Castle of Wizardry

replied. "Someone rather special, I think." She turned back to Lelldorin. "I don't think we'll want a large crowd - not at first, anyway. Forty or fifty ought to be enough - and no one too violently opposed to our cause."
    "I'll gather them at once, Lady Polgara," Lelldorin declared, impulsively leaping to his feet.
    "It's rather late, Lelldorin," she pointed out, glancing at the sun hovering low over the horizon.
    "The sooner I start, the sooner I can gather them," Lelldorin said fervently. "If friendship and the ties of blood have any sway at all, I will not fail." He bowed deeply to Ce'Nedra. "Your Majesty," he said by way of farewell and ran to where his horse was tethered.
    Ariana sighed as she looked after the departing young enthusiast.
    "Is he always like that?" Ce'Nedra asked her curiously.
    The Mimbrate girl nodded. "Always," she admitted. "Thought and deed are simultaneous with him. He hath no understanding of the meaning of the word reflection, I fear. It doth add to his charm, but it is sometimes disconcerting, I must admit."
    "I can imagine," Ce'Nedra agreed.
    Later, when the princess and Polgara were alone in their tent, Ce'Nedra turned a puzzled look upon Garion's Aunt. "What are we going to do?" she asked.
    "Not we, Ce'Nedra - you. You're going to have to talk to them."
    "I'm not very good at speaking in public, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra confessed, her mouth going dry. "Crowds frighten me, and I get all tongue-tied."
    "You'll get over it, dear," Polgara assured her. She looked at the princess with a slightly amused expression. "You're the one who wanted to lead an army, remember? Did you really think that all you were going to have to do was put on your armor, jump into the saddle and shout 'follow me' and then the whole world would fall in behind you?"
    "Well-"
    "You spent all that time studying history and missed the one thing all great leaders have had in common? You must have been very inattentive, Ce'Nedra."
    Ce'Nedra stared at her with slowly dawning horror.
    "It doesn't take that much to raise an army, dear. You don't have to be brilliant; you don't have to be a warrior; your cause doesn't even have to be great and noble. All you have to do is be eloquent."
    "I can't do that, Lady Polgara."
    "You should have thought of that before, Ce'Nedra. It's too late to go back now. Rhodar will command the army and see to it that all the details are taken care of, but you're the one who'll have to make them want to follow you."
    "I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to say to them," Ce'Nedra protested.
    "It'll come to you, dear. You do believe in what we're doing, don't you?"
    "Of course, but "
    "You decided to do this, Ce'Nedra. You decided it all by yourself. And as long as you've come this far, you might as well go all the way."
    "Please, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra begged. "Speaking in public makes me sick at my stomach. I'll throw up."
    "That happens now and then," Polgara observed calmly. "Just try not to do it in front of everybody."
    Three days later, the princess, Polgara, and the Alorn Kings journeyed to the ruined city of Vo Astur deep in the silences of the Arendish forest. Ce'Nedra rode through the sunny woods in a state hovering on the verge of panic. In spite of all her arguments, Polgara had remained adamant. Tears had not budged her; even hysterics had failed. The princess was morbidly convinced that, even if she were to die, Polgara would prop her up in front of the waiting throng and make her go through the agony of addressing them. Feeling absolutely helpless, she rode to meet her fate.
    Like Vo Wacune, Vo Astur had been laid waste during the dark centuries of the Arendish civil war. Its tumbled stones were green with moss and they lay in the shade of vast trees that seemed to mourn the honor, pride, and sorrow of Asturia. Lelldorin was waiting, and with him were perhaps fifty richly dressed young noblemen, their eyes filled with curiosity faintly tinged with suspicion.
    "It's as many as I could bring together in a short time, Lady Polgara," Lelldorin apologized after they had dismounted. "There are others in the region, but they're convinced that our campaign is some kind of Mimbrate treachery."
    "These will do nicely, Lelldorin," Polgara replied. "They'll spread the word about what happens here." She looked around at the mossy, sun-dappled ruins. "I think that spot over there will be fine." She pointed at a broken bit of one of the walls. "Come with me, Ce'Nedra."
    The princess, dressed