"I didn't know that," Garion admitted. "It's the first time I've ever tried to do anything unless it was an emergency . . . Will you stop that?" he demanded crossly of Ce'Nedra, who had collapsed into gales of laughter as soon as Silk had finished telling them about Garion's blunder.

She laughed even harder.

"I think you're going to have to explain a few things to him, father," Aunt Pol said. "He doesn't seem to have even the most rudimentary idea about the way forces react against each other." She looked at Garion critically. "It's lucky you didn't decide to throw it," she told him. "You might have flung yourself halfway back to Maragor."

"I really don't think it's all that funny," Garion told his friends, who were all grinning openly at him. "This isn't as easy as it looks, you know." He realized that he had just made a fool of himself and he was not sure if he were more embarra.s.sed or hurt by their amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Come with me, boy," Belgarath said firmly. "It looks as if we're going to have to start at the very beginning."

"It's not my fault I didn't know," Garion protested. "You should have told me."

"I didn't know you were planning to start experimenting so soon," the old man replied. "Most of us have sense enough to wait for guidance before we start rearranging local geography."

"Well, at least I did manage to move it," Garion said defensively as he followed the old man across the meadow toward the tower.

"Splendid. Did you put it back the way you found it?"

"Why? What difference does it make?"

"We don't move things here in the Vale. Everything that's here is here for a reason, and they're all supposed to be exactly where they are."

"I didn't know," Garion apologized.

"You do now. Let's go put it back where it belongs." They trudged along in silence.

"Grandfather?" Garion said finally.

"Yes?"

"When I moved the rock, it seemed that I was getting the strength to do it from all around me. It seemed just to flow in from everyplace. Does that mean anything?"

"That's the way it works," Belgarath explained. "When we do something, we take the power to do it from our surroundings. When you burned Chamdar, for example, you drew the heat from all around you - from the air, from the ground, and from everyone who was in the area. You drew a little heat from everything to build the fire. When you tipped the rock over, you took the force to do it from everything nearby."

"I thought it all came from inside."

"Only when you create things," the old man replied. "That force has to come from within us. For anything else, we borrow. We gather up a little power from here and there and put it all together and then turn it loose all at one spot. n.o.body's big enough to carry around the kind of force it would take to do even the simplest sort of thing."

"Then that's what happens when somebody tries to unmake something," Garion said intuitively. "He pulls in all the force, but then he can't let it go, and it just " He spread his hands and jerked them suddenly apart.

Belgarath looked narrowly at him. "You've got a strange sort of mind, boy. You understand the difficult things quite easily, but you can't seem to get hold of the simple ones. There's the rock." He shook his head. "That will never do. Put it back where it belongs, and try not to make so much noise this time. That racket you raised yesterday echoed all over the Vale."

"What do I do?" Garion asked.

"Gather in the force," Belgarath told him. "Take it from everything around."

Garion tried that.

"Not from me!" the old man exclaimed sharply.

Garion excluded his grandfather from his field of reaching out and pulling in. After a moment or two, he felt as if he were tingling all over and that his hair was standing on end. "Now what?" he asked, clenching his teeth to hold it in.

"Push out behind you and push at the rock at the same time.''

"What do I push at behind me?"

"Everything - and at the rock as well. It has to be simultaneous."

"Won't I get - sort of squeezed in between?"

"Tense yourself up."

"We'd better hurry, Grandfather," Garion said. "I feel like I'm going to fly apart."

"Hold it in. Now put your will on the rock, and say the word." Garion put his hands out in front of him and straightened his arms. "Push," he commanded. He felt the surge and the roaring.

With a resounding thud, the rock teetered and then rolled back smoothly to where it had been the morning before. Garion suddenly felt bruised all over, and he sank to his knees in exhaustion.

"Push?" Belgarath said incredulously.

"You said to say push."

"I said to push. I didn't say to say push."

"It went over. What difference does it make what word I used?"

"It's a question of style," the old man said with a pained look. "Push sounds so - so babyish."

Weakly, Garion began to laugh.

"After all, Garion, we do have a certain dignity to maintain," the old man said loftily. "If we go around saying 'push' or 'flop' or things like that, no one's ever going to take us seriously."

Garion wanted to stop laughing, but he simply couldn't. Belgarath stalked away indignantly, muttering to himself.

When they returned to the others, they found that the tents had been struck and the packhorses loaded.

"There's no point in staying here," Aunt Pol told them, "and the others are waiting for us. Did you manage to make him understand anything, father?"

Belgarath grunted, his face set in an expression of profound disapproval.

"Things didn't go well, I take it."

"I'll explain later," he said shortly.

During Garion's absence, Ce'Nedra, with much coaxing and a lapful of apples from their stores, had seduced the little colt into a kind of ecstatic subservience. He followed her about shamelessly, and the rather distant look he gave Garion showed not the slightest trace of guilt.

"You're going to make him sick," Garion accused her.

"Apples are good for horses," she replied airily.

"Tell her, Hettar," Garion said.

"They won't hurt him," the hook-nosed man answered. "It's a customary way to gain the trust of a young horse."

Garion tried to think of another suitable objection, but without success. For some reason the sight of the little animal nuzzling at Ce'Nedra offended him, though he couldn't exactly put his finger on why.

"Who are these others, Belgarath?" Silk asked as they rode. "The ones Polgara mentioned."

