“I still don’t quite follow what you mean about Relg going into the rock to rescue Prince Kheldar.” King Fulrach frowned. “Do you mean that he can burrow through?”
“I don’t think you’d understand unless you saw it, Fulrach,” Belgarath told him. “Show him, Relg.”
The Ulgo zealot looked at the old man, then walked over to the stone wall beside the large window. Silk instantly turned his back, shuddering. “I still can’t stand to watch that,” he declared to Garion.
“Aunt Pol said I was supposed to ask you the way to the baths,” Garion said quietly. “She wants me to get cleaned up and shaved, and then I guess I’m supposed to put on my best clothes.”
“I’ll go with you,” Silk offered. “I’m sure that all these gentlemen are going to be fascinated by Relg’s demonstration, and they’ll want him to repeat it. What’s he doing?”
“He stuck his arm through the wall and he’s wiggling his fingers at them from outside the window,” Garion reported.
Silk glanced once over his shoulder, then shuddered again and quickly averted his eyes. “That makes my blood cold,” he said with revulsion. “Let’s go bathe.”
“I’ll go along,” Lelldorin said, and the three of them quietly left the room.
The baths were in a cavernous cellar beneath the west wing of the Citadel. There were hot springs deep in the rock, and they bubbled up to fill the tiled chambers with steam and a faintly sulfurous smell. There were but few torches and only one attendant who wordlessly handed them towels and then went off into the steam to manage the valves that adjusted the water temperature.
“The big pool there gets hotter the closer you go toward the far end,” Silk told Garion and Lelldorin as they all disrobed. “Some people say you should go in until it’s as hot as you can stand it, but I prefer just to pick a comfortable temperature and soak.” He splashed down into the water.
“Are you sure we’ll be alone here?” Garion asked nervously. “I don’t think I’d care to have a group of ladies come trooping in while I’m trying to bathe.”
“The women’s baths are separate,” Silk assured him. “The Rivans are very proper about that sort of thing. They aren’t nearly as advanced as the Tolnedrans yet.”
“Are you really sure that bathing in the wintertime is healthy?” Lelldorin asked, eyeing the steaming water suspiciously.
Garion plunged into the pool and moved quickly out of the tepid water at the near end toward the hotter area. The steam rose more thickly as he waded out into the pool, and the pair of torches set in rings on the back wall receded into a kind of ruddy glow. The tiled walls echoed back the sounds of their voices and splashing with a peculiar, cavernlike hollowness. The steam eddied up out of the water, and he found himself suddenly shut off by it, separated from his friends in the hazy dimness. The hot water relaxed him, and he seemed almost to want to float, half aware, and let it soak out all memory – all the past and all the future. Dreamily he lay back, and then, not knowing why, he allowed himself to sink beneath the dark, steaming water. How long he floated, his eyes closed and all sense suspended, he could not have said, but finally his face rose to the surface and he stood up, the water streaming out of his hair and down across his shoulders. He felt strangely purified by his immersion. And then the sun broke through the tattered cloud outside for a moment, and a single shaft of sunlight streamed down through a small grilled window to fall fully upon Garion. The sudden light was diffused by the steam and seemed to flicker with an opalescent fire.
“Hail, Belgarion, ” the voice in his mind said to him. “I greet thee on this Erastide. ” There was no hint of the usual amusement in the voice, and the formality seemed strange, significant.
“Thank you, ” Garion replied gravely, and they did not speak again. The steam rose and eddied about him as he waded back toward the cooler reaches of the pool where Silk and Lelldorin, both sunk to their necks in warm water, were talking quietly together.
About half an hour before noon, Garion, in response to a summons from Aunt Pol, walked down a long stone corridor toward a room a few steps from the huge, carved doors that gave entrance into the Hall of the Rivan King. He was wearing his best doublet and hose, and his soft leather half boots had been brushed until they glowed. Aunt Pol wore a deep blue robe, cowled and belted at the waist. For once Belgarath, also blue-robed, did not look rumpled or spotted. The old man’s face was very serious; as he and Aunt Pol spoke together, there was no hint of the banter that usually marked their conversation. Seated quietly in the corner of the little room, Errand, dressed all in white linen, gravely watched.
