Demon Lord of Karanda

6

The gates of Mal Zeth, like those of Tol Honeth, were of bronze, broad and burnished. The city lying within those gates, however, was significantly different from the capital of the Tolnedran Empire. There was a peculiar sameness about the structures, and they were built so tightly against each other that the broad avenues of the city were lined on either side by solid, mortar-covered walls, pierced only by deeply inset, arched doorways with narrow white stairways leading up to the flat rooftops. Here and there, the mortar had crumbled away, revealing the fact that the buildings beneath that coating were constructed of squared-off timbers. Durnik, who believed that all buildings should be made of stone, noted that fact with a look of disapproval.

As they moved deeper into the city, Garion noticed the almost total lack of windows. “I don’t want to seem critical,” he said to ’Zakath, “but isn’t your city just a little monotonous?”

’Zakath looked at him curiously.

“All the houses are the same, and there aren’t very many windows.”

“Oh,” ’Zakath smiled, “that’s one of the drawbacks of leaving architecture up to the military. They’re great believers in uniformity, and windows have no place in military fortifications. Each house has its own little garden, though, and the windows face that. In the summertime, the people spend most of their time in the gardens—or on the rooftops.”

“Is the whole city like this?” Durnik asked, looking at the cramped little houses all packed together.

“No, Goodman,” the Emperor replied. “This quarter of the city was built for corporals. The streets reserved for officers are a bit more ornate, and those where the privates and workmen live are much shabbier. Military people tend to be very conscious of rank and the appearances that go with it.”

A few doors down a side street branching off from the one they followed, a stout, red-faced woman was shrilly berating a scrawny-looking fellow with a hangdog expression as a group of soldiers removed furniture from a house and piled it in a rickety cart. “You had to go and do it, didn’t you, Actas?” she demanded. “You had to get drunk and insult your captain. Now what’s to become of us? I spent all those years living in those pigsty privates’ quarters waiting for you to get promoted, and just when I think things are taking a turn for the better, you have to destroy it all by getting drunk and being reduced to private again.” He mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, dear.”

“I’m not going to let you forget this, Actas, let me tell you.”

“Life does have its little ups and downs, doesn’t it?” Sadi murmured as they rode on out of earshot.

“I don’t think it’s anything to laugh about,” Ce’Nedra said with surprising heat. “They’re being thrown out of their home over a moment’s foolishness. Can’t someone do something?”

’Zakath gave her an appraising look, then beckoned to one of the red-cloaked officers riding respectfully along behind them. “Find out which unit that man’s in,” he instructed. “Then go to his captain and tell him that I’d take it as a personal favor if Actas were reinstated in his former rank—on the condition that he stays sober.”

“At once, your Majesty.” The officer saluted and rode off.

“Why, thank you, ’Zakath,” Ce’Nedra said, sounding a little startled.

“My pleasure, Ce’Nedra.” He bowed to her from his saddle. Then he laughed shortly. “I suspect that Actas’ wife will see to it that he suffers sufficiently for his misdeeds anyway.”

“Aren’t you afraid that such acts of compassion might damage your reputation, your Majesty?” Sadi asked him.

“No,” ’Zakath replied. “A ruler must always strive to be unpredictable, Sadi. It keeps the underlings off balance. Besides, an occasional act of charity toward the lower ranks helps to strengthen their loyalty ”

“Don’t you ever do anything that isn’t motivated by politics?” Garion asked him. For some reason, ’Zakath’s flippant explanation of his act irritated him.

“Not that I can think of,” ’Zakath said. “Politics is the greatest game in the world, Garion, but you have to play it all the time to keep your edge.”

Silk laughed. “I’ve said the exact same thing about commerce,” he said. “About the only difference I can see is that in commerce you have money as a way of keeping score. How do you keep score in politics?”

’Zakath’s expression was peculiarly mixed—half amused and half deadly serious. “It’s very simple, Kheldar,” he said. “If you’re still on the throne at the end of the day, you’ve won. If you’re dead, you’ve lost—and each day is a complete new game.”

Silk gave him a long, speculative look, then looked over at Garion, his fingers moving slightly.—I need to talk to you—at once—

Garion nodded briefly, then leaned over in his saddle, He wined in.

“Something wrong?” ’Zakath asked him.

“I think my cinch is loose,” Garion replied, dismounting. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“Here,—I’ll help you, Garion,” Silk offered, also swinging down from his saddle.

“What’s this all about?” Garion asked when the Emperor, chatting with Ce’Nedra and Velvet, had ridden out of earshot.

“Be very careful with him, Garion,” the little man replied quietly, pretending to check the straps on Garion’s saddle. “He let something slip there. He’s all smiles and courtesy on the surface, but underneath it all he hasn’t really changed all that much.”

“Wasn’t he just joking?”

“Not even a little. He was deadly serious. He’s brought us all to Mal Zeth for reasons that have nothing to do with Mengha or our search for Zandramas. Be on your guard with him. That friendly smile of his can fall off his face without any warning at all.” He spoke a little more loudly then. “There,” he said, tugging at a strap, “that ought to hold it. Let’s catch up with the others.”

They rode into a broad square surrounded on all sides by canvas booths dyed in various hues of red, green, blue, and yellow. The square teemed with merchants and citizens, all dressed in varicolored, loose-fitting robes that hung to their heels.

“Where do the common citizens live if the whole city’s divided up into sections based on military rank?” Durnik asked.

Brador, the bald, chubby Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs, who happened to be riding beside the smith, looked around with a smile. “They all have their ranks, Goodman,” he replied, “each according to his individual accomplishments. It’s all very rigidly controlled by the Bureau of Promotions. Housing, places of business, suitable marriages—they’re all determined by rank.”

“Isn’t that sort of over-regimented?” Durnik asked pointedly.

“Malloreans love to be regimented, Goodman Durnik.” Brador laughed. “Angaraks bow automatically to authority; Melcenes have a deep inner need to compartmentalize things; Karands are too stupid to take control of their own destinies; and the Dals—well, nobody knows what the Dals want.”

“We aren’t really all that different from the people in the West, Durnik,” ’Zakath said back over his shoulder. “In Tolnedra and Sendaria, such matters are determined by economics. People gravitate to the houses and shops and marriages they can afford. We’ve just formalized it, that’s all.”

“Tell me, your Majesty.” Sadi said, “how is it that your people are so undemonstrative?”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

“Shouldn’t they at least salute as you ride by? You are the Emperor, after all.”

“They don’t recognize me.” ’Zakath shrugged. “The Emperor is a man in crimson robes who rides in a golden carriage, wears a terribly heavy jeweled crown, and is accompanied by at least a regiment of imperial guards all blowing trumpets. I’m just a man in white linen riding through town with a few friends.”

Garion thought about that, still mindful of Silk’s half-whispered warning. The almost total lack of any kind of self-aggrandizement implicit in ’Zakath’s statement revealed yet another facet of the man’s complex personality. He was quite sure that not even King Fulrach of Sendaria, the most modest of all the monarchs of the West, could be quite so self-effacing.

The streets beyond the square were lined with somewhat larger houses than those they had passed near the city gates, and there had been some attempt at ornamentation here. It appeared, however, that Mallorean sculptors had limited talent, and the mortar-cast filigree surmounting the front of each house was heavy and graceless.

“The sergeant’s district,” ’Zakath said laconically.

The city seemed to go on forever. At regular intervals there were squares and marketplaces and bazaars, all filled with people wearing the bright, loose-fitting robes that appeared to be the standard Mallorean garb. When they passed the last of the rigidly similar houses of the sergeants and of those civilians of equal rank, they entered a broad belt of trees and lawns where fountains splashed and sparkled in the sunlight and where broad promenades were lined with carefully sculptured green hedges interspersed with cherry trees laden with pink blossoms shimmering in the light breeze.

“How lovely,” Ce’Nedra exclaimed.

“We do have some beauty here in Mal Zeth,” ’Zakath told her. “No one—not even an army architect—could make a city this big uniformly ugly.”

“The officers’ districts aren’t quite so severe,” Silk told the little Queen.

“You’re familiar with Mal Zeth, then, your Highness?” Brador asked.

Silk nodded. “My partner and I have a facility here,” he replied. “It’s more in the nature of a centralized collection point than an actual business. It’s cumbersome doing business in Mal Zeth—too many regulations.”

“Might one inquire as to the rank you were assigned?” the moon-faced bureaucrat asked delicately.

“We’re generals,” Silk said in a rather grandly offhand manner. “Yarblek wanted to be a field marshal, but I didn’t think the expense of buying that much rank was really justified.”

“Is rank for sale?” Sadi asked.

“In Mal Zeth, everything’s for sale,” Silk replied. “In most respects it’s almost exactly like Tol Honeth.”

“Not entirely, Silk,” Ce’Nedra said primly.

“Only in the broadest terms, your Imperial Highness,” he agreed quickly. “Mal Zeth has never been graced by the presence of a divinely beautiful Imperial Princess, glowing like a precious jewel and shooting beams of her fire back at the sun.”

She gave him a hard look, then turned her back on him.

“What did I say?” the little man asked Garion in an injured tone.

“People always suspect you, Silk,” Garion told him. “They can never quite be sure that you’re not making fun of them. I thought you knew that.”

Silk sighed tragically. “Nobody understands me,” he complained.

“Oh, I think they do.”

The plazas and boulevards beyond the belt of parks and gardens were more grand, and the houses larger and set apart from each other. There was still, however, a stiff similarity about them, a kind of stern sameness that insured that men of equal rank would be assigned to rigidly equal quarters.

Another broad strip of lawns and trees lay beyond the mansions of the generals and their mercantile equivalents, and within that encircling green there arose a fair-sized marble city with its own walls and burnished gates.

“The imperial palace,” ’Zakath said indifferently. He frowned. “What have you done over there?” he asked Brador, pointing at a long row of tall buildings rising near the south wall of the enclosed compound.

Brador coughed delicately. “Those are the bureaucratic offices, your Majesty,” he replied in a neutral tone. “You’ll recall that you authorized their construction just before the battle of Thull Mardu.”

’Zakath pursed his lips. “I hadn’t expected something on quite such a grand scale,” he said.

“There are quite a lot of us, your Majesty,” Brador explained, “and we felt that things might be more harmonious if each bureau had its own building.” He looked a bit apologetic. “We really did need the space,” he explained defensively to Sadi. “We were all jumbled together with the military, and very often men from different bureaus had to share the same office. It’s really much more efficient this way, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t involve me in this discussion, your Excellency,” Sadi answered.

“I was merely attempting to draw upon your Excellency’s expertise in managing affairs of state.”

“Salmissra’s palace is somewhat unique,” Sadi told him. “We like being jumbled together. It gives us greater opportunities for spying and murder and intrigue and the other normal functions of government.”

As they approached the gates to the imperial complex, Garion noticed with some surprise that the thick bronze gates had been overlaid with beaten gold, and his thrifty Sendarian heritage recoiled from the thought of such wanton lavishness. Ce’Nedra, however, looked at the priceless gates with undisguised acquisitiveness.

“You wouldn’t be able to move them,” Silk advised her.

“What?” she said inattentively.

“The gates. They’re much too heavy to steal.”

“Shut up, Silk,” she said absently, her eyes still appraising the gates.

He began to laugh uproariously, and she looked at him, her green eyes narrowing dangerously.

“I think I’ll ride back to see what’s keeping Belgarath,” the little man said.

“Do,” she said. Then she looked at Garion, who was trying to conceal a broad grin. “Something funny?” she asked him.

“No, dear,” he replied quickly. “Just enjoying the scenery is all.”

The detachment of guards at the gates was neither as burnished nor plumed as the ceremonial guards at the gates of Tol Honeth. They wore polished shirts of chain mail over the customary red tunic, baggy breeches tucked into the tops of knee-high boots, red cloaks, and pointed conical helmets. They nonetheless looked very much like soldiers. They greeted Kal Zakath with crisp military salutes, and, as the Emperor passed through the gilded gates, trumpeteers announced his entrance into the imperial compound with a brazen fanfare.

“I’ve always hated that,” the Mallorean ruler said confidentially to Garion. “The sound grates on my ears.”

“What irritated me were the people who used to follow me around hoping that I might need something,” Garion told him.

“That’s convenient sometimes.”

Garion nodded. “Sometimes,” he agreed, “but it stopped being convenient when one of them threw a knife at my back.”

“Really? I thought your people universally adored you.”

“It was a misunderstanding. The young man and I had a talk about it, and he promised not to do it any more.”

“That’s all?” ’Zakath exclaimed in astonishment. “You didn’t have him executed?”

“Of course not. Once he and I understood each other, he turned out to be extraordinarily loyal.” Garion sighed sadly. “He was killed at Thull Mardu.”

“I’m sorry, Garion,” ’Zakath said. “We all lost friends at Thull Mardu.”

The marble-clad buildings inside the imperial complex were a jumble of conflicting architectural styles, ranging from the severely utilitarian to the elaborately ornate. For some reason Garion was reminded of the vast rabbit warren of King Anheg’s palace at Val Alorn. Although ’Zakath’s palace did not consist of one single building, the structures were all linked to each other by column-lined promenades and galleries which passed through park-like grounds studded with statues and marble pavilions.

’Zakath led them through the confusing maze toward the middle of the complex, where a single palace stood in splendid isolation, announcing by its expanse and height that it was the center of all power in boundless Mallorea. “The residence of Kallath the Unifier,” the Emperor announced with grand irony, “my revered ancestor.”

“Isn’t it just a bit overdone?” Ce’Nedra asked tartly, still obviously unwilling to concede the fact that Mal Zeth far outstripped her girlhood home.

“Of course it is,” the Mallorean replied, “but the ostentation was necessary. Kallath had to demonstrate to the other generals that he outranked them, and in Mal Zeth one’s rank is reflected by the size of one’s residence. Kallath was an undisguised knave, a usurper and a man of little personal charm, so he had to assert himself in other ways.”

“Don’t you just love politics?” Velvet said to Ce’Nedra. “It’s the only field where the ego is allowed unrestricted play—as long as the treasury holds out.”

’Zakath laughed. “I should offer you a position in the government, Margravine Liselle,” he said. “I think we need an imperial deflator—someone to puncture all our puffed-up self-importance.”

“Why, thank you, your Majesty,” she said with a dimpled smile. “If it weren’t for my commitments to the family business, I might even consider accepting such a post. It sounds like so much fun.”

He sighed with mock regret. “Where were you when I needed a wife?”

“Probably in my cradle, your Majesty,” she replied innocently.

He winced. “That was unkind,” he accused.

“Yes,” she agreed. “True, though,” she added clinically.

He laughed again and looked at Polgara. “I’m going to steal her from you, my lady,” he declared.

“To be your court jester, Kal Zakath?” Liselle asked, her face no longer lightly amused. “To entertain you with clever insults and banter? Ah, no. I don’t think so. There’s another side to me that I don’t think you’d like very much. They call me ‘Velvet’ and think of me as a soft-winged butterfly, but this particular butterfly has a poisoned sting—as several people have discovered after it was too late.”

“Behave, dear,” Polgara murmured to her. “And don’t give away trade secrets in a moment of pique.” Velvet lowered her eyes. “Yes, Lady Polgara,” she replied meekly.

’Zakath looked at her, but did not say anything. He swung down from his saddle, and three grooms dashed to his side to take the reins from his hand. “Come along, then,” he said to Garion and the others. “I’d like to show you around.” He threw a sly glance at Velvet. “I hope that the Margravine will forgive me if I share every home owner’s simple pride in his domicile—no matter how modest.”

She laughed a golden little laugh.

Garion dismounted and laid an affectionate hand on Chretienne’s proud neck. It was with a pang of almost tangible regret that he handed the reins to a waiting groom.

They entered the palace through broad, gilded doors and found themselves in a vaulted rotunda, quite similar in design to the one in the Emperor’s palace in Tol Honeth, though this one lacked the marble busts that made Varana’s entryway appear vaguely like a mausoleum. A crowd of officials, military and civilian, awaited their Emperor, each with a sheaf of important-looking documents in his hand.

’Zakath sighed as he looked at them. “I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone the grand tour,” he said. “I’m certain that you’ll all want to bathe and change anyway—and perhaps rest a bit before we start the customary formalities. Brador, would you be good enough to show our guests to their rooms and arrange to have a light lunch prepared for them?”

“Of course, your Majesty.”

“I think the east wing might be pleasant. It’s away from all the scurrying through the halls in this part of the palace.”

“My very thought, your Majesty.”

’Zakath smiled at them all. “We’ll dine together this evening,” he promised. Then he smiled ironically. “An intimate little supper with no more than two or three hundred guests.” He looked at the nervous officials clustered nearby and made a wry face. “Until this evening, then.”

Brador led them through the echoing marble corridors teeming with servants and minor functionaries.

“Big place,” Belgarath observed after they had been walking for perhaps ten minutes. The old man had said very little since they had entered the city, but had ridden in his customary half doze, although Garion was quite sure that very little escaped his grandfather’s half-closed eyes.

“Yes,” Brador agreed with him. “The first Emperor, Kallath, had grandiose notions at times.”

Belgarath grunted. “It’s a common affliction among rulers. I think it has something to do with insecurity.”

“Tell me, Brador,” Silk said, “didn’t I hear somewhere that the state secret police are under the jurisdiction of your bureau?”

Brador nodded with a deprecating little smile. “It’s one of my many responsibilities, Prince Kheldar,” he replied. “I need to know what’s going on in the empire in order to stay on top of things, so I had to organize a modest little intelligence service—nothing on nearly the scale of Queen Porenn’s, however.”

“It will grow with time,” Velvet assured him. “Those things always do, for some reason.”

The east wing of the palace was set somewhat apart from the rest of the buildings in the complex and it embraced a kind of enclosed courtyard or atrium that was green with exotic flowering plants growing about a mirror-like pool at its center. Jewel-like hummingbirds darted from blossom to blossom, adding splashes of vibrant, moving color.

Polgara’s eyes came alight when Brador opened the door to the suite of rooms she was to share with Durnik.

Just beyond an arched doorway leading from the main sitting room was a large marble tub sunk into the floor with little tendrils of steam rising from it. “Oh, my,” she sighed. “Civilization—at last.”

“Just try not to get waterlogged, Pol,” Belgarath said.

“Of course not, father,” she agreed absently, still eyeing the steaming tub with undisguised longing.

“Is it really all that important, Pol?” he asked her.

“Yes, father,” she replied. “It really is.”

“It’s an irrational prejudice against dirt.” He grinned at the rest of them. “I’ve always been sort of fond of dirt myself”

“Quite obviously,” she said. Then she stopped. “Incidentally, Old Wolf,” she said critically as they all began to file out, “if your room happens to be similarly equipped, you should make use of the facilities yourself.”

“Me?”

“You smell, father.”

“No, Pol,” he corrected. “I stink. You smell.”

“Whatever. Go wash, father.” She was already absently removing her shoes.

“I’ve gone as much as ten years at a time without a bath,” he declared.

“Yes, father,” she said. “I know—only the Gods know how well I know. Now,” she said in a very businesslike tone, “if you’ll all excuse me . . .” She very deliberately began to unbutton the front of her dress.

The suite of rooms to which Garion and Ce’Nedra were led was, if anything, even more opulent than that shared by Durnik and Polgara. As Garion moved about the several large chambers, examining the furnishings, Ce’Nedra went directly toward the bath, her eyes dreamy and her clothes falling to the floor behind her as she went. His wife’s tendency toward casual nudity had occasionally shocked Garion in the past. He did not personally object to Ce’Nedra’s skin. What disturbed him had been that she had seemed oblivious to the fact that sometimes her unclad state was highly inappropriate. He recalled with a shudder the time when he and the Sendarian ambassador had entered the royal apartment at Riva just as Ce’Nedra was in the process of trying on several new undergarments she had received from her dressmaker that very morning. Quite calmly, she had asked the ambassador’s opinion of various of the frilly little things, modeling each in turn for him. The ambassador, a staid and proper Sendarian gentleman in his seventies, received more shocks in that ten minutes than he had encountered in the previous half century, and his next dispatch to King Fulrach had plaintively requested that he be relieved of his post.

“Ce’Nedra, aren’t you at least going to close the door?” Garion asked her as she tested the water’s temperature with a tentative toe.

“That makes it very hard for us to talk, Garion,” she replied reasonably as she stepped down into the tub. “I hate to have to shout.”

“Oh?” he said. “I hadn’t noticed that.”

“Be nice,” she told him, sinking into the water with a contented sigh. Curiously she began to unstopper and sniff the crystal decanters lined along one side of the tub which contained, Garion assumed, the assorted condiments with which ladies seasoned their bath water. Some of these she restoppered disapprovingly. Others she liberally sprinkled into her bath. One or two of them she rubbed on herself in various places.

“What if somebody comes in?” Garion asked her pointedly. “Some official or messenger or servant or something?”

“Well, what if they do?”

He stared at her.

“Garion, darling,” she said in that same infuriatingly reasonable tone, “if they hadn’t intended for the bath to be used, they wouldn’t have prepared it, would they?”

Try as he might, he could not find an answer to that question.

She laid her head back in the water, letting her hair fan out around her face. Then she sat up. “Would you like to wash my back for me?” she asked him.

An hour or so later, after an excellent lunch served by efficient servants, Silk stopped by. The little thief had also bathed and changed clothes once again. His pearl-gray doublet was formally elegant, and he once again dripped jewels. His short, scraggly beard had been neatly trimmed, and there was a faint air of exotic perfume lingering about him. “Appearances,” he responded to Garion’s quizzical look. “One always wants to put one’s best foot forward in a new situation.”

“Of course,” Garion said dryly.

“Belgarath asked me to stop by,” the little man continued. “There’s a large room upstairs. We’re gathering there for a council of war.”

“War?”

“Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“Oh. Of course.”

The room at the top of a flight of marble stairs to which Silk led Garion and Ce’Nedra was quite large, and there was a throne-like chair on a dais against the back wall.

Garion looked about at the lush furnishings and heavy crimson drapes. “This isn’t the throne room, is it?” he asked.

“No,” Silk replied. “At least not Kal Zakath’s official one. It’s here to make visiting royalty feel at home. Some kings get nervous when they don’t have official-looking surroundings to play in.”

“Oh.”

