The great wings flapped again, and there was a long, despairing cry from the darkness, a cry filled with such aching loneliness that Garion felt a great surge of pity welling up in him.

Wolf sighed again. "There's nothing we can do," he said. "Let's go back to the tents."

Chapter Eight.

THE WEATHER CONTINUED raw and unsettled as they rode for the next two days up the long, sloping rise toward the snow-covered summits of the mountains. The trees became spa.r.s.er and more stunted as they climbed and finally disappeared entirely. The ridgeline flattened out against the side of one of the mountains, and they rode up onto a steep slope of tumbled rock and ice where the wind scoured continually.

Mister Wolf paused to get his bearings, looking around in the pale afternoon light. "That way," he said finally, pointing. A saddleback stretched between two peaks, and the sky beyond roiled in the wind. They rode up the slope, their cloaks pulled tightly about them.

Hettar came forward with a worried frown on his hawk face. "That pregnant mare's in trouble," he told Wolf. "I think her time's getting close."

Without a word Aunt Pol dropped back to look at the mare, and her face was grave when she returned. "She's no more than a few hours away, father," she reported.

Wolf looked around. "There's no shelter on this side."

"Maybe there'll be something on the other side of the pa.s.s," Barak suggested, his beard whipping in the wind.

Wolf shook his head. "I think it's the same as this side. We're going to have to hurry. We don't want to spend the night up here."

As they rode higher, occasional spits of stinging sleet pelted them, and the wind gusted even stronger, howling among the rocks. As they crested the slope and started through the saddle, the full force of the gale struck them, driving a tattered sleet squall before it.

"It's even worse on this side, Belgarath," Barak shouted over the wind. "How far is it down to the trees?"

"Miles," Wolf replied, trying to keep his flying cloak pulled around him.

"The mare will never make it," Hettar said. "We've got to find shelter."

"There isn't any," Wolf stated. "Not until we get to the trees. It's all bare rock and ice up here."

Without knowing why he said it - not even aware of it until he spoke - Garion made a shouted suggestion. "What about the cave?"

Mister Wolf turned and looked sharply at him. "What cave? Where?"

"The one in the side of the mountain. It isn't far." Garion knew the cave was there, but he did not know how he knew.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. It's this way." Garion turned his horse and rode up the slope of the saddle toward the vast, craggy peak on their left. The wind tore at them as they rode, and the driving sleet half blinded them. Garion moved confidently, however. For some reason every rock about them seemed absolutely familiar, though he could not have said why. He rode just fast enough to stay in front of the others. He knew they would ask questions, and he didn't have any answers. They rounded a shoulder of the peak and rode out onto a broad rock ledge. The ledge curved along the mountainside, disappearing in the swirling sleet ahead.

"Where art thou taking us, lad?" Mandorallen shouted to him.

"It's not much farther," Garion yelled back over his shoulder.

The ledge narrowed as it curved around the looming granite face of the mountain. Where it bent around a jutting cornice, it was hardly more than a footpath. Garion dismounted and led his horse around the cornice. The wind blasted directly into his face as he stepped around the granite outcrop, and he had to put his hand in front of his face to keep the sleet from blinding him. Walking that way, he did not see the door until it was almost within reach of his hands.

The door in the face of the rock was made of iron, black and pitted with rust and age. It was broader than the gate at Faldor's farm, and the upper edge of it was lost in the swirling sleet.

Barak, following close behind him, reached out and touched the iron door. Then he banged on it with his huge fist. The door echoed hollowly. "There is a cave," he said back over his shoulder to the others. "I thought that the wind had blown out the boy's senses."

"How do we get inside?" Hettar shouted, the wind s.n.a.t.c.hing away his words.

"The door's as solid as the mountain itself," Barak said, hammering with his fist again.

"We've got to get out of this wind," Aunt Pol declared, one of her arms protectively about Ce'Nedra's shoulders.

"Well, Garion?" Mister Wolf asked.

"It's easy," Garion replied. "I just have to find the right spot." He ran his fingers over the icy iron, not knowing just what he was looking for. He found a spot that felt a little different. "Here it is." He put his right hand on the spot and pushed lightly. With a vast, grating groan, the door began to move. A line that had not even been visible before suddenly appeared like a razor-cut down the precise center of the pitted iron surface, and flakes of rust showered from the crack, to be whipped away by the wind.

Garion felt a peculiar warmth in the silvery mark on the palm of his right hand where it touched the door. Curious, he stopped pushing, but the door continued to move, swinging open, it seemed, almost in reponse to the presence of the mark on his palm. It continued to move even after he was no longer touching it. He closed his hand, and the door stopped moving.

He opened his hand, and the door, grating against stone, swung open even wider.

"Don't play with it, dear," Aunt Pol told him. "Just open it."

It was dark in the cave beyond the huge door, but it seemed not to have the musty smell it should have had. They entered cautiously, feeling at the floor carefully with their feet.

