Chapter Six

THEY HAD WALKED for miles, how many Garion could not say. He nodded as he walked, and sometimes stumbled over unseen stones on the dark road. More than anything now he wanted to sleep. His eyes burned, and his legs trembled on the verge of exhaustion.

At the top of another hill - there always seemed to be another hill, for that part of Sendaria was folded like a rumpled cloth - Mister Wolf stopped and looked about, his eyes searching the oppressive gloom.

"We turn aside from the road here," he announced.

"Is that wise?" Durnik asked. "There are woods hereabout, and I've heard that there may be robbers hiding there. Even if there aren't any robbers, aren't we likely to lose our way in the dark?" He looked up at the murky sky, his plain face, dimly seen, troubled. "I wish there was a moon."

"I don't think we need to be afraid of robbers," Wolf said confidently, "and I'm just as happy that there isn't a moon. I don't think we're being followed yet, but it's just as well that no one happens to see us pass. Murgo gold can buy most secrets." And with that he led them into the fields that lay beside the road.

For Garion the fields were impossible. If he had stumbled now and then on the road, the unseen furrows, holes, and clumps in the rough ground seemed to catch at his feet with every step. At the end of a mile, when they reached the black edge of the woods, he was almost ready to weep with exhaustion.

"How can we find our way in there?" he demanded, peering into the utter darkness of the woods.

"There's a woodcutter's track not far to this side," Wolf said, pointing. "We only have a little farther to go." And he set off again, following the edge of the dark woods, with Garion and the others stumbling along behind him. "Here we are," he said finally, stopping to allow them to catch up. "It's going to be very dark in there, and the track isn't wide. I'll go first, and the rest of you follow me."

"I'll be right behind you, Garion," Durnik said. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right." There was a note in the smith's voice, however, that hinted that his words were more to reassure himself than to calm the boy.

It seemed warmer in the woods. The trees sheltered them from the gusty wind, but it was so dark that Garion could not understand how Wolf could possibly find his way. A dreadful suspicion grew in his mind that Wolf actually did not know where he was going and was merely floundering along blindly, trusting to luck.

"Stop," a rumbling voice suddenly, shockingly, said directly ahead of them. Garion's eyes, accustomed slightly now to the gloom of the woods, saw a vague outline of something so huge that it could not possibly be a man.

"A giant!" he screamed in a sudden panic. Then, because he was exhausted and because everything that had happened that evening had simply piled too much upon him all at one time, his nerve broke and he bolted into the trees.

"Garion!" Aunt Pol's voice cried out after him, "come back!"

But panic had taken hold of him. He ran on, falling over roots and bushes, crashing into trees and tangling his legs in brambles. It seemed like some endless nightmare of blind flight. He ran full tilt into a lowhanging, unseen branch, and sparks flared before his eyes with the sudden blow to his forehead. He lay on the damp earth, gasping and sobbing, trying to clear his head.

And then there were hands on him, horrid, unseen hands. A thousand terrors flashed through his mind at once, and he struggled desperately, trying to draw his dagger.

"Oh, no," a voice said. "None of that, my rabbit." His dagger was taken from him.

"Are you going to eat me?" Garion babbled, his voice breaking.

His captor laughed.

"On your feet, rabbit," he said, and Garion felt himself pulled up by a strong hand. His arm was taken in a firm grasp, and he was half dragged through the woods.

Somewhere ahead there was a light, a winking fire among the trees, and it seemed that he was being taken that way. He knew that he must think, must devise some means of escape, but his mind, stunned by fright and exhaustion, refused to function.

There were three wagons sitting in a rough half circle around the fire. Durnik was there, and Wolf, and Aunt Pol, and with them a man so huge that Garion's mind simply refused to accept the possibility that he was real. His tree-trunk sized legs were wrapped in furs cross-tied with leather thongs, and he wore a chain-mail shirt that reached to his knees, belted at the waist. From the belt hung a ponderous sword on one side and a short-handled axe on the other. His hair was in braids, and he had a vast, bristling red beard.

As they came into the light, Garion was able to see the man who had captured him. He was a small man, scarcely taller than Garion himself, and his face was dominated by a long pointed nose. His eyes were small and squinted, and his straight, black hair was raggedly cut. The face was not the sort to inspire confidence, and the man's stained and patched tunic and short, wicked-looking sword did little to contradict the implications of the face.

"Here's our rabbit," the small, weasel-like man announced as he pulled Garion into the circle of the firelight. "And a merry chase he led me, too."

Aunt Pol was furious.

"Don't you ever do that again," she said sternly to Garion.

"Not so quick, Mistress Pol," Wolf said. "It's better for him to run than to fight just yet. Until he's bigger, his feet are his best friends."

"Have we been captured by robbers?" Garion asked in a quavering voice.

"Robbers?" Wolf laughed. "What a wild imagination you have, boy. These two are our friends."

"Friends?" Garion asked doubtfully, looking suspiciously at the redbearded giant and the weasel-faced man beside him. "Are you sure?" The giant laughed then too, his voice rumbling like an earthquake.

"The boy seems mistrustful," he boomed. "Your face must have warned him, friend Silk."

The smaller man looked sourly at his burly companion.

"This is Garion," Wolf said, pointing at the boy. "You already know Mistress Pol." His voice seemed to stress Aunt Pol's name. "And this is Durnik, a brave smith who has decided to accompany us."

"Mistress Pol?" the smaller man said, laughing suddenly for no apparent reason.

"I am known so," Aunt Pol said pointedly.

"It shall be my pleasure to call you so then, great lady," the small man said with a mocking bow.

"Our large friend here is Barak," Wolf went on. "He's useful to have around when there's trouble. As you can see, he's not a Sendar, but a Cherek from Val Alorn."

Garion had never seen a Cherek before, and the fearful tales of their prowess in battle became suddenly quite believable in the presence of the towering Barak.

"And I," the small man said with one hand to his chest, "am called Silk - not much of a name, I'll admit, but one which suits me - and I am from Boktor in Drasnia. I am a juggler and an acrobat."

"And also a thief and a spy," Barak rumbled good-naturedly.

"We all have our faults," Silk admitted blandly, scratching at his scraggly whiskers.

"And I'm called Mister Wolf in this particular time and place," the old man said. "I'm rather fond of the name, since the boy there gave it to me."

"Mister Wolf?" Silk asked, and then he laughed again. "What a merry name for you, old friend."

"I'm delighted that you find it so, old friend," Wolf said flatly. "Mister Wolf it shall be, then," Silk said. "Come to the fire, friends. Warm yourselves, and I'll see to some food."

Garion was still uncertain about the oddly matched pair. They obviously knew Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf - and just as obviously by different names. The fact that Aunt Pol might not be whom he had always thought she was was very disturbing. One of the foundation stones of his entire life had just disappeared.

The food which Silk brought was rough, a turnip stew with thick chunks of meat floating in it and crudely hacked off slabs of bread, but Garion, amazed at the size of his appetite, fell into it as if he had not eaten for days.

And then, his stomach full and his feet warmed by the crackling campfire, he sat on a log, half dozing.

"What now, Old Wolf?" he heard Aunt Pol ask. "What's the idea behind these clumsy wagons?"

"A brilliant plan," Wolf said, "even if I do say it myself. There are, as you know, wagons going every which way in Sendaria at this time of year. Harvests are moving from field to farm, from farm to village and from village to town. Nothing is more unremarkable in Sendaria than wagons. They're so common that they're almost invisible. This is how we're going to travel. We're now honest freight haulers."

"We're what?" Aunt Pol demanded.

"Wagoneers," Wolf said expansively. "Hard-working transporters of the goods of Sendaria - out to make our fortunes and seek adventure, bitten by the desire to travel, incurably infected by the romance of the road."

"Have you any idea how long it takes to travel by wagon?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Six to ten leagues a day," he told her. "Slow, I'll grant you, but it's better to move slowly than to attract attention."

She shook her head in disgust.

"Where first, Mister Wolf?" Silk asked.

"To Darine," Wolf announced. "If the one we're following went to the north, he'll have to have passed through Darine on his way to Boktor and beyond."

"And what exactly are we carrying to Darine?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Turnips, great lady," Silk said. "Last morning my large friend and I purchased three wagonloads of them in the village of Winold."

"Turnips?" Aunt Pol asked in a tone that spoke volumes.

"Yes, great lady, turnips," Silk said solemnly.

"Are we ready, then?" Wolf asked.

"We are," the giant Barak said shortly, rising with his mail shirt clinking.

"We should look the part," Wolf said carefully, eyeing Barak up and down. "Your armor, my friend, is not the sort of garb an honest wagoneer would wear. I think you should change it for stout wool."

Barak's face looked injured.

"I could wear a tunic over it," he suggested tentatively.

"You rattle," Silk pointed out, "and armor has a distinctive fragrance about it. From the downwind side you smell like a rusty ironworks, Barak."

"I feel undressed without a mail shirt," Barak complained.

"We must all make sacrifices," Silk said.

Grumbling, Barak went to one of the wagons, jerked out a bundle of clothes and began to pull off his mail shirt. His linen undertunic bore large, reddish rust stains.

"I'd change tunics as well," Silk suggested. "Your shirt smells as bad as the armor."

Barak glowered at him. "Anything else?" he demanded. "I hope, for decency's sake, you don't plan to strip me entirely."

Silk laughed.

Barak pulled off his tunic. His torso was enormous and covered with thick red hair.

"You look like a rug," Silk observed.

"I can't help that," Barak said. "Winters are cold in Cherek, and the hair helps me to stay warm." He put on a fresh tunic.

"It's just as cold in Drasnia," Silk said. "Are you absolutely sure your grandmother didn't dally with a bear during one of those long winters?"

"Someday your mouth is going to get you into a great deal of trouble, friend Silk," Barak said ominously.

Silk laughed again. "I've been in trouble most of my life, friend Barak."

"I wonder why," Barak said ironically.

"I think all this could be discussed later," Wolf said pointedly. "I'd rather like to be away from here before the week's out, if I can."

"Of course, old friend," Silk said, jumping up. "Barak and I can amuse each other later."

Three teams of sturdy horses were picketed nearby, and they all helped to harness them to the wagons.

"I'll put out the fire," Silk said and fetched two pails of water from a small brook that trickled nearby. The fire hissed when the water struck it, and great clouds of steam boiled up toward the low-hanging tree limbs.

"We'll lead the horses to the edge of the wood," Wolf said. "I'd rather not pick my teeth on a low branch."

The horses seemed almost eager to start and moved without urging along a narrow track through the dark woods. They stopped at the edge of the open fields, and Wolf looked around carefully to see if anyone was in sight.

"I don't see anybody," he said. "Let's get moving."

"Ride with me, good smith," Barak said to Durnik. "Conversation with an honest man is much preferable to a night spent enduring the insults of an over-clever Drasnian."

"As you wish, friend," Durnik said politely.

"I'll lead," Silk said. "I'm familiar with the back roads and lanes hereabouts. I'll put us on the high road beyond Upper Gralt before noon. Barak and Durnik can bring up the rear. I'm sure that between them they can discourage anyone who might feel like following us."

"All right," Wolf said, climbing up onto the seat of the middle wagon. He reached down his hand and helped up Aunt Pol.

Garion quickly climbed up onto the wagon bed behind them, a trifle nervous that someone might suggest that he ride with Silk. It was all very well for Mister Wolf to say that the two they had just met were friends, but the fright he had suffered in the wood was still too fresh in his mind to make him quite comfortable with them.

The sacks of musty-smelling turnips were lumpy, but Garion soon managed to push and shove a kind of half reclining seat for himself among them just behind Aunt Pol and Mister Woif. He was sheltered from the wind, Aunt Pol was close, and his cloak, spread over him, kept him warm. He was altogether comfortable, and, despite the excitement of the night's events, he soon drifted into a half drowse. The dry voice in his mind suggested briefly that he had not behaved too well back in the wood, but it too soon fell silent, and Garion slept.

It was the change of sound that woke him. T'he soft thud of the horses' hooves on the dirt road became a clatter as they came to the cobblestones of a small village sleeping in the last chill hours of the autumn night. Garion opened his eyes and looked sleepily at the tall, narrow houses with their tiny windows all dark.

A dog barked briefly, then retreated back to his warm place under some stairs. Garion wondered what village it might be and how many people slept under those steep-peaked tile roofs, unaware of the passage of their three wagons.

The cobbled street was very narrow, and Garion could almost have reached out and touched the weathered stones of the houses as they passed.

And then the nameless village was behind them, and they were back on the road again. The soft sound of the horses' hooves lured him once more toward sleep.

"What if he hasn't passed through Darine?" Aunt Pol asked Mister Wolf in a low tone.

It occurred to Garion that in all the excitement he had never actually found out exactly what it was that they were seeking. He kept his eyes closed and listened.

"Don't start with the `what ifs,' " Wolf said irritably. "If we sit around saying `what if,' we'll never do anything."

"I was merely asking," Aunt Pol said.

"If he hasn't gone through Darine, we'll turn south - to Muros. He may have joined a caravan there to take the Great North Road to Boktor."

"And if he hasn't gone through Muros?"

"Then we go on to Camaar."

"And then?"

"We'll see when we get to Camaar." His tone was final, as if he no longer wished to discuss the matter.

Aunt Pol drew in a breath as if she were about to deliver some final retort, but apparently she decided against it and settled back instead on the wagon seat.

To the east, ahead of them, the faint stain of dawn touched the lowering clouds, and they moved on through the tattered, windswept end of the long night in their search for something which, though he could not yet even identify it, was so important that Garion's entire life had been uprooted in a single day because of it.

Chapter Seven

IT TOOK THEM FOUR DAYS to reach Darine On the north coast. The first day went quite well, since, though it was cloudy and the wind kept blowing, the air was dry and the roads were good. They passed quiet farmsteads and an occasional farmer bent to his labor in the middle of a field. Inevitably each man stopped his work to watch them pass. Some waved, but some did not.

And then there were villages, clusters of tall houses nestled in valleys. As they passed, the children came out and ran after the wagons, shouting with excitement. The villagers watched, idly curious, until it became obvious that the wagons were not going to stop, and then they sniffed and went back to their own concerns.

As afternoon of that first day lowered toward evening, Silk led them into a grove of trees at the roadside, and they made preparations for the night. They ate the last of the ham and cheese Wolf had filched from Faldor's pantry and then spread their blankets on the ground beneath the wagons. The ground was hard and cold, but the exciting sense of being on some great adventure helped Garion to endure the discomfort.

The next morning, however, it began to rain. It was a fine, misty rain at first, scattering before the wind, but as the morning wore on, it settled into a steady drizzle. The musty smell of the turnips in their wet sacks became stronger, and Garion huddled miserably with his cloak pulled tightly around him. The adventure was growing much less exciting.

The road became muddy and slick, and the horses struggled their way up each hill and had to be rested often. On the first day they had covered eight leagues; after that they were lucky to make five.

Aunt Pol became waspish and short-tempered.

"This is idiocy," she said to Mister Wolf about noon on the third day.

"Everything is idiocy if you choose to look at it in the proper light," he replied philosophically.

"Why wagoneers?" she demanded. "There are faster ways to travels wealthy family in a proper carriage, for instance, or Imperial messengers on good horses - either way would have put us in Darine by now."

"And left a trail in the memories of all these simple people we've passed so wide that even a Thull could follow it," Wolf explained patiently. "Brill has long since reported our departure to his employers. Every Murgo in Sendaria is looking for us by now."

"Why are we hiding from the Murgos, Mister Wolf?" Garion asked, hesitant to interrupt, but impelled by curiosity to try to penetrate the mystery behind their flight. "Aren't they just merchants-like the Tolnedrans and the Drasnians?"

"The Murgos have no real interest in trade," Wolf explained. "Nadraks are merchants, but the Murgos are warriors. The Murgos pose as merchants for the same reason that we pose as wagoneers - so that they can move about more or less undetected. If you simply assumed that all Murgos are spies, you wouldn't be too far from the truth."

"Haven't you anything better to do than ask all these questions?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Not really," Garion said, and then instantly knew that he'd made a mistake.

"Good," she said. "In the back of Barak's wagon you'll find the dirty dishes from this morning's meal. You'll also find a bucket. Fetch the bucket and run to that stream ahead for water, then return to Barak's wagon and wash the dishes."

"In cold water?" he objected.

"Now, Garion," she said firmly.

Grumbling, he climbed down off the slowly moving wagon.

In the late afternoon of the fourth day they came over a high hilltop and saw below the city of Darine and beyond the city the leaden gray sea.

Garion caught his breath. To his eyes the city looked very large. Its surrounding walls were thick and high, and there were more buildings within those walls than he had seen in all his life. But it was to the sea that his eyes were drawn. There was a sharp tang to the air. Faint hints of that smell had been coming to him on the wind for the past league or so, but now, inhaling deeply, he breathed in that perfume of the sea for the first time in his life. His spirit soared.

"Finally," Aunt Pol said.

Silk had stopped the lead wagon and came walking back. His hood was pulled back slightly, and the rain ran down his long nose to drip from its pointed tip.

"Do we stop here or go on down to the city?" he asked.

"We go to the city," Aunt Pol said. "I'm not going to sleep under a wagon when there are inns so close at hand."

"Honest wagoneers would seek out an inn," Mister Wolf agreed, "and a warm taproom."

"I might have guessed that," Aunt Pol said.

"We have to try to look the part." Wolf shrugged.

They went on down the hill, the horses' hooves slipping and sliding as they braced back against the weight of the wagons.

At the city gate two watchmen in stained tunics and wearing rustspotted helmets came out of the tiny watch house just inside the gate.

"What's your business in Darine?" one of them asked Silk.

"I am Ambar of Kotu," Silk lied pleasantly, "a poor Drasnian merchant hoping to do business in your splendid city."

"Splendid?" one of the watchmen snorted.

"What have you in your wagons, merchant?" the other inquired.

"Turnips," Silk said deprecatingly. "My family has been in the spice trade for generations, but I'm reduced to peddling turnips." He sighed. "The world is a topsy-turvy place, is it not, good friend?"

