Silk looked around apprehensively. ‘Now what do we do?’ he asked.
‘We’d better get out of here – as fast as our horses can carry us,’ Belgarath said. He glared at Garion. ‘Are you sure you don’t have a trumpet somewhere under your clothes?’ he asked with heavy sarcasm. ‘Maybe you’d like to blow a few fanfares as we go along.’ He shook his head in disgust and then gathered up his reins. ‘Let’s ride,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-one
The aspens were stark white and motionless under the dead sky, and they rose, straight and slender, like the bars of an interminable cage. Belgarath led them at a walk, carefully weaving his way through the endless stretches of this vast, silent forest.
‘How much farther?’ Silk asked the old man tensely.
‘Not much more than a day, now,’ Belgarath replied. ‘The clouds ahead are getting thicker.’
‘You say the cloudbank never moves?’
‘Never. It’s been stationary since Torak put it there.’
‘What if a wind came along? Wouldn’t that move it?’
Belgarath shook his head. ‘The normal rules have been suspended in that region. For all I know, the cloud might not actually be cloud. It might be something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘An illusion of some kind, perhaps. The Gods are very good at illusions.’
‘Are they looking for us? The Grolims, I mean.’
Belgarath nodded.
‘Are you taking steps to keep them from finding us?’
‘Naturally.’ The old man looked at him. ‘Why this sudden urge for conversation? You’ve been talking steadily for the last hour.’
‘I’m a little edgy,’ Silk admitted. ‘This is unfamiliar territory, and that always makes me nervous. I’m much more comfortable when I’ve got my escape routes worked out in advance.’
‘Are you always ready to run?’
‘In my profession you have to be. What was that?’
Garion heard it too. Faintly, somewhere far off behind them, there was a deep-toned baying – one animal at first, but soon joined by several others. ‘Wolves?’ he suggested.
Belgarath’s face had grown bleak. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘not wolves.’ He shook his reins, and his nervous horse began to trot, the sound of its hoofs muffled by the rotting loam lying thick beneath the aspens.
‘What is it then, Grandfather?’ Garion asked, also pushing his horse into a trot.
‘Torak’s Hounds,’ Belgarath replied tersely.
‘Dogs?’
‘Not really. They’re Grolims – rather specialized ones. When the Angaraks built the city, Torak decided that he needed something to guard the surrounding countryside. Certain Grolims volunteered to take on nonhuman shapes. The change was permanent.’
‘I’ve dealt with watchdogs before,’ Silk said confidently.
‘Not like these. Let’s see if we can outrun them.’ Belgarath didn’t sound very hopeful.
They pushed their horses into a gallop, weaving in and out among the tree trunks. The limbs slapped against their faces as they rode, and Garion raised his arm to ward them off as the three of them plunged on.
They crested a low ridge and galloped down the far side. The baying behind them seemed to be closer now.
Then Silk’s horse stumbled, and the little man was almost thrown from his saddle. ‘This isn’t working, Belgarath,’ he said as the old man and Garion reined in. ‘This ground’s too treacherous for us to keep this pace.’
Belgarath held up his hand and listened for a moment. The deep-toned baying was definitely closer. ‘They’re outrunning us anyway,’ the old man agreed.
‘You’d better think of something,’ Silk said, looking back nervously.
‘I’m working on it.’ Belgarath raised his face to sniff at the air. ‘Let’s keep going. I just got a whiff of stagnant water. The area’s dotted with swampy places. We might be able to hide our scent if we can get into a big enough patch of water.’
They moved on down the slope toward the bottom of the valley. The odor of standing water grew steadily stronger as they rode.
‘Just ahead.’ Garion pointed toward a patch of brown water intermittently visible among the white tree trunks.
The swamp was quite extensive, a broad patch of reeking, oily water trapped in the bottom of a thickly grown basin. Dead trees thrust up out of the water, their leafless branches seeming almost like clawed hands reaching up in mute supplication to the indifferent sky.
