Pawn of Prophecy

your Aunt just because the world isn't exactly to your liking. That's not only childish, it's ill-mannered, and you're a better boy than that. Now, I really think you owe her an apology, don't you?"
    "I suppose so," Garion said.
    "I'm glad we had this chance to talk," the old man said, "but I wouldn't wait too long before making up with her. You wouldn't believe how long she can stay angry." He grinned suddenly. "She's been angry with me for as long as I can remember, and that's so long that I don't even like to think about it."
    "I'll do it right now," Garion said.
    "Good," Wolf approved.
    Garion stood up and walked purposefully to where Aunt Pol stood staring out at the swirling currents of the Cherek Bore.
    "Aunt Pol," he said.
    "Yes, dear?"
    "I'm sorry. I was wrong."
    She turned and looked at him gravely.
    "Yes," she said, "you were."
    "I won't do it again."
    She laughed then, a low, warm laugh, and ran her fingers through his tangled hair. "Don't make promises you can't keep, dear," she said, and she embraced him, and everything was all right again.
    After the fury of the tide through the Cherek Bore had abated, they sailed north along the snow-mufled east coast of the Cherek peninsula toward the ancient city which was the ancestral home of all Alorns, Algar and Drasnian as well as Cherek and Rivan. The wind was chill and the skies threatening, but the remainder of the voyage was uneventful. After three more days their ship entered the harbor at Val Alorn and tied up at one of the ice-shrouded wharves.
    Val Alorn was unlike any Sendarian city. Its walls and buildings were so incredibly ancient that they seemed more like natural rock formations than the construction of human hands. The narrow, crooked streets were clogged with snow, and the mountains behind the city loomed high and white against the dark sky.
    Several horse-drawn sleighs awaited them at the wharf with savagelooking drivers and shaggy horses stamping impatiently in the packed snow. There were fur robes in the sleighs, and Garion drew one of them about him as he waited for Barak to conclude his farewells to Greldik and the sailors.
    "Let's go," Barak told the driver as he climbed into the sleigh. "See if you can't catch up with the others."
    "If you hadn't talked so long, they wouldn't be so far ahead, Lord Barak," the driver said sourly.
    "That's probably true," Barak agreed.
    The driver grunted, touched his horses with his whip, and the sleigh started up the street where the others had already disappeared. Fur-clad Cherek warriors swaggered up and down the narrow streets, and many of them bellowed greetings to Barak as the sleigh passed. At one corner their driver was forced to halt while two burly men, stripped to the waist in the biting cold, wrestled savagely in the snow in the center of the street to the encouraging shouts of a crowd of onlookers.
    "A common pastime," Barak told Garion. "Winter's a tedious time in Val Alorn."
    "Is that the palace ahead?" Garion asked.
    Barak shook his head. "The temple of Belar," he said. "Some men say that the Bear-God resides there in spirit. I've never seen him myself, though, so I can't say for sure."
    Then the wrestlers rolled out of the way, and they continued.
    On the steps of the temple an ancient woman wrapped in ragged woolen robes stood with a long staff clutched in one honey hand and her stringy hair wild about her face. "Hail, Lord Barak," she called in a cracked voice as they passed. "Thy Doom still awaits thee."
    "Stop the sleigh," Barak growled at the driver, and he threw off his fur robe and jumped to the ground. "Martje," he thundered at the old woman. "You've been forbidden to loiter here. If I tell Anheg that you've disobeyed him, he'll have the priests of the temple burn you for a witch."
    The old woman cackled at him, and Garion noted with a shudder that her eyes were milk-white blankness.
    "The fire will not touch old Martje," she laughed shrilly. "That is not the Doom which awaits her."
    "Enough of dooms," Barak said. "Get away from the temple."
    "Martje sees what she sees," the old woman said. "The mark of thy Doom is still upon thee, great Lord Barak. When it comes to thee, thou shalt remember the words of old Martje." And then she seemed to look at the sleigh where Garion sat, though her milky eyes were obviously blind. Her expression suddenly changed from malicious glee to one strangely awestruck.
    "Hail, greatest of Lords," she crooned, bowing deeply. "When thou comest into throe