"We're obliged to inspect your wagons," the watchman said. "It'll take some time, I'm afraid."

"And a wet time at that," Silk said, squinting up into the rain. "It would be much more pleasant to devote the time to wetting one's inside in some friendly tavern."

"That's difficult when one doesn't have much money," the watchman suggested hopefully.

"I'd be more than pleased if you'd accept some small token of friendship from me to aid you in your wetting," Silk offered.

"You're most kind," the watchman replied with a slight bow.

Some coins changed hands, and the wagons moved on into the city uninspected.

From the hilltop Darine had looked quite splendid, but Garion found it much less so as they clattered through the wet streets. The buildings all seemed the same with a kind of self important aloofness about them, and the streets were littered and dirty. The salt tang of the sea was tainted here with the smell of dead fish, and the faces of the people hurrying along were grim and unfriendly. Garion's first excitement began to fade.

"Why are the people all so unhappy?" he asked Mister Wolf.

"They have a stern and demanding God," Wolf replied.

"Which God is that?" Garion asked.

"Money," Wolf said. "Money is a worse God than Torak himself."

"Don't fill the boy's head with nonsense," Aunt Pol said. "The people aren't really unhappy, Garion. They're just all in a hurry. They have important affairs to attend to and they're afraid they'll be late. That's all."

"I don't think I'd like to live here," Garion said. "It seems like a bleak, unfriendly kind of place." He sighed. "Sometimes I wish we were all back at Faldor's farm."

"There are worse places than Faldor's," Wolf agreed.

The inn Silk chose for them was near the docks, and the smell of the sea and the rank detritus of the meeting of sea and land was strong there. The inn, however, was a stout building with stables attached and storage sheds for the wagons. Like most inns, the main floor was given over to the kitchen and the large common room with its rows of tables and large fireplaces. The upper floors provided sleeping chambers for the guests.

"It's a suitable place," Silk announced as he came back out to the wagons after speaking at some length with the innkeeper. "The kitchen seems clean, and I saw no bugs when I inspected the sleeping chambers."

"I will inspect it," Aunt Pol said, climbing down from the wagon.

"As you wish, great lady," Silk said with a polite bow.

Aunt Pol's inspection took much longer than Silk's, and it was nearly dark when she returned to the courtyard. "Adequate," she sniffed, "but only barely."

"It's not as if we planned to settle in for the winter, Pol," Wolf said. "At most we'll only be here a few days."

She ignored that.

"I've ordered hot water sent up to our chambers," she announced. "I'll take the boy up and wash him while you and the others see to the wagons and horses. Come along, Garion." And she turned and went back into the inn.

Garion wished fervently that they would all stop referring to him as the boy. He did, after all, he reflected, have a name, and it was not that difficult a name to remember. He was gloomily convinced that even if he lived to have a long gray beard, they would still speak of him as the boy.

After the horses and wagons had been attended to and they had all washed up, they went down again to the common room and dined. The meal certainly didn't match up to Aunt Pol's, but it was a welcome change from turnips. Garion was absolutely certain that he'd never be able to look a turnip in the face again for the rest of his life.

After they had eaten, the men loitered over their ale pots, and Aunt Pol's face registered her disapproval. "Garion and I are going up to bed now," she said to them. "Try not to fall down too many times when you come up."

Wolf, Barak and Silk laughed at that, but Durnik, Garion thought, looked a bit shamefaced.

The next day Mister Wolf and Silk left the inn early and were gone all day. Garion had positioned himself in a strategic place in hopes that he might be noticed and asked to go along, but he was not; so when Durnik went down to look after the horses, he accompanied him instead.

"Durnik," he said after they had fed and watered the animals and the smith was examining their hooves for cuts or stone bruises, "does all this seem strange to you?"

Durnik carefully lowered the leg of the patient horse he was checking.

"All what, Garion?" he asked, his plain face sober.

"Everything," Garion said rather vaguely. "This journey, Barak and Silk, Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol - all of it. They all talk sometimes when they don't think I can hear them. This all seems terribly important, but I can't tell if we're running away from someone or looking for something."

"It's confusing to me as well, Garion," Durnik admitted. "Many things aren't what they seem - not what they seem at all."

"Does Aunt Pol seem different to you?" Garion asked. "What I mean is, they all treat her as if she were a noblewoman or something, and she acts differently too, now that we're away from Faldor's farm."

"Mistress Pol is a great lady," Durnik said. "I've always known that." His voice had that same respectful tone it always had when he spoke of her, and Garion knew that it was useless to try to make Durnik perceive anything unusual about her.

"And Mister Wolf," Garion said, trying another tack. "I always thought he was just an old storyteller."

"He doesn't seem to be an ordinary vagabond," Durnik admitted. "I think we've fallen in with important people, Garion, on important business. It's probably better for simple folk such as you and I not to ask too many questions, but to keep our eyes and ears open."

"Will you be going back to Faldor's farm when this is all over?" Garion asked carefully.

Durnik considered that, looking out across the rainswept courtyard of the inn.

"No," he said finally in a soft voice. "I'll follow as long as Mistress Pol allows me to."

On an impulse Garion reached out and patted the smith's shoulder. "Everything is going to turn out for the best, Durnik."

Durnik sighed.

"Let's hope so," he said and turned his attention back to the horses.

"Durnik," Garion asked, "did you know my parents?"

"No," Durnik said. "The first time I saw you, you were a baby in Mistress Pol's arms."

"What was she like then?"

"She seemed angry," Durnik said. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite so angry. She talked with Faldor for a while and then went to work in the kitchen - you know Faldor. He never turned anyone away in his whole life. At first she was just a helper, but that didn't last too long. Our old cook was getting fat and lazy, and she finally went off to live with her youngest daughter. After that, Mistress Pol ran the kitchen."

"She was a lot younger then, wasn't she?" Garion asked.

"No," Durnik said thoughtfully. "Mistress Pol never changes. She looks exactly the same now as she did that first day."

"I'm sure it only seems that way," Garion said. "Everybody gets older."

"Not Mistress Pol," Durnik said.

That evening Wolf and his sharp-nosed friend returned, their faces somber.

"Nothing," Wolf announced shortly, scratching at his snowy beard.

"I might have told you that," Aunt Pol sniffed.

Wolf gave her an irritated look, then shrugged.

"We had to be certain," he said.

The red-bearded giant, Barak, looked up from the mail shirt he was polishing.

"No trace at all?" he asked.

"Not a hint," Wolf said. "He hasn't gone through here."

"Where now, then?" Barak asked, setting his mail shirt aside.

"Muros," Wolf said.

Barak rose and went to the window. "The rain is slacking," he said, "but the roads are going to be difficult."

"We won't be able to leave tomorrow anyway," Silk said, lounging on a stool near the door. "I have to dispose of our turnips. If we carry them out of Darine with us, it will seem curious, and we don't want to be remembered by anyone who might have occasion to talk to any wandering Murgo."

"I suppose you're right," Wolf said. "I hate to lose the time, but there's no help for it."

"The roads will be better after a day's drying," Silk pointed out, "and wagons travel faster empty."

"Are you sure you can sell them, friend Silk?" Durnik asked.

"I am a Drasnian," Silk replied confidently. "I can sell anything. We might even make a good profit."

"Don't worry about that," Wolf said. "The turnips have served their purpose. All we need to do now is to get rid of them."

"It's a matter of principle," Silk said airily. "Besides, if I don't try to strike a hard bargain, that too would be remembered. Don't be concerned. The business won't take long and won't delay us."

"Could I go along with you, Silk?" Garion asked hopefully. "I haven't seen any part of Darine except for this inn."

Silk looked inquiringly at Aunt Pol.

She considered for a moment. "I don't suppose it would do any harm," she said, "and it'll give me time to attend to some things."

The next morning after breakfast Silk and Garion set out with Garion carrying a bag of turnips. The small man seemed to be in extraordinarily good spirits, and his long, pointed nose seemed almost to quiver. "The whole point," he said as they walked along the littered, cobblestoned streets, "is not to appear too eager to sell - and to know the market, of course."

"That sounds reasonable," Garion said politely.

"Yesterday I made a few inquiries," Silk went on. "Turnips are selling on the docks of Kotu in Drasnia for a Drasnian silver link per hundredweight."

"A what?" Garion asked.

"It's a Drasnian coin," Silk explained, "about the same as a silver imperial - not quite, but close enough. The merchant will try to buy our turnips for no more than a quarter of that, but he'll go as high as half."

"How do you know that?"

"It's customary."

"How many turnips do we have?" Garion asked, stepping around a pile of refuse in the street.

"We have thirty hundredweight," Silk said.

"That would be-" Garion's face contorted in an effort to make the complex calculation in his head.

"Fifteen imperials," Silk supplied. "Or three gold crowns."

"Gold?" Garion asked. Because gold coins were so rare in country dealings, the word seemed to have an almost magic quality.

Silk nodded. "It's always preferable," he said. "It's easier to carry. The weight of silver becomes burdensome."

"And how much did we pay for the turnips?"

"Five imperials," Silk said.

"The farmer gets five, we get fifteen, and the merchant gets thirty?" Garion asked incredulously. "That hardly seems fair."

Silk shrugged. "It's the way things are," he said. "There's the merchant's house." He pointed at a rather imposing building with broad steps. "When we go in, he'll pretend to be very busy and not at all interested in us. Later, while he and I are bargaining, he'll notice you and tell you what a splendid boy you are."

"Me?"

"He'll think that you're some relation of mine - a son or a nephew perhaps - and he'll think to gain advantage over me by flattering you."

"What a strange notion," Garion said.

"I'll tell him many things," Silk went on, talking very rapidly now. His eyes seemed to glitter, and his nose was actually twitching. "Pay no attention to what I say, and don't let any surprise show on your face. He'll be watching us both very closely."

"You're going to lie?" Garion was shocked.

"It's expected," Silk said. "The merchant will also lie. The one of us who lies the best will get the better of the bargain."

"It all seems terribly involved," Garion said.

"It's a game," Silk said, his ferretlike face breaking into a grin. "A very exciting game that's played all over the world. Good players get rich, and bad players don't."

"Are you a good player?" Garion asked.

"One of the best," Silk replied modestly. "Let's go in." And he led Garion up the broad steps to the merchant's house.

The merchant wore an unbelted, fur-trimmed gown of a pale green color and a close-fitting cap. He behaved much as Silk had predicted that he would, sitting before a plain table and leafing through many scraps of parchment with a busy frown on his face while Silk and Garion waited for him to notice them.

"Very well, then," he said finally. "You have business with me?"

"We have some turnips," Silk said somewhat deprecatingly.

"That's truly unfortunate, friend," the merchant said, assuming a long face. "The wharves at Kotu groan with turnips just now. It would hardly pay me to take them off your hands at any price."

Silk shrugged. "Perhaps the Chereks or the Algars then," he said. "Their markets may not yet be so glutted as yours." He turned. "Come along, boy," he said to Garion.

"A moment, good friend," the merchant said. "I detect from your speech that you and I are countrymen. Perhaps as a favor I'll look at your turnips."

"Your time is valuable," Silk said. "If you aren't in the market for turnips, why should we trouble you further?"

"I might still be able to find a buyer somewhere," the merchant protested, "if the merchandise is of good quality." He took the bag from Garion and opened it.

Garion listened with fascination as Silk and the merchant fenced politely with each other, each attempting to gain the advantage.

"What a splendid boy this is," the merchant said, suddenly seeming to notice Garion for the first time.

"An orphan," Silk said, "placed in my care. I'm attempting to teach him the rudiments of business, but he's slow to learn."

"Ah," the merchant said, sounding slightly disappointed.

Then Silk made a curious gesture with the fingers of his right hand. The merchant's eyes widened slightly, then he too gestured.

After that, Garion had no idea of what was going on. The hands of Silk and the merchant wove intricate designs in the air, sometimes flickering so rapidly that the eye could scarce follow them. Silk's long, slender fingers seemed to dance, and the merchant's eyes were fixed upon them, his forehead breaking into a sweat at the intensity of his concentration.

"Done, then?" Silk said finally, breaking the long silence in the room.

"Done," the merchant agreed somewhat ruefully.

"It's always a pleasure doing business with an honest man," Silk said.

"I've learned much today," the merchant said. "I hope you don't intend to remain in this business for long, friend. If you do, I might just as well give you the keys to my warehouse and strongroom right now and save myself the anguish I'll experience every time you appear."

Silk laughed. "You've been a worthy opponent, friend merchant," he said.

"I thought so at first," the merchant said, shaking his head, "but I'm no match for you. Deliver your turnips to my warehouse on Bedik wharf tomorrow morning." He scratched a few lines on a piece of parchment with a quill. "My overseer will pay you."

Silk bowed and took the parchment. "Come along, boy," he said to Garion, and led the way from the room.

"What happened?" Garion asked when they were outside in the blustery street.

"We got the price I wanted," Silk said, somewhat smugly.

"But you didn't say anything," Garion objected.

"We spoke at great length, Garion," Silk said. "Weren't you watching?"

"All I saw was the two of you wiggling your fingers at each other."

"That's how we spoke," Silk explained. "It's a separate language my countrymen devised thousands of years ago. It's called the secret language, and it's much faster than the spoken one. It also permits us to speak in the presence of strangers without being overheard. An adept can conduct business while discussing the weather, if he chooses."

"Will you teach it to me?" Garion asked, fascinated.

"It takes a long time to learn," Silk told him.

"Isn't the trip to Muros likely to take a long time?" Garion suggested.

Silk shrugged. "As you wish," he said. "It won't be easy, but it will help pass the time, I suppose."

"Are we going back to the inn now?" Garion asked.

"Not right away," Silk said. "We'll need a cargo to explain our entry into Muros."

"I thought we were going to leave with the wagons empty."

"We are."

"But you just said-"

"We'll see a merchant I know," Silk explained. "He buys farm goods all over Sendaria and has them held on the farms until the markets are right in Arendia and Tolnedra. Then he arranges to have them freighted either to Muros or Camaar."

"It sounds very complicated," Garion said doubtfully.

"1t's not really," Silk assured him. "Come along, my boy, you'll see." The merchant was a Tolnedran who wore a flowing blue robe and a disdainful expression on his face. He was talking with a grim-faced Murgo as Silk and Garion entered his counting room. The Murgo, like all of his race Garion had ever seen, had deep scars on his face, and his black eyes were penetrating.

Silk touched Garion's shoulder with a cautionary hand when they entered and saw the Murgo, then he stepped forward. "Forgive me, noble merchant," he said ingratiatingly. "I didn't know you were occupied. My porter and I will wait outside until you have time for us."

"My friend and I will be busy for most of the day," the Tolnedran said. "Is it something important?"

"I was just wondering if you might have a cargo for me," Silk replied.

"No," the Tolnedran said shortly. "Nothing." He started to turn back to the Murgo, then stopped and looked sharply at Silk. "Aren't you Ambar of Kotu?" he asked. "I thought you dealt in spices."

Garion recognized the name Silk had given the watchmen at the gates of the city. It was evident that the little man had used the name before.

"Alas," Silk sighed. "My last venture lies at the bottom of the sea just off the hook of Arendia - two full shiploads bound for Tol Honeth. A sudden storm and I am a pauper."

"A tragic tale, worthy Ambar," the Tolnedran master merchant said, somewhat smugly.

"I'm now reduced to freighting produce," Silk said morosely. "I have three rickety wagons, and that's all that's left of the empire of Ambar of Kotu."

"Reverses come to us all," the Tolnedran said philosophically.

"So this is the famous Ambar of Kotu," the Murgo said, his harshly accented voice quite soft. He looked Silk up and down, his black eyes probing. "It was a fortunate chance that brought me out today. I am enriched by meeting so illustrious a man."

Silk bowed politely. "You're too kind, noble sir," he said.

"I am Asharak of Rak Goska," the Murgo introduced himself. He turned to the Tolnedran. "We can put aside our discussion for a bit, Mingan," he said. "We will accrue much honor by assisting so great a merchant to begin recouping his losses."

"You're too kind, worthy Asharak," Silk said, bowing again. Garion's mind was shrieking all kinds of warnings, but the Murgo's sharp eyes made it impossible for him to make the slightest gesture to Silk. He kept his face impassive and his eyes dull even as his thoughts raced.

"I would gladly help you, my friend," Mingan said, "but I have no cargo in Darine at the moment."

"I'm already committed from Darine to Medalia," Silk said quickly. "Three wagonloads of Cherek iron. And I also have a contract to move furs from Muros to Camaar. It's the fifty leagues from Medalia to Muros that concerns me. Wagons traveling empty earn no profit."

"Medalia." Mingan frowned. "Let me examine my records. It seems to me that I do have something there." He stepped out of the room. "Your exploits are legendary in the kingdoms of the east, Ambar,"

Asharak of Rak Goska said admiringly. "When last I left Cthol Murgos there was still a kingly price on your head."

Silk laughed easily. "A minor misunderstanding, Asharak," he said. "I was merely investigating the extent of Tolnedran intelligence gathering activities in your kingdom. I took some chances I probably shouldn't have, and the Tolnedrans found out what I was up to. The charges they leveled at me were fabrications."

"How did you manage to escape?" Asharak asked. "The soldiers of King Taur Urgas nearly dismantled the kingdom searching for you."

"I chanced to meet a Thullish lady of high station," Silk said. "I managed to prevail upon her to smuggle me across the border into Mishrak ac Thull."

"Ah," Asharak said, smiling briefly. "Thullish ladies are notoriously easy to prevail upon."

"But most demanding," Silk said. "They expect full repayment for any favors. I found it more difficult to escape from her than I did from Cthol Murgos."

"Do you still perform such services for your government?" Asharak asked casually.

"They won't even talk to me," Silk said with a gloomy expression. "Ambar the spice merchant is useful to them, but Ambar the poor wagoneer is quite another thing."

