“Of course, Lady.” Kresca, it appeared, had not spent enough time ashore to recognize a wolf when he saw one.
“Inching” proved to be a very tedious process. The sailors raised the anchors and then manned the oars. After every couple of strokes, they paused while a man in the bow heaved out the lead-weighted sounding line.
“It’s slow,” Silk observed in a low voice as they all stood on deck, “but at least it’s quiet. We don’t know who’s on that reef, and I’d rather not alert them.”
*’It’s shoaling, Captain,” the man with the sounding line reported, his voice no louder than absolutely necessary. The obviously warlike preparations of Garion and his friends had stressed the need for quiet louder than any words. The sailor cast out his line again. There was that interminable-seeming wait while the ship drifted up over the weighted line. “The bottom’s coming up fast, Captain,” the sounder said then. “I make it two fathoms.”
“Back your oars,” Kresca commanded his crew in a low
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voice. “Drop the hook. This is as close as we can go.” He turned to his mate. “After we get away in the longboat, back out about another hundred yards and anchor there. We’ll whistle when we come back—the usual signal. Guide us in.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
“You’ve done this before, I see,” Silk said to Kresca.
“A few times, yes,” Kresca admitted.
“If ali goes well today, you and I might want to have a little talk. I have a business proposition that I think might interest you.”
“Is that all you ever think about?” Velvet asked him.
‘ ‘A missed opportunity is gone forever, my dear Liselle,” he replied with a certain pomposity.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I suppose you could say that, yes.”
An oil-soaked wad of burlap in the hawsehole muffled the rattling of the anchor chain as the heavy iron hook sank down through the dark water. Garion felt rather than heard the grating of the points of the anchor on the rocks lying beneath the heavy swells.
“Let’s board the longboat,” Kresca said. “The crew will lower her after we’re all on board.” He looked apologetically at them. “I’m afraid you and your friends are going to have to help with the rowing, Garion. The longboat only holds so many people.”
“Of course, Captain.”
“I’ll come along to make sure you get ashore safely.”
“Captain,” Belgarath said then, “once we’re ashore, stand your ship out to sea a ways. We’ll signal you when we’re ready to be picked up.”
“All right.”
“If you don’t see a signal by tomorrow morning, you might as well go on back to Perivor, because we won’t be coming back.”
Kresca’s face was solemn. “Is whatever it is you’re planning to do on that reef really that dangerous?” he asked.
“Probably even more so,” Silk told him. “We’ve all been trying very hard not to think about it.”
It was eerie rowing across the oily-seeming black water with the grayish tendrils of fog rising from the heavy swells. Garion was suddenly reminded of that foggy night in Sthiss Tor when they had crossed the River of the Serpent with only the unerring sense of direction of the one-eyed assassin Issus to guide them.
Idly, as he rowed, Garion wondered whatever had happened to Issus.
After every ten stokes or so, Captain Kresca, who stood in the stern at the tiller, signaled for them to stop, and he cocked his head, listening to the sound of the surf. “Another couple hundred yards now,” he said in a low voice. “You there,” he said to the sailor in the bow who held another sounding line, “keep busy with that lead. I don’t want to hit any rocks. Sing out if it starts shoaling.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
The longboat crept on through dark and fog toward the unseen beach where the long wash and slither of the waves on graveled shingle made that peculiar grating sound as each wave lifted pebbles from the beach to carry them up to the very verge of land and then, with melancholy and regretful note, to draw them back again as if the ever-hungry sea mourned its inability to engulf the land and rum all the world into one endless ocean where huge waves, unimpeded, could roll thrice around the globe.
The heavy fog bank lying to the east began to turn lighter and lighter as dawn broke over the dark, mist-obscured waves.
“Another hundred yards,” Kresca said tensely.
“When we get there, Captain,” Belgarath said to him, “keep your men in the boat. They won’t be permitted to land anyway, and they’d better not try. We’ll push you back out as soon as we get ashore.”
Kresca swallowed hard and nodded.
Garion could hear the surf more clearly now and catch the seaweed-rank smell of the meeting of sea and land. Then, just before he was able to make out the dark line of the beach through the obscuring fog, the heavy, dangerous swells flattened, and the sea around the longboat became as flat and slick as a pane of glass.
“That was accommodating of them,” Silk observed.
“Shh,” Velvet told him, laying one finger to her lips. “I’m trying to listen.”
The bow of the longboat grated on the gravel strand, and Durnik stepped out of the boat and drew it farther up onto the pebbles. Garion and his friends also stepped out into the ankle-deep water and waded ashore. “We’ll see you tomorrow mom-Big, Captain,” Garion said quietly as Toth prepared to push the boat back out. “I hope,” he added.
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“Good luck, Garion,” Kresca said. “After we’re all back on board, you’ll have to tell me what this was all about.”
“I may want to forget about it by then,” Garion said ruefully.
“Not if you win,” Kresca’s voice came back out of the fog.
“I like that man,” Silk said. “He’s got a nice optimistic attitude.”
“Let’s get off this open beach,” Belgarath said. “In spite of what Garion’s friend told him, I sense a certain tenuousness about this fog. I’ll feel a lot better if weVe got some rocks to hide behind.”
Durnik and Toth picked up the two canvas bags containing the armor, and Garion and Zakath drew their swords and led the way up from the gravel strand. The mountain they approached seemed composed of speckled granite, fractured into unnatural blocks. Garion had seen enough granite injhe mountains here and there around the world to know that the stone usually crumbled and weathered into rounded shapes. “Strange,” Durnik murmured, kicking with one still-wet boot at the perfectly squared-off edge of one of the blocks. He lowered the canvas bag and drew his knife. He dug for a moment at the rock with his knife point. “It’s not granite,” he said quietly. “It looks like granite, but it’s much too hard. It’s something else.”
“We can identify it later,” Beldin told him. “Let’s find some cover just in case Belgarath*s suspicion turns out to be accurate. As soon as we get settled, I’ 11 drift around the peak a few times.”
“You won’t be able to see anything,” Silk predicted.
“I’ll be able to hear, though.”
“Over mere,” Durnik said, pointing with his sledge. “It looks as if one of these blocks got dislodged and rolled down to the beach. There’s a fairly large niche there.”
“Good enough for now,” Belgarath said. “Beldin, when you make the change, do it very slowly. I’m sure Zandramas landed at almost the exact same time we did, and she’ll hear you.”
“I know how it’s done, Belgarath.”
The niche in the side of the strange, stair-stepped peak was more than large enough to conceal them, and they moved down into it cautiously.
“Neat,” Silk said. “Why don’t you all wait here and catch your bream? Beldin can turn into a seagull and go have a look around the island. I’ll go on ahead and pick out a trail for us.”
“Be careful,” Belgarath told him.
“Someday you’re going to forget to say that, Belgarath, and
it’ll probably wither every tree on earth.” The little man climbed back up out of the niche and disappeared into the fog.
“You do say that to him a lot, you know,” Beldin said to Belgarath.
“Silk’s an enthusiast. He needs frequent reminding. Did you plan to leave sometime during the next hour?”
Beldin spat out a very unflattering epithet, shimmered very slowly, and sailed away.
“Your temper hasn’t improved much, Old Wolf,” Poledra said to him.
“Did you think it might have?”
“Not really,” she replied, “but there’s always room for hope.”
Despite Belgarath’s premonition, the fog hung on. After about a half hour, Beldin returned. “Somebody’s landed on the west beach,” he reported. “I couldn’t see them, but I could certainly hear them. Angaraks seem to have some trouble keeping their voices down—sorry, Zakath, but it’s the truth.”