King of the Murgos

  A half-dozen desperate questions sprang into Garion’s mind; but with Ce’Nedra at his side with his arm about her shoulders, there was no way he could voice them.

  —It’s important for you to stay calm, Garion—Polgara’s fingers told him.—Don’t let her know how concerned you are. I’m watching her, and I’ll know what to do when the time comes.—

  Belgarath stopped again and stood tugging at one earlobe, looking dubiously down a dark passageway and then down another which branched off to the left.

  ‘You’re lost again, aren’t you?’ Silk accused him. The rat-faced little Drasnian had put aside his pearl-gray doublet and his jewels and gold chains and now wore an old brown tunic, shiny with age, a moth-eaten fur cloak and a shapeless, battered hat, once again submerging himself in one of his innumerable disguises.

  ‘Of course I’m not lost,’ Belgarath retorted. ‘I just haven’t pinpointed exactly where we are at the moment.’

  ‘Belgarath, that’s what the word lost means.’

  ‘Nonsense. I think we go this way.’ He pointed down the left-hand passageway.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Uh—Silk,’ Durnik the smith cautioned quietly, ‘you really ought to keep your voice down. That ceiling up there doesn’t look all that stable to me, and sometimes a loud noise is all it takes to bring one of them down.’

  Silk froze, his eyes rolling apprehensively upward and sweat visibly standing out on his forehead. ‘Polgara,’ he whispered in a strangled tone, ‘make him stop that.’

  ‘Leave him alone, Durnik,’ she said calmly. ‘You know how he feels about caves.’

  ‘I just thought he ought to know, Pol,’ the smith explained. ‘Things do happen in caves.’

  ‘Polgara!’ Silk’s voice was agonized. ‘Please!’

  ‘I’ll go back and see how Errand and Toth are doing with the horses,’ Durnik said. He looked at the sweating little Drasnian. ‘Just try not to shout,’ he advised.

  As they rounded a corner in the twisting gallery, the passageway opened out into a large cavern with a broad vein of quartz running across its ceiling. At some point, perhaps even miles away, the vein reached the surface, and refracted sunlight, shattered into its component elements by the facets of the quartz, spilled down into the cavern in dancing rainbows that flared and faded as they shifted across the sparkling surface of the small, shallow lake in the center of the cave. At the far end of the lake, a tiny waterfall tinkled endlessly from rock to rock to fill the cavern with its music.

  ‘Ce’Nedra, look!’ Garion urged.

  ‘What?’ She raised her head. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said indifferently, ‘very pretty.’ And she went back to her abstracted silence.

  Garion gave Aunt Pol a helpless look.

  ‘Father,’ Polgara said then, ‘I think it’s just about lunchtime. This seems like a good place to rest a bit and have a bite to eat.’

  ‘Pol, we’re never going to get there if we stop every mile or two.’

  ‘Why do you always argue with me, father? Is it out of some obscure principle?’

  He glowered at her for a moment, then turned away, muttering to himself.

  Errand and Toth led the horses down to the shore of the crystal lake to water them. They were a strangely mismatched pair. Errand was a slight young man with blond, curly hair and he wore a simple brown peasant smock. Toth towered above him like a giant tree looming over a sapling. Although winter was coming on in the Kingdoms of the West, the huge mute still wore only sandals, a short kirtle belted at the waist, and an unbleached wool blanket drawn over one shoulder. His bare arms and legs were like tree trunks, and his muscles knotted and rippled whenever he moved. His nondescript brown hair was drawn straight back and tied at the nape of his neck with a short length of leather thong. Blind Cyradis had told them that this silent giant was to aid them in the search for Zandramas and Garion’s stolen son, but so far Toth seemed content merely to follow them impassively, giving no hint that he even cared where they were going.

  ‘Would you like to help me, Ce’Nedra?’ Polgara asked pleasantly, unbuckling the straps on one of the packs.

  Ce’Nedra, numb-faced and inattentive, walked slowly across the smooth stone floor of the cavern to stand mutely beside the pack horse.

