Then, shortly before noon, a slight, vagrant breeze suddenly brought another scent to Garion's nostrils. It was an odor of such overpowering sweetness that it almost made him giddy.
"What is that lovely fragrance?" Velvet asked, her brown eyes softening.
Just then they rounded a bend, and there, standing in glory at the side of the road, rose the most beautiful tree Garion had ever seen. Its leaves were a shimmering gold, and long crimson vines hung in profusion from its limbs. It was covered with enormous blossoms of red, blue, and vivid lavender, and among those blossoms hung rich-looking clusters of shiny purple fruit that seemed almost ready to burst. An overwhelming sense of longing seemed to come over him as the sight and smell of that glorious tree touched his very heart.
Velvet, however, had already pushed past him, her face fixed in a dreamy smile as she rode toward the tree.
"Liselle!" Polgara's voice cracked like a whip. "Stop!"
"But—" Velvet's voice was vibrant with longing.
"Don't move," Polgara commanded. "You're in dreadful danger."
"Danger?" Garion said. "It's only a tree, Aunt Pol."
"Come with me, all of you," she commanded. "Keep a tight rein on your horses, and don't go anywhere near that tree." She rode slowly forward at a walk, holding her horse's reins firmly in both hands.
"What's the matter, Pol?" Durnik asked.
"I thought that all of those had been destroyed," she muttered, looking at the gorgeous tree with an expression of flinty hatred.
"But—" Velvet objected, "why would anyone want to destroy something so lovely?"
"Of course it's lovely. That's how it hunts."
"Hunts?" Silk said in a startled voice. "Polgara, it's only a tree. Trees don't hunt."
"This one does. One taste of its fruit is instant death, and the touch of its blossoms paralyzes every muscle in the body. Look there." She pointed at something in the high grass beneath the tree. Garion peered into the grass and saw the skeleton of a large-sized animal. A half-dozen of the crimson tendrils hanging from one of the flower-decked branches had poked their way down into the animal's rib cage and interwoven themselves into the mossy bones.
"Do not look at the tree," Polgara told them all in a deadly tone. "Do not think about the fruit, and try not to inhale the fragrance of its flowers too deeply. The tree is trying to lure you to within range of its tendrils. Ride on and don't look back." She reined in her horse.
"Aren't you coming, too?" Durnik asked with a worried look.
"I'll catch up," she replied. "I have to attend to this monstrosity first."
"Do as she says," Belgarath told them. "Let's go."
As they rode on past that beautiful, deadly tree, Garion felt a wrench of bitter disappointment; as they moved farther down the road away from it, he seemed to hear a silent snarl of frustration. Startled, he glanced back once and was amazed to see the crimson tendrils hanging from the branches writhing and lashing at the air in a kind of vegetative fury. Then he turned back quickly as Ce'Nedra made a violent retching sound.
"What's the matter?" he cried.
"The tree!" she gasped. "It's horrible! It feeds on the agony of its victims as much as upon their flesh!"
As they rounded another bend in the road, Garion felt a violent surge, and there was a huge concussion behind them, followed by the sizzling crackle of a fire surging up through living wood. In his mind he heard an awful scream filled with pain, anger, and a malevolent hatred. A pall of greasy black smoke drifted low to the ground, bringing with it a dreadful stench.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later when Polgara rejoined them. "It will not feed again," she said with a note of satisfaction in her voice. She smiled almost wryly. "That's one of the few things Salmissra and I have ever agreed upon," she added. "There's no place in the world for that particular tree."
They rode on down into Nyissa, following the weed-choked track of the long-abandoned highway. About noon of the following day, Eriond's chestnut stallion grew restive, and the blond young man pulled up beside Garion, who still rode in the lead with his sword on the pommel of his saddle. "He wants to run." Eriond laughed gently. "He always wants to run."
Garion looked over at him. "Eriond," he said, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"Yes, Belgarion?"
"When I was riding your horse to the beach back up there in the Wood of the Dryads, he did something that was sort of odd."
"Odd? How do you mean?"
"It should have taken nearly two days to reach the sea, but he did it in about a half an hour."
"Oh," Eriond said, "that."
"Can you explain how he does it?"
"It's something he does sometimes when he knows that I'm in a hurry to get someplace. He kind of goes to another place, and when he comes back, you're much farther along than you were when he started."
"Where is this other place?"
"Right here—all around us—but at the same time, it's not. Does that make any sense?"
"No. Not really."
Eriond frowned in concentration. "You told me one time that you could change yourself into a wolf—the same way Belgarath does."
"Yes."
"And you said that when you do that, your sword is still with you, but at the same time it's not."
"That's what Grandfather told me."
"I think that's where this other place is—the same place where your sword goes. Distance doesn't seem to mean the same thing there as it does here. Does that explain it at all?''
Garion laughed. "It doesn't even come close, Eriond, but I'll take your word for it."
About mid afternoon the next day, they reached the marshy banks of the River of the Serpent where the highway turned toward the east, following the winding course of that sluggish stream. The sky had cleared, though the pale sunlight had little warmth to it.
"Maybe I'd better scout on ahead," Silk said. "The road looks a bit more well traveled along this stretch, and we didn't exactly make a lot of friends the last time we were here." He spurred his horse into a brisk canter; in a few minutes he was out of sight around a bend in the weed-choked road.
"We won't have to go through Sthiss Tor, will we?" Ce'Nedra asked.
"No," Belgarath replied. "It's on the other side of the river." He looked at the screen of trees and brush lying between the ancient highway and the mossy riverbank. "We should be able to slip past it without too much trouble."