"She's venomous?" Garion was a bit startled at that.

"She's always been venomous, your Majesty."

"That's not the way I mean."

"Forgive my little joke," Sadi apologized. "Judging from the reactions of people she's bitten, I'd guess that she's at least ten times more deadly than a common cobra."

"Is she terribly unhappy?" Garion felt a strange pity for the hideously altered queen.

"That's really rather hard to say, your Majesty," Sadi replied clinically. "It's difficult to tell what a snake's really feeling, you understand. By the time she'd learned to communicate her wishes to us, she seemed to have become reconciled to her new form. We feed her and keep her clean. As long as she has her mirror and someone to bite when she's feeling peevish, she seems quite content."

"She still looks at herself in the mirror? I wouldn't think she'd want to now."

"Our race has a somewhat different view of the serpent, your Majesty," Sadi explained. "We find it a rather attractive creature, and our queen is a splendid-looking snake, after all. Her new skin is quite lovely, and she seems very proud of it." He turned and bowed deeply to Aunt Pol. "Lady Polgara," he greeted her.

"Sadi," she acknowledged with a brief nod.

"May I convey to you the heartfelt thanks of her Majesty's government?"

One of Aunt Pol's eyebrows rose inquiringly.

"The government, my Lady - not the queen herself. Your - ah - intervention, shall we say, has simplified things in the palace enormously. We no longer have to worry about Salmissra's whims and peculiar appetites. We rule by committee and we hardly ever find it necessary to poison each other any more. No one's tried to poison me for months. It's all very smooth and civilised in Sthiss Tor now." He glanced briefly at Garion. "May I also offer my congratulations on your success with his Majesty? He seems to have matured considerably. He was really very callow when last we met,"

"Whatever happened to Issus?" Garion asked him, ignoring that particular observation.

Sadi shrugged. "Issus? Oh, he's still about, scratching out a living as a paid assassin, probably. I imagine that one day we'll find him floating facedown in the river. It's the sort of end one expects for someone like that."

There was a sudden blare of trumpets from just beyond the great doors at the back of the Hall. Garion started nervously, and his mouth quite suddenly went dry.