King of the Murgos

There was another lurch and that odd blurring; quite suddenly the stallion set his forelegs stiffly, sliding through the sand at the very edge of the rolling surf.

"How did you do that?"

The horse looked back over one shoulder inquiringly.

Then Garion looked around in dismay. "We're on the wrong side of the river," he cried. "We're supposed to be over there." He drew on his will, preparing to translocate himself to the south beach, but the horse wheeled, took two steps, and lurched again.

They were suddenly on the sandy south beach, and Garion was clinging to the saddle to keep from falling off. For an irrational moment, he wanted to scold the animal for not warning him, but there was something much more important to attend to. He slid down from his saddle and ran along the damp sand at the edge of the water, drawing Iron-grip's sword as he went. The Orb glowed eagerly as he held up the blade. "Geran!" he shouted to it. "Find my son."

Between two strides, the Orb tugged at him, almost jerking him off-balance. He slid to a stop on the hard-packed sand, feeling the powerful pull of the sword in his hands. The tip lowered, touched the sand once, and then the Orb flared triumphantly as the blade pointed unerringly up the driftwood-Uttered beach toward the scrubby forest at its upper end.

It was true! Although he had secretly feared that the hints they had received might have been just another clever ruse, the trail of Zandramas and of his infant son was here after all. A sudden wave of exultation surged through him.

"Run, Zandramas!" he called out. "Run as fast as you .can! I have your trail now, and the world isn't big enough for you to find any place to hide from me!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

A chill dampness hung in the air beneath the tangled limbs overhead, and the smell of stagnant water and decay filled their nostrils. The trees twisted upward from the dark floor of the jungle, seeking the light. Gray-green moss hung in streamers from the trees, and ropy vines crawled up their trunks like thick-bodied serpents. A pale, wispy fog hovered back among the trees, rising foul-smelling and dank from black ponds and sluggishly moving streams.The road they followed was ancient, and it was overgrown with tangled brush. Garion rode now at the head of the party with his sword resting on the pommel of his saddle and the Orb eagerly tugging him on. It was late afternoon, and the day that had been gray and overcast to begin with settled slowly, almost sadly toward evening.

"I didn't know that the Nyissans had ever built roads," Ce'Nedra said, looking at the weed-choked track lying ahead of them.

"They were all abandoned after the Marag invasion at the end of the second millennium," Belgarath told her. "The Nyissans discovered that their highway system provided too easy a route for a hostile army, so Salmissra ordered that all the roads be allowed to go back to the jungle."

The sword in Garion's hands swung slightly, pointing toward the thick undergrowth at the side of the road. He frowned slightly, reining in. "Grandfather," he said, "the trail goes off into the woods."

The rest of them pulled up, peering into the obscuring bushes. "I'll go take a look," Silk said, sliding down from his horse and walking toward the side of the road.

"Watch out for snakes," Durnik called after him.

Silk stopped abruptly. "Thanks," he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. Then he pushed into the brush, moving carefully and with his eyes fixed on the ground.

They waited, listening to the rustling crackle as Silk moved around back in the undergrowth. "There's a campsite back here," he called to them, "an old fire pit and several lean-tos."

"Let's have a look," Belgarath said, swinging down out of his saddle.

They left Toth with the horses and pushed back into the stiffly rustling brush. Some yards back from the road they came to a clearing and found Silk standing over a cold fire pit with a number of charred sticks lying at the bottom. "Was Zandramas here?" he asked Garion.

Garion moved forward, holding out his sword. It moved erratically in his hands, pointing first this way and then that. Then it tugged him toward one of the partially collapsed shelters. When he reached it, the sword dipped, touched the ground inside the rude lean-to, and the Orb flared.

"I guess that answers that question," Silk said with a certain satisfaction.

Durnik had knelt by the fire pit and was carefully turning over the charred sticks and peering into the ashes beneath. "It's been several months," he said.

Silk looked around. "From the number of shelters I'd say that at least four people made camp here."

Belgarath grunted. "Zandramas isn't alone any more, then."

Eriond had been curiously poking into the crude shelters and he reached down, picked something up from the ground inside one of them, and came back to join the rest. Wordlessly, he held out the object in his hand to Ce'Nedra.

"Oh," she cried, taking it quickly and clutching it tightly against her.

"What is it, Ce'Nedra?" Velvet asked.

The little queen, her eyes brimming, mutely held out the object Eriond had just given her. It was a small, wool-knit cap, lying damp and sad-looking in her hand. "It's my baby's," she said in a choked voice. "He was wearing it the night he was stolen."

Durnik cleared his throat uncomfortably. "It's getting late," he said quietly. "Did we want to set up for the night here?"

Garion looked at Ce'Nedra's agonized face. "I don't think so," he replied. "Let's go on just a little farther."

Durnik also looked at the grieving queen. "Right," he agreed.

About a half mile farther down the road, they reached the ruins of a long-abandoned city, half buried in the rank jungle growth. Trees buckled up the once-broad streets, and climbing vines wreathed their way upward about the empty towers.

"It seems like a good location," Durnik said, looking around the ruins. "Why did the people just go away and leave it empty?"

"There could be a half-dozen reasons, Durnik," Polgara said. "A pestilence, politics, war—even a whim."

"A whim?" He looked startled.

"This is Nyissa," she reminded him. "Salmissra rules here, and her authority over her people is the most absolute in all the world. If she came here at some time in the past and told the people to leave, they'd have left."

He shook his head disapprovingly. "That's wrong," he said.

"Yes, dear," she agreed. "I know."

They made camp in the abandoned ruins, and the next morning they continued to ride in a generally southeasterly direction. As they pushed deeper and deeper into the Nyissan jungle, there was a gradual change in the vegetation. The trees loomed higher, and their trunks grew thicker. The underbrush became more dense, and the all-pervading reek of stagnant water grew stronger.