Rivan Codex Series

by Eddings, David

  "Silk's an enthusiast. He needs frequent reminding. Did you plan to leave sometime during the next hour?"

  Beldin spat out a very unflattering epithet, shimmered very slowly, and sailed away.

  "Your temper hasn't improved much, Old Wolf," Poledra said to him.

  "Did you think it might have?"

  "Not really," she replied, "but there's always room for hope."

  Despite Belgarath's premonition, the fog hung on. After about a half hour, Beldin returned. "Somebody's landed on the west beach," he reported. "I couldn't see them, but I could certainly hear them. Angaraks seem to have some trouble keeping their voices down—sorry, Zakath, but it's the truth."

  "I'll issue an imperial command that the next three or four generations converse in whispers, if you'd like."

  "No, that's all right, Zakath." The dwarf grinned. "As long as I'm on the opposite side from at least some Angaraks, I like to be able to hear them coming. Did Kheldar make it back yet?”

  "Not yet," Garion told him.

  "What's he doing? These stone blocks are much too big to steal."

  Then Silk slipped over the edge of the niche and dropped tightly to the stone floor. "You're not going to believe this," he said.

  "Probably not," Velvet said, "but why don't you go ahead and tell us anyway?"

  "This peak is man-made—or at least something made it. These blocks encircle it like terraces, all straight and smooth. The ming forms steps up to that flat place on top. There's an altar up there and a huge throne.”

  "So that's what it meant!" Beldin exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "Belgarath, have you ever read the Book of Torak?"

  "I've struggled through it a few times. My Old Angarak isn't really all that good."

  "You can speak Old Angarak?" Zakath asked with some surprise. "It's a forbidden language here in Mallorea. I suspect Tbrak was changing a few things, and he didn't want anyone to catch him at it."

  "I learned it before the prohibition went into effect. What's the point of this, Beldin?”

  "Do you remember that passage near the beginning—in the middle of all that conceited blather—when Torak said he went up into the High Places of Korim to argue with UL about the creation of the world?"

  "Vaguely."

  "Anyway, UL didn't want anything to do with it, so Torak turned his back on his father and went down and gathered up the Angaraks and led them back to Korim. He told them what he had in mind for them, and then, in true Angarak fashion, they fell down on their faces and started butchering each other as sacrifices. There's a word in that passage, 'Halagachak.' It means 'temple,' or something like that. I always thought that Torak was speaking figuratively, but he wasn't. This peak is that temple. The altar up there more or less confirms it, and these terraces were where the Angaraks stood to watch while the Gro-lims sacrificed people to their God. If I'm right, this is also the place where Torak spoke with his father. Regardless of how you feel about old Burnt-Face, this is one of the holiest places on earth."

  "You keep talking about Torak's father," Zakath said, looking puzzled. "I didn't know that the Gods had fathers."

  "Of course they do," Ce'Nedra said loftily. "Everybody knows that."

  "I didn't."

  “UL is their father,” she said in a deliberately offhand manner.

  "Isn't he the God of the Ulgos?"

  "Not by choice exactly," Belgarath told him. "The original Gorim more or less bullied him into it."

  "How do you bully a God?"

  "Carefully," Beldin said, "Very, very carefully."

  "I’vemetUL," Ce'Nedra supplied gratuitously. "Hesortof likes me."

  "She can be very irritating at times, can't she?" Zakath said to Garion.

  "You’ve noticed."

  "You don't have to like me," she said with a toss of her curls, "either one of you. As long as the Gods like a girl, she'll do all right."

  Garion began to have some hope at that point. If Ce'Nedra was willing to banter with them, it was a fair indication that she

  did not take her supposed intimations of her own incipient demise all that seriously. He did, however, wish that he could get that knife away from her.

  "During the course of your fascinating explorations, did you by any chance happen to locate that cave?" Belgarath asked Silk. "I more or less thought that's why you were out there sneaking around in the fog."

  "The cave?" Silk said. "Oh, that's around on the north side. There's a sort of amphitheater in front of it. It's almost exactly in the middle of that face. I found that in the first ten minutes."

  Belgarath glared at him.

