‘Nay. Thy performance of that task would be marred shouldst thou consider it overlong.’

‘And what is my task, Holy Seeress?’ Zakath asked her. ‘You said you would instruct me here at Kell.’

‘I must reveal that to thee in private, Emperor of Mallorea. Know, however, that thy task will begin when thy companions have completed theirs, and it will consume the balance of thy life.’

‘As long as we’re talking about tasks,’ Sadi said, ‘perhaps you could explain mine to me.’

‘You have already begun it, Sadi.’

‘Am I doing it very well?’

She smiled. ‘Passing well, yes.’

‘I might do a little better if I knew what it is.’

‘Nay, Sadi. Even as Belgarion’s, thy task would be marred shouldst thou know of it.’

‘Is this place we’re going to very far?’ Durnik asked her.

‘Many leagues, and there is yet much to be done.’

‘I’ll need to talk with Dallan about supplies, then. And I think I’ll want to check the horses’ hooves before we start. This might be a good time to get them shod again.’

‘That’s impossible!’ Belgarath suddenly burst out.

‘What is it, father?’ Aunt Pol asked him.

‘It’s Korim! The meeting is supposed to take place at Korim!’

‘Where’s that?’ Sadi asked in puzzlement.

‘It’s no place,’ Beldin growled. ‘It’s not there anymore. It was a mountain range that sank into the sea when Torak cracked the world. The Book of Alorn mentions it as “The High Places of Korim, which are no more.”.’

‘There’s a certain perverted logic to it,’ Silk observed. ‘That’s what these assorted prophecies have meant all along when they talked about a Place Which Is No More.’

Beldin tugged thoughtfully at one ear. ‘There’s something else, too,’ he noted. ‘You remember the story Senji told us back at Melcene? About the scholar who stole the Sardion? His ship was last seen rounding the southern tip of Gandahar, and it never came back. Senji said he thought that it had gone down in a storm off the Dalasian coast. It’s beginning to sound as if he was right. We have to go where the Sardion is, and I’ve got the uncomfortable feeling that it’s resting on top of a mountain that sank into the sea over five thousand years ago.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE QUEEN OF Riva was in a pensive mood as they set out from the glowing marble city of Kell. A peculiar kind of languor seemed to come over her as they rode through the forest to the west of Kell, a languor that grew more pronounced with each passing mile. She took no part in the general conversation, but was content merely to listen.

‘I don’t see how you can be so calm about this, Cyradis,’ Belgarath was saying to the blindfolded Seeress as they rode along. ‘Your task will fail the same as ours will if the Sardion is lying at the bottom of the sea. And why are we making this side trip to Perivor?’

‘It is there that the instruction thou received from the Holy Book will be made clear to thee, Ancient Belgarath.’

‘Couldn’t you just explain it to me yourself? We’re a little pressed for time, you know.’

‘That I may not do. I may not give thee any aid which I do not also give to Zandramas. It is thy task – and hers – to unravel this riddle. To aid one of thee and not the other is forbidden.’

‘Somehow I thought you might look at it that way,’ he said glumly.

‘Where’s Perivor?’ Garion asked Zakath.

‘It’s an island off the south coast of Dalasia,’ the Mallorean replied. ‘The inhabitants there are very strange. Their legends say that they’re descendants of some people from the west who were aboard a ship that was blown off-course and wrecked on the island about two thousand years ago. The island’s of little value, and the people there are fearsome fighters. The general opinion in Mal Zeth has always been that the place wouldn’t be worth the trouble it would take to subdue it, and Urvon didn’t even bother to send Grolims there.’

‘If they’re so savage, won’t it be sort of dangerous for us to go there?’

‘No. Actually they’re civil and even hospitable – as long as you don’t try to land an army there. That’s when things start to take a turn for the worse.’

‘Have we really got the time to go to this place?’ Silk asked the Seeress of Kell.

‘Ample time, Prince Kheldar,’ she replied. ‘The stars have told us for eons that the Place Which Is No More awaits the coming of thee and thy companions, and that thou and thy companions will come there upon the day appointed for the meeting.’

‘And so will Zandramas, I suppose?’

She smiled a gentle little smile. ‘How can there be a meeting if the Child of Dark be not also present?’ she asked him.

‘I think I detected a faint glimmer of humor there, Cyradis,’ he bantered. ‘Isn’t that a bit out of character for one of the seers?’

‘How little you know us, Prince Kheldar.’ She smiled again. ‘Oft times we have been convulsed with laughter at some message writ large in the stars and at the absurd lengths to which others go to ignore or avoid that which is pre-ordained. Submit to the instruction of the heavens, Kheldar. Spare thyself the agony and turmoil of trying to evade thy fate.’

‘You throw the word fate around awfully lightly, Cyradis,’ he said disapprovingly.

‘Hast thou not come here in response to a fate laid down for thee at the beginning of days? All thy concern with commerce and espionage have been but a diversion to occupy thee until the appointed day.’

‘That’s a polite way to tell someone he’s been behaving like a child.’

‘We are all children, Kheldar.’

Beldin came soaring through the sun-dappled forest, avoiding tree trunks with deft shifts of his wings. He settled to earth and changed form.

‘Trouble?’ Belgarath asked him.

‘Not as much as I’d expected.’ The dwarf shrugged. ‘And that worries me a bit.’

‘Isn’t that a little inconsistent?’

‘Consistency is the defense of a small mind. Zandramas couldn’t go to Kell, right?’

‘As far as we know.’

‘Then she has to follow us to the meeting place, right?’

‘Unless she’s found some other way to find out where it is.’