Queen of Sorcery

Wolf shook his head. "Asharak would miss him," he replied. "I want him to tell the Murgos that we're in this tent. With any luck, they'll sit outside for a day or so before they realize that we're gone."

For the next several hours various members of the party went out into the street in front of the tent on short and wholly imaginary errands to hold the attention of the lurking Brill. When Garion stepped out into the gathering darkness, he put on a show of unconcern, although his skin prickled as he felt Brill's eyes on him. He went into Delvor's supply tent and waited for several minutes. The noise from a tavern pavilion several rows of tents over seemed very loud in the growing stillness of the Fair as Garion waited nervously in the dark supply tent. Finally he drew a deep breath and went out again, one arm tucked up as if he were carrying something. "I found it, Durnik," he announced as he reentered the main pavilion.

"There's no need to improvise, dear," Aunt Pol remarked.

"I just wanted to sound natural," he replied innocently.

Delvor returned soon after that, and they all waited in the warm tent as it grew darker outside and the streets emptied. Once it was fully dark, Delvor's porters pulled the packs out through a slit in the back of the tent. Silk, Delvor, and Hettar went with them to the horse pens on the outskirts of the Fair while the rest remained long enough to keep Brill from losing interest. In a final attempt at misdirection, Mister Wolf and Barak went outside to discuss the probable conditions of the road to Prolgu in Ulgoland.

"It might not work," Wolf admitted as he and the big red-bearded man came back inside. "Asharak's sure to know that we're following Zedar south, but if Brill tells him that we're going to Prolgu, it might make him divide his forces to cover both roads." He looked around the inside of the tent. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

One by one they squeezed out through the slit in the back of the tent and crept into the next street. Then, walking at a normal pace like serious people on honest business, they proceeded toward the horse pens. They passed the tavern pavilion where several men were singing. The streets were mostly empty by now, and the night breeze brushed the city of tents, fluttering the pennons and banners.

Then they reached the edge of the Fair where Silk, Delvor and Hettar waited with their mounts.

"Good luck," Delvor said as they prepared to mount. "I'll delay the Murgos for as long as I can."

Silk shook his friend's hand. "I'd still like to know where you got those lead coins."

Delvor winked at him.

"What's this?" Wolf asked.

"Delvor's got some Tolnedran crowns stamped out of lead and gilded over," Silk told him. "He hid some of them in the Murgos' tent, and tomorrow morning he's going to go to the legionnaires with a few of them and accuse the Murgos of passing them. When the legionnaires search the Murgos' tent, they're sure to find the others."

"Money's awfully important to Tolnedrans," Barak observed. "If the legionnaires get excited enough about those coins, they might start hanging people."

Delvor smirked. "Wouldn't that be a terrible shame?"

They mounted then and rode away from the horse pens toward the highway. It was a cloudy night, and once they were out in the open the breeze was noticeably brisk. Behind them the Fair gleamed and twinkled under the night sky like some vast city.

Garion drew his cloak about him. It was a lonely feeling to be on a dark road on a windy night when everyone else in the world had a fire and a bed and walls around him. Then they reached the Great West Road stretching pale and empty across the dark, rolling Arendish plain and turned south again.

Chapter Nine

THE WIND PICKED UP AGAIN shortly before dawn and was blowing briskly by the time the sky over the low foothills to the east began to lighten. Garion was numb with exhaustion by then, and his mind had drifted into an almost dreamlike trance. The faces of his companions all seemed strange to him as the pale light began to grow stronger. At times he even forgot why they rode. He seemed caught in a company of grim-faced strangers pounding along a road to nowhere through a bleak, featureless landscape with their wind-whipped cloaks flying dark behind them like the clouds scudding low and dirty overhead. A peculiar idea began to take hold of him. The strangers were somehow his captors, and they were taking him away from his real friends. The idea seemed to grow stronger the farther they rode, and he began to be afraid.Suddenly, without knowing why, he wheeled his horse and broke away, plunging off the side of the road and across the open field beside it.

"Garion!" a woman's voice called sharply from behind, but he set his heels to his horse's flanks and sped even faster across the rough field.

One of them was chasing him, a frightening man in black leather with a shaved head and a dark lock at his crown flowing behind him in the wind. In a panic Garion kicked at his horse, trying to make the beast run even faster, but the fearsome rider behind him closed the gap quickly and seized the reins from his hands.

"What are you doing?" he demanded harshly.

Garion stared at him, unable to answer.

Then the woman in the blue cloak was there, and the others not far behind her. She dismounted quickly and stood looking at him with a stern face. She was tall for a woman, and her face was cold and imperious. Her hair was very dark, and there was a single white lock at her brow.

Garion trembled. The woman made him terribly afraid.

"Get down off that horse," she commanded.

"Gently, Pol," a silvery-haired old man with an evil face said.

A huge red-bearded giant rode closer, threatening, and Garion, almost sobbing with fright, slid down from his horse.

"Come here," the woman ordered.

Falteringly, Garion approached her.

"Give me your hand," she said.

Hesitantly, he lifted his hand and she took his wrist firmly. She opened his fingers to reveal the ugly mark on his palm that he seemed to always have hated and then put his hand against the white lock in her hair.

"Aunt Pol," he gasped, the nightmare suddenly dropping away. She put her arms about him tightly and held him for some time. Strangely, he was not even embarrassed by that display of affection in front of the others.

"This is serious, father," she told Mister Wolf.

"What happened, Garion?" Wolf asked, his voice calm.

"I don't know," Garion replied. "I was as if I didn't know any of you, and you were my enemies, and all I wanted to do was run away to try to get back to my real friends."

"Are you still wearing the amulet I gave you?"