  "It's not exactly a cave, though," Silk added. "There may be a cave back inside the peak, but the opening is more like a wide doorway. It's got pillars on each side and a familiar face above the lintel."

  "Tbrak?" Garion said with a sinking feeling.

  "None other."

  "Hadn't we better get started then?" Durnik suggested. "If Zandramas is already on the island . . ." He spread his hands.

  "So what?" Beldin said.

  They all stared at the grotesque little hunchback.

  "Zandramas can't go into the cave until we get there, can she?" he asked Cyradis.

  "Nay, Beldin," she replied. "That is forbidden."

  "Good. Let her wait, then. I'm sure she'll enjoy the anticipation. Did anybody think to bring anything to eat? I may have to be a seagull, but I don't have to eat raw fish."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They waited for almost an hour until Beldin decided that by now Zandramas must be keyed to a fever pitch. Garion and Zakath took advantage of the delay to put on their armor. "I'll take a look," the dwarf said finally. He slowly slipped into the shape of a seagull and drifted away into the fog. When he returned, he was chuckling evilly. "I've never heard a woman use that kind of language," he said. "She even puts you to shame, Pol."

  "What's she doing?" Belgarath asked him.

  "She's standing outside the cave mouth—or door, or whatever you want to call it. She had about forty Grolims with her."

  "Forty?" Garion exclaimed. He turned on Cyradis. "I thought you said we'd be evenly matched," he accused.

  "Art thou not a match for at least five, Belgarion?” she asked simply.

  "Well-"

  "You said had," Belgarath said to his brother.

  "I'd say dial our star-speckled friend tried to force several of her Grolims to push through whatever il is that has the door sealed against her. I 'm not sure if it was the force holding the door or if Zandramas lost her temper when the Grolims failed. About five of them are noticeably dead at the moment, and Zandramas is stalking about outside inventing swear words. All of her Grolims have purple linings on the insides of their hoods, by the way.”

  "Sorcerers, then," Polgara said bleakly.

  "Grolim sorcery is not all that profound." Beldin shrugged.

  "Could you see if she's got those lights under her skin?" Garion asked.

  "Oh, my, yes. Her face looks like a meadow full of fireflies on a summer evening. I saw something else, too. That albatross is out there. We nodded, but we didn't have time to stop and speak."

  "What was he doing?" Silk asked suspiciously.

  "Just hovering. You know how albatrosses are. I don't think they move their wings more than once a week. The fog is starting to thin. Why don't we just ease around and stand on one of these terraces just above that amphitheater and let this murk dissipate. Seeing a group of dark figures emerging out of the fog should give her quite a turn, wouldn't you think?"

  "Did you see my baby?" Ce'Nedra asked, her heart in her voice.

  "He's hardly a baby anymore, little girl. He's a sturdy little lad with curls as blond as Eriond's used to be. I gathered from his expression that he's not very fond of the company he's in, and judging from the look of him, he's going to grow up to be as bad-tempered as the rest of his family. Garion could probably go down there and hand him the sword, and then we could all sit back and watch him deal with the
problem."

  "I'd rather not have him start killing people until after he loses his baby teeth," Garion said firmly. "Is there anybody else there?"

  "Judging from his wife's description, the Archduke Otrath is among the group. He's wearing a cheap crown and sort of secondhand royal robes. There's not too much in the way of intelligence in his eyes."

  "That one is mine," Zakath grated. "I’ve never had the opportunity to deal with high treason on a personal level before."

  "His wife will be eternally in your debt." Beldin grinned.

  "She might even decide to journey to Ma! Zeth to offer her thanks—among other things—in person. She's a lush wench, Zakath. I'd advise that you get plenty of rest."

  "Methinks I care not for the turn this conversation hath taken," Cyradis said primly. "The day wears on. Let us proceed."

  "Anythin' yer heart desires, me little darlin'." Beldin grinned.

  Cyradis smiled in spite of herself.

