"Do as I say!" the Snake Queen ordered sharply.
From somewhere in the palace came a hollow, reverberating crash. There was the sound of nails screeching out of heavy wood and the avalanche noise of a wall collapsing. Then, a long way down one of the dim corridors, someone screamed in agony.
The dry consciousness in his mind reached out, probing. "At last," it said with obvious relief.
"What's going on out there?" Salmissra blazed.
"Come with me," the voice in Garion's mind said. "I need your help." Garion put his hands under him and started to push himself up. "No. This way." A strange image of separation rose in Garion's mind.
Unthinking, he willed the separation and felt himself rising and yet not moving. Suddenly he had no sense of his body - no arms or legs - yet he seemed to move. He saw himself - his own body - sitting stupidly on the cushions at Salmissra's feet.
"Hurry," the voice said to him. It was no longer inside his mind but seemed to be somewhere beside him. A dim shape was there, formless but somehow very familiar.
The fog that had clouded Garion's wits was gone, and he felt very alert. "Who are you?" he demanded of the shape beside him.
"There isn't time to explain. Quickly, we have to lead them back before Salmissra has time to do anything."
"Lead who?"
"Polgara and Barak."
"Aunt Pol? Where is she?"
"Come," the voice said urgently.
Together Garion and the strange presence at his side seemed to waft toward the closed door. They passed through it as if it were no more than insubstantial mist and emerged in the corridor outside.
Then they were flying, soaring down the corridor with no sense of air rushing past or even of movement. A moment later they came out into that vast open hall where Issus had first brought Garion when they had entered the palace. There they stopped, hovering in the air.
Aunt Pol, her splendid eyes ablaze and a fiery nimbus about her, strode through the hall. Beside her hulked the great shaggy bear Garion had seen before. Barak's face seemed vaguely within that bestial head, but there was no humanity in it. The beast's eyes were afire with raging madness, and its mouth gaped horribly.
Desperate guards tried to push the bear back with long pikes, but the beast swiped the pikes away and fell upon the guards. Its vast embrace crushed them, and its flailing claws ripped them open. The trail behind Aunt Pol and the bear was littered with maimed bodies and quivering chunks of flesh.
The snakes which had lain in the corners were seething across the floor, but as they came into contact with the flaming light which surrounded Aunt Pol, they died even as Maas had died.
Methodically, Aunt Pol was blasting down doors with word and gesture. A thick wall barred her way, and she brushed it into rubble as if it had been made of cobwebs.
Barak raged through the dim hall, roaring insanely, destroying everything in his path. A shrieking eunuch tried desperately to climb one of the pillars. The great beast reared up and hooked his claws into the man's back and pulled him down. The shrieks ended abruptly in a spurt of brains and blood when the massive jaws closed with a sickening crunch on the eunuch's head.
"Polgara!" the presence beside Garion shouted soundlessly. "This way!"
Aunt Pol turned quickly.
"Follow us," the presence said. "Hurry!"
Then Garion and that other part of himself were flying back down the corridor toward Salmissra and the semiconscious body they had recently vacated. Behind them came Aunt Pol and the ravening Barak.
Garion and his strange companion passed again through the heavy, closed door.
Salmissra, her naked body mottled now with rage rather than lust beneath her transparent gown, stood over the vacant-eyed form on the cushions. "Answer me!" she was shouting. "Answer me!"
"When we get back," the shapeless presence said, "let me handle things. We have to buy some time."
And then they were back. Garion felt his body shudder briefly, and he was looking out through his own eyes again. The fog which had benumbed him before came rushing back. "What?" his lips said, though he had not consciously formed the word.
"I said, is this your doing?" Salmissra demanded.
"Is what my doing?" The voice coming from his lips sounded like his, but there was a subtle difference.
"All of it," she said. "The darkness. The attack on my palace."
"I don't think so. How could I? I'm only a boy."
"Don't lie to me, Belgarion," she demanded. "I know who you are. I know what you are. It has to be you. Belgarath himself could not blot out the sun. I warn you, Belgarion, what you have drunk today is death. Even now the poison in your veins is killing you."
"Why did you do that to me?"