  ‘We’ll need bread,’ Polgara said, rummaging through the pack as if unaware of the young woman’s obvious abstraction. She took out several long, dark brown loaves of peasant bread and piled them like sticks of firewood in the little queen’s arms. ‘And cheese, of course,’ she added, lifting out a wax-covered ball of Sendarian cheddar. She pursed her lips. ‘And perhaps a bit of the ham as well, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Ce’Nedra replied in an expressionless tone.

  ‘Garion,’ Polgara went on, ‘would you lay this cloth on that flat rock over there?’ She looked back at Ce’Nedra. ‘I hate to eat off an uncovered table, don’t you?’

  ‘Umm,’ Ce’Nedra replied.

  The two of them carried the loaves of bread, the waxcoated cheese, and the ham to the improvised table. Polgara snapped her fingers and shook her head. ‘I forgot the knife. Would you get it for me?’

  Ce’Nedra nodded and started back toward the pack horse.

  ‘What’s wrong with her, Aunt Pol?’ Garion asked in a tense whisper.

  ‘It’s a form of melancholia, dear.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘It is if it goes on for too long.’

  ‘Can you do anything? I mean, could you give her some kind of medicine or something?’

  ‘I’d rather not do that unless I have to, Garion. Sometimes the medicines just mask the symptoms, and other problems start to crop up. Most of the time, it’s best to let these things run their natural course.’

  ‘Aunt Pol, I can’t stand to see her like this.’

  ‘You’re going to have to endure it for a while, Garion. Just behave as if you weren’t aware of the way she’s acting. She’s not quite ready to come out of it yet.’ She turned with a warm smile. ‘Ah, there it is,’ she said, taking the knife from Ce’Nedra. ‘Thank you, dear.’

  They all gathered around Polgara’s makeshift table for their simple lunch. As he ate, Durnik the smith gazed thoughtfully at the small crystal lake. ‘I wonder if there could be any fish in there,’ he mused.

  ‘No, dear,’ Polgara said.

  ‘It is possible, Pol. If the lake’s fed by streams from the surface, the fish could have been washed down here when they were minnows, and—’

  ‘No, Durnik.’

  He sighed.

  After lunch, they re-entered the endless, twisting galleries, once again following Belgarath’s flickering torch. The hours limped by as they trudged mile after mile with the darkness pressing palpably in around them.

  ‘How much farther do we have to go, Grandfather?’ Garion asked, falling in beside the old man.

  ‘It’s hard to say exactly. Distances can be deceptive here in the caves.’

  ‘Have you got any idea at all about why we had to come here? I mean, is there anything in the Mrin Codex—or maybe the Darine—that talks about something that’s supposed to happen here in Ulgo?’

  ‘Not that I remember, no.’

  ‘You don’t suppose we might have misunderstood, do you?’

  ‘Our friend was pretty specific, Garion. He said that we have to stop at Prolgu on our way south, because something that has to happen is going to happen here.’

  ‘Can’t it happen without us?’ Garion demanded. ‘We’re just floundering around here in these caves, and all the while Zandramas is getting farther and farther ahead of us with my son.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Errand asked suddenly from somewhere behind them. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  They stopped to listen. The guttering sound of Belgarath’s torch suddenly sounded very loud as Garion strained his ears, trying to reach out into the darkness to capture any wayward sound. The slow drip of water echoed its soft tapping from somewhere in the dark,
and the faint sigh of air coming down through the cracks and crevices in the rock provided a mournful accompaniment. Then, very faintly, Garion heard the sound of singing, of choral voices raised in the peculiarly discordant but deeply reverent hymn to UL that had echoed and re-echoed through these dim caverns for over five millenia.

  ‘Ah, the Ulgos,’ Belgarath said with satisfaction. ‘We’re almost to Prolgu. Now maybe we’ll find out what it is that’s supposed to happen here.’

  They went perhaps another mile along the passageway which rather suddenly became steeper, taking them deeper and deeper into the earth.

  ‘Yakk!’ a voice from somewhere ahead barked sharply. ‘Tacha velk?’

  ‘Belgarath, Iyun hak,’ the old sorcerer replied calmly in response to the challenge.

  ‘Belgarath?’ The voice sounded startled. ‘Zajek kallig, Belgarath?’

  ‘Mare keg Gorim, Iyun zajek.’

