stories about my brother’s dice.”
“You don’t think he’d cheat you, do you? You are his brother.”
“If there was money involved, Dras would cheat our own mother.”
You see what I mean about Drasnians?
We returned to our den, and Riva cooked an extensive breakfast.
Cooking is a chore that nobody really likes–except for my daughter, of
course–so it usually fell to the youngest. Oddly, Riva wasn’t a bad
cook.
You didn’t know that, did you, Pol?
“Will you recognize this place when you see it?” Dras rumbled around a
mouthful of bacon.
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” I replied blandly, “since it’s the only
city north of the river.”
“Oh,” he said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“It’ll sort of stand out,” I continued.
“It’s got a perpetual cloud bank over it.”
He frowned.
“What causes that?”
“Torak, from what Beldin says.”
“Why would he do that?”
I shrugged.
“Maybe he hates the sun.” I didn’t want to get too exotic in my
explanation. Little things confused Dras. A big one might have
unraveled his whole brain.
I apologize to the entire Drasnian nation for that last remark. Dras
was brave and strong and absolutely loyal, but sometimes he was just a
little slow of thought. His descendants have more than overcome that.
If anyone doesn’t believe that, I invite him to try having business
dealings with Prince Kheldar.
“All right then,” I told them after we’d eaten.
“Torak’s mind is very rigid.
Once he gets hold of an idea, he won’t let go of it. He almost
certainly knows about that bridge–particularly since the Karands use
it to go over to trade with the Morindim, and the Karands are
Torak-worshipers now.
They probably use the bridge only in the summer when there isn’t any
ice, though. I don’t think Torak would even take the ice into
account.”
“Where are we going with this?” Cherek asked.
“I’m sure Torak’s expecting us, but he’s expecting us to come at him
from the north–from the direction of the bridge. If he’s put people
out there to stop us, that’s where they’ll be.”
Riva laughed delightedly.
“But we won’t be coming from the north, will we? We’ll be coming from
the west instead.”
“Good point,” Algar murmured with an absolutely straight face. He
concealed it very well, but Algar was much brighter than his
brothers–or his father, for that matter. Maybe that’s why he didn’t
waste his breath trying to talk to them.
“I can do certain things to keep the Angaraks facing north,” I
continued.
“Now that the blizzard’s blown off, I’ll decorate the snow-banks up
there near your bridge with footprints and perfume the bushes with our
scent. That should throw the Chandim off.”
“Chandim?” Dras gave me that blank stare.
“The Hounds of Torak. They’ll be trying to sniff us out. I’ll give
them enough clues to make them do their sniffing north of here. If
we’re halfway careful, we should be able to reach Cthol Mishrak without
being noticed.”
“You knew this all along, didn’t you, Belgarath?” Riva said.
“That’s why you made us cross the ice where we did instead of going up
to the bridge.”
I shrugged.
“Naturally,” I replied modestly. It was a bare-faced lie, of course;
I’d only just put it all together myself. But a reputation for
infallible cleverness doesn’t hurt when you’re dealing with Alorns The
time might come very soon when I’d be making decisions based on
hunches, and I wouldn’t have time for arguments.
It was dark again by the time we crawled out of our den and struck out
across the snowy dunes toward the frozen bog to the east. We soon
discovered that not all of the Chandim had gone north to lay in wait
for us. We came across tracks as large as horses’ hooves in the fresh
snow from time to time, and we could hear them baying off in the swamp
now and again.
I’ll make a confession here. Despite my strong reservations about it,
for once I did tamper with the weather–just a bit. I created a small
portable fog bank for us to hide in and a very docile little snow-cloud
that followed us like a puppy, happily burying our tracks in new snow.
It doesn’t really take much to make a cloud happy. I kept both the fog
and the cloud tightly controlled, though, so their effects didn’t alter
any major weather patterns. Between the two of them, they kept the
Chandim from finding us with their eyes, and the new-fallen snow
muffled the sound of our passage. Then I summoned a cooperative family
of civet cats to trail along behind us. Civet cats are nice little
creatures related to skunks, except that they have spots instead of
stripes. Their means of dealing with creatures unlucky enough to
offend them are the same, though–as one of Torak’s Hounds discovered
when he got too close. I don’t imagine he was very popular in his pack
for the next several weeks.
We crept unobserved through that frozen swamp for several days, hiding
in thickets during the brief daylight hours and traveling during the
long arctic nights.
Then one morning our fog bank turned opalescent. I let it dissipate so
that we could take a look, but it really wasn’t necessary. I knew what
was lighting up the fog. The sun had finally cleared the horizon.
Winter was wearing on, and it was time for us to hurry. As the fog
thinned, we saw that we were nearing the eastern edge of the swamp. A
low range of hills rose a few miles ahead, and just beyond those hills
was an inky black cloud bank.
“That’s it,” I told Cherek and his boys, speaking very quietly.
“That’s what?” Dras asked me.
“Cthol Mishrak. I told you about the clouds, remember?”
“Oh, yes. I guess I’d forgotten.”
“Let’s take cover and wait for dark. We have to start being very
careful now.”
We burrowed our way into a thicket growing out of a low hummock, and I
passed my snow-cloud over our tracks once or twice and then sent it
home with my thanks. As an afterthought, I also released the civet
cats.
“You have a plan?” Riva asked me.
“I’m working on it,” I replied shortly. Actually, I didn’t have a
plan. I hadn’t really thought we’d live long enough to get this far. I
decided that it might be a good time to have a chat with my friend in
the attic.
“Are you still there?” I asked tentatively.
“No, I’m off somewhere chasing moonbeams. Where else would I be,
Belgarath?”
“Silly question, I guess. Are you permitted to give me a description
of the city?”
“No, but you’ve already got one. Beldin told you everything you need
to know. You know that Torak’s in the iron tower and that the Orb’s
there with him.”
“Should I get ready for anything? I mean, is there going to be another
one of those meetings here in Cthol Mishrak? The notion of getting
into a wrestling match with Torak doesn’t appeal to me very much.”
“No. That was all settled when you met Zedar.”
“We actually won one?”
“We win about half of them. Don’t get overconfident, though. Pure
chance could trip you up. You know what to do when you get there,
don’t you?”
And suddenly I did know. Don’t ask me how, I just did.
“Maybe I’d better scout on ahead,” I suggested.
“Absolutely not. Don’t give yourself away by wandering around
aimlessly.
Take the Alorns, do what you came to do, and get out.”
“Are we on schedule?”
“Yes–if you get it done tonight. After tonight, you’re in trouble.
Don’t try to talk to me again–not until you’re clear of the city. I
won’t be permitted to answer you. Good luck.” Then he was gone
again.
The light lasted for about three hours–which only seemed like about
three years to me. When the lingering twilight finally faded, I was
very jumpy.
“Let’s go,” I told the Alorns.
“If we come across any Angaraks, put them down quickly, and don’t make
any more noise than you absolutely have to.”
“What’s the plan?” Cherek asked me.
“I’m going to make it up as we go along,” I replied. Why should I be
the only one with bad nerves?
He swallowed hard.
“Lead the way,” he told me. Say what you like about Alorns–and I
usually do–but no one can fault their bravery.
We crept out of the thicket and waded through the snow until we reached
the edge of the swamp. I wasn’t particularly worried about tracks,
since the Grolims had been patrolling this part of the swamp regularly,
and their tracks were everywhere, mingled with the occasional tracks of
one of the Hounds. A few more wouldn’t mean anything.
Our luck was holding. A blizzard had come in out of the west, and the
screaming wind had scoured all the snow off the hillsides facing the