"You can do it later," he said. "Let's hear the rest of his story first. The damage has already been done. Go ahead, Garion. What else did you see?"

Garion took a deep breath. "All right," he said, relieved to be talking to the old man instead of the kings. "I saw the man in the green cloak again that day we all went hunting. He met in the forest with a yellowhaired man who doesn't wear a beard. They talked for a while, and I could hear what they were saying. The yellow-haired man wanted to know what all of you were saying in this hall."

"You should have come to me immediately," King Anheg said.

"Anyway," Garion went on, "I had that fight with the wild boar. I hit my head against a tree and was stunned. I didn't remember what I'd seen until this morning. After King Fulrach called Durnik here, I went exploring. I was in a part of the palace where the roof is all fallen in, and I found some footprints. I followed them, and then after a while I saw the man in the green cloak again. That was when I remembered all this. I followed him, and he went along a corridor that pa.s.ses somewhere over the top of this hall. He hid up there and listened to what you were saying."

"How much do you think he could hear, Garion?" King Cho-Hag asked.

"You were talking about somebody called the Apostate," Garion said, "and you were wondering if he could use some power of some kind to awaken an enemy who's been asleep for a long time. Some of you thought you ought to warn the Arends and the Tolnedrans, but Mister Wolf didn't think so. And Durnik talked about how the men of Sendaria would fight if the Angaraks came."

They appeared startled.

"I was hiding not far from the man in the green cloak," Garion said. "I'm sure he could hear everything that I could. Then some soldiers came, and the man ran away. That's when I decided that I ought to tell Barak about all this."

"Up there," Silk said, standing near one of the walls and pointing at a corner of the ceiling of the hall. "The mortar's crumbled away. The sound of our voices carries right up through the cracks between the stones into the upper corridor."

"This is a valuable boy you've brought with you, Lady Polgara," I King Rhodar said gravely. "If he's looking for a profession, I think I might find a place for him. Gathering information is a rewarding occupation, and he seems to have certain natural gifts along those lines."

"He has some other gifts as well," Aunt Pol said. "He seems to be very good at turning up in places where he's not supposed to be."

"Don't be too hard on the boy, Polgara," King Anheg said. "He's done us a service that we may never be able to repay."

Garion bowed again and retreated from Aunt Pol's steady gaze.

"Cousin," Anheg said then to Barak, "it seems that we have an unwelcome visitor somewhere in the palace. I think I'd like to have a little talk with this lurker in the green cloak."

"I'll take a few men," Barak said grimly. "We'll turn your palace upside down and shake it and see what falls out."

"I'd like to have him more or less intact," Anheg cautioned.

"Of course," Barak said.

"Not too intact, however. As long as he's still able to talk, he'll serve our purposes."

Barak grinned. "I'll make sure that he's talkative when I bring him to you, cousin," he said.

A bleak answering grin touched Anheg's face, and Barak started toward the door.

Then Anheg turned to Barak's wife. "I'd like to thank you also, Lady Merel," he said. "I'm sure you had a significant part in bringing this to us."

"I don't need thanks, your Majesty," she said. "It was my duty."

Anheg sighed. "Must it always be duty, Merel?" he asked sadly.

"What else is there?" she asked.

"A very great deal, actually," the king said, "but you're going to have to find that out for yourself."

"Garion," Aunt Pol said, "come here."

"Yes, ma'am," Garion said and went to her a little nervously.

"Don't be silly, dear," she said. "I'm not going to hurt you." She put her fingertips lightly to his forehead.

"Well?" Mister Wolf asked.

"It's there," she said. "It's very light, or I'd have noticed it before. I'm sorry, Father."

"Let's see," Wolf said. He came over and also touched Garion's heart with his hand. "It's not serious," he said.

"It could have been," Aunt Pol said. "And it was my responsibility to see that something like this didn't happen."

"Don't flog yourself about it, Pol," Wolf said. "That's very unbecoming. Just get rid of it."

"What's the matter?" Garion asked, alarmed.

"It's nothing to worry about, dear," Aunt Pol said. She took his right hand and touched it for a moment to the white lock at her brow. Garion felt a surge, a welter of confused impressions, and then a tingling wrench behind his ears. A sudden dizziness swept over him, and he would have fallen if Aunt Pol had not caught him.

