"I think we've managed to aggravate Taur Urgas pretty thoroughly in the past couple of months," Barak was saying. The big man was sprawled deep in a high-backed chair with his face sunk in the shadows from the flaring torch behind him. "First Relg steals Silk right out from under his nose, then Belgarath destroys Ctuchik and knocks down Rak Cthol in the process of taking back the Orb, and finally Cho-Hag and Hettar exterminate a sizable piece of his army when he tries to follow us. The king of the Murgos has had a bad year." The big man's chuckle rumbled out of the shadows. For a moment - a fleeting instant - Garion seemed to see a different shape sprawled there. Some trick of the flickering light and dancing shadows made it appear momentarily that a great, shaggy bear sat in Barak's place. Then it was gone. Garion rubbed at his eyes and tried to shake off the half bemused reverie that had dogged him all morning.

"I still don't quite follow what you mean about Relg going into the rock to rescue Prince Kheldar." King Fulrach frowned. "Do you mean that he can burrow through?"

"I don't think you'd understand unless you saw it, Fulrach," Belgarath told him. "Show him, Relg."

The Ulgo zealot looked at the old man, then walked over to the stone wall beside the large window. Silk instantly turned his back, shuddering. "I still can't stand to watch that," he declared to Garion.

"Aunt Pol said I was supposed to ask you the way to the baths," Garion said quietly. "She wants me to get cleaned up and shaved, and then I guess I'm supposed to put on my best clothes."

"I'll go with you," Silk offered. "I'm sure that all these gentlemen are going to be fascinated by Relg's demonstration, and they'll want him to repeat it. What's he doing?"

"He stuck his arm through the wall and he's wiggling his fingers at them from outside the window," Garion reported.

Silk glanced once over his shoulder, then shuddered again and quickly averted his eyes. "That makes my blood cold," he said with revulsion. "Let's go bathe."

"I'll go along," Lelldorin said, and the three of them quietly left the room.

The baths were in a cavernous cellar beneath the west wing of the Citadel. There were hot springs deep in the rock, and they bubbled up to fill the tiled chambers with steam and a faintly sulfurous smell. There were but few torches and only one attendant who wordlessly handed them towels and then went off into the steam to manage the valves that adjusted the water temperature.