“We don’t plan to stop,” Silk told him. “We’re going to cut on across Delchin to Maga Renn and then on down the Magan.”
“That’s a long journey.”
“Friend, I’ll go to Gandahar if necessary to get away from demons and plague and mad Grolims. If worse comes to worst, we’ll hide out among the elephant herders. Elephants aren’t all that bad.”
The Melcene smiled briefly. “Thanks for the food,” he said, tucking his loaf and his cheese inside his robe and looking around for his grazing horse. “Good luck when you get to Gandahar.”
“The same to you on the coast,” Silk replied.
They watched the Melcene ride off.
“Why did you take his money, Kheldar?” Eriond asked curiously. “I thought we were just going to give him the food.”
“ Unexpected and unexplained acts of charity linger in people’s minds, Eriond, and curiosity overcomes gratitude. I took his money to make sure that by tomorrow he won’t be able to describe us to any curious soldiers.”
“Oh,” the boy said a bit sadly. “It’s too bad that things are like that, isn’t it?”
“As Sadi says, I didn’t make the world; I only try to live in it.”
“Well, what do you think?” Belgarath said to the juggler.
Feldegast squinted off toward the horizon. “Yer dead set on goin’ right straight up through the middle of Venna ‑past Mal Yaska an’ all?”
“We don’t have any choice. We’ve got just so much time to get to Ashaba.”
“Somehow I thought y’ might feel that way about it.”
“Do you know a way to get us through?”
Feldegast scratched his head. “ ‘Twill be dangerous, Ancient One,” he said dubiously, “what with Grolims and Chandim and Temple Guardsmen an’ all.”
“It won’t be nearly as dangerous as missing our appointment at Ashaba would be.”
“Well, if yer dead set on it, I suppose I kin get ye through.”
“ All right,” Belgarath said. “Let’s get started then.”
The peculiar suspicion which had come over Garion the day before grew stronger. Why would his grandfather ask these questions of a man they scarcely knew? The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that there was a great deal more going on here than met the eye.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was late afternoon when they reached Mal Rakuth, a grim fortress city crouched on the banks of a muddy river. The walls were high, and black towers rose within those walls. A large crowd of people was gathered outside, imploring the citizens to let them enter, but the city gates were locked, and archers with half‑drawn bows lined the battlements, threatening the refugees below.
“That sort of answers that question, doesn’t it?” Garion said as he and his companions reined in on a hilltop some distance from the tightened city.
Belgarath grunted. “It’s more or less what I expected,” he said. “There’s nothing we really need in Mal Rakuth anyway, so there’s not much point in pressing the issue.”
“How are we going to get across the river, though?”
“If I remember correctly, there be a ferry crossin’ but a few miles upstream, Feldegast told him.
“Won’t the ferryman be just as frightened of the plague as the people in that city are?” Durnik asked him.
“ ‘Tis an ox‑drawn ferry, Goodman ‑with teams on each side an’ cables an’ pulleys an’ all. The ferryman kin take our money an’ put us on the far bank an’ never come within fifty yards of us. I fear the crossin’ will be dreadful expensive, though.”
The ferry proved to be a leaky old barge attached to a heavy cable stretched across the yellow‑brown river.
“Stay back!” the mud-covered man holding the rope hitched about the neck of the lead ox on the near side commanded as they approached. “I don’t want any of your filthy diseases.”
“How much to go across?” Silk called to him.
The muddy fellow squinted greedily at them, assessing their clothing and horses. “One gold piece,” he said flatly.
“That’s outrageous!”
“Try swimming.”
“Pay him,” Belgarath said.
“Not likely,” Silk replied. “I refuse to be cheated -even here. Let me think a minute.” His narrow face became intent as he stared hard at the rapacious ferryman.
“Durnik,” he said thoughtfully, “do you have your axe handy?”
The smith nodded, patting the axe which hung from a loop at the back of his saddle.
“Do you suppose you could reconsider just a bit, friend?” the little Drasnian called plaintively to the ferryman.