"My brothers," the old sorcerer replied. "Our Master's advised them that we're coming."

"I've heard stories about the Brotherhood of Sorcerers all my life. Are they as remarkable as everyone says?"

"I think you're in for a bit of a disappointment," Aunt Pol told him rather primly. "For the most part, sorcerers tend to be crotchety old men with a wide a.s.sortment of bad habits. I grew up amongst them, so I know them all rather well." She turned her face to the thrush perched on her shoulder, singing adoringly. "Yes," she said to the bird, "I know."

Garion pulled closer to his Aunt and began to listen very hard to the birdsong. At first it was merely noise-pretty, but without sense. Then, gradually, he began to pick up sc.r.a.ps of meaning - a bit here, a bit there. The bird was singing of nests and small, speckled eggs and sunrises and the overwhelming joy of flying. Then, as if his ears had suddenly opened, Garion began to understand. Larks sang of flying and singing. Sparrows chirped of hidden little pockets of seeds. A hawk, soaring overhead, screamed its lonely song of riding the wind alone and the fierce joy of the kill. Garion was awed as the air around him suddenly came alive with words.

Aunt Pol looked at him gravely. "It's a beginning," she said without bothering to explain.

Garion was so caught up in the world that had just opened to him that he did not see the two silvery-haired men at first. They stood together beneath a tall tree, waiting as the party rode nearer. They wore identical blue robes, and their white hair was quite long, though they were clean-shaven. When Garion looked at them for the first time, he thought for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks. The two were so absolutely identical that it was impossible to tell them apart.

"Belgarath, our brother," one of them said, "it's been such-"

"-a terribly long time," the other finished.

"Beltira," Belgarath said. "Belkira." He dismounted and embraced the twins.

"Dearest little Polgara," one of them said then. "The Vale has been-" the other started.

"-empty without you," the second completed. He turned to his brother. "That was very poetic," he said admiringly.

"Thank you," the first replied modestly.

"These are my brothers, Beltira and Belkira," Belgarath informed the members of the party who had begun to dismount. "Don't bother to try to keep them separate. n.o.body can tell them apart anyway."

"We can," the two said in unison.

"I'm not even sure of that," Belgarath responded with a gentle smile. "Your minds are so close together that your thoughts start with one and finish with the other."

"You always complicate it so much, father," Aunt Pol said. "This is Beltira." She kissed one of the sweet-faced old men. "And this is Belkira." She kissed the other. "I've been able to tell them apart since I was a child."

"Polgara knows-"

"-all our secrets." The twins smiled. "And who are-"

"-your companions?"

"I think you'll recognize them," Belgarath answered. "Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor."

"The Knight Protector," the twins said in unison, bowing.

"Prince Kheldar of Drasnia."

"The Guide," they said.

"Barak, Earl of Trellheim."

"The Dreadful Bear." They looked at the big Cherek apprehensively. Barak's face darkened, but he said nothing.

"Hettar, son of Cho-Hag of Algaria."

"The Horse Lord."

"And Durnik of Sendaria."

"The One with Two Lives," they murmured with profound respect. Durnik looked baffled at that.

"Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra."

"The Queen of the World," they replied with another deep bow. Ce'Nedra laughed nervously.

"And this-"

"-can only be Belgarion," they said, their faces alive with joy, "the Chosen One." The twins reached out in unison and laid their right hands on Garion's head. Their voices sounded within his mind. "Hail, Belgarion, Overlord and Champion, hope of the world."

Garion was too surprised at this strange benediction to do more than awkwardly nod his head.

"If this gets any more cloying, I think I'll vomit," a new voice, harsh and rasping, announced. The speaker, who had just stepped out from behind the tree, was a squat, misshapen old man, dirty and profoundly ugly. His legs were bowed and gnarled like oak trunks. His shoulders were huge, and his hands dangled below his knees. There was a large hump in the middle of his back, and his face was twisted into a grotesque caricature of a human countenance. His straggly, iron-gray hair and beard were matted, and twigs and bits of leaves were caught in the tangles. His hideous face wore an expression of perpetual contempt and anger.

"Beldin," Belgarath said mildly, "we weren't sure you would come."

"I shouldn't have, you bungler," the ugly man snapped. "You've made a mess of things as usual, Belgarath." He turned to the twins. "Get me something to eat," he told them peremptorily.

"Yes, Beldin," they said quickly and started away.

"And don't be all day," he shouted after them.

"You seem to be in a good humor today, Beldin," Belgarath said with no trace of sarcasm. "What's made you so cheerful?"

The ugly dwarf scowled at him, then laughed, a short, barking sound. "I saw Belzedar. He looked like an unmade bed. Something had gone terribly wrong for him, and I enjoy that sort of thing."

"Dear Uncle Beldin," Aunt Pol said fondly, putting her arms around the filthy little man. "I've missed you so much."

"Don't try to charm me, Polgara," he told her, though his eyes seemed to soften slightly. "This is as much your fault as it is your father's. I thought you were going to keep an eye on him. How did Belzedar get his hands on our Master's...o...b.."

"We think he used a child," Belgarath answered seriously. "The Orb won't strike an innocent."

The dwarf snorted. "There's no such thing as an innocent. All men are born corrupt." He turned his eyes back to Aunt Pol and looked appraisingly at her. "You're getting fat," he said bluntly. "Your hips are as wide as an ox cart."

Durnik immediately clenched his fists and went for the hideous little man.