to Riva, they've been together just about
every minute they were awake."

She gave  him a knowing  smile. "I imagine they're  preparing some surprise
for me," she replied.  "Some suitable wedding present. They both tend to be
a trifle transparent."

"What is it?" Garion asked curiously.

"I haven't the slightest idea - and I wouldn't dream of trying to find out.
Whatever it is,  they've both worked too hard at it for  me to spoil it for
them by  snooping around." She glanced at the  window where the first light
of  dawn was  appearing. "Perhaps  you'd better  run along now,  dear," she
suggested. "I  have to start getting ready. This is  a very special day for
me, too, and I really want to look my best."

"You could never look  anything less than beautiful, Aunt Pol," he told her
sincerely.

"Why thank you, Garion." She smiled at him, looking somehow almost girlish.
"But I'd rather not take the chance." She gave him an appraising glance and
touched his  cheek. "Why don't  you visit the baths,  dear," she suggested,
"and wash your hair and get somebody to shave you."

"I can do that myself, Aunt Pol."

"That's not  a good  idea, Garion. You're  a little nervous  today, and you
don't  want to put  a razor to  your face  when your hands  are trembling."

He laughed a bit ruefully, kissed her, and started toward the door. Then he
stopped and turned back toward her. "I love you, Aunt Pol," he said simply.

"Yes, dear, I know. I love you, too."

After he  had visited the  baths, Garion went looking  for Lelldorin. Among
the matters  that had  finally been settled  was the marital  status of the
young Asturian and his  semiofficial bride. Ariana had finally despaired of
Lelldorin's ever making the first move on his own and had solved the entire
problem by  simply moving  in with him.  She had been quite  firm about it.
Garion gathered  that Lelldorin's resistance had  faded rather quickly. His
expression of late had  been somewhat more foolish than usual, and Ariana's
had been,  although radiant,  just a trifle  smug. In a  peculiar way, they
closely resembled Relg and Taiba in that respect. Since his wedding, Relg's
expression had been one of almost perpetual astonishment, while Taiba's had
that same  smugness that marked  Ariana's. Garion wondered if  he might not
awaken tomorrow  morning to  see that same  self satisfied little  smirk on
Ce'Nedra's lips.

There was a purpose to Garion's search for his Asturian friend. As a result
of one  of Ce'Nedra's  whims, their wedding  was going to be  followed by a
grand  ball,  and  Lelldorin   had  been  teaching  Garion  how  to  dance.

The idea  of the ball had  been greeted with enthusiasm  by all the ladies;
the men, however, had  not been universal in their approval. Barak had been
particularly vehement in his objections.

"You want me to  get in the middle of the floor and dance?" he had demanded
of the princess in  an outraged tone of voice. "What's wrong with all of us
just  getting  drunk?  That's  the  normal  way to  celebrate  a  wedding."

"You'll be  just fine,"  Ce'Nedra had told  him, patting his  cheek in that
infuriating way  of hers. "And you will do it, won't  you, Barak - for me?"
And she had insincerely fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Barak had stamped away, muttering curses under his breath.

Garion found Lelldorin and Ariana doting on each other across the breakfast
table in their rooms.

"Wilt thou take breakfast with us, your Majesty?" Ariana inquired politely.

"Thanks all the same,  my Lady," Garion declined, "but I don't seem to have
much appetite today."

"Nerves," Lelldorin observed sagely.

"I think  I've got most of  it," Garion rushed to  the core of his problem,
"but  that crossover  baffles  me. My  feet keep  getting all  tangled up."

Lelldorin immediately fetched a lute, and with Ariana's help, walked Garion
through the complex procedure.

"Thou art becoming most  skilled, your Majesty," Ariana complimented him at
the end of the lesson.

"All I want to do is get through it without tripping and falling on my face
in public."

"The princess would surely support thee, shouldst thou stumble."

"I'm  not sure  about  that. She  might enjoy  watching me  make a  fool of
myself."

"How little thou knowest of women." Ariana gave Lelldorin an adoring look -
a look he fatuously returned.

"Will you two stop  that?" Garion demanded irritably. "Can't you wait until
you're alone to carry on that way?"

"My heart  is too full of  love for me to  hide it, Garion," Lelldorin said
extravagantly.

"So I've  noticed," Garion  said dryly. "I've  got to go see  Silk, so I'll
leave you two to your amusements."

Ariana blushed,  then smiled. "Might we take that  as a royal command, your
Majesty?" she asked archly.

Garion fled.

Silk had  arrived from the east  late the previous evening,  and Garion was
anxious for  news. He found the little  Drasnian lingering over a breakfast
of partridge and hot, spiced wine.

"Isn't   that   a  little   heavy   for  breakfast?"   Garion  asked   him.

"I've never  been that partial to  gruel first thing in  the morning," Silk
replied. "Gruel's the sort of thing a man has to work himself up to."

Garion  went directly  to the  point. "What's  happening in  Cthol Murgos?"

"'Zakath  is  still  laying  siege  to  Rak Goska,"  Silk  reported.  "He's
transporting in more troops, though. It's pretty obvious that he's going to
strike into  southern Cthol Murgos as  soon as the ground's  firm enough to
move an army."

"Are the Thulls with him?"

"Only a few. Most of them are concentrating on finding the few Grolims left
in their  kingdom. I always thought Thulls were  a stupid people, but you'd
be amazed  at how  creative they can  be when it  comes to  finding new and
interesting ways for Grolims to die."

