Pawn of Prophecy

magic."
    "I am a Sendar," Garion objected. The hint implicit in Silk's observation struck at the very center of his sense of his own identity.
    Silk turned and looked at him closely.
    "No," he said, "you aren't. I know a Sendar when I see one just as I can recognize the difference between an Arend and a Tolnedran or a Cherek and an Algar. There's a certain set of the head, a certain look about the eyes of Sendars that you don't have. You're not a Sendar."
    "What am I then?" Garion challenged.
    "I don't know," Silk said with a puzzled frown, "and that's very unusual, since I've been trained to know what people are. It may come to me in time, though."
    "Is Aunt Pol a Sendar?" Garion asked.
    "Of course not." Silk laughed.
    "That explains it then," Garion said. "I'm probably the same thing she is."
    Silk looked sharply at him.
    "She's my father's sister, after all," Garion said. "At first I thought it was my mother she was related to, but that was wrong. It was my father; I know that now."
    "That's impossible," Silk said flatly.
    "Impossible?"
    "Absolutely out of the question. The whole notion's unthinkable."
    "Why?"
    Silk chewed at his lower lip for a moment. "Let's go back to the wagons," he said shortly.
    They turned and went down through the dark trees with the bright morning sunlight slanting on their backs in the frosty air.
    They rode the back lanes for the rest of the day. Late in the afternoon when the sun had begun to drop into a purple bank of clouds toward the west, they arrived at the farm where they were to pick up Mingan's hams. Silk spoke with the stout farmer and showed him the piece of parchment Mingan had given them in Darine.
    "I'll be glad to get rid of them," the farmer said. "They've been occupying storage space I sorely need."
    "That's frequently the case when one has dealings with Tolnedrans," Silk observed. "They're gifted at getting a bit more than they pay foreven if it's only the free use of someone else's storage sheds."
    The farmer glumly agreed.
    "I wonder," Silk said as if the thought had just occurred to him, "I wonder if you might have seen a friend of mine - Brill by name? A medium-sized man with black hair and beard and a cast to one eye?"
    "Patched clothes and a sour disposition?" the stout farmer asked.
    "That's him," Silk said.
    "He's been about the area," the farmer said, "looking - or so he said - for an old man and a woman and a boy. He said that they stole some things from his master and that he'd been sent to find them."
    "How long ago was that?" Silk asked.
    "A week or so," the farmer said.
    "I'm sorry to have missed him," Silk said. "I wish I had the leisure to look him up."
    "I can't for my life think why," the farmer said bluntly. "To be honest with you, I didn't care much for your friend."
    "I'm not overfond of him myself," Silk agreed, "but the truth is that he owes me some money. I could quite easily do without Brill's companionship, but I'm lonesome for the money, if you take my meaning."
    The farmer laughed.
    "I'd take it as a kindness if you happened to forget that I asked after him," Silk said. "He'll likely be hard enough to find even if he isn't warned that I'm looking for him."
    "You can depend on my discretion," the stout man said, still laughing. "I have a loft where you and your wagoneers can put up for the night, and I'd take it kindly if you'd sup with my workers in the dining hall over there."
    "My thanks," Silk said, bowing slightly. "The ground's cold, and it's been some time since we've eaten anything but the rough fare of the road."
    "You wagoneers lead adventuresome lives," the stout man said almost enviously. "Free as birds with always a new horizon just beyond the next hilltop."
    "It's much overrated," Silk told him, "and winter's a thin time for birds and wagoneers both."
    The farmer laughed again, clapped Silk on the shoulder and then showed him where to put up the horses.
    The food in the stout farmer's dining hall was plain, but there was plenty; and the loft was a bit drafty, but the hay was soft. Garion slept soundly. The farm was not Faldor's, but it was familiar enough, and there was that comforting sense of having walls about him again that made him feel secure.
    The following morning, after a solid breakfast, they loaded the wagons with the Tolnedran's salt-crusted hams and bade the farmer a friendly good-bye.
    The clouds that had begun to bank up in the west the evening before had covered the sky during the night, and it was cold and gray