“Why did Taur Urgas tell you to leave?” Barak asked him.
Yarblek looked grim. “There’s going to be a large accident tomorrow. Taur Urgas will immediately send an apology to Ran Borune – something about inexperienced troops chasing a band of brigands and mistaking honest merchants for bandits. He’ll offer to pay reparation, and things will all be smoothed over. Pay is a magic word when you’re dealing with Tolnedrans.”
“He’s going to massacre the whole camp?” Barak sounded stunned.
“That’s his plan. He wants to clean all the westerners out of Cthol Murgos and he seems to think that a few such accidents will do the job for him.”
Relg had been standing to one side, his large eyes lost in thought. Suddenly he stepped across the gully to where Yarblek’s sketch was. He smoothed it out of the sand. “Can you show me exactly where this pit in which they’re holding our friend is located?” he asked.
“It won’t do you any good,” Yarblek told him. “It’s guarded by a dozen men. Silk’s got quite a reputation, and Taur Urgas doesn’t want him to get away.”
“Just show me,” Relg insisted.
Yarblek shrugged. “We’re here on the north side.” He roughed in the fair and the caravan route. “The supply station is here.” He pointed with his dagger. “The pit’s just beyond it at the base of that big hill on the south side.”
“What kind of walls does it have?”
“Solid stone.”
“Is it a natural fissure in the rock, or has it been dug out?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I need to know.”
“I didn’t see any tool marks,” Yarblek replied, “and the opening at the top is irregular. It’s probably just a natural hole.”
Relg nodded. “And the hill behind it – is it rock or dirt?”
“Mostly rock. All of stinking Cthol Murgos is mostly rock.”
Relg stood up. “Thank you,” he said politely.
“You’re not going to be able to tunnel through to him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Yarblek said, also standing and brushing the sand off the skirts of his overcoat. “You don’t have time.”
Belgarath’s eyes were narrowed with thought. “Thanks, Yarblek,” he said. “You’ve been a good friend.”
“Anything to irritate the Murgos,” the Nadrak said. “I wish I could do something for Silk.”
“Don’t give up on him yet.”
“There isn’t much hope, I’m afraid. I’d better be going. My people will wander off if I’m not there to watch them.”
“Yarblek,” Barak said, holding out his hand, “someday we’ll have to get together and finish getting drunk.”
Yarblek grinned at him and shook his hand. Then he turned and caught Aunt Pol in a rough embrace. “If you ever get bored with these Alorns, girl, my tent flap is always open to you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Yarblek,” she replied demurely.
“Luck,” Yarblek told them. “I’ll wait for you until midnight.” Then he turned and strode off down the gully.
“That’s a good man there,” Barak said. “I think I could actually get to like him.”
“We must make plans for Prince Kheldar’s rescue,” Mandorallen declared, beginning to take his armor out of the packs strapped to one of the horses. “All else failing, we must of necessity resort to main force.”
“You’re backsliding again, Mandorallen,” Barak said.
“That’s already been taken care of,” Belgarath told them.
Barak and Mandorallen stared at him.
“Put your armor away, Mandorallen,” the old man instructed the knight. “You’re not going to need it.”
“Who’s going to get Silk out of there?” Barak demanded.
“I am,” Relg answered quietly. “How much longer is it going to be before it gets dark?”
“About an hour. Why?”
“I’ll need some time to prepare myself.”
“Have you got a plan?” Durnik asked.
Relg shrugged. “There isn’t any need. We’ll just circle around until we’re behind that hill on the other side of the encampment. I’ll go get our friend, and then we can leave.”
“Just like that?” Barak asked.
“More or less. Please excuse me.” Relg started to turn away.
“Wait a minute. Shouldn’t Mandorallen and I go with you?”
“You wouldn’t be able to follow me,” Relg told him. He walked up the gully a short distance. After a moment, they could hear him muttering his prayers.
“Does he think he can pray him out of that pit?” Barak sounded disgusted.
“No,” Belgarath replied. “He’s going to go through the hill and carry Silk back out. That’s why he was asking Yarblek all those questions.”
