At first light the following morning, a light that was little more than a lessening of the darkness of a sky where dense clouds scudded before the chill wind blowing down off the mountains, Silk returned to the room in which they had spent the night. “The house is being watched,” he told them.
“How many are there?” Belgarath asked.
“I saw one. I'm sure there are others.”
“Where is he? The one that you saw?”
Silk's quick grin was vicious. “He's watching the sky. At least he looks like he's watching. His eyes are open and he's lying on his back.” He slid his hand down into his boot, pulled out one of his daggers, and looked sorrowfully at its once-keen edge. “Do you have any idea of how hard it is to push a knife through a chain-mail shirt?”
“I think that's why people wear them, Kheldar,” Velvet said to him. “You should use one of these.” From somewhere amongst her soft, feminine clothing she drew out a long-bladed poniard with a needle-like point.
“I thought you were partial to snakes.”
“Always use the appropriate weapon, Kheldar. I certainly wouldn't want Zith to break her teeth on a steel shirt.”
“Could you two talk business some other time?” Belgarath said to them. “Can you put a name to this fellow who's suddenly so interested in the sky?”
“We didn't really have time to introduce ourselves,” Silk replied, sliding his jagged-edged knife back into his boot.
“I meant what -not who.”
“Oh. He was a Temple Guardsman.”
“Not one of the Chandim?”
“All I had to go by was his clothing.”
The old man grunted.
“It's going to be slow going if we have to look behind every tree and bush as we ride along,” Sadi said.
“I realize that,” Belgarath answered, tugging at one earlobe. “Let me think my way through this.”
“And while you're deciding, I'll fix us some breakfast,” Polgara said, laying aside her hairbrush. “What would you all like?”
“Porridge?” Eriond asked hopefully.
Silk sighed. “The word is gruel, Eriond. Gruel.” Then he looked quickly at Polgara, whose eyes had suddenly turned frosty. “Sorry, Polgara,” he apologized, “but it's our duty to educate the young, don't you think?”
“What I think is that I need more firewood,” she replied.
“I'll see to it at once.”
“You're too kind.”
Silk rather quickly left the room.
“Any ideas?” the hunchbacked Beldin asked Belgarath.
“Several. But they all have certain flaws in them.”
“Why not let me handle it for you?” the gnarled sorcerer asked, sprawling on a bench near the fire and scratching absently at his belly. “You've had a hard night, a ten-thousand-year-old man needs to conserve his strength.”
“You really find that amusing, don't you? Why not say twenty -or fifty? Push absurdity to its ultimate edge.”
“My,” Beldin said, “aren't we testy this morning? Pol, have you got any beer handy?”
“Before breakfast, Uncle?” she said from beside the fireplace where she was stirring a large pot.
“Just as a buffer for the gruel,” he said.
She gave him a very steady look.
He grinned at her, then turned back toward Belgarath. “Seriously, though,” he went on, “why not let me deal with all the lurkers in the bushes around the house? Kheldar could dull every knife he's carrying, and Liselle could wear that poor little snake's fangs down to the gums, and still wouldn't be sure if you'd cleaned out the woods hereabouts. I'm going off in a different direction anyway, so why not let me do something flamboyant to frighten off the Guardsmen and the Karands and then leave a nice, wide trail for the Chandim and the Hounds? They'll follow me, and that should leave you an empty forest to ride through.”
Belgarath gave him a speculative look. “Exactly what have you got in mind?” he asked.
“I'm still working on it.” The dwarf leaned back reflectively. “Let's face it, Belgarath, the Chandim and Zandramas already know that we're here, so there's not much point in tiptoeing around anymore. A little noise isn't going to hurt anything.”
“That's true, I suppose,” Belgarath agreed. He looked at Garion. “Are you getting any hints from the Orb about the direction Zandramas took when she left here?”
“A sort of a steady pull toward the east is all.”
Beldin grunted. “Makes sense. Since Urvon's people were wandering all over Katakor, she probably wanted to get to the nearest unguarded border as quickly as possible. That would be Jenno.”
“Is the border between Jenno and Katakor unguarded?” Velvet asked.