"Of course," Asharak said, and his tone indicated that he obviously did not believe what he had been told. He glanced briefly and without seeming interest at Garion, and Garion felt a strange shock of recognition. Without knowing exactly how it was that he knew, he was instantly sure that Asharak of Rak Goska had known him for all of his life. There was a familiarity in that glance, a familiarity that had grown out of the dozen times or more that their eyes had met while Garion was growing up and Asharak, muffled always in a black cloak and astride a black horse, had stopped and watched and then moved on. Garion returned the gaze without expression, and the faintest hint of a smile flickered across Asharak's scarred face.

Mingan returned to the room then. "I have some hams on a farm near Medalia," he announced. "When do you expect to arrive in Muros?"

"Fifteen or twenty days," Silk told him.

Mingan nodded. "I'll give you a contract to move my hams to Muros," he offered. "Seven silver nobles per wagonload."

"Tolnedran nobles or Sendarian?" Silk asked quickly.

"This is Sendaria, worthy Ambar."

"We're citizens of the world, noble merchant," Silk pointed out. "Transactions between us have always been in Tolnedran coin."

Mingan sighed. "You were ever quick, worthy Ambar," he said."Very well, Tolnedran nobles - because we are old friends, and I grieve for your misfortunes."

"Perhaps we'll meet again, Ambar," Asharak said.

"Perhaps," Silk said, and he and Garion left the counting room. "Skinflint," Silk muttered when they reached the street. "The rate should have been ten, not seven."

"What about the Murgo?" Garion asked. Once again there was the familiar reluctance to reveal too much about the strange, unspoken link that had existed between him and the figure that now at least had a name.

Silk shrugged.

"He knows I'm up to something, but he doesn't know exactly what just as I know that he's up to something. I've had dozens of meetings like that. Unless our purposes happen to collide, we won't interfere with each other. Asharak and I are both professionals."

"You're a very strange person, Silk," Garion said.

Silk winked at him.

"Why were you and Mingan arguing about the coins?" Garion asked.

"Tolnedran coins are a bit purer," Silk told him. "They're worth more."

"I see," Garion said.

The next morning they all mounted the wagons again and delivered their turnips to the warehouse of the Drasnian merchant. Then, their wagons rumbling emptily, they rolled out of Darine, bound toward the south.

The rain had ceased, but the morning was overcast and blustery.

On the hill outside town Silk turned to Garion, who rode beside him.

"Very well," he said,"let's begin." He moved his fingers in front of Garion's face. "This means `Good morning.' "

Chapter Eight

AFTER THE FIRST DAY the wind blew itself out, and the pale autumn sun reappeared. Their route southward led them along the Darine River, a turbulent stream that rushed down from the mountains on its way to the Gulf of Cherek. The country was hilly and timbered but, since the wagons were empty, their horses made good time.

Garion paid scant attention to the scenery as they trundled up the valley of the Darine. His attention was riveted almost totally on Silk's flickering fingers.

"Don't shout," Silk instructed as Garion practiced.

"Shout?" Garion asked, puzzled.

"Keep your gestures small. Don't exaggerate them. The idea is to make the whole business inconspicuous."

"I'm only practicing," Garion said.

"Better to break bad habits before they become too strong," Silk said. "And be careful not to mumble."

"Mumble?"

"Form each phrase precisely. Finish one before you go on to the next. Don't worry about speed. That comes with time."

By the third day their conversations were half in words and half in gestures, and Garion was beginning to feel quite proud of himself. They pulled off the road into a grove of tall cedars that evening and formed up their usual half circle with the wagons.

"How goes the instruction?" Mister Wolf asked as he climbed down.

"It progresses," Silk said. "I expect it will go more rapidly when the boy outgrows his tendency to use baby talk."

Garion was crushed.

Barak, who was also dismounting, laughed.

"I've often thought that the secret language might be useful to know," he said, "but fingers built to grip a sword are not nimble enough for it." He held out his huge hand and shook his head.

Durnik lifted his face and sniffed at the air. "It's going to be cold tonight," he said. "We'll have frost before morning."

Barak also sniffed, and then he nodded. "You're right, Durnik," he rumbled. "We'll need a good fire tonight." He reached into the wagon and lifted out his axe.

"There are riders coming," Aunt Pol announced, still seated on the wagon.

They all stopped talking and listened to the faint drumming sound on the road they had just left.

"Three at least," Barak said grimly. He handed the axe to Durnik and reached back into the wagon for his sword.

"Four," Silk said. He stepped to his own wagon and took his own sword out from under the seat.

"We're far enough from the road," Wolf said. "If we stay still, they'll pass without seeing us."

"That won't hide us from Grolims," Aunt Pol said. "They won't be searching with their eyes." She made two quick gestures to Wolf which Garion did not recognize.

No, Wolf gestured back. Let us instead - He also made an unrecognizable gesture.

Aunt Pol looked at him for a moment and then nodded.

"All of you stay quite still," Wolf instructed them. Then he turned toward the road, his face intent.

Garion held his breath. The sound of the galloping horses grew nearer.

Then a strange thing happened. Though Garion knew he should be fearful of the approaching riders and the threat they seemed to pose, a kind of dreamy lassitude fell over him. It was as if his mind had quite suddenly gone to sleep, leaving his body still standing there watching incuriously the passage of those dark-mantled horsemen along the road.

How long he stood so he was not able to say; but when he roused from his half dream, the riders were gone and the sun had set. The sky to the east had grown purple with approaching evening, and there were tatters of sun-stained clouds along the western horizon.

"Murgos," Aunt Pol said quite calmly, "and one Grolim." She started to climb down from the wagon.

"There are many Murgos in Sendaria, great lady," Silk said, helping her down, "and on many different missions."

"Murgos are one thing," Wolf said grimly, "but Grolims are quite something else. I think it might be better if we moved off the welltraveled roads. Do you know a back way to Medalia?"

"Old friend," Silk replied modestly, "I know a back way to every place."

"Good," Wolf said. "Let's move deeper into these woods. I'd prefer it if no chance gleam from our fire reached the road."

Garion had seen the cloaked Murgos only briefly. There was no way to be sure if one of them had been that same Asharak he had finally met after all the years of knowing him only as a dark figure on a black horse, but somehow he was almost certain that Asharak had been among them. Asharak would follow him, would be there wherever he went. It was the kind of thing one could count on.

Durnik had been right when he had spoken of frost. The ground was white with it the next morning, and the horses' breath steamed in the chill air as they set out. They moved along lanes and little-used tracks that were partially weed-choked. The going was slower than it might have been on the main road, but they all felt much safer.

It took them five more days to reach the village of Winold, some twelve leagues to the north of Medalia. There, at Aunt Pol's insistence, they stopped overnight at a somewhat rundown inn. "I refuse to sleep on the ground again," she announced flatly.

After they had eaten in the dingy common room of the inn, the men turned to their ale pots, and Aunt Pol went up to her chamber with instructions that hot water be brought to her for bathing. Garion, however, made some pretext about checking the horses and went outside. It was not that he was in the habit of being deliberately deceptive, but it had occurred to him in the last day or so that he had not had a single moment alone since they had left Faldor's farm. He was not by nature a solitary boy, but he had begun to feel quite keenly the restriction of always being in the presence of his elders.

The village of Winold was not a large one, and he explored it from one end to the other in less than half an hour, loitering along its narrow, cobblestoned streets in the crispness of the early evening air. The windows of the houses glowed with golden candlelight, and Garion suddenly felt a great surge of homesickness.

Then, at the next corner of the crooked street, in the brief light from an opening door, he saw a familiar figure. He could not be positive, but he shrank back against a rough stone wall anyway.

The man at the corner turned in irritation toward the light, and Garion caught the sudden white gleam from one of his eyes. It was Brill. The unkempt man moved quickly out of the light, obviously not wishing to be seen, then he stopped.

Garion hugged the wall, watching Brill's impatient pacing at the corner. The wisest thing would have been to slip away and hurry back to the inn, but Garion quickly dismissed that idea. He was safe enough here in the deep shadow beside the wall, and he was too caught up by curiosity to leave without seeing exactly what Brill was doing here.

After what seemed hours, but was really only a few more minutes, another shadowy shape came scurrying down the street. The man was hooded, so it was impossible to see his face, but the outline of his form revealed a figure dressed in the tunic, hose and calf length boots of an ordinary Sendar. There was also, when he turned, the outline of a sword belted at his waist, and that was far from ordinary. While it was not precisely illegal for Sendars of the lower classes to bear arms, it was uncommon enough to attract notice.

Garion tried to edge close enough to hear what Brill said to the man with the sword, but they spoke only briefly. There was a clink as some coins changed hands, and then the two separated. Brill moved quietly off around the corner, and the man with the sword walked up the narrow, crooked street toward the spot where Garion stood.

There was no place to hide, and as soon as the hooded man came close enough, he would be able to see Garion. To turn and run would be even more dangerous. Since there was no alternative, Garion put on a bold front and marched determinedly toward the oncoming figure.

"Who's there?" the hooded man demanded, his hand going to his sword-hilt.

"Good evening, sir," Garion said, deliberately forcing his voice up into the squeaky registers of a much younger boy. "Cold night, isn't it?"

The hooded man grunted and seemed to relax.

Garion's legs quivered with the desire to run. He passed the man with the sword, and his back prickled as he felt that suspicious gaze follow him.

"Boy," the man said abruptly.

Garion stopped.

"Yes, sir?" he said, turning.

"Do you live here?"

"Yes, sir," Garion lied, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

"Is there a tavern hereabouts?"

Garion had just explored the town, and he spoke confidently.

"Yes, sir," he said. "You go on up this street to the next corner and turn to your left. There are torches out front. You can't miss it."

"My thanks," the hooded man said shortly, and walked on up the narrow street.

"Good night, sir," Garion called after him, made bold by the fact that the danger seemed past.

The man did not answer, and Garion marched on down to the corner, exhilarated by his brief encounter. Once he was around the corner, however, he dropped the guise of a simple village boy and ran.

He was breathless by the time he reached the inn and burst into the smoky common room where Mister Wolf and the others sat talking by the fire.

At the last instant, realizing that to blurt out his news in the common room where others might overhear would be a mistake, he forced himself to walk calmly to where his friends sat. He stood before the fire as if warming himself and spoke in a low tone. "I just saw Brill in the village," he said.

"Brill?" Silk asked. "Who's Brill?"

Wolf frowned. "A farmhand with too much Angarak gold in his purse to be entirely honest," he said. Quickly he told Silk and Barak about the adventure in Faldor's stable.

"You should have killed him," Barak rumbled.

"This isn't Cherek," Wolf said. "Sendars are touchy about casual killings." He turned to Garion. "Did he see you?" he asked.

"No," Garion said. "I saw him first and hid in the dark. He met another man and gave him some money, I think. The other man had a sword." Briefly he described the whole incident.

"This changes things," Wolf said. "I think we'll leave earlier in the morning than we'd planned."

"It wouldn't be hard to make Brill lose interest in us," Durnik said. "I could probably find him and hit him on the head a few times."

"Tempting." Wolf grinned. "But I think it might be better just to slip out of town early tomorrow and leave him with no notion that we've ever been here. We don't really have time to start fighting with everyone we run across."

"I'd like a closer look at this sword-carrying Sendar, however," Silk said, rising. "If it turns out that he's following us, I'd rather know what he looks like. I don't like being followed by strangers."

"Discreetly," Wolf cautioned.

Silk laughed. "Have you ever known me to be otherwise?" he asked. "This won't take long. Where did you say that tavern was, Garion?"

Garion gave him directions.

Silk nodded, his eyes bright and his long nose twitching. He turned, went quickly across the smoky common room and out into the chill night.

"I wonder," Barak considered. "If we're being followed this closely, wouldn't it be better to discard the wagons and this tiresome disguise, buy good horses and simply make straight for Muros at a gallop?"

Wolf shook his head. "I don't think the Murgos are all that certain where we are," he said. "Brill could be here for some other dishonesty, and we'd be foolish to start running from shadows. Better just to move on quietly. Even if Brill is still working for the Murgos, I'd rather just slip away and leave them all beating the bushes here in central Sendaria." He stood up. "I'm going to step upstairs and let Pol know what's happened." He crossed the common room and mounted the stairs.

"I still don't like it," Barak muttered, his face dark.

They sat quietly then, waiting for Silk's return. The fire popped, and Garion started slightly. It occurred to him as he waited that he had changed a great deal since they'd left Faldor's farm. Everything had seemed simple then with the world neatly divided into friends and enemies. In the short time since they'd left, however, he'd begun to perceive complexities that he hadn't imagined before. He'd grown wary and distrustful and listened more frequently to that interior voice that always advised caution if not outright guile. He'd also learned not to accept anything at face value. Briefly he regretted the loss of his former innocence, but the dry voice told him that such regret was childish.

Then Mister Wolf came back down the stairs and rejoined them. After about a half hour Silk returned. "Thoroughly disreputable-looking fellow," he said, standing in front of the fire. "My guess is that he's a common footpad."

"Brill's seeking his natural level," Wolf observed. "If he's still working for the Murgos, he's probably hiring ruffians to watch for us. They'll be looking for four people on foot, however, rather than six in wagons. If we can get out of Winold early enough in the morning, I think we can elude them altogether."

"I think Durnik and I should stand watch tonight," Barak said.

"Not a bad idea," Wolf agreed. "Let's plan to leave about the fourth hour after midnight. I'd like to have two or three leagues of back roads between us and this place when the sun comes up."

Garion scarcely slept that night; when he did, there were nightmares about a hooded man with a cruel sword chasing him endlessly down dark, narrow streets. When Barak woke them, Garion's eyes felt sandy, and his head was thick from the exhausting night.

Aunt Pol carefully drew the shutters in their chamber before lighting a single candle. "It's going to be colder now," she said, opening the large bundle she'd had him carry up from the wagons. She took out a pair of heavy woolen hose and winter boots lined with lambswool. "Put these on," she instructed Garion, "and your heavy cloak."

"I'm not a baby any more, Aunt Pol," Garion said.

"Do you enjoy being cold?"

"Well, no, but " He stopped, unable to think of any words to explain how he felt. He began to dress. He could hear the faint murmur of the others talking softly in the adjoining chamber in that curious, hushed tone that men always assume when they rise before the sun.

"We're ready, Mistress Pol," Silk's voice came through the doorway.

"Let's leave then," she said, drawing up the hood of her cloak.

The moon had risen late that night and shone brightly on the frostsilvered stones outside the inn. Durnik had hitched the horses to the wagons and had led them out of the stable.

"We'll lead the horses out to the road," Wolf said very quietly. "I see no need of rousing the villagers as we pass."

Silk again took the lead, and they moved slowly out of the innyard. The fields beyond the village were white with frost, and the pale, smoky-looking moonlight seemed to have leeched all color from them.

"As soon as we're well out of earshot," Wolf said, climbing up into his wagon, "let's put some significant distance between us and this place. The wagons are empty, and a little run won't hurt the horses."

"Truly," Silk agreed.

They all mounted their wagons and set off at a walk. The stars glittered overhead in the crisp, cold sky. The fields were very white in the moonlight, and the clumps of trees back from the road very dark.

Just as they went over the first hilltop, Garion looked back at the dark cluster of houses in the valley behind. A single flicker of light came from a window somewhere, a lone, golden pinpoint that appeared and then vanished.

"Someone's awake back there," he told Silk. "I just saw a light."

"Some early riser perhaps," Silk suggested. "But then again, perhaps not." He shook the reins slightly, and the horses increased their pace. He shook them again, and they began to trot.

"Hang on, boy," he instructed, reached forward and slapped the reins down smartly on the rumps of the horses.

The wagon bounced and clattered fearfully behind the running team, and the bitterly chill air rushed at Garion's face as he clung to the wagon seat.

At full gallop the three wagons plunged down into the next valley, rushing between the frost-white fields in the bright moonlight, leaving the village and its single light far behind.

By the time the sun rose, they had covered a good four leagues, and Silk reined in his steaming horses. Garion felt battered and sore from the wild ride over the iron-hard roads and was glad for the chance to rest. Silk handed him the reins and jumped down from the wagon. He walked back and spoke briefly to Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol, then returned to the wagon.

"We turn off at that lane just ahead," he told Garion as he massaged his fingers.

Garion offered him the reins.

"You drive," Silk told him. "My hands are frozen stiff. Just let the horses walk."

Garion clucked at the horses and shook the reins slightly. Obediently, the team started out again.

"The lane circles around to the back of that hill," Silk said, pointing with his chin since his hands were tucked inside his tunic. "On the far side there's a copse of fir trees. We'll stop there to rest the horses."

"Do you think we're being followed?" Garion asked.

"This'll be a good time to find out," Silk said.

They rounded the hill and drove on down to where the dark firs bordered the road. Then Garion turned the horses and moved in under the shadowy trees.

"This will do fine," Silk said, getting down. "Come along."

"Where are we going?"

"I want to have a look at that road behind us," Silk said. "We'll go up through the trees to the top of the hill and see if our back trail has attracted any interest."

And he started up the hill, moving quite rapidly but making absolutely no sound as he went. Garion floundered along behind him, his feet cracking the dead twigs underfoot embarrassingly until he began to catch the secret of it. Silk nodded approvingly once, but said nothing.

The trees ended just at the crest of the hill, and Silk stopped there. The valley below with the dark road passing through it was empty except for two deer who had come out of the woods on the far side to graze in the frosty grass.

"We'll wait a while," Silk said. "If Brill and his hireling are following, they shouldn't be far behind."

He sat on a stump and watched the empty valley.

After a while, a cart moved slowly along the road toward Winold. It looked tiny in the distance, and its pace along the scar of the road seemed very slow.

The sun rose a bit higher, and they squinted into its full morning brightness.

"Silk," Garion said finally in a hesitant tone.

"Yes, Garion?"

"What's this all about?" It was a bold question to ask, but Garion felt he knew Silk well enough now to ask it.

"All what?"

"What we're doing. I've heard a few things and guessed a few more, but it doesn't really make any sense to me."

"And just what have you guessed, Garion?" Silk asked, his small eyes very bright in his unshaven face.

"Something's been stolen-something very important - and Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol - and the rest of us - are trying to get it back."

