"I get the feeling you've done this before."
"From time to time. It's a useful disguise. Gold hunters are crazy to begin with, so people aren't surprised if they show up in strange places." The old man laughed shortly. "I even found gold once - a vein as thick as your arm."
Silk's face grew immediately intent. "Where?"
Belgarath shrugged. "Off that way somewhere," he replied with a vague gesture. "I forget exactly."
"Belgarath," Silk objected with a note of anguish in his voice.
"Don't get sidetracked," Belgarath told him. "Let's get some sleep. I want to be out of here as early as possible tomorrow morning."
The overcast which had lingered for weeks cleared off during the night; when Garion awoke, the new-risen sun streamed golden through the dirty window. Belgarath was seated at the rough table on the far side of the room, studying a parchment map, and Silk had already left.
"I thought for a while that you were going to sleep past noon," the old man said as Garion sat up and stretched.
"I had trouble getting to sleep last night," Garion replied. "It was a little noisy downstairs."
"Nadraks are like that."
A sudden thought occurred to Garion. "What do you think Aunt Pol is doing just now?" he asked.
"Sleeping, probably."
"Not this late."
"It's much earlier where she is."
"I don't follow that."
"Riva's fifteen hundred leagues west of here," Belgarath explained. "The sun won't get that far for several hours yet."
Garion blinked. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.
"I didn't think you had."
The door opened, and Silk came in, carrying several bundles and wearing an outraged expression. He threw his bundles down and stamped to the window, muttering curses under his breath.
"What's got you so worked up?" Belgarath asked mildly.
"Would you look at this?" Silk waved a piece of parchment at the old man.
"What's the problem?" Belgarath took the parchment and read it. "That whole business was settled years ago," Silk declared in an irntated voice. "What are these things doing, still being circulated?"
"The description is colorful," Belgarath noted.
"Did you see that?" Silk sounded mortally offended. He turned to Garion. "Do I look like a weasel to you?"
"-an ill-favored, weasel-faced man," Belgarath read, "shifty-eyed and with a long, pointed nose. A notorious cheat at dice."
"Do you mind?"
"What's this all about?" Garion asked.
"I had a slight misunderstanding with the authorities some years ago," Silk explained deprecatingly. "Nothing all that serious, actually, but they're still circulating that thing." He gestured angrily at the parchment Belgarath was still reading with an amused expression. "They've even gone so far as to offer a reward. " He considered for a moment. "I'll have to admit that the sum is flattering, though," he added.
"Did you get the things I sent you after?" Belgarath asked.
"Of course."
"Let's change clothes, then, and leave before your unexpected celebrity attracts a crowd."
The worn Nadrak clothing was made mostly of leather-snug black trousers, tight-fitting vests, and short-sleeved linen tunics.
"I didn't bother with the boots," Silk said. "Nadrak boots are pretty uncomfortable - probably since it hasn't occurred to them yet that there's a difference between the right foot and the left." He settled a pointed felt cap at a jaunty angle. "What do you think?" he asked, striking a pose.
"Doesn't look at all like a weasel, does he?" Belgarath asked Garion. Silk gave him a disgusted look, but said nothing.
They went downstairs, led their horses out of the stables attached to the inn, and mounted. Silk's expression remained sour as they rode out of Yar Gurak. When they reached the top of a hill to the north of town, he slid off his horse, picked up a rock, and threw it rather savagely at the buildings clustered below.
"Make you feel better?" Belgarath asked curiously.
Silk remounted with a disdainful sniff and led the way down the other side of the hill.
Chapter two
THEY RODE FOR the next few days through a wilderness of stone and stunted trees. The sun grew warmer each day, and the sky overhead was intensely blue as they pressed deeper and deeper into the snowcapped mountains. There were trails of sorts up here, winding, vagrant tracks meandering between the dazzling white peaks and across the high, pale green meadows where wildflowers nodded in the mountain breeze. The air was spiced with the resinous odor of evergreens, and now and then they saw deer grazing or stopping to watch them with large, startled eyes as they passed.Belgarath moved confidently in a generally eastward course and he appeared to be alert and watchful. There were no signs of the half doze in which he customarily rode on more clearly defined roads, and he seemed somehow younger up here in the mountains.
They encountered other travelers - leather-clad Nadraks for the most part - although they did see a party of Drasnians laboring up a steep slope and, once, a long way off, what appeared to be a Tolnedran. Their exchanges with these others were brief and wary. The mountains of Gar og Nadrak were at best sketchily policed, and it was necessary for every man who entered them to provide for his own security.
The sole exception to this suspicious taciturnity was a garrulous old gold hunter mounted on a donkey, who appeared out of the blue-tinged shadows under the trees one morning. His tangled hair was white, and his clothing was mismatched, appearing to consist mostly of castoffs he had found beside this trail or that. His tanned, wrinkled face was weathered like a well-cured old hide, and his blue eyes twinkled merrily. He joined them without any greeting or hint of uncertainty as to his welcome and began talking immediately as if taking up a conversation again that had only recently been interrupted.
There was a sort of comic turn to his voice and manner that Garion found immediately engaging.
"Must be ten years or more since I've followed this path," he began, jouncing along on his donkey as he fell in beside Garion. "I don't come down into this part of the mountains very much any more. The streambeds down here have all been worked over a hundred times at least. Which way are you bound?"
"I'm not really sure," Garion replied cautiously. "I've never been up here before, so I'm just following along."
"You'd find better gravel if you struck out to the north," the man on the donkey advised, "up near Morindland. Of course, you've got to be careful up there, but, like they say, no risk, no profit." He squinted curiously at Garion. "You're not a Nadrak, are you?"