“They don't even know for sure where the border is.” He snorted. “At least not up in the forest. There's nothing up there but trees anyway, so they don't bother with it.” He turned back to Belgarath. “Don't get your mind set in stone on some of these things,” he advised. “We did a lot of speculating back at Mal Zeth, and the theories we came up with were related to the truth only by implication. There's a great deal of intrigue going on here in Mallorea, so it's a good idea to expect things to turn out not quite the way you thought they would.”
“Garion,” Polgara said from the fireplace, “would you see if you can find Silk? Breakfast is almost ready.”
“Yes, Aunt Pol,” he replied automatically.
After they had eaten, they repacked their belongings and carried the packs out to the stable.
“Go out through the sally port,” Beldin said as they crossed the courtyard again. “Give me about an hour before you start.”
“You're leaving now?” Belgarath asked him.
“I might as well. We're not accomplishing very much by sitting around talking. Don't forget to leave me a trail to follow.”
“I'll take care of it. I wish you'd tell me what you're going to do here.”
“Trust me.” The gnarled sorcerer winked. “Take cover someplace and don't come out again until all the noise subsides.” He grinned wickedly and rubbed his dirty hands together in anticipation. Then he shimmered and swooped away as a blue-banded hawk.
“I think we'd better go back inside the house,” Belgarath suggested. “Whatever he's going to do out here is likely to involve a great deal of flying debris.”
They reentered the house and went back to the room where they had spent the night. “Durnik,” Belgarath said, “can you get those shutters closed? I don't think we want broken glass sheeting across the room.”
“But then we won't be able to see,” Silk objected.
“I'm sure you can live without seeing it. As a matter of fact, you probably wouldn't want to watch, anyway.”
Durnik went to the window, opened it slightly, and pulled the shutters closed.
Then, from high overhead where the blue-banded hawk had been circling, there came a huge roar almost like a continuous peal of swirling thunder, accompanied by a rushing surge. The House of Torak shook as if a great wind were tearing at it, and the faint light coming from between the slats of the shutters Durnik had closed vanished, to be replaced by inky darkness. Then there came a vast bellow from high in the air above the house.
“A demon?” Ce'Nedra gasped. “Is it a demon?”
“A semblance of a demon,” Polgara corrected.
“How can anybody see it when it's so dark outside?” Sadi asked.
“It's dark around the house because the house is inside the image. The people hiding in the forest should be able to see it very well -too well, in fact.”
“It's that big?” Sadi looked stunned. “But this house is enormous.”
Belgarath grinned. “Beldin was never satisfied with halfway measures,” he said.
There came another of those huge bellows from high above, followed by faint shrieks and cries of agony.
“Now what's he doing?” Ce'Nedra asked.
“Some kind of visual display, I'd imagine.” Belgarath shrugged. “Probably fairly graphic. My guess is that everyone in the vicinity is being entertained by the spectacle of an illusory demon eating imaginary people alive.”
“Will it frighten them off?” Silk asked.
“Wouldn't it frighten you?”
From high overhead, a dreadful booming voice roared.
“Hungry!” it said. “Hungry! Want food! Mow food!” There came a ponderous, earthshaking crash, the sound of a titanic foot crushing an acre of forest. Then there was another and yet another as Beldin's enormous image stalked away. The light returned, and Silk hurried toward the window.
“I wouldn't,” Belgarath warned him.
“But-“
“You don't want to see it, Silk. Take my word for it. You don't want to see it.”
The gigantic footsteps continued to crash through the nearby woods.
“How much longer?” Sadi asked in a shaken voice.
“He said about an hour,” Belgarath replied. “He'll probably make use of all of it. He wants to make a lasting impression on everybody in the area.”
There were screams of terror coming from the woods now, and the crashing continued. Then there was another sound -a great roaring that receded off into the distance toward the southwest, accompanied by the fading surge of Beldin's will.
“He's leading the Chandim off now, “ Belgarath said. “That means he's already chased off the Guardsmen and the Karands. Let's get ready to leave.”
It took them a while to calm the wild-eyed horses, but they were finally able to mount and ride into the courtyard. Garion had once again donned his mail shirt and helmet, and his heavy shield hung from the bow of Chretienne's saddle. “Do I still need to carry the lance?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Belgarath replied. “We're not likely to meet anybody out there now.”