"All right," Silk said. "That much is true."

"Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol are not at all what they seem to be," Garion went on.

"No," Silk agreed, "they aren't."

"I think they can do things that other people can't do," Garion said, struggling with the words. "Mister Wolf can follow this thing - whatever it is - without seeing it. And last week in those woods when the Murgos passed, they did something - I don't even know how to describe it, but it was almost as if they reached out and put my mind to sleep. How did they do that? And why?"

Silk chuckled.

"You're a very observant lad," he said. Then his tone became more serious. "We're living in momentous times, Garion. The events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. The world, I'm told, is like that. Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again."

"I think that if I had my choice, I'd prefer one of those quiet centuries," Garion said glumly.

"Oh, no," Silk said, his lips drawing back in a ferretlike grin. "Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure."

Garion let that pass.

"What is this thing we're following?" he asked.

"It's best if you don't even know its name," Silk told him seriously, "or the name of the one who stole it. There are people trying to stop us; and what you don't know, you can't reveal."

"I'm not in the habit of talking to Murgos," Garion said stiffly.

"It's not necessary to talk to them," Silk said. "There are some among them who can reach out and pick the thoughts right out of your mind."

"That isn't possible," Garion said.

"Who's to say what's possible and what isn't?" Silk asked. And Garion remembered a conversation he had once had with Mister Wolf about the possible and the impossible.

Silk sat on the stump in the newly risen sun looking thoughtfully down into the still-shadowy valley, an ordinary-looking little man in ordinary-looking tunic and hose and a rough brown shoulder cape with its hood turned up over his head.

"You were raised as a Sendar, Garion," he said, "and Sendars are solid, practical men with little patience for such things as sorcery and magic and other things that can't be seen or touched. Your friend, Durnik, is a perfect Sendar. He can mend a shoe or fix a broken wheel or dose a sick horse, but I doubt that he could bring himself to believe in the tiniest bit of magic."

"I am a Sendar," Garion objected. The hint implicit in Silk's observation struck at the very center of his sense of his own identity.

Silk turned and looked at him closely.

"No," he said, "you aren't. I know a Sendar when I see one just as I can recognize the difference between an Arend and a Tolnedran or a Cherek and an Algar. There's a certain set of the head, a certain look about the eyes of Sendars that you don't have. You're not a Sendar."

"What am I then?" Garion challenged.

"I don't know," Silk said with a puzzled frown, "and that's very unusual, since I've been trained to know what people are. It may come to me in time, though."

"Is Aunt Pol a Sendar?" Garion asked.

"Of course not." Silk laughed.

"That explains it then," Garion said. "I'm probably the same thing she is."

Silk looked sharply at him.

"She's my father's sister, after all," Garion said. "At first I thought it was my mother she was related to, but that was wrong. It was my father; I know that now."

"That's impossible," Silk said flatly.

"Impossible?"

"Absolutely out of the question. The whole notion's unthinkable."

"Why?"

Silk chewed at his lower lip for a moment. "Let's go back to the wagons," he said shortly.

They turned and went down through the dark trees with the bright morning sunlight slanting on their backs in the frosty air.

They rode the back lanes for the rest of the day. Late in the afternoon when the sun had begun to drop into a purple bank of clouds toward the west, they arrived at the farm where they were to pick up Mingan's hams. Silk spoke with the stout farmer and showed him the piece of parchment Mingan had given them in Darine.

"I'll be glad to get rid of them," the farmer said. "They've been occupying storage space I sorely need."

"That's frequently the case when one has dealings with Tolnedrans," Silk observed. "They're gifted at getting a bit more than they pay foreven if it's only the free use of someone else's storage sheds."

The farmer glumly agreed.

"I wonder," Silk said as if the thought had just occurred to him, "I wonder if you might have seen a friend of mine - Brill by name? A medium-sized man with black hair and beard and a cast to one eye?"

"Patched clothes and a sour disposition?" the stout farmer asked.

"That's him," Silk said.

"He's been about the area," the farmer said, "looking - or so he said - for an old man and a woman and a boy. He said that they stole some things from his master and that he'd been sent to find them."

"How long ago was that?" Silk asked.

"A week or so," the farmer said.

"I'm sorry to have missed him," Silk said. "I wish I had the leisure to look him up."

"I can't for my life think why," the farmer said bluntly. "To be honest with you, I didn't care much for your friend."

"I'm not overfond of him myself," Silk agreed, "but the truth is that he owes me some money. I could quite easily do without Brill's companionship, but I'm lonesome for the money, if you take my meaning."

The farmer laughed.

"I'd take it as a kindness if you happened to forget that I asked after him," Silk said. "He'll likely be hard enough to find even if he isn't warned that I'm looking for him."

"You can depend on my discretion," the stout man said, still laughing. "I have a loft where you and your wagoneers can put up for the night, and I'd take it kindly if you'd sup with my workers in the dining hall over there."

"My thanks," Silk said, bowing slightly. "The ground's cold, and it's been some time since we've eaten anything but the rough fare of the road."

"You wagoneers lead adventuresome lives," the stout man said almost enviously. "Free as birds with always a new horizon just beyond the next hilltop."

"It's much overrated," Silk told him, "and winter's a thin time for birds and wagoneers both."

The farmer laughed again, clapped Silk on the shoulder and then showed him where to put up the horses.

The food in the stout farmer's dining hall was plain, but there was plenty; and the loft was a bit drafty, but the hay was soft. Garion slept soundly. The farm was not Faldor's, but it was familiar enough, and there was that comforting sense of having walls about him again that made him feel secure.

The following morning, after a solid breakfast, they loaded the wagons with the Tolnedran's salt-crusted hams and bade the farmer a friendly good-bye.

The clouds that had begun to bank up in the west the evening before had covered the sky during the night, and it was cold and gray as they set out for Muros, fifty leagues to the south.

Chapter Nine

THE ALMOST TWO WEEKS it took them to reach Muros were the most uncomfortable Garion had ever spent. Their route skirted the edge of the foothills through rolling and sparsely settled country, and the sky hung gray and cold overhead. There were occasional spits of snow, and the mountains loomed black against the skyline to the east.

It seemed to Garion that he would never be warm again. Despite Durnik's best efforts to find dry firewood each night, their fires always seemed pitifully small, and the great cold around them enormously large. The ground upon which they slept was always frozen, and the chill seemed actually to seep into Garion's bones.

His education in the Drasnian secret language continued and he became, if not adept, at least competent by the time they passed Lake Camaar and began the long, downhill grade that led to Muros.

The city of Muros in south-central Sendaria was a sprawling, unattractive place that had been since time immemorial the site of a great annual fair. Each year in late summer, Algar horsemen drove vast cattle herds through the mountains along the Great North Road to Muros where cattle buyers from all over the west gathered to await their coming. Huge sums changed hands, and, because the Algar clansmen also commonly made their yearly purchases of useful and ornamental articles at that time, merchants from as far away as Nyissa in the remote south gathered to offer their wares. A large plain which lay to the east of the city was given over entirely to the cattle pens that stretched for miles but were still inadequate to contain the herds which arrived at the height of the season. Beyond the pens to the east lay the more or less permanent encampment of the Algars.

It was to this city one midmorning at the tag end of the fair, when the cattle pens were nearly empty and most of the Algars had departed and only the most desperate merchants remained, that Silk led the three wagons laden with the hams of Mingan the Tolnedran.

The delivery of the hams took place without incident, and the wagons soon drew into an innyard near the northern outskirts of the city.

"This is a respectable inn, great lady," Silk assured Aunt Pol as he helped her down from the wagon. "I've stopped here before."

"Let's hope so," she said. "The inns of Muros have an unsavory reputation."

"Those particular inns lie along the eastern edge of town," Silk assured her delicately. "I know them well."

"I'm certain you do," she said with an arched eyebrow.

"My profession sometimes requires me to seek out places I might otherwise prefer to avoid," he said blandly.

The inn, Garion noted, was surprisingly clean, and its guests seemed for the most part to be Sendarian merchants.

"I thought there'd be many different kinds of people here in Muros," he said as he and Silk carried their bundles up to the chambers on the second floor.

"There are," Silk said, "but each group tends to remain aloof from the others. The Tolnedrans gather in one part of town, the Drasnians in another, the Nyissans in yet another. The Earl of Muros prefers it that way. Tempers sometimes flare in the heat of the day's business, and it's best not to have natural enemies housed under the same roof."

Garion nodded. "You know," he said as they entered the chambers they had taken for their stay in Muros, "I don't think I've ever seen a Nyissan."

"You're lucky," Silk said with distaste. "They're an unpleasant race."

"Are they like Murgos?"

"No," Silk said. "The Nyissans worship Issa, the Snake-God, and it's considered seemly among them to adopt the mannerisms of the serpent. I don't find it at all that attractive myself. Besides, the Nyissans murdered the Rivan King, and all Alorns have disliked them since then."

"The Rivans don't have a king," Garion objected.

"Not anymore," Silk said. "They did once, though - until Queen Salmissra decided to have him murdered."

"When was that?" Garion asked, fascinated.

"Thirteen hundred years ago," Silk said, as if it had only been yesterday.

"Isn't that sort of a long time to hold a grudge?" Garion asked.

"Some things are unforgivable," Silk said shortly.

Since there was still a good part of the day left, Silk and Wolf left the inn that afternoon to search the streets of Muros for those strange, lingering traces that Wolf could apparently see or feel and which would tell him whether the object they sought had passed this way. Garion sat near the fire in the chamber he shared with Aunt Pol, trying to bake the chill out of his feet. Aunt Pol also sat by the fire, mending one of his tunics, her shining needle flickering in and out of the fabric.

"Who was the Rivan King, Aunt Pol?" he asked her. She stopped sewing.

"Why do you ask?" she said.

"Silk was telling me about Nyissans," he said. "He told me that their queen murdered the Rivan King. Why would she do that?"

"You're full of questions today, aren't you?" she asked, her needle moving again.

"Silk and I talk about a lot of things as we ride along," Garion said, pushing his feet even closer to the fire.

"Don't burn your shoes," she told him.

"Silk says that I'm not a Sendar," Garion said. "He says that he doesn't know what I am, but that I'm not a Sendar."

"Silk talks too much," Aunt Pol observed.

"You never tell me anything, Aunt Pol," he said in irritation.

"I tell you everything you need to know," she said calmly. "Right now it's not necessary for you to know anything about Rivan kings or Nyissan queens."

"All you want to do is keep me an ignorant child," Garion said petulantly. "I'm almost a man, and I don't even know what I am - or who."

"I know who you are," she said, not looking up.

"Who am I then?"

"You're a young man who's about to catch his shoes on fire," she said.

He jerked his feet back quickly.

"You didn't answer me," he accused.

"That's right," she said in that same infuriatingly calm voice.

"Why not?"

"It's not necessary for you to know yet. When it's time, I'll tell you, but not until."

"That's not fair," he objected.

"The world's full of injustice," she said. "Now, since you're feeling so manly, why don't you fetch some more firewood? That'll give you something useful to think about."

He glared at her and stamped across the room.

"Garion," she said.

"What?"

"Don't even think about slamming the door."

That evening when Wolf and Silk returned, the usually cheerful old man seemed impatient and irritable. He sat down at the table in the common room of the inn and stared moodily at the fire. "I don't think it

passed this way," he said finally. "There are a few places left to try, but I'm almost certain that it hasn't been here."

"Then we go on to Camaar?" Barak rumbled, his thick fingers combing his bristling beard.

"We must," Wolf said. "Most likely we should have gone there first."

"There was no way to know," Aunt Pol told him. "Why would he go to Camaar if he's trying to carry it to the Angarak kingdoms?"

"I can't even be certain where he's going," Wolf said irritably. "Maybe he wants to keep the thing for himself. He's always coveted it." He stared into the fire again.

"We're going to need some kind of cargo for the trip to Camaar," Silk said.

Wolf shook his head. "It slows us too much," he said. "It's not unusual for wagons to return to Camaar from Muros without cargo, and it's reaching the point where we'll have to gamble our disguise for the sake of speed. It's forty leagues to Camaar, and the weather's turning bad. A heavy snowstorm could stop the wagons entirely, and I don't have time to spend the whole winter mired down in a snowbank."

Durnik dropped his knife suddenly and started to scramble to his feet.

"What's amiss?" Barak asked quickly.

"I just saw Brill," Durnik said. "He was in that doorway."

"Are you sure?" Wolf demanded.

"I know him," Durnik said grimly. "It was Brill, all right."

Silk pounded his fist down on the table.

"Idiot!" he accused himself. "I underestimated the man."

"That doesn't matter now," Mister Wolf said, and there was almost a kind of relief in his voice. "Our disguise is useless now. I think it's time for speed."

"I'll see to the wagons," Durnik said.

"No," Wolf said. "The wagons are too slow. We'll go to the camp of the Algars and buy good horses." He stood up quickly.

"What of the wagons?" Durnik persisted.

"Forget them," Wolf said. "They're only a hindrance now. We'll ride the wagon horses to the camp of the Algars and take only what we can conveniently carry. Let's get ready to leave immediately. Meet me in the innyard as soon as you can." He went quickly to the door and out into the cold night.

It was only a few minutes later that they all met near the door to the stable in the cobblestoned innyard, each carrying a small bundle. Hulking Barak jingled as he walked, and Garion could smell the oiled steel of his mail shirt. A few Bakes of snow drifted down through the frosty air and settled like tiny feathers to the frozen ground.

Durnik was the last to join them. He came breathlessly out of the inn and pressed a small handful of coins upon Mister Wolf.

"It was the best I could do," he apologized. "It's scarce half the worth of the wagons, but the innkeeper sensed my haste and bargained meanly." He shrugged then. "At least we're rid of them," he said. "It's not good to leave things of value behind. They nag at the mind and distract one from the business at hand."

Silk laughed. "Durnik," he said, "you're the absolute soul of a Sendar."

"One must follow one's nature," Durnik said.

"Thank you, my friend," Wolf said gravely, dropping the coins in his purse. "Let's lead the horses," he went on. "Galloping through these narrow streets at night would only attract attention."

"I'll lead," Barak announced, drawing his sword. "If there's any trouble, I'm best equipped to deal with it."

"I'll walk along beside you, friend Barak;" Durnik said, hefting a stout cudgel of firewood.

Barak nodded, his eyes grimly bright, and led his horse out through the gate with Durnik closely at his side.

Taking his lead from Durnik, Garion paused momentarily as he passed the woodpile and selected a good oak stick. It had a comforting weight, and he swung it a few times to get the feel of it. Then he saw Aunt Pol watching him, and he hurried on without any further display.

The streets through which they passed were narrow and dark, and the snow had begun to fall a bit more heavily now, settling almost lazily through the dead calm air. The horses, made skittish by the snow, seemed to be fearful and crowded close to those who led them.

When the attack came, it was unexpected and swift. There was a sudden rush of footsteps and a sharp ring of steel on steel as Barak fended off the first blow with his sword.

Garion could see only shadowy figures outlined against the falling snow, and then, as once before when in his boyhood he had struck down his friend Rundorig in mock battle, his ears began to ring; his blood surged boilingly in his veins as he leaped into the fight, ignoring the single cry from Aunt Pol.

He received a smart rap on the shoulder, whirled and struck with his stick. He was rewarded with a muffled grunt. He struck again - and then again, swinging his club at those parts of his shadowy enemy which he instinctively knew were most sensitive.

The main fight, however, surged around Barak and Durnik. The ring of Barak's sword and the thump of Durnik's cudgel resounded in the narrow street along with the groans of their assailants.

"There's the boy!" a voice rang out from behind them, and Garion whirled. Two men were running down the street toward him, one with a sword and the other with a wicked-looking curved knife. Knowing it was hopeless, Garion raised his club, but Silk was there. The small man launched himself from the shadows directly at the feet of the two, and all three crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Silk rolled to his feet like a cat, spun and kicked one of the floundering men solidly just below the ear. The man sank twitching to the cobblestones. The other scrambled away and half rose just in time to receive both of Silk's heels in his face as the rat-faced Drasnian leaped into the air, twisted and struck with both legs. Then Silk turned almost casually.

"Are you all right?" he asked Garion.

"I'm fine," Garion said. "You're awfully good at this kind of thing."

"I'm an acrobat," Silk said. "It's simple once you know how."

"They're getting away," Garion told him.

Silk turned, but the two he had just put down were dragging themselves into a dark alley.

There was a triumphant shout from Barak, and Garion saw that the rest of the attackers were fleeing.

At the end of the street in the snow-speckled light from a small window was Brill, almost dancing with fury. "Cowards!" he shouted at his hirelings. "Cowards!" And then Barak started for him, and he too turned and ran.

"Are you all right, Aunt Pol?" Garion said, crossing the street to where she stood.

"Of course I am," she snapped. "And don't do that again, young man. Leave street brawling to those better suited for it."

"I was all right," he objected. "I had my stick here."

"Don't argue with me," she said. "I didn't go to all the trouble of raising you to have you end up dead in a gutter."

"Is everyone all right?" Durnik asked anxiously, coming back to them.

"Of course we are," Aunt Pol snapped peevishly. "Why don't you see if you can help the Old Wolf with the horses?"

"Certainly, Mistress Pol," Durnik said mildly.

"A splendid little fight," Barak said, wiping his sword as he joined them. "Not much blood, but satisfying all the same."

"I'm delighted you found it so," Aunt Pol said acidly. "I don't much care for such encounters. Did they leave anyone behind?"

"Regrettably no, dear lady," Barak said. "The quarters were too narrow for good strokes, and these stones too slippery for good footing. I marked a couple of them quite well, however. We managed to break a few bones and dent a head or two. As a group, they were much better at running than at fighting."

Silk came back from the alley where he had pursued the two who had tried to attack Garion. His eyes were bright, and his grin was vicious.

"Invigorating," he said, and then laughed for no apparent reason.

Wolf and Durnik had managed to calm their wild-eyed horses and led them back to where Garion and the others stood.

"Is anyone hurt?" Wolf demanded.

"We're all intact," Barak rumbled. "The business was hardly worth drawing a sword for."

