But even as the two monsters glared at each other, there seemed to be a kind of writhing struggle going on inside them. Their skins rippled, and large moving lumps appeared in odd places on their chests and sides. Garion had the peculiar feeling that there was something else - something quite different and perhaps even worse - trapped inside each apparition. Growling, the two devils advanced upon each other, but despite their apparent eagerness to fight, they seemed almost driven, whipped toward the struggle. It was as if there was a dreadful reluctance in them, and their grotesque faces jerked this way and that, each snarling first at his opponent and then at the magician who controlled him. That reluctance, Garion perceived, stemmed from something deep inside the nature of each Devil. It was the enslavement, the compulsion to do the bidding of another, that they hated. The chains of spell and incantation in which Belgarath and the white-braided Morind had bound them were an intolerable agony, and there were whimpers of that agony mingled with their snarls.
Belgarath was sweating. Droplets of perspiration trickled down his dark-stained face. The incantations which held the Devil Agrinja locked within the apparition he had created to bind it rippled endlessly from his tongue. The slightest faltering of either the words or the image he had formed in his mind would break his power over the beast he had summoned, and it would turn upon him.
Writhing like things attempting to tear themselves apart from within, Agrinja and Horja closed on each other, grappling, clawing, tearing out chunks of scaly flesh with their awful jaws. The earth shuddered beneath them as they fought.
Too stunned to even be afraid, Garion watched the savage struggle. As he watched, he noted a peculiar difference between the two apparitions. Agrinja was bleeding from his wounds - a strange, dark blood, so deep red as to be almost black. Horja, however, did not bleed. Chunks ripped from his arms and shoulders were like bits of wood. The whitebraided magician saw that difference as well, and his eyes grew suddenly afraid. His voice became shrill as he desperately cast incantations at Horja, struggling to keep the Devil under his control. The moving lumps beneath Horja's skin became larger, more agitated. The vast Devil broke free from Agrinja and stood, his chest heaving and a dreadful hope burning in his eyes.
White-braids was screaming now. The incantations tumbled from his mouth, faltering, stumbling. And then one unpronounceable formula tangled his tongue. Desperately he tried it again, and once again it stuck in his teeth.
With a bellow of triumph the Devil Horja straightened and seemed to explode. Bits and fragments of scaly hide flew in all directions as the monster shuddered free of the illusion which had bound him. He had two great arms and an almost human face surmounted by a pair of curving, needle-pointed horns. He had hoofs instead of feet, and his grayish skin dripped slime. He turned slowly and his burning eyes fixed on the gibbering magician.
"Horja!" the white-braided Morind shrieked, "I command you to-" The words faltered as he gaped in horror at the Devil which had suddenly escaped his control. "Horja! I am your master!" But Horja was already stalking toward him, his great hoofs crushing the grass as, step by step, he moved toward his former master.
In wild-eyed panic, the white-braided Morind flinched back, stepping unconsciously and fatally out of the protection of the circle and star drawn upon the ground.
Horja smiled then, a chilling smile, bent and caught the shrieking magician by each ankle, ignoring the blows rained on his head and shoulders by the skull-topped staff. Then the monster stood up, lifting the struggling man to hang upside down by the legs. The huge shoulders surged with an awful power, and, leering hideously, the Devil deliberately and with a cruel slowness tore the magician in two.
The Morindim fled.
Contemptuously the immense Devil hurled the chunks of his former master after them, spattering the grass with blood and worse. Then, with a savage hunting cry, he leaped in pursuit of them.
The three-eyed Agrinja had stood, still locked in a half crouch, watching the destruction of the white-braided Morind almost with indifference. When it was aver, he turned to cast eyes burning with hatred upon Belgarath.
The old sorcerer, drenched with sweat, raised his skull-staff in front of him, his face set with extreme concentration. The interior struggle rippled more intensely within the form of the monster, but gradually Belgarath's will mastered and solidified the shape. Agrinja howled in frustration, clawing at the air until all hint of shifting or changing was gone. Then the dreadful hands dropped, and the monster's head bowed in defeat.
"Begone," Belgarath commanded almost negligently, and Agrinja instantly vanished.
Garion suddenly began to tremble violently. His stomach heaved; he turned, tottered a few feet away, and fell to his knees and began to retch.
"What happened?" Silk demanded in a shaking voice.
"It got away from him," Belgarath replied calmly. "I think it was the blood that did it. When he saw that Agrinja was bleeding and that Horja wasn't, he realized that he'd forgotten something. That shook his confidence, and he lost his concentration. Garion, stop that."
"I can't," Garion groaned, his stomach heaving violently again. "How long will Horja chase the others?" Silk asked.
"Until the sun goes down," Belgarath told him. "I imagine that the Weasel Clan is in for a bad afternoon."
"Is there any chance that he'll turn around and come after us?"
"He has no reason to. We didn't try to enslave him. As soon as Garion gets his stomach under control again, we can go on. We won't be bothered any more."
Garion stumbled to his feet, weakly wiping his mouth. "Are you all right?" Belgarath asked him.
"Not really," Garion replied, "but there's nothing left to come up."
"Get a drink of water and try riot to think about it."
"Will you have to do that any more?" Silk asked, his eyes a bit wild.
"No." Belgarath pointed. There were several riders along the crest of a hill perhaps a mile away. "The other Morindim in the area watched the whole thing. The word will spread, and nobody will come anywhere near us now. Let's mount up and get going. It's still a long way to the coast."
In bits and pieces, as they rode for the next several days, Garion picked up as much information as he really wanted about the dreadful contest he had witnessed.
"It's the shape that's the key to the whole thing," Belgarath concluded. "What the Morindim call Devil-Spirits don't look that much different from humans. You form an illusion drawn out of your imagination and force the spirit into it. As long as you can keep it locked up in that illusion, it has to do what you tell it to. If the illusion falters for any reason, the spirit breaks free and resumes its real form. After that, you have no control over it whatsoever. I have a certain advantage in these matters. Changing back and forth from a man to a wolf has sharpened my imagination a bit."