“There isn’t any back door,” Silk noted critically.
“Were you planning to leave, Kheldar?” Velvet asked him.
“Not necessarily, but I like to have that option open if the need should arise.”
“You can always jump out a window if you have to.”
“That’s amateurish, Liselle. Only a first-year student at the academy dives out of windows.”
“I know, but sometimes we have to improvise.”
There was a peculiar murmuring sound in Garion’s ears. At first he thought it might be the fountain, but somehow it didn’t quite sound like running water. “Do you think they’d mind if we went out and had a look around?” he asked Belgarath.
“Let’s wait a bit before we do that. We were sort of put here. I don’t know yet if that means we’re supposed to stay or what. Let’s feel things out before we take any chances. The Dais here— and Cyradis in particular—have something we need. Let’s not offend them.” He looked at Dumik. “Did Toth give you any hints about when she’ll be coming here?”
‘ ‘Not really, but I got the impression it wouldn’t be too long.”
“That’s not really too helpful, brother mine,” Beldin said. “The Dais have a rather peculiar notion of time. They keep track of it in ages rather than years.”
Zakath had been rather closely examining the wall a few yards from the trickling fountain. “Do you realize that there’s no mortar holding this wall together?”
Durnik joined him, took his knife from its sheath, and probed at the slender fissure between two of the marble slabs. “Mortise
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and tenon,” he said thoughtfully, “and very tightly fit, too. It must have taken years to build this house.”
“And centuries to build the city, if it’s all put together that way,” Zakathadded. “Where did they learn how to do all this? And when?”
“Probably during the First Age,” Belgarath told him.
“Stop that, Belgarath,” Beldin snapped irritably. “You sound just the way they do.”
“I always try to follow local customs.”
“I still don’t know any more than I did before,” Zakath complained.
“The First Age covered the period of time from the creation of man until the day when Torak cracked the world,” Belgarath told him. “The beginning of it is a little vague. OurMasterwas never very specific about when he and his brothers made the world. I expect that none of them want to talk about it because their Father disapproved. The cracking of the world is iairly well pinpointed, though.”
“Were you around when it happened, Lady Polgara?” Sadi asked curiously.
“No,” she replied. “My sister and I were born a while later.”
“How long awhile?”
“Two thousand years or so, wasn’t it, father?”
“About that, yes.”
“It chills my blood, the casual way you people shrug off eons.” Sadi shuddered.
“What makes you think they learned this style of building before the cracking of the world?” Zakath asked Belgarath.
“IVe read parts of The Book of Ages,” the old man said. “It fairly well documents the history of the Dais. After the world was cracked and the Sea of the East rushed in, you Angaraks fled to Mallorea. The Dais knew that eventually they’d have to come to terms with your people, so they decided to pose as simple fanners. They dismantled their cities—all except this one.”
“Why would they leave Kell intact?”
“There was no need to take it apart. The Grolims were the ones they were really worried about, and the Grolims can’t come here.”
‘ ‘But other Angaraks can,” Zakath noted shrewdly.’ ‘How is it that none of them has ever reported a city like this to the bureaucracy?”
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“They’re probably encouraged to forget,” Polgara told him.
He looked at her sharply.
“It’s not really that difficult, Zakath. A hint or two can usually erase memories.” An expression of irritation crossed her face. “What is that murmuring sound?” she demanded.
“I don’t hear anything,” Silk said, looking slightly baffled.
“You must have your ears stopped up, then, Kheldar.”
About sunset, several young women in soft white robes brought supper to them on covered trays.
“I see that diings are the same the world over,” Velvet said wryly to one of the young women. “The men sit around and talk, and the women do the work.”
“Oh, we don’t mind,” the girl replied earnestly. “It’s an honor to serve.” She had very large dark eyes and lustrous brown hair.
“That’s what makes it even worse,” Velvet said. “First they make us do all the work, and then they persuade us that we like it.”
The girl gave her a startled look, then giggled. Then she looked around guiltily and blushed.