Belgarath sat with his mismatched boots up on a polished table. His hair and beard were slightly damp, evidence that, despite his pretended indifference to bathing, he had in fact followed Polgara’s instructions. Polgara and Durnik were talking quietly at one side, and Eriond and Toth were nearby. Velvet and Sadi stood looking out the window at the formal garden lying to the east of ’Zakath’s sprawling palace.

“All right,” the old sorcerer said, “I guess we’re all here now. I think we need to talk.”

—I wouldn’t say anything too specific— Silk’s fingers said in the gestures of the Drasnian secret language.—It’s almost certain that there are a few spies about—

Belgarath looked at the far wall, his eyes narrowed as he searched it inch by inch for hidden peepholes. He grunted and looked at Polgara.

“I’ll look into it, father,” she murmured. Her eyes grew distant, and Garion felt the familiar surge. After a moment she nodded and held up three fingers. She concentrated for a moment, and the quality of the surge changed, seeming somehow languorous. Then she straightened and relaxed her will. “It’s all right now,” she told them calmly. “They fell asleep.”

“That was very smooth, Pol,” Durnik said admiringly.

“Why, thank you, dear,” she smiled, laying her hand on his.

Belgarath put his feet on the floor and leaned forward.

“That’s one more thing for us all to keep in mind,” he said seriously. “We’re likely to be watched all the time that we’re here in Mal Zeth, so be careful. ’Zakath’s a skeptic, so we can’t really be sure just how much of what we’ve told him he believes. It’s altogether possible that he has other things in mind for us. Right now he needs our help in dealing with Mengha, but he still hasn’t entirely abandoned his campaign in Cthol Murgos, and he might want to use us to bring the Alorns and the others into that war on his side. He’s also got problems with Urvon and Zandramas. We don’t have the time to get caught up in internal Mallorean politics. At the moment, though, we’re more or less in his power, so let’s be careful.”

“We can leave any time we need to, Belgarath,” Durnik said confidently.

“I’d rather not do it that way unless we have absolutely no other choice,” the old man replied. “’Zakath’s the kind of man who’s very likely to grow testy if he’s thwarted, and I don’t want to have to creep around dodging his soldiers. It takes too much time and it’s dangerous. I’ll be a lot happier if we can leave Mal Zeth with his blessing—or at least with his consent.”

“I want to get to Ashaba before Zandramas has time to escape again,” Garion insisted.

“So do I, Garion,” his grandfather said, “but we don’t know what she’s doing there, so we don’t know how long she’s likely to stay.”

“She’s been looking for something, father,” Polgara told the old man. “I saw that in her mind when I trapped her back in Rak Hagga.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “Could you get any idea of what it was, Pol?”

She shook her head. “Not specifically,” she replied. “I think it’s information of some kind. She can’t go any further until she finds it. I was able to pick that much out of her thoughts.”

“Whatever it is, has to be well hidden,” he said. “Beldin and I took Ashaba apart after the Battle of Vo Mimbre and we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary—if you can accept the idea that Torak’s house was in any way ordinary.”

“Can we be sure that she’s still there with my baby?” Ce’Nedra asked intently.

“No, dear,” Polgara told her. “She’s taken steps to hide her mind from me. She’s rather good, actually.”

“Even if she’s left Ashaba, the Orb can pick up her trail again,” Belgarath said. “The chances are pretty good that she hasn’t found what she’s looking for, and that effectively nails her down at Ashaba. If she has found it, she won’t be hard to follow.”

“We’re going on to Ashaba, then?” Sadi asked. “What I’m getting at is that our concern about Mengha was just a ruse to get us to Mallorea, wasn’t it?”

“I think I’m going to need more information before I make any decisions about that. The situation in northern Karanda is serious, certainly, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that our primary goal is Zandramas, and she’s at Ashaba. Before I can decide anything, though, I need to know more about what’s going on here in Mallorea.”

“My department,” Silk volunteered.

“And mine,” Velvet added.

“I might be able to help a bit as well,” Sadi noted with a faint smile. He frowned then. “Seriously though, Belgarath,” he continued, “you and your family here represent power. I don’t think we’re going to have much luck at persuading Kal Zakath to let you go willingly—no matter how cordial he may appear on the surface.”

The old man nodded glumly. “It might turn out that way after all,” he agreed. Then he looked at Silk, Velvet, and Sadi. “Be careful,” he cautioned them, “Don’t let your instincts run away with you. I need information, but don’t stir up any hornets’ nests getting it for me.” He looked pointedly at Silk. “I hope I’ve made myself clear about this,” he said. “Don’t complicate things just for the fun of it.”

“Trust me, Belgarath,” Silk replied with a bland smile.

“Of course he trusts you, Kheldar,” Velvet assured the little man.

Belgarath looked at his impromptu spy network and shook his head. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to regret this?” he muttered.

“I’ll keep an eye on them, Belgarath,” Sadi promised.

“Of course, but who’s going to keep an eye on you?”

7

That evening they were escorted with some ceremony through the echoing halls of ’Zakath’s palace to a banquet hall that appeared to be only slightly smaller than a parade ground. The hall was approached by way of a broad, curved stairway lined on either side with branched candelabra and liveried trumpeteers. The stairway was obviously designed to facilitate grand entrances. Each new arrival was announced by a stirring fanfare and the booming voice of a gray-haired herald so thin that it almost appeared that a lifetime of shouting had worn him down to a shadow.

Garion and his friends waited in a small antechamber while the last of the local dignitaries were announced.

The fussy chief of protocol, a small Melcene with an elaborately trimmed brown beard, wanted them to line up in ascending order of rank, but the difficulties involved in assigning precise rank to the members of this strange group baffled him. He struggled with it, manfully trying to decide if Sorcerer outranked King or Imperial Princess until Garion solved his problem for him by leading Ce’Nedra out onto the landing at the top of the stairs.

“Their Royal Majesties, King Belgarion and Queen Ce’Nedra of Riva,” the herald declaimed grandly, and the trumpets blared.

Garion, dressed all in blue and with his ivory-gowned Queen on his arm, paused on the marble landing at the top of the stairs to allow the brightly clad throng below the time to gawk at him. The somewhat dramatic pause was not entirely his idea. Ce’Nedra had dug her fingernails into his arm with a grip of steel and hissed, “Stand still! ”

It appeared that ’Zakath also had some leaning toward the theatrical, since the stunned silence which followed the herald’s announcement clearly indicated that the Emperor had given orders that the identity of his guests remain strictly confidential until this very moment. Garion was honest enough with himself to admit that the startled buzz which ran through the crowd below was moderately gratifying.

He began down the stairway, but found himself reined in like a restive horse. “Don’t run!” Ce’Nedra commanded under her breath.

“Run?” he objected. “I’m barely moving.”

“Do it slower, Garion.”

He discovered then that his wife had a truly amazing talent. She could speak without moving her lips! Her smile was gracious, though somewhat lofty, but a steady stream of low-voiced commands issued from that smile.

The buzzing murmur that had filled the banquet hall when they had been announced died into a respectful silence when they reached the foot of the stair, and a vast wave of bows and curtsies rippled through the crowd as they moved along the carpeted promenade leading to the slightly elevated platform upon which sat the table reserved for the Emperor and his special guests, domestic and foreign.

’Zakath himself, still in his customary white, but wearing a gold circlet artfully hammered into the form of a wreath woven of leaves as a concession to the formality of the occasion, rose from his seat and came to meet them, thereby avoiding that awkward moment when two men of equal rank meet in public. “So good of you to come, my dear,” he said, taking Ce’Nedra’s hand and kissing it. He sounded for all the world like a country squire or minor nobleman greeting friends from the neighborhood.

“So good of you to invite us,” she replied with a whimsical smile.

“You’re looking well, Garion,” the Mallorean said, extending his hand and still speaking in that offhand and informal manner.

“Tolerable, ’Zakath,” Garion responded, taking his cue from his host. If ’Zakath wanted to play, Garion felt that he should show him that he could play, too.

“Would you care to join me at the table?” ’Zakath asked. “We can chat while we wait for the others to arrive.”

“Of course,” Garion agreed in a deliberately commonplace tone of voice.

When they reached their chairs, however, his curiosity finally got the better of him. “Why are we playing ‘just plain folks’?” he asked ’Zakath as he held Ce’Nedra’s chair for her. “This affair’s a trifle formal for talking about the weather and asking after each other’s health, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s baffling the nobility,” ’Zakath replied with aplomb. “Never do the expected, Garion. The hint that we’re old, old friends will set them afire with curiosity and make people who thought that they knew everything just a little less sure of themselves.” He smiled at Ce’Nedra. “You’re positively ravishing tonight, my dear,” he told her.

Ce’Nedra glowed then looked archly at Garion. “Why don’t you take a few notes, dear?” she suggested. “You could learn a great deal from his Majesty here.” She turned back to ’Zakath. “You’re so very kind to say it,” she told him, “but my hair is an absolute disaster.” Her expression was faintly tragic as she lightly touched her curls with her fingertips. Actually, her hair was stupendous, with a coronet of braids interwoven with strings of pearls and with a cascade of coppery ringlets spilling down across the front of her left shoulder.

During this polite exchange, the others in their party were being introduced. Silk and Velvet caused quite a stir, he in his jewel-encrusted doublet and she in a gown of lavender brocade.

Ce’Nedra sighed enviously. “I wish I could wear that color,” she murmured.

“You can wear any color you want to, Ce’Nedra,” Garion told her.

“Are you color-blind, Garion?” she retorted. “A girl with red hair can not wear lavender.”

“If that’s all that’s bothering you, I can change the color of your hair anytime you want.”

“Don’t you dare!” she gasped, her hands going protectively to the cascade of auburn curls at her shoulder.

“Just a suggestion, dear.”

The herald at the top of the stairs announced Sadi, Eriond, and Toth as a group, obviously having some difficulty with the fact that the boy and the giant had no rank that he could discern. The next presentation, however, filled his voice with awe and his bony limbs with trembling. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Erat,” he declaimed, “Lady Polgara the Sorceress.” The silence following that announcement was stunned. “And Goodman Durnik of Sendaria,” the herald added, ‘the man with two lives.’”

Polgara and the smith descended the stairs to the accompaniment of a profound silence.

The bows and curtsies which acknowledged the legendary couple were so deep as to resemble genuflections before an altar. Polgara, dressed in her customary silver-trimmed blue, swept through the hall with all the regal bearing of an Empress. She wore a mysterious smile, and the fabled white lock at her brow glowed in the candlelight as she and Durnik approached the platform.

Meanwhile, at the top of the stairs, the herald had shrunk back from the next guest, his eyes wide and his face gone quite pale.

“Just say it,” Garion heard his grandfather tell the frightened man. “I’m fairly sure that they’ll all recognize the name.”

The herald stepped to the marble railing at the front of the landing. “Your Majesty,” he said falteringly, “My lords and ladies, I have the unexpected honor to present Belgarath the Sorcerer.”

A gasp ran through the hall as the old man, dressed in a cowled robe of soft gray wool, stumped down the stairs with no attempt at grace or dignity. The assembled Mallorean notables pulled back from him as he walked toward the table where the others had already joined ’Zakath.

About halfway to the imperial platform, however, a blond Melcene girl in a low-cut gown caught his eye. She stood stricken with awe, unable to curtsy or even to move as the most famous man in all the world approached her.

Belgarath stopped and looked her up and down quite slowly and deliberately, noting with appreciation just how revealing her gown was. A slow, insinuating smile crept across his face, and his blue eyes twinkled outrageously.

“Nice dress,” he told her.

She blushed furiously.

He laughed, reached out, and patted her cheek.

“There’s a good girl,” he said.

“Father,” Polgara said firmly.

“Coming, Pol.” He chuckled and moved along the carpet toward the table. The pretty Melcene girl looked after him, her eyes wide and her hand pressed to the cheek he had touched.

“Isn’t he disgusting?” Ce’Nedra muttered.

“It’s just the way he is, dear,” Garion disagreed. “He doesn’t pretend to be anything else. He doesn’t have to.”

The banquet featured a number of exotic dishes that Garion could not put a name to and several which he did not even know how to eat. A deceptively innocent-looking rice dish was laced with such fiery seasonings it brought tears to his eyes and sent his hand clutching for his water goblet.

“Belar, Mara, and Nedra!” Durnik choked as he also groped about in search of water. So far as he could remember, it was the first time Garion had ever heard Durnik swear. He did it surprisingly well.

“Piquant,” Sadi commented as he calmly continued to eat the dreadful concoction.

“How can you eat that?” Garion demanded in amazement.

Sadi smiled. “You forget that I’m used to being poisoned, Belgarion. Poison tends to toughen the tongue and fireproof the throat.”

’Zakath had watched their reactions with some amusement. “I should have warned you,” he apologized. “The dish comes from Gandahar, and the natives of that region entertain themselves during the rainy season by trying to build bonfires in each other’s stomachs. They’re elephant trappers, for the most part, and they pride themselves on their courage."

After the extended banquet, the brown-robed Brador approached Garion. “If your Majesty wouldn’t mind,” he said, leaning forward so that Garion could hear him over the sounds of laughter and sprightly conversation from nearby tables, “there are a number of people who are most eager to meet you.”

Garion nodded politely even though he inwardly winced. He had been through this sort of thing before and knew how tedious it usually became. The Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs led him down from the platform into the swirl of brightly clad celebrants, pausing occasionally to exchange greetings with various fellow officials and to introduce Garion. Garion braced himself for an hour or two of total boredom. The plump, bald-headed Brador, however, proved to be an entertaining escort. Though he seemed to be engaging Garion in light conversation, he was in fact providing a succinct and often pointed briefing even as they went.

“We’ll be talking with the kinglet of Pallia,” he murmured as they approached a group of men in tall, conical felt caps who wore leather which had been dyed an unhealthy-looking green color. “He’s a fawning bootlicker, a liar, a coward, and absolutely not to be trusted.”

“Ah, there you are, Brador,” one of the felt-capped men greeted the Melcene with a forced heartiness.

“Your Highness,” Brador replied with a florid bow. “I have the honor to present his Royal Majesty, Belgarion of Riva.” He turned to Garion. “Your Majesty, this is his Highness, King Warasin of Pallia.”

“Your Majesty,” Warasin gushed, bowing awkwardly. He was a man with a narrow, pockmarked face, close-set eyes, and a slack-lipped mouth. His hands, Garion noticed, were not particularly clean.

“Your Highness,” Garion replied with a slightly distant note.

“I was just telling the members of my court here that I’d have sooner believed that the sun would rise in the north tomorrow than that the Overlord of the West would appear at Mal Zeth.”

“The world is full of surprises.”

“By the beard of Torak, you’re right, Belgarion—you don’t mind if I call you Belgarion, do you, your Majesty?”

“Torak didn’t have a beard,” Garion corrected shortly.

“What?”

“Torak—he didn’t have a beard. At least he didn’t when I met him.”

“When you—” Warasin’s eyes suddenly widened.

“Are you telling me that all those stories about what happened at Cthol Mishrak are actually true?” he gasped,

“I’m not sure, your Highness,” Garion told him. “I haven’t heard all the stories yet. It’s been an absolute delight meeting you, old boy,” he said, clapping the stunned-looking kinglet on the shoulder with exaggerated camaraderie. “It’s a shame that we don’t have more time to talk. Coming, Brador?” He nodded to the petty king of Pallia, turned, and led the Melcene away.

“You’re very skilled, Belgarion,” Brador murmured.

“Much more so than I would have imagined, considering—” He hesitated.

“Considering the fact that I look like an unlettered country oaf?” Garion supplied.

“I don’t know that I’d put it exactly that way.”

“Why not?” Garion shrugged. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?

What was pig-eyes back there trying to maneuver the conversation around to? It was pretty obvious that he was leading up to something.”

“It’s fairly simple,” Brador replied. “He recognizes current proximity to Kal Zakath. All power in Mallorea derives from the throne, and the man who has the Emperor’s ear is in a unique position. Warasin is currently having a border dispute with the Prince Regent of Delchin and he probably wants you to put in a good word for him.” Brador gave him an amused look. “You’re in a position right now to make millions, you know.”

Garion laughed. “I couldn’t carry it, Brador,” he said.

“I visited the royal treasury at Riva once, and I know how much a million weighs. Who’s next?”

“The Chief of the Bureau of Commerce—an unmitigated, unprincipled ass. Like most Bureau Chiefs.”

Garion smiled. “And what does he want?”

Brador tugged thoughtfully at one earlobe. “I’m not entirely certain. I’ve been out of the country. Vasca’s a devious one, though, so I’d be careful of him.”

“I’m always careful, Brador.”

The Baron Vasca, Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, was wrinkled and bald. He wore the brown robe that seemed to be almost the uniform of the bureaucracy, and the gold chain of his office seemed almost too heavy for his thin neck. Though at first glance he appeared to be old and frail, his eyes were as alert and shrewd as those of a vulture. “Ah, your Majesty,” he said after they had been introduced, “I’m so pleased to meet you at last.”

“My pleasure, Baron Vasca,” Garion said politely.

They chatted together for some time, and Garion could not detect anything in the baron’s conversation that seemed in the least bit out of the ordinary.

“I note that Prince Kheldar of Drasnia is a member of your party,” the baron said finally.

“We’re old friends. You’re acquainted with Kheldar then, Baron?”

“We’ve had a few dealings together—the customary permits and gratuities, you understand. For the most part, though, he tends to avoid contact with the authorities.”

“I’ve noticed that from time to time,” Garion said.

“I was certain that you would have. I won’t keep your Majesty. Many others here are eager to meet you, and I wouldn’t want to be accused of monopolizing your time. We must talk again soon.”

The baron turned to the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs. “So good of you to introduce us, my dear Brador,” he said.

“It’s nothing, my dear Baron,” Brador replied. He took Garion by the arm, and they moved away from Vasca.

“What was that all about?” Garion asked.

“I’m not altogether sure,” Brador replied, “but whatever he wanted, he seems to have gotten.”

“We didn’t really say anything.”

“I know. That’s what worries me. I think I’ll have my old friend Vasca watched. He’s managed to arouse my curiosity.”

During the next couple of hours Garion met two more gaudily dressed petty kings, a fair number of more soberly garbed bureaucrats, and a sprinkling of semi-important nobles and their ladies. Many of them, of course, wanted nothing more than to be seen talking to him so that later they could say in a casual, offhand fashion, “I was talking with Belgarion the other day, and he said—” Others made some point of suggesting that a private conversation might be desirable at some later date, A few even tried to set up specific appointments.

It was rather late when Velvet finally came to his rescue. She approached the place where Garion was trapped by the royal family of Peldane, a stodgy little kinglet in a mustard yellow turban, his simpering, scrawny wife in a pink gown that clashed horribly with her orange hair, and three spoiled royal brats who spent their time whining and hitting each other. “Your Majesty,” the blond girl said with a curtsy, “Your wife asks your permission to retire.”

“Asks?”

“She’s feeling slightly unwell.”

Garion gave her a grateful look. “I must go to her at once, then,” he said quickly. He turned to the Peldane royalty. “I hope you’ll all excuse me,” he said to them.

“Of course, Belgarion,” the kinglet replied graciously.

“And please convey our regards to your lovely wife,” the queenlet added.

The royal brood continued to howl and kick each other.

“You looked a bit harried,” Velvet murmured as she led Garion away.

“I could kiss you.”

“Now that’s an interesting suggestion.”

Garion glanced sourly back over his shoulder. “They should drown those three little monsters and raise a litter of puppies instead,” he muttered.

“Piglets,” she corrected.

He looked at her.

“At least they could sell the bacon,” she explained. “That way the effort wouldn’t be a total loss.”

“Is Ce’Nedra really ill?”

“Of course not. She’s made as many conquests as she wants to this evening, that’s all. She wants to save a few for future occasions. Now it’s time for the grand withdrawal, leaving a horde of disappointed admirers, who were all panting to meet her, crushed with despair.”

“That’s a peculiar way to look at it.”

She laughed affectionately, linking her arm in his. “Not if you’re a woman, it’s not.”

The following morning shortly after breakfast, Garion and Belgarath were summoned to meet with ’Zakath and Brador in the Emperor’s private study. The room was large and comfortable, lined with books and maps and with deeply upholstered chairs clustered about low tables. It was a warm day outside, and the windows stood open, allowing a blossom-scented spring breeze to ruffle the curtains.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” ’Zakath greeted them as they were escorted into the room. “I hope you slept well.”

“Once I managed to get Ce’Nedra out of the tub.” Garion laughed. “It’s just a bit too convenient, I think.Would you believe that she bathed three times yesterday?”

“Mal Zeth is very hot and dusty in the summertime,” ’Zakath said. “The baths make it bearable.”

“How does the hot water get to them?” Garion asked curiously. “I haven’t seen anyone carrying pails up and down the halls.”

“It’s piped in under the floors,” the Emperor replied. “The artisan who devised the system was rewarded with a baronetcy.”

“I hope you don’t mind if we steal the idea. Durnik’s already making sketches.”

“I think it’s unhealthy myself,” Belgarath said, “Bathing should be done out of doors—in cold water. All this pampering softens people.” He looked at ’Zakath. “I’m sure you didn’t ask us here to discuss the philosophical ramifications of bathing, though.”

“Not unless you really want to, Belgarath,” ’Zakath replied. He straightened in his chair. “Now that we’ve all had a chance to rest from our journey, I thought that maybe it was time for us to get to work. Brador’s people have made their reports to him, and he’s ready to give us his assessment of the current situation in Karanda. Go ahead, Brador.”

“Yes, your Majesty.” The plump, bald Melcene rose from his chair and crossed to a very large map of the Mallorean continent hanging on the wall. The map was exquisitely colored with blue lakes and rivers, green prairies, darker green forests and brown, white-topped mountains. Instead of simply being dots on the map, the cities were represented by pictures of buildings and fortifications. The Mallorean highway system, Garion noted, was very nearly as extensive as the Tolnedran network in the west.

Brador cleared his throat, fought for a moment with one of ’Zakath’s ferocious kittens for the long pointer he wanted to use, and began. “As I reported to you in Rak Hagga,” he said, “a man named Mengha came out of this immense forest to the north of Lake Karanda some six months ago.” He tapped the representation of a large belt of trees stretching from the Karandese Range to the Mountains of Zamad. “We know very, very little about his background.”

“That’s not entirely true, Brador,” Belgarath disagreed. “Cyradis told us that he’s a Grolim priest—or he used to be. That puts us in a position to deduce quite a bit.”

