“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.