"Who is the Murgo?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"His name is Asharak," Garion said promptly.

"How long have you known him?"

"All my life. He used to come to Faldor's farm and watch me when I was little."

"That's enough for now, Pol," Mister Wolf said. "Let him rest a little first. I'll fix something to keep it from happening again."

"Is the boy ill?" King Cho-Hag asked.

"It's not exactly an illness, Cho-Hag," Mister Wolf said. "It's a little hard to explain. It's cleared up now, though."

"I want you to go to your room, Garion," Aunt Pol said, still holding him by the shoulders. "Are you steady enough on your feet to get there by yourself?"

"I'm all right," he said, still feeling a little light-headed.

"No side trips and no more exploring," she said firmly.

"No, ma'am."

"When you get there, lie down. I want you to think back and remember every single time you've seen this Murgo - what he did, what he said."

"He never spoke to me," Garion said. "He just watched."

"I'll be along in a little while," she went on, "and I'll want you to tell me everything you know about him. It's important, Garion, so concentrate as hard as you can."

"All right, Aunt Pol," he said.

Then she kissed him lightly on the forehead. "Run along now, dear," she said.

Feeling strangely light-headed, Garion went to the door and out into the corridor.

He pa.s.sed through the great hall where Anheg's warriors were belting on swords and picking up vicious-looking battle-axes in preparation for the search of the palace. Still bemused, he went through without stopping.

Part of his mind seemed half asleep, but that secret, inner part was wide awake. The dry voice observed that something significant had just happened. The powerful compulsion not to speak about Asharak was obviously gone. Aunt Pol had somehow pulled it out of his mind entirely. His feeling about that was oddly ambiguous. That strange relationship between himself and dark-robed, silent Asharak had always been intensely private, and now it was gone. He felt vaguely empty and somehow violated. He sighed and went up the broad stairway toward his room.

There were a half dozen warriors in the hallway outside his room, probably part of Barak's search for the man in the green cloak. Garion stopped. Something was wrong, and he shook off his half daze. This pan of the palace was much too populated to make it very likely that the spy would be hiding here. His heart began racing, and step by step he began to back away toward the top of the stairs he had just climbed. The warriors looked like any other Chereks in the palace-bearded, dressed in helmets, mail shirts, and furs, but something didn't seem exactly right.

A bulky man in a dark, hooded cloak stepped through the doorway of Garion's room into the corridor. It was Asharak. The Murgo was about to say something, but then his eyes fell on Garion. "Ah," he said softly. His dark eyes gleamed in his scarred face. "I've been looking for you, Garion," he said in that same soft voice. "Come here, boy."

Garion felt a tentative tug at his mind that seemed to slip away as if it somehow could not get a sure grip. He shook his head mutely and continued to back away.

"Come along now," Asharak said. "We've known each other far too long for this. Do as I say. You know that you must."

The tug became a powerful grasp that again slipped away. "Come here, Garion!" Asharak commanded harshly. Garion kept backing away, step by step.

"No," he said. Asharak's eyes blazed, and he drew himself up angrily.

This time it was not a tug or a grasp, but a blow. Garion could feel the force of it even as it seemed somehow to miss or be deflected. Asharak's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. "Who did this?" he demanded. "Polgara? Belgarath? It won't do any good, Garion. I had you once, and I can take you again any time I want to. You're not strong enough to refuse me."

Garion looked at his enemy and answered out of some need for defiance. "Maybe I'm not," he said, "but I think you'll have to catch me first."

Asharak turned quickly to his warriors. "That's the boy I want," he barked sharply. "Take him!"

Smoothly, almost as if it were done without thought, one of the warriors raised his bow and leveled an arrow directly at Garion. Asharak swung his arm quickly and knocked the bow aside just as the steelpointed shaft was loosed. The arrow sang in the air and clattered against the stones of the wall a few feet to Garion's left.

"Alive, idiot," Asharak snarled and struck the bowman a crushing blow to the side of the head. The bowman fell twitching to the stone floor.

