"Maybe tomorrow," he grunted when Belgarath told him of their urgent need to leave the island. "Or the next day. The next day would be better, I think."
Belgarath spoke more firmly.
"My sailors couldn't possibly man the oars," Greldik objected. "They'll be throwing up all over the deck, and it takes a week to clean up a mess like that."
Belgarath delivered a blistering ultimatum, and Greldik sullenly climbed out of his rumpled bunk. He lurched toward the crew's quarters, pausing only long enough to be noisily sick over the rail, and then he descended into the forward hold, where with kicks and curses he roused his men.
The moon was high and dawn only a few hours off when Greldik's ship slid quietly out of the harbor and met the long, rolling swells of the Sea of the Winds. When the sun came up they were far out at sea.
The weather held fair, even though the winds were not favorable, and in two days' time Greldik dropped Garion, Silk and Belgarath off on a deserted beach just north of the mouth of the Seline River on the northwest coast of Sendaria.
"I don't know that I'd be in all that big a hurry to go back to Riva," Belgarath told Greldik as he stepped out of the small boat onto the sand of the beach. He handed the bearded Cherek a small pouch of jingling coins. "I'm sure you and your crew can find a bit of diversion somewhere."
"It's always nice in Camaar this time of year," Greldik mused, bouncing the pouch thoughtfully in his hand, "and I know a young widow there who's always been very friendly."
"You ought to pay her a visit," Belgarath suggested. "You've been away for quite some time, and she's sure to have been terribly lonely for you."
"I think maybe I will," Greldik said, his eyes suddenly bright. "Have a good trip." He motioned to his men, and they began rowing the small boat back toward the lean ship standing a few hundred yards offshore.
"What was that all about?" Garion asked.
"I'd like to get a bit of distance between us and Polgara before she gets her hands on Greldik," the old man replied. "I don't particularly want her chasing us." He looked around. "Let's see if we can find somebody with a boat to row us upriver to Seline. We should be able to buy horses and supplies there."
A fisherman, who immediately saw that turning ferryboatman would provide a more certain profit than trusting his luck on the banks off the northwest coast, agreed to take them upriver; by the time the sun was setting, they had arrived in the city of Seline. They spent the night in a comfortable inn and went the following morning to the central market. Silk negotiated the purchase of horses, haggling down to the last penny, bargaining more out of habit, Garion thought, than out of any real necessity. Then they bought supplies for the trip. By midmorning, they were pounding along the road that led toward Darine, some forty leagues distant.
The fields of northern Sendaria had begun to sprout that first green blush that lay on damp earth like a faint jade mist and more than anything announced spring. A few fleecy clouds scampered across the blue of the sky, and, though the wind was gusty, the sun warmed the air. The road opened before them, stretching across the verdant fields; and though their mission was deadly serious, Garion almost wanted to shout out of pure exuberance.
In two more days they reached Darine.
"Do you want to take ship here?" Silk asked Belgarath as they crested the hill up which they had come so many months before with their three wagonloads of turnips. "We could be in Kotu inside a week."
Belgarath scratched at his beard, looking out at the expanse of the Gulf of Cherek, glittering in the afternoon sun. "I don't think so," he decided. He pointed at several lean Cherek warboats patrolling just outside Sendarian territorial waters.
"The Chereks are always moving around out there," Silk replied. "It might have nothing whatsoever to do with us."
"Polgara's very persistent," Belgarath said. "She can't leave Riva herself as long as so many things are afoot there, but she can send people out to look for us. Let's avoid any possible trouble if we can. We'll go along the north coast and then on up through the fens to Boktor."
Silk gave him a look of profound distaste. "It will take a lot longer," he objected.
"We aren't in all that great a hurry," Belgarath remarked blandly. "The Alorns are beginning to mass their armies, but they still need more time, and it's going to take a while to get the Arends all moving in the same direction."
"What's that got to do with it?" Silk asked him.