  ‘Veed mo. Marishum Ulgo.’

  Belgarath extinguished his torch as the Ulgo sentry approached with a phosphorescently glowing wooden bowl held aloft.

  ‘Yad ho, Belgarath. Groja UL.’

  ‘Yad ho,’ the old man answered the ritual greeting. ‘Groja UL.’

  The short, broad-shouldered Ulgo bowed briefly, then turned and led them on down the gloomy passageway. The greenish, unwavering glow from the wooden bowl he carried spread its eerie light in the dim gallery, painting all their faces with a ghostly pallor. After another mile or so, thegallery opened out into one of those vast caverns where the pale glow of that strange, cold light the Ulgos contrived winked at them from a hundred openings high up in the stone wall. They carefully moved along a narrow ledge to the foot of a stone stairway that had been chipped from the rock wall of the cave. Their guide spoke briefly to Belgarath.

  ‘We’ll have to leave the horses here,’ the old man said.

  ‘I can stay with them,’ Durnik offered.

  ‘No. The Ulgos will tend to them. Let’s go up.’ And he started up the steep flight of stairs.

  They climbed in silence, the sound of their footsteps echoing back hollowly from the far side of the cavern.

  ‘Please don’t lean out over the edge like that, Errand,’ Polgara said when they were about halfway up.

  ‘I just wanted to see how far down it goes,’ he replied. ‘Did you know that there’s water down there?’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I’d rather you stayed away from the edge.’

  He flashed her a sudden smile and went on up.

  At the top of the stairs, they skirted the edge of the dim subterranean abyss for several hundred yards, then entered one of the galleries where the Ulgos lived and worked in small cubicles carved from the rock. Beyond that gallery lay the Gorim’s half-lit cavern with its lake and its island and the peculiarly pyramid-shaped house surrounded by solemn white pillars. At the far end of the marble causeway which crossed the lake, the Gorim of Ulgo, dressed as always in his white robe, stood peering across the water. ‘Belgarath?’ he called in a quavering voice, ‘is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Holy One,’ the old man replied. ‘You might have guessed that I’d turn up again.’

  ‘Welcome, old friend.’

  Belgarath started toward the causeway, but Ce’Nedra darted past him with her coppery curls flying and ran toward the Gorim with her arms outstretched.

  ‘Ce’Nedra?’ he said, blinking as she threw her arms about his neck.

  ‘Oh, Holy Gorim,’ she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder, ‘someone’s taken my baby.’

  ‘They’ve done what?’ he exclaimed.

  Garion had started almost involuntarily to cross the causeway to Ce’Nedra’s side, but Polgara put her hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Not just yet, dear,’ she murmured.

  ‘But—’

  ‘This may be what she needs, Garion.’

  ‘But, Aunt Pol, she’s crying.’

  ‘Yes, dear. That’s what I’ve been waiting for. We have to let her grief run its course before she can begin to come out of it.’

  The Gorim held the sobbing little queen in his arms, murmuring to her in a soft, comforting tone. After the first storm of her weeping had subsided, he raised his lined old face. ‘When did all this happen?’ he asked.

  ‘Late last summer,’ Belgarath told him. ‘It’s a fairly involved story.’

  ‘Come inside then, all of you,’ the Gorim said. ‘My servants will prepare food and drink for you, and we can talk while you eat.’

  They filed into the pyramid-shaped house standing on the Gorim’s island and entered the large central room with its stone benches and table, its glowing crystal lamps hanging on chains from the ceiling, and its peculiar, inward-sloping walls. The Gorim spoke briefly with one of his silent servants, then turned with his arm still about Ce’Nedra’s shoulders. ‘Sit, my friends,’ he said to them.

  As they sat at the stone table, one of the Gorim’s servants entered, carrying a tray of polished crystal goblets and a couple of flagons of the fiery Ulgo drink.

  ‘Now,’ the saintly old man said, ‘what has happened?’

  Belgarath filled himself one of the goblets and then quickly sketched in the events of the past several months, telling the Gorim of the murder of Brand, of the attempt to sow dissention in the Alorn ranks and of the campaign against the cult stronghold at Jarviksholm.

