Magician's Gambit

  "What's he listening for?" Barak asked Polgara.

  "The geysers make a certain noise just before they erupt," she answered.

  "I didn't hear anything."

  "You don't know what to listen for."

  Behind them the mud geyser spouted again.

  "Garion!" Aunt Pol snapped as he turned to look back at the mud plume rising from the pool. "Watch where you're going!"

  He jerked his eyes back. The ground ahead of him looked quite ordinary.

  "Back up," she told him. "Durnik, get the reins of Relg's horse."

  Durnik took the reins, and Garion began to turn his mount.

  "I said to back up," she repeated.

  Garion's horse put one front hoof on the seemingly solid ground, and the hoof sank out of sight. The horse scrambled back and stood trembling as Garion held him in tightly. Then, carefully, step by step, Garion backed to the solid rock of the path they followed.

  "Quicksand," Silk said with a sharp intake of his breath.

  "It's all around us," Aunt Pol agreed. "Don't wander off the path - any of you."

  Silk stared with revulsion at the hoofprint of Garion's horse, disappearing on the surface of the quicksand. "How deep is it?"

  "Deep enough," Aunt Pol replied.

  They moved on, carefully picking their way through the quagmires and quicksand, stopping often as more geysers - some of mud, some of frothy, boiling water - shot high into the air. By late afternoon, when they reached a low ridge of hard, solid rock beyond the steaming bog, they were all exhausted from the effort of the concentration it had taken to pass through the hideous region.

  "Do we have to go through any more like that?" Garion asked.

  "No," Belgarath replied. "It's just around the southern edges of the Tarn."

  "Can one not go around it, then?" Mandorallen inquired.

  "It's much longer if you do, and the bog helps to discourage pursuit."

  "What's that?" Relg cried suddenly.

  "What's what?" Barak asked him.

  "I heard something just ahead - a kind of click, like two pebbles knocking together."

  Garion felt a quick kind of wave against his face, almost like an unseen ripple in the air, and he knew that Aunt Pol was searching ahead of them with her mind.

  "Murgos!" she said.

  "How many?" Belgarath asked her.

  "Six and a Grolim. They're waiting for us just behind the ridge."

  "Only six?" Mandorallen said, sounding a little disappointed.

  Barak grinned tightly. "Light entertainment."

  "You're getting to be as bad as he is," Silk told the big Cherek.

  "Thinkest thou that we might need some plan, my Lord?" Mandorallen asked Barak.

  "Not really," Barak replied. "Not for just six. Let's go spring their trap."

  The two warriors moved into the lead, unobtrusively loosening their swords in their scabbards.

  "Has the sun gone down yet?" Relg asked Garion.

  "It's just setting."

  Relg pulled the binding from around his eyes and tugged down the dark veil. He winced and squinted his large eyes almost shut.

  "You're going to hurt them," Garion told him. "You ought to leave them covered until it gets dark."

  "I might need them," Relg said as they rode up the ridge toward the waiting Murgo ambush.

  The Murgos gave no warning. They rode out from behind a large pile of black rock and galloped directly at Mandorallen and Barak, their swords swinging. The two warriors, however, were waiting for them and reacted without that instant of frozen surprise which might have made the attack successful. Mandorallen swept his sword from its sheath even as he drove his warhorse directly into the mount of one of the charging Murgos. He rose in his stirrups and swung a mighty blow downward, splitting the Murgo's head with his heavy blade. The horse, knocked off his feet by the impact, fell heavily backward on top of his dying rider. Barak, also charging at the attackers, chopped another Murgo out of the saddle with three massive blows, spattering bright red blood on the sand and rock around them.

  A third Murgo sidestepped Mandorallen's charge and struck at the knight's back, but his blade clanged harmlessly off the steel armor. The Murgo desperately raised his sword to strike again, but stiffened and slid from his saddle as Silk's skilfully thrown dagger sank into his neck, just below the ear.

  A dark-robed Grolim in his polished steel mask had stepped out from behind the rocks. Garion could quite clearly feel the priest's exultation turning to dismay as Barak and Mandorallen systematically chopped his warriors to pieces. The Grolim drew himself up, and Garion sensed that he was gathering his will to strike. But it was too late. Relg had already closed on him. The zealot's heavy shoulders surged as he grasped the front of the Grolim's robe with his knotted hands. Without apparent effort he lifted and pushed the man back against the flattened face of a house-sized boulder.