Garion's mind was racing; in his excitement, he spoke without stopping to consider the fact that it might be wiser to think the whole thing through first.

"How did Brill know we were in Muros?" he asked.

Silk looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowing.

"Perhaps he followed us from Winold," he said.

"But we stopped and looked back," Garion said. "He wasn't following when we left, and we've kept a watch behind us every day."

Silk frowned.

"Go on, Garion," he said.

"I think he knew where we were going," Garion blurted, struggling against a strange compulsion not to speak what his mind saw clearly now.

"And what else do you think?" Wolf asked.

"Somebody told him," Garion said. "Somebody who knew we were coming here."

"Mingan knew," Silk said, "but Mingan's a merchant, and he wouldn't talk about his dealings to somebody like Brill."

"But Asharak the Murgo was in Mingan's counting room when Mingan hired us." The compulsion was so strong now that Garion's tongue felt stiff.

Silk shrugged.

"Why should it concern him? Asharak didn't know who we were."

"But what if he did?" Garion struggled. "What if he isn't just an ordinary Murgo, but one of those others - like the one who was with those ones who passed us a couple days after we left Darine?"

"A Grolim?" Silk said, and his eyes widened. "Yes, I suppose that if Asharak is a Grolim, he'd have known who we are and what we're doing."

"And what if the Grolim who passed us that day was Asharak?" Garion fought to say. "What if he wasn't really looking for us, but just coming south to find Brill and send him here to wait for us?"

Silk looked very hard at Garion.

"Very good," he said softly. "Very, very good." He glanced at Aunt Pol. "My compliments, Mistress Pol. You've raised a rare boy here."

"What did this Asharak look like?" Wolf asked quickly.

"A Murgo." Silk shrugged. "He said he was from Rak Goska. I took him to be an ordinary spy on some business that didn't concern us. My mind seems to have gone to sleep."

"It happens when one deals with Grolims," Wolf told him.

"Someone's watching us," Durnik said quietly, "from that window up there."

Garion looked up quickly and saw a dark shape at a second-story window outlined by a dim light. The shape was hauntingly familiar. Mister Wolf did not look up, but his face turned blank as if he were looking inward, or his mind were searching for something. Then he drew himself up and looked at the figure in the window, his eyes blazing. "A Grolim," he said shortly.

"A dead one perhaps," Silk said. He reached inside his tunic and drew out a long, needle-pointed dirk. He took two quick steps away from the house where the Grolim stood watching, spun and threw the dirk with a smooth, overhand cast.

The dirk crashed through the window. There was a muffled shout, and the light went out. Garion felt a strange pang in his left arm.

"Marked him," Silk said with a grin.

"Good throw," Barak said admiringly.

"One has picked up certain skills," Silk said modestly. "If it was Asharak, I owed him that for deceiving me in Mingan's counting room."

"At least it'll give him something to think about," Wolf said. "There's no point in trying to creep through town now. They know we're here. Let's mount and ride." He climbed onto his horse and led the way down the street at a quick walk.

The compulsion was gone now, and Garion wanted to tell them about Asharak, but there was no chance for that as they rode.

Once they reached the outskirts of the city, they nudged their horses into a fast canter. The snow was falling more seriously now, and the hoof churned ground in the vast cattle pens was already faintly dusted with white.

"It's going to be a cold night," Silk shouted as they rode.

"We could always go back to Muros," Barak suggested. "Another scuffle or two might warm your blood."

Silk laughed and put his heels to his horse again.

The encampment of the Algars was three leagues to the east of Muros. It was a large area surrounded by a stout palisade of poles set in the ground. The snow by now was falling thickly enough to make the camp look hazy and indistinct. The gate, flanked by hissing torches, was guarded by two fierce-looking warriors in leather leggings, snow-dusted jerkins of the same material, and pot-shaped steel helmets. The points of their lances glittered in the torchlight.

"Halt," one of the warriors commanded, leveling his lance at Mister Wolf. "What business have you here at this time of night?"

"I have urgent need of speaking with your herd master," Wolf replied politely. "May I step down?"

The two guards spoke together briefly.

"You may come down," one of them said. "Your companions, however, must withdraw somewhat - but not beyond the light."

"Algars!" Silk muttered under his breath. "Always suspicious."

Mister Wolf climbed down from his horse, and, throwing back his hood, approached the two guards through the snow.

Then a strange thing happened. The elder of the two guards stared at Mister Wolf, taking in his silver hair and beard. His eyes suddenly opened very wide. He quickly muttered something to his companion, and the two men bowed deeply to Wolf.

"There isn't time for that," Wolf said in annoyance. "Convey me to your herd master."

"At once, Ancient One," the elder guard said quickly and hurried to open the gate.

"What was that about?" Garion whispered to Aunt Pol.

"Algars are superstitious," she said shortly. "Don't ask so many questions."

They waited with snow settling down upon them and melting on their horses. After about a half hour, the gate opened again and two dozen mounted Algars, fierce in their rivet-studded leather vests and steel helmets, herded six saddled horses out into the snow.

Behind them Mister Wolf walked, accompanied by a tall man with his head shaved except for a flowing scalp lock.

"You have honored our camp by your visit, Ancient One," the tall man was saying, "and I wish you all speed on your journey."

"I have little fear of being delayed with Algar horses under us," Wolf replied.

"My riders will accompany you along a route they know which will put you on the far side of Muros within a few hours," the tall man said. "They will then linger for a time to be certain you are not followed."

"I cannot express my gratitude, noble herd master," Wolf said, bowing.

"It is I who am grateful for the opportunity to be of service," the herd master said, also bowing.

The change to their new horses took only a minute. With half of their contingent of Algars leading and the other half bringing up the rear, they turned and rode back toward the west through the dark, snowy night.

Chapter Ten

GRADUALLY, ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLY, the darkness became paler as the softly falling snow made indistinct even the arrival of morning. Their seemingly inexhaustible horses pounded on through the growing light, the sound of their hooves muffled by the snow now lying fetlock-deep on the broad surface of the Great North Road. Garion glanced back once and saw the jumbled tracks of their passage stretching behind them and, already at the hazy gray limit of his vision, beginning to fill with concealing snow.

When it was fully light, Mister Wolf reined in his steaming horse and proceeded at a walk for a time.

"How far have we come?" he asked Silk.

The weasel-faced man who had been shaking the snow out of the folds of his cloak looked around, trying to pick out a landmark in the misty veil of dropping flakes.

"Ten leagues," he said finally. "Perhaps a bit more."

"This is a miserable way to travel," Barak rumbled, wincing slightly as he shifted his bulk in the saddle.

"Think of how your horse must feel." Silk grinned at him.

"How far is it to Camaar?" Aunt Pol asked.

"Forty leagues from Muros," Silk told her.

"We'll need shelter then," she said. "We can't gallop forty leagues without rest, no matter who's behind us."

"I don't think we need to worry about pursuit just now," Wolf said. "The Algars will detain Brill and his hirelings or even Asharak if they try to follow us."

"At least there's something Algars are good for," Silk said dryly.

"If I remember correctly, there should be an imperial hostel about five leagues farther to the west," Wolf said. "We ought to reach it by noon."

"Will we be allowed to stay there?" Durnik asked doubtfully. "I've never heard that Tolnedrans are noted for hospitality."

"Tolnedrans will sell anything for a price," Silk said. "The hostel would be a good place to stop. Even if Brill or Asharak should evade the Algars and follow us there, the legionnaires won't permit any foolishness within their walls."

"Why should there be Tolnedran soldiers in Sendaria?" Garion asked, feeling a brief surge of patriotic resentment at the thought.

"Wherever the great roads are, you'll find the legions," Silk said. "Tolnedrans are even better at writing treaties than they are at giving short weight to their customers."

Mister Wolf chuckled. "You're inconsistent, Silk," he said. "You don't object to their highways, but you dislike their legions. You can't have the one without the other."

"I've never pretended to be consistent," the sharp-nosed man said airily. "If we want to reach the questionable comfort of the imperial hostel by noon, hadn't we better move along? I wouldn't want to deny His Imperial Majesty the opportunity to pick my pocket."

"All right," Wolf said, "let's ride." And he put his heels to the flanks of the Algar horse which had already begun to prance impatiently under him.

The hostel, when they reached it in the full light of snowy noon, proved to be a series of stout buildings surrounded by an even stouter wall. The legionnaires who manned it were not the same sort of men as the Tolnedran merchants Garion had seen before. Unlike the oily men of commerce, these were hard-faced professional fighting men in burnished breastplates and plumed helmets. They carried themselves proudly, even arrogantly, each bearing the knowledge that the might of all Tolnedra was behind him.

The food in the dining hall was plain and wholesome, but dreadfully expensive. The tiny sleeping cubicles were scrupulously clean, with hard, narrow beds and thick woolen blankets, and were also expensive. The stables were neat, and they too reached deeply into Mister Wolf's purse. Garion wondered at the thought of how much their lodging was costing, but Wolf paid for it all with seeming indifference as if his purse were bottomless.

"We'll rest here until tomorrow," the white-bearded old man announced when they had finished eating. "Maybe it will snow itself out by morning. I'm not happy with all this plunging blindly through a snowstorm. Too many things can hide in our path in such weather."

Garion, who by now was numb with exhaustion, heard these words gratefully as he half drowsed at the table. The others sat talking quietly, but he was too tired to listen to what they said.

"Garion," Aunt Pol said finally, "why don't you go to bed?"

"I'm all right, Aunt Pol," he said, rousing himself quickly, mortified once more at being treated like a child.

"Now, Garion," she said in that infuriating tone he knew so well. It seemed that all his life she had been saying "Now, Garion," to him. But he knew better than to argue.

He stood up and was surprised to feel that his legs were trembling. Aunt Pol also rose and led him from the dining hall.

"I can find my way by myself," he objected.

"Of course," she said. "Now come along."

After he had crawled into bed in his cubicle, she pulled his blankets up firmly around his neck. "Stay covered," she told him. "I don't want you taking cold." She laid her cool hand briefly on his forehead as she had done when he was a small child.

"Aunt Pol?" he asked drowsily.

"Yes, Garion?"

"Who were my parents? I mean, what were their names?"

She looked at him gravely. "We can talk about that later," she said.

"I want to know," he said stubbornly.

"All right. Your father's name was Geran; your mother's was Ildera."

Garion thought about that.

"The names don't sound Sendarian," he said finally.

"They're not," Aunt Pol said.

"Why was that?"

"It's a very long story," she said, "and you're much too tired to hear it just now."

On a sudden impulse he reached out and touched the white lock at her brow with the mark on the palm of his right hand. As had some times happened before, a window seemed to open in his mind at the tingling touch, but this time that window opened on something much more serious. There was anger, and a single face-a face that was strangely like Mister Wolf's, but was not his face, and all the towering fury in the world was directed at that face.

Aunt Pol moved her head away. "I've asked you not to do that, Garion," she said, her tone very matter-of fact. "You're not ready for it yet.

"You're going to have to tell me what it is someday," he said.

"Perhaps," she said, "but not now. Close your eyes and go to sleep."

And then, as if that command had somehow dissolved his will, he fell immediately into a deep, untroubled sleep.

By the next morning it had stopped snowing. The world outside the walls of the imperial hostel was mantled in thick, unbroken white, and the air was filmy with a kind of damp haze that was almost-but not quite-fog.

"Misty Sendaria," Silk said ironically at breakfast. "Sometimes I'm amazed that the entire kingdom doesn't rust shut."

They traveled all that day at a mile-eating canter, and that night there was another imperial hostel, almost identical to the one they had left that morning - so closely identical in fact that it almost seemed to Garion that they had ridden all day and merely arrived back where they had started. He commented on that to Silk as they were putting their horses in the stable.

"Tolnedrans are nothing if not predictable," Silk said. "All their hostels are exactly the same. You can find these same buildings in Drasnia, Algaria, Arendia and any place else their great roads go. It's their one weakness - this lack of imagination."

"Don't they get tired of doing the same thing over and over again?"

"It makes them feel comfortable, I guess." Silk laughed. "Let's go see about supper."

It snowed again the following day, but by noon Garion caught a scent other than that faintly dusty odor snow always seemed to have. Even as he had done when they had approached Darine, he began to smell the sea, and he knew their journey was almost at an end.

Camaar, the largest city in Sendaria and the major seaport of the north, was a sprawling place which had existed at the mouth of the Greater Camaar River since antiquity. It was the natural western terminus of the Great North Road which stretched to Boktor in Drasnia and the equally natural northern end of the Great West Road which reached down across Arendia into Tolnedra and the imperial capital at Tol Honeth. With some accuracy it could be said that all roads ended at Camaar.

Late on a chill, snowy afternoon, they rode down a gradual hill toward the city. Some distance from the gate, Aunt Pol stopped her horse. "Since we're no longer posing as vagabonds," she announced, "I see no further need for selecting the most disreputable inns, do you?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," Mister Wolf said.

"Well, I have," she said. "I've had more than enough of wayside hostels and seedy village inns. I need a bath, a clean bed and some decent food. If you don't mind, I'll choose our lodging this time."

"Of course, Pol," Wolf said mildly. "Whatever you say."

"Very well, then," she said and rode on toward the city gate with the rest of them trailing behind her.

"What is your business in Camaar?" one of the fur-mantled guards at the broad gate asked rather rudely.

Aunt Pol threw back her hood and fixed the man with a steely gaze. "I am the Duchess of Erat," she announced in ringing tones. "These are my retainers, and my business in Camaar is my own affair."

The guard blinked and then bowed respectfully.

"Forgive me, your Grace," he said. "I didn't intend to give offense."

"Indeed?" Aunt Pol said, her tone still cold and her gaze still dangerous.

"I did not recognize your Grace," the poor man floundered, squirming under that imperious stare. "May I offer any assistance?"

"I hardly think so," Aunt Pol said, looking him up and down. "Which is the finest inn in Camaar?"

"That would be the Lion, my Lady."

"And-?" she said impatiently.

"And what, my Lady?" the man said, confused by her question.

"Where is it?" she demanded. "Don't stand there gaping like a dolt. Speak up."

"It lies beyond the customs houses," the guard replied, flushing at her words. "Follow this street until you reach Customs Square. Anyone there can direct you to the Lion."

Aunt Pol pulled her hood back up.

"Give the fellow something," she said over her shoulder and rode on into the city without a backward glance.

"My thanks," the guard said as Wolf leaned down to hand him a small coin. "I must admit that I haven't heard of the Duchess of Erat before."

"You're a fortunate man," Wolf said.

"She's a great beauty," the man said admiringly.

"And has a temper to match," Wolf told him.

"I noticed that," the guard said.

"We noticed you noticing," Silk told him slyly.

They nudged their horses and caught up with Aunt Pol.

"The Duchess of Erat?" Silk asked mildly.

"The fellow's manner irritated me," Aunt Pol said loftily, "and I'm tired of putting on a poor face in front of strangers."

At Customs Square Silk accosted a busy-looking merchant trudging across the snow-covered paving. "You-fellow," he said in the most insulting way possible, pulling his horse directly in front of the startled merchant. "My mistress, the Duchess of Erat, requires directions to an inn called the Lion. Be so good as to provide them."

The merchant blinked, his face flushing at the rat-faced man's tone.

"Up that street," he said shortly, pointing. "Some goodly way. It will be on your left. There's a sign of a Lion at the front."

Silk sniffed ungraciously, tossed a few coins into the snow at the man's feet and whirled his horse in a grand manner. The merchant, Garion noted, looked outraged, but he did grope in the snow for the coins Silk had thrown.

"I doubt that any of these people will quickly forget our passage," Wolf said sourly when they were some ways up the street.

"They'll remember the passage of an arrogant noblewoman," Silk said. "This is as good a disguise as any we've tried."

When they arnved at the inn, Aunt Pol commanded not just the usual sleeping chambers but an entire apartment. "My chamberlain there will pay you," she said to the innkeeper, indicating Mister Wolf. "Our baggage horses are some days behind with the rest of my servants, so I'll require the services of a dressmaker and a maid. See to it." And she turned and swept imperially up the long staircase that led to her apartment, following the servant who scurried ahead to show her the way.

"The duchess has a commanding presence, doesn't she?" the innkeeper ventured as Wolf began counting out coins.

"She has indeed," Wolf agreed. "I've discovered the wisdom of not countering her wishes."

"I'll be guided by you then," the innkeeper assured him. "My youngest daughter is a serviceable girl. I'll dispatch her to serve as her Grace's maid."

"Many thanks, friend," Silk told him. "Our Lady becomes most irntable when those things she desires are delayed, and we're the ones who suffer most from her displeasure."

They trooped up the stairs to the apartments Aunt Pol had taken and stepped into the main sitting room, a splendid chamber far richer than any Garion had seen before. The walls were covered by tapestries with intricate pictures woven into the fabric. A wealth of candles - real wax instead of smoky tallow - gleamed in sconces on the walls and in a massive candelabra on the polished table. A good warm fire danced merrily on the hearth, and a large carpet of curious design lay on the floor.

Aunt Pol was standing before the fire, warming her hands. "Isn't this better than some shabby, wharfside inn reeking of fish and unwashed sailors?" she asked.

"If the Duchess of Erat will forgive my saying so," Wolf said somewhat tartly, "this is hardly the way to escape notice, and the cost of these lodgings would feed a legion for a week."

"Don't grow parsimonious in your dotage, Old Wolf," she replied. "No one takes a sPolled noblewoman seriously, and your wagons weren't able to keep that disgusting Brill from finding us. This guise is at least comfortable, and it permits us to move more rapidly."

Wolf grunted. "I only hope we won't regret all this," he said.

"Stop grumbling, old man," she told him.

"Have it your way, Pol." He sighed.

"I intend to," she said.

"How are we to behave, Mistress Po1?" Durnik asked hesitantly. Her sudden regal manner had obviously confused him. "I'm not familiar with the ways of the gentry."

"It's quite simple, Durnik," she said. She eyed him up and down, noting his plain, dependable face and his solid competence. "How would you like to be chief groom to the Duchess of Erat? And master of her stables?"