"We're going  to have to keep an eye on  'Zakath," Garion said. "I wouldn't
want him to come creeping up on me from the south."

"I think  you can  count on him  not to creep,"  Silk said. "He  sent you a
message of congratulations, incidentally."

"He did what?"

"He's a  civilized man, Garion -  and a politician. He  was badly shaken by
the fact that you  killed Torak. I think he's actually afraid of you, so he
wants to stay on your good side - at least until he finishes up in southern
Cthol Murgos."

"Who's in command of the Murgos, now that Taur Urgas is dead?"

"Urgit, his third son by his second wife. There was the usual squabble over
the  succession by  the various  sons of  Taur Urgas's assorted  wives. The
fatalities were numerous, I understand."

"What kind of man is Urgit?"

"He's a  schemer. I don't think he's any match  for 'Zakath, but he'll keep
the Malloreans  busy for ten or  twenty years. By then,  'Zakath may be too
old and tired of war to give you any problems."

"Let's hope so."

"Oh, I almost forgot. Hettar married your cousin last week."

"Adara? I thought she was ill."

"Not  that much,  apparently.  They're coming  to your  wedding  along with
Cho-Hag and Silar."

"Is everybody getting married?"

Silk laughed.  "Not me, my young friend. In  spite of this universal plunge
toward matrimony, I still  haven't lost my senses. If worse comes to worst,
I still  know how to run.  The Algars should arrive  sometime this morning.
They  met Korodullin's  entourage, and  they're all coming  together. Their
ship was right behind mine when we left Camaar."

"Was Mandorallen with them?"

Silk nodded.  "Along with the Baroness  of Vo Ebor. The  Baron's still much
too ill  to travel.  I think he's hoping  that he'll die, to  leave the way
clear for his wife and Mandorallen."

Garion sighed.

"Don't  let it make  you unhappy,  Garion," Silk advised.  "Arends actually
enjoy  that  kind  of misery.  Mandorallen's  perfectly  content to  suffer
nobly."

"That's a rotten thing to say," Garion accused the little man.

Silk shrugged. "I'm a rotten sort of person," he admitted.

"Where are you going after-" Garion left it hanging.

"After I see you  safely married?" Silk suggested pleasantly. "As soon as I
recover  from all  the drinking  I'll do  tonight, I'll  be off for  Gar og
Nadrak. There's  a great  deal of opportunity  in the new  situation there.
I've  been  in  contact  with  Yarblek.  He  and  I  are going  to  form  a
partnership."

"With Yarblek?"

"He's not so bad  - if you keep an eye on him - and he's very shrewd. We'll
probably do rather well together."

"I can imagine." Garion  laughed. "One of you is bad enough all by himself,
but  with the  two of you  acting together,  no honest merchant's  going to
escape with his skin."

Silk grinned wickedly. "That was sort of what we had in mind."

"I imagine that you'll get very rich."

"I suppose I could  learn to live with that." Silk's eyes took on a distant
look. "That's  not really what it's  all about, though," he  noted. "It's a
game.  The  money's just  a  way of  keeping  score. It's  the game  that's
important."

"It seems to me that you told me that once before."

"Nothing's  changed  since  then,  Garion," Silk  told  him  with a  laugh.

Aunt  Pol's wedding  to Durnik took  place later  that morning in  a small,
private chapel in the  west wing of the Citadel. There were but few guests.
Belgarath and  the twins,  Beltira and Belkira,  were there of  course, and
Silk  and  Barak. Aunt  Pol,  beautiful in  a  deep blue  velvet gown,  was
attended by  Queen Layla,  and Garion stood  with Durnik. The  ceremony was
performed by  the hunchbacked  Beldin, dressed for once  in decent clothing
and with a strangely gentle expression on his ugly face.

Garion's emotions were very complex during the ceremony. He realized with a
sharp  little pang  that Aunt Pol  would no  longer be exclusively  his. An
elemental,  childish part of  him resented  that. He was,  however, pleased
that it  was Durnik whom she  was marrying. If anyone  deserved her, it was
Durnik. The  good, plain man's eyes were filled  with absolute love, and he
obviously could  not take them from her face.  Aunt Pol herself was gravely
radiant as she stood at Durnik's side.

As  Garion stepped  back while  the two  exchanged vows,  he heard  a faint
rustle. Just inside the  door of the chapel, in a hooded cloak that covered
her from head to foot and wearing a heavy veil that covered her face, stood
Princess  Ce'Nedra. She  had  made a  large issue  of the  fact that  by an
ancient Tolnedran  custom, Garion was not supposed  to see her before their
wedding on this day,  and the cloak and veil provided her with the illusion
of invisibility. He could  imagine her wrestling with the problem until she
had come up with  this solution. Nothing could have kept her from Polgara's
wedding, but  all the niceties  and formalities had to  be observed. Garion
smiled slightly as he turned back to the ceremony.

It was  the expression  on Beldin's face  that made him turn  again to look
sharply  toward the  back of the  chapel -  an expression of  surprise that
turned to  calm recognition. At first Garion saw  nothing, but then a faint
movement up among the  rafters caught his eye. The pale, ghostly shape of a
snowy owl perched on one of the dark beams, watching as Aunt Pol and Durnik
were married.

