The Hierarch gurgled and tried to take hold of the arm, but his fingers found nothing to grasp.
“Do you understand me?” Garion repeated and suddenly clenched his fist.
The Hierarch screamed.
“Are you going to leave us alone?”
“Please, Belgarion! No more! I’m dying!”
“Are you going to leave us alone?” Garion demanded again.
“Yes, yes – anything, but please stop! I beg you! I’ll do anything. Please!”
Garion unclenched his fist and drew his hand out of the Hierarch’s heaving chest. He held it up, clawlike, directly in front of the old man’s face. “Look at this and remember it,” he said in a dreadfully quiet voice. “Next time I’ll reach into your chest and pull your heart out.”
The Hierarch shrank back, his eyes filled with horror as he stared at the awful hand. “I promise you,” he stammered. “I promise.”
“Your life depends on it,” Garion told him, then turned and flashed back across the empty miles toward his friends. Quite suddenly he was standing at the mouth of the ravine staring down at his shadow slowly reforming on the ground before him. The purple haze was gone; strangely enough, he didn’t even feel tired.
Durnik drew in a shuddering breath and struggled to rise.
Garion turned quickly and ran back to his friend. “Are you all right?” he asked, taking hold of the smith’s arm.
“It was like a knife twisting inside me,” Durnik replied in a shaking voice. “What was it?”
“The Grolim Hierarchs were trying to kill you,” Garion told him. Durnik looked around, his eyes frightened.
“Don’t worry, Durnik. They won’t do it again.”‘ Garion helped him to his feet and together they went back into the ravine.
Aunt Pol was looking directly at him as he approached her. Her eyes were penetrating. “You’re growing up very fast,” she said to him.
“I had to do something,” he replied. “What happened to your shield?”
“It doesn’t seem to be necessary any more.”
“Not bad,” Belgarath said. The old man was sitting up. He looked weak and drawn, but his eyes were alert. “Some of it was a bit exotic; but on the whole, it wasn’t bad at all. The business with the hand was just a little overdone, though.”
“I wanted to be sure he understood that I meant what I was saying.” Garion felt a tremendous wave of relief at his grandfather’s return to consciousness.
“I think you convinced him,” Belgarath said dryly. “Is there anything to eat somewhere nearby?” he asked Aunt Pol.
“Are you all right now, Grandfather?” Garion asked him.
“Aside from being as weak as a fresh-hatched baby chick and as hungry as a she-wolf with nine puppies, I’m just fine,” Belgarath replied. “I could really use something to eat, Polgara.”
“I’ll see what I can find, father,” she told him, turning to the packs.
“I don’t know that you need to bother cooking it,” he added.
The little boy had been looking curiously at Garion, his wide, blue eyes serious and slightly puzzled. Quite suddenly he laughed; smiling, he looked into Garion’s face. “Belgarion,” he said.
Chapter Four
“NO REGRETS?” SILK asked Garion that evening as they rode toward the sharply rising peaks outlined against the glittering stars ahead.
“Regrets about what?”
“Giving up command.” Silk had been watching him curiously ever since the setting sun had signalled the resumption of their journey.
“No,” Garion replied, not quite sure what the little man meant. “Why should there be?”
“It’s a very important thing for a man to learn about himself, Garion,” Silk told him seriously. “Power can be very sweet for some men, and you never know how a man’s going to handle it until you give him the chance to try.”
“I don’t know why you went to all the trouble. It’s not too likely that I’m going to be put in charge of things very often.”
“You never know, Garion. You never know.”
They rode on across the barren black sands of the wasteland toward the mountains looming ahead. The quarter moon rose behind them, and its light was cold and white. Near the edge of the wasteland there were a few scrubby thornbushes huddling low to the sand and silvered with frost. It was an hour or so before midnight when they finally reached rocky ground, and the hooves of their horses clattered sharply as they climbed up out of the sandy waste. When they topped the first ridge, they stopped to look back. The dark expanse of the wasteland behind them was dotted with the watch fires of the Murgos, and far back along their trail they saw moving torches.
“I was starting to worry about that,” Silk said to Belgarath, “but it looks as if they found our trail after all.”
“Let’s hope they don’t lose it again,” the old man replied. “Not too likely, really. I made it pretty obvious.”
“Murgos can be a bit undependable sometimes.” Belgarath seemed to have recovered almost completely, but Garion noted a weary slump to his shoulders and was glad that they did not plan to ride all night.
The mountains into which they rode were as arid and rocky as the ones lying to the north had been. There were looming cliffs and patches of alkali on the ground and a bitingly cold wind that seemed to wail endlessly through the rocks and to tug at the coarse-woven Murgo robes that disguised them. They pushed on until they were well into the mountains; then, several hours before dawn, they stopped to rest and to wait for the sun to rise.
When the first faint light appeared on the eastern horizon, Silk rode out and located a rocky gap passing to the northwest between two ocherous cliff faces. As soon as he returned, they saddled their horses again and moved out at a trot.
“We can get rid of these now, I think,” Belgarath said, pulling off his Murgo robe.
“I’ll take them,” Silk suggested as he reined in. “The gap’s just ahead there.” He pointed. “I’ll catch up in a couple of hours.”
“Where are you going?” Barak asked him.
“I’ll leave a few miles more of false trail,” Silk replied. “Then I’ll double back and make sure that you haven’t left any tracks. It won’t take long.”
“You want some company?” the big man offered.
Silk shook his head. “I can move faster alone.”
“Be careful.”
Silk grinned. “I’m always careful.” He took the Murgo garments from them and rode off to the west.
The gap into which they rode appeared to be the bed of a stream that had dried up thousands of years before. The water had cut down through the rock, revealing layer upon layer of red, brown, and yellow stone lying in bands, one atop the other. The sound of their horses’ hooves was very loud as they clattered along between the cliffs, and the wind whistled as it poured through the cut.
Taiba drew her horse in beside Garion’s. She was shivering and she had the cloak he had given her pulled tightly ahout her shoulders. “Is it always this cold?” she asked, her large, violet eyes very wide.
“In the wintertime,” he replied. “I imagine it’s pretty hot here in the summer.”
“The slave pens were always the same,” she told him. “We never knew what season it was.”
The twisting streambed made a sharp bend to the right, and they rode into the light of the newly risen sun. Taiba gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Garion asked her quickly.
“The light,” she cried, covering her face with her hands. “It’s like fire in my eyes.”
Relg, who rode directly in front of them, was also shielding his eyes. He looked back over his shoulder at the Marag woman. “Here,” he said. He took one of the veils he usually bound across his eyes when they were in direct sunlight and handed it back to her. “Cover your face with this until we’re back into the shadows again.” His voice was peculiarly neutral.
“Thank you,” Taiba said, binding the cloth across her eyes. “I didn’t know that the sun could be so bright.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Relg told her. “It just takes some time. Try to protect your eyes for the first few days.” He seemed about to turn and ride on, then he looked at her curiously. “Haven’t you ever seen the sun before?” he asked her.
“No,” she replied. “Other slaves told me about it, though. The Murgos don’t use women on their work gangs, so I was never taken out of the pens. It was always dark down there.”
“It must have been terrible.” Garion shuddered.
She shrugged. “The dark wasn’t so bad. It was the light we were afraid of. Light meant that the Murgos were coming with torches to take someone to the Temple to be sacrificed.”
The trail they followed turned again, and they rode out of the bright glare of sunlight. “Thank you,” Taiba said to Relg, removing the veil from her eyes and holding it out to him.