Belgarath looked at the open stretch lying along the top of the wall ahead of them and at the shadowy buildings looming several hundred yards ahead. "We'd better spread out," he whispered. "Too many people in one place attract attention in Rak Cthol. We'll go across here two at a time. Walk - don't run or crouch down. Try to look as if you belong here. Let's go." He started along the top of the wall with Barak at his side, the two of them walking purposefully, but not appearing to hurry. After a few moments, Aunt Pol and Mandorallen followed.
"Durnik," Silk whispered. "Garion and I'll go next. You and Relg follow in a minute or so." He peered at Relg's face, shadowed beneath the Murgo hood. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"As long as I don't look up at the sky," Relg answered tightly. His voice sounded as if it were coming from between clenched teeth.
"Come along, then, Garion," Silk murmured.
It required every ounce of Garion's self control to walk at a normal pace across the frosty stones. It seemed somehow that eyes watched from every shadowy building and tower as he and the little Drasnian crossed the open section atop the wall. The air was dead calm and bitterly cold, and the stone blocks of the outer parapet were covered with a lacy filigree of rime frost.
There was another scream from the Temple lying somewhere ahead. The corner of a large tower jutted out at the end of the open stretch of wall, obscuring the walkway beyond.
"Wait here a moment," Silk whispered as they stepped gratefully into its shadow and he slipped around the jutting corner.
Garion stood in the icy dark, straining his ears for any sound. He glanced once toward the parapet. Far out on the desolate wasteland below, a small fire was burning. It twinkled in the dark like a small red star. He tried to imagine how far away it might be.
Then there was a slight scraping sound somewhere above him. He spun quickly, his hand going to his sword. A shadowy figure dropped from a ledge on the side of the tower several yards over his head and landed with catlike silence on the flagstones directly in front of him. Garion caught a familiar sour, acid reek of stale perspiration.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Garion?" Brill said quietly with an ugly chuckle.
"Stay back," Garion warned, holding his sword with its point tow as Barak had taught him.
"I knew that I'd catch you alone someday," Brill said, ignoring the sword. He spread his hands wide and crouched slightly, his cast eye gleaming in the starlight.
Garion backed away, waving his sword threateningly. Brill bounded to one side, and Garion instinctively followed him with the sword point. Then, so fast that Garion could not follow, Brill dodged back and struck his hand down sharply on the boy's forearm. Garion's sword skittered away across the icy flagstones. Desperately, Garion reached for his dagger.
Then another shadow flickered in the darkness at the corner of the tower. Brill grunted as a foot caught him solidly in the side. He fell, but rolled quickly across the stones and came back up onto his feet, his stance wide and his hands moving slowly in the air in front of him.
Silk dropped his Murgo robe behind him, kicked it out of the way, and crouched, his hands also spread wide.
Brill grinned. "I should have known you were around somewhere, Kheldar."
"I suppose I should have expected you too, Kordoch," Silk replied. "You always seem to show up."
Brill flicked a quick hand toward Silk's face, but the little man easily avoided it. "How do you keep getting ahead of us?" he asked, almost conversationally. "That's a habit of yours that's starting to irritate Belgarath." He launched a quick kick at Brill's groin, but the cast-eyed man jumped back agilely.
Brill laughed shortly. "You people are too tender-hearted with horses," he said. "I've had to ride quite a few of them to death chasing you. How did you get out of that pit?" He sounded interested. "Taur Urgas was furious the next morning."
"What a shame."
"He had the guards flayed."
"I imagine a Murgo looks a bit peculiar without his skin."
Brill dove forward suddenly, both hands extended, but Silk sidestepped the lunge and smashed his hand sharply down in the middle of Brill's back. Brill grunted again, but rolled clear farther out on the stones atop the wall. "You might be just as good as they say," he admitted grudgingly.
"Try me, Kordoch," Silk invited, with a nasty grin. He moved out from the wall of the tower, his hands in constant motion. Garion watched the two circling each other with his heart in his mouth.
