Enchanter's End Game

die, to leave the way clear for his wife and Mandorallen."
    Garion sighed.
    "Don't let it make you unhappy, Garion," Silk advised. "Arends actually enjoy that kind of misery. Mandorallen's perfectly content to suffer nobly."
    "That's a rotten thing to say," Garion accused the little man.
    Silk shrugged. "I'm a rotten sort of person," he admitted.
    "Where are you going after-" Garion left it hanging.
    "After I see you safely married?" Silk suggested pleasantly. "As soon as I recover from all the drinking I'll do tonight, I'll be off for Gar og Nadrak. There's a great deal of opportunity in the new situation there. I've been in contact with Yarblek. He and I are going to form a partnership."
    "With Yarblek?"
    "He's not so bad - if you keep an eye on him - and he's very shrewd. We'll probably do rather well together."
    "I can imagine." Garion laughed. "One of you is bad enough all by himself, but with the two of you acting together, no honest merchant's going to escape with his skin."
    Silk grinned wickedly. "That was sort of what we had in mind."
    "I imagine that you'll get very rich."
    "I suppose I could learn to live with that." Silk's eyes took on a distant look. "That's not really what it's all about, though," he noted. "It's a game. The money's just a way of keeping score. It's the game that's important."
    "It seems to me that you told me that once before."
    "Nothing's changed since then, Garion," Silk told him with a laugh.
    Aunt Pol's wedding to Durnik took place later that morning in a small, private chapel in the west wing of the Citadel. There were but few guests. Belgarath and the twins, Beltira and Belkira, were there of course, and Silk and Barak. Aunt Pol, beautiful in a deep blue velvet gown, was attended by Queen Layla, and Garion stood with Durnik. The ceremony was performed by the hunchbacked Beldin, dressed for once in decent clothing and with a strangely gentle expression on his ugly face.
    Garion's emotions were very complex during the ceremony. He realized with a sharp little pang that Aunt Pol would no longer be exclusively his. An elemental, childish part of him resented that. He was, however, pleased that it was Durnik whom she was marrying. If anyone deserved her, it was Durnik. The good, plain man's eyes were filled with absolute love, and he obviously could not take them from her face. Aunt Pol herself was gravely radiant as she stood at Durnik's side.
    As Garion stepped back while the two exchanged vows, he heard a faint rustle. Just inside the door of the chapel, in a hooded cloak that covered her from head to foot and wearing a heavy veil that covered her face, stood Princess Ce'Nedra. She had made a large issue of the fact that by an ancient Tolnedran custom, Garion was not supposed to see her before their wedding on this day, and the cloak and veil provided her with the illusion of invisibility. He could imagine her wrestling with the problem until she had come up with this solution. Nothing could have kept her from Polgara's wedding, but all the niceties and formalities had to be observed. Garion smiled slightly as he turned back to the ceremony.
    It was the expression on Beldin's face that made him turn again to look sharply toward the back of the chapel - an expression of surprise that turned to calm recognition. At first Garion saw nothing, but then a faint movement up among the rafters caught his eye. The pale, ghostly shape of a snowy owl perched on one of the dark beams, watching as Aunt Pol and Durnik were married.
    When the ceremony was concluded and after Durnik had respectfully and rather nervously kissed his bride, the white owl spread her pinions to circle the chapel in ghostly silence. She hovered briefly as if in silent benediction over the happy couple; then with two soft beats of her wings, she moved through the breathless air to Belgarath. The old sorcerer resolutely averted his eyes.
    "You may as well look at her, father," Aunt Pol told him. "She won't leave until you recognize her."
    Belgarath sighed then, and looked directly at the oddly luminous bird hovering in the air before him. "I still miss you," he said very simply. "Even after all this time."
    The owl regarded him with her golden, unblinking eyes for a moment, then flickered and vanished.
    "What an absolutely astonishing thing," Queen Layla gasped.
    "We're astonishing people, Layla," Aunt Pol replied, "and we have a number of peculiar friends - and relatives." She smiled then, her arm closely linked in