Silk wrinkled his nose. ‘It stinks bad enough to hide our scent from almost anything,’ he said.
‘We’ll see,’ Belgarath replied. ‘This would probably throw off an ordinary dog, but don’t forget that the Hounds are really Grolims. They have the ability to reason, so they won’t be relying on scent alone.’
They pushed their reluctant horses into the murky water and began to splash along, changing direction frequently, weaving in and out among the dead tree trunks. Their horses’ hoofs stirred up rotting vegetation from the bottom, filling the air with an even more powerful stench.
The sound of the baying Hounds drew closer, filled now with an excitement and a terrible hunger.
‘I think they’ve hit the edge of the swamp,’ Silk said, cocking his head to listen.
There was a momentary bafflement in the baying behind them.
‘Grandfather!’ Garion cried, reining in sharply.
Directly before them, knee-deep in the brown water stood a slavering black dog-shape. It was enormous – fully as large as a horse, and its eyes actually burned with a malevolent green fire. Its front shoulders and chest were massive, and the fangs protruding from its mouth were at least a foot long, curving down cruelly and dripping foam.
‘We have you now,’ it growled, seeming almost to chew on the words as it twisted its muzzle into speech. The voice issuing from its mouth was a rasping, tearing sound.
Silk’s hand instantly flashed toward one of his hidden daggers.
‘Never mind,’ Belgarath told him. ‘It’s only a projection – a shadow.’
‘It can do that?’ Silk’s tone was startled.
‘I told you that they’re Grolims.’
‘We hunger,’ the fiery-eyed Hound rumbled. ‘I will return soon with my pack-mates, and we will feed on man-meat.’ Then the shape flickered and vanished.
‘They know where we are now.’ Silk’s voice was alarmed. ‘You’d better do something, Belgarath. Can’t you use sorcery?’
‘That would just pinpoint our location. There are other things out there as well as the Hounds.’
‘I’d say we’ll have to chance it. Let’s worry about one thing at a time. Did you see those teeth?’
‘They’re coming,’ Garion said tensely. From far back in the swamp, he could clearly hear the sound of splashing.
‘Do something, Belgarath!’
The sky overhead had grown darker, and the air seemed suddenly oppressively heavy. From far off there was an angry mutter of thunder. A vast sigh seemed to pass through the forest.
‘Keep going,’ Belgarath said, and they splashed off through the slimy brown water toward the far side of the swamp. The aspen trees on the solid ground ahead of them quite suddenly turned the silvery undersides of their leaves upward, and it was almost as if a great, pale wave had shuddered through the forest.
The Hounds were very close now, and their baying was triumphant as they plunged through the oily, reeking swamp.
And then there was a brilliant blue-white flash, and a shattering clap of thunder. The sky ripped open above them. With a sound nearly as loud as the thunder, they were engulfed in a sudden deluge. The wind howled, ripping away the aspen leaves in great sheets and whirling them through the air. The rain drove horizontally before the sudden gale, churning the swamp to froth and obliterating everything more than a few feet away.
‘Did you do this?’ Silk shouted at Belgarath.
But Belgarath’s stunned face clearly said that the storm was as much a surp
rise to him as to Silk. They both turned to look at Garion. ‘Did you do it?’ Belgarath demanded.
‘He didn’t. I did.’ The voice which came from Garion’s mouth was not his. ‘I’ve labored too long at this to be thwarted by a pack of dogs.’
‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ Belgarath marveled, wiping at his streaming face. ‘Not even a whisper.’
‘You were listening at the wrong time,’ the voice of Garion’s inner companion replied. ‘I set it in motion early last spring. It’s just now getting here.’
‘You knew we’d need it?’
‘Obviously. Turn east. The Hounds won’t be able to track you in all this. Swing around and come at the city from the east side. There are fewer watchers on that flank.’
The downpour continued, punctuated by ripping claps of thunder and flashes of lightning.
‘How long will the rain last?’ Belgarath shouted over the noise.
