Enchanter's End Game

line with the Empire's position of strict neutrality."
    "Ah," King Rhodar said. He turned to King Cho-Hag. "We must make arrangements for the comfort of the Imperial suggester and his staff," he declared with a broad grin.
    Ce'Nedra watched with secret delight as these two brilliant men began what was obviously going to be a firm friendship. "I'll leave you gentlemen to your entertainments," she told them. "Military discussions give me a headache, so I'll rely on you not to get me in trouble." She curtsied to them with a winsome little smile and withdrew.
    Two days later, Relg arrived from Ulgoland with the contingent of his leaf mailed countrymen sent by the Gorim. Taiba, who had hovered silently in the background since the army had arrived at the Stronghold, joined Ce'Nedra and Lady Polgara to greet the Ulgos as the wagons which carried them creaked up the hill toward the main gate. The beautiful Marag woman wore a plain, even severe, linen dress, but her violet eyes were glowing. Relg, his cowled leaf mail shirt covering his head and shoulders like lizard skin, climbed down from the lead wagon and only perfunctorily answered the greetings of Barak and Mandorallen. His large eyes searched the group gathered at the gate until they found Taiba, and then a kind of tension seemed to go out of him. Without speaking, he walked toward her. Their meeting was silent, and they did not touch, though Taiba's hand moved involuntarily toward him several times. They stood in the golden sunlight with their eyes lost in each other's faces, drawing about them a profound kind of privacy that absolutely ignored the presence of others. Taiba's eyes remained constantly on Relg's face, but there was in them nothing of that vacant, placid adoration that filled Ariana's eyes when she looked at Lelldorin. There was rather a question - even a challenge. Relg's answering look was the troubled gaze of a man torn between two overpowering compulsions. Ce'Nedra watched them for a few moments, but was finally forced to avert her eyes.
    The Ulgos were quartered in dim, cavernous rooms built into the foundations of the Stronghold where Relg could lead his countrymen through the painful process of adjusting their eyes to the light of day and training them to ignore the unreasoning panic which assailed all Ulgos when they were exposed to the open sky.
    That evening another smaller contingent arrived from the south. Three men, two in white robes and one in filthy rags, appeared at the gate demanding entrance. The Algars at the gate admitted them immediately, and one guard was sent to Lady Polgara's candlelit apartment to inform her of their arrival.
    "You'd better bring them here," she advised the poor man, who was ashen-faced and trembling. "They haven't been in the company of other men for a very long time, and crowds might make them nervous."
    "At once, Lady Polgara," the shaking Algar said, bowing. He hesitated for a moment. "Would he really do that to me?" he blurted.
    "Would who do what to you?"
    "The ugly one. He said that he was going to-" The man stopped, suddenly realizing to whom he was speaking. His face turned red. "I don't think I should repeat what he said, Lady Polgara - but it was an awful thing to threaten a man with."
    "Oh," she said. "I believe I know what you mean. It's one of his favorite expressions. I think you're safe. He only says that to get people's attention. I'm not even sure you can do it to somebody and keep him alive at the same time."
    "I'll bring them at once, Lady Polgara."
    The sorceress turned to look at Ce'Nedra, Adara, and Ariana, who had joined her for supper. "Ladies," she said gravely, "we're about to have guests. Two of them are the sweetest men in the world, but the third is a bit uncontrolled in his use of language. If you're at all sensitive about such things, you'd better leave."
    Ce'Nedra, remembering her encounter with the three in the Vale of Aldur, rose immediately.
    "Not you, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her. "You'll have to stay, I'm afraid."
    Ce'Nedra swallowed hard. "I really would leave, if I were you," she advised her friends.
    "Is he that bad?" Adara asked. "I've heard men swear before."
    "Not like this one," Ce'Nedra warned.
    "You've managed to make me very curious." Adara smiled. "I think I'll stay."
    "Don't say I didn't warn you," Ce'Nedra murmured.
    Beltira and Belkira were as saintly as Ce'Nedra remembered them, but the misshapen Beldin was even uglier and nastier. Ariana fled before he had