‘Ah,’ Sadi said with polished aplomb. ‘I was not fully aware of the situation here. I was told that Jaharb, Agachak, and King Urgit have reason to want one Kabach transported safely to Rak Hagga. I am the one who is to provide that transportation.’
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘That is certainly not the entire message,’ she accused.
‘I’m afraid it is, Noble Priestess. I presume that Agachak will understand its meaning.’
‘Jaharb said nothing else to you?’
‘Only that this Kabach is here in the Temple under Agachak’s protection.’
‘Impossible,’ she snapped. ‘I would have known about it if he were. Agachak conceals nothing from me.’
Sadi spread his hands in a mollifying gesture. ‘I can only repeat what Jaharb told me, Holy Priestess.’
She gnawed at one knuckle, her eyes suddenly filled with doubt. ‘If you’re lying to me, Ussa—or trying to conceal something—I will have your heart ripped out,’ she threatened.
‘That is the entire message, Holy Priestess. May I now deliver it to your Hierarch?’
‘The Hierarch is at the Drojim Palace, consulting with the High King. He is not likely to return until midnight.’
‘Is there someplace where my servants and I could await his return, then?’
‘I have not yet finished with you, Ussa of Sthiss Tor. What is it that this Kabach is to do in Rak Hagga?’
‘Jaharb did not think I needed to know that.’
‘I think you’re lying to me, Ussa,’ she said, her fingernails rapping a nervous staccato on the table top.
‘I have no reason to lie to you, Holy Chabat,’ he protested.
‘Agachak would have told me of this matter. He conceals nothing from me—nothing.’
‘Perhaps he overlooked it. It may not be anything of much importance.’
She looked at each of the others in turn then, her eyes hooded beneath her dark brows. She turned a cold gaze on the still-trembling Grolim. ‘Tell me,’ she said in a voice scarcely more than a whisper, ‘how is it that the one over there was permitted to come into my presence bearing a sword?’ She pointed at Garion.
The priest’s face grew stricken. ‘Forgive me, Chabat,’ he stammered, ‘I—I failed to notice the sword.’
‘Failed? How can one fail to see so large a weapon? Can you possibly explain that to me?’
The Grolim began to tremble even more violently.
‘Is the sword perhaps invisible? Or is it, perhaps, that my safety is of no concern to you?’ Her scarred face grew even more cruel. ‘Or might it be that you bear me some malice and hoped that this foreigner might decide to slay me?’
The Grolim’s face grew ashen.
‘I think perhaps that I should bring this matter to the attention of Agachak upon his return. He will doubtless wish to speak with you about this invisible sword—at some length.’
The door to the chamber opened and an emaciated Grolim, black-robed, but with his green-lined hood pushed back, entered the chamber. His black hair was greasy and hung in lank tangles about his shoulders. He had the bulging eyes of a fanatic and there was the acrid odor of a long-unwashed body about him. ‘It’s nearly time, Chabat,’ he announced in a strident voice.
Chabat’s smoldering eyes softened as she looked at him. ‘Thank you, Sorchak,’ she replied, lowering her eyelashes in an oddly coquettish fashion. She rose, opened a drawer in the table, and took out a black leather case. She opened the case and lovingly lifted out a long, gleaming knife. Then she looked coldly at the Grolim priest she had just chastised. ‘I go now to the Sanctum to perform the rite of sacrifice,’ she told him, absently testing the edge of her heavy-bladed knife. ‘If one single word of anything that has happened here escapes your lips, you yourself will die at the next sounding of the bell. Now take these slavers to suitable quarters where they can await the return of the Hierarch.’ She turned back to the greasy-haired Sorchak, her eyes alight with a sudden, dreadful eagerness. ‘Will you escort me to the Sanctum so that you can witness my performance of the rite?’
‘I would be honored, Chabat,’ he replied with a jerky bow; but as the priestess turned from him, his lip curled into a sneer of contempt.
‘I will leave you in the care of this bungler,’ she told Sadi as she passed him. ‘You and I have not yet finished our discussion, but I must go prepare myself for the sacrifice.’ With Sorchak at her side, she left the room.
