Some of the suspicion faded from the red‑haired man's face. "It seems to me that I heard some mention of it," he conceded.
"The fellow we talked with said that he thought there might have been some survivors," Silk added, "one that he knew of, anyway. He said that a woman in a dark cloak and carrying a baby managed to get away in a small boat. Do you by chance happen to know anything about that?"
The Karand's face hardened. "Oh, yes," he said. "We know about her, all right."
"Could you by any chance tell me where she went?" Silk asked him. "I'd really like to talk with her and find out if she knows anything about my brother." He leaned toward the other man confidentially. "To be perfectly honest with you, good sir, I can't stand my brother. We've hated each other since we were children, but I promised my old father that I'd find out what happened to him." Then he winked outrageously. "There's an inheritance involved, you understand. If I can take definite word back to father that my brother's dead, I stand to come into a nice piece of property."
The red‑haired man grinned. "I can understand your situation, Saldas." he said. "I had a dispute with my own brothers about our patrimony." His eyes narrowed. "You say you're from Dorikan?" he asked.
"Yes. On the banks of the northern River Magan. Do you know our city?"
"Does Dorikan follow the teachings of Lord Mengha?"
"The Liberator? Of course. Doesn't all of Karanda?"
"Have you seen any of the Dark Lords in the last month or so?"
"The minions of the Lord Nahaz? No, I can't say that I have ‑but then Kvasta and I haven't attended any worship services for some time. I'm sure that the wizards are still raising them, though."
"I wouldn't be all that sure, Saldas. we haven't seen one here in Karand for over five weeks. Our wizards have tried to summon them, but they refuse to come. Even the Grolims who now worship Lord Nahaz haven't been successful and they'll all powerful magicians, you know."
"Truly," Silk agreed.
"Have you heard anything at all about Lord Mengha's whereabouts?"
Silk shrugged. "The last I heard, he was in Katakor someplace. In Dorikan we're just waiting for his return so that we can sweep the Angaraks out of all Karanda."
The answer seemed to satisfy the tall fellow. "All right, Saldas," he said. "I'd say that you've got a legitimate reason to be in Karand after all. I don't think you're going to have much luck in finding the woman you want to talk to, though. From what I've heard, she was on your brother's boat and she did get away before the storm hit. She had a small boat, and she landed to the south of the city. She came to the south gate with her brat in her arms and went straight to the Temple. She talked with the Grolims inside for about an hour. When she left, they were all following her."
"Which way did they go?" Silk asked him.
"Out the east gate."
"How long ago was it?"
"Late last week. I'll tell you something, Saldas. Lord Mengha had better stop whatever he's doing in Katakor and come back to central Karanda where he belongs. The whole movement is starting to falter. The Dark Lords have deserted us, and the Grolims are trailing after this woman with the baby. All we have left are the wizards, and they're mostly mad, anyway."
"They always have been, haven't they?" Silk grinned. "Tampering with the supernatural tends to unsettle a man's brains, I've noticed."
"You seem like a sensible man, Saldas," the redhead said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'd like to stay and talk with you further, but my men and I have to finish our patrol. I hope you find your brother." He winked slyly. "Or don't find him, I should say."
Silk grinned back. "I thank you for your wishes about my brother's growing ill health," he replied.
The soldiers moved off along the street. "You tell better stories than Belgarath does," Garion said to his little friend.
"It's a gift. That was a very profitable encounter, wasn't it? Now I understand why the Orb hasn't picked up the trail yet. We came into the city by way of the north gate, and Zandramas came up from the south. If we go straight to the Temple, the Orb's likely to jerk you off your feet."
Garion nodded. "The important thing is that we're only a few days behind her." He paused, frowning.
"Why is she gathering Grolims, though?"
"Who knows? Reinforcements maybe. She knows that we're right behind her. Or, maybe she thinks she's going to need Grolims who have training in Karandese magic when she gets home to Darshiva. If Nahaz has sent his demons down there, she's going to need all the help she can get. We'll let Belgarath sort it out. Let's go to the Temple and see if we can pick up the trail."