They went through the sally port and into the brushy woods. They circled the black house until they reached the east-side, then Garion drew Iron-grip's sword. He held it lightly and swept it back and forth until he felt it pull at his hand. “The trail's over there,” he said, pointing toward a scarcely visible path leading off into the woods.
“Good,” Belgarath said. “At least we won't have to beat our way through the brush.”
They crossed the weed-grown clearing that surrounded the House of Torak and entered the forest. The path they followed showed little sign of recent use, and it was at times difficult to see.
“It looks as if some people left here in a hurry.” Silk grinned, pointing at various bits and pieces of equipment lying scattered along the path.
They came up over the top of a hill and saw a wide strip of devastation stretching through the forest toward the southwest.
“A tornado?” Sadi asked.
“No,” Belgarath replied. “Beldin. The Chandim won't have much trouble finding his trail.”
The sword in Garion's hand was still pointed unerringly toward the path they were following. He led the way confidently, and they increased their pace to a trot and pushed on through the forest. After a league or so, the path began to run downhill, moving out of the foothills toward the heavily forested plains lying to the east of the Karandese range.
“Are there any towns out there?” Sadi asked, looking out over the forest.
“Akkad is the only one of any size between here and the border,” Silk told him.
“I don't think I've ever heard of it. What's it like?”
“It's a pigpen of a place,” Silk replied. “Most Karandese towns are. They seem to have a great affinity for mud.”
“Wasn't Akkad the place where the Melcene bureaucrat was from?” Velvet asked.
“That's what he said,” Silk answered.
“ And didn't he say that there are demons there?”
“There were,” Belgarath corrected. “Cyradis told us that Nahaz has pulled all of his demons out of Karanda and sent them off to Darshiva to fight the Grolims there.” He scratched at his beard. “I think we'll avoid Akkad anyway. The demons may have left, but there are still going to be Karandese fanatics there, and I don't think that the news of Mengha's death has reached them yet. In any event, there's going to be a fair amount of chaos here in Karanda until Zakath's army gets back from Cthol Murgos and he moves in to restore order.”
They rode on, pausing only briefly for lunch.
By midafternoon, the clouds that had obscured the skies over Ashaba had dissipated, and the sun came back out again. The path they had been following grew wider and more well-traveled, and it finally expanded into a road. They picked up the pace and made better time.
As evening drew on, they rode some distance back from the road and made their night's encampment in a small hollow where the light from their fire would be well concealed. They ate, and, immediately after supper, Garion sought his bed. For some reason he felt bone weary.
After half an hour, Ce'Nedra joined him in their tent.
She settled down into the blankets and nestled her head against his back. Then she sighed disconsolately. “It was all a waste of time, wasn't it?” she said. “Going to Ashaba, I mean.”
“No, Ce'Nedra, not really,” he replied, still on the verge of sleep. “We had to go there so that Velvet could kill Harakan. That was one of the tasks that have to be completed before we get to the Place Which Is No More.”
“Does all that really have any meaning, Garion?” she asked. “Half the time you act as if you believe it, and the other half you don't. If Zandramas had been there with our son, you wouldn't have just let her walk away because all the conditions hadn't been met, would you?”
“Not by so much as one step,” he said grimly.
“Then you don't really believe it, do you?”
“I'm not an absolute fatalist, if that's what you mean, but I've seen things come out exactly the way the Prophecy said they were going to far too many times for me to ignore it altogether.”
“Sometimes I think that I'll never see my baby again,” she said in a weary little voice.
“You mustn't ever think that,” he told her. “We will catch up with Zandramas, and we will take Geran home with us again.”
“Home,” she sighed. “We've been gone for so long that I can barely remember what it looks like.”
He took her into his arms, buried his face in her hair, and held her close. After a time she sighed and fell asleep. In spite of his own deep weariness, however, it was quite late before he himself drifted off.
The next day dawned clear and warm. They made their way back to the road again and continued eastward with Iron-grip's sword pointing the way.
About midmorning, Polgara called ahead to Belgarath.
“Father, there's someone hiding off to the side of the road just ahead.”
He slowed his horse to a walk. “Chandim?” he asked tersely.
“No. It's a Mallorean Angarak. He's very much afraid -and not altogether rational.”
