‘All right, Belgarath,’ the smith agreed. ‘How will we know when it’s safe to come down to the lake shore?’
‘When the screaming dies out.’
‘Don’t move your lips, father,’ Polgara told him, frowning in concentration as she continued her drawing. ‘Did you want me to blacken your beard, too?’
‘Leave it the way it is. Superstitious people are always impressed by venerability, and I look older than just about anybody.’
She nodded her agreement. ‘Actually, father, you look older than dirt.’
‘Very funny, Pol,’ he said acidly. ‘Are you just about done?’
‘Did you want the death symbol on your forehead?’ she asked.
‘Might as well,’ he grunted. ‘Those cretins down there won’t recognize it, but it looks impressive.’
By the time Polgara had finished with her art work, Silk returned with assorted garments.
‘Any problems?’ Durnik asked him.
‘Simplicity itself.’ Silk shrugged. ‘A man whose eyes are fixed on heaven is fairly easy to approach from behind, and a quick rap across the back of the head will usually put him to sleep.’
‘Leave your mail shirt and helmet, Garion,’ Belgarath said. ‘Karands don’t wear them. Bring your sword, though.’
‘I’d planned to.’ Garion began to struggle out of his mail shirt. After a moment, Ce’Nedra came over to help him.
‘You’re getting rusty,’ she told him after they had hauled off the heavy thing. She pointed at a number of reddish-brown stains on the padded linen tunic he wore under the shirt.
‘It’s one of the drawbacks to wearing armor,’ he replied.
‘That and the smell,’ she added, wrinkling her nose. ‘You definitely need a bath, Garion.’
‘I’ll see if I can get around to it one of these days,’ he said. He pulled on one of the fur vests Silk had stolen. Then he tied on the crude leggings and crammed on a rancid-smelling fur cap. ‘How do I look?’ he asked her.
‘Like a barbarian,’ she replied.
‘That was sort of the whole idea.’
‘I didn’t steal you a hat,’ Silk was saying to Belgarath. ‘I thought you might prefer to wear feathers.’
Belgarath nodded. ‘All of us mighty wizards wear feathers,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a passing fad, I’m sure, but I always like to dress fashionably.’ He looked over at the horses. ‘I think we’ll walk,’ he decided. ‘When the noise starts, the horses might get a bit skittish.’ He looked at Polgara and the others who were staying behind. ‘This shouldn’t take us too long,’ he told them confidently and strode off down the gully with Garion and Silk close behind him.
They emerged from the mouth of the gully at the south end of the knoll and walked down the hill toward the crowd gathering on the lake shore.
‘I don’t see any sign of their wizard yet,’ Garion said, peering ahead.
‘They always like to keep their audiences waiting for a bit,’ Belgarath said. ‘It’s supposed to heighten the anticipation or something.’
The day was quite warm as they walked down the hill, and the rancid smell coming from their clothing grew stronger. Although they did not really look that much like Karands, the people in the crowd they quietly joined paid them scant attention. Every eye seemed to be fixed on a platform and one of those log altars backed by a line of skulls on stakes.
‘Where do they get all the skulls?’ Garion whispered to Silk.
‘They used to be head-hunters,’ Silk replied. ‘The Angaraks discouraged that practice, so now they creep around at night robbing graves. I doubt if you could find a whole skeleton in any graveyard in all of Karanda.’
‘Let’s get closer to the altar,’ Belgarath muttered. ‘I don’t want to have to shove my way through this mob when things start happening.’ They pushed through the crowd. A few of the greasy-haired fanatics started to object to being thrust aside, but one look at Belgarath’s face with the hideous designs Polgara had drawn on it convinced them that here was a wizard of awesome power and that it perhaps might be wiser not to interfere with him.
Just as they reached the front near the altar, a man in a black Grolim robe strode out through the gate of the lakeside village, coming directly toward the altar.
‘I think that’s our wizard,’ Belgarath said quietly.
‘A Grolim?’ Silk sounded slightly surprised.
‘Let’s see what he’s up to.’