“One gold piece,” the ferryman repeated stubbornly.
Silk sighed. “Do you mind if we look at your boat first? It doesn’t look all that safe to me.”
“Help yourself ‑but I won’t move it until I get paid.”
Silk looked at Durnik. “Bring the axe,” he said.
Durnik dismounted and lifted his broad‑bladed axe from its loop. Then the two of them climbed down the slippery bank to the barge. They went up the sloping ramp and onto the deck. Silk stamped his feet tentatively on the planking. “Nice boat,” he said to the ferryman, who stood cautiously some distance away.” Are you sure you won’t reconsider the price?”
“One gold piece. Take it or leave it.”
Silk sighed. “I was afraid you might take that position.” He scuffed one foot at the muddy deck. “You know more about boats than I do, friend,” he observed. “How long do you think it would take this tub to sink if my friend here chopped a hole in the bottom?”
The ferryman gaped at him.
“Pull up the decking in the bow, Durnik,” Silk suggested pleasantly. “Give yourself plenty of room for a good swing.”
The desperate ferryman grabbed up a club and ran down the bank.
“Careful, friend,” Silk said to him. “We left Mal Zeth only yesterday, and I’m already starting to feel a little feverish ‑something I ate, no doubt.”
The ferryman froze in his tracks.
Durnik was grinning as he began to pry up the decking at the front of the barge.
“My friend here is an expert woodsman,” Silk continued in a conversational tone, “and his axe is terribly sharp. I’ll wager that he can have this scow lying on the bottom inside of ten minutes.”
“I can see into the hold now,” Durnik reported, suggestively testing the edge of his axe with his thumb. “Just how big a hole would you like?”
“Oh,” Silk replied, “I don’t know, Durnik ‑a yard or so square, maybe. Would that sink it?”
“I’m not sure. Why don’t we try it and find out?” Durnik pushed up the sleeves of his short jacket and hefted his axe a couple of times.
The ferryman was making strangled noises and hopping up and down.
“What’s your feeling about negotiation at this point, friend?” Silk asked him. “I’m almost positive that we can reach an accommodation ‑now that you fully understand the situation.”
When they were partway across the river and the barge was wallowing heavily in the current, Durnik walked forward to the bow and stood looking into the opening he had made by prying up the deck. “I wonder how big a hole it would take to sink this thing,” he mused.
“What was that, dear?” Polgara asked him.
“Just thinking out loud, Pol,” he said. “But do you know something? I just realized that I’ve never sunk a boat before.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Men,” she sighed.
“I suppose I’d better put the planks back so that we can lead the horses off on the other side,” Durnik said almost regretfully.
They erected their tents in the shelter of a grove of cedar trees near the river that evening. The sky, which had been serene and blue since they had arrived in Mallorea, had turned threatening as the sun sank, and there were rumbles of thunder and brief flickers of lightning among the clouds off to the west.
After supper, Durnik and Toth went out of the grove for a look around and returned with sober faces. “I’m afraid that we’re in for a spell of bad weather,” the smith reported. “You can smell it coming.”
“I hate riding in the rain,” Silk complained.
“Most people do, Prince Kheldar,” Feldegast told him. “But bad weather usually keeps others in as well, don’t y’ know; an’ if what that hungry traveler told us this afternoon be true, we’ll not be wantin’ t’ meet the sort of folk that be abroad in Venna when the weather’s fine.”
“He mentioned the Chandim,” Sadi said, frowning. “Just exactly who are they?”
“The Chandim are an order within the Grolim Church,” Belgarath told him. “When Torak built Cthol Mishrak, he converted certain Grolims into Hounds to patrol the region. After Vo Mimbre, when Torak was bound in sleep, Urvon converted about half of them back. The ones who reassumed human form are all sorcerers of greater or lesser talent, and they can communicate with the ones who are still Hounds. They’re very close-knit -like a pack of wild dogs‑ and they’re all fanatically loyal to Urvon.”