Magician's Gambit

Pol looked across at the old sorcerer, who sat on a rock, staring into the fire. "Possibly you're right. Come with me." She led the way around the fire and stopped directly in front of the old man. "All right, father," she said crisply, "I think that's about enough."
    "Go away, Polgara," he told her.
    "No, father," she replied. "It's time for you to put it away and come back to the real world."
    "That was a cruel thing to do, Pol," he said reproachfully.
    "To mother? She didn't mind."
    "How do you know that? You never knew her. She died when you were born."
    "What's that got to do with it?" She looked at him directly. "Father," she declared pointedly, "you of all people should know that mother was extremely strong-minded. She's always been with me, and we know each other very well."
    He looked dubious.
    "She has her part to play in this just the same as the rest of us do. If you'd been paying attention all these years, you'd have realized that she's never really been gone."
    The old man looked around a little guiltily.
    "Precisely," Aunt Pol said with just the hint of a barb in her voice. "You really should have behaved yourself, you know. Mother's very tolerant for the most part, but there were times when she was quite vexed with you."
    Belgarath coughed uncomfortably.
    "Now it's time for you to pull yourself out of this and stop feeling sorry for yourself," she continued crisply.
    His eyes narrowed. "That's not entirely fair, Polgara," he replied.
    "I don't have time to be fair, father."
    "Why did you choose that particular form?" he asked with a hint of bitterness.
    "I didn't, father. She did. It's her natural form, after all."
    "I'd almost forgotten that," he mused.
    "She didn't."
    The old man straightened and drew back his shoulders. "Is there any food around?" he asked suddenly.
    "The princess has been doing the cooking," Garion warned him. "You might want to think it over before you decide to eat anything she's had a hand in."
    The next morning under a still-threatening sky, they struck their tents, packed their gear again, and rode down along the narrow bed of the brook back into the river valley.
    "Did you thank the trees, dear?" Aunt Pol asked the princess.
    "Yes, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra replied. "Just before we left."
    "That's nice," Aunt Pol said.
    The weather continued to threaten for the next two days, and finally the blizzard broke in full fury as they approached a strangely pyramidal peak. The sloping walls of the peak were steep, rising sharply up into the swirling snow, and they seemed to have none of the random irregularities of the surrounding mountains. Though he rejected the idea immediately, Garion could not quite overcome the notion that the curiously angular peak had somehow been constructed - that its shape was the result of a conscious design.
    "Prolgu," Belgarath said, pointing at the peak with one hand while he clung to his wind-whipped cloak with the other.
    "How do we get up there?" Silk asked, staring at the steep walls dimly visible in the driving snow.
    "There's a road," the old man replied. "It starts over there." He pointed to a vast pile of jumbled rock to one side of the peak.
    "We'd better hurry then, Belgarath," Barak said. "This storm isn't going to improve much."
    The old man nodded and moved his horse into the lead. "When we get up there," he shouted back to them over the sound of the shrieking wind, "we'll find the city. It's abandoned, but you may see a few things lying about-broken pots, some other things. Don't touch any of them. The Ulgos have some peculiar beliefs about Prolgu. It's a very holy place to them, and everything there is supposed to stay just where it is."
    "How do we get down into the caves?" Barak asked.
    "The Ulgos will let us in," Belgarath assured him. "They already know we're here."
    The road that led to the mountaintop was a narrow ledge, inclining steeply up and around the sides of the peak. They dismounted before they started up and led their horses. The wind tugged at them as they climbed, and the driving snow, more pellets than flakes, stung their faces.
    It took them two hours to wind their way to the top, and Garion was numb with cold by the time they got there. The wind seemed to batter at him, trying to pluck him off the ledge, and he made a special point of staying as far away from the edge as possible.
    Though the wind had been brutal on the sides of the peak, once they reached the top it howled at them with unbroken force. They passed