“Of course it’s lovely. That’s how it hunts.”
“Hunts?” Silk said in a startled voice. “Polgara, it’s only a tree. Trees don’t hunt.”
“This one does. One taste of its fruit is instant death, and the touch of its blossoms paralyzes every muscle in the body. Look there.” She pointed at something in the high grass beneath the tree. Garion peered into the grass and saw the skeleton of a large-sized animal. A half-dozen of the crimson tendrils hanging from one of the flower-decked branches had poked their way down into the animal’s rib cage and interwoven themselves into the mossy bones.
“Do not look at the tree,” Polgara told them all in a deadly tone. “Do not think about the fruit, and try not to inhale the fragrance of its flowers too deeply. The tree is trying to lure you to within range of its tendrils. Ride on and don’t look back.” She reined in her horse.
“Aren’t you coming, too?” Durnik asked with a worried look.
“I’ll catch up,” she replied. “I have to attend to this monstrosity first.”
“Do as she says,” Belgarath told them. “Let’s go.”
As they rode on past that beautiful, deadly tree, Garion felt a wrench of bitter disappointment; as they moved farther down the road away from it, he seemed to hear a silent snarl of frustration. Startled, he glanced back once and was amazed to see the crimson tendrils hanging from the branches writhing and lashing at the air in a kind of vegetative fury. Then he turned back quickly as Ce’Nedra made a violent retching sound.
“What’s the matter?” he cried.
“The tree!” she gasped. “It’s horrible! It feeds on the agony of its victims as much as upon their flesh!”
As they rounded another bend in the road, Garion felt a violent surge, and there was a huge concussion behind them, followed by the sizzling crackle of a fire surging up through living wood. In his mind he heard an awful scream filled with pain, anger, and a malevolent hatred. A pall of greasy black smoke drifted low to the ground, bringing with it a dreadful stench.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later when Polgara rejoined them. “It will not feed again,” she said with a note of satisfaction in her voice. She smiled almost wryly. “That’s one of the few things Salmissra and I have ever agreed upon,” she added. “There’s no place in the world for that particular tree.”
They rode on down into Nyissa, following the weed-choked track of the long-abandoned highway. About noon of the following day, Eriond’s chestnut stallion grew restive, and the blond young man pulled up beside Garion, who still rode in the lead with his sword on the pommel of his saddle. “He wants to run.” Eriond laughed gently. “He always wants to run.”
Garion looked over at him. “Eriond,” he said, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Yes, Belgarion?”
“When I was riding your horse to the beach back up there in the Wood of the Dryads, he did something that was sort of odd.”
“Odd? How do you mean?”
“It should have taken nearly two days to reach the sea, but he did it in about a half an hour.”
“Oh,” Eriond said, “that.”
“Can you explain how he does it?”
“It’s something he does sometimes when he knows that I’m in a hurry to get someplace. He kind of goes to another place, and when he comes back, you’re much farther along than you were when he started.”
“Where is this other place?”
“Right here—all around us—but at the same time, it’s not. Does that make any sense?”
“No. Not really.”
Eriond frowned in concentration. “You told me one time that you could change yourself into a wolf—the same way Belgarath does.”
“Yes.”
“And you said that when you do that, your sword is still with you, but at the same time it’s not.”
“That’s what Grandfather told me.”
“I think that’s where this other place is—the same place where your sword goes. Distance doesn’t seem to mean the same thing there as it does here. Does that explain it at all?”
Garion laughed. “It doesn’t even come close, Eriond, but I’ll take your word for it.”
About midafternoon the next day, they reached the marshy banks of the River of the Serpent where the highway turned toward the east, following the winding course of that sluggish stream. The sky had cleared, though the pale sunlight had little warmth to it.
“Maybe I’d better scout on ahead,” Silk said. “The road looks a bit more well traveled along this stretch, and we didn’t exactly make a lot of friends the last time we were here.” He spurred his horse into a brisk canter; in a few minutes he was out of sight around a bend in the weed-choked road.
“We won’t have to go through Sthiss Tor, will we?” Ce’Nedra asked.
“No,” Belgarath replied. “It’s on the other side of the river.” He looked at the screen of trees and brush lying between the ancient highway and the mossy riverbank. “We should be able to slip past it without too much trouble.”
An hour or so later, they rounded a bend in the road and caught a glimpse of the strange, alien-looking towers of the capital of the snake-people rising into the air on the far side of the river. There seemed to be no coherent pattern to Nyissan architecture. Some of the towers rose in slender spires, and others were bulky, with bulblike tops. Some even twisted in spirals toward the sky. They were, moreover, painted every possible hue—green, red, yellow, and even some in a garish purple. Silk was waiting for them a few hundred yards farther along the road. “There won’t be any trouble getting past here without being seen from the other side,” he reported, “but there’s someone on up ahead who wants to talk to us.”
“Who?” Belgarath asked sharply.
“He didn’t say, but he seemed to know we were coming.”
“I don’t like that very much. Did he say what he wants?”
“Only that he’s got a message of some kind for us.”
“Let’s go find out about this.” The old man looked at Garion. “You’d better cover the Orb,” he suggested. “Let’s keep it out of sight—just to be on the safe side.”
Garion nodded, took out a soft, tight-fitting leather sleeve arid pulled it down over the hilt of Iron-grip’s sword.
The shaven-headed Nyissan who awaited them was dressed in shabby, stained clothing and he had a long scar running from forehead to chin across an empty eye socket. “We thought you’d get here earlier,” he said laconically as they all reined in. “What kept you?”
Garion looked at the one-eyed man closely. “Don’t I know you?” he asked. “Isn’t your name Issus?”
Issus grunted. “I’m surprised you remember. Your head wasn’t too clear the last time we met.”
“It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d be likely to forget.”
“Somebody in the city wants to see you,” Issus said.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Belgarath told him, “but we’re pressed for time. I don’t think there’s anybody in Sthiss Tor that we need to talk with.”
Issus shrugged. “That’s up to you. I was paid to meet you and give you the message.” He turned and started back through the slanting, late-afternoon sunlight toward the rank growth along the river bank. Then he stopped. “Oh. I almost forgot. The man who sent me said to tell you that he has some information about somebody named Zandramas, if that means anything to you.”
“Zandramas?” Ce’Nedra said sharply.
“Whoever that is,” Issus replied. “If you’re interested, I’ve got a boat. I can take some of you across to the city if you want.”
“Give us a minute or two to talk it over,” Belgarath said to him.
“Take as long as you want. We can’t cross until after dark anyway. I’ll wait in the boat while you decide.” He went on down through the bushes toward the river bank.
“Who is he?” Silk asked Garion.
“His name is Issus. He’s for hire. Last time I saw him, he was working for Sadi—the Chief Eunuch in Salmissra’s palace—but I get the feeling that he’ll work for anybody as long as he gets paid.” He turned to Belgarath. “What do you think, Grandfather?”
The old man tugged at one ear lobe. “It could be some kind of ruse,” he said, “but somebody over there knows enough about what we’re doing to realize that we’re interested in Zandramas. I think I’d like to find out who this well-informed citizen is.”
“You won’t get anything out of Issus,” Silk told him. “I’ve already tried.”
Belgarath pondered a moment. “Go see how big this boat of his is.”
Silk went over to the edge of the road and peered down through the bushes. “We can’t all go,” he reported. “Maybe four of us.”
Belgarath scratched his chin. “You, me, Pol, and Gar-ion,” he decided. He turned to Durnik. “Take the others— and the horses—and go back into the jungle a ways. This might take us a while. Don’t build up any fires that can be seen from the city.”