“I’d be interested to hear whatever you can come up with,” ’Zakath said.

Belgarath squinted around the room, and his eyes fixed on several full crystal decanters and some polished glasses sitting on a sideboard across the room. “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing at the decanters. “I think better with a glass in my hand.”

“Help yourself,” ’Zakath replied.

The old man rose, crossed to the sideboard, and poured himself a glass of ruby-red wine. “Garion?” he asked, holding out the decanter.

“No, thanks all the same, Grandfather.”

Belgarath replaced the crystal stopper with a clink and began to pace up and down on the blue carpet. “All right,” he said. “We know that demon worship persists in the back country of Karanda, even though the Grolim priests tried to stamp out the practice when the Karands were converted to the worship of Torak in the second millennium. We also know that Mengha was a priest himself. Now, if the Grolims here in Mallorea reacted in the same way that the ones in Cthol Murgos did when they heard about the death of Torak, then we know that they were thoroughly demoralized. The fact that Urvon spent several years scrambling around trying to find prophecies that would hint at the possibility of a justification for keeping the Church intact is fairly good evidence that he was faced with almost universal despair in the ranks of the Grolims.” He paused to sip at his wine.

“Not bad,” he said to ’Zakath approvingly. “Not bad at all.”

“Thank you.”

“Now,” the old man continued, “there are many possible reactions to religious despair. Some men go mad, some men try to lose themselves in various forms of dissipation, some men refuse to admit the truth and try to keep the old forms alive. A few men, however, go in search of some new kind of religion—usually something the exact opposite of what they believed before. Since the Grolim Church in Karanda had concentrated for eons on eradicating demon worship, it’s only logical that a few of the despairing priests would seek out demon-masters in the hope of learning their secrets. Remember, if you can actually control a demon, it gives you a great deal of power, and the hunger for power has always been at the core of the Grolim mentality.”

“It does fit together, Ancient One,” Brador admitted.

“I thought so myself. All right, Torak is dead, and Mengha suddenly finds that his theological ground has been cut out from under him. He probably goes through a period of doing all the things that he wasn’t allowed to do as a priest—drinking, wenching, that sort of thing. But if you do things to excess, eventually they become empty and unsatisfying. Even debauchery can get boring after a while.”

“Aunt Pol will be amazed to hear that you said that,” Garion said.

“You just keep it to yourself,” Belgarath told him. “Our arguments about my bad habits are the cornerstone of our relationship.” He took another sip of his wine. “This is really excellent,” he said, holding up the glass to admire the color of the wine in the sunlight. “Now then, here we have Mengha waking up some morning with a screaming headache, a mouth that tastes like a chicken coop, and a fire in his stomach that no amount of water will put out. He has no real reason to go on living. He might even take out his sacrificial gutting knife and set the point against his chest.”

“Isn’t your speculation going a bit far afield?” ’Zakath asked.

Belgarath laughed. “I used to be a professional storyteller,” he apologized. “I can’t stand to let a good story slip by without a few artistic touches. All right, maybe he did or maybe he didn’t think about killing himself. The point is that he had reached the absolute rock bottom. That’s when the idea of demons came to him. Raising demons is almost as dangerous as being the first up the scaling ladder during an assault on a fortified city, but Mengha has nothing to lose. So, he journeys into the forest up there, finds a Karandese magician, and somehow persuades him to teach him the art—if that’s what you want to call it. It takes him about a dozen years to learn all the secrets.”

“How did you arrive at that number?” Brador asked.

Belgarath shrugged. “It’s been fourteen years since the death of Torak—or thereabouts. No normal man can seriously mistreat himself for more than a couple of years before he starts to fall apart, so it was probably about twelve years ago that Mengha went in search of a magician to give him instruction. Then, once he’s learned all the secrets, he kills his teacher, and—”

“Wait a minute,” ’Zakath objected. “Why would he do that?”

“His teacher knew too much about him, and he could also raise demons to send after our defrocked Grolim.

Then there’s the fact that the arrangement between teacher and pupil in these affairs involves lifetime servitude enforced with a curse. Mengha could not leave his master until the old man was dead.”

“How do you know so much about this, Belgarath?” ’Zakath asked.

“I went through it all among the Morindim a few thousand years ago. I wasn’t doing anything very important and I was curious about magic.”

“Did you kill your master?”

“No—well, not exactly. When I left him, he sent his familiar demon after me. I took control of it and sent it back to him.”

“And it killed him?”

“I assume so. They usually do. Anyway, getting back to Mengha. He arrives at the gates of Calida about six months ago and raises a whole army of demons. Nobody in his right mind raises more than one at a time because they’re too difficult to control.” He frowned, pacing up and down staring at the floor. “The only thing I can think of is that somehow he’s managed to raise a Demon Lord and get it under control.”

“Demon Lord?” Garion asked.

“They have rank, too—just as humans do. If Mengha has a grip on a Demon Lord, then it’s that creature that’s calling up the army of lesser demons.” He refilled his glass, looking faintly satisfied with himself. “That’s probably fairly close to Mengha’s life story,” he said, sitting down again.

“A virtuoso performance, Belgarath,” ’Zakath congratulated him.

“Thank you,” the old man replied. “I thought so myself.” He looked at Brador. “Now that we know him, why don’t you tell us what he’s been up to?”

Brador once again took his place beside the map, fending off the same kitten with his pointer. “After Mengha took Calida, word of his exploits ran all through Karanda,” he began. “It appears that the worship of Torak was never really very firmly ingrained in the Karands to begin with, and about the only thing that kept them in line was their fear of the sacrificial knives of the Grolims.”

“Like the Thulls?” Garion suggested.

“Very much so, your Majesty. Once Torak was dead, however, and his Church in disarray, the Karands began to revert. The old shrines began to reappear, and the old rituals came back into practice.” Brador shuddered.

“Hideous rites,” he said. “Obscene.”

“Even worse than the Grolim rite of sacrifice?” Garion asked mildly.

“There was some justification for that, Garion,” ’Zakath objected. “It was an honor to be chosen, and the victims went under the knife willingly.”

“Not any of them that I ever saw,” Garion disagreed.

“We can discuss comparative theology some other time,” Belgarath told them, “Go on, Brador.”

“Once the Karands heard about Mengha,” the Melcene official continued, “they began to flock to Calida to support him and to enlist themselves on the side of the demons. There’s always been a subterranean independence movement in the seven kingdoms of Karanda, and many hotheads there believe that the demons offer the best hope of throwing off the yoke of Angarak oppression,” He looked at the Emperor. “No offense intended, your Majesty,” he murmured.

“None taken, Brador,” ’Zakath assured him.

“Naturally, the little kinglets in Karanda tried to keep their people from joining Mengha. The loss of subjects is always painful to a ruler. The army—our army—was also alarmed by the hordes of Karands flocking to Mengha’s banner, and they tried to block off borders and the like. But, since a large portion of the army was in Cthol Murgos with his Majesty here, the troops in Karanda just didn’t have the numbers. The Karands either slipped around them or simply overwhelmed them. Mengha’s army numbers almost a million by now—ill-equipped and poorly trained, perhaps, but a million is a significant number, even if they’re armed with sticks. Not only Jenno but also Ganesia are totally under Mengha’s domination, and he’s on the verge of overwhelming Katakor. Once he succeeds there, he’ll inevitably move on Pallia and Delchin. If he isn’t stopped, he’ll be knocking on the gates of Mal Zeth by Erastide.”

“Is he unleashing his demons in these campaigns?” Belgarath asked intently.

“Not really,” Brador replied. “After what happened at Calida, there’s no real need for that. The sight of them alone is usually enough to spring open the gates of any city he’s taken so far. He’s succeeded with remarkably little actual fighting.”

The old man nodded. “I sort of thought that might have been the case. A demon is very hard to get back under control once it’s tasted blood.”

“It’s not really the demons that are causing the problems,” Brador continued. “Mengha’s flooded all the rest of Karanda with his agents, and the stories that they’re circulating are whipping previously uncommitted people into a frenzy.” He looked at the Emperor. “Would you believe that we actually caught one of his missionaries in the Karandese barracks right here in Mal Zeth?” he said.

’Zakath looked up sharply. “How did he get in?” he demanded,

“He disguised himself as a corporal returning from convalescent leave at home,” Brador replied. “He’d even gone so far as to give himself a wound to make his story look authentic. It was very believable the way he cursed Murgos.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Unfortunately, he didn’t survive the questioning,” Brador said, frowning. He bent to remove the kitten from around his ankle.

“Unfortunately?”

“I had some interesting plans for him. I take it rather personally when someone manages to circumvent my secret police. It’s a matter of professional pride.”

“What do you advise, then?” ’Zakath asked.

Brador began to pace. “I’m afraid that you’re going to have to bring the army back from Cthol Murgos, your Majesty,” he said. “You can’t fight a war on two fronts.”

“Absolutely out of the question.” ’Zakath’s tone was adamant.

“I don’t think we have much choice,” Brador told him.

“Almost half of the forces left here in Mallorea are of Karandese origin, and it’s my considered opinion that to rely upon them in any kind of confrontation with Mengha would be sheer folly.”

’Zakath’s face grew bleak.

“Put it this way, your Majesty,” Brador said smoothly. “If you weaken your forces in Cthol Murgos, it’s quite possible that you’ll lose Rak Cthaka and maybe Rak Gorut, but if you don’t bring the army home, you’re going to lose Mal Zeth.”

’Zakath glared at him.

“There’s still time to consider the matter, Sire,” Brador added in a reasonable tone of voice. “This is only my assessment of the situation. I’m sure you’ll want confirmation of what I’ve said from military intelligence, and you’ll need to consult with the High Command.”

“No,” ’Zakath said bluntly. “The decision is mine.” He scowled at the floor. “All right, Brador, we’ll bring the army home. Go tell the High Command that I want to see them all at once.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

Garion had risen to his feet. “How long will it take to ship your troops back from Cthol Murgos?” he asked with a sinking feeling.

“About three months,” ’Zakath replied.

“I can’t wait that long, ’Zakath.”

“I’m very sorry, Garion, but none of us has any choice. Neither you nor I will leave Mal Zeth until the army gets here.”

8

The following morning, Silk came early to the rooms Garion shared with Ce’Nedra. The little man once again wore his doublet and hose, though he had removed most of his jewelry. Over his arm he carried a pair of Mallorean robes, the lightweight, varicolored garments worn by most of the citizens of Mal Zeth. “Would you like to go into the city?” he asked Garion.

“I don’t think they’ll let us out of the palace.”

“I’ve already taken care of that. Brador gave his permission—provided that we don’t try to get away from the people who are going to be following us.”

“That’s a depressing thought. I hate being followed.”

“You get used to it.”

“Have you got anything specific in mind, or is this just a sight-seeing tour?”

“I want to stop by our offices here and have a talk with our factor.”

Garion gave him a puzzled look.

“The agent who handles things for us here in Mal Zeth.”

“Oh. I hadn’t heard the word before.”

“That’s because you aren’t in business. Our man here is named Dolmar. He’s a Melcene—very efficient, and he doesn’t steal too much.”

“I’m not sure that I’d enjoy listening to you talk business,” Garion said.

Silk looked around furtively. “You might learn all kinds of things, Garion,” he said, but his fingers were already moving rapidly.—Dolmar can give us a report on what’s really happening in Karanda— he gestured.—I think you’d better come along.

“Well,” Garion said with slightly exaggerated acquiescence, “maybe you’re right. Besides, the walls here are beginning to close in on me.”

“Here,” Silk said, holding out one of the robes, “wear this.”

“It’s not really cold, Silk.”

“The robe isn’t to keep you warm. People in western clothing attract a lot of attention on the streets of Mal Zeth, and I don’t like being stared at.” Silk grinned quickly. “It’s very hard to pick pockets when everybody in the street watching you. Shall we go?”

The robe Garion put on was open at the front and hung straight from his shoulders to his heels. It was a serviceable outer garment with deep pockets at the sides. The material of which it was made was quite thin, and it flowed out behind him as he moved around. He went to the door of the adjoining room. Ce’Nedra was combing her hair, still damp from her morning bath.

“I’m going into the city with Silk,” he told her. “Do you need anything?”

She thought about that. “See if you can find me a comb,” she said, holding up the one she had been using. “Mine’s starting to look a little toothless.”

“All right.” He turned to leave.

“As long as you’re going anyway,” she added, “why don’t you pick me up a bolt of silk cloth—teal green, if you can find it. I’m told that there’s a dressmaker here in the palace with a great deal of skill.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He turned again.

“And perhaps a few yards of lace—not too ornate, mind. Tasteful.”

“Anything else?”

She smiled at him. “Buy me a surprise of some kind. I love surprises.”

“A comb, a bolt of teal green silk, a few yards of tasteful lace, and a surprise.” He ticked them off on his fingers.

“Get me one of those robes like you’re wearing, too.” He waited.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That’s all I can think of, Garion, but you and Silk might ask Liselle and Lady Polgara if they need anything.”

He sighed.

“It’s only polite, Garion.”

“Yes, dear. Maybe I’d better make out a list.”

Silk’s face was blandly expressionless as Garion came back out.

“Well?” Garion asked him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Good.”

They started out the door.

“Garion,” Ce’Nedra called after him.

“Yes, dear?”

“See if you can find some sweetmeats, too.”

Garion went out into the hall behind Silk and firmly closed the door behind him.

“You handle that sort of thing very well,” Silk said.

“Practice.”

Velvet added several items to Garion’s growing list, and Polgara several more. Silk looked at the list as they walked down the long, echoing hallway toward the main part of the palace. “I wonder if Brador would lend us a pack mule,” he murmured.”

“Quit trying to be funny.”

“Would I do that?”

“Why were we talking with our fingers back there?”

“Spies.”

“In our private quarters?” Garion was shocked, remembering Ce’Nedra’s sometimes aggressive indifference to the way she was dressed—or not dressed—when they were alone.

“Private places are where the most interesting secrets are to be found. No spy ever passes up the opportunity to peek into a bedroom.”

“That’s disgusting!” Garion exclaimed, his cheeks burning.

“Of course it is. Fairly common practice, though.”

They passed through the vaulted rotunda just inside the gold-plated main door of the palace and walked out into a bright spring morning touched with a fragrant breeze.

“You know,” Silk said, “I like Mal Zeth. It always smells so good. Our office here is upstairs over a bakery, and some mornings the smells from downstairs almost make me swoon.”

There was only the briefest of pauses at the gates of the imperial complex. A curt gesture from one of the pair of unobtrusive men who were following them advised the gate guards that Silk and Garion were to be allowed to pass into the city.

“Policemen do have their uses sometimes,” Silk said as they started down a broad boulevard leading away from the palace.

The streets of Mal Zeth teemed with people from all over the empire and not a few from the West as well.

Garion was a bit surprised to see a sprinkling of Tolnedran mantles among the varicolored robes of the local populace, and here and there were Sendars, Drasnians, and a fair number of Nadraks. There were, however, no Murgos. “Busy place,” he noted to Silk.

“Oh, yes. Mal Zeth makes Tol Honeth look like a country fair and Camaar like a village market.”

“It’s the biggest commercial center in the world, then?

“No. That’s Melcene—of course Melcene concentrates on money instead of goods. You can’t even buy a tin pot in Melcene. All you can buy there is money.”

“Silk, how can you make any kind of profit buying money with money?”

“It’s a little complicated.” Silk’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know something?” he said. “If you could put your hands on the royal treasury of Riva, I could show you how to double it in six months on Basa Street in Melcene—with a nice commission for the both of us thrown in for good measure.”

“You want me to speculate with the royal treasury? I’d have an open insurrection on my hands if anybody ever found out about it.”

“That’s the secret, Garion. You don’t let anybody find out.”

“Have you ever had an honest thought in your entire life?”

The little man thought about it. “Not that I recall, no,” he replied candidly. “But then, I’ve got a well-trained mind.”

The offices of the commercial empire of Silk and Yarblek here in Mal Zeth were, as the little man had indicated, rather modest and were situated above a busy bake-shop. Access to that second floor was by way of an outside stairway rising out of a narrow side street. As Silk started up those stairs, a certain tension that Garion had not even been aware of seemed to flow out of his friend. “I hate not being able to talk freely,” he said. “There are so many spies in Mal Zeth that every word you say here is delivered to Brador in triplicate before you get your mouth shut.”

“There are bound to be spies around your office, too.”

“Of course, but they can’t hear anything. Yarblek and I had a solid foot of cork built into the floors, ceilings, and walls.”

“Cork?”

“It muffles all sounds.”

“Didn’t that cost a great deal?”

Silk nodded. “But we made it all back during the first week we were here by managing to keep certain negotiations secret.” He reached into an inside pocket and took out a large brass key. “Let’s see if I can catch Dolmar with his hands in the cash box,” he half whispered.

“Why? You already know that he’s stealing from you.”

“Certainly I do, but if I can catch him, I can reduce his year-end bonus.”

“Why not just pick his pocket?”

Silk tapped the brass key against his cheek as he thought about it. “No,” he decided finally. “That’s not really good business. A relationship like this is founded on trust—”

Garion began to laugh.

“You have to draw the line somewhere, Garion.” Silk quietly slipped his brass key into the lock and slowly turned it. Then he abruptly shoved the door open and jumped into the room.

“Good morning, Prince Kheldar,” the man seated behind a plain table said quite calmly. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Silk looked a bit crestfallen.

The man sitting at the table was a thin Melcene with crafty, close-set eyes, thin lips, and scraggly, mud-brown hair. He had the kind of face that one instantly distrusts. Silk straightened. “Good morning, Dolmar,” he said. “This is Belgarion of Riva.”

“Your Majesty.” Dolmar rose and bowed.

“Dolmar.”

Silk closed the door and pulled a pair of chairs out from the brown, cork-sheathed wall. Although the floor was of ordinary boards, the way that all sounds of walking or moving pieces of furniture were muted testified to the thickness of the cork lying beneath.

“How’s business?” Silk asked, seating himself and pushing the other chair to Garion with his foot.

“We’re paying the rent,” Dolmar replied cautiously.

“I’m sure that the baker downstairs is overjoyed. Specifics, Dolmar. I’ve been away from Mal Zeth for quite a while. Stun me with how well my investments here are doing.”

“We’re up fifteen percent from last year.”

“That’s all?” Silk sounded disappointed.

“We’ve just made quite a large investment in inventory. If you take the current value of that into account, the number would be much closer to forty percent.”

“That’s more like it. Why are we accumulating inventory?”

“Yarblek’s instructions. He’s at Mal Camat right now arranging for ships to take the goods to the west. I expect that he’ll be here in a week or so—he and that foul-mouthed wench of his.” Dolmar stood up, carefully gathered the documents from the table, and crossed to an iron stove sitting in the corner. He bent, opened the stove door, and calmly laid the parchment sheets on the small fire inside.

To Garion’s amazement, Silk made no objection to his factor’s blatant incendiarism. “We’ve been looking into the wool market,” the Melcene reported as he returned to his now-empty table. “With the growing mobilization, the Bureau of Military Procurement is certain to need wool for uniforms, cloaks, and blankets. If we can buy up options from all the major sheep producers, we’ll control the market and perhaps break the stranglehold that the Melcene consortium has on military purchases. If we can just get our foot in the door of the Bureau, I’m sure that we can get a chance to bid on all sorts of contracts.”

Silk was pulling at his long, pointed nose, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Beans,” he said shortly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look into the possibility of tying up this year’s bean crop. A soldier can live in a worn-out uniform, but he has to eat. If we control the bean crop—and maybe coarse flour as well—the Bureau of Military Procurement won’t have any choice. They’ll have to come to us.”

“Very shrewd, Prince Kheldar.”

“I’ve been around for a while,” Silk replied.

“The consortium is meeting this week in Melcene,” the factor reported. “They’ll be setting the prices of common items. We really want to get our hands on that price list if we can.”

“I’m in the palace,” Silk said. “Maybe I can pry it out of somebody.”

“There’s something else you should know, Prince Kheldar. Word has leaked out that the consortium is also going to propose certain regulations to Baron Vasca of the Bureau of Commerce. They’ll present them under the guise of protecting the economy, but the fact of the matter is that they’re aimed at you and Yarblek. They want to restrict western merchants who gross more than ten million a year to two or three enclaves on the west-coast. That wouldn’t inconvenience smaller merchants, but it would probably put us out of business.”

“Can we bribe someone to put a stop to it?”

“We’re already paying Vasca a fortune to leave us alone, but the consortium is throwing money around like water. It’s possible that the baron won’t stay bribed.”

“Let me nose around inside the palace a bit,” Silk said, “before you double Vasca’s bribe or anything.”

“Bribery’s the standard procedure, Prince Kheldar.”

“I know, but sometimes blackmail works even better.” Silk looked over at Garion, then back at his factor. “What do you know about what’s happening in Karanda?” he asked.

“Enough to know that it’s disastrous for business. All sorts of perfectly respectable and otherwise sensible merchants are closing up their shops and flocking off to Calida to enlist in Mengha’s army. Then they march around in circles singing ‘Death to the Angaraks’ while they wave rusty swords in the air.”

“Any chance of selling them weapons?” Silk asked quickly.

“Probably not. There’s not enough real money in northern Karanda make it worthwhile to try to deal with them, and the political unrest has closed down all the mines. The market in gem stones has just about dried up.”

Silk nodded glumly. “What’s really going on up there, Dolmar?” he asked. “The reports Brador passed on to us were sort of sketchy.”

“Mengha arrived at the gates of Calida with demons.” The factor shrugged. “The Karands went into hysterics and then fell down in the throes of religious ecstasy.”

“Brador told us about certain atrocities,” Garion said.

“I expect that the reports he received were a trifle exaggerated, your Majesty,” Dolmar replied. “Even the most well trained observer is likely to multiply mutilated corpses lying in the streets by ten. In point of fact, the vast majority of the casualties were either Melcene or Angarak. Mengha’s demons rather scrupulously avoided killing Karands—except by accident. The same has held true in every city that he’s taken so far.” He scratched at his head, his close-set eyes narrowing. “It’s really very shrewd, you know. The Karands see Mengha as a liberator and his demons as an invincible spearhead of their army. I can’t swear to his real motives, but those barbarians up there believe that he’s a savior come to sweep Karanda clean of Angaraks and the Melcene bureaucracy. Give him another six months or so, and he’ll accomplish what no one has ever been able to do before.”

