King of The Murgos

comfortable to move.
    "Did you get any hints that Zandramas came through here?" Silk asked him.
    "What? Oh—no. Nothing."
    "She seems to want to avoid inhabited places," Belgarath noted. "I don't think she'd have come to the village here. Probably tomorrow you're going to have to ride out and see if you can cross her trail."
    "Wouldn't she have gone straight to Rak Verkat?" Silk suggested. "That's where all the ships are, and she wants to go to Mallorea, doesn't she?"
    "She might have made other arrangements," the old man told him. "She does have a price on her head, and the Malloreans at Rak Verkat are probably as interested in collecting it as the ones at Rak Hagga. She's made careful preparations in advance for every step of this journey. I don't think she'd have left anything to chance, once she got this far."
    Sadi came back into the room, holding the small earthenware bottle. "Margravine Liselle," he said acidly, "do you suppose I could have my snake back?"
    "Oh, I'm ever so sorry, Sadi," she apologized. "I completely forgot I had her." She dipped into the front of her dress and gently removed the little green reptile.
    Silk drew back with a sharp intake of his breath.
    "I wasn't really trying to steal her," Velvet assured Sadi. "It was just that the poor dear was cold."
    "Of course." He took his snake from her.
    "I was only trying to keep her warm, Sadi. You certainly wouldn't want her to get sick, would you?"
    "Your concern touches my heart." He turned and went back toward the sleeping rooms with Zith lazily coiled about his wrist.
    The following morning, Garion went into the shed attached to the back of the house, saddled his horse, and rode back down to the gravel strand, where the waves rolled endlessly in off the foggy sea to crash against the shore. He stopped, looking first up the beach, then down. He shrugged and turned his horse toward the northeast.
    The upper edge of the rock-strewn beach was thick with windrows of white-bleached driftwood. As he rode, he idly ran his eyes along those tangled heaps of branches and broken logs. Occasionally, he noted a squared-off timber lying among the other bits and pieces, mute evidence that some ship had come to grief. The possibility occurred to him that the shipwreck that had set those timbers adrift might have taken place as long as a century ago and that the debris might well have floated half around the world to wash up on this strand of salt-crusted pebbles.
    " That's all very interesting, " the dry voice in his mind told him, " but you're going the wrong way. "
    "Where have you been?" Garion asked, reining in.
    " Why do we always have to start these conversations with that same question? The answer wouldn't mean anything to you, so why pursue it? Turn around and go back. The trail is on the other side of the village, and you don't have time to ride all the way around the island. "
    "Is Zandramas still here with my son?" Garion asked quickly, wanting to get that question out in the open before the elusive voice went off again.
    " No ," the voice replied. " She left about a week ago. "
    "We're gaining on her then," Garion said aloud, a sudden hope springing up in him.
    " That would be a logical assumption. "
    "Where did she go?"
    " Mallorea—but you knew that already, didn't you? "
    "Could you get a little more specific? Mallorea's a big place."
    " Don't do that, Garion, " the voice told him. " UL told you that finding your son was your task. I'm not permitted to do it for you any more than he was. Oh, incidentally, keep an eye on Ce'Nedra. "
    "Ce'Nedra? What for?"
    But the voice had already gone. Garion swore and rode back the way he had come.
    A league or so to the south of the village, where a cove sheltered by two jutting headlands ran back into the shore line, the sword strapped across his back tugged at him. He reined in sharply and drew the blade. It turned in his hand to point unerringly due inland.
    He trotted his horse up the hill, with the blade of Iron-grip's sword resting on the pommel of his saddle. The trail did not veer. Ahead of him lay a long, grassy slope and then the misty edge of the evergreen forest. He considered the situation for a moment and decided that it might be better to go back and tell the others, rather than pursue Zandramas alone. As he turned his horse toward the village, he glanced down at the shallow waters of the cove. There, lying on its side beneath the water, lay the sunken wreck of a small ship. His face grew