‘And to be particularly wary if we start seeing things that shouldn’t be there,’ Polgara added.

Silk and the wolf came back down the stairs to the cabin. ‘We’ve got absolutely beautiful weather this morning,’ he reported happily, bending slightly to scratch the pup’s ears.

‘Wonderful,’ Sadi murmured drily. Sadi was carefully annointing his small dagger with a fresh coating of poison. He was wearing a stout leather jerkin and leather boots that reached to mid thigh. Back in Sthiss Tor, Sadi had appeared, despite his slender frame, to be soft, even in some peculiar way, flabby. Now, however, he looked lean and tough. A year or more without drugs and with an enforced regimen of hard exercise had changed him a great deal.

‘It’s perfect,’ Silk told him. ‘We have fog this morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘a nice, wet gray fog almost thick enough to walk on. That fog would be a burglar’s delight.’

‘Trust Silk to think of that.’ Durnik smiled. The smith wore his usual clothing, but he had given Toth his axe, while he himself carried the dreadful sledge with which he had driven off the demon Nahaz.

‘The prophecies are leading us around by the noses again,’ Beldin said irritably, ‘but at least it appears that we made the right decision last night. A good thick fog makes sneaking almost inevitable.’ Beldin looked the same as always, tattered, dirty, and very ugly.

‘Maybe they’re just trying to help,’ Velvet suggested. Velvet had shocked them all when she had entered the cabin a half-hour earlier. She wore tight-fitting leather clothing not unlike that normally worn by the Nadrak dancer, Vella. It was a peculiarly masculine garb and bleakly businesslike. ‘They’ve done a great deal to assist Zandramas. Maybe it’s our turn to get a little help.’

‘Is she right?’ Garion asked the awareness that shared his mind. ‘Are you and your opposite helping us for a change?’

‘Don’t be silly, Garion. Nobody’s been helping anybody. That’s forbidden at this particular stage of the game.’

‘Where did the fog come from then?’

‘Where does fog usually come from?’

‘How would I know?’

‘I didn’t think so. Ask Beldin. He can probably tell you. The fog out there is perfectly natural.’

‘Liselle,’ Garion said, ‘I just checked with my friend. The fog isn’t the result of any playing around. It’s a natural result of the storm.’

‘How disappointing,’ she said.

Ce’Nedra had risen that morning fully intent on wearing a Dryad tunic. Garion had adamantly rejected that idea, however. She wore instead a simple gray wool dress with no petticoats to hinger her movements. She was quite obviously stripped down for action. Garion was fairly certain that she had at least one knife concealed somewhere in her clothing. ‘Why don’t we get started?’ she demanded.

‘Because it’s still dark, dear,’ Polgara explained patiently. `‘We have to wait for at least a little bit of light.’ Polgara and her mother wore almost identical plain dresses, Polgara’s gray, and Poledra’s brown.

‘Garion,’ Poledra said then, ‘why don’t you step down to the galley and tell them that we’ll have breakfast now? We should all eat something, since I doubt that we’ll have time or maybe even the need for lunch.’ Poledra sat at Belgarath’s side, and the two of them were almost unconsciously holding hands. Garion was a bit offended at her suggestion. He was a king, after all, not an errand boy. Then he realized just how silly that particular thought was. He started to rise.

‘I’ll go, Garion,’ Eriond said. It was almost as if the blond young man had seen into his friend’s thoughts. Eriond wore the same simple brown peasant clothes he always wore, and he had nothing even resembling a weapon.

As the young man went out through the cabin door, Garion had an odd thought. Why was he paying so much attention to the appearance of each of his companions? He had seen them all before, and for the most part, he had seen the clothing they wore this morning so many times that the garments should not even have registered on his mind. Then with dreadful certainty, he knew. One of them was going to die today, and he was fixing them all in his mind so that he could remember for the rest of his life the one who was to make that sacrifice. He looked at Zakath. His Mallorean friend had shaved off his short beard. His slightly olive skin was no longer pale, but tanned and healthy-looking save for the slighter pitch on his chin and jaw. He wore simple clothing much like Garion’s own, since as soon as they reached the reef, the two of them would be putting on their armor.

Toth, his face impassive, was dressed as always – a loin-cloth, sandals, and that unbleached wool blanket slung across one shoulder. He did not, however, have his heavy staff. Instead, Durnik’s axe lay in his lap.

The Seeress of Kell was unchanged. Her hooded white robe gleamed, and her blindfold, unwrinkled and unchanged, smoothly covered her eyes. Idly, Garion wondered if she removed the cloth when she slept. A chilling thought came to him then. What if the one they would lose today was going to be Cyradis? She had sacrificed everything for her task. Surely the two prophecies could not be so cruel as to require one last, supreme sacrifice from this slender girl.

Belgarath, of course, was unchanged and unchangeable. He still wore the mismatched boots, patched hose, and rust-colored tunic he had worn when he had appeared at Faldor’s farm as Mister Wolf the storyteller. The one difference about the old man was the fact that he did not hold a tankard in his free hand. At supper the previous evening, he had almost absently drawn himself one that brimmed with foaming ale. Poledra, just as absently, had firmly removed it from his hand and had emptied it out a port-hole. Garion strongly suspected that Belgarath’s drinking days had come rather abruptly to an end. He decided that it might be refreshing to have a long conversation with his Grandfather when the old man was completely sober.

They ate their breakfast with hardly any conversation, since there was nothing more to say. Ce’Nedra dutifully fed the puppy, then looked rather sadly at Garion. ‘Take care of him, please,’ she said.

There was no point in arguing with her on that score. The idea that she would not survive this day was so firmly fixed in her mind that no amount of talking would erase it. ‘You might want to give him to Geran,’ she added. ‘Every boy should have a dog, and caring for him will teach our son responsibility.’