"Seven thousand years," the old man said.
"What?"
"Belgarath the Sorcerer is seven thousand years old - perhaps a bit older."
"That's impossible," Garion said.
"Is it? How old are you?"
"Nine-next Erastide."
"And in nine years you've learned everything that's both possible and impossible? You're a remarkable boy, Garion."
Garion flushed. "Well," he said, somehow not quite so sure of himself, "the oldest man I ever heard of is old Weldrik over on Mildrin's farm. Durnik says he's over ninety and that he's the oldest man in the district."
"And it's a very big district, of course," the old man said solemnly.
"How old are you?" Garion asked, not wanting to give up.
"Old enough, boy," the old man said.
"It's still only a story," Garion insisted.
"Many good and solid men would say so," the old man told him, looking up at the stars, "good men who will live out their lives believing only in what they can see and touch. But there's a world beyond what we can see and touch, and that world lives by its own laws. What may be impossible in this very ordinary world is very possible there, and sometimes the boundaries between the two worlds disappear, and then who can say what is possible and impossible?"
"I think I'd rather live in the ordinary world," Garion said. "The other one sounds too complicated."
"We don't always have that choice, Garion," the storyteller told him. "Don't be too surprised if that other world someday chooses you to do something that must be done - some great and noble thing."
"Me?" Garion said incredulously.
"Stranger things have happened. Go to bed, boy. I think I'll look at the stars for a while. The stars and I are very old friends."
"The stars?" Garion asked, looking up involuntarily. "You're a very strange old man - if you don't mind my saying so."
"Indeed," the storyteller agreed. "Quite the strangest you'll likely meet."
"I like you all the same," Garion said quickly, not wanting to give offense.
"That's a comfort, boy," the old man said. "Now go to bed. Your Aunt Pol will be worried about you."
Later, as he slept, Garion's dreams were troubled. The dark figure of maimed Torak loomed in the shadows, and monstrous things pursued him across twisted landscapes where the possible and the impossible merged and joined as that other world reached out to claim him.
Chapter Three
SOME FEW MORNINGS later, when Aunt Pol had begun to scowl at his continued lurking in her kitchen, the old man made excuse of some errand to the nearby village of Upper Gralt.
"Good," Aunt Pol said, somewhat ungraciously. "At least my pantries will be safe while you're gone."
He bowed mockingly, his eyes twinkling. "Do you need anything, Mistress Pol?" he asked. "Some trifling thing I might purchase for you - as long as I'm going anyway?"
Aunt Pol thought a moment. "Some of my spice pots are a bit low," she said, "and there's a Tolnedran spice merchant in Fennel Lane just south of the Town Tavern. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding the tavern."
"The trip is likely to be dry," the old man admitted pleasantly. "And lonely, too. Ten leagues with no one to talk to is a long way."
"Talk to the birds," Aunt Pol suggested bluntly.
"Birds listen well enough," the old man said, "but their speech is repetitious and quickly grows tiresome. Why don't I take the boy along for company?"
Garion held his breath.
"He's picking up enough bad habits on his own," Aunt Pol said tartly. "I'd prefer his not having expert instruction."
"Why, Mistress Pol," the old man objected, stealing a cruller almost absently, "you do me an injustice. Besides, a change will do the boy good - broaden his horizons, you might say."
"His horizons are quite broad enough, thank you," she said.
Garion's heart sank.
"Still," she continued, "at least I can count on him not to forget my spices altogether or to become so fuddled with ale that he confuses peppercorns with cloves or cinnamon with nutmeg. Very well, take the boy along; but mind, I don't want you taking him into any low or disreputable places."
"Mistress Pol!" the old man said, feigning shock. "Would I frequent such places?"
"I know you too well, Old Wolf," she said dryly. "You take to vice and corruption as naturally as a duck takes to a pond. If I hear that you've taken the boy into any unsavory place, you and I will have words."
"Then I'll have to make sure that you don't hear of anything like that, won't I?"