When  the ceremony  was  concluded and  after Durnik  had  respectfully and
rather  nervously kissed  his bride,  the white  owl spread her  pinions to
circle the  chapel in ghostly silence. She hovered  briefly as if in silent
benediction over  the happy couple; then with two  soft beats of her wings,
she  moved  through  the  breathless air  to  Belgarath.  The old  sorcerer
resolutely averted his eyes.

"You may as well  look at her, father," Aunt Pol told him. "She won't leave
until you recognize her."

Belgarath  sighed then,  and  looked directly  at the  oddly  luminous bird
hovering in  the air before him.  "I still miss you,"  he said very simply.
"Even after all this time."

The owl  regarded him with her  golden, unblinking eyes for  a moment, then
flickered and vanished.

"What an absolutely astonishing thing," Queen Layla gasped.

"We're astonishing people, Layla,"  Aunt Pol replied, "and we have a number
of  peculiar friends  - and  relatives." She  smiled then, her  arm closely
linked in  Durnik's. "Besides," she added  with a twinkle in  her eye, "you
wouldn't  really  expect  a  girl to  get  married  without  her mother  in
attendance, would you?"

Following the wedding, they all walked through the corridors of the Citadel
back to  the central  fortress and stopped  outside the door  of Aunt Pol's
private apartment.  Garion was about to  follow Silk and Barak  as, after a
few brief  congratulations, they  moved on down the  hallway, but Belgarath
put  his hand on  his grandson's arm.  "Stay a  moment," the old  man said.

"I  don't think  we  should intrude,  Grandfather," Garion  said nervously.

"We'll only  stay for a few minutes," Belgarath  assured him. The old man's
lips were actually quivering  with a suppressed mirth. "There's something I
want you to see."

One of  Aunt Pol's eyebrows  raised questioningly as her  father and Garion
followed into the apartment.

"Are we responding to  some ancient and obscure custom, father?" she asked.

"No, Pol,"  he replied  innocently. "Garion and  I only want  to toast your
happiness, that's all."

"What exactly are you  up to, Old Wolf?" she asked him, but her eyes had an
amused look in them.

"Do I have to be up to something?"

"You usually are, father."

She did,  however, fetch  four crystal goblets  and a decanter  of fine old
Tolnedran wine.

"The four of us started all this together quite a long time ago," Belgarath
recalled.  "Perhaps, before  we all  separate, we  should take a  moment to
remember that  we've come  a long way  since then, and  some rather strange
things  have happened to  us. We've all  changed in  one way or  another, I
think."

"You haven't  changed all  that much, father," Aunt  Pol said meaningfully.
"Would you get to the point?"

Belgarath's  eyes  were twinkling  openly  now with  some huge,  suppressed
mirth.

"Durnik has something for you," he said.

Durnik swallowed hard. "Now?"  he asked Belgarath apprehensively. Belgarath
nodded.

"I know  how much you love  beautiful things - like  that bird over there,"
Durnik said  to Aunt Pol, looking at the crystal  wren Garion had given her
the previous year. "I  wanted to give you something like that, too - only I
can't work in glass or in gemstones. I'm a metalsmith, so I have to work in
steel." He  had been unwrapping  something covered in plain  cloth. What he
produced finally  was an intricately wrought  steel rose, just beginning to
open. The  details were exquisite,  and the flower glowed  with a burnished
life of its own.

"Why,  Durnik,"  Aunt  Pol  said,  genuinely pleased.  "How  very  lovely."

Durnik, however, did not  give her the rose yet. "It has no color, though,"
he  noted a  bit critically,  "and no  fragrance." He glanced  nervously at
Belgarath.

"Do it," the old man told him. "The way I showed you."

Durnik turned  back to  Aunt Pol, still  holding the burnished  rose in his
hand.  "I really have  nothing to give  you, my  Pol," he told  her humbly,
"except an honest heart  - and this." He held out the rose in his hand, and
his face took on an expression of intense concentration.

Garion heard it very clearly. It was a familiar, rushing surge of whispered
sound,  filled with a  peculiarly bell-like  shimmer. The polished  rose in
Durnik's outstretched  hand seemed to pulsate  slightly, and then gradually
it began  to change. The outsides of the petals were  as white as new snow,
but the  insides, where the flower was just  opening, were a deep, blushing
red. When  Durnik finished,  he held a  living flower out to  Aunt Pol, its
petals beaded with dew.

Aunt Pol gasped as  she stared incredulously at the rose. It was unlike any
flower that  had ever existed. With a trembling hand  she took it from him,
her eyes  filled with sudden tears.  "How is it possible?"  she asked in an
awed voice.

"Durnik's a  very special man now," Belgarath told her.  "So far as I know,
he's the  only man who ever died and then lived  again. That could not help
changing him  - at least a little. But then,  I suspect that there's always
been a poet lurking  under the surface of our good, practical friend. Maybe
the only  real difference  is that now  he has a  way of  letting that poet
out."

Durnik, looking  just a bit embarrassed, touched  the rose with a tentative
finger. "It does have one advantage, my Pol," he noted. "The steel is still
in it, so it  will never fade or wilt. It will stay just as it is now. Even
in   the   middle  of   winter,   you'll   have  at   least  one   flower."

"Oh, Durnik!" she cried, embracing him.

