They finished their meal and sat, talking quietly to avoid disturbing Belgarath and Beldin who still sat poring over the Mallorean Gospels.
“How is Zandramas going to find out where we’re all going?” Garion asked the Seeress. “Since she’s a Grolim, she can’t come here.”
“That I may not tell thee, Child of Light. She will, however, arrive at the appointed place at the proper time.”
“With my son?”
“As it hath been foretold.”
“I’m looking forward to that meeting.” He said it bleakly. ‘ “There are a great many things Zandramas and I have to settle.”
“Let not thy hatred blind thee to thy tasks,” she told him quite seriously.
“And what is my task, Cyradis?”
“That thou wilt know when it doth face thee.”
“But not before?”
“Nay. Thy performance of that task would be marred shouldst thou consider it overlong.”
“And what is my task, Holy Seeress?” Zakath asked her. “You said you would instruct me here at Kell.”
“I must reveal that to thee in private, Emperor of Mallorea. Know, however, that thy task will begin when thy companions have completed theirs, and it will consume the balance of thy life.”
“As long as we’re talking about tasks,” Sadi said, “perhaps you could explain mine to me.”
“You have already begun it, Sadi.”
“Am I doing it very well?”
She smiled. “Passing well, yes.”
‘ ‘I might do a little better if I knew what it is.”
“Nay, Sadi. Even as Belgarion’s, thy task would be marred shouldst thou know of it.”
“Is this place we’re going to very far?” Durnik asked her.
“Many leagues, and there is yet much to be done.”
“I’ll need to talk with Dalian about supplies, then. And I mink I’ll want to check the horses’ hooves before we start. This might be a good time to get them shod again.”
“That’s impossible!” Belgarath suddenly burst out.
“What is it, father?” Aunt Pol asked him.
“It’s Korim! The meeting is supposed to take place at Korim!”
“Where’s that?” Sadi asked in puzzlement.
“It’s no place,” Beldin growled. “It’s not there anymore. It was a mountain range that sank into the sea when Torak cracked the world. The Book of Atom mentions it as The High Places of Korim, which are no more.’ ”
“There’s a certain perverted logic to it,” Silk observed. “That’s what these assorted prophecies have meant all along when they talked about a Place Which Is No More.”
Beldin tugged thoughtfully at one ear. “There’s something else, too,” he noted. “You remember the story Senji told us back at Melcene? About the scholar who stole the Sardion? His ship was last seen founding the southern tip of Gandahar, and it never came back. Senji said he thought that it had gone down in a storm off the Dalasian coast. It’s beginning to sound as if he was right. We have to go where the Sardion is, and I’ve got the uncomfortable feeling that it’s resting on top of a mountain that sank into the sea over five thousand years ago.”
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CHAPTER EIGHT
The Queen of Riva was in a pensive mood as they set out from the glowing marble city of Kell. A peculiar kind of languor seemed to come over her as they rode through the forest to the west of Kell, a languor that grew more pronounced with each passing mile. She took no part in the general conversation, but was content merely to listen.
“I don’t see how you can be so calm about this, Cyradis,” Belgarath was saying to the blindfolded Seeress as they rode along. ‘ ‘Your task will fail the same as ours will if the Sardion is lying at the bottom of the sea. And why are we making this side trip to Perivor?”
“It is there that the instruction thou received from the Holy Book will be made clear to thee, Ancient Belgarath.”
“Couldn’t you just explain it to me yourself? We’re a little pressed for time, you know.”
“That I may not do. I may not give thee any aid that I do not
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also give to Zandramas. It is thy task—and hers—to unravel this riddle. To aid one of thee and not the other is forbidden.”
“Somehow I thought you might look at it that way,” he said glumly.
“Where’s Perivor?” Garion asked Zakath.
‘ ‘It’s an island off the south coast of Dalasia,’ * the Mallorean replied. “The inhabitants there are very strange. Their legends say that they’re descendants of some people from the west who were aboard a ship that was blown off course and wrecked on the island about two thousand years ago. The island’s of little value, and the people there are fearsome fighters. The general opinion in Mal Zeth has always been that the place wouldn’t be worth the trouble it would take to subdue it, and Urvon didn’t even bother to send Grolims there.”
“If they’re so savage, won’t it be sort of dangerous for us to go there?”
“No. Actually they’re civil and even hospitable—as long as you don’t try to land an army there. That’s when things start to take a turn for the worse.”
“Have we really got the time to go to this place?” Silk asked the Seeress of Kell.
“Ample time, Prince Kheldar,” she replied. “The stars have told us for eons that the Place Which Is No More awaits the coming of thee and thy companions, and that thou and thy companions will come there upon the day appointed for die meeting.”
“And so will Zandramas, I suppose?”
She smiled a gentle little smile. “How can there be a meeting if the Child of Dark be not also present?” she asked him.
“I think I detected a faint glimmer of humor there, Cyradis,” he bantered. “Isn’t that a bit out of character for one of the seers?”
“How little you know us, Prince Kheldar.” She smiled again. “Ofttimes we have been convulsed with laughter at some message writ large in the stars and at the absurd lengths to which others go to ignore or avoid that which is preordained. Submit to the instruction of the heavens, Kheldar. Spare thyself the agony and turmoil of trying to evade thy fate.”
“You throw the word ‘fate’ around awfully lightly, Cyradis,” he said disapprovingly.
“Hast thou not come here in response to a fate laid down for thee at the beginning of days? All thy concern with commerce
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and espionage have been but a diversion to occupy thee until the appointed day.”
“That’s a polite way to tell someone he’s been behaving like a child.”
“We are all children, Kheldar.”
Beldin came soaring through the sun-dappled forest, avoiding tree trunks with deft shifts of his wings. He settled to earth and changed form.
“Trouble?” Belgarath asked him.
“Not as much as I’d expected.” The dwarf shrugged. “And that worries me a bit.”
“Isn’t that a tittle inconsistent?”
“Consistency is the defense of a small mind. Zandramas couldn’t go to Kell, right?”
“As far as we know.”
“Then she has to follow us to the meeting place, right?”
“Unless she’s found some other way to find out where it is.”
“That’s what worries me. If she had to follow us, wouldn’t it be logical for her to have ringed this forest with troops and Grolims to find out which way we were going?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Well, there’s no army out there—only a few patrols, and they’re just going through the motions.”
Belgarath frowned. “What’s she up to?”
“My point exactly. I’d guess that she’s got a surprise in store for us somewhere.”
“Keep your eyes open, then. I don’t want her slipping up behind me.”
“It might simplify things if she did.”
“I doubt it. Nothing about this entire affair has been simple, and I don’t expect things to change at this stage.”
“I’ll go scout ahead.” The dwarf blurred and soared away.
They made their encampment that evening beside a spring that gushed out of an outcropping of moss-covered rock. Belgarath seemed moody and out of sorts, so the rest of them avoided him as they worked at tasks they had repeated so many times that they had become habitual.
“You’re very quiet this evening,” Garion said to Ce’Nedra as they sat by the fire after supper. “What’s the matter?”
‘ ‘I just don’t feel like talking.” The peculiar lethargy that had come over the little queen had not diminished as the day wore on, and she had actually found herself dozing in her saddle several times during the late afternoon.
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“You look tired,” he observed.
“I am, a bit. We’ve been traveling for a long time now. I think it might be starting to catch up with me.”
“Why don’t you go to bed then? You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
She yawned and held out her arms to him. “Carry me,” she said.
He looked startled. Ce’Nedra enjoyed startling her husband. His face always looked so wide-eyed and boyish. “Aren’t you feeling well?” he asked.