Beldin had seized a crystal flagon almost as soon as the young women had entered. He filled a goblet and drank noisily. Then he began to choke, spraying a purplish liquid over half the room. “What is this stuff?” he demanded indignandy.
“It’s fruit juice, sir,” the young woman with the dark hair assured him earnestly. “It’s very fresh. It was pressed only this morning.”
“Don’t you let it set long enough to ferment?”
“You mean when it goes bad? Oh, no. We throw it out when that happens.”
Hegroaned. “What about ale? Or beer?”
“What are those?”
“I knew there was going to be something wrong with this place,” the dwarf growled to Belgarath.
Polgara, however, had a beatific smile on her face.
“What was that all about?” Silk asked Velvet after the Dal-asian women had left. “Ail that chitchat, I mean?”
“Groundwork,” she replied mysteriously. “It never hurts to open channels of communication.”
“Women,” He sighed, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.
Garion and Ce’Nedra exchanged a quick look, both of them remembering how often each of them had said approximately
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the same thing in the same tone early in their marriage. Then they both laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Silk asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, Kheldar,” Ce’Nedra replied. “Nothing at all.”
Garion slept poorly that night. The murmuring in his ears was just enough of a distraction to bring him back from the edge of sleep over and over again. He arose the next morning sandy-eyed and out of sorts.
In the large round central room he found Durnik. The smith had his ear pressed against the wall near the fountain. –
“What’s the trouble?” Garion asked him.
“I’m trying to pinpoint that noise,” Durnik said. “It might be something in the plumbing. The water in this fountain has to come from somewhere. Probably it’s piped in, and then the pipe runs under the floor or up through the walls.”
“Would water running through a pipe make that sort of noise?”
Dumik laughed. “You never know what sort of sounds are going to come out of the plumbing, Garion. I saw a whole town abandoned once. They all thought the place was haunted. The noise turned out to be coming from the municipal water supply.”
Sadi came into the room once again wearing his iridescent silk robe.
“Colorful,” Garion observed. For the past several months, the eunuch had been wearing a tunic, hose, and Sendarian half-boots.
Sadi shrugged. “For some reason I feel homesick this morning.” He sighed. “I think I could live out my life in perfect contentment if I never saw another mountain. What are you doing, Goodman Durnik? Still examining the construction?”
“No. I’m trying to track down die source of that noise.”
“What noise?”
“Surely you can hear it.”
Sadi cocked his head to one side. “I hear some birds just outside the window,” he said, “and there’s a stream somewhere nearby, but that’s about all.”
Garion and Durnik exchanged a long, speculative look. “Silk couldn’t hear it yesterday either,” Durnik recalled.
“Why don’t we get everybody up?” Garion suggested.
“That might make some of them a little unhappy, Garion.”
“They’ll get over it. I think this might be important.”
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There were some surly looks directed at Garion as the others filed in.
“What’s this all about, Garion?” Belgarath asked in exasperation.
“It’s what you might call an experiment, Grandfather.”
“Do your experiments on your own time.”
“My, aren’t we cross this morning?” Ce’Nedra said to the old man.
“I didn’t sleep very well.”
“That’s strange. J slept like a baby.”
“Durnik,” Garion said, “would you stand over there, please?” He pointed to one side of the room. “And Sadi, you over there.” He pointed to the other side. “This will only take a few minutes,” he told them all. “I”m going to whisper a question to each of you, and I want you to answer yes or no.”
“Aren’t you being just a bit exotic?” Betgarath asked sourly.
“I don’t want to contaminate the experiment by giving all of you the chance to talk it over.”
“It’s a sound scientific principle,” Beldin approved. “Let’s humor him. He’s stirred up my curiosity.”
Garion went from person to person, whispering a single question: “Can you hearthat murmuring sound?” Depending on the answer, he asked each of them to join either Sadi or Durnik. It did not take long, and the result confirmed Garion’s suspicions. Standing with Durnik were Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin, and— somewhat surprisingly—Eriond. Standing with Sadi were Silk, Velvet, Ce’Nedra, and Zakath.