Enchanter's End Game

that the going might be easier out on flat ground. Well, to make it short, I ran across a band of Morindim and they took me prisoner. I'd been up to my ears in an ale keg for a day or so, and I was far gone when they took me. Lucky, I guess. Morindim are superstitious, and they thought I was possessed. That's probably all that saved my life. They kept me for five or six years, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind my ravings - once I got sober and saw the situation, I took quite a bit of care to do a lot of raving. Eventually they got tired of it and weren't so careful about watching me, so I escaped. By then I'd sort of forgotten exactly where that river was. I look for it now and then when I'm up that way." His speech seemed rambling, but his old blue eyes were very penetrating. "That's a big sword you're carrying, boy, Who do you plan to kill with it?"
    The question came so fast that Garion did not even have time to be startled.
    "Funny thing about that sword of yours," the shabby old man added shrewdly. "It seems to be going out of its way to make itself inconspicuous." Then he turned to Belgarath, who was looking at him with a level gaze. "You haven't hardly changed at all," he noted.
    "And you still talk too much," Belgarath replied.
    "I get hungry for talk every few years," the old man on the donkey admitted. "Is your daughter well?"
    Belgarath nodded.
    "Fine-looking woman, your daughter - bad-tempered, though."
    "That hasn't changed noticeably."
    "Didn't imagine it had." The old gold hunter chuckled, then hesitated for a moment. "If you don't mind some advice, be careful in case you plan to go down into the low country," he said seriously. "It looks like things might be coming to a boil down there. A lot of strangers in red tunics are roaming about, and there's been smoke coming up from old altars that haven't been used for years. The Grolims are out again, and their knives are all new-sharpened. The Nadraks who come up here keep looking back over their shoulders." He paused, looking directly at Belgarath. "There've been some other signs, too," he added. "The animals are all jumpy - like just before a big storm - and sometimes at night, if you listen close, there's something like thunder way off in the distance - like maybe from as far off as Mallorea. The whole world seems to be uneasy. I've got a hunch that something pretty big's about to happen - maybe the sort of thing you'd be involved in. The point is that they know you're out here. I wouldn't count too much on being able to slip through without somebody noticing you." He shrugged then, as if washing his hands of the matter. "I just thought you'd like to know."
    "Thank you," Belgarath replied.
    "Didn't cost me anything to say it." The old man shrugged again. "I think I'll go that way." He pointed off to the north. "Too many strangers coming into the mountains in the last few months. It's starting to get crowded. I've about talked myself out now, so I think I'll go look myself up a bit of privacy." He turned his donkey and trotted off. "Good luck," he threw back over his shoulder by way of farewell and then he disappeared into the blue shadows under the trees.
    "You're acquainted with him, I take it," Silk observed to Belgarath.
    The old sorcerer nodded. "I met him about thirty years ago. Polgara had come to Gar og Nadrak to find out a few things. After she'd gathered all the information she wanted, she sent word to me, and I came here and bought her from the man who owned her. We started home, but an early snowstorm caught us up here in the mountains. He found us floundering along, and he took us to the cave where he holes up when the snow gets too deep. Quite a comfortable cave really - except that he insists on bringing his donkey inside. He and Pol argued about that all winter, as I recall."
    "What's his name?" Silk asked curiously.
    Belgarath shrugged. "He never said, and it's not polite to ask."
    Garion, however, had choked on the word "bought." A kind of helpless outrage welled up in him. "Somebody owned Aunt Pol?" he demanded incredulously.
    "It's a Nadrak custom," Silk explained. "In their society, women are considered property. It's not seemly for a woman to go about without an owner."
    "She was a slave?" Garion's knuckles grew white as he clenched his fists.
    "Of course she wasn't a slave," Belgarath told him. "Can you even remotely imagine your Aunt submitting to that sort of thing?"
    "But you said-"
    "I said I bought her from the man who