Sorceress of Darshiva

asked me what was going on in Mallorea. I told you that things were all pretty much the same—that the bureaucracy's the glue that holds everything together, that there were plots and intrigues in Melcena and Mal Zeth, that Karanda and Darshiva and Gandahar were on the verge of open rebellion, and that the Grolims—"
    He stopped, his eyes suddenly going very wide.
    "Are still afraid to go near Kell!" Belgarath completed it in a shout of triumph.
    "That's it!"
    Beldin smacked his forehead with his open palm. "How could I have been so stupid?" he exclaimed. Then he fell over on his back, howling with laughter and kicking at the ground in sheer delight. "We've got her, Belgarath!" he roared. "We've got them all—Zandramas, Urvon, even Agachak! They can't go to Kell!"
    Belgarath was also laughing uproariously. "How did we miss it?"
    "Father," Polgara said ominously. "This is beginning to make me cross. Will one of you please explain all this hysteria?"
    Beldin and Belgarath were capering hand in hand in a grotesque little dance of glee.
    "Will you two stop that?" Polgara snapped.
    "Oh, this is just too rare, Pol," Beldin gasped, catching her in a bear hug.
    "Don't do that! Just talk!"
    "All right, Pol," he said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. "Kell is the holy place of the Dals. It's the center of their whole culture."
    "Yes, uncle. I know that."
    "When the Angaraks overran Dalasia, the Grolims came in to erase the Dalasian religion and to replace it with the worship of Torak—the same way they did in Karanda. When they found out the significance of Kell, they moved to destroy it. The Dais had to prevent that, so they put their wizards to work on the problem. The wizards laid curses on the entire region around Kell." He frowned. "Maybe curses isn't the right word" he admitted. "Enchantments might be closer, but it amounts to the same thing. Anyway, since the Grolims were the real danger to Kell, the enchantments were directed at them. Any Grolim who tries to approach Kell is struck blind."
    "Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?" she asked him tartly.
    "I've never really paid that much attention to it. I probably even forgot about it.
    I don't bother to go into Dalasia because the Dals are all mystics, and mysticism has always irritated me. The seers all talk in riddles, and necromancy seems like a waste of time to me. I wasn't even sure if the enchantments really worked. Grolims are very gullible sometimes. A suggestion of a curse would probably work just as well as a real one."
    "You know," Belgarath mused, "I think the reason we missed it was because we've been concentrating on the fact that Urvon, Zandramas, and Agachak are all sorcerers. We kept overlooking the fact that they're also Grolims."
    "Is this curse—or whatever you call it—aimed specifically at the Grolims," Garion asked, "or would it affect us, too?"
    Beldin scratched at his beard. "It's a good question, Belgarath," he said. "That's not the sort of thing you'd want to risk lightly."
    "Senji!" Belgarath snapped his fingers.
    "I didn't quite follow that."
    "Senji went to Kell, remember? And even as inept as he is, he's still a sorcerer."
    "That's it, then' Beldin grinned. "We can go to Kell, and they can't. They'll have to follow us for a change."
    "What about the demons?" Durnik asked soberly. "Nahaz is already marching toward Kell, and as far as we know, Zandramas has Mordja with her. Would they be able to go to Kell? What I'm getting at is that even if Urvon and Zandramas can't go there, couldn't they just send the demons instead to get the information for them?"
    Beldin shook his head. "It wouldn't do them any good. Cyradis won't let a demon anywhere near her copy of the Mallorean Gospels. No matter what other faults they have, the seers refuse to have anything to do with the agents of chaos."
    "Could she prevent either of the demons from just taking what they want, though?"
    Durnik looked worried. "Let's face it, Beldin. A demon is a fairly awful thing."
    "She can take care of herself," Beldin replied. "Don't worry about Cyradis."
    "Master Beldin," Zakath objected, "she's little more than a child, and with her eyes bound like that, she's utterly helpless."
    Beldin laughed coarsely. "Helpless? Cyradis? Man, are you out of your mind? She could probably stop the sun if she needed to. We can't even begin to make guesses about how much power she has."
    "I don't understand." Zakath looked baffled.
    "Cyradis is the focus of all the