"To keep you. You must have more or you will die. You must drink what only I can give you, and you must drink every day of your life. You're mine, Belgarion, mine!"
Despairing shrieks came from just outside the door.
The Serpent Queen looked up, startled, then she turned to the huge statue behind her, bowed down in a strange ceremonial way and began to weave her hands through the air in a series of intricate gestures. She started to pronounce an involved formula in a language Garion had never heard before, a language filled with guttural hissings and strange cadences.
The heavy door exploded inward, blasted into splinters, and Aunt Pol stood in the shattered doorway, her white lock ablaze and her eyes dreadful. The great bear at her side roared, his teeth dripping blood and with tatters of flesh still hanging from his claws.
"I've warned you, Salmissra." Aunt Pol spoke in a deadly voice.
"Stop where you are, Polgara," the queen ordered. She did not turn around, and her fingers continued their sinuous weaving in the air. "The boy is dying," she said. "Nothing can save him if you attack me."
Aunt Pol stopped. "What have you done?" she demanded.
"Look at him," Salmissra said. "He has drunk athal and kaldiss. Even now their fire is in his veins. He will need more very soon." Her hands still moved in the air, and her face was fixed in extreme concentration. Her lips began moving again in that guttural hissing.
"Is it true?" Aunt Pol's voice echoed in Garion's mind.
"It seems to be, " the dry voice replied. "They made him drink things, and he seems different now. "
Aunt Pol's eyes widened. "Who are you?"
"I've always been here, Polgara. Didn't you know that?"
"Did Garion know?"
"He knows that I'm here. He doesn't know what it means."
"We can talk about that later," she decided. "Watch very closely. This is what you have to do." A confused blur of images welled up in Garion's mind. "Do you understand?"
"Of course. I'll show him how."
"Can't you do it?"
"No, Polgara," the dry voice said. "The power is his, not mine. Don't worry. He and I understand each other."
Garion felt strangely alone as the two voices spoke together in his mind.
"Garion." The dry voice spoke quietly. "I want you to think about your blood."
"My blood?"
"We're going to change it for a moment."
"Why?"
"To burn away the poison they gave you. Now concentrate on your blood."
Garion did.
"You want it to be like this." An image of yellow came into Garion's mind. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Do it, then. Now."
Garion put his fingertips to his chest and willed his blood to change. He suddenly felt as if he were on fire. His heart began to pound, and a heavy sweat burst out all over his body.
"A moment longer," the voice said.
Garion was dying. His altered blood seared through his veins, and he began to tremble violently. His heart hammered in his chest like a tripping sledge. His eyes went dark, and he began to topple slowly forward.
"Now!" the voice demanded sharply. "Change it back."
Then it was over. Garion's heart stuttered and then
faltered back to its normal pace. He was exhausted, but the fog in his brain was gone. "It's done, Polgara," the other Garion said. "You can do what needs doing now."
Aunt Pol had watched anxiously, but now her face became dreadfully stern. She walked across the polished floor toward the dais. "Salmissra," she said, "turn around and look at me."
The queen's hands were raised above her head now, and the hissing words tumbled from her lips, rising finally to a hoarse shout.
Then, far above them in the shadows near the ceiling, the eyes of the huge statue opened and began to glow a deep emerald fire. A polished jewel on Salmissra's crown began also to burn with the same glow.
The statue moved. The sound it made was a kind of ponderous creaking, deafeningly loud. The solid rock from which the huge shape had been hewn bent and flexed as the statue took a step forward and then another.
"Why-did-you-summon-me?" An enormous voice demanded through stiff, stony lips. The voice reverberated hollowly up from the massive chest.
"Defend thy handmaiden, Great Issa," Salmissra cried, turning to look triumphantly at Aunt Pol. "This evil sorceress hath invaded thy domain to slay me. Her wicked power is so great that none may withstand her. I am thy promised bride, and I place myself under thy protection."
"Who is this who defiles my temple?" the statue demanded in a vast roar. "Who dares to raise her hand against my chosen and beloved?" The emerald eyes flashed in dreadful wrath.
