David Eddings - Castle of Wizardry

“He doesn’t appear to think the way we do,” she told him. “The only purpose he has in life is to give the Orb to someone—anyone, it would seem.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Durnik, why don’t you see if you can make him some kind of pouch to carry it in, and we’ll fasten it to his waist. Maybe if he doesn’t have it right there in his hand all the time, he won’t think about it so much.”

“Of course, Mistress Pol,” Durnik agreed. “I should have thought of that myself.” He went to one of the packs and took out an old, burn-scarred leather apron and fashioned a pouch out of a wide piece of leather he cut from it. “Boy,” he said when he had finished, “come here.”

The little boy was curiously examining a small, very dry bush at the upper end of the ravine and gave no indication that he knew the smith was calling him.

“You-Errand!” Durnik said.

The little boy looked around quickly and smiled as he went to Durnik.

“Why did you call him that?” Silk asked curiously.

Durnik shrugged. “He seems to be fond of the word and he answers to it. It will do for a name until we can find something more suitable, I suppose.”

“Errand?” the child asked, offering the Orb to Durnik.

Durnik smiled at him, bent over and held the mouth of the pouch open. “Put it in here, Errand,” he instructed, “and we’ll tie it up all nice and safe so you won’t lose it.”

The little boy delightedly deposited the Orb in the leather pouch. “Errand,” he declared firmly.

“I suppose so,” Durnik agreed. He pulled the drawstring tight and then tied the pouch to the bit of rope the boy wore as a belt. “There we are, Errand. All safe and secure now.”

Errand examined the pouch carefully, tugging at it a few times as if to be sure it was tightly tied. Then he gave a happy little laugh, put his arms about Durnik’s neck and kissed his cheek.

“He’s a good lad,” Durnik said, looking a trifle embarrassed.

“He’s totally innocent,” Aunt Pol told him from where she was examining the sleeping Belgarath. “He has no idea of the difference between good and evil, so everything in the world seems good to him.”

“I wonder what it’s like to see the world that way,” Taiba mused, gently touching the child’s smiling face. “No sorrow; no fear; no pain—just to love everything you see because you believe that everything is good.”

Relg, however, had looked up sharply. The troubled expression that had hovered on his face since he had rescued the trapped slave woman fell away to be replaced by that look of fanatic zeal that it had always worn before. “Monstrous!” he gasped.

Taiba turned on him, her eyes hardening. “What’s so monstrous about happiness?” she demanded, putting her arm about the boy.

“We aren’t here to be happy,” he replied, carefully avoiding her eyes.

“Why are we here then?” she challenged.

“To serve our God and to avoid sin.” He still refused to look at her, and his tone seemed a trifle less certain.

“Well, I don’t have a God,” she retorted, “and the child probably doesn’t either, so if it’s all the same to you, he and I will just concentrate on trying to be happy—and if a bit of sin gets involved in it, so what?”

“Have you no shame?” His voice was choked.

“I am what I am,” she replied, “and I won’t apologize, since I didn’t have very much to say about it.”

“Boy,” Relg snapped at the child, “come away from her at once.”

Taiba straightened, her face hardening even more, and she faced him defiantly. “What do you think you’re going to do?” she demanded.

“I will fight sin wherever I find it,” he declared.

“Sin, sin, sin!” she flared. “Is that all you ever think about?”

“It’s my constant care. I guard against it every moment.”

She laughed. “How tedious. Can’t you think of anything better to do? Oh, I forgot,” she added mockingly. “There’s all that praying too, isn’t there? All that bawling at your God about how vile you are. I think you must bore this UL of yours tremendously sometimes, do you know that?”

Enraged, Relg raised his fist. “Don’t ever speak UL’s name again!”

“Will you hit me if I do? It doesn’t matter that much. People have been hitting me all my life. Go ahead, Relg. Why don’t you hit me?” She lifted her smudged face to him.

Relg’s hand fell.

Sensing her advantage, Taiba put her hands to the throat of the rough gray dress Polgara had given her. “I can stop you, Relg,” she told him.

She began unfastening the dress. “Watch me. You look at me all the time anyway—I’ve seen you with your hot eyes on me. You call me names and say that I’m wicked, but still you watch. Look then. Don’t try to hide it.” She continued to unfasten the front of the dress. “If you’re free of sin, my body shouldn’t bother you at all.”

Relg’s eyes were bulging now.

“My body doesn’t bother me, but it bothers you very much, doesn’t it? But is the wickedness in my mind or yours? I can sink you in sin any time I want to. All I have to do is this.” And she pulled open the front of her dress.

Relg spun about, making strangled noises.

“Don’t you want to look, Relg?” she mocked him as he fled.

“You have a formidable weapon there, Taiba,” Silk congratulated her.

“It was the only weapon I had in the slave pens,” she told him. “I learned to use it when I had to.” She carefully rebuttoned her dress and turned back to Errand as if nothing had happened.

“What’s all the shouting?” Belgarath mumbled, rousing slightly, and they all turned quickly to him.

“Relg and Taiba were having a little theological discussion,” Silk replied lightly. “The finer points were very interesting. How are you?” But the old man had already drifted back into sleep.

“At least he’s starting to come around,” Durnik noted.

“It will be several days before he’s fully recovered,” Polgara told him, putting her hand to Belgarath’s forehead. “He’s still terribly weak.”

Garion slept for most of the day, wrapped in his blankets and lying on the stony ground. When the chill and a particularly uncomfortable rock under his hip finally woke him, it was late afternoon. Silk sat guard near the mouth of the ravine, staring out at the black sand and the grayish salt flats, but the rest were all asleep. As he walked quietly down to where the little man sat, Garion noticed that Aunt Pol slept with Errand in her arms, and he pushed away a momentary surge of jealousy. Taiba murmured something as he passed, but a quick glance told him that she was not awake. She was lying not far from Relg; in her sleep, her hand seemed to be reaching out toward the slumbering Ulgo.

Silk’s sharp little face was alert and he showed no signs of weariness. “Good morning,” he murmured, “or whatever.”

“Don’t you ever get tired?” Garion asked him, speaking quietly so that his voice would not disturb the others.

“I slept a bit,” Silk told him.

Durnik came out from under the canvas roof to join them, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. “I’ll relieve you now,” he said to Silk. “Did you see anything?” He squinted out toward the lowering sun.

Silk shrugged. “Some Murgos. They were a couple of miles off to the south. I don’t think anyone’s found our trail yet. We might have to make it a little more obvious for them.”

Garion felt a peculiar, oppressive sort of weight on the back of his neck. He glanced around uncomfortably. Then, with no warning, there was a sudden sharp stab that seemed to go straight into his mind. He gasped and tensed his will, pushing the attack away.

“What’s wrong?” Silk asked sharply.