  At first it appeared that Relg only intended to hold the Grolim pinned against the rock until the others could assist him with the struggling captive, but there was a subtle difference. The set of his shoulders indicated that he had not finished the action he had begun with lifting the man from his feet. The Grolim hammered at Relg's head and shoulders with his fists, but Relg pushed at him inexorably. The rock against which the Grolim was pinned seemed to shimmer slightly around him.

  "Relg - no!" Silk's cry was strangled.

  The dark-robed Grolim began to sink into the stone face, his arms flailing wildly as Relg pushed him in with a dreadful slowness. As he went deeper into the rock, the surface closed smoothly over him. Relg continued to push, his arms sliding into the stone as he sank the Grolim deeper and deeper. The priest's two protruding hands continued to twitch and writhe, even after the rest of his body had been totally submerged. Then Relg drew his arms out of the stone, leaving the Grolim behind. The two hands sticking out of the rock opened once in mute supplication, then stiffened into dead claws.

  Behind him, Garion could hear the muffled sound of Silk's retching. Barak and Mandorallen had by now engaged two of the remaining Murgos, and the sound of clashing sword blades rang in the chill air. The last Murgo, his eyes wide with fright, wheeled his horse and bolted. Without a word, Durnik jerked his axe free of his saddle and galloped after him. Instead of striking the man down, however, Durnik cut across in front of his opponent's horse, turning him, driving him back. The panic-stricken Murgo flailed at his horse's flanks with the flat of his sword, turning away from the grim-faced smith, and plunged at a dead run back up over the ridge with Durnik close behind him.

  The last two Murgos were down by then, and Barak and Mandorallen, both wild-eyed with the exultation of battle, were looking around for more enemies.

  "Where's that last one?" Barak demanded.

  "Durnik's chasing him," Garion said.

  "We can't let him get away. He'll bring others."

  "Durnik's going to take care of it," Belgarath told him.

  Barak fretted. "Durnik's a good man, but he's not really a warrior. Maybe I'd better go help him."

  From beyond the ridge there was a sudden scream of horror, then another. The third cut off quite suddenly, and there was silence.

  After several minutes, Durnik came riding back alone, his face somber.

  "What happened?" Barak asked. "He didn't get away, did he?"

  Durnik shook his head. "I chased him into the bog, and he ran into some quicksand."

  "Why didn't you cut him down with your axe?"

  "I don't really like hitting people," Durnik replied.

  Silk was staring at Durnik, his face still ashen. "So you just chased him into quicksand instead and then stood there and watched him go down? Durnik, that's monstrous!"

  "Dead is dead," Durnik told him with uncharacteristic bluntness. "When it's over, it doesn't really matter how it happened, does it?" He looked a bit thoughtful. "I am sorry about the horse, though."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE NEXT MORNING they followed the ridg
eline that angled off toward the east. The wintry sky above them was an icy blue, and there was no warmth to the sun. Relg kept his eyes veiled against the light and muttered prayers as he rode to ward off his panic. Several times they saw dust clouds far out on the desolation of sand and salt flats to the south, but they were unable to determine whether the clouds were caused by Murgo patrols or vagrant winds.

  About noon, the wind shifted and blew in steadily from the south. A ponderous cloud, black as ink, blotted out the jagged line of peaks lying along the southern horizon. It moved toward them with a kind of ominous inexorability, and flickers of lightning glimmered in its sooty underbelly.

  "That's a bad storm coming, Belgarath," Barak rumbled, staring at the cloud.

  Belgarath shook his head. "It's not a storm," he replied. "It's ashfall. That volcano out there is erupting again, and the wind's blowing the ash this way."

  Barak made a face, then shrugged. "At least we won't have to worry about being seen, once it starts," he said.

  "The Grolims won't be looking for us with their eyes, Barak," Aunt Pol reminded him.

  Belgarath scratched at his beard. "We'll have to take steps to deal with that, I suppose."

