Queen of Sorcery

certain that it really means anything."
    "Grandfather thinks it does, doesn't he?"
    "Your grandfather has a number of curious notions. Old things impress him - probably because he's so old himself."
    Garion was going to ask her about this Prophecy that seemed to exist in more than one version, but Lelldorin moaned then and they both immediately turned to him.
    They arrived shortly thereafter at a Tolnedran hostel with thick, whitewashed walls and a red tile roof. Aunt Pol saw to it that Lelldorin was placed in a warm room, and she spent the night sitting by his bed caring for him. Garion padded worriedly down the dark hallway in his stocking feet a half-dozen times before morning to check on his friend, but there seemed to be no change.
    By daybreak the rain had let up. They started out in the grayish dawn with Mandorallen still riding some distance ahead until they reached at last the edge of the dark forest and saw before them the vast, open expanse of the Arendish central plain, dun-colored and sere in the last few weeks of winter. The knight stopped there and waited for them to join him, his face somber.
    "What's the trouble?" Silk asked him.
    Mandorallen pointed gravely at a column of black smoke rising from a few miles out on the plain.
    "What is it?" Silk inquired, his rat face puzzled.
    "Smoke in Arendia can mean but one thing," the knight replied, pulling on his plumed helmet. "Abide here, dear friends. I will investigate, but I fear the worst." He set his spurs to the flanks of his charger and leaped forward at a thunderous gallop.
    "Wait!" Barak roared after him, but Mandorallen rode on obliviously. "That idiot," the big Cherek fumed. "I'd better go with him in case there's trouble."
    "It isn't necessary," Lelldorin advised weakly from his litter. "Not even an army would dare to interfere with him."
    "I thought you didn't like him," Barak said, a little surprised.
    "I don't," Lelldorin admitted, "but he's the most feared man in Arendia. Even in Asturia we've heard of Sir Mandorallen. No sane man would stand in his way."
    They drew back into the shelter of the forest and waited for the knight to come back. When he returned, his face was angry. "It is as I feared," he announced. "A war doth rage in our path - a senseless war, since the two barons involved are kinsmen and the best of friends."
    "Can we go around it?" Silk asked.
    "Nay, Prince Kheldar," Mandorallen replied. "Their conflict is so widespread that we would be waylaid ere we had gone three leagues. I must, it would appear, buy us passage."
    "Do you think they'll take money to let us pass?" Durnik asked dubiously.
    "In Arendia there is another way to make such purchase, Goodman," Mandorallen responded. "May I prevail upon thee to obtain six or eight stout poles perhaps twenty feet in length and about as thick as my wrist at the butt?"
    "Of course." Durnik took up his axe.
    "What have you got in mind?" Barak rumbled.
    "I will challenge them," Mandorallen announced calmly, "one or all. No true knight could refuse me without being called craven. Wilt thou be my second and deliver my challenge, my Lord?"
    "What if you lose?" Silk suggested.
    "Lose?" Mandorallen seemed shocked. "I? Lose?"
    "Let it pass," Silk said.
    By the time Durnik had returned with the poles, Mandorallen had finished tightening various straps beneath his armor. Taking one of the poles, he vaulted into his saddle and started at a rolling trot toward the column of smoke, with Barak at his side.
    "Is this really necessary, father?" Aunt Pol asked.
    "We have to get through, Pol," Mister Wolf replied. "Don't worry. Mandorallen knows what he's doing."
    After a couple of miles they reached the top of a hill and looked down at the battle below. Two grim, black castles faced each other across a broad valley, and several villages dotted the plain on either side of the road. The nearest village was in flames, with a great pillar of greasy smoke rising from it to the lead-gray sky overhead, and serfs armed with scythes and pitchforks were attacking each other with a sort of mindless ferocity on the road itself. Some distance off, pikemen were gathering for a charge, and the air was thick with arrows. On two opposing hills parties of armored knights with bright-colored pennons on their lances watched the battle. Great siege engines lofted boulders into the air to crash down on the struggling men, killing, so far as Garion could tell, friend and foe indiscriminately. The valley was littered with