“What’s that?” Silk asked.

“Unify all of Karanda.”

“Does he use his demons in the assault on every city he takes?” Garion asked, wanting to confirm what Brador had told them.

Dolmar shook his head. “Not anymore, your Majesty. After what happened at Calida and several other towns he took early in his campaign, he doesn’t really have to. All he’s been doing lately is marching up to the city. The demons are with him, of course, but they don’t have to do anything but stand there looking awful. The Karands butcher all the Angaraks and Melcenes in town, throw open their gates, and welcome him with open arms. Then his demons vanish.” He thought a moment. “He always has one particular one of them with him, though—a shadowy sort of creature that doesn’t seem to be gigantic the way they’re supposed to be. He stands directly behind Mengha’s left shoulder at any public appearance.”

A sudden thought occurred to Garion. “Are they desecrating Grolim temples?” he asked.

Dolmar blinked. “No,” he replied with some surprise, “as a matter of fact, they’re not—and there don’t seem to be any Grolims among the dead, either. Of course it’s possible that Urvon pulled all his Grolims out of Karanda when the trouble started.”

“That’s unlikely,” Garion disagreed. “Mengha’s arrival at Calida came without any kind of warning. The Grolims wouldn’t have had time to escape. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking hard.

“What is it, Garion?” Silk asked.

“I just had a chilling sort of notion. We know that Mengha’s a Grolim, right?”

“I didn’t know that,” Dolmar said with some surprise.

“We got a bit of inside information,” Silk told him. “Go ahead, Garion.”

“Urvon spends all of his time in Mal Yaska, doesn’t he?”

Silk nodded. “So I’ve heard. He doesn’t want Beldin to catch him out in the open.”

“Wouldn’t that make him a fairly ineffective leader? All right, then. Let’s suppose that Mengha went through his period of despair after the death of Torak and then found a magician to teach him how to raise demons.When he comes back, he offers his former Grolim brethren an alternative to Urvon—along with access to a kind of power they’d never experienced before. A demon in the hands of an illiterate and fairly stupid Karandese magician is one thing, but a demon controlled by a Grolim sorcerer would be much worse, I think. If Mengha is gathering disaffected Grolims around him and training them in the use of magic, we have a big problem. I don’t think I’d care to face a legion of Chabats, would you?”

Silk shuddered. “Not hardly,” he replied fervently.

“He has to be uprooted then,” Dolmar said, “and soon.”

Garion made a sour face. “’Zakath won’t move until he gets his army back from Cthol Murgos—about three months from now.”

“In three months, Mengha’s going to be invincible,” the actor told him.

“Then we’ll have to move now,” Garion said, “with ’Zakath or without him.”

“How do you plan to get out of the city?” Silk asked.

“We’ll let Belgarath work that out.” Garion looked at Silk’s agent. “Can you tell us anything else?” he asked.

Dolmar tugged at his nose in a curious imitation of Silk’s habitual gesture. “It’s only a rumor,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

” I’ve been getting some hints out of Karanda that Mengha’s familiar demon is named Nahaz.”

“Is that significant?”

“I can’t be altogether sure, your Majesty. When the Grolims went into Karanda in the second millennium, they destroyed all traces of Karandese mythology, and no one has ever tried to record what few bits and pieces remained. All that’s left is a hazy oral tradition, but the rumors I’ve heard say that Nahaz was the tribal demon of the original Karands who migrated into the region before the Angaraks came to Mallorea. The Karands follow Mengha not only because he’s a political leader, but also because he’s resurrected the closest thing they’ve ever had to a God of their own.”

“A Demon Lord?” Garion asked him.

“That’s a very good way to describe him, your Majesty. If the rumors are true, the demon Nahaz has almost unlimited power.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Later, when they were back out in the street, Garion looked curiously at Silk. “Why didn’t you object when he burned those documents?” he asked.

“It’s standard practice.” the rat-faced man shrugged. “We never keep anything in writing. Dolmar has everything committed to memory.”

“Doesn’t that make it fairly easy for him to steal from you?”

“Of course, but he keeps his thievery within reasonable limits. If the Bureau of Taxation got its hands on written records, though, it could be a disaster. Do you want to go back to the palace now?”

Garion took out his list. “No,” he said. “We’ve got to take care of this first.” He looked glumly at the sheet.

“I wonder how we’re going to carry it all.”

Silk glanced back over his shoulder at the two unobtrusive spies trailing along behind them.

“Help is only a few paces away.” He laughed. “As I said before, there are many uses for policemen.”

During the next several days, Garion discovered that the imperial palace of Mal Zeth was unlike any court in the West. Since all power rested in ’Zakath’s hands, the bureaucrats and palace functionaries contested with each other for the Emperor’s favor and strove with oftentimes wildly complicated plots to discredit their enemies. The introduction of Silk, Velvet, and Sadi into this murky environment added whole new dimensions to palace intrigue. The trio rather casually pointed out the friendship between Garion and ’Zakath and let it be generally known that they had the Rivan King’s complete trust. Then they sat back to await developments.

The officials and courtiers in the imperial palace were quick to grasp the significance and the opportunities implicit in this new route to the Emperor’s ear. Perhaps even without formally discussing it, the trio of westerners neatly divided up the possible spheres of activity. Silk concentrated his attention on commercial matters, Velvet dabbled in politics, and Sadi delicately dipped his long-fingered hands into the world of high-level crime. Though all of them subtly let it be known that they were susceptible to bribery, they also expressed a willingness to pass along various requests in exchange for information. Thus, almost by accident, Garion found that he had a very efficient espionage apparatus at his disposal. Silk and Velvet manipulated the fears, ambitions, and open greed of those who contacted them with a musician-like skill, delicately playing the increasingly nervous officials like well-tuned instruments. Sadi’s methods, derived from his extensive experience in Salmissra’s court, were in some instances even more subtle, but in others, painfully direct. The contents of his red leather case brought premium prices, and several high-ranking criminals, men who literally owned whole platoons of bureaucrats and even generals, quite suddenly died under suspicious circumstances—one of them even toppling over with a blackened face and bulging eyes in the presence of the Emperor himself.

’Zakath, who had watched the activities of the three with a certain veiled amusement, drew the line at that point. He spoke quite firmly with Garion about the matter during their customary evening meeting on the following day.

“I don’t really mind what they’re doing, Garion,” he said, idly stroking the head of an orange kitten who lay purring in his lap. “They’re confusing all the insects who scurry around in the dark corners of the palace, and a confused bug can’t consolidate his position. I like to keep all these petty bootlickers frightened and off balance, since it makes it easier to control them. I really must object to poison, however. It’s far too easy for an unskilled poisoner to make mistakes.”

“Sadi could poison one specific person at a banquet with a hundred guests,” Garion assured him.

“I have every confidence in his ability,” ’Zakath agreed, “but the trouble is that he’s not doing the actual poisoning himself. He’s selling his concoctions to rank amateurs. There are some people here in the palace that I need. Their identities are general knowledge, and that keeps the daggers out of their entrails. A mistake with some poison, however, could wipe out whole branches of my government. Could you ask him not to sell any more of it here in the palace? I’d speak to him personally, but I don’t want it to seem like an official reprimand.”

“I’ll have a talk with him,” Garion promised.

“I’d appreciate it, Garion.” The Emperor’s eyes grew sly. “Just the poisons, though. I find the effects of some of his other compounds rather amusing. Just yesterday, I saw an eighty-five-year-old general in hot pursuit of a young chambermaid. The old fool hasn’t had that kind of thought for a quarter of a century. And the day before that, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Works—a pompous ass who makes me sick just to look at him—tried for a solid half hour in front of dozens of witnesses to walk up the side of a building. I haven’t laughed so hard in years.”

“Nyissan elixirs do strange things to people.” Garion smiled. “I’ll ask Sadi to confine his dealings to recreational drugs.”

“Recreational drugs,” ’Zakath laughed. “I like that description.”

“I’ve always had a way with words,” Garion replied modestly.

The orange kitten rose, yawned, and jumped down from the Emperor’s lap. The mackerel-tabby mother cat caught a black and white kitten by the scruff of the neck and deposited it exactly where the orange one had been lying. Then she looked at ’Zakath’s face and meowed questioningly.

“Thank you,” ’Zakath murmured to her.

Satisfied, the cat jumped down, caught the orange kitten, and began to bathe it, holding it down with one paw.

“Does she do that all the time?” Garion asked.

’Zakath nodded. “She’s busy being a mother, but she doesn’t want me to get lonely.”

“That’s considerate of her.”

’Zakath looked at the black and white kitten in his lap, who had all four paws wrapped around his hand and was gnawing on one of his knuckles in mock ferocity. “I think I could learn to survive without it,” he said, wincing.

9

The simplest way to avoid the omnipresent spies infesting the imperial palace was to conduct any significant conversations out in the open, and so Garion frequently found himself strolling around the palace grounds with one or more of his companions. On a beautiful spring morning a few days later he walked with Belgarath and Polgara through the dappled shade of a cherry orchard, listening to Velvet’s latest report on the political intrigues which seethed through the corridors of ’Zakath’s palace.

“The surprising thing is that Brador is probably aware of most of what’s going on,” the blond girl told them. “He doesn’t look all that efficient, but his secret police are everywhere.” Velvet was holding a spray of cherry blossoms in front of her face, rather ostentatiously inhaling their fragrance.

“At least they can’t hear us out here,” Garion said.

“No, but they can see us. If I were you, Belgarion, I still wouldn’t talk too openly—even out of doors. I happened to come across one industrious fellow yesterday who was busily writing down every word of a conversation being conducted in whispers some fifty yards away.”

“That’s a neat trick,” Belgarath said. “How did he manage it?”

“He’s stone-deaf,” she replied. “Over the years, he’s learned to understand what people are saying by reading the shape of the words from their lips.”

“Clever,” the old man murmured. “Is that why you’re so busily sniffing cherry blossoms?”

She nodded with a dimpled smile. “That and the fact that they have such a lovely fragrance.”

He scratched at his beard, his hand covering his mouth. “All right,” he said. “What I need is some sort of disruption—to draw Brador’s police off so that we can slip out of Mal Zeth without being followed. ’Zakath is rock hard on the point of not doing anything until his army gets back from Cthol Murgos, so it’s obvious that we’re going to have to move without him. Is there anything afoot that might distract all the spies around here?”

“Not really, Ancient One. The petty kinglet of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin are scheming against each other, but that’s been going on for years. The old King of Voresebo is trying to get imperial aid in wresting his throne back from his son, who deposed him a year or so ago. Baron Vasca, the Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, is trying to assimilate the Bureau of Military Procurement, but the generals have him stalemated. Those are the major things in the air right now. There are a number of minor plots going on as well, but nothing earthshaking enough to divert the spies who are watching us.”

“Can you stir anything up?” Polgara asked, her lips scarcely moving.

“I can try, Lady Polgara,” Velvet replied, “but Brador is right on top of everything that’s happening here in the palace. I’ll talk with Kheldar and Sadi. It’s remotely possible that the three of us can engineer something unexpected enough to give us a chance to slip out of the city.”

“It’s getting fairly urgent, Liselle,” Polgara said. “If Zandramas finds what she’s looking for at Ashaba, she’ll be off again, and we’ll wind up trailing along behind her in the same way that we were back in Cthol Murgos.”

“I’ll see what we can come up with, my lady,” Velvet promised.

“Are you going back inside?” Belgarath asked her.

She nodded.

“I’ll go with you.” He looked around distastefully, “All this fresh air and exercise is a little too wholesome for my taste.

“Walk a bit farther with me, Garion,” Polgara said.

“All right.”

As Velvet and Belgarath turned back toward the east wing of the palace, Garion and his aunt strolled on along the neatly trimmed green lawn lying beneath the blossom-covered trees. A wren, standing on the topmost twig of a gnarled, ancient tree, sang as if his heart would burst,

“What’s he singing about?” Garion asked, suddenly remembering his aunt’s unusual affinity for birds.

“He’s trying to attract the attention of a female,” she replied, smiling gently. “It’s that time of year again. He’s being very eloquent and making all sorts of promises—most of which he’ll break before the summer’s over.”

He smiled and affectionately put his arm about her shoulders.

She sighed happily. “This is pleasant,” she said. “For some reason when we’re apart, I still think of you as a little boy. It always sort of surprises me to find that you’ve grown so tall.”

There wasn’t too much that he could say to that.

“How’s Durnik?” he asked. “I almost never see him these days.”

“He and Toth and Eriond managed to find a well-stocked trout pond on the southern end of the imperial grounds,” she replied with a slightly comical upward roll of her eyes. “They’re catching large numbers of fish, but the kitchen staff is beginning to get a bit surly about the whole thing.”

“Trust Durnik to find water.” Garion laughed. “Is Eriond actually fishing too? That seems a little out of character for him.”

“I don’t think he’s very serious about it. He goes along mostly for Durnik’s company, I think—and because he likes to be outside.” She paused and then looked directly at him. As so many times in the past, he was suddenly struck to the heart by her luminous beauty. “How has Ce’Nedra been lately?” she asked him.

” She’s managed to locate a number of young ladies to keep her company,” he replied. “No matter where we go, she’s always able to surround herself with companions.”

“Ladies like to have other ladies about them, dear,” she said. “Men are nice enough, I suppose, but a woman needs other women to talk to. There are so many important things that men just don’t understand.” Her face grew serious. “There hasn’t been any recurrence of what happened in Cthol Murgos, then?” she asked.

“Not so far as I can tell. She seems fairly normal to me. About the only unusual thing I’ve noticed is that she never talks about Geran anymore.”

“That could just be her way of protecting herself, Garion. She might not be able to put it into words exactly, but she’s aware of the melancholia that came over her at Prolgu, and I’m sure that she realizes that if she gives in to it, she’ll be incapacitated. She still thinks about Geran, I’m sure—probably most of the time—but she just won’t talk about him.” She paused again. “What about the physical side of your marriage?” she asked him directly.

Garion blushed furiously and coughed. “Uh—there really hasn’t been much opportunity for that sort of thing, Aunt Pol—and I think she has too many other things on her mind.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It’s not a good idea just to ignore that, Garion,” she told him. “After a while, people grow apart if they don’t periodically renew their intimacy.”

He coughed again, still blushing. “She doesn’t really seem very interested, Aunt Pol.”

“That’s your fault, dear. All it takes is a little bit of planning and attention to detail.”

“You make it sound awfully calculated and cold-blooded.”

“Spontaneity is very nice, dear, but there’s a great deal of charm to a well-planned seduction, too.”

“Aunt Pol!” he gasped, shocked to the core.

“You’re an adult, Garion dear,” she reminded him, “and that’s one of an adult man’s responsibilities. Think about it. You can be quite resourceful at times. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” She looked out over the sun-washed lawns. “Shall we go back inside now?” she suggested. “I think it’s almost lunch time.”

That afternoon, Garion once again found himself strolling about the palace grounds, this time accompanied by Silk and Sadi the eunuch. “Belgarath needs a diversion,” he told them seriously. “I think he has a plan to get us out of the city, but we’ve got to shake off all the spies who are watching us long enough for him to put it into motion.” He was busily scratching at his nose as he spoke, his hand covering his mouth.

“Hay fever?” Silk asked him.

“No. Velvet told us that some of Brador’s spies are deaf, but that they can tell what you’re saying by watching your lips.”

“What an extraordinary gift,” Sadi murmured. “I wonder if an undeaf man could learn it.”

“I can think of some times myself when it might have been useful,” Silk agreed, covering his mouth as he feigned a cough. He looked at Sadi. “Can I get an honest answer out of you?” he asked.

“That depends on the question, Kheldar.”

“You’re aware of the secret language?”

“Of course.”

“Do you understand it?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve never met a Drasnian who trusted me enough to teach me.”

“I wonder why.” Sadi flashed him a quick grin.

“I think we can manage if we cover our mouths when we speak,” Garion said.

“Won’t that become a little obvious after a while?” Sadi objected.

“What are they going to do? Tell us to stop?”

“Probably not, but we might want to pass on some disinformation sometimes, and if they know that we know about this way of listening, we won’t be able to do that.” The eunuch sighed about the lost opportunity, then shrugged. “Oh, well,” he said.

Garion looked at Silk. “Do you know of anything that’s going on that we could use to pull the police off our trail?”

“No, not really,” the little man replied. “At the moment the Melcene consortium seems to be concentrating on keeping this year’s price list a secret and trying to persuade Vasca that Yarblek and I should be restrained to those enclaves on the west coast. We’ve got Vasca pretty much in our pockets, though—as long as he stays bribed. There’s a great deal of secret maneuvering going on, but I don’t think anything is close to coming to a head right now. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t cause a big enough stink to make the secret police abandon their assignment to watch us.”

“Why not go right to the top?” Sadi suggested. “I could talk to Brador and see if he’s susceptible to bribery.”

“I don’t think so,” Garion said. “He’s having us watched on specific orders from ’Zakath. I doubt that any amount of money would make him consider risking his head.”

“There are other ways to bribe people, Belgarion.” Sadi smiled slyly. “I have some things in my case that make people feel very good. The only trouble with them is that after you’ve used them a few times, you have to keep on using them. The pain of stopping is really quite unbearable. I could own Brador within the space of a week and make him do anything I told him to do.”

Garion felt a sudden surge of profound distaste for the entire notion. “I’d really rather not do that,” he said, “or only as a last resort.”

“You Alorns have a peculiar notion of morality,” the eunuch said, rubbing at his shaved scalp. “You chop people in two without turning a hair, but you get queasy at the idea of poisons or drugs.”

“It’s a cultural thing, Sadi,” Silk told him.

“Have you found anything else that might work to our advantage?” Garion asked.

Sadi considered it. “Not by itself, no,” he replied. “A bureaucracy lends itself to endemic corruption, though. There are a number of people in Mallorea who take advantage of that. Caravans have a habit of getting waylaid in the Dalasian Mountains or on the road from Maga Renn. A caravan needs a permit from the Bureau of Commerce, and Vasca has been known on occasion to sell information about departure times and routes to certain robber chiefs. Or, if the price is right, he sells his silence to the merchant barons in Melcene.” The eunuch chuckled. “Once he sold information about one single caravan to three separate robber bands. There was a pitched battle on the plains of Delchin, or so I’m told.”

Garion’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I’m beginning to get the feeling that we might want to concentrate our attention on this Baron Vasca,” he said. “Velvet told us that he’s also trying to take the Bureau of Military Procurement away from the army.”

“I didn’t know that,” Silk said with some surprise. “Little Liselle is developing quite rapidly, isn’t she?”

“It’s the dimples, Prince Kheldar,” Sadi said. “I’m almost totally immune to any kind of feminine blandishment, but I have to admit that when she smiles at me, my knees turn to butter. She’s absolutely adorable—and totally unscrupulous, of course.”

Silk nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We’re moderately proud of her.”

“Why don’t you two go look her up?” Garion suggested. “Pool your information about this highly corruptible Baron Vasca. Maybe we can stir something up—something noisy. Open fighting in the halls of the palace might just be the sort of thing we need to cover our escape.”

“You have a genuine flair for politics, Belgarion,” Sadi said admiringly.

“I’m a quick learner,” Garion admitted, “and, of course, I keep company with some very disreputable men.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” the eunuch replied with mock appreciation.

Shortly after supper, Garion walked through the halls of the palace for his customary evening conversation with ’Zakath. As always, a soft-footed secret policeman trailed along some distance behind.

’Zakath’s mood that evening was pensive—almost approaching the bleak, icy melancholy that had marked him back in Rak Hagga.

“Bad day?” Garion asked him, removing a sleeping kitten footstool in front of his chair. Then he leaned back and set his feet on the stool.

’Zakath made a sour face. “I’ve been whittling away at all the work that piled up while I was in Cthol Murgos,” he said. “The problem is that now that I’m back, the pile just keeps getting higher.”

“I know the feeling,” Garion agreed. “When I get back to Riva, it’s probably going to take me a year to clear my desk. Are you open to a suggestion?”

“Suggest away, Garion. Right now, I’ll listen to anything.” He looked reprovingly at the black and white kitten who was biting his knuckles again. “Not so hard,” he murmured, tapping the ferocious little beast on the nose with his forefinger. The kitten laid back its ears and growled a squeaky little growl at him.

“I’m not trying to be offensive or anything,” Garion began cautiously, “but I think you’re making the same mistake that Urgit made.”

“That’s an interesting observation. Go on.”

“It seems to me that you need to reorganize your government.”

’Zakath blinked. “Now, that is a major proposal,” he said. “I don’t get the connection, though. Urgit was a hopeless incompetent—at least he was before you came along and taught him the fundamentals of ruling. What is this mistake that he and I have in common?”

“Urgit’s a coward,” Garion said, “and probably always will be. You’re not a coward—sometimes a bit crazy, maybe, but never a coward. The problem is that you’re both making the same mistake. You’re trying to make all the decisions yourselves—even the little ones. Even if you stop sleeping altogether, you won’t find enough hours in the day to do that.”

“So I’ve noticed. What’s the solution?”

“Delegate responsibility. Your Bureau Chiefs and generals are competent—corrupt, I’ll grant you, but they know their jobs. Tell them to take care of things and only bring you the major decisions. And tell them that if anything goes wrong, you’ll replace them.”

“That’s not the Angarak way, Garion. The ruler—or Emperor, in this case—has always made all decisions.It’s been that way since before the cracking of the world.

Torak made every decision in antiquity, and the Emperors of Mallorea have followed that example—no matter what we may have felt about him personally.”

“Urgit made the exact same mistake,” Garion told him. “What you’re both forgetting is that Torak was a God, and his mind and will were unlimited. Human beings can’t possibly hope to imitate that sort of thing.”

“None of my Bureau Chiefs or generals could be trusted with that kind of authority,” ’Zakath said, shaking his head. “They’re almost out of control as it is.”

“They’ll learn the limits,” Garion assured him. “After a few of them have been demoted or dismissed, the rest will get the idea.”

’Zakath smiled bleakly. “That is also not the Angarak way, Garion. When I make an example of someone, it usually involves the headsman’s block.”

“That’s an internal matter, of course,” Garion admitted, “You know your people better than I do, but if a man has talent, you can’t really call on him again if you’ve removed his head, can you? Don’t waste talent, ’Zakath. It’s too hard to come by.”

