The rest of them followed curiously and found a narrow, arched opening that had quite obviously been built by human hands. The long grass above and on each side of the arch had grown over it until it was barely visible. Gratefully, Gar-ion pushed his way through that grass-obscured opening into a calm, musty-smelling darkness.
“Did anyone think to bring any torches?” Sadi asked.
“They were with the food-packs, I’m afraid,” Durnik apologized. “Here, let’s see what I can do.” Garion felt a light surge and heard a faint rushing sound. A dimly glowing spot of light appeared, balanced on the palm of Durnik’s hand. Gradually that dim light grew until they could see the interior of the ancient ruin. Like so many structures that had been built in antiquity, this low-ceilinged cellar was vaulted. Stone arches supported the ceiling, and the walls were solidly buttressed. Garion had seen precisely the same construction in King Anheg’s eons-old palace in Val Alorn, in the ruins of Vo Wacune, in the lower floors of his own Citadel at Riva, and even in the echoing tomb of the one-eyed God in Cthol Mishrak.
Silk was looking speculatively at Eriond. “I’m sure you have an explanation,” he said. “How did you know that this place was here?”
“I lived here for a while with Zedar. It was while he was waiting until I’d grow old enough to steal the Orb.”
Silk looked slightly disappointed. “How prosaic,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Eriond said as he led the horses over to one side of the vaulted room. “Would you like to have me make up some kind of story for you instead?”
“Never mind, Eriond,” the little man told him. Urgit had been examining one of the buttresses. “No Murgo ever built this,” he declared. “The stones fit too closely.”
“It was built before the Murgos came to this part of the world,” Eriond said.
“By the slave race?” Urgit asked incredulously. “All they know how to make are mud huts.”
“That’s what they wanted you to think. They were building towers—and cities—when Murgos were still living in goatskin tents.”
“Could somebody please make a fire?” Ce’Nedra asked through chattering teeth. “I’m freezing.” Garion looked at her closely and saw that her lips had a bluish tinge to them. “The firewood’s over here,” Eriond said. He went behind one of the buttresses and emerged with an armload of white-bleached sticks. “Zedar and I used to carry driftwood up from the beach. There’s still quite a bit left.” He went to the fireplace in the back wall, dropped the wood, and bent over to peer up the chimney. “It seems to be clear,” he said. Durnik went to work immediately with his flint, steel, and tinder. In a few moments, a small curl of orange flame was licking up through the little peaked roof of splinters he had built on the bed of ash in the fireplace. They all crowded around that tiny flame, thrusting twigs and sticks at it in their eagerness to force it to grow more quickly.
“That won’t do,” Durnik said with uncharacteristic sternness. “You’ll only knock it apart and put it out.” They reluctantly backed away from the fireplace. Durnik carefully laid twigs and splinters on the growing flame, then small sticks, and finally larger ones. The flames grew higher and began to spread quickly through the bone-dry wood. The light from the fireplace began to fill the musty cellar, and Garion could feel a faint warmth on his face.
“All right, then,” Polgara said in a crisp, businesslike way, “what are we going to do about food?”
“The sailors have left the wreck,” Garion said, “and the tide’s gone out enough so that all but the very aft end of the ship is out of the water. I’ll take some packhorses and go back down there to see what I can find.”
Durnik’s fire had begun to crackle. He stood up and looked at Eriond. “Can you manage here?” he asked.
Eriond nodded and went behind the buttress for more wood.
The smith bent and picked up his cloak. “Toth and I can go with you, Garion,” he said, “just in case those sailors decide to come back. But we’re going to have to hurry. It’s going to start getting dark before too long.”
The gale still howled across the weather-rounded top of the headland, driving rain and sleet before it. Garion and his two friends picked their way carefully down the slope again toward the forlorn-looking ship, lying twisted and broken-backed on the boulder that had claimed her life.
“How long do you think this storm is going to last?” Gar-ion shouted to Durnik.
