"Did you go back the next spring?" Garion couldn't help asking. "Meant to, but I did a lot of drinking that winter - I had gold enough. Anyway, the drink sort of addled my brains. When I set out the following year, I took along a few kegs for company. That's always a mistake. The drink takes you harder when you get up into the mountains, and you don't always pay attention to things the way you should." He leaned back in his donkey saddle, scratching reflectively at his stomach. "I went out onto the plains north of the mountains - up in Morindland. Seems that I thought at the time that the going might be easier out on flat ground. Well, to make it short, I ran across a band of Morindim and they took me prisoner. I'd been up to my ears in an ale keg for a day or so, and I was far gone when they took me. Lucky, I guess. Morindim are superstitious, and they thought I was possessed. That's probably all that saved my life. They kept me for five or six years, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind my ravings - once I got sober and saw the situation, I took quite a bit of care to do a lot of raving. Eventually they got tired of it and weren't so careful about watching me, so I escaped. By then I'd sort of forgotten exactly where that river was. I look for it now and then when I'm up that way." His speech seemed rambling, but his old blue eyes were very penetrating. "That's a big sword you're carrying, boy, Who do you plan to kill with it?"

The question came so fast that Garion did not even have time to be startled.

"Funny thing about that sword of yours," the shabby old man added shrewdly. "It seems to be going out of its way to make itself inconspicuous." Then he turned to Belgarath, who was looking at him with a level gaze. "You haven't hardly changed at all," he noted.

"And you still talk too much," Belgarath replied.

"I get hungry for talk every few years," the old man on the donkey admitted. "Is your daughter well?"

Belgarath nodded.

"Fine-looking woman, your daughter - bad-tempered, though."

"That hasn't changed noticeably."