The rain slackened on the deck above them as the storm passed. Swirling little eddies of raindrops ran across the muddy surface of the river in the fitful wind. The sky began to clear, and the sun sank into the roiling clouds, staining them an angry red. Garion went up on deck to wrestle alone with his troubled conscience.
After a while he heard a light step behind him. “I suppose you’re proud of yourself?” Ce’Nedra asked acidly.
“Leave me alone.”
“I don’t think so. I think I want to tell you just exactly how we all felt about your little speech this morning.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
“That’s too bad. I’m going to tell you anyway.”
“I won’t listen.”
“Oh yes, you will,” She took him by the arm and turned him around. Her eyes were blazing and her tiny face filled with a huge anger. “What you did was absolutely inexcusable,” she said. “Your Aunt raised you from a baby. She’s been a mother to you.”
“My mother’s dead.”
“The Lady Polgara’s the only mother you ever knew, and what did you give her for thanks? You called her a monster. You accused her of not caring.”
“I’m not listening to you,” Garion cried. Knowing that it was childish – even infantile – he put his hands over his ears. The Princess Ce’Nedra always seemed to bring out the worst in him.
“Move your hands!” she commanded in a ringing voice. “You’re going to hear me even if I have to scream.”
Garion, afraid that she meant it, took his hands away.
“She carned you when you were a baby,” Ce’Nedra went on, seeming to know exactly where the sorest spot on Garion’s wounded conscience lay. “She watched your very first steps. She fed you; she watched over you; she held you when you were afraid or hurt. Does that sound like a monster? She watches you all the time, did you know that? If you even so much as stumble, she almost reaches out to catch you. I’ve seen her cover you when you’re asleep. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care?”
“You’re talking about something you don’t understand,” Garion told her. “Please, just leave me alone.”
“Please?” she repeated mockingly. “What a strange time for you to remember your manners. I didn’t hear you saying please this morning. I didn’t hear a single please. I didn’t hear any thank you’s either. Do you know what you are, Garion? You’re a spoiled child, that’s what you are.”
That did it! To have this pampered, willful little princess call him a spoiled child was more than Garion could bear. Infuriated, he began to shout at her. Most of what he said was wildly incoherent, but the shouting made him feel better.
They started with accusations, but the argument soon degenerated into name-calling. Ce’Nedra was screeching like a Camaar fishwife, and Garion’s voice cracked and warbled between a manly baritone and a boyish tenor. They shook their fingers in each other’s faces and shouted. Ce’Nedra stamped her feet, and Garion waved his arms. All in all, it was a splendid little fight. Garion felt much better when it was over. Yelling insults at Ce’Nedra was an innocent diversion compared to some of the deadly things he’d said to Aunt Pol that morning, and it allowed him to vent his confusion and anger harmlessly.
In the end, of course, Ce’Nedra resorted to tears and fled, leaving him feeling more foolish than ashamed. He fumed a bit, muttering a few choice insults he hadn’t had the opportunity to deliver, and then he sighed and leaned pensively on the rail to watch night settle in over the dank city.
Though he would not have cared to admit it, even to himself, he was grateful to the princess. Their descent into absurdity had cleared his head. Quite clearly now he saw that he owed Aunt Pol an apology. He had lashed out at her out of his own sense of deep-seated guilt, trying somehow to shift the blame to her. Quite obviously there was no way to evade his own responsibility. Having accepted that, he seemed for some reason to feel better.
It grew darker. The tropical night was heavy, and the smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water rolled in out of the trackless swamps. A vicious little insect crawled down inside his tunic and began to bite him somewhere between his shoulders where he could not reach.
There was absolutely no warning – no sound or lurch of the ship or any hint of danger. His arms were seized from behind and a wet cloth was pressed firmly over his mouth and nose. He tried to struggle, but the hands holding him were very strong. He tried to twist his head to get his face clear enough to shout for help. The cloth smelled strange – cloying, sickeningly sweet, thick somehow. He began to feel dizzy, and his struggles grew weaker. He made one last effort before the dizziness overcame him and he sank down into unconsciousness.
Chapter Twenty-seven
THEY WERE IN A LONG HALLWAY of some sort. Garion could see the flagstone floor quite clearly. Three men were carrying him face down, and his head bobbed and swung on his neck uncomfortably. His mouth was dry, and the thick, sweet smell that had impregnated the cloth they had crushed to his face lingered. He raised his head, trying to look around.
“He’s awake,” the man holding one of his arms said.
“Finally,” one of the others muttered. “You held the cloth to his face too long, Issus.”
“I know what I’m doing,” the first one said.
“Put him down.”
“Can you stand?” Issus asked Garion. His shaved head was stubbled, and he had a long scar running from his forehead to his chin directly through the puckered vacancy of an empty eye-socket. His belted robe was stained and spotted.
“Get up,” Issus ordered in a hissing kind of voice. He nudged Garion with his foot. Garion struggled to rise. His knees were shaky, and he put his hand on the wall to steady himself. The stones were damp and covered with a kind of mold.
“Bring him,” Issus told the others. They took Garion’s arms and halfdragged, half-carried him down the damp passageway behind the oneeyed man. When they came out of the corridor, they were in a vaulted area that seemed not so much like a room but rather a large roofed place. Huge pillars, covered with carvings, supported the soaring ceiling, and small oil lamps hung on long chains from above or sat on little stone shelves on the pillars. There was a confused sense of movement as groups of men in varicolored robes drifted from place to place in a kind of langorous stupor.
“You,” Issus snapped at a plump young man with dreamy eyes, “tell Sadi, the chief eunuch, that we have the boy.”
“Tell him yourself,” the young man said in a piping voice. “I don’t take orders from your kind, Issus.”
Issus slapped the plump young man sharply across the face.
“You hit me!” the plump one wailed, putting his hand to his mouth. “You made my lip bleed – see?” He held out his hand to show the blood.
“If you don’t do what I tell you to do, I’ll cut your fat throat,” Issus told him in a flat, unemotional voice.
“I’m going to tell Sadi what you did.”
“Go ahead. And as long as you’re there, tell him that we’ve got the boy the queen wanted.”
The plump young man scurried away.
“Eunuchs!” One of the men holding Garion’s arm spat.
“They have their uses,” the other said with a coarse laugh.
“Bring the boy,” Issus ordered. “Sadi doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
They pulled Garion across the lighted area.
A group of wretched-looking men with unkempt hair and beards sat chained together on the floor. “Water,” one of them croaked. “Please.” He stretched out an imploring hand.
Issus stopped and stared at the slave in amazement. “Why does this one still have its tongue?” he demanded of the guard who stood over the slaves.
The guard shrugged. “We haven’t had time to attend to that yet.”
“Take time,” Issus told him. “If one of the priests hear it talk, they’ll have you questioned. You wouldn’t like that.”
“I’m not afraid of the priests,” the guard said, but he looked nervously over his shoulder.
“Be afraid,” Issus advised him. “And water these animals. They’re no good to anybody dead.” He started to lead the men holding Garion through a shadowy area between two pillars, then stopped again. “Get out of my way,” he said to something lying in the shadows. Grudgingly, the thing began to move. With revulsion Garion realized that it was a large snake.
“Get over there with the others,” Issus told the snake. He pointed toward a dimly lighted corner where a large mass seemed to be undulating, moving with a kind of sluggish seething. Faintly Garion could hear the dry hiss of scales rubbing together. The snake which had barred their way flicked a nervous tongue at Issus, then slithered toward the dim corner.