"You don't understand," Relg told him in an anguished voice. He turned back to Polgara. "Don't make me do this, I beg you."
"You must," she replied quietly. "I'm sorry, Relg, but there's no other way."
A dozen emotions played across the fanatic's face as he shrank under Aunt Pol's unrelenting gaze. Then with a strangled cry, he turned and put his hand to the solid rockface at the side of the passageway. With a dreadful concentration, he pushed his fingers into the rock, demonstrating once more his uncanny ability to slip his very substance through seemingly unyielding stone.
Silk quickly turned his back. "I can't stand to watch that," the little man choked. And then Relg was gone, submerged in the rock.
"Why does he make so much fuss about touching people?" Barak demanded.
But Garion knew why. His enforced companionship with the ranting zealot during the ride across Algaria had given him a sharp insight into the workings of Relg's mind. The harsh-voiced denunciations of the sins of others served primarily to conceal Relg's own weakness. Garion had listened for hours at a time to hysterical and sometimes incoherent confessions about the lustful thoughts that raged through the fanatic's mind almost continually. Taiba, the lush-bodied Marag slave woman, would represent for Relg the ultimate temptation, and he would fear her more than death itself.
In silence they waited. Somewhere a slow drip of water measured the passing seconds. The earth shuddered from time to time as the last uneasy shocks of earthquake trembled beneath their feet. The minutes dragged on in the dim cavern.
And then there was a flicker of movement, and Relg emerged from the rock wall carrying the half naked Taiba. Her arms were desperately clasped about his neck, and her face was buried in his shoulder. She was whimpering in tenor and trembling uncontrollably.
Relg's face was twisted into an agony. Tears of anguish streamed openly from his eyes, and his teeth were clenched as if he were in the grip of intolerable pain. His arms, however, cradled the ternfied slave woman protectively, almost gently, and even when they were free of the rock, he held her closely against him as if he intended to hold her thus forever.
Chapter Two
IT WAS NOON by the time they reached the foot of the basalt tower and the large cave where they had left the horses. Silk went to the cave mouth to stand watch as Barak carefully lowered Belgarath to the floor. "He's heavier than he looks," the big man grunted, wiping the sweat from his face. "Shouldn't he be starting to come around?""It may be days before he's fully conscious," Polgara replied. "Just cover him and let him sleep."
"How's he going to ride?"
"I'll take care of that."
"Nobody's going to be riding anywhere for a while," Silk announced from the narrow mouth of the cave. "The Murgos are swarming around out there like hornets."
"We'll wait until dark," Polgara decided. "We all need some rest anyway." She pushed back the hood of her Murgo robe and went to one of the packs they had piled against the cave wall when they had entered the night before. "I'll see about something to eat, then you'd all better sleep."
Taiba, the slave woman, wrapped once again in Garion's cloak, had been watching Relg almost continually. Her large, violet eyes glowed with gratitude mingled with a faint puzzlement. "You saved my life," she said to him in a rich, throaty voice. She leaned slightly toward him as she spoke. It was an unconscious gesture, Garion was certain, but it was distinctly noticeable. "Thank you," she added, her hand moving to rest lightly on the zealot's arm.
Relg cringed back from her. "Don't touch me," he gasped. She stared at him in amazement, her hand still half extended. "You must never put your hands on me," he told her. "Never." Taiba's look was incredulous. Her life had been spent almost entirely in darkness, and she had never learned to keep her emotions from showing on her face. Amazement gave way to humiliation, and her expression settled then into a kind of stiff, sullen pout as she turned quickly away from the man who had just so harshly rejected her. The cloak slipped from her shoulders as she turned, and the few rags she had for clothing scarcely concealed her nakedness. Despite her tangled hair and the dirty smudges on her limbs, there was a lush, inviting ripeness about her. Relg stared at her and he began to tremble. Then he quickly turned, moved as far away from her as possible, and dropped to his knees, praying desperately and pressing his face against the rocky floor of the cave.
"Is he all right?" Taiba asked quickly.
"He's got some problems," Barak replied. "You'll get used to it."
"Taiba," Polgara said. "Come over here." She looked critically at the woman's scanty clothing. "We're going to have to get something together for you to wear. It's very cold outside. There are other reasons too, it appears."
"I'll see what I can find in the packs," Durnik offered. "we'll need something for the boy too, I think. That smock of his doesn't look any too warm." He looked over at the child, who was curiously examining the horses.
"You won't need to bother about me," Taiba told them. "There's nothing out there for me. As soon as you leave, I'm going back to Rak Cthol."
"What are you talking about?" Polgara asked her sharply.
"I still have something to settle with Ctuchik," Taiba replied, fingering her rusty knife.
Silk laughed from the cave mouth. "We took care of that for you. Rak Cthol's falling to pieces up there, and there isn't enough left of Ctuchik to make a smudge on the floor."
"Dead?" she gasped. "How?"
"You wouldn't believe it," Silk told her.
"Did he suffer?" She said it with a ternble eagerness.
"More than you could ever imagine," Polgara replied.
Taiba drew in a long, shuddering breath, and then she began to cry. Aunt Pol opened her arms and took the sobbing woman into them, comforting her even as she had comforted Garion so often when he was small.
Garion sank wearily to the floor, resting his back against the rocky wall of the cave. Waves of exhaustion washed over him, and a great lassitude drained him of all consciously directed thought. Once again the Orb sang to him, but lulling now. Its curiosity about him apparently was satisfied, and its song seemed to be there only to maintain the contact between them. Garion was too tired even to be curious about why the stone took such pleasure in his company.
The little boy turned from his curious examination of the horses and went to where Taiba sat with one of Aunt Pol's arms about her shoulders. He looked puzzled, and reached out with one hand to touch his fingers to her tear-streaked face.