Magician's Gambit

  "They spend a great deal of time in religious observances," Belgarath remarked as they passed the cubicle. "Religion's the central fact of Ulgo life."

  "Sounds dull," Barak grunted.

  At the end of the gallery a flight of steep, worn stairs descended sharply, and they went down, their hands on the wall to steady themselves.

  "It would be easy to get turned around down here," Silk observed. "I've lost track of which direction we're going."

  "Down," Hettar told him.

  "Thanks," Silk replied dryly.

  At the bottom of the stairs they entered another cavern, once again high up in the wall, but this time the cavern was spanned by a slender bridge, arching across to the other side. "We cross that," Belgarath told them and led them out onto the bridge that arched through the half light to the other side.

  Garion glanced down once and saw a myriad of gleaming openings dotting the cavern walls far below. The openings did not appear to have any systematic arrangement, but rather seemed scattered randomly. "There must be a lot of people living here," he said to his grandfather.

  The old man nodded. "It's the home cave of one of the major Ulgo tribes," he replied.

  The first disharmonic phrases of the ancient hymn to UL drifted up to them as they neared the other end of the bridge. "I wish they'd find another tune," Barak muttered sourly. "That one's starting to get on my nerves."

  "I'll mention that to the first Ulgo I meet," Silk told him lightly. "I'm sure they'll be only too glad to change songs for you."

  "Very funny," Barak said.

  "It probably hasn't occurred to them that their song isn't universally admired."

  "Do you mind?" Barak asked acidly.

  "They've only been singing it for five thousand years now."

  "That'll do, Silk," Aunt Pol told the little man.

  "Anything you say, great lady," Silk answered mockingly.

  They entered another gallery on the far side of the cavern and followed it until it branched. Belgarath firmly led them to the left.

  "Are you sure?" Silk asked. "I could be wrong, but it seems like we're going in a circle."

  "We are."

  "I don't suppose you'd care to explain that."

  "There's a cavern we wanted to avoid, so we had to go around it."

  "Why did we have to avoid it?"

  "It's unstable. The slightest sound there might bring the roof down."

  "Oh."

  "That's one of the dangers down here."

  "You don't really need to go into detail, old friend," Silk said, looking nervously at the roof above. The little man seemed to be talking more than usual, and Garion's own sense of oppression at the thought of all the rock surrounding him gave him a quick insight into Silk's mind. The sense of being closed in was unbearable to some men, and Silk, it appeared, was one of them. Garion glanced up also, and seemed to feel the weight of the mountain above pressing down firmly on him. Silk, he decided, might not be the only one disturbed by the thought of all that dreadful mass above them.

  The gallery they followed opened out into a small cavern with a glassclear lake in its center. The lake was very shallow and it had a white gravel bottom. An island rose from the center of the lake, and on the island stood a building constructed in the same curiously pyramidal shape as the buildings in the ruined city of Prolgu far above. The building was surrounded by a ring of columns, and here and there benches were carved from white stone. Glowing crystal globes were suspended on long chains from the ceiling of the cavern about thirty feet overhead, and their light, while still faint, was noticeably brighter than that in the galleries through which they had passed. A white marble causeway crossed to the island, and a very old man stood at its end, peering across the still water toward them as they entered the cavern.

  "Yad ho, Belgarath," the old man called. "Groja UL. "

  "Gorim," Belgarath replied with a formal bow. "Yad ho, groja UL. " He led them across the marble causeway to the island in the center of the lake and warmly clasped the old man's hand, speaking to him in the guttural Ulgo language.

  The Gorim of Ulgo appeared to be very old. He had long, silvery hair and beard, and his robe was snowy white. There was a kind of saintly serenity about him that Garion felt immediately, and the boy knew, without knowing how he knew, that he was approaching a holy man - perhaps the holiest on earth.

  The Gorim extended his arms fondly to Aunt Pol, and she embraced him affectionately as they exchanged the ritual greeting, "Yad ho, groja UL."

  "Our companions don't speak your language, old friend," Belgarath said to the Gorim. "Would it offend you if we conversed in the language of the outside?"

