King of the Murgos

  Eriond laughed. ‘Oh, that. When I was little—just after we moved into Poledra’s cottage in the Vale—I used to fall into the river fairly often.’

  Garion grinned. ‘That seems like a perfectly natural thing to me.’

  ‘It hasn’t happened for a long time now, but I think that Polgara feels that maybe I’m saving it up for a special occasion of some sort.’

  Garion laughed, and they entered the cubicle-lined corridor that led toward the Gorim’s cavern. The Ulgos who lived and worked there threw startled glances in their direction as they passed.

  ‘Uh—Belgarion,’ Eriond said, ‘the Orb is still glowing.’

  ‘Oh,’ Garion replied, ‘I’d forgotten about that.’ He looked back over his shoulder at the cheerfully burning stone. ‘It’s all right now,’ he told it. ‘You can stop.’

  The Orb’s final flicker seemed faintly disappointed.

  The others were gathered at breakfast in the central room of the Gorim’s house. Polgara looked up as the two of them entered. ‘Where have you—’ she began, then stopped as she looked into Eriond’s eyes more closely. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ she asked instead.

  Eriond nodded. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘UL wanted to talk with us. There were some things we needed to know.’

  Belgarath pushed aside his plate, his face becoming intent. ‘I think you’d better tell us about this,’ he said to them. ‘Take your time and don’t skip over anything.’

  Garion crossed to the table and sat down beside Ce’Nedra. He described the meeting with the Father of the Gods carefully, trying as best he could to repeat UL’s exact words. ‘And then he said that Eriond and I shared the same spirit and that we were supposed to aid and sustain each other,’ he concluded.

  ‘Was that all he said?’ Belgarath asked.

  ‘Pretty much, yes.’

  ‘Except that he told us he was with us,’ Eriond added.

  ‘He didn’t say anything more specific about this certain time when everything has to be completed?’ the old man demanded with a slightly worried expression.

  Garion shook his head. ‘No. I’m sorry, Grandfather. I’m afraid not.’

  Belgarath’s expression suddenly became exasperated. ‘I hate working to a schedule I haven’t seen,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t tell if I’m ahead or behind.’

  Ce’Nedra had been clinging to Garion, her face filled with both concern and relief. ‘Are you really sure he said that our baby is all right?’ she demanded.

  ‘He said that he is well,’ Eriond assured her. ‘He told us that the one who holds him will see to his needs and that for the moment he’s in no danger.’

  ‘For the moment?’ Ce’Nedra exclaimed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘He didn’t get any more specific, Ce’Nedra,’ Garion said.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask UL where he is?’

  ‘Because I’m sure he wouldn’t have told me. Finding Geran and Zandramas is my job, and I don’t think they’re going to let me evade it by getting somebody else to do it for me.’

  ‘They? Who are they?’

  ‘The Prophecies—both of them. They’re playing a game, and we all have to follow the rules—even if we don’t know what they are.’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘Go tell them. It wasn’t my idea.’

  Aunt Pol was looking oddly at Eriond. ‘Have you known?’ she asked him. ‘About your name, I mean?’

  ‘I knew I had another name. When you called me Errand, it didn’t seem quite right, for some reason. Do you mind very much, Polgara?’

  She rose with a smile, came around the table, and embraced him warmly. ‘No, Eriond,’ she told him, ‘I don’t mind at all.’

  ‘Just exactly what is the task UL set for you?’ Belgarath asked.

  ‘He said that I’d recognize it when I came to it.’

  ‘Is that all he said about it?’

  ‘He said that it was very important and that it was going to change me.’

  Belgarath shook his head. ‘Why does everything always have to be in riddles?’ he complained.

  ‘It’s another one of those rules Garion mentioned,’ Silk told him, refilling his goblet from one of the flagons. ‘Well, what next, old man?’