Grill jumped again, with both feet lashing out, but Silk dove under him. They both rolled to their feet again. Silk's left hand flashed out, even as he came to his feet, catching Brill high on the head. Brill reeled from the blow, but managed to kick Silk's knee as he spun away. "Your technique's defensive, Kheldar," he grated, shaking his head to clear the effects of Silk's blow. "That's a weakness."
"Just a difference of style, Kordoch," Silk replied.
Grill drove a gouging thumb at Silk's eye, but Silk blocked it and slammed a quick counterblow to the pit of his enemy's stomach. Brill scissored his legs as he fell, sweeping Silk's legs out from under him. Both men tumbled across the frosty stones and sprang to their feet again, their hands flickering blows faster than Garion's eyes could follow them.
The mistake was a simple one, so slight that Garion could not even be sure it was a mistake. Brill flicked a jab at Silk's face that was an ounce or two harder than it should have been and traveled no more than a fraction of an inch too far. Silk's hands flashed up and caught his opponent's wrist with a deadly grip and he rolled backward toward the parapet, his legs coiling, even as the two of them fell. Jerked off balance, Brill seemed almost to dive forward. Silk's legs straightened suddenly, launching the cast-eyed man up and forward with a tremendous heave. With a strangled exclamation Brill clutched desperately at one of the stone blocks of the parapet as he sailed over, but he was too high and his momentum was too great. He hurtled over the parapet, plunging out and down into the darkness below the wall. His scream faded horribly as he fell, lost in the sound of yet another shriek from the Temple of Torak.
Silk rose to his feet, glanced once over the edge, and then came back to where Garion stood trembling in the shadows by the tower wall.
"Silk!" Garion exclaimed, catching the little man's arm in relief.
"What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner.
"Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on.
"Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?"
"Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.
The old man looked puzzled.
"He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.
Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time."
"He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge.
From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.
Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really."
"Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely. He looked around with a broad smile. "What a beautiful night this is," he remarked to no one in particular.
"Let's move along," Belgarath suggested, throwing a quick, nervous glance at the eastern horizon. "It will start to lighten up over there any time now."
They joined the others in the deep shadows beside the high wall of the Temple some hundred yards farther down the wall and waited tensely for Relg and Durnik to catch up.
"What kept you?" Barak whispered as they waited.
"I met an old friend of ours," Silk replied quietly. His grin was a flash of white teeth in the shadows.
"It was Brill," Garion told the rest of them in a hoarse whisper. "He and Silk fought with each other, and Silk threw him over the edge."
Mandorallen glanced toward the frosty parapet. "'Tis a goodly way down," he observed.
"Isn't it, though?" Silk agreed.
Barak c
huckled and put his big hand wordlessly on Silk's shoulder. Then Durnik and Relg came along the top of the wall to join them in the shadows.
"We have to go through the Temple," Belgarath told them in a quiet voice. "Pull your hoods as far over your faces as you can and keep your heads down. Stay in single file and mutter to yourselves as if you were praying. If anybody speaks to us, let me do the talking; and each time the gong sounds, turn toward the altar and bow." He led them then to a thick door bound with weathered iron straps. He looked back once to be sure they were all in line, then put his hand to the latch and pushed the door open.
The inside of the Temple glowed with smoky red light, and a dreadful, charnel-house reek filled it. The door through which they entered led onto a covered balcony that curved around the back of the dome of the Temple. A stone balustrade ran along the edge of the balcony, with thick pillars at evenly spaced intervals. The openings between the pillars were draped with the same coarse, heavy cloth from which the Murgo robes were woven. Along the back wall of the balcony were a number of doors, set deep in the stone. Garion surmised that the balcony was largely used by Temple functionaries going to and fro on various errands.
As soon as they started along the balcony, Belgarath crossed his hands on his chest and led them at a slow, measured pace, chanting in a deep, loud voice.
