Demon Lord Of Karanda (30 page)

Silk was still haggling with the armed peasants, taking up as much time as he could.

‘Uh—excuse me,’ Garion interrupted mildly, ‘but is that something burning over there?’ He pointed.

The peasants turned to stare in horror at the column of dense smoke rising from their village. With startled cries, most of them threw down their crossbows and ran out across the fields in the direction of the apparent catastrophe. The wall-eyed man ran after them, shouting at them to return to their posts. Then he ran back, waving his crossbow threateningly. A look of anguish crossed his face as he hopped about in an agony of indecision, torn between his desire for money that could be extorted from these travelers and the horrid vision of a fire raging unchecked through his house and outbuildings. Finally, no longer able to stand it, he also threw down his weapon and ran after his neighbors.

‘Did you really set their village on fire?’ Silk sounded a little shocked.

‘Of course not,’ Garion said.

‘Where’s the smoke coming from then?’

‘Lots of places.’ Garion winked. ‘Out of the thatch on their roofs, up from between the stones in the streets, boiling up out of their cellars and granaries—lots of places. But it’s only smoke.’ He swung down from Chretienne’s back and gathered up the discarded crossbows. He lined them up, nose down, in a neat row along the brushy barricade. ‘How long does it take to restring a crossbow?’ he asked.

‘Hours.’ Silk suddenly grinned. ‘Two men to bend the limbs with a windlass and another two to hook the cable in place.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Garion agreed. He drew his old belt knife and went down the line of weapons, cutting each twisted rope cable. Each bow responded with a heavy twang. ‘Shall we go, then?’ he asked.

‘What about this?’ Silk pointed at the brushy barricade.

Garion shrugged. ‘I think we can ride around it.’

‘What were they trying to do?’ Durnik asked when they returned.

‘An enterprising group of local peasants decided that the highway needed a tollgate about there.’ Silk shrugged. ‘They didn’t really have the temperament for business affairs, though. At the first little distraction, they ran off and left the shop untended.’

They rode on past the now-deserted barricade with Yarblek’s laden mules plodding along behind them, their bells clanging mournfully.

‘I think we’re going to have to leave you soon,’ Belgarath said to the fur-capped Nadrak. ‘We have to get to Ashaba within the week, and your mules are holding us back.’

Yarblek nodded. ‘Nobody ever accused a pack mule of being fast on his feet,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll be turning toward the west before long anyway. You can go into Karanda if you want to, but I want to get to the coast as quickly as possible.’

‘Garion,’ Polgara said. She looked meaningfully at the column of smoke rising from the village behind them.

‘Oh,’ he replied. ‘I guess I forgot.’ He raised his hand, trying to make it look impressive. ‘Enough,’ he said, releasing his will. The smoke thinned at its base, and the column continued to rise as a cloud, cut off from its source.

‘Don’t overdramatize, dear,’ Polgara advised. ‘It’s ostentatious.’

‘You do it all the time,’ he accused.

‘Yes, dear, but I know how.’

It was perhaps noon when they rode up a long hill, crested it in the bright sunshine, and found themselves suddenly surrounded by mailed, red-tuniced Mallorean soldiers, who rose up out of ditches and shallow gullies with evil-looking javelins in their hands.

‘You! Halt!’ the officer in charge of the detachment of soldiers commanded brusquely. He was a short man, shorter even than Silk, though he strutted about as if he were ten feet tall.

‘Of course, Captain,’ Yarblek replied, reining in his horse.

‘What do we do?’ Garion hissed to Silk.

‘Let Yarblek handle it,’ Silk murmured. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

‘Where are you bound?’ the officer asked when the rangy Nadrak had dismounted.

‘Mal Dariya,’ Yarblek answered, ‘for Mal Camat—wherever I can hire ships to get my goods to Yar Marak.’

The captain grunted as if trying to find something wrong with that. ‘What’s more to the point is where you’ve come from.’ His eyes were narrowed.

‘Maga Renn.’ Yarblek shrugged.

‘Not Mal Zeth?’ The little captain’s eyes grew even harder and more suspicious.

‘I don’t do business in Mal Zeth very often, Captain. It costs too much—all those bribes and fees and permits, you know.’

‘I assume that you can prove what you say?’ The captain’s tone was belligerent.

‘I suppose I could—if there’s a need for it.’

‘There’s a need, Nadrak, because, unless you can prove that you haven’t come from Mal Zeth, I’m going to turn you back.’ He sounded smug about that.