  Belgarath thought about it, tugging at an earlobe and looking up at one of the faintly glowing lamps. ‘I think it’s fairly safe to say that this meeting was the thing that was supposed to happen here at Prolgu,’ he said, ‘so I expect that it’s time for us to move along. It might not hurt for us to get where we’re going a little early, but I’m positive that it’s going to be a disaster if we get there late.’ He rose from his seat and put his hand on the Gorim’s frail shoulder. ‘I’ll try to get word to you from time to time,’ he promised. ‘Could you ask some of your people to lead us through the caves to Arendia? I want to get out into the open as soon as possible.’

  ‘Of course, my old friend,’ the Gorim replied, ‘and may UL guide your steps.’

  ‘I hope somebody does,’ Silk murmured.

  Belgarath gave him a hard look.

  ‘It’s all right, Belgarath,’ Silk said expansively. ‘The fact that you get lost all the time doesn’t diminish our respect for you in the slightest. I’m sure it’s just a bad habit you picked up somewhere—probably because your mind was on weightier matters.’

  Belgarath looked at Garion. ‘Did we really have to bring him along?’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather, we really did.’

  It was shortly after sunrise two days later when they reached the irregularly shaped cave mouth that opened out into a birch forest. The white trees lifted their bare limbs toward an intensely blue sky, and fallen leaves covered the ground with a carpet of gold. The Ulgos who had guided them through the caves winced visibly and drew back from the sunlight. They murmured a few words to Belgarath, he thanked them, and then they retreated back into the protective darkness.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea how much better I feel now,’ Silk said with relief as he emerged from the cave and looked around at the frosty morning sunlight. Here and there back among the trees were patches of frozen snow, crusty and sparkling in the slanting rays of the morning sun; somewhere off to the left, they could hear the rush and babble of a mountain brook tumbling over stones.

  ‘Have you any notion of exactly where we are?’ Durnik asked Belgarath as they rode out into the birch trees.

  The old man squinted back over his shoulder, gauging the angle of the new-risen sun. ‘My guess is that we’re in the foothills above central Arendia,’ he replied.

  ‘South of the lower end of the Arendish forest?’ Silk asked.

  ‘That’s hard to say for sure.’

  The little Drasnian looked around. ‘I’d better take a look,’ he said. He pointed at a hill rising out of the forest. ‘I might be able to see something from up there.’

  ‘And I think some breakfast might be in order,’ Polgara said. ‘Let’s find a clear spot and build a fire.’

  ‘I won’t be too long,’ Silk said, turning his horse and riding off through the white trunks of the birches.

  The rest of them rode on down the slope, the hooves of their horses rustling the deep-piled carpet of golden leaves. Several hundred yards into the forest, they reached a clearing on the banks of the brook they had heard when they had emerged from the cave. Polgara drew in her horse. ‘This should do,’ she decided. ‘Garion, why don’t you and Eriond gather some firewood? I think some bacon and toasted bread might be nice.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Pol,’ he said automatically, swinging down from his saddle. Eriond joined him, and the two of them went back in among the white trees in seach of fallen limbs.

  ‘It’s pleasant being back out in the sunlight again,’ Eriond said as he pulled a large branch out from under a fallen tree. ‘The caves are nice enough, I suppose, but I like to be able to look at the sky.’

  Garion felt very close to this open-faced young man. The experience they had shared in the cave had
brought them even closer together and had focused an idea that had hovered on the edge of Garion’s awareness for several years now. The fact that both he and Eriond had been raised by Aunt Pol and Durnik had made them in many respects very much like brothers. He considered that as he bundled several large limbs together with a length of rope. He realized at the same time that he knew very little about Eriond and what might have happened to him before they had found him at Rak Cthol. ‘Eriond,’ he said curiously, ‘can you remember anything at all about where you lived before Zedar found you?’

  The young man looked up toward the sky, his eyes lost in thought. ‘It was in a city of some kind, I think,’ he replied. ‘I seem to remember streets—and shops.’

  ‘Do you remember your mother at all?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember living in any one place for very long—or staying with the same people. It seems that I just used to go to a door, and people would take me inside and give me something to eat and a place to sleep.’

  Garion felt a sudden sharp pang of sympathy. Eriond was as much—or even more—an orphan as he was himself. ‘Do you remember the day when Zedar found you?’ he asked.