  "This is a large group to shield, father," Aunt Pol pointed out, "and that's not even counting the horses."

  "I think you can manage it, Pol. You were always very good at it."

  "I can hold up my side as long as you can hold up yours, Old Wolf."

  "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you, Pol. Ctuchik himself is looking for us. I've felt him several times already, and I'm going to have to concentrate on him. If he decides to strike at us, he'll come very fast. I'll have to be ready for him, and I can't do that if I'm all tangled up in a shield."

  "I can't do it alone, father," she protested. "Nobody can enclose this many men and horses without help."

  "Garion can help you."

  "Me?" Garion jerked his eyes off the looming cloud to stare at his grandfather.

  "He's never done it before, father," Aunt Pol pointed out.

  "He's going to have to learn sometime."

  "This is hardly the time or place for experimentation."

  "He'll do just fine. Walk him through it a time or two until he gets the hang of it."

  "Exactly what is it I'm supposed to do?" Garion asked apprehensively.

  Aunt Pol gave Belgarath a hard look and then turned to Garion. "I'll show you dear," she said. "The first thing you have to do is stay calm. It really isn't all that difficult."

  "But you just said-"

  "Never mind what I said, dear. Just pay attention."

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked doubtfully.

  "The first thing is to relax," she replied, "and think about sand and rock."

  "That's all?"

  "Just do that first. Concentrate."

  He thought about sand and rock.

  "No, Garion, not white sand. Black sand - like the sand all around us."

  "You didn't say that."

  "I didn't think I had to."

  Belgarath started to laugh.

  "Do you want to do this, father?" she demanded crossly. Then she turned back to Garion. "Do it again, dear. Try to get it right this time."

  He fixed it in his mind.

  "That's better," she told him. "Now, as soon as you get sand and rock firmly in your mind, I want you to sort of push the idea out in a half circle so that it covers your entire right side. I'll take care of the left."

  He strained with it. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. "Don't push quite so hard, Garion. You're wrinkling it, and it's very hard for me to make the seams match when you do that. Just keep it steady and smooth."

  "I'm sorry." He smoothed it out.

  "How does it look, father?" she asked the old man.

  Garion felt a tentative push against the idea he was holding.

  "Not bad, Pol," Belgarath replied. "Not bad at all. The boy's got talent."

  "Just exactly what are we doing?" Garion asked. In spite of the chill, he felt sweat standing out on his forehead.

  "You're making a shield," Belgarath told him. "You enclose yourself in the idea of sand and rock, and it merges with the real sand and rock all around us. When Grolims go looking for things with their minds, they're looking for men and horses. They'll sweep right past us, because all they'll see here is more sand and more rock."

  "That's all there is to it?" Garion was quite pleased with how simple it was.

  "There's a bit more, dear," Aunt Pol said. "We're going to extend it now so that it covers all of us. Go out slowly, a few feet at a time."

  That was much less simple. He tore the fabric of the idea several times before he got it pushed out as far as Aunt Pol wanted it. He felt a strange merging of his mind with hers along the center of the idea where the two sides joined.

  "I think we've got it now, father," Aunt Pol said.

  "I told you he could do it, Pol."

  The purple-black cloud was rolling ominously up the sky toward them, and faint rumbles of thunder growled along its leading edge.

  "If that ash is anything like what it was in Nyissa, we're going to be wandering blind out here, Belgarath," Barak said.

  "Don't worry about it," the sorcerer replied. "I've got a lock on Rak Cthol. The Grolims aren't the only ones who can locate things that way. Let's move out."

  They started along the ridge again as the cloud blotted out the sky overhead. The thunder shocks were a continuous rumble, and lightning seethed in the boiling cloud. The lightning had an arid, crackling quality about it as the billions of tiny particles seethed and churned, building enormous static discharges. Then the first specks of drifting ash began to settle down through the icy air, as Belgarath led them down off the ridge and out onto the sand flats.

  By the end of the first hour, Garion found that holding the image in his mind had grown easier. It was no longer necessary to concentrate all his attention on it as it had been at first. By the end of the second hour, it had become no more than tedious. To relieve the boredom of it as they rode through the thickening ashfall, he thought about one of the huge skeletons they had passed when they had first entered the wasteland. Painstakingly he constructed one of them and placed it in the image he was holding. On the whole he thought it looked rather good, and it gave him something to do.

