"Demon Lord?" Garion asked.
"They have rank, too‑ just as humans do. If Mengha has a grip on a Demon Lord, then it's that creature that's calling up the army of lesser demons." He refilled his glass, looking faintly satisfied with himself. "That's probably fairly close to Mengha's life story," he said, sitting down again.
" A virtuoso performance, Belgarath," Zakath congratulated him.
"Thank you," the old man replied. "I thought so myself." He looked at Brador. "Now that we know him, why don't you tell us what he's been up to?"
Brador once again took his place beside the map, fending off the same kitten with his pointer. "After Mengha took Calida, word of his exploits ran all through Karanda," he began. "It appears that the worship of Torak was never really very firmly ingrained in the Karands to begin with, and about the only thing that kept them in line was their fear of the sacrificial knives of the Grolims."
"Like the Thulls?" Garion suggested.
"Very much so, your Majesty. Once Torak was dead, however, and his Church in disarray, the Karands began to revert. The old shrines began to reappear, and the old rituals came back into practice." Brador shuddered.
"Hideous rites," he said. "Obscene."
"Even worse than the Grolim rite of sacrifice?" Garion asked mildly.
"There was some justification for that, Garion," Zakath objected. "It was an honor to be chosen, and the victims went under the knife willingly."
"Not any of them that I ever saw," Garion disagreed.
"We can discuss comparative theology some other time," Belgarath told them, "Go on, Brador."
"Once the Karands heard about Mengha," the Melcene official continued, "they began to flock to Calida to support him and to enlist themselves on the side of the demons. There's always been a subterranean independence movement in the seven kingdoms of Karanda, and many hotheads there believe that the demons offer the best hope of throwing off the yoke of Angarak oppression," He looked at the Emperor. "No offense intended, your Majesty," he murmured.
"None taken, Brador," Zakath assured him.
"Naturally, the little kinglets in Karanda tried to keep their people from joining Mengha. The loss of subjects is always painful to a ruler. The army ‑our army‑ was also alarmed by the hordes of Karands flocking to Mengha's banner, and they tried to block off borders and the like. But, since a large portion of the army was in Cthol Murgos with his Majesty here, the troops in Karanda just didn't have the numbers. The Karands either slipped around them or simply overwhelmed them. Mengha's army numbers almost a million by now ‑ill-equipped and poorly trained, perhaps, but a million is a significant number, even if they're armed with sticks. Not only Jenno but also Ganesia are totally under Mengha's domination, and he's on the verge of overwhelming Katakor. Once he succeeds there, he'll inevitably move on Pallia and Delchin. If he isn't stopped, he'll be knocking on the gates of Mal Zeth by Erastide."
"Is he unleashing his demons in these campaigns?" Belgarath asked intently.
"Not really," Brador replied. "After what happened at Calida, there's no real need for that. The sight of them alone is usually enough to spring open the gates of any city he's taken so far. He's succeeded with remarkably little actual fighting."
The old man nodded. "I sort of thought that might have been the case. A demon is very hard to get back under control once it's tasted blood."
"It's not really the demons that are causing the problems," Brador continued. "Mengha's flooded all the rest of Karanda with his agents, and the stories that they're circulating are whipping previously uncommitted people into a frenzy." He looked at the Emperor. "Would you believe that we actually caught one of his missionaries in the Karandese barracks right here in Mal Zeth?" he said.
Zakath looked up sharply. "How did he get in?" he demanded,
"He disguised himself as a corporal returning from convalescent leave at home," Brador replied. "He'd even gone so far as to give himself a wound to make his story look authentic. It was very believable the way he cursed Murgos."
"What did you do to him?"
"Unfortunately, he didn't survive the questioning," Brador said, frowning. He bent to remove the kitten from around his ankle.
"Unfortunately?"
"I had some interesting plans for him. I take it rather personally when someone manages to circumvent my secret police. It's a matter of professional pride."
"What do you advise, then?" Zakath asked.