"I have plans for those armies, and I'd like to start them moving before we cross into Gar og Nadrak if possible and certainly before we get to Mallorea. We can afford the time it will take to avoid any unpleasantness with the people Polgara's sent out to find us."
And so they detoured around Darine and took the narrow, rocky road that led along the cliffs where the waves crashed and boomed and foamed, beating themselves to fragments against the great rocks of the north coast.
The mountains of eastern Sendaria ran down into the Gulf of Cherek along that forbidding shore, and the road, which twisted and climbed and dropped steeply again, was not good. Silk grumbled every mile of the way.
Garion, however, had other worries. The decision he had made after reading the Mrin Codex had seemed quite logical at the time, but logic was scant comfort now. He was deliberately riding toward Mallorea to face Torak in a duel. The more he thought about it, the more insane it seemed. How could he possibly hope to defeat a God? He brooded about that as they rode eastward along the rocky coast, and his mood became as unpleasant as Silk's.
After about a week, the cliffs became lower, and the land more gently rolling. From the top of the last of the eastern foothills, they looked out and saw what appeared to be a vast, flat plain, dark-green and very damp-looking.
"Well, there they are," Silk sourly informed Belgarath.
"What's got you so bad-tempered?" the old man asked him.
"One of the main reasons I left Drasnia in the first place was to avoid the possibility of ever being obliged to go anywhere near the fens," Silk replied crisply. "Now you propose to drag me lengthwise through the whole soggy, stinking expanse of them. I'm bitterly disappointed in you, old friend, and it's altogether possible that I'll never forgive you for this."
Garion was frowning at the marshland spread out below. "That wouldn't be Drasnia, would it?" he asked. "I thought that Drasnia was farther north."
"It's Algaria, actually," Belgarath told him. "The beginning of Aldurfens. Up beyond the mouths of the Aldur River is the Drasnian border. They call it Mrin marsh up there, but it's all the same swamp. It goes on for another thirty leagues or so beyond Kotu at the mouth of the Mrin River."
"Most people just call it the fens and let it go at that," Silk observed. "Most people have sense enough to stay out of it," he added pointedly.
"Quit complaining so much," Belgarath told him bluntly. "There are fishermen along this coast. We'll buy a boat."
Silk's eyes brightened. "We can go up along the coast then," he suggested.
"That wouldn't be very prudent," Belgarath disagreed, "not with Anheg's fleet scouring the Gulf of Cherek, looking for us."
"You don't know that they're looking for us," Silk said quickly.
"I know Polgara," Belgarath answered.
"I feel that this trip is definitely growing sour on us," Silk grumbled.
The fishermen along the marshy coast were a peculiar mixture of Algars and Drasnians, close-mouthed and wary of strangers. Their villages were built on pilings driven deep into the marshy earth, and there lingered about them that peculiar odor of long-dead fish that hovers over fishing villages wherever one finds them. It took some time to find a man with a boat he was willing to sell and even longer to persuade him that three horses and a few silver coins beside was a fair price for it.
"It leaks," Silk declared, pointing at the inch or so of water that had collected in the bottom of the boat as they poled away from the reeking village.
"All boats leak, Silk," Belgarath replied calmly. "It's the nature of bo
ats to leak. Bail it out."
"It will just fill up again."
"Then you can bail it out again. Try not to let it get too far ahead of you."
The fens stretched on interminably, a wilderness of cattails and rushes and dark, slowly moving water. There were channels and streams and quite frequently small lakes where the going was much easier. The air was humid and, in the evenings, thick with gnats and mosquitoes. Frogs sang of love all night, greeting spring with intoxicated fervor-little chirping frogs and great, booming, bull-voiced frogs as big as dinner plates. Fish leaped in the ponds and lakes, and beaver and muskrats nested on soggy islands.
They poled their way through the confused maze of channels marking the mouths of the Aldur and continued northeasterly in the slowly warming northern spring. After a week or more, they crossed the indeterminate border and left Algaria behind.