"Just a moment," Durnik murmured in a strangely hushed voice. They heard him unbuckling one of his saddlebags and then heard the rasp of his flint against steel. There were a few sparks, then a faint glow as the smith blew on his tinder. The tinder flamed, and he set it to the torch he had pulled from his saddlebag. The torch sputtered briefly, then caught. Durnik raised it, and they all looked around at the cave.

It was immediately evident that the cave was not natural. The walls and floor were absolutely smooth, almost polished, and the light of Durnik's torch reflected back from the gleaming surfaces. The chamber was perfectly round and about a hundred feet in diameter. The walls curved inward at they rose, and the ceiling high overhead seemed also to be round. In the precise center of the floor stood a round stone table, twenty feet across, with its top higher than Barak's head. A stone bench encircled the table. In the wall directly opposite the door was a circular arch of a fireplace. The cave was cool, but it did not seem to have the bitter chill it should have had.

"Is it all right to bring in the horses?" Hettar asked quietly.

Mister Wolf nodded. His expression seemed bemused in the flickering torchlight, and his eyes were lost in thought.

The horses' hooves clattered sharply on the smooth stone floor as they were led inside, and they looked around, their eyes wide and their ears twitching nervously.

"There's a fire laid in here," Durnik said from the arched fireplace. "Shall I light it?"

Wolf looked up. "What? Oh-yes. Go ahead."

Durnik reached into the fireplace with his torch, and the wood caught immediately. The fire swelled up very quickly, and the flames seemed inordinately bright.

Ce'Nedra gasped. "The walls! Look at the walls!" The light from the fire was somehow being refracted through the crystalline structure of the rock itself, and the entire dome began to glow with a myriad of shifting colors, filling the chamber with a soft, multihued radiance.

Hettar had moved around the circle of the wall and was peering into another arched opening. "A spring," he told them. "This is a good place to ride out a storm."

Durnik put out his torch and pulled off his cloak. The chamber had become warm almost as soon as he had lighted the fire. He looked at Mister Wolf. "You know about this place, don't you?" he asked.

"None of us has ever been able to find it before," the old man replied, his eyes still thoughtful. "We weren't even sure it still existed."

"What is this strange cave, Belgarath?" Mandorallen asked.

Mister Wolf took a deep breath. "When the G.o.ds were making the world, it was necessary for them to meet from time to time to discuss what each of them had done and was going to do so that everything would fit together and work in harmony - the mountains, the winds, the seasons and so on." He looked around. "This is the place where they met."

Silk, his nose twitching with curiosity, had climbed up onto the bench surrounding the huge table. "There are bowls up here," he said. "Seven of them-and seven cups. There seems to be some kind of fruit in the bowls." He began to reach out with one hand.

"Silk!" Mister Wolf told him sharply. "Don't touch anything." Silk's hand froze, and he looked back over his shoulder at the old man, his face startled.

"You'd better come down from there," Wolf said gravely.

"The door!" Ce'Nedra exclaimed.

They all turned in time to see the ma.s.sive iron door gently swinging closed. With an oath, Barak leaped toward it, but he was too late. Booming hollowly, it clanged shut just before his hands reached it. The big man turned, his eyes filled with dismay.

"It's all right, Barak," Garion told him. "I can open it again."

Wolf turned then and looked at Garion, his eyes questioning. "How did you know about the cave?" he asked.

Garion floundered helplessly. "I don't know. I just did. I think I've known we were getting close to it for the last day or so."

"Does it have anything to do with the voice that spoke to Mara?"

"I don't think so. He doesn't seem to be there just now, and my knowing about the cave seemed to be different somehow, I think it came from me, not him, but I'm not sure how. For some reason, it seems that I've always known this place was here - only I didn't think about it until we started to get near it. It's awfully hard to explain it exactly."

Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf exchanged a long glance. Wolf looked as if he were about to ask another question, but just then there was a groan at the far end of the chamber.

"Somebody help me," Hettar called urgently. One of the horses, her sides distended and her breath coming in short, heaving gasps, stood swaying as if her legs were about to give out from under her. Hettar stood at her side, trying to support her. "She's about to foal," he said.

They all turned then and went quickly to the laboring mare. Aunt Pol immediately took charge of the situation, giving orders crisply. They eased the mare to the floor, and Hettar and Durnik began to work with her, even as Aunt Pol filled a small pot with water and set it carefully in the fire. "I'll need some room," she told the rest of them pointedly as she opened the bag which contained her jars of herbs.

"Why don't we all get out of your way?" Barak suggested, looking uneasily at the gasping horse.

"Splendid idea," she agreed. "Ce'Nedra, you stay here. I'll need your help."