Durnik laughed uncomfortably. "Noble titles for work I've done all my life," he said. "I could manage the work easily enough, but the titles might grow a bit heavy."

"You'll do splendidly, friend Durnik," Silk assured him. "That honest face of yours makes people believe anything you choose to tell them. If I had a face like yours, I could steal half the world." He turned to Aunt Pol. "And what role am I to play, my Lady?" he asked.

"You'll be my reeve," she said. "The thievery usually associated with the position should suit you."

Silk bowed ironically.

"And I?" Barak said, grinning openly.

"My man-at-arms," she said. "I doubt that any would believe you to be a dancing master. Just stand around looking dangerous."

"What of me, Aunt Pol?" Garion asked. "What do I do?"

"You can be my page."

"What does a page do?"

"You fetch things for me."

"I've always done that. Is that what it's called?"

"Don't be impertinent. You also answer doors and announce visitors; and when I'm melancholy, you may sing to me."

"Sing?" he said incredulously. "Me?"

"It's customary."

"You wouldn't make me do that, would you, Aunt Pol?"

"Your Grace," she corrected.

"You won't be very gracious if you have to listen to me sing," he warned. "My voice isn't very good."

"You'll do just fine, dear," she said.

"And I've already been appointed to your Grace's chamberlain," Wolf said.

"My chief steward," she told him. "Manager of my estates and keeper of my purse."

"Somehow I knew that would be part of it."

There was a timid rap at the door.

"See who that is, Garion," Aunt Pol said.

When he opened the door, Garion found a young girl with light brown hair in a sober dress and starched apron and cap standing outside. She had very large brown eyes that looked at him apprehensively.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I've been sent to wait upon the duchess," she said in a low voice.

"Your maid has arrived, your Grace," Garion announced.

"Splendid," Aunt Pol said. "Come in, child."

The girl entered the room.

"What a pretty thing you are," Aunt Pol said.

"Thank you, my Lady," the girl answered with a brief curtsy and a rosy blush.

"And what is your name?"

"I am called Donia, my Lady."

"A lovely name," Aunt Pol said. "Now to important matters. Is there a bath on the premises?"

It was still snowing the next morning. The roofs of nearby houses were piled high with white, and the narrow streets were deep with it.

"I think we're close to the end of our search," Mister Wolf said as he stared intently out through the rippled glass of the window in the room with the tapestries.

"It's unlikely that the one we're after would stay in Camaar for long," Silk said.

"Very unlikely," Wolf agreed, "but once we've found his trail, we'll be able to move more rapidly. Let's go into the city and see if I'm right."

After Mister Wolf and Silk had left, Garion sat for a while talking with Donia, who seemed to be about his own age. Although she was not quite as pretty as Zubrette, Garion found her soft voice and huge brown eyes extremely attractive. Things were going along well between them until Aunt Pol's dressmaker arrived and Donia's presence was required in the chamber where the Duchess of Erat was being fitted for her new gowns.

Since Durnik, obviously ill at ease in the luxurious surroundings of their chambers, had adjourned to the stables after breakfast, Garion was left in the company of the giant Barak, who worked patiently with a small stone, polishing a nick out of the edge of his sword - a memento of the skirmish in Muros. Garion had never been wholly comfortable with the huge, red-bearded man. Barak spoke rarely, and there seemed to be a kind of hulking menace about him. So it was that Garion spent the morning examining the tapestries on the walls of the sitting room. The tapestries depicted knights in full armor and castles on hilltops and strangely angular-looking maidens moping about in gardens.

"Arendish," Barak said, directly behind him. Garion jumped. The huge man had moved up so quietly that Garion had not heard him.

"How can you tell?" Garion asked politely.

"The Arends have a fondness for tapestry," Barak rumbled, "and the weaving of pictures occupies their women while the men are off denting each other's armor."

"Do they really wear all that?" Garion asked, pointing at a heavily armored knight pictured on the tapestry.

"Oh yes." Barak laughed. "That and more. Even their horses wear armor. It's a silly way to make war."

Garion scuffed his shoe on the carpet.

"Is this Arendish too?" he asked.

Barak shook his head.

"Mallorean," he said.

"How did it get here all the way from MaIlorea?" Garion asked. "I've heard that Mallorea's all the way on the other end of the world."

"It's a goodly way off," Barak agreed, "but a merchant would go twice as far to make a profit. Such goods as this commonly move along the North Caravan Route out of Gar og Nadrak to Boktor. Mallorean carpets are prized by the wealthy. I don't much care for them myself, since I'm not fond of anything that has to do with the Angaraks."

"How many kinds of Angaraks are there?" Garion asked. "I know there are Murgos and Thulls, and I've heard stories about the Battle of Vo Mimbre and all, but I don't know much about them really."

"There are five tribes of them," Barak said, sitting back down and resuming his polishing, "Murgos and Thulls, Nadraks and Malloreans, and of course the Grolims. They live in the four kingdoms of the east Mallorea, Gar og Nadrak, Mishrak ac Thull and Cthol Murgos."

"Where do the Grolims live?"

"They have no special place," Barak replied grimly. "The Grolims are the priests of Torak One-eye and are everywhere in the lands of the Angaraks. They're the ones who perform the sacrifices to Torak. Grolim knives have spilled more Angarak blood than a dozen Vo Mimbres."

Garion shuddered.

"Why should Torak take such pleasure in the slaughter of his own people?" he asked.

"Who can say?" Barak shrugged. "He's a twisted and evil God. Some believe that he was made mad when he used the Orb of Aldur to crack the world and the Orb repaid him by burning out his eye and consuming his hand."

"How could the world be cracked?" Garion asked. "I've never understood that part of the story."

"The power of the Orb of Aldur is such that it can accomplish anything," Barak told him. "When Torak raised it, the earth was split apart by its power, and the seas came in to drown the land. The story's very old, but I think that it's probably true."

"Where is the Orb of Aldur now?" Garion asked suddenly.

Barak looked at him, his eyes icy blue and his face thoughtful, but he didn't say anything.

"Do you know what I think?" Garion said on a sudden impulse. "I think that it's the Orb of Aldur that's been stolen. I think it's the Orb that Mister Wolf is trying to find."

"And I think it would be better if you didn't think so much about such things," Barak warned.

"But I want to know," Garion protested, his curiosity driving him even in the face of Barak's words and the warning voice in his mind. "Everyone treats me like an ignorant boy. All I do is tag along with no idea of what we're doing. Who is Mister Wolf, anyway? Why did the Algars behave the way they did when they saw him? How can he follow something that he can't see? Please tell me, Barak."

"Not I." Barak laughed. "Your Aunt would pull out my beard whisker by whisker if I made that mistake."

"You're not afraid of her, are you?"

"Any man with good sense is afraid of her," Barak said, rising and sliding his sword into its sheath.

"Aunt Pol?" Garion asked incredulously.

"Aren't you afraid of her?" Barak asked pointedly.

"No," Garion said, and then realized that was not precisely true. "Well-not really afraid. It's more-" He left it hanging, not knowing how to explain it.

"Exactly," Barak said. "And I'm no more foolhardy than you, my boy. You're too full of questions I'd be far wiser not to answer. If you want to know about these things, you'll have to ask your Aunt."

"She won't tell me," Garion said glumly. "She won't tell me anything. She won't even tell me about my parents-not really."

Barak frowned.

"That's strange," he said.

"I don't think they were Sendars," Garion said. "Their names weren't Sendarian, and Silk says that I'm not a Sendar - at least I don't look like one."

Barak looked at him closely. "No," he said finally. "Now that you mention it, you don't. You look more like a Rivan than anything else, but not quite that either."

"Is Aunt Pol a Rivan?"

Barak's eyes narrowed slightly. "I think we're getting to some more of those questions I hadn't better answer," he said.

"I'm going to find out someday," Garion said.

"But not today," Barak said. "Come along. I need some exercise. Let's go out into the innyard and I'll teach you how to use a sword."

"Me?" Garion said, all his curiosity suddenly melting away in the excitement of that thought.

"You're at an age where you should begin to learn," Barak said. "The occasion may someday arise when it will be a useful thing for you to know."

Late that afternoon when Garion's arm had begun to ache from the effort of swinging Barak's heavy sword and the whole idea of learning the skills of a warrior had become a great deal less exciting, Mister Wolf and Silk returned. Their clothes were wet from the snow through which they had trudged all day, but Wolf's eyes were bright, and his face had a curiously exultant expression as he led them all back up the stairs to the sitting room.

"Ask your Aunt to join us," he told Garion as he removed his sodden mantle and stepped to the fire to warm himself.

Garion sensed quickly that this was not the time for questions. He hurried to the polished door where Aunt Pol had been closeted with her dressmaker all day and rapped.

"What is it?" her voice came from inside.

"Mister-uh-that is, your chamberlain has returned, my Lady," Garion said, remembering at the last moment that she was not alone. "He requests a word with you."

"Oh, very well," she said. After a minute she came out, firmly closing the door behind her.

Garion gasped. The rich, blue velvet gown she wore made her so magnificent that she quite took his breath away. He stared at her in helpless admiration.

"Where is he?" she asked. "Don't stand and gape, Garion. It's not polite."

"You're beautiful, Aunt Pol," he blurted.

"Yes, dear," she said, patting his cheek, "I know. Now where's the Old Wolf?"

"In the room with the tapestries," Garion said, still unable to take his eyes from her.

"Come along, then," she said and swept down the short hall to the sitting room. They entered to find the others all standing by the fireplace.

"Well?" she asked.

Wolf looked up at her, his eyes still bright. "An excellent choice, Pol," he said admiringly. "Blue has always been your best color."

"Do you like it?" she asked, holding out her arms and turning almost girlishly so that they all might see how fine she looked. "I hope it pleases you, old man, because it's costing you a great deal of money."

Wolf laughed. "I was almost certain it would," he said.

The effect of Aunt Pol's gown on Durnik was painfully obvious. The poor man's eyes literally bulged, and his face turned alternately very pale and then very red, then finally settled into an expression of such hopelessness that Garion was touched to the quick by it.

Silk and Barak in curious unison both bowed deeply and wordlessly to Aunt Pol, and her eyes sparkled at their silent tribute.

"It's been here," Wolf announced seriously.

"You're certain?" Aunt Pol demanded.

He nodded. "I could feel the memory of its passage in the very stones."

"Did it come by sea?" she asked.

"No. He probably came ashore with it in some secluded cove up the coast and then traveled here by land."

"And took ship again?"

"I doubt that," Wolf said. "I know him well. He's not comfortable on the sea."

"Besides which," Barak said, "one word to King Anheg of Cherek would have put a hundred warships on his trail. No one can hide on the sea from the ships of Cherek, and he knows that."

"You're right," Wolf agreed. "I think he'll avoid the domains of the Alorns. That's probably why he chose not to pass along the North Road through Algaria and Drasnia. The Spirit of Belar is strong in the kingdoms of the Alorns, and not even this thief is bold enough to risk a confrontation with the Bear-God."

"Which leaves Arendia," Silk said, "or the land of the Ulgos."

"Arendia, I think," Wolf said. "The wrath of UL is even more fearsome than that of Belar."

"Forgive me," Durnik said, his eyes still on Aunt Pol. "This is all most confusing. I've never heard just exactly who this thief is."

"I'm sorry, gentle Durnik," Wolf said. "It's not a good idea to speak his name. He has certain powers which might make it possible for him to know our every move if we alert him to our location, and he can hear his name spoken a thousand leagues away."

"A sorcerer?" Durnik asked unbelievingly.

"The word isn't one I'd choose," Wolf said. "It's a term used by men who don't understand that particular art. Instead let's call him `thief,' though there are a few other names I might call him which are far less kindly."

"Can we be certain that he'll make for the kingdoms of the Angaraks?" Silk asked, frowning. "If that's the case, wouldn't it be quicker to take a ship directly to Tol Honeth and pick up his trail on the South Caravan Route into Cthol Murgos?"

Wolf shook his head. "Better to stay with this trail now that we've found it. We don't know what he intends. Maybe he wants to keep the thing he's stolen for himself rather than deliver it over to the Grolims. He might even seek sanctuary in Nyissa."

"He couldn't do that without the connivance of Salmissra," Aunt Pol said.

"It wouldn't be the first time that the Queen of the Serpent People has tampered with things that are none of her concern," Wolf pointed out.

"If that turns out to be true," Aunt Pol said grimly, "I think I'll give myself the leisure to deal with the snake-woman permanently."

"It's too early to know," Wolf said. "Tomorrow we'll buy provisions and ferry across the river to Arendia. I'll take up the trail there. For the time being all we can do is follow that trail. Once we know for certain where it leads, we'll be able to consider our alternatives."

From the evening-darkened innyard outside there came suddenly the sound of many horses.

Barak stepped quickly to the window and glanced out.

"Soldiers," he said shortly.

"Here?" Silk said, also hurrying to the window.

"They appear to be from one of the king's regiments," Barak said. "They won't be interested in us," Aunt Pol said.

"Unless they aren't what they seem," Silk said. "Uniforms of one kind or another aren't that difficult to come by."

"They aren't Murgos," Barak said. "I'd recognize Murgos."

"Brill isn't a Murgo either," Silk said, staring down into the innyard.

"See if you can hear what they say," Wolf instructed.

Barak carefully opened one of the windows a crack, and the candles all flickered in the gust of icy wind. In the yard below the captain of the soldiers was speaking with the innkeeper.

"He's a man of somewhat more than medium height, with white hair and a short white beard. He may be traveling with some others."

"There's such a one here, your Honor," the innkeeper said dubiously, "but I'm sure he isn't the one you seek. This one is chief steward to the Duchess of Erat, who honors my inn with her presence."

"The Duchess of where?" the captain asked sharply.

"Of Erat," the innkeeper replied. "A most noble lady of great beauty and a commanding presence."

"I wonder if I might have a word with her Grace," the captain said, climbing down from his horse.

"I'll ask her if she will receive your Honor," the innkeeper replied.

Barak closed the window.

"I'll deal with this meddlesome captain," he said firmly.

"No," Wolf said. "He's got too many soldiers with him, and if they're who they seem to be, they're good men who haven't done us any harm."

"There's the back stairs," Silk suggested. "We could be three streets away before he reached our door."

"And if he stationed soldiers at the back of the inn?" Aunt Pol suggested. "What then? Since he's coming to speak with the Duchess of Erat, why don't we let the duchess deal with him?"

"What have you got in mind?" Wolf asked.

"If the rest of you stay out of sight, I'll speak with him," she said. "I should be able to put him off until morning. We can be across the river into Arendia before he comes back."

"Perhaps," Wolf said, "but this captain sounds like a determined man."

"I've dealt with determined men before," she said.

"We'll have to decide quickly," Silk said from the door. "He's on the stairs right now."

"We'll try it your way, Pol," Wolf said, opening the door to the next chamber.

"Garion," Aunt Pol said, "you stay here. A duchess wouldn't be unattended."

Wolf and the others quickly left the room.

"What do you want me to do, Aunt Pol?" Garion whispered.

"Just remember that you're my page, dear," she said, seating herself in a large chair near the center of the room and carefully arranging the folds of her gown. "Stand near my chair and try to look attentive. I'll take care of the rest."

"Yes, my Lady," Garion said.

The captain, when he arrived behind the innkeeper's knock, proved to be a tall, sober-looking man with penetrating gray eyes. Garion, trying his best to sound officious, requested the soldier's name and then turned to Aunt Pol.

"There's a Captain Brendig to see you, your Grace," he announced. "He says that it's a matter of importance."

Aunt Pol looked at him for a moment as if considering the request. "Oh, very well," she said finally. "Show him in."

Captain Brendig stepped into the room, and the innkeeper left hurriedly.

"Your Grace," the captain said, bowing deferentially to Aunt Pol.

"What is it, Captain?" she demanded.

"I would not trouble your Grace if my mission were not of such urgency," Brendig apologized. "My orders are directly from the king himself, and you of all people will know that we must defer to his wishes."

"I suppose I can spare you a few moments for the king's business," she said.

"There's a certain man the king wishes to have apprehended," Brendig said. "An elderly man with white hair and beard. I'm informed that you have such a one among your servants."

"Is the man a criminal?" she asked.

"The king didn't say so, your Grace," he told her. "I was only told that the man was to be seized and delivered to the palace at Sendarand, all who are with him as well."

"I am seldom at court," Aunt Pol said. "It's most unlikely that any of my servants would be of such interest to the king."

"Your Grace," Brendig said delicately, "in addition to my duties in one of the king's own regiments, I also have the honor to hold a baronetcy. I've been at court all my life and must confess that I've never seen you there. A lady of your striking appearance would not be soon forgotten."

Aunt Pol inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment. "I suppose I should have guessed, my Lord Brendig," she said. "Your manners are not those of a common soldier."

"Moreover, your Grace," he continued, "I'm familiar with all the holdings of the kingdom. If I'm not mistaken, the district of Erat is an earldom, and the Earl of Erat is a short, stout man - my great uncle incidentally. There has been no duchy in that part of Sendaria since the kingdom was under the dominion of the Wacite Arends."

Aunt Pol fixed him with an icy stare.

"My Lady," Brendig said almost apologetically, "the Wacite Arends were exterminated by their Asturian cousins in the last years of the third millenium. There has been no Wacite nobility for over two thousand years."

"I thank you for the history lesson, my Lord," Aunt Pol said coldly.

"All of that, however, is hardly the issue, is it?" Brendig continued. "I am bidden by my king to seek out the man of whom I spoke. Upon your honor, Lady, do you know such a man?"

The question hung in the air between them, and Garion, knowing in sudden panic that they were caught, almost shouted for Barak.

Then the door to the next chamber opened, and Mister Wolf stepped into the room. "There's no need to continue with this," he said. "I'm the one you're looking for. What does Fulrach of Sendaria want with me?"

Brendig looked at him without seeming surprise. "His Majesty did not see fit to take me into his confidence," he said. "He will explain it himself, I have no doubt, as soon as we reach the palace at Sendar."

