‘Was there anything unusual about that one?’ Silk prompted.
‘I was just getting to that. He was wearing ordinary clothes, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. At first I thought he was blind—because of his eyes, you understand—but it seems that he can see well enough, even though his eyes don’t have no color at all. I had a ship’s cook one time, and one of his eyes was the same way. Foul-tempered sort he was, and a real poor excuse for a cook. Well sir, this man with the funny eyes, he says that he and his friends had to get to Peldane in a hurry, but that they sort of wanted it kept quiet that they was going there. Then he asks me if I knows of a place outside of the town of Selda where I could put them on the beach with no one the wiser, and I says that I did.’ He pulled his nose slyly. ‘Just about any man as owns a ship knows of a few places like that—customs people being what they are an’ all. I sort of had my suspicions up by now. People who want to end a voyage on a lonely beach someplace are usually up to no good. Now, I figure that what a man does is his own concern, but if he gets me mixed up in it, it starts being my business real quick. I can get into trouble enough on my own without no help from others.’ He paused and took a long drink from his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Like I say, I had my suspicions about these people by now and I was just about to tell them that I wasn’t really interested in the proposition, but then the woman, she says something I didn’t hear to the one as was doing the talking. She was wearing a kind of long cloak or robe of some kind made out of black satin. She kept the hood of it up the whole time, so I never saw her face, but she was keeping a real tight grip on the little boy. Anyhow, the one with the white eyes, he pulls out a purse and spills it out on the table, and that purse was full of gold, my friends, more than I’d make in a dozen voyages along these coasts. That put a whole new light on the situation, let me tell you. Well sir, to make it short, we struck the bargain right then and there, and I asks them when they wanted to leave, and the fellow as was doing the talking, he says they’d come down to my ship just as soon as it gets dark. I saw right off that my suspicions wasn’t too far off the mark. You don’t find very many as is honest who want to sail out of a harbor in the dark of night, but we’d already struck our bargain, and I had his purse tucked under my belt, so it was too late to back out. We sailed that very night and got to the coast of Peldane on the next afternoon.’
‘Tell them about the fog,’ Silk said intently.
‘I was just about to, your Highness,’ Kadian said. ‘That coast down there is sunk in fog almost all spring, and the day we got there wasn’t no exception. It was thicker than a wool cloak, but the people in Selda, they’re used to it, so they always lights beacons on the city walls to guide ships into their harbor on foggy days. I took my bearings on those beacons and I didn’t have no trouble finding the beach I wanted. We hove to a few hundred yards offshore, and I sent my passengers toward the beach in a small boat with my bo’sun in charge. We hung a lantern from the mainmast to guide him back through the fog, and I put some men to banging on pots and pans to help him find the way. Anyhow, after some time passed, we could hear the sound of the oarlocks out there in the fog near the beach, and we knowed the bo’sun’s coming back. And then, all of a sudden, I seen the light of a fire coming through the fog all sort of misty, like. I heard some screaming, and then everything got quiet. We waited for a bit, but the bo’sun, he never came back. I didn’t like the smell of things, so I ordered the anchor up, and we sort of eased on back out to sea. I don’t know what happened and I wasn’t going to stay around to find out. There was things going on that made me real nervous.’
‘Oh?’ Beldin said, ‘such as what?’
‘Well sir, one time in the main cabin, this woman as the white-eyed man and the aristocrat had with them, she reached out to take hold of the little boy, him acting kind of restless and all, and I seen her hand. Now, it might have been bad light in the cabin or some such—I don’t spend all that much on lamp oil or candles. But—and strike me blind if I’m wrong—it seemed to me that there was sparkles under the skin of her hand.’
‘Sparkles?’ Belgarath asked him.
‘Yes, sir. I seen it with my own eyes, and they was moving—all these little tiny sparkles moving around in her flesh, almost like fireflies on a summer’s evening.’
‘As if all the starry universe were contained therein?’ Beldin asked intently, quoting from the obscure passage in the Ashabine Oracles.
‘Now that you put it that way, that’s exactly how it was,’ Kadian agreed. ‘I knowed right off that these wasn’t no ordinary folks and, after I seen that fire in the fog, I didn’t really want to stay around to find out just how un-ordinary they was.’
‘That might just have saved your life, Captain,’ Belgarath told him. ‘Have you ever heard of Zandramas?’
‘The witch? Everybody’s heard of her.’
‘I think she was your glittering passenger, and Zandramas is a firm believer in the old notion that dead people can’t tell stories. So far as we know, she’s drowned three ships and fed several people to the lions. I expect it was only the fog that saved you. If she’d have been able to see you, you wouldn’t be here now.’
Captain Kadian swallowed hard.
‘Do you need any more?’ Silk asked.
‘No,’ Belgarath replied. ‘I think that covers everything.’ He looked at the captain. ‘We thank you, Kadian. Can you sketch us a map of the beach where you dropped off these passengers of yours?’
‘I can indeed,’ Kadian replied bleakly. ‘Is it in your mind to chase down the witch?’
‘We were sort of thinking along those lines, yes.’
‘When you burn her, throw on a few logs of wood in memory of my bo’sun and his oarsmen.’
