"Seven," he corrected automatically.
She gave him a sadly whimsical smile, a melancholy sign of her final victory in an ongoing contest that no longer had any meaning for her. "Whatever," she sighed.
And then in a peculiarly uncharacteristic gesture, he enfolded her in his arms and gently kissed her. "My dear child," he said with brimming eyes. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Polgara. "How did we ever get along without her?" he asked.
Polgara's eyes were a mystery. "I don't know, father," she replied. "I really don't."
At the head of the ravine, Sadi dismounted and dusted the leaves of a low bush growing in the middle of the track they were following with some more of his powder.
"Just to be on the safe side," he explained, pulling himself back into his saddle.
The region they entered under a lowering sky was a wooded plateau, and they rode on along the scarcely visible track in a generally northerly direction with the rising wind whipping at their cloaks. The baying of Torak's Hounds still sounded from some distance off, but seemed to be coming no closer.
As before, Silk and Feldegast raged out ahead, scouting for possible dangers. Garion again rode at the head of their column, his helmet in place and the butt of his lance riding in his stirrup. As he rounded a sharp bend in the track, he saw Silk and the juggler ahead. They had dismounted and were crouched behind some bushes. Silk turned quickly and motioned Garion back. Garion quickly passed on that signal and, step by step, backed his gray stallion around the bend again. He dismounted, leaned his lance against a tree, and took off his helmet.
"What is it?" Belgarath asked, also swinging down from his horse.
"I don't know," Garion replied, "Silk motioned us to stay out of sight."
"Let's go have a look," the old man said.
"Right."
The two of them crouched over and moved forward on feet to join the rat-faced man and the juggler. Silk his finger to his lips as they approached. When Garion reached the brush, he carefully parted the leaves and looked out.
There was a road there, a road that intersected the track they had been following. Riding along that road were half-a-hundred men dressed mostly in furs, with rusty helmets on their heads and bent and dented swords in their hands. The men at the head of the column, however, wore mail coats. Their helmets were polished, and they carried lances and shields.
Tensely, without speaking, Garion and his friends watched the loosely organized mob ride past.
When the strangers were out of sight, Feldegast turned to Belgarath. "It sort of confirms yer suspicion, old friend," he said.
"Who were they?" Garion asked in a low voice.
"The ones in fur be Karands," Feldegast replied, "an' the ones in steel be Temple Guardsmen. 'Tis more evidence of an alliance between Urvon and Mengha, y' see."
"Can we be sure that the Karands were Mengha's men?"
"He's overcome Katakor altogether, an' the only armed Karands in the area be his. Urvon an' his Chandim control the Guardsmen-an' the Hounds. When ye see Karands an' Hounds together the way we did yesterday, it's fair proof of an alliance, but when ye see Karandese fanatics escorted by armed Guardsmen, it doesn't leave hardly any doubt at all."
"What is that fool up to?" Belgarath muttered.
"Who?" Silk asked.
"Urvon. He's done some fairly filthy things in his life, but he's never consorted with demons before."
"Perhaps 'twas because Torak had forbid it," Feldegast suggested. "Now that Torak's dead, though, maybe he's throwin' off all restraints. The demons would be a powerful factor if the final confrontation between the Church an' the imperial throne that's been brewin' all these years should finally come."
"Well," Belgarath grunted, "we don't have time to sort it out now. Let's get the others and move on."
They quickly crossed the road that the Karands and the Guardsmen had been following and continued along the narrow track. After a few more miles, they crested a low knoll that at some time in the past had been denuded by fire. At the far end of the plateau, just before a series of stark cliffs rose sharply up into the mountains, there stood a huge black building, rearing up almost like a mountain itself. It was surmounted by bleak towers and surrounded by a battlement-topped wall, half-smothered in vegetation.
"Ashaba," Belgarath said shortly, his eyes flinty.
"I thought it was a ruin," Silk said with some surprise.
"Parts of it are, I've been told," the old man replied. "The upper floors aren't habitable anymore, but the ground floor's still more or less intact -at least it's supposed to be. It takes a very long time for wind and weather to tear down a house that big." The old man nudged his horse and led them down off the knoll and back into the wind-tossed forest.
It was nearly dark by the time they reached the edge of the clearing surrounding the House of Torak. Garion noted that the vegetation half covering the walls of the black castle consisted of brambles and thick-stemmed ivy.
The glazing in the windows had long since succumbed to wind and weather, and the vacant casements seemed to stare out at the clearing like the eye sockets of a dark skull.
"Well, father?" Polgara said.
He scratched at his beard, listening to the baying of the Hounds back in the forest.
"If yer open t' a bit of advice, me ancient friend," Feldegast said, "wouldn't it be wiser t' wait until dark before we go in? Should there be watchers in the house, the night will conceal us from their eyes, An' then, too, once it grows dark, there'll undoubtedly be lights inside if the house be occupied. 'Twill give us some idea of what t' expect."
"It makes sense, Belgarath," Silk agreed. "Walking up to an unfriendly house in broad daylight disturbs my sense of propriety."
"That's because you've got the soul of a burglar. But it's probably the best plan anyhow. Let's pull back into the woods a ways and wait for dark."
Though the weather had been warm and spring-like on the plains of Rakuth and Venna, here in the foothills of the Karandese mountains there was still a pervading chill, for winter only reluctantly released its grip on these highlands. The wind was raw, and there were some places back under the trees where dirty windrows of last winter's snow lay deep and unyielding.
"Is that wall around the house going to cause us any problems?" Garion asked.
"Not unless someone's repaired the gates," Belgarath replied. "When Beldin and I came in here after Vo Mimbre, they were all locked, so we had to break them down to get in."