Silk was staring at Garion. "He's an Alorn, all right," he observed finally.

"He's an idiot!" Belgarath snapped angrily. He turned back to Garion. "Did it ever occur to you that there might be something out here to worry about besides Torak?" he demanded.

Garion blinked.

"Cthol Mishrak is not unguarded, you young blockhead. You've just succeeded in announcing our presence to every Grolim within a hundred leagues."

"I didn't think of that," Garion mumbled.

"I didn't think you'd thought. Sometimes I don't think you know how to think."

Silk looked around apprehensively. "Now what do we do?" he asked.

"We'd better get out of here - as fast as our horses can carry us," Belgarath said. He glared at Garion. "Are you sure you don't have a trumpet somewhere under your clothes?" he asked with heavy sarcasm. "Maybe you'd like to blow a few fanfares as we go along." He shook his head in disgust and then gathered up his reins. "Let's ride," he said.

Chapter Twenty-one

THE ASPENS WERE stark white and motionless under the dead sky, and they rose, straight and slender, like the bars of an interminable cage. Belgarath led them at a walk, carefully weaving his way through the endless stretches of this vast, silent forest.

"How much farther?" Silk asked the old man tensely.

"Not much more than a day, now," Belgarath replied. "The clouds ahead are getting thicker."

"You say the cloudbank never moves?"

"Never. It's been stationary since Torak put it there."

"What if a wind came along? Wouldn't that move it?"

Belgarath shook his head. "The normal rules have been suspended in that region. For all I know, the cloud might not actually be cloud. It might be something else."

"Like what?"

"An illusion of some kind, perhaps. The Gods are very good at illusions."

"Are they looking for us? The Grolims, I mean."

Belgarath nodded.

"Are you taking steps to keep them from finding us?"

"Naturally." The old man looked at him. "Why this sudden urge for conversation? You've been talking steadily for the last hour."

"I'm a little edgy," Silk admitted. "This is unfamiliar territory, and that always makes me nervous. I'm much more comfortable when I've got my escape routes worked out in advance."

"Are you always ready to run?"

"In my profession you have to be. What was that?"

Garion heard it too. Faintly, somewhere far off behind them, there was a deep-toned baying - one animal at first, but soon joined by several others. "Wolves?" he suggested.

Belgarath's face had grown bleak. "No," he replied, "not wolves." He shook his reins, and his nervous horse began to trot, the sound of its hoofs muffled by the rotting loam lying thick beneath the aspens.

"What is it then, Grandfather?" Garion asked, also pushing his horse into a trot.

"Torak's Hounds," Belgarath replied tersely.

"Dogs?"