As they approached the Temple in the center of the city, the Orb began to pull at Garion again, and he felt a surge of exultation. "I've got it," he said to Silk.
"Good." The little man looked up at the Temple. "I see that they've made some modifications," he observed.
The polished steel mask of the face of Torak which normally occupied the place directly over the nail‑studded door had been removed, Garion saw, and in its place was a red‑painted skull with a pair of horns screwed down into its brow.
"I don't know that the skull is all that big an improvement, " Silk said, "but then, it's no great change for the worse either. I was getting a little tired of that mask staring at me every time I turned around."
"Let's follow the trail," Garion suggested, "and make certain that Zandramas left the city before we go get the others."
"Right," Silk agreed.
The trail led from the door of the Temple through the littered streets to the east gate of the city. Garion and Silk followed it out of Karand and perhaps a half mile along the highway leading eastward across the plains of Ganesia.
"Is she veering at all?" Silk asked.
"Not yet. She's following the road."
"Good. Let's go get the others ‑and our horses. we won't make very good time on foot."
They moved away from the road, walking through knee‑high grass.
"Looks like good, fertile soil here," Garion noted. "Have you and Yarblek ever considered buying farmland? It might be a good investment."
"No, Garion." Silk laughed. "There's a major drawback to owning land. If you have to leave a place in a hurry, there's no way that you can pick it up and carry it along with you."
"That's true, I guess."
The others waited in a grove of large old willows a mile or so north of the city, and their faces were expectant as Garion and Silk ducked in under the branches.
"Did you find it?" Belgarath asked.
Garion nodded. "She went east," he replied.
"And apparently she took all the Grolims from the Temple along with her," Silk added.
Belgarath looked puzzled. "Why would she do that?"
"I haven't got a clue. I suppose we could ask her when we catch up with her."
"Could you get any idea of how far ahead of us she is?" Ce'Nedra asked.
"Just a few days," Garion said. "With any luck we'll catch her before she gets across the Mountains of Zamad."
"Not if we don't get started," Belgarath said.
They rode on back across the wide, open field to the highway leading across the plains toward the upthrusting peaks lying to the east. The Orb picked up the trail again, and they followed it at a canter.
"What kind of a city was it?" Velvet asked Silk as they rode along.
"Nice place to visit," he replied, "but you wouldn't want to live there. The pigs are clean enough, but the people are awfully dirty."
"Cleverly put, Kheldar."
"I've always had a way with words," he conceded modestly.
"Father," Polgara called to the old man, "a large number of Grolims have passed this way."
He looked around and nodded. "Silk was right, then," he said. "For some reason she's subverting Mengha's people. Let's be alert for any possible ambushes."
They rode on for the rest of the day and camped that night some distance away from the road, starting out again at first light
in the morning. About midday they saw a roadside village some distance ahead. Coming from that direction was a solitary man in a rickety cart being pulled by a bony white horse.
"Do you by any change have a flagon of ale, Lady Polgara?" Sadi asked as they slowed to a walk.
" Are you thirsty?"
"Oh, it's not for me. I detest ale personally. It's for that carter just ahead. I thought we might want some information." He looked over at Silk. "Are you feeling at all sociable today, Kheldar?"
"No more than usual. Why?"
"Take a drink or two of this," the eunuch said, offering the little man the flagon Polgara had taken from one of the packs. "Not too much, mind. I only want you to smell drunk."
"Why not?" Silk shrugged, taking a long drink.
"That should do it," Sadi approved. "Now give it back."
"I thought you didn't want any."
"I don't. I'm just going to add a bit of favoring." He opened his red case. "Don't drink any more from this flagon," he warned Silk as he tapped four drops of a gleaming red liquid into the mouth of the flagon. "If you do, we'll all have to listen to you talk for days on end." He handed the flagon back to the little man. "Why don't you go offer that poor fellow up there a drink," he suggested. "He looks like he could use one."