A scream echoed up from below, piercing, filled with terror and agony. Garion involuntarily glanced through the parted drapery toward the altar. For the rest of his life he wished he had not.
The circular walls of the Temple were constructed of polished black stone, and directly behind the altar was an enormous face forged of steel and buffed to minor brightness-the face of Torak and the original of the steel masks of the Grolims. The face was beautiful - there was no question of that - yet there was a kind of brooding evil in it, a cruelty beyond human ability to comprehend the meaning of the word. The Temple floor facing the God's image was densely packed with Murgos and Grolim priests, kneeling and chanting an unintelligible rumble in a dozen dialects. The altar stood on a raised dais directly beneath the glittering face of Torak. A smoking brazier on an iron post stood at each front corner of the blood-smeared altar, and a square pit opened in the floor immediately in front of the dais. Ugly red flames licked up out of the pit, and black, oily smoke rolled from it toward the dome high above.
A half dozen Grolims in black robes and steel masks were gathered around the altar, holding the naked body of a slave. The victim was already dead, his chest gaping open like the chest of a butchered hog, and a single Grolim stood in front of the altar, facing the image of Torak with raised hands. In his right, he held a tong, curved knife; in his left, a dripping human heart. "Behold our offering, Dragon God of Angarak!" he cried in a huge voice, then turned and deposited the heart in one of the smoking braziers. There was a burst of steam and smoke from the brazier and a hideous sizzle as the heart dropped into the burning coals. From somewhere beneath the Temple floor, the huge iron gong sounded, its vibration shimmering in the air. The assembled Murgos and their Grolim overseers groaned and pressed their faces to the floor.
Garion felt a hand nudge his shoulder. Silk, already turned, was bowing toward the bloody altar. Awkwardly, sickened by the horror below, Garion also bowed.
The six Grolims at the altar lifted the lifeless body of the slave almost contemptuously and cast it into the pit before the dais. Flames belched up and sparks rose in the thick smoke as the body fell into the fire below.
A dreadful anger welled up in Garion. Without even thinking, he began to draw in his will, fully intent upon shattering that vile altar and the cruel image hovering above it into shards and fragments in a single, cataclysmic unleashing of naked force.
"Belgarion!" the voice within his mind said sharply. "Don't interfere. This isn't the time. "
"I can't stand it, " Garion raged silently. "I've got to do something. "
"You can't. Not now. You'll rouse the whole city. Unclench your will, Belgarion."
"Do as he says, Garion, "Aunt Pol's voice sounded quietly in his mind. The unspoken recognition passed between Aunt Pol's mind and that strange other mind as Garion helplessly let the anger and the will drain out of him.
"This abomination won't stand much longer, Belgarion, " the voice assured him. "Even now the earth gathers to rid itself of it."And then the voice was gone.
"What are you doing up here?" a harsh voice demanded. Garion jerked his eyes away from the hideous scene below. A masked and robed Grolim stood in front of Belgarath, blocking their way.
"We are the servants of Torak," the old man replied in an accent that perfectly matched the gutturals of Murgo speech.
"All in Rak Cthol are the servants of Torak," the Grolim said. "You aren't attending the ritual of sacrifice. Why?"
"We're pilgrims from Rak Hagga," Belgarath explained, "only just arnved in the dread city. We were commanded to present ourselves to the Hierarch of Rak Hagga in the instant of our arrival. That stern duty prevents our participation in the celebration."
The Grolim grunted suspiciously.
"Could the revered priest of the Dragon God direct us to the chambers of our Hierarch? We are unfamiliar with the dark Temple." There was another shriek from below. As the iron gong boomed, the Grolim turned and bowed toward the altar. Belgarath gave a quick jerk of his head to the rest of them, turned and also bowed.
"Go to the last door but one," the Grolim instructed, apparently satisfied by their gestures of piety. "It will lead you down to the halls of the Hierarchs."
"We are endlessly grateful to the priest of the Dark God," Belgarath thanked him, bowing. They filed past the steel-masked Grolim, their heads down and their hands crossed on their breasts, muttering to themselves as if in prayer.