Garion spun, dashed back to the stairs and plunged down three steps at a time. He didn't bother to look back. The sound of heavy feet told him that Asharak and his men were after him. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned sharply to the left and fled down a long, dark pa.s.sageway that led back into the maze of Anheg's palace.

Chapter Eighteen.

THERE WERE WARRIORS everywhere, and the sounds of fighting. In the first instant of his flight, Garion's plan had been simple. All he had to do was to find some of Barak's warriors, and he would be safe. But there were other warriors in the palace as well. The Earl of Jarvik had led a small army into the palace by way of the ruined wings to the south, and fighting raged in the corridors.

Garion quickly realized that there was no way he could distinguish friend from enemy. To him, one Cherek warrior looked the same as another. Unless he could find Barak or someone else he recognized, he did not dare reveal himself to any of them. The frustrating knowledge that he was running from friends as well as enemies added to his fright. It was altogether possible - even quite likely - that he would run from Barak's men directly into the arms of Jarvik's.

The most logical thing to do would be to go directly back to the council hall, but in his haste to escape from Asharak, he had run down so many dim pa.s.sageways and turned so many corners that he had no idea where he was or how to get back to the familiar parts of the palace. His headlong flight was dangerous. Asharak or his men could wait around any corner to seize him, and he knew that the Murgo could quickly re-establish that strange bond between them that Aunt Pol had shattered with her touch. It was that which had to be avoided at any cost. Once Asharak had him again, he would never let go. The only alternative to him was to find some place to hide.

He dodged into another narrow pa.s.sageway and stopped, panting and with his back pressed tightly against the stones of the wall. Dimly, at the far end of this hallway, he could see a narrow flight of worn stone steps twisting upward in the flickering light of a single torch. He quickly reasoned that the higher he went, the less likely he would be to encounter anyone. The fighting would most likely be concentrated on the lower floors. He took a deep breath and went swiftly to the foot of the stairs.

Halfway up he saw the flaw in his plan. There were no side pa.s.sages on the stairs, no way to escape and no place to hide. He had to get to the top quickly or chance discovery and capture, or even worse.

"Boy!" a shout came from below.

Garion looked quickly over his shoulder. A grim-faced Cherek in mail and helmet was coming up the stairs behind him, his sword drawn. Garion started to run, stumbling up the stairs.

There was another shout from above, and Garion froze. The warrior at the top was as grim as the one below and wielded a cruel-looking axe. He was trapped between them. Garion shrank back against the stones, fumbling for his dagger, though he knew it would be of little use. Then the two warriors saw each other. With ringing shouts they both charged. The one with the sword rushed up past Garion while the one with the axe lunged down.

The axe swung wide, missed and clashed a shower of sparks from the stones of the wall. The sword was more true. With his hair standing on end in horror, Garion saw it slide through the downward-plunging body of the axeman. The axe fell clattering down the stairs, and the axeman, still falling on top of his opponent, pulled a broad dagger from its sheath at his hip and drove it into the chest of his enemy. The impact as the two men came together tore them from their feet, and they tumbled, still grappled together down the stairs, their daggers flashing as each man struck again and again.

In helpless horror Garion watched as they rolled and crashed past him, their daggers sinking into each other with sickening sounds and blood spurting from their wounds like red fountains.

Garion retched once, clenched his teeth tightly, and ran up the stairs, trying to close his ears to the awful sounds coming from below as the two dying men continued their horrid work on each other.

He no longer even considered stealth; he simply ran-fleeing more from that hideous encounter on the stairs than from Asharak or the Earl of Jarvik. At last, after how long he could not have said, gasping and winded, he plunged through the partially open door of a dusty, unused chamber. He pushed the door shut and stood trembling with his back against it.

There was a broad, sagging bed against one wall of the room and a small window set high in the same wall. Two broken chairs leaned wearily in corners and an empty chest, its lid open, in a third, and that was all. The chamber was at least a place out of the corridors where savage men were killing each other, but Garion quickly realized that the seeming safety here was an illusion. If anyone opened this door, he would be trapped. Desperately he began to look around the dusty room.

