"We're right up against the outer wall, aren't we?" Silk asked, touching the black stones on his left.
Belgarath nodded. "The stairs lead down to Ctuchik's private place." They continued down until the walls on either side changed from blocks to solid stone.
"He lives below the city?" Silk asked, surprised.
"Yes," Belgarath replied. "He built himself a sort of hanging turret out from the rock of the peak itself."
"Strange idea," Durnik said.
"Ctuchik's a strange sort of person," Aunt Pol told him grimly.
Belgarath stopped them. "The stairs go down about another hundred feet," he whispered. "There'll be two guards just outside the door to the turret. Not even Ctuchik could change that - no matter what he's planning."
"Sorcerers?" Barak asked softly.
"No. The guards are ceremonial more than functional. They're just ordinary Grolims."
"We'll rush them then."
"That won't be necessary. I can get you close enough to deal with them, but I want it quick and quiet." The old man reached inside his Murgo robe and drew out a roll of parchment bound with a strip of black ribbon. He started down again with Barak and Mandorallen close behind him.
The curve of the stairway brought a lighted area into view as they descended. Torches illuminated the bottom of the stone steps and a kind of antechamber hewn from the solid rock. Two Grolims priests stood in front of a plain black door, their arms folded.
"Who approaches the Holy of Holies?" one of them demanded, putting his hand to his sword hilt.
"A messenger," Belgarath announced importantly. "I bear a message for the Master from the Hierarch of Rak Goska." He held the rolled parchment above his head.
"Approach, messenger."
"Praise the name of the Disciple of the Dragon God of Angarak," Belgarath boomed as he marched down the steps with Mandorallen and Barak flanking him. He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped in front of the steel-masked guards. "Thus have I performed my appointed task," he declared, holding out the parchment.
One of the guards reached for it, but Barak caught his arm in a huge fist. The big man's other hand closed swiftly about the surprised Grolim's throat.
The other guard's hand flashed toward his sword hilt, but he grunted and doubled over sharply as Mandorallen thrust a long, needle-pointed poniard up into his belly. With a kind of deadly concentration the knight twisted the hilt of the weapon, probing with the point deep inside the Grolim's body. The guard shuddered when the blade reached his heart and collapsed with a long, gurgling sigh.
Barak's massive shoulder shifted, and there was a grating crunch as the bones in the first Grolim's neck came apart in his deadly grip. The guard's feet scraped spasmodically on the floor for a moment, and then he went limp.
"I feel better already," Barak muttered, dropping the body.
"You and Mandorallen stay here," Belgarath told him. "I don't want to be disturbed once I'm inside."
"We'll see to it," Barak promised. "What about these?" He pointed at the two dead guards.
"Dispose of them, Relg," Belgarath said shortly to the Ulgo.
Silk turned his back quickly as Relg knelt between the two bodies and took hold of them, one with each hand. There was a sort of muffled slithering as he pushed down, sinking the bodies into the stone floor.
"You left a foot sticking out," Barak observed in a detached tone.
"Do you have to talk about it?" Silk demanded.
Belgarath took a deep breath and put his hand to the iron door handle. "All right," he said to them quietly, "let's go, then." He pushed open the door.
Chapter Twenty-seven
THE WEALTH OF empires lay beyond the black door. Bright yellow coins - gold beyond counting - lay in heaps on the floor; carelessly scattered among the coins were rings, bracelets, chains, and crowns, gleaming richly. Blood-red bars from the mines of Angarak stood in stacks along the wall, interspersed here and there by open chests filled to overflowing with fist-sized diamonds that glittered like ice. A large table sat in the center of the room, littered with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds as big as eggs. Ropes and strings of pearls, pink, rosy gray, and even some of jet held back the deep crimson drapes that billowed heavily before the windows.Belgarath moved like a stalking animal, showing no sign of his age, his eyes everywhere. He ignored the riches around him and crossed the deep-carpeted floor to a room filled with learning, where tightly rolled scrolls lay in racks reaching to the ceiling and the leather backs of books marched like battalions along dark wooden shelves. The tables in the second room were covered with the curious glass apparatus of chemical experiment and strange machines of brass and iron, all cogs and wheels and pulleys and chains.
In yet a third chamber stood a massive gold throne backed by drapes of black velvet. An ermine cape lay across one arm of the throne, and a scepter and a heavy gold crown lay upon the seat. Inlaid in the polished stones of the floor was a map that depicted, so far as Garion could tell, the entire world.
"What sort of place is this?" Durnik whispered in awe.
"Ctuchik amuses himself here," Aunt Pol replied with an expression of repugnance. "He has many vices and he likes to keep each one separate."
"He's not down here," Belgarath muttered. "Let's go up to the next level." He led them back the way they had come and started up a flight of stone steps that curved along the rounded wall of the turret.
The room at the top of the stairs was filled with horror. A rack stood in the center of it, and whips and flails hung on the walls. Cruel implements of gleaming steel lay in orderly rows on a table near the wallhooks, needle-pointed spikes, and dreadful things with saw-edges that still had bits of bone and flesh caught between their teeth. The entire room reeked of blood.
"You and Silk go ahead, father," Aunt Pol said. "There are things in the other rooms on this level that Garion, Durnik, and Relg shouldn't see."
Belgarath nodded and went through a doorway with Silk behind him. After a few moments they returned by way of another door. Silk's face looked slightly sick. "He has some rather exotic perversions, doesn't he?" he remarked with a shudder.
Belgarath's face was bleak. "We go up again," he said quietly. "He's on the top level. I thought he might be, but I needed to be sure." They mounted another stairway.
As they neared the top, Garion felt a peculiar tingling glow beginning somewhere deep within him, and a sort of endless singing seemed to draw him on. The mark on the palm of his right hand burned.