“Don’t be too hard on the boy, Polgara,” King Anheg said. “He’s done us a service that we may never be able to repay.”
Garion bowed again and retreated from Aunt Pol’s steady gaze.
“Cousin,” Anheg said then to Barak, “it seems that we have an unwelcome visitor somewhere in the palace. I think I’d like to have a little talk with this lurker in the green cloak.”
“I’ll take a few men,” Barak said grimly. “We’ll turn your palace upside down and shake it and see what falls out.”
“I’d like to have him more or less intact,” Anheg cautioned.
“Of course,” Barak said.
“Not too intact, however. As long as he’s still able to talk, he’ll serve our purposes.”
Barak grinned. “I’ll make sure that he’s talkative when I bring him to you, cousin,” he said.
A bleak answering grin touched Anheg’s face, and Barak started toward the door.
Then Anheg turned to Barak’s wife. “I’d like to thank you also, Lady Merel,” he said. “I’m sure you had a significant part in bringing this to us.”
“I don’t need thanks, your Majesty,” she said. “It was my duty.”
Anheg sighed. “Must it always be duty, Merel?” he asked sadly.
“What else is there?” she asked.
“A very great deal, actually,” the king said, “but you’re going to have to find that out for yourself.”
“Garion,” Aunt Pol said, “come here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Garion said and went to her a little nervously.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She put her fingertips lightly to his forehead.
“Well?” Mister Wolf asked.
“It’s there,” she said. “It’s very light, or I’d have noticed it before. I’m sorry, Father.”
“Let’s see,” Wolf said. He came over and also touched Garion’s heart with his hand. “It’s not serious,” he said.
“It could have been,” Aunt Pol said. “And it was my responsibility to see that something like this didn’t happen.”
“Don’t flog yourself about it, Pol,” Wolf said. “That’s very unbecoming. Just get rid of it.”
“What’s the matter?” Garion asked, alarmed.
“It’s nothing to worry about, dear,” Aunt Pol said. She took his right hand and touched it for a moment to the white lock at her brow. Garion felt a surge, a welter of confused impressions, and then a tingling wrench behind his ears. A sudden dizziness swept over him, and he would have fallen if Aunt Pol had not caught him.
“Who is the Murgo?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“His name is Asharak,” Garion said promptly.
“How long have you known him?”
“All my life. He used to come to Faldor’s farm and watch me when I was little.”
“That’s enough for now, Pol,” Mister Wolf said. “Let him rest a little first. I’ll fix something to keep it from happening again.”
“Is the boy ill?” King Cho-Hag asked.
“It’s not exactly an illness, Cho-Hag,” Mister Wolf said. “It’s a little hard to explain. It’s cleared up now, though.”
“I want you to go to your room, Garion,” Aunt Pol said, still holding him by the shoulders. “Are you steady enough on your feet to get there by yourself?”
“I’m all right,” he said, still feeling a little light-headed.
“No side trips and no more exploring,” she said firmly.
“No, ma’am.”
“When you get there, lie down. I want you to think back and remember every single time you’ve seen this Murgo – what he did, what he said.”
“He never spoke to me,” Garion said. “He just watched.”
“I’ll be along in a little while,” she went on, “and I’ll want you to tell me everything you know about him. It’s important, Garion, so concentrate as hard as you can.”
“All right, Aunt Pol,” he said.
Then she kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Run along now, dear,” she said.
Feeling strangely light-headed, Garion went to the door and out into the corridor.
He passed through the great hall where Anheg’s warriors were belting on swords and picking up vicious-looking battle-axes in preparation for the search of the palace. Still bemused, he went through without stopping.
Part of his mind seemed half asleep, but that secret, inner part was wide awake. The dry voice observed that something significant had just happened. The powerful compulsion not to speak about Asharak was obviously gone. Aunt Pol had somehow pulled it out of his mind entirely. His feeling about that was oddly ambiguous. That strange relationship between himself and dark-robed, silent Asharak had always been intensely private, and now it was gone. He felt vaguely empty and somehow violated. He sighed and went up the broad stairway toward his room.
