Garion blushed furiously and put his fingers to his chin. There were definitely whiskers there - downy, soft, more like fuzz than bristles, but whiskers all the same.

"Thou art truly approaching manhood, young Garion," Mandorallen a.s.sured him rather approvingly.

"The decision doesn't have to be made immediately, Polgara," Barak said, stroking his own luxuriant red beard. "Let the whiskers grow for awhile. If they don't turn out well, he can always shave them off later."

"I think your neutrality in the matter is suspect, Barak," Hettar remarked. "Don't most Chereks wear beards?"

"No razor's ever touched my face," Barak admitted. "But I just don't think it's the sort of thing to rush into. It's very hard to stick whiskers back on if you decide later that you wanted to keep them after all."

"I think they're kind of funny," Ce'Nedra said. Before Garion could stop her, she reached out two tiny fingers and tugged the soft down on his chin. He winced and blushed again.

"They come off," Aunt Pol ordered firmly.

Wordlessly, Durnik went below decks. When he came back, he carried a basin, a chunk of brown-colored soap, a towel, and a fragment of mirror. "It isn't really hard, Garion," he said, putting the things on the table in front of the young man. Then he took a neatly folded razor out of a case at his belt. "You just have to be careful not to cut yourself, that's all. The whole secret is not to rush."

"Pay close attention when you're near your nose," Hettar advised. "A man looks very strange without a nose."

The shaving proceeded with a great deal of advice, and on the whole it did not turn out too badly. Most of the bleeding stopped after a few minutes, and, aside from the fact that his face felt as if it had been peeled, Garion was quite satisfied with the results.

"Much better," Aunt Pol said.

"He'll catch cold in his face now," Barak predicted.

"Will you stop that?" she told him.

The coast of Nyissa slid by on their left, a blank wall of tangled vegetation, festooned with creepers and long tatters of moss. Occasional eddies in the breeze brought the foul reek of the swamps out to the ship. Garion and Ce'Nedra stood together in the prow of the ship, looking toward the jungle.

"What are those?" Garion asked, pointing at some large things with legs slithering around on a mud bank along a stream that emptied into the sea.

"Crocodiles," Ce'Nedra answered.

"What's a crocodile?"

"A big lizard," she said.

"Are they dangerous?"

"Very dangerous. They eat people. Haven't you ever read about them?"

"I can't read," Garion admitted without thinking.

"What?"

"I can't read," Garion repeated. "n.o.body ever taught me how."

"That's ridiculous!"

"It's not my fault," he said defensively.

She looked at him thoughtfully. She had seemed almost half afraid of him since the meeting with Chamdar, and her insecurity had probably been increased by the fact that, on the whole, she had not treated him very well. Her first a.s.sumption that he was only a servant boy had gotten their whole relationship off on the wrong foot, but she was far too proud to admit that initial mistake. Garion could almost hear the little wheels clicking around in her head. "Would you like to have me teach you how?" she offered. It was probably the closest thing he'd ever get to an apology from her.

"Would it take very long?"

"That depends on how clever you are."

"When do you think we could start?"

She frowned. "I've got a couple of books, but we'll need something to write on."

"I don't know that I need to learn how to write," he said. "Reading 'ought to be enough for right now."

She laughed. "They're the same thing, you goose."

"I didn't know that," Garion said, flushing slightly. "I thought " He floundered with the whole idea. "I guess I never really thought about it," he concluded lamely. "What sort of thing do we need to write on?"

"Parchment's the best," she said, "and a charcoal stick to write with - so we can rub it off and write on the parchment again."

"I'll go talk to Durnik," he decided. "He'll be able to think of something."

Durnik suggested sailcloth and a charred stick. Within an hour Garion and Ce'Nedra were sitting in a sheltered spot in the bow of the ship their heads close together over a square of canvas nailed to a plank. Garion glanced up once and saw Aunt Pol not far away. She was watching the two of them with an indecipherable expression. Then he lowered his eyes again to the strangely compelling symbols on the canvas.

His instruction went on for the next several days. Since his fingers were naturally nimble, he quickly picked up the trick of forming the letter.

"No, no," Ce'Nedra said one afternoon, "you've spelled it wrong, used the wrong letters. Your name's Garion, not Belgarion."

