Sorceress of Darshiva

leave."
    "Grandfather," Garion protested, "I have to stay here. I want to hear the word about Zandramas with my own ears."
    "Pol can listen for you. I might need you along to help persuade the alchemist to talk to me. Bring the Orb, but leave the sword behind."
    "Why the Orb?"
    "Let's just call it a hunch."
    "I'll come with you," Beldin said, rising to his feet.
    "There's no need of that."
    "Oh, yes there is. Your memory seems to be failing a bit, Belgarath. You forget to tell me things. If I'm there when you locate the Oracles, I'll be able to save you all the time and trouble of trying to remember."

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The University of Melcena was a sprawling complex of buildings situated in a vast park. The buildings were old and stately, and the trees dotting the close-clipped lawns were gnarled with age. There was a kind of secure serenity about the place that bespoke a dedication to the life of the mind. A calm came over Garion as he walked with the two old sorcerers across the green lawn, but there was a kind of melancholy as well. He sighed.
    "What's the problem?" Belgarath asked him.
    "Oh, I don't know, Grandfather. Sometimes I wish I might have had the chance to come to a place like this. It might be kind of nice to study something for no reason except that you want to know about it. Most of my studying has been pretty urgent—you know, find the answer, or the world will come to an end."
    "Universities are overrated places," Beldin said. "Too many young men attend simply because their fathers insist, and they spend more time carousing than they do studying. The noise is distracting to the serious student. Stick to studying alone. You get more done." He looked at Belgarath. "Have you got even the remotest idea where we're going to find this Senji?"
    "Vetter said that he's a member of the faculty of the College of Applied Alchemy.
    I'd imagine that's the place to start."
    "Logic, Belgarath? You? The next question that pops to mind is where we're going to find the College of Applied Alchemy."
    Belgarath stopped a robed scholar who was walking across the lawn with an open book in his hand. "Excuse me, learned sir," he said politely, "but could you direct me to the College of Applied Alchemy?"
    "Umm?" the scholar said, looking up from his book. "The College of Applied Alchemy. Could you tell me where I could find it?"
    "The sciences are all down that way," the scholar said, "near the theology department." He waved rather vaguely toward the south end of the campus.
    "Thank you," Belgarath said. "You're too kind."
    "It's a scholar's duty to provide instruction and direction," the fellow replied pompously.
    "Ah, yes," Belgarath murmured. "Sometimes I lose sight of that."
    They walked on in the direction the scholar had indicated. "If he doesn't give his students any more specific directions than that, they probably come out of this place with a rather vague idea of the world," Beldin observed.
    The directions they received from others gradually grew more precise, and they finally reached a blocky-looking building constructed of thick gray rock and solidly buttressed along its walls. They went up the steps in front and entered a hallway that was also shored up with stout buttresses.
    "I don't quite follow the reason for all the interior reinforcement," Garion confessed.
    As if in answer to his question, there came a thunderous detonation from behind a door partway up the hall. The door blew outward violently, and clouds of reeking smoke came pouring out.
    "Oh," Garion said. "Now I understand."
    A fellow with a dazed look on his face and with his clothes hanging from his body in smoking tatters came staggering out through the smoke. "Too much sulfur," he was muttering over and over again. "Too much sulfur."
    "Excuse me," Belgarath said, "do you by any chance know where we might find the alchemist Senji?"
    "Too much sulfur," the experimenter said, looking blankly at Belgarath.
    "Senji," the old man repeated. "Could you tell us where to find him?"
    The tattered fellow frowned. "What?" he said blankly.
    "Let me," Beldin said. "Can you tell us where to find Senji?" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "He's got a clubfoot."
    "Oh," the man replied, shaking his head to clear his befuddlement. "His laboratory's on the top floor—down toward the other end."
    "Thank you," Beldin shouted at him.
    "Too much sulfur. That's the problem, all right. I put in too much sulfur."
    "Why were you shouting at him?" Belgarath asked