‘Turn back? That’s impossible. I have to be in Boktor by midsummer.’

‘That’s
your
problem, merchant.’ The little soldier seemed rather pleased at having upset the larger man. ‘There’s plague in Mal Zeth, and
I’m
here to make sure that it doesn’t spread.’ He tapped himself importantly on the chest.

‘Plague!’ Yarblek’s eyes went wide, and his face actually paled. ‘Torak’s teeth! And I almost stopped there!’ He suddenly snapped his fingers. ‘So
that’s
why all the villages hereabouts are barricaded.’

‘Can you prove that you came from Maga Renn?’ the captain insisted.

‘Well—’ Yarblek unbuckled a well-worn saddlebag hanging under his right stirrup and began to rummage around in it. ‘I’ve got a permit here issued by the Bureau of Commerce,’ he said rather dubiously. ‘It authorizes me to move my goods from Maga Renn to Mal Dariya. If I can’t find ships there, I’ll have to get another permit to go on to Mal Camat, I guess. Would that satisfy you?’

‘Let’s see it.’ The captain held out his hand, snapping his fingers impatiently.

Yarblek handed it over.

‘It’s a little smeared,’ the captain accused suspiciously.

‘I spilled some beer on it in a tavern in Penn Daka.’ Yarblek shrugged. ‘Weak, watery stuff it was. Take my advice, Captain. Don’t ever plan to do any serious drinking in Penn Daka. It’s a waste of time and money.’

‘Is drinking all you Nadraks ever think about?’

‘It’s the climate. There’s nothing else to do in Gar og Nadrak in the wintertime.’

‘Have you got anything else?’

Yarblek pawed through his saddlebag some more. ‘Here’s a bill of sale from a carpet merchant on Yorba Street in Maga Renn—pockmarked fellow with bad teeth. Do you by any chance know him?’

‘Why would I know a carpet merchant in Maga Renn? I’m an officer in the imperial army. I don’t associate with riffraff. Is the date on this accurate?’

‘How should I know? We use a different calendar in Gar og Nadrak. It was about two weeks ago, if that’s any help.’

The captain thought it over, obviously trying very hard to find some excuse to exert his authority. Finally his expression became faintly disappointed. ‘All right,’ he said grudgingly, handing back the documents. ‘Be on your way. But don’t make any side trips, and make sure that none of your people leave your caravan.’

‘They’d better not leave—not if they want to get paid. Thank you, Captain.’ Yarblek swung back up into his saddle.

The officer grunted and waved them on.

‘Little people should never be given any kind of authority,’ the Nadrak said sourly when they were out of earshot. ‘It lies too heavily on their brains.’

‘
Yarblek
!’ Silk objected.

‘Present company excepted, of course.’

‘Oh. That’s different, then.’

‘Ye lie like ye were born to it, good Master Yarblek,’ Feldegast the juggler said admiringly.

‘I’ve been associating with a certain Drasnian for too long.’

‘How did you come by the permit and the bill of sale?’ Silk asked him.

Yarblek winked and tapped his forehead slyly. ‘Official types are always overwhelmed by official-looking documents, and the more petty the official, the more he’s impressed. I could have proved to that obnoxious little captain back there that we came from any place at all—Melcene, Aduma in the Mountains of Zamad, even Crol Tibu on the coast of Gandahar—except that all you can buy in Crol Tibu are elephants, and I don’t have any of those with me, so that might have made even him a little suspicious.’

Silk looked around with a broad grin. ‘Now you see why I went into partnership with him,’ he said to them all.

‘You seem well suited to each other,’ Velvet agreed.

Belgarath was tugging at one ear. ‘I think we’ll leave you after dark tonight,’ he said to Yarblek. ‘I don’t want some other officious soldier to stop us and count noses—or decide that we need a military escort.’

Yarblek nodded. ‘Are you going to need anything?’

‘Just some food is all.’ Belgarath glanced back at their laden packhorses plodding along beside the mules. ‘We’ve been on the road for quite some time now and we’ve managed to gather up what we really need and discard what we don’t.’

‘I’ll see to it that you’ve got enough food,’ Vella promised from where she was riding between Ce’Nedra and Velvet. ‘Yarblek sometimes forgets that full ale kegs are not the
only
things you need on a journey.’

‘An’ will ye be ridin’ north, then?’ Feldegast asked Belgarath. The little comic had changed out of his bright-colored clothes and was now dressed in plain brown.

