Demon Lord Of Karanda (29 page)

‘Vella,’ Polgara responded in an oddly Nadrak accent. ‘May your knives always be bright and keen.’ There was a strange formality in her greeting, and Garion knew that he was hearing an ancient ritual form of address.

‘And may you always have the means at hand to defend your person from unwanted attentions,’ the Nadrak dancing girl responded automatically, completing the ritual.

‘What’s happening up above?’ Belgarath asked the felt-coated Yarblek.

‘They’re dying,’ Yarblek answered shortly, ‘whole streets at a time.’

‘Have you been avoiding the city?’ Silk asked his partner.

Yarblek nodded. ‘We’re camped outside the gates,’ he said. ‘We got out just before they chained them shut. Dolmar died, though. When he realized that he had the plague, he got out an old sword and fell on it.’

Silk sighed. ‘He was a good man—a little dishonest, maybe, but a good man all the same.’

Yarblek nodded sadly. ‘At least he died clean,’ he said. Then he shook his head. ‘The stairs up to the street are over here,’ he said, pointing off into the darkness. ‘It’s late enough so that there’s nobody much abroad—except for the dead-carts and the few delirious ones stumbling about and looking for a warm gutter to die in.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘The quicker we can get through those streets up there, the quicker we can get back underground where it’s safe.’

‘Does the passage go all the way to the city wall?’ Garion asked him.

Yarblek nodded. ‘And a mile or so beyond,’ he said. ‘It comes out in an old stone quarry.’ He looked at Feldegast. ‘You never did tell me how you found out about it,’ he said.

‘’Tis one of me secrets, good Master Yarblek,’ the juggler replied. ‘No matter how honest a man might be, it’s always good to know a quick way out of town, don’t y’ know.’

‘Makes sense,’ Silk said.

‘You ought to know,’ Yarblek replied. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

They led the horses to a flight of stone stairs reaching up into the darkness beyond the circle of light from Feldegast’s lantern and then laboriously hauled the reluctant animals up the stairway, one step at a time. The stairway emerged in a rickety shed with a straw-littered floor. After the last horse had been hauled up, Feldegast carefully lowered the long trap door again and scuffed enough straw over it to conceal it. ‘’Tis a useful sort of thing,’ he said, pointing downward toward the hidden passage, ‘but a secret’s no good at all if just anybody kin stumble over it.’

Yarblek stood at the door peering out into the narrow alleyway outside.

‘Anybody out there?’ Silk asked him.

‘A few bodies,’ the Nadrak replied laconically. ‘For some reason they always seem to want to die in alleys.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘All right, let’s go, then.’

They moved out into the alley, and Garion kept his eyes averted from the contorted bodies of the plague victims huddled in corners or sprawled in the gutters.

The night air was filled with smoke from the burning city, the reek of burning flesh, and the dreadful smell of decay.

Yarblek also sniffed, then grimaced. ‘From the odor, I’d say that the dead-carts have missed a few,’ he said. He led the way to the mouth of the alley and peered out into the street. ‘It’s clear enough,’ he grunted. ‘Just a few looters picking over the dead. Come on.’

They went out of the alley and moved along a street illuminated by a burning house. Garion saw a furtive movement beside the wall of another house and then made out the shape of a raggedly dressed man crouched over a sprawled body. The man was roughly rifling through the plague victim’s clothes. ‘Won’t he catch it?’ he asked Yarblek, pointing at the looter.

‘Probably.’ Yarblek shrugged. ‘I don’t think the world’s going to miss him very much if he does, though.’

They rounded a corner and entered a street where fully half the houses were on fire. A dead-cart had stopped before one of the burning houses, and two rough-looking men were tossing bodies into the fire with casual brutality.

‘Stay back!’ one of the men shouted to them. ‘There’s plague here!’

‘There’s plague everywhere in this mournful city, don’t y’ know,’ Feldegast replied. ‘But we thank ye fer yer warnin’ anyway. We’ll just go on by on the other side of the street, if ye don’t mind.’ He looked curiously at the pair. ‘How is it that yer not afraid of the contagion yerselves?’ he asked.

