“Are you alone?” Barak’s voice was heavy with suspicion.
“Of course I’m alone,” Yarblek snorted. “I told my servants to go on ahead. You certainly left in a hurry.”
“We didn’t feel like staying to greet Taur Urgas,” Barak replied.
“It’s probably just as well. I’d have had a great deal of trouble getting you out of that mess back there. The Murgo soldiers inspected every one of my people to be sure they were all Nadraks before they’d let me leave. Taur Urgas has Silk.”
“We know,” Barak said. “How did you find us?”
“You left the pegs pulled up at the back of my tent, and this hill’s the closest cover on this side of the fair. I guessed which way you’d go, and you left a track here and there to confirm it.” The Nadrak’s coarse face was serious, and he showed no signs of his extended bout at the ale barrel. “We’re going to have to get you out of here,” he said. “Taur Urgas will be putting out patrols soon, and you’re almost in his lap.”
“We must rescue our companion first,” Mandorallen told him.
“Silk? You’d better forget that. I’m afraid my old friend has switched his last pair of dice.” He sighed. “I liked him, too.”
“He’s not dead, is he?” Durnik’s voice was almost sick.
“Not yet,” Yarblek replied, “but Taur Urgas plans to correct that when the sun comes up in the morning. I couldn’t even get close enough to that pit to drop a dagger to him so he could open a vein. I’m afraid his last morning’s going to be a bad one.”
“Why are you trying to help us?” Barak asked bluntly.
“You’ll have to excuse him, Yarblek,” Aunt Pol said. “He’s not familiar with Nadrak customs.” She turned to Barak. “He invited you into his tent and offered you his ale. That makes you the same as his brother until sunrise tomorrow.”
Yarblek smiled briefly at her. “You seem to know us quite well, girl,” he observed. “I never got to see you dance, did I?”
“Perhaps another time,” she replied.
“Perhaps so.” He squatted and pulled a curved dagger from beneath his overcoat. He smoothed a patch of sand with his other hand and began sketching rapidly with his dagger point. “The Murgos are going to watch me,” he said, “so I can’t add half a dozen or so more people to my party without having them all over me. I think the best thing would be for you to wait here until dark. I’ll move out to the east and stop a league or so on up the caravan track. As soon as it gets dark, you slip around and catch up with me. We’ll work something out after that.”
“Why did Taur Urgas tell you to leave?” Barak asked him.
Yarblek looked grim. “There’s going to be a large accident tomorrow. Taur Urgas will immediately send an apology to Ran Borune—something about inexperienced troops chasing a band of brigands and mistaking honest merchants for bandits. He’ll offer to pay reparation, and things will all be smoothed over. Pay is a magic word when you’re dealing with Tolnedrans.”
“He’s going to massacre the whole camp?” Barak sounded stunned.
“That’s his plan. He wants to clean all the westerners out of Cthol Murgos and he seems to think that a few such accidents will do the job for him.”
Relg had been standing to one side, his large eyes lost in thought. Suddenly he stepped across the gully to where Yarblek’s sketch was. He smoothed it out of the sand. “Can you show me exactly where this pit in which they’re holding our friend is located?” he asked.
“It won’t do you any good,” Yarblek told him. “It’s guarded by a dozen men. Silk’s got quite a reputation, and Taur Urgas doesn’t want him to get away.”
“Just show me,” Relg insisted.
Yarblek shrugged. “We’re here on the north side.” He roughed in the fair and the caravan route. “The supply station is here.” He pointed with his dagger. “The pit’s just beyond it at the base of that big hill on the south side.”
“What kind of walls does it have?”
“Solid stone.”
“Is it a natural fissure in the rock, or has it been dug out?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I need to know.”
“I didn’t see any tool marks,” Yarblek replied, “and the opening at the top is irregular. It’s probably just a natural hole.”
Relg nodded. “And the hill behind it—is it rock or dirt?”
“Mostly rock. All of stinking Cthol Murgos is mostly rock.”
Relg stood up. “Thank you,” he said politely.
“You’re not going to be able to tunnel through to him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Yarblek said, also standing and brushing the sand off the skirts of his overcoat. “You don’t have time.”
Belgarath’s eyes were narrowed with thought. “Thanks, Yarblek,” he said. “You’ve been a good friend.”
“Anything to irritate the Murgos,” the Nadrak said. “I wish I could do something for Silk.”
“Don’t give up on him yet.”
“There isn’t much hope, I’m afraid. I’d better be going. My people will wander off if I’m not there to watch them.”
“Yarblek,” Barak said, holding out his hand, “someday we’ll have to get together and finish getting drunk.”
Yarblek grinned at him and shook his hand. Then he turned and caught Aunt Pol in a rough embrace. “If you ever get bored with these Alorns, girl, my tent flap is always open to you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Yarblek,” she replied demurely.
“Luck,” Yarblek told them. “I’ll wait for you until midnight.” Then he turned and strode off down the gully.
“That’s a good man there,” Barak said. “I think I could actually get to like him.”
“We must make plans for Prince Kheldar’s rescue,” Mandorallen declared, beginning to take his armor out of the packs strapped to one of the horses. “All else failing, we must of necessity resort to main force.”
“You’re backsliding again, Mandorallen,” Barak said.
“That’s already been taken care of,” Belgarath told them.
Barak and Mandorallen stared at him.
“Put your armor away, Mandorallen,” the old man instructed the knight. “You’re not going to need it.”
“Who’s going to get Silk out of there?” Barak demanded.
“I am,” Relg answered quietly. “How much longer is it going to be before it gets dark?”
“About an hour. Why?”
“I’ll need some time to prepare myself.”
“Have you got a plan?” Durnik asked.
Relg shrugged. “There isn’t any need. We’ll just circle around until we’re behind that hill on the other side of the encampment. I’ll go get our friend, and then we can leave.”
“Just like that?” Barak asked.
“More or less. Please excuse me.” Relg started to turn away.
“Wait a minute. Shouldn’t Mandorallen and I go with you?”
“You wouldn’t be able to follow me,” Relg told him. He walked up the gully a short distance. After a moment, they could hear him muttering his prayers.
“Does he think he can pray him out of that pit?” Barak sounded disgusted.
“No,” Belgarath replied. “He’s going to go through the hill and carry Silk back out. That’s why he was asking Yarblek all those questions.”
“He’s going to what?”
“You saw what he did at Prolgu—when he stuck his arm into the wall?”
“Well, yes, but ”
“It’s quite easy for him, Barak.”
“What about Silk? How’s he going to pull him through the rock?”
“I don’t really know. He seems quite sure he can do it, though.”
“If it doesn’t work, Taur Urgas is going to have Silk roasting over a slow fire first thing tomorrow morning. You know that, don’t you?”
Belgarath nodded somberly.
Barak shook his head. “It’s unnatural,” he grumbled.
“Don’t let it upset you so much,” Belgarath advised.
The light began to fade, and Relg continued to pray, his voice rising and falling in formal cadences. When it was fully dark, he came back to where the others waited. “I’m ready,” he said quietly. “We can leave now.”