Castle of Wizardry

firmly.
    The priest looked about helplessly, then turned and quickly left the hall with his cultists close behind him.
    "Make him put it away, Durnik," Polgara told the smith. "And see if you can do something about the knots."
    "I could seal them up with lead," Durnik mused. "Maybe that would keep him from getting it open."
    "It might be worth a try." Then she looked around. "I thought you might all like to know that my father's awake," she told him. "The old fool appears to be stronger than we thought."
    Garion, immediately alert, looked at her sharply, trying to detect some hint that she might not be telling them everything, but her calm face was totally unreadable.
    Barak, laughing loudly with relief, slapped Hettar on the back. "I told you he'd be all right," he exclaimed delightedly. The others in the room were already crowding around Polgara, asking for details.
    "He's awake," she told them. "That's about all I can say at the moment - except that he's his usual charming self. He's already complaining about lumps in the bed and demanding strong ale."
    "I'll send some at once," Queen Silar said.
    "No, Silar," Polgara replied firmly. "He gets broth, not ale."
    "He won't like that much," Silk suggested.
    "Isn't that a shame?" She smiled. She half turned, as if about to go back to the sickroom, then stopped and looked rather quizzically at Garion who sat, relieved, but still apprehensive about Belgarath's true condition, beside Adara. "I see that you've met your cousin," she observed.
    "Who?"
    "Don't sit there with your mouth open, Garion," she advised him. "It makes you look like an idiot. Adara's the youngest daughter of your mother's sister. Haven't I ever told you about her?"
    It all came crashing in on him. "Aunt Pol!" he protested. "How could you forget something that important?"
    But Adara, obviously as startled by the announcement as he had been, gave a low cry, put her arms about his neck and kissed him warmly. "Dear cousin!" she exclaimed.
    Garion flushed, then went pale, then flushed again. He stared first at Aunt Pol, then at his cousin, unable to speak or even to think coherently.

Chapter Seven
    IN THE DAYS that followed while the others rested and Aunt Pol nursed Belgarath back to health, Garion and his cousin spent every waking moment together. From the time he had been a very small child he had believed that Aunt Pol was his only family. Later, he had discovered that Mister Wolf-Belgarath - was also a relative, though infinitely far removed. But Adara was different. She was nearly his own age, for one thing, and she seemed immediately to fill that void that had always been there. She became at once all those sisters and cousins and younger aunts that others seemed to have but that he did not.
    She showed him the Algar Stronghold from top to bottom. As they wandered together down long, empty corridors, they frequently held each others' hands. Most of the time, however, they talked. They sat together in out-of the-way places with their heads close together, talking, laughing, exchanging confidences and opening their hearts to each other. Garion discovered a hunger for talk in himself that he had not suspected. The circumstances of the past year had made him reticent, and now all that flood of words broke loose. Because he loved his tall, beautiful cousin, he told her things he would not have told any other living soul.
    Adara responded to his affection with a love of her own that seemed as deep, and she listened to his outpourings with an attention that made him reveal himself even more.
    "Can you really do that?" she asked when, one bright winter afternoon, they sat together in an embrasure high up in the fortress wall with a window behind them overlooking the vast sea of winter-brown grass stretching to the horizon. "Are you really a sorcerer?"
    "I'm afraid so," he replied.
    "Afraid?"
    "There are some pretty awful things involved in it, Adara. At first I didn't want to believe it, but things kept happening because I wanted them to happen, It finally reached the point where I couldn't doubt it any more."
    "Show me," she urged him.
    He looked around a bit nervously. "I don't really think I should," he apologized. "It makes a certain kind of noise, you see, and Aunt Pol can hear it. For some reason I don't think she'd approve if I just did it to show off."
    "You're not afraid of her, are you?"
    "It's not exactly that. I just don't want her to be disappointed in me." He considered that. "Let me see if I