Castle of Wizardry

was peering curiously at the little boy. "Where did he come from?" he asked, his rumbling voice also subdued.
    "He was in the turret with Ctuchik," Polgara told him. "He's the child Zedar raised to steal the Orb."
    "He doesn't look all that much like a thief."
    "He isn't precisely." She looked gravely at the blond-headed waif. "Somebody's going to have to keep an eye on him," she observed. "There's something very peculiar about him. After we get down, I'll look into it, but I've got too much on my mind for that at the moment."
    "Could it be the Orb?" Silk asked curiously. "I've heard that it has strange effects on people."
    "Perhaps that's it." But she didn't sound very convinced. "Keep him with you, Garion, and don't let him lose the Orb."
    "Why me?" He said it without thinking. She gave him a level gaze.
    "All right, Aunt Pol." He knew there was no point in arguing with her.
    "What was that?" Barak asked, holding up his hand for silence. Somewhere off in the darkness there was the murmur of voices - harsh, guttural voices.
    "Murgos!" Silk whispered sharply, his hand going to his dagger.
    "How many?" Barak asked Aunt Pol.
    "Five," she replied. "No-six. One's lagging behind."
    "Are any of them Grolims?"
    She shook her head.
    "Let's go, Mandorallen," the big Cherek muttered, grimly drawing his sword.
    The knight nodded, shifting his own broadsword in his hands. "Wait here," Barak whispered to the rest of them. "We shouldn't be long." And then he and Mandorallen moved off into the darkness, their black Murgo robes blending into the shadows.
    The others waited, their ears straining to catch any sound. Once again that strange song began to intrude itself upon Garion's awareness, and once again his thoughts scattered before its compulsion. Somewhere a long, hissing slither of dislodged pebbles rattled down a slope, and that sound raised a confused welter of memory in him. He seemed to hear the ring of Durnik's hammer on the anvil at Faldor's farm, and then the plodding step of the horses and the creak of the wagons in which they had carried turnips to Darine back when this had all begun. As clearly as if he were there, he heard again the squealing rush of the boar he had killed in the snowy woods outside Val Alorn, and then the aching song of the Arendish serfboy's flute that had soared to the sky from the stump-dotted field where Asharak the Murgo had watched with hate and fear on his scarred face.
    Garion shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but the song drew him back into that bemused reverie. Sharply, he heard the awful, hissing crackle of Asharak burning beneath the vast, ancient trees in the Wood of the Dryads and heard the Grolim's desperate plea, "Master, have mercy." Then there were the screams in Salmissra's palace as Barak, transformed into that dreadful bear shape, clawed and ripped his way toward the throne room with Aunt Pol in her icy fury striding at his side.
    And then the voice that had always been in his mind was there again. "Stop fighting with it."
    "What is it?" Garion demanded, trying to focus his thoughts.
    "It's the Orb."
    "What's it doing?"
    "It wants to know you. This is its way of finding things out."
    "Can't it wait? We don't really have time just now "
    "You can try to explain that, if you'd like." The voice sounded amused. "It might listen, but I doubt it. It's been waiting for you for a very long time. "
    "Why me?"
    "Don't you ever get tired of saying that?"
    "Is it doing the same thing to the others?"
    "To a lesser degree. You might as well relax. One way or another, it's going to get what it wants. "
    There was a sudden ring of steel against steel somewhere off in the dark passageways and a startled cry. Then Garion heard the crunch of blows, and someone groaned. After that, there was silence.
    A few moments later they heard the scuff of footsteps, and Barak and Mandorallen returned. "We couldn't find that one who was coming along behind the rest of them," Barak reported. "Is Belgarath showing any signs of coming around yet?"
    Polgara shook her head. "He's still completely dazed," she replied.
    "I'll carry him then. We'd better go. It's a long way back down, and these caves are going to be full of Murgos before long."
    "In a moment," she said. "Relg, do you know where we are?"
    "Roughly."
    "Take us back to the place where we left the slave woman," she instructed in a tone that tolerated no objection.
    Relg's face went hard, but he said nothing.
    Barak bent and picked up the