When the door closed, the pock-marked underpriest spat on the floor where she had just stood.
‘I had not known that a priestess could rise to the Purple in one of the Temples of Torak,’ Sadi said to him.
‘She is the favorite of Agachak,’ the Grolim muttered darkly. ‘Her ability at sorcery is very limited, so her elevation came at his insistence. The Hierarch has a peculiar preference for ugly things. It is only his power that keeps her from getting her throat cut.’
‘Politics.’ Sadi sighed. ‘It’s the same the world over. She seems most zealous about the performance of her religious duties, however.’
‘Her eagerness to perform the rite of sacrifice has little to do with religion. She delights in blood. I myself have seen her drink it as it gushes from the chest of the sacrifice and bathe her face and arms in it.’ The priest glanced around quickly as if afraid of being overheard. ‘One day, however, Agachak will discover that she practices witchcraft in the House of Torak and that she and Sorchak celebrate their black sabbaths with obscene rites when all the others in the Temple have gone to their beds. When our Hierarch discovers their corruption, she herself will go screaming under the knife, and every Grolim in the Temple will volunteer to slit her open as she lies on the altar.’ He straightened. ‘Come with me,’ he ordered them.
The rooms to which he led them were little more than a series of narrow, dim cells. In each cell stood a low cot, and, hanging on a peg protruding from the wall in each, was a black Grolim robe. The priest nodded briefly, then silently left. Silk looked around the somewhat larger central room with its single lamp and the rough table and benches in its center. ‘Hardly what I’d call luxurious,’ he sniffed.
‘We can lodge a complaint, if you’d like,’ Velvet suggested.
‘What happened to her face?’ Ce’Nedra asked in a horrified voice. ‘She’s hideous.’
‘It was a custom in certain Grolim temples in parts of Hagga,’ Polgara replied. ‘Priestesses with some ability at sorcery carved their faces in that fashion to seal themselves to Torak forever. The practice has largely been abandoned.’
‘But she could have been so beautiful. Why did she disfigure herself that way?’
‘People sometimes do strange things in the grip of religious hysteria.’
‘How did that Grolim miss seeing Garion’s sword?’ Silk asked Belgarath.
‘The Orb is taking steps to make itself inconspicuous.’
‘Did you tell it to do that?’
‘No. Sometimes it gets certain ideas on its own.’
‘Well, things seem to be going rather well, don’t you think?’ Sadi said, rubbing his hands together in a self-congratulatory manner. ‘I told you I could be very useful down here.’
‘Very useful, Sadi,’ Silk replied sardonically. ‘So far you’ve led us into the middle of a battle, directly into the headquarters of the Dagashi, and now to the very center of Grolim power in Cthol Murgos. What did you have planned for us next—assuming that the lady with the interesting face doesn’t gut you before morning?’
‘We are going to get the ship, Kheldar,’ Sadi assured him. ‘Not even Chabat would dare to counter the wishes of Agachak—no matter how injured her pride may be. And the ship will save us months.’
‘There’s something else Garion and I need to attend to,’ Belgarath said. ‘Durnik, take a look out in that hallway and see if they posted any guards to watch us.’
‘Where are you going?’ Silk asked him.
‘I need to find the library. I want to see if Jaharb was right about t
hat book being here.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait until tonight—after everybody’s gone to bed?’
The old man shook his head. ‘It might take us a while to find what we need. Agachak’s going to be at the palace until midnight, so this is probably the best time to paw through his library.’ He gave the little Drasnian a brief smile. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘although it might upset your notion of order, sometimes you can move around in the daytime more easily than you can by sneaking around corners after midnight.’
‘That’s a terribly unnatural thing to suggest, Belgarath.’
‘The hallway looks clear,’ Durnik reported from the doorway.