“You know something?” ’Zakath said with a slightly amused look. “They call me the man of ice, but in spite of your mild-seeming behavior, you’re even more cold-blooded than I am. You’re the most practical man I’ve ever met.”

“I was raised in Sendaria, ’Zakath,” Garion reminded him. “Practicality is a religion there. I learned to run a kingdom from a man named Faldor. A kingdom is very much like a farm, really. Seriously, though, the major goal of any ruler is to keep things from flying apart, and gifted subordinates are too valuable a resource to waste. I’ve had to reprimand a few people, but that’s as far as it ever went. That way they were still around in case I needed them. You might want to think about that a little bit.”

“I’ll consider it.” ’Zakath straightened. “By the way,” he said, “speaking of corruption in government—”

“Oh? Were we speaking about that?”

“We’re about to. My Bureau Chiefs are all more or less dishonest, but your three friends are adding levels of sophistication to the petty scheming and deceit here in the palace that we’re not really prepared to cope with. ”

“Oh?”

“The lovely Margravine Liselle has actually managed to persuade the King of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin that she’s going to intercede with you in their behalf. Each of them is absolutely convinced that their long-term squabble is about to come out into the open. I don’t want them to declare war on each other. I’ve got trouble in Karanda already.”

“I’ll have a word with her,” Garion promised.

“And Prince Kheldar virtually owns whole floors of the Bureau of Commerce. He’s getting more information out of there than I am. The merchants in Melcene gather every year to set prices for just about everything that’s sold in Mallorea. It’s the most closely guarded secret in the empire, and Kheldar just bought it. He’s deliberately undercutting those prices, and he’s disrupting our whole economy.”

Garion frowned. “He didn’t mention that.”

“I don’t mind his making a reasonable profit—as long as he pays his taxes—but I can’t really have him gaining absolute control over all commerce in Mallorea, can I? He is an Alorn, after all, and his political loyalties are a little obscure.”

“I’ll suggest that he moderate his practices a bit. You have to understand Silk, though. I don’t believe he even cares about the money. All he’s interested in is the game.”

“It’s still Sadi who concerns me the most, though.”

“Oh?”

“He’s become rather intensely involved in agriculture.”

“Sadi?”

“There’s a certain plant that grows wild in the marshes of Camat. Sadi’s paying a great deal for it, and one of our prominent bandit chiefs has put all of his men to work harvesting it—and protecting the crop, of course. There have already been some pitched battles up there, I understand.”

“A bandit who’s harvesting crops is too busy to be robbing travelers on the highways, though,” Garion pointed out.

“That’s not exactly the point, Garion. I didn’t mind so much when Sadi was making a few officials feel good and act foolish, but he’s importing this plant into the city by the wagon load and spreading it around through the work force—and the army. I don’t care for the idea at all.”

“I’ll see what I can do to get him to suspend operations,” Garion agreed. Then he looked at the Mallorean Emperor through narrowed eyes. “You do realize, though, that if I rein the three of them in, they’ll just switch over to something new—and probably just as disruptive. Wouldn’t it be better if I just took them out of Mal Zeth entirely?”

’Zakath smiled. “Nice try, Garion,” he said, “but I don’t think so. I think we’ll just wait until my army gets back from Cthol Murgos. Then we can all ride out of Mal Zeth together.”

“You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,” Garion said with some heat. “Can’t you get it through your head that time is slipping away from us? This delay could be disastrous—not only for you and me, but for the whole world.”

“The fabled meeting between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark again? I’m sorry, Garion, but Zandramas is just going to have to wait for you. I don’t want you and Belgarath roaming at will through my empire. I like you, Garion, but I don’t altogether trust you.”

Garion’s temper began to heat up. He thrust his jaw out pugnaciously as he rose to his feet. “My patience is starting to wear a little thin, ’Zakath. I’ve tried to keep things between us more or less civil, but there is a limit, and we’re getting rather close to it. I am not going to lie around your palace for three months.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” ’Zakath snapped, also rising to his feet and unceremoniously dumping the surprised kitten to the floor.

Garion ground his teeth together, trying to get his temper under control. “Up to now, I’ve been polite, but I’d like to remind you about what happened back at Rak Hagga. We can leave here any time we want to, you know,”

“And the minute you do, you’re going to have three of my regiments right on your heels.” ’Zakath was shouting now.

“Not for very long,” Garion replied ominously.

“What are you going to do?” ’Zakath demanded scornfully. “Turn all my troops into toads or something? No, Garion, I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t do that.”

Garion straightened. “You’re right,” he said, “I wouldn’t, but I was thinking of something a bit more elemental. Torak used the Orb to crack the world, remember? I know how it was done and I could do it myself if I had to. Your troops are going to have a great deal of trouble following us if they suddenly run into a trench—ten miles deep and fifty miles wide—stretching all the way across the middle of Mallorea.”

“You wouldn’t!” ’Zakath gasped.

“Try me,” With a tremendous effort, Garion brought his anger under control. “I think perhaps it’s time for us to break this off,” he said. “We’re starting to shout threats at each other like a pair of schoolboys. Why don’t we continue this conversation some other time, after we’ve both had a chance to cool off a bit?” He could see a hot retort hovering on ’Zakath’s lips, but then the Emperor also drew himself up and regained his composure, though his face was still pale with anger.

“I think perhaps you’re right,” he said.

Garion nodded curtly and started toward the door.

“Garion,” ’Zakath said then.

“Yes?”

“Sleep well.”

“You too.” Garion left the room.

Her Imperial Highness, the Princess Ce’Nedra, Queen of Riva and beloved of Belgarion, Overlord of the West, was feeling pecky. “Pecky” was not a word that her Imperial Highness would normally have used to describe her mood. “Disconsolate” or “out of sorts” might have had a more aristocratic ring, but Ce’Nedra was honest enough with herself privately to admit that “pecky” probably came closer to the mark. She moved irritably from room to room in the luxurious apartment ’Zakath had provided for her and Garion with the hem of her favorite teal green dressing gown trailing along behind her bare feet. She suddenly wished that breaking a few dishes wouldn’t appear quite so unladylike.

A chair got in her way. She almost kicked it, but remembered at the last instant that she was not wearing shoes. Instead she deliberately took the cushion from the chair and set it on the floor. She plumped it a few times, then straightened. She lifted the hem of her dressing gown to her knees, squinted, swung her leg a few times for practice, and then kicked the cushion completely across the room. “There!” she said. “Take that!” For some reason it made her feel a little better.

Garion was away from their rooms at the moment, engaged in his customary evening conversation with Emperor ’Zakath. Ce’Nedra wished that he were here so that she could pick a fight with him. A nice little fight right now might modify her mood.

She went through a door and looked at the steaming tub sunk in the floor. Perhaps a bath might help. She even went so far as to dip an exploratory toe in the water, then decided against it. She sighed and moved on. She paused for a few moments at the window of the unlighted sitting room that overlooked the verdant atrium at the center of the east wing of the palace. The full moon had risen early that day and stood high in the sky, filling the atrium with its pale, colorless light, and the pool at the center of the private little court reflected back the perfect white circle of the queen of the night. Ce’Nedra stood for quite some time, looking out the window, lost in thought.

She heard the door open and then slam shut."Ce’Nedra, where are you?” Garion’s voice sounded a trifle testy.

“I’m in here, dear.”

“Why are you standing around in the dark?” he asked, coming into the room.

“I was just looking at the moon. Do you realize that it’s the same moon that shines down on Tol Honeth—and Riva, too, for that matter?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” he replied shortly.

“Why are you being so grumpy with me?”

“It’s not you, Ce’Nedra,” he answered apologetically. I had another fight with ’Zakath, is all.”

“That’s getting to be a habit.”

“Why is he so unreasonably stubborn?” Garion demanded.

“That’s part of the nature of Kings and Emperors, dear.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you want something to drink? I think we’ve still got some of that wine left.”

“I don’t think so. Not right now.”

“Well I do. After my little chat with his pigheaded imperialness, I need something to calm my nerves.” He went back out, and she heard the clink of a decanter against the rim of a goblet.

Out in the moon-bright atrium something moved out from the shadows of the tall, broad-leafed trees. It was Silk. He was wearing only his shirt and hose, he had a bath sheet over his shoulder, and he was whistling. He bent at the edge of the pool and dipped his fingers into the water. Then he stood up and began to unbutton his shirt.

Ce’Nedra smiled, drew back behind the drape, and watched as the little man disrobed. Then he stepped down into the pool, shattering the reflected moon into a thousand sparkling fragments. Ce’Nedra continued to watch as he lazily swam back and forth in the moon-dappled water.

Then there was another shadow under the trees, and Liselle came out into the moonlight. She wore a loose—fitting robe, and there was a flower in her hair. The flower was undoubtedly red, but the wan light of the full spring moon leeched away the color, making it appear black against the blond girl’s pale hair. “How’s the water?” she asked quite calmly. Her voice seemed very close, almost as if she were in the same room with the watching Ce’Nedra.

Silk gave a startled exclamation, then coughed as his mouth and nose filled with water. He spluttered, then recovered his composure. “Not bad,” he replied in an unruffled tone.

“Good,” Liselle said. She moved to the edge of the pool. “Kheldar, I think it’s time that we had a talk.”

“Oh? About what?”

“About this.” Quite calmly she unbelted her robe and let it fall to the ground about her feet.

She wasn’t wearing anything under the robe.

“You seem to have a little difficulty grasping the idea that things change with the passage of time,” she continued, dipping one foot into the water. Quite deliberately, she pointed at herself. “This is one of those things.”

“I noticed that,” he said admiringly.

“I’m so glad. I was beginning to be afraid that your eyes might be failing.” She stepped down into the pool and stood waist-deep in the water. “Well?” she said then.

“Well what?”

“What do you plan to do about it?” She reached up and took the flower from her hair and carefully laid it on the surface of the pool.

Ce’Nedra darted to the door on silent, bare feet. “Garion!” she called in an urgent whisper. “Come here!”

“Why?”

“Keep your voice down and come here.”

He grumbled slightly and came into the darkened room. “What is it?”

She pointed at the window with a muffled giggle. “Look!” she commanded in a delighted little whisper.

Garion went to the window and looked out. After a single glance, he quickly averted his eyes. “Oh, my,” he said in a strangled whisper.

Ce’Nedra giggled again, came to his side, and burrowed her way under his arm. “Isn’t that sweet?” she said softly.

“I’m sure it is,” he whispered back, “but I don’t think we ought to watch.”

“Why not?”

The flower Liselle on the water had floated across the intervening and Silk, his expression bemused, picked it up and smelled it. “Yours, I believe,” he said, holding it out to the pale-skinned girl sharing the pool with him.

“Why, yes, I believe it is,” she replied. “But you haven’t answered my question.”

“Which question?”

“What are you going to do about this?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Good. I’ll help you.”

Garion firmly reached out and pulled the drape shut.

“Spoilsport,” Ce’Nedra pouted.

“Never mind,” he told her. “Now come away from the window.” He drew her out of the room. “I can’t understand what she’s up to,” he said.

“I thought that was fairly obvious.”

“Ce’Nedra!”

“She’s seducing him, Garion. She’s been in love with him since she was a little girl and she’s finally decided to take steps. I’m so happy for her that I could just burst.”

He shook his head. “I will never understand women,” he said. “Just when I think I’ve got everything worked out, you all get together and change the rules. You wouldn’t believe what Aunt Pol said to me just this morning.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“She said that I ought to—” He stopped abruptly, his face suddenly going beet red. “Ah—never mind,” he added lamely.

“What was it?”

“I’ll tell you some other time.” He gave her a peculiar look then. It was a look she thought she recognized.

“Have you taken your evening bath yet?” he asked with exaggerated casualness.

“Not yet. Why?”

“I thought I might join you—if you don’t mind.”

Ce’Nedra artfully lowered her lashes. “If you really want to,” she said in a girlish voice.

“I’ll light some candles in there,” he said. “The lamp’s a bit bright, don’t you think?”

“Whatever you prefer, dear.”

“And I think I’ll bring in the wine, too. It might help us to relax.”

Ce’Nedra felt an exultant little surge of triumph. For some reason her irritability had entirely disappeared. “I think that would be just lovely, dear.”

“Well,” he said, extending a slightly trembling hand to her, “shall we go in, then?”

“Why don’t we?”

10

The following morning when they gathered for breakfast, Silk’s expression was faintly abstracted as if he had just realized that someone had somehow outbargained him. The little man steadfastly refused to look at Velvet, who kept her eyes demurely on the bowl of strawberries and cream she was eating.

“You seem a trifle out of sorts this morning, Prince Kheldar,” Ce’Nedra said to him in an offhand manner, though her eyes sparkled with suppressed mirth. “Whatever is the matter?”

He threw her a quick, suspicious look.

“There, there,” she said, fondly patting his hand. “I’m sure that you’ll feel much better after breakfast.”

“I’m not very hungry,” he replied. His voice was just a little sullen. He stood up abruptly. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said.

“But my dear fellow,” she protested, “you haven’t eaten your strawberries. They’re absolutely delicious, aren’t they, Liselle?”

“Marvelous,” the blond girl agreed with only the faintest hint of her dimples showing.

Silk’s scowl deepened, and he marched resolutely toward the door.

“May I have yours, Kheldar?” Velvet called after him. “If you’re not going to eat them, that is?”

He slammed the door as he went out, and Ce’Nedra and Velvet exploded into gales of silvery laughter.

“What’s this?” Polgara asked them.

“Oh, nothing,” Ce’Nedra said, still laughing. “Nothing at all, Lady Polgara. Our Prince Kheldar had a little adventure last night that didn’t turn out exactly the way he expected it to.”

Velvet gave Ce’Nedra a quick look and flushed slightly. Then she laughed again.

Polgara looked at the giggling pair, and then one of her eyebrows went up. “Oh. I see,” she said.

The flush on Velvet’s cheeks grew rosier, although she continued to laugh.

“Oh, dear.” Polgara sighed.

“Is something wrong, Pol?” Durnik asked her.

She looked at the good, honest man, assessing his strict Sendarian principles. “Just a small complication, Durnik,” she replied, “Nothing that can’t be managed.”

“That’s good.” He pushed back his bowl. “Do you need me for anything this morning?”

“No, dear,” she replied, kissing him.

He returned her kiss and then stood up, looking across the table at Toth and Eriond, who sat waiting expectantly. “Shall we go then?” he asked them.

The three of them trooped out, their faces alight with anticipation.

“I wonder how long it’s going to take them to empty all the fish out of that pond,” Polgara mused.

“Forever, I’m afraid, Lady Polgara,” Sadi told her, popping a strawberry into his mouth. “The grounds keepers restock it every night.”

She sighed. “I was afraid of that,” she said.

About midmorning, Garion was pacing up and down one of the long, echoing halls. He felt irritable, and a sort of frustrated impatience seemed to weigh him down. The urgent need to get to Ashaba before Zandramas escaped him again was so constantly on his mind now that he could think of almost nothing else. Although they had come up with several possible schemes, Silk, Velvet, and Sadi were still searching for a suitable diversion—something startling enough to draw off Brador’s secret policemen so that they could all make good their escape. There was obviously little chance of changing ’Zakath’s mind; and it began to look increasingly as if Garion and his friends were going to have to “do it the other way.” as Belgarath sometimes put it. Despite his occasional threats to ’Zakath, Garion didn’t really want to do that. He was quite sure that to do so would permanently end his growing friendship with the strange man who ruled Mallorea. He was honest enough to admit that it was not only the friendship he would regret losing but the political possibilities implicit in the situation as well.

He was about to return to his rooms when a scarlet-liveried servant came up to him. “Your Majesty,” the servant said with a deep bow, “Prince Kheldar asked me to find you for him. He’d like to have a word with you.”

“Where is he?” Garion asked.

“In the formal garden near the north wall of the complex, your Majesty. There’s a half-drunk Nadrak with him—and a woman with a remarkably foul mouth. You wouldn’t believe some of the things she said to me.”

“I think I know her,” Garion replied with a faint smile. “I’d believe it.” He turned then and walked briskly through the hallways and out into the palace grounds.

Yarblek had not changed. Though it was pleasantly warm in the neatly manicured formal garden, he nonetheless still wore his shabby felt overcoat and his shaggy fur hat. He was sprawled on a marble bench under a leafy arbor with a broached ale keg conveniently at hand.

Vella, as lush as ever, wandered idly among the flowerbeds, dressed in her tight-fitting Nadrak vest and leather trousers. Her silver-hilted daggers protruded from the tops of her boots and from her belt, and her walk was still that same challenging, sensual strut, a mannerism she had practiced for so long that it was by now automatic and probably even unconscious. Silk sat on the grass near Yarblek’s bench, and he, too, held—an ale cup.

“I was just about to come looking for you,” he said as Garion approached.

The rangy Yarblek squinted at Garion. “Well, well,” he said, blinking owlishly, “if it isn’t the boy-King of Riva. I, see that you’re still wearing that big sword of yours.”

“It’s a habit,” Garion shrugged. “You’re looking well, Yarblek—aside from being a little drunk, that is.”

“I’ve been cutting down,” Yarblek said rather piously. “My stomach isn’t what it used to be.”

” Did you happen to see Belgarath on your way here?” Silk asked Garion.

“No. Should I have?”

“I sent for him, too. Yarblek’s got some information for us, and I want the old man to get it firsthand.”

Garion looked at Silk’s coarse-faced partner. “How long have you been in Mal Zeth?” he asked.

“We got in last night,” Yarblek replied, dipping his cup into the ale keg again.” Dolmar told me that you were all here in the palace, so I came by this morning to look you up.”

“How long are you going to stay in town?” Silk asked him.

Yarblek tugged at his scraggly beard and squinted up at the arbor. “That’s kind of hard to say,” he said. “Dolmar picked up most of what I need, but I want to nose around the markets a bit. There’s a Tolnedran in Boktor who said that he’s interested in uncut gem stones. I could pick up a quick fortune on that transaction—particularly if I could sneak the stones past Drasnian customs.”

“Don’t Queen Porenn’s customs agents search your packs pretty thoroughly?” Garion asked him.

“From top to bottom,” Yarblek laughed, “And they pat me down as well. They don’t, however, lay one finger on Vella. They’ve all learned how quick she is with her daggers. I’ve made back what I paid for her a dozen times over by hiding little packages here and there in her clothes.” He laughed coarsely. “And of course the hiding is sort of fun, too.” He belched thunderously.

“Par’me,” he said.

Belgarath came across the lawn. The old man had resisted all of ’Zakath’s tactful offers of less disreputable raiment, and still wore, defiantly, Garion thought, his stained tunic, patched hose, and mismatched boots.

“Well, I see that you finally got here,” he said to Yarblek without any preamble.

“I got tied up in Mal Camat,” the Nadrak replied. “Kal Zakath is commandeering ships all up and down the west-coast to bring his army back from stinking Cthol Murgos. I had to hire boats and hide them in the marshes north of the ruins of Cthol Mishrak.” He pointed at the ale keg. “You want some of this?” he asked.

“Naturally. Have you got another cup?”

Yarblek patted here and there at his voluminous coat, reached into an inside pocket, and drew out a squat, dented tankard.

“I like a man who comes prepared.”

“A proper host is always ready. Help yourself. Just try not to spill too much.” The Nadrak looked at Garion."How about you?” he asked. “I think I could find another cup”

“No. Thanks anyway, Yarblek. It’s a little early for me.”

Then a short, gaudily dressed man came around the arbor. His clothes were a riot of frequently conflicting colors. One sleeve was green, the other red. One leg of his hose was striped in pink and yellow and the other covered with large blue polka dots. He wore a tall, pointed cap with a bell attached to the peak. It was not his outrageous clothing that was so surprising, however. What caught Garion’s eye first was the fact that the man was quite casually walking on his hands with both feet extended into the air. “Did I hear somebody offer somebody a little drop of somethin’ to drink” he asked in a strange, lilting brogue that Garion did not quite recognize.

Yarblek gave the colorful little fellow a sour look and reached inside his coat again.

The acrobat flexed his shoulders, thrusting himself into the air, flipped over in midair, and landed on his feet. He briskly brushed off his hands and came toward Yarblek with an ingratiating smile. His face was nondescript, the kind of face that would be forgotten almost as soon as it was seen, but for some reason, it seemed to Garion to be naggingly familiar.

“Ah, good master Yarblek,” the man said to Silk’s partner, “I’m sure that yer the kindest man alive. I was near to perishin’ of thirst, don’t y’ know?” He took the cup, dipped into the ale keg, and drank noisily. Then he let out his breath with a gusty sound of appreciation.

“Tis a good brew ye have there, Master Yarblek,” he said, dipping again into the keg.

Belgarath had a peculiar expression on his face, partly puzzled but at the same time partially amused.

“He came tagging along when we left Mal Camat,” Yarblek told them. “Vella finds him amusing, so I haven’t chased him off yet. She turns a little shrill when she doesn’t get her own wary.”

“The name is Feldegast, fine gentlemen,” the gaudy little fellow introduced himself with an exaggerated bow. “Feldegast the juggler. I be also an acrobat—as ye’ve seen fer yerselves—a comedian of no mean ability, and an accomplished magician. I can baffle yer eyes with me unearthly skill at prestidigitation, don’t y’ know. I kin also play rousin’ tunes on a little wooden whistle—or, if yer mood be melancholy, I kin play ye sad songs on the lute to bring a lump to yer throat and fill yer eyes with sweet, gentle tears. Would ye be wantin’ to witness some of me unspeakable talent?”

“Maybe a little later,” Belgarath told him, his eyes still a little bemused. “Right now we have some business to discuss.”

“Take another cup of ale and go entertain Vella, comedian,” Yarblek said to him. “Tell her some more off-color stories.”

“ ’Twill be me eternal delight, good Master Yarblek,” the outrageous fellow said grandly. “She’s a good strappin’ wench with a lusty sense of humor and a fine appreciation fer bawdy stories.” He dipped out more ale and then capered across the lawn toward the dark-haired Nadrak girl.

” Disgusting,” Yarblek growled, looking after him. “some of the stories he tells her make my ears bum, but the nastier they are, the harder she laughs.” He shook his head moodily.

“Let’s get down to business,” Belgarath said. “We need to know what’s going on in Karanda right now.”

