“Probably about as far as we could throw him,” Silk replied. “He was honest about one thing though. His back’s to the wall. That might make him bargain with Rhodar in good faith – initially at least.”
When they reached the street at the end of the alley, Belgarath glanced up once at the evening sky. “We’d better hurry,” he said. “I want to get out of the city before they close the gates. I left our horses in a thicket a mile or so outside the walls.”
“You went back for them?” Silk sounded a little surprised.
“Of course I did. I don’t plan to walk all the way to Morindland.” He led them up the street away from the river.
They reached the city gates in fading light just as the guards were preparing to close them for the night. One of the Nadrak soldiers raised his hand as if to bar their way, then apparently changed his mind and motioned them through irritably, muttering curses under his breath. The huge, tar-smeared gate boomed shut behind them, and there was the clinking rattle of heavy chains from inside as the bolts were thrown and locked. Garion glanced up once at the carved face of Torak which brooded down at them from above the gate, then deliberately turned his back.
“Are we likely to be followed?” Silk asked Belgarath as they walked along the dirt highway leading away from the city.
“I wouldn’t be very surprised,” Belgarath replied. “Drosta knows – or suspects – a great deal about what we’re doing. Mallorean Grolims are very subtle, and they can pick the thoughts out of his head without his knowing it. That’s probably why they don’t bother to follow him when he goes off on his little excursions.”
“Shouldn’t you take some steps?” Silk suggested as they moved through the gathering twilight.
“We’re getting a bit too close to Mallorea to be making unnecessary noise,” Belgarath told him. “Zedar can hear me moving around from a long way off, and Torak’s only dozing now. I’d rather not take the chance of waking him up with any more loud clatter.”
They walked along the highway toward the shadowy line of rank undergrowth at the edge of the open fields surrounding the city. The sound of frogs from the marshy ground near the river was very loud in the twilight.
“Torak isn’t really asleep any more then?” Garion asked finally. He had harbored somewhere at the back of his mind the vague hope that they might be able to creep up on the sleeping God and catch him unaware.
“No, not really,” his grandfather replied. “The sound of your hand touching the Orb shook the whole world. Not even Torak could sleep through that. He isn’t really awake yet, but he’s not entirely asleep, either.”
“Did it really make all that much noise?” Silk asked curiously.
“They probably heard it on the other side of the universe. I left the horses over there.” The old man pointed toward a shadowy willow grove several hundred yards to the left of the road.
From behind them there was the rattle of a heavy chain, startling the frogs into momentary silence.
“They’re opening the gate,” Silk said. “They wouldn’t do that unless somebody gave them an official reason to.”
“Let’s hurry,” Belgarath said.
The horses stirred and nickered as the three of them pushed their way through the rustling willows in the rapidly descending darkness. They led the horses out of the grove, mounted, and rode back toward the highway.
“They know we’re out here somewhere,” Belgarath said. “There’s not much point being coy about it.”
“Just a second,” Silk said. He dismounted and rummaged through one of the canvas bags tied to their packhorse. He pulled something out of the bag, then climbed back on his horse. “Let’s go then.”
They pushed into a gallop, thudding along the dirt road under a starry, moonless sky toward the denser shadows where the forest rose at the edge of the scrubby, burned-off expanse surrounding the Nadrak capital.
“Can you see them?” Belgarath called to Silk, who was bringing up the rear and looking back over his shoulder.
“I think so,” Silk shouted back. “They’re about a mile behind.”
“That’s too close.”
“I’ll take care of it as soon as we get into the woods,” Silk replied confidently.
The dark forest loomed closer and closer as they galloped along the hard-packed road. Garion could smell the trees now.
They plunged into the black shadows under the trees and felt that slight extra warmth that always lies in a forest. Silk reined in sharply. “Keep going,” he told them, swinging out of his saddle. “I’ll catch up.”
Belgarath and Garion rode on, slowing a bit in order to pick the road out of the darkness. After several minutes, Silk caught up with them. “Listen,” the little man said, pulling his horse to a stop. His teeth flashed in the shadows as he grinned.
“They’re coming,” Garion warned urgently as he heard a rumble of hoofs. “Hadn’t we better-”
“Listen,” Silk whispered sharply.
From behind there were several startled exclamations and the heavy sound of men falling. A horse squealed and ran off somewhere.
Silk laughed wickedly. “I think we can press on,” he said gaily. “They’ll be delayed for a bit while they round up their horses.”
“What did you do?” Garion asked him.
Silk shrugged. “I stretched a rope across the road, about chest-high on a mounted man. It’s an old trick, but sometimes old tricks are the best. They’ll have to be cautious now, so we should be able to lose them by morning.”
“Let’s go, then,” Belgarath said.
“Where are we headed?” Silk asked as they moved into a canter.
“We’ll make directly for the north range,” the old man replied. “Too many people know we’re here, so let’s get to the land of the Morindim as soon as we can.”
“If they’re really after us, they’ll follow us all the way, won’t they?” Garion asked, looking back nervously.
“I don’t think so,” Belgarath told him. “They’ll be a long way behind by the time we get there. I don’t think they’ll risk going into Morind territory just to follow a cold trail.”
“Is it that dangerous, Grandfather?”
“The Morindim do nasty things to strangers if they catch them.”
Garion thought about that. “Won’t we be strangers too?” he asked. “To the Morindim, I mean?”
“I’ll take care of that when we get there.”
They galloped on through the remainder of the velvety night, leaving their now-cautious pursuers far behind. The blackness beneath the trees was dotted with the pale, winking glow of fireflies, and crickets chirped interminably. As the first light of morning began to filter through the forest, they reached the edge of another burned-off area, and Belgarath reined in to peer cautiously out at the rank scrub, dotted here and there with charred snags. “We’d better have something to eat,” he suggested. “The horses need some rest, and we can catch a bit of sleep before we go on.” He looked around in the gradually increasing light. “Let’s get away from the road, though.” He turned his horse and led them off along the edge of the burn. After several hundred yards, they reached a small clearing that jutted out into the coarse brush. A spring trickled water into a mossy pool at the very edge of the trees, and the grass in the clearing was intensely green. The outer edge of the opening was hemmed in by brambles and a tangle of charred limbs. “This looks like a good place,” Belgarath decided.
“Not really,” Silk disagreed. He was staring at a crudely squared-off block of stone standing in the center of the clearing. There were ugly black stains running down the sides of the stone.
“For our purposes it is,” the old man replied. “The altars of Torak are generally avoided, and we don’t particularly want company.” They dismounted at the edge of the trees, and Belgarath began rummaging through one of the packs for bread and dried meat. Garion was in a curiously abstracted mood. He was tired, and his weariness made him a bit light-headed. Quite deliberately, he walked across the springy turf to the blood-stained altar; he stared at it, his eyes meticulously recording details without considering their implication. The blackened stone sat solidly in the center of the clearing, casting no shadow in the pale dawn light. It was an old altar, and had not been used recently. The stains that had sunk into the pores of the rock were black with age, and the bones littering the ground around it were half sunk in the earth and were covered with a greenish patina of moss. A scurrying spider darted into the vacant eye socket of a mossy skull, seeking refuge in the dark, vaulted emptiness. Many of the bones were broken and showed the marks of the small, sharp teeth of forest scavengers who would feed on anything that was dead. A cheap, tarnished silver brooch lay with its chain tangled about a lumpy vertebra, and not far away a brass buckle, green with verdigris, still clung to a bit of moldering leather.