‘You have my word on that, Captain,’ Garion told him.
‘Green logs,’ Kadian added. ‘They don’t burn so fast.’
‘We’ll keep that in mind.’
Silk stood up and handed the captain a leather pouch.
Kadian bounced it on his palm a few times, and it gave forth a jingling sound. ‘You’re very generous, your Highness,’ he said, also rising to his feet. ‘Is there pen and ink handy? I’ll draw you that chart.’
‘Right over on that table,’ Silk said, pointing.
The captain nodded and crossed the room.
‘Where’s Aunt Pol?’ Garion asked, ‘and the others?’
‘They’re changing clothes,’ Silk replied. ‘I sent word to our ship just as soon as one of Vetter’s men came back and told us that they’d found Captain Kadian. She’s waiting in the harbor for us right now.’ He looked closely at Garion. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ he asked. ‘You’re looking a little pale.’
‘I got a message that had some bad news in it.’
Silk gave Belgarath a puzzled look.
‘We found the Ashabine Oracles,’ the old man explained tersely. ‘Torak left a message for Garion on the last page. It wasn’t very pleasant. We can talk about it once we get on board ship.’
Captain Kadian came back holding a sheet of parchment. ‘This is Selda,’ he said, pointing at his drawing. ‘There’s a headland to the south, and the beach I was telling you about is just south of that. I can’t tell you exactly where the witch landed because of the fog, but this place marked with the X should be fairly close.’
‘Thanks again, Captain,’ Silk said.
‘My pleasure, your Highness, and good hunting.’ Kadian turned and left the room with the rolling gait of a man who spends little time on shore.
It was only a few moments later when Polgara and the others joined them. Ce’Nedra and Velvet were both wearing plain gray dresses much like the one Polgara always wore when she was traveling. Gray, Garion noticed, was not a good color for Ce’Nedra. It made her skin look very pale, and the only touch of color about her was her flaming wealth of copper-colored hair.
Durnik and the other men—except for Toth, who still wore onl
y his unbleached blanket and loincloth—were dressed in the same nondescript brown that Silk wore.
‘Well, father?’ Polgara asked as she entered, ‘did you find what we wanted?’
He nodded. ‘Why don’t we talk about that after we get on board ship, though? We’ve done what we came to do in Melcene and we can talk while our ship’s moving.’ He led the way out and down the stairs.
It was a silvery evening. The full moon had risen early and it filled the streets of Melcene with its pale light. Candles glowed golden in the windows of the houses they passed, and hundreds of lanterns winked from the rigging of the ships anchored in the harbor. Garion rode in silence, his melancholy thoughts still on the dreadful communication Torak had left for him thousands of years ago.
They boarded their ship quickly and went immediately below to the cramped cabin beneath the aft deck.
‘All right,’ Belgarath said to them after Durnik had closed the door, ‘we found the Oracles and we also found the place where the Sardion was kept until just about the time of the battle of Vo Mimbre.’
‘That was a profitable trip, wasn’t it?’ Silk noted. ‘Is Senji really as old as they say?’
Beldin grunted. ‘Older.’
‘Wouldn’t that mean that he’s a sorcerer?’ Ce’Nedra asked. Perhaps it was the somber gray dress, but she seemed a bit disconsolate as she sat on an ornately carved bench under a swinging oil lamp.
Belgarath nodded. ‘He’s not very good at it, but he does have the ability, yes.’
‘Who was his instructor?’ Polgara wanted to know. She sat down beside Ce’Nedra and laid one arm affectionately across the little queen’s shoulders.
‘Nobody,’ Belgarath said with a certain disgust. ‘Would you believe that he just stumbled over it on his own?’
‘Did you look into that?’
‘Yes. Beldin’s got a theory. He can explain it to you later. At any rate, the Sardion was brought to the university here several thousand years ago. They kept it in a museum. I don’t think anybody knew what it really was. Then, about five hundred years ago, one of the scholars stole it and took it around the southern tip of Gandahar and sailed off in the general direction of the Dalasian Protectorates. Nobody knows for sure what happened to it after that. Anyway, Senji had an unmutilated copy of the Ashabine Oracles.’
‘What did it say?’ Velvet asked intently.
‘A great deal. We found out why Zandramas abducted Geran.’
‘As a sacrifice?’ she said.
‘Only in an obscure sense of the word. If the Dark Prophecy wins out, Geran is going to be the new God of Angarak.’
‘My baby?’ Ce’Nedra exclaimed.
‘He won’t be your baby any more, I’m afraid,’ the old man told her bleakly. ‘He’ll be Torak.’
‘Or worse,’ Beldin added. ‘He’ll have the Orb in one hand and the Sardion in the other. He’ll have dominion over everything that exists, and I don’t think he’ll be a kindly God.’
‘We have to stop her!’ Ce’Nedra cried. ‘We can’t let this happen!’
‘I think that’s the general idea, your Majesty,’ Sadi told her.
‘What else did it say, father?’ Polgara asked.