‘Good.’ Belgarath stepped back into the cells and emerged with a couple of the Grolim robes. ‘Here,’ he said, extending one of them to Garion, ‘put this on.’ As the two of them pulled off their green robes and replaced them with the black ones, Durnik kept watch at the door. ‘It’s still clear, Belgarath,’ he said, ‘but you’d better hurry. I can hear people moving around down at the far end.’
The old man nodded, pulling up the hood of his robe. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Garion.
The corridors were dim, lighted only by smoky torches set in iron rings protruding from the stone walls. They encountered but few of the black-robed Grolim priests in the hallways. The Grolims walked with an odd, swaying gait, their arms folded in their sleeves, their heads down, and the cowls of their robes covering their faces. Garion guessed that there was some obscure significance to that stiff-legged walk and tried to emulate it as he followed his grandfather along the half-lit halls.
Belgarath moved with feigned confidence, as if he knew precisely where they were going. They reached a broader corridor, and the old man glanced once toward its far end where a pair of heavy doors stood open. Beyond those doors lay a room filled with the flickering light of seething flames. ‘Not that way,’ he whispered to Garion.
‘What is it?’
‘The Sanctum. That’s where the altar is.’ He quickly led the way across the corridor and entered an intersecting hallway.
‘This could take hours, Grandfather,’ Garion said in a low voice.
Belgarath shook his head. ‘Grolim architecture is fairly predictable,’ he disagreed. ‘We’re in the right part of the Temple. You check the doors on that side, and I’ll take these over here.’
They moved along the hall, cautiously opening each door as they came to it.
‘Garion,’ the old man whispered, ‘it’s over here.’
The room they entered was quite large and smelled of old parchment and moldy leather bindings. It was filled with row upon row of tall, cluttered bookshelves. Solitary tables, each with a pair of wooden benches and with a single dimly glowing oil lamp hanging over it on a long chain, stood in little alcoves along the walls.
‘Take a book—any book,’ Belgarath said. ‘Sit at that table over there and try to look as if you’re studying. Keep your hood up and your eye on the door. I’m going to have a look around. Cough if anybody comes in.’
Garion nodded, took a heavy volume from one of the shelves, and seated himself at the table. The minutes dragged by as he looked unseeing at the pages of his book with his ears straining for the slightest sound. Then, shockingly, there came the now-familiar shriek, a long drawn-out cry of despairing agony, followed by the sullen iron clang of the huge gong in the Sanctum where the Grolims conducted their unspeakable rites. Unbidden, an image rose in his mind—the image of the scar-faced Chabat gleefully butchering a victim. He clenched his teeth together, forcing himself not to leap to his feet to stop that abomination.
Then Belgarath whistled softly to him from a narrow aisle leading back between two of the high-standing bookshelves. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Keep watch on the door. I’ll be back here.’
Garion sat nervously at the table, his eyes and ears alert. He was not good at this sort of thing. His nerves seemed to wind tighter and tighter as he waited, listening and watching for someone to open that door. What would he do if some black-robed priest entered? Should he speak or just remain silent with his head down over his book? What was customary here? He formulated a half-dozen different strategies, but when the latch of the door clicked loudly, he followed one that he had not even considered—he bolted. He swung his legs over the bench upon which he sat and noiselessly dodged back among the high, dark shelves looking for Belgarath.
‘Is it safe to talk in here?’ he heard someone say.
Another man grunted. ‘Nobody comes in here anymore. What was it you wanted to talk about?’
‘Have you endured enough of her yet? Are you ready to do something about her?’
‘Keep your voice down, you fool. If someone hears you and carries your words back to her, your heart will fry in the coals at the next sounding of the bell.’
‘I loathe that scar-faced wench,’ the first Grolim spat.
‘We all do, but our lives depend on not letting her know that. As long as she’s Agachak’s favorite, her power is absolute.’
‘She won’t be his favorite if he finds out that she’s practicing magic here in the Temple.’
‘How will he find out? Will you denounce her? She would deny it, and then Agachak would let her have you to do with as she chose.’
There was a long, fearful silence.
