King of the Murgos

"What's that?" Errand asked suddenly from somewhere behind them. "I thought I heard something."

They stopped to listen. The guttering sound of Belgarath's torch suddenly sounded very loud as Garion strained his ears, trying to reach out into the darkness to capture any wayward sound. The slow drip of water echoed its soft tapping from somewhere in the dark, and the faint sigh of air coming down through the cracks and crevices in the rock provided a mournful accompaniment. Then, very faintly, Garion heard the sound of singing, of choral voices raised in the peculiarly discordant but deeply reverent hymn to UL that had echoed and re-echoed through these dim caverns for over five millennia.

"Ah, the Ulgos," Belgarath said with satisfaction. "We're almost to Prolgu. Now maybe we'll find out what it is that's supposed to happen here."

They went perhaps another mile along the passageway which rather suddenly became steeper, taking them deeper and deeper into the earth.

"Yakkf" a voice from somewhere ahead barked sharply. "Tacha velk? "•

"Belgarath, lyun hak," the old sorcerer replied calmly in response to the challenge.

"Belgarath? " The voice sounded startled. "Zajek kattig, Belgarath?"

"Marekeg Gorim, lyun zajek."

"Veed mo. Mar ishum Ulgo."

Belgarath extinguished his torch as the Ulgo sentry approached with a phosphorescently glowing wooden bowl held aloft.

"Yad ho, Belgarath. Groja UL."

"Yad ho," the old man answered the ritual greeting. "Groja UL."

The short, broad-shouldered Ulgo bowed briefly, then turned and led them on down the gloomy passageway. The greenish, unwavering glow from the wooden bowl he carried spread its eerie light in the dim gallery, painting all their faces with a ghostly pallor. After another mile or so, the gallery opened out into one of those vast caverns where the pale glow of that strange, cold light the Ulgos contrived winked at them from a hundred openings high up in the stone wall. They carefully moved along a narrow ledge to the foot of a stone stairway that had been chipped from the rock wall of the cave. Their guide spoke briefly to Belgarath.

"We'll have to leave the horses here," the old man said.

"I can stay with them," Durnik offered.

"No. The Ulgos will tend to them. Let's go up." And he started up the steep flight of stairs.

They climbed in silence, the sound of their footsteps echoing back hollowly from the far side of the cavern.

"Please don't lean out over the edge like that, Errand," Polgara said when they were about halfway up.

"I just wanted to see how far down it goes," he replied. "Did you know that there's water down there?"

"That's one of the reasons I'd rather you stayed away from the edge."

He flashed her a sudden smile and went on up.

At the top of the stairs, they skirted the edge of the dim subterranean abyss for several hundred yards, then entered one of the galleries where the Ulgos lived and worked in small cubicles carved from the rock. Beyond that gallery lay the Gorim's half-lit cavern with its lake and its island and the peculiarly pyramid-shaped house surrounded by solemn white pillars. At the far end of the marble causeway which crossed the lake, the Gorim of Ulgo, dressed as always in his white robe, stood peering across the water. "Belgarath?" he called in a quavering voice, "is that you?"

"Yes, it's me, Holy One," the old man replied. "You might have guessed that I'd turn up again."

"Welcome, old friend."

Belgarath started toward the causeway, but Ce'Nedra darted past him with her coppery curls flying and ran toward the Gorim with her arms outstretched.

"Ce'Nedra?" he said, blinking as she threw her arms about his neck.

"Oh, Holy Gorim," she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder, "someone's taken my baby."

"They've done what?" he exclaimed.

Garion had started almost involuntarily to cross the causeway to Ce'Nedra's side, but Polgara put her hand on his arm to stop him. "Not just yet, dear," she murmured.

"But—"

"This may be what she needs, Garion."

"But, Aunt Pol, she's crying."

"Yes, dear. That's what I've been waiting for. We have to let her grief run its course before she can begin to come out of it."

The Gorim held the sobbing little queen in his arms, murmuring to her in a soft, comforting tone. After the first storm of her weeping had subsided, he raised his lined old face. "When did all this happen?" he asked.

"Late last summer," Belgarath told him. "It's a fairly involved story."

"Come inside then, all of you," the Gorim said. "My servants will prepare food and drink for you, and we can talk while you eat."

They filed into the pyramid-shaped house standing on the Gorim's island and entered the large central room with its stone benches and table, its glowing crystal lamps hanging on chains from the ceiling, and its peculiar, inward-sloping walls. The Gorim spoke briefly with one of his silent servants, then turned with his arm still about Ce'Nedra's shoulders. "Sit, my friends," he said to them.

As they sat at the stone table, one of the Gorim's servants entered, carrying a tray of polished crystal goblets and a couple of flagons of the fiery Ulgo drink.

"Now," the saintly old man said, "what has happened?"

Belgarath filled himself one of the goblets and then quickly sketched in the events of the past several months, telling the Gorim of the murder of Brand, of the attempt to sow dissension in the Alorn ranks and of the campaign against the cult stronghold at Jarviksholm.

"And then," he went on as the Gorim's servants brought in trays of raw fruits and vegetables and a smoking roast hot from the spit, "right about at the same time we captured Jarviksholm, someone crept into the nursery in the Citadel at Riva and took Prince Geran out of his cradle. When we got back to the Isle, we discovered that the Orb will follow the baby's trail—as long as it stays on dry land, anyway. It led us to the west side of the island, and we encountered some Cherek Bear-cultists the abductor had left behind. When we questioned them, they told us that the new cult leader, Ulfgar, had ordered the abduction."

"But what they told you was not true?" the Gorim asked shrewdly.

"Not by half," Silk replied.

"Of course the problem there was that they didn't know they were lying," Belgarath continued. "They'd been very carefully prepared, and the story we got from them sounded quite plausible—particularly in view of the fact that we were already at war with the cult. Anyway, we mounted a campaign against the last cult stronghold at Rheon in northeastern Drasnia. After we took the town and captured Ulfgar, the truth started to come out. Ulfgar turned out to be a Mallorean Grolim named Harakan and he had absolutely nothing to do with the abduction. The real culprit was this mysterious Zandramas I told you about several years ago. I'm not sure exactly what part the Sardion plays in all this; but for some reason, Zandramas wants to take the baby to the place mentioned in the Mrin Codex—the place which is no more. Urvon desperately wants to prevent that, so he sent his henchman here to the west to kill the baby to keep it from happening."