"Vile!" Relg was strangling. "Obscenity! Abomination!"
"Keep your head down!" Silk whispered. "There are Grolims all around us."
"As UL gives me strength, I won't rest until Rak Cthol is laid waste," Relg vowed in a fervent mutter.
Belgarath had reached an ornately carved door near the end of the balcony, and he swung it open cautiously. "Is the Grolim still watching us?" he whispered to Silk.
The little man glanced back at the priest standing some distance behind them. "Yes. Wait - there he goes. The balcony's clear now."
The sorcerer let the door swing shut and stepped instead to the last door on the balcony. He tugged the latch carefully, and the door opened smoothly. He frowned. "It's always been locked before," he muttered.
"Do you think it's a trap?" Barak rumbled, his hand dipping under the Murgo robe to find his sword hilt.
"It's possible, but we don't have much choice." Belgarath pulled the door open the rest of the way, and they all slipped through as another shriek came from the altar. The door slowly closed behind them as the gong shuddered the stones of the Temple. They started down the worn stone steps beyond the door. The stairway was narrow and poorly lighted, and it went down sharply, curving always to the right.
"We're right up against the outer wall, aren't we?" Silk asked, touching the black stones on his left.
Belgarath nodded. "The stairs lead down to Ctuchik's private place." They continued down until the walls on either side changed from blocks to solid stone.
"He lives below the city?" Silk asked, surprised.
"Yes," Belgarath replied. "He built himself a sort of hanging turret out from the rock of the peak itself."
"Strange idea," Durnik said.
"Ctuchik's a strange sort of person," Aunt Pol told him grimly.
Belgarath stopped them. "The stairs go down about another hundred feet," he whispered. "There'll be two guards just outside the door to the turret. Not even Ctuchik could change that - no matter what he's planning."
"Sorcerers?" Barak asked softly.
"No. The guards are ceremonial more than functional. They're just ordinary Grolims."
"We'll rush them then."
"That won't be necessary. I can get you
close enough to deal with them, but I want it quick and quiet." The old man reached inside his Murgo robe and drew out a roll of parchment bound with a strip of black ribbon. He started down again with Barak and Mandorallen close behind him.
The curve of the stairway brought a lighted area into view as they descended. Torches illuminated the bottom of the stone steps and a kind of antechamber hewn from the solid rock. Two Grolims priests stood in front of a plain black door, their arms folded.
"Who approaches the Holy of Holies?" one of them demanded, putting his hand to his sword hilt.
"A messenger," Belgarath announced importantly. "I bear a message for the Master from the Hierarch of Rak Goska." He held the rolled parchment above his head.
"Approach, messenger."
"Praise the name of the Disciple of the Dragon God of Angarak," Belgarath boomed as he marched down the steps with Mandorallen and Barak flanking him. He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped in front of the steel-masked guards. "Thus have I performed my appointed task," he declared, holding out the parchment.
One of the guards reached for it, but Barak caught his arm in a huge fist. The big man's other hand closed swiftly about the surprised Grolim's throat.
The other guard's hand flashed toward his sword hilt, but he grunted and doubled over sharply as Mandorallen thrust a long, needle-pointed poniard up into his belly. With a kind of deadly concentration the knight twisted the hilt of the weapon, probing with the point deep inside the Grolim's body. The guard shuddered when the blade reached his heart and collapsed with a long, gurgling sigh.
Barak's massive shoulder shifted, and there was a grating crunch as the bones in the first Grolim's neck came apart in his deadly grip. The guard's feet scraped spasmodically on the floor for a moment, and then he went limp.
"I feel better already," Barak muttered, dropping the body.
"You and Mandorallen stay here," Belgarath told him. "I don't want to be disturbed once I'm inside."
"We'll see to it," Barak promised. "What about these?" He pointed at the two dead guards.
"Dispose of them, Relg," Belgarath said shortly to the Ulgo.
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