Now King Belgarion declared war upon the Bear-cult. Upon the advice of the other Alorn monarchs, he moved first against the shipyards at Jarviksholm to prevent the threat of a hostile fleet in the Sea of the Winds. His attack was quick and savage. Jarviksholm was razed to the ground, and the half-built fleet was burned before a single keel touched water.
But victory turned to ashes when a message from Riva reached him. His infant son had been abducted.
Belgarion, Belgarath, and Polgara turned themselves into birds by sorcery and flew back to Riva in a single day. The city of Riva had already been searched house by house. But with the aid of the Orb, Belgarion was able to follow the trail of the abductors to the west coast of the Isle. There they came upon a band of Cherek cultists and fell upon them. One survived, and Polgara forced him to speak. He declared that the child had been stolen on the orders of Ulfgar, leader of the Bear-cult, whose headquarters were at Rheon in eastern Drasnia. Before Polgara could wrest further information from him, however, the cultist leaped from the top of the cliff upon which they stood and dashed himself to death on the rocks below.
Now the war turned to Rheon. Belgarion found his troops badly outnumbered and an ambush awaiting his advance toward the city. He was facing defeat when Prince Kheldar arrived with a force of Nadrak mercenaries to turn the tide of battle. Reinforced by the Nadraks, the Rivans besieged the city of Rheon.
Belgarion and Durnik combined their wills to weaken the wails of the city until the siege engines of Baron Mandorallen could bring them down. The Rivans and Nadraks poured into the city, led by Belgarion. The battle inside was savage, but the cultists were driven back and most of them were slaughtered. Then Belgarion and Durnik captured the cult leader, Ulfgar.
Though Belgarion had already learned that his son was not within the city, he hoped that close questioning might drag the child's whereabouts from Ulfgar. The cult leader stubbornly refused to answer; then, surprisingly, Errand drew the information directly from Ulfgar's mind.
While it became clear that Ulfgar had been responsible for the attempt on Ce'Nedra's life, he had played no part in the theft of the child. Indeed, his chief goal had been the death of Belgarion's son, preferably before its birth. He obviously knew nothing of the abduction, which did not at all suit his purpose.
Then the sorcerer Beldin joined them. He quickly recognized Ulfgar as Harakan, an underling of Torak's last living disciple Urvon. Harakan suddenly vanished, and Beldin sped in pursuit.
Messengers now arrived from Riva. Investigations following Belgarion's departure had discovered a shepherd in the hills who had seen a figure carrying what might have been a baby embark upon a ship of Nyissan design and sail southward.
Then Cyradis, a Seeress of Kell, sent a projection of herself to tell them more. The child, she claimed, had been taken by Zandramas, who had spun such a web of deceit to throw the blame upon Harakan that even the cult members who had been left behind to be discovered had believed what Polgara had extracted from the captive on the cliff of the Isle of the Winds.
Clearly, she said, the Child of Dark had stolen the baby for a purpose. That purpose was connected with the Sardion. Now they must pursue Zandramas. Beyond that she would not speak, except to identify those who must go with Belgarion. Then, leaving her huge, mute guide Toth behind to accompany them, she vanished.
Belgarion's heart sank within him as he realized that his son's abductor was now months ahead and that the trail had grown extremely dim. But he grimly gathered his companions to pursue Zandramas, even to the edge of the world or beyond, if need be.
Part One - THE SERPENT QUEEN
CHAPTER ONE
Somewhere in the darkness, Garion could hear the crystalline tap of water dripping with a slow, monotonous regularity. The air around him was cool, smelling of rock and dampness overlaid with the musty odor of pallid white things that grow in the dark and flinch from the light. He found himself straining to catch all the myriad sounds that whispered through the dark caves of Ulgo—the moist trickle of water, the dusty slither of dislodged pebbles slowly running down a shallow incline, and the mournful sighing of air coming down from the surface through minute fissures in the rock.Belgarath stopped and lifted the smoky torch that filled the passageway with flickering orange light and leaping shadows. "Wait here a moment," he said, and then he moved off down the murky gallery with his scuffed, mismatched boots shuffling along the uneven floor. The rest of them waited with the darkness pressing in all around them.
"I hate this," Silk muttered, half to himself. "I absolutely hate it."
They waited.
The ruddy flicker of Belgarath's torch reappeared at the far end of the gallery. "All right," he called. "It's this way."
Garion put his arm about Ce'Nedra's slender shoulders. A kind of deep silence had fallen over her during their ride south from Rheon as it had grown increasingly evident that their entire campaign against the Bear-cult in eastern Drasnia had done little more than give Zandramas a nearly insurmountable lead with the abducted Geran. The frustration that made Garion want to beat his fists against the rocks around him and howl in impotent fury had plunged Ce'Nedra into a profound depression instead, and now she stumbled through the dark caves of Ulgo, sunk in a kind of numb misery, neither knowing nor caring where the others led her. He turned his head to look back at Polgara, his face mirroring all his deep concern. The look she returned him was grave, but seemingly unperturbed. She parted the front of her blue cloak and moved her hands in the minute gestures of the Drasnian secret language. —Be sure she stays warm—she said. —She's very susceptible to chills just now,—
A half-dozen desperate questions sprang into Garion's mind; but with Ce'Nedra at his side with his arm about her shoulders, there was no way he could voice them.
—It's important for you to stay calm, Garion—Polgara's fingers told him. —Don't let her know how concerned you are. I'm watching her, and I'll know what to do when the time comes.—
Belgarath stopped again and stood tugging at one earlobe, looking dubiously down a dark passageway and then down another which branched off to the left.
"You're lost again, aren't you?" Silk accused him. The rat-faced little Drasnian had put aside his pearl-gray doublet and his jewels and gold chains and now wore an old brown tunic, shiny with age, a moth-eaten fur cloak and a shapeless, battered hat, once again submerging himself in one of his innumerable disguises.
"Of course I'm not lost," Belgarath retorted. "I just haven't pinpointed exactly where we are at the moment."