"Not really," Silk disagreed. He was staring at a crudely squared-off block of stone standing in the center of the clearing. There were ugly black stains running down the sides of the stone.
"For our purposes it is," the old man replied. "The altars of Torak are generally avoided, and we don't particularly want company." They dismounted at the edge of the trees, and Belgarath began rummaging through one of the packs for bread and dried meat. Garion was in a curiously abstracted mood. He was tired, and his weariness made him a bit light-headed. Quite deliberately, he walked across the springy turf to the blood-stained altar; he stared at it, his eyes meticulously recording details without considering their implication. The blackened stone sat solidly in the center of the clearing, casting no shadow in the pale dawn light. It was an old altar, and had not been used recently. The stains that had sunk into the pores of the rock were black with age, and the bones littering the ground around it were half sunk in the earth and were covered with a greenish patina of moss. A scurrying spider darted into the vacant eye socket of a mossy skull, seeking refuge in the dark, vaulted emptiness. Many of the bones were broken and showed the marks of the small, sharp teeth of forest scavengers who would feed on anything that was dead. A cheap, tarnished silver brooch lay with its chain tangled about a lumpy vertebra, and not far away a brass buckle, green with verdigris, still clung to a bit of moldering leather.
"Come away from that thing, Garion," Silk told him with a note of revulsion in his voice.
"It sort of helps to look at it," Garion replied quite calmly, still staring at the altar and the bones. "It gives me something to think about beside being afraid." He squared his shoulders, and his great sword shifted on his back. "I don't really think the world needs this sort of thing. Maybe it's time somebody did something about it."
When he turned around, Belgarath was looking at him, his wise old eyes narrowed. "It's a start," the sorcerer observed. "Let's eat and get some sleep."
They took a quick breakfast, picketed their horses, and rolled themselves in their blankets under some bushes at the edge of the clearing. Not even the presence of the Grolim altar nor the peculiar resolve it had stirred in him was enough to keep Garion from falling asleep immediately.
It was almost noon when he awoke, pulled from sleep by a faint whispering sound in his mind. He sat up quickly, looking around to find the source of that disturbance, but neither the forest nor the brushchoked burn seemed to hold any threat. Belgarath stood not far away, looking up at the summer sky where a large, blue-banded hawk was circling.
"What are you doing here?" The old sorcerer did not speak aloud but rather cast the question at the sky with his mind. The hawk spiraled down to the clearing, flared his wings to avoid the altar, and landed on the turf. He looked directly at Belgarath with fierce yellow eyes, then shimmered and seemed to blur. When the shimmering was gone, the misshapen sorcerer Beldin stood in his place. He was still as ragged, dirty, and irritable as he had been the last time Garion had seen him.
"Is this all the farther you've managed to come?" he demanded harshly of Belgarath. "What have you been doing - stopping at every tavern along the way?"
"We ran into a small delay," Belgarath replied calmly.
Beldin grunted with a sour look. "If you keep dawdling along like this, it will take you the rest of the year to get to Cthol Mishrak."
"We'll get there, Beldin. You worry too much."
"Somebody has to. You're being followed, you know."
"How far back are they?"
"Five leagues or so."
Belgarath shrugged. "That's far enough. They'll give up when we get to Morindland."
"What if they don't?"
"Have you been spending time with Polgara lately?" Belgarath asked dryly. "I thought I'd gotten away from all the 'what-ifs."'
Beldin shrugged, a gesture made grotesque by the hump on his back. "I saw her last week," he reported. "She has some interesting plans for you, you know."
"She came to the Vale?" Belgarath sounded surprised.
"Passed through. She was with the red-haired girl's army."
Garion threw off his blanket. "With whose army?" he demanded.
"What's going on down there?" Belgarath asked sharply.
Beldin scratched at his tangled hair. "I never really got the straight of it," he admitted. "All I know is that the Alorns are following that little redheaded Tolnedran. She calls herself the Rivan Queen - whatever that means."
"Ce'Nedra?" Garion was incredulous, though, for some reason, he knew that he shouldn't be.
"I guess she went through Arendia like a pestilence," Beldin continued. "After she passed, there wasn't an able-bodied man left in the kingdom. Then she went on down into Tolnedra and goaded her father into convulsions - I didn't know that he was subject to fits."
"It crops up in the Borune line once in a while," Belgarath said. "It's nothing all that serious, but they try to keep it quiet."
"Anyway," the hunchback went on, "while Ran Borune was still frothing at the mouth, his daughter stole his legions. She's persuaded about half the world to take up arms and follow her." He gave Garion a quizzical look. "You're supposed to marry her, aren't you?"
Garion nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Beldin grinned suddenly. "You might want to give some thought to running away."
"Ce'Nedra?" Garion blurted again.
"His wits seem a bit scrambled," Beldin observed.
"He's been under a strain, and his nerves aren't too good just now," Belgarath replied. "Are you going back to the Vale?"
Beldin nodded. "The twins and I are going to join Polgara when the campaign starts. She might need some help if the Grolims come at her in force."
"Campaign?" Belgarath exclaimed. "What campaign? I told them just to march up and down and make a lot of noise. I specifically told them not to invade."
"They ignored you, it seems. Alorns aren't noted for restraint in such matters. Apparently they got together and decided to take steps. The fat one seems fairly intelligent. He wants to get a Cherek fleet into the Sea of the East to commit a few constructive atrocities on Mallorean shipping. The rest of it seems to be pretty much diversionary."
Belgarath started to swear. "You can't let them out of your sight for a single instant," he raged. "How could Polgara lend herself to this idiocy?"