“What’s that supposed to mean?” Garion asked silently, but there was no answer. He shrugged and picked Errand up to avoid any chance collision between horse and child. The colt stood staring at the two of them, its eyes wide as if in amazement; when Garion turned to carry Errand back to the wagon, it trotted alongside, sniffing and even nuzzling at the child. Garion wordlessly handed Errand up to Aunt Pol and looked her full in the face. She said nothing as she took the child, but her expression told him plainly that something very important had just happened.
As he turned to remount his horse, he felt that someone was watching him, and he turned quickly toward the group of riders that had accompanied Queen Silar from the Stronghold. Just behind the queen was a tall girl mounted on a roan horse. She had long, dark brown hair, and the eyes she had fixed on Garion were gray, calm, and very serious. Her horse pranced nervously, and she calmed him with a quiet word and a gentle touch, then turned to gaze openly at Garion again. He had the peculiar feeling that he ought to know her.
The wagon creaked as Durnik shook the reins to start the team, and they all followed King Cho-Hag and Queen Silar through a narrow gate into the Stronghold. Garion saw immediately that there were no buildings inside the towering fortress. Instead there was a maze of stone walls perhaps twenty feet high twisting this way and that without any apparent plan.
“But where is thy city, your Majesty?” Mandorallen asked in perplexity.
“Inside the walls themselves,” King Cho-Hag replied. “They’re thick enough and high enough to give us all the room we could possibly need.”
“What purpose hath all this, then?”
“It’s just a trap.” The king shrugged. “We permit attackers to break through the gates, and then we deal with them in here. We want to go this way.” He led them along a narrow alleyway.
They dismounted in a courtyard beside the vast wall. Barak and Hettar unhooked the latches and swung the side of the wagon down. Barak tugged thoughtfully at his beard as he looked at the sleeping Belgarath. “It would probably disturb him less if we just took him inside bed and all,” he suggested.
“Right,” Hettar agreed, and the two of them climbed up into the wagon to lift out the sorcerer’s bed.
“Just don’t bounce him around,” Polgara cautioned. “And don’t drop him.”
“We’ve got him, Polgara,” Barak assured her. “I know you might not believe it, but we’re almost as concerned about him as you are.”
With the two big men carrying the bed, they passed through an arched doorway into a wide, torch-lighted corridor and up a flight of stairs, then along another hallway to another flight.
“Is it much farther?” Barak asked. Sweat was running down his face into his beard. “This bed isn’t getting any lighter, you know.”
“Just up here,” the Algar Queen told him.
“I hope he appreciates all this when he wakes up,” Barak grumbled. The room to which they carried Belgarath was large and airy. A glowing brazier stood in each corner and a broad window overlooked the maze inside the walls of the Stronghold. A canopied bed stood against one wall and a large wooden tub against the other.
“This will be just fine,” Polgara said approvingly. “Thank you, Silar.”
“We love him too, Polgara,” Queen Silar replied quietly.
Polgara drew the drapes, darkening the room. Then she turned back the covers, and Belgarath was transferred to the canopied bed so smoothly that he did not even stir.
“He looks a little better,” Silk said.
“He needs sleep, rest and quiet more than anything right now,” Polgara told him, her eyes intent on the old man’s sleeping face.
“We’ll leave you with him, Polgara,” Queen Silar said. She turned to the rest of them. “Why don’t we all go down to the main hall? Supper’s nearly ready, but in the meantime I’ll have some ale brought in.”
Barak’s eyes brightened noticeably, and he started toward the door. “Barak,” Polgara called to him, “aren’t you and Hettar forgetting something?” She looked pointedly at the bed they had used for a stretcher.
Barak sighed. He and Hettar picked up the bed again.
“I’ll send some supper up for you, Polgara,” the queen said.
“Thank you, Silar.” Aunt Pol turned to Garion, her eyes grave. “Stay for a few moments, dear,” she asked, and he remained as the others all quietly left.
“Close the door, Garion,” she said, pulling a chair up beside the sleeping old man’s bed.
He shut the door and crossed the room back to her. “Is he really getting better, Aunt Pol?”
She nodded. “I think we’re past the immediate danger. He seems stronger physically. But it’s not his physical body I’m worried about—it’s his mind. That’s why I wanted to talk to you alone.”
Garion felt a sudden cold grip of fear. “His mind?”
“Keep your voice down, dear,” she told him quietly. “This has to be kept strictly between us.” Her eyes were still on Belgarath’s face. “An episode like this can have very serious effects, and there’s no way to know how it will be with him when he recovers. He could be very seriously weakened.”
“Weakened? How?”
“His will could be greatly reduced—to that of any other old man. He drained it to the utter limit, and he might have gone so far that he could never regain his powers.”
“You mean he wouldn’t be a sorcerer any more?”
“Don’t repeat the obvious, Garion,” she said wearily. “If that happens, it’s going to be up to you and me to conceal it from everybody. Your grandfather’s power is the one thing that has held the Angaraks in check for all these years. If something has happened to that power, then you and I will have to make it look as if he’s the same as he always was. We’ll have to conceal the truth even from him, if that is possible.”
“What can we do without him?”
“We’d go on, Garion,” she replied quietly, looking directly into his eyes. “Our task is too important for us to falter because a man falls by the wayside—even if that man happens to be your grandfather. We’re racing against time in all this, Garion. We absolutely must fulfill the Prophecy and get the Orb back to Riva by Erastide, and there are people who must be gathered up to go with us.”
“Who?”
“Princess Ce’Nedra, for one.”
“Ce’Nedra?” Garion had never really forgotten the little princess, but he failed to see why Aunt Pol was making such an issue of her going with them to Riva.
“In time you’ll understand, dear. All of this is part of a series of events that must occur in proper sequence and at the proper time. In most situations, the present is determined by the past. This series of events is different, however. In this case, what’s happening in the present is determined by the future. If we don’t get it exactly the way it’s supposed to be, the ending will be different, and I don’t think any of us would like that at all.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, placing himself unquestioningly in her hands.
She smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you, Garion,” she said simply. “When you rejoin the others, they’re going to ask you how father’s coming along, and I want you to put on your best face and tell them that he’s doing fine.”
“You want me to lie to them.” It was not even a question.
“No place in the world is safe from spies, Garion. You know that as well as I, and no matter what happens, we can’t let any hint that father might not recover fully get back to the Angaraks. If necessary, you’ll lie until your tongue turns black. The whole fate of the West could depend on how well you do it.”
He stared at her.
“It’s possible that all this is totally unnecessary,” she reassured him. “He may be exactly the same as always after he’s had a week or two of rest, but we’ve got to be ready to move smoothly, just in case he’s not.”