Taiba shrugged. “We’ve always been here.” She took the food Aunt Pol offered her and began to eat ravenously.
“Not too fast,” Aunt Pol warned.
“Have you ever heard anything about how Marags wound up in the slave pens of the Murgos?” Belgarath pressed.
“My mother told me once that thousands of years ago we lived in a country under the open sky and that we weren’t slaves then,” Taiba replied. “I didn’t believe her, though. It’s the sort of story you tell children.”
“There are some old stories about the Tolnedran campaign in Maragor, Belgarath,” Silk remarked. “Rumors have been floating around for years that some of the legion commanders sold their prisoners to the Nyissan slavers instead of killing them. It’s the sort of thing a Tolnedran would do.”
“It’s a possibility, I suppose,” Belgarath replied, frowning.
“Do we have to stay here?” Relg demanded harshly. His back was still turned, and there was a rigidity to it that spoke his outrage loudly.
“Why is he angry with me?” Taiba asked, her voice dropping wearily from her lips in scarcely more than a whisper.
“Cover your nakedness, woman,” Relg told her. “You’re an affront to decent eyes.”
“Is that all?” She laughed, a rich, throaty sound. “These are all the clothes I have.” She looked down at her lush figure. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with my body. It’s not deformed or ugly. Why should I hide it?”
“Lewd woman!” Relg accused her.
“If it bothers you so much, don’t look,” she suggested.
“Relg has a certain religious problem,” Silk told her dryly.
“Don’t mention religion,” she said with a shudder.
“You see,” Relg snorted. “She’s completely depraved.”
“Not exactly,” Belgarath told him. “In Rak Cthol the word religion means the altar and the knife.”
“Garion,” Aunt Pol said, “give me your cloak.”
He unfastened his heavy wool cloak and handed it to her. She started to cover the exhausted slave woman with it, but stopped suddenly and looked closely at her. “Where are your children?” she asked.
“The Murgos took them,” Taiba replied in a dead voice. “They were two baby girls—very beautiful—but they’re gone now.”
“We’ll get them back for you,” Garion promised impulsively.
She gave a bitter little laugh. “I don’t think so. The Murgos gave them to the Grolims, and the Grolims sacrificed them on the altar of Torak. Ctuchik himself held the knife.”
Garion felt his blood run cold.
“This cloak is warm,” Taiba said gratefully, her hands smoothing the rough cloth. “I’ve been cold for such a long time.” She sighed with a sort of weary contentment.
Belgarath and Aunt Pol were looking at each other across Taiba’s body. “I must be doing something right,” the old man remarked cryptically after a moment. “To stumble across her like this after all these years of searching!”
“Are you sure she’s the right one, father?”
“She almost has to be. Everything fits together too well—right down to the last detail.” He drew in a deep breath and then let it out explosively. “That’s been worrying me for a thousand years.” He suddenly looked enormously pleased with himself. “How did you escape from the slave pens, Taiba?” he asked gently.
“One of the Murgos forgot to lock a door,” she replied, her voice drowsy. “After I slipped out, I found this knife. I was going to try to find Ctuchik and kill him with it, but I got lost. There are so many caves down here—so many. I wish I could kill him before I die, but I don’t suppose there’s much hope for that now.” She sighed regretfully. “I think I’d like to sleep now. I’m so very tired.”
“Will you be all right here?” Aunt Pol asked her. “We have to leave, but we’ll be back. Do you need anything?”
“A little light, maybe.” Taiba sighed. “I’ve lived in the dark all my life. I think I’d like it to be light when I die.”
“Relg,” Aunt Polt said, “make her some light.”
“We might need it ourselves.” His voice was still stiffly offended.
“She needs it more.”
“Do it, Relg,” Belgarath told the zealot in a firm voice.
Relg’s face hardened, but he mixed some of the contents of his two pouches together on a flat stone and dribbled a bit of water on the mixture. The pasty substance began to glow.
“Thank you,” Taiba said simply.
Relg refused to answer or even to look at her.
They went back up the passageway, leaving her beside the small pool with her dim little light. She began to sing again, quite softly this time and in a voice near the edge of sleep.
Relg led them through the dark galleries, twisting and changing course frequently, always climbing. Hours dragged by, though time had little meaning in the perpetual darkness. They climbed more of the sheer faces and followed passageways that wound higher and higher up into the vast rock pillar. Garion lost track of direction as they climbed, and found himself wondering if even Relg knew which way he was going. As they rounded another corner in another gallery, a faint breeze seemed to touch their faces. The breeze carried a dreadful odor with it.
“What’s that stink?” Silk asked, wrinkling his sharp nose.
“The slave pens, most likely,” Belgarath replied. “Murgos are lax about sanitation.”
“The pens are under Rak Cthol, aren’t they?” Barak asked. Belgarath nodded.
“And they open up into the city itself?”
“As I remember it, they do.”
“You’ve done it, Relg,” Barak said, clapping the Ulgo on the shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” Relg told him.
“Sorry, Relg.”
“The slave pens are going to be guarded,” Belgarath told them. “We’ll want to be very quiet now.”
They crept on up the passageway, being careful where they put their feet. Garion was not certain at what point the gallery began to show evidence of human construction. Finally they passed a partially open iron door. “Is there anybody in there?” he whispered to Silk.
The little man sidled up to the opening, his dagger held low and ready. He glanced in, his head making a quick, darting movement. “Just some bones,” he reported somberly.
Belgarath signalled for a halt. “These lower galleries have probably been abandoned,” he told them in a very quiet voice. “After the causeway was finished, the Murgos didn’t need all those thousands of slaves. We’ll go on up, but be quiet and keep your eyes open.”
They padded silently up the gradual incline of the gallery, passing more of the rusting iron doors, all standing partially ajar. At the top of the slope, the gallery turned back sharply on itself, still angling upward. Some words were crudely lettered on the wall in a script Garion could not recognize. “Grandfather,” he whispered, pointing at the words.
Belgarath glanced at the lettering and grunted. “Ninth level,” he muttered. “We’re still some distance below the city.”
“How far do we go before we start running into Murgos?” Barak rumbled, looking around with his hand on his sword hilt.
Belgarath shrugged slightly. “It’s hard to say. I’d guess that only the top two or three levels are occupied.”
They followed the gallery upward until it turned sharply, and once again there were words written on the wall in the alien script. “Eighth level,” Belgarath translated. “Keep going.”
The smell of the slave pens grew stronger as they progressed upward through the succeeding levels.
“Light ahead,” Durnik warned sharply, just before they turned the corner to enter the fourth level.
“Wait here,” Silk breathed and melted around the corner, his dagger held close against his leg.
The light was dim and seemed to be bobbing slightly, growing gradually brighter as the moments dragged by. “Someone with a torch,” Barak muttered.
The torchlight suddenly flickered, throwing gyrating shadows. Then it grew steady, no longer bobbing. After a few moments, Silk came back, carefully wiping his dagger. “A Murgo,” he told them. “I think he was looking for something. The cells up there are still empty.”