Even the storm seemed to be mixed up in it - like some howling enemy trying with noise and wind and crashing waves to break the absolute concentration necessary to complete each task.

"Are you ready?" It was Aunt Pol, and she was placing a longhandled kitchen kettle on his head like a helmet and handing him a potlid shield and a wooden stick sword.

"What am I supposed to do?" he demanded of her.

"You know," she replied. "Hurry. It's getting late."

"No, Aunt Pol, I don't - really."

"Of course you do. Now stop wasting time."

He looked around, feeling very confused and apprehensive. Not far away, Rundorig stood with that same rather foolish look on his face that had always been there. Rundorig also had a kettle on his head, a pot-lid shield, and a wooden sword. Apparently he and Rundorig were supposed to do this together. Garion smiled at his friend, and Rundorig grinned back.

"That's right," Aunt Pol said encouragingly. "Now kill him. Hurry, Garion. You have to be finished by suppertime."

He spun around to stare at her. Kill Rundorig? But when he looked back, it was not Rundorig. Instead the face that looked at him from beneath the kettle was maimed and hideous.

"No, no," Barak said impatiently. "Don't hold it like that. Grip it in both hands and keep it pointed at his chest. Keep the point low so that, when he charges, he doesn't knock the spear aside with his tusks. Now do it again. Try to get it right this time. Hurry, Garion. We don't have all day, you know." The big man nudged the dead boar with his foot, and the boar got up and began to paw at the snow. Barak gave Garion a quick look. "Are you ready?" he demanded.

Then he was standing on a strange, colorless plain, and there seemed to be statues all around him. No. Not statues - figures. King Anheg was there - or a figure that looked like him - and King Korodullin, and Queen Islena, and there was the Earl of Jarvik, and over there was Nachak, the Murgo ambassador at Vo Mimbre.

"Which piece do you want to move?" It was the dry voice in his mind.

"I don't know the rules," Garion objected.

"That doesn't matter. You have to move. It's your turn."

When Garion turned back, one of the figures was rushing at him. It wore a cowled robe, and its eyes bulged with madness. Without thinking, Garion raised his hand to ward off the figure's attack.

"Is that the move you want to make?" the voice asked him.

"I don't know."

"It's too late to change it now. You've already touched him. From now on, you have to make your own moves."

"Is that one of the rules?"

"That's the way it is. Are you ready?"

There was the smell of loam and of ancient oak trees. "You really must learn to control your tongue, Polgara," Asharak the Murgo said with a bland smile, slapping Aunt Pol sharply across the face.

"It's your move again," the dry voice said. "There's only one that you can make."

"Do I have to do it? Isn't there anything else I can do?"

"It's the only move there is. You'd better hurry."

With a deep sigh of regret, Garion reached out and set fire to Asharak with the palm of his hand.

A sudden, gusting draft banged open the door of the room Garion shared with Lelldorin, and the two of them sat bolt upright in their beds.

"I'll latch it again," Lelldorin said, throwing back the covers and stumbling across the chilly stones of the floor.

"How longs it going to keep blowing like this?" Garion asked peevishly. "How's anyone supposed to sleep with all this noise?"

Lelldorin closed the door again, and Garion heard him fumbling around in the darkness. There was a scraping click and a sudden bright spark. The spark went out, and Lelldorin tried again. This time it caught in the tinder. The young Asturian blew on it, and it grew brighter, then flared into a small finger of flame.

"Have you got any idea what time it is?" Garion asked as his friend lighted the candle.

"Some hours before dawn, I imagine," Lelldorin replied.

Garion groaned. "It feels like this night's already been about ten years long."

"We can talk for a while," Lelldorin suggested. "Maybe the storm will die down toward dawn."

"Talking's better than lying here in the dark, jumping at every sound," Garion agreed, sitting up and pulling his blanket around his shoulders.

"Things have happened to you since we saw each other last, haven't they, Garion?" Lelldorin asked, climbing back into his own bed.

"A lot of things," Garion told him, "not all of them good, either."

"You've changed a great deal," Lelldorin noted.

"I've been changed. There's a difference. Most of it wasn't my idea. You've changed, too, you know."

"Me?" Lelldorin laughed ruefully. "I'm afraid not, my friend. The mess I've made of things in the past week is proof that I haven't changed at all."

"That will take a bit of straightening out, won't it?" Garion agreed.

"The funny part about it all is that there is a perverse sort of logic about the whole thing. There wasn't one single thing you did that was actually insane. It's just when you put them all together that it starts to look like a catastrophe."

Lelldorin sighed. "And now my poor Ariana and I are doomed to perpetual exile."

"I think we'll be able to fix it," Garion assured him. "Your uncle will forgive you, and Torasin probably will, too. He likes you too much to stay angry for long. Baron Oltorain is probably very put out with you, but he's a Mimbrate Arend. He'll forgive anything if it's done for love. We might have to wait until his leg heals up again, though. That was the part that was a real blunder, Lelldorin. You shouldn't have broken his leg."

"Next time I'll try to avoid that," Lelldorin promised quickly.

"Next time?"

They both laughed then and talked on as their candle flickered in the vagrant drafts stirred by the raging storm. After an hour or so, the worst of the gale seemed to pass, and the two of them found their eyes growing heavy once more.

"Why don't we try to sleep again?" Garion suggested.

"I'll blow out the candle," Lelldorin agreed. He got up out of bed and stepped to the table. "Are you ready?" he asked Garion.

Garion slept again almost immediately, and almost immediately heard a sibilant whisper in his ear and felt a dry, cold touch. "Are you ready?" the whispering voice hissed, and he turned to look with uncomprehending eyes at the face of Queen Salmissra, a face that shifted back and forth from woman to snake to something midway between.