Then Belgarath went down into the valley lying just below the cave, seeking something. It did not take his probing mind long to find what he needed. As Garion watched with revulsion, the old man casually violated a grave. He dug up a grinning human skull and carefully tapped the dirt out of it. “I’ll need some deer horns,” he told Garion. “Not too large and fairly well-matched.” He squatted, fierce-looking in his furs and tattoos, and began to scrub at the skull with handfuls of dry sand.
There were weather-bleached horns lying here and there in the tall grass, since the deer of the region shed their antlers each winter. Garion gathered a dozen or so and returned to the cave to find his grandfather boring a pair of holes in the top of the skull. He critically examined the horns Garion had brought him, selected a pair of them and screwed them down into the holes. The grating sound of horn against bone set Garion’s teeth on edge. “What do you think?” Belgarath asked, holding up the horned skull.
“It’s grotesque,” Garion shuddered.
“That was the general idea,” the old man replied. He attached the skull firmly to the top of a long staff, decorated it with several feathers and then rose to his feet. “Let’s pack up and leave,” he said.
They rode down through the treeless foothills and out into the bending, waist-high grass as the sun swung down toward the southwestern horizon to dip briefly behind the peaks of the range they had just crossed. The smell of the uncured pelts Silk had sewn to their clothing was not very pleasant, and Garion did his best not to look at the hideously altered skull surmounting Belgarath’s staff as they rode.
“We’re being watched,” Silk mentioned rather casually after an hour or so of riding.
“I was sure we would be,” Belgarath replied. “Just keep going.”
Their first meeting with the Morindim came just as the sun rose. They had paused on the sloping gravel bank of a meandering stream to water their mounts, and a dozen or so fur-clad riders, their dark faces tattooed into devil masks, cantered up to the opposite bank and stopped. They did not speak, but looked hard at the identifying marks Belgarath had so painstakingly contrived. After a brief, whispered consultation, they turned their horses and rode back away from the stream. Several minutes later, one came galloping back, carrying a bundle wrapped in a fox skin. He paused, dropped the bundle on the bank of the stream, and then rode off again without looking back.
“What was that all about?” Garion asked.
“The bundle’s a gift-of sorts,” Belgarath answered. “It’s an offering to any devils who might be accompanying us. Go pick it up.”
“What’s in it?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that. I wouldn’t open it, if I were you. You’re forgetting that you’re not supposed to talk.”
“There’s nobody around,” Garion replied, turning his head this way and that, looking for any sign of their being watched.
“Don’t be too sure of that,” the old man replied. “There could be a hundred of them hiding in the grass. Go pick up the gift and we’ll move along. They’re polite enough, but they’ll be a lot happier when we take our devils out of their territory.”
They rode on across the flat, featureless plain with a cloud of flies, drawn by the smell of their untanned fur garments, plaguing them. Their next meeting, several days later, was less congenial. They had moved into a hilly region where huge, rounded, white boulders rose out of the grass and where shaggy-coated wild oxen with great, sweeping horns grazed. A high overcast had moved in, and the gray sky diffused the light, making the brief twilight that marked the passage of one day into the next an only slightly perceptible darkening. They were riding down a gentle slope toward a large lake, which lay like a sheet of lead under the cloudy sky, when there suddenly arose from the tall grass all around them tattooed and fur-clad warriors holding long spears and short bows that appeared to be made of bone.
Garion reined in sharply and looked at Belgarath for instruction. “Just look straight at them,” his grandfather told him quietly, “and remember that you’re not permitted to speak.”
“More of them coming,” Silk said tersely, jerking his chin toward the crest of a nearby hill where perhaps a dozen Morindim, mounted on paint-decorated ponies, were approaching at a walk.
“Let me do the talking,” Belgarath said.
“Gladly.”
The man in the lead of the mounted group was burlier than most of his companions, and the black tattooing on his face had been outlined with red and blue, marking him as a man of some significance in his clan and making the devil mask of his features all the more hideous. He carried a large wooden club, painted with strange symbols and inlaid with rows of sharp teeth taken from various animals. The way he carried it indicated that it was more a badge of office than a weapon. He rode without a saddle and with a single bridle strap. He pulled his pony to a stop perhaps thirty yards away. “Why have you come into the lands of the Weasel Clan?” he demanded abruptly. His accent was strange and his eyes were flat with hostility.
Belgarath drew himself up indignantly. “Surely the Headman of the Weasel Clan has seen the quest-mark before,” he replied coldly. “We have no interest in the lands of the Weasel Clan, but follow the commands of the Devil-Spirit of the Wolf Clan in the quest he has laid upon us.”
“I have not heard of the Wolf Clan,” the Headman replied. “Where are their lands?”
“To the west,” Belgarath replied. “We have traveled for two waxings and wanings of the Moon-Spirit to reach this place.”
The Headman seemed impressed by that.
A Morind with long white braids and with a thin, dirty-looking beard drew his pony in beside that of the Headman. In his right hand he carried a staff surmounted by the skull of a large bird. The gaping beak of the skull had been decorated with teeth, giving it a ferocious appearance. “What is the name of the Devil-Spirit of the Wolf Clan?” he demanded. “I may know him.”
“That is doubtful, Magician of the Weasel Clan,” Belgarath answered politely. “He seldom goes far from his people. In any case, I cannot speak his name, since he has forbidden it to any but the dreamers.”
“Can you say what his aspect is and his attributes?” the white-braided magician asked.
Silk made a long-gurgling sound in the back of his throat, stiffened in his saddle and rolled his eyes gruesomely back in his head until only the whites showed. With a convulsive, jerking motion, he thrust both arms into the air. “Beware the Devil Agrinja, who stalks unseen behind us,” he intoned in a hollow, oracular voice. “I have seen his three-eyed face and his hundred-fanged mouth in my dreams. The eye of mortal man may not behold him, but his seven-clawed hands reach out even now to rend apart all who would stand in the path of his chosen quester, the spear-bearer of the Wolf Clan. I have seen him feed in my nightmares. The ravener approaches and he hungers for man-meat. Flee his hunger.” He shuddered, dropping his arms and slumping forward in his saddle as if suddenly exhausted.
“You’ve been here before, I see,” Belgarath muttered under his breath. “Try to restrain your creativity, though. Remember that I might have to produce what you dream up.”
Silk cast him a sidelong wink. His description of the Devil had made a distinct impression on the Morindim. The mounted men looked about nervously, and those standing in the waist-high grass moved involuntarily closer together, grasping their weapons in trembling hands.
Then a thin Morind with a white fur band around his left arm pushed through the cluster of frightened warriors. His right leg ended in a clubfoot, and he lurched grotesquely as he walked. He fixed Silk with a glare of pure hatred, then threw both hands wide, quivering and jerking. His back arched and he toppled over, threshing in the grass in the throes of an apparent seizure. He went completely stiff and then he started to speak. “The Devil-Spirit of the Weasel Clan, dread Horja, speaks to me. He demands to know why the Devil Agrinja sends his quester into the lands of the Weasel Clan. The Devil Horja is too awful to look upon. He has four eyes and a hundred and ten teeth, and each of his six hands has eight claws. He feeds on the bellies of men and he hungers.”