The Seeress of Kell

all goes well today, you and I might want to have a little talk. I have a business proposition that I think might interest you."
    "Is that all you ever think about?" Velvet asked him.
    “A missed opportunity is gone forever, my dear Liselle,” he replied with a certain pomposity.
    "You're incorrigible."
    "I suppose you could say that, yes."
    An oil-soaked wad of burlap in the hawsehole muffled the rattling of the anchor chain as the heavy iron hook sank down through the dark water. Garion felt rather than heard the grating of the points of the anchor on the rocks lying beneath the heavy swells.
    "Let's board the longboat," Kresca said. "The crew will lower her after we're all on board.” He looked apologetically at them. "I'm afraid you and your friends are going to have to help with the rowing, Garion. The longboat only holds so many people."
    "Of course, Captain."
    "I'll come along to make sure you get ashore safely."
    "Captain," Belgarath said then, "once we're ashore, stand your ship out to sea a ways. We'll signal you when we're ready to be picked up."
    "All right."
    "If you don't see a signal by tomorrow morning, you might as well go on back to Perivor, because we won't be coming back."
    Kresca's face was solemn. "Is whatever it is you're planning to do on that reef really that dangerous?" he asked.
    "Probably even more so," Silk told him. "We've all been trying very hard not to think about it.”
    It was eerie rowing across the oily-seeming black water with the grayish tendrils of fog rising from the heavy swells. Garion was suddenly reminded of that foggy night in Sthiss Tor when they had crossed the River of the Serpent with only the unerring sense of direction of the one-eyed assassin Issus to guide them.
    Idly, as he rowed, Garion wondered whatever had happened to Issus.
    After every ten stokes or so, Captain Kresca, who stood in the stern at the tiller, signaled for them to stop, and he cocked his head, listening to the sound of the surf. "Another couple hundred yards now," he said in a low voice. "You there," he said to the sailor in the bow who held another sounding line, "keep busy with that lead. I don't want to hit any rocks. Sing out if it starts shoaling."
    "Aye, aye, Cap'n."
    The longboat crept on through dark and fog toward the unseen beach where the long wash and slither of the waves on graveled shingle made that peculiar grating sound as each wave lifted pebbles from the beach to carry them up to the very verge of land and then, with melancholy and regretful note, to draw them back again as if the ever-hungry sea mourned its inability to engulf the land and rum all the world into one endless ocean where huge waves, unimpeded, could roll thrice around the globe.
    The heavy fog bank lying to the east began to turn lighter and lighter as dawn broke over the dark, mist-obscured waves.
    "Another hundred yards," Kresca said tensely.
    "When we get there, Captain," Belgarath said to him, "keep your men in the boat. They won't be permitted to land anyway, and they'd better not try. We'll push you back out as soon as we get ashore."
    Kresca swallowed hard and nodded.
    Garion could hear the surf more clearly now and catch the seaweed-rank smell of the meeting of sea and land. Then, just before he was able to make out the dark line of the beach through the obscuring fog, the heavy, dangerous swells flattened, and the sea around the longboat became as flat and slick as a pane of glass.
    "That was accommodating of them," Silk observed.
    "Shh," Velvet told him, laying one finger to her lips. "I'm trying to listen."
    The bow of the longboat grated on the gravel strand, and Durnik stepped out of the boat and drew it farther up onto the pebbles. Garion and his friends also stepped out into the ankle-deep water and waded ashore. "We'll see you tomorrow morning, Captain," Garion said quietly as Toth prepared to push the boat back out. "I hope," he added.
    "Good luck, Garion," Kresca said. "After we're all back on board, you'll have to tell me what this was all about."
    "I may want to forget about it by then," Garion said ruefully.
    "Not if you win," Kresca's voice came back out of the fog.
    "I like that man," Silk said. "He's got a nice optimistic attitude."
    "Let's get off this open beach," Belgarath said. "In spite of what Garion's friend told him, I sense a certain tenuousness about this fog. I'll feel a lot better if we’ve got some rocks to hide behind."
    Durnik and Toth picked up the two canvas bags