Queen of Sorcery

  Delvor's porters took the packs from the spare horses, and one of them showed Hettar the way to the horse pens on the outskirts of the Fair. Silk began rummaging through the packs. A myriad of small, expensive items began to pile up on Delvor's carpet as Silk's quick hands dipped into the corners and folds of the wool cloth.

  "I wondered why you needed so much money in Camaar," Wolf commented dryly.

  "Just part of the disguise," Silk replied. "Radek always has a few curios with him for trade along the way."

  "That's a very convenient explanation," Barak observed, "but I wouldn't run it into the ground if I were you."

  "If I can't double our old friend's money in the next hour, I'll retire permanently," Silk promised. "Oh, I almost forgot. I'll need Garion to act as a porter for me. Radek always has at least one porter."

  "Try not to corrupt him too much," Aunt Pol said.

  Silk bowed extravagantly and set his black velvet cap at a jaunty angle; with Garion at his heels, carrying a stout sack of his treasures, he swaggered out into the Great Arendish Fair like a man going into battle.

  A fat Tolnedran three tents down the way proved troublesome and succeeded in getting a jeweled dagger away from Silk for only three times what it was worth, but two Arendish merchants in a row bought identical silver goblets at prices which, though widely different, more than made up for that setback. "I love to deal with Arends," Silk gloated as they moved on down the muddy streets between the pavilions.

  The sly little Drasnian moved through the Fair, wreaking havoc as he went. When he could not sell, he bought; when he could not buy, he traded; and when he could not trade, he dredged for gossip and information. Some of the merchants, wiser than their fellows, saw him coming and promptly hid from him. Garion, swept along by the little man's enthusiasm, began to understand his friend's fascination with this game where profit was secondary to the satisfaction of besting an opponent.

  Silk's predations were broadly ecumenical. He was willing to deal with anyone. He met them all on their own ground. Tolnedrans, Arends, Chereks, fellow Drasnians, Sendars - all fell before him. By midafternoon he had disposed of all of what he had bought in Camaar. His full purse jingled, and the sack on Garion's shoulder was still as heavy, but now it contained entirely new merchandise.

  Silk, however, was frowning. He walked along bouncing a small, exquisitely blown glass bottle on the palm of his hand. He had traded two ivory-bound books of Wacite verse to a Rivan for the little bottle of perfume. "What's the trouble?" Garion asked him as they walked back toward Delvor's pavilions.

  "I'm not sure who won," Silk told him shortly.

  "What?"

  "I don't have any idea what this is worth."

  "Why did you take it, then?"

  "I didn't want him to know that I didn't know its value."

  "Sell it to somebody else."

  "How can I sell it if I don't know what to ask for it? If I ask too much, nobody'll talk to me; and if I ask too little, I'll be laughed out of the Fair."

  Garion started to chuckle.

  "I don't see that it's all that funny, Garion," Silk said sensitively. He remained moody and irritable as they entered the pavilion. "Here's the profit I promised you," he told Mister Wolf somewhat ungraciously as he poured coins into the old man's hand.

  "What's bothering you?" Wolf asked, eyeing the little man's grumpy face.

  "Nothing," Silk replied shortly. Then he glanced over at Aunt Pol, and a broad smile suddenly appeared on his face. He crossed to her and bowed. "My dear Lady Polgara, please accept this trifling memento of my regard for you." With a flourish he presented the perfume bottle to her.

  Aunt Pol's look was a peculiar mixture of pleasure and suspicion. She took the small bottle and carefully worked out the tightly fitting stopper. Then with a delicate gesture she touched the stopper to the inside of her wrist and raised the wrist to her face to catch the fragrance. "Why, Kheldar," she exclaimed with delight, "this is a princely gift."

  Silk's smile turned a bit sickly, and he peered sharply at her, trying to determine if she was serious or not. Then he sighed and went outside, muttering darkly to himself about the duplicity of Rivans.

  Delvor returned not long afterward, dropped his striped cloak in one corner and held out his hands to one of the glowing braziers. "As near as I was able to find out, things are quiet between here and Vo Mimbre," he reported to Mister Wolf, "but five Murgos just rode into the Fair with two dozen Thulls behind them."

  Hettar looked up quickly, his hawk face alert.