‘Besides,’ the second Grolim continued, ‘I don’t think Agachak would even care about her petty amusements. The only thing that concerns him at the moment is his search for Cthrog Sardius. He and the other Hierarchs are bending all their thought to locating it. If she wants to dally with Sorchak and try to raise demons in the middle of the night, that’s her affair and no business of ours.’
‘It’s an abomination!’ The first priest’s voice was choked with outrage. ‘She defiles our Temple.’
‘I won’t listen to such talk. I want to keep my heart inside my chest.’
‘Very well.’ The first Grolim’s tone grew sly. ‘It may be as you say. You and I are both of the Green, however, and our elevation to the Purple will be more genuine than hers was. If we came upon her when no one else was around, you could use your power to lock her muscles, and I could sink my knife into her heart. Then she could stand before Tojak and listen to his judgment upon her for violating his commandment forbidding magic.’
‘I refuse to listen to this any more.’ There was the sound of rapid footsteps, and the door slammed.
‘Coward,’ the first priest muttered; then he too went out and closed the door behind him.
‘Grandfather,’ Garion whispered hoarsely, ‘where are you?’
‘Back here. Did they leave?’
‘They’re gone.’
‘Interesting conversation, wasn’t it?’
Garion joined the old man at the back of the library. ‘Do you think Chabat could really be trying to raise demons—the way the Morindim do?’
‘A fair number of Grolims here seem to think so. If she is, she’s walking on very dangerous ground. Torak absolutely forbade the practice of magic. Favorite or no, Agachak would have to condemn her if he found out about it.’
‘Did you find anything?’ Garion looked at the book the old man had on the table in front of him.
‘I think this might help. Listen: “The path that has been lost will be found again on the Southern Isle.”’
‘Verkat?’
‘It almost has to be. Verkat is the only island of any size in southern Cthol Murgos. It confirms what Sadi told us, and I always like to get confirmation whenever I can.’
‘But it still means that we’re only trailing after Zandramas. Did you find anything that tells us how to get ahead of her?’
‘Not yet,’ Belgarath admitted. He turned a page. ‘What’s this?’ he said in a startled voice.
‘What is it?’
‘Listen.’ The old man lifted the book so that the lamp light fell upon the page. ‘“Behold:”’ he read, ‘“In the days which shall follow the ascension of the Dark God into the h
eavens shall the King of the East and the King of the South do war upon each other, and this shall be a sign unto ye that the day of the meeting is at hand. Hasten therefore unto the Place which is No More when battles do rage upon the plains of the south. Take with thee the chosen sacrifice and a King of Angarak to bear witness to what shall come to pass. For lo, whichever of ye cometh into the presence of Cthrag Sardius with the sacrifice and an Angarak King shall be exalted above all the rest and shall have dominion over them. And know further that in the moment of the sacrifice shall the Dark God be reborn, and he shall triumph over the Child of Light in the instant of his rebirth.”’
Garion stared at him, feeling the blood drain from his face. ‘Sacrifice?’ he exclaimed. ‘Is that what Zandramas plans to do with my son?’
‘So it would seem,’ Belgarath grunted. He thought about it for a moment. ‘This explains a few things, but I still don’t quite follow this business about needing an Angarak King present at the meeting. Cyradis didn’t say anything about that, and neither did the Prophecy.’
‘That’s a Grolim book you’ve got there, Grandfather,’ Garion pointed out. ‘Maybe it’s wrong.’
‘That’s possible, too, but it does help to explain why Zandramas is moving around so stealthily. If Urvon knows about this the way Agachak obviously does, they’ll both be doing everything in their power to get your son away from her. Whichever one of them gets to the Sardion with Geran and one of the Kings of Angarak is going to gain absolute control of the Grolim Church.’
‘Why my son?’ Garion demanded. ‘Why would he be the one chosen for sacrifice?’
‘I’m not sure, Garion. We haven’t found an explanation for that yet.’
‘I don’t think we’d better tell Ce’Nedra about this,’ Garion said. ‘She has problems enough as it is.’
The door opened again, and Garion spun, his hand going over his shoulder to the hilt of his sword.