  Eriond nodded. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘quite clearly. It was cloudy, and there weren’t any shadows, so I couldn’t tell exactly what time of day it was. I met him in a very narrow street—an alley of some kind, I think. I remember that his eyes had a sort of injured look in them—as if something terrible had happened to him.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Zedar.’

  ‘Did he ever talk to you?’

  ‘Not very often. About all he ever said was that he had an errand for me. He used to talk in his sleep once in a while, though. I remember that he used to say “Master.’ Sometimes when he said it, his voice would be full of love. Other times it was full of fear. It was almost as if he had two entirely different Masters.’

  ‘He did. At first he was one of the disciples of Aldur. Then later, his Master was Torak.’

  ‘Why do you suppose he did that, Belgarion? Changed Masters, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, Eriond. I really don’t know.’

  Durnik had built a small fire in the center of the clearing, and Polgara, humming softly to herself, was setting out her pots and pans beside it. As Garion and Eriond began breaking the branches they had gathered into manageable lengths, Silk rode back down the hill to rejoin them. ‘You can see quite a way from up there,’ he reported as he swung down from his saddle. ‘We’re about ten leagues above the high road from Muros.’

  ‘Could you see the River Malerin?’ Belgarath asked him.

  Silk shook his head. ‘Not the river itself,’ he replied, ‘but there’s a fairly good-sized valley off to the south. I’d imagine that it runs through there.’

  ‘I was fairly close then. How’s the terrain look between here and the high road?’

  ‘We’ve got some rough going ahead of us,’ Silk told him. ‘It’s steep, and the woods look pretty dense.’

  ‘We’ll have to make the best time we can. Once we get to the high road, we’ll be all right.’

  Silk made a sour face. ‘There’s another problem, though,’ he said. ‘There’s a storm coming in from the west.’

  Durnik lifted his face to sniff at the frosty air and nodded. ‘Snow,’ he confirmed. ‘You can smell it coming.’

  Silk gave him a disgusted look. ‘You had to say it, didn’t you, Durnik?’ he said almost accusingly.

  Durnik’s look was slightly puzzled.

  ‘Didn’t you know that talking about unpleasant things makes them happen?’

  ‘Silk, that’s pure nonsense.’

  The little man sniffed. ‘I know—but it’s true all the same.’

  The breakfast of bread, dried fruit, and bacon Aunt Pol prepared for them was simple, but there was more than enough to satisfy them all. When they had finished, they repacked, quenched their fire with water from the icy brook, and rode on down the steep slope, following the course of the tumbling stream through the white-trunked birch forest.

  Durnik fell in beside the mute Toth as they rode. ‘Tell me, Toth,’ he said tentatively, eyeing the frothy white water pitching down over mossy green boulders, ‘have you ever done any fishing?’

  The huge man smiled shyly.

  ‘Well, I’ve got lines and hooks in one of the packs. Maybe if we get the chance . . .’ Durnik left it hanging.

  Toth’s smile broadened into a grin.

  Silk stood up in his stirrups and peered on ahead. ‘That storm isn’t much more than a half-hour away,’ he told them.

  Belgarath grunted. ‘I doubt that we’ll make very good time once it hits,’ he replied.

  ‘I hate snow.’ Silk shivered glumly.

  ‘That’s a peculiar trait in a Drasnian.’

  ‘Why do you think I left Drasnia in the first place?’

  The heavy bank of cloud loomed in front of them as they continued on down the hill. The morning sunlight paled and then disappeared as the leading edge of the storm raced high overhead to blot out the crisp blue of the autumn sky. ‘Here it comes,’ Eriond said cheerfully as the first few flakes began to dance and swirl in the stiff breeze moving up the ridge toward them.

  Silk gave the young man a sour look, crammed his battered hat down lower over his ears and pulled his shabby cloak tighter about him. He looked at Belgarath. ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider doing something about this?’ he asked pointedly.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re a terrible disappointment to me, Belgarath,’ Silk said, drawing himself even more deeply into his cloak.

