Enchanter's End Game Part 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Let's hurry," Belgarath said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's too close."

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

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

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

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

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

"Listen," Silk whispered sharply.

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

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

"What did you do?" Garion asked him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is it that dangerous, Grandfather?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How far back are they?"

"Five leagues or so."

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

"What if they don't?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Garion nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

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

"Ce'Nedra?" Garion blurted again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A what?"

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

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

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Of course I want to know."

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

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

"That's it," Beldin told him.

"But what does it mean?" Garion asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We've discussed that before. "

"He's going to kill me."

"What gives you that idea?"

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