‘Long enough. It’s been building in the Sea of the East for a week. It hit the coast this morning. Turn east.’
‘Can we talk as we ride?’ Belgarath asked. ‘I have a great many questions.’
‘This is hardly the time for discussion, Belgarath. You have to hurry. The others arrived at Cthol Mishrak this morning, just ahead of the storm. Everything’s ready there, so move.’
‘It’s going to be tonight?’
‘It will, if you get there in time. Torak’s almost awake now. I think you’d better be there when he opens his eyes.’
Belgarath wiped his streaming face again, and his eyes had a worried look. ‘Let’s go,’ he said sharply and he led them splashing off through the driving rain to solid ground.
The rain continued for several hours, driven before a screaming wind. Sodden, miserable, and half-blinded by flying leaves and twigs, the three of them cantered toward the east. The baying of the Hounds trapped in the swamp faded behind them, taking on a baffled, frustrated note as the thunderous deluge obliterated all scents from the swamp and the forest.
When night fell, they had reached a low range of hills far to the east, and the rain had subsided into a steady, unpleasant drizzle, punctuated by periodic squalls of chilly, gusting wind and erratic downpours that swept in randomly off the Sea of the East.
‘Are you sure you know the way?’ Silk asked Belgarath.
‘I can find it,’ Belgarath said grimly. ‘Cthol Mishrak’s got a peculiar smell to it.’
The rain slackened into a few scattered droplets pattering on the leaves overhead and died out entirely by the time they reached the edge of the wood. The smell of which Belgarath had spoken was not a sharp reek, but rather was a muted, dank compound of odors. Damp rust seemed to be a major part of it, although the reek of stagnant water was also present, and the musty scent of fungus. The overall effect was one of decay. When they reached the last of the trees, Belgarath reined in. ‘Well, there it is,’ he said in a quiet voice.
The basin before them was faintly illuminated by a kind of pale, sickly radiance that seemed to emanate from the ground itself, and in the center of that large depression reared the jagged, broken remains of the city.
‘What’s that strange light?’ Garion whispered tensely.
Belgarath grunted. ‘Phosphorescence. It comes from the fungus that grows everywhere out there. The sun never shines on Cthol Mishrak, so it’s a natural breeding ground for unwholesome things that grow in the dark. We’ll leave the horses here.’ He dismounted.
‘Is that a very good idea?’ Silk asked him as he too swung down from his saddle. ‘We might want to leave in a hurry.’ The little man was still wet and shivering.
‘No,’ Belgarath said calmly. ‘If things go well, nothing in the city’s going to be interested in giving us any trouble. If things don’t go well, it’s not going to matter anyway.’
‘I don’t like unalterable commitments,’ Silk muttered sourly.
‘You picked the wrong journey, then,’ Belgarath replied. ‘What we’re about to do is just about as unalterable as things ever get. Once we start, there won’t be any possible way to turn back.’
‘I still don’t have to like it, do I? What now?’
‘Garion and I are going to change into something a bit less conspicuous. You’re an expert at moving about in the dark without being seen or heard, but we aren’t that skilled at it.’
‘You’re going to use sorcery – this close to Torak?’ Silk asked him incredulously.
‘We’re going to be very quiet about it,’ Belgarath assured him. ‘A shape-change is directed almost entirely inward, so there isn’t that much noise involved anyway.’ He turned to Garion. ‘We’re going to do it slowly,’ he said. ‘That spreads out what little sound there is and makes it even fainter. Do you understand?’
‘I think so, Grandfather.’
‘I’ll go first. Watch me.’ The old man glanced at their horses. ‘Let’s move away a bit. Horses are afraid of wolves. We don’t want them to get hysterical and start crashing around.’
They crept along the edge of the trees until they were some distance from the horses.
‘This ought to be far enough,’ Belgarath said. ‘Now watch.’ He concentrated for a moment, and then his form began to shimmer and blur. The change-over was very gradual, and for several moments his face and the wolf’s face seemed to coexist in the same place. The sound it made was only the faintest of whispers. Then it was done, and the great silver wolf sat on his haunches.