Aunt Pol stood alone in the center of the polished floor with the vast statue looming above her. Her face was unafraid. "You go too far, Salmissra," she said. "This is forbidden."
The Serpent Queen laughed scornfully. "Forbidden? What does your forbidding mean to me? Flee now, or face the wrath of Divine Issa. Contend if you will with a God!"
"If I must," Aunt Pol said. She straightened then and spoke a single word. The roaring in Garion's mind at that word was overwhelming. Then, suddenly, she began to grow. Foot by foot she towered up, rising like a tree, expanding, growing gigantic before Garion's stunned eyes. Within a moment she faced the great stone God as an equal.
"Polgara?" the God's voice sounded puzzled. "Why have you done this?"
"I come in fulfillment of the Prophecy, Lord Issa," she said. "Thy handmaiden hath betrayed thee and thy brothers."
"It cannot be so," Issa said. "She is my chosen one. Her face is the face of my beloved."
"The face is the same," Aunt Pol said, "but this is not the Salmissra beloved of Issa. A hundred Salmissras have served thee in this temple since thy beloved died."
"Died?" the God said incredulously.
"She lies!" Salmissra shrieked. "I am thy beloved, O my Lord. Let not her lies turn thee from me. Kill her."
"The Prophecy approaches its day," Aunt Pol said. "The boy at Salmissra's feet is its fruit. He must be returned to me, or the Prophecy will fail."
"Is the day of the Prophecy come so soon?" the God asked.
"It is not soon, Lord Issa," Aunt Pol said. "It is late. Thy slumber hath encompassed eons."
"Lies! All lies!" Salmissra cried desperately, clinging to the ankle of the huge stone God.
"I must test out the truth of this," the God said slowly. "I have slept long and deeply, and now the world comes upon me unaware."
"Destroy her, O my Lord!" Salmissra demanded. "Her lies are an abomination and a desecration of thy holy presence."
"I will find the truth, Salmissra," Issa said.
Garion felt a brief, enormous touch upon his mind. Something had brushed him - something so vast that his imagination shuddered back from its immensity. Then the touch moved on.
"Ahhh-" The sigh came from the floor. The dead snake Maas stirred. "Ahhh- Let me sleep," it hissed.
"In but a moment," Issa said. "What was your name?"
"I was called Maas," the snake said. "I was counsellor and companion to Eternal Salmissra. Send me back, Lord. I cannot bear to live again."
"Is this my beloved Salmissra?" the God asked.
"Her successor." Maas sighed. "Thy beloved priestess died thousands of years ago. Each new Salmissra is chosen because of her resemblance to thy beloved."
"Ah," Issa said with pain in his huge voice. "And what was this woman's purpose in removing Belgarion from Polgara's care?"
"She sought alliance with Torak," Maas said. "She thought to trade Belgarion to the Accursed One in exchange for the immortality his embrace would bestow upon her."
"His embrace? My priestess would submit to the foul embrace of my mad brother?"
"Willingly, Lord," Maas said. "It is her nature to seek the embrace of any man or God or beast who passes."
A look of repugnance flickered across Issa's stony face. "Has it always been so?" he asked.
"Always, Lord," Maas said. "The potion which maintains her youth and semblance to thy beloved sets her veins afire with lust. That fire remains unquenched until she dies. Let me go, Lord. The pain!"
"Sleep, Maas," Issa granted sorrowfully. "Take my thanks with you down into silent death."
"Ahhh-" Maas sighed and sank down again.
"I too will return to slumber," Issa said. "I must not remain, lest my presence rouse Torak to that war which would unmake the world." The great statue stepped back to the spot where it had stood for thousands of years. The deafening creak and groan of flexing rock again filled the huge chamber. "Deal with this woman as it pleases thee, Polgara," the stone God said. "Only spare her life out of remembrance of my beloved."
"I will, Lord Issa," Aunt Pol said, bowing to the statue.
"And carry my love to my brother, Aldur," the hollow voice said, fading even as it spoke.
"Sleep, Lord," Aunt Pol said. "May thy slumber wash away thy grief."
"No!" Salmissra wailed, but the green fire had already died in the statue's eyes, and the jewel on her crown flickered and went dark.
