Magician's Gambit

we're there, we won't be bothered any more."
    "Won't they follow us into the Vale?" Durnik asked, looking around nervously.
    "No. Murgos won't go into the Vale - not for any reason. Aldur's Spirit is there, and the Murgos are desperately afraid of him."
    "How many days to the Vale?" Silk asked.
    "Four or five, if we ride hard," Wolf replied.
    "We'd better get started then."

Chapter Ten
    THE WEATHER, WHICH had seemed on the brink of winter in the higher mountains, softened back into autumn as they rode down from the peaks and ridges. The forests in the hills above Maragor had been thick with fir and spruce and heavy undergrowth. On this side, however, the dominant tree was the pine, and the undergrowth was sparse. The air seemed drier, and the hillsides were covered with high, yellow grass.
    They passed through an area where the leaves on the scattered bushes were bright red; then, as they moved lower, the foliage turned first yellow, then green again. Garion found this reversal of the seasons strange. It seemed to violate all his perceptions of the natural order of things. By the time they reached the foothills above the Vale of Aldur, it was late summer again, golden and slightly dusty. Although they frequently saw evidences of the Murgo patrols which were crisscrossing the region, they had no further encounters. After they crossed a certain undefined line, there were no more tracks of Murgo horses.
    They rode down beside a turbulent stream which plunged over smooth, round rocks, frothing and roaring. The stream was one of several forming the headwaters of the Aldur River, a broad flow running through the vast Algarian plain to empty into the Gulf of Cherek, eight hundred leagues to the northwest.
    The Vale of Aldur was a valley lying in the embrace of the two mountain ranges which formed the central spine of the continent. It was lush and green, covered with high grass and dotted here and there with huge, solitary trees. Deer and wild horses grazed there, as tame as cattle. Skylarks wheeled and dove, filling the air with their song. As the party rode out into the valley, Garion noticed that the birds seemed to gather wherever Aunt Pol moved, and many of the braver ones even settled on her shoulders, warbling and trilling to her in welcome and adoration.
    "I'd forgotten about that," Mister Wolf said to Garion. "It's going to be difficult to get her attention for the next few days."
    "Why?"
    "Every bird in the Vale is going to stop by to visit her. It happens every time we come here. The birds go wild at the sight of her."
    Out of the welter of confused bird sound it seemed to Garion that faintly, almost like a murmuring whisper, he could hear a chorus of chirping voices repeating, "Polgara. Polgara. Polgara."
    "Is it my imagination, or are they actually talking?" he asked.
    "I'm surprised you haven't heard them before," Wolf replied. "Every bird we've passed for the last ten leagues has been babbling her name."
    "Look at me, Polgara, look at me," a swallow seemed to say, hurling himself into a wild series of swooping dives around her head. She smiled gently at him, and he redoubled his efforts.
    "I've never heard them talk before," Garion marveled.
    "They talk to her all the time," Wolf said. "Sometimes they go on for hours. That's why she seems a little abstracted sometimes. She's listening to the birds. Your Aunt moves through a world filled with conversation."
    "I didn't know that."
    "Not many people do."
    The colt, who had been trotting rather sedately along behind Garion as they had come down out of the foothills, went wild with delight when he reached the lush grass of the Vale. With an amazing burst of speed, he ran out over the meadows. He rolled in the grass, his thin legs flailing. He galloped in long, curving sweeps over the low, rolling hilts. He deliberately ran at herds of grazing deer, startling them into flight and then plunging along after them. "Come back here!" Garion shouted at him.
    "He won't hear you," Hettar said, smiling at the little horse's antics. "At least, he'll pretend that he doesn't. He's having too much fun."
    "Get back here right now!" Garion projected the thought a bit more firmly than he'd intended. The colt's forelegs stiffened, and he slid to a stop. Then he turned and trotted obediently back to Garion, his eyes apologetic. "Bad horse!" Garion chided.
    The colt hung his head.
    "Don't scold him," Wolf said. "You were very young once yourself."
    Garion immediately regretted what