"It answers a lot of questions, though," Velvet said thoughtfully.
"Such as what?" Silk asked.
"We were wondering if Zandramas was still here.
Quite obviously, she's not. Not even an idiot would leave that kind of message for Belgarath and then stay around where he could get his hands on her."
"That's true," he agreed. "There's no real point in our staying here, then, is there? The Orb has picked up the trail again, so why don't we just slip out of the house again and go after Zandramas?"
"Without findin' out who's here?" Feldegast objected. "Me curiosity has been aroused, an' I'd hate t' go off with it unsatisfied." He glanced across the room at the fuming Belgarath. "Besides, it's going t' be a little whilebefore our ancient friend there regains his composure. I think I'll go along t' the far end of the hall an' see if I kin find a place where I kin look down into the lower part of the house -just t' answer some burnin' questions which have been naggin' at me." He went to the table and lighted one of the candles from his little lantern.
"Would ye be wantin' t' come along with me, Prince Kheldar?" he invited.
Silk shrugged. "Why not?"
"I'll go, too," Garion said. He handed the book to Polgara and then pointedly looked at the raging Belgarath. "Is he going to get over that eventually?"
"I'll talk with him, dear. Don't be too long."
He nodded, and then he, Silk, and the juggler quietly left the library.
There was a room at the far end of the hall. It was not particularly large, and there were shelves along the walls. Garion surmised that it had at one time been a storeroom or a linen closet. Feldegast squinted appraisingly at the leaf-strewn floor, then closed his lantern.
The leaves had piled deep in the corners and along the walls, but in the sudden darkness a faint glow shone up through them, and there came the murmur of voices from below.
"Me vile-tempered old friend seems t' have been right," Feldegast whispered. "' Twouldappear that the mortar has quite crumbled away along that wall. 'Twill be but a simple matter t' brush the leaves out of the way an' give ourselves some convenient spy holes. Let's be havin' a look an' find out who's taken up residence in the House of Torak."
Garion suddenly had that strange sense of re-experiencing something that had happened a long time ago. It had been in King Anheg's palace at Val Alorn, and he had followed the man in the green cloak through the deserted upper halls until they had come to a place where crumbling mortar had permitted the sound of voices to come up from below. Then he remembered something else. When they had been at Tol Honeth, hadn't Belgarath said that most of the things that had happened while they were pursuing Zedar and the Orb were likely to happen again, since everything was leading up to another meeting between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark? He tried to shake off the feeling, but without much success.
They removed the leaves from the crack running along the far wall of the storeroom carefully, trying to avoid sifting any of them down into the room below. Then each of them selected a vantage point from which to watch and listen.
The room into which they peered was very large. Ragged drapes hung at the windows, and the corners were thick with cobwebs. Smoky torches hung in iron rings along the walls, and the floor was thick with dust and the litter of ages. The room was filled with black-robed Grolims, a sprinkling of roughly clad Karands, and a large number of gleaming Temple Guardsmen. Near the front, drawn up like a platoon of soldiers, a group of the huge black Hounds of Torak sat on their haunches expectantly.
In front of the Hounds stood a black altar, showing signs of recent use, flanked on either side by a glowing brazier.
Against the wall on a high dais was a golden throne, backed by thick, tattered black drapes and by a huge replica of the face of Torak.
"'Twas Burnt-face's throne room, don't y' know," Feldegast whispered.
"Those are Chandim, aren't they?" Garion whispered back.
"The very same -both human an' beast- along with their mail-shirted bully boys. I'm a bit surprised that Urvon has chosen t' occupy the place with his dogs -though the best use fer Ashaba has probably always been as a kennel."
It was obvious that the men in the throne room were expecting something by the nervous way they kept looking at the throne.
Then a great gong sounded from below, shimmering in the smoky air.
"On your knees!" a huge voice commanded the throng in the large room. "Pay obeisance and homage to the new God of Angarak!"
"What?" Silk exclaimed in a choked whisper.
"Watch an' be still!" Feldegast snapped.
From below there came a great roll of drums, followed by a brazen fanfare. The rotten drapes near the golden throne parted, and a double file of robed Grolims entered, chanting fervently, even as the assembled Chandim and Guardsmen fell to their knees and the Hounds and the Karands groveled and whined.
The booming of the drums continued, and then a figure garbed in cloth of gold and wearing a crown strode imperiously out from between the drapes. A glowing nimbus surrounded the figure, though Garion could clearly sense that the will that maintained the glow emanated from the gold-clad man himself. Then the figure lifted its head in a move of overweening arrogance. The man's face was splotched -some patches showing the color of healthy skin and others a hideous dead white. What chilled Garion's blood the most, however, was the fact that the man's eyes were totally mad.
"Urvon!" Feldegast said with a sudden intake of his his breath. "You piebald son of a mangy dog!" All trace of his lilting accent had disappeared.
Directly behind the patch-faced madman came a shadowy figure, cowled so deeply that its face was completely obscured. The black that covered it was not that of a simple Grolim robe, but seemed to grow out of the figure itself, and Garion felt a cold dread as a kind of absolute evil permeated the air about that black shape.
Urvon mounted the dais and seated himself on the throne, his insane eyes bulging and his face frozen in that expression of imperious pride. The shadow-covered figure took its place behind his left shoulder and bent forward toward his ear, whispering, whispering.
The Chandim, Guardsmen, and Karands in the throne room continued to grovel, fawning and whining, even as did the Hounds, while the last disciple of Torak preened himself in the glow of their adulation. A dozen or so of the black-robed Chandim crept forward on their knees, bearing gilded chests and reverently placing them on the altar before the dais. When they opened the chests, Garion saw that they were all filled to the brim with red Angarak gold and with jewels.