“Is he planning any mischief?”
“He's not actually planning anything, father. His thoughts aren't coherent enough for that.”
“Why don't you go flush him out, Silk?” the old man suggested. “I don't like having people lurking behind me -sane or not.
“About where is he?” the little man asked Polgara.
“Some distance back in the woods from that dead tree.” she replied.
He nodded. “I'll go talk with him,” he said. He loped his horse on ahead and reined in beside the dead tree. “We know you're back there, friend,” he called pleasantly. “We don't mean you any harm, but why don't you come out in the open where we can see you?”
There was a long pause.
“Come along now,” Silk called. “Don't be shy.”
“Have you got any demons with you?” The voice sounded fearful.
“Do I look like the sort of fellow who'd be consorting with demons?”
“You won't kill me, will you?”
“Of course not. We only want to talk with you, that's all.”
There was another long, fearful pause. “Have you got anything to eat?” The voice was filled with a desperate need.
“I think we can spare a bit.”
The hidden man thought about that. “All right,” he said finally. “I'm coming out. Remember that you promised not to kill me.” Then there was a crashing in the bushes, and a Mallorean soldier came stumbling out into the road. His red tunic was in shreds, he had lost his helmet, and the remains of his boots were tied to his legs with leather thongs. He had quite obviously neither shaved nor bathed for at least a month. His eyes were wild and his head twitched on his neck uncontrollably. He stared at Silk with a terrified expression.
“You don't look to be in very good shape, friend,” Silk said to him. “Where's your unit?”
“Dead, all dead, and eaten by the demons.” The soldier's eyes were haunted. “Were you at Akkad?” he asked in a terrified voice. “Were you there when the demons came?”
“No, friend. We just came up from Venna.”
“You said that you had something for me to eat.”
“Durnik,” Silk called, “could you bring some food for this poor fellow?”
Durnik rode to the packhorse carrying their stores and took out some bread and dried meat. Then he rode on ahead to join Silk and the fear-crazed soldier.
“Were you at Akkad when the demons came?” the fellow asked him.
Durnik shook his head. “No,” he replied, “I'm with him.” He pointed at Silk. Then he handed the fellow the bread and meat.
The soldier snatched them and began to wolf them down in huge bites.
“What happened at Akkad?” Silk asked.
“The demons came,” the soldier replied, still cramming food into his mouth. Then he stopped, his eyes fixed on Durnik with an expression of fright. “Are you going to kill me?” he demanded.
Durnik stared at him. “No, man,” he replied in a sick voice.
“Thank you.” The soldier sat down at the roadside and continued to eat.
Garion and the others slowly drew closer, not wanting to frighten the skittish fellow off.
“What did happen at Akkad?” Silk pressed. “We're going in that direction, and we'd sort of like to know what to expect.”
“Don't go there,” the soldier said, shuddering. “It's horrible -horrible. The demons came through the gates with howling Karands all around them. The Karands started hacking people to pieces and then they fed the pieces to the demons. They cut off both of my captain's arms and then his legs as well, and then a demon picked up what was left of him and ate his head. He was screaming the whole time.” He lowered his chunk of bread and fearfully stared at Ce'Nedra. “Lady, are you going to kill me?” he demanded.
“Certainly not!” she replied in a shocked voice.
“If you are, please don't let me see it when you do. And please bury me someplace where the demons won't dig me up and eat me.”
“She's not going to kill you,” Polgara told him firmly.
The man's wild eyes filled with a kind of desperate longing. “Would you do it then, Lady?” he pleaded. “I can't stand the horror any more. Please kill me gently -the way my mother would- and then hide me so that the demons won't get me.” He put his face into his shaking hands and began to cry.
“Give him some more food, Durnik,” Belgarath said, his eyes suddenly filled with compassion. “He's completely mad, and there's nothing else we can do for him.”
“I think I might be able to do something, Ancient One,” Sadi said. He opened his case and took out a vial of amber liquid. “Sprinkle a few drops of this on the bread you give him, Goodman,” he said to Durnik. “It will calm him and give him a few hours of peace.”
“Compassion seems out of character for you, Sadi,” Silk said.