Aunt Pol gave him a hard look. "I'll see which spices I need," she said.
"And I'll borrow a horse and cart from Faldor," the old man said, stealing another cruller.
In a surprisingly short time, Garion and the old man were bouncing along the rutted road to Upper Gralt behind a fast-trotting horse. It was a bright summer morning, and there were a few dandelion-puff' clouds in the sky and deep blue shadows under the hedgerows. After a few hours, however, the sun became hot, and the jolting ride became tiresome.
"Are we almost there?" Garion asked for the third time.
"Not for some time yet," the old man said. "Ten leagues is a goodly distance."
"I was there once before," Garion told him, trying to sound casual. "Of course I was only a child at the time, so I don't remember too much about it. It seemed to be quite a fine place."
The old man shrugged. "It's a village," he said, "much like any other." He seemed a bit preoccupied.
Garion, hoping to nudge the old man into a story to make the miles go faster, began asking questions.
"Why is it that you have no name - if I'm not being impolite in asking?"
"I have many names," the old man said, scratching his white beard. "Almost as many names as I have years."
"I've only got one," Garion said.
"So far."
"What?"
"You only have one name so far," the old man explained. "In time you may get another - or even several. Some people collect names as they go along through their lives. Sometimes names wear out just like clothes."
"Aunt Pol calls you Old Wolf," Garion said.
"I know," the old man said. "Your Aunt Pol and I have known each other for a very long time."
"Why does she call you that?"
"Who can say why a woman such as your Aunt does anything?"
"May I call you Mister Wolf?" Garion asked. Names were quite important to Garion, and the fact that the old storyteller did not seem to have one had always bothered him. That namelessness had made the old man seem somehow incomplete, unfinished.
The old man looked at him soberly for a moment, and then he burst out laughing.
"Mister Wolf indeed. How very appropriate. I think I like that name better than any I've had in years."
"May I then?" Garion asked. "Call you Mister Wolf, I mean?"
"I think I'd like that, Garion. I think I'd like that very much."
"Now would you please tell me a story, Mister Wolf?" Garion asked.
The time and distance went by much faster then as Mister Wolf wove for Garion tales of glorious adventure and dark treachery taken from those gloomy, unending centuries of the Arendish civil wars.
"Why are the Arends like that?" Garion asked after a particularly grim tale.
"The Arends are very noble," Wolf said, lounging back in the seat of the cart with the reins held negligently in one hand. "Nobility is a trait that's not always trustworthy, since it sometimes causes men to do things for obscure reasons."
"Rundorig is an Arend," Garion said. "He sometimes seems to be, well, not too quick of thought, if you know what I mean."
"It's the effect of all that nobility," Wolf said. "Arends spend so much time concentrating on being noble that they don't have time to think of other things."
They came over the crest of a long hill, and there in the next valley lay the village of Upper Gralt. To Garion the tiny cluster of gray stone houses with slate
roofs seemed disappointingly small. Two roads, white with thick dust, intersected there, and there were a few narrow, winding streets besides. The houses were square and solid, but seemed almost like toys set down in the valley below. The horizon beyond was ragged with the mountains of eastern Sendaria, and, though it was summer, the tops of most of the mountains were still wrapped in snow.
Their tired horse plodded down the hill toward the village, his hooves stirring little clouds of dust with each step, and soon they were clattering along the cobblestoned streets toward the center of the village. The villagers, of course, were all too important to pay any attention to an old man and a small boy in a farm cart. The women wore gowns and high-pointed hats, and the men wore doublets and soft velvet caps. Their expressions seemed haughty, and they looked with obvious disdain at the few farmers in town who respectfully stood aside to let them pass.
"They're very fine, aren't they?" Garion observed.
"They seem to think so," Wolf said, his expression faintly amused. "I think it's time that we found something to eat, don't you?"
Though he had not realized it until the old man mentioned it, Garion was suddenly ravenous. "Where will we go?" he asked. "They all seem so splendid. Would any of them let strangers sit at their tables?"
