Enchanters' End Game

"We're going to be very quiet about it," Belgarath assured him. "A shape-change is directed almost entirely inward, so there isn't that much noise involved anyway." He turned to Garion. "We're going to do it slowly," he said. "That spreads out what little sound there is and makes it even fainter. Do you understand?"

"I think so, Grandfather."

"I'll go first. Watch me." The old man glanced at their horses. "Let's move away a bit. Horses are afraid of wolves. We don't want them to get hysterical and start crashing around."

They crept along the edge of the trees until they were some distance from the horses.

"This ought to be far enough," Belgarath said. "Now watch." He concentrated for a moment, and then his form began to shimmer and blur. The change-over was very gradual, and for several moments his face and the wolf's face seemed to coexist in the same place. The sound it made was only the faintest of whispers. Then it was done, and the great silver wolf sat on his haunches.

"Now you do it," he told Garion with the slight change of expression that is so much a part of the speech of wolves.

Garion concentrated very hard, holding the shape firmly in his mind. He did it so slowly that it seemed that he could actually feel the fur growing on his body.

Silk had been rubbing dirt on his face and hands to reduce the visibility of his skin. He looked at the two wolves, his eyes questioning. Belgarath nodded once and led the way out onto the bare earth of the basin that sloped down toward the rotting ruins of Cthol Mishrak. There were other shapes moving in the faint light, prowling, snuffling. Some of the shapes had a dog smell to them; others smelled faintly reptilian. Grolims, robed and cowled, stood watch on various hummocks and rocks, searching the darkness with their eyes and their minds for intruders.

The earth beneath Garion's paws felt dead. There was no growth, no life on this wasted heath. With Silk crouched low between them, the two wolves crept, belly low, toward the ruin, taking full advantage of rocky outcrops and eroded gullies. Their pace seemed excruciatingly slow to Garion, but Belgarath paid little attention to the passage of time. Occasionally, when they passed near one of the watching Grolims, they moved but one paw at a time. The minutes dragged by as they crept closer and closer to the broken City of Night.

Near the shattered wall, two of the hooded priests of Torak stood in quiet conversation. Their muted voices fell clearly upon Garion's intensely sharpened ears.

"The Hounds seem nervous tonight," one of them said.

"The storm," the other replied. "Bad weather always makes them edgy."

"I wonder what it's like to be a Hound," the first Grolim mused.

"If you like, perhaps they'll let you join them."

"I don't think I'm that curious."

Silk and the two wolves, moving as silently as smoke, passed no more than ten yards from the two idly chatting guards, and crept over the fallen stones into the dead City of Night. Once among the ruins, they were able to move faster. The shadows concealed their movements, and they flitted among the blasted stones in Belgarath's wake, moving steadily toward the center of the city where the stump of the iron tower now reared stark and black toward the murky sky.

The reek of rust, stagnation, and decay was much stronger, coming to Garion's wolf sharp nose in almost overpowering waves. It was a gagging smell, and he clamped his muzzle shut and tried not to think about it.

"Who's there?" a voice came sharply from just ahead of them. A Grolim with a drawn sword stepped out into the rubble-strewn street, peering intently into the deep shadows where the three crouched, frozen into immobility. Garion sensed rather than heard or saw Silk's slow, deliberate reach toward the dagger sheathed at the back of his neck. Then the little man's arm swung sharply down, and his knife made a fluttering whistle as it sped with deadly accuracy, turning end for end as it flew.

The Grolim grunted, doubling over sharply, then he sighed and toppled forward, his sword clanging as it fell.

"Let's move!" Silk ran past the huddled form of the dead Grolim sprawled on the stones.

Garion smelled fresh blood as he loped past, and the smell brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth.

They reached the massive tangle of twisted girders and crumpled plates that had been the iron tower and crept silently through the open doorway into the total blackness of the chamber within. The smell of rust was everywhere now; coupled with it was a smell of ancient, brooding evil. Garion stopped, sniffing nervously at the tainted air, feeling his hackles rising on his ruffed neck. With an effort, he suppressed the low growl that rose involuntarily in his throat.

He felt Belgarath's shoulder brush him and he followed the old wolf, guided now by scent alone in the utter blackness. At the far end of the huge, empty, iron room there was another doorway.

Belgarath stopped, and Garion felt again that faint brushing whisper as the old man slowly shifted back into the shape of a man. Garion clenched in his own will and let himself gradually flow back into his own form.

Silk was breathing a string of colorful curses, fervent but almost inaudible.

"What's the matter?" Belgarath whispered.

"I forgot to stop for my knife," Silk replied, grating his teeth together. "It's one of my favorites."

"What now, Grandfather?" Garion asked, his whisper hoarse.

"Just beyond this door, there's a flight of stairs leading down."

"What's at the bottom?"

"A cellar. It's a sort of tomb where Zedar's got Torak's body. Shall we go down?"

Garion sighed, then squared his shoulders. "I guess that's what we came for," he replied.

Chapter Twenty-two

"YOU DON'T ACTUALLY believe I'll accept that, do you, Zedar?" Garion froze in the act of putting his hand on the iron door at the foot of the stairs."You can't evade your responsibility with the pretence of necessity," the voice beyond the door continued."Aren't we all driven by necessity, Polgara?" a stranger's voice replied with a kind of weary sadness. "I won't say that I was blameless, but wasn't my apostacy predestined? The universe has been divided against itself since the beginning of time, and now the two Prophecies rush toward each other for their final meeting when all will be resolved. Who can say that what I have done was not essential to that meeting?"

"That's an evasion, Zedar," Aunt Pol told him.

"What's she doing here?" Garion whispered to Belgarath.

"She's supposed to be here," Belgarath whispered back with an odd note of satisfaction. "Listen."