Guardians of the West

have just rescued a genuine heroine -a martyr to the cause. Liselle's clever enough to use that to work her way into their higher councils."
    "How did she get here in the first place?"
    Javelin shrugged. "She put on a mail shirt, and I slipped her on board Trellheim's ship. After the fighting was nearly over, I just slipped her in with the other prisoners."
    "Won't the others who were just rescued say that she was never in the city?" Garion asked.
    "No, your Majesty, I don't think so," Javelin replied. "She's going to say that she lived in the northeast quarter of Jarviksholm. The others we crucified all came from the southwest quarter. Jarviksholm is a fairly good-sized town. Nobody could really say for sure that she wasn't there all along."
    "I still can't believe that you would actually do that to her," Silk said.
    "It took a fair amount of convincing and a great deal of fast talking on her part to persuade me," Javelin admitted.
    Silk stared at him.
    "Oh, yes," Javelin said. "Hadn't you guessed? The whole thing was her idea in the first place."
    Suddenly Garion heard a hollow rushing sound, and a moment later Ce'Nedra's voice came to him quite clearly.
    "Garion!" she cried out in anguish. "Garion, come home immediately! Someone has stolen our baby!"

CHAPTER TWENTY
    Polgara looked at Garion critically as they stood together in a high, open meadow above the still-burning city of Jarviksholm while the pale light of dawn washed the stars out of the sky. "Your wing feathers are too short," she told him.
    Garion made the feathers longer.
    "Much better," she said. Then her look became intense, and she also shimmered into the shape of a speckled falcon, "I've never liked these hard feathers," she murmured, clicking her hooked beak. Then she looked at Garion, her golden eyes fierce. "Try to remember everything I told you, dear. We won't go too high on your first flight." She spread her wings, took a few short steps with her taloned feet, and lifted herself effortlessly into the air.
    Garion tried to imitate what she had just done and drove himself beak-first into the turf.
    She swooped back in. "You have to use your tail, too, Garion," she said. "The wings give the power, but the tail gives direction. Try it again." The second attempt was a bit smoother. He actually flew for about fifty yards before he crashed into a tree.
    "That was very nice, dear. Just try to watch where you're going."
    Garion shook his head, trying to clear the ringing from his ears and the speckles of light from in front of his eyes.
    "Straighten your feathers, dear, and let's try it again."
    "It's going to take months for me to learn this, Aunt Pol. Wouldn't it just be faster to sail to Riva on the Seabird?"
    "No, dear," she said firmly. "You just need a bit of practice, that's all." His third attempt was somewhat more successful. He was beginning to get the knack of coordinating his wings and, tail, but he still felt clumsy and he seemed to do a great deal of clawing ineffectually at the air.
    "Garion, don't fight with it. Let it lift you."
    They circled the meadow several times in the shadowless luminosity of dawn. Garion could see the smoke rising black from the city and the burned-out shipyards in the harbor as he followed Polgara in a steady upward spiral. As his confidence increased, he began to feel a fierce exhilaration. The rush of cool morning air through his feathers was intoxicating, and he found that he could lift himself higher and higher almost effortlessly. By the time the sun was fully up, the air was no longer an enemy, and he had begun to master the hundreds of minute muscular adjustments necessary to get the greatest possible efficiency out of his feathers.
    Belgarath swooped in to join them with Durnik not far behind. "How's he doing?" the fierce-looking falcon asked Polgara.
    "He's almost ready, father."
    Good. Let him practice for another fifteen minutes or so, and then we'll get started. There's a column of warm air rising off that lake over there. That always makes it easier." He tilted on one wing and veered away in a long, smooth arc.
    "This is really very fine, Pol," Durnik said. "I should have learned how to do this years ago."
    When they moved into the column of air rising from the surface of the warm waters of the lake, Garion learned the secret of effortless flight. With his wings spread and unmoving, he let the air lift him up and up. Objects on the far below shrank as he rose higher and higher. Jarviksholm now