Silk grinned back. “I thank you for your wishes about my brother’s growing ill health,” he replied.
The soldiers moved off along the street. “You tell better stories than Belgarath does,” Garion said to his little friend.
“It’s a gift. That was a very profitable encounter, wasn’t it? Now I understand why the Orb hasn’t picked up the trail yet. We came into the city by way of the north gate, and Zandramas came up from the south. If we go straight to the Temple, the Orb’s likely to jerk you off your feet.”
Garion nodded. “The important thing is that we’re only a few days behind her.” He paused, frowning.
“Why is she gathering Grolims, though?”
“Who knows? Reinforcements maybe. She knows that we’re right behind her. Or, maybe she thinks she’s going to need Grolims who have training in Karandese magic when she gets home to Darshiva. If Nahaz has sent his demons down there, she’s going to need all the help she can get. We’ll let Belgarath sort it out. Let’s go to the Temple and see if we can pick up the trail.”
As they approached the Temple in the center of the city, the Orb began to pull at Garion again, and he felt a surge of exultation. “I’ve got it,” he said to Silk.
“Good.” The little man looked up at the Temple. “I see that they’ve made some modifications,” he observed.
The polished steel mask of the face of Torak which normally occupied the place directly over the nail‑studded door had been removed, Garion saw, and in its place was a red‑painted skull with a pair of horns screwed down into its brow.
“I don’t know that the skull is all that big an improvement, “ Silk said, “but then, it’s no great change for the worse either. I was getting a little tired of that mask staring at me every time I turned around.”
“Let’s follow the trail,” Garion suggested, “and make certain that Zandramas left the city before we go get the others.”
“Right,” Silk agreed.
The trail led from the door of the Temple through the littered streets to the east gate of the city. Garion and Silk followed it out of Karand and perhaps a half mile along the highway leading eastward across the plains of Ganesia.
“Is she veering at all?” Silk asked.
“Not yet. She’s following the road.”
“Good. Let’s go get the others ‑and our horses. we won’t make very good time on foot.”
They moved away from the road, walking through knee‑high grass.
“Looks like good, fertile soil here,” Garion noted. “Have you and Yarblek ever considered buying farmland? It might be a good investment.”
“No, Garion.” Silk laughed. “There’s a major drawback to owning land. If you have to leave a place in a hurry, there’s no way that you can pick it up and carry it along with you.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
The others waited in a grove of large old willows a mile or so north of the city, and their faces were expectant as Garion and Silk ducked in under the branches.
“Did you find it?” Belgarath asked.
Garion nodded. “She went east,” he replied.
“And apparently she took all the Grolims from the Temple along with her,” Silk added.
Belgarath looked puzzled. “Why would she do that?”
“I haven’t got a clue. I suppose we could ask her when we catch up with her.”
“Could you get any idea of how far ahead of us she is?” Ce’Nedra asked.
“Just a few days,” Garion said. “With any luck we’ll catch her before she gets across the Mountains of Zamad.”
“Not if we don’t get started,” Belgarath said.
They rode on back across the wide, open field to the highway leading across the plains toward the upthrusting peaks lying to the east. The Orb picked up the trail again, and they followed it at a canter.
“What kind of a city was it?” Velvet asked Silk as they rode along.
“Nice place to visit,” he replied, “but you wouldn’t want to live there. The pigs are clean enough, but the people are awfully dirty.”
“Cleverly put, Kheldar.”
“I’ve always had a way with words,” he conceded modestly.
“Father,” Polgara called to the old man, “a large number of Grolims have passed this way.”
He looked around and nodded. “Silk was right, then,” he said. “For some reason she’s subverting Mengha’s people. Let’s be alert for any possible ambushes.”
They rode on for the rest of the day and camped that night some distance away from the road, starting out again at first light in the morning. About midday they saw a roadside village some distance ahead. Coming from that direction was a solitary man in a rickety cart being pulled by a bony white horse.
“Do you by any change have a flagon of ale, Lady Polgara?” Sadi asked as they slowed to a walk.
“ Are you thirsty?”
“Oh, it’s not for me. I detest ale personally. It’s for that carter just ahead. I thought we might want some information.” He looked over at Silk. “Are you feeling at all sociable today, Kheldar?”
“No more than usual. Why?”
“Take a drink or two of this,” the eunuch said, offering the little man the flagon Polgara had taken from one of the packs. “Not too much, mind. I only want you to smell drunk.”
“Why not?” Silk shrugged, taking a long drink.
“That should do it,” Sadi approved. “Now give it back.”
“I thought you didn’t want any.”
“I don’t. I’m just going to add a bit of favoring.” He opened his red case. “Don’t drink any more from this flagon,” he warned Silk as he tapped four drops of a gleaming red liquid into the mouth of the flagon. “If you do, we’ll all have to listen to you talk for days on end.” He handed the flagon back to the little man. “Why don’t you go offer that poor fellow up there a drink,” he suggested. “He looks like he could use one.”
“You didn’t poison it, did you?”
“Of course not. It’s very hard to get information out of somebody who’s squirming on the ground clutching at his belly. One or two good drinks from that flagon, though, and the carter will be seized by an uncontrollable urge to talk ‑about anything at all and to anybody who asks him a question in a friendly fashion. Go be friendly to the poor man, Kheldar. He looks dreadfully lonesome.
Silk grinned, then turned and trotted his horse toward the oncoming cart, swaying in his saddle and singing loudly and very much off‑key.
“He’s very good,” Velvet murmured to Ce’Nedra, “but he always overacts his part. When we get back to Boktor, I think I’ll send him to a good drama coach.”
Ce’Nedra laughed.
By the time they reached the cart, the seedy‑looking man in a rust‑red smock had pulled his vehicle off to the side of the road, and he and Silk had joined in song -a rather bawdy one.
“Ah, there you are,” Silk said, squinting owlishly at Sadi. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to catch up. Here‑“ He thrust the flagon at the eunuch. “Have a drink.”
Sadi feigned taking a long drink from the flagon. Then he sighed lustily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and handed the flagon back.
Silk passed it to the carter. “Your turn, friend.” The carter took a drink and then grinned foolishly. “I haven’t felt this good in weeks,” he said.
“We’re riding toward the east,” Sadi told him.
“I saw that right off,” the carter said. “That’s unless you’ve taught your horses to run backward.” He laughed uproariously at that, slapping his knee in glee.
“How droll,” the eunuch murmured. “Do you come from that village just up ahead?”
“Lived there all my life,” the carter replied, “and my father before me ‑and his father before him‑ and his father’s father before that and‑“
“Have you seen a dark‑cloaked woman with a babe in her arms go past here within the last week?” Sadi interrupted him. “She probably would have been in the company of a fairly large party of Grolims.”
The carter made the sign to ward off the evil eye at the mention of the word “Grolim.”
“Oh, yes. She came by all right,” he said, “and she went into the local Temple here ‑if you can really call it a Temple. It’s no bigger than my own house and it’s only got three Grolims in it -two young ones and an old one. Anyway, this woman with the babe in her arms, she goes into the Temple, and we can hear her talking, and pretty soon she comes out with our three Grolims ‑only the old one was trying to talk the two young ones into staying, and then she says something to the young ones and they pull out their knives and start stabbing the old one, and he yells and falls down on the ground dead as mutton, and the woman takes our two young Grolims back out to the road, and they join in with the others and they all go off, leaving us only that old dead one lying on his face in the mud and‑“