“But not killed.”
“No. Not killed. The Rivan Warder struck him straight through the head with his sword, but Torak wasn’t killed. He was only bound in slumber until a king sat once again on the throne of Riva.”
“Belgarion,” Errand said.
“Right. You know what happened then. You were there, after all.”
Errand sighed. “Yes,” he said sadly.
Belgarath turned back to Beldin. “All right,” he said, “what’s going on in Mallorea?”
“Things are about the same as always,” Beldin replied, taking a drink of ale and belching thunderously. “The bureaucracy is still the glue that holds everything together. There are still plots and intrigues in Melcene and Mal Zeth. Karanda and Darshiva and Gandahar are on the verge of open rebellion, and the Grolims are still afraid to go near Kell.”
“The Mallorean Grolims are still a functioning church then?” Belgarath seemed a little surprised. “I thought that the citizenry might have taken steps -the way they did in Mishrak ac Thull. I understand that the Thulls started building bonfires with Grolims.”
“Kal Zakath sent a few orders back to Mal Zeth,” Beldin told him, “and the army stepped in to stop the slaughter. After all, if you plan to be Kingand God, you’re going to need yourself a church. Zakath seems to think that it might be easier to use one that’s already established.”
“What does Urvon think of that idea?”
“He’ s not making much of an issue of it right now. Before the army moved in, the people of Mallorea were finding a great deal of entertainment in hanging Grolims up on iron hooks. Urvon is staying in Mal Yaska and keeping very quiet. I think he believes that the fact that he’s still alive might just be an oversight on the part of his exalted Majesty, Kal Zakath. Urvon is a slimy snake, but he’s no fool.”
“I’ve never met him.”
“You haven’t missed a thing,” Beldin said sourly. He held out his tankard. “You want to fill this?”
“You’re drinking up all of my ale, Beldin.”
“You can always steal more. The twins never lock their doors. Anyway, Urvon was a disciple of Torak, the same as Ctuchik and Zedar. He doesn’t have any of their good qualities, however.”
“They didn’thave any good qualities,” Belgarath said, handing him back the refilled tankard.
“Compared to Urvon, they did. He’s a natural-born bootlicker, a fawning, contemptible sneak. Even Torak despised him. But, like all people with those charming traits, as soon as he got the least little bit of power, he went absolutely berserk with it. He’s not satisfied with bows as a sign of respect; he wants people to grovel before him.”
“You seem moderately unfond of him,” Belgarath noted.
“Iloathe that piebald back stabber.”
“Piebald?”
“He’s got patches of skin on his face and hands with no color at all, so he looks all splotchy -as if he had some gruesome disease. I’m viewed in some quarters as passing ugly, but Urvon could scare a troll into fits. Anyway, if Kal Zakath wants to turn the Grolim church into a state religion withhis face on the altars instead of Torak’s, he’s going to have to deal with Urvon first, and Urvon always stays holed up in Mal Yaska, completely surrounded by Grolim sorcerers. Zakath won’t be able to get near him.I can’t even get near him. I give it a try every hundred years or so, hoping that somebody might get careless or that I might get lucky enough to get a large, sharp hook into his guts. What I’d really like to do, though, is drag him face down over red-hot coals for a few weeks.”
Belgarath looked a little surprised at the little man’s vehemence. “That’s all he’s doing then? Staying under cover in Mal Yaska?”
“Not hardly! Urvon plots and schemes even in his sleep. In the last year and a half -ever since Belgarion ran his sword through Torak- Urvon’s been scrambling around, trying to preserve what’s left of his church. There are some old, moth-eaten prophecies -the Grolims call them Oracles- from a place called Ashaba in the Karandese Mountains. Urvon dusted them off and he’s been twisting them around so that they seem to say that Torak will return -that he’s not dead, or that he’ll be resurrected or possibly reborn.”
Belgarath snorted. “What nonsense!”