  Wolf frowned. "Did they come from the north or the south?"

  "They claim to have come from Vo Mimbre, but there's red clay on the Thulls' boots. I don't think there's any clay between here and Vo Mimbre, is there?"

  "None," Mandorallen declared firmly. "The only clay in the region is to the north."

  Wolf nodded. "Get Silk back inside," he told Barak. Barak went to the tent flap.

  "Couldn't it just be a coincidence?" Durnik wondered.

  "I don't think we want to take that chance," Wolf answered. "We'll wait until the Fair settles down for the night and then slip away."

  Silk came back inside, and he and Delvor spoke together briefly.

  "It won't take the Murgos long to find out we've been here," Barak rumbled, tugging thoughtfully at his red beard. "Then we'll have them dogging our heels every step of the way from here to Vo Mimbre. Wouldn't it simplify things if Hettar, Mandorallen, and I go pick a fight with them? Five dead Murgos aren't going to follow anybody."

  Hettar nodded with a certain dreadful eagerness.

  "I don't know if that would set too well with the Tolnedran legionnaires who police the Fair," Silk drawled. "Policemen seem to worry about unexplained bodies. It upsets their sense of neatness."

  Barak shrugged. "It was a thought."

  "I think I've got an idea," Delvor said, pulling on his cloak again. "They set up their tents near the pavilions of the Nadraks. I'll go do some business with them." He started toward the tent flap, then paused. "I don't know if it means anything," he told them, "but I found out that the leader is a Murgo named Asharak."

  Garion felt a sudden chill at the mention of the name.

  Barak whistled and looked suddenly very grim. "We're going to have to attend to that one sooner or later, Belgarath," he declared.

  "You know him?" Delvor did not seem very surprised.

  "We've met a time or two," Silk replied in an offhand way.

  "He's starting to make a nuisance of himself," Aunt Pol agreed.

  "I'll get started," Delvor said.

  Garion lifted the tent flap to allow Delvor to leave; but as he glanced outside, he let out a startled gasp and jerked the flap shut again.

  "What's the matter?" Silk asked him.

  "I think I just saw Brill out there in the street."

  "Let me see," Durnik said. His fingers parted the flap slightly, and he and Garion both peered out. A slovenly figure loitered in the muddy street outside. Brill had not changed much since they'd left Faldor's farm. His tunic and hose were still patched and stained; his face was still unshaven, and his cast eye still gleamed with a kind of unwholesome whiteness.

  "It's Brill, all right," Durnik confirmed. "He's close enough for me to smell him."

  Delvor looked at the smith inquiringly.

  "Brill bathes irregularly," Durnik explained. "He's a fragrant sort of a fellow."

  "May I?" Delvor asked politely. He glanced out over Durnik's shoulder. "Ah," he said, "that one. He works for the Nadraks. I thought that was a little strange, but he didn't seem important, so I didn't bother to investigate."

  "Durnik," Wolf said quickly, "step outside for a moment. Make sure he sees you, but don't let him know that you know he's there. After he sees you, come back inside. Hurry. We don't want to let him get away."

  Durnik looked baffled, but he lifted the tent flap and stepped out.

  "What are you up to, father?" Aunt Pol asked rather sharply. "Don't just st
and there smirking, old man. That's very irritating."

  "It's perfect," Wolf chortled, rubbing his hands together.

  Durnik came back in, his face worried. "He saw me," he reported. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

  "Of course," Wolf replied. "Asharak's obviously here because of us, and he's going to be looking all over the Fair for us."

  "Why make it easy for him?" Aunt Pol asked.

  "We won't," Wolf replied. "Asharak's used Brill before - in Murgos, remember? He brought Brill down here because Brill would recognize you or me or Durnik or Garion - probably Barak too, and maybe Silk. Is he still out there?"

  Garion peered out through the narrow opening. After a moment he saw the unkempt Brill half hidden between two tents across the street. "He's still there," he answered.

  "We'll want to keep him there," Wolf said. "We'll have to be sure that he doesn't get bored and go back to report to Asharak that he's found us."

  Silk looked at Delvor, and they both began to laugh.

  "What's funny?" Barak demanded suspiciously.