  Again they all spoke with that jocular bravado. They were approaching what was probably die most important Event in all of time, and making light of it was a natural human response. Silk led the way out of the niche, his soft boots making no sound on the wet stones under their feet. Garion and Zakath, however, had to move with some care to avoid clinking. The sharply mounting stone terraces were each uniformly about ten feet tall, but at regular intervals there were stairways leading from one terrace to the one above. Silk led them up about three levels and then began circling the truncated pyramid. When they reached the northeast corner, he paused. "We'd better be very quiet now," he whispered. "We're only about a hundred yards from that amphitheater. We don't want some sharp-eared Gro-lim to hear us."

  They crept around the corner and made their way carefully along the north face for several minutes. Then Silk stopped and leaned out over the edge to peer down into the fog. "This is it," he whispered. "The amphitheater's a rectangular indentation in the side of the peak. It runs from the beach up to that portal or whatever you want to call it. If you look over the edge, you'll see that the terraces below us break oif back there a ways. The amphitheater is right below us. We're within a hundred yards of Zandramas right now."

  Garion peered down into the fog, almost wishing that by a single act of will he could brush aside the obscuring mist so mat he could look at the face of his enemy.

  "Steady," Beldin whispered to him. "It's going to come soon enough. Let's not spoil the surprise for her."

  Disjointed voices came up out of the fog—harsh, guttural Grolim voices. The fog seemed to muffle them, so Garion could not pick out individual words, but he didn't really have to.

  They waited.

  The sun by now had risen above the eastern horizon, and its pale disk was faintly visible through the fog and the roiling cloud that was the aftermath of the storm. The fog began to eddy and swirl. Gradually die mist overhead dissolved, and now Garion could see the sky. A thick blanket of dirty-looking scud lay over the reef but extended only a few leagues to the east. Thus it was that the sun, low on the eastern horizon, shone on the underside of the clouds and stained them an angry reddish orange with its light. It looked almost as if the sky had taken fire.

  "Colorful," Sadi murmured, nervously passing his poisoned dagger from one hand to the other. He set his red leather case down and opened it. Then he took up the earthenware bottle, worked the stopper out, and iaid it on its side. "There should be mice on this reef," he said, "or the eggs of seabirds. Zith and her babies will be all right.” Then he straightened, carefully putting a small bag he had taken from the case in me pocket of his tunic. "A little precaution," he whispered by way of explanation.

  The fog now lay beneath them like a pearly gray ocean in the shadow of the pyramid. Garion heard a strange, melancholy cry and raised his eyes. The albatross hovered on motionless wings above the fog. Garion peered intently down into the obscuring mist, almost absently working the leather sleeve off me hilt of his sword. The Orb was glowing faintly, and its color was not blue, but an angry red, almost the color of the burning sky.

  "That confirms it, Old Wolf," Poledra said to her husband. "The Sardion's in that cave."

  Belgarath, silvery hair and beard glowing red in the light reflected from the clouds overhead, grunted.

  The fog below began to swirl, its surface looking almost like an angry sea. It thinned even more. Garion could now see shadowy forms beneath them, hazy, indistinct, and uniformly dark. The fog was now no more man a faintly obscuring haze. "Holy Sorceress!" a Grolim voice exclaimed in alarm. "Look!"

  A hooded figure in a shiny black satin robe spun about, and Garion looked full into the face of the Child of Dark. He had heard the lights beneath her skin described several times, but no description had prepared him for what he now saw. The lights in Zandramas' face were not stationary, but swirled restlessly beneath her skin. In the shadow of the ancient pyramid, her features were dark, nearly invisible, but the swirling lights made it appear, in die cryptic words of the Ashabine Oracles, as if "all the starry universe" were contained in her flesh. Behind him he heard the sharp hiss of Ce'Nedra's indrawn breath. He turned his head and saw his little queen, dagger in hand and eyes ablaze with hatred, starting toward the stairs leading down into the amphitheater. Polgara and Velvet, obviously aware of her desperate plan, quickly restrained and disarmed her.

  Then Poledra stepped to the edge of the terrace. "And so it has come at last, Zandramas," she said in a clear voice.

  "I was but waiting for thee to join thy friends, Poledra," the sorceress replied in a taunting tone. "I was concerned for thee, fearing that thou hadsi lost thy way. Now it is complete, and we may proceed in orderly fashion."