“That’s simple,” Yarblek told him. “Mengha, that’s what’s going on. Mengha and his cursed demons.”

“Dolmar filled us in,” Silk said. “We know about what happened at Calida and about the way that Karands are flocking in to join his army from all over the seven kingdoms. Is he making any moves toward the south yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” Yarblek replied. “He seems to be consolidating things through the north right now. He’s whipping all of the Karands into hysteria, though. If ’Zakath doesn’t do something quickly, he’s going to have a full-scale revolution on his hands. I can tell you, though, that it’s not safe to travel in northern Karanda right now. Mengha’s shrieking Karands control everything to the coast of Zamad.”

“We have to go to Ashaba,” Garion told him.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Yarblek said bluntly. “The Karands are picking up some very unsavory habits.”

“Oh?” Silk said.

“I’m an Angarak,” Yarblek said, “and I’ve been watching Grolims cut out human hearts to offer to Torak since I was a boy, but what’s happening in Karanda turns even my stomach. The Karands stake captives out on the ground and then call up their demons. The demons are all getting fat.”

“Would you care to be a little more specific?”

“Not really. Use your imagination, Silk. You’ve been in Morindland. You know what demons eat.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Oh, yes—and the Karands eat the scraps. As I said—some very unsavory habits. There are also some rumors about the demons breeding with human females.”

“That’s abominable!” Garion gasped.

“It is indeed,” Yarblek agreed with him. “The women usually don’t survive their pregnancies, but I’ve heard of a few live births.”

“We have to put a stop to that,” Belgarath said bleakly.

“Good luck,” Yarblek said. “Me, I’m going back to Gar og Nadrak just as soon as I can get my caravan put together. I’m not going anywhere near Mengha—or the tame demon he keeps on a leash.”

“Nahaz?” Garion asked.

“You’ve heard the name then?”

“Dolmar told us.”

“We should probably start with him,” Belgarath said. “If we can drive Nahaz back to where he came from, it’s likely that the rest. of the demons will follow their lord.”

“Neat trick,” Yarblek grunted.

“I have certain resources,” the old man told him. “Once the demons are gone, Mengha won’t have anything left but a ragtag army of Karandese fanatics. We’ll be able to go on about our business and leave the mopping up to ’Zakath.” He smiled briefly. “That might occupy his mind enough to keep him from breathing down our necks.”

Vella was laughing raucously as she and Feldegast the juggler approached the arbor. The little comedian was walking on his hands again—erratically and with his feet waving ludicrously in the air.

“He tells a good story,” the lush-bodied Nadrak girl said, still laughing, “but he can’t hold his liquor.”

“I didn’t think he drank all that much,” Silk said.

“It wasn’t the ale that fuddled him so bad,” she replied. She drew a silver flask from under her belt. “I gave him a pull or two at this.” Her eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. “Care to try some, Silk?” she offered, holding out the flask.

“What’s in it?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just a little drink we brew in Gar og Nadrak,” she said innocently. “It’s as mild as mothers’ milk.” She demonstrated by taking a long drink from the flask.

“Othlass?”

She nodded.

“No thanks.” He shuddered. “The last time I drank that, I lost track of a whole week.”

“Don’t be so chicken-livered, Silk,” she told him scornfully. She took another drink. “See? It doesn’t hurt a bit.” She looked at Garion. “My lord,” she said to him. “How’s your pretty little wife?”

“She’s well, Vella.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Have you got her pregnant again yet?”

Garion flushed. “No,” he replied.

“You’re wasting time, my lord. Why don’t you run back to the palace and chase her around the bedroom a time or two?” Then she turned to Belgarath. “Well?” she said to him.

“Well what?”

She smoothly drew one of her knives from her belt."Would you like to try again?” she asked, turning deliberately so that her well-rounded posterior was available to him.

“Ah, thanks all the same, Vella,” he said with a kind massive dignity, “But it’s a bit early ”

“That’s all right, old man,” she said. “I’m ready for you this time. Any time you’re in a patting frame of mind, feel free. I sharpened all my knives before we came—especially for you.”

“You’re too kind.”

The drunken Feldegast lurched, tried to regain his balance, and toppled over in an unceremonious heap. When he stumbled to his feet, his plain face was splotched and distorted, and he stood hunched over with his back bowed to the point where he almost looked deformed.

“I think the girl got the best of you, my friend,” Belgarath said jovially as he moved quickly to help the inebriated juggler to right himself. “You really ought to straighten up, though. If you stand around bent over like that, you’ll tie your insides in knots.”

Garion saw his grandfather’s lips moving slightly as he whispered something to the tipsy entertainer. Then, so faint that it was barely discernible, he felt the surge of the old man’s will.

Feldegast straightened, his face buried in his hands. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” he said. “Have y’ poisoned me, me girl?” he demanded of Vella. “I can’t remember ever bein’ taken by the drink so fast.” He took his hands away. The splotches and distortion were gone from his face, and he looked as he had before.

“Don’t ever try to drink with a Nadrak woman,” Belgarath advised him, “particularly when she’s the one who brewed the liquor.”

“It seems that I heard a snatch of conversation whilst I was entertainin’ the wench hew. Is it Karanda ye be talkin’ about—and the woeful things happenin’ there?”

“We were,” Belgarath admitted.

“I display me talents betimes in wayside inns and taverns—for pennies and a drink or two, don’t y’ know—and a great deal of information comes into places like that. Sometimes if ye make a man laugh and be merry, ye kin draw more out of him than ye can with silver or strong drink. As it happened, I was in such a place not long ago—dazzlin’ the onlookers with the brilliance of me performance—and happens that whilst I was there, a wayfarer came in from the east. A great brute of a man he was, and he told us the distressful news from Karanda. And after he had eaten and finished more pots of good strong ale than was good for him, I sought him out and questioned him further. A man in me profession can’t never know too much about the places where he might be called upon to display his art, don’t y’ know. This great brute of a man, who should not have feared anythin’ that walks, was shakin’ and tremblin’ like a frightened babe, and he tells me that I should stay out of Karanda as I valued me life. And then he tells me a very strange thing, which I have not yet put the meanin’ to, He tells me that the road between Calida and Mal Yaska is thick with messengers goin’ to and fro, hither and yon. Isn’t that an amazin’ thing? How could a man account fer it? But there be strange things goin’ on in the world, good masters, and wonders to behold that no man at all could ever begin to imagine.”

The juggler’s lilting brogue was almost hypnotic in its charm and liquidity, and Garion found himself somehow caught up in the really quite commonplace narrative. He felt a peculiar disappointment as the gaudy little man broke off his story.

“I hope that me tale has brought ye some small entertainment an’ enlightenment, good masters,” Feldegast said ingratiatingly, his grass-stained hand held out suggestively. “I make me way in the world with me wits and me talents, givin’ of them as free as the birds, but I’m grateful fer little tokens of appreciation, don’t y’ know.”

“Pay him,” Belgarath said shortly to Garion.

“What?”

“Give him some money.”

Garion sighed and reached for the leather purse at his belt.

“May the Gods all smile down on ye, young master,” Feldegast thanked Garion effusively for the few small coins which changed hands. Then he looked slyly at Vella. “Tell me, me girl,” he said, “have ye ever heard the story of the milkmaid and the peddler? I must give ye fair warnin’ that it’s a naughty little story, and I’d be covered with shame to bring a blush to yer fair cheeks.”

“I haven’t blushed since I was fourteen,” Vella said to him.

“Well then, why don’t we go apart a ways, an’ I’ll see if I can’t remedy that? I’m told that blushin’ is good fer the complexion.”

Vella laughed and followed him back out onto the lawn.

“Silk,” Belgarath said brusquely, “I need that diversion—now.”

“We don’t really have anything put together yet,” Silk objected.

“Make something up, then,” The old man turned to Yarblek. “And I don’t want you to leave Mal Zeth until I give you the word. I might need you here.”

“What’s the matter, Grandfather?” Garion asked.

“We have to leave here as quickly as possible.”

Out on the lawn, Vella stood wide-eyed and with the palms of her hands pressed to her flaming cheeks.

“Ye’ll have to admit that I warned ye, me girl,” Feldegast chortled triumphantly. “Which is more than I can say about the deceitful way ye slipped yer dreadful brew into me craw.” He looked at her admiringly. “I must say, though, that ye bloom like a red, red rose when ye blush like that, and yer a joy to behold in yer maidenlike confusion. Tell me, have ye by chance heard the one about the shepherdess and the knight-errant?”

Vella fled.

That afternoon, Silk, who normally avoided anything remotely resembling physical exertion, spent several hours in the leafy atrium in the center of the east wing, busily piling stones across the mouth of the tiny rivulet of fresh, sparkling water which fed the pool at the center of the little garden. Garion watched curiously from the window of his sitting room until he could stand it no longer. He went out into the atrium to confront the sweating little Drasnian. “Are you taking up landscaping as a hobby?” he asked.

“No,” Silk replied, mopping his forehead, “just taking a little precaution, is all.”

“Precaution against what?”

Silk held up one finger. “Wait,” he said, gauging the level of the water rising behind his improvised dam. After a moment, the water began to spill over into the pool with a loud gurgling and splashing. “Noisy, isn’t it?” he said proudly.

“Won’t that make sleep in these surrounding rooms a little hard?” Garion asked.

“It’s also going to make listening almost impossible,” the little man said smugly. “As soon as it gets dark, why don’t you and I and Sadi and Liselle gather here. We need to talk, and my cheerful little waterfall should cover what we say to each other.”

“Why after dark?”

Silk slyly laid one finger alongside his long, pointed nose. “So that the night will hide our lips from those police who don’t use their ears to listen with.”

“That’s clever,” Garion said.

“Why, yes. I thought so myself.” Then Silk made a sour face. “Actually, it was Liselle’s idea,” he confessed.

Garion smiled. “But she let you do the work.”

Silk grunted. “She claimed that she didn’t want to break any of her fingernails. I was going to refuse, but she threw her dimples at me, and I gave in.”

“She uses those very well, doesn’t she? They’re more dangerous than your knives.”

“Are you trying to be funny, Garion?”

“Would I do that, old friend?”

As the soft spring evening descended over Mal Zeth, Garion joined his three friends in the dim atrium beside Silk’s splashing waterfall.

“Very nice work, Kheldar,” Velvet complimented the little man.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Why, Kheldar!”

“All right,” Garion said, by way of calling the meeting to order, “what have we got that we can work with? Belgarath wants us out of Mal Zeth almost immediately.”

“I’ve been following your advice, Belgarion,” Sadi murmured, “and I’ve been concentrating my attention on Baron Vasca. He’s a man of eminent corruption and he has his fingers in so many pies that he sometimes loses track of just who’s bribing him at any given moment.”

“Exactly what’s he up to right now?” Garion asked.

“He’s still trying to take over the Bureau of Military Procurement,” Velvet reported. “That bureau is controlled by the General Staff, however. It’s mostly composed of colonels, but there’s a General Bregar serving as Bureau Chief. The colonels aren’t too greedy, but Bregar has a large payroll. He has to spread quite a bit of money around among his fellow generals to keep Vasca in check.”

Garion thought about that. “Aren’t you bribing Vasca as well?” he asked Silk.

Silk nodded glumly. “The price is going up, though. The consortium of Melcene merchant barons is laying a lot of money in his path, trying to get him to restrict Yarblek and me to the west-coast.”

“Can he raise any sort of force? Fighting men, I mean?”

“He has contacts with a fair number of robber chiefs,” Sadi replied, “and they have some pretty rough and ready fellows working for them.”

“Is there any band operating out of Mal Zeth right now?”

Sadi coughed rather delicately. “I just brought a string of wagons down from Camat,” he admitted. “Agricultural products for the most part.”

Garion gave him a hard look. “I thought I asked you not to do that anymore.”

“The crop had already been harvested, Belgarion,” the eunuch protested. “It doesn’t make sense to just let it rot in the fields, does it?”

“That’s sound business thinking, Garion,” Silk interceded.

“Anyway,” Sadi hurried on, “the band that’s handling the harvesting and transport for me is one of the largest in this part of Mallorea—two or three hundred anyway, and I have a goodly number of stout fellows involved in local distribution.”

“You did all this in just a few weeks?” Garion was incredulous.

“One makes very little profit by allowing the grass to grow under one’s feet,” Sadi stated piously.

“Well put,” Silk approved.

“Thank you, Prince Kheldar.”

Garion shook his head in defeat. “Is there any way you can get your bandits into the palace grounds?”

“Bandits?” Sadi sounded injured.

“Isn’t that what they are?”

“I prefer to think of them as entrepreneurs.”

“Whatever. Can you get them in?”

“I sort of doubt it, Belgarion. What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we might offer their services to Baron Vasca to help in his forthcoming confrontation with the General Staff.”

“Is there going to be a confrontation?” Sadi looked surprised. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

“That’s because we haven’t arranged it yet. Vasca’s going to find out—probably tomorrow—that his activities have irritated the General Staff, and that they’re going to send troops into his offices to arrest him and to dig through his records to find enough incriminating evidence to take to the Emperor.”

“That’s brilliant,” Silk said.

“I liked it—but it won’t work unless Vasca’s got enough men to hold off a fair number of troops.”

“It can still work,” Sadi said. “At about the same time that Vasca finds out about his impending arrest, I’ll offer him the use of my men. He can bring them into the palace complex under the guise of workmen. All the Bureau Chiefs are continually renovating their offices. It has to do with status, I think.”

“What’s the plan here, Garion?” Silk asked.

“I want open fighting right here in the halls of the palace. That should attract the attention of Brador’s policemen”

“He was born to be a King, wasn’t he?” Velvet approved. “Only royalty has the ability to devise a deception of that scale.”

“Thanks,” Garion said dryly. “It’s not going to work, though, if Vasca just takes up defensive positions in his bureau offices. We also have to persuade him to strike first. The soldiers won’t really be coming after him, so we’re going to have to make him start the fight himself.

What kind of man is Vasca?”

“Deceitful, greedy, and not really all that bright,” Silk replied.

“Can he be pressured into any kind of rashness?”

“Probably not. Bureaucrats tend to be cowardly. I don’t think he’d make a move until he sees the soldiers coming”

“I believe I can make him bolder,” Sadi said. “I have something very nice in a green vial that would make a mouse attack a lion.”

Garion made a face. “I don’t much care for that way,” he said.

“It’s the results that count, Belgarion,” Sadi pointed out. “If things are that urgent right now, delicate feelings might be a luxury we can’t afford.”

“All right,” Garion decided. “Do whatever you have to.”

“Once things are in motion, I might be able to throw in just a bit of additional confusion,” Velvet said. “The King of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin both have sizable retinues, and they’re on the verge of open war anyway. There’s also the King of Veresebo, who’s so senile that he distrusts everybody. I could probably persuade each of them that any turmoil in the halls is directed at them personally. They’d put their men-at-arms into the corridors at the first sound of fighting.”

“Now that’s got some interesting possibilities,” Silk said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “A five-way brawl in the palace ought to give us all the opportunity we need to leave town.”

“And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be confined to the palace,” Sadi added thoughtfully. “A bit of judicious misdirection could probably spread it out into the city itself. A general riot in the streets would attract quite a bit of attention, wouldn’t you say?”

“How long would it take to set it up?” Garion asked.

Silk looked at his partners in crime. “Three days?” he asked them, “Maybe four?” They both considered it, then nodded.

“That’s it then, Garion,” Silk said. “Three or four days.”

“All right. Do it.”

They all turned and started back toward the entrance to the atrium. “Margravine Liselle,” Sadi said firmly.

“Yes, Sadi?”

“I’ll take my snake back now, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, of course, Sadi.” She reached into her bodice for Zith.

Silk’s face blanched, and he stepped back quickly.

“Something wrong, Kheldar?” she asked innocently.

“Never mind.” The little man turned on his heel and went on through the green-smelling evening gesticulating and talking to himself.

11

His name was Balsca. He was a rheumy-eyed seafaring man with bad habits and mediocre skills who hailed from Kaduz, a fish-reeking town on one of the northern Melcene Islands. He had signed on as a common deck hand for the past six years aboard a leaky merchantman grandiosely named The Star of Jarot, commanded by an irascible peg-leg captain from Celanta who called himself “Woodfoot,” a colorful name which Balsca privately suspected was designed to conceal the captain’s true identity from the maritime authorities.

Balsca did not like Captain Woodfoot. Balsca had not liked any ships’ officers since he had been summarily flogged ten years back for pilfering grog from ship’s stores aboard a ship of the line in the Mallorean navy.

Balsca had nursed his grievance from that incident until he had found an opportunity to jump ship, and then he had gone in search of kindlier masters and more understanding officers in the merchant marine.

He had not found them aboard The Star of Jarot.

His most recent disillusionment had come about as the result of a difference of views with the ship’s bosun, a heavy-fisted rascal from Pannor in Rengel. That altercation had left Balsca without his front teeth, and his vigorous protest to the captain had evoked jeering laughter followed by his being unceremoniously kicked off the quarterdeck by a nail-studded leg constructed of solid oak. The humiliation and the bruises were bad enough, but the splinters which festered for weeks in Balsca’s behind made it almost impossible for him to sit down, and sitting down was Balsca’s favorite position.

He brooded about it, leaning on the starboard rail well out of Captain Woodfoot’s view and staring out at the lead-gray swells surging through the straits of Perivor as The Star of Jarot beat her way northwesterly past the swampy coast of the southwestern Dalasian Protectorates and on around the savage breakers engulfing the Turrim Reef. By the time they had cleared the reef and turned due north along the desolate coast of Finda, Balsca had concluded that life was going out of its way to treat him unfairly, and that he might be far better off seeking his fortune ashore.

He spent several nights prowling through the cargo hold with a well-shielded lantern until he found the concealed compartment where Woodfoot had hidden a number of small, valuable items that he didn’t want to trouble the customs people with. Balsca’s patched canvas sea bag picked up a fair amount of weight rather quickly that night.

When The Star of Jarot dropped anchor in the harbor of Mal Gemila, Balsca feigned illness and refused his shipmates’ suggestion that he go ashore with them for the customary end-of-voyage carouse. He lay instead in his hammock, moaning theatrically. Late during the dog watch, he pulled on his tarred canvas sea coat, the only thing of any value that he owned, picked up his sea bag and went on silent feet up on deck. The solitary watch, as Balsca had anticipated, lay snoring in the scuppers, snuggled up to an earthenware jug; there were no lights in the aft cabins, where Woodfoot and his officers lived in idle luxury; and the moon had already set. A small ship’s boat swung on a painter on the starboard side, and Balsca deftly dropped his sea bag into it, swung over the rail, and silently left The Star of Jarot forever. He felt no particular regret about that. He did not even pause to mutter a curse at the vessel which had been his home for the past six years. Balsca was a philosophical sort of fellow. Once he had escaped from an unpleasant situation, he no longer held any grudges.

When he reached the docks, he sold the small ship’s boat to a beady-eyed man with a missing right hand.

Balsca feigned drunkenness during the transaction, and the maimed man—who had undoubtedly had his hand chopped off as punishment for theft—paid him quite a bit more for the boat than would have been the case had the sale taken place in broad daylight. Balsca immediately knew what that meant. He shouldered his sea bag, staggered up the wharf, and began to climb the steep cobblestone street from the harbor. At the first corner, he made a sudden turn to the left and ran like a deer, leaving the surprised press gang the beady-eyed man had sent after him floundering far behind. Balsca was stupid, certainly, but he was no fool.

He ran until he was out of breath and quite some distance from the harbor with all its dangers. He passed a number of alehouses along the way, regretfully perhaps, but there was still business to attend to, and he needed his wits about him.

In a dim little establishment, well hidden up a dank, smelly alleyway, he sold Captain Woodfoot’s smuggled treasures, bargaining down to the last copper with the grossly fat woman who ran the place. He even traded his sea coat for a landsman’s tunic, and emerged from the alley with all trace of the sea removed from him, except for the rolling gait of a man whose feet have not touched dry land for several months.

He avoided the harbor with its press gangs and cheap grog shops and chose instead a quiet street that meandered past boarded-up warehouses. He followed that until he found a sedate workman’s alehouse where a buxom barmaid rather sullenly served him. Her mood, he surmised, was the result of the fact that he was her only customer, and that she had quite obviously intended to close the doors and seek her bed—or someone else’s, for all he knew. He jollied her into some semblance of good humor for an hour or so, left a few pennies on the table, and squeezed her ample bottom by way of farewell. Then he lurched into the empty street in search of further adventure.

He found true love under a smoky torch on the comer.

Her name, she said, was Elowanda. Balsca suspected that she was not being entirely honest about that, but it was not her name he was interested in. She was quite young and quite obviously sick. She had a racking cough, a hoarse, croaking voice, and her reddened nose ran constantly. She was not particularly clean and she exuded the rank smell of a week or more of dried sweat. Balsca, however, had a sailor’s strong stomach and an appetite whetted by six months’ enforced abstinence at sea. Elowanda was not very pretty, but she was cheap. After a brief haggle, she led him to a rickety crib in an alley that reeked of moldy sewage. Although he was quite drunk, Balsca grappled with her on a lumpy pallet until dawn was staining the eastern sky.

It was noon when he awoke with a throbbing head. He might have slept longer, but the cry of a baby coming from a wooden box in the corner drove into his ears like a sharp knife. He nudged the pale woman lying beside him, hoping that she would rise and quiet her squalling brat. She moved limply under his hand, her limbs flaccid.

He nudged her again, harder this time. Then he rose up and looked at her. Her stiff face was locked in a dreadful rictus—a hideous grin that made his blood run cold. He suddenly realized that her skin was like clammy ice. He jerked his hand away, swearing under his breath. He reached out gingerly and peeled back one of her eyelids. He swore again.

The woman who had called herself Elowanda was as dead as last week’s mackerel.

Balsca rose and quickly pulled on his clothes. He searched the room thoroughly, but found nothing worth stealing except for the few coins he had given the dead woman the previous night. He took those, then glared at the naked corpse lying on the pallet. “Rotten whore!” he said and kicked her once in the side. She rolled limply off the pallet and lay face down on the floor.

Balsca slammed out into the stinking alley, ignoring the wailing baby he had left behind him.

He had a few moments’ concern about the possibility of certain social diseases. Something had killed Elowanda, and he had not really been all that rough with her. As a precaution, he muttered an old sailors’ incantation which was said to be particularly efficacious in warding off the pox; reassured, he went looking for something to drink.