"You didn't poison it, did you?"
"Of course not. It's very hard to get information out of somebody who's squirming on the ground clutching at his belly. One or two good drinks from that flagon, though, and the carter will be seized by an uncontrollable urge to talk ‑about anything at all and to anybody who asks him a question in a friendly fashion. Go be friendly to the poor man, Kheldar. He looks dreadfully lonesome.
Silk grinned, then turned and trotted his horse toward the oncoming cart, swaying in his saddle and singing loudly and very much off‑key.
"He's very good," Velvet murmured to Ce'Nedra, "but he always overacts his part. When we get back to Boktor, I think I'll send him to a good drama coach."
Ce'Nedra laughed.
By the time they reached the cart, the seedy‑looking man in a rust‑red smock had pulled his vehicle off to the side of the road, and he and Silk had joined in song -a rather bawdy one.
"Ah, there you are," Silk said, squinting owlishly at Sadi. "I wondered how long it was going to take you to catch up. Here‑" He thrust the flagon at the eunuch. "Have a drink."
Sadi feigned taking a long drink from the flagon. Then he sighed lustily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and handed the flagon back.
Silk passed it to the carter. "Your turn, friend." The carter took a drink and then grinned foolishly. "I haven't felt this good in weeks," he said.
"We're riding toward the east," Sadi told him.
"I saw that right off," the carter said. "That's unless you've taught your horses to run backward." He laughed uproariously at that, slapping his knee in glee.
"How droll," the eunuch murmured. "Do you come from that village just up ahead?"
"Lived there all my life," the carter replied, "and my father before me ‑and his father before him‑ and his father's father before that and‑"
"Have you seen a dark‑cloaked woman with a babe in her arms go past here within the last week?" Sadi interrupted him. "She probably would have been in the company of a fairly large party of Grolims."
The carter made the sign to ward off the evil eye at the mention of the word "Grolim."
"Oh, yes. She came by all right," he said, "and she went into the local Temple here ‑if you can really call it a Temple. It's no bigger than my own house and it's only got three Grolims in it -two young ones and an old one. Anyway, this woman with the babe in her arms, she goes into the Temple, and we can hear her talking, and pretty soon she comes out with our three Grolims ‑only the old one was trying to talk the two young ones into staying, and then she says something to the young ones and they pull out their knives and start stabbing the old one, and he yells and falls down on the ground dead as mutton, and the woman takes our two young Grolims back out to the road, and they join in with the others and they all go off, leaving us only that old dead one lying on his face in the mud and‑"
"How many Grolims would you say she had with her?" Sadi asked.
"Counting our two, I'd say maybe thirty -or forty‑ or it could be as many as fifty. I've never been very good at quick guesses like that. I can tell the difference between three and four, but after that I get confused, and‑"
"Could you give us any idea of exactly how long ago all that was?"
"Let's see." The carter squinted at the sty, counting on his fingers. "It couldn't have been yesterday, because yesterday I took that load of barrels over to Toad‑face's farm. Do you know Toad‑face? Ugliest man I ever saw, but his daughter's a real beauty. I could tell you stories about her, let me tell you."
"So it wasn't yesterday?"
"No. If definitely wasn't yesterday. I spent most of yesterday under a haystack with Toad‑face's daughter. And I know it wasn't the day before, because I got drunk that day and I don't remember a thing that happened after midmorning." He took another drink from the flagon.
"How about the day before that?"
"It could have been," the carter said, "or the day before that."
"Or even before?"
The carter shook his head. "No, that was the day our pig farrowed, and I know that the woman came by after that. It had to have been the day before the day before yesterday or the day before that."
"Three or four days ago, then?"
"If that's the way it works out," the carter shrugged, drinking again.
"Thanks for the information, friend," Sadi said. He looked at Silk. "We should be moving on, I suppose," he said.
"Did you want your jar back?" the carter asked.