"The sooner the better then," Wolf said. "When do we leave?"

"We depart for Sendar directly after breakfast in the morning," Brendig said. "I will accept your word that none of you will attempt to leave this inn during the night. I'd prefer not to subject the Duchess of Erat to the indignity of confinement at the local barracks. The cells there are most uncomfortable, I'm told."

"You have my word," Mister Wolf said.

"Thank you," Brendig said, bowing slightly. "I must also advise you that I am obliged to post guards about this inn - for your protection, of course."

"Your solicitude overwhelms us, my Lord," Aunt Pol said dryly.

"Your servant, my Lady," Brendig said with a formal bow. And then he turned and left the room.

The polished door was only wood; Garion knew that, but as it closed behind the departing Brendig it seemed to have that dreadful, final clang of the door to a dungeon.

Chapter Eleven

THEY WERE NINE DAYS on the coast road from Camaar to the capital at Sendar, though it was only fifty-five leagues. Captain Brendig measured their pace carefully, and his detachment of soldiers was arranged in such fashion that even the thought of escape was impossible. Although it had stopped snowing, the road was still difficult, and the wind which blew in off the sea and across the broad, snow-covered salt marshes was raw and chill. They stayed each night in the evenly spaced Sendarian hostels which stood like mileposts along that uninhabited stretch of coast. The hostels were not quite so well appointed as were their Tolnedran counterparts along the Great North Road, but they were at least adequate. Captain Brendig seemed solicitous about their comfort, but he also posted guards each night.

On the evening of the second day, Garion sat near the fire with Durnik, staring moodily into the flames. Durnik was his oldest friend, and Garion felt a desperate need for friendship just then.

"Durnik," he said finally.

"Yes, lad?"

"Have you ever been in a dungeon?"

"What could I have done to be put in a dungeon?"

"I thought that you might have seen one sometime."

"Honest folk don't go near such places," Durnik said.

"I've heard they're awful-dark and cold and full of rats." "What is this talk of dungeons?" Durnik asked.

"I'm afraid we may find out all about places like that very soon," Garion said, trying not to sound too frightened.

"We've done nothing wrong," Durnik said.

"Then why would the king have us seized like this? Kings don't do things like that without good reason."

"We haven't done anything wrong," Durnik repeated stubbornly.

"But maybe Mister Wolf has," Garion suggested. "The king wouldn't send all these soldiers after him without some reason - and we could all be thrown in the dungeon with him just because we happened to be his companions."

"Thing like that don't happen in Sendaria," Durnik said firmly.

The next day the wind was very strong as it blew in off the sea; but it was a warm wind, and the foot-deep snow on the road began to turn slushy. By midday it had started to rain. They rode in sodden misery toward the next hostel.

"I'm afraid we'll have to delay our journey until this blows out," Captain Brendig said that evening, looking out one of the tiny windows of the hostel. "The road's going to be quite impassable by morning."

They spent the next day, and the next, sitting in the cramped main room of the hostel listening to the wind-driven rain slashing at the walls and roof, all the while under the watchful eyes of Brendig and his soldiers.

"Silk," Garion said on the second day, moving over to the bench where the rat-faced little man sat dozing.

"Yes, Garion?" Silk asked, rousing himself.

"What kind of man is the king?"

"Which king?"

"Of Sendaria."

"A foolish man - like all kings." Silk laughed. "The Sendarian kings are perhaps a bit more foolish, but that's only natural. Why do you ask?"

"Well" Garion hesitated. "Let's suppose that somebody did something that the king didn't like, and there were some other people traveling with him, and the king had these people seized. Would the king just throw them all into the dungeon? Or would he let the others go and just keep the one who'd angered him?"

Silk looked at him for a moment and then spoke firmly.

"That question is unworthy of you, Garion."

Garion flushed. "

I'm afraid of dungeons," he said in a small voice, suddenly very ashamed of himself. "I don't want to be locked up in the dark forever when I don't even know what for."

"The kings of Sendaria are just and honest men," Silk told him. "Not too bright, I'm afraid, but always fair."

"How can they be kings if they aren't wise?" Garion objected.

"Wisdom's a useful trait in a king," Silk said, "but hardly essential."

"How do they get to be kings, then?" Garion demanded.

"Some are born to it," Silk said. "The stupidest man in the world can be a king if he has the right parents. Sendarian kings have a disadvantage because they started so low."

"Low?"

"They were elected. Nobody ever elected a king before - only the Sendars."

"How do you elect a king?"

Silk smiled.

"Very badly, Garion. It's a poor way to select a king. The other ways are worse, but election is a very bad way to choose a king."

"Tell me how it was done," Garion said.

Silk glanced briefly at the rain-spattered window across the room and shrugged.

"It's a way to pass the time," he said. And then he leaned back, stretched his feet toward the fire and began.

"It all started about fifteen hundred years ago," he said, his voice loud enough to reach the ears of Captain Brendig, who sat nearby writing on a piece of parchment. "Sendaria wasn't a kingdom then, nor even a separate country. It had belonged from time to time to Cherek, Algaria or the northern Arends - Wacite or Asturian, depending on the fortunes of the Arendish civil war. When that war finally came to an end and the Wacites were destroyed and the Asturians had been defeated and driven into the untracked reaches of the great forest in northern Arendia, the Emperor of Tolnedra, Ran Horb II, decided that there ought to be a kingdom here."

"How could a Tolnedran emperor make that kind of decision for Sendaria?" Garion asked.

"The arm of the Empire is very long," Silk said. "The Great North Road had been built during the Second Borune Dynasty- I think it was Ran Borune IV who started the construction, wasn't it, Captain?"

"The fifth," Brendig said somewhat sourly without looking up. "Ran Borune V."

"Thank you, Captain," Silk said. "I can never keep the Borune Dynasties straight. Anyway, there were already imperial legions in Sendaria to maintain the highway, and if one has troops in an area, one has a certain authority, wouldn't you say, Captain?"

"It's your story," Brendig said shortly.

"Indeed it is," Silk agreed. "Now it wasn't really out of any kind of generosity that Ran Horb made his decision, Garion. Don't misunderstand that. Tolnedrans never give anything away. It was just that the Mimbrate Arends had finally won the Arendish civil war - a thousand years of bloodshed and treachery - and Tolnedra couldn't afford to allow the Mimbrates to expand into the north. The creation of an independent kingdom in Sendaria would block Mimbrate access to the trade routes down out of Drasnia and prevent the seat of world power from moving to Vo Mimbre and leaving the imperial capital at Tol Honeth in a kind of backwater."

"It all sounds terribly involved," Garion said.

"Not really," Silk said. "It's only politics, and that's a very simple game, isn't it, Captain?"

"A game I do not play," Brendig said, not looking up.

"Really?" Silk asked. "So long at court and not a politician? You're a rare man, Captain. At any rate, the Sendars suddenly discovered that they had themselves a kingdom but that they had no genuine hereditary nobility. Oh, there were a few retired Tolnedran nobles living on estates here and there, assorted pretenders to this or that Wacite or Asturian title, a Cherek war chief or two with a few followers, but no genuine Sendarian nobility. And so it was that they decided to hold a national election - select a king, don't you see, and then leave the bestowing of titles up to him. A very practical approach, and typically Sendarian."

"How do you elect a king?" Garion asked, beginning to lose his dread of dungeons in his fascination with the story.

"Everybody votes," Silk said simply. "Parents, of course, probably cast the votes for their children, but it appears that there was very little cheating. The rest of the world stood around and laughed at all this foolishness, but the Sendars continued to cast ballot after ballot for a dozen years."

"Six years, actually," Brendig said with his face still down over his parchment. "3827 to 3833."

"And there were over a thousand candidates," Silk said expansively.

"Seven hundred and forty-three," Brendig said tightly.

"I stand corrected, noble Captain," Silk said. "It's an enormous comfort to have such an expert here to catch my errors. I'm but a simple Drasnian merchant with little background in history. Anyway, on the twenty-third ballot, they finally elected their king - a rutabaga farmer named Fundor."

"He raised more than just rutabagas," Brendig said, looking up with an angry face.

"Of course he did," Silk said, smacking his forehead with an open palm. "How could I have forgotten the cabbages? He raised cabbages, too, Garion. Never forget the cabbages. Well, everybody in Sendaria who thought he was important journeyed to Fundor's farm and found him vigorously fertilizing his fields, and they greeted him with a great cry, `Hail, Fundor the Magnificent, King of Sendaria,' and fell on their knees in his august presence."

"Must we continue with this?" Brendig asked in a pained voice, looking up.

"The boy wants to know, Captain," Silk replied with an innocent face. "It's our duty as his elders to instruct him in the history of our past, wouldn't you say?"

"Say whatever you like," Brendig said in a stiff voice.

"Thank you for your permission, Captain," Silk said, inclining his head. "Do you know what the King of Sendaria said then, Garion?" he asked.

"No," Garion said. "What?"

" `I pray you, your eminences,' the king said, `have a care for your finery. I have just well manured the bed in which you are kneeling.' "

Barak, who was sitting nearby, roared with laughter, pounding his knee with one huge hand.

"I find this less than amusing, sir," Captain Brendig said coldly, rising to his feet. "I make no jokes about the King of Drasnia, do I?"

"You're a courteous man, Captain," Silk said mildly, "and a noble man. I'm merely a poor man trying to make his way in the world."

Brendig looked at him helplessly and then turned and stamped from the room.

The following morning the wind had blown itself out and the rain had stopped. The road was very nearly a quagmire, but Brendig decided that they must continue. Travel that day was difficult, but the next was somewhat easier as the road began to drain.

Aunt Pol seemed unconcerned by the fact that they had been seized at the king's orders. She maintained her regal bearing even though Garion saw no real need to continue the subterfuge and wished fervently that she would abandon it. The familiar practical sensibility with which she had ruled her kitchen at Faldor's farm had somehow been replaced by a kind of demanding willfulness that Garion found particularly distressing. For the first time in his life he felt a distance between them, and it left a vacancy that had never been there before. To make matters worse, the gnawing uncertainty which had been steadily growing since Silk's unequivocal declaration on the hilltop outside Winold that Aunt Pol could not possibly be his Aunt sawed roughly at his sense of his own identity, and Garion often found himself staring at the awful question, "Who am I?"

Mister Wolf seemed changed as well. He seldom spoke either on the road nor at night in the hostels. He spent a great deal of time sitting by himself with an expression of moody irritability on his face.

Finally, on the ninth day after their departure from Camaar, the broad salt marshes ended, and the land along the coast became more rolling. They topped a hill about midday just as the pale winter sun broke through the clouds, and there in the valley below them the walled city of Sendar lay facing the sea.

The detachment of guards at the south gate of the city saluted smartly as Captain Brendig led the little party through, and he returned their salute crisply. The broad streets of the city seemed filled with people in the finest clothing, all moving about importantly as if their errands were the most vital in the world.

"Courtiers." Barak, who chanced to be riding beside Garion, snorted with contempt. "Not a real man amongst them."

"A necessary evil, my dear Barak," Silk said back over his shoulder to the big man. "Little jobs require little men, and it's the little jobs that keep a kingdom running."

After they had passed through a magnificently large square, they moved up a wide avenue to the palace. It was a very large building with many stories and broad wings extending out on each side of the paved courtyard. The entire structure was surmounted by a round tower that was easily the highest edifice in the whole city.

"Where do you suppose the dungeons are?" Garion whispered to Durnik when they stopped.

"I would take it most kindly, Garion," Durnik said with a pained look, "if you would not speak so much of dungeons."

Captain Brendig dismounted and went to meet a fussy-looking man in an embroidered tunic and feathered cap who came down the wide steps at the front of the palace to meet them. They spoke for a few moments and seemed to be arguing.

"My orders are from the king himself," Brendig said, his voice carrying to where they sat. "I am commanded to deliver these people directly to him immediately upon our arrival."

"My orders are also from the king," the fussy-looking man said, "and l am commanded to have them made presentable before they are delivered to the throne room. I will take charge of them."

"They will remain in my custody, Count Nilden, until they have been delivered to the king himself," Brendig said coldly.

"I will not have your muddy soldiers tracking through the halls of the palace, Lord Brendig," the Count replied.

"Then we will wait here, Count Nilden," Brendig said. "Be so good as to fetch his Majesty."

"Fetch?" The Count's face was aghast. "I am Chief Butler to his Majesty's household, Lord Brendig. I do not fetch anything or anybody."

Brendig turned as if to remount his horse.

"Oh, very well," Count Nilden said petulantly, "if you must have it your own way. At least have them wipe their feet."

Brendig bowed coldly.

"I won't forget this, Lord Brendig," Nilden threatened.

"Nor shall I, Count Nilden," Brendig replied.

Then they all dismounted and, with Brendig's soldiers drawn up in close order about them, they crossed the courtyard to a broad door near the center of the west wing.

"Be so good as to follow me," Count Nilden said, glancing with a shudder at the mud-spattered soldiers, and he led them into the wide corridor which lay beyond the door.

Apprehension and curiosity struggled in Garion's mind. Despite the assurances of Silk and Durnik and the hopeful implications of Count Nilden's announcement that he was going to have them made presentable, the threat of some clammy, rat-infested dungeon, complete with a rack and a wheel and other unpleasant things, still seemed very real. On the other hand, he had never been in a palace before, and his eyes tried to be everywhere at once. That part of his mind which sometimes spoke to him in dry detachment told him that his fears were probably groundless and that his gawking made him appear to be a doltish country bumpkin.

Count Nilden led them directly to a part of the corndor where there were a number of highly polished doors. "This one is for the boy," he announced, pointing at one of them.

One of the soldiers opened the door, and Garion reluctantly stepped through, looking back over his shoulder at Aunt Pol.

"Come along now," a somewhat impatient voice said. Garion whirled, not knowing what to expect.

"Close the door, boy," the fine-looking man who had been waiting for him said. "We don't have all day, you know." The man was waiting beside a large wooden tub with steam rising from it. "Quickly, boy, take off those filthy rags and get into the tub. His Majesty is waiting."

Too confused to object or even answer, Garion numbly began to unlace his tunic.

After he had been bathed and the knots had been brushed out of his hair, he was dressed in clothes which lay on a nearby bench. His coarse woolen hose of serviceable peasant brown were exchanged for ones of a much finer weave in a lustrous blue. His scuffed and muddy boots were traded for soft leather shoes. His tunic was soft white linen, and the doublet he wore over it was a rich blue, trimmed with a silvery fur.

"I guess that's the best I can do on short notice," the man who had bathed and dressed him said, looking him up and down critically. "At least I won't be totally embarrassed when you're presented to the king."

Garion mumbled his thanks and then stood, waiting for further instructions.

"Well, go along, boy. You mustn't keep his Majesty waiting."

Silk and Barak stood in the corridor, talking quietly. Barak was hugely splendid in a green brocade doublet, but looked uncomfortable without his sword. Silk's doublet was a rich black, trimmed in silver, and his scraggly whiskers had been carefully trimmed into an elegant short beard.

"What does all of this mean?" Garion asked as he joined them. "We're to be presented to the king," Barak said, "and our honest clothes might have given offense. Kings aren't accustomed to looking at ordinary men."

Durnik emerged from one of the rooms, his face pale with anger. "That overdressed fool wanted to give me a bath!" he said in choked outrage.

"It's the custom," Silk explained. "Noble guests aren't expected to bathe themselves. I hope you didn't hurt him."

"I'm not a noble, and I'm quite able to bathe myself," Durnik said hotly. "I told him that I'd drown him in his own tub if he didn't keep his hands to himself. After that, he didn't pester me anymore, but he did steal my clothes. I had to put these on instead." He gestured at his clothes which were quite similar to Garion's. "I hope nobody sees me in all this frippery."

"Barak says the king might be offended if he saw us in our real clothes," Garion told him.

"The king won't be looking at me," Durnik said, "and I don't like this business of trying to look like something I'm not. I'll wait outside with the horses if I can get my own clothes back."

"Be patient, Durnik," Barak advised. "We'll get this business with the king straightened out and then be on our way again."

If Durnik was angry, Mister Wolf was in what could best be described as a towering fury. He came out into the corridor dressed in a snowy white robe, deeply cowled at the back. "Someone's going to pay for this," he raged.

"It does become you," Silk said admiringly.

"Your taste has always been questionable, Master Silk," Wolf said in a frosty tone. "Where's Pol?"

"The lady has not yet made her appearance," Silk said.

"I should have known," Wolf said, sitting down on a nearby bench. "We may as well be comfortable. Pol's preparations usually take quite a while."

And so they waited. Captain Brendig, who had changed his boots and doublet, paced up and down as the minutes dragged by. Garion was totally baffled by their reception. They did not seem to be under arrest, but his imagination still saw dungeons, and that was enough to make him very jumpy.

And then Aunt Pol appeared. She wore the blue velvet gown that had been made for her in Camaar and a silver circlet about her head which set off the single white lock at her brow. Her bearing was regal and her face stern.

"So soon, Mistress Pol?" Wolf asked dryly. "I hope you weren't rushed."

She ignored that and examined each of them in turn.

"Adequate, I suppose," she said finally, absently adjusting the collar of Garion's doublet. "Give me your arm, Old Wolf, and let's find out what the King of the Sendars wants with us."

Mister Wolf rose from his bench, extended his arm, and the two of them started down the corridor. Captain Brendig hastily assembled his soldiers and followed them all in some kind of ragged order. "If you please, my Lady," he called out to Aunt Pol, "permit me to show you the way."

"We know the way, Lord Brendig," she replied without so much as turning her head.

Count Nilden, the Chief Butler, stood waiting for them in front of two massive doors guarded by uniformed men-at-arms. He bowed slightly to Aunt Pol and snapped his fingers. The men-at-arms swung the heavy doors inward.

Fulrach, the King of Sendaria, was a dumpy-looking man with a short brown beard. He sat, rather uncomfortably it appeared, on a highbacked throne which stood on a dais at one end of the great hall into which Count Nilden led them. The throne room was vast, with a high, vaulted ceiling and walls covered with what seemed acres of heavy, red velvet drapery. There were candles everywhere, and dozens of people strolled about in fine clothes and chatted idly in the corners, all but ignoring the presence of the king.