Durnik looked  a bit abashed as he awkwardly  returned her embrace. "If you
really like it, I could make you some others," he told her. "A whole garden
of them, I suppose. It's not really all that hard, once you get the hang of
it."

Aunt Pol's  eyes, however, had  suddenly widened. With one  arm still about
Durnik, she  turned slightly to look  at the crystal wren  perched upon its
glass twig. "Fly," she said, and the glowing bird spread its wings and flew
to her outstretched hand.  Curiously it inspected the rose, dipped its beak
into a dew  drop, and then it lifted its head and  began to sing a trilling
little song.  Gently Aunt Pol raised  her hand aloft, and  the crystal bird
soared  back to  its glass  twig. The echo  of its  song still hung  in the
silent air.

"I expect  it's time  for Garion and  me to be going,"  Belgarath said, his
face rather sentimental and misty.

Aunt  Pol,  however,  had  quite  obviously realized  something.  Her  eyes
narrowed slightly, then went very wide. "Just a moment, Old Wolf," she said
to Belgarath with a  faint hint of steel in her voice. "You knew about this
from the very beginning, didn't you?"

"About what, Pol?" he asked innocently.

"That Durnik - that I -" For the first time in his life Garion saw her at a
loss for words. "You knew!" she flared.

"Naturally. As soon as  Durnik woke up, I could feel something different in
him. I'm  surprised you didn't feel  it yourself. I had  to work with him a
bit to bring it out, though."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask, Pol."

"You - I -"  With an enormous effort she gained control of herself. "All of
these months you  let me go on thinking that my power  was gone, and it was
there  all the  time! It  was still there,  and you  put me through  all of
that?"

"Oh, really, Pol. If  you'd just stopped to think, you'd have realized that
you  can't   give  it  up   like  that.  Once  it's   there,  it's  there."

"But our Master said-"

Belgarath raised  one hand. "If you'll just stop  and remember, Pol, all he
really asked was if you'd be willing to limit your independence in marriage
and go  through life with no  more power than Durnik  has. Since there's no
way he  could remove your power, he obviously  had something else in mind."

"You let me believe-"

"I  have no control  over what you  believe, Pol,"  he replied in  his most
reasonable tone of voice.

"You tricked me!"

"No, Pol,"  he corrected, "you tricked yourself."  Then he smiled fondly at
her. "Now,  before you go off  into a tirade, think  about it for a moment.
All  things considered,  it didn't really  hurt you,  did it? And  isn't it
really nicer to find  out about it this way?" His smile became a grin. "You
can even  consider it my wedding present to you,  if you'd like," he added.

She stared  at him  for a moment,  obviously wanting to be  cross about the
whole thing,  but the  look he returned  her was impish.  The confrontation
between them  had been obscure, but  he had quite obviously  won this time.
Finally, no longer able  to maintain even the fiction of anger, she laughed
helplessly and  put her hand affectionately on  his arm. "You're a dreadful
old man, father," she told him.

"I know," he admitted. "Coming, Garion?"

Once they were in the hall outside, Belgarath began to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Garion asked him.

"I've been waiting for that moment for months," his grandfather said, still
chortling.  "Did  you see  her  face  when she  finally  realized what  had
happened? She's  been moping around with that  look of noble self sacrifice
for all  this time, and then she suddenly finds  out that it was absolutely
unnecessary." His  face took on a wicked  little smirk. "Your Aunt's always
been just a little too sure of herself, you know. Maybe it was good for her
to go for a  little while thinking that she was just an ordinary person. It
might give her some perspective."

"She  was   right."  Garion   laughed.  "You  are  a   dreadful  old  man."

Belgarath grinned. "One does one's best."

They went along the hallway to the royal apartment where the clothes Garion
was to  wear for his  wedding were already laid  out. "Grandfather," Garion
said,  sitting down  to pull  off his  boots, "there's something  I've been
meaning to  ask you. Just before Torak died, he  called out to his mother."

Belgarath, tankard in hand, nodded.

"Who is his mother?"

"The universe," the old man replied.

"I don't understand."

Belgarath  scratched  thoughtfully  at   his  short,  white  beard.  "As  I
understand it,  each of the  Gods began as an  idea in the mind  of UL, the
father of  the Gods, but it was the universe  that brought them forth. It's
very complicated. I don't  understand it entirely myself. Anyway, as he was
dying, Torak  cried out to the  one thing that he  felt still loved him. He
was wrong, of course. UL and the other Gods did still love him, even though
they knew  that he  had become twisted  and totally evil.  And the universe
grieved for him."

"The universe?"

"Didn't  you feel  it?  That instant  when everything  stopped and  all the
lights went out?"

"I thought that was just me."

"No, Garion.  For that  single instant all  the light in  the universe went
out, and  everything stopped  moving - everything  - everywhere. A  part of
that was the grief of the universe for her dead son."

Garion thought about that. "He had to die, though, didn't he?"

Belgarath nodded.  "It was the only  way that things could  get back on the
right course. Torak had  to die so that things could go toward what they're
supposed  to.  Otherwise,  everything would  have  ultimately  wound up  in
chaos."

A sudden strange thought struck Garion.

"Grandfather," he said, "who is Errand?"

"I don't know," Belgarath replied. "Perhaps he's just a strange little boy.
Perhaps he's something else. You'd probably better start changing clothes."

"I was trying not to think about that."

"Oh, come now. This is the happiest day of your life."

"Really?"

