Quietly, Garion let the tent flap drop and went back to his blankets.
Slowly, as they continued in a generally southwesterly direction, the forest changed. When they were still in the mountains, the trees had been evergreens interspersed here and there with aspens. As they approached the lowlands at the base of the huge mountain, they increasingly came across groves of beech and elm. And then at last they entered a forest of ancient oaks.
As they rode beneath the spreading branches in sun-dappled shade, Garion was sharply reminded of the Wood of the Dryads in southern Tolnedra. One glance at his little wife’s face revealed that the similarity was not lost on her either. A kind of dreamy contentment came over her, and she seemed to be listening to voices only she could hear.
It was about noon on a splendid summer day that they overtook another traveler, a white-bearded man dressed in clothing made from deer-skin. The handles of the tools protruding from the lumpy bundle on the back of his pack mule proclaimed him to be a gold hunter, one of those vagrant hermits who haunt wildernesses the world over. He was riding a shaggy mountain pony so stumpy that its rider’s feet nearly touched the ground on either side. ‘I thought I heard somebody coming up from behind,’ the gold-hunter said as Garion and Zakath, both in their mail shirts and helmets, drew alongside him. ‘Don’t see many in these woods – what with the curse and all.’
‘I thought the curse only worked on Grolims,’ Garion said.
‘Most believe it doesn’t pay to take chances. Where are you bound?’
‘To Kell,’ Garion replied. There was no real point in making a secret of it.
‘I hope you’ve been invited. The folk at Kell don’t welcome strangers who just take it upon themselves to go there.’
‘They know we’re coming.’
‘Oh. It’s all right then. Strange place, Kell, and strange people. Of course living right under that mountain the way they do would make anybody strange after a while. If it’s all right, I’ll ride along with you as far as the turn-off to Balasa a couple miles on up ahead.’
‘Feel free,’ Zakath told him. ‘Aren’t you missing a good time to be looking for gold, though?’
‘Got myself caught up in the mountains last winter,’ the old fellow replied. ‘Supplies ran out on me. Besides, I get hungry for talk now and then. The pony and the mule listen pretty good, but they don’t answer very well, and the wolves up there move around so much that you can’t hardly get a conversation started with them.’ He looked at the she-wolf and then astonishingly spoke to her in her own language. ‘How is it with you, mother?’ he asked. His accent was abominable, and he spoke haltingly, but his speech was undeniably that of a wolf.
‘How remarkable,’ she said with some surprise. Then she responded to the ritual greeting. ‘One is content.’
‘One is pleased to hear that. How is it that you go with the man-things?’
‘One has joined their pack for a certain time.’
‘Ah.’
‘How did you manage to learn the language of wolves?’ Garion asked in some amazement.
‘You recognized it, then.’ The old fellow sounded pleased about that for some reason. He leaned back in his saddle. ‘Spent most of my life up there where the wolves are,’ he explained. ‘It’s only polite to learn the language of your neighbors.’ He grinned. ‘To be honest about it, though, at first I couldn’t make much out of it, but if you listen hard enough, it starts to come to you. Spent a winter in a den with a pack of them about five years back. That helped quite a bit.’
‘They actually let you live with them?’ Zakath asked.
‘It took them a while to get used to me,’ the old man admitted, ‘but I made myself useful, so they sort of accepted me.’
‘Useful?’
‘The den was a little crowded, and I got them there tools.’ He jerked his thumb at his pack mule. ‘I dug the den out some larger, and they seemed to appreciate it. Then, after a while, I took to watching over the pups while the rest was out hunting. Good pups they was, too. Playful as kittens. Some time later I tried to make up to a bear. Never had much luck with that. Bears are a stand-offish bunch. They keep to theirselves most of the time, and deer are just too skittish to try to make friends with. Give me wolves every time.’
The old gold-hunter’s pony did not move very fast, so the others soon caught up with them.
‘Any luck?’ Silk asked the old gold-hunter, his nose twitching with interest.
‘Some,’ the white-bearded man answered evasively.
‘Sorry,’ Silk apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘That’s all right, friend. I can see that you’re an honest man.’
Velvet muffled a slightly derisive chuckle.
‘It’s just a habit I picked up,’ the fellow continued. ‘It’s not really too smart to go around telling everybody how much gold you’ve managed to pick up.’
‘I can certainly understand that.’
‘I don’t usually carry that much with me when I come down into the low country, though – only enough to pay for what I need. I leave the rest of it hid back up there in the mountains.’
‘Why do you do it then?’ Durnik asked. ‘Spend all your time looking for gold, I mean? You don’t spend it, so why bother?’
‘It’s something to do.’ The fellow shrugged. ‘And it gives me an excuse to be up there in the mountains. A man feels sort of frivolous if he does that without no reason.’ He grinned again. ‘Then, too, there’s a certain kind of excitement that comes with finding a pocket of gold in a streambed. Like some say, finding is more fun than spending, and gold’s sort of pretty to look at.’
‘Oh, it is indeed,’ Silk agreed fervently.
The old gold hunter glanced at the she-wolf and then looked at Belgarath. ‘I can see by the way she’s acting that you’re the leader of this group,’ he noted.
Belgarath looked a bit startled at that.
‘He’s learned the language,’ Garion explained.
‘How remarkable,’ Belgarath said, unconsciously echoing the comment of the wolf.
‘I was going to pass on some advice to these two young fellows, but you’re the one who probably ought to hear it.’
‘I’ll certainly listen.’
‘The Dals are a peculiar sort, friend, and they’ve got some peculiar superstitions. I won’t go so far as to say they think of these woods as sacred, but they do feel pretty strongly about them. I wouldn’t advise cutting any trees and don’t, whatever you do, kill anything or anybody here.’ He pointed at the wolf. ‘She knows about that already. You’ve probably noticed that she won’t hunt here. The Dals don’t want this forest profaned with blood. I’d respect that, if I were you. The Dals can be helpful, but if you offend their beliefs, they can make things mighty difficult for you.’