‘We’ve already had it,’ one replied with a short laugh. ‘I’ve never been so sick in my life, but at least I didn’t die from it—and they say you can only catch it once.’

‘’Tis a fortunate man y’ are, then,’ Feldegast congratulated him.

They moved on past the rough pair and on down to the next corner.

‘We go this way,’ Feldegast told them.

‘How much farther is it?’ Belgarath asked him.

‘Not far, an’ then we’ll be back underground where it’s safe.’

‘
You
might feel safe underground,’ Silk said sourly, ‘but
I
certainly don’t.’

Halfway along the street Garion saw a sudden movement in one of the deeply inset doorways, and then he heard a feeble wail. He peered at the doorway. Then, one street over, a burning house fell in on itself, shooting flame and sparks high into the air. By that fitful light he was able to see what was in the shadows. The crumpled figure of a woman lay huddled in the doorway, and seated beside the body was a crying child, not much more than a year old. His stomach twisted as he stared at the horror before his eyes.

Then, with a low cry, Ce’Nedra darted toward the child with her arms extended.

‘Ce’Nedra!’ he shouted, trying to shake his hand free of Chretienne’s reins, ‘No!’

But before he could move in pursuit, Vella was already there. She caught Ce’Nedra by the shoulder and spun her around roughly. ‘Ce’Nedra!’ she snapped. ‘Stay away!’

‘Let me go!’ Ce’Nedra almost screamed. ‘Can’t you see that it’s a baby?’ She struggled to free herself.

Very coolly, Vella measured the little Queen, then slapped her sharply across the face. So far as Garion knew, it was the first time anyone had ever hit Ce’Nedra. ‘The baby’s dead, Ce’Nedra,’ Vella told her with brutal directness, ‘and if you go near it, you’ll die, too.’ She began to drag her captive back toward the others. Ce’Nedra stared back over her shoulder at the sickly wailing child, her hand outstretched toward it.

Then Velvet moved to her side, put an arm about her shoulders, and gently turned her so that she could no longer see the child. ‘Ce’Nedra,’ she said, ‘you must think first of your own baby. Would you want to carry this dreadful disease to him?’

Ce’Nedra stared at her.

‘Or do you want to die before you ever see him again?’

With a sudden wail, Ce’Nedra fell into Velvet’s arms, sobbing bitterly.

‘I hope she won’t hold any grudges,’ Vella murmured.

‘You’re very quick, Vella,’ Polgara said, ‘and you think very fast when you have to.’

Vella shrugged. ‘I’ve found that a smart slap across the mouth is the best cure for hysterics.’

Polgara nodded. ‘It usually works,’ she agreed approvingly.

They went on down the street until Feldegast led them into another smelly alley. He fumbled with the latch to the wide door of a boarded-up warehouse, then swung it open. ‘Here we are, then,’ he said, and they all followed him inside. A long ramp led down into a cavernous cellar, where Yarblek and the little juggler moved aside a stack of crates to reveal the opening of another passageway.

They led their horses into the dark opening, and Feldegast remained outside to hide the passage again. When he was satisfied that the opening was no longer visible, he wormed his way through the loosely stacked crates to rejoin them. ‘An’ there we are,’ he said, brushing his hands together in a self-congratulatory way. ‘No man at all kin possibly know that we’ve come this way, don’t y’ know, so let’s be off.’

Garion’s thoughts were dark as he trudged along the passageway, following Feldegast’s winking lantern. He had slipped away from a man for whom he had begun to develop a careful friendship and had left him behind in a plague-stricken and burning city. There was probably very little that he could have done to aid Zakath, but his desertion of the man did not make him feel very proud. He knew, however, that he had no real choice. Cyradis had been too adamant in her instructions. Compelled by necessity, he turned his back on Mal Zeth and resolutely set his face toward Ashaba.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The road leading north from Mal Zeth passed through a fair, fertile plain where new-sprouted grain covered the damp soil like a low, bright green mist and the warm spring air was filled with the urgent scent of growth. In many ways, the landscape resembled the verdant plains of Arendia or the tidy fields of Sendaria. There were villages, of course, with white buildings, thatched roofs, and dogs that came out to stand at the roadside and bark. The spring sky was an intense blue dotted with puffy white clouds grazing like sheep in their azure pastures.