He felt a sudden chill and looked down at the canvas square. The name was spelled out quite clearly - "Belgarion."

He looked up quickly. Aunt Pol was standing where she usually stood, her eyes on him as always.

"Stay out of my mind!" He snapped the thought at her.

"Study hard, dear, " her voice urged him silently. "Learning of any kind is useful, and you have a great deal to learn. The sooner you get the habit, the better. " Then she smiled, turned and walked away.

The next day, Greldik's ship reached the mouths of the River of the Serpent in central Nyissa, and his men struck the sail and set their oars into the locks along the sides of the ship in preparation for the long pull upriver to Sthiss Tor.

Chapter Twenty-four.

THERE WAS NO AIR. It seemed as if the world had suddenly been turned into a vast, reeking pool of stagnant water. The River of the Serpent had a hundred mouths, each creeping sluggishly through the jellied muck of the delta as if reluctant to join the boisterous waves of the sea. The reeds which grew in that vast swamp reached a height of twenty feet and were as thick as woven fabric. There was a tantalizing sound of a breeze brushing the tops of the reeds, but down among them, all thought or memory of breeze was lost. There was no air. The delta steamed and stank beneath a sun that did not burn so much as boil. Each breath seemed to be half water. Insects rose in clouds from the reeds and settled in mindless gluttony on every inch of exposed skin, biting, feeding on blood.

They were a day and a half among the reeds before they reached the first trees, low, scarcely more than bushes. The main river channel began to take shape as they moved slowly on into the Nyissan heartland. The sailors sweated and swore at their oars, and the ship moved slowly against the current, almost as if she struggled against a tide of thick oil that clung to her like some loathsome glue.

The trees grew taller, then immense. Great, gnarled roots twisted up out of the ooze along the banks like grotesquely misshapen legs, and trunks vast as castles reached up into the steaming sky. Ropey vines undulated down from the limbs overhead, moving, seeming to writhe with a kind of vegetable will of their own in the breathless air. s.h.a.ggy tatters of grayish moss descended in hundred-foot-long streamers from the trees, and the river wound spitefully in great coils that made their journey ten times as long as it needed to be.

"Unpleasant sort of place," Hettar grumbled, dispiritedly looking out over the bow at the weedy surface of the river ahead. He had removed his horsehide jacket and linen undertunic, and his lean torso gleamed with sweat. Like most of them, he was covered with the angry welts of insect bites.

"My very thought," Mandorallen agreed.

One of the sailors shouted and jumped up, kicking at his oar-handle. Something long, slimy, and boneless had crawled unseen up his oar, seeking his flesh with an eyeless voracity.

"Leech," Durnik said with a shudder as the hideous thing dropped with a wet plop back into the stinking river. "I've never seen one so big. It must be a foot long or more."

"Probably not a good place for swimming," Hettar observed.

"I wasn't considering it," Durnik said.

"Good." Aunt Pol, wearing a light linen dress, came out of the cabin beneath the high stern where Greldik and Barak were taking turns at the tiller. She had been caring for Ce'Nedra, who had drooped and wilted like a flower in the brutal climate of the river.

"Can't you do something?" Garion demanded of her silently.

"About what?"

"All of this."He looked around helplessly.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Drive of the bugs, if nothing else."

"Why don't you do it yourself, Belgarion?"

He set his jaw. "No!" It was almost a silent shout.

"It isn't really very hard."

"No."

She shrugged and turned away, leaving him seething with frustration. It took them three more days to reach Sthiss Tor. The city was embraced in a wide coil of the river and was built of black stone. The houses and buildings were low and for the most part were windowless. In the center of the city a vast pile of a building rose with strangely shaped spires and domes and terraces, oddly alien-looking. Wharves and jetties poked out into the turbid river, and Greldik guided his ship toward one which was much larger than the rest. "We have to stop at customs," he explained.

"Inevitably," Durnik said.

The exchange at customs was brief. Captain Greldik announced that he was delivering the goods of Radek of Boktor to the Drasnian trade enclave. Then he handed a jingling purse to the shaven-headed customs official, and the ship was allowed to proceed without inspection.

"You owe me for that, Barak," Greldik said. "The trip here was out of friendship, but the money's something else again."

"Write it down someplace," Barak told him. "I'll take care of it when I get back to Val Alorn."

"If you ever get back to Val Alorn," Greldik said sourly.

