Sadi shook himself almost like a dog coming out of the water and pulled his fascinated eyes off the dead, fixed grin on the face of Maas. He pulled the blubbering functionary to his feet and led him out of the chamber.

Salmissra turned then on Garion. "How did you do that?" she demanded, pointing at the twitching form of Maas.

"I don't know," he said. His mind was still sunk in fog. Only the quiet corner where the voice lived was alert.

"Take off that amulet," she commanded.

Obediently, Garion reached his hands toward the medallion. Suddenly his hands froze. They would not move. He let them fall. "I can't," he said.

"Take it from him," she ordered one of the eunuchs. The man glanced once at the dead snake, then stared at Garion. He shook his head and backed away in fright.

"Do as I say!" the Snake Queen ordered sharply.

From somewhere in the palace came a hollow, reverberating crash. There was the sound of nails screeching out of heavy wood and the avalanche noise of a wall collapsing. Then, a long way down one of the dim corridors, someone screamed in agony.

The dry consciousness in his mind reached out, probing. "At last, " it said with obvious relief.

"What's going on out there?" Salmissra blazed.

"Come with me, " the voice in Garion's mind said. "I need your help. " Garion put his hands under him and started to push himself up. "No. This way. " A strange image of separation rose in Garion's mind.

Unthinking, he willed the separation and felt himself rising and yet not moving. Suddenly he had no sense of his body - no arms or legs - yet he seemed to move. He saw himself - his own body - sitting stupidly on the cushions at Salmissra's feet.

"Hurry," the voice said to him. It was no longer inside his mind but seemed to be somewhere beside him. A dim shape was there, formless but somehow very familiar.

The fog that had clouded Garion's wits was gone, and he felt very alert. "Who are you?" he demanded of the shape beside him.

"There isn't time to explain. Quickly, we have to lead them back before Salmissra has time to do anything."

"Lead who?"

"Polgara and Barak."

"Aunt Pol? Where is she?"

"Come," the voice said urgently.

Together Garion and the strange presence at his side seemed to waft toward the closed door. They passed through it as if it were no more than insubstantial mist and emerged in the corridor outside.

Then they were flying, soaring down the corridor with no sense of air rushing past or even of movement. A moment later they came out into that vast open hall where Issus had first brought Garion when they had entered the palace. There they stopped, hovering in the fir.