  "You almost have to be a Drasnian to appreciate it," Silk replied. He looked at Wolf admiringly. "Sometimes you amaze me, old friend."

  Mister Wolf winked at him.

  "Thy plan still escapes me," Mandorallen confessed.

  "May I?" Silk asked Wolf. He turned back to the knight. "It goes like this, Mandorallen. Asharak's counting on Brill to find us for him, but as long as we keep Brill interested enough, he'll delay going back to tell Asharak where we are. We've captured Asharak's eyes, and that puts him at quite a disadvantage."

  "But will this curious Sendar not follow us as soon as we leave the tent?" Mandorallen asked. "When we ride from the Fair, the Murgos will be immediately behind us."

  "The back wall of the tent is only canvas, Mandorallen," Silk pointed out gently. "With a sharp knife you can make as many doors in it as you like."

  Delvor winced slightly, then sighed. "I'll go see the Murgos," he said. "I think I can delay them even more."

  "Durnik and I'll go out with you," Silk told his bald friend. "You go one way, and we'll go another. Brill will follow us, and we can lead him back here."

  Delvor nodded, and the three of them went out.

  "Isn't all this unnecessarily complicated?" Barak asked sourly. "Brill doesn't know Hettar. Why not just have Hettar slip out the back, circle around behind him, and stick a knife between his ribs? Then we could stuff him in a sack and drop him in a ditch somewhere after we leave the Fair."

  Wolf shook his head. "Asharak would miss him," he replied. "I want him to tell the Murgos that we're in this tent. With any luck, they'll sit outside for a day or so before they realize that we're gone."

  For the next several hours various members of the party went out into the street in front of the tent on short and wholly imaginary errands to hold the attention of the lurking Brill. When Garion stepped out into the gathering darkness, he put on a show of unconcern, although his skin prickled as he felt Brill's eyes on him. He went into Delvor's supply tent and waited for several minutes. The noise from a tavern pavilion several rows of tents over seemed very loud in the growing stillness of the Fair as Garion waited nervously in the dark supply tent. Finally he drew a deep breath and went out again, one arm tucked up as if he were carrying something. "I found it, Durnik," he announced as he reentered the main pavilion.

  "There's no need to improvise, dear," Aunt Pol remarked.

  "I just wanted to sound natural," he replied innocently.

  Delvor returned soon after that, and they all waited in the warm tent as it grew darker outside and the streets emptied. Once it was fully dark, Delvor's porters pulled the packs out through a slit in the back of the tent. Silk, Delvor, and Hettar went with them to the horse pens on the outskirts of the Fair while the rest remained long enough to keep Brill from losing interest. In a final attempt at misdirection, Mister Wolf and Barak went outside to discuss the probable conditions of the road to Prolgu in Ulgoland.

  "It might not work," Wolf admitted as he and the big red-bearded man came back inside. "Asharak's sure to know that we're following Zedar south, but if Brill tells him that we're going to Prolgu, it might make him divide his forces to cover both roads." He looked around the inside of the tent. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

  One by one they squeezed out through the slit in the back of the tent and crept into the next street. Then, walking at a normal pace like serious people on honest business, they proceeded toward the horse pens. They passed the tavern pavilion where several men were singing. The streets were mostly empty by now, and the night breeze brushed the city of tents, fluttering the pennons and banners.

  Then they reached the edge of the Fair where Silk, Delvor and Hettar waited with their mounts.

  "Good luck," Delvor said as they prepared to mount. "I'll delay the Murgos for as long as I can."

  Silk shook his friend's hand. "I'd still like to know where you got those lead coins."

  Delvor winked at him.

  "What's this?" Wolf asked.

  "Delvor's got some Tolnedran crowns stamped out of lead and gilded over," Silk told him. "He hid some of them in the Murgos' tent, and tomorrow morning he's going to go to the legionnaires with a few of them and accuse the Murgos of passing them. When the legionnaires search the Murgos' tent, they're sure to find the others."

  "Money's awfully important to Tolnedrans," Barak observed. "If the legionnaires get excited enough about those coins, they might start hanging people."

  Delvor smirked. "Wouldn't that be a terrible shame?"

  They mounted then and rode away from the horse pens toward the highway. It was a cloudy night, and once they were out in the open the breeze was noticeably brisk. Behind them the Fair gleamed and twinkled under the night sky like some vast city.

