Finally she turned from the railing and brushed at the shoulders of her cloak with distaste. The ash puffed from under her fingers in tiny clouds. "I'm going below," she told him, making a face. "It's just too dirty up here."

"I thought you wanted to talk to me," he said.

"I don't think you're ready to listen. It'll wait." She stepped away, then stopped. "Oh, Garion."

"Yes?"

"I wouldn't drink any of that ale the sailors are swilling. After what they made you drink at the palace, it would probably make you sick."

"Oh," he agreed a trifle regretfully. "All right."

"It's up to you, of course," she said, "but I thought you ought to know." Then she turned again and went to the hatch and disappeared down the stairs.

Garion's emotions were turbulent. The entire day had been vastly eventful, and his mind was filled with a welter of confusing images.

"Be quiet, " the voice in his mind said.

"What?"

"I'm trying to hear something. Listen. "

"Listen to what?"

"There. Can't you hear it?"

Faintly, as if from a very long way ofi, Garion seemed to hear a muffled thudding.

"What is it?"

The voice did not answer, but the amulet about his neck began to throb in time with the distant thudding.

Behind him he heard a rush of tiny feet.

"Garion!" He turned just in time to be caught in Ce'Nedra's embrace. "I was so worried about you. Where did you go?"

"Some men came on board and grabbed me," he said, trying to untangle himself from her arms. "They took me to the palace."

"How awful!" she said. "Did you meet the queen?"

Garion nodded and then shuddered, remembering the hooded snake lying on the divan looking at itself in the mirror.

"What's wrong?" the girl asked.

"A lot of things happened," he answered. "Some of them weren't very pleasant." Somewhere at the back of his awareness, the thudding continued.

"Do you mean they tortured you?" Ce'Nedra asked, her eyes growing very wide.

"No, nothing like that."

"Well, what happened?" she demanded. "Tell me."

He knew that she would not leave him alone until he did, so he described what had happened as best he could. The throbbing sound seemed to grow louder while he talked, and his right palm began to tingle. He rubbed at it absently.

"How absolutely dreadful," Ce'Nedra said after he had finished. "Weren't you terrified?"

"Not really," he told her, still scratching at his palm. "Most of the time the things they made me drink made my head so foggy I couldn't feel anything."

"Did you really kill Maas?" she asked, "Just like that?" She snapped her fingers.

"It wasn't exactly just like that," he tried to explain. "There was a little more to it."

"I knew you were a sorcerer," she said. "I told you that you were that day at the pool, remember?"

"I don't want to be," he protested. "I didn't ask to be."