  "Not at all, Belgarath," the Gorim replied. "UL tells us that it's important for men to understand one another. Come inside, all of you. I've had food and drink prepared for you." As the old man looked at each of them, Garion noticed that his eyes, unlike those of the other Ulgos he had seen, were a deep, almost violet blue. Then the Gorim turned and led them along a path to the doorway of the pyramid-shaped building.

  "Has the child come yet?" Belgarath asked the Gorim as they passed through the massive stone doorway.

  The Gorim sighed. "No, Belgarath, not yet, and I am very weary. There's hope at each birth. But after a few days, the eyes of the child darken. It appears that UL is not finished with me yet."

  "Don't give up hope, Gorim," Belgarath told his friend. "The child will come-in UL's own time."

  "So we are told." The Gorim sighed again. "The tribes are growing restless, though, and there's bickering-and worse - in some of the farther galleries. The zealots grow bolder in their denunciations, and strange aberrations and cults have begun to appear. Ulgo needs a new Gorim. I've outlived my time by three hundred years."

  "UL still has work for you," Belgarath replied. "His ways are not ours, Gorim, and he sees time in a different way."

  The room they entered was square but had, nonetheless, the slightly sloping walls characteristic of Ulgo architecture. A stone table with low benches on either side sat in the center of the room, and there were a number of bowls containing fruit sitting upon it. Among the bowls sat several tall flasks and round crystal cups. "I'm told that winter has come early to our mountains," the Gorim said to them. "The drink should help to warm you."

  "It's chilly outside," Belgarath admitted.

  They sat down on the benches and began to eat. The fruit was tangy and wild-tasting, and the clear liquid in the flasks was fiery and brought an immediate warm glow that radiated out from the stomach.

  "Forgive us our customs, which may seem strange to you," the Gorim said, noting that Barak and Hettar in particular approached the meal of fruit with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "We are a people much tied to ceremony. We begin our meals with fruit in remembrance of the years we spent wandering in search of UL. The meat will come in due time."

  "Where do you obtain such food in these caves, Holy One?" Silk asked politely.

  "Our gatherers go out of the caves at night," the Gorim replied. "They tell us that the fruits and grains they bring back with them grow wild in the mountains, but I suspect that they have long since taken up the cultivation of certain fertile valleys. They also maintain that the meat they carry down to us is the flesh of wild cattle, taken in the hunt, but I have my doubts about that as well." He smiled gently. "I permit them their little deceptions."

  Perhaps emboldened by the Gorim's geniality, Durnik raised a question that had obviously been bothering him since he had entered the city on the mountaintop above. "Forgive me, your Honor," he began, "but why do your builders make everything crooked? What I mean is, nothing seems to be square. It all leans over."

  "It has to do with weight and support; I understand," the Gorim replied. "Each wall is actually falling down; but since they're all falling against each other, none of them can move so much as a finger's width - and, of course, their shape reminds us of the tents we lived in during our wanderings."

  Durnik frowned thoughtf
ully, struggling with the alien idea.

  "And have you as yet recovered Aldur's Orb, Belgarath?" the Gorim inquired then, his face growing serious.

  "Not yet," Belgarath replied. "We chased Zedar as far as Nyissa, but when he crossed over into Cthol Murgos, Ctuchik was waiting and took the Orb away from him. Ctuchik has it now - at Rak Cthol."

  "And Zedar?"

  "He escaped Ctuchik's ambush and carried Torak off to Cthol Mishrak in Mallorea to keep Ctuchik from raising him with the Orb."

  "Then you'll have to go to Rak Cthol."

  Belgarath nodded as an Ulgo servingman brought in a huge, steaming roast, set it on the table, and left with a respectful bow.

  "Has anyone found out how Zedar was able to take the Orb without being struck down?" the Gorim asked.

  "He used a child," Aunt Pol told him. "An innocent."

  "Ah." The Gorim stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Doesn't the prophecy say, 'And the child shall deliver up the birthright unto the Chosen One'?"

  "Yes," Belgarath replied.

  "Where's the child now?"

  "So far as we know, Ctuchik has him at Rak Cthol."

  "Will you assault Rak Cthol, then?"