  It began to snow harder, and the trees about them became hazy and indistinct in the shifting curtain of white that came seething up through the forest.

  A mile or so farther down the hill they left the birch trees and entered a dark green forest of towering firs. The thick evergreens broke the force of the wind, and the snow sifted lazily down through the boughs, lightly dusting the needle-strewn floor of the forest. Belgarath shook the snow out of the folds of his cloak and looked around, choosing a route.

  ‘Lost again?’ Silk asked.

  ‘No, not really.’ The old man looked back at Durnik. ‘How far down this hill do you think we’re going to have to go to get below this?’ he asked.

  Durnik scratched at his chin. ‘It’s sort of hard to say,’ he replied. He turned to the mute at his side. ‘What do you think, Toth?’ he asked.

  The giant lifted his head and sniffed at the air, then made a series of obscure gestures with one hand.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Durnik agreed. He turned back to Belgarath. ‘If the slope stays this steep, we ought to be able to get below the snowline sometime this afternoon—if we keep moving.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’d better move along then,’ Belgarath said and led the way on down the hill at a jolting trot.

  It continued to snow. The light dusting on the ground beneath the firs became a covering, and the dimness that had hovered among the dark tree trunks faded as the white snow brought its peculiar, sourceless light.

  They stopped about noon and took a quick lunch of bread and cheese, then continued to descend through the forest toward Arendia. By midafternoon, as Durnik and Toth had predicted, the snow was mixed with a chill rain. Soon the few large, wet flakes were gone, and they rode through a steady drizzle that wreathed down among the trees.

  Late in the afternoon the wind picked up, and the rain driven before it was cold and unpleasant. Durnik looked around. ‘I think that it’s about time for us to find a place to stop for the night,’ he said. ‘We’ll need shelter from this wind, and finding dry firewood might be a bit of a problem.’

  The huge Toth, whose feet very nearly dragged on the ground on either side of his horse, looked around and then pointed toward a dense thicket of sapling evergreens standing at the far edge of the broad clearing they had just entered. Once again he began to move his hands in those peculiar gestures. Durnik watched him intently for
a few moments, then nodded, and the two of them rode on across to the thicket, dismounted, and went to work.

  The campsite they constructed was well back among the slender tree trunks of the thicket where the force of the wind was broken and the dense branches shed the rain like a thatched roof. The two of them bent a half circle of the tall saplings over and tied their tips to the trunks of other trees to form a domelike framework of considerable size. Then they covered the frame with tent canvas and tied it in place securely. The resulting structure was a round-topped, open-fronted pavilion perhaps as big as a a fair-sized room. At the front, they dug in a fire pit and lined it with rocks.

  The rain had soaked down the forest, and collecting dry firewood was difficult, but Garion drew upon the experience he had gained during the quest for the Orb to seek out those sheltered hollows under fallen trees, the spots on the leeward sides of large tree trunks and the brush-choked areas under overhanging rocks where dry twigs and branches could be found. By evening he and Eriond had piled up a considerable supply of wood not far from the fire pit where Polgara and Ce’Nedra were preparing supper.

  There was a small spring several hundred yards on down the slope, and Garion slipped and slid downhill with two leather waterbags slung over his shoulders. The light was fading rapidly under the dark, windswept evergreens, and the ruddy glow of their campfire beckoned cheerfully as he started back up through the trees with the full waterbags hanging pendulously down against his thighs.

  Polgara had hung her damp cloak on a tree limb and was humming softly to herself as she and Ce’Nedra worked over the fire.

  ‘Why, thank you, your Majesty,’ Ce’Nedra said as Garion handed her the waterbags. Her little smile was somehow wistful, as if she were making a conscious effort to be lighthearted.

  ‘It’s my pleasure, your Majesty,’ he replied with a florid bow. ‘A good scullion can always find water when the cook’s helper needs it.’

  She smiled briefly, kissed his cheek, and then sighed and went back to dicing vegetables for the stew Polgara was stirring.

  After they had eaten, they all sat drowsily before the fire, listening to the sound of the wind in the tree tops and the seething hiss of the rain in the forest about them.