Garion, Barak, and Mandorallen moved a few yards away and sat down, leaning back against the glowing wall, while Silk and Mister Wolf went off to explore the rest of the chamber. As he watched Durnik and Hettar with the mare and Aunt Pol and Ce'Nedra by the fire, Garion felt strangely abstracted. The cave had drawn him, there was no question of that, and even now it was exerting some peculiar force on him. Though the situation with the mare was immediate, he seemed unable to focus on it. He had a strange certainty that finding the cave was only the first part of whatever it was that was happening, There was something else he had to do, and his abstraction was in some way a preparation for it.

"It is not an easy thing to confess," Mandorallen was saying somberly.

Garion glanced at him, "In view of the desperate nature of our quest, however," the knight continued, "I must openly acknowledge my great failing. It may come to pa.s.s that this flaw of mine shall in some hour of great peril cause me to turn and flee like the coward I am, leaving all your lives in mortal danger."

"You're making too much of it," Barak told him.

"Nay, my Lord. I urge that you consider the matter closely to determine if I am fit to continue in our enterprise." He started to creak to his feet.

"Where are you going?" Barak asked.

"I thought to go apart so that you may freely discuss this matter."

"Oh, sit down, Mandorallen," Barak said irritably. "I'm not going to say anything behind your back I wouldn't say to your face."

The mare, lying close to the fire with her head cradled in Hettar's lap, groaned again. "Is that medicine almost ready, Polgara?" the Algar asked in a worried voice.

"Not quite," she replied. She turned back to Ce'Nedra, who was carefully grinding up some dried leaves in a small cup with the back of a spoon. "Break them up a little finer, dear," she instructed.

Durnik was standing astride the mare, his hands on her distended belly. "We may have to turn the foal," he said gravely. "I think it's trying to come the wrong way."

"Don't start on that until this has a chance to work," Aunt Pol told him, slowly tapping a grayish powder from an earthen jar into her bubbling pot, She took the cup of leaves from Ce'Nedra and added that as well, stirring as she poured.

"I think, my Lord Barak," Mandorallen urged, "that thou hast not fully considered the import of what I have told thee."

"I heard you. You said you were afraid once. It's nothing to worry about. It happens to everybody now and then."

"I cannot live with it. I live in constant apprehension, never knowing when it will return to unman me."

Durnik looked up from the mare. "You're afraid of being afraid?" he asked in a puzzled voice.

"You cannot know what it was like, good friend," Mandorallen replied.

"Your stomach tightened up," Durnik told him. "Your mouth was dry, and your heart felt as if someone had his fist clamped around it?"

Mandorallen blinked.

"It's happened to me so often that I know exactly how it feels."

"Thou? Thou art among the bravest men I have ever known."

Durnik smiled wryly. "I'm an ordinary man, Mandorallen," he said. "Ordinary men live in fear all the time. Didn't you know that? We're afraid of the weather, we're afraid of powerful men, we're afraid of the night and the monsters that lurk in the dark, we're afraid of growing old and of dying. Sometimes we're even afraid of living. Ordinary men are afraid almost every minute of their lives."

"How can you bear it?"

"Do we have any choice? Fear's a part of life, Mandorallen, and it's the only life we have. You'll get used to it. After you've put it on every morning like an old tunic, you won't even notice it any more. Sometimes laughing at it helps - a little."

"Laughing?"

"It shows the fear that you know it's there, but that you're going to go ahead and do what you have to do anyway." Durnik looked down at his hands, carefully kneading the mare's belly. "Some men curse and swear and bl.u.s.ter," he continued. "That does the same thing, I suppose. Every man has to come up with his own technique for dealing with it. Personally, I prefer laughing. It seems more appropriate somehow."

Mandorallen's face became gravely thoughtful as Durnik's words slowly sank in. "I will consider this," he said. "It may be, good friend, that I will owe thee more than my life for thy gentle instruction."

Once more the mare groaned, a deep, tearing sound, and Durnik straightened and began rolling up his sleeves. "The foal's going to have to be turned, Mistress Pol," he said decisively. "And soon, or we'll lose the foal and the mare both."

"Let me get some of this into her first," she replied, quenching her boiling pot with some cold water. "Hold her head," she told Hettar. Hettar nodded and firmly wrapped his arms around the laboring mare's head. "Garion," Aunt Pol said, as she spooned the liquid between the mare's teeth, "why don't you and Ce'Nedra go over there where Silk and your grandfather are?"

"Have you ever turned a foal before, Durnik?" Hettar asked anxiously.

"Not a foal, but calves many times. A horse isn't that much different from a cow, really."

Barak stood up quickly. His face had a slight greenish cast to it. "I'll go with Garion and the princess," he rumbled. "I don't imagine I'd be much help here."

"And I will join thee," Mandorallen declared. His face was also visibly pale. "It were best, I think, to leave our friends ample room for their midwifery."

Aunt Pol looked at the two warriors with a slight smile on her face, but said nothing.