‘You might ask your friend the baron,’ Silk suggested. ‘If she’s here, he might have heard something about her.’

‘I doubt it,’ Belgarath said. ‘In the past she’s usually gone to a great deal of trouble to remain unobserved.’

‘That’s true,’ Silk conceded, ‘and I think she’ll go to even more trouble now. She might have some difficulty trying to explain those lights under her skin.’

‘Let’s wait until we get to Dal Perivor,’ Belgarath decided. ‘I want to sort things out there before we do anything irrevocable.’

‘Do you suppose it would do any good to ask Cyradis?’ Garion asked quietly, glancing back at the Seeress, who rode in the splendid carriage the baron had provided for the ladies.

‘No,’ Belgarath said. ‘She won’t be permitted to answer us.’

‘I think we might have a certain advantage in all this,’ Silk observed. ‘Cyradis is the one who’s going to make the choice, and the fact that she’s traveling with us instead of with Zandramas bodes rather well, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Garion disagreed. ‘I don’t think she’s traveling with us so much as she’s here to keep an eye on Zakath. He has something very important to do, and she doesn’t want him to stray.’

Silk grunted. ‘Where do you propose to start looking for this map you’re supposed to find?’ he asked Belgarath.

‘A library probably,’ the old man replied. ‘This map is another one of those “mysteries”, and I’ve had a fair degree of luck finding the others in libraries. Garion, see if you can persuade the baron to take us to the king’s court in Dal Perivor. Palace libraries are usually the most complete.’

‘Of course,’ Garion agreed.

‘I want to take a look at this wizard anyway. Silk, do you have an office in Dal Perivor?’

‘I’m afraid not, Belgarath. There’s nothing here worth trading in.’

‘Well, no matter. You’re a businessman, and there’ll be others in the city. Go talk business with them. Tell them you want to check over shipping routes. Look at every map you can lay your hands on. You know what we’re looking for.’

‘You’re cheating, Belgarath,’ Beldin growled.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Cyradis told you that you were supposed to find the map.’

‘I’m only delegating responsibility, Beldin. It’s perfectly legitimate.’

‘I don’t think she’d see it that way.’

‘You can explain it to her. You’re much more persuasive than I am.’

They traveled in easy stages, more to spare the horses, Garion felt, than for any other reason. The horses of Perivor were not large, and they labored under the weight of men in full armor. So it was that it was several days before they crested a hill and looked down at the seaport city which was the capital of Perivor.

‘Behold Dal Perivor,’ the baron proclaimed, ‘the crown and the heart of the isle.’

Garion saw immediately that the shipwrecked Arends who had arrived on this shore two thousand years ago had made a conscious effort to duplicate Vo Mimbre. The city walls were high and thick and yellow, and brightly colored pennons flew from spires within those walls.

‘Where did they find the yellow stone, my Lord?’ Zakath asked the baron. ‘I have seen no such rock on our journey here.’

The baron coughed a bit apologetically. ‘The walls are painted, Sir Knight,’ he explained.

‘Whatever for?’

‘To serve as a remembrance of Vo Mimbre,’ the baron said a bit sadly. ‘Our ancestors were homesick for Arendia. Vo Mimbre is the jewel of our ancestral home, and its golden walls speak to our blood even across the endless miles.’

‘Ah,’ Zakath said.

‘As I have promised thee, Sir Knight,’ the baron said to Garion, ‘gladly will I convey thee and thy companions forthwith to the king’s palace where he will doubtless honor ye and offer ye his hospitality.’

‘Once more we are in thy debt, my Lord,’ Garion replied.

The baron smiled a bit slyly. ‘I confess it to thee, Sir Knight, that my motives are not altogether magnanimous. I will accrue much credit by presenting at court stranger knights bent on a noble quest.’

‘That’s quite all right, my friend,’ Garion laughed. ‘This way there’s something for everybody.’

The palace was almost identical to that in Vo Mimbre, a fortress within a fortress with high walls and a stout gate.

‘At least this time I don’t think my grandfather will have to grow a tree,’ Garion murmured to Zakath.

‘Do what?’

‘When we first went to Vo Mimbre, the knight in charge of the palace gate didn’t believe Mandorallen when he introduced Grandfather as Belgarath the Sorcerer, so Grandfather took a twig from his horse’s tail and made an apple tree grow right there in the square in front of the palace. Then he ordered the sceptical knight to spend the rest of his life taking care of it.’

‘Did the knight actually do it?’

‘I assume so. Mimbrates take those kinds of commands very seriously.’

‘Strange people.’

‘Oh yes, indeed. I had to force Mandorallen to marry a girl he’d loved since childhood, and I had to stop a war in the process.’

‘How do you stop a war?’

‘I made some threats. I think they took me seriously.’ He thought about it. ‘The thunderstorm I created may have helped, though,’ he added. ‘Anyway, Mandorallen and Nerina had loved each other for years, but they’d been suffering in silence beautiful for all that time. I finally got tired of it, so I made them get on with it. I made some more threats. I’ve got this big knife back here.’ He poked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘It attracts a lot of attention sometimes.’

‘Garion!’ Zakath laughed. ‘You’re a peasant.

‘Yes. Probably,’ Garion admitted. ‘But it got them married, after all. They’re both deliriously happy now, and if anything goes wrong, they can always blame me, can’t they?’

‘You’re not like other men, my friend,’ Zakath said very seriously.

‘No.’ Garion sighed, ‘Probably not. I’d like to be, though. The world lies very heavily on you and me, Zakath, and it doesn’t leave us any time for ourselves. Wouldn’t you just like to ride out on a summer morning to look at the sunrise and see what lies over the next hilltop?’