“He’s going to what?”
“You saw what he did at Prolgu – when he stuck his arm into the wall?”
“Well, yes, but ”
“It’s quite easy for him, Barak.”
“What about Silk? How’s he going to pull him through the rock?”
“I don’t really know. He seems quite sure he can do it, though.”
“If it doesn’t work, Taur Urgas is going to have Silk roasting over a slow fire first thing tomorrow morning. You know that, don’t you?”
Belgarath nodded somberly.
Barak shook his head. “It’s unnatural,” he grumbled.
“Don’t let it upset you so much,” Belgarath advised.
The light began to fade, and Relg continued to pray, his voice rising and falling in formal cadences. When it was fully dark, he came back to where the others waited. “I’m ready,” he said quietly. “We can leave now.”
“We’ll circle to the west,” Belgarath told them. “We’ll lead the horses and stay under cover as much as we can.”
“It will take us a couple hours,” Durnik said.
“That’s all right. It will give the soldiers time to settle down. Pol, see what the Grolims Garion saw are up to.”
She nodded, and Garion felt the gentle push of her probing mind. “It’s all right, father,” she stated after a few moments. “They’re preoccupied. Taur Urgas has them conducting services for him.”
“Let’s go, then,” the old man said.
They moved carefully down the gully, leading the horses. The night was murky, and the wind bit at them as they came out from between the protecting gravel banks. The plain to the east of the fair was dotted with a hundred fires whipping in the wind and marking the vast encampment of the army of Taur Urgas.
Relg grunted and covered his eyes with his hands.
“What’s wrong?” Garion asked him.
“Their fires,” Relg said. “They stab at my eyes.”
“Try not to look at them.”
“My God has laid a hard burden on me, Belgarion.” Relg sniffed and wiped at his nose with his sleeve. “I’m not meant to be out in the open like this.”
“You’d better have Aunt Pol give you something for that cold. It will taste awful, but you’ll feel better after you drink it.”
“Perhaps,” Relg said, still shielding his eyes from the dim flicker of the Murgo watch fires.
The hill on the south side of the fair was a low outcropping of granite. Although eons of constant wind had covered it for the most part with a thick layer of blown sand and dirt, the rock itself lay solid beneath its covering mantle. They stopped behind it, and Relg began carefully to brush the dirt from a sloping granite face.
“Wouldn’t it be closer if you started over there?” Barak asked quietly.
“Too much dirt,” Relg replied.
“Dirt or rock – what’s the difference?”
“A great difference. You wouldn’t understand.” He leaned forward and put his tongue to the granite face, seeming actually to taste the rock. “This is going to take a while,” he said. He drew himself up, began to pray, and slowly pushed himself directly into the rock.
Barak shuddered and quickly averted his eyes.
“What ails thee, my Lord?” Mandorallen asked.
“It makes me cold all over just watching that,” Barak replied.
“Our new friend is perhaps not the best of companions,” Mandorallen said, “but if his gift succeeds in freeing Prince Kheldar, I will embrace him gladly and call him brother.”
“If it takes him very long, we’re going to be awfully close to this spot when morning comes and Taur Urgas finds out that Silk’s gone,” Barak mentioned.
“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Belgarath told him. The night dragged by interminably. The wind moaned and whistled around the rocks on the flanks of the stony hill, and the sparse thornbushes rustled stiffly. They waited. A growing fear oppressed Garion as the hours passed. More and more, he became convinced that they had lost Relg as well as Silk. He felt that same sick emptiness he had felt when it had been necessary to leave the wounded Lelldorin behind back in Arendia. He realized, feeling a bit guilty about it, that he hadn’t thought about Lelldorin in months. He began to wonder how well the young hothead had recovered from his wound – or even if he had recovered. His thoughts grew bleaker as the minutes crawled.
Then, with no warning – with not even a sound – Relg stepped out of the rock face he had entered hours before. Astride his broad back and clinging desperately to him was Silk. The rat-faced little man’s eyes were wide with horror, and his hair seemed to be actually standing on end.