There was another scream from the temple.
Noon came and went unnoticed as Garion and the others endured the cries of the laboring woman. By midafternoon, the screams had grown much weaker, and as the sun was just going down, there came one dreadful last shriek that seemed to dwindle off into silence. No other sound came from inside, and after several minutes, Polgara came out. Her face was pale, and her hands and clothing were drenched with blood.
‘Well, Pol?’ Belgarath asked her.
‘She died.’
‘And the demon?’
‘Stillborn. Neither one of them survived the birth.’ She looked down at her clothing. ‘Durnik, please bring me a blanket and water to wash in.’
‘Of course, Pol.’
With her husband shielding her by holding up the blanket, Polgara deliberately removed all of her clothing, throwing each article through the temple doorway. Then she drew the blanket about her. ‘Now burn it,’ she said to them. ‘Burn it to the ground.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They crossed the border into Jenno about noon the following day, still following the trail of Zandramas. The experiences of the previous afternoon and evening had left them all subdued, and they rode on in silence. A league or so past the rather indeterminate border, they pulled off to the side of the road to eat. The spring sunlight was very bright and the day pleasantly warm. Garion walked a little ways away from the others and reflectively watched a cloud of yellow-striped bees industriously working at a patch of wild flowers.
‘Garion,’ Ce’Nedra said in a small voice, coming up behind him.
‘Yes, Ce’Nedra?’ He put his arm around her.
‘What really happened back there?’
‘You saw about as much of it as I did.’
‘That’s not what I mean. What happened inside the temple? Did that poor woman and her baby really just die—or did Polgara kill them?’
‘Ce’Nedra!’
‘I have to know, Garion. She was so grim about it before she went inside that place. She was going to kill the baby. Then she came out and told us that the mother and baby had both died in the birth. Wasn’t that very convenient?’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘Ce’Nedra, think back. You’ve known Aunt Pol for a long time now. Has she ever told you a lie—ever?’
‘Well—sometimes she hasn’t told me the whole truth. She’s told me part of it and kept the rest a secret.’
‘That’s not the same as lying, Ce’Nedra, and you know it.’
‘Well—’
‘You’re angry because she said we might have to kill that thing.’
‘Baby,’ she corrected firmly.
He took her by the shoulders and looked directly into her face. ‘No, Ce’Nedra. It was a thing—half human, half demon, and all monster.’
‘But it was so little—so helpless.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘All babies are little when they’re born.’
‘I don’t think that one was. I saw the woman for just a minute before Aunt Pol told me to leave the temple. Do you remember how big you were just before Geran was born? Well, that woman’s stomach was at least five times as big as yours was—and she wasn’t a great deal taller than you are.’
‘You aren’t serious!’
‘Oh, yes, I am. There was no way that the demon could have been born without killing its mother. For all I know, it might just simply have clawed its way out.’
‘Its own mother?’ she gasped.
‘Did you think it would love its mother? Demons don’t know how to love, Ce’Nedra. That’s why they’re demons. Fortunately the demon died. It’s too bad that the woman had to die, too, but it was much too late to do anything for her by the time we got there.’
‘You’re a cold, hard person, Garion.’
‘Oh, Ce’Nedra, you know better than that. What happened back there was unpleasant, certainly, but none of us had any choice but to do exactly what we did.’
She turned her back on him and started to stalk away.
‘Ce’Nedra,’ he said, hurrying to catch her.
‘What?’ She tried to free her arm from his grasp.
‘We didn’t have any choice,’ he repeated. ‘Would you want Geran to grow up in a world filled with demons?’
She stared at him. ‘No,’ she finally admitted. ‘It’s just that . . .’ She left it hanging.
‘I know.’ He put his arms about her.
‘Oh, Garion.’ She suddenly clung to him, and everything was all right again.
After they had eaten, they rode on through the forest, passing occasional villages huddled deep among the trees. The villages were rude, most of them consisting of a dozen or so rough log houses and surrounded by crude log palisades. There were usually a rather surprising number of hogs rooting among the stumps that surrounded each village.
