‘Someday a Dal is going to come right out and say what he means without all the cryptic babble, and the world will come to an end,’ Beldin growled. ‘Let’s go inside. If this house has been here for as long as he said it has, the dust’s likely to be knee-deep in there, and it’s going to need to be swept out.’

‘Tidiness, uncle?’ Polgara laughed as they started up the marble steps. ‘From you?’

‘I don’t mind a certain amount of dirt, Pol, but dust makes me sneeze.’

The interior of the house, however, was spotless. Gossamer curtains hung at the windows, billowing in the sweet-scented summer breeze, and the furniture, although oddly constructed and strangely alien-looking, was very comfortable. The interior walls were peculiarly curved, and there were no corners anywhere to be seen.

They wandered about this strange house, trying to adjust themselves to it. Then they gathered in a large, domed central room where a small fountain trickled water down one wall.

‘There isn’t any back door,’ Silk noted critically.

‘Were you planning to leave, Kheldar?’ Velvet asked him.

‘Not necessarily, but I like to have that option open if the need should arise.’

‘You can always jump out a window if you have to.’

‘That’s amateurish, Liselle. Only a first-year student at the academy dives out of windows.’

‘I know, but sometimes we have to improvise.’

There was a peculiar murmuring sound in Garion’s ears. At first he thought it might be the fountain, but somehow it didn’t quite sound like running water. ‘Do you think they’d mind if we went out and had a look around?’ he asked Belgarath.

‘Let’s wait a bit before we do that. We were sort of put here. I don’t know yet if that means we’re supposed to stay or what. Let’s feel things out before we take any chances. The Dals here – and Cyradis in particular – have something we need. Let’s not offend them.’ He looked at Durnik. ‘Did Toth give you any hints about when she’ll be coming here?’

‘Not really, but I got the impression it wouldn’t be too long.’

‘That’s not really too helpful, brother mine,’ Beldin said. ‘The Dals have a rather peculiar notion of time. They keep track of it in ages rather than years.’

Zakath had been rather closely examining the wall a few yards from the trickling fountain. ‘Do you realize that there’s no mortar holding this wall together?’

Durnik joined him, took his knife from its sheath, and probed at the slender fissure between two of the marble slabs. ‘Mortise and tenon,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘and very tightly fit, too. It must have taken years to build this house.’

‘And centuries to build the city, if it’s all put together that way,’ Zakath added. ‘Where did they learn how to do all this? And when?’

‘Probably during the First Age,’ Belgarath told him.

‘Stop that, Belgarath,’ Beldin snapped irritably. ‘You sound just the way they do.’

‘I always try to follow local customs.’

‘I still don’t know any more than I did before,’ Zakath complained.

‘The First Age covered the period of time from the creation of man until the day when Torak cracked the world,’ Belgarath told him. ‘The beginning of it is a little vague. Our Master was never very specific about when He and His brothers made the world. I expect that none of Them want to talk about it because Their Father disapproved. The cracking of the world is fairly well pinpointed, though.’

‘Were you around when it happened, Lady Polgara?’ Sadi asked curiously.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘My sister and I were born a while later.’

‘How long a while?’

‘Two thousand years or so, wasn’t it, Father?’

‘About that, yes.’

‘It chills my blood, the casual way you people shrug off eons,’ Sadi shuddered.

‘What makes you think they learned this style of building before the cracking of the world?’ Zakath asked Belgarath.

‘I’ve read parts of the Book of Ages,’ the old man said. ‘It fairly well documents the history of the Dals. After the world was cracked and the Sea of the East rushed in, you Angaraks fled to Mallorea. The Dals knew that eventually they’d have to come to terms with your people, so they decided to pose as simple farmers. They dismantled their cities – all except this one.’

‘Why would they leave Kell intact?’

‘There was no need to take it apart. The Grolims were the ones they were really worried about, and the Grolims can’t come here.’

‘But other Angaraks can,’ Zakath noted shrewdly. ‘How is it that none of them has ever reported a city like this to the bureaucracy?’

‘They’re probably encouraged to forget,’ Polgara told him.

He looked at her sharply.

‘It’s not really that difficult, Zakath. A hint or two can usually erase memories.’ An expression of irritation crossed her face. ‘What is that murmuring sound?’ she demanded.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ Silk said, looking slightly baffled.

‘You must have your ears stopped up, then, Kheldar.’

About sunset, several young women in soft white robes brought supper to them on covered trays.

‘I see that things are the same the world over,’ Velvet said wryly to one of the young women. ‘The men sit around and talk, and the women do the work.’

‘Oh, we don’t mind,’ the girl replied earnestly. ‘It’s an honor to serve.’ She had very large dark eyes and lustrous brown hair.

‘That’s what makes it even worse,’ Velvet said. ‘First they make us do all the work, and then they persuade us that we like it.’

The girl gave her a startled look, then giggled. Then she looked around guiltily and blushed.

Beldin had seized a crystal flagon almost as soon as the young women had entered. He filled a goblet and drank noisily. Then he began to choke, spraying a purplish liquid over half the room. ‘What is this stuff?’ he demanded indignantly.

‘It’s fruit juice, sir,’ the young woman with the dark hair assured him earnestly. ‘It’s very fresh. It was pressed only this morning.’

‘Don’t you let it set long enough to ferment?’

‘You mean when it goes bad? Oh, no. We throw it out when that happens.’