"Why not stop here?" Barak suggested. "We need some rest, and this looks like a good place."
"It's the worst place in all the caves," Relg told him. "Hurry."
"Maybe you like the dark," Barak said, "but the rest of us aren't that fond of it." He looked around at the cave.
"Protect your eyes, you fool," Relg snapped.
"I don't care for your tone, friend."
"You'll be blind once we get past this place if you don't. It's taken your eyes two days to get used to the dark. You'll lose all of that if you stay here too long."
Barak stared hard at the Ulgo for a moment. Then he grunted and nodded shortly. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't understand." He reached out to put his hand on Relg's shoulder in apology.
"Don't touch me!" Relg cried, shrinking away from the big hand.
"What's the matter?"
"Just don't touch me - not ever." Relg hurried on ahead.
"What's the matter with him?" Barak demanded.
"He doesn't want you to defile him," Belgarath explained.
"Defile him? Defile him?"
"He's very concerned about his personal purity. The way he sees it, any kind of touch can soil him."
"Soil? He's as dirty as a pig in a wallow."
"It's a different kind of dirt. Let's move on."
Barak strode along behind the rest of them, grumbling and sputtering in outrage. They moved into another dark passageway, and Garion looked longingly back over his shoulder at the fading light from the glowing cavern behind. Then they rounded a corner and the light was gone.
There was no way to keep track of time in the murmuring darkness. They stumbled on, pausing now and then to eat or to rest, though Garion's sleep was filled with nightmares about mountains crushing in on him. He had almost given up all hope of ever seeing the sky again when the first faint cobweb touch of moving air brushed his cheek. It had been, as closely as he could judge, five days since they had left the last dimly lighted gallery of the Ulgos behind and plunged into this eternal night. At first he thought the faint hint of warmer air might only be his imagination, but then he caught the scent of trees and grass in the musty air of the cave, and he knew that somewhere ahead there lay an opening - a way out.
The touch of warmer outside air grew stronger, and the smell of grass began to fill the passageway along which they crept. The floor began to slope upward, and imperceptibly it grew less dark. It seemed somehow that they moved up out of endless night toward the light of the first morning in the history of the world. The horses, plodding along at the rear, had also caught the scent of fresh air, and their pace quickened. Relg, however, moved slower, and then slower still. Finally he stopped altogether. The faint metallic rustling of his leaf mail shirt spoke loudly for him. Relg was trembling, bracing himself for what lay ahead. He bound his veil across his face again, mumbling something over and over in the snarling language of the Ulgos, fervent, almost pleading. Once his eyes were covered, he moved on again, reluctantly, his feet almost dragging.
Then there was golden light ahead. The mouth of the passageway was a jagged, irregular opening with a stiff tangle of limbs sharply outlined in front of it. With a sudden clatter of little hooves, the colt, ignoring Hettar's sharp command, bolted for the opening and plunged out into the light.
Belgarath scratched at his whiskers, squinting after the little animal. "Maybe you'd better take him and his mother with you when we separate," he said to Hettar. "He seems to have a little trouble taking things seriously, and Cthol Murgos is a very serious place."
Hettar nodded gravely.
"I can't," Relg blurted suddenly, turning his back to the light and pressing himself against the rock wall of the passageway. "I can't do it."
"Of course you can," Aunt Pol said comfortingly to him. "We'll go out slowly so you can get used to it a little at a time."
"Don't touch me," Relg replied almost absently.
"That's going to get very tiresome," Barak growled.
Garion and the rest of them pushed ahead eagerly, their hunger for light pulling at them. They shoved their way roughly through the tangle of bushes at the mouth of the cave and, blinking and shading their eyes, they emerged into the sunlight. The light at first stabbed Garion's eyes painfully; but after a few moments, he found that he could see again. The partially concealed entrance to the caves was near the midpoint of a rocky hillside. Behind them, the snow-covered mountains of Ulgo glittered in the morning sun, outlined against the deep blue sky, and a vast plain spread before them like a sea. The tall grass was golden with autumn, and the morning breeze touched it into long, undulating waves. The plain reached to the horizon, and Garion felt as if he had just awakened from a nightmare.