  ‘And then,’ he went on as the Gorim’s servants brought in trays of raw fruits and vegetables and a smoking roast hot from the spit, ‘right about at the same time we captured Jarviksholm, someone crept into the nursery in the Citadel at Riva and took Prince Geran out of his cradle. When we got back to the Isle, we discovered that the Orb will follow the baby’s trail—as long as it stays on dry land, anyway. It led us to the west side of the island, and we encountered some Cherek Bear-cultists the abductor had left behind. When we questioned them, they told us that the new cult leader, Ulfgar, had ordered the abduction.’

  ‘But what they told you was not true?’ the Gorim asked shrewdly.

  ‘Not by half,’ Silk replied.

  ‘Of course the problem there was that they didn’t know they were lying,’ Belgarath continued. ‘They’d been very carefully prepared, and the story we got from them sounded quite plausible—particularly in view of the fact that we were already at war with the cult. Anyway, we mounted a campaign against the last cult stronghold at Rheon in north-eastern Drasnia. After we took the town and captured Ulfgar, the truth started to come out. Ulfgar turned out to be a Mallorean Grolim named Harakan and he had absolutely nothing to do with the abduction. The real culprit was this mysterious Zandramas I told you about several years ago. I’m not sure exactly what part the Sardion plays in all this; but for some reason, Zandramas wants to take the baby to the place mentioned in the Mrin Codex—the place which is no more. Urvon desperately wants to prevent that, so he sent his henchman here to the west to kill the baby to keep it from happening.’

  ‘Have you any idea at all about where to begin the search?’ the Gorim asked.

  Belgarath shrugged. ‘A couple of clues is all. We’re fairly sure that Zandramas left the Isle of the Winds aboard a Nyissan ship, so that’s where we’re going to start. The Codex says that I’m supposed to find the path to the Sardion in the mysteries, and I’m fairly certain that when we find the Sardion, Zandramas and the baby won’t be far away. Maybe I can get some hints in those prophecies—if I can ever find any uncorrupted copies.’

  ‘It also appears that the Seers of Kell are directly involving themselves,’ Polgara added.

  ‘The Seers?’ The Gorim’s voice was startled. ‘They’ve never done that before.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘One of them—a girl named Cyradis—appeared at Rheon and gave us some additional information—and certain instructions.’

  ‘That is very unlike them.’

  ‘I think that things are moving toward the ultimate climax, Holy One,’ Belgarath said. ‘We were all concentrating so much on the meeting between Gar
ion and Torak that we lost sight of the fact that the real meetings are the ones between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark. Cyradis told us that this is going to be the last meeting, and that this time, everything’s going to be decided once and for all. I rather suspect that’s the reason that the seers are finally coming out into the open.’

  The Gorim frowned. ‘I would not have ever thought to see them concern themselves with the affairs of other men,’ he said gravely.

  ‘Just who are these seers, Holy Gorim?’ Ce’Nedra asked in a subdued voice.

  ‘They are our cousins, child,’ he replied simply.

  Her look betrayed her bafflement.

  ‘After the Gods made the races of man, there came the time of the choosing,’ he explained. ‘There were seven races of man—even as there are seven Gods. Aldur chose to go his way alone, however, and that meant that one of the races of man remained unchosen and Godless.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I’ve heard that part of the story.’

  ‘We were all of the same people,’ the Gorim continued. ‘Us, the Morindim, the Karands in the north of Mallorea, the Melcenes far to the east and the Dals. We were closest to the Dals, but when we went forth in search of the God UL, they had already turned their eyes to the skies in their attempt to read the stars. We urged them to come with us, but they would not.’

  ‘And you’ve lost all contact with them, then?’ she asked.

  ‘On occasion, some few of their seers have come to us, usually on some quest of which they would not speak. The seers are very wise, for the Vision which comes to them gives them knowledge of the past, the present, and the future—and more importantly, the meaning of it.’

  ‘Are they all women, then?’

  ‘No. There are men as well. When the sight comes to them, they always bind their eyes to exclude all common light so that this other light can be seen more clearly. Inevitably, when a seer appears, there also appears a mute to be guide and protector. They are always paired—forever.’