  "Thy concern with order is somewhat belated, Zandramas," Poledra told her, "but no matter. We have all, as was foretold, arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time. Shall we put aside all this foolishness and go inside? The universe must be growing impatient with us."

  "Not just yet, Poledra," Zandramas replied flatly. "How tiresome," Belgarath's wife said wearily. "That's a failing in thee, Zandramas. Even after something obviously isn't working, thou must continue to try. Thou hast twisted and turned and tried to evade this meeting, but all in vain. And all of diine evasion hath only brought thee more quickly to this place. Thinkest thou not that it is time to forgo thine entertainments and to go along gracefully?" "I do not think so, Poledra."

  Poledra sighed. "All right, Zandramas," she said in a resigned tone, "asitpleaseththee." She extended her arm, pointing at Garion. "Since thou art so bent on this, thus I summon the Godslayer,"

  Slowly, deliberately, Garion reached back across his shoulder and wrapped his hand about the hilt of his sword. It made an angry hiss as it slid from its sheath and it was already flaming an incandescent blue as it emerged. Garion's mind was icy calm now. All doubt and fear were gone, even as they had been at Cthol Mishrak, and the spirit of the Child of Light possessed him utterly. He took the sword hilt in both hands and slowly raised it until the flaming blade was pointed at the fiery clouds overhead. "This is thy fate, Zandramas!" he roared in an awful voice, the archaic words coming unbidden to his lips.

  "That has yet to be determined, Belgarion." Zandramas' tone was defiant, as might be expected, but there was something else behind it. "Fate is not always so easily read." She made an imperious gesture, and her Grolims formed up into a phalanx around her and began to intone a harsh chant in an ancient and hideous language.

  "Get back!" Polgara warned sharply, and she, her parents, and Beldin stepped to the edge of the terrace.

  Flickering faintly, an inky shadow began to appear at the very edge of Garion's vision, and he began to feel an obscure sense of dread. "Watch yourselves," he quietly warned his friends. "I think she's starting one of those illusions we were talking about last night.” Then he felt a powerful surge and heard a roar of sound. A wave of sheer darkness rolled out from the extended hands of the Grolims massed around Zandramas, but the wave shattered into black fragments
that sizzled and skittered around the amphitheater like frightened mice as the four sorcerers blew it apart almost contemptuously with a single word spoken in unison. Several of die Grolims collapsed writhing to the stone floor, and most of the rest of diem staggered back, their faces suddenly pasty white.

  Beldin cackled evilly. "An1 would ye like t' try it again, daiiin'?" he taunted Zandramas. "If that's yer intent, ye should have brought more Grolims. Yer usin”em up at a fearful rate, don't y' know."

  "I wish you wouldn't do mat," Belgarath said to him.

  "So does she, I'll wager. She takes herself very seriously, and a little ridicule always sets that sort off their pace.”

  Without changing expression, Zandramas hurled a fireball at the dwarf, but he brushed it aside as if it were no more than an annoying insect.

  Garion quite suddenly understood. The sudden sheet of darkness and the fireball were not intended seriously. They were no more than subterfuge, a way to distract attention from that shadow at the edge of vision.

  The Sorceress of Darshiva smiled a chill little smile. "No matter." She shrugged. "I was only testing you, my droll little hunchback. Keep laughing, Beldin. I like to see people die happy."

  "Truly," he agreed. "Smile a bit yerself, me darlin', an' have a bit of a look around. Y' might say good-bye t' the sun while yer at it, fer I don't think ye'll be seein' it fer much longer."

  "Are all these threats really necessary?" Belgarath asked wearily.

  "It's customary," Beldin told him. "Insults and boasting are a common prelude to more serious business. Besides, she started it." He looked down at Zandramas' Grolims, who had started to move menacingly forward. "I guess it's time, though. Shall we go downstairs then and prepare a big pot of Grolim stew? I like mine chopped rather fine." He extended his hand, snapped his fingers, and wrapped the hand around the hilt of a hook-pointed Ulgo knife.

  With Garion in the lead, they walked purposefully to the head of the stairs and started down as the Grolims, with a variety of weapons in their hands, rushed to the bottom.

  "Get back!" Silk snapped at Velvet, who had resolutely joined them with one of her daggers held professionally low.