Brador began to pace. "I'm afraid that you're going to have to bring the army back from Cthol Murgos, your Majesty," he said. "You can't fight a war on two fronts."
"Absolutely out of the question." Zakath's tone was adamant.
"I don't think we have much choice," Brador told him.
"Almost half of the forces left here in Mallorea are of Karandese origin, and it's my considered opinion that to rely upon them in any kind of confrontation with Mengha would be sheer folly."
Zakath's face grew bleak.
"Put it this way, your Majesty," Brador said smoothly. "If you weaken your forces in Cthol Murgos, it's quite possible that you'll lose Rak Cthaka and maybe Rak Gorut, but if you don't bring the army home, you're going to lose Mal Zeth."
Zakath glared at him.
"There's still time to consider the matter, Sire," Brador added in a reasonable tone of voice. "This is only my assessment of the situation. I'm sure you'll want confirmation of what I've said from military intelligence, and you'll need to consult with the High Command."
"No," Zakath said bluntly. "The decision is mine." He scowled at the floor. "All right, Brador, we'll bring the army home. Go tell the High Command that I want to see them all at once."
"Yes, your Majesty."
Garion had risen to his feet. "How long will it take to ship your troops back from Cthol Murgos?" he asked with a sinking feeling.
"About three months," Zakath replied.
"I can't wait that long, Zakath."
"I'm very sorry, Garion, but none of us has any choice. Neither you nor I will leave Mal Zeth until the army gets here."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The following morning, Silk came early to the rooms Garion shared with Ce'Nedra. The little man once again wore his doublet and hose, though he had removed most of his jewelry. Over his arm he carried a pair of Mallorean robes, the lightweight, varicolored garments worn by most of the citizens of Mal Zeth. "Would you like to go into the city?" he asked Garion.
"I don't think they'll let us out of the palace."
"I've already taken care of that. Brador gave his permission‑ provided that we don't try to get away from the people who are going to be following us."
"That's a depressing thought. I hate being followed."
"You get used to it."
"Have you got anything specific in mind, or is this just a sight‑seeing tour?"
"I want to stop by our offices here and have a talk with our factor."
Garion gave him a puzzled look.
"The agent who handles things for us here in Mal Zeth."
"Oh. I hadn't heard the word before."
"That's because you aren't in business. Our man here is named Dolmar. He's a Melcene ‑very efficient, and he doesn't steal too much."
"I'm not sure that I'd enjoy listening to you talk business, " Garion said.
Silk looked around furtively. "You might learn all kinds of things, Garion," he said, but his fingers were already moving rapidly. ‑Dolmar can give us a report on what's really happening in Karanda‑ he gestured. ‑I think you'd better come along.
"Well," Garion said with slightly exaggerated acquiescence, "maybe you're right. Besides, the walls here are beginning to close in on me."
"Here," Silk said, holding out one of the robes, "wear this."
"It's not really cold, Silk."
"The robe isn't to keep you warm. People in western clothing attract a lot of attention on the streets of Mal Zeth, and I don't like being stared at." Silk grinned quickly. "It's very hard to pick pock
ets when everybody in the street watching you. Shall we go?"
The robe Garion put on was open at the front and hung straight from his shoulders to his heels. It was a serviceable outer garment with deep pockets at the sides. The material of which it was made was quite thin, and it flowed out behind him as he moved around. He went to the door of the adjoining room. Ce'Nedra was combing her hair, still damp from her morning bath.
"I'm going into the city with Silk," he told her. "Do you need anything?"
She thought about that. "See if you can find me a comb," she said, holding up the one she had been using. "Mine's starting to look a little toothless."
"All right." He turned to leave.
"As long as you're going anyway," she added, "why don't you pick me up a bolt of silk cloth ‑teal green, if you can find it. I'm told that there's a dressmaker here in the palace with a great deal of skill."
"I'll see what I can do." He turned again.
"And perhaps a few yards of lace ‑not too ornate, mind. Tasteful."
"Anything else?"