Just inside the mouth of the cave behind them, Relg knelt with his back to the light, praying and beating at his shoulders and chest with his fists.
"Now what's he doing?" Barak demanded.
"It's a kind of purification ritual," Belgarath explained. "He's trying to purge himself of all unholiness and draw the essence of the caves into his soul. He thinks it may help to sustain him while he's outside."
"How longs he going to be at it?"
"About an hour, I'd imagine. It's a fairly complicated ritual."
Relg stopped praying long enough to bind a second veil across his face on top of the first one.
"If he wraps any more cloth around his head, he's likely to smother," Silk observed.
"I'd better get started," Hettar said, tightening the straps on his saddle. "Is there anything else you wanted me to tell Cho-Hag?"
"Tell him to pass the word along to the others about what's happened so far," Belgarath answered. "Things are getting to the point where I'd like everybody to be more or less alert."
Hettar nodded.
"Do you know where you are?" Barak asked him.
"Of course." The tall man looked out at the seemingly featureless plain before him.
"It's probably going to take us at least a month to get to Rak Cthol and back," Belgarath advised. "If we get a chance, we'll light signal fires on top of the eastern escarpment before we start down. Tell Cho-Hag how important it is for him to be waiting for us. We don't want Murgos blundering into Algaria. I'm not ready for a war just yet."
"We'll be there," Hettar replied, swinging up into his saddle. "Be careful in Cthol Murgos." He turned his horse and started down the hill toward the plain with the mare and the colt tagging along behind him. The colt stopped once to look back at Garion, gave a forlorn little whinny, then turned to follow his mother.
Barak shook his head sombrely. "I'm going to miss Hettar," he rumbled.
"Cthol Murgos wouldn't be a good place for Hettar," Silk pointed out. "We'd have to put a leash on him."
"I know that." Barak sighed. "But I'll miss him all the same."
"Which direction do we take?" Mandorallen asked, squinting out at the grassland.
Belgarath pointed to the southeast. "That way. We'll cross the upper end of the Vale to the escarpment and then go through the southern tip of Mishrak ac Thull. The Thulls don't put out patrols as regularly as the Murgos do."
"Thulls don't do much of anything unless they have to," Silk noted. "They're too preoccupied with trying to avoid Grolims."
"When do we start?" Durnik asked.
"As soon as Relg finishes his prayers," Belgarath replied.
"We'll have time for breakfast then," Barak said dryly.
They rode all that day across the flat grassland of southern Algaria beneath the deep blue autumn sky. Relg, wearing an old hooded tunic of Durnik's over his mail shirt, rode badly, with his legs sticking out stifliy. He seemed to be concentrating more on keeping his face down than on watching where he was going.
Barak watched sourly, with disapproval written plainly on his face. "I'm not trying to tell you your business, Belgarath," he said after several hours, "but that one's going to be trouble before we're finished with this."
"The light hurts his eyes, Barak," Aunt Pol told the big man, "and he
's not used to riding. Don't be so quick to criticize."
Barak clamped his mouth shut, his expression still disparaging.
"At least we'll be able to count on his staying sober," Aunt Pol observed primly. "Which is more than I can say about some members of this little group."
Barak coughed uncomfortably.
They set up for the night on the treeless bank of a meandering stream. Once the sun had gone down, Relg seemed less apprehensive, though he made an obvious point of not looking directly at the driftwood fire. Then he looked up and saw the first stars in the evening sky. He gaped up at them in horror, his unveiled face breaking out in a glistening sweat. He covered his head with his arms and collapsed face down on the earth with a strangled cry.
"Relg!" Garion exclaimed, jumping to the stricken man's side and putting his hands on him without thinking.
"Don't touch me," Relg gasped automatically.
"Don't be stupid. What's wrong? Are you sick?"
"The sky," Relg croaked in despair. "The sky! It terrifies me!"
"The sky?" Garion was baffled. "What's wrong with the sky?" He looked up at the familiar stars.
"There's no end to it," Relg groaned. "It goes up forever."