‘It said something about Zandramas that’s a little obscure. For some reason her body’s being gradually taken over by some kind of light. The sea captain who carried her to Selda caught a glimpse of her hand and he said that there are moving lights under her skin. The Oracles said it was going to happen.’
‘What does it mean?’ Durnik asked.
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea,’ Belgarath admitted. He looked at Garion and moved his fingers slightly.—I don’t think we need to tell Ce’Nedra what the book said about her, do you?—
Garion shook his head.
‘Anyway, we’re going to have to go to Kell.’
‘Kell?’ Polgara’s voice was startled. ‘What for?’
‘The location of the place we’re looking for is in the copy of the Mallorean Gospels the seers keep there. If we go to Kell, we can get to this meeting place before Zandramas does.’
‘That might be a nice change,’ Silk said. ‘I’m getting a little tired of tagging along behind her.’
‘But we’ll lose the trail,’ Ce’Nedra protested.
‘Little girl,’ Beldin said to her gruffly, ‘if we know where Zandramas is going, we won’t need the trail. We can just go directly to the Place Which Is No More and wait for her to show up.’
Polgara’s arm curled more tightly about Ce’Nedra’s shoulders in a protective fashion. ‘Be gentle with her, uncle. She was brave enough to kiss you at the archduke’s house, and I’d imagine that was quite a shock to her sensibilities.’
‘Very funny, Pol.’ The ugly hunchback dropped heavily into a chair and scratched vigorously at one armpit.
‘Was there anything else, father?’ Polgara asked.
‘Torak wrote something to Garion,’ Belgarath replied. ‘It was fairly bleak, but it appears that even he knew how bad things would get if Zandramas succeeds. He told Garion to stop her at all costs.’
‘I was going to do that anyway,’ Garion said quietly. ‘I didn’t need any suggestions from Torak.’
‘What are we going to be up against in Peldane?’ Belgarath asked Silk.
‘More of what we ran into in Voresebo and Rengel, I’d imagine.’
‘What’s the fastest way to get to Kell?’ Durnik asked.
‘It’s in the Protectorate of Likandia,’ Silk replied, ‘and the shortest way there is right straight across Peldane and Darshiva and then down through the mountains.’
‘What about Gandahar?’ Sadi asked. ‘We could avoid all that unpleasantness if we sailed south and went through there.’ Somehow Sadi looked peculiar in hose and a belted tunic. Once he had discarded his iridescent robe, he seemed more like an ordinary man and less like a eunuch. His scalp, however, was freshly shaved.
Silk shook his head. ‘It’s all jungle down in Gandahar, Sadi,’ he said. ‘You have to chop your way through.’
‘Jungles aren’t all that bad, Kheldar.’
‘They are if you’re in a hurry.’
‘Could you send for those soldiers of yours?’ Velvet asked.
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Silk answered, ‘but I’m not sure they’d be all that much help. Vetter says that Darshiva’s crawling with Grolims and Zandramas’ troops, and Peldane’s been in chaos for years. My troops are good, but not that good.’ He looked at Belgarath. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to get more burrs in your fur, old friend.’
‘Are we just going to ignore the trail, then?’ Garion asked, ‘and make straight for Kell?’
Belgarath tugged at one earlobe. ‘I’ve got a suspicion that the trail is going to lead in the general direction of Kell anyway,’ he said. ‘Zandramas read the Ashabine Oracles, too, you know, and she knows that Kell’s the only place where she can get the information she needs.’
‘Will Cyradis let her look at the Gospels?’ Durnik asked.
‘Probably. Cyradis is still neutral and she’s not likely to show any favoritism.’
Garion rose to his feet. ‘I think I’ll go up on deck, grandfather,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some thinking to do, and sea air helps to clear my head.’
The lights of Melcene twinkled low on the horizon behind them, and the moon laid a silvery path across the surface of the sea. The ship’s captain stood at the tiller on the aft deck, his hands steady and sure.
‘Isn’t it a little hard to know which way you’re going at night?’ Garion asked him.
‘Not at all,’ the captain replied. He pointed up toward the night sky. ‘Seasons come and go, but the stars never change.’
‘Well,’ Garion said, ‘we can hope, I guess.’ Then he walked forward to stand in the bow of the ship.
The night breeze that blew down the straits between Melcena and the mainland was erratic, and the sails first bellied and then fell slack, their booming sounding like a funeral drum. Tha
t sound fitted Garion’s mood. For a long time he stood toying with the end of a knotted rope and looking out over the moon-touched waves, not so much thinking, as simply registering the sights and sounds and smells around him.
He knew she was there. It was not merely the fragrance he had known since his earliest childhood, but also the calm sense of her presence. With a peculiar kind of abstraction he sought back through his memories. He had, it seemed, always known exactly where she was. Even on the darkest of nights he could have started from sleep in a strange room in some forgotten town and pointed unerringly to the place where she was. The captain of this ship was guided by the lights in the sky, but the star that had led Garion for his entire life was not some far-distant glimmer on the velvet throat of night. It was much closer, and much more constant.
‘What’s troubling you, Garion?’ she asked, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
‘I could hear his voice, Aunt Pol—Torak’s voice. He hated me thousands of years before I was even born. He even knew my name.’