‘Now you do it,’ he told Garion with the slight change of expression that is so much a part of the speech of wolves.
Garion concentrated very hard, holding the shape firmly in his mind. He did it so slowly that it seemed that he could actually feel the fur growing on his body.
Silk had been rubbing dirt on his face and hands to reduce the visibility of his skin. He looked at the two wolves, his eyes questioning.
Belgarath nodded once and led the way out onto the bare earth of the basin that sloped down toward the rotting ruins of Cthol Mishrak.
There were other shapes moving in the faint light, prowling, snuffling. Some of the shapes had a dog smell to them; others smelled faintly reptilian. Grolims, robed and cowled, stood watch on various hummocks and rocks, searching the darkness with their eyes and their minds for intruders.
The earth beneath Garion’s paws felt dead. There was no growth, no life on this wasted heath. With Silk crouched low between them, the two wolves crept, belly low, toward the ruin, taking full advantage of rocky outcrops and eroded gullies. Their pace seemed excruciatingly slow to Garion, but Belgarath paid little attention to the passage of time. Occasionally, when they passed near one of the watching Grolims, they moved but one paw at a time. The minutes dragged by as they crept closer and closer to the broken City of Night.
Near the shattered wall, two of the hooded priests of Torak stood in quiet conversation. Their muted voices fell clearly upon Garion’s intensely sharpened ears.
‘The Hounds seem nervous tonight,’ one of them said.
‘The storm,’ the other replied. ‘Bad weather always makes them edgy.’
‘I wonder what it’s like to be a Hound,’ the first Grolim mused.
‘If you like, perhaps they’ll let you join them.’
‘I don’t think I’m that curious.’
Silk and the two wolves, moving as silently as smoke, passed no more than ten yards from the two idly chatting guards, and crept over the fallen stones into the dead City of Night. Once among the ruins, they were able to move faster. The shadows concealed their movements, and they flitted among the blasted stones in Belgarath’s wake, moving steadily toward the center of the city where the stump of the iron tower now reared stark and black toward the murky sky.
The reek of rust, stagnation, and decay was much stronger, coming to Garion’s wolf-sharp nose in almost overpowering waves. It was a gagging smell, and he clamped his muzzle shut and tried not to think about it.
‘Who’s there?’ a voice came sharply from just ahead of them. A G
rolim with a drawn sword stepped out into the rubble-strewn street, peering intently into the deep shadows where the three crouched, frozen into immobility. Garion sensed rather than heard or saw Silk’s slow, deliberate reach toward the dagger sheathed at the back of his neck. Then the little man’s arm swung sharply down, and his knife made a fluttering whistle as it sped with deadly accuracy, turning end for end as it flew.
The Grolim grunted, doubling over sharply, then he sighed and toppled forward, his sword clanging as it fell.
‘Let’s move!’ Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on the stones.
Garion smelled fresh blood as he loped past, and the smell brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth.
They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that had been the iron tower and crept silently through the open doorway into the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped, sniffing nervously at the tainted air, feeling his hackles rising on his ruffed neck. With an effort, he suppressed the low growl that rose involuntarily in his throat.
He felt Belgarath’s shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided now by scent alone in the utter blackness. At the far end of the huge, empty, iron room there was another doorway.
Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his own will and let himself gradually flow back into his own form.
Silk was breathing a string of colorful curses, fervent but almost inaudible.
‘What’s the matter?’ Belgarath whispered.
‘I forgot to stop for my knife,’ Silk replied, grating his teeth together. ‘It’s one of my favorites.’
‘What now, Grandfather?’ Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.
‘Just beyond this door, there’s a flight of stairs leading down.’
‘What’s at the bottom?’
‘A cellar. It’s a sort of tomb where Zedar’s got Torak’s body. Shall we go down?’
Garion sighed, then squared his shoulders. ‘I guess that’s what we came for,’ he replied.