“You look very nice, Garion,” Aunt Pol said, reaching out to smooth his sandy hair back from his forehead.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” Garion asked. He had seen others, grayclad Rivans and the more brightly garbed visitors entering the hall.
“We will, Garion,” she replied. “All in good time.” She turned to Belgarath. “How long?” she asked.
“Another quarter-hour or so,” he replied.
“Is everything ready?”
“Ask Garion,” the old man told her. “I’ve taken care of everything I can. The rest is up to him.”
Aunt Pol turned to Garion then, her eyes very serious and the white lock at her brow gleaming silver in the darkness of her hair. “Well, Garion,” she asked, “are you ready?”
He looked at her, baffled. “I had the oddest dream last night,” he said. “Everyone kept asking me that same question. What does it mean, Aunt Pol? Am I ready for what?”
“That will become clearer in a bit,” Belgarath told him. “Take out your amulet. You’ll wear it on the outside of your clothes today.”
“I thought it was supposed to be out of sight.”
“Today’s different,” the old man replied. “As a matter of fact, today’s unlike any day I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot of them.”
“Because it’s Erastide?”
“That’s part of it.” Belgarath reached inside his robe and drew out his own silver medallion. He glanced at it briefly. “It’s getting a little worn,” he noted. Then he smiled. “-but then, so am I, I suppose.”
Aunt Pol drew out her amulet. She and Belgarath each reached out to take Garion’s hands and then to join their own.
“It’s been a long time coming, Polgara,” Belgarath said.
“Yes it has, father,” Aunt Pol agreed.
“Any regrets?”
“I can live with them, Old Wolf”
“Let’s go in then.”
Garion started toward the door.
“Not you, Garion,” Aunt Pol told him. “You’ll wait here with Errand. You two will come in later.”
“You’ll send somebody for us?” he asked her. “What I mean is, how will we know when we’re supposed to come in?”
“You’ll know,” Belgarath told him. And then they left him alone with Errand.
“They didn’t give us very complete instructions, did they?” Garion said to the child. “I hope we don’t make any mistakes.”
Errand smiled confidently, reached out and put his small hand in Garion’s. At his touch, the song of the Orb filled Garion’s mind again, sponging away his worries and doubts. He could not have said how long he stood holding the child’s hand and immersed in that song.
“It’s come at last, Belgarion.”The voice seemed to come from outside somehow, no longer confined within Garion’s mind, and the look on Errand’s face made it quite clear that he also could hear the words.
“Is this what I’m supposed to do?” Garion asked.
“It’s part of it.”
“What are they doing in there?” Garion looked rather curiously toward the door.
“They’re getting the people in the Hall ready for what’s going to happen. ”
“Will they be ready?”
“Will you?” There was a pause. “Are you ready, Belgarion?”
“Yes, ” Garion replied. “Whatever it is, I think I’m ready for it.”
“Let’s go then.”
“You’ll tell me what to do?”
“If it’s necessary. ”
With his hand still holding Errand’s, Garion walked toward the door. He raised his other hand to push it open, but it swung inexplicably open ahead of him before he touched it.
There were two guards at the huge, carved door a few steps down the hall, but they seemed frozen into immobility as Garion and Errand approached. Once again Garion raised his hand, and the immense doors to the Hall of the Rivan King swung silently open in response to his hand alone.
The Hall of the Rivan King was a huge, vaulted throne room with massive and ornately carved wooden buttresses supporting the ceiling beams. The walls were festooned with banners and green boughs, and hundreds of candles burned in iron sconces. Three great stone firepits were set at intervals in the floor; instead of logs, blocks of peat glowed in the pits, radiating an even, fragrant warmth. The Hall was crowded, but there was a broad avenue of blue carpet leading from the doors to the throne. Garion’s eyes, however, scarcely noted the crowd. His thoughts seemed suspended by the song of the Orb, which now filled his mind completely. Bemused, freed of all thought or fear or hint of self consciousness, he walked with Errand close beside him toward the front of the Hall where Aunt Pol and Belgarath stood, one on each side of the throne.