Castle of Wizardry

very tiresome." Taiba sounded faintly amused.
    "I thought you wanted instruction," Relg accused her. "If you just came here to mock me, I'll leave right now."
    "Oh, sit down, Relg," she told him. "We'll never get anywhere with this if you take offense at everything I say."
    "Have you no idea at all about the meaning of religion?" he asked after a moment. He actually sounded curious about it.
    "In the slave pens, the word religion meant death. It meant having your heart cut out."
    "That was a Grolim perversion. Didn't you have a religion of your own?"
    "The slaves came from all over the world, and they prayed to many Gods - usually for death."
    "What about your own people? Who is your God?"
    "I was told that his name is Mara. We don't pray to him though - not since he abandoned us."
    "It's not man's place to accuse the Gods," Relg told her sternly. "Man's duty is to glorify his God and pray to him - even if the prayers aren't answered."
    "And what about the God's duty to man?" she asked pointedly. "Can a God not be negligent as well as a man? Wouldn't you consider a God negligent if he allowed his children to be enslaved and butchered - or if he allowed his daughters to be given as a reward to other slaves when they pleased their masters - as I was?"
    Relg struggled with that painful question.
    "I think you've led a very sheltered life, Relg," she told the zealot. "I think you have a very limited idea of human suffering - of the kinds of things men can do to other men - and women - apparently with the full permission of the Gods."
    "You should have killed yourself," he said stubbornly.
    "Whatever for?"
    "To avoid corruption, naturally."
    "You are an innocent, aren't you? I didn't kill myself because I wasn't ready to die. Even in the slave pens, life can be sweet, Relg, and death is bitter. What you call corruption is only a small thing - and not even always unpleasant."
    "Sinful womanl" he gasped.
    "You worry too much about that, Relg," she advised him. "Cruelty is a sin; lack of compassion is a sin. But that other little thing? I hardly think so. I begin to wonder about you. Could it be that this UL of yours is not quite so stern and unforgiving as you seem to believe? Does he really want all these prayers and rituals and grovelings? Or are they your way to hide from your God? So you think that praying in a loud voice and pounding your head on the ground will keep him from seeing into your heart?"
    Relg was making strangled noises.
    "If our Gods really loved us, they'd want our lives filled with joy," she continued relentlessly. "But you hate joy for some reason - probably because you're afraid of it. Joy is not sin, Relg; joy is a kind of love, and I think the Gods approve of it - even if you don't."
    "You're hopelessly depraved."
    "Perhaps so," she admitted casually, "but at least I look life right in the face. I'm not afraid of it, and I don't try to hide from it."
    "Why are you doing this?" he demanded of her in an almost tragic voice. "Why must you forever follow me and mock me with your eyes?"
    "I don't really know," she replied, sounding almost puzzled. "You're not really that attractive. Since we left Rak Cthol, I've seen dozens of men who interested me much more. At first it was because I knew that I made you nervous and because you were afraid of me. I rather enjoyed that, but lately there's more to it than that. It doesn't make any sense, of course. You're what you are, and I'm what I am, but for some reason I want to be with you." She paused. "Tell me, Relg - and don't try to lie about it - would you really want me to go away and never see you again?"
    There was a long and painful silence. "May UL forgive me!" Relg groaned finally.
    "I'm sure he will, Relg," she assured him gently.
    Garion moved quietly on down the corridor away from the open door. Something he had not understood before had begun to become quite clear. "You're doing this, aren't you?" he asked silently.
    "Naturally, " the dry voice in his mind replied.
    "But why those two?"
    "Because it's necessary, Belgarion. I don't do things out of whim. We're all compelled by necessity - even 1. Actually, what's going on between Relg and Taiba doesn't remotely concern you. "
    Garion was a little stung by that.
    "I thought well-"
    "You assumed that you were my only care - that you were the absolute center of the universe? You're not, of course. There are other things almost equally important, and Relg and Taiba are centrally involved in one of those