‘There don’t seem to be very many dogs,’ Durnik observed.
‘These people prefer pigs as house pets,’ Silk told him. ‘As a race, Karands have a strong affinity for dirt, and pigs satisfy certain deep inner needs among them.’
‘Do you know something, Silk,’ the smith said then. ‘You’d be a much more pleasant companion if you didn’t try to turn everything into a joke.’
‘It’s a failing I have. I’ve looked at the world for quite a few years now and I’ve found that if I don’t laugh, I’ll probably end up crying.’
‘You’re really serious, aren’t you?’
‘Would I do that to an old friend?’
About midafternoon, the road they were following curved slightly, and they soon reached the edge of the forest and a fork in the rutted track.
‘All right. Which way?’ Belgarath asked.
Garion lifted his sword from the pommel of his saddle and swept it slowly back and forth until he felt the familiar tug. ‘The right fork,’ he replied.
‘I’m so glad you said that,’ Silk told him. ‘The left fork leads to Calida. I’d expect that news of Harakan’s death has reached there by now. Even without the demons, a town full of hysterics doesn’t strike me as a very nice place to visit. The followers of Lord Mengha might be just a bit upset when they hear that he’s gone off and left them.’
‘Where does the right fork go?’ Belgarath asked him.
‘Down to the lake,’ Silk replied. ‘Lake Karanda. It’s the biggest lake in the world. When you stand on the shore, it’s like looking at an ocean.’
Garion frowned. ‘Grandfather,’ he said, starting to worry, ‘do you think that Zandramas knows that the Orb can follow her?’
‘It’s possible, yes.’
‘And would she know that it can’t follow her over water?’
‘I couldn’t say for sure.’
‘But if she does, isn’t it possible that she went to the lake in order to hide her trail from us? She could have sailed out a ways, doubled back, and come ashore just about anyplace. Then she could have struck out in a new direction, and we’d never pick up her trail again.’
Belgarath scratched at his beard, squinting in the sunlight. ‘Pol,’ he said. ‘Are there any Grolims about?’
She concentrated a bit. ‘Not in the immediate vicinity, father,’ she replied.
‘Good. When Zandramas was trying to tamper with Ce’Nedra back at Rak Hagga, weren’t you able to lock your thought with hers for a while?’
‘Yes, briefly.’
‘She was at Ashaba then, right?’
She nodded.
‘Did you get any kind of notion about which direction she was planning to go when she left?’
She frowned. ‘Nothing very specific, father—just a vague hint about wanting to go home.’
‘Darshiva,’ Silk said, snapping his fingers. ‘We know that Zandramas is a Darshivan name, and Zakath told Garion that it was in Darshiva that she started stirring up trouble.’
Belgarath grunted. ‘It’s a little thin,’ he said. ‘I’d feel a great deal more comfortable with some confirmation.’ He looked
at Polgara. ‘Do you think you could reestablish contact with her—even for just a moment. All I need is a direction.’
‘I don’t think so, father. I’ll try, but . . .’ She shrugged. Then her face grew very calm, and Garion could feel her mind reaching out with a subtle probing. After a few moments, she relaxed her will. ‘She’s shielding, father,’ she told the old man. ‘I can’t pick up anything at all.’
He muttered a curse under his breath. ‘We’ll just have to go on down to the lake and ask a few questions. Maybe somebody saw her.’
‘I’m sure they did,’ Silk said, ‘but Zandramas likes to drown sailors, remember? Anyone who saw where she landed is probably sleeping under thirty feet of water.’
‘Can you think of an alternative plan?’
‘Not offhand, no.’
‘Then we go on to the lake.’
As the sun began to sink slowly behind them, they passed a fair-sized town set perhaps a quarter of a mile back from the road. The inhabitants were gathered outside the palisade surrounding it. They had a huge bonfire going, and just in front of the fire stood a crude, skull-surmounted altar of logs. A skinny man wearing several feathers in his hair and with lurid designs painted on his face and body was before the altar, intoning an incantation at the top of his lungs. His arms were stretched imploringly at the sky, and there was a note of desperation in his voice.
