Sorceress of Darshiva

into the sea—just to show you how serious we are?"
    "You're Belgarion, aren't you?"
    "Yes."
    'The Godslayer?"
    "Some people call me that."
    "Oh, my God," Senji whimpered.
    "We're wasting time," Belgarath said flatly. "Start talking. I want to know just where Cthrag Sardius came from, how long it was here, and where it went from here."
    "It's a long story," Senji said.
    "Abbreviate it," Beldin totd him, kicking aside the glass shards on the floor.
    "We're a little pressed for time right now."
    "How long was the Sardion here?" Belgarath asked.
    "Eons," Senji replied.
    "Where did it come from?"
    "Zamad," the alchemist responded. "The people up there are Karands, but they're a little timid about demons. I think a few of their magicians were eaten alive. Anyway— or so the legends say—at about the time of the cracking of the world some five thousand years or so ago . . ."he faltered again, staring at the two dreadful old men facing him.
    "It was noisy," Beldin supplied distastefully. "A lot of steam and earthquakes. Torak was always ostentatious— some kind of character defect, I think."
    "Oh, my God," Senji said again.
    "Don't keep saying that," Belgarath told him in a dissented tone. "You don't even know who your God is."
    "But you will, Senji," Garion said in a voice that was not his own, "and once you have met Him, you will follow all the days of your life." Belgarath looked at Garion with one raised eyebrow.
    Garion spread his hands helplessly. "Get on with this, Belgarath," the voice said through Garion's lips. "Time isn't waiting for you, you know."
    Belgarath turned back to Senji. "All right," he said. "The Sardion came to Zamad.
    "How?"
    "It's said to have fallen out of the sky."
    "They always do," Beldin said. "Someday I'd like to see something rise up out of the earth—just for the sake of variety. ''
    "You get bored too easily, my brother," Belgarath told him.
    "I didn't see you sitting over Burnt-face's tomb for five hundred years, my brother," Beldin retorted.
    "I don't think I can stand this," Senji said, burying his face in his trembling hands.
    "It gets easier as you go along," Garion said in a comforting tone. "We're not really here to make your life unpleasant. All we need is a little information and then we'll go away. If you think about it in the right way, you might even be able to make yourself believe that this is all a dream."
    "I'm in the presence of three demigods, and you want me to pass it off as a dream?"
    "That's a nice term," Beldin said. "Demigod. I like the sound of it."
    "You're easily impressed by words," Belgarath told him. "Words are the core of thought. Without words there is no thought."
    Senji's eyes brightened. "Now, we might want to talk about that a little bit," he suggested.
    "Later," Belgarath said. "Get back to Zamad—and the Sardion."
    "All right," the clubfooted little alchemist said. "Cthrag Sardius—or the Sardion, whatever you want to call it—came out of the sky into Zamad. The barbarians up there thought that it was holy and built a shrine to it and fell down on their faces and worshiped it. The shrine was in a valley up in the mountains, and there was a grotto and an altar and that sort of thing."
    "We've been there," Belgarath said shortly. "It's at the bottom of a lake now. How did it get to Melcena?"
    "That came years later," Senji replied. "The Karands have always been a troublesome people, and their social organization is fairly rudimentary. About three thousand years ago—or maybe a little longer—a King of Zamad began to feel ambitious, so he assimilated Voresebo and started looking hungrily south. There were a series of raids in force across the border into Rengel. Of course, Rengel was a part of the Melcene Empire, and the emperor decided that it was time to teach the Karands a lesson. He mounted a punitive expedition and marched into Voresebo and then Zamad at thie head of a column of elephant cavalry. The Karands had never seen an elephant before and they fled in panic. The emperor systematically destroyed all the towns and villages up there. He heard about the holy object and its shrine and he went there and took Cthrag Sardius—more I think to punish the Karands than out of any desire to possess the stone for himself. It's not really very attractive, you know."
    "What does it look like?" Garion asked him.
    "It's fairly large," Senji said. "It's sort of oval-shaped and about so big." He indicated an object about two feet in diameter with his