They rode all that day across the flat grassland of southern Algaria beneath the deep blue autumn sky. Relg, wearing an old hooded tunic of Durnik's over his mail shirt, rode badly, with his legs sticking out stifliy. He seemed to be concentrating more on keeping his face down than on watching where he was going.
Barak watched sourly, with disapproval written plainly on his face. "I'm not trying to tell you your business, Belgarath," he said after several hours, "but that one's going to be trouble before we're finished with this."
"The light hurts his eyes, Barak," Aunt Pol told the big man, "and he's not used to riding. Don't be so quick to criticize."
Barak clamped his mouth shut, his expression still disparaging.
"At least we'll be able to count on his staying sober," Aunt Pol observed primly. "Which is more than I can say about some members of this little group."
Barak coughed uncomfortably.
They set up for the night on the treeless bank of a meandering stream. Once the sun had gone down, Relg seemed less apprehensive, though he made an obvious point of not looking directly at the driftwood fire. Then he looked up and saw the first stars in the evening sky. He gaped up at them in horror, his unveiled face breaking out in a glistening sweat. He covered his head with his arms and collapsed face down on the earth with a strangled cry.
"Relg!" Garion exclaimed, jumping to the stricken man's side and putting his hands on him without thinking.
"Don't touch me," Relg gasped automatically.
"Don't be stupid. What's wrong? Are you sick?"
"The sky," Relg croaked in despair. "The sky! It terrifies me!"
"The sky?" Garion was baffled. "What's wrong with the sky?" He looked up at the familiar stars.
"There's no end to it," Relg groaned. "It goes up forever."
Quite suddenly Garion understood. In the caves he had been afraid unreasoningly afraid - because he had been closed in. Out here under the open sky, Relg suffered from the same kind of blind terror. Garion realized with a kind of shock that quite probably Relg had never been outside the caves of Ulgo in his entire life. "It's all right," he assured him comfortingly. "The sky can't hurt you. It's just up there. Don't pay any attention to it."
"I can't bear it."
"Don't look at it."
"I still know it's there - all that emptiness."
Garion looked helplessly at Aunt Pol. She made a quick gesture that told him to keep talking. "It's not empty," he floundered. "It's full of things - all kinds of things - clouds, birds, sunlight, stars-"
"What?" Relg lifted his face up out of his hands. "What are those?"
"Clouds? Everyone knows what-" Garion stopped. Obviously Relg did not know what clouds were. He'd never seen a cloud in his life. Garion tried to rearrange his thoughts to take that into account. It was not going to be easy to explain. He took in a deep breath. "All right. Let's start with clouds, then."
It took a long time, and Garion was not really sure that Relg understood or if he was simply clinging to the words to avoid thinking about the sky. After clouds, birds were a bit easier, although feathers were very hard to explain.
"UL spoke to you," Relg interrupted Garion's description of wings. "He called you Belgarion. Is that your name?"
"Well-" Garion replied uncomfortably. "Not really. Actually my name is Garion, but I think the other name is supposed to be mine too sometime later, I believe - when I'm older."
"UL knows all things," Relg declared. "If he called you Belgarion, that's your true name. I will call you Belgarion."
"I really wish you wouldn't."
"My God rebuked me," Relg groaned, his voice sunk into a kind of sick self loathing. "I have failed him."
Garion couldn't quite follow that. Somehow, even in the midst of his panic, Relg had been suffering the horrors of a theological crisis. He sat on the ground with his face turned away from the fire and his shoulders slumped in an attitude of absolute despair.
"I'm unworthy," he said, his voice on the verge of a sob. "When UL spoke in the silence of my heart, I felt that I had been exalted above all other men, but now I am lower than dirt."
In his anguish he began to beat the sides of his head with his fists.
"Stop that!" Garion said sharply. "You'll hurt yourself. What's this all about?"
"UL told me that I was to reveal the child to Ulgo. I took his words to mean that I had found special grace in his eyes."
"What child are we talking about?"
"The child. The new Gorim. It's UL's way to guide and protect his people. When an old Gorim's work is done, UL places a special mark upon the eyes of the child who is to succeed him. When UL told me that I had been chosen to bring the child to Ulgo, I revealed his words to others, and, they revered me and asked me to speak to them in the words of UL. I saw sin and corruption all around me and I denounced it, and the people listened to me - but the words were mine, not UL's. In my pride, I presumed to speak for UL. I ignored my own sins to accuse the sins of others." Relg's voice was harsh with fanatic self accusation. "I am filth," he declared, "an abomination. UL should have raised his hand against me and destroyed me."
"That's forbidden," Garion told him without thinking.
"Who has the power to forbid anything to UL?"
"I don't know. All I know is that unmaking is forbidden - even to the Gods. It's the very first thing we learn."
Relg looked up sharply, and Garion knew instantly that he had made a dreadful mistake. "You know the secrets of the Gods?" the fanatic demanded incredulously.
"The fact that they're Gods doesn't have anything to do with it," Garion replied. "The rule applies to everybody."
Relg's eyes burned with a sudden hope. He drew himself up onto his knees and bowed forward until his face was in the dirt. "Forgive me my sin," he intoned.
"What?"
"I have exalted myself when I was unworthy."
"You made a mistake - that's all. Just don't do it anymore. Please get up, Relg."
"I'm wicked and impure."
"You?"
"I've had impure thoughts about women."
Garion flushed with embarrassment. "We all have those kinds of thoughts once in a while," he said with a nervous cough.
"My thoughts are wicked - wicked," Relg groaned with guilt. "I burn with them."
"I'm sure that UL understands. Please get up, Relg. You don't have to do this."
"I have prayed with my mouth when my mind and heart were not in my prayers."
"Relg-"
"I have sought out hidden caves for the joy of finding them rather than to consecrate them to UL. I have this defiled the gift given me by my God."
"Please, Relg-"
Relg began to beat his head on the ground. "Once I found a cave where the echoes of UL's voice lingered. I did not reveal it to others, but kept the sound of UL's voice for myself."
Garion began to become alarmed. The fanatic Relg was working himself into a frenzy.
"Punish me, Belgarion," Relg pleaded. "Lay a hard penance on me for my iniquity."
Garion's mind was very clear as he answered. He knew exactly what he had to say. "I can't do that, Relg," he said gravely. "I can't punish you - any more than I can forgive you. If you've done things you shouldn't have, that's between you and UL. If you think you need to be punished, you'll have to do it yourself. I can't. I won't."
Relg lifted his stricken face out of the dirt and stared at Garion. Then with a strangled cry he lurched to his feet and fled wailing into the darkness.
"Garion!" Aunt Pol's voice rang with that familiar note.
"I didn't do anything," he protested almost automatically.
"What did you say to him?" Belgarath demanded.
"He said that he'd committed all kinds of sins," Garion explained. "He wanted me to punish him and forgive him."
"So?"
"I couldn't do that, Grandfather."
"What's so hard about it?"
Garion stared at him.
"All you had to do was lie to him a little. Is that so difficult?"
"Lie? About something like that?" Garion was horrified at the thought.
"I need him, Garion, and he can't function if he's incapacitated by some kind of religious hysteria. Use your head, boy."
"I can't do it, Grandfather," Garion repeated stubbornly. "It's too important to him for me to cheat him about it."
"You'd better go find him, father," Aunt Pol said.
Belgarath scowled at Garion. "You and I aren't finished with this yet, boy," he said, pointing an angry finger. Then, muttering irritably to himself, he went in search of Relg.
With a cold certainty Garion suddenly knew that the journey to Cthol Murgos was going to be very long and uncomfortable.