  "Garion," Aunt Pol said crisply, "please don't try to be creative."

  "What?"

  "Just stick to sand. The skeleton's very nice, but it looks a bit peculiar with only one side."

  "One side?"

  "There wasn't a skeleton on my side of the image - just yours. Keep it simple, Garion. Don't embellish."

  They rode on, their faces muffled to keep the choking ash out of their mouths and noses. Garion felt a tentative push against the image he was holding. It seemed to flutter against his mind, feeling almost like the wriggling touch of the tadpoles he had once caught in the pond at Faldor's farm.

  "Hold it steady, Garion," Aunt Pol warned. "That's a Grolim."

  "Did he see us?"

  "No. There - he's moving on now." And the fluttering touch was gone.

  They spent the night in another of the piles of broken rock that dotted the wasteland. Durnik once again devised a kind of low, hollowed-out shelter of piled rock and anchored-down tent cloth. They took a cold supper of bread and dried meat and built no fire. Garion and Aunt Pol took turns holding the image of empty sand over them like an umbrella. He discovered that it was much easier when they weren't moving.

  The ash was still falling the next morning, but the sky was no longer the inky black it had been the day before. "I think it's thinning out, Belgarath," Silk said as they saddled their horses. "If it blows over, we'll have to start dodging patrols again."

  The old man nodded. "We'd better hurry," he agreed. "There's a place I know of where we can hide - about five miles north of the city. I'd like to get there before this ashfall subsides. You can see for ten leagues in any direction
from the walls of Rak Cthol."

  "Are the walls so high, then?" Mandorallen asked.

  "Higher than you can imagine."

  "Higher even than the walls of Vo Mimbre?"

  "Ten times higher - fifty times higher. You'll have to see it to understand."

  They rode hard that day. Garion and Aunt Pol held their shield of thought in place, but the searching touches of the Grolims came more frequently now. Several times the push against Garion's mind was very strong and came without warning.

  "They know what we're doing, father," Aunt Pol told the old man. "They're trying to penetrate the screen."

  "Hold it firm," he replied. "You know what to do if one of them breaks through."

  She nodded, her face grim.

  "Warn the boy."

  She nodded again, then turned to Garion. "Listen to me carefully, dear," she said gravely. "The Grolims are trying to take us by surprise. The best shield in the world can be penetrated if you hit it quickly enough and hard enough. If one of them does manage to break through, I'm going to tell you to stop. When I say stop, I want you to erase the image immediately and put your mind completely away from it."

  "I don't understand."

  "You don't have to. Just do exactly as I say. If I tell you to stop, pull your thought out of contact with mine instantly. I'll be doing something that's very dangerous, and I don't want you getting hurt."

  "Can't I help?"

  "No, dear. Not this time."

  They rode on. The ashfall grew even thinner, and the sky overhead turned a hazy, yellowish blue. The ball of the sun, pale and round like a full moon, appeared not far above the southwestern horizon.

  "Garion, stop!"

  What came was not a push but a sharp stab. Garion gasped and jerked his mind away, throwing the image of sand from him. Aunt Pol stiffened, and her eyes were blazing. Her hand flicked a short gesture, and she spoke a single world. The surge Garion felt as her will unleashed was overpowering. With a momentary dismay, he realized that his mind was still linked to hers. The merging that had held the image together was too strong, too complete to break. He felt himself drawn with her as their still joined minds lashed out like a whip. They flashed back along the faint trail of thought that had stabbed at the shield and they found its origin. They touched another mind, a mind filled with the exultation of discovery. Then, sure of her target now, Aunt Pol struck with the full force of her will. The mind they had touched flinched back, trying to break off the contact, but it was too late for that now. Garion could feel the other mind swelling, expanding unbearably. Then it suddenly burst, exploding into gibbering insanity, shattering as horror upon horror overwhelmed it. There was flight then, blind shrieking flight across dark stones of some kind, a flight with the single thought of a dreadful, final escape. The stones were gone, and there was a terrible sense of falling from some incalculable height. Garion wrenched his mind away from it.