"Not the Grolim," Maas said. "That one." He flickered his tongue at Garion. "Its mind is awake."
"That's impossible," she objected.
"Nevertheless, its mind is awake. It has to do, I think, with that metal thing around its neck."
"Remove the ornament then," she told the snake.
Maas lowered his length to the floor and slid around the divan toward Garion.
"Remain very still, " Garion's inner voice told him. "Don't try to fight. "
Numbly, Garion watched the blunt head draw closer.
Maas raised his head, his hood flaring. His nervous tongue darted. Slowly he leaned forward. His nose touched the silver amulet hanging about Garion's neck.
There was a bright blue spark as the reptile's head came in contact with the amulet. Garion felt the familiar surge, but tightly controlled now, focused down to a single point. Maas recoiled, and the spark from the amulet leaped out, sizzling through the air, linking the silver disc to the reptile's nose. The snake's eyes began to shrivel and steam poured from his nostrils and his gaping mouth.
Then the spark was gone, and the body of the dead snake writhed and twisted convulsively on the polished stone floor of the chamber.
"Maas!" Salmissra shrieked.
The eunuchs scrambled out of the way of the wildly threshing body of the snake.
"My Queen!" a shaved-headed, functionary gibbered from the door, "the world is ending!"
"What?" Salmissra tore her eyes from the convulsions of the snake.
"The sun has gone out! Noon is as dark as midnight! The city is gone mad with terror!"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the tumult which followed that announcement, Garion sat quietly on the cushions beside Salmissra's throne. The quiet voice in his mind, however, was speaking to him rapidly. "Stay very still," the voice told him. "Don't say anything, and don't do anything."
"Get my astronomers here immediately!" Salmissra ordered. "I want to know why I wasn't warned about this eclipse."
"It's not an eclipse, my Queen," the bald functionary wailed, groveling on the polished floor not far from the still-writhing Maas. "The dark came like a great curtain. It was like a moving wall - no wind, no rain, no thunder. It swallowed the sun without a sound." He began to sob brokenly. "We shall never see the sun again."
"Stop that, you idiot," Salmissra snapped. "Get on your feet. Sadi, take this babbling fool out of here and go look at the sky. Then come back to me here. I have to know what's going on."
Sadi shook himself almost like a dog coming out of the water and pulled his fascinated eyes off the dead, fixed grin on the face of Maas. He pulled the blubbering functionary to his feet and led him out of the chamber.
Salmissra turned then on Garion. "How did you do that?" she demanded, pointing at the twitching form of Maas.
"I don't know," he said. His mind was still sunk in fog. Only the quiet corner where the voice lived was alert.
"Take off that amulet," she commanded.
Obediently, Garion reached his hands toward the medallion. Suddenly his hands froze. They would not move. He let them fall. "I can't," he said.
"Take it from him," she ordered one of the eunuchs. The man glanced once at the dead snake, then stared at Garion. He shook his head and backed away in fright.
"Do as I say!" the Snake Queen ordered sharply.
From somewhere in the palace came a hollow, reverberating crash. There was the sound of nails screeching out of heavy wood and the avalanche noise of a wall collapsing. Then, a long way down one of the dim corridors, someone screamed in agony.
The dry consciousness in his mind reached out, probing. "At last," it said with obvious relief.
"What's going on out there?" Salmissra blazed.
"Come with me," the voice in Garion's mind said. "I need your help." Garion put his hands under him and started to push himself up. "No. This way." A strange image of separation rose in Garion's mind.
Unthinking, he willed the separation and felt himself rising and yet not moving. Suddenly he had no sense of his body - no arms or legs - yet he seemed to move. He saw himself - his own body - sitting stupidly on the cushions at Salmissra's feet.
"Hurry," the voice said to him. It was no longer inside his mind but seemed to be somewhere beside him. A dim shape was there, formless but somehow very familiar.
The fog that had clouded Garion's wits was gone, and he felt very alert. "Who are you?" he demanded of the shape beside him.
"There isn't time to explain. Quickly, we have to lead them back before Salmissra has time to do anything."
"Lead who?"
"Polgara and Barak."
"Aunt Pol? Where is she?"
"Come," the voice said urgently.
Together Garion and the strange presence at his side seemed to waft toward the closed door. They passed through it as if it were no more than insubstantial mist and emerged in the corridor outside.