Castle of Wizardry

in the air, washing down over the city from the high meadows in the mountains behind Riva and mingling with peat smoke and the salty tang of the sea. The stars overhead were bright, and the newly risen moon, looking swollen as it rode low over the horizon, cast a glittering golden path across the breast of the Sea of the Winds. Garion felt that excitement he always experienced when starting out at night. He had been cooped up too long, and each step that took him farther and farther from the dull round of appointments and ceremonies filled him with an almost intoxicating anticipation.
    "It's good to be on the road again," Belgarath murmured, as if reading his thoughts.
    "Is it always like this?" Garion whispered back. "I mean, even after all the years that you've been doing it?"
    "Always," Belgarath replied. "Why do you think I prefer the life of a vagabond?"
    They moved on down through the dark streets to the city gate and out through a small sallyport to the wharves jutting into the moondappled waters of the harbor.
    Captain Greldik was a bit drunk when they reached his ship. The vagrant seaman had ridden out the winter in the safety of the harbor at Riva. His ship had been hauled out on the strand, her bottom scraped and her seams recaulked. Her main mast, which had creaked rather alarmingly on the voyage from Sendaria, had been reinforced and fitted with new sails. Then Greldik and his crew had spent much of their time carousing. The effects of three months of steady dissipation showed on his face when they woke him. His eyes were bleary, and there were dark-stained pouches under them. His bearded face looked puffy and unwell.
    "Maybe tomorrow," he grunted when Belgarath told him of their urgent need to leave the island. "Or the next day. The next day would be better, I think."
    Belgarath spoke more firmly.
    "My sailors couldn't possibly man the oars," Greldik objected. "They'll be throwing up all over the deck, and it takes a week to clean up a mess like that."
    Belgarath delivered a blistering ultimatum, and Greldik sullenly climbed out of his rumpled bunk. He lurched toward the crew's quarters, pausing only long enough to be noisily sick over the rail, and then he descended into the forward hold, where with kicks and curses he roused his men.
    The moon was high and dawn only a few hours off when Greldik's ship slid quietly out of the harbor and met the long, rolling swells of the Sea of the Winds. When the sun came up they were far out at sea.
    The weather held fair, even though the winds were not favorable, and in two days' time Greldik dropped Garion, Silk and Belgarath off on a deserted beach just north of the mouth of the Seline River on the northwest coast of Sendaria.
    "I don't know that I'd be in all that big a hurry to go back to Riva," Belgarath told Greldik as he stepped out of the small boat onto the sand of the beach. He handed the bearded Cherek a small pouch of jingling coins. "I'm sure you and your crew can find a bit of diversion somewhere."
    "It's always nice in Camaar this time of year," Greldik mused, bouncing the pouch thoughtfully in his hand, "and I know a young widow there who's always been very friendly."
    "You ought to pay her a visit," Belgarath suggested. "You've been away for quite some time, and she's sure to have been terribly lonely for you."
    "I think maybe I will," Greldik said, his eyes suddenly bright. "Have a good trip." He motioned to his men, and they began rowing the small boat back toward the lean ship standing a few hundred yards offshore.
    "What was that all about?" Garion asked.
    "I'd like to get a bit of distance between us and Polgara before she gets her hands on Greldik," the old man replied. "I don't particularly want her chasing us." He looked around. "Let's see if we can find somebody with a boat to row us upriver to Seline. We should be able to buy horses and supplies there."
    A fisherman, who immediately saw that turning ferryboatman would provide a more certain profit than trusting his luck on the banks off the northwest coast, agreed to take them upriver; by the time the sun was setting, they had arrived in the city of Seline. They spent the night in a comfortable inn and went the following morning to the central market. Silk negotiated the purchase of horses, haggling down to the last penny, bargaining more out of habit, Garion thought, than out of any real necessity. Then they bought supplies for the trip. By midmorning, they were pounding along the road