“What did you do with him?” Barak asked.
“I dragged him into one of the cells. They won’t stumble over him unless they’re looking for him.”
Relg was carefully veiling his eyes.
“Even that little bit of light?” Durnik asked him.
“It’s the color of it,” Relg explained.
They rounded the corner into the fourth level and started up again. A hundred yards up the gallery a torch was stuck into a crack in the wall, burning steadily. As they approached it, they could see a long smear of fresh blood on the uneven, littered floor.
Belgarath stopped outside the cell door, scratching at his beard. “What was he wearing?” he asked Silk.
“One of those hooded robes,” Silk replied. “Why?”
“Go get it.”
Silk looked at him briefly, then nodded. He went back into the cell and came out a moment later carrying a black Murgo robe. He handed it to the old man.
Belgarath held up the robe, looking critically at the long cut running up the back. “Try not to put such big holes in the rest of them,” he told the little man.
Silk grinned at him. “Sorry. I guess I got a bit overenthusiastic. I’ll be more careful from now on.” He glanced at Barak. “Care to join me?” he invited.
“Naturally. Coming, Mandorallen?”
The knight nodded gravely, loosening his sword in its sheath. “We’ll wait here, then,” Belgarath told them. “Be careful, but don’t take any longer than you have to.”
The three men moved stealthily on up the gallery toward the third level.
“Can you guess at the time, father?” Aunt Pol asked quietly after they had disappeared.
“Several hours after midnight.”
“Will we have enough time left before dawn?”
“If we hurry.”
“Maybe we should wait out the day here and go up when it gets dark again.”
He frowned. “I don’t think so, Pol. Ctuchik’s up to something. He knows I’m coming—I’ve felt that for the last week—but he hasn’t made a move of his own yet. Let’s not give him any more time than we have to.
“He’s going to fight you, father.”
“It’s long overdue anyway,” he replied. “Ctuchik and I have been stepping around each other for thousands of years because the time was never just exactly right. Now it’s finally come down to this.” He looked off into the darkness, his face bleak. “When it starts, I want you to stay out of it, Pol.”
She looked at the grim-faced old man for a long moment, then nodded. “Whatever you say, father,” she said.
26
The Murgo robe was made of coarse, black cloth and it had a strange red emblem woven into the fabric just over Garion’s heart. It smelled of smoke and of something else even more unpleasant. There was a small ragged hole in the robe just under the left armpit, and the cloth around the hole was wet and sticky. Garion’s skin cringed away from that wetness.
They were moving rapidly up through the galleries of the last three levels of the slave pens with the deep-cowled hoods of the Murgo robes hiding their faces. Though the galleries were lighted by sooty torches, they encountered no guards, and the slaves locked behind the pitted iron doors made no sound as they passed. Garion could feel the dreadful fear behind those doors.
“How do we get up into the city?” Durnik whispered.
“There’s a stairway at the upper end of the top gallery,” Silk replied softly.
“Is it guarded?”
“Not any more.”
An iron-barred gate, chained and locked, blocked the top of the stairway, but Silk bent and drew a slim metal implement from one boot, probed inside the lock for a few seconds, then grunted with satisfaction as the lock clicked open in his hand. “I’ll have a look,” he whispered and slipped out.
Beyond the gate Garion could see the stars and, outlined against them, the looming buildings of Rak Cthol. A scream, agonized and despairing, echoed through the city, followed after a moment by the hollow sound of some unimaginably huge iron gong. Garion shuddered.
A few moments later, Silk slipped back through the gate. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody about,” he murmured softly. “Which way do we go?”
Belgarath pointed. “That way. We’ll go along the wall to the Temple.”
“The Temple?” Relg asked sharply.
“We have to go through it to get to Ctuchik,” the old man replied. “We’re going to have to hurry. Morning isn’t far off.”
Rak Cthol was not like other cities. The vast buildings had little of that separateness that they had in other places. It was as if the Murgos and Grolims who lived here had no sense of personal possession, so that their structures lacked that insularity of individual property to be found among the houses in the cities of the West. There were no streets in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather interconnecting courtyards and corridors that passed between and quite often through the buildings.
The city seemed deserted as they crept silently through the dark courtyards and shadowy corridors, yet there was a kind of menacing watchfulness about the looming, silent black walls around them. Peculiar-looking turrets jutted from the walls in unexpected places, leaning out over the courtyards, brooding down at them as they passed. Narrow windows stared accusingly at them, and the arched doorways were filled with lurking shadows. An oppressive air of ancient evil lay heavily on Rak Cthol, and the stones themselves seemed almost to gloat as Garion and his friends moved deeper and deeper into the dark maze of the Grolim fortress.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Barak whispered nervously to Belgarath.
“I’ve been here before, using the causeway,” the old man told him quietly. “I like to keep an eye on Ctuchik from time to time. We got up those stairs. They’ll take us to the top of the city wall.”
The stairway was narrow and steep, with massive walls on either side and a vaulted roof overhead. The stone steps were worn by centuries of use. They climbed silently. Another scream echoed through the city, and the huge gong sounded its iron note once more.
When they emerged from the stairway, they were atop the outer wall. It was as broad as a highway and encircled the entire city. A parapet ran along its outer edge, marking the brink of the dreadful precipice that dropped away to the floor of the rocky wasteland a mile or more below. Once they emerged from the shelter of the buildings, the chill air bit at them, and the black flagstones and rough-hewn blocks of the outer parapet glittered with frost in the icy starlight.
Belgarath looked at the open stretch lying along the top of the wall ahead of them and at the shadowy buildings looming several hundred yards ahead. “We’d better spread out,” he whispered. “Too many people in one place attract attention in Rak Cthol. We’ll go across here two at a time. Walk—don’t run or crouch down. Try to look as if you belong here. Let’s go.” He started along the top of the wall with Barak at his side, the two of them walking purposefully, but not appearing to hurry. After a few moments, Aunt Pol and Mandorallen followed.
“Durnik,” Silk whispered. “Garion and I’ll go next. You and Relg follow in a minute or so.” He peered at Relg’s face, shadowed beneath the Murgo hood. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“As long as I don’t look up at the sky,” Relg answered tightly. His voice sounded as if it were coming from between clenched teeth.
“Come along, then, Garion,” Silk murmured.
It required every ounce of Garion’s self control to walk at a normal pace across the frosty stones. It seemed somehow that eyes watched from every shadowy building and tower as he and the little Drasnian crossed the open section atop the wall. The air was dead calm and bitterly cold, and the stone blocks of the outer parapet were covered with a lacy filigree of rime frost.