“Perhaps,” the eunuch murmured, “but then, perhaps you don't fully understand me, Prince Kheldar.”
Durnik took some more bread and meat from the pack for the hysterical Mallorean soldier, sprinkling them liberally with Sadi's potion. Then he gave them to the poor man, and they all rode slowly past and on down the road.
After they had gone a ways, Garion heard him calling after them. “Come back! Come back! Somebody -anybody- please come back and kill me. Mother, please kill me!”
Garion's stomach wrenched with an almost overpowering sense of pity. He set his teeth and rode on, trying not to listen to the desperate pleas coming from behind.
They circled to the north of Akkad that afternoon, bypassing the city and returning to the road some two leagues beyond. The pull of the sword Garion held on the pommel of his saddle confirmed the fact that Zandramas had indeed passed this way and had continued on along this road toward the northeast and the relative safety of the border between Katakor and Jenno.
They camped in the forest a few miles north of the road that night and started out once more early the following morning. The road for a time stretched across open fields. It was deeply rutted and still quite soft at the shoulders.
“Karands don't take road maintenance very seriously,” Silk observed, squinting into the morning sun.
“I noticed that,” Durnik replied.
“I thought you might have.”
Some leagues farther on, the road they were following reentered the forest, and they rode along through a cool, damp shade beneath towering evergreens.
Then, from somewhere ahead they heard a hollow, booming sound.
“I think we might want to go rather carefully until we're past that.” Silk said quietly.
“What is that sound?” Sadi asked.
“Drums. There's a temple ahead.”
“Out here in the forest?” The eunuch sounded surprised. “I thought that the Grolims were largely confined to the cities.”
“This isn't a Grolim Temple, Sadi. It was nothing to do with the worship of Torak. As a matter of fact, the Grolims used to burn these places whenever they came across them. They were a part of the old religion of the area.”
“Demon worship, you mean?”
Silk nodded. “Most of them have been long abandoned, but every so often you come across one that's still in use. The drums are a fair indication that the one just ahead is still open for business.”
“Will we be able to go around them?” Durnik asked.
“It shouldn't be much trouble,” the little man replied. “The Karands burn a certain fungus in their ceremonial fires. The fumes have a peculiar effect on one's senses.”
“Oh?” Sadi said with a certain interest.
“Never mind,” Belgarath told him. “That red case of yours has quite enough in it already.”
“Just scientific curiosity, Belgarath.”
“Of course. “
“What are they worshipping?” Velvet asked. “I thought that the demons had all left Karanda.”
Silk was frowning. “The beat isn't right,” he said.
“Have you suddenly become a music critic, Kheldar?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I've come across these places before, and the drumming's usually pretty frenzied when they're holding their rites. That beat up ahead is too measured, It's almost as if they're waiting for something.”
Sadi shrugged. “Let them wait,” he said. “It's no concern of ours, is it?”
“We don't know that for sure, Sadi,” Polgara told him. She looked at Belgarath. “Wait here, father,” she suggested. “I'll go on ahead and take a look.”
“It's too dangerous, Pol,” Durnik objected.
She smiled. “They won't even pay any attention to me, Durnik.” She dismounted and walked a short way up the path. Then, momentarily, she was surrounded with a kind of glowing nimbus, a hazy patch of light that had not been there before. When the light cleared, a great snowy owl hovered among the trees and then ghosted away on soft, silent wings.
“For some reason that always makes my blood run cold,” Sadi murmured.
They waited while the measured drumming continued.
Garion dismounted and checked his cinch strap. Then he walked about a bit, stretching his legs.
It was perhaps ten minutes later when Polgara returned, drifting on white wings under the low-hanging branches. When she resumed her normal shape, her face was pale and her eyes were filled with loathing. “Hideous! “ she said. “Hideous!”
“What is it, Pol?” Durnik's voice was concerned.
“There's a woman in labor in that temple.”
“I don't know that a temple is the right sort of place for that, but if she needed shelter-“ The smith shrugged.
“The temple was chosen quite deliberately,” she replied. “The infant that's about to be born isn't human.”
“But-“
“It's a demon.” Ce'Nedra gasped.
Polgara looked at Belgarath. “We have to intervene, father,” she told him. “This must be stopped.”