"It might help if you keep saying that to yourself."

By  general consent,  the Gorim of  Ulgo had  been selected to  perform the
ceremony uniting  Garion and  Ce'Nedra in marriage. The  frail, saintly old
man  had made  the journey from  Prolgu in  short, easy stages,  carried by
litter through the caves to Sendaria, then conveyed in King Fulrach's royal
carriage to  the city of Sendar and thence by  ship to Riva. The revelation
of the fact that  the God of the Ulgos was the father of the other Gods had
struck theological  circles like a thunderclap.  Entire libraries of turgid
philosophical  speculation  had  instantly  become  obsolete,  and  priests
everywhere now stumbled about  in a state of shock. Grodeg, the High Priest
of Belar, fainted dead away at the news. The towering ecclesiastic, already
crippled for life by  the wounds he had received during the battle of Thull
Mardu, did not take this final blow well. When he recovered from his swoon,
his attendants found that  his mind had reverted to childhood, and he spent
his  days now  surrounded  by toys  and  brightly colored  bits of  string.

The royal wedding, of course, took place in the Hall of the Rivan King, and
everyone was  there. King Rhodar was  in crimson, King Anheg  in blue. King
Fulrach wore brown, and  King Cho-Hag the customary Algar black. Brand, the
Rivan Warder,  his face made even more somber by  the death of his youngest
son, was  dressed in Rivan gray.  There were other royal  visitors as well.
Ran  Borune XXIII  in  his goldcolored  mantle was  strangely jovial  as he
bantered with  the shavenheaded Sadi. Oddly enough, the  two of them got on
well together. The possibilities  of the new situation in the west appealed
to them  both, and  they were obviously  moving toward an  accommodation of
some sort. King Korodullin wore royal purple and stood about with the other
kings  - although  he spoke  but little.  The blow  to his head  during the
battle  of Thull  Mardu had  affected his  hearing, and  the young  king of
Arendia was obviously uncomfortable in company.

In the  very center of the gathered monarchs stood  King Drosta lek Thun of
Gar  og  Nadrak,  wearing  a  curiously unattractive  yellow  doublet.  The
nervous, emaciated  king of the Nadrak's spoke  in short little bursts, and
when he laughed, there  was a shrill quality in his voice. King Drosta made
many arrangements that afternoon - some of which he even intended to honor.

Belgarion of  Riva, of course,  did not participate in  those discussions -
which  was  probably just  as  well. The  Rivan  King's mind  was a  trifle
distracted at  that moment.  Dressed all in  blue, he paced  nervously in a
nearby antechamber where he  and Lelldorin awaited the fanfare which was to
summon them into the great hall.

"I wish this was all over," he said for the sixth time.

"Just be patient, Garion," Lelldorin advised him again.

"What are they doing out there?"

"Probably waiting  for word that her Highness  is ready. At this particular
time, she's  far more important than you are.  That's the way weddings are,
you know."

"You're the lucky one.  You and Ariana just ran off and got married without
all this fuss."

Lelldorin laughed  ruefully. "I didn't really  escape it, Garion," he said,
"just postponed it for  a while. All the preparations here have inflamed my
Ariana. As  soon as  we return to  Arendia, she wants  us to  have a proper
wedding."

"What  is it  about weddings that  does such  strange things to  the female
mind?"

"Who can say?" Lelldorin shrugged. "A woman's mind is a mystery - as you'll
soon discover."

Garion gave  him a sour look and adjusted his crown  once again. "I wish it
were all over," he said again.

In time  the fanfare  echoed through the  Hall of the Rivan  King, the door
opened, and, trembling visibly, Garion adjusted his crown one last time and
marched out  to meet his fate.  Although he knew most  of the people in the
hall, the faces around  him were all a blur as he and Lelldorin walked past
the peat fires glowing in the pits in the floor toward the throne where his
great  sword once  more  hung in  its proper  place with  the Orb  of Aldur
glowing on its pommel.

The hall was hung with buntings and banners, and there was a vast profusion
of  spring flowers.  The  wedding guests,  in silks,  satins,  and brightly
colored brocades, seemed themselves  almost like some flower garden as they
twisted  and  strained  to  watch the  entrance  of  the royal  bridegroom.

Awaiting him  before the throne stood the white-robed  old Gorim of Ulgo, a
smile on his gentle face.

"Greetings,  Belgarion," the  Gorim murmured  as Garion mounted  the steps.

"Holy Gorim," Garion replied with a nervous bow.

"Be tranquil,  my son,"  the Gorim advised, noting  Garion's shaking hands.

"I'm trying, Holy One."

The brazen  horns sounded yet another fanfare, and the  door at the back of
the hall swung wide. The Imperial Princess Ce'Nedra, dressed in her creamy,
pearl-studded wedding  gown, stood in  the doorway with her  cousin Xera at
her  side. She  was  stunning. Her  flaming hair  streamed down  across one
shoulder of her gown,  and she wore the varicolored golden circlet of which
she had  always been  so fond. Her  face was demure, and  a delicate little
blush colored  her cheeks.  She kept her  eyes downcast, although  once she
flickered  a quick  glance at Garion,  and he  saw the little  twinkle that
lurked behind  her thick lashes. He knew  then with absolute certainty that
all that  demure modesty was a pose. She stood long  enough to allow all to
look  their fill  at  her perfection  before, accompanied  by the  sound of
gently  cascading harps,  she  came down  the aisle  to meet  her quivering
bridegroom. In  a ceremony  Garion thought just a  trifle overdone, Barak's
two little  daughters preceded  the bride, strewing her  path with flowers.

