Demon Lord of Karanda
Page 95"You're a cold, hard person, Garion."
"Oh, Ce'Nedra, you know better than that. What happened back there was unpleasant, certainly, but none of us had any choice but to do exactly what we did."
She turned her back on him and started to stalk away.
"Ce'Nedra," he said, hurrying to catch her.
"What?" She tried to free her arm from his grasp.
"We didn't have any choice," he repeated. "Would you want Geran to grow up in a world filled with demons?"
She stared at him. "No," she firmly admitted. "It's just that . . ." She left it hanging.
"I know," He put his arms about her.
"Oh, Garion." She suddenly clung to him, and everything was all right again.
After they had eaten, they rode on through the forest, passing occasional villages huddled deep among the trees. The villages were rude, most of them consisting of a dozen or so rough log houses and surrounded by crude log palisades. There were usually a rather surprising number of hogs rooting among the stumps that surrounded each village.
"There don't seem to be very many dogs," Durnik observed.
These people prefer pigs as house pets," Silk told him. "As a race, Karands have a strong affinity for dirt, and pigs satisfy certain deep inner needs among them."
"Do you know something, Silk," the smith said then.
"You'd be a much more pleasant companion if you didn't try to turn everything into a joke."
"You're really serious, aren't you?"
"Would I do that to an old friend?"
About midafternoon, the road they were following curved slightly, and they soon reached the edge of the forest and a fork in the rutted track.
"All right. Which way?" Belgarath asked.
Garion lifted his sword from the pommel of his saddle and swept it slowly back and forth until he felt the familiar tug. "The right fork," he replied.
"I'm so glad you said that," Silk told him. "The left fork leads to Calida, I'd expect that news of Harakan's death has reached there by now. Even without the demons, a town full of hysterics doesn't strike me as a very nice place to visit. The followers of Lord Mengha might be just a bit upset when they hear that he's gone off and left them."
"Where does the right fork go?" Belgarath asked him.
"Down to the lake," Silk replied, "Lake Karanda, It's the biggest lake in the world. When you stand on the shore, it's like looking at an ocean."
Garion frowned. "Grandfather," he said, starting to worry, "Do you think that Zandramas knows that the Orb can follow her?"
"It's possible, yes."
"And would she know that it can't follow her over water?"
"I couldn't say for sure."
"But if she does, isn't it possible that she went to the lake in order to hide her trail from us? She could have sailed out a ways, doubled back, and come ashore just about anyplace. Then she could have struck out in a new direction, and we'd never pick up her trail again."
She concentrated a bit. "Not in the immediate vicinity, father," she replied.
"Good. When Zandramas was trying to tamper with Ce'Nedra back at Rak Hagga, weren't you able to lock your thought with hers for a while?"
"Yes, briefly."
"She was at Ashaba then, right?"
She nodded.
"Did you get any kind of notion about which direction she was planning to go when she left?"
She frowned. "Nothing very specific, father -just a vague hint about wanting to go home.
"Darshiva," Silk said, snapping his fingers. "We know that Zandramas is a Darshivan name, and Zakath told Garion that it was in Darshiva that she started stirring up trouble."
Belgarath grunted. "It's a little thin," he said. "I'd feel a great deal more comfortable with some confirmation." He looked at Polgara. "Do you think you could reestablish contact with her -even for just a moment? All I need is a direction."
"I don't think so, father. I'll try, but . . ." she shrugged. Then her face grew very calm, and Garion could feel her mind reaching out with a subtle probing. After a few minutes, she relaxed her will. "She's shielding, father," she told the old man. "I can't pick up anything at all."
He muttered a curse under his breath. "We'll just have to go on down to the lake and ask a few questions. Maybe somebody saw her."
"I'm sure they did," Silk said, "but Zandramas likes to drown sailors, remember? Anyone who saw where she landed is probably sleeping under thirty feet of water."
"Can you think of an alternative plan?"
"Then we go on to the lake."
As the sun began to sink slowly behind them, they passed a fair-sized town set perhaps a quarter of a mile back from the road. The inhabitants were gathered outside the palisade surrounding it. They had a huge bonfire going, and just in front of the fire stood a crude, skull-surmounted altar of logs. A skinny man wearing several feathers in his hair and with lurid designs painted on his face and body was before the altar, intoning an incantation at the top of his lungs. His arms were stretched imploringly at the sky, and there was a note of desperation in his voice.
"What's he doing?" Ce'Nedra asked.
"He's trying to raise a demon so that the townspeople can worship it," Eriond told her calmly.
"Garion!" she said in alarm. "Shouldn't we run?"
"He won't succeed," Eriond assured her. "The demon won't come to him anymore. Nahaz has told them all not to.
The wizard broke off his incantation. Even from this distance, Garion could see that there was a look of panic on his face.
An angry mutter came from the townspeople.
"That crowd is starting to turn ugly," Silk observed.
"The wizard had better raise his demon on the next try, or he might be in trouble."
The gaudily painted man with feathers in his hair began the incantation again, virtually shrieking and ranting at the sky. He completed it and stood waiting expectantly.
Nothing happened.
After a moment, the crowd gave an angry roar and surged forward. They seized the cringing wizard and tore his log altar apart. Then, laughing raucously, they nailed his hands and feet to one of the logs with long spikes and, with a great shout, they hurled the log up onto the bonfire.