"May I announce you?" Count Nilden asked Mister Wolf.

"Fulrach knows who I am," Wolf replied shortly and strode down the long scarlet carpet toward the throne with Aunt Pol still on his arm. Garion and the others followed, with Brendig and his soldiers close behind, through the suddenly quiet crowd of courtiers and their ladies.

At the foot of the throne they all stopped, and Wolf bowed rather coldly. Aunt Pol, her eyes frosty, curtsied, and Barak and Silk bowed in a courtly manner. Durnik and Garion followed suit, though not nearly as gracefully.

"If it please your Majesty," Brendig's voice came from behind them, "these are the ones you sought."

"I knew you could be depended upon, Lord Brendig," the King replied in a rather ordinary-sounding voice. "Your reputation is well deserved. You have my thanks." Then he looked at Mister Wolf and the rest of them, his expression undecipherable.

Garion began to tremble.

"My dear old friend," the king said to Mister Wolf. "It's been too many years since we met last."

"Have you lost your wits entirely, Fulrach?" Mister Wolf snapped in a voice which carried no further than the king's ears. "Why do you choose to interfere with me - now, of all times? And what possessed you to outfit me in this absurd thing?" He plucked at the front of his white robe in disgust. "Are you trying to announce my presence to every Murgo from here to the hook of Arendia?"

The king's face looked pained. "I was afraid you might take it this way," he said in a voice no louder than Mister Wolf's had been. "I'll explain when we can speak more privately." He turned quickly to Aunt Pol as if trying to preserve the appearance at least of dignity. "It's been much too long since we have seen you, dear Lady. Layla and the children have missed you, and I have been desolate in your absence."

"Your Majesty is too kind," Aunt Pol said, her tone as cold as Wolf's. The king winced. "Pray, dear Lady," he apologized, "don't judge me too hastily. My reasons were urgent. I hope that Lord Brendig's summons did not too greatly inconvenience you."

"Lord Brendig was the soul of courtesy," Aunt Pol said, her tone unchanged. She glanced once at Brendig, who had grown visibly pale.

"And you, my Lord Barak," the king hurned on as if trying to make the best of a bad situation, "how fares your cousin, our dear brother king, Anheg of Cherek?"

"He was well when last I saw him, your Majesty," Barak replied formally. "A bit drunk, but that's not unusual for Anheg."

The king chuckled a bit nervously and turned quickly to Silk. "Prince Kheldar of the Royal House of Drasnia," he said. "We are amazed to find such noble visitors in our realm, and more than a little injured that they chose not to call upon us so that we might greet them. Is the King of the Sendars of so little note that he's not even worth a brief stop?"

"We intended no disrespect, your Majesty," Silk replied, bowing, "but our errand was of such urgency that there was no time for the usual courtesies."

The king flickered a warning glance at that and surprisingly wove his fingers in the scarce perceptible gestures of the Drasnian secret language. Not here. Too many ears about. He then looked inquiringly at Durnik and Garion.

Aunt Pol stepped forward.

"This is Goodman Durnik of the District of Erat, your Majesty," she said, "a brave and honest man."

"Welcome, Goodman Durnik," the king said. "I can only hope that men may also one day call me a brave and honest man."

Durnik bowed awkwardly, his face filled with bewilderment. "I'm just a simple blacksmith, your Honor," he said, "but I hope all men know that I am your Honor's most loyal and devoted subject."

"Well-spoken, Goodman Durnik," the king said with a smile, and then he looked at Garion.

Aunt Pol followed his glance.

"A boy, your Majesty," she said rather indifferently. "Garion by name. He was placed in my care some years ago and accompanies us because I didn't know what else to do with him."

A terrible coldness struck at Garion's stomach. The certainty that her casual words were in fact the bald truth came crashing down upon him. She had not even tried to soften the blow. The indifference with which she had destroyed his life hurt almost more than the destruction itself.

"Also welcome, Garion," the king said. "You travel in noble company for one so young."

"I didn't know who they were, your Majesty," Garion said miserably. "Nobody tells me anything."

The king laughed in tolerant amusement.

"As you grow older, Garion," he said, "you'll probably find that during these days such innocence is the most comfortable state in which to live. I've been told things of late that I'd much prefer not to know."

"May we speak privately now, Fulrach?" Mister Wolf said, his voice still irritated.

"In good time, my old friend," the king replied. "I've ordered a banquet prepared in your honor. Let's all go in and dine. Layla and the children are waiting for us. There will be time later to discuss certain matters." And with that he rose and stepped down from the dais.

Garion, sunk in his private misery, fell in beside Silk. "Prince Kheldar?" he said, desperately needing to take his mind off the shocking reality that had just fallen upon him.

"An accident of birth, Garion," Silk said with a shrug. "Something over which I had no control. Fortunately I'm only the nephew of the King of Drasnia and far down in the line of succession. I'm not in any immediate danger of ascending the throne."

"And Barak is-?"

"The cousin of King Anheg of Cherek," Silk replied. He looked over his shoulder. "What is your exact rank, Barak?" he asked.

"The Earl of Trellheim," Barak rumbled. "Why do you ask?"

"The lad here was curious," Silk said.

"It's all nonsense anyway," Barak said, "but when Anheg became king, someone had to become Clan-Chief. In Cherek you can't be both. It's considered unlucky - particularly by the chiefs of the other clans."

"I can see why they might feel that way." Silk laughed.

"It's an empty title anyway," Barak observed. "There hasn't been a clan war in Cherek for over three thousand years. I let my youngest brother act in my stead. He's a simpleminded fellow and easily amused. Besides, it annoys my wife."

"You're married?" Garion was startled.

"If you want to call it that," Barak said sourly.

Silk nudged Garion warningly, indicating that this was a delicate subject.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Garion demanded accusingly. "About your titles, I mean."

"Would it have made any difference?" Silk asked.

"Well - no," Garion admitted, "but " He stopped, unable to put his feelings about the matter into words. "I don't understand any of this," he concluded lamely.

"It will all become clear in time," Silk assured him as they entered the banquet hall.

The hall was almost as large as the throne room. There were long tables covered with fine linen cloth and once again candles everywhere. A servant stood behind each chair, and everything was supervised by a plump little woman with a beaming face and a tiny crown perched precariously atop her head. As they all entered, she came forward quickly.

"Dear Pol," she said, "you look just wonderful." She embraced Aunt Pol warmly, and the two began talking together animatedly.

"Queen Layla," Silk explained briefly to Garion. "They call her the Mother of Sendaria. The four children over there are hers. She has four or five others - older and probably away on state business, since Fulrach insists that his children earn their keep. It's a standard joke among the other kings that Queen Layla's been pregnant since she was fourteen, but that's probably because they're expected to send royal gifts at each new birth. She's a good woman, though, and she keeps King Fulrach from making too many mistakes."

"She knows Aunt Pol," Garion said, and that fact disturbed him for some reason.

"Everybody knows your Aunt Pol," Silk told him.

Since Aunt Pol and the queen were deep in conversation and already drifting toward the head of the table, Garion stayed close to Silk. Don't let me make any mistakes, he gestured, trying to keep the movements of his fingers inconspicuous.

Silk winked in reply.

Once they were all seated and the food began to arrive, Garion began to relax. He found that all he had to do was follow Silk's lead, and the intricate niceties of formal dining no longer intimidated him. The talk around him was dignified and quite incomprehensible, but he reasoned that no one was likely to pay much attention to him and that he was probably safe if he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his plate.

An elderly nobleman with a beautifully curled silvery beard, however, leaned toward him. "You have traveled recently, I'm told," he said in a somewhat condescending tone. "How fares the kingdom, young man?"

Garion looked helplessly across the table at Silk. What do I say? he gestured with his fingers.

Tell him that the kingdom fares no better nor no worse than might be anticipated under the present circumstances, Silk replied.

Garion dutifully repeated that.

"Ah," the old nobleman said, "much as I had expected. You're a very observant boy for one so young. I enjoy talking with young people. Their views are so fresh."

Who is he? Garion gestured.

The Earl of Seline, Silk replied. He's a tiresome old bore, but be polite to him. Address him as my Lord.

"And how did you find the roads?" the earl inquired.

"Somewhat in disrepair, my Lord," Garion replied with Silk's prompting. "But that's normal for this time of year, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," the earl said approvingly. "What a splendid boy you are."

The strange three-way conversation continued, and Garion even began to enjoy himself as the comments fed to him by Silk seemed to amaze the old gentleman.

At last the banquet was over, and the king rose from his seat at the head of the table. "And now, dear friends," he announced, "Queen Layla and I would like to visit privately with our noble guests, and so we pray you will excuse us." He offered his arm to Aunt Pol, Mister Wolf offered his to the plump little queen, and the four of them walked toward the far door of the hall.

The Earl of Seline smiled broadly at Garion and then looked across the table. "I've enjoyed our conversation, Prince Kheldar," he said to Silk. "I may indeed be a tiresome old bore as you say, but that can sometimes be an advantage, don't you think?"

Silk laughed ruefully. "I should have known that an old fox like you would be an adept at the secret language, my Lord."

"A legacy from a misspent youth." The earl laughed. "Your pupil is most proficient, Prince Kheldar, but his accent is strange."

"The weather was cold while he was learning, my Lord," Silk said, "and our fingers were a bit stiff. I'll correct the problem when we have leisure."

The old nobleman seemed enormously pleased with himself at having outsmarted Silk. "Splendid boy," he said, patting Garion's shoulder, and then he went off chuckling to himself.

"You knew he understood all along," Garion accused Silk.

"Of course," Silk said. "Drasnian intelligence knows every adept at our secret speech. Sometimes it's useful to permit certain carefully selected messages to be intercepted. Don't ever underestimate the Earl of Seline, however. It's not impossible that he's at least as clever as I am, but look how much he enjoyed catching us."

"Can't you ever do anything without being sly?" Garion asked. His tone was a bit grumpy, since he was convinced that somehow he had been the butt of the whole joke.

"Not unless I absolutely have to, my Garion." Silk laughed. "People such as I continually practice deception -even when it's not necessary. Our lives sometimes depend on how cunning we are, and so we need to keep our wits sharp."

"It must be a lonely way to live," Garion observed rather shrewdly at the silent prompting of his inner voice. "You never really trust anyone, do you?"

"I suppose not," Silk said. "It's a game we play, Garion. We're all very skilled at it - at least we are if we intend to live very long. We all know each other, since we're members of a very small profession. The rewards are great, but after a while we play our game only for the joy of defeating each other. You're right, though. It is lonely, and sometimes disgusting - but most of the time it's a great deal of fun."

Count Nilden came up to them and bowed politely. "His Majesty asks that you and the boy join him and your other friends in his private apartments, Prince Kheldar," he said. "If you'll be so good as to follow me."

"Of course," Silk said. "Come along, Garion."

The king's private apartments were much simpler than the ornate halls in the main palace. King Fulrach had removed his crown and state robes and now looked much like any other Sendar in rather ordinary clothes. He stood talking quietly with Barak. Queen Layla and Aunt Pol were seated on a couch deep in conversation, and Durnik was not far away, trying his best to look inconspicuous. Mister Wolf stood alone near a window, his face like a thundercloud.

"Ah, Prince Kheldar," the king said. "We thought perhaps you and Garion had been waylaid."

"We were fencing with the Earl of Seline, your Majesty," Silk said lightly. "Figuratively speaking, of course."

"Be careful of him," the king cautioned. "It's quite possible that he's too shrewd even for one of your talents."

"I have a great deal of respect for the old scoundrel." Silk laughed.

King Fulrach glanced apprehensively at Mister Wolf, then squared his shoulders and sighed. "I suppose we'd better get this unpleasantness over with," he said. "Layla, would you entertain our other guests while I give our grim-faced old friend there and the Lady the opportunity to scold me. It's obvious that he's not going to be happy until they've said a few unkind things to me about some matters that weren't really my fault."

"Of course, dear," Queen Layla said. "Try not to be too long and please don't shout. The children have been put to bed and they need their rest."

Aunt Pol rose from the couch, and she and Mister Wolf, whose expression hadn't changed, followed the king into an adjoining chamber.

"Well, then," Queen Layla said pleasantly; "what shall we talk about?"

"I am instructed, your Highness, to convey the regards of Queen Porenn of Drasnia to you should the occasion arise," Silk said in a courtly manner. "She asks leave of you to broach a correspondence on a matter of some delicacy."

"Why, of course," Queen Layla beamed. "She's a dear child, far too pretty and sweet-natured for that fat old bandit, Rhodar. I hope he hasn't made her unhappy."

"No, your Highness," Silk said. "Amazing though it may seem, she loves my uncle to distraction, and he, of course, is delirious with joy over so young and beautiful a wife. It's positively sickening the way they dote on each other."

"Some day, Prince Kheldar, you will fall in love," the queen said with a little smirk, "and the twelve kingdoms will stand around and chortle over the fall of so notorious a bachelor. What is this matter Porenn wishes to discuss with me?"

"It's a question of fertility, your Highness," Silk said with a delicate cough. "She wants to present my uncle with an heir and she needs to seek your advice in the business. The entire world stands in awe of your gifts in that particular area."

Queen Layla blushed prettily and then laughed.

"I'll write to her at once," she promised.

Garion by now had carefully worked his way to the door through which King Fulrach had taken Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf. He began a meticulous examination of a tapestry on the wall to conceal the fact that he was trying to hear what was going on behind the closed door. It took him only a moment to begin to pick up familiar voices.

"Exactly what does all this foolishness mean, Fulrach?" Mister Wolf was saying.

"Please don't judge me too hastily, Ancient One," the King said placatingly. "Some things have happened that you might not be aware of."

"You know that I'm aware of everything that happens," Wolf said.

"Did you know that we are defenseless if the Accursed One awakens? That which held him in check has been stolen from off the throne of the Rivan King."

"As a matter of fact, I was following the trail of the thief when your noble Captain Brendig interrupted me in my search."

"I'm sorry," Fulrach said, "but you wouldn't have gone much farther anyway. All the Kings of Aloria have been searching for you for three months now. Your likeness, drawn by the finest artists, is in the hands of every ambassador, agent and official of the five kingdoms of the north. Actually, you've been followed since you left Darine."

"Fulrach, I'm busy. Tell the Alorn Kings to leave me alone. Why are they suddenly so interested in my movements?"

"They want to have council with you," the king said. "The Alorns are preparing for war, and even my poor Sendaria is being quietly mobilized. If the Accursed One arises now, we're all doomed. The power that's been stolen can very possibly be used to awaken him, and his first move will be to attack the west - you know that, Belgarath. And you also know that until the return of the Rivan King, the west has no real defense."

Garion blinked and started violently, then tried to cover the sudden movement by bending to look at some of the finer detail on the tapestry. He told himself that he had heard wrong. The name King Fulrach had spoken could not have really been Belgarath. Belgarath was a fairy-tale figure, a myth.

"Just tell the Alorn Kings that I'm in pursuit of the thief," Mister Wolf said. "I don't have time for councils just now. If they'll leave me alone, I should be able to catch up with him before he can do any mischief with the thing he's managed to steal."

"Don't tempt fate, Fulrach," Aunt Pol advised. "Your interference is costing us time we can't afford to lose. Presently I'll become vexed with you."

The king's voice was firm as he answered. "I know your power, Lady Polgara," he said, and Garion jumped again. "I don't have any choice, however," the king continued. "I'm bound by my word to deliver you all up at Val Alorn to the Kings of Aloria, and a king can't break his word to other kings."

There was a long silence in the other room while Garion's mind raced through a dozen possibilities.

"You're not a bad man, Fulrach," Mister Wolf said. "Not perhaps as bright as I might wish, but a good man nonetheless. I won't raise my hand against you - nor will my daughter."

"Speak of yourself, Old Wolf," Aunt Pol said grimly.

"No, Polgara," he said. "If we have to go to Val Alorn, let's go with all possible speed. The sooner we explain things to the Alorns, the sooner they'll stop interfering."

"I think age is beginning to soften your brain, Father," Aunt Pol said. "We don't have the time for this excursion to Val Alorn. Fulrach can explain to the Alorn Kings."

"It won't do any good, Lady Polgara," the king said rather ruefully. "As your father so pointedly mentioned, I'm not considered very bright. The Alorn Kings won't listen to me. If you leave now, they'll just send someone like Brendig to apprehend you again."

"Then that unfortunate man may suddenly find himself living out the remainder of his days as a toad or possibly a radish," Aunt Pol said ominously.

"Enough of that, Pol," Mister Wolf said. "Is there a ship ready, Fulrach?"

"It lies at the north wharf, Belgarath," the king replied. "A Cherek vessel sent by King Anheg."

"Very well," Mister Wolf said. "Tomorrow then we'll go to Cherek. It seems that I'm going to have to point out a few things to some thickheaded Alorns. Will you be going with us?"

"I'm obliged to," Fulrach said. "The council's to be general, and Sendaria's involved."

"You haven't heard the last of this, Fulrach," Aunt Pol said.

"Never mind, Pol," Mister Wolf said. "He's only doing what he thinks is right. We'll straighten it all out in Val Alorn."

Garion was trembling as he stepped away from the door. It was impossible. His skeptical Sendarian upbringing made him at first incapable of even considering such an absurdity. Reluctantly, however, he finally forced himself to look the idea full in the face.

What if Mister Wolf really was Belgarath the Sorcerer, a man who had lived for over seven thousand years? And what if Aunt Pol was really his daughter, Polgara the Sorceress, who was only slightly younger? All the bits and pieces, the cryptic hints, the half truths, fell together. Silk had been right; she could not be his Aunt. Garion's orphaning was complete now. He was adrift in the world with no ties of blood or heritage to cling to. Desperately he wanted to go home, back to Faldor's farm, where he could sink himself in unthinking obscurity in a quiet place where there were no sorcerers or strange searches or anything that would even remind him of Aunt Pol and the cruel hoax she had made of his life.