David Eddings - Demon Lord of Karanda

“When can I get out of bed?” Ce’Nedra demanded.

Polgara gave her a surprised look. “Any time you want, dear.” she said. “As a matter of fact, I just came by to ask if you planned to join us for breakfast.”

Ce’Nedra sat up in bed, her eyes like hard little stones.

She slowly turned an icy gaze upon Garion and then quite deliberately stuck her tongue out at him.

Garion turned to Polgara. “Thanks awfully,” he said to her.

“Don’t be snide, dear,” she murmured. She looked at the fuming little Queen. “Ce’Nedra, weren’t you told as a child that sticking out one’s tongue is the worst possible form of bad manners?”

Ce’Nedra smiled sweetly. “Why, yes, Lady Polgara, as a matter of fact I was. That’s why I only do it on special occasions.”

“I think I’ll take a walk,” Garion said to no one in particular. He went to the door, opened it, and left.

Some days later he lounged in one of the sitting rooms that had been built in the former women’s quarters where he and the others were lodged. The room was peculiarly feminine. The furniture was softly cushioned in mauve, and the broad windows had filmy curtains of pale lavender. Beyond the windows lay a snowy garden, totally embraced by the tall wings of this bleak Murgo house. A cheery fire crackled in the half-moon arch of a broad fireplace, and at the far corner of the room an artfully contrived grotto, thick with green fern and moss, flourished about a trickling fountain. Garion sat brooding out at a sunless noon—at an ash-colored sky spitting white pellets that were neither snow nor hail, but something in between—and realized all of a sudden that he was homesick for Riva. It was a peculiar thing to come to grips with here on the opposite end of the world. Always before, the word “homesick” had been associated with Faldor’s farm—the kitchen, the broad central courtyard, Durnik’s smithy, and all the other dear, treasured memories. Now, suddenly, he missed that storm-lashed coast, the security of that grim fortress hovering above the bleak city lying below, and the mountains, heavy with snow, rising stark white against a black and stormy sky.

There was a faint knock at the door.

“Yes?” Garion said absently, not looking around.

The door opened almost timidly. “Your Majesty?” a vaguely familiar voice said.

Garion turned, looking back over his shoulder. The man was chubby and bald and he wore brown, a plain serviceable color, though his robe was obviously costly, and the heavy gold chain about his neck loudly proclaimed that this was no minor official. Garion frowned slightly. “Haven’t we met before?” he asked. “Aren’t you General Atesca’s friend-uh—”

“Brador, your Majesty,” the brown-robed man supplied. “Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs.”

“Oh, yes. Now I remember. Come in, your Excellency, come in.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Brador came into the room and moved toward the fireplace, extending his hands to its warmth. “Miserable climate.” He shuddered.

“You should try a winter in Riva,” Garion said, “although it’s summer there right now.”

Brador looked out the window at the snowy garden. “Strange place, Cthol Murgos,” he said. “One’s tempted to believe that all of Murgodom is deliberately ugly, and then one comes across a room like this.”

“I suspect that the ugliness was to satisfy Ctuchik—and Taur Urgas,” Garion replied. “Underneath, Murgos probably aren’t much different from the rest of us.”

Brador laughed. “That sort of thinking is considered heresy in Mal Zeth,” he said.

“The people in Val Alorn feel much the same way.” Garion looked at the bureaucrat. “I expect that this isn’t just a social call, Brador,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Your Majesty,” Brador said soberly, “I absolutely have to speak with the Emperor. Atesca tried to arrange it before he went back to Rak Verkat, but—” He spread his hands helplessly. “Could you possibly speak to him about it? The matter is of the utmost urgency.”

“I really don’t think there’s very much I can do for you, Brador,” Garion told him. “Right now I’m probably the last person he’d want to talk to.”

“Oh?”

“I told him something that he didn’t want to hear.”

Brador’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “You were my last hope, your Majesty.” he said.

“What’s the problem?”

Brador hesitated, looking around nervously as if to assure himself that they were alone. “Belgarion,” he said then in a very quiet voice, “have you ever seen a demon?”

“A couple of times, yes. It’s not the sort of experience I’d care to repeat.”

“How much do you know about the Karands?”

“Not a great deal. I’ve heard that they’re related to the Morindim in northern Gar og Nadrak.”

“You know more about them than most people, then. Do you know very much about the religious practices of the Morindim?”

Garion nodded. “They’re demon worshippers. It’s not a particularly safe form of religion, I’ve noticed.”

Brador’s face was bleak. “The Karands share the beliefs and practices of their cousins on the arctic plains of the West,” he said. “After they were converted to the worship of Torak, the Grolims tried to stamp out those practices, but they persisted in the mountains and forests.” He stopped and looked fearfully around again.

“Belgarion,” he said, almost in a whisper, “does the name Mengha mean anything to you?”

“No. I don’t think so. Who’s Mengha?”

“We don’t know—at least not for certain. He seems to have come out of the forest to the north of Lake Karanda about six months ago.”

“And?”

“He marched—alone—to the gates of Calida in Jenno and called for the surrender of the city. They laughed at him, of course, but then he marked some symbols on the ground. They didn’t laugh any more after that.” The Melcene bureaucrat’s face was gray. “Belgarion, he unloosed a horror on Calida such as man has never seen before. Those symbols he drew on the ground summoned up a host of demons—not one, or a dozen, but a whole army of them. I’ve talked with survivors of that attack. They’re mostly mad—mercifully so, I think—and what happened at Calida was utterly unspeakable.”

“An army of them?” Garion exclaimed.

Brador nodded. “That’s what makes Mengha so dreadfully dangerous. As I’m sure you know, usually when someone summons a demon, sooner or later it gets away from him and kills him, but Mengha appears to have absolute control of all the fiends he raises and he can call them up by the hundreds. Urvon is terrified and he’s even begun to experiment with magic himself, hoping to defend Mal Yaska against Mengha. We don’t know where Zandramas is, but her apostate Grolim cohorts are desperately striving also to summon up these fiends. Great Gods, Belgarion, help me! This unholy infection will spread out of Mallorea and sweep the world. We’ll all be engulfed by howling fiends, and no place, no matter how remote, will provide a haven for the pitiful remnants of mankind. Help me to persuade Kal Zakath that his petty little war here in Cthol Murgos has no real meaning in the face of the horror that’s emerging in Mallorea.”

Garion gave him a long, steady look, then rose to his feet. “You’d better come with me, Brador,” he said quietly. “I think we need to talk with Belgarath.”

They found the old sorcerer in the book-lined library of the house, poring over an ancient volume bound in green leather. He set his book aside and listened as Brador repeated what he had told Garion. “Urvon and Zandramas are also engaging in this insanity?” he asked when the Melcene had finished.