Chapter Two.

IT WAS NOON by the time they reached the foot of the basalt tower and the large cave where they had left the horses. Silk went to the cave mouth to stand watch as Barak carefully lowered Belgarath to the floor. "He's heavier than he looks," the big man grunted, wiping the sweat from his face. "Shouldn't he be starting to come around?"

"It may be days before he's fully conscious," Polgara replied. "Just cover him and let him sleep."

"How's he going to ride?"

"I'll take care of that."

"n.o.body's going to be riding anywhere for a while," Silk announced from the narrow mouth of the cave. "The Murgos are swarming around out there like hornets."

"We'll wait until dark," Polgara decided. "We all need some rest anyway." She pushed back the hood of her Murgo robe and went to one of the packs they had piled against the cave wall when they had entered the night before. "I'll see about something to eat, then you'd all better sleep."

Taiba, the slave woman, wrapped once again in Garion's cloak, had been watching Relg almost continually. Her large, violet eyes glowed with grat.i.tude mingled with a faint puzzlement. "You saved my life," she said to him in a rich, throaty voice. She leaned slightly toward him as she spoke. It was an unconscious gesture, Garion was certain, but it was distinctly noticeable. "Thank you," she added, her hand moving to rest lightly on the zealot's arm.

Relg cringed back from her. "Don't touch me," he gasped. She stared at him in amazement, her hand still half extended. "You must never put your hands on me," he told her. "Never." Taiba's look was incredulous. Her life had been spent almost entirely in darkness, and she had never learned to keep her emotions from showing on her face. Amazement gave way to humiliation, and her expression settled then into a kind of stiff, sullen pout as she turned quickly away from the man who had just so harshly rejected her. The cloak slipped from her shoulders as she turned, and the few rags she had for clothing scarcely concealed her nakedness. Despite her tangled hair and the dirty smudges on her limbs, there was a lush, inviting ripeness about her. Relg stared at her and he began to tremble. Then he quickly turned, moved as far away from her as possible, and dropped to his knees, praying desperately and pressing his face against the rocky floor of the cave.

"Is he all right?" Taiba asked quickly.

"He's got some problems," Barak replied. "You'll get used to it."

"Taiba," Polgara said. "Come over here." She looked critically at the woman's scanty clothing. "We're going to have to get something together for you to wear. It's very cold outside. There are other reasons too, it appears."

"I'll see what I can find in the packs," Durnik offered. "we'll need something for the boy too, I think. That smock of his doesn't look any too warm." He looked over at the child, who was curiously examining the horses.

"You won't need to bother about me," Taiba told them. "There's nothing out there for me. As soon as you leave, I'm going back to Rak Cthol."

"What are you talking about?" Polgara asked her sharply.

"I still have something to settle with Ctuchik," Taiba replied, fingering her rusty knife.

Silk laughed from the cave mouth. "We took care of that for you. Rak Cthol's falling to pieces up there, and there isn't enough left of Ctuchik to make a smudge on the floor."

"Dead?" she gasped. "How?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Silk told her.

"Did he suffer?" She said it with a ternble eagerness.

"More than you could ever imagine," Polgara replied.

Taiba drew in a long, shuddering breath, and then she began to cry. Aunt Pol opened her arms and took the sobbing woman into them, comforting her even as she had comforted Garion so often when he was small.

Garion sank wearily to the floor, resting his back against the rocky wall of the cave. Waves of exhaustion washed over him, and a great la.s.situde drained him of all consciously directed thought. Once again the Orb sang to him, but lulling now. Its curiosity about him apparently was satisfied, and its song seemed to be there only to maintain the contact between them. Garion was too tired even to be curious about why the stone took such pleasure in his company.

The little boy turned from his curious examination of the horses and went to where Taiba sat with one of Aunt Pol's arms about her shoulders. He looked puzzled, and reached out with one hand to touch his fingers to her tear-streaked face.

"What does he want?" Taiba asked.

"He's probably never seen tears before," Aunt Pol replied.

Taiba stared at the child's serious little face, then suddenly laughed through her tears and gave him a quick embrace.

The little boy smiled then. "Errand?" he asked, offering her the Orb. "Don't take it, Taiba," Polgara told her very quietly. "Don't even touch it."

Taiba looked at the smiling child and shook her head.

The little boy sighed, then came across the cave, sat down beside Garion, and nestled against him.

Barak had gone a short distance back up the pa.s.sageway they had followed; now he returned, his face grim. "I can hear Murgos moving around up there," the big man reported. "You can't tell how far away they are with all the echoes in these caves, but it sounds as if they're exploring every cave and pa.s.sageway."

"Let us find some defensible spot then, my Lord, and give them reason to look for us elsewhere," Mandorallen suggested gaily.

"Interesting notion," Barak replied, "but I'm afraid it wouldn't work. Sooner or later they're going to find us."

"I'll take care of it," Relg said quietly, breaking off his praying and getting to his feet. The ritual formulas had not helped him, and his eyes were haunted.

"I'll go with you," Barak offered.

Relg shook his head. "You'd just be in my way," he said shortly, already moving toward the pa.s.sage leading back into the mountain. "What's come over him?" Barak asked, puzzled.

"I think our friend's having a religious crisis," Silk observed from the mouth of the cave where he kept watch.

"Another one?"

"It gives him something to occupy his spare moments," Silk replied lightly.

"Come and eat," Aunt Pol told them, laying slices of bread and cheese on top of one of the packs. "Then I want to have a look at the cut on your leg, Mandorallen."

After they had eaten and Polgara had bandaged Mandorallen's knee, she dressed Taiba in a peculiar a.s.sortment of clothes Durnik had taken from the packs. Then she turned her attention to the little boy. He returned her grave look with one just as serious, then reached out and touched the white lock at her brow with curious fingers. With a start of remembrance, Garion recalled how many times he had touched that lock with the selfsame gesture, and the memory of it raised a momentary irrational surge of jealousy, which he quickly suppressed.

The little boy smiled with sudden delight. "Errand," he said firmly, offering the Orb to Aunt Pol.

She shook her head. "No, child," she told him. "I'm afraid I'm not the one." She dressed him in clothing that had to be rolled up and taken in with bits of twine in various places, then sat down with her back against the wall of the cave and held out her arms to him. Obediently he climbed into her lap, put one arm about her neck and kissed her. Then he nestled his face down against her, sighed and immediately fell asleep. She looked down at him with a strange expression on her face - a peculiar mixture of wonder and tenderness - and Garion fought down another wave of jealousy.

There was a grinding rumble in the caves above them.

"What's that?" Durnik asked, looking around with apprehension.

"Relg, I'd imagine," Silk told him. "He seems to be taking steps to head off the Murgos."

"I hope he doesn't get carried away," Durnik said nervously, gland ing at the rock ceiling.

"How longs it going to take to get to the Vale?" Barak asked.

"A couple of weeks, probably," Silk replied. "A lot's going to depend on the terrain and how quickly the Grolims can organize a search for us. If we can get enough of a headstart to put down a good false trail, we can send them all running off to the west toward the Tolnedran border, and we can move toward the Vale without needing to waste all that time dodging and hiding." The little man grinned. "The notion of deceiving the whole Murgo nation appeals to me," he added.

"You don't have to get too creative," Barak told him. "Hettar's going to be waiting for us in the Vale - along with King Cho-Hag and half the clans of Algaria. They'll be awfully disappointed if we don't bring them at least a few Murgos."

"Life's full of little disappointments," Silk told him sardonically. "As I remember it, the eastern edge of the Vale is very steep and rough. It will take a couple of days at least to make it down, and I don't think we'll want to try it with all of MurG.o.dom snapping at our heels."

It was midafternoon when Relg returned. His exertions seemed to have quieted some of the turmoil in his mind, but there was still a haunted look in his eyes, and he deliberately avoided Taiba's violet-eyed gaze. "I pulled down the ceilings of all the galleries leading to this cave," he reported shortly. "We're safe now."

Polgara, who had seemed asleep, opened her eyes. "Get some rest," she told him.

He nodded and went immediately to his blankets.

They rested in the cave through the remainder of the day, taking turns on watch at the narrow opening. The wasteland of black sand and wind-scoured rock lying out beyond the tumbled scree at the base of the pinnacle was alive with Murgo hors.e.m.e.n scurrying this way and that in a frenzied, disorganized search.

"They don't seem to know what they're doing," Garion observed quietly to Silk as the two of them watched. The sun was just sinking into a bank of cloud on the western horizon, staining the sky fiery red, and the stiff wind brought a dusty chill with it as it seeped into the cave opening.

"I imagine that things are a bit scrambled up in Rak Cthol," Silk replied. "No one's in charge any more, and that confuses Murgos. They tend to go all to pieces when there's n.o.body around to give them orders."

"Isn't that going to make it hard for us to get out of here?" Garion asked. "What I mean is that they're not going anyplace. They're just milling around. How are we going to get through them?"

Silk shrugged. "We'll just pull up our hoods and mill around with the rest of them." He pulled the coa.r.s.e cloth of the Murgo robe he wore closer about him to ward off the chill and turned to look back into the cave. "The sun's going down," he reported.

"Let's wait until it's completely dark," Polgara replied. She was carefully bundling the little boy up in one of Garion's old tunics.

"Once we get out a ways, I'll drop a few odds and ends," Silk said. "Murgos can be a little dense sometimes, and we wouldn't want them to miss our trail." He turned to look back out at the sunset. "It's going to be a cold night," he remarked to no one in particular.

"Garion," Aunt Pol said, rising to her feet, "you and Durnik stay close to Taiba. She's never ridden before, and she might need some help at first."

"What about the little boy?" Dumik asked.

"He'll ride with me."

"And Belgarath?" Mandorallen inquired, glancing over at the stilh sleeping old sorcerer.

"When the time comes, we'll just put him on his horse," Polgara replied. "I can keep him in his saddle - as long as we don't make any sudden changes in direction. Is it getting any darker?"

"We'd better wait for a little longer," Silk answered. "There's still quite a bit of light out there."

They waited. The evening sky began to turn purple, and the first stars came out, glittering cold and very far away. Torches began to appear among the searching Murgos. "Shall we go?" Silk suggested, rising to his feet.

They led their horses quietly out of the cave and down across the scree to the sand. There they stopped for several moments while a group of Murgos carrying torches galloped by several hundred yards out. "Don't get separated," Silk told them as they mounted.

"How far is it to the edge of the wasteland?" Barak asked the little man, grunting as he climbed up onto his horse.

"Two days' hard riding," Silk replied. "Or nights in this case. We'll probably want to take cover when the sun's out. We don't look all that much like Murgos."

"Let's get started," Polgara told him.

They moved out at a walk, going slowly until Taiba became more sure of herself and Belgarath showed that he could stay in his saddle even though he could not yet communicate with anyone. Then they nudged their horses into a canter that covered a great deal of ground without exhausting the horses.

As they crossed the first ridge, they rode directly into a large group of Murgos carrying torches.

"Who's there?" Silk demanded sharply, his voice harsh with the characteristic accents of Murgo speech. "Identify yourselves."

"We're from Rak Cthol," one of the Murgos answered respectfully.

"I know that, blockhead," Silk barked. "I asked your ident.i.ty."

"Third Phalanx," the Murgo said stiffly.

"That's better. Put out those torches. How do you expect to see anything beyond ten feet with them flaring in your eyes?"

The torches were immediately extinguished.

"Move 'your search to the north," Silk commanded. "The Ninth Phalanx is covering this sector."

"But "

"Are you going to argue with me'?"

"No, but "

"Move! Now!"

The Murgos wheeled their horses about and galloped off into the darkness.

"Clever," Barak said admiringly.

Silk shrugged. "Pretty elementary," he replied. "People are grateful for a bit of direction when they're confused. Let's move along, shall we?"

There were other encounters during the long, cold, moonless night as they rode west. They were inescapable in view of the hordes of Murgos scouring the wasteland in search of them, but Silk handled each such meeting smoothly, and the night pa.s.sed without significant incident.

Toward morning the little man began artfully dropping various articles to mark their trail. "A bit overdone, perhaps," he said critically, looking at an old shoe he had just tossed into the hoof churned sand behind them.

"What are you mumbling about?" Barak asked him.

"Our trail," Silk replied. "We want them to follow us, remember? They're supposed to think we're headed toward Tolnedra."

"So?"

"I was just suggesting that this is a bit crude."

"You worry too much about things like that."

"It's a question of style, my dear Barak," Silk replied loftily. "Sloppy work tends to be habit-forming."

As the first steel-gray light of dawn began to creep across the wintry sky, they took shelter among the boulders of one of the ridges that laced the floor of the wasteland. Durnik, Barak and Mandorallen stretched the canvas of their tents tautly over a narrow ravine on the west side of the ridge and sprinkled sand on top of it to disguise their makeshift shelter.

"It's probably best not to build a fire," Durnik said to Polgara as they led their horses in under the canvas, "what with the smoke and all."