"But Torak's dead," Lelldorin objected. "The Rivan Warder killed him at Vo Mimbre."

"No," Wolf said. "Torak isn't dead; only asleep. Brand's sword wasn't the one destined to kill him. Zedar carried him off after the battle and hid him someplace. Someday he'll awaken - probably someday fairly soon, if I'm reading the signs right. We've got to get the Orb back before that happens."

"This Zedar's caused a lot of trouble," Barak rumbled. "You should have dealt with him a long time ago."

"Possibly," Wolf admitted.

"Why don't you just wave your hand and make him disappear?" Barak suggested, making a sort of gesture with his thick fingers.

Wolf shook his head. "I can't. Not even the Gods can do that."

"We've got some big problems, then," Silk said with a frown. "Every Murgo from here to Rak Goska's going to try to stop us from catching Zedar."

"Not necessarily," Wolf disagreed. "Zedar's got the Orb, but Ctuchik commands the Grolims."

"Ctuchik?" Lelldorin asked.

"The Grolim High Priest. He and Zedar hate each other. I think we can count on him to try to keep Zedar from getting to Torak with the Orb."

Barak shrugged. "What difference does it make? You and Polgara can use magic if we run into anything difficult, can't you?"

"There are limitations on that sort of thing," Wolf said a bit evasively.

"I don't understand," Barak said, frowning.

Mister Wolf took a deep breath. "All right. As long as it's come up, let's go into that too. Sorcery - if that's what you want to call it - is a disruption of the natural order of things. Sometimes it has certain unexpected effects, so you have to be very careful about what you do with it. Not only that, it makes-" He frowned. "-Let's call it a sort of noise. That's not exactly what it is, but it serves well enough to explain. Others with the same abilities can hear that noise. Once Polgara and I start changing things, every Grolim in the West is going to know exactly where we are and what we're doing. They'll keep piling things in front of us until we're exhausted."

"It takes almost as much energy to do things that way as it does to do them with your arms and back," Aunt Pol explained. "It's very tiring."

She sat beside the fire, carefully mending a small tear in one of Garion's tunics.

"I didn't know that," Barak admitted. "Not many people do."

"If we have to, Pol and I can take certain steps," Wolf went on, "but we can't keep it up forever and we can't simply make things vanish. I'm sure you can see why."

"Oh, of course," Silk professed, though his tone indicated that he did not.

"Everything that exists depends on everything else," Aunt Pol explained quietly. "If you were to unmake one thing, it's altogether possible that everything would vanish."