She smiled at him. "Buy me a surprise of some kind. I love surprises."
"A comb, a bolt of teal green silk, a few yards of tasteful lace, and a surprise." He ticked them off on his fingers.
"Get me one of those robes like you're wearing, too." He waited.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "That's all I can think of, Garion, but you and Silk might ask Liselle and Lady Polgara if they need anything."
He sighed.
"It's only polite, Garion."
"Yes, dear. Maybe I'd better make out a list."
Silk's face was blandly expressionless as Garion came back out.
"Well?" Garion asked him.
"I didn't say anything."
"Good."
They started out the door.
"Garion," Ce'Nedra called after him.
"Yes, dear?"
"See if you can find some sweetmeats, too."
Garion went out into the hall behind Silk and firmly closed the door behind him.
"You handle that sort of thing very well," Silk said.
"'Practice."
Velvet added several items to Garion's growing list, and Polgara several more. Silk looked at the list as they walked down the long, echoing hallway toward the main part of the palace. "I wonder if Brador would lend us a pack mule," he murmured."
"Quit trying to be funny."
"Would I do that?"
"Why were we talking with our fingers back there?"
"Spies."
"In our private quarters?" Garion was shocked, remembering Ce'Nedra's sometimes aggressive indifference to the way she was dressed ‑or not dressed‑ when they were alone.
"Private places are where the most interesting secrets are to be found. No spy ever passes up the opportunity to peek into a bedroom."
"That's disgusting!" Garion exclaimed, his cheeks burning.
"Of course it is. Fairly common practice, though."
They passed through the vaulted rotunda just inside the gold‑plated main door of the palace and walked out into a bright spring morning touched with a fragrant breeze.
"You know," Silk said, "I like Mal Zeth. It always smells so good. Our office here is upstairs over a bakery, and some mornings the smells from downstairs almost make me swoon."
There was only the briefest of pauses at the gates of the imperial complex. A curt gesture from one of the pair of unobtrusive men who were following them advised the gate guards that Silk and Garion were to be allowed to pass into the city.
"Policemen do have their uses sometimes," Silk said as they started down a broad boulevard leading away from the palace.
The streets of Mal Zeth teemed with people from all over the empire and not a few from the West as well.
Garion was a bit surprised to see a sprinkling of Tolnedran mantles among the varicolored robes of the local populace, and here and there were Sendars, Drasnians, and a fair number of Nadraks. There were, however, no Murgos. "Busy place," he noted to Silk.
"Oh, yes. Mal Zeth makes Tol Honeth look like a country fair and Camaar like a village market."
"It's the biggest commercial center in the world, then?
"No. That's Melcene ‑of course Melcene concentrates
on money instead of goods. You can't even buy a tin pot in Melcene. All you can buy there is money."
"Silk, how can you make any kind of profit buying money with money?"
"It's a little complicated." Silk's eyes narrowed. "Do you know something?" he said. "If you could put your hands on the royal treasury of Riva, I could show you how to double it in six months on Basa Street in Melcene ‑with a nice commission for the both of us thrown in for good measure."
"You want me to speculate with the royal treasury? I'd have an open insurrection on my hands if anybody ever found out about it."
"That's the secret, Garion. You don't let anybody find out."
"Have you ever had an honest thought in your entire life?"
The little man thought about it. "Not that I recall, no," he replied candidly. "But then, I've got a well-trained mind."
The offices of the commercial empire of Silk and Yarblek here in Mal Zeth were, as the little man had indicated, rather modest and were situated above a busy bake-shop. Access to that second floor was by way of an outside stairway rising out of a narrow side street. As Silk started up those stairs, a certain tension that Garion had not even been aware of seemed to flow out of his friend. "I hate not being able to talk freely," he said. "There are so many spies in Mal Zeth that every word you say here is delivered to Brador in triplicate before you get your mouth shut."
"There are bound to be spies around your office, too."
"Of course, but they can't hear anything. Yarblek and I had a solid foot of cork built into the floors, ceilings, and walls."