"Go ahead and keep it, friend," Silk said. "I think I've had enough anyway."
"Thanks for the ale ‑and the talk," the carter called after them as they rode away. Garion glanced back and saw that the fellow had climbed down from his cart and was engaging in an animated conversation with his horse.
"Three days!" Ce'Nedra exlaimed happily.
"Or, at the most, four," Sadi said.
"We're gaining on her!" Ce'Nedra said, suddenly leaning over and throwing her arms about the eunuch's neck.
"So it appears, your Majesty," Sadi agreed, looking slightly embarrassed.
They camped off the road again that night and started out again early the following morning. The sun was just coming up when the large, blue‑banded hawk came spiraling in, flared, and shimmered into the form of Beldin at the instant its talons touched the road. "You've got company waiting for you just ahead," he told them, pointing at the first line of foothills of the Mountains of Zamad lying perhaps a mile in front of them.
"Oh?" Belgarath said, reining in his horse.
"About a dozen Grolims," Beldin said. They're hiding in the bushes on either side of the road."
Belgarath swore.
"Have you been doing things to annoy the Grolims?" the hunchback asked.
Belgarath shook his head. "Zandramas has been gathering them as she goes along. She's got quite a few of them with her now. She probably left that group behind to head off pursuit. She knows that we're right behind her."
"What are we going to do, Belgarath?" Ce'Nedra asked. "We're so close. We can't stop now."
The old man looked at his brother sorcerer. "Well?" he said.
Beldin scowled at him. "All right," he said. "I'll do it, but don't forget that you owe me, Belgarath."
"Write it down with all the other things. We'll settle up when this is all over."
"Don't think I won't."
"Did you find out where Nahaz took Urvon?"
"Would you believe they went back to Mal Yaska?" Beldin sounded disgusted.
"They'll come out eventually," Belgarath assured him. "Are you going to need any help with the Grolims? I could send Pol along if you like."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"No. I was j
ust asking. Don't make too much noise." Beldin made a vulgar sound, changed again, and swooped away.
"Where's he going?" Silk asked.
"He's going to draw off the Grolims."
"Oh? How?"
"I didn't ask him," Belgarath shrugged. "We'll give him a little while and then we should be able to ride straight on through."
"He's very good, isn't he?"
"Beldin? Oh, yes, very, very good. There he goes now."
Silk looked around. "Where?"
"I didn't see him ‑I heard him. He's flying low a mile or so to the north of where the Grolims are hiding, and he's kicking up just enough noise to make it sound as if the whole group of us are trying to slip around them without being seen." He glanced at his daughter. "Pol, would you take a look and see if it's working?"
"All right, father." She concentrated, and Garion could feel her mind reaching out, probing. "They've taken the bait," she reported. "They all ran off after Beldin."
"That was accommodating of them, wasn't it? Let's move on."
They pushed their horses into a gallop and covered the distance to the first foothills of the Mountains of Zamad in a short period of time. They followed the road up a steep slope and through a shallow notch. Beyond that the terrain grew more rugged, and the dark green forest rose steeply up the flanks of the peaks.
Garion began to sense conflicting signals from the Orb as he rode. At first he had only felt its eagerness to follow the trail of Zandramas and Geran, but now he began to feel a sullen undertone, a sound of ageless, implacable hatred, and at his back where the sword was sheathed, he began to feel an increasing heat.
"Why is it burning red?" Ce'Nedra asked from behind him.
"What's burning red?"
"The Orb, I think. I can see it glowing right through the leather covering you have over it."
"Let's stop awhile," Belgarath told them, reining in his horse.
"What is it, Grandfather?"
"I'm not sure. Take the sword out and slip off the sleeve. Let's see what's happening."
Garion drew the sword from its sheath. It seemed heavier than usual for some reason, and when he peeled off the soft leather covering, they were all able to see that instead of its usual azure blue, the Orb of Aldur was glowing a dark, sooty red.
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