Magician's Gambit

When you tipped the rock over, you took the force to do it from everything nearby."
    "I thought it all came from inside."
    "Only when you create things," the old man replied. "That force has to come from within us. For anything else, we borrow. We gather up a little power from here and there and put it all together and then turn it loose all at one spot. Nobody's big enough to carry around the kind of force it would take to do even the simplest sort of thing."
    "Then that's what happens when somebody tries to unmake something," Garion said intuitively. "He pulls in all the force, but then he can't let it go, and it just " He spread his hands and jerked them suddenly apart.
    Belgarath looked narrowly at him. "You've got a strange sort of mind, boy. You understand the difficult things quite easily, but you can't seem to get hold of the simple ones. There's the rock." He shook his head. "That will never do. Put it back where it belongs, and try not to make so much noise this time. That racket you raised yesterday echoed all over the Vale."
    "What do I do?" Garion asked.
    "Gather in the force," Belgarath told him. "Take it from everything around."
    Garion tried that.
    "Not from me!" the old man exclaimed sharply.
    Garion excluded his grandfather from his field of reaching out and pulling in. After a moment or two, he felt as if he were tingling all over and that his hair was standing on end. "Now what?" he asked, clenching his teeth to hold it in.
    "Push out behind you and push at the rock at the same time.''
    "What do I push at behind me?"
    "Everything - and at the rock as well. It has to be simultaneous."
    "Won't I get - sort of squeezed in between?"
    "Tense yourself up."
    "We'd better hurry, Grandfather," Garion said. "I feel like I'm going to fly apart."
    "Hold it in. Now put your will on the rock, and say the word." Garion put his hands out in front of him and straightened his arms. "Push," he commanded. He felt the surge and the roaring.
    With a resounding thud, the rock teetered and then rolled back smoothly to where it had been the morning before. Garion suddenly felt bruised all over, and he sank to his knees in exhaustion.
    "Push?" Belgarath said incredulously.
    "You said to say push."
    "I said to push. I didn't say to say push."
    "It went over. What difference does it make what word I used?"
    "It's a question of style," the old man said with a pained look. "Push sounds so - so babyish."
    Weakly, Garion began to laugh.
    "After all, Garion, we do have a certain dignity to maintain," the old man said loftily. "If we go around saying 'push' or 'flop' or things like that, no one's ever going to take us seriously."
    Garion wanted to stop laughing, but he simply couldn't. Belgarath stalked away indignantly, muttering to himself.
    When they returned to the others, they found that the tents had been struck and the packhorses loaded.
    "There's no point in staying here," Aunt Pol told them, "and the others are waiting for us. Did you manage to make him understand anything, father?"
    Belgarath grunted, his face set in an expression of profound disapproval.
    "Things didn't go well, I take it."
    "I'll explain later," he said shortly.
    During Garion's absence, Ce'Nedra, with much coaxing and a lapful of apples from their stores, had seduced the little colt into a kind of ecstatic subservience. He followed her about shamelessly, and the rather distant look he gave Garion showed not the slightest trace of guilt.
    "You're going to make him sick," Garion accused her.
    "Apples are good for horses," she replied airily.
    "Tell her, Hettar," Garion said.
    "They won't hurt him," the hook-nosed man answered. "It's a customary way to gain the trust of a young horse."
    Garion tried to think of another suitable objection, but without success. For some reason the sight of the little animal nuzzling at Ce'Nedra offended him, though he couldn't exactly put his finger on why.
    "Who are these others, Belgarath?" Silk asked as they rode. "The ones Polgara mentioned."
    "My brothers," the old sorcerer replied. "Our Master's advised them that we're coming."
    "I've heard stories about the Brotherhood of Sorcerers all my life. Are they as remarkable as everyone says?"
    "I think you're in for a bit of a disappointment," Aunt Pol told him rather primly. "For the most part, sorcerers tend to be crotchety old men with a wide assortment of bad habits. I grew up amongst them, so I know them all rather well." She turned her face to the thrush perched on