Toth place his huge hands on the heavy grate, then looked at the juggler.
“Go!” Feldegast said sharply, then he lifted his face and bayed, his voice almost perfectly imitating the sound of one of the great Hounds prowling outside, even as the slowly swung the grate open on shrieking hinges.
Chretienne snorted and shied back from the dreadful howl, but Garion held his reins tightly.
“Oh, that was clever,” Silk said in quiet admiration.
“I have me moments from time to time,” Feldegast admitted. “With all the dogs outside raisin’ their awful caterwallin’, ’tis certain that one more little yelp won’t attract no notice, but the squealin’ of them hinges could have been an altogether different matter.”
He led them on through the now‑open grate and on along the dank passageway to a sharp right‑hand turn. Somewhat farther along, the passage bent again to the left. Before he rounded that corner, the juggler closed down his lantern entirely, plunging them into total darkness. “We be approachin’ the main court now,” he whispered to them. “ ‘Tis the time for silence an’ caution, fer if there be others in the house, they’ll be payin’ a certain amount of attention t’ be sure that no one creeps up on ’em. There be a handrail along the wall there, an’ I think it might be wise t’ tie the horses here. Their hooves would make a fearful clatter on the stones of the court, an’ we’ll not be wantin’ t’ ride them up an’ down the corridors of this accursed place.”
Silently they tied the reins of their mounts to the rusty iron railing and then crept on quiet feet to the turn in the passageway. There was a lessening of the darkness beyond the turn ‑not light, certainly, but a perceptible moderation of the oppressive gloom. And then they watched the inside entrance to the sally port and looked out across the broad courtyard toward the looming black house beyond. There was no discernible grace to the construction of that house. It rose in blocky ugliness almost as if the builders had possessed no understanding of the meaning of the word beauty, but had striven instead for a massive kind of arrogance to reflect the towering Pride of its owner.
“Well,” Belgarath whispered grimly, “that’s Ashaba.”
Garion looked at the dark house before him, half in apprehension and half with a kind of dreadful eagerness.
Something caught his eye then, and he thrust his head out to look along the front of the house across the court.
At the far end, in a window on a lower floor, a dim light glowed, looking for all the world like a watchful eye.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Now what?” Silk breathed, looking at the dimly lighted window. “We’ve got to cross that courtyard to get to the house, but we can’t be sure if there’s somebody watching from that window or not.”
“You’ve been out of the academy for too long, Kheldar,” Velvet murmured. “You’ve forgotten your lessons. If stealth is impossible, then you try boldness.”
“You’re suggesting that we just walk up to the door and knock?”
“Well, I hadn’t planned to knock, exactly.”
“What have you got in mind, Liselle?” Polgara asked quietly.
“If there are people in the house, they’re probably Grolims, right?”
“It’s more than likely.” Belgarath said. “Most other people avoid this place.”
“Grolims pay little attention to other Grolims, I’ve noticed,” she continued.
“You’re forgetting that we don’t have any Grolim robes with us,” Silk pointed out.
“It’s very dark in that courtyard, Kheldar, and in shadows that deep, any dark color would appear black, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” he admitted.
“And we still have those green silk slavers’ robes in our packs, don’t we?”
He squinted at her in the darkness, then looked at Belgarath. “It goes against all my instincts,” he said, “but it might just work, at that.”
“One way or another, we’ve got to get into the house, We have to find out who’s in there -and why‑ before we can decide anything.”
“Would Zandramas have Grolims with her?” Ce’Nedra asked. “If she’s alone in that house and she sees a line of Grolims walking across the courtyard, wouldn’t that frighten her into running away with my baby?”
Belgarath shook his head. “Even if she does run, we’re close enough to catch her ‑particularly since the Orb can follow her no matter how much she twists and dodges. Besides, if she’s here, she’s probably got some of her own Grolims with her. It’s not really so far from here to Darshiva that she couldn’t have summoned them.”
“What about him?” Durnik whispered the question and pointed at Feldegast. “He hasn’t got a slavers’ robe.”
“We’ll improvise something,” Velvet murmured. She smiled at the juggler. “I’ve got a nice dark blue dressing gown that should set off his eyes marvelously. We can add a kerchief to resemble a hood and we can slip him by -if he stays in the middle of the group.”
“ ‘Twould be beneath me dignity,” he objected.
“’Would you prefer to stay behind and watch the horses?” she asked pleasantly.
“ ‘Tis a hard woman y’ are, me lady.” he complained.
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Let’s do it,” Belgarath decided. “I’ve got to get inside that house.” It took only a few moments to retrace their steps to the place where the horses were tied and to pull the neatly folded slavers’ robes from their packs by the dim light of Feldegast’s lantern.
“Isn’t this ridiculous, now?” the juggler grumbled indignantly, pointing down at the blue satin gown Velvet had draped about him.
“I think it looks just darling,” Ce’Nedra said.
“If there are people in there, aren’t they likely to be patrolling the corridors?” Durnik asked.
“Only on the main floor, Goodman,” Feldegast replied. “The upper stories of the house be almost totally uninhabitable -on account of all the broken windows an’ the weather blowin’ around in the corridors fer all the world like they was part of the great outdoors. There be a grand staircase just opposite the main door, an’ with just a bit of luck we kin nip up the stairs an’ be out of sight with no one the wiser. Once we’re up there, we’re not likely t’ encounter a livin’ soul -unless ye be countin’ the bats an’ mice an’ an occasional adventuresome rat.”
“You absolutely had to say that, didn’t you?” Ce’Nedra said caustically.
“Ah, me poor little darlin’.” He grinned at her. “But quiet yer fears. I’ll be beside ye an’ I’ve yet t’ meet the bat or mouse or rat I couldn’t best in a fair fight.”
“It makes sense, Belgarath,” Silk said. “If we all go trooping through the lower halls, sooner or later someone’s bound to notice us. Once we’re upstairs and out of sight, though, I’ll be able to reconnoiter and find out exactly what we’re up against.”
“All right,” the old man agreed, “but the first thing is to get inside.”
“Let’s be off, then,” Feldegast said, swirling his dressing gown about him with a flourish.
“Hide that light,” Belgarath told him.
They filed out through the entrance to the sally port and marched into the shadowy courtyard, moving in the measured, swaying pace Grolim priests assumed on ceremonial occasions. The lighted window at the end of the house seemed somehow like a burning eye that followed their every move.
The courtyard was really not all that large, but it seemed to Garion that crossing it took hours. Eventually, however, they reached the main door. It was large, black, and nail‑studded, like the door of every Grolim temple Garion had ever seen. The steel mask mounted over it, however, was no longer polished. In the faint light coming from the window at the other end of the house, Garion could see that over the centuries it had rusted, making the coldly beautiful face look scabrous and diseased. What made it look perhaps even more hideous were the twin gobbets of lumpy, semi-liquid rust running from the eye sockets down the cheeks. Garion remembered with a shudder the fiery tears that had run down the stricken God’s face before he had fallen.
They mounted the three steps to that bleak door, and Toth slowly pushed it open.
The corridor inside was dimly illuminated by a single flickering torch at the far end. Opposite the door, as Feldegast had told them, was a broad staircase reaching up into the darkness. The treads were littered with fallen stones, and cobwebs hung in long festoons from a ceiling lost in shadows. Still moving at that stately Grolim pace, Belgarath led them across the corridor and started up the stairs. Garion followed close behind him with measured tread, though every nerve screamed at him to run. They had gone perhaps halfway up the staircase when they heard a clinking sound behind them, and there was a sudden light at the foot of the stairs, “What are you doing?” a rough voice demanded. “Who are you?”