The black-robed man reached the platform and stepped up to stand in front of the altar. He raised both hands and spoke harshly in a language Garion did not understand. His words could have been either a benediction or a curse. The crowd fell immediately silent. Slowly the Grolim pushed back his hood and let his robe fall to the platform. He wore only a loincloth, and his head had been shaved. His body was covered from crown to toe with elaborate tattoos.
Silk winced. ‘That must have really hurt,’ he muttered.
‘Prepare ye all to look upon the face of your God,’ the Grolim announced in a large voice, then bent to inscribe the designs on the platform before the altar.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Belgarath whispered. ‘That circle he drew isn’t complete. If he were really going to raise a demon, he wouldn’t have made that mistake.’
The Grolim straightened and began declaiming the words of the incantation in a rolling, oratorical style.
‘He’s being very cautious,’ Belgarath told them. ‘He’s leaving out certain key phrases. He doesn’t want to raise a real demon accidentally. Wait.’ The old man smiled bleakly. ‘Here he goes.’
Garion also felt the surge as the Grolim’s will focused and then he heard the familiar rushing sound.
‘Behold the Demon Lord Nahaz,’ the tattooed Grolim shouted, and a shadow-encased form appeared before the altar with a flash of fire, a peal of thunder, and a cloud of sulfur-stinking smoke. Although the figure was no larger than an ordinary man, it looked very substantial for some reason.
‘Not too bad, really,’ Belgarath admitted grudgingly.
‘It looks awfully solid to me, Belgarath,’ Silk said nervously.
‘It’s only an illusion, Silk,’ the old man quietly reassured him. ‘A good one, but still only an illusion.’
The shadowy form on the platform before the altar rose to its full height and then pulled back its hood of darkness to reveal the hideous face Garion had seen in Torak’s throne room at Ashaba.
As the crowd fell to its knees with a great moan, Belgarath drew in his breath sharply. ‘When this crowd starts to disperse, don’t let the Grolim escape,’ he instructed. ‘He’s actually seen the real Nahaz, and that means that he was one of Harakan’s cohorts. I want some answers out of him.’ Then the old man drew himself up. ‘Well, I guess I might as well get started with this,’ he said. He stepped up in front of the platform. ‘Fraud!’ he shouted in a great voice. ‘Fraud and fakery!’
The Grolim stared at him, his eyes narrowing as he saw the designs drawn on his face. ‘On your knees before the Demon Lord,’ he blustered.
‘Fraud!’ Belgarath denounced him again. He stepped up onto the platform and faced the stunned crowd. ‘This is no wizard, but only a Grolim trickster,’ he declared.
‘The Demon Lord will tear all your flesh from your bones,’ the Grolim shrieked.
‘All right,’ Belgarath replied with calm contempt. ‘Let’s see him do it. Here. I’ll even help him.’ He pulled back his sleeve, approached the shadowy illusion hovering threateningly before the altar and quite deliberately ran his bare arm into the shadow’s gaping maw. A moment later, his hand emerged, coming, or so it appeared, out of the back of the Demon Lord’s head. He pushed his arm further until his entire wrist and forearm were sticking out of the back of the illusion. Then, quite deliberately, he wiggled his fingers at the people gathered before the altar.
A nervous titter ran through the crowd.
‘I think you missed a shred or two of flesh, Nahaz,’ the old man said to the shadowy form standing
before him. ‘There still seems to be quite a bit of meat clinging to my fingers and arm.’ He pulled his arm back out of the shadow and then passed both hands back and forth through the Grolim’s illusion. ‘It appears to lack a bit of substance, friend,’ he said to the tattooed man. ‘Why don’t we send it back where you found it? Then I’ll show you and your parishioners here a real demon.’
He put his hands derisively on his hips, leaned forward slightly from the waist, and blew at the shadow. The illusion vanished, and the tattooed Grolim stepped back fearfully.
‘He’s getting ready to run,’ Silk whispered to Garion. ‘You get on that side of the platform, and I’ll get on this. Thump his head for him if he comes your way.’
Garion nodded and edged around toward the far side of the platform.