  "I'd need an army, and it could take years to reduce that fortress. There's another way, I think. A certain passage in the Darine Codex speaks of caves under Rak Cthol."

  "I know that passage, Belgarath. It's very obscure. It could mean that, I suppose, but what if it doesn't?"

  "It's confirmed by the Mrin Codex," Belgarath said a little defensively.

  "The Mrin Codex is even worse, old friend. It's obscure to the point of being gibberish."

  "I somehow have the feeling that when we look back at it - after all this is over - we're going to find that the Mrin Codex is the most accurate version of all. I do have certain other verification, however. Back during the time when the Murgos were constructing Rak Cthol, a Sendarian slave escaped and made his way back to the West. He was delirious when he was found, but he kept talking of caves under the mountain before he died. Not only that, Anheg of Cherek found a copy of The Book of Torak that contains a fragment of a very old Grolim prophecy - 'Guard well the temple, above and beneath, for Cthrag Yaska will summon foes down from the air or up from the earth to bear it away again.' "

  "That's even more obscure," the Gorim objected.

  "Grolim prophecies usually are, but it's all I've got to work with. If I reject the notion of caves under Rak Cthol, I'll have to lay siege to the place. It would take all the armies of the West to do that, and then Ctuchik would summon the Angarak armies to defend the city. Everything points to some final battle, but I'd prefer to pick the time and place - and the Wasteland of Murgos is definitely not one of the places I'd choose."

  "You're leading someplace with this, aren't you?"

  Belgarath nodded. "I need a diviner to help me find the caves beneath Rak Cthol and to lead me up through them to the city."

  The Gorim shook his head. "You're asking the impossible, Belgarath. The diviners are all zealots-mystics. You'll never persuade one of them to leave the holy caverns here beneath Prolgu - particularly not now. All of Ulgo is waiting for the coming of the child, and every zealot is firmly convinced that he will be the one to discover the child and reveal him to the tribes. I couldn't even order one of them to accompany you. T'he diviners are regarded as holy men, and I have no authority over them."

  "It may not be as hard as you think, Gorim." Belgarath pushed back his plate and reached for his cup. "The diviner I need is one named Relg."

  "Relg? He's the worst of the lot. He's gathered a following and he preaches to them by the hour in some of the far galleries. He believes that he's the most important man in Ulgo just now. You'll never persuade him to leave these caves."

  "I don't think I'll have to, Gorim. I'm not the one who selected Relg. That decision was made for me long before I was born. Just send for him."

  "I'll send for him if you want," the Gorim said doubtfully. "I don't think he'll come, though."

  "He'll come," Aunt Pol told him confidently. "He won't know why, but he'll come. And he will go with us, Gorim. The same power that brought us all together will bring him as well. He doesn't have any more choice in the matter than we do."

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT ALL SEEMED so tedious. The snow and cold they had endured on the journey to Prolgu had numbed Ce'Nedra, and the warmth here in the caverns made her drowsy. The endless, obscure talk of Belgarath and the strange, frail old Gorim seemed to pull her toward sleep. The peculiar singing began again somewhere, echoing endlessly through the caves, and that too lulled her. Only a lifetime of training in the involved etiquette of court behavior kept her awake.

  The journey had been ghastly for Ce'Nedra. Tol Honeth was a warm city, and she was not accustomed to cold weather. It seemed that her feet would never be warm again. She had also discovered a world filled with shocks, terrors, and unpleasant surprises. At the Imperial Palace in Tol Honeth, the enormous power of her father, the Emperor, had shielded her from danger of any kind, but now she felt vulnerable. In a rare moment of absolute truth with herself, she admitted that much of her spiteful behavior toward Garion had grown out of her dreadful new sense of insecurity. Her safe, pampered little world had been snatched away from her, and she felt exposed, unprotected, and afraid.

  Poor Garion, she thought. He was such a nice boy. She felt a little ashamed that he had been the one who'd had to suffer from her bad temper. She promised herself that soon - very soon - she would sit down with him and explain it all. He was a sensible boy, and he'd be sure to understand. That, of course, would immediately patch up the rift which had grown between them.