The road was a dusty brown ribbon laid straight where the surrounding green fields were flat, and folded and curved where the land rose in gentle, rounded hills.

They rode out that morning in glistening sunshine with the sound of the bells fastened about the necks of Yarblek’s mules providing a tinkling accompaniment to the morning song of flights of birds caroling to greet the sun. Behind them there rose a great column of dense black smoke, marking the huge valley where Mal Zeth lay burning.

Garion could not bring himself to look back as they rode away.

There were others on the road as well, for Garion and his friends were not the only ones fleeing the plague-stricken city. Singly or in small groups, wary travelers moved north, fearfully avoiding any contact with each other, leaving the road and angling far out into the fields whenever they overtook other refugees, and returning to the brown, dusty ribbon only when they were safely past. Each solitary traveler or each group thus rode in cautious isolation, putting as much empty air about itself as possible.

The lanes branching off from the road and leading across the bright green fields were all blocked with barricades of fresh-cut brush, and bleak-faced peasants stood guard at those barricades, awkwardly handling staffs and heavy, graceless crossbows and shouting warnings at any and all who passed to stay away.

‘Peasants,’ Yarblek said sourly as the caravan plodded past one such barricade. ‘They’re the same the world over. They’re glad to see you when you’ve got something they want, but they spend all the rest of their time trying to chase you away. Do you think they actually believe that anybody would really
want
to go into their stinking little villages?’ Irritably he crammed his fur cap down lower over his ears.

‘They’re afraid,’ Polgara told him. ‘They know that their village isn’t very luxurious, but it’s all they have, and they want to keep it safe.’

‘Do those barricades and threats really do any good?’ he asked. ‘To keep out the plague, I mean?’

‘Some,’ she said, ‘if they put them up early enough.’

Yarblek grunted, then looked over at Silk. ‘Are you open to a suggestion?’ he asked.

‘Depends,’ Silk replied. The little man had returned to his customary travel clothing—dark, unadorned, and nondescript.

‘Between the plague and the demons, the climate here is starting to turn unpleasant. What say we liquidate all our holdings here in Mallorea and sit tight until things settle down?’

‘You’re not thinking, Yarblek,’ Silk told him. ‘Turmoil and war are good for business.’

Yarblek scowled at him. ‘Somehow I thought you might look at it that way.’

About a half mile ahead, there was another barricade, this one across the main road itself.

‘What’s this?’ Yarblek demanded angrily, reining in.

‘I’ll go find out,’ Silk said, thumping his heels against his horse’s flanks. On an impulse, Garion followed his friend.

When they were about fifty yards from the barricade, a dozen mud-spattered peasants dressed in smocks made of brown sackcloth rose from behind it with leveled crossbows. ‘Stop right there!’ one of them commanded threateningly. He was a burly fellow with a coarse beard and eyes that looked off in different directions.

‘We’re just passing through, friend,’ Silk told him.

‘Not without paying toll, you’re not.’

‘
Toll
?’ Silk exclaimed. ‘This is an imperial highway. There’s no toll.’

‘There is now. You city people have cheated and swindled us for generations and now you want to bring your diseases to us. Well, from now on, you’re going to pay. How much gold have you got?’

‘Keep him talking,’ Garion muttered, looking around.

‘Well,’ Silk said to the wall-eyed peasant in the tone of voice he usually saved for serious negotiations, ‘why don’t we talk about that?’

The village stood about a quarter of a mile away, rising dirty and cluttered-looking atop a grassy knoll. Garion concentrated, drawing in his will, then he made a slight gesture in the direction of the village. ‘Smoke,’ he muttered, half under his breath.