Wolf laughed and shook a jingling purse at his waist. "We should have no trouble making acquaintances," he said. "There are places where one may buy food."
Buy food? Garion had never heard of such a thing before. Anyone who appeared at Faldor's gate at mealtime was invited to the table as a matter of course. The world of the villagers was obviously very different from the world of Faldor's farm.
"But I don't have any money," he objected.
"I've enough for us both," Wolf assured him, stopping their horse before a large, low building with a sign bearing a picture of a cluster of grapes hanging just above its door. There were words on the sign, but of course Garion could not read them.
"What do the words say, Mister Wolf?" he asked.
"They say that food and drink may be bought inside," Wolf told him, getting down from the cart.
"It must be a fine thing to be able to read," Garion said wistfully. The old man looked at him, seemingly surprised. "You can't read, boy?" he asked incredulously.
"I've never found anyone to teach me," Garion said. "Faldor reads, I think, but no one else at the farm knows how."
"Nonsense," Wolf snorted. "I'll speak to your Aunt about it. She's been neglecting her responsibility. She should have taught you years ago."
"Can Aunt Pol read?" Garion asked, stunned.
"Of course she can," Wolf said, leading the way into the tavern. "She says she finds little advantage in it, but she and I had that particular argument out, many years ago." The old man seemed quite upset by Garion's lack of education.
Garion, however, was far too interested in the smoky interior of the tavern to pay much attention. The room was large and dark with a low, beamed ceiling and a stone floor strewn with rushes. Though it was not cold, a fire burned in a stone pit in the center of the room, and the smoke rose errantly toward a chimney set above it on four square stone pillars. Tallow candles guttered in clay dishes on several of the long, stained tables, and there was a reek of wine and stale beer in the air.
"What have you to eat?" Wolf demanded of a sour, unshaven man wearing a grease-spotted apron.
"We've a bit of a joint left," the man said, pointing at a spit resting to one side of the fire pit. "Roasted only day before yesterday. And meat porridge fresh yesterday morning, and bread no more than a week old."
"Very well," Wolf said, sitting down. "And I'll have a pot of your best ale and milk for the boy."
"Milk?" Garion protested.
"Milk," Wolf said firmly.
"You have money?" the sour-looking man demanded.
Wolf jingled his purse, and the sour man looked suddenly less sour.
"Why is that man over there sleeping?" Garion asked, pointing at a snoring villager sitting with his head down on one of the tables.
"Drunk," Wolf said, scarcely glancing at the snoring man.
"Shouldn't someone take care of him?"
"He'd rather not be taken care of."
"Do you know him?"
"I know of him," Wolf said, "and many others like him. I've occasionally been in that condition myself."
"Why?"
"It seemed appropriate at the time."
The roast was dry and overdone, the meat porridge was thin and watery, and the bread was stale, but Garion was too hungry to notice. He carefully cleaned his plate as he had been taught, then sat as Mister Wolf lingered over a second pot of ale.
"Quite splendid," he said, more to be saying something than out of any real conviction. All in all he found that Upper Gralt did not live up to his expectations.
"Adequate." Wolf shrugged. "Village taverns are much the same the world over. I've seldom seen one I'd hurry to revisit. Shall we go?" He laid down a few coins, which the sour-looking man snatched up quickly, and led Garion back out into the afternoon sunlight.
"Let's find your Aunt's spice merchant," he said, "and then see to a night's lodging-and a stable for our horse." They set off down the street, leaving horse and cart beside the tavern.
The house of the Tolnedran spice merchant was a tall, narrow building in the next street. Two swarthy, thick-bodied men in short tunics lounged in the street at his front door near a fierce-looking black horse wearing a curious armored saddle. The two men stared with dull-eyed disinterest at passers-by in the lane.
Mister Wolf stopped when he caught sight of them.
"Is something wrong?" Garion asked.
"Thulls," Wolf said quietly, looking hard at the two men.
"What?"