Quite suddenly Garion understood. In the caves he had been afraid unreasoningly afraid - because he had been closed in. Out here under the open sky, Relg suffered from the same kind of blind terror. Garion realized with a kind of shock that quite probably Relg had never been outside the caves of Ulgo in his entire life. "It's all right," he assured him comfortingly. "The sky can't hurt you. It's just up there. Don't pay any attention to it."
"I can't bear it."
"Don't look at it."
"I still know it's there - all that emptiness."
Garion looked helplessly at Aunt Pol. She made a quick gesture that told him to keep talking. "It's not empty," he floundered. "It's full of things - all kinds of things - clouds, birds, sunlight, stars-"
"What?" Relg lifted his face up out of his hands. "What are those?"
"Clouds? Everyone knows what-" Garion stopped. Obviously Relg did not know what clouds were. He'd never seen a cloud in his life. Garion tried to rearrange his thoughts to take that into account. It was not going to be easy to explain. He took in a deep breath. "All right. Let's start with clouds, then."
It took a long time, and Garion was not really sure that Relg understood or if he was simply clinging to the words to avoid thinking about the sky. After clouds, birds were a bit easier, although feathers were very hard to explain.
"UL spoke to you," Relg interrupted Garion's description of wings. "He called you Belgarion. Is that your name?"
"Well-" Garion replied uncomfortably. "Not really. Actually my name is Garion, but I think the other name is supposed to be mine too sometime later, I believe - when I'm older."
"UL knows all things," Relg declared. "If he called you Belgarion, that's your true name. I will call you Belgarion."
"I really wish you wouldn't."
"My God rebuked me," Relg groaned, his voice sunk into a kind of sick self loathing. "I have failed him."
Garion couldn't quite follow that. Somehow, even in the midst of his panic, Relg had been suffering the horrors of a theological crisis. He sat on the ground with his face turned away from the fire and his shoulders slumped in an attitude of absolute despair.
"I'm unworthy," he said, his voice on the verge of a sob. "When UL spoke in the silence of my heart, I felt that I had been exalted above all other men, but now I am lower than dirt."
In his anguish he began to beat the sides of his head with his fists.
"Stop that!" Garion said sharply. "You'll hurt yourself. What's this all about?"
"UL told me that I was to reveal the child to Ulgo. I took his words to mean that I had found special grace in his eyes."
"What child are we talking about?"
"The child. The new Gorim. It's UL's way to guide and protect his people. When an old Gorim's work is done, UL places a special mark upon the eyes of the child who is to succeed him. When UL told me that I had been chosen to bring the child to Ulgo, I revealed his words to others, and, they revered me and asked me to speak to them in the words of UL. I saw sin and corruption all around me and I denounced it, and the people listened to me - but the words were mine, not UL's. In my pride, I presumed to speak for UL. I ignored my own sins to accuse the sins of others." Relg's voice was harsh with fanatic self accusation. "I am filth," he declared, "an abomination. UL should have raised his hand against me and destroyed me."
"That's forbidden," Garion told him without thinking.
"Who has the power to forbid anything to UL?"
"I don't know. All I know is that unmaking is forbidden - even to the Gods. It's the very first thing we learn."
Relg looked up sharply, and Garion knew instantly that he had made a dreadful mistake. "You know the secrets of the Gods?" the fanatic demanded incredulously.
"The fact that they're Gods doesn't have anything to do with it," Garion replied. "The rule applies to everybody."
Relg's eyes burned with a sudden hope. He drew himself up onto his knees and bowed forward until his face was in the dirt. "Forgive me my sin," he intoned.
"What?"
"I have exalted myself when I was unworthy."
"You made a mistake - that's all. Just don't do it anymore. Please get up, Relg."
"I'm wicked and impure."
"You?"
"I've had impure thoughts about women."
Garion flushed with embarrassment. "We all have those kinds of thoughts once in a while," he said with a nervous cough.
"My thoughts are wicked - wicked," Relg groaned with guilt. "I burn with them."
"I'm sure that UL understands. Please get up, Relg. You don't have to do this."