‘What’s he doing?’ Ce’Nedra asked.
‘He’s trying to raise a demon so that the townspeople can worship it,’ Eriond told her calmly.
‘Garion!’ she said in alarm. ‘Shouldn’t we run?’
‘He won’t succeed,’ Eriond assured her. ‘The demon won’t come to him any more. Nahaz has told them all not to.’
The wizard broke off his incantation. Even from this distance, Garion could see that there was a look of panic on his face.
An angry mutter came from the townspeople.
‘That crowd is starting to turn ugly,’ Silk observed. ‘The wizard had better raise his demon on the next try, or he might be in trouble.’
The gaudily painted man with feathers in his hair began the incantation again, virtually shrieking and ranting at the sky. He completed it and stood waiting expectantly.
Nothing happened.
After a moment, the crowd gave an angry roar and surged forward. They seized the cringing wizard and tore his log altar apart. Then, laughing raucously, they nailed his hands and feet to one of the logs with long spikes and, with a great shout, they hurled the log up onto the bonfire.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Belgarath said. ‘Mobs tend to go wild once they’ve tasted blood.’ He led them away at a gallop.
They made camp that night in a willow thicket on the banks of a small stream, concealing their fire as best they could.
It was foggy the following morning, and they rode warily with their hands close to their weapons.
‘How much farther to the lake?’ Belgarath asked as the sun began to burn off the fog.
Silk looked around into the thinning mist. ‘It’s kind of hard to say. I’d guess a couple more leagues at least.’
‘Let’s pick up the pace, then. We’re going to have to find a boat when we get there, and that might take a while.’
They urged their horses into a canter and continued on. The road had taken on a noticeable downhill grade.
‘It’s a bit closer than I thought,’ Silk called to them. ‘I remember this stretch of road. We should reach the lake in an hour or so.’
They passed occasional Karands, clad in brown fur for the most part and heavily armed. The eyes of these local people were suspicious, even hostile, but Garion’s mail shirt, helmet, and sword were sufficient to gain the party passage without incident.
By midmorning the gray fog had completely burned off. As they crested a knoll, Garion reined in. Before him there lay an enormous body of water, blue and sparkling in the midmorning sun. It looked for all the world like a vast inland sea, with no hint of a far shore, but it did not have that salt tang of the sea.
‘Big, isn’t it?’ Silk said, pulling his horse in beside Chretienne. He pointed toward a thatch and log village standing a mile or so up the lake shore. A number of fair-sized boats were moored to a floating dock jutting out into the water. ‘That’s where I’ve usually hired boats when I wanted to cross the lake.’
‘You’ve done business around here, then?’
‘Oh, yes. There are gold mines in the mountains of Zamad, and deposits of gem stones up in the forest.’
‘How big are those boats?’
‘Big enough. We’ll be a little crowded, but the weather’s calm enough for a safe crossing, even if the boat might be a bit overloaded.’ Then he frowned. ‘What are they doing?’
Garion looked at the slope leading down to the village and saw a crowd of people moving slowly down toward the lake shore. There seemed to be a great deal of fur involved in their clothing in varying shades of red and brown, though many of them wore cloaks all dyed in hues of rust and faded blue. More and more of them came over the hilltop, and other people came out of the village to meet them.
‘Belgarath,’ the little Drasnian called. ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’
Belgarath came jolting up to the crest of the knoll at a trot. He looked at the large crowd gathering in front of the village.
‘We need to get into that village to hire a boat,’ Silk told him. ‘We’re well enough armed to intimidate a few dozen villagers, but there are two or three hundred people down there now. That could require some fairly serious intimidation.’
‘A country fair, perhaps?’ the old man asked.
