"What happens if he tries to hide here in the gully?" Barak asked.
Silk shrugged. "The Grolims will follow him."
"We'd have to take steps at that point, wouldn't we?" Silk nodded with a wicked little smirk.
"We could call him, I suppose," Barak suggested, loosening his sword in its sheath.
"The same thought had just occurred to me."
Durnik came back up the slope, his feet crunching in the gravel.
"Wolf says to keep an eye on them," he reported, "but he says not to do anything unless they actually start into the gully."
"What a shame!" Silk sighed regretfully.
The running Thull was clearly visible now. He was a thick-bodied man in a rough tunic, belted at the waist. His hair was shaggy and mudcolored, and his face was contorted into an expression of brutish panic. He passed the place where they hid, perhaps thirty paces out on the flats, and Garion could clearly hear his breath whistling in his throat as he pounded past. He was whimpering as he ran - an animal-like sound of absolute despair.
"They almost never try to hide," Silk said in a soft voice tinged with pity. "All they do is run." He shook his head.
"They'll overtake him soon," Mandorallen observed. The pursuing Grolims wore black, hooded robes and polished steel masks.
"We'd better get down," Barak advised.
They all ducked below the gully rim. A few moments later, the three horses galloped by, their hooves thudding on the hard earth.
"They'll catch him in a few more minutes," Garion said. "He's running right for the edge. He'll be trapped."
"I don't think so," Silk replied somberly.
A moment later they heard a long, despairing shriek, fading horribly into the gulf below.
"I more or less expected that," Silk said.
Garion's stomach wrenched at the thought of the dreadful height of the escarpment.
"They're coming back," Barak warned. "Get down."
The three Grolims rode back along the edge of the gully. One of them said something Garion could not quite hear, and the other two laughed.
"The world might be a brighter place with three less Grolims in it," Mandorallen suggested in a grim whisper.
"Attractive thought," Silk agreed, "but Belgarath would probably disapprove. I suppose it's better to let them go. We wouldn't want anybody looking for them."
Barak looked longingly after the three Grolims, then sighed with deep regret.
"Let's go back down," Silk said.
They all turned and crawled back down into the brushy gully. Belgarath looked up as they returned. "Are they gone?"
"They're riding off," Silk told him.
"What was that cry?" Relg asked.
"Three Grolims chased a Thull off the edge of the escarpment," Silk replied.
"Why?"
"He'd been selected for a certain religious observance, and he didn't want to participate."
"He refused?" Relg sounded shocked. "He deserved his fate then."
"I don't think you appreciate the nature of Grolim ceremonies, Relg," Silk said.
"One must submit to the will of one's God," Relg insisted. There was a sanctimonious note to his voice. "Religious obligations are absolute."
Silk's eyes glittered as he looked at the Ulgo fanatic. "How much do you know about the Angarak religion, Relg?" he asked.
"I concern myself only with the religion of Ulgo."
"A man ought to know what he's talking about before he makes judgments."
"Let it lie, Silk," Aunt Pol told him.
"I don't think so, Polgara. Not this time. A few facts might be good for our devout friend here. He seems to lack perspective." Silk turned back to Relg. "The core of the Angarak religion is a ritual most men find repugnant. Thulls devote their entire lives to avoiding it. That's the central reality of Thullish life."
"An abominable people." Relg's denunciation was harsh.
"No. Thulls are stupid - even brutish - but they're hardly abominable. You see, Relg, the ritual we're talking about involves human sacrifice."
Relg pulled the veil from his eyes to stare incredulously at the ratfaced little man.
"Each year two thousand Thulls are sacrificed to Torak," Silk went on, his eyes boring into Relg's stunned face. "The Grolims permit the substitution of slaves, so a Thull spends his whole life working in order to get enough money to buy a slave to take his place on the altar if he's unlucky enough to be chosen. But slaves die sometimes - or they escape. If a Thull without a slave is chosen, he usually tries to run. Then the Grolims chase him - they've had a lot of practice, so they're very good at it. I've never heard of a Thull actually getting away."
"It's their duty to submit," Relg maintained stubbornly, though he seemed a bit less sure of himself.
"How are they sacrificed?" Durnik asked in a subdued voice. The Thull's willingness to hurl himself off the escarpment had obviously shaken him.
"It's a simple procedure," Silk replied, watching Relg closely. "Two Grolims bend the Thull backward over the altar, and a third cuts his heart out. Then they burn the heart in a little fire. Torak isn't interested in the whole Thull. He only wants the heart."
Relg flinched at that.
"They sacrifice women, too," Silk pressed. "But women have a simpler means of escape. The Grolims won't sacrifice a pregnant woman - it confuses their count - so Thulllish women try to stay pregnant constantly. That explains why there are so many Thulls and why Thullish women are notorious for their indiscriminate appetite."
"Monstrous." Relg gasped. "Death would be better than such vile corruption."
"Death lasts for a long time, Relg," Silk said with a cold little smile. "A little corruption can be forgotten rather quickly if you put your mind to it. That's particularly true if your life depends on it."
Relg's face was troubled as he struggled with the blunt description of the horror of Thullish life. "You're a wicked man," he accused Silk, though his voice lacked conviction.
"I know," Silk admitted.
Relg appealed to Belgarath. "Is what he says true?"
The sorcerer scratched thoughtfully at his beard. "He doesn't seem to have left out very much," he replied. "The word religion means different things to different people, Relg. It depends on the nature of one's God. You ought to try to get that sorted out in your mind. It might make some of the things you'll have to do a bit easier."