"I'm sure you'll remember me in your prayers, then," Barak said. "I know you pray for me all the time anyway, but now you've got a bit more incentive."

"Is every official in the whole world corrupt?" Durnik demanded irritably. "Doesn't anyone do his job the way it's supposed to be done without taking bribes?"

"The world would come to an end if one of them did," Hettar replied. "You and I are too simple and honest for these affairs, Durnik. We're better off leaving this kind of thing to others."

"It's disgusting, that's all."

"That may be true," Hettar agreed, "but I'm just as happy that the customs man didn't look below decks. We might have had some trouble explaining the horses."

The sailors had backed the ship into the river again and rowed toward a series of substantial wharves. They pulled up beside the outer wharf, shipped their oars and looped the hawsers around the tar-blackened pilings of a mooring spot.

"You can't moor here," a sweaty guard told them from the wharf. "This is for Drasnian ships."

"I'll moor anyplace it suits me," Greldik said shortly.

"I'll call out the soldiers," the guard threatened. He took hold of one of their hawsers and pulled out a long knife.

"If you cut that rope, friend, I'll come down there and tear off your ears," Greldik warned.

"Go ahead and tell him," Barak suggested. "It's too hot for fighting."

"My ship's carrying Drasnian goods," Greldik told the guard on the wharf, "belonging to a man named Radek-from Boktor, I think."

"Oh," the guard said, putting away his knife, "why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"Because I didn't like your att.i.tude," Greldik replied bluntly. "Where do I find the man in charge?"

"Droblek? His house is just up that street past the shops. It's the one with the Drasnian emblem on the door."

"I've got to talk with him," Greldik said. "Do I need a pa.s.s to go off the wharf? I've heard some strange things about Sthiss Tor."

"You can move around inside the enclave," the guard informed him. "You only need a pa.s.s if you want to go into the city."

Greldik grunted and went below. A moment later he came back with several packets of folded parchment. "Do you want to talk to this official?" he asked Aunt Pol. "Or do you want me to take care of it?"

"We'd better come along," she decided. "The girl's asleep. Tell your men not to disturb her."

Greldik nodded and spoke briefly to his first mate. The sailors ran a plank across to the wharf, and Greldik led the way ash.o.r.e. Thick clouds were rolling in overhead, darkening the sun.

The street which ran down to the wharf was lined on both sides with the shops of Drasnian merchants, and Nyissans moved torpidly from shop to shop, stopping now and then to haggle with the sweating shop-keepers. The Nyissan men all wore loose-fitting robes of a light, iridescent fabric, and their heads were all shaved completely bald. As he walked along behind Aunt Pol, Garion noticed with a certain distaste that the Nyissans wore elaborate makeup on their eyes, and that their lips and cheeks were rouged. Their speech was rasping and sibilant, and they all seemed to affect a lisp.

The heavy clouds had by now completely obscured the sky, and the street seemed suddenly dark. A dozen wretched, near-naked men were repairing a section of cobblestones. Their unkempt hair and s.h.a.ggy beards indicated that they were not Nyissan, and there were shacklesand chains attached to their ankles. A brutal-looking Nyissan stood over them with a whip, and the fresh welts and cuts on their bodies spoke mutely of the freedom with which he used it. One of the miserable slaves accidentally dropped an armload of crudely squared-off stones on his foot and opened his mouth with an animal-like howl of pain. With horror, Garion saw that the slave's tongue had been cut out.

"They reduce men to the level of beasts," Mandorallen growled, his eyes burning with a terrible anger. "Why has this cesspool not been cleansed?"

"It was once," Barak said grimly. "Just after the Nyissans a.s.sa.s.sinated the Rivan King, the Alorns came down here and killed every Nyissan they could find."

"Their numbers appear undiminished," Mandorallen said, looking around.

Barak shrugged. "It was thirteen hundred years ago. Even a single pair of rats could reestablish their species in that length of time."

Durnik, who was walking beside Garion, gasped suddenly and averted his eyes, blushing furiously.

A Nyissan lady had just stepped from a litter carried by eight slaves. The fabric of her pale green gown was so flimsy that it was nearly transparent and left very little to the imagination. "Don't look at her, Garion," Durnik whispered hoa.r.s.ely, still blushing. "She's a wicked woman."