When she  reached the  dais, Ce'Nedra rather impulsively  kissed the kindly
old Gorim's  cheek and  then took her  place at Garion's side.  There was a
fragrance about  her that was  strangely flowerlike - a  fragrance that for
some reason made Garion's knees tremble.

The Gorim looked out at the assemblage and began to speak.

"We are  gathered today," he began, "to witness  the last unraveling of the
Prophecy which has guided  all our lives through the deadliest of peril and
brought us  safely to  this happy moment.  As foretold, the  Rivan King has
returned.  He has  met our  ancient foe  and he  has prevailed.  His reward
stands radiant at his side."

Reward? Garion  had not  considered it in  precisely that light  before. He
thought about  it a bit as  the Gorim continued, but  it didn't really help
all that much. He felt a sharp little nudge in his ribs.

"Pay attention," Ce'Nedra whispered.

It got down to the questions and answers shortly after that. Garion's voice
cracked  slightly, but  that  was only  to be  expected.  Ce'Nedra's voice,
however, was  clear and firm. Couldn't  she at least pretend  to be nervous
just a little?

The rings  which they exchanged were  carried on a small  velvet cushion by
Errand. The  child took his duties  quite seriously, but even  on his small
face  there  was  that  slightly amused  look.  Garion  resented that.  Was
everyone secretly laughing at him?

The ceremony  concluded with the Gorim's  benediction, which Garion did not
hear. The  Orb of Aldur, glowing with  an insufferable smugness, filled his
ears with  its song of  jubilation during the Gorim's  blessing, adding its
own peculiar congratulations.

Ce'Nedra had turned to him. "Well?" she whispered.

"Well what?" he whispered back.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"Here? In front of everybody?"

"It's customary."

"It's a stupid custom."

"Just do  it, Garion," she said with a  warm little smile of encouragement.
"We can discuss it later."

Garion tried for a certain dignity in the kiss - a kind of chaste formality
in keeping with the  general tone of the occasion. Ce'Nedra, however, would
have none  of that. She threw herself into  the business with an enthusiasm
which Garion  found slightly alarming.  Her arms locked about  his neck and
her  lips were  glued to  his. He  irrationally wondered  just how  far she
intended  to go  with  this. His  knees were  already beginning  to buckle.

The  cheer which  resounded through  the hall  saved him. The  trouble with
kissing in public was that one was never sure just how long one should keep
it up. If  it were too short, people might suspect a  lack of regard; if it
were  too long,  they might  begin to  snicker. Grinning  rather foolishly,
Belgarion of Riva turned to face the wedding guests.

The wedding  ball and the supper which was  part of it immediately followed
the  ceremony. Chatting gaily,  the wedding  guests trooped through  a long
corridor to a brightly decorated hall which had been converted into a grand
ballroom ablaze with candles. The orchestra was composed of Rivan musicians
under the direction of  a fussy Arendish concertmaster, who strove mightily
to  keep the independent  Rivans from  improvising on those  melodies which
pleased them.

This was the part  Garion had dreaded the most. The first dance was to be a
solo affair  featuring the royal couple. He  was expected to march Ce'Nedra
to the center of  the floor and perform in public. With a sudden horror, he
realized - even as  he and his radiant bride went to the center of the room
-   that   he  had   forgotten   everything  Lelldorin   had  taught   him.

The dance which was  popular at that particular season in the courts of the
south was  graceful and quite intricate.  The partners were to  face in the
same direction, the man behind and slightly to one side of the woman. Their
arms were  supposed to be  extended and their hands  joined. Garion managed
that part  without too  much trouble. It  was all those  quick, tiny little
steps in time to the music that had him worried.

In  spite  of everything,  though,  he  did quite  well.  The fragrance  of
Ce'Nedra's hair,  however, continued to work on him,  and he noted that his
hands trembled  visibly as the two of them danced. At  the end of the first
melody,  the wedding  guests applauded  enthusiastically; as  the orchestra
took up the second  tune, they all joined in, and the floor was filled with
whirling colors as the dance became general.

"I guess we didn't do too badly," Garion murmured.

"We were just fine," Ce'Nedra assured him.

They continued to dance.

"Garion," she said after a few moments.

"Yes?"

"Do you really love me?"

"Of course I do. What a silly thing to ask."

"Silly?"

"Wrong word," he amended quickly. "Sorry."

"Garion," she said after a few more measures.

"Yes?"

"I love you too, you know."

"Of course I know."

"Of course? Aren't you taking a bit much for granted?"

"Why are we arguing?" he asked rather plaintively.

"We  aren't arguing,  Garion,"  she told  him loftily.  "We're discussing."

"Oh," he said. "That's all right then."

As was expected, the royal couple danced with everyone. Ce'Nedra was passed
from king  to king  like some royal  prize, and Garion  escorted queens and
ladies alike  to the center of  the floor for the  obligatory few measures.
Tiny blond  Queen Porenn of Drasnia  gave him excellent advice,  as did the
stately Queen  Islena of  Cherek. Plump little  Queen Layla was  motherly -
even a bit giddy.  Queen Silar gravely congratulated him, and Mayaserana of
Arendia  suggested that  he'd dance  better if  he weren't quite  so stiff.
Barak's  wife, Merel,  dressed  in rich  green brocade,  gave him  the best
advice of all.

