Magician's Gambit

let out his breath explosively. "Belar! That was something to seel"
    "We have been favored, I think, beyond all men," Mandorallen said. They all stood staring at each other, caught up in the wonder of what they had just witnessed.
    Ce'Nedra, however, broke the mood. "All right," she ordered peremptorily, "don't just stand there gaping. Move away from the fire."
    "What are you going to do?" Garion asked her.
    "The Lady Polgara's going to be busy," the little girl said loftily, "so I'm going to make breakfast." She moved toward the fire with a businesslike bustling.
    The bacon was not too badly burned, but Ce'Nedra's attempt to toast slices of bread before the open fire turned out disastrously, and her porridge had lumps in it as solid as clods in a sun-baked field. Garion and the others, however, ate what she offered without comment, prudently avoiding the direct gaze she leveled at them, as if daring them to speak so much as one word of criticism.
    "I wonder how long they're going to be," Silk said after breakfast. "Gods, I think, have little notion of time," Barak replied sagely, stroking at his beard. "I don't expect them back until sometime this afternoon at the earliest."
    "It is a good time to check over the horses," Hettar decided. "Some of them have picked up a few burrs along the way, and I'd like to have a look at their hooves - just to be on the safe side."
    "I'll help you," Durnik offered, getting up.
    Hettar nodded, and the two went off to the place where the horses were picketed.
    "And I've got a nick or two in my sword edge," Barak remembered, fishing a piece of polishing stone out of his belt and laying his heavy blade across his lap.
    Mandorallen went to his tent and brought out his armor. He laid it out on the ground and began a minute inspection for dents and spots of rust.
    Silk rattled a pair of dice hopefully in one hand, looking inquiringly at Barak.
    "If it's all the same to you, I think I'd like to enjoy the company of my money for a while longer," the big man told him.
    "This whole place absolutely reeks of domesticity," Silk complained. Then he sighed, put away his dice, and went to fetch a needle and thread and a tunic he'd torn on a bush up in the mountains.
    Ce'Nedra had returned to her communion with the vast tree and was scampering among the branches, taking what Garion felt to be inordinate risks as she jumped from limb to limb with a catlike unconcern. After watching her for a few moments, he fell into a kind of reverie, thinking back to the awesome meeting that morning. He had met the Gods Issa and Mara already, but there was something special about Aldur. The affinity Belgarath and Aunt Pol showed so obviously for this God who had always remained aloof from men spoke loudly to Garion. The devotional activities of Sendaria, where he had been raised, were inclusive rather than exclusive. A good Sendar prayed impartially, and honored all the Gods - even Torak. Garion now, however, felt a special closeness and reverence for Aldur, and the adjustment in his theological thinking required a certain amount of thought.
    A twig dropped out of the tree onto his head, and he glanced up with annoyance.
    Ce'Nedra, grinning impishly, was directly over his head. "Boy," she said in her most superior and insulting tone, "the breakfast dishes are getting cold. The grease is going to be difficult to wash off if you let it harden."
    "I'm not your scullion," he told her.
    "Wash the dishes, Garion," she ordered him, nibbling at the tip of a lock of hair.
    "Wash them yourself."
    She glared down at him, biting rather savagely at the unoffending lock.
    "Why do you keep chewing on your hair like that?" he asked irritably.
    "What are you talking about?" she demanded, removing the lock from between her teeth.
    "Every time I look at you, you've got your hair stuck in your mouth."
    "I do not, " she retorted indignantly.
    "Are you going to wash the dishes?"
    "No."
    He squinted up at her. The short Dryad tunic she was wearing seemed to expose an unseemly amount of leg. "Why don't you go put on some clothes?" he suggested. "Some of us don't appreciate the way you run around half naked all the time."
    The fight got under way almost immediately after that.
    Finally Garion gave up his efforts to get in the last word and stamped away in disgust.
    "Garion!" she screamed after him. "Don't you dare go off and leave me with all these dirty dishes!"
    He ignored her and kept walking.
    After a short distance, he felt a