Garion nodded and left. Her words had somehow strangely echoed the words of his dream, and he wondered about that as he went looking for Silk.
The little man was lounging in the company of the others in a large, torch-lighted room in the west wing. The kings were there, with Brand, Belgarath and Garion's other friends. They were breakfasting on cakes and hot spiced wine.
"Where did you go this morning?" Lelldorin asked him. "You were gone when I woke up."
"I couldn't sleep any more," Garion replied.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"Why should you lose sleep just because I'm having a restless night?" Garion could see that they were deep in a discussion, and he sat down quietly to wait for the opportunity to speak to Silk.
"I think we've managed to aggravate Taur Urgas pretty thoroughly in the past couple of months," Barak was saying. The big man was sprawled deep in a high-backed chair with his face sunk in the shadows from the flaring torch behind him. "First Relg steals Silk right out from under his nose, then Belgarath destroys Ctuchik and knocks down Rak Cthol in the process of taking back the Orb, and finally Cho-Hag and Hettar exterminate a sizable piece of his army when he tries to follow us. The king of the Murgos has had a bad year." The big man's chuckle rumbled out of the shadows. For a moment - a fleeting instant - Garion seemed to see a different shape sprawled there. Some trick of the flickering light and dancing shadows made it appear momentarily that a great, shaggy bear sat in Barak's place. Then it was gone. Garion rubbed at his eyes and tried to shake off the half bemused reverie that had dogged him all morning.
"I still don't quite follow what you mean about Relg going into the rock to rescue Prince Kheldar." King Fulrach frowned. "Do you mean that he can burrow through?"
"I don't think you'd understand unless you saw it, Fulrach," Belgarath told him. "Show him, Relg."
The Ulgo zealot looked at the old man, then walked over to the stone wall beside the large window. Silk instantly turned his back, shuddering. "I still can't stand to watch that," he declared to Garion.
"Aunt Pol said I was supposed to ask you the way to the baths," Garion said quietly. "She wants me to get cleaned up and shaved, and then I guess I'm supposed to put on my best clothes."
"I'll go with you," Silk offered. "I'm sure that all these gentlemen are going to be fascinated by Relg's demonstration, and they'll want him to repeat it. What's he doing?"
"He stuck his arm through the wall and he's wiggling his fingers at them from outside the window," Garion reported.
Silk glanced once over his shoulder, then shuddered again and quickly averted his eyes. "That makes my blood cold," he said with revulsion. "Let's go bathe."
"I'll go along," Lelldorin said, and the three of them quietly left the room.
The baths were in a cavernous cellar beneath the west wing of the Citadel. There were hot springs deep in the rock, and they bubbled up to fill the tiled chambers with steam and a faintly sulfurous smell. There were but few torches and only one attendant who wordlessly handed them towels and then went off into the steam to manage the valves that adjusted the water temperature.
"The big pool there gets hotter the closer you go toward the far end," Silk told Garion and Lelldorin as they all disrobed. "Some people say you should go in until it's as hot as you can stand it, but I prefer just to pick a comfortable temperature and soak." He splashed down into the water.
"Are you sure we'll be alone here?" Garion asked nervously. "I don't think I'd care to have a group of ladies come trooping in while I'm trying to bathe."
"The women's baths are separate," Silk assured him. "The Rivans are very proper about that sort of thing. They aren't nearly as advanced as the Tolnedrans yet."
"Are you really sure that bathing in the wintertime is healthy?" Lelldorin asked, eyeing the steaming water suspiciously.
Garion plunged into the pool and moved quickly out of the tepid water at the near end toward the hotter area. The steam rose more thickly as he waded out into the pool, and the pair of torches set in rings on the back wall receded into a kind of ruddy glow. The tiled walls echoed back the sounds of their voices and splashing with a peculiar, cavernlike hollowness. The steam eddied up out of the water, and he found himself suddenly shut off by it, separated from his friends in the hazy dimness. The hot water relaxed him, and he seemed almost to want to float, half aware, and let it soak out all memory - all the past and all the future. Dreamily he lay back, and then, not knowing why, he allowed himself to sink beneath the dark, steaming water. How long he floated, his eyes closed and all sense suspended, he could not have said, but finally his face rose to the surface and he stood up, the water streaming out of his hair and down across his shoulders. He felt strangely purified by his immersion. And then the sun broke through the tattered cloud outside for a moment, and a single shaft of sunlight streamed down through a small grilled window to fall fully upon Garion. The sudden light was diffused by the steam and seemed to flicker with an opalescent fire.
"Hail, Belgarion, " the voice in his mind said to him. "I greet thee on this Erastide. " There was no hint of the usual amusement in the voice, and the formality seemed strange, significant.
"Thank you, " Garion replied gravely, and they did not speak again. The steam rose and eddied about him as he waded back toward the cooler reaches of the pool where Silk and Lelldorin, both sunk to their necks in warm water, were talking quietly together.
About half an hour before noon, Garion, in response to a summons from Aunt Pol, walked down a long stone corridor toward a room a few steps from the huge, carved doors that gave entrance into the Hall of the Rivan King. He was wearing his best doublet and hose, and his soft leather half boots had been brushed until they glowed. Aunt Pol wore a deep blue robe, cowled and belted at the waist. For once Belgarath, also blue-robed, did not look rumpled or spotted. The old man's face was very serious; as he and Aunt Pol spoke together, there was no hint of the banter that usually marked their conversation. Seated quietly in the corner of the little room, Errand, dressed all in white linen, gravely watched.
"You look very nice, Garion," Aunt Pol said, reaching out to smooth his sandy hair back from his forehead.
"Shouldn't we go inside?" Garion asked. He had seen others, grayclad Rivans and the more brightly garbed visitors entering the hall.
"We will, Garion," she replied. "All in good time." She turned to Belgarath. "How long?" she asked.