As they turned toward the chapel entrance, Garion saw the she-wolf sitting in the doorway. Her golden eyes were intent, and her tongue lolled out in a wolfly smile.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They followed the king through the dimly lighted and deserted midnight halls of the palace at Perivor. A tense excitement filled Garion. They had won. No matter how hard Zandramas had tried to prevent it, they had still won. The answer to the riddle lay no more than a few yards away, and once it was answered, the meeting would take place. No power on earth could prevent it now.

"Stop that, " the voice in his mind told him. "You have to be calm now very calm. Try to think about Faldor's farm. That always seems to settle you.”

"Where have you " Garion started, then broke off.

"Where have I what?"

"Never mind. The question always irritates you. "

"Amazing. You actually remembered something I said. Faldor's farm, Garion. Faldor's farm. "

He did as he had been told. Though the memories had seemed to fade over the years, they suddenly returned with startling clarity. He saw the shape of the place, the sheds and barns and the kitchen, smithy, and dining hall on the lower floor, and the gallery on the second floor where the sleeping chambers were all surrounding that central yard. He could hear the steely ring of Durnik's hammer coming from the smithy and smell the warm fragrance of freshly baked bread coming from Aunt Pol's kitchen. He saw Faldor and old Cralto and even Brill. He saw Doroon and Rundorig and, last, Zubrette blond and pretty and artfully deceitful. A vast kind of calm came over him, not unlike the calm that had engulfed him when he had stood in the tomb of the one-eyed God in the City of Endless Night so long ago.

“That’s better,” the voice said. “Try to hold on to that. You 're going to have to think very clearly in the next few days and you can't do that with your mind racing every which way. You can fly to pieces after it's all over.”

"That's if I'm still around. "

"We can hope." Then the voice was gone.

The guards at the king's door admitted them, and the king went directly to a cabinet, unlocked it, and removed a roll of ancient, crackling parchment. "It is much faded, I do fear me," he said. "We have tried to protect it from the light, but it is very old." He went to a table and carefully unrolled the chart, weighting down the comers with books. Once again Garion felt the tense excitement as he held back slightly, reaching back into his memories of Faldor's farm to steady himself.

The King of Perivor pointed with his finