"His skill is noteworthy, however," Mandorallen replied approvingly.

Garion's spirits soared. He looked around eagerly for someone else to fight, but the Murgos were all dead. "Were they alone?" he demanded, somewhat out of breath. "I mean, were there any others coming along behind them? Maybe we should go look."

"We do want them to find our trail, after all," Silk reminded him. "It's up to you of course, Garion, but if we exterminate all the Murgos in the area, there won't be anyone left to report our direction back to Rak Cthol, will there?"

"Oh," Garion said, feeling a little sheepish, "I forgot about that."

"You have to keep the grand plan in view, Garion, and not lose sight of it during these little side adventures."

"Maybe I got carried away."

"A good leader can't afford to do that."

"All right." Garion began to feel embarra.s.sed.

"I just wanted to be sure you understood, that's all."

Garion didn't answer, but he began to see what it was about Silk that irritated Belgarath so much. Leadership was enough of a burden without these continuously comments from the weasel-faced little man to complicate things.

"Are you all right?" Taiba was saying to Relg with a strange note of concern in her voice. The Ulgo was still on his knees beside the body of the Murgo he had killed.

"Leave me alone," he told her harshly.

"Don't be stupid. Are you hurt? Let me see."

"Don't touch me!" He cringed away from her outstretched hand. "Belgarion, make her get away from me."

Garion groaned inwardly. "What's the trouble now?" he asked.

"I killed this man," Relg replied. "There are certain things I have to do - certain prayers - purification. She's interfering."

Garion resisted an impulse to swear. "Please, Taiba," he said as calmly as he could, "just leave him alone."

"I just wanted to see if he was all right," Taiba answered a bit petulantly. "I wasn't hurting him." She had an odd look on her face that Garion could not begin to understand. As she stared at the kneeling Ulgo, a curious little smile flickered across her lips. Without warning, she reached her hand out toward him again.

Relg shrank back. "No!" he gasped.

Taiba chuckled, a throaty, wicked little sound, and walked away, humming softly to herself. After Relg had performed his ritual of purification over the dead Murgo's body, they remounted and rode on. The sliver of moon stood high overhead in the chill sky, casting a pale light down on the black sands, and Garion looked about constantly as he rode, trying to pick out any possible dangers lurking ahead. He glanced frequently at Aunt Pol, wishing that she were not so completely cut off from him, but she seemed to be totally absorbed in maintaining her shield of will. She rode with Errand pulled closely against her, and her eyes were distant, unfathomable. Garion looked hopefully at Belgarath, but the old man, though he looked up from his doze at times, seemed largely unaware of his surroundings. Garion sighed, and his eyes resumed their nervous scrutiny of the trail ahead. They rode on through the tag-end of night in the biting chill with the faint moonlight about them and the stars glittering like points of ice in the sky above.

Suddenly Garion heard a roaring in his mind - a sound that had a peculiar echo to it - and the shield of force surrounding Aunt Pol shimmered with an ugly orange glow. He jerked his will in sharply and gestured with a single word. He had no idea what word he used, but it seemed to work. Like a horse blundering into a covey of feeding birds, his will scattered the concerted attack on Aunt Pol and Errand. There had been more than one mind involved in the attack - he sensed that - but it seemed to make no difference. He caught a momentary flicker of chagrin and even fear as the joined wills of Aunt Pol's attackers broke and fled from him.

"Not bad,"the voice in his mind observed. "A little clumsy, perhaps, but not bad at all."

"It's the first time I ever did it, " Garion replied. "I'll get better with more practice."

"Don't get overconfident," the voice advised dryly, and then it was gone.

He was growing stronger, there was no doubt about that. The ease with which he had dispersed the combined wills of that group of Grolims Aunt Pol had called the Hierarchs amazed him. He faintly began to understand what Aunt Pol and Belgarath meant in their use of the word "talent." There seemed to be some kind of capacity, a limit beyond which most sorcerers could not go. Garion realized with a certain surprise that he was already stronger than men who had been practicing this art for centuries, and that he was only beginning to touch the edges of his talent. The thought of what he might eventually be able to do was more than a little frightening.

It did, however, make him feel somewhat more secure. He straightened in his saddle and rode a bit more confidently. Perhaps leadership wasn't so bad after all. It took some getting used to, but once you knew what you were doing, it didn't seem all that hard.

The next attack came as the eastern horizon had begun to grow pale behind them. Aunt Pol, her horse, and the little boy all seemed to vanish as absolute blackness engulfed them. Garion struck back instantly and he added a contemptuous little twist to it - a stinging slap at the joined minds that had mounted the attack. He felt a glow of self satisfaction at the surprise and pain in the minds as they flinched back from his quick counterblow. There was a glimpse - just a momentary one - of nine very old men in black robes seated around a table in a room somewhere. One of the walls of the room had a large crack in it, and part of the ceiling had collapsed as a result of the earthquake that had convulsed Rak Cthol. Eight of the evil old men looked surprised and frightened; the ninth one had fainted. The darkness surrounding Aunt Pol disappeared.

"What are they doing?" Silk asked him.

"They're trying to break through Aunt Pol's shield," Garion replied. "I gave them something to think about." He felt a little smug about it.

Silk looked at him, his eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Don't overdo things, Garion," he advised.

"Somebody had to do something," Garion protested.

"That's usually the way it works out. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't lose your perspective."

The broken wall of peaks that marked the western edge of the waste land was clearly visible as the light began to creep up the eastern sky. "How far would you say it is?" Garion asked Durnik.

The smith squinted at the mountains ahead. "Two or three leagues at least," he judged. "Distances are deceiving in this kind of light."

"Well?" Barak asked. "Do we take cover for the day here or do we make a run for it?"

Garion thought about that. "Are we going to change direction as soon as we get to the mountains?" he asked Mandorallen.

"It would seem better mayhap to continue our present course for some little distance first," the knight replied thoughtfully. "A natural boundary such as that which lies ahead might attract more than pa.s.sing scrutiny."

"That's a good point," Silk agreed.

Garion scratched at his cheek, noticing that his whiskers had begun to sprout again. "Maybe we should stop here then," he suggested. "We could start out again when the sun goes down, get up into the mountains a way and then rest. When the sun comes up tomorrow morning, we can change our route. That way, we'll have light enough to see any tracks we leave and cover them up."

"Seems like a good plan," Barak approved.

"Let's do it that way then," Garion decided.

They sought out another ridge and another ravine, and once again concealed it with their tent canvas. Although he was tired, Garion was reluctant to lose himself in sleep. Not only did the cares of leadership press heavily on him, but he also felt apprehensive about the possibility of an attack by the Hierarchs coming while he was asleep. As the others began to unroll their blankets, he walked about rather aimlessly, stopping to look at Aunt Pol, who sat with her back against a large rock, holding the sleeping Errand and looking as distant as the moon behind her shimmering shield. Garion sighed and went on down to the mouth of the ravine where Durnik was attending to the horses. It had occurred to him that all their lives depended on the well-being of their mounts, and that gave him something else to worry about.

"How are they?" he asked Durnik as he approached.

"They're bearing up fairly well," Durnik replied. "They've come a long way, though, and it's beginning to show on some of them."

"Is there anything we can do for them?"

"A week's rest in a good pasture, perhaps," Durnik answered with a wry smile.

Garion laughed. "I think we could all use a week's rest in a good pasture."

"You've really grown, Garion," Durnik observed as he lifted another horse's hind hoof to examine it for cuts or bruises.

Garion glanced at his arm and saw that his wrist stuck an inch or two out of his sleeve. "Most of my clothes still fit - pretty much," he replied.

"That's not the way I meant." Durnik hesitated. "What's it like, Garion? Being able to do things the way you do?"

"It scares me, Durnik," Garion admitted quietly. "I didn't really want any of this, but it didn't give me any choice."

"You mustn't let it frighten you, you know," Durnik said, carefully lowering the horse's hoof. "If it's part of you, it's part of you just like being tall or having blond hair."

"It's not really like that, Durnik. Being tall or having blond hair doesn't hurt anybody. This can."

Durnik looked out at the long shadows of the ridge stretching away from the newly risen sun. "You just have to learn to be careful with it, that's all. When I was about your age, I found out that I was much stronger than the other young men in our village - probably because I worked in the smithy. I didn't want to hurt anybody, so I wouldn't wrestle with my friends. One of them thought I was a coward because of that and he pushed me around for about six months until I finally lost my temper."

"Did you fight him?"

Durnik nodded. "It wasn't really much of a contest. After it was over, he realized that I wasn't a coward after all. We even got to be good friends again - after his bones all healed up and he got used to the missing teeth."

Garion grinned at him, and Durnik smiled back a bit ruefully. "I was ashamed of myself afterward, of course."

Garion felt very close to this plain, solid man. Durnik was his oldest friend - somebody he could always count on.

"What I'm trying to say, Garion," Durnik continued seriously, "is that you can't go through life being afraid of what you are. If you do that, sooner or later somebody will come along who'll misunderstand, and you'll have to do something to show him that it's not him that you're afraid of. When it goes that far, it's usually much worse for you - and for him, too."

"As it was with Asharak?"

Durnik nodded. "It's always best in the long run to be what you are. It isn't proper to behave as if you were more, but it isn't good to behave as if you were less, either. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"The whole problem seems to be finding out just exactly what you really are," Garion observed.

Durnik smiled again. "That's the part that gets most of us in trouble at times," he agreed. Suddenly the smile fell away from his face and he gasped. Then he fell writhing to the ground, clutching at his stomach.

"Durnik!" Garion cried, "What's wrong?"

But Durnik could not answer. His face was ashen and contorted with agony as he twisted in the dirt.

Garion felt a strange, alien pressure and he understood instantly. Thwarted in their attempts to kill Errand, the Hierarchs were directing their attacks at the others in the hope of forcing Aunt Pol to drop her shield. A terrible rage boiled up in him. His blood seemed to burn, and a fierce cry came to his lips.

"Calmly." It was the voice within his mind again.

"What do I do?"

"Get out into the sunlight."

Garion did not understand that, but he ran out past the horses into the pale morning light.

"Put yourself into your shadow. "

He looked down at the shadow stretching out on the ground in front of him and obeyed the voice. He wasn't sure exactly how he did it, but he poured his will and his awareness into the shadow.

"Now, follow the trail of their thought back to them. Quickly." Garion felt himself suddenly flying. Enclosed in his shadow, he touched the still-writhing Durnik once like a sniffing hound, picked up the direction of the concerted thought that had felled his friend, and then flashed through the air back over the miles of wasteland toward the wreckage of Rak Cthol. He had, it seemed, no weight, and there was an odd purplish cast to everything he saw.

He felt his immensity as he entered the room with the cracked wall where the nine black-robed old men sat, trying with the concerted power of their minds to kill Durnik. Their eyes were all focused on a huge ruby, nearly the size of a man's head, which lay flickering in the center of the table around which they sat. The slanting rays of the morning sun had distorted and enlarged Garion's shadow, and he filled one corner of the room, bending slightly so that he could fit under the ceiling. "Stop!" he roared at the evil old men. "Leave Durnik alone!"

They flinched back from his sudden apparition, and he could feel the thought they were directing at Durnik through the stone on the table falter and begin to fall apart. He took a threatening step and saw them cringe away from him in the purple light that half clouded his vision.

Then one of the old men-very thin and with a long dirty beard and completely hairless scalp - seemed to recover from his momentary fright. "Stand firm!" he snapped at the others. "Keep the thought on the Sendar!"

"Leave him alone!" Garion shouted at them.

"Who says so?" the thin old man drawled insultingly.

"I do."

"And just who are you?"

"I am Belgarion. Leave my friends alone."

The old man laughed, and his laugh was as chilling as Ctuchik's had been. "Actually, you're only Belgarion's shadow," he corrected. "We know the trick of the shadow. You can talk and bl.u.s.ter and threaten, but that's all you can do. You're just a powerless shade, Belgarion."

"Leave us alone!"

"And what will you do if we don't?" The old man's face was filled with contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Is he right?" Garion demanded of the voice within his mind.

"Perhaps perhaps not,"the voice replied. "A few men have been able to go beyond the limitation. You won't know unless you try."

Despite his dreadful anger, Garion did not want to kill any of them. "Ice!" he said, focusing on the idea of cold and lashing out with his will. It felt odd - almost tenuous, as if it had no substance behind it, and the roaring was hollow and puny-sounding.

The bald old man sneered and waggled his beard insultingly. Garion ground his insubstantial teeth and drew himself in with dreadful concentration. "Burn!" he said then, driving his will. There was a flicker and then a sudden flash. The force of Garion's will burst forth, directed not at the bald man himself, but rather at his whiskers.

The Hierarch jumped up and stumbled back with a hoa.r.s.e exclamation, trying desperately to beat the flames out of his beard.

The concerted thought of the Hierarchs shattered as the rest of them scrambled to their feet in terrified astonishment. Grimly, Garion gathered his swelling will and began to lay about him with his immensely long arms. He tumbled the Hierarchs across the rough stone floor and slammed them into walls. Squealing with fright, they scurried this way and that, trying to escape, but he methodically reached out and grasped them one by one to administer his chastis.e.m.e.nt. With a peculiar kind of detachment, he even stuffed one of them headfirst into the crack in the wall, pushing quite firmly until only a pair of wriggling feet were sticking out.

Then, when it was done, he turned back to the bald Hierarch, who had managed finally to beat the last of the fire out of his beard.

"It's impossible - impossible," the Hierarch protested, his face stunned. "How did you do it?"

"I told you - I am Belgarion. I can do things you can't even imagine."

"The jewel, "the voice told him. "They're using the jewel to focus their attacks. Destroy it."

"How?"

"It can only hold so much. Look."

Garion suddenly found that he could actually see into the interior of the still-flickering ruby on the table. He saw the minute stress lines within its crystalline structure, and then he understood. He turned his will on it and poured all his anger into it. The stone blazed with light and began to pulsate as the force within it swelled. Then, with a sharp detonation, the stone exploded into fragments.

"No!" the bald Hierarch wailed. "You idiot! That stone was irreplaceable."

"Listen to me, old man," Garion said in an awful voice, "you will leave us alone. You will not pursue us, or try to injure any of us any more." He reached out with his shadowy hand and slid it directly into the bald man's chest. He could feel the heart flutter like a terrified bird and the lungs falter as the Hierarch's breath stopped and he gaped with horror at the arm sticking out of his chest. Garion slowly opened his fingers very wide. "Do you understand me?" he demanded.

The Hierarch gurgled and tried to take hold of the arm, but his fingers found nothing to grasp.