Belgarath raised his voice again to the crowd. ‘You fall upon your knees before the reflection of the Demon Lord,’ he roared at them. ‘What will you do when I bring before you the King of Hell?’ He bent and quickly traced the circle and pentagram about his feet. The tattooed priest edged further away from him.
‘Stay, Grolim,’ Belgarath said with a cruel laugh. ‘The King of Hell is always hungry, and I think he might like to devour you when he arrives.’ He made a hooking gesture with one hand, and the Grolim began to struggle as if he had been seized by a powerful, invisible hand.
Then Belgarath began to intone an incantation quite different from the one the Grolim had spoken, and his words reverberated from the vault of heaven as he subtly amplified them into enormity. Seething sheets of varicolored flame shot through the air from horizon to horizon.
‘Behold the Gates of Hell!’ he roared, pointing.
Far out on the lake, two vast columns seemed to appear; between them were great billowing clouds of smoke and flame. From behind that burning gate came the sound of a multitude of hideous voices shrieking some awful hymn of praise.
‘And now I call upon the King of Hell to reveal himself!’ the old man shouted, raising his crooked staff. The surging force of his will was vast, and the great sheets of flame flickering in the sky actually seemed to blot out the sun and to replace its light with a dreadful light of its own.
From beyond the gate of fire came a huge whistling sound that descended into a roar. The flames parted, and the shape of a mighty tornado swept between the two pillars. Faster and faster the tornado whirled, turning from inky black to pale, frozen white. Ponderously, that towering white cloud advanced across the lake, congealing as it came. At first it appeared to be some vast snow wraith with hollow eyes and gaping mouth. It was quite literally hundreds of feet tall, and its breath swept across the now-terrified crowd before the altar like a blizzard.
‘Ye have tasted ice,’ Belgarath told them. ‘Now taste fire! Your worship of the false Demon Lord hath offended the King of Hell, and now will ye roast in perpetual flames!’ He made another sweeping gesture with his staff, and a deep red glow appeared in the center of the seething white shape that even now approached the shore of the lake. The sooty red glow grew more and more rapidly, expanding until it filled the encasing white entirely. Then the wraithlike figure of flame and swirling ice raised its hundred-foot-long arms and roared with a deafening sound. The ice seemed to shatter, and the wraith stood as a creature of fire. Flames shot from its mouth and nostrils, and steam rose from the surface of the lake as it moved across the last few yards of water before reaching the shore.
It reached down one enormous hand, placing it atop the altar, palm turned up. Belgarath calmly stepped up onto that burning hand, and the illusion raised him high into the air.
‘Infidels!’ he roared at them in an enormous voice. ‘Prepare ye all to suffer the wrath of the King of Hell for your foul apostasy!’
There was a dreadful moan from the Karands, followed by terrified screams as the fire-wraith reached out toward the crowd with its other huge, burning hand. Then, as one man, they turned and fled, shrieking in terror.
Somehow, perhaps because Belgarath was concentrating so much of his attention on the vast form he had created and was struggling to maintain, the Grolim broke free and jumped down off the platform.
Garion, however, was waiting for him. He reached out and stopped the fleeing man with one hand placed flat against his chest, even as he swept the other back and then around in a wide swing that ended with a jolting impact against the side of the tattooed man’s head.
The Grolim collapsed in a heap. For some reason, Garion found that very satisfying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Which boat did you want to steal?’ Silk asked as Garion dropped the unconscious Grolim on the floating dock that stuck out into the lake.
‘Why ask me?’ Garion replied, feeling just a bit uncomfortable with Silk’s choice of words.
‘Because you and Durnik are the ones who are going to have to sail it. I don’t know the first thing about getting a boat to move through the water without tipping over.’
‘Capsizing,’ Garion corrected absently, looking at the various craft moored to the dock.
‘What?’
‘The word is “capsize,” Silk. You tip over a wagon. You capsize a boat.’
‘It means the same thing, doesn’t it?’
‘Approximately, yes.’
‘Why make an issue of it, then? How about this one?’ The little man pointed at a broad-beamed vessel with a pair of eyes painted on the bow.
