“Is he still alive?” Garion panted at the smith.
Durnik rolled the inert Ulfgar over and professionally peeled back one of his eyelids to have a look. “He’s still with us,” he said. “I hit him rather carefully.”
“Good,” Garion said. “Let’s tie him up -and blindfold him.”
“Why blindfold?”
“We both saw him use sorcery, so we’ve answered that particular question, but I think it might be a little hard to do that sort of thing if you can’t see what you’re aiming at.”
Durnik though about it for a moment as he tied the unconscious man’s hands. “You know, I believe you’re right. It would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
With the fall of Ulfgar, the cult’s will to resist broke. Though a few of the more rabid continued to fight, most threw down their weapons in surrender. Grimly, Garion’s army rounded them up and herded them through the snowy, blood-stained streets into the town’s central square.
Silk and Javelin briefly questioned a sullen captive with a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, then joined Garion and Durnik, who stood watch over their still-unconscious prisoner. “Is that him?” Silk asked curiously, absently polishing one of his rings on the front of his gray doublet.
Garion nodded.
“He doesn’t look all that impressive, does he?”
“The large stone house over there is his,” Javelin said, pointing at a square building with red tiles on its roof.
“Not any more,” Garion replied. “It’s mine now.”
Javelin smiled briefly. “We’ll want to search it rather thoroughly,” he said. “People sometimes forget to destroy important things.”
“We might as well take Ulfgar in there, too,” Garion said. “We need to question him, and that house is as good as any.”
“I’ll go get the others,” Durnik offered, pulling off his pot-shaped helmet. “Do you think it’s safe enough to bring Pol and the other ladies into the city yet?”
“It should be,” Javelin replied. “What little resistance there is left is in the southeast quarter of the city.”
Durnik nodded and went on across the square, his mail shirt jingling.
Garion, Silk, and Javelin picked up the limp form of the black-bearded man and carried him toward the stately house with the banner of a bear flying from a staff in front of it.
As they started up the stairs, Garion glanced at a Rivan soldier standing guard over some demoralized prisoners huddled miserably in the slush. “Would you do me a favor?” he asked the gray-cloaked man.
“Of course, your Majesty,” the soldier said, saluting.
” Chop that thing down.” Garion indicated the flagstaff with a thrust of his jaw.
“At once, your Majesty.” The soldier grinned. “I should have thought of it myself.”
They carried Ulfgar into the house and through a polished door. The room beyond the door was luxuriously furnished, but the chairs were mostly overturned, and there were sheets of parchment everywhere. A crumpled heap of them had been stuffed into a large stone fireplace built into the back wall, but the fireplace was cold.
“Good,” Javelin muttered. “He was interrupted before he could burn anything.”
Silk looked around at the room. Rich, dark-colored tapestries hung on the walls, and the green carpeting was thick and soft. The chairs were all upholstered in scarlet velvet, and unlighted candles stood in silver sconces along the wall.
“He managed to live fairly well, didn’t he?” the little man murmured as they unceremoniously dumped the prisoner in the rust-colored doublet in one corner.
“Let’s gather up these documents,” Javelin said. “I want to go over them.”
Garion unstrapped his sword, dropped his helmet on the floor and shrugged himself out of his heavy mailshirt. Then he sank wearily onto a soft couch. “I’m absolutely exhausted,” he said. “I feel as if I haven’t slept for a week.”
Silk shrugged. “One of the privileges of command.”
The door opened, and Belgarath came into the room. “Durnik said I could find you here,” he said, pushing back the hood of his shabby old cloak. He crossed the room and nudged the limp form in the corner. “He isn’t dead, is he?”
“No,” Garion replied. “Durnik put him to sleep with a club is all.”
“Why the blindfold?” the old man asked, indicating the strip of blue cloth tied across the captive’s face.
“He was using sorcery before we captured him. I thought it might not be a bad idea to cover his eyes.”
“That depends on how good he is. Durnik sent soldiers out to round up the others and then he went over to the encampment to get Pol and the other ladies.”
