"But we don't want to escape, Durnik."

"We don't?"

"The Grolims are taking us to the place we want to go."

"Why do we want to go to this Cthol Mishrak of theirs?"

"We have something to do there."

"From everything I've heard it's a bad sort of place," he told her. "Are you sure you haven't made some mistake?"

She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. "Dear Durnik," she said, "you'll just have to trust me."

"Of course, Mistress Pol," he replied immediately. "But shouldn't I know what to expect? If I should have to take steps to protect you, I ought to be prepared."

"I'd tell you if I knew, Durnik," she said, "but I don't know what we should expect. All I know is that the four of us are supposed to go to Cthol Mishrak. What's going to happen there needs us in order for it to be complete. Each of us has something to do there."

"Even me?"

"Especially you, Durnik. At first I didn't understand who you really are. That's why I tried to keep you from coming along. But now I do understand. You have to be there because you're going to do the one thing that's going to turn the entire outcome one way or the other."

"What is it?"

"We don't know."

His eyes grew wide. "What if I do it wrong?" he asked in a worried voice.

"I don't think you can," she reassured him. "From everything I understand, what you're going to do will flow very naturally out of who and what you are." She gave him a brief, wry little smile. "You won't be able to do it wrong, Durnik - any more than you'd be able to lie or cheat or steal. It's built into you to do it right, so don't worry about it."

"That's all very well for you to say, Mistress Pol," he replied, "but if you don't mind, I will worry about it just a bit - privately, of course."

She laughed then, a light, fond little laugh. "You dear, dear man," she said impulsively taking his hand. "Whatever would we do without you?"

Durnik blushed and tried to look away, but her glorious eyes held his, and he blushed even more.

After they had passed through the forest of aspen, they entered a strangely desolate landscape. White boulders stuck up out of tangled weeds like tombstones in a long-abandoned graveyard, and dead trees thrust their crooked limbs at the overcast sky like pleading fingers. The horizon ahead was covered with a bank of darker cloud, a cloud so intensely black that it seemed almost purple. Oddly, Ce'Nedra noted, the cloudbank did not seem to be moving at all. There was no sign anywhere of any human habitation, and the route they followed was not even marked by a trail.

"Does no one live there?" the princess asked Polgara.