By midaftemoon, he was pleasantly drunk and he lurched out of a congenial little wine shop and stopped, swaying slightly, to consider his options. By now Woodfoot would certainly have discovered that his hidden cabinet was empty and that Balsca had jumped ship. Since Woodfoot was a man of limited imagination, he and his officers would certainly be concentrating their search along the waterfront. It would take them some time to realize that their quarry had moved somewhat beyond the sight, if not the smell, of salt water. Balsca prudently decided that if he were to maintain his lead on his vengeful former captain, it was probably time for him to head inland. It occurred to him, moreover, that someone might have seen him with Elowanda, and that her body probably had been found by now. Balsca felt no particular responsibility for her death, but he was by nature slightly shy about talking with policemen. All in all, he decided, it might just be time to leave Mal Gemila.

He started out confidently, striding toward the east gate of the city; but after several blocks, his feet began to hurt. He loitered outside a warehouse where several workmen were loading a large wagon. He carefully stayed out of sight until the work was nearly done, then heartily offered to lend a hand. He put two boxes on the wagon, then sought out the teamster, a shaggy-bearded man smelling strongly of mules.

“Where be ye bound, friend?” Balsca asked him as if out of idle curiosity.

“Mal Zeth,” the teamster replied shortly.

“What an amazing coincidence,” Balsca exclaimed.

“I have business there myself.” In point of fact, Balsca had cared very little where the teamster and his wagon had been bound. All he wanted to do was to go inland to avoid Woodfoot or the police. “What say I ride along, with you—for company?”

“I don’t get all that lonesome,” the teamster said churlishly.

Balsca sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

“I’d be willing to pay,” he offered sadly.

“How much?”

“I don’t really have very much.”

“Ten coppers,” the teamster said flatly.

“Ten? I haven’t got that much.”

“You’d better start walking then. It’s that way.”

Balsca sighed and gave in. “All right,” he said. “Ten.”

“In advance.”

“Half now and half when we get to Mal Zeth.”

“In advance.”

“That’s hard.”

” So’s walking. ”

Balsca stepped around a corner, reached into an inside pocket, and carefully counted out the ten copper coins. The horde he had accumulated as a result of his pilferage aboard The Star of Jarot had dwindled alarmingly. A number of possibilities occurred to him. He shifted his sheath knife around until it was at his back. If the teamster slept soundly enough and if they stopped for the night in some secluded place, Balsca was quite certain that he could ride into Mal Zeth the proud owner of a wagon and a team of mules—not to mention whatever was in the boxes. Balsca had killed a few men in his time—when it had been safe to do so—and he was not particularly squeamish about cutting throats, if it was worth his while.

The wagon clattered and creaked as it rumbled along the cobbled street in the slanting afternoon sunlight.

“Let’s get a few things clear before we start,” the teamster said. “I don’t like to talk and I don’t like having people jabber at me.”

“All right.”

The teamster reached back and picked up a wicked-looking hatchet out of the wagon bed. “Now,” he said, “give me your knife.”

“I don’t have a knife.”

The teamster reined in his mules. “Get out,” he said curtly.

“But I paid you?”

“Not enough for me to take any chances with you. Come up with a knife or get out of my wagon.”

Balsca glared at him, then at the hatchet. Slowly he drew out his dagger and handed it over.

“Good. I’ll give it back to you when we get to Mal Zeth. Oh, by the way, I sleep with one eye open and with this in my fist.” He held the hatchet in front of Balsca’s face. “If you even come near me while we’re on the road, I’ll brain you.”

Balsca shrank back.

“I’m glad that we understand each other.” The teamster shook his reins, and they rumbled out of Mal Gemila.

Balsca was not feeling too well when they reached Mal Zeth. He assumed at first that it was a result of the peculiar swaying motion of the wagon. Though he had never been seasick in all his years as a sailor, he was frequently land-sick. This time, however, was somewhat different. His stomach, to be sure, churned and heaved, but, unlike his previous bouts of malaise, this time he also found that he was sweating profusely, and his throat was so sore that he could barely swallow. He had alternating bouts of chills and fever, and a foul taste in his mouth.

The surly teamster dropped him off at the main gates of Mal Zeth, idly tossed his dagger at his feet and then squinted at his former passenger. “You don’t look so good,” he observed. “You ought to go see a physician or something.”

Balsca made an indelicate sound. “People die in the hands of physicians,” he said, “or if they do manage to get well, they go away with empty purses.”

“Suit yourself.” The teamster shrugged and drove his wagon into the city without looking back.

Balsca directed a number of muttered curses after him, bent, picked up his knife, and walked into Mal Zeth. He wandered about for a time, trying to get his bearings, then finally accosted a man in a sea coat.

“Excuse me, mate,” he said, his voice raspy as a result of his sore throat, “but where’s a place where a man can get a good cup of grog at a reasonable price?”

“Try the Red Dog Tavern,” the sailor replied. “It’s two streets over on the corner.”

“Thanks, mate,” Balsca said.

“You don’t look like you’re feeling too good.”

” A little touch of a cold, I think.” Balsca flashed him a toothless grin. “Nothing that a few cups of grog won’t fix.”

“That’s the honest truth.” The sailor laughed his agreement. “It’s the finest medicine in the world.” The Red Dog Tavern was a dark grogshop that faintly resembled the forecastle of a ship. It had a low, beamed ceiling of dark wood and portholes instead of windows.

The proprietor was a bluff, red-faced man with tattoos on both arms and an exaggerated touch of salt water in his speech. His “Ahoy’s” and “Mateys” began to get on Balsca’s nerves after a while, but after three cups of grog, he didn’t mind so much. His sore throat eased, his stomach settled down, and the trembling in his hands ceased. He still, however, had a splitting headache. He had two more cups of grog and then fell asleep with his head cradled on his crossed arms.

“Ahoy, mate. Closing time,” the Red Dog’s proprietor said some time later, shaking his shoulder.

Balsca sat up, blinking. “Must have dropped off for a few minutes,” he mumbled hoarsely.

“More like a few hours, matey.” The man frowned, then laid his hand on Balsca’s forehead. “You’re burning up, matey,” he said. “You’d better get you to bed.”

“Where’s a good place to get a cheap room?” Balsca asked, rising unsteadily. His throat hurt worse now than it had before, and his stomach was in knots again.

“Try the third door up the street. Tell them that I sent you.”

Balsca nodded, bought a bottle to take with him and surreptitiously filched a rope-scarred marlinespike from the rack beside the door on his way out. “Good tavern,” he croaked to the proprietor as he left. “I like the way you’ve got it fixed up.”

The tattooed man nodded proudly. “My own idea,” he said. “I thought to myself that a seafaring man might like a homelike sort of place to do his drinking in—even when he’s this far from deep water. Come back again.”

“I’ll do that,” Balsca promised.

It took him about a half an hour to find a solitary passerby hurrying home with his head down and his hands jammed into his tunic pockets. Balsca stalked him for a block or so, his rope-soled shoes making no sound on the cobblestones. Then, as the passerby went by the dark mouth of an alleyway, Balsca stepped up behind him and rapped him smartly across the base of the skull with his marlinespike. The man dropped like a pole-axed ox. Balsca had been in enough shipboard fights and tavern brawls to know exactly where and how hard to hit his man. He rolled the fellow over, hit him alongside the head once again just to be on the safe side, and then methodically began to go through the unconscious man’s pockets. He found several coins and a stout knife. He put the coins in his pocket, tucked the knife under his broad leather belt, and pulled his victim into the alley out of the light. Then he went on down the street, whistling an old sea song.

He felt much worse the following day. His head throbbed, and his throat was so swollen that he could barely talk. His fever, he was sure, was higher, and his nose ran constantly. It took three pulls on his bottle to quiet his stomach. He knew that he should go out and get something to eat, but the thought of food sickened him. He took another long drink from his bottle, lay back on the dirty bed in the room he had rented, and fell back into a fitful doze.

When he awoke again, it was dark outside, and he was shivering violently. He finished his bottle without gaining any particular relief, then shakily pulled on his clothing, which he absently noted exuded a rank odor, and stumbled down to the street and three doors up to the inviting entrance to the Red Dog.

“By the Gods, matey,” the tattooed man said, “ye look positively awful.”

“Grog,” Balsca croaked. “Grog.”

It took nine cups of grog to stem the terrible shaking which had seized him.

Balsca was not counting.

When his money ran out, he staggered into the street and beat a man to death with his marlinespike for six pennies. He lurched on, encountered a fat merchant, and knifed him for his purse. The purse even had some gold in it. He reeled back to the Red Dog and drank until closing time.

“Have a care, matey.” the proprietor cautioned him as he thrust him out the door. “There be murdering footpads about, or so I’ve been told—and the police are as thick as fleas on a mangy dog in the streets and alleys in the neighborhood.”

Balsca took the jug of grog he had bought back to his shabby room and drank himself into unconsciousness.

He was delirious the following morning and he raved for hours, alternating between drinking from his jug of grog and vomiting on his bed.

It took him until sunset to die. His last words were, “Mother, help me.”

When they found him, some days later, he was arched rigidly backward, and his face was fixed in a hideous grin.

Three days later, a pair of wayfarers found the body of a bearded teamster lying in a ditch beside his wagon on the road to Mal Gemila. His body was arched stiffly backward, and his face was locked in a grotesque semblance of a grin. The wayfarers concluded that he had no further need of his team and wagon, and so they stole it. As an afterthought, they also stole his clothes and covered the body with dead leaves. Then they turned the wagon around and rode on back to Mal Zeth.

Perhaps a week after Balsca’s largely unnoticed death, a man in a tarred sea coat came staggering into a rundown street in broad daylight. He was raving and clutching at his throat. He lurched along the cobblestone street for perhaps a hundred feet before he collapsed and died.

The dreadful grin fixed on his foam-flecked lips gave several onlookers nightmares that night.

The tattooed proprietor of the Red Dog Tavern was found dead in his establishment the following morning.

He lay amidst the wreckage of the several tables and chairs he had smashed during his final delirium. His face was twisted into a stiff, hideous grin.

During the course of that day, a dozen more men in that part of the city, all regular patrons of the Red Dog Tavern, also died.

The next day, three dozen more succumbed. The authorities began to take note of the matter.

But by then it was too late. The curious intermingling of classes characteristic of a great city made the confining of the infection to any one district impossible. Servants who lived in that shabby part of town carried the disease into the houses of the rich and powerful. Workmen carried it to construction sites, and their fellow workmen carried it home to other parts of the city. Customers gave it to merchants, who in turn gave it to other customers. The most casual contact was usually sufficient to cause infection.

The dead had at first been numbered in the dozens, but by the end of the week hundreds had fallen ill. The houses of the sick were boarded up despite the weak cries of the inhabitants from within. Grim carts rumbled through the streets, and workmen with camphor-soaked cloths about their lower faces picked up the dead with long hooks.

The bodies were stacked in the carts like logs of wood, conveyed to cemeteries, and buried without rites in vast common graves. The streets of Mal Zeth became deserted as the frightened citizens barricaded themselves inside their houses.

There was some concern inside the palace, naturally, but the palace, walled as it was, was remote from the rest of the city. As a further precaution, however, the Emperor ordered that no one be allowed in or out of the compound. Among those locked inside were several hundred workmen who had been hired by Baron Vasca, the Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, to begin the renovations of the bureau offices.

It was about noon on the day after the locking of the palace gates that Garion, Polgara, and Belgarath were summoned to an audience with ’Zakath. They entered his study to find him gaunt and hollow-eyed, poring over a map of the imperial city. “Come in. Come in,” he said when they arrived. They entered and sat down in the chairs he indicated with an absent wave of his hand.

“You look tired,” Polgara noted.

“I haven’t slept for the past four days,” ’Zakath admitted. He looked wearily at Belgarath. “You say that you’re seven thousand years old?”

“Approximately, yes.”

“You’ve lived through pestilence before?”

“Several times.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“It depends on which disease it is. Some of them run their course in a few months. Others persist until everybody in the region is dead. Pol would know more about that than I would. She’s the one with all the medical experience.”

“Lady Polgara?” the Emperor appealed to her.

“I’ll need to know the symptoms before I can identify the disease,” she replied.

’Zakath burrowed through the litter of documents on the table in front of him. “Here it is.” He picked up a scrap of parchment and read from it. “High fever, nausea, vomiting. Chills, profuse sweating, sore throat, and headache. Finally delirium, followed shortly by death.”

She looked at him gravely. “That doesn’t sound too good,” she said. “Is there anything peculiar about the bodies after they’ve died?”

“They all have an awful grin on their faces,” he told her, consulting his parchment.

She shook her head. “I was afraid of that.”

“What is it?”

“A form of plague.”

“Plague?” His face had gone suddenly pale. “I thought there were swellings on the body with that. This doesn’t mention that.” He held up the scrap of parchment.

“There are several different varieties of the disease, ’Zakath. The most common involves the swellings you mentioned. Another attacks the lungs. The one you have here is quite rare, and dreadfully virulent.”

“Can it be cured?”

“Not cured, no. Some people manage to survive it, but that’s probably the result of mild cases of their body’s natural resistance to disease. Some people seem to be immune. They don’t catch it no matter how many times they’ve been exposed.”

“What can I do?”

She gave him a steady look. “You won’t like this,” she told him.

“I like the plague even less.”

“Seal up Mal Zeth. Seal the city in the same way that you’ve sealed the palace.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Deadly serious. You have to keep the infection confined to Mal Zeth, and the only way to do that is to prevent people from carrying the disease out of the city to other places.” Her face was bleak. “And when I say to seal the city, ’Zakath, I mean totally. Nobody leaves.”

“I’ve got an empire to run, Polgara. I can’t seal myself up here and just let it run itself. I have to get messengers in and send orders out.”

“Then, inevitably, you will rule an empire of the dead. The symptoms of the disease don’t begin to show up until a week or two after the initial infection, but during the last several days of that period, the carrier is already dreadfully contagious. You can catch it from somebody who looks and feels perfectly healthy. If you send out messengers, sooner or later one of them will be infected, and the disease will spread throughout all of Mallorea.”

His shoulders slumped in defeat as the full horror of what she was describing struck him. “How many?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t quite understand the question.”

“How many will die here in Mal Zeth, Polgara?”

She considered it. “Half,” she replied, “if you’re lucky.”

“Half?” he gasped. “Polgara, this is the largest city in the world. You’re talking about the greatest disaster in the history of mankind.”

“I know—and that’s only if you’re lucky. The death rate could go as high as four-fifths of the population.”

He sank his face into his trembling hands. “Is there anything at all that can be done?” he asked in a muted voice.

“You must burn the dead,” she told him. “The best way is just to burn their houses without removing them. That reduces the spread of the disease.”

“You’d better have the streets patrolled, too,” Belgarath added grimly. “There’s bound to be looting, and the looters are going to catch the disease. Send out archers with orders to shoot looters on sight. Then their bodies should be pushed back into the infected houses with long poles and burned along with the bodies already in the houses.”

“You’re talking about the destruction of Mal Zeth!” ’Zakath protested violently, starting to his feet.

“No,” Polgara disagreed. “We’re talking about saving as many of your citizens as possible. You have to steel your heart about this, ’Zakath. You may eventually have to drive all the healthy citizens out into the fields, surround them with guards to keep them from getting away, and then burn Mal Zeth to the ground.”

“That’s unthinkable!”

“Perhaps you ought to start thinking about it,” she told him. “The alternative could be much, much worse.”

12

“Silk,” Garion said urgently, “you’ve got to stop it.”

“I’m sorry, Garion,” the little man replied, looking cautiously around the moonlit atrium for hidden spies, “but it’s already in motion. Sadi’s bandits are inside the palace grounds and they’re taking their orders from Vasca. Vasca’s so brave now that he’s almost ready to confront ’Zakath himself. General Bregar of the Bureau of Military Procurement knows that something’s afoot, so he’s surrounded himself with troops. The King of Pallia, the Prince Regent of Delchin, and the old King of Voresebo have armed every one of their retainers. The palace is sealed, and nobody can bring in any outside help—not even ’Zakath himself. The way things stand right now, one word could set it off.”

Garion started to swear, walking around the shadowy atrium and kicking at the short-cropped turf.

“You did tell us to go ahead,” Silk reminded him.

“Silk, we can’t even get out of the palace right now—much less the city. We’ve stirred up a fight, and now we’re going to be caught right in the middle of it.”

Silk nodded glumly. “I know,” he said.

“I’ll have to go to ’Zakath,” Garion said. “Tell him the whole story. He can have his imperial guards disarm everybody.”

“If you thought it was hard to come up with a way to get out of the palace, start thinking about how we’re going to get out of the imperial dungeon. ’Zakath’s been polite so far, but I don’t think his patience—or his hospitality—would extend to this.” Garion grunted.

“I’m afraid that we’ve outsmarted ourselves,” Silk said. He scratched at his head. “I do that sometimes,” he added.

“Can you think of any way to head it off?”

“I’m afraid not. The whole situation is just too inflammable. Maybe we’d better tell Belgarath.”

Garion winced. “He won’t be happy.”

“He’ll be a lot less happy if we don’t tell him.”

Garion sighed. “I suppose you’re right All right, let’s go get it over with.”

It took quite some time to locate Belgarath. They finally found him standing at a window in a room high up in the east wing. The window looked out over the palace wall. Beyond that wall fires ranged unchecked in the stricken city. Sheets of sooty flame belched from whole blocks of houses, and a pall of thick smoke blotted out the starry sky. “It’s getting out of hand,” the old man said. “They should be pulling down houses to make firebreaks, but I think the soldiers are afraid to leave their barracks.” He swore. “I hate fires,” he said.

“Something’s sort of come up,” Silk said cautiously, looking around to see if he could locate the spy holes in the walls of the room.

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing all that much,” Silk replied with exaggerated casualness. “We just thought that we’d bring it to your attention, is all.” His fingers, however, were twitching and flickering. Even as he spoke quite calmly, improvising some minor problem with the horses for the edification of the spies they all knew were watching and listening, his dancing fingers laid out the entire situation for the old man.

“You what!” Belgarath exclaimed, then covered the outburst with a cough.

—You told us to devise a diversion, Grandfather— Garion’s hands said as Silk continued to ramble on about the horses.

—A diversion, yes— Belgarath’s fingers replied,—but not pitched battles inside the palace. What were you thinking of—

—It was the best we could come up with— Garion replied lamely.

“Let me think about this for a minute,” the old man said aloud. He paced back and forth for a while, his hands clasped behind his back and his face furrowed with concentration. “Let’s go talk with Durnik,” he said finally. “He’s more or less in charge of the horses, so we’ll need his advice.” Just before he turned to lead them from the room, however, his fingers flickered one last time.—Try not to walk too softly on the way downstairs— he told them.—I need to give you some instructions, and wiggling our fingers takes too long—

As they left the room, Garion and Silk scuffed their feet and brought the heels of their boots down hard on the marble floor to cover Belgarath’s whispering voice.

“All right,” the old man breathed, scarcely moving his lips as they moved along the corridor toward the stairs leading down. “The situation isn’t really irretrievable. Since we can’t stop this little brawl you’ve arranged anyway, let it go ahead and happen. Wewill need the horses, though, so, Garion, I want you to go to ’Zakath and tell him that we’d like to isolate our mounts from the rest of the stables. Tell him that it’s to avoid having them catch the plague.”

“Can horses catch the plague?” Garion whispered in some surprise.

“How should I know? But if I don’t, you can be sure that ’Zakath won’t either. Silk, you sort of ease around and let everybody know—quietly—that we’re just about to leave and to get ready without being too obvious about it.”

“Leave?” Garion’s whisper was startled. “Grandfather, do you know a way to get out of the palace—and the city?”

“No, but I know someone who does. Get to ’Zakath with your request about the horses as quickly as you can. He’s got his mind on so many other things right now that he probably won’t give you any argument about it.” He looked at Silk. “Can you give me any kind of idea as to when your little explosion is going to take place?”

“Not really,” Silk whispered back, still scuffing his feet on the stairs as they went down. “It could happen at any minute, I suppose.”

Belgarath shook his head in disgust. “I think you need to go back to school,” he breathed irritably. "How to do something is important, yes, but when is sometimes even more important.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“Do. We’d all better hurry, then. We want to be ready when this unscheduled little eruption takes place.”

There were a dozen high-ranking officers with ’Zakath when Garion was admitted to the large, red-draped room where the Emperor was conferring with his men. “I’ll be with you in a bit, Garion,” the haggard-looking man said. Then he turned back to his generals. “We have to get orders to the troops,” he told them. “I need a volunteer to go out into the city.” The generals looked at each other, scuffing their feet on the thick blue carpet.

“Am I going to have to order someone to go?” ’Zakath demanded in exasperation.

“Uh—excuse me,” Garion interjected mildly, “but why does anybody have to go at all?”

“Because the troops are all sitting on their hands in their barracks while Mal Zeth burns,” ’Zakath snapped.

“They have to start tearing down houses to make fire breaks, or we’ll lose the whole city. Someone has to order them out.”

“Have you got troops posted outside the palace walls?” Garion asked.

“Yes. They have orders to keep the populace away.”

“Why not just shout at them from the top of the wall?” Garion suggested. “Tell one of them to go get a colonel or somebody, then yell your orders down to him. Tell him to put the troops to work. Nobody can catch the plague from a hundred yards away—I don’t think.”

’Zakath stared at him and then suddenly began to laugh ruefully. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he asked.

“Probably because you weren’t raised on a farm,” Garion replied. “If you’re plowing a different field from the man you want to talk to, you shout back and forth.

Otherwise, you do an awful lot of unnecessary walking.”

“All right,” ’Zakath said briskly, looking at his generals, “which one of you has the biggest mouth?”

A red-faced officer with a big paunch and snowy white hair grinned suddenly. “In my youth, I could be heard all the way across a parade ground, your Majesty,” he said.

“Good. Go see if you can still do it. Get hold of some colonel with a glimmer of intelligence. Tell him to abandon any district that’s already burning and to tear down enough houses around the perimeter to keep the fire from spreading. Tell him that there’s a generalcy in it for him if he saves at least half of Mal Zeth.”

“Provided that he doesn’t get the plague and die,” one of the other generals muttered.

