The Seeress of Kell

all right.” Then he straightened, carefully putting a small bag he had taken from the case in the pocket of his tunic. "A little precaution," he whispered by way of explanation.
    The fog now lay beneath them like a pearly gray ocean in the shadow of the pyramid. Garion heard a strange, melancholy cry and raised his eyes. The albatross hovered on motionless wings above the fog. Garion peered intently down into the obscuring mist, almost absently working the leather sleeve off me hilt of his sword. The Orb was glowing faintly, and its color was not blue, but an angry red, almost the color of the burning sky.
    "That confirms it, Old Wolf," Poledra said to her husband. "The Sardion's in that cave."
    Belgarath, silvery hair and beard glowing red in the light reflected from the clouds overhead, grunted.
    The fog below began to swirl, its surface looking almost like an angry sea. It thinned even more. Garion could now see shadowy forms beneath them, hazy, indistinct, and uniformly dark. The fog was now no more man a faintly obscuring haze. "Holy Sorceress!" a Grolim voice exclaimed in alarm. "Look!"
    A hooded figure in a shiny black satin robe spun about, and Garion looked full into the face of the Child of Dark. He had heard the lights beneath her skin described several times, but no description had prepared him for what he now saw. The lights in Zandramas' face were not stationary, but swirled restlessly beneath her skin. In the shadow of the ancient pyramid, her features were dark, nearly invisible, but the swirling lights made it appear, in the cryptic words of the Ashabine Oracles, as if "all the starry universe" were contained in her flesh. Behind him he heard the sharp hiss of Ce'Nedra's indrawn breath. He turned his head and saw his little queen, dagger in hand and eyes ablaze with hatred, starting toward the stairs leading down into the amphitheater. Polgara and Velvet, obviously aware of her desperate plan, quickly restrained and disarmed her.
    Then Poledra stepped to the edge of the terrace. "And so it has come at last, Zandramas," she said in a clear voice.
    "I was but waiting for thee to join thy friends, Poledra," the sorceress replied in a taunting tone. "I was concerned for thee, fearing that thou hadst lost thy way. Now it is complete, and we may proceed in orderly fashion."
    "Thy concern with order is somewhat belated, Zandramas," Poledra told her, "but no matter. We have all, as was foretold, arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time. Shall we put aside all this foolishness and go inside? The universe must be growing impatient with us."
    "Not just yet, Poledra," Zandramas replied flatly.
    "How tiresome," Belgarath's wife said wearily. "That's a failing in thee, Zandramas. Even after something obviously isn't working, thou must continue to try. Thou hast twisted and turned and tried to evade this meeting, but all in vain. And all of time evasion hath only brought thee more quickly to this place. Thinkest thou not that it is time to forgo thine entertainments and to go along gracefully?"
    "I do not think so, Poledra."
    Poledra sighed. "All right, Zandramas," she said in a resigned tone, "as it pleaseth thee." She extended her arm, pointing at Garion. "Since thou art so bent on this, thus I summon the Godslayer,"
    Slowly, deliberately, Garion reached back across his shoulder and wrapped his hand about the hilt of his sword. It made an angry hiss as it slid from its sheath and it was already flaming an incandescent blue as it emerged. Garion's mind was icy calm now. All doubt and fear were gone, even as they had been at Cthol Mishrak, and the spirit of the Child of Light possessed him utterly. He took the sword hilt in both hands and slowly raised it until the flaming blade was pointed at the fiery clouds overhead. "This is thy fate, Zandramas!" he roared in an awful voice, the archaic words coming unbidden to his lips.
    "That has yet to be determined, Belgarion." Zandramas' tone was defiant, as might be expected, but there was something else behind it. "Fate is not always so easily read." She made an imperious gesture, and her Grolims formed up into a phalanx around her and began to intone a harsh chant in an ancient and hideous language.
    "Get back!" Polgara warned sharply, and she, her parents, and Beldin stepped to the edge of the terrace.
    Flickering faintly, an inky shadow began to appear at the very edge of Garion's vision, and he began to feel an obscure sense of dread. "Watch