Magician's Gambit

of Trellheim went to the narrow door. "Would you have a tankard of ale brought for Belgarath?" he asked the sailor outside.
    "How is he?" the sailor inquired.
    "Bad-tempered," Barak replied. "And he'll probably get worse if he doesn't get a drink pretty soon."
    "I'll go at once," the sailor said.
    "Wise decision."
    This was yet another confusing thing for Ce'Nedra. The noblemen in their party all treated this shabby-looking old man with enormous respect; but so far as she could tell, he didn't even have a title. She could determine with exquisite precision the exact difference between a baron and a general of the Imperial Legions, between a grand duke of Tolnedra and a crown prince of Arendia, between the Rivan Warder and the king of the Chereks; but she had not the faintest idea where sorcerers fit in. The materially oriented mind of Tolnedra refused even to admit that sorcerers existed. While it was quite true that Lady Polgara, with titles from half the kingdoms of the West, was the most respected woman in the world, Belgarath was a vagabond, a vagrant, frequently a public nuisance. And Garion, she reminded herself, was his grandson.
    "I think it's time you told us what happened, father," Lady Polgara was saying to her patient.
    "I'd really rather not talk about it," he replied shortly.
    She turned to Prince Kheldar, the peculiar little Drasnian nobleman with the sharp face and sardonic wit, who lounged on a bench with an impudent expression on his face. "Well, Silk?" she asked him.
    "I'm sure you can see my position, old friend," the prince apologized to Belgarath with a great show of regret. "If I try to keep secrets, she'll only force things out of me - unpleasantly, I imagine."
    Belgarath looked at him with a stony face, then snorted with disgust.
    "It's not that I want to say anything, you realize."
    Belgarath turned away.
    "I knew you'd understand."
    "The story, Silk!" Barak insisted impatiently. "It's really very simple," Kheldar told him.
    "But you're going to complicate it, right?"
    "Just tell us what happened, Silk," Polgara said.
    The Drasnian sat up on his bench. "It's not really much of a story," he began. "We located Zedar's trail and followed it down into Nyissa about three weeks ago. We had a few encounters with some Nyissan border guards - nothing very serious. Anyway, the trail of the Orb turned east almost as soon as it crossed the border. That was a surprise. Zedar had been headed for Nyissa with so much single-mindedness that we'd both assumed that he'd made some kind of arrangement with Salmissra. Maybe that's what he wanted everybody to think. He's very clever, and Salmissra's notorious for involving herself in things that don't really concern her."
    "I've attended to that," Lady Polgara said somewhat grimly.
    "What happened?" Belgarath asked her.
    "I'll tell you about it later, father. Go on, Silk."
    Silk shrugged. "There isn't a great deal more to it. We followed Zedar's trail into one of those ruined cities up near the old Marag border. Belgarath had a visitor there - at least he said he did. I didn't see anybody. At any rate, he told me that something had happened to change our plans and that we were going to have to turn around and come on downriver to Sthiss Tor to rejoin all of you. He didn't have time to explain much more, because the jungles were suddenly alive with Murgos - either looking for us or for Zedar, we never found out which. Since then we've been dodging Murgos and Nyissans both - traveling at night, hiding - that sort of thing. We sent a messenger once. Did he ever get through?"
    "The day before yesterday," Polgara replied. "He had a fever, though, and it took a while to get your message from him."
    Kheldar nodded. "Anyway, there were Grolims with the Murgos, and they were trying to find us with their minds. Belgarath was doing something to keep them from locating us that way. Whatever it was must have taken a great deal of concentration, because he wasn't paying too much attention to where he was going. Early this morning we were leading the horses through a patch of swamp. Belgarath was sort of stumbling along with his mind on other things, and that was when the tree fell on him."
    "I might have guessed," Polgara said. "Did someone make it fall?"
    "I don't think so," Silk answered. "It might have been an old deadfall, but I rather doubt it. It was rotten at the center. I tried to warn him, but he walked right under it."
    "All right," Belgarath said.
    "I did try to warn