“Can you wake him up?” Silk asked.
“Let’s have Pol do it. Her touch is a little lighter than mine, and I don’t want to break anything accidentally.”
It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when they all finally gathered in the green-carpeted room. Belgarath looked around, then straddled a straight-backed chair in front of the captive. “All right, Pol,” he said bleakly. “Wake him up.”
Polgara unfastened her blue cloak, knelt beside the prisoner and put one hand on each side of his head. Garion heard a whispered rushing sound and felt a gentle surge. Ulfgar groaned.
“Give him a few minutes,” she said, rising to her feet. “Then you can start questioning him.”
“He’s probably going to be stubborn about it,” Brin predicted with a broad grin.
“I’ll be terribly disappointed in him if he isn’t,” Silk said as he rifled through a drawer in a large, polished cabinet.
“Have you barbarians blinded me?” Ulfgar said in a weak voice as he struggled into a sitting position.
“No,” Polgara told him. “Your eyes are covered to keep you out of mischief.”
“Are my captors women, then?” There was contempt in the black-bearded man’s voice.
“This one of them is,” Ce’Nedra said, pushing her dark green cloak slightly to one side. It was the note in her voice that warned Garion and saved the prisoner’s life. With blazing eyes, she snatched one of the daggers from Vella’s belt and flew at the blindfolded man with the gleaming blade held aloft. At the last instant, Garion caught her upraised arm and wrested the knife from her grasp.
“Give me that!” she cried.
“No, Ce’Nedra.”
“He stole my baby!” she screamed. “I’ll kill him!”
“No, you won’t. We can’t get any answers out of him if you cut his throat.”
With one arm still about her, he handed the dagger back to Vella.
“We have a few questions for you, Ulfgar,” Belgarath said to the captive.
“You’re going to have to wait a long time for the answers.”
“I’mso glad he said that,” Hettar murmured. “Who wants to start cutting on him?”
“Do whatever you wish,” Ulfgar sneered. “My body is of no concern to me.”
“We’ll do everything we can to change your mind about that,” Vella said in a chillingly sweet voice as she tested the edge of her dagger with her thumb.
“Just what was it you wanted to know, Belgarath?” Errand asked, turning from his curious examination of a bronze statue standing in the corner. “I can give you the answers, if you want.”
Belgarath looked at the blond boy sharply . “Do you know what’s in his mind?” he asked, startled.
“More or less, yes.”
“Where’s my son?” Garion asked quickly.
“That’s one thing he doesn’t know,” Errand replied. “He had nothing to do with the abduction.”
“Who did it then?”
“He’s not sure, but he thinks it was Zandramas.”
“Zandramas?”
“That name keeps cropping up, doesn’t it?” Silk said.
“Does he know who Zandramas is?”
“Not really. It’s just a name he’s heard from his Master.”
“Who is his Master?”
“He’s afraid to even think the name,” Errand said. “It’s a man with a splotchy face, though.”
The prisoner was struggling desperately, trying to free himself from the ropes which bound him. “Lies!” he screamed. “All lies!”
“This man was sent here by his Master to make sure that you and Ce’Nedra didn’t have any children,” Errand continued ignoring the screaming captive, “or to see to it that, if you did, the children didn’t live. He couldn’t have been behind the abduction, Belgarion. Ifhe had been the one who crept into the nursery at Riva, he would have killed your son, not taken him away.”
“Where does he come from?” Liselle asked curiously as she removed her scarlet cloak. “I can’t quite place his accent.”
“That’s probably because he’s not really a man,” Errand told her. ” At least not entirely. He remembers being an animal of some sort.”
They all stared at the boy and then at Ulfgar.
At that point the door opened again, and the hunchbacked Beldin came into the room. He was about to say something, but stopped, staring at the bound and blindfolded prisoner. He stumped across the floor, bent, and ripped the blue cloth away from the man’s eyes to stare into his face. “Well, dog”, he said. “What brings you out of your kennel?”