They rode on across the flat, featureless plain with a cloud of flies, drawn by the smell of their untanned fur garments, plaguing them. Their next meeting, several days later, was less congenial. They had moved into a hilly region where huge, rounded, white boulders rose out of the grass and where shaggy-coated wild oxen with great, sweeping horns grazed. A high overcast had moved in, and the gray sky diffused the light, making the brief twilight that marked the passage of one day into the next an only slightly perceptible darkening. They were riding down a gentle slope toward a large lake, which lay like a sheet of lead under the cloudy sky, when there suddenly arose from the tall grass all around them tattooed and fur-clad warriors holding long spears and short bows that appeared to be made of bone.

Garion reined in sharply and looked at Belgarath for instruction. "Just look straight at them," his grandfather told him quietly, "and remember that you're not permitted to speak."

"More of them coming," Silk said tersely, jerking his chin toward the crest of a nearby hill where perhaps a dozen Morindim, mounted on paint-decorated ponies, were approaching at a walk.

"Let me do the talking," Belgarath said.

"Gladly."

The man in the lead of the mounted group was burlier than most of his companions, and the black tattooing on his face had been outlined with red and blue, marking him as a man of some significance in his clan and making the devil mask of his features all the more hideous. He carried a large wooden club, painted with strange symbols and inlaid with rows of sharp teeth taken from various animals. The way he carried it indicated that it was more a badge of office than a weapon. He rode without a saddle and with a single bridle strap. He pulled his pony to a stop perhaps thirty yards away. "Why have you come into the lands of the Weasel Clan?" he demanded abruptly. His accent was strange and his eyes were flat with hostility.

Belgarath drew himself up indignantly. "Surely the Headman of the Weasel Clan has seen the quest-mark before," he replied coldly. "We have no interest in the lands of the Weasel Clan, but follow the commands of the Devil-Spirit of the Wolf Clan in the quest he has laid upon us."

"I have not heard of the Wolf Clan," the Headman replied. "Where are their lands?"

"To the west," Belgarath replied. "We have traveled for two waxings and wanings of the Moon-Spirit to reach this place."

The Headman seemed impressed by that.