“That’s what soldiers get paid for, gentlemen—taking risks. When the trumpet blows, you’re supposed to attack, and I’m blowing the trumpet—right now.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” they all replied in unison, turned smartly, and marched out.

“That was a clever idea, Garion,” ’Zakath said gratefully. “Thank you.” He sprawled wearily in a chair.

“Just common sense.” Garion shrugged, also sitting down.

“Kings and Emperors aren’t supposed to have common sense. It’s too common.”

“You’re going to have to get some sleep, ’Zakath,” Garion told him seriously. “You look like a man on his last legs.”

“Gods,” ’Zakath replied, “I’d give half of Karanda right now for a few hours’ sleep—of course, I don’t have half of Karanda anymore.”

“Go to bed, then.”

“I can’t. There’s too much to do.”

“How much can you do if you collapse from exhaustion? Your generals can take care of things until you wake up. That’s what generals are for, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” ’Zakath slumped lower in his chair. He looked across at Garion. “Was there something on your mind?” he asked. “I’m sure this isn’t just a social visit.”

“Well,” Garion said, trying to make it sound only incidental, “Durnik’s worried about our horses,” he said.

“We’ve talked with Aunt Pol—Lady Polgara—and she’s not really sure whether horses can catch plague or not.

Durnik wanted me to ask you if it would be all right if we took our animals out of the main stables and picketed them someplace near the east wing where he can keep an eye on them.”

“Horses?” ’Zakath said incredulously. “He’s worried about horses at a time like this?”

“You sort of have to understand Durnik,” Garion replied. “He’s a man who takes his responsibilities very seriously. He looks on it as a duty, and I think we can both appreciate that.”

’Zakath laughed a tried laugh. “The legendary Sendarian virtues,” he said, “duty, rectitude and practicality.” He shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “If it makes Goodman Durnik happy, he can stable your horses in the corridors of the east wing if he wants.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’d want to do that,” Garion replied after a moment’s thought. “One of the Sendarian virtues you neglected to mention was propriety. Horses don’t belong inside the house. Besides,” he added, “the marble floors might bruise their hooves.”

’Zakath smiled weakly. “You’re a delight, Garion,” he said. “Sometimes you’re so serious about the littlest things.”

“Big things are made up of little things, ’Zakath,” Garion replied sententiously. He looked at the exhausted man across the table, feeling a peculiar regret at being forced to deceive somebody he genuinely liked. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked.

“I’ll survive, I expect,” ’Zakath said. “You see, Garion, one of the big secrets about this world is that the people who desperately cling to life are usually the ones who die. Since I don’t really care one way or the other, I’ll probably live to be a hundred.”

“I wouldn’t base any plans on that kind of superstition,” Garion told him. Then a thought came to him. “Would it upset you if we locked the doors of the east wing from the inside until this all blows over?” he asked. “I’m not particularly timid about getting sick myself, but I’m sort of concerned about Ce’Nedra and Liselle and Eriond. None of them are really terribly robust, and Aunt Pol said that stamina was one of the things that help people survive the plague.”

’Zakath nodded. “That’s a reasonable request,” he agreed, “and really a very good idea. Let’s protect the ladies and the boy, if at all possible.”

Garion stood up. “You’ve got to get some sleep,” he said.

“I don’t think I can sleep. There are so many things on my mind just now.”

“I’ll have someone send Andel to you,” Garion suggested. “If she’s half as good as Aunt Pol thinks she is, she should be able to give you something that would put a regiment to sleep.” He looked at the exhausted man he cautiously considered to be his friend. “I won’t be seeing you for a while,” he said. “Good luck, and try to take care of yourself, all right?”

“I’ll try, Garion. I’ll try.”

Gravely they shook hands, and Garion turned and quietly left the room.

They were busy for the next several hours. Despite Garion’s subterfuges, Brador’s secret police dogged their every step. Durnik and Toth and Eriond went to the stables and came back with the horses, trailed closely by the ubiquitous policemen.

“What’s holding things up?” Belgarath demanded when they had all gathered once again in the large room at the top of the stairs with its dais and the throne-like chair at one end.

“I’m not sure,” Silk replied carefully, looking around. “It’s just a matter of time, though.”

Then, out on the palace grounds beyond the bolted doors of the east wing, there was the sound of shouting and the thud of running feet, followed by the ring of steel on steel.

“Something seems to be happening,” Velvet said clinically.

“It’s about time,” Belgarath grunted.

“Be nice, Ancient One.”

Within their locked-off building there also came the rapid staccato sound of running. The doors leading out into the rest of the palace and to the grounds began to bang open and then slam shut.

“Are they all leaving, Pol?” Belgarath asked.

Her eyes grew distant for a moment. “Yes, father,” she said.

The running and slamming continued for several minutes.

“My,” Sadi said mildly, “weren’t there a lot of them?”

“Will you three stop congratulating yourselves and go bolt those doors again?” Belgarath said.

Silk grinned and slipped out the door. He came back a few minutes later, frowning. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” he said. “The guards at the main door seem to have a strong sense of duty. They haven’t left their posts. ”

“Great diversion, Silk,” Belgarath said sarcastically.

“Toth and I can deal with them,” Durnik said confidently. He went to the box beside the fireplace and picked up a stout chunk of oak firewood.

“That might be just a bit direct, dear,” Polgara murmured. “I’m sure you don’t want to kill them, and sooner or later they’ll wake up and run straight to ’Zakath. I think we’ll need to come up with something a little more sneaky.”

“I don’t care much for that word, Pol,” he said stiffly.

“Would ‘diplomatic’ put a better light on it?”

He thought about it. “No,” he said, “not really. It means the same thing, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” she conceded, “yes, probably. But it sounds nicer, doesn’t it?”

“Polgara,” the smith said firmly. It was the first time Garion had ever heard him use her full name. “I’m not trying to be unreasonable, but how can we face the world if we lie and cheat and sneak every time we go around a corner? I mean—really, Pol.”

She looked at him. “Oh, my Durnik,” she said, “I love you.” She threw her arms about her husband’s neck with a sort of girlish exuberance. “You’re too good for this world, do you know that?”

“Well,” he said, slightly abashed by a show of affection that he obviously believed should be kept very private, “it’s a matter of decency, isn’t it?”

“Of course, Durnik,” she agreed in an oddly submissive tone. “Whatever you say.”

“What are we going to do about the guards?” Garion asked.

“I can manage them, dear.” Polgara smiled. “I can arrange it so that they won’t see or hear a thing. We’ll be able to leave with no one the wiser—assuming that father knows what he’s talking about.”

Belgarath looked at her, then suddenly winked. “Trust me,” he said. “Durnik, bring the horses inside.”

“Inside?” the smith looked startled.

Belgarath nodded. “We have to take them down into the cellar.”

“I didn’t know that this wing had a cellar,” Silk said.

“Neither does ’Zakath,” Belgarath smirked, “Or Brador.”

“Garion,” Ce’Nedra said sharply.

Garion turned to see a shimmering in the center of the room. Then the blindfolded form of Cyradis appeared.

“Make haste,” she urged them. “Ye must reach Ashaba ’ere the week is out.”

“Ashaba?” Silk exclaimed. “We have to go to Calida. A man named Mengha is raising demons there.”

“That is of no moment, Prince Kheldar. The demons are thy least concern. Know, however, that the one called Mengha also journeys toward Ashaba. He will be caught up in one of the tasks which must be completed ’ere the meeting of the Child of Light and the Child of Dark can come to pass in the Place Which Is No More.” She turned her blindfolded face toward Garion. “The time to complete this task is at hand, Belgarion of Riva, and shouldst those of thy companions upon whom the task hath been laid fail in its accomplishment, the world is lost. I pray thee, therefore, go to Ashaba.” And then she vanished.

There was a long silence as they all stared at the spot where she had stood.

“That’s it, then,” Belgarath said flatly. “We go to Ashaba.”

“If we can get out of the palace,” Sadi murmured.

“We’ll get out. Leave that to me.”

“Of course, Ancient One.”

The old man led them out into the hallway, down the stairs, and along the main corridor toward the stout door leading to the rest of the palace.

“Just a moment, father,” Polgara said. She concentrated for a moment, the white lock at her brow glowing.

Then Garion felt the surge of her will.

“All right,” she said. “The guards are asleep now.”

The old man continued on down the corridor. “Here we are,” he said, stopping before a large tapestry hanging on the marble wall. He reached behind the tapestry, took hold of an age-blackened iron ring, and pulled. There was a squeal of protesting metal and then a solid-sounding clank. “Push on that side,” he said, gesturing toward the far end of the tapestry.

Garion went on down a few steps and set his shoulder to the tapestry. There was a metallic shriek as the covered marble slab turned slowly on rusty iron pivots set top and bottom in its precise center.

“Clever,” Silk said, peering into the dark cobweb-choked opening beyond the slab. “Who put it here?”

” A long time ago one of the Emperors of Mallorea was a bit nervous about his position,” the old man replied, “He wanted to have a quick way out of the palace in case things started to go wrong. The passageway’s been forgotten, so nobody’s likely to follow us. Let’s go bring out our packs and other belongings. We won’t be coming back.”

It took about five minutes for them to pile their things in front of the tapestry-covered panel, and by then Durnik, Toth, and Eriond were leading the horses along the marble corridor with a great clatter of hooves.

Garion stepped to the corner and peered around it at the main door. The two guards were standing rigidly, their faces blank and their eyes glassy and staring. Then he walked back to join the others. “Someday you’ll have to show me how to do that,” he said to Polgara, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder toward the two comatose soldiers.

“It’s very simple, Garion,” she told him.

“For you, maybe,” he said. Then a thought suddenly came to him. “Grandfather,” he said with a worried frown, “if this passage of yours comes out in the city, won’t we be worse off than we were here in the palace? There’s plague out there, you know, and all the gates are locked.”

“It doesn’t come out inside Mal Zeth,” the old man replied. “Or so I’ve been told.”

Out on the palace grounds the sounds of fighting intensified.

“They seem very enthusiastic, don’t they?” Sadi murmured in a self-congratulatory way.

“Well, now,” a familiar lilting voice came up out of the cellar beyond the panel. “Will ye stand there for hours pattin’ yerselves on the backs an’ allowin’ the night to fly by with nothin’ more accomplished at all? We’ve miles and miles to go, don’t y’ know? An’ we won’t get out of Mal Zeth this month unless we make a start, now will we?”

“Let’s go,” Belgarath said shortly.

The horses were reluctant to enter the dark, musty place behind the marble panel, but Eriond and Horse confidently went through with Garion’s big gray, Chretienne, close behind; and the other animals somewhat skittishly followed.

It was not really a cellar, Garion realized. A flight of shallow stairs led down to what could be more properly described as a rough stone passageway. The horses had some difficulty negotiating the stairs, but eventually, following Eriond, Horse, and Chretienne, they reached the bottom.

At the top of the stairs the giant Toth pushed the hidden panel shut again, and the latch made an ominously heavy clank as it closed.

“One moment, father,” Polgara said. In the close and musty-smelling darkness, Garion felt the faint surge of her will. “There,” she said. “The soldiers are awake again, and they don’t even know that we’ve been here.”

At the bottom of the stairs the comic juggler, Feldegast, stood holding a well-shielded lantern. “ ‘Tis a fine night fer a little stroll,” he observed. “Shall we be off, then?”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Belgarath said to him.

“How could ye possibly doubt me, old man?” the comedian said, with an exaggerated expression of injury. “I’m the very soul of circumspection, don’t y’ know.” He made a faint grimace. “There’s only one teensy—weensy little problem. It seems that a certain portion of this passageway collapsed in on itself a while back, so we’ll be forced to go through the streets up above for a triflin’ bit of a way.”

“Just how triflin—trifling?” Belgarath demanded. He glared at the impudent comedian. “I wish you’d stop that,” he said irritably. “What possessed you to resurrect a dialect that died out two thousand years ago?”

“ ’Tis a part of me charm, Ancient Belgarath. Any man at all kin throw balls in the air an’ catch ’em again, but it’s the way a performer talks that sets the tone of his act.”

“You two have met before, I take it?” Polgara said with one raised eyebrow.

“Yer honored father an’ me are old, old friends, me dear Lady Polgara,” Feldegast said with a sweeping bow.

“I know ye all by his description. I must admit, however, that I’m overcome altogether by yer unearthly beauty.”

“This is a rare rogue you’ve found, father,” she said with a peculiar smile on her face. “I think I could grow to like him.”

“I don’t really advise it, Pol. He’s a liar and a sneak and he has uncleanly habits. You’re evading the question, Feldegast—if that’s what you want to call yourself. How far do we have to go through the streets?”

“Not far at all, me decrepit old friend—a half a mile perhaps until the roof of the passage is stout enough again to keep the pavin’ stones where they belong instead of on the top of our heads. Let’s press on, then. ’Tis a long, long way to the north wall of Mal Zeth, an’ the night is wearin’ on.”

“Decrepit?” Belgarath objected mildly.

“Merely me way of puttin’ things, Ancient One,” Feldegast apologized. “Be sure that I meant no offense.” He turned to Polgara. “Will ye walk with me, me girl?Ye’ve got an absolutely ravishin’ fragrance about ye that quite takes me breath away. I’ll walk along beside ye, inhalin’ and perishin’ with sheer delight.”

Polgara laughed helplessly and linked her arm with that of the outrageous little man.

“I like him,” Ce’Nedra murmured us Garion as they followed along through the cobwebby passageway.

“Yer supposed to, me girl,” Garion said in a not altogether perfect imitation of the juggler’s brogue. “ ‘Tis a part of his charm, don’t y’ know?”

“Oh, Garion,.” she laughed, “I love you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

She gave him an exasperated look and then punched him in the shoulder with her little fist.

“Ouch.”

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, taking his arm in sudden concern.

“I think I can stand it, dear,” he replied. “We noble heroes can bear all sorts of things.” They followed Feldegast’s lantern for a mile or more with the horses clattering along behind them through the cobweb-draped passageway. Occasionally they heard the rumble of the dead-carts bearing their mournful freight through the streets above. Here in the musty darkness, however, there was only the sound of the furtive skittering of an occasional errant mouse and the whisperlike tread of watchful spiders moving cautiously across the vaulted ceiling.

“I hate this,” Silk said to no one in particular. “I absolutely hate it.”

“That’s all right, Kheldar,” Velvet replied, taking the little man’s hand. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“Thanks awfully.” he said, though he did not remove his hand from hers.

“Who’s there?” The voice came from somewhere ahead.

“’Tis only me, good Master Yarblek,” Feldegast replied. “Me an’ a few lost, strayed souls tryin’ to find their way on this dark, dark night.”

“Do you really enjoy him all that much?” Yarblek said sourly to someone else.

“He’s the delight of my life,” Vella’s voice came through the darkness. “At least with him I don’t have to look to my daggers every minute to defend my virtue.” Yarblek sighed gustily. “I had a feeling that you were going to say something like that,” he said.

“My lady,” Vella said, making an infinitely graceful curtsy to Polgara as the sorceress and the juggler, arm in arm, moved up to the place where a moss-grown rockfall blocked the passageway.

“Vella,” Polgara responded in an oddly Nadrak accent. “May your knives always be bright and keen.”

There was a strange formality in her greeting, and Garion knew that he was hearing an ancient ritual form of address.

“And may you always have the means at hand to defend your person from unwanted attentions,” the Nadrak dancing girl responded automatically, completing the ritual.

“What’s happening up above?” Belgarath asked the felt-coated Yarblek.

“They’re dying,” Yarblek answered shortly, “whole streets at a time.”

“Have you been avoiding the city?” Silk asked his partner.

Yarblek nodded. “We’re camped outside the gates,” he said. “We got out just before they chained them shut. Dolmar died, though. When he realized that he had the plague, he got out an old sword and fell on it.”

Silk sighed. “He was a good man—a little dishonest, maybe, but a good man all the same.”

Yarblek nodded sadly. “At least he died clean,” he said. Then he shook his head. “The stairs up to the street are over here,” he said, pointing off into the darkness. “It’s late enough so that there’s nobody much abroad—except for the dead-carts and the few delirious ones stumbling about and looking for a warm gutter to die in.” He squared his shoulders. “Let’s go,” he said. “The quicker we can get through those streets up there, the quicker we can get back underground where it’s safe.”

“Does the passage go all the way to the city wall?” Garion asked him.

Yarblek nodded. “And a mile or so beyond,” he said.

” It comes out in an old stone quarry.” He looked at Feldegast. “You never did tell me how you found out about it,” he said.

“ ’Tis one of me secrets, good Master Yarblek,” the juggler replied. “No matter how honest a man might be, it’s always good to know a quick way out of town, don’t y’ know.”

“Makes sense,” Silk said.

“You ought to know,” Yarblek replied. “Let’s get out of here.” They led the horses to a flight of stone stairs reaching up into the darkness beyond the circle of light from Feldegast’s lantern and then laboriously hauled the reluctant animals up the stairway, one step at a time. The stairway emerged in a rickety shed with a straw-littered floor. After the last horse had been hauled up, Feldegast carefully lowered the long trap door again and scuffed enough straw over it to conceal it. “ ‘Tis a useful sort of thing,” he said, pointing downward toward the hidden passage, “but a secret’s no good at all if just anybody kin stumble over it.”

Yarblek stood at the door peering out into the narrow alleyway outside.

“Anybody out there?” Silk asked him.

“A few bodies,” the Nadrak replied laconically. “For some reason they always seem to want to die in alleys.” He drew in a deep breath. “All right, let’s go, then.”

They moved out into the alley, and Garion kept his eyes averted from the contorted bodies of the plague victims huddled in corners or sprawled in the gutters.

The night air was filled with smoke from the burning city, the reek of burning flesh, and the dreadful smell of decay.

Yarblek also sniffed, then grimaced. “From the odor, I’d say that the dead-carts have missed a few.” he said.

He led the way to the mouth of the alley and peered out into the street. “It’s clear enough,” he grunted. “Just a few looters picking over the dead. Come on.”

They went out of the alley and moved along a street illuminated by a burning house. Garion saw a furtive movement beside the wall of another house and then made out the shape of a raggedly dressed man crouched over a sprawled body. The man was roughly rifting through the plague victim’s clothes. “Won’t he catch it?” he asked Yarblek, pointing at the looter.

“Probably.” Yarblek shrugged. “I don’t think the world’s going to miss him very much if he does, though.”

They rounded a corner and entered a street where fully half the houses were on fire. A dead-cart had stopped before one of the burning houses, and two rough-looking men were tossing bodies into the fire with casual brutality.

“Stay back!” one of the men shouted to them. “There’s plague here!”

“There’s plague everywhere in this mournful city, don’t y’ know,” Feldegast replied. “But we thank ye fer yer warnin’ anyway. We’ll just go on by on the other side of the street, if ye don’t mind.” He looked curiously at the pair. “How is it that yer not afraid of the contagion yerselves?” he asked.

“We’ve already had it,” one replied with a short laugh.

“I’ve never been so sick in my life, but at least I didn’t die from it—and they say you can only catch it once.”

“ ’Tis a fortunate man y’ are, then,” Feldegast congratulated him.

They moved on past the rough pair and on down to the next corner.

“We go this way.” Feldegast told them.

“How much farther is it?” Belgarath asked him.

“Not far, an’ then we’ll be back underground where it’s safe.”

“You might feel safe underground,” Silk said sourly, “but I certainly don’t.”

Halfway along the street Garion saw a sudden movement in one of the deeply inset doorways, and then he heard a feeble wail. He peered at the doorway. Then, one street over, a burning house fell in on itself, shooting flame and sparks high into the air. By that fitful light he was able to see what was in the shadows. The crumpled figure of a woman lay huddled in the doorway, and seated beside the body was a crying child, not much more than a year old. His stomach twisted as he started at the horror before his eyes.

Then, with slow cry, Ce’Nedra darted toward the child with her arms extended.

“Ce’Nedra!” he shouted, trying to shake his hand free of Chretienne’s reins. “No!”

But before he could move in pursuit, Vella was already there. She caught Ce’Nedra by the shoulder and spun her around roughly. “Ce’Nedra!” she snapped. “Stay away!”

“Let me go!” Ce’Nedra almost screamed. “Can’t you see that it’s a baby?” She struggled to free herself.

Very coolly, Vella measured the little Queen, then slapped her sharply across the face. So far as Garion knew, it was the first time anyone had ever hit Ce’Nedra.

“The baby’s dead, Ce’Nedra,” Vella told her with brutal directness, “and if you go near it, you’ll die, too.” She began to drag her captive back toward the others.

Ce’Nedra stared back over her shoulder at the sickly wailing child, her hand outstretched toward it.

Then Velvet moved to her side, put an arm about her shoulders, and gently turned her so that she could no longer see the child. “Ce’Nedra,” she said, “you must think first of your own baby. Would you want to carry this dreadful disease to him?”

Ce’Nedra stared at her.

“Or do you want to die before you ever see him again?”

With a sudden wail, Ce’Nedra fell into Velvet’s arms, sobbing bitterly.

“I hope she won’t hold any grudges,” Vella murmured.

“You’re very quick, Vella,” Polgara said, “and you think very fast when you have to.”

Vella shrugged. “I’ve found that a smart slap across the mouth is the best cure for hysterics.”

Polgara nodded. “It usually works,” she agreed approvingly.

They went on down the street until Feldegast led them into another smelly alley. He fumbled with the latch to the wide door of a boarded-up warehouse, then swung it open. “Here we are, then,” he said, and they all followed him inside. A long ramp led down into a cavernous cellar, where Yarblek and the little juggler moved aside a stack of crates to reveal the opening of another passageway.

They led their horses into the dark opening, and Feldegast remained outside to hide the passage again. When he was satisfied that the opening was no longer visible, he wormed his way through the loosely stacked crates to rejoin them. “An’ there we are,” he said, brushing his hands together in a self-congratulatory way. “No man at all kin possibly know that we’ve come this way, don’t y’ know, so let’s be off.”

Garion’s thoughts were dark as he trudged along the passageway, following Feldegast’s winking lantern. He had slipped away from a man for whom he had begun to develop a careful friendship and had left him behind in a plague-stricken and burning city. There was probably very little that he could have done to aid ’Zakath, but his desertion of the man did not make him feel very proud.

He knew, however, that he had no real choice. Cyradis had been too adamant in her instructions. Compelled by necessity, he turned his back on Mal Zeth and resolutely set his face toward Ashaba.