The Seeress of Kell

unchanged, smoothly covered her eyes. Idly Garion wondered if she removed the cloth when she slept. A chilling thought came to him then. What if the one they would lose today was going to be Cyradis? She had sacrificed everything for her task. Surely the two prophecies could not be so cruel as to require one last, supreme sacrifice from this slender girl.
    Belgarath, of course, was unchanged and unchangeable. He still wore the mismatched boots, patched hose, and rust-colored tunic he had worn when he had appeared at Faldor's farm as Mister Wolf the storyteller. The one difference about the old man was the fact that he did not hold a tankard in his free hand. At supper the previous evening, he had almost absently drawn himself one that brimmed with foaming ale. Poledra, just as absently, had firmly removed it from his hand and had emptied it out a porthole. Garion strongly suspected that Belgarath's drinking days had come rather abruptly to an end. He decided that it might be refreshing to have a long conversation with his grandfather when the old man was completely sober.
    They ate their breakfast with hardly any conversation, since mere was nothing more to say. Ce'Nedra dutifully fed the puppy, then looked rather sadly at Garion. "Take care of him, please," she said.
    There was no point in arguing with her on that score. The idea that she would not survive this day was so firmly fixed in her mind that no amount of talking would erase it. "You might want to give him to Geran," she added. "Every boy should have a dog, and caring for him will teach our son responsibility."
    "I never had a dog," Garion said.
    "That was unkind of you, Aunt Pol," Ce'Nedra said, lapsing unconsciously or perhaps not into that form of address.
    "He wouldn't have had time to look after one, Ce'Nedra," Polgara replied. "Our Garion has had a very busy life."
    "Let's hope that it gets less so when this is all over," Garion said.
    After they had eaten, Captain Kresca entered the cabin carrying a map. "This isn't very precise," he apologized. "As I said last night, I was never able to take very accurate soundings around that peak. We can inch our way to within a few hundred yards of the beach, and then we'll have to take to the longboat. This fog is going to make it even more complicated, I'm afraid."
    "Is there a beach along the east side of the peak?" Belgarath asked him.
    "A very shallow one," Kresca replied. "The neap tide should expose a bit more of it, though."
    "Good. There are a few things we'll need to take ashore with us." Belgarath pointed at the two stout canvas bags holding the armor Garion and Zakath would wear.
    "I'll have some men stow them in the boat for you."
    "When can we get started?" Ce'Nedra asked impatiently.
    "Another twenty minutes or so, little lady."
    "So long?"
    He nodded. "Unless you can figure out a way to make the sun come up early.”
    Ce'Nedra looked quickly at Belgarath.
    "Never mind," he told her.
    "Captain," Poledra said, "could you have someone look after our pet?" She pointed at the wolf. "He's a bit overenthusiastic sometimes, and we wouldn't want him to start howling at the wrong time."
    "Of course, Lady." Kresca, it appeared, had not spent enough time ashore to recognize a wolf when he saw one.
    "Inching" proved to be a very tedious process. The sailors raised the anchors and then manned the oars. After every couple of strokes, they paused while a man in the bow heaved out the lead-weighted sounding line.
    "It's slow," Silk observed in a low voice as they all stood on deck, "but at least it's quiet. We don't know who's on that reef, and I'd rather not alert them."
    “It's shoaling, Captain," the man with the sounding line reported, his voice no louder than absolutely necessary. The obviously warlike preparations of Garion and his friends had stressed the need for quiet louder than any words. The sailor cast out his line again. There was that interminable-seeming wait while the ship drifted up over the weighted line. "The bottom's coming up fast, Captain," the sounder said then. "I make it two fathoms.”
    "Back your oars," Kresca commanded his crew in a low voice. "Drop the hook. This is as close as we can go." He turned to his mate. "After we get away in the longboat, back out about another hundred yards and anchor there. We'll whistle when we come back the usual signal. Guide us in."
    "Aye, aye, Cap'n."
    "You've done this before, I see," Silk said to Kresca.
    "A few times, yes," Kresca admitted.
    "If