“At any rate, not long after Naradas had consolidated his position, word reached us here that Torak had been killed. Naradas and his underlings went into absolute despair, but something rather profound seems to have happened to Zandramas. She walked out of the Temple at Hemil in a kind of a daze. My friend from the Bureau of Commerce was there at the time and he saw her. He said that her eyes were and that she had an expression of inhuman ecstasy her face. When she reached the edge of the city, she took off her clothes and ran naked into the forest. We all assumed that she’d gone completely mad and that we’d seen the last of her.
“Once in a while, though, travelers would report having seen her in that wilderness near the border of Likandia. Sometimes, she’d run away from them, and other times, she’d stop them and speak to them in a language no one could understand. They listened, though—perhaps because she still hadn’t managed to find any clothes.
“Then one day after a few years, she showed up at the gates of Hemil. She was wearing a black Grolim robe made of satin, and she seemed to be totally in control of herself. She went to the Temple and sought out Naradas. The arch-priest had given himself wholly over to the grossest kind of debauchery in his despair, but after he and Zandramas spoke together privately, he seems to have had a reconversion of some kind. Since that time, he’s been the follower. He’ll do anything Zandramas tells him to do.
“Zandramas spent a short time in the Temple, then she began to move about in Darshiva. At first she spoke only with Grolims, but in time she went out and talked with ordinary people as well. She always told them the same thing—that a new God of Angarak was coming. After a time, word of what she was doing got back to Mal Yaska, and Urvon sent some very powerful Grolims to Darshiva to stop her. I’m not sure what happened to her out there in that wilderness, but whatever it was seems to have filled her with enormous power. When Urvon’s Grolims tried to stop her from preaching, she simply obliterated them.”
“Obliterated?” Belgarath exclaimed in astonishment.
“That’s about the only word I can use. Some of them she consumed with fire. Others were blasted to bits by bolts of lightning that shot down out of a cloudless sky. Once, she opened the earth, dropped five of them into a pit, and then closed the earth on them again. Urvon began to take her very seriously at that point, I guess. He sent more and more Grolims to Darshiva, but she destroyed them all. The Darshivan Grolims who chose to follow her were given real powers, so they didn’t have to resort to trickery any more.”
“And the ones who didn’t?” Polgara asked.
“None of them survived. I understand that a few of them tried deception—pretending to accept her message—but I guess she could see right through them and took appropriate steps. It probably wasn’t really necessary, though. She spoke as if inspired, and no one could resist her message. Before long, all of Darshiva—Grolims and secular people alike-groveled at her feet.
“She moved north from Darshiva into Rengel and Voresebo, preaching as she went and converting whole multitudes. The archpriest Naradas followed her blindly and he was also enormously eloquent and appears to have only slightly less power than she does. For some reason, she never came across the River Magan into Peldane—until recently.”
“All right,” Polgara said, “she converted Rengel and Voresebo. Then what?”
“I really can’t say.” Nabros shrugged. “About three years ago, both she and Naradas disappeared. I think they went off to the west someplace, but I don’t know for sure. About the last thing she told the crowds before she left was that she was going to be the bride of this new God she’s been talking about. Then, a month ago, her forces came across the Magan and invaded Peldane. That’s about all I know, really.”
Polgara stepped back. “Thank you, Nabros,” she said gently. “Why don’t you see if you can get some sleep now? I’ll save some breakfast for you.”
He sighed, and his eyelids began to droop. “Thank you, Lady,” he said drowsily, and a moment later he was fast asleep. Polgara gently covered him with a blanket.
Belgarath motioned to them, and they all went back over to the fire again. “It’s all beginning to fit together now, isn’t it?” he said. “When Torak died, the Dark Spirit took over Zandramas and made her the Child of Dark. That’s what that business in the wilderness was all about.”
Ce’Nedra had been muttering to herself under her breath. Her eyes were dangerous and her face angry. “You’d better do something about this, old man,” she said threateningly to Belgarath.
“About what?” He looked a little baffled.
“You heard what that man said. He told us that Zandra plans to be the bride of this new God.”
“Yes,” he said mildly, “I heard him.”
“You’re not going to let something like that happen, are you?”
“I hadn’t planned to, no. What’s got you so upset, Ce’Nedra?”
Her eyes flashed. “I will not have Zandramas for a daughter-in-law,” she declared hotly, “no matter what happens.”
He stared at her for a moment, then he began to laugh.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By midafternoon the wan dish of the sun had begun to burn through the pervading mist, and Held in returned. “The fog’s completely cleared away about a league west of here,” he told them.
“Are there any signs of movement out there?” Belgarath asked him.
“Some,” Beldin replied. “A few detachments of troops that are all headed north. Otherwise it’s as empty as a merchant’s soul. Sorry, Kheldar, it’s just an old expression.”
“That’s all right, Beldin,” Silk forgave him grandly. “These little slips of the tongue are common in the very elderly.”
Beldin gave him a hard look and then continued. “The villages up ahead all seem to be deserted and mostly in ruins. I’d say that the villagers have fled.” He glanced at the sleeping Melcene. “Who’s your guest?” he asked.
“He’s with the Bureau of Roads,” Belgarath replied. “Silk found him hiding in a cellar.”
“Is he really all that sleepy?”
“Sadi gave him something to calm his nerves.”
“I’d say it worked pretty good. He looks very calm.”
“Would you like something to eat, uncle?” Polgara asked.
“Thanks all the same, Pol, but I had a fat rabbit an hour or so ago.” He looked back at Belgarath. “I think we’ll still want to travel at night,” he advised. “You don’t have whole regiments out there, but mere are enough to give us trouble if they happen to surprise us.”
“Any idea of whose troops they are?”
“I didn’t see any Guardsmen or Karands. I’d guess that they belong to Zandramas—or to the King of Peldane. Whoever they are, they’re going north toward that battle that’s about to begin.”
“All right,” Belgarath said, “we’ll travel at night, then— at least until we get past the soldiers.”
They moved along at a fair rate of speed that night. They had passed the woods, and the watchfires of the soldiers encamped on the plain made them easy to avoid. Then, just before dawn, Belgarath and Garion stopped atop a low hill and looked down at a camp that seemed quite a bit larger than those they had passed earlier. “About a battalion, Grandfather,” Garion surmised. “I think we’ve got a problem here. The country around here’s awfully flat. This is the only hill we’ve seen for miles, and there isn’t very much cover. No matter how we try to hide, their scouts are going to see us. It might be safer if we turned around and went back a ways.”
Belgarath laid back his ears in irritation. “Let’s go back and warn the others,” he growled. He rose to his feet and led Garion back the way they had come.
“There’s no point in taking chances, father,” Polgara said after she had drifted in on silent wings. “The country was more broken a few miles back. We can go back there and find shelter.”
“Were the cooks making breakfast?” Sadi asked.
“Yes,” Garion replied. “I could smell it—some kind of porridge and bacon.”
“They’re not likely to move or send out scouts until after they eat, are they?”
“No,” Garion told him. “Troops get very surly if you make them start marching before you feed them.”
“And were the sentries all wearing the standard military cloak—the ones that look more or less like these?” He plucked at the front of his traveler’s cloak.
“The ones I saw were,” Garion said.
“Why don’t we pay them a visit, Prince Kheldar?” The eunuch suggested.
“What have you got in mind?” Silk asked suspiciously.
“Porridge is so bland, don’t you think? I have a number of things in my case that can spice it up just a bit. We can walk through the encampment like a pair of sentries who’ve just been relieved and go directly to the cook-fires for a bite of breakfast. I shouldn’t have much trouble seasoning the kettles with certain condiments.”