Sorceress of Darshiva

eggs, dear."
    "Won't that make them angry?"
    "Are you afraid of a chicken?"
    The little queen's eyes hardened, and she left the room purposefully.
    A root cellar behind the house yielded a store of vegetables and Belgarath and Beldin brought a cask of beer in the brewhouse. While the chickens were roasting, Polgara rummaged through the canisters and bins in the kitchen. She found flour and a number of other staples, and She rolled up her sleeves in a businesslike way, mixed up a large batch of dough, and began to knead it on a well-scrubbed cutting board near the fire. "We can have some biscuits tonight, I think," she said, "and I'll bake some fresh bread in the morning."
    The supper was the best Garion had eaten in months. There had been banquets and adequate meals in inns sod the like, but there was a certain indefinable quality to his Aunt Pol's cooking that no other cook in the world could hope to match. After he had eaten more perhaps than was realy good for him, he pushed his plate away with a sigh and leaned back in his chair.
    "I'm glad you decided to leave some for the rest of us," Ce'Nedra said in a slightly snippy tone.
    "Are you cross with me for some reason?" he asked her.
    " No, I suppose not, Garion. I'm just a little irritated, that's all."
    "Why?"
    "A chicken bit me." She pointed at the remains of a roasted hen lying on a large platter. "That one," she added. She reached out, wrenched a drumstick off the chicken and bit into it rather savagely with her small white teeth. "There," she said in a vengeful tone. "How do you like that?"
    Garion knew his wife, so he knew better than to laugh. supper, they all lingered at the table in a kind of contentment as the storm outside abated, there was a light, almost diffident rap on the door, sprang to his feet, reaching over his shoulder for his sword.
    "I don't mean to disturb you," a querulous old voice from the other side of the door. "I just wanted to be sure you have everything you need." Belgarath rose from his chair, went to the door, and opened it.
    "Holy Belgarath," the man outside said with a bow of the profoundest respect. He was very old, with snowy white hair and a thin, lined face.
    He was also a Grolim.
    Belgarath stared at him warily. "You know me?" he asked.
    "Of course. I know you all. I've been waiting for you. May I come in?"
    Wordlessly, Belgarath stepped aside for him, and the aged Grolim tottered into the room, aided by a twisted cane. He bowed to Polgara. "Lady Polgara," he murmured.
    Then he turned to Garion. "Your Majesty," he said, "may I beg your forgiveness?"
    "Why?" Garion replied. "You've never done anything to me."
    "Yes I have, your Majesty. When I heard about what had happened in the City of Endless Night, I hated you. Can you forgive that?"
    "There's nothing to forgive. It was only natural for you to feel that way. You've had a change of heart, I take it?"
    "It was changed for me, King Belgarion. The New God of Angarak will be a kindlier, gentler God than was Torak. I live now only to serve that God and I abide against the day of his coming."
    "Sit down, my friend," Belgarath told him. "I assume you've had a religious experience of some kind?"
    The old Grolim sank into a chair with a beatific smile on his lined face. "My heart has been touched, Holy Belgarath," he said simply. "I had devoted all of my life to the service of Torak in the temple in this village. I grieved more than you can know when I learned of His death, for I served Him without question. Now I have removed His likeness from the Temple wall and I decorate the altar with flowers instead of the blood of sacrificial victims. Bitterly I repent the times when I myself held the knife during the rite of sacrifice."
    "And what was it that so changed you?" Polgara asked him.
    "It was a voice that spoke to me in the silences of my soul, Lady Polgara, a voice that filled me with such joy that it seemed that all the world was bathed in light."
    "And what did the voice say to you?"
    The old priest reached inside his black robe and withdrew t parchment sheet. "I took great care to inscribe the words exactly as the voice spoke them to me," he said, "for such was the instruction I received. A man may misconstrue what life is told, or change it if it is not to his liking or if he fails understand." He smiled gently. "What I have written is for the benefit of others, though, for the words are engraved upon my heart far more indelibly than upon this sheet." He lifted the