"Those two are Thulls," the old man said. "They usually work as porters for the Murgos."
"What are Murgos?"
"The people of Cthol Murgos," Wolf said shortly. "Southern Angaraks."
"The ones we beat at the battle of Vo Mimbre?" Garion asked. "Why would they be here?"
"The Murgos have taken up commerce," Wolf said, frowning. "I hadn't expected to see one of them in so remote a village. We may as well go in. The Thulls have seen us, and it might look strange if we turned now and went back. Stay close to me, boy, and don't say anything."
They walked past the two heavyset men and entered the spice merchant's shop.
The Tolnedran was a thin, baldheaded man wearing a brown, belted gown that reached to the floor. He was nervously weighing several packets of pungent-smelling powder which lay on the counter before him.
"Good day to you," he said to Wolf. "Please have patience. I'll be with you shortly." He spoke with a slight lisp that Garion found peculiar.
"No hurry," Wolf said in a wheezy, cracking voice. Garion looked at him sharply and was astonished to see that his friend was stooped and that his head was nodding foolishly.
"See to their needs," the other man in the shop said shortly. He was a dark, burly man wearing a chain-mail shirt and a short sword belted to his waist. His cheekbones were high, and there were several savagelooking scars on his face. His eyes looked curiously angular, and his voice was harsh and thickly accented.
"No hurry," Wolf said in his wheezy cackle.
"My business here will take some time," the Murgo said coldly, "and I prefer not to be rushed. Tell the merchant here what you need, old man."
"My thanks, then," Wolf cackled. "I have a list somewhere about me." He began to fumble foolishly in his pockets. "My master drew it up. I do hope you can read it, friend merchant, for I cannot." He finally found the list and presented it to the Tolnedran.
The merchant glanced at the list. "This will only take a moment," he told the Murgo.
The Murgo nodded and stood staring stonily at Wolf and Garion. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his expression changed. "You're a seemly appearing boy," he said to Garion. "What's your name?"
Until that moment, in his entire life, Garion had be
en an honest and truthful boy, but Wolf's manner had opened before his eyes an entire world of deception and subterfuge. Somewhere in the back of his mind he seemed to hear a warning voice, a dry, calm voice advising him that the situation was dangerous and that he should take steps to protect himself. He hesitated only an instant before telling his first deliberate lie. He allowed his mouth to drop open and his face to assume an expression of vacantheaded stupidity. "Rundorig, your Honor," he mumbled.
"An Arendish name," the Murgo said, his eyes narrowing even more. "You don't look like an Arend."
Garion gaped at him.
"Are you an Arend, Rundorig?" the Murgo pressed.
Garion frowned as if struggling with a thought while his mind raced. The dry voice suggested several alternatives.
"My father was," he said finally, "but my mother is a Sendar, and people say I favor her."
"You say was, " the Murgo said quickly. "Is your father dead, then?" His scarred face was intent.
Garion nodded foolishly. "A tree he was cutting fell on him," he lied. "It was a long time ago."
The Murgo suddenly seemed to lose interest. "Here's a copper penny for you, boy," he said, indifferently tossing a small coin on the floor at Garion's feet. "It has the likeness of the God Torak stamped on it. Perhaps it will bring you luck-or at least more wit."
Wolf stooped quickly and retrieved the coin, but the coin he handed to Garion was a common Sendarian penny.
"Thank the good man, Rundorig," he wheezed.
"My thanks, your Honor," Garion said, concealing the penny tightly in his fist.
The Murgo shrugged and looked away.
Wolf paid the Tolnedran merchant for the spices, and he and Garion left the shop.
"You played a dangerous game, boy," Wolf said once they were out of earshot of the two lounging Thulls.
"You seemed not to want him to know who we were," Garion explained. "I wasn't sure why, but I thought I ought to do the same. Was what I did wrong?"
"You're very quick," Wolf said approvingly. "I think we managed to deceive the Murgo."
"Why did you change the coin?" Garion asked.