‘Not enough freeboard,’ Garion told him. ‘The horses are heavy, so any boat we take is going to settle quite a bit.’
Silk shrugged. ‘You’re the expert. You’re starting to sound as professional as Barak or Greldik.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘You know, Garion, I’ve never stolen anything as big as a boat before. It’s really very challenging.’
‘I wish you’d stop using the word “steal.” Couldn’t we just say that we’re borrowing a boat?’
‘Did you plan to sail it back and return it when we’re finished with it?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Then the proper word is “steal.” You’re the expert on ships and sailing; I’m the expert on theft.’
They walked farther out on the dock.
‘Let’s go on board this one and have a look around,’ Garion said, pointing at an ungainly-looking scow painted an unwholesome green color.
‘It looks like a washtub.’
‘I’m not planning to win any races with it.’ Garion leaped aboard the scow. ‘It’s big enough for the horses and the sides are high enough to keep the weight from swamping it.’ He inspected the spars and rigging. ‘A little crude,’ he noted, ‘but Durnik and I should be able to manage.’
‘Check the bottom for leaks,’ Silk suggested. ‘Nobody would paint a boat that color if it didn’t leak.’
Garion went below and checked the hold and the bilges. When he came back up on deck, he had already made up his mind. ‘I think we’ll borrow this one,’ he said, jumping back to the pier.
‘The term is still “steal,” Garion.’
Garion sighed. ‘All right, steal—if it makes you happy.’
‘Just trying to be precise, that’s all.’
‘Let’s go get that Grolim and drag him up here,’ Garion suggested. ‘We’ll throw him in the boat and tie him up. I don’t think he’ll wake up for a while, but there’s no point in taking chances.’
‘How hard did you hit him?’
‘Quite hard, actually. For some reason he irritated me.’ They started back to where the Grolim lay.
‘You’re getting to be more like Belgarath every day,’ Silk told him. ‘You do more damage out of simple irritation than most men can do in a towering rage.’
Garion shrugged and rolled the tattooed Grolim over with his foot. He took hold of one of the unconscious man’s ankles. ‘Get his other leg,’ he said.
The two of them walked back toward the scow with the Grolim dragging limply along behind them, his shaved head bouncing up and down on the logs of the dock. When they reached the
scow, Garion took the man’s arms while Silk took his ankles. They swung him back and forth a few times, then lobbed him across the rail like a sack of grain. Garion jumped across again and bound him hand and foot.
‘Here comes Belgarath with the others,’ Silk said from the dock.
‘Good. Here—catch the other end of this gangplank.’ Garion swung the ungainly thing around and pushed it out toward the waiting little Drasnian. Silk caught hold of it, pulled it out farther, and set the end down on the dock.
‘Did you find anything?’ he asked the others as they approached.
‘We did quite well, actually,’ Durnik replied. ‘One of those buildings is a storehouse. It was crammed to the rafters with food.’
‘Good. I wasn’t looking forward to making the rest of this trip on short rations.’
Belgarath was looking at the scow. ‘It isn’t much of a boat, Garion,’ he objected. ‘If you were going to steal one, why didn’t you steal something a little fancier?’
‘You see?’ Silk said to Garion. ‘I told you that it was the right word.’
‘I’m not stealing it for its looks, Grandfather,’ Garion said. ‘I don’t plan to keep it. It’s big enough to hold the horses, and the sails are simple enough so that Durnik and I can manage them. If you don’t like it, go steal one of your own.’
‘Grumpy today, aren’t we?’ the old man said mildly. ‘What did you do with my Grolim?’
‘He’s lying up here in the scuppers.’
‘Is he awake yet?’
‘Not for some time, I don’t think. I hit him fairly hard. Are you coming on board, or would you rather go steal a different boat?’
‘Be polite, dear,’ Polgara chided.
‘No, Garion,’ Belgarath said. ‘If you’ve got your heart set on this one, then we’ll take this one.’
It took awhile to get the horses aboard, and then they all fell to the task of raising the boat’s square-rigged sails. When they were raised and set to Garion’s satisfaction, he took hold of the tiller. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Cast off the lines.’