Magician's Gambit

suddenly, launching the cast-eyed man up and forward with a tremendous heave. With a strangled exclamation Brill clutched desperately at one of the stone blocks of the parapet as he sailed over, but he was too high and his momentum was too great. He hurtled over the parapet, plunging out and down into the darkness below the wall. His scream faded horribly as he fell, lost in the sound of yet another shriek from the Temple of Torak.
    Silk rose to his feet, glanced once over the edge, and then came back to where Garion stood trembling in the shadows by the tower wall.
    "Silk!" Garion exclaimed, catching the little man's arm in relief.
    "What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner.
    "Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on.
    "Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?"
    "Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.
    The old man looked puzzled.
    "He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.
    Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time."
    "He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge.
    From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.
    Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really."
    "Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely. He looked around with a broad smile. "What a beautiful night this is," he remarked to no one in particular.
    "Let's move along," Belgarath suggested, throwing a quick, nervous glance at the eastern horizon. "It will start to lighten up over there any time now."
    They joined the others in the deep shadows beside the high wall of the Temple some hundred yards farther down the wall and waited tensely for Relg and Durnik to catch up.
    "What kept you?" Barak whispered as they waited.
    "I met an old friend of ours," Silk replied quietly. His grin was a flash of white teeth in the shadows.
    "It was Brill," Garion told the rest of them in a hoarse whisper. "He and Silk fought with each other, and Silk threw him over the edge."
    Mandorallen glanced toward the frosty parapet. "'Tis a goodly way down," he observed.
    "Isn't it, though?" Silk agreed.
    Barak chuckled and put his big hand wordlessly on Silk's shoulder. Then Durnik and Relg came along the top of the wall to join them in the shadows.
    "We have to go through the Temple," Belgarath told them in a quiet voice. "Pull your hoods as far over your faces as you can and keep your heads down. Stay in single file and mutter to yourselves as if you were praying. If anybody speaks to us, let me do the talking; and each time the gong sounds, turn toward the altar and bow." He led them then to a thick door bound with weathered iron straps. He looked back once to be sure they were all in line, then put his hand to the latch and pushed the door open.
    The inside of the Temple glowed with smoky red light, and a dreadful, charnel-house reek filled it. The door through which they entered led onto a covered balcony that curved around the back of the dome of the Temple. A stone balustrade ran along the edge of the balcony, with thick pillars at evenly spaced intervals. The openings between the pillars were draped with the same coarse, heavy cloth from which the Murgo robes were woven. Along the back wall of the balcony were a number of doors, set deep in the stone. Garion surmised that the balcony was largely used by Temple functionaries going to and fro on various errands.
    As soon as they started along the balcony, Belgarath crossed his hands on his chest and led them at a slow, measured pace, chanting in a deep, loud voice.
    A scream echoed up from below, piercing, filled with terror and agony. Garion involuntarily glanced through the parted drapery toward the altar. For the rest of his life he wished he had not.
    The circular walls of the Temple were constructed of polished black stone, and directly behind the altar was an enormous face forged of steel and buffed to minor brightness-the face of Torak and the original of the steel masks of the Grolims. The face was beautiful - there was no question of that - yet there was a kind of brooding evil in it, a cruelty beyond human ability to comprehend the meaning of the word. The Temple floor facing the God's image was densely packed with Murgos and Grolim priests, kneeling and chanting an unintelligible rumble in a dozen dialects. The altar stood on a raised dais directly beneath the glittering face of