There were a half dozen warriors in the hallway outside his room, probably part of Barak’s search for the man in the green cloak. Garion stopped. Something was wrong, and he shook off his half daze. This pan of the palace was much too populated to make it very likely that the spy would be hiding here. His heart began racing, and step by step he began to back away toward the top of the stairs he had just climbed. The warriors looked like any other Chereks in the palace-bearded, dressed in helmets, mail shirts, and furs, but something didn’t seem exactly right.
A bulky man in a dark, hooded cloak stepped through the doorway of Garion’s room into the corridor. It was Asharak. The Murgo was about to say something, but then his eyes fell on Garion. “Ah,” he said softly. His dark eyes gleamed in his scarred face. “I’ve been looking for you, Garion,” he said in that same soft voice. “Come here, boy.”
Garion felt a tentative tug at his mind that seemed to slip away as if it somehow could not get a sure grip. He shook his head mutely and continued to back away.
“Come along now,” Asharak said. “We’ve known each other far too long for this. Do as I say. You know that you must.”
The tug became a powerful grasp that again slipped away. “Come here, Garion!” Asharak commanded harshly. Garion kept backing away, step by step.
“No,” he said. Asharak’s eyes blazed, and he drew himself up angrily.
This time it was not a tug or a grasp, but a blow. Garion could feel the force of it even as it seemed somehow to miss or be deflected. Asharak’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “Who did this?” he demanded. “Polgara? Belgarath? It won’t do any good, Garion. I had you once, and I can take you again any time I want to. You’re not strong enough to refuse me.”
Garion looked at his enemy and answered out of some need for defiance. “Maybe I’m not,” he said, “but I think you’ll have to catch me first.”
Asharak turned quickly to his warriors. “That’s the boy I want,” he barked sharply. “Take him!”
Smoothly, almost as if it were done without thought, one of the warriors raised his bow and leveled an arrow directly at Garion. Asharak swung his arm quickly and knocked the bow aside just as the steelpointed shaft was loosed. The arrow sang in the air and clattered against the stones of the wall a few feet to Garion’s left.
“Alive, idiot,” Asharak snarled and struck the bowman a crushing blow to the side of the head. The bowman fell twitching to the stone floor.
Garion spun, dashed back to the stairs and plunged down three steps at a time. He didn’t bother to look back. The sound of heavy feet told him that Asharak and his men were after him. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned sharply to the left and fled down a long, dark passageway that led back into the maze of Anheg’s palace.
Chapter Eighteen
THERE WERE WARRIORS everywhere, and the sounds of fighting. In the first instant of his flight, Garion’s plan had been simple. All he had to do was to find some of Barak’s warriors, and he would be safe. But there were other warriors in the palace as well. The Earl of Jarvik had led a small army into the palace by way of the ruined wings to the south, and fighting raged in the corridors.
Garion quickly realized that there was no way he could distinguish friend from enemy. To him, one Cherek warrior looked the same as another. Unless he could find Barak or someone else he recognized, he did not dare reveal himself to any of them. The frustrating knowledge that he was running from friends as well as enemies added to his fright. It was altogether possible – even quite likely – that he would run from Barak’s men directly into the arms of Jarvik’s.
The most logical thing to do would be to go directly back to the council hall, but in his haste to escape from Asharak, he had run down so many dim passageways and turned so many corners that he had no idea where he was or how to get back to the familiar parts of the palace. His headlong flight was dangerous. Asharak or his men could wait around any corner to seize him, and he knew that the Murgo could quickly re-establish that strange bond between them that Aunt Pol had shattered with her touch. It was that which had to be avoided at any cost. Once Asharak had him again, he would never let go. The only alternative to him was to find some place to hide.