‘Unless they’ve moved it, that’s where Ashaba is,’ Belgarath replied.

‘If it be all the same to ye, I’ll ride along with ye fer a bit of a ways.’

‘Oh?’

‘There was a little difficulty with the authorities the last time I was in Mal Dariya, an’ I’d like to give ’em time t’ regain their composure before I go back fer me triumphant return engagement. Authorities tend t’ be a stodgy an’ unfergivin’ lot, don’t y’ know—always dredgin’ up old pranks an’ bits of mischief perpetrated in the spirit of fun an’ throwin’ ’em in yer face.’

Belgarath gave him a long, steady look, then shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he said.

Garion looked sharply at the old man. His sudden acquiescence seemed wildly out of character, given his angry protests at the additions of Velvet and Sadi to their party. Garion then looked over at Polgara, but she showed no signs of concern either. A peculiar suspicion began to creep over him.

As evening settled over the plains of Mallorea, they drew off the road to set up their night’s encampment in a parklike grove of beech trees. Yarblek’s muleteers sat about one campfire, passing an earthenware jug around and becoming increasingly rowdy. At the upper end of the grove, Garion and his friends sat around another fire, eating supper and talking quietly with Yarblek and Vella.

‘Be careful when you cross into Venna,’ Yarblek cautioned his rat-faced partner. ‘Some of the stories coming out of there are more ominous than the ones coming out of Karanda.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s as if a kind of madness has seized them all. Of course, Grolims were never very sane to begin with.’

‘Grolims?’ Sadi looked up sharply.

‘Venna’s a Church-controlled state,’ Silk explained. ‘All authority there derives from Urvon and his court at Mal Yaska.’

‘It
used
to,’ Yarblek corrected. ‘Nobody seems to know
who’s
got the authority now. The Grolims gather in groups to talk. The talk keeps getting louder until they’re screaming at each other, and then they all reach for their knives. I haven’t been able to get the straight of it. Even the Temple Guardsmen are taking sides.’

‘The idea of Grolims cutting each other to pieces is one I can live with,’ Silk said.

‘Truly,’ Yarblek agreed. ‘Just try not to get caught in the middle.’

Feldegast had been softly strumming his lute and he struck a note so sour that even Garion noticed it.

‘That string’s out of tune,’ Durnik advised him.

‘I know,’ the juggler replied. ‘The peg keeps slippin’.’

‘Let me see it,’ Durnik offered. ‘Maybe I can fix it.’

‘’Tis too worn, I fear, friend Durnik. ’Tis a grand instrument, but it’s old.’

‘Those are the ones that are worth saving.’ Durnik took the lute and twisted the loose peg, tentatively testing the pitch of the string with his thumb. Then he took his knife and cut several small slivers of wood. He carefully inserted them around the peg, tapping them into place with the hilt of his knife. Then he twisted the peg, retuning the string. ‘That should do it,’ he said. He took up the lute and strummed it a few times. Then, to a slow measure, he picked out an ancient air, the single notes quivering resonantly. He played the air through once, his fingers seeming to grow more confident as he went along. Then he returned to the beginning again, but this time, to Garion’s amazement, he accompanied the simple melody with a rippling counterpoint so complex that it seemed impossible that it could come from a single instrument. ‘It has a nice tone,’ he observed to Feldegast.

‘’Tis a marvel that ye are, master smith. First ye repair me lute, an’ then ye turn around an’ put me t’ shame by playin’ it far better than I could ever hope to.’

Polgara’s eyes were very wide and luminous. ‘Why haven’t you told me about this, Durnik?’ she asked.

‘Actually, it’s been so long that I almost forgot about it.’ He smiled, his fingers still dancing on the strings and bringing forth that rich-toned cascade of sound. ‘When I was young, I worked for a time with a lute maker. He was old, and his fingers were stiff, but he needed to hear the tone of the instruments he made, so he taught me how to play them for him.’

He looked across the fire at his giant friend, and something seemed to pass between them. Toth nodded, reached inside the rough blanket he wore across one shoulder, and produced a curious-looking set of pipes, a series of hollow reeds, each longer than the one preceding it, all bound tightly together. Quietly, the mute lifted the pipes to his lips as Durnik returned again to the beginning of the air. The sound he produced from his simple pipes had an aching poignancy about it that pierced Garion to the heart, soaring through the intricate complexity of the lute song.