Garion sank wearily to the floor, resting his back against the rocky wall of the cave. Waves of exhaustion washed over him, and a great lassitude drained him of all consciously directed thought. Once again the Orb sang to him, but lulling now. Its curiosity about him apparently was satisfied, and its song seemed to be there only to maintain the contact between them. Garion was too tired even to be curious about why the stone took such pleasure in his company.
The little boy turned from his curious examination of the horses and went to where Taiba sat with one of Aunt Pol’s arms about her shoulders. He looked puzzled, and reached out with one hand to touch his fingers to her tear-streaked face.
“What does he want?” Taiba asked.
“He’s probably never seen tears before,” Aunt Pol replied.
Taiba stared at the child’s serious little face, then suddenly laughed through her tears and gave him a quick embrace.
The little boy smiled then. “Errand?” he asked, offering her the Orb. “Don’t take it, Taiba,” Polgara told her very quietly. “Don’t even touch it.”
Taiba looked at the smiling child and shook her head.
The little boy sighed, then came across the cave, sat down beside Garion, and nestled against him.
Barak had gone a short distance back up the passageway they had followed; now he returned, his face grim. “I can hear Murgos moving around up there,” the big man reported. “You can’t tell how far away they are with all the echoes in these caves, but it sounds as if they’re exploring every cave and passageway.”
“Let us find some defensible spot then, my Lord, and give them reason to look for us elsewhere,” Mandorallen suggested gaily.
“Interesting notion,” Barak replied, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. Sooner or later they’re going to find us.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Relg said quietly, breaking off his praying and getting to his feet. The ritual formulas had not helped him, and his eyes were haunted.
“I’ll go with you,” Barak offered.
Relg shook his head. “You’d just be in my way,” he said shortly, already moving toward the passage leading back into the mountain. “What’s come over him?” Barak asked, puzzled.
“I think our friend’s having a religious crisis,” Silk observed from the mouth of the cave where he kept watch.
“Another one?”
“It gives him something to occupy his spare moments,” Silk replied lightly.
“Come and eat,” Aunt Pol told them, laying slices of bread and cheese on top of one of the packs. “Then I want to have a look at the cut on your leg, Mandorallen.”
After they had eaten and Polgara had bandaged Mandorallen’s knee, she dressed Taiba in a peculiar assortment of clothes Durnik had taken from the packs. Then she turned her attention to the little boy. He returned her grave look with one just as serious, then reached out and touched the white lock at her brow with curious fingers. With a start of remembrance, Garion recalled how many times he had touched that lock with the selfsame gesture, and the memory of it raised a momentary irrational surge of jealousy, which he quickly suppressed.
The little boy smiled with sudden delight. “Errand,” he said firmly, offering the Orb to Aunt Pol.
She shook her head. “No, child,” she told him. “I’m afraid I’m not the one.” She dressed him in clothing that had to be rolled up and taken in with bits of twine in various places, then sat down with her back against the wall of the cave and held out her arms to him. Obediently he climbed into her lap, put one arm about her neck and kissed her. Then he nestled his face down against her, sighed and immediately fell asleep. She looked down at him with a strange expression on her face – a peculiar mixture of wonder and tenderness – and Garion fought down another wave of jealousy.
There was a grinding rumble in the caves above them.
“What’s that?” Durnik asked, looking around with apprehension.
“Relg, I’d imagine,” Silk told him. “He seems to be taking steps to head off the Murgos.”
“I hope he doesn’t get carried away,” Durnik said nervously, gland ing at the rock ceiling.
“How longs it going to take to get to the Vale?” Barak asked.
“A couple of weeks, probably,” Silk replied. “A lot’s going to depend on the terrain and how quickly the Grolims can organize a search for us. If we can get enough of a headstart to put down a good false trail, we can send them all running off to the west toward the Tolnedran border, and we can move toward the Vale without needing to waste all that time dodging and hiding.” The little man grinned. “The notion of deceiving the whole Murgo nation appeals to me,” he added.
“You don’t have to get too creative,” Barak told him. “Hettar’s going to be waiting for us in the Vale – along with King Cho-Hag and half the clans of Algaria. They’ll be awfully disappointed if we don’t bring them at least a few Murgos.”
“Life’s full of little disappointments,” Silk told him sardonically. “As I remember it, the eastern edge of the Vale is very steep and rough. It will take a couple of days at least to make it down, and I don’t think we’ll want to try it with all of Murgodom snapping at our heels.”
It was midafternoon when Relg returned. His exertions seemed to have quieted some of the turmoil in his mind, but there was still a haunted look in his eyes, and he deliberately avoided Taiba’s violet-eyed gaze. “I pulled down the ceilings of all the galleries leading to this cave,” he reported shortly. “We’re safe now.”
Polgara, who had seemed asleep, opened her eyes. “Get some rest,” she told him.
He nodded and went immediately to his blankets.
They rested in the cave through the remainder of the day, taking turns on watch at the narrow opening. The wasteland of black sand and wind-scoured rock lying out beyond the tumbled scree at the base of the pinnacle was alive with Murgo horsemen scurrying this way and that in a frenzied, disorganized search.
“They don’t seem to know what they’re doing,” Garion observed quietly to Silk as the two of them watched. The sun was just sinking into a bank of cloud on the western horizon, staining the sky fiery red, and the stiff wind brought a dusty chill with it as it seeped into the cave opening.
“I imagine that things are a bit scrambled up in Rak Cthol,” Silk replied. “No one’s in charge any more, and that confuses Murgos. They tend to go all to pieces when there’s nobody around to give them orders.”
“Isn’t that going to make it hard for us to get out of here?” Garion asked. “What I mean is that they’re not going anyplace. They’re just milling around. How are we going to get through them?”
Silk shrugged. “We’ll just pull up our hoods and mill around with the rest of them.” He pulled the coarse cloth of the Murgo robe he wore closer about him to ward off the chill and turned to look back into the cave. “The sun’s going down,” he reported.
“Let’s wait until it’s completely dark,” Polgara replied. She was carefully bundling the little boy up in one of Garion’s old tunics.
“Once we get out a ways, I’ll drop a few odds and ends,” Silk said. “Murgos can be a little dense sometimes, and we wouldn’t want them to miss our trail.” He turned to look back out at the sunset. “It’s going to be a cold night,” he remarked to no one in particular.
“Garion,” Aunt Pol said, rising to her feet, “you and Durnik stay close to Taiba. She’s never ridden before, and she might need some help at first.”
“What about the little boy?” Dumik asked.
“He’ll ride with me.”
“And Belgarath?” Mandorallen inquired, glancing over at the stilh sleeping old sorcerer.
“When the time comes, we’ll just put him on his horse,” Polgara replied. “I can keep him in his saddle – as long as we don’t make any sudden changes in direction. Is it getting any darker?”
“We’d better wait for a little longer,” Silk answered. “There’s still quite a bit of light out there.”
They waited. The evening sky began to turn purple, and the first stars came out, glittering cold and very far away. Torches began to appear among the searching Murgos. “Shall we go?” Silk suggested, rising to his feet.
They led their horses quietly out of the cave and down across the scree to the sand. There they stopped for several moments while a group of Murgos carrying torches galloped by several hundred yards out. “Don’t get separated,” Silk told them as they mounted.
“How far is it to the edge of the wasteland?” Barak asked the little man, grunting as he climbed up onto his horse.