Silk shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t think so. It’s the wrong time of year for it, and those people don’t have any carts with them.’ He swung down from his saddle and went back to the pack horses. A moment or so later, he came back with a poorly tanned red fur vest and a baggy fur hat. He pulled them on, bent over, and wrapped a pair of sackcloth leggings about his calves, tying them in place with lengths of cord. ‘How do I look?’ he asked.
‘Shabby,’ Garion told him.
‘That’s the idea. Shab’s in fashion here in Karanda.’ He remounted.
‘Where did you get the clothes?’ Belgarath asked curiously.
‘I pillaged one of the bodies back at the temple.’ The little man shrugged. ‘I like to keep a few disguises handy. I’ll go find out what’s happening down there.’ He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and galloped down toward the throng gathering near the lakeside village.
‘Let’s pull back out of sight,’ Belgarath suggested. ‘I’d rather not attract too much attention.’
They walked their horses down the back side of the knoll and then some distance away from the road to a shallow gully that offered concealment and dismounted there. Garion climbed back up out of the gully on foot and lay down in the tall grass to keep watch.
About a half-hour later, Silk came loping back over the top of the knoll. Garion rose from the grass and signaled to him.
When the little man reached the gully and dismounted, his expression was disgusted. ‘Religion,’ he snorted. ‘I wonder what the world would be like without it. That gathering down there is for the purpose of witnessing the performance of a powerful wizard, who absolutely guarantees that he can raise a demon—despite the notable lack of success of others lately. He’s even hinting that he might be able to persuade the Demon Lord Nahaz himself to put in an appearance. That crowd’s likely to be there all day.’
‘Now what?’ Sadi asked.
Belgarath walked down the gully a ways, looking thoughtfully up at the sky. When he came back, his look was determined. ‘We’re going to need a couple more of those,’ he said, pointing at Silk’s disguise.
‘Nothing simpler,’ Silk replied. ‘There are still enough latecomers going down that hill for me to be able to waylay a few. What’s the plan?’
‘You, Garion, and I are going down there.’
‘Interesting notio
n, but I don’t get the point.’
‘The wizard, whoever he is, is promising to raise Nahaz, but Nahaz is with Urvon and isn’t very likely to show up. After what we saw happen at that village yesterday, it’s fairly obvious that failing to produce a demon is a serious mistake for a wizard to make. If our friend down there is so confident, it probably means that he’s going to create an illusion—since nobody’s been able to produce the real thing lately. I’m good at illusions myself, so I’ll just go down and challenge him.’
‘Won’t they just fall down and worship your illusion?’ Velvet asked him.
His smile was chilling. ‘I don’t really think so, Liselle,’ he replied. ‘You see, there are demons, and then there are demons. If I do it right, there won’t be a Karand within five leagues of this place by sunset—depending on how fast they can run, of course.’ He looked at Silk. ‘Haven’t you left yet?’ he asked pointedly.
While Silk went off in search of more disguises, the old sorcerer made a few other preparations. He found a long, slightly crooked branch to use as a staff and a couple of feathers to stick in his hair. Then he sat down and laid his head back against one of their packs. ‘All right, Pol,’ he instructed his daughter, ‘make me hideous.’
She smiled faintly and started to raise one hand.
‘Not that way. Just take some ink and draw some designs on my face. They don’t have to be too authentic-looking. The Karands have corrupted their religion so badly that they wouldn’t recognize authenticity if they stepped in it.’
She laughed and went to one of the packs, returning a moment later with an inkpot and a quill pen.
‘Why on earth are you carrying ink, Lady Polgara?’ Ce’Nedra asked.
‘I like to be prepared for eventualities as they arise. I went on a long journey once and had to leave a note for someone along the way. I didn’t have ink with me, so I ended up opening a vein to get something to write with. I seldom make the same mistake twice. Close your eyes, father. I always like to start with the eyelids and work my way out.’
Belgarath closed his eyes. ‘Durnik,’ he said as Polgara started drawing designs on his face with her quill, ‘you and the others will stay back here. See if you can find some place a little better hidden than this gully.’