  Feeling her eyes on him, he glanced once at her and then looked away with apparent indifference. Ce'Nedra's eyes hardened like agates. How dared he? She made a mental note of it and added it to her list of his many imperfections.

  The frail-looking old Gorim had sent one of the strange, silent Ulgos to fetch the man he and Belgarath and Lady Polgara had been discussing, and then they turned to more general topics. "Were you able to pass through the mountains unmolested?" the Gorim asked.

  "We had a few encounters," Barak, the big, red-bearded Earl of Trellheim, replied with what seemed to Ce'Nedra gross understatement.

  "But thanks to UL you're all safe," the Gorim declared piously. "Which of the monsters are still abroad at this season? I haven't been out of the caves in years, but as I recall most of them seek their lairs when the snow begins."

  "We encountered Hrulgin, Holy One," Baron Mandorallen informed him, "and some Algroths. And there was an Eldrak."

  "The Eldrak was troublesome," Silk said dryly.

  "Understandably. Fortunately there aren't very many Eldrakyn. They're fearsome monsters."

  "We noticed that," Silk said.

  "Which one was it?"

  "Grul," Belgarath replied. "He and I had met before, and he seemed to hold a grudge. I'm sorry, Gorim, but we had to kill him. There wasn't any other way."

  "Ah," the Gorim said with a slight note of pain in his voice. "Poor Grul."

  "I personally don't miss him very much," Barak said. "I'm not trying to be forward, Holy One, but don't you think it might be a good idea to exterminate some of the more troublesome beasts in these mountains?"

  "They're the children of UL, even as we," the Gorim explained.

  "But if they weren't out there, you could return to the world above," Barak pointed out.

  The Gorim smiled at that. "No," he said gently. "Ulgo will never leave the caves now. We've dwelt here for five millennia and, over the years, we've changed. Our eyes could not bear the sunlight now. The monsters above cannot reach us here, and their presence in the mountains keeps strangers out of Ulgo. We're not at ease with strangers, really, so it's probably for the best."

  The Gorim was sitting directly across the narrow stone table from Ce'Nedra. The subject of the monsters obviously pained him, and he looked at her for a moment, then gently
reached out his frail old hand and cupped her little chin in it, lifting her face to the dim light of the hanging globe suspended above the table. "All of the alien creatures are not monsters," he said, his large, violet eyes calm and very wise. "Consider the beauty of this Dryad."

  Ce'Nedra was a little startled - not by his touch, certainly, for older people had responded to her flowerlike face with that same gesture for as long as she could remember - but rather by the ancient man's immediate recognition of the fact that she was not entirely human.

  "Tell me, child," the Gorim asked, "do the Dryads still honor UL?"

  She was completely unprepared for the question. "I - I'm sorry, Holy One," she floundered. "Until quite recently, I'd not even heard of the God UL. For some reason, my tutors have very little information about your people or your God."

  "The princess was raised as a Tolnedran," Lady Polgara explained. "She's a Borune - I'm sure you've heard of the link between that house and the Dryads. As a Tolnedran, her religious affiliation is to Nedra."

  "A serviceable God," the Gorim said. "Perhaps a bit stuffy for my taste, but certainly adequate. The Dryads themselves, though - do they still know their God?"

  Belgarath coughed a bit apologetically. "I'm afraid not, Gorim. They've drifted away, and the eons have erased what they knew of UL. They're flighty creatures anyway, not much given to religious observances."

  The Gorim's face was sad. "What God do they honor now?"

  "None, actually," Belgarath admitted. "They have a few sacred groves - a rough idol or two fashioned from the root of a particularly venerated tree. That's about it. They don't really have any clearly formulated theology."

  Ce'Nedra found the whole discussion a trifle offensive. Rising to the occasion, she drew herself up slightly and smiled winsomely at the old Gorim. She knew exactly how to charm an elderly man. She'd practiced for years on her father. "I feel the shortcomings of my education most keenly, Holy One," she lied. "Since mysterious UL is the hereditary God of the Dryads, I should know him. I hope that someday soon I may receive instruction concerning him. It may be that I - unworthy though I am - can be the instrument of renewing the allegiance of my sisters to their rightful God."