Hanging on the bare wall across from the bed were some drapes; and thinking that they might conceal some closet or adjoining chamber, Garion crossed the room and pulled them aside. There was an opening behind the drapes, though it did not lead into another room but instead into a dark, narrow hall. He peered into the pa.s.sageway, but the darkness was so total that he could only see a short distance into it. He shuddered at the thought of groping through that blackness with armed men pounding along at his heels.

He glanced up at the single window and then dragged the heavy chest across the room to stand on so that he could see out. Perhaps he might be able to see something from the window that would give him some idea of his location. He climbed up on the chest, stood on his tiptoes and looked out.

Towers loomed here and there amid the long slate roofs of the endless galleries and halls of King Anheg's palace. It was hopeless. He saw nothing that he could recognize. He turned back toward the chamber and was about to jump down from the chest when he stopped suddenly. There, clearly in the dust which lay heavily on the floor, were his foot punts. He hopped quickly down and grabbed up the bolster from the long unused bed. He spread it out on the floor and dragged it around the room, erasing the footprints. He knew that he could not completely conceal the fact that someone had been in the room, but he could obliterate the footprints which, because of their size, would immediately make it obvious to Asharak or any of his men that whoever had been i hiding here was not yet full-grown. When he finished, he tossed the bolster back on the bed. The job wasn't perfect, but at least it was better than it had been.

Then there was a shout in the corridor outside and the ring of steel on steel.

Garion took a deep breath and plunged into the dark pa.s.sageway behind the drapes.

He had gone no more than a few feet when the darkness in the narrow pa.s.sage become absolute. His skin crawled at the touch of cobwebs on his face, and the dust of years rose chokingly from the uneven floor. At first he moved quite rapidly, wanting more than anything to put as much distance between himself and the fighting in the corridor as possible, but then he stumbled, and for one heart-stopping instant it seemed that he would fall. The picture of a steep stairway dropping down into the blackness flashed through his mind, and he realized that at his present pace there would be no possible way to catch himself. He began to move more cautiously, one hand on the stones of the wall and the other in front of his face to ward off the cobwebs which hung thickly from the low ceiling.

There was no sense of time in the dark, and it seemed to Garion that he had been groping for hours in this dark hallway that appeared to go on forever. Then, despite his care, he ran full into a rough stone wall. He felt a moment of panic. Did the pa.s.sageway end here? Was it a trap?

Then, flickering at one corner of his vision, he saw dim light. The pa.s.sageway did not end, but rather made a sharp turn to the right. There seemed to be a light at the far end, and Garion gratefully followed it.

As the light grew stronger, he moved more rapidly, and soon he reached the spot that was the source of the light. It was a narrow slot low in the wall. Garion knelt on the dusty stones and peered out.

The hall below was enormous, and a great fire burned in a pit in the center with the smoke rising to the openings in the vaulted roof which lofted even above the place where Garion was. Though it looked much different from up here, he immediately recognized King Anheg's throne room. As he looked down, he saw the gross shape of King Rhodar and the smaller form of King Cho-Hag with the ever-present Hettar standing behind him. Some distance from the thrones, King Fulrach stood in conversation with Mister Wolf, and nearby was Aunt Pol. Barak's wife was talking with Queen Islena, and Queen Porenn and Queen Silar stood not far from them. Silk paced the floor nervously, glancing now and then at the heavily guarded doors. Garion felt a surge of relief. He was safe.

He was about to call down to them when the great door banged open, and King Anheg, mail-shined and with his sword in his hand, strode into the hall, closely followed by Barak and the Rivan Warder, holding between them the struggling form of the flaxen-haired man Garion had seen in the forest on the day of the boar hunt.

"This treason will cost you dearly, Jarvik," Anheg said grimly over his shoulder as he strode toward his throne.

"Is it over, then?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Soon, Polgara," Anheg said. "My men are chasing the last of Jarvik's brigands in the furthest reaches of the palace. If we hadn't been warned, it might have gone quite differently, though."

Garion, his shout still hovering just behind his lips, decided at the last instant to stay silent for a few more moments.

King Anheg sheathed his sword and took his place on his throne.

"We'll talk for a bit, Jarvik," he said, "before what must be done is done."