"I have prayed with my mouth when my mind and heart were not in my prayers."
"Relg-"
"I have sought out hidden caves for the joy of finding them rather than to consecrate them to UL. I have this defiled the gift given me by my God."
"Please, Relg-"
Relg began to beat his head on the ground. "Once I found a cave where the echoes of UL's voice lingered. I did not reveal it to others, but kept the sound of UL's voice for myself."
Garion began to become alarmed. The fanatic Relg was working himself into a frenzy.
"Punish me, Belgarion," Relg pleaded. "Lay a hard penance on me for my iniquity."
Garion's mind was very clear as he answered. He knew exactly what he had to say. "I can't do that, Relg," he said gravely. "I can't punish you - any more than I can forgive you. If you've done things you shouldn't have, that's between you and UL. If you think you need to be punished, you'll have to do it yourself. I can't. I won't."
Relg lifted his stricken face out of the dirt and stared at Garion. Then with a strangled cry he lurched to his feet and fled wailing into the darkness.
"Garion!" Aunt Pol's voice rang with that familiar note.
"I didn't do anything," he protested almost automatically.
"What did you say to him?" Belgarath demanded.
"He said that he'd committed all kinds of sins," Garion explained. "He wanted me to punish him and forgive him."
"So?"
"I couldn't do that, Grandfather."
"What's so hard about it?"
Garion stared at him.
"All you had to do was lie to him a little. Is that so difficult?"
"Lie? About something like that?" Garion was horrified at the thought.
"I need him, Garion, and he can't function if he's incapacitated by some kind of religious hysteria. Use your head, boy."
"I can't do it, Grandfather," Garion repeated stubbornly. "It's too important to him for me to cheat him about it."
"You'd better go find him, father," Aunt Pol said.
Belgarath scowled at Garion. "You and I aren't finished with this yet, boy," he said, pointing an angry finger. Then, muttering irritably to himself, he wen
t in search of Relg.
With a cold certainty Garion suddenly knew that the journey to Cthol Murgos was going to be very long and uncomfortable.
Chapter Twenty
THOUGH SUMMER THAT year had lingered in the lowlands and on the plains of Algaria, autumn was brief. The blizzards and squalls they had encountered in the mountains above Maragor and again among the peaks of Ulgo had hinted that winter would be early and severe, and there was already a chill to the nights as they rode day after day across the open grassland toward the eastern escarpment.
Belgarath had recovered from his momentary fit of anger over Garion's failure to deal with Relg's attack of guilt, but then, with inescapable logic, he had placed an enormous burden squarely on Garion's shoulders. "For some reason he trusts you," the old man observed, "so I'm going to leave him entirely in your hands. I don't care what you have to do, but keep him from flying apart again."
At first, Relg refused to respond to Garion's efforts to draw him out; but after a while, one of the waves of panic caused by the thought of the open sky above swept over the zealot, and he began to talk - haltingly at first but then finally in a great rush. As Garion had feared, Relg's favorite topic was sin. Garion was amazed at the simple things that Relg considered sinful. Forgetting to pray before a meal, for example, was a major transgression. As the fanatic's gloomy catalogue of his faults expanded, Garion began to perceive that most of his sins were sins of thought rather than of action. The one matter that kept cropping up again and again was the question of lustful thoughts about women. To Garion's intense discomfort, Relg insisted on describing these lustful thoughts extensively.
"Women are not the same as we are, of course," the zealot confided one afternoon as they rode together. "Their minds and hearts are not drawn to holiness the way ours are, and they set out deliberately to tempt us with their bodies and draw us into sin."
"Why do you suppose that is?" Garion asked carefully.
"Their hearts are filled with lust," Relg declared adamantly. "They take particular delight in tempting the righteous. I tell you truly, Belgarion, you would not believe the subtlety of the creatures. I have seen the evidence of this wickedness in the soberest of matrons - the wives of some of my most devout followers. They're forever touching - brushing as if by accident - and they take great pains to allow the sleeves of their robes to slip up brazenly to expose their rounded arms - and the hems of their garments always seem to be hitching up to display their ankles."
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