King of The Murgos

you?"
    "Umm," Ce'Nedra replied.
    The two of them carried the loaves of bread, the wax-coated cheese, and the ham to the improvised table. Polgara snapped her fingers and shook her head. "I forgot the knife. Would you get it for me?"
    Ce'Nedra nodded and started back toward the pack horse.
    "What's wrong with her, Aunt Pol?" Garion asked in a tense whisper.
    "It's a form of melancholia, dear."
    "Is it dangerous?"
    "It is if it goes on for too long."
    "Can you do anything? I mean, could you give her some kind of medicine or something?"
    "I'd rather not do that unless I have to, Garion. Sometimes the medicines just mask the symptoms, and other problems start to crop up. Most of the time, it's best to let these things run their natural course."
    "Aunt Pol, I can't stand to see her like this."
    "You're going to have to endure it for a while, Garion. Just behave as if you weren't aware of the way she's acting. She's not quite ready to come out of it yet.'' She turned with a warm smile. "Ah, there it is," she said, taking the knife from Ce'Nedra. "Thank you, dear."
    They all gathered around Polgara's makeshift table for their simple lunch. As he ate, Durnik the smith gazed thoughtfully at the small crystal lake. "I wonder if there could be any fish in there," he mused.
    "No, dear," Polgara said.
    "It is possible, Pol. If the lake's fed by streams from the surface, the fish could have been washed down here when they were minnows, and—"
    "No, Durnik."
    He sighed.
    After lunch, they re-entered the endless, twisting galleries, once again following Belgarath's flickering torch. The hours limped by as they trudged mile after mile with the darkness pressing palpably in around them.
    "How much farther do we have to go, Grandfather?" Garion asked, falling in beside the old man.
    "It's hard to say exactly. Distances can be deceptive here in the caves."
    "Have you got any idea at all about why we had to come here? I mean, is there anything in the Mrin Codex—or maybe the Darine—that talks about something that's supposed to happen here in Ulgo?"
    "Not that I remember, no."
    "You don't suppose we might have misunderstood, do you?"
    "Our friend was pretty specific, Garion. He said that we have to stop at Prolgu on our way south, because something that has to happen is going to happen here."
    "Can't it happen without us?" Garion demanded. "We're just floundering around here in these caves, and all the while Zandramas is getting farther and farther ahead of us with my son."
    "What's that?" Errand asked suddenly from somewhere behind them. "I thought I heard something."
    They stopped to listen. The guttering sound of Belgarath's torch suddenly sounded very loud as Garion strained his ears, trying to reach out into the darkness to capture any wayward sound. The slow drip of water echoed its soft tapping from somewhere in the dark, and the faint sigh of air coming down through the cracks and crevices in the rock provided a mournful accompaniment. Then, very faintly, Garion heard the sound of singing, of choral voices raised in the peculiarly discordant but deeply reverent hymn to UL that had echoed and re-echoed through these dim caverns for over five millennia.
    "Ah, the Ulgos," Belgarath said with satisfaction. "We're almost to Prolgu. Now maybe we'll find out what it is that's supposed to happen here."
    They went perhaps another mile along the passageway which rather suddenly became steeper, taking them deeper and deeper into the earth.
    "Yakkf" a voice from somewhere ahead barked sharply. "Tacha velk? "•
    "Belgarath, lyun hak," the old sorcerer replied calmly in response to the challenge.
    "Belgarath? " The voice sounded startled. "Zajek kattig, Belgarath?"
    "Marekeg Gorim, lyun zajek."
    "Veed mo. Mar ishum Ulgo."
    Belgarath extinguished his torch as the Ulgo sentry approached with a phosphorescently glowing wooden bowl held aloft.
    "Yad ho, Belgarath. Groja UL."
    "Yad ho," the old man answered the ritual greeting. "Groja UL."
    The short, broad-shouldered Ulgo bowed briefly, then turned and led them on down the gloomy passageway. The greenish, unwavering glow from the wooden bowl he carried spread its eerie light in the dim gallery, painting all their faces with a ghostly pallor. After another mile or so, the gallery opened out into one of those vast caverns where the pale glow of that strange, cold light the Ulgos contrived winked at them from a hundred openings high up in the stone wall. They carefully moved along a narrow ledge