“Of course it is, but he had to do something. The Grolim church was convulsing like a headless snake, and Zakath was right on the verge of putting his fist around everybody’s throat to make sure that every time any Angarak bowed, it would be tohim . Urvon made sure that there were very few copies of these Ashabine Oracles left lying about and he’s been inventing all sorts of things and claiming that he found them in the prophecies. That’s about the only thing holding Zakath off right now and probablythat wouldn’t even work, if the emperor weren’t so busy trying to decorate every tree he comes across with a Murgo or two.”
“Did you have any trouble moving around in Mallorea?”
Beldin snorted a crude obscenity. “Of course not. Nobody even notices the face of a deformed man. Most people couldn’t tell you if I’m an Alorn or a Marag. They can’t see past the hump on my back.” He rose from his chair, went to the cask, and refilled his tankard again. “Belgarath,” he said very seriously, “does the name Cthrag Sardius mean anything to you?”
“Sardius? Sardonyx, you mean?”
Beldin shrugged. “The Mallorean Grolims call it Cthrag Sardius. What’s the difference?”
“Sardonyx is a gemstone -sort of orange colored with milky-white stripes. It’s not really very rare -or very attractive.”
“That doesn’t quite match up with the way I heard the Malloreans talk about it.” Beldin frowned. “From the way they use the name Cthrag Sardius, I gather that it’s a single stone -and that it’ s got a certain kind of importance.”
“What sort of importance?”
“I can’t say for sure. About all I could gather was that just about every Grolim in Mallorea would trade his soul for the chance to get his hands on it.”
“It could just be some kind of internal symbol -something to do with the power struggle that’s going on over there.”
“That’s possible, I suppose, but why would its name be Cthrag Sardius then? They called the Orb of Aldur ‘Cthrag Yaska,’ remember? There’d almost have to be a connection between Cthrag Sardius and Cthrag Yaska, wouldn’t there? And if there is, maybe we ought to have a look into it.”
Belgarath gave him a long look and then sighed. “I thought that, once Torak was dead, we might get a chance to rest.”
“You’ve had a year or so.” Beldin shrugged. “Much more than that and you start to get flabby.”
“You’re a very disagreeable fellow, do you know that?”
Beldin gave him a tight, ugly grin. “Yes,” he agreed. “I thought you might have noticed that.”
The next morning Belgarath began meticulously sorting though a mountainous heap of crackling parchments, trying to impose some kind of order upon centuries of chaos. Errand watched the old man quietly for a time, then drifted over to the window to look out at the sun-warmed meadows of the Vale. Perhaps a mile away, there was another tower, a tall, slender structure that looked somehow very serene.
“Do you mind if I go outside?” he asked Belgarath.
“What? No, that’s all right. Just don’t wander too far away.”
“I won’t,” Errand promised, going to the top of the stairway that spiraled down into the cool dimness below.
The early morning sunlight slanted across the dewdrenched meadow, and skylarks sang and spun through the sweet-smelling air. A brown rabbit hopped out of the tall grass and regarded Errand quite calmly. Then it sat on its haunches and began vigorously to scratch its long ears with a busy hind foot.
Errand had not come out of the tower for random play, however, nor to watch rabbits. He had someplace to go and he set out across the dewy green meadow in the direction of the tower he had seen from Belgarath’s window.
He hadn’t really counted on the dew, and his feet were uncomfortably wet by the time he reached the solitary tower.
He walked around the base of the stone structure several times, his feet squelching in their sodden boots.
“I wondered how long it would take before you came by,” a very calm voice said to him.
“I was busy helping Belgarath,” Errand apologized.
“Did he really need help?”
“He was having a little trouble getting started.”
“Would you like to come up?”
“If it’s all right.”
“The door’s on the far side.”
Errand went around the tower and found a large stone that had been turned to reveal a doorway. He went into the tower and on up the stairs.
One tower room was much like another, but there were certain differences between this one and Belgarath’s. As in Belgarath’s tower, there was a fireplace here with a fire burning in it, but there appeared to be nothing in the flames here for them to feed upon. The room itself was strangely uncluttered, for the owner ofthis tower stored his parchment scrolls, tools, and implements in some unimaginable place, to be summoned as he required them.