  Garion drew his cloak about him. It was a lonely feeling to be on a dark road on a windy night when everyone else in the world had a fire and a bed and walls around him. Then they reached the Great West Road stretching pale and empty across the dark, rolling Arendish plain and turned south again.

  Chapter Nine

  The wind picked up again shortly before dawn and was blowing briskly by the time the sky over the low foothills to the east began to lighten. Garion was numb with exhaustion by then, and his mind had drifted into an almost dreamlike trance. The faces of his companions all seemed strange to him as the pale light began to grow stronger. At times he even forgot why they rode. He seemed caught in a company of grim-faced strangers pounding along a road to nowhere through a bleak, featureless landscape with their wind-whipped cloaks flying dark behind them like the clouds scudding low and dirty overhead. A peculiar idea began to take hold of him. The strangers were somehow his captors, and they were taking him away from his real friends. The idea seemed to grow stronger the farther they rode, and he began to be afraid.

  Suddenly, without knowing why, he wheeled his horse and broke away, plunging off the side of the road and across the open field beside it.

  "Garion!" a woman's voice called sharply from behind, but he set his heels to his horse's flanks and sped even faster across the rough field.

  One of them was chasing him, a frightening man in black leather with a shaved head and a dark lock at his crown flowing behind him in the wind. In a panic Garion kicked at his horse, trying to make the beast run even faster, but the fearsome rider behind him closed the gap quickly and seized the reins from his hands.

  "What are you doing?" he demanded harshly.

  Garion stared at him, unable to answer.

  Then the woman in the blue cloak was there, and the others not far behind her. She dismounted quickly and stood looking at him with a stern face. She was tall for a woman, and her face was cold and imperious. Her hair was very dark, and there was a single white lock at her brow.

  Garion trembled. The woman made him terribly afraid.

  "Get down off that horse," she commanded.

  "Gently, Pol," a silvery-haired old man
with an evil face said.

  A huge red-bearded giant rode closer, threatening, and Garion, almost sobbing with fright, slid down from his horse.

  "Come here," the woman ordered.

  Falteringly, Garion approached her.

  "Give me your hand," she said.

  Hesitantly, he lifted his hand and she took his wrist firmly. She opened his fingers to reveal the ugly mark on his palm that he seemed to always have hated and then put his hand against the white lock in her hair.

  "Aunt Pol," he gasped, the nightmare suddenly dropping away. She put her arms about him tightly and held him for some time. Strangely, he was not even embarrassed by that display of affection in front of the others.

  "This is serious, father," she told Mister Wolf.

  "What happened, Garion?" Wolf asked, his voice calm.

  "I don't know," Garion replied. "I was as if I didn't know any of you, and you were my enemies, and all I wanted to do was run away to try to get back to my real friends."

  "Are you still wearing the amulet I gave you?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you had it off at any time since I gave it to you?"

  "Just once," Garion admitted. "When I took a bath in the Tolnedran hostel."

  Wolf sighed. "You can't take it off," he said, "not ever - not for any reason. Take it out from under your tunic."

  Garion drew out the silver pendant with the strange design on it. The old man took a medallion out from under his own tunic. It was very bright and there was upon it the figure of a standing wolf so lifelike that it looked almost ready to lope away.

  Aunt Pol, her one arm still about Garion's shoulders, drew a similar amulet out of her bodice. Upon the disc of her medallion was the figure of an owl. "Hold it in your right hand, dear," she instructed, firmly closing Garion's fingers over the pendant. Then, holding her amulet in her own right hand, she placed her left hand over his closed fist. Wolf, also holding his talisman, put his hand on theirs.

  Garion's palm began to tingle as if the pendant were suddenly alive. Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol looked at each other for a long moment, and the tingling in Garion's hand suddenly became very strong. His mind seemed to open, and strange things flickered before his eyes. He saw a round room very high up somewhere. A fire burned, but there was no wood in it. At a table there was seated an old man who looked somewhat like Mister Wolf but obviously was someone else. He seemed to be looking directly at Garion, and his eyes were kindly, even affectionate. Garion was suddenly overwhelmed with a consuming love for the old man.