"Are you all right?" Garion asked her, concerned.

"It's a very difficult thing to do, dear," she told him, passing a weary hand over her face.

But there was yet another flicker within the depths of the ice, and the familiar shape of the blue wolf appeared-the one who had joined Belgarath in the fight with Grul the Eldrak in the mountains of Ulgo. The wolf sat looking at them for a moment, then flickered briefly into the shape of a snowy owl and finally became a tawny-haired woman with golden eyes. Her face was so like Aunt Pol's that Garion could not help glancing quickly back and forth to compare them.

"You left it open, Polgara," the golden-eyed woman said gently. Her voice was as warm and soft as a summer evening.

"Yes, mother," Aunt Pol replied. "I'll close it in a moment."

"It's all right, Polgara," the wolf woman told her daughter. "It gave me the chance to meet him." She looked directly into Garion's face. "A touch or two is still there," she observed. "A bit about the eyes and in the shape of the jaw. Does he know?"

"Not everything, mother," Aunt Pol answered.

"Perhaps it's as well," Poledra noted.

Once again another figure emerged out of the dark depths of the ice. The second woman had hair like sunlight, and her face was even more like Aunt Pol's than Poledra's. "Polgara, my dear sister," she said.

"Beldaran," Aunt Pol responded in a voice overwhelmed with love.

"And Belgarion," Garion's ultimate grandmother said, "the final flower of my love and Riva's."

"Our blessings also, Belgarion," Poledra declared. "Farewell for now, but know that we love thee." And then the two were gone.

"Does that help?" Aunt Pol asked him, her voice deep with emotion and her eyes filled with tears.

Garion was too stunned by what he had just seen and heard to answer. Dumbly he nodded.

"I'm glad the effort wasn't wasted then," she said. "Please close the window, dear. It's letting the winter in."

Chapter Fourteen

IT WAS THE first day of spring, and King Belgarion of Riva was terribly nervous. He had watched the approach of Princess Ce'Nedra's sixteenth birthday with a steadily mounting anxiety and, now that the day had finally arrived, he hovered on the very edge of panic. The deep blue brocade doublet over which a half dozen tailors had labored for weeks still did not seem to feel just right. Somehow it was a bit tight across the shoulders, and the stiff collar scratched his neck. Moreover, his gold crown seemed unusually heavy on this particular day, and, as he fidgeted, his throne seemed even more uncomfortable than usual.

The Hall of the Rivan King had been decorated extensively for the occasion, but even the banners and garlands of pale spring flowers could not mask the ominous starkness of the great throne room. The assembled notables, however, chatted and laughed among themselves as if nothing significant were taking place. Garion felt rather bitter about their heartless lack of concern in the face of what was about to happen to him.