“How can it be stopped?” Velvet asked in perplexity. “I mean, if the woman's already in labor . . .” She spread her hands.
“We may have to kill her,” Polgara said bleakly. “Even that may not prevent this monstrous birth. We may have to deliver the demon child and then smother it.”
“No!” Ce'Nedra cried. “It's just a baby! You can't kill it”
“It's not that kind of baby, Ce'Nedra. It's half human and half demon. It's a creature of this world and a spawn of the other. If it's allowed to live, it won't be possible to banish it. It will be a perpetual horror.”
“Garion!” Ce'Nedra cried. “You can't let her.”
“Polgara's right, Ce'Nedra,” Belgarath told her. “The creature can't be allowed to live.”
“How many Karands are gathered up there?” Silk asked.
“There are a half dozen outside the temple,” Polgara replied. “There may be more inside.”
“However many they are, we're going to have to dispose of them,” he said. “They're waiting for the birth of what they believe is a God, and they'll defend the newborn demon to the death.”
“All right, then,” Garion said bleakly', “let's go oblige them.”
“You're not condoning this?” Ce'Nedra exclaimed.
“I don't like it,” he admitted, “but I don't see that we've got much choice.” He looked at Polgara. “There's absolutely no way it could be sent back to the place where demons originate?” he asked her.
“None whatsoever,” she said flatly. “This world will be it's home. It wasn't summoned and it has no master.
Within two years, it will be a horror such as this world has never seen. It must be destroyed.”
“Can you do it, Pol?” Belgarath asked her.
“I don't have any choice, father,” she replied. “I have to do it.”
“All right, then,” the old man said to the rest of them.
“We have to get Pol inside that temple -and that means dealing with the Karands.”
Silk reached inside his boot and pulled out his dagger. “I should have sharpened this,” he muttered, looking ruefully at his jagged blade.
“Would you like to borrow one of mine?” Velvet asked him.
“No, that's all right, Liselle,” he replied. “I've got a couple of spares.” He returned the knife to his boot and drew another from its place of concealment at the small of his back and yet a third from its sheath down the back of his neck.
Durnik lifted his axe from its loop at the back of his saddle. His face was unhappy. “Do we really have to do this, Pol?” he asked.
“Yes, Durnik. I'm afraid we do.”
He sighed. “All right, then,” he said. “Let's go get it over with.”
They started forward, riding at a slow walk to avoid alerting the fanatics ahead.
The Karands were sitting around a large, hollowed-out section of log, pounding on it with clubs in rhythmic unison. It gave forth a dull booming sound. They were dressed in roughly tanned fur vests and cross-tied leggings of dirty sackcloth. They were raggedly bearded, and their hair was matted and greasy. Their faces were hideously painted, but their eyes seemed glazed and their expressions slack-lipped.
“I'll go first,” Garion muttered to the others.
“Shouting a challenge, I suppose,” Silk whispered.
“I'm not an assassin, Silk,” Garion replied quietly. “One or two of them might be rational enough to run, and that means a few less we'll have to kill.”
“Suit yourself, but expecting rationality from Karands is irrational all by itself.”
Garion quickly surveyed the clearing. The wooden temple was constructed of half-rotten logs, sagging badly at one end and surmounted along its ridgepole by a line of mossy skulls staring out vacantly. The ground before the building was hard-packed dirt, and there was a smoky firepit not far from the drummers.
“Try not to get into that smoke,” Silk cautioned in a whisper. “You might start to see all sorts of peculiar things if you inhale too much of it.”
Garion nodded and looked around. “Are we all ready?” he asked in a low voice.
They nodded.
“All right then.” He spurred Chretienne into the clearing. “Throw down your weapons!” he shouted at the startled Karands.
Instead of obeying, they dropped their clubs and seized up a variety of axes, spears, and swords, shrieking their defiance.
“You see?” Silk said.
