Queen of Sorcery

The trees grew taller, then immense. Great, gnarled roots twisted up out of the ooze along the banks like grotesquely misshapen legs, and trunks vast as castles reached up into the steaming sky. Ropey vines undulated down from the limbs overhead, moving, seeming to writhe with a kind of vegetable will of their own in the breathless air. Shaggy tatters of grayish moss descended in hundred-foot-long streamers from the trees, and the river wound spitefully in great coils that made their journey ten times as long as it needed to be.

"Unpleasant sort of place," Hettar grumbled, dispiritedly looking out over the bow at the weedy surface of the river ahead. He had removed his horsehide jacket and linen undertunic, and his lean torso gleamed with sweat. Like most of them, he was covered with the angry welts of insect bites.

"My very thought," Mandorallen agreed.

One of the sailors shouted and jumped up, kicking at his oar-handle. Something long, slimy, and boneless had crawled unseen up his oar, seeking his flesh with an eyeless voracity.

"Leech," Durnik said with a shudder as the hideous thing dropped with a wet plop back into the stinking river. "I've never seen one so big. It must be a foot long or more."

"Probably not a good place for swimming," Hettar observed.

"I wasn't considering it," Durnik said.

"Good." Aunt Pol, wearing a light linen dress, came out of the cabin beneath the high stern where Greldik and Barak were taking turns at the tiller. She had been caring for Ce'Nedra, who had drooped and wilted like a flower in the brutal climate of the river.

"Can't you do something?" Garion demanded of her silently.

"About what?"

"All of this."He looked around helplessly.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Drive of the bugs, if nothing else."

"Why don't you do it yourself, Belgarion?"

He set his jaw. "No!" It was almost a silent shout.

"It isn't really very hard."

"No."

She shrugged and turned away, leaving him seething with frustration. It took them three more days to reach Sthiss Tor. The city was embraced in a wide coil of the river and was built of black stone. The houses and buildings were low and for the most part were windowless. In the center of the city a vast pile of a building rose with strangely shaped spires and domes and terraces, oddly alien-looking. Wharves and jetties poked out into the turbid river, and Greldik guided his ship toward one which was much larger than the rest. "We have to stop at customs," he explained.

"Inevitably," Durnik said.

The exchange at customs was brief. Captain Greldik announced that he was delivering the goods of Radek of Boktor to the Drasnian trade enclave. Then he handed a jingling purse to the shaven-headed customs official, and the ship was allowed to proceed without inspection.

"You owe me for that, Barak," Greldik said. "The trip here was out of friendship, but the money's something else again."

"Write it down someplace," Barak told him. "I'll take care of it when I get back to Val Alorn."

"If you ever get back to Val Alorn," Greldik said sourly.

"I'm sure you'll remember me in your prayers, then," Barak said. "I know you pray for me all the time anyway, but now you've got a bit more incentive."

"Is every official in the whole world corrupt?" Durnik demanded irritably. "Doesn't anyone do his job the way it's supposed to be done without taking bribes?"

"The world would come to an end if one of them did," Hettar replied. "You and I are too simple and honest for these affairs, Durnik. We're better off leaving this kind of thing to others."

"It's disgusting, that's all."

"That may be true," Hettar agreed, "but I'm just as happy that the customs man didn't look below decks. We might have had some trouble explaining the horses."

The sailors had backed the ship into the river again and rowed toward a series of substantial wharves. They pulled up beside the outer wharf, shipped their oars and looped the hawsers around the tar-blackened pilings of a mooring spot.

"You can't moor here," a sweaty guard told them from the wharf. "This is for Drasnian ships."

"I'll moor anyplace it suits me," Greldik said shortly.

"I'll call out the soldiers," the guard threatened. He took hold of one of their hawsers and pulled out a long knife.

"If you cut that rope, friend, I'll come down there and tear off your ears," Greldik warned.

"Go ahead and tell him," Barak suggested. "It's too hot for fighting."

"My ship's carrying Drasnian goods," Greldik told the guard on the wharf, "belonging to a man named Radek-from Boktor, I think."

"Oh," the guard said, putting away his knife, "why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"Because I didn't like your attitude," Greldik replied bluntly. "Where do I find the man in charge?"

"Droblek? His house is just up that street past the shops. It's the one with the Drasnian emblem on the door."

"I've got to talk with him," Greldik said. "Do I need a pass to go off the wharf? I've heard some strange things about Sthiss Tor."

"You can move around inside the enclave," the guard informed him. "You only need a pass if you want to go into the city."

Greldik grunted and went below. A moment later he came back with several packets of folded parchment. "Do you want to talk to this official?" he asked Aunt Pol. "Or do you want me to take care of it?"

"We'd better come along," she decided. "The girl's asleep. Tell your men not to disturb her."

Greldik nodded and spoke briefly to his first mate. The sailors ran a plank across to the wharf, and Greldik led the way ashore. Thick clouds were rolling in overhead, darkening the sun.

The street which ran down to the wharf was lined on both sides with the shops of Drasnian merchants, and Nyissans moved torpidly from shop to shop, stopping now and then to haggle with the sweating shop-keepers. The Nyissan men all wore loose-fitting robes of a light, iridescent fabric, and their heads were all shaved completely bald. As he walked along behind Aunt Pol, Garion noticed with a certain distaste that the Nyissans wore elaborate makeup on their eyes, and that their lips and cheeks were rouged. Their speech was rasping and sibilant, and they all seemed to affect a lisp.

The heavy clouds had by now completely obscured the sky, and the street seemed suddenly dark. A dozen wretched, near-naked men were repairing a section of cobblestones. Their unkempt hair and shaggy beards indicated that they were not Nyissan, and there were shacklesand chains attached to their ankles. A brutal-looking Nyissan stood over them with a whip, and the fresh welts and cuts on their bodies spoke mutely of the freedom with which he used it. One of the miserable slaves accidentally dropped an armload of crudely squared-off stones on his foot and opened his mouth with an animal-like howl of pain. With horror, Garion saw that the slave's tongue had been cut out.