“It’s hard to say,” Durnik shouted back. “It could blow over tonight or it could keep it up for several days.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
They reached the wreck, dismounted, and entered the hold through the opening they had previously made in the bow. “I don’t think we’ll find too much down here,” Durnik said. “Our own food is all spoiled, and I don’t think the sailors stored anything perishable in the hold.”
Garion nodded. “Can we get Aunt Pol’s cooking things?” he asked. “She’ll want those, I think.”
Durnik peered aft at the bilge-soaked bags and bales lying in a tumbled heap in the shattered stern, with surf sloshing over them through the holes rent in the hull in that end of the ship. “I think so,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”
““ “As long as we’re here, we might as well pick up the rest of the things we had in those aft cabins,” Garion said. “I’ll go gather them up while you and Toth see what the sailors left behind in the galley.” He climbed carefully over the splintered timbers at the point where the keel had broken and went up a ladder to the hatch above. Then he slipped and slid down the deck to the aft companion way.
It took him perhaps a quarter of an hour to gather up the belongings they had left behind when they had fled the wreck. He wrapped them all in a sheet of sailcloth and went back up on deck. He carried his bundle forward and dropped it over the side onto the wet sand of the beach.
Durnik poked his head out of the forward companionway.
“There isn’t much, Garion,” he said. “The sailors picked it over pretty thoroughly.”
“We’ll have to make do with whatever we can find, I guess.” Garion squinted up through the rain. The sky was growing noticeably darker. “We’d better hurry,” he added. They reached the top of the headland in a gale-torn twilight and carefully led their horses along the edge of the bluff to the entrance of the cellar as the last tatters of daylight faded from the sky. The inside of the vaulted chamber was warm now and filled with the light of the fire dancing on the hearth. The others had strung lines from the arches during their absence, and their blankets and clothing hung dripping and steaming along the walls.
“Any luck?” Silk asked as Garion led his horse inside. “Not much,” Garion admitted. “The sailors cleaned out the galley pretty thoroughly.”
Durnik and Toth led in the other horses and lifted down a number of makeshift packs. “We found a bag of beans,” the smith reported, “and a crock full of honey. There was a sack of meal back in a corner and a couple of sides of bacon. The sailors left the bacon behind because it was moldy, but we ought to be able to cut most of the mold away.”
“That’s all?” Polgara asked.
“I’m afraid so, Pol,” Durnik replied. “We picked up a brazier and a couple of bags of charcoal—since there doesn’t seem to be any firewood in this part of the world.”
She frowned slightly, running over the inventory he had just given her.
“It’s not very much, Pol,” he apologized, “but it was the best we could do.”
“I can manage with it, dear,” she said, smiling at him. “I picked up the clothes we left in those aft cabins, too,” Garion said as he unsaddled his horse. “A few of them are even dry.”
“Good,” Polgara said. “Let’s all change into whatever dry clothing will fit, and I’ll see what I can do about something to eat.”
Silk had been looking suspiciously at the sack of meal. “Gruel?” he asked, looking unhappy.
“Beans would take much too long to cook,” she replied. “Porridge and honey—and a bit of bacon—will get us through the night.”
He sighed.
The following morning, the rain and sleet had let up, although the wind still tore at the long grass atop the headland. Garion, wrapped in his cloak, stood on the ledge outside the entrance to the cellar, looking out over the froth-tipped waves in the gulf and the surf pounding on the beach far below. Off to the southeast, the clouds seemed to be growing thinner, and patches of blue raced along through the dirty-looking murk covering the rest of the sky. Sometime during the night, the tide had once again washed over the wreck of their ship, and the aft end had broken away and been carried off. A number of huddled lumps bobbed limply at the edge of the surf, and Garion resolutely kept his eyes away from those mute remains of the Murgo sailors who had been washed overboard and drowned when the ship had crashed into the reef.