"It's said to have fallen out of the sky."

"They always do," Beldin said. "Someday I'd like to see something rise up out of the earth—just for the sake of variety. ''

"You get bored too easily, my brother," Belgarath told him.

"I didn't see you sitting over Burnt-face's tomb for five hundred years, my brother," Beldin retorted.

"I don't think I can stand this," Senji said, burying his face in his trembling hands.

"It gets easier as you go along," Garion said in a comforting tone. "We're not really here to make your life unpleasant. All we need is a little information and then we'll go away. If you think about it in the right way, you might even be able to make yourself believe that this is all a dream."

"I'm in the presence of three demigods, and you want me to pass it off as a dream?"

"That's a nice term," Beldin said. "Demigod. I like the sound of it."

"You're easily impressed by words," Belgarath told him. "Words are the core of thought. Without words there is no thought."

Senji's eyes brightened. "Now, we might want to talk about that a little bit," he suggested.

"Later," Belgarath said. "Get back to Zamad—and the Sardion."

"All right," the clubfooted little alchemist said. "Cthrag Sardius—or the Sardion, whatever you want to call it—came out of the sky into Zamad. The barbarians up there thought that it was holy and built a shrine to it and fell down on their faces and worshiped it. The shrine was in a valley up in the mountains, and there was a grotto and an altar and that sort of thing."

"We've been there," Belgarath said shortly. "It's at the bottom of a lake now. How did it get to Melcena?"

"That came years later," Senji replied. "The Karands have always been a troublesome people, and their social organization is fairly rudimentary. About three thousand years ago—or maybe a little longer—a King of Zamad began to feel ambitious, so he assimilated Voresebo and started looking hungrily south. There were a series of raids in force across the border into Rengel. Of course, Rengel was a part of the Melcene Empire, and the emperor decided that it was time to teach the Karands a lesson. He mounted a punitive expedition and marched into Voresebo and then Zamad at thie head of a column of elephant cavalry. The Karands had never seen an elephant before and they fled in panic. The emperor systematically destroyed all the towns and villages up there. He heard about the holy object and its shrine and he went there and took Cthrag Sardius—more I think to punish the Karands than out of any desire to possess the stone for himself. It's not really very attractive, you know."

"What does it look like?" Garion asked him.

"It's fairly large," Senji said. "It's sort of oval-shaped and about so big." He indicated an object about two feet in diameter with his hands. "It's a strange reddish sort of color, and kind of milky-looking—like certain kinds of flint. Anyway, as I said, the emperor didn't really want the thing, so when he got back to Melcena, he donated it to the university. It was passed around from department to department, 'and it finally ended up here in this museum. It lay in that case for thousands of years, collecting dust, and nobody really paid any attention to it."

"How did it leave here?" Belgarath asked.

"I was just getting to that. About five hundred years ago ere was a scholar in the College of Arcane Learning. He was a strange sort who heard voices. At any rate, he became absolutely obsessed with Cthrag Sardius. He used to sneak in here at night and sit for hours staring at it. I think he believed that it was talking to him."

"It's possible," Beldin said. "It could probably do that."

This scholar grew more and more irrational and he finally came in here one night and stole Cthrag Sardius. I don’t think anyone would have noticed that it was missing, but the scholar fled the island as if all the legions of Melcene were on his heels. He took ship and sailed south. His ship was last seen near the southern tip of Gandahar, and it seemed to be bound in the direction of the Dalasian Protectorates. The ship never came back, so it was generally assumed that she went down in a storm somewhere in those waters. That's all I really know about it."

Beldin scratched reflectively at his stomach. "It sort of fits together, Belgarath. The Sardion has the same kind of power that the Orb has. I'd say that it's been taking conscious steps to move itself from place to place—probably in response to certain events. It's my guess that if we pinned it down, we'd find that this Melcene emperor took it out of Zamad at just about the time that you and Bear-shoulders went to Cthol Mishrak to steal back the Orb. Then that scholar Senji mentioned stole it from here at just about the time of the Battle of Vo Mimbre."

"You speak as if it were alive," Senji objected.

"It is," Beldin told him, "and it can control the thoughts of people around it. Obviously it can't get up and walk by itself, so it has men do the picking and carrying."

"It's pretty speculative, Beldin," Belgarath said.

"That's what I do best. Shall we move along? We've got a boat to catch, you know. We can sort all this out later."

Belgarath nodded and looked at Senji. "We've been advised that you might be able to help us," he said.

"I can try."

"Good. Someone told us that you might be able to put your hands on an uncut copy of the Ashabine Oracles."

"Who said so?" Senji asked warily.

"A Dalasian seeress named Cyradis."

"Nobody believes anything the seers say," Senji scoffed.

"I do. In seven thousand years, I've never known a seer to be wrong—cryptic, sometimes, but never wrong."

Senji backed away from him.

"Don't be coy, Senji," Beldin told him. "Do you know where we can find a copy of the Oracles?"

"There used to be one in the library of this college," the alchemist replied evasively.

"Used to be?"

Senji looked around nervously. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. "I stole it," he confessed.

"Does it have any passages cut out of it?" Belgarath asked intently.

"Not that I could see, no."

Belgarath let his breath out explosively. "Well, finally," be said. "I think we just beat Zandramas at her own game."

"You're going up against Zandramas?" Senji asked incredulously.

"Just as soon as we can catch up with her," Beldin told him.