David Eddings - Enchanter's End Game

“What is this?” Drosta exclaimed incredulously. “Guards!” he bawled, “get this drunken old man out of here.”

“They’re asleep, Drosta,” Belgarath replied calmly. “Don’t be too harsh with them, though. It’s not their fault.” He closed the door.

“Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?” Drosta demanded. “Get out of here!”

“I think you’d better take a closer look, Drosta,” Silk advised with a dry little chuckle. “Appearances can be deceiving sometimes, and you shouldn’t be so quick to try to throw somebody out. He might have something important to say to you.”

“Do you know him, Kheldar?” Drosta asked.

“Just about everybody in the world knows him,” Silk replied. “Or of him.”

Drosta’s face creased into a puzzled frown, but Yarblek had started from his chair, his lean face suddenly pale. “Drosta!” he gasped. “Look at him. Think a minute. You know who he is.”

Drosta stared at the shabby-looking old man, and his bulging eyes slowly opened even wider. “You!” he blurted.

Yarblek was still gaping at Belgarath. “He’s been involved in it from the very beginning. I should have put it together down in Cthol Murgos—him, the woman, all of it.”

“What are you doing in Gar og Nadrak?” Drosta asked in an awed voice.

“Just passing through, Drosta,” Belgarath replied. “If you’re quite finished with your discussion here, I need these two Alorns. We have an appointment, and we’re running a little behind schedule.”

“I always thought you were a myth.”

“I like to encourage that as much as I can,” Belgarath told him. “It makes moving around a lot easier.”

“Are you mixed up in what the Alorns are doing?”

“They’re acting more or less on my suggestions, yes. Polgara’s keeping an eye on them.”

“Can you get word to them and tell them to disengage?”

“That won’t really be necessary, Drosta. I wouldn’t worry too much about ’Zakath and Taur Urgas, if I were you. There are more important things afoot than their squabbles.”

“So that’s what Rhodar’s doing,” Drosta said in sudden comprehension. “Is it really that late?”

“It’s even later than you think,” the old sorcerer answered. He crossed to the table and poured himself some of Drosta’s wine. “Torak’s already stirring, and the whole matter’s likely to be settled before the snow flies.”

“This is going too far, Belgarath,” Drosta said. “I might try to maneuver my way around Taur Urgas and ’Zakath, but I’m not going to cross Torak.” He turned decisively toward the door.

“Don’t do anything rash, Drosta,” Belgarath advised him calmly, sitting in a chair and taking a sip of his wine. “Grolims can be most unreasonable, and the fact that I’m here in Yar Nadrak could only be viewed as the result of some collusion on your part. They’d have you bent backward over an altar and your heart sizzling in the coals before you ever got the chance to explain—king or no king.”

Drosta froze in his tracks, his pockmarked face going very pale. For a moment, he seemed to be struggling with himself. Then his shoulders slumped and his resolution seemed to wilt. “You’ve got me by the throat, haven’t you, Belgarath?” he said with a short laugh. “You’ve managed to make me outsmart myself, and now you’re going to use that to force me to betray the God of Angarak.”

“Are you really all that fond of him?”

“Nobody’s fond of Torak. I’m afraid of him, and that’s a better reason to stay on the good side of him than any sentimental attachment. If he wakes up—” The king of the Nadraks shuddered.

“Have you ever given much thought to the kind of world we’d have if he didn’t exist?” Belgarath suggested.

“That’s too much to even wish for. He’s a God. No one could hope to defeat him. He’s too powerful for that.”

“There are things more powerful than Gods, Drosta—two that I can think of offhand, and those two are rushing toward a final meeting. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put yourself between them at this point.”

But something else had occurred to Drosta. He turned slowly with a look of stunned incredulity and stared directly at Garion. He shook his head and wiped at his eyes, like a man trying to clear away a fog. Garion became painfully aware of the great sword strapped across his back. Drosta’s bulging eyes widened even more as the realization of what he was seeing erased the Orb’s suggestion that his brain not record what stood in plain sight before him. His expression became awed, and desperate hope dawned on his ugly face. “Your Majesty,” he stammered, bowing with profound respect. ”

“Your Majesty,” Garion replied, politely inclining his head.

“It looks as if I’m forced to wish you good luck,” Drosta said in a quiet voice. “Despite what Belgarath says, I think you’re going to need it.”

“Thank you, King Drosta,” Garion said.

“Do you think we can trust Drosta?” Garion asked Silk as they followed Belgarath along the garbage-littered alley behind the tavern.

“Probably about as far as we could throw him,” Silk replied. “He was honest about one thing though. His back’s to the wall. That might make him bargain with Rhodar in good faith—initially at least.”

When they reached the street at the end of the alley, Belgarath glanced up once at the evening sky. “We’d better hurry,” he said. “I want to get out of the city before they close the gates. I left our horses in a thicket a mile or so outside the walls.”

“You went back for them?” Silk sounded a little surprised.

“Of course I did. I don’t plan to walk all the way to Morindland.” He led them up the street away from the river.

They reached the city gates in fading light just as the guards were preparing to close them for the night. One of the Nadrak soldiers raised his hand as if to bar their way, then apparently changed his mind and motioned them through irritably, muttering curses under his breath. The huge, tar-smeared gate boomed shut behind them, and there was the clinking rattle of heavy chains from inside as the bolts were thrown and locked. Garion glanced up once at the carved face of Torak which brooded down at them from above the gate, then deliberately turned his back.

“Are we likely to be followed?” Silk asked Belgarath as they walked along the dirt highway leading away from the city.

“I wouldn’t be very surprised,” Belgarath replied. “Drosta knows—or suspects—a great deal about what we’re doing. Mallorean Grolims are very subtle, and they can pick the thoughts out of his head without his knowing it. That’s probably why they don’t bother to follow him when he goes off on his little excursions.”

“Shouldn’t you take some steps?” Silk suggested as they moved through the gathering twilight.

“We’re getting a bit too close to Mallorea to be making unnecessary noise,” Belgarath told him. “Zedar can hear me moving around from a long way off, and Torak’s only dozing now. I’d rather not take the chance of waking him up with any more loud clatter.”

They walked along the highway toward the shadowy line of rank undergrowth at the edge of the open fields surrounding the city. The sound of frogs from the marshy ground near the river was very loud in the twilight.

“Torak isn’t really asleep any more then?” Garion asked finally. He had harbored somewhere at the back of his mind the vague hope that they might be able to creep up on the sleeping God and catch him unaware.

“No, not really,” his grandfather replied. “The sound of your hand touching the Orb shook the whole world. Not even Torak could sleep through that. He isn’t really awake yet, but he’s not entirely asleep, either.”