"There," Barak said to the Murgo. "You see how it is. My friend here is an Arend, so he's totally neutral in this matter. I think we'd have to accept his interpretation of the affair."

Greldik's sailors had begun to climb the rigging by now, and they clung to the ropes like great, evil-looking apes, fingering their weapons and grinning at the Murgo.

"There is yet another way," the Murgo said ominously.

Garion could feel a force beginning to build, and a faint sound seemed to echo inside his head. He drew himself up, putting his hands on the wooden rail in front of him. He felt a terrible weakness, but he steeled himself and tried to gather his strength.

"That's enough of that," Aunt Pol said crisply, coming up on deck with Durnik and Ce'Nedra behind her.

"We were merely having a little legal discussion," Barak said innocently.

"I know what you were doing," she snapped. Her eyes were angry. She looked coldly across the intervening stretch of river at the Murgo.

"You'd better leave," she told him.

"I have something to retrieve first," the man in the boat called back.

"I'd forget about it!"

"We'll see," he said. He straightened and began muttering as if to himself, his hands moving rapidly in a series of intricate gestures. Garion felt something pushing at him almost like a wind, though the air was completely still.

"Be sure you get it right," Aunt Pol advised quietly. "If you forget even the tiniest part of it, it'll explode in your face."

The man in the boat froze, and a faintly worried frown crossed his face. The secret wind that had been pushing at Garion stopped. The man began again, his fingers weaving in the air and his face fixed with concentration.

"You do it like this, Grolim," Aunt Pol said. She moved her hand slightly, and Garion felt a sudden rush as if the wind pushing at him had turned and begun to blow the other way. The Grolim threw his hands up and reeled back, stumbling and falling into the bottom of his boat. As if it had been given a heavy push, the boat surged backward several yards.

The Grolim half raised, his eyes wide and his face deathly pale.

"Return to your master, dog," Aunt Pol said scathingly. "Tell him to beat you for not learning your lessons properly."

The Grolim spoke quickly to the Nyissans at the oars, and they immediately turned the boat and rowed back toward the slave ship.

"We had a nice little fight brewing there, Polgara," Barak complained. "Why did you have to spoil it?"