"Garion," Aunt Pol said, "what is the matter with you? I told you to hold onto the child. Pay attention. This isn't the time for daydreaming."

"I wasn't. I was-" How could he explain it?

"You were what?"

"Nothing." They moved on, and there were periodic tremors as the earth settled uneasily. The huge basalt pinnacle swayed and groaned each time the earth shuddered and convulsed under its base; and at each new quiver, they stopped, almost fearing to breathe.

"How far down have we come?" Silk asked, looking around nervously.

"A thousand feet perhaps," Relg replied.

"That's all? We'll be penned up in here for a week at this rate."

Relg shrugged his heavy shoulders. "It will take as long as it takes," he said in his harsh voice as they moved on.

There were Murgos in the next gallery, and another nasty little fight in the darkness. Mandorallen was limping when he came back,

"Why didn't you wait for me as I told you to?" Barak demanded crossly.

Mandorallen shrugged. "They were but three, my Lord."

"There's just no point in trying to talk to you, do you know that?" Barak sounded disgusted.

"Are you all right?" Polgara asked the knight.

"A mere scratch, my Lady," Mandorallen replied indifferently. "It is of no moment."

The rock floor of the gallery shuddered and heaved again, and the booming noise echoed up through the caves. They all stood frozen, but the uneasy movement of the earth subsided after a few moments.

They moved steadily downward through the passageways and caves. The aftershocks of the earthquake that had shattered Rak Cthol and sent Ctuchik's turret crashing to the floor of the wasteland of Murgos continued at intervals. At one point, hours later it seemed, a party of Murgos, perhaps a dozen strong, passed through a gallery not far ahead, their torches casting flickering shadows on the walls and their harsh voices echoing. After a brief, whispered conference, Barak and Mandorallen let them go by unmolested and unaware of the ternble violence lurking in the shadows not twenty yards away. After they were out of earshot, Relg uncovered his light again and selected yet another passageway. They moved on, descending, twisting, zigzagging their way down through the caves toward the foot of the pinnacle and the dubious safety of the wasteland which lay outside.

While the song of the Orb did not diminish in any way, Garion was at least able to think as he followed Silk along the twisting passageways with the little boy in his arms. He thought that perhaps it was because he had grown at least partially accustomed to it - or maybe its attention was concentrated on one of the others.

They had done it; that was the amazing thing. Despite all the odds against them, they had retrieved the Orb. The search that had so abruptly interrupted his quiet life at Faldor's farm was over, but it had changed him in so many ways that the boy who had crept out through the gate at Faldor's farm in the middle of a windswept autumn night no longer even existed. Garion could feel the power he had discovered within himself even now and he knew that power was there for a reason. There had been hints along the way - vague, half spoken, sometimes only implied - that the return of the Orb to its proper place was only a beginning of something much larger and much more serious. Garion was absolutely certain that this was not the end of it.

"It's about time,"the dry voice in his mind said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Why do I have to explain this every single time?"

"Explain what?"

"That I know what you're thinking. It's not as if we were completely separate, you know."

"All right, then. Where do we go from here?"

"To Riva."

"And after that?"

"We'll see."

"You aren't going to tell me?"

"No. Not yet. You haven't come nearly as far as you think you have. There's still a very long way to go. "

"If you aren't going to tell me anything, why don't you just leave me alone?"

"I just wanted to advise you not to make any long-term plans. The recovery of the Orb was only a step - an important one - but only a beginning."

And then, as if mention of it somehow reminded the Orb of Garion's presence, its song returned in full force, and Garion's concentration dissolved.

Not much later, Relg stopped, lifting the faint light aloft.

"What's the trouble?" Barak demanded, lowering Belgarath to the floor again.

"'The ceiling fell in," Relg replied, pointing at the rubble choking the passageway ahead. "We can't get through." He looked at Aunt Pol. "I'm sorry," he said, and Garion felt that he really meant it. "That woman we left down here is on the other side of the cave-in."

"Find another way," she told him shortly.

"There isn't any. This was the only passageway leading to the pool where we found her."

"We'll have to clear it then."

Relg shook his head gravely. "We'd just bring more of it down on top of us. It probably fell in on her as well - at least we can hope so."

"Isn't that just a bit contemptible, Relg?" Silk asked pointedly.

The Ulgo turned to regard the little man. "She has water there and sufficient air to breathe. If the cave-in didn't kill her, she could live for weeks before she starves to death." There was a peculiar, quiet regret in Relg's voice.

Silk stared at him for a moment. "Sorry, Relg," he said finally. "I misunderstood."

"People who live in caves have no desire to see anyone trapped like that."

Polgara, however, was considering the rubble-blocked passageway. "We have to get her out of there," she declared.

"Relg could be right, you know," Barak pointed out. "For all we know, she's buried under half the mountain."

She shook her head. "No," she disagreed. "Taiba's still alive, and we can't leave without her. She's as important to all of this as any one of us." She turned back to Relg. "You'll have to go get her," she told him firmly.

Relg's large, dark eyes widened.

"You can't ask that," he protested.

"There's no alternative."

"You can do it, Relg," Durnik encouraged the zealot. "You can go through the rock and bring her out the same way you carried Silk out of that pit where Taur Urgas had him."

Relg had begun to tremble violently. "I can't!" his voice was choked. "I'd have to touch her - put my hands on her. It's sin."

"This is most uncharitable of thee, Relg," Mandorallen told him. "There is no sin in giving aid to the weak and helpless. Consideration for the unfortunate is a paramount responsibility of all decent men, and no force in all the world can corrupt the pure spirit. If compassion doth not move thee to fly to her aid, then mayest thou not perhaps regard her rescue a test of thy purity?"