‘I don’t quite follow you.’

‘A large proportion of Grolims are sorcerers, right? So they’d be able to hear this sound. What if that enchantment is there to keep the Grolims far enough away so that they won’t hear it?’

‘Aren’t you getting a little exotic, Beldin?’ Zakath asked sceptically.

‘Not really. Actually, I’m simplifying. A curse designed to keep away people you’re not really afraid of doesn’t make sense. Everybody’s always thought that the curse was there to protect Kell itself, and that doesn’t make any sense either. Isn’t it simpler to assume that there’s something more important that has to be protected?’

‘What is there about this sound that would make the Dals so concerned about having it overheard?’ Velvet asked, sounding perplexed.

‘All right,’ Beldin said. ‘What is a sound?’

‘Not that again,’ Belgarath sighed.

‘I’m not talking about the noise in the woods. A sound is just a noise unless it’s meaningful. What do we call a meaningful sound?’

‘Talk, isn’t it?’ Silk ventured.

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Ce’Nedra confessed. ‘What are the Dals saying that they want to keep secret? Nobody understands what they’re saying anyway.’

Beldin spread his hands helplessly, but Durnik was pacing up and down, his face creased with thought. ‘Maybe it’s not so much what they’re saying, but how.’

‘And you accuse me of being obscure,’ Beldin said to Belgarath. ‘What are you getting at, Durnik?’

‘I’m groping,’ the smith admitted. ‘The noise, or sound – whatever you want to call it – isn’t a signal that somebody’s turning people into frogs.’ He stopped. ‘Can we really do that?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Beldin said, ‘but it’s not worth the trouble. Frogs multiply at a ferocious rate. I’d rather have one person who irritated me instead of a million or so aggravating frogs.’

‘All right, then,’ Durnik continued. ‘It’s not the noise that sorcery makes.’

‘Probably not,’ Belgarath agreed.

‘And I think Ce’Nedra’s right. Nobody really understands what the Dals are saying – except for other Dals. Half the time I can’t follow what Cyradis is saying from one end of a sentence to the other.’

‘What does that leave?’ Beldin asked intently, his eyes alight.

‘I’m not sure. I’ve got the feeling though that “How” is more important than “What”.’ Durnik suddenly looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I’m talking too much,’ he confessed. ‘I’m sure that some of the rest of you have more important things to say about this than I do.’

‘I don’t really think so,’ Beldin told him. ‘I think you’re right on the edge of it. Don’t lose it.’

Durnik was actually sweating now. He covered his eyes with one hand, trying to collect his thoughts. Garion noticed that everyone in the room was almost breathlessly watching his old friend labor with a concept that was probably far beyond the grasp of any of the rest of them.

‘There has to be something that the Dals are trying to protect,’ the smith went on, ‘and it has to be something that’s very simple – for them at least – but something they don’t want anybody else to understand. I wish Toth were here. He might be able to explain it.’ Then his eyes went very wide.

‘What is it, dear?’ Polgara asked.

‘It can’t be that!’ he exclaimed, suddenly very excited. ‘It couldn’t be!’

‘Durnik!’ she said in exasperation.

‘Do you remember when Toth and I first began to talk to each other – in gestures, I mean?’ Durnik was suddenly talking very fast and he was almost breathless. ‘We’d been working together, and a man who works with someone else begins to know exactly what the other one is doing – and even what he’s thinking.’ He stared at Silk. ‘You and Garion and Pol use that finger-language’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve seen the gestures Toth makes. Would the secret language be able to say all that much with just a few waves of the hand – the way he does it?’

Garion already knew the answer.

Silk’s voice was puzzled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That would be impossible.’

‘But I know exactly what he’s trying to say,’ Durnik told them. ‘The gestures don’t mean anything at all. He does it just to make me – to give me some rational explanation for what he’s really doing.’ Durnik’s face grew awed. ‘He’s been putting the words directly into my mind – without even talking. He has to, because he can’t talk. What if that’s what this murmuring we hear is? What if it’s the sound of the Dals talking to one another? And what if they can do it over long distances?’

‘And over time, too,’ Beldin said in a startled voice. ‘Do you remember what your big, silent friend said when we first got here? He said that nothing the Dals have ever done has ever been forgotten and that every Dal alive knows everything that every Dal who’s ever lived knew.’

‘You’re suggesting an absurdity, Beldin,’ Belgarath scoffed.

‘No. Not really. Ants do it. So do bees.’

‘We aren’t ants – or bees.’

‘I can do almost anything a bee can do.’ The hunchback shrugged. ‘Except make honey – and you could probably build a fairly acceptable ant hill.’

‘Will one of you please explain what you’re talking about?’ Ce’Nedra asked crossly.

‘They’re hinting at the possibility of a group mind, dear,’ Polgara said quite calmly. ‘They’re not doing it very well, but that’s what they’re groping toward.’ She gave the two old men a condescending sort of smile. ‘There are certain creatures – usually insects – that don’t have very much intelligence individually, but as a group they’re very wise. A single bee isn’t too bright, but a bee-hive knows everything that’s ever happened to it.’

The she-wolf had come padding in, her toe-nails clicking on the marble floor and with the puppy scampering along behind her. ‘Wolves do it as well,’ she supplied, indicating that she had been listening at the door.