"Cork?"
"It muffles all sounds."
"Didn't that cost a great deal?"
Silk nodded. "But we made it all back during the first week we were here by managing to keep certain negotiations secret." He reached into an inside pocket and took out a large brass key. "Let's see if I can catch Dolmar with his hands in the cash box," he half whispered.
"Why? You already know that he's stealing from you."
"Certainly I do, but if I can catch him, I can reduce his year‑end bonus."
"Why not just pick his pocket?"
Silk tapped the brass key against his cheek as he thought about it. "No," he decided finally. "That's not really good business. A relationship like this is founded on trust‑"
Garion began to laugh.
"You have to draw the line somewhere, Garion." Silk quietly slipped his brass key into the lock and slowly turned it. Then he abruptly shoved the door open and jumped into the room.
"Good morning, Prince Kheldar," the man seated behind a plain table said quite calmly. "I've been expecting you."
Silk looked a bit crestfallen.
The man sitting at the table was a thin Melcene with crafty, close‑set eyes, thin lips, and scraggly, mud‑brown hair. He had the kind of face that one instantly distrusts. Silk straightened. "Good morning, Dolmar," he said. "This is Belgarion of Riva."
"Your Majesty." Dolmar rose and bowed.
"Dolmar."
Silk closed the door and pulled a pair of chairs out from the brown, cork‑sheathed wall. Although the floor was of ordinary boards, the way that all sounds of walking or moving pieces of furniture were muted testified to the thickness of the cork lying beneath.
"How's business?" Silk asked, seating himself and pushing the other chair to Garion with his foot.
"We're paying the rent," Dolmar replied cautiously.
"I'm sure that the baker downstairs is overjoyed. Specifics, Dolmar. I've been away from Mal Zeth for quite a while. Stun me with how well my investments here are doing."
"We're up fifteen percent from last year."
"That's all?" Silk sounded disappointed.
"We
've just made quite a large investment in inventory. If you take the current value of that into account, the number would be much closer to forty percent."
"That's more like it. Why are we accumulating inventory?"
"Yarblek's instructions. He's at Mal Camat right now arranging for ships to take the goods to the west. I expect that he'll be here in a week or so ‑he and that foul-mouthed wench of his." Dolmar stood up, carefully gathered the documents from the table, and crossed to an iron stove sitting in the corner. He bent, opened the stove door, and calmly laid the parchment sheets on the small fire inside.
To Garion's amazement, Silk made no objection to his factor's blatant incendiarism. "We've been looking into the wool market," the Melcene reported as he returned to his now‑empty table. "With the growing mobilization, the Bureau of Military Procurement is certain to need wool for uniforms, cloaks, and blankets. If we can buy up options from all the major sheep producers, we'll control the market and perhaps break the stranglehold that the Melcene consortium has on military purchases. If we can just get our foot in the door of the Bureau, I'm sure that we can get a chance to bid on all sorts of contracts."
Silk was pulling at his long, pointed nose, his eyes narrowed in thought. "Beans," he said shortly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Look into the possibility of tying up this year's bean crop. A soldier can live in a worn‑out uniform, but he has to eat. If we control the bean crop ‑and maybe coarse flour as well‑ the Bureau of Military Procurement won't have any choice. They'll have to come to us."
"Very shrewd, Prince Kheldar."
"I've been around for a while," Silk replied.
"The consortium is meeting this week in Melcene," the factor reported. "They'll be setting the prices of common items. We really want to get our hands on that price list if we can."
"I'm in the palace," Silk said. "Maybe I can pry it out of somebody."
"There's something else you should know, Prince Kheldar. Word has leaked out that the consortium is also going to propose certain regulations to Baron Vasca of the Bureau of Commerce. They'll present them under the guise of protecting the economy, but the fact of the matter is that they're aimed at you and Yarblek. They want to restrict western merchants who gross more than ten million a year to two or three enclaves on the west-coast. That wouldn't inconvenience smaller merchants, but it would probably put us out of business."
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