Garion clenched his teeth and charged, brandishing his sword. Even as he thundered toward the fur-clad men, he saw four others come bursting out of the temple. Even with these reinforcements, however, the men on foot were no match for Garion and his mounted companions. Two of the howling Karands fell beneath Iron-grip's sword on Garion's first charge, and the one who tried to thrust at his back with a broad-bladed spear fell in a heap as Durnik brained him with his axe. Sadi caught a sword thrust with a flick of his cloak and then, with an almost delicate motion, dipped his poisoned dagger into the swordsman's throat. Using his heavy staff like a club, Toth battered two men to the ground, the sound of his blows punctuated by the snapping of bones. Their howls of frenzy turned to groans of pain as they fell. Silk launched himself from his saddle, rolled with the skill of an acrobat, and neatly ripped open one fanatic with one of his daggers while simultaneously plunging the other into the chest of a fat man who was clumsily trying to wield an axe. Chretienne whirled so quickly that Garion was almost thrown from his saddle as the big stallion trampled a Karand into the earth with his steel-shod hooves.
The lone remaining fanatic stood in the doorway of the crude temple. He was much older than his companions, and his face had been tattooed into a grotesque mask. His only weapon was a skull-surmounted staff, and he was brandishing it at them even as he shrieked an incantation. His words broke off suddenly, however, as Velvet hurled one of her knives at him with a smooth underhand cast. The wizard gaped down in amazement at the hilt of her knife protruding from his chest. Then he slowly toppled over backward.
There was a brief silence, punctuated only by the groans of the two men Toth had crippled. And then a harsh scream came from the temple -a woman's scream.
Garion jumped from his saddle, stepped over the body in the doorway, and looked into the large, smoky room.
A half-naked woman lay on the crude altar against the far wall. She had been bound to it in a spread-eagle position and she was partially covered by a filthy blanket. Her features were distorted, and her belly grossly, impossibly distended. She screamed again and then spoke in gasps.
“Nahaz! Magrash Klat Grichak! Nahaz!”
“I'll deal with this, Garion,” Polgara said firmly from behind him. “Wait outside with the others.”
“Were there any others in there?” Silk asked him as he came out.
“Just the woman. Aunt Pol's with her.” Garion suddenly realized that he was shaking violently.
“What was that language she was speaking?” Sadi asked, carefully cleaning his poisoned dagger.
“The language of the demons,” Belgarath replied. “She was calling out to the father of her baby.”
“Nahaz?” Garion asked, his voice startled.
“She thinks it was Nahaz,” the old man said. “She could be wrong -or maybe not.”
From inside the temple the woman screamed again.
“Is anybody hurt?” Durnik asked.
“They are,” Silk replied, pointing at the fallen Karands. Then he squatted and repeatedly plunged his daggers into the dirt to cleanse the blood off them.
“Kheldar,” Velvet said in a strangely weak voice,” would you get my knife for me?”
Garion looked at her and saw that her face was pale and that her hands were trembling slightly. He realized then that this self-possessed young woman was perhaps not quite so ruthless as he had thought.
“Of course, Liselle,” Silk replied in a neutral tone. The little man quite obviously also understood the cause of her distress. He rose, went to the doorway, and pulled the knife out of the wizard's chest. He wiped it carefully and returned it to her. “Why don't you go back and stay with Ce'Nedra?” he suggested. “We can clean up here.”
“Thank you, Kheldar,” she said, turned her horse, and rode out of the clearing.
“She's only a girl,” Silk said to Garion in a defensive tone. “She is good, though,” he added with a certain pride.
“Yes,” Garion agreed. “Very good.” He looked around at the twisted shapes lying in heaps in the clearing. “Why don't we drag all these bodies over behind the temple?” he suggested. “This place is bad enough without all of this.”
There was another scream from the temple.
Noon came and went unnoticed as Garion and the others endured the cries of the laboring woman. By midafternoon, the screams had grown much weaker, and as the sun was just going down, there came one dreadful last shriek that seemed to dwindle off into silence. No other sound came from inside, and after several minutes, Polgara came out. Her face was pale, and her hands and clothing were drenched with blood.
“Well, Pol?” Belgarath asked her.
“She died.”
“And the demon?”
“Stillborn. Neither one of them survived the birth.” She looked down at her clothing. “Durnik, please bring me a blanket and water to wash in.”
“Of course, Pol.” With her husband shielding her by holding up the blanket, Polgara deliberately removed all of her clothing, throwing each article through the temple doorway. Then she drew the blanket about her. “Now burn it,” she said to them. “Burn it to the ground.”