"It's time, Salmissra," Aunt Pol, vast and terrible, announced.
"Don't kill me, Polgara," the queen begged, falling to her knees. "Please don't kill me."
"I'm not going to kill you, Salmissra," Aunt Pol told her. "I promised Lord Issa that I would spare your life."
"I didn't make any such promise," Barak said from the doorway. Garion looked sharply at his huge friend, dwarfed now by Aunt Pol's immensity. The bear was gone, and in its place the big Cherek stood, sword in hand.
"No, Barak. I'm going to solve the problem of Salmissra once and for all." Aunt Pol turned back to the groveling queen. "You will live, Salmissra. You'll live for a very long time - eternally, perhaps."
An impossible hope dawned in Salmissra's eyes. Slowly she rose to her feet and looked up at the huge figure rising above her. "Eternally, Polgara?" she asked.
"But I must change you," Aunt Pol said. "The poison you've drunk to keep you young and beautiful is slowly killing you. Even now its traces are beginning to show on your face."
The queen's hands flew to her cheeks, and she turned quickly to look into her mirror.
"You're decaying, Salmissra," Aunt Pol said. "Soon you'll be ugly and old. The lust which fills you will burn itself out, and you'll die. Your blood's too warm; that's the whole problem."
"But how-" Salmissra faltered.
"A little change," Aunt Pol assured her. "Just a small one, and you'll live forever." Garion could feel the force of her will gathering itself. "I will make you eternal, Salmissra." She raised her hand and spoke a single word. The terrible force of that word shook Garion like a leaf in the wind.
At first nothing seemed to happen. Salmissra stood fixed with her pale nakedness gleaming through her gown. Then the strange mottling grew more pronounced, and her thighs pressed tightly together. Her face began to shift, to grow more pointed. Her lips disappeared as her mouth spread, and its corners slid up into a fixed reptilian grin.
Garion watched in horror, unable to take his eyes off the queen. Her gown slid away as her shoulders disappeared and her arms adhered to her sides. Her body began to elongate, and her legs, grown completely
together now, began to loop into coils. Her lustrous hair disappeared, and the last vestiges of humanity faded from her face. Her golden crown, however, remained firmly upon her head. Her tongue flickered as she sank down into the mass of her loops and coils. The hood upon her neck spread as she looked with flat, dead eyes at Aunt Pol, who had somehow during the queen's transformation resumed her normal size.
"Ascend your throne, Salmissra," Aunt Pol said.
The queen's head remained immobile, but her coils looped and mounted the cushioned divan, and the sound of coil against coil was a dry, dusty rasp.
Aunt Pol turned to Sadi the eunuch. "Behold the Handmaiden of Issa, the queen of the snake-people, whose dominion shall endure until the end of days, for she is immortal now and will reign in Nyissa forever."
Sadi's face was ghastly pale, and his eyes bulged wildly. He swallowed hard and nodded.
"I'll leave you with your queen, then," she told him. "I'd prefer to go peacefully, but one way or another, the boy and I are leaving."
"I'll send word ahead," Sadi agreed quickly. "No one will try to bar your way."
"Wise decision," Barak said dryly.
"All hail the Serpent Queen of Nyissa," one of the crimson-robed eunuchs pronounced in a shaking voice, sinking to his knees before the dais.
"Praise her," the others responded ritualistically, also kneeling. "Her glory is revealed to us."
"Worship her."
Garion glanced back once as he followed Aunt Pol toward the shattered door. Salmissra lay upon her throne with her mottled coils redundantly piled and her hooded head turned toward the mirror. The golden crown sat atop her head, and her flat, serpent eyes regarded her reflection in the glass. There was no expression on her reptile face, so it was impossible to know what she was thinking.
Chapter Thirty
The corridors and vaulted halls of the palace were empty as Aunt Pol led them from the throne room where the eunuchs knelt, chanting their praises to the Serpent Queen. Sword in hand, Barak stalked grimly through the awful carnage that marked the trail he had left when he had entered. The big man's face was pale, and he frequently averted his eyes from some of the more savagely mutilated corpses that littered their way.