‘That has yet to be determined, Belgarion.’ Zandramas’ tone was defiant, as might be expected, but there was something else behind it. ‘Fate is not always so easily read.’ She made an imperious gesture, and her Grolims formed up into a phalanx around her and began to intone a harsh chant in an ancient and hideous language.

‘Get back!’ Polgara warned sharply, and she, her parents, and Beldin stepped to the edge of the terrace.

Flickering faintly, an inky shadow began to appear at the very edge of Garion’s vision, and he began to feel an obscure sense of dread. ‘Watch yourselves,’ he quietly warned his friends. ‘I think she’s starting one of those illusions we were talking about last night.’ Then he felt a powerful surge and head a roar of sound. A wave of sheer darkness rolled out from the extended hands of the Grolims massed around Zandramas, but the wave shattered into black fragments that sizzled and skittered around the amphitheater like frightened mice as the four sorcerers blew it apart almost contemptuously with a single word spoken in unison. Several of the Grolims collapsed writhing to the stone floor, and most of the rest of them staggered back, their faces suddenly pasty white.

Beldin cackled evilly. ‘An’ would ye like t’ try it again, darlin’?’ he taunted Zandramas. ‘If that’s yer intent, ye should have brought more Grolims. Yer usin’ ‘em up at a fearful rate, don’t y’ know.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Belgarath said to him.

‘So does she, I’ll wager. She takes herself very seriously, and a little ridicule always sets that sort off their pace.’

Without changing expression, Zandramas hurled a fireball at the dwarf, but he brushed it aside as if it were no more than an annoying insect.

Garion quite suddenly understood. The sudden sheet of darkness and the fireball were not intended seriously. They were no more than subterfuge, a way to distract attention from that shadow at the edge of vision.

The Sorceress of Darshiva smiled a chill little smile. ‘No matter,’ she shrugged. ‘I was only testing you, my droll little hunchback. Keep laughing, Beldin. I like to see people die happy.’

‘Truly,’ he agreed. ‘Smile a bit yerself, me darlin’, an’ have a bit of a look around. Y’ might say goodbye t’ the sun while yer at it, fer I don’t think ye’ll be seein’ it fer much longer.’

‘Are all these threats really necessary?’ Belgarath asked wearily.

‘It’s customary,’ Beldin told him. ‘Insults and boasting are a common prelude to more serious business; Besides, she started it.’ He looked down at Zandramas’ Grolims, who had started to move menacingly forward. ‘I guess it’s time, though. Shall we go downstairs then and prepare a big pot of Grolim stew? I like mine chopped rather fine.’ He extended his hand, snapped his fingers, and wrapped the hand around the hilt of a hook-pointed Ulgo knife.

With Garion in the lead, they walked purposefully to the head of the stairs and started down as the Grolims, with a variety of weapons in their hands, rushed to the bottom.

‘Get back!’ Silk snapped at Velvet, who had resolutely joined them with one of her daggers held professionally low.

‘Not a chance,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m protecting my investment.’

‘What investment?’

‘We can talk about it later. I’m busy right now.’

The Grolim leading the charge was a huge man, almost as big as Toth. He was swinging a massive axe, and his eyes were filled with madness. When he was perhaps five feet from Garion, Sadi stepped up to the Rivan King’s shoulder and hurled a fistfull of strangely colored powder full into the ascending Grolim’s face. The Grolim shook his head, pawing at his eyes. Then he sneezed. And then his eyes filled with horror, and he screamed. Howling in terror, he dropped his axe, spun, and bolted back down, shouldering his companions off the steps as he fled. When he reached the floor of the amphitheater, he did not stop, but ran toward the sea. He floundered out into waist-deep water and then stepped off the edge of an unseen terrace lurking beneath the surface. It did not appear that he knew how to swim.

‘I thought you were out of that powder,’ Silk said to Sadi even as he made a long, smooth, overhand cast with one of his daggers. A Grolim stumbled back, plucking at the dagger hilt protruding from his chest, missed his footing, and fell heavily backward down the stairway.

‘I always keep a bit for contingencies,’ Sadi replied, ducking under a sword swipe and deftly slicing a Grolim across the belly with his poisoned dagger. The Grolim stiffened, then slowly toppled out off the side of the staircase. A number of black-robed men, seeking to surprise them from the rear, were clambering up the rough sides of the stairway. Velvet knelt and cooly drove one of her daggers into the upturned face of a Grolim on the verge of reaching the top. With a hoarse cry he clutched at his face and fell backward, sweeping several of his companions off the wall as he plunged down.

Then the blond Drasnian girl darted to the other side of the stairs, shaking out her silken cord. She deftly looped it about the neck of a Grolim in the act of scrambling up onto the steps. She stepped under his flailing arms, turned until they were back to back, and leaned forward. The helpless Grolim’s feet came up off the step, and he clutched at the cord about his neck with both hands. His feet kicked futilely at the air for a few moments, his face turning black, and then he went limp. Velvet turned back, unlooped her cord, and cooly kicked the inert body off the edge.

Durnik and Toth had moved up to take positions beside Garion and Zakath, and the four of them moved implacably down the stairs, step by step, chopping and smashing at the black-robed figures rushing up to meet them. Durnik’s hammer seemed only slightly less dreadful than the sword of the Rivan King. The Grolims fell before them as they moved inexorably down the stairs. Toth was chopping methodically with Durnik’s axe, his face as expressionless as that of a man felling a tree. Zakath was a fencer, and he feinted and parried with his massive, though nearly weightless sword. His thrusts were quick and usually lethal. The steps below the dreadful quartet were soon littered with twisted bodies and were running with rivulets of blood.

‘Watch your footing,’ Durnik warned as he crushed another Grolim’s skull. ‘The steps are getting slippery.’

Garion swept off another Grolim head. It bounced like a child’s ball down the steps even as the body toppled off the side of the stairway. Garion risked a quick look back over his shoulder. Belgarath and Beldin had joined Velvet to help the girl repel the black-robed men scrambling up the sides of the steps. Beldin seemed to take vicious delight in driving his hook-pointed knife into Grolim eyes, then, with a sharp twist and a jerk he would pull out sizable gobs of brains. Belgarath, his thumbs tucked into his rope belt, waited calmly. When a Grolim’s head appeared above the edge of the stair, the old man would draw back his foot and kick the priest of Torak full in the face. Since it was a thirty-foot drop from the stairs to the stones of the amphitheater, few of the Grolims he kicked off the side of the stairs tried the climb a second time.