‘I appreciate the information,’ Belgarath told him.

‘It never hurts a man to pass on things he’s picked up,’ the old fellow said. He looked up the track. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘This is as far as I go. That’s the road to Balasa just on up ahead. It’s been nice talking with you.’ He doffed his shabby hat politely to Polgara, then looked at the wolf. ‘Be well, mother,’ he said, then he thumped his heels against his pony’s flanks. The pony broke into an ambling sort of trot and jolted around a bend in the road to Balasa and out of sight.

‘What a delightful old man,’ Ce’Nedra said.

‘Useful, too,’ Polgara added. ‘You’d better get in touch with Uncle Beldin, father,’ she said to Belgarath. ‘Tell him to leave the rabbits and pigeons alone while we’re in this forest.’

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it right now.’ He lifted his face and closed his eyes.

‘Can that old fellow really talk with wolves?’ Silk asked Garion.

‘He knows the language,’ Garion replied. ‘He doesn’t speak it very well, but he knows it.’

‘One is sure he understands better than he speaks,’ the she-wolf said.

Garion stared at her, slightly startled that she had understood the conversation.

‘The language of the man-things is not difficult to learn,’ she said. ‘As the man-thing with the white fur on his face said, one can learn rapidly if one takes the trouble to listen. One would not care to speak your language, however,’ she added critically. ‘The speech of the man-things would place one’s tongue in much danger of being bitten.’

A sudden thought came to Garion then, accompanied by an absolute certainty that the thought was entirely accurate. ‘Grandfather,’ he said.

‘Not now, Garion. I’m busy.’

‘I’ll wait.’

‘Is it important?’

‘I think so, yes.’

Belgarath opened his eyes curiously. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Do you remember that conversation we had in Tol Honeth – the morning it was snowing?’

‘I think so.’

‘We were talking about the way everything that happened seemed to have happened before.’

‘Yes, now I remember.’

‘You said that when the two prophecies got separated, things sort of stopped – that the future can’t happen until they get back together again. Then you said that until they do, we’d all have to keep going through the same series of events over and over again.’

‘Did I really say that?’ the old man looked a bit pleased. ‘That’s sort of profound, isn’t it? What’s the point of this, though? Why are you bringing it up now?’

‘Because I think it just happened again.’ Garion looked at Silk. ‘Do you remember that old gold hunter we met in Gar og Nadrak when the three of us were on our way to Cthol Mishrak?’

Silk nodded a bit dubiously.

‘Wasn’t the old fellow we just talked with almost exactly the same?’

‘Now that you mention it …’ Silk’s eyes narrowed. ‘All right, Belgarath, what does it mean?’

Belgarath squinted up at the leafy branches overhead. ‘Let me think about it for a minute,’ he said. ‘There are some similarities all right,’ he admitted. ‘The two of them are the same kind of people, and they both warned us about something. I think I’d better get Beldin back here. This might be very important.’

It was no more than a quarter of an hour later when the blue-banded hawk settled out of the sky and blurred into the misshapen sorcerer. ‘What’s got you so excited?’ he demanded crossly.

‘We just met somebody,’ Belgarath replied.

‘Congratulations.’

‘I think this is serious, Beldin.’ Belgarath quickly explained his theory of recurring events.

‘It’s a little rudimentary,’ Beldin growled, ‘but there’s nothing remarkable about that. Your hypotheses usually are.’ He squinted. ‘It’s probably fairly accurate though – as far as it goes.’

‘Thanks,’ Belgarath said drily. Then he went on to describe the two meetings, the one in Gar og Nadrak and the other here. ‘The similarities are a little striking, aren’t they?’

‘Coincidence?’

‘Shrugging things off as coincidence is the best way I know of to get in trouble.’

‘All right. For the sake of argument, let’s say it wasn’t coincidence.’ The dwarf squatted in the dirt at the roadside, his face twisted in thought. ‘Why don’t we take this theory of yours a step farther?’ he mused. ‘Let’s look at the notion that these repetitions crop up at significant points in the course of events.’

‘Sort of like signposts?’ Durnik suggested.

‘Exactly. I couldn’t have found a better term myself. Let’s suppose that these signposts point at really important things that are right on the verge of happening–that they’re sort of like warnings.’

‘I’m hearing a lot of “notions” and “supposes”,’ Silk said sceptically. ‘I think you’re off into the realm of pure speculation.’

‘You’re a brave man, Kheldar,’ Beldin said sardonically. ‘Something could be trying to warn you about a potential catastrophe, and you choose to ignore the warning. That’s either very brave or very stupid. Of course I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt by using the word “brave” instead of the other one.’

‘One for his side,’ Velvet murmured.

Silk flushed slightly. ‘But how do we know what it is that’s going to happen?’ he objected.

‘We don’t,’ Belgarath said. ‘The circumstances just call for some extra alertness, is all. We’ve been warned. The rest is up to us.’

They took some special precautions when they set up their encampment that evening. Polgara prepared supper quickly, and the fire was extinguished as soon as they had finished eating. Garion and Silk took the first watch. They stood atop a knoll behind the camp, peering into the darkness.

‘I hate this,’ Silk whispered.

‘Hate what?’

‘Knowing that something is going to happen without knowing what it is. I wish those two old men would keep their speculations to themselves.’