Belgarath drew himself up indignantly. "Surely the Headman of the Weasel Clan has seen the quest-mark before," he replied coldly. "We have no interest in the lands of the Weasel Clan, but follow the commands of the Devil-Spirit of the Wolf Clan in the quest he has laid upon us."
"I have not heard of the Wolf Clan," the Headman replied. "Where are their lands?"
"To the west," Belgarath replied. "We have traveled for two waxings and wanings of the Moon-Spirit to reach this place."
The Headman seemed impressed by that.
A Morind with long white braids and with a thin, dirty-looking beard drew his pony in beside that of the Headman. In his right hand he carried a staff surmounted by the skull of a large bird. The gaping beak of the skull had been decorated with teeth, giving it a ferocious appearance. "What is the name of the Devil-Spirit of the Wolf Clan?" he demanded. "I may know him."
"That is doubtful, Magician of the Weasel Clan," Belgarath answered politely. "He seldom goes far from his people. In any case, I cannot speak his name, since he has forbidden it to any but the dreamers."
"Can you say what his aspect is and his attributes?" the whitebraided magician asked.
Silk made a long-gurgling sound in the back of his throat, stiffened in his saddle and rolled his eyes gruesomely back in his head until only the whites showed. With a convulsive, jerking motion, he thrust both arms into the air. "Beware the Devil Agrinja, who stalks unseen behind us," he intoned in a hollow, oracular voice. "I have seen his three-eyed face and his hundred-fanged mouth in my dreams. The eye of mortal man may not behold him, but his seven-clawed hands reach out even now to rend apart all who would stand in the path of his chosen quester, the spear-bearer of the Wolf Clan. I have seen him feed in my nightmares. The ravener approaches and he hungers for man-meat. Flee his hunger." He shuddered, dropping his arms and slumping forward in his saddle as if suddenly exhausted.
"You've been here before, I see," Belgarath muttered under his breath. "Try to restrain your creativity, though. Remember that I might have to produce what you dream up."
Silk cast him a sidelong wink. His description of the Devil had made a distinct impression on the Morindim. The mounted men looked about nervously, and those standing in the waist-high grass moved involuntarily closer together, grasping their weapons in trembling hands.
Then a thin Morind with a white fur band around his left arm pushed through the cluster of frightened warriors. His right leg ended in a clubfoot, and he lurched grotesquely as he walked. He fixed Silk with a glare of pure hatred, then threw both hands wide, quivering and jerking. His back arched and he toppled over, threshing in the grass in the throes of an apparent seizure. He went completely stiff and then he started to speak. "The Devil-Spirit of the Weasel Clan, dread Horja, speaks to me. He demands to know why the Devil Agrinja sends his quester into the lands of the Weasel Clan. The Devil Horja is too awful to look upon. He has four eyes and a hundred and ten teeth, and each of his six hands has eight claws. He feeds on the bellies of men and he hungers."
"An imitator," Silk sniffed disdainfully, his head still down. "He can't even think up his own dream."
The magician of the Weasel Clan gave the dreamer lying supine in the grass a look of disgust, then turned back to Belgarath. "The Devil-Spirit Horja defies the Devil-Spirit Agrinja," he declared. "He bids him to begone or he will rip out the belly of the quester of Agrinja."
Belgarath swore under his breath.
"What now?" Silk muttered.
"I have to fight him," Belgarath replied sourly. "That's what this was leading up to from the beginning. White-braids there is trying to make a name for himself. He's probably been attacking every magician who crosses his path."
"Can you handle him?"
"We're about to find out." Belgarath slid out of his saddle. "I warn you to stand aside," he boomed, "lest I loose the hunger of our Devil Spirit upon you." With the tip of his staff he drew a circle on the ground and a five-pointed star within the circle. Grimly, he stepped into the center of the design.
The white-braided magician of the Weasel Clan sneered and also slid off his pony. Quickly he drew a similar symbol on the ground and stepped into its protection.
"That's it," Silk muttered to Garion. "Once the symbols are drawn, neither one can back down."
Belgarath and the white-braided magician had each begun muttering incantations in a language Garion had never heard, brandishing their skull-surmounted staffs at each other. The dreamer of the Weasel Clan, suddenly realizing that he was in the middle of the impending battle, miraculously recovered from his seizure, scrambled to his feet, and lurched away with a terrified expression.
The Headman, trying to maintain his dignity, carefully backed his pony out of the immediate vicinity of the two muttering old men. Atop a large, white boulder, twenty yards or so to the left of the two magicians, there was a shimmering disturbance in the air, somewhat like heatwaves rising from a red tile roof on a hot day. The movement caught Garion's eye, and he stared in puzzlement at the strange phenomenon. As he watched, the shimmering became more pronounced, and it seemed that the shattered pieces of a rainbow infused it, flickering, shifting, undulating in waves almost like varihued flames rising from an invisible fire. As Garion watched, fascinated, a second shimmering became apparent, rising above the tall grass off to the right. The second disturbance also began to gather shards of color into itself. As he stared, first at one, then at the other, Garion saw - or imagined that he saw - a shape beginning to emerge in the center of each. The shapes at first were amorphous, shifting, changing, gathering form from the coruscating colors flashing about them in the shimmering air. Then it seemed that the shapes, having reached a certain point, flashed to completion, coalescing quite suddenly with a great rushing together, and two towering forms faced each other, snarling and slavering with mindless hatred. Each stood as high as a house, and their shoulders bulked wide. Their skins were multihued, with waves of color rippling through them.
The one standing in the grass had a third eye glaring balefully from between its other two, and his great arms ended in seven-clawed hands stretched out with a hideously hungry curving. His jutting, muzzlelike mouth gaped wide, filled with row upon row of needlelike teeth as he roared a thunderous howl of hatred and dreadful hunger.
Crouched upon the boulder stood the other. He had a great cluster of shoulders at the top of his trunk, and a nest of long, scaly arms that writhed out in all directions like snakes, each arm terminating in a widespread, many-clawed hand. Two sets of eyes, one atop the other, glared insanely from beneath heavy brow-ridges, and his muzzle, like that of the other figure, sprouted a forest of teeth. He raised that awful face and bellowed, his jaws drooling foam.