A false channel put them aground once, and they were obliged to climb out to heave and push their boat off a mudbank by main strength. When they were afloat again, Silk sat disconsolately on the gunwale regarding his ruined boots that were dripping thick mud into the water. When he spoke, his voice was filled with profound disgust. "Delightful," he said. "How wonderful to be home again in dear old mucky Drasnia."
Chapter Eighteen
ALTHOUGH IT WAS all one vast swampland, it seemed to Garion that the fens here in Drasnia were subtly different from those farther south. The channels were narrower, for one thing, and they twisted and turned more frequently. After a couple of days poling, he developed a growing conviction that they were lost. "Are you sure you know where we're going?" he demanded of Silk.
"I haven't the vaguest idea," Silk replied candidly.
"You keep saying that you know the way everywhere," Garion accused him.
"There isn't any certain way here in the fens, Garion," Silk told him. "All you can do is keep going against the current and hope for the best."
"There's got to be a route," Garion objected. "Why don't they put up markers or something?"
"It wouldn't do any good. Look." The little man put his pole against a solid-looking hummock rising out of the water beside the boat and pushed. The hummock moved sluggishly away. Garion stared at it in amazement.
"It's floating vegetation," Belgarath explained, stopping his poling to wipe the sweat from his face. "Seeds fall on it, and it grows grass just like solid earth - except that it isn't solid. It floats wherever the wind and current push it. That's why there aren't any permanent channels and there's no definite route."
"It's not always just wind and current," Silk added darkly. He glanced out at the lowering sun. "We'd better find something solid to tie up to for the night," he suggested.
"How about that one?" Belgarath replied, pointing at a brushy hummock that was somewhat higher than those surrounding it.
They poled their way to the clump of ground rising out of the surrounding water, and Silk kicked at it experimentally a few times. "It seems to be stationary," he confirmed. He stepped out of the boat and climbed to the top, frequently stamping his feet. The ground responded with a satisfactorily solid sound. "There's a dry spot up here," he reported, "and a pile of driftwood on the other side. We can sleep on solid ground for a change, and maybe even have a hot meal."
They pulled the boat far up onto the sloping side, and Silk took some rather exotic-seeming precautions to make certain that it was securely tied.
"Isn't that sort of unnecessary?" Garion asked him.
"It isn't much of a boat," Silk replied, "but it's the only one we've got. Let's not take chances with it."
They got a fire going and erected their single tent as the sun slowly settled in a cloudbank to the west, painting the marsh in a ruddy glow. Silk dug out a few pans and began to work on supper.
"It's too hot," Garion advised critically as the rat-faced little man prepared to lay strips of bacon in a smoking iron pan.
"Do you want to do this?"
"I was just warning you, that's all."
"I don't have your advantages, Garion," Silk replied tartly. "I didn't grow up in Polgara's kitchen the way you did. I just make do the best I can."
"You don't have to get grumpy about it," Garion said. "I just thought you'd like to know that the pan's too hot."
"I think I can manage without any more advice."
"Suit yourself - but you're going to burn the bacon."
Silk gave him an irritated look and started slapping bacon slices into the pan. The slices sizzled and smoked, and their edges turned black almost immediately.
"I told you so," Garion murmured.
"Belgarath," Silk complained, "make him leave me alone."
"Come away, Garion," the old man said. "He can burn supper without any help."
"Thanks," Silk responded sarcastically.
Supper was not an absolute disaster. After they had eaten, they sat watching as the fire burned down and purple evening crept across the fens. The frogs took up their vast chorus among the reeds, and birds perched on the bending stalks of cattails, clucking and murmuring sleepily. There were faint splashes and rippling sounds in the brown water about them and occasional eruptions of bubbles as swamp gas gurgled to the surface. Silk sighed bitterly. "I hate this place," he said. "I absolutely hate it."