"You'll fight  with each  other, of course,"  she told him  as they danced,
"but   never   go  to   sleep   angry.   That  was   always  my   mistake."

And finally Garion danced with his cousin Adara.

"Are you happy?" he asked her.

"More than you could ever imagine," she replied with a gentle smile.

"Then everything worked out for the best, didn't it?"

"Yes, Garion. It's as  if it had all been fated to happen. Everything feels
so right, somehow."

"It's possible that it was fated," Garion mused. "I sometimes think we have
very   little  control   over   our  own   lives   -  I   know  I   don't."

She smiled. "Very deep  thoughts for a bridegroom on his wedding day." Then
her  face   grew  gravely  serious.  "Don't   let  Ce'Nedra  drive  you  to
distraction,"   she  advised.   "And   don't  always   give  in   to  her."

"You've heard about what's been happening?"

She nodded.  "Don't take it too seriously,  Garion. She's been testing you,
that's all."

"Are you trying to say that I still have to prove something?"

"With Ce'Nedra  - probably every day. I  know your little princess, Garion.
All she really wants  is for you to prove that you love  her - and don't be
afraid  to say  it to  her. I  think you'll  be surprised at  how agreeable
she'll be  if you  just take the  trouble to tell  her that you  love her -
frequently."

"She knows that already."

"But you have to tell her."

"How often do you think I ought to say it?"

"Oh, probably every hour or so."

He was almost certain that she was joking.

"I've noticed  that Sendars are a  reserved sort of people,"  she told him.
"That isn't  going to work with Ce'Nedra. You're going  to have to put your
upbringing  aside and  come  right out  and say  it. It  will be  worth the
trouble, believe me."

"I'll try," he promised her.

She laughed and lightly kissed his cheek. "Poor Garion," she said.

"Why poor Garion?"

"You still have so much to learn."

The dance continued.

Exhausted finally and famished  by their efforts, Garion and his bride made
their way to the  groaning table and sat down to take their wedding supper.
The supper  was quite  special. Two days  before the wedding,  Aunt Pol had
calmly marched  into the royal kitchen  and had taken charge.  As a result,
everything  was  perfect. The  smells  from  the heavily  laden table  were
overwhelming.  King Rhodar absolutely  could not  pass by without  just one
more nibble.

The music and the dance continued, and Garion watched, relieved that he had
escaped the  floor. His  eyes sought out  old friends in  the crowd. Barak,
huge but  strangely gentle, danced  with Merel, his wife.  They looked very
good together.  Lelldorin danced with  Ariana, and their eyes  were lost in
each others'  faces. Relg  and Taiba did  not dance, but sat  together in a
secluded corner. They were,  Garion noted, holding hands. Relg's expression
was   still   slightly   startled,   but   he   did   not   look   unhappy.

Near the center of the floor, Hettar and Adara danced with the innate grace
of those  who spend  their lives on  horseback. Hettar's hawklike  face was
different  somehow, and  Adara was  flushed with happiness.  Garion decided
that  it might  be  a good  time to  try Adara's  advice. He  leaned toward
Ce'Nedra's  pink  little ear  and  cleared  his throat.  "I  love you,"  he
whispered. It was difficult  the first time, so he tried it again - just to
get the  feel of  it. "I love you,"  he whispered again. It  was easier the
second time.

The effect on his princess was electrifying. She blushed a sudden rosy red,
and  her eyes  went  very wide  and somehow  defenseless. Her  entire heart
seemed to  be in those eyes. She appeared unable  to speak, but reached out
instead gently  to touch  his face. As  he returned her gaze,  he was quite
amazed  at the change  that the simple  phrase had  made in her.  Adara, it
appeared, had  been right.  He stored that  bit of information  away rather
carefully, feeling more confident than he had in months.

The hall was filled  with colors as the guests danced in celebration of the
royal wedding.  There were, however, a  few faces that did  not reflect the
general happiness.  Near the  center of the floor,  Mandorallen danced with
the Lady Nerina, Baroness of Vo Ebor, and their faces mirrored that tragedy
which was still central to their lives. Not far from them, Silk danced with
Queen Porenn. The little  man's face bore once again that same bitter, self
mocking  expression Garian  had first  seen in  King Anheg's palace  in Val
Alorn.

Garion sighed.

"Melancholy already, my husband?" Ce'Nedra asked him with a little twinkle.
Once again, even as  they sat, she ducked her head beneath his arm and drew
it about  her in that peculiar  way of hers. She  smelled very good, and he
noted that she was very soft and warm.

"I was just remembering a few things," he replied to her question.

"Good.  Try  to get  that  all  out of  the  way  now. I  wouldn't want  it
interfering later."

Garion's  face turned  bright  red, and  Ce'Nedra laughed  a  wicked little
laugh. "I think that perhaps later is not much further off," she said then.
"You must dance with  Lady Polgara, and I will dance with your grandfather.
And then  I think it will  be time for us to retire.  It's been a very full
day."

"I am a bit tired," Garion agreed.

"Your day isn't over yet, Belgarion of Riva," she told him pointedly.

Feeling a  bit peculiar about it, Garion approached  Aunt Pol where she and
Durnik sat  watching the dance. "Will you dance  with me, Aunt Polgara?" he
asked with a formal little bow.

She looked  at him a bit quizzically. "So  you've finally admitted it," she
said.

"Admitted what?"

"Who I really am."

"I've known."

"But you've  never called me by  my full name before,  Garion," she pointed
out,  rising and gently  smoothing back his  hair. "I  think it might  be a
rather significant step."

They danced  together in the glowing candlelight to  the music of lutes and
pipes. Polgara's steps were more measured and slow than the dance Lelldorin
had  so  painstakingly  taught  to Garion.  She  had  reached back,  Garion
realized, into  the dim past, and she led  him through the stately measures
of a  dance she had learned  centuries before, during her  sojourn with the
Wacite Arends. Together they  moved through the slow, graceful, and somehow
melancholy measures of a  dance which had vanished forever some twenty-five
centuries before, to live on only in Polgara's memory.

Ce'Nedra was  blushing furiously when Belgarath  returned her to Garion for
their last  dance. The old man grinned impishly,  bowed to his daughter and
took her  hands to lead her  as well. The four of  them danced not far from
each other,  and Garion  clearly heard his  Aunt's question. "Have  we done
well, father?"

Belgarath's smile was quite  genuine. "Why yes, Polgara," he replied. "As a
matter of fact, I think we've done very well indeed."

"Then it was all worth it, wasn't it, father?"

"Yes, Pol, it really was."

They danced on.

"What did he say to you?" Garion whispered to Ce'Nedra.

She blushed. "Never mind. Maybe I'll tell you - later."

There was that word again.

The dance  ended, and an expectant hush fell  over the crowd. Ce'Nedra went
to her  father, kissed him lightly, and then  returned. "Well?" she said to
Garion.

"Well what?"

She  laughed. "Oh,  you're  impossible." Then  she took  his hand  and very
firmly led him from the hall.

It was quite late - perhaps two hours past midnight. Belgarath the Sorcerer
was  in a whimsical  mood as he  wandered about  the deserted halls  of the
Rivan  Citadel with  a tankard  in his  hand. Belgarath  had done a  bit of
celebrating, and  he was  feeling decidedly mellow  - though not  nearly as
much  as  many  of  the other  wedding  guests,  who  had already  mellowed
themselves into insensibility.

The old  man stopped once to examine a guard who  was snoring in a doorway,
sprawled in  a puddle of  spilled ale. Then, humming  rather tunelessly and
adding a  couple of  skipping little dance  steps as he  proceeded down the
hall, the white-bearded old  sorcerer made his way in the general direction
of  the  ballroom, where  he  was  certain there  was  a bit  of ale  left.

As he  passed the Hall of  the Rivan King, he noted  that the door was ajar
and that  there was a light inside. Curious, he  stuck his head through the
doorway to  see if  anyone might be  about. The Hall was  deserted, and the
light infusing it came  from the Orb of Aldur, resting on the pommel of the
sword of the Rivan King.

"Oh," Belgarath  said to the stone,  "it's you." Then the  old man walked a
trifle  unsteadily down  the  aisle to  the foot  of  the dais.  "Well, old
friend," he said, squinting  up at the Orb, "I see they've all gone off and
left you alone too."

The Orb flickered its recognition of him.

Belgarath sat down heavily on the edge of the dais and took a drink of ale.
"We've  come a  long way  together, haven't we?"  he said  to the Orb  in a
conversational tone.

The Orb ignored him.

"I wish  you weren't  so serious about  things all the time.  You're a very
stodgy companion." The old man took another drink.

They were  silent for a while,  and Belgarath pulled off  one of his boots,
sighed and wriggled his toes contentedly.

"You really don't understand  any of this, do you, my friend?" he asked the
Orb finally.  "In spite of everything, you still have  the soul of a stone.
You understand  hate and  loyalty and unswerving commitment,  but you can't
comprehend the  more human  feelings - compassion, friendship,  love - love
most  of all,  I think.  It's sort  of a  shame that you  don't understand,
really,  because  those were  the  things  that finally  decided all  this.
They've been mixed up in it from the very beginning - but then you wouldn't
know about that, would you?"

The Orb  continued to ignore him,  its attention obviously elsewhere. "What
are  you   concentrating  on  so  hard?"   the  old  man  asked  curiously.

The Orb, which had  glowed with a bright blue radiance flickered again, and
its blue became suddenly  infused with a pale pink which steadily grew more
and   more   pronounced   until    the   stone   was   actually   blushing.

Belgarath cast  one twinkling glance in the  general direction of the royal
apartment.  "Oh,"  he  said,  understanding.  Then  he  began  to  chuckle.

The Orb blushed even brighter.

Belgarath laughed, pulled his boot back on and rose unsteadily to his feet.
"Perhaps you understand more than I thought you did," he said to the stone.
He drained  the last few drops  from his tankard. "I'd  really like to stay
and discuss it," he  said, "but I've run out of ale. I'm sure you'll excuse
me."

Then he went back up the broad aisle.

When he reached the  doorway, he stopped and cast one amused glance back at
the  still furiously  blushing Orb.  Then he  chuckled again and  went out,
quietly closing the door behind him.





      Thus concludes The Belgariad, which began with Pawn of Prophecy.
  And while History, unlike mortal pen, does not cease, the records beyond
                    this point remain as yet unrevealed.