That night Garion had a nightmare. It was not the first he had suffered since they had left Riva; and as he sat up, sweat-drenched and trembling, he was positive it would not be the last. It was not a new nightmare, but rather was one which had periodically haunted his sleep since boyhood. Unlike an ordinary bad dream, this one did not involve being chased or threatened, but consisted rather of a single image - the image of a hideously maimed face. Although he had never actually seen the owner of the face, he knew exactly whose face it was, and now he knew why it inhabited his darkest dreams.
The next day dawned cloudy with a threat of approaching rain. As Belgarath stirred up the fire and Silk rummaged through his pack for something suitable for breakfast, Garion stood looking out at the swamp around him. A flight of geese swept by overhead in a ragged V, their wings whistling and their muted cries drifting, lonely and remote. A fish jumped not far from the edge of the hummock, and Garion watched the ripples widening out toward the far shore. He looked for quite some time at that shore before he realized exactly what it was he was seeing. Concerned, then a bit alarmed, he began to peer first this way and then that.
"Grandfather!" he cried. "Look!"
"At what?"
"It's all changed. There aren't any channels any more. We're in the middle of a big pond, and there isn't any way out of it." He spun around, desperately trying to see some exit, but the edges of the pond in which they sat were totally unbroken. There were no channels leading out of it, and the brown water was absolutely still, showing no evidence of current.
Then in the center of the pond, without making so much as a ripple, a round, furred head emerged from the water. The animal's eyes were very large and bright; it had no external ears, and its little nose was as black as a button. It made a peculiar chirping noise, and another head emerged out of the water a few feet away.
"Fenlings!" Silk gasped, drawing his short sword with a steely rustle.
"Oh, put that away," Belgarath told him disgustedly. "They aren't going to hurt you."
"They've trapped us, haven't they?"
"What do they want?" Garion asked.
"Breakfast, obviously," Silk answered, still holding his sword.
"Don't be stupid, Silk," Belgarath told him. "Why would they want to eat a raw Drasnian when there's a whole swampful of fish available? Put the sword away."
The first fenling which had poked its head up out of the water lifted one of its webbed forefeet and made a peremptory gesture. The webbed foot was strangely handlike.
"They seem to want us to follow them," Belgarath said calmly.
"And you're going to do it?" Silk was aghast. "Are you mad?"
"Do we have any choice?"
Without further dis
cussion, Belgarath began taking down the tent.
"Are they monsters, Grandfather?" Garion asked worriedly as he helped. "Like Algroths or Trolls?"
"No, they're just animals-like seals or beaver. They're curious and intelligent and very playful."
"But they play very nasty games," Silk added.
After they had stowed all their packs into the boat, they pushed it down the bank into the water. The fenlings watched them curiously with no particular threat or malice in their gaze, but rather a kind of firm determination on their furry little faces. The solid-looking edge of the pond opened then to reveal the channel that had been concealed during the night. The strangely rounded head of the fenling who had gestured to them moved on ahead, leading the way and glancing back often to be certain they were following. Several others trailed after the boat, their large eyes alert.
It began to rain, a few drops at first, and then a steady drizzle that veiled the endless expanse of reed and cattail stretching out on all sides of them.
"Where do you think they're taking us?" Silk asked, stopping his poling to wipe the rain out of his face. One of the fenlings behind the boat chattered angrily at him until he dug his pole into the muddy bottom of the channel again.
"We'll just have to wait and see," Belgarath replied.
The channel continued to open before them, and they poled steadily along, following the round-headed fenling who had first appeared.
"Are those trees up ahead?" Silk asked, peering into the misty drizzle.
"It appears so," Belgarath answered. "I suspect that's where we're going."
The large cluster of trees slowly emerged from the mist. As they drew closer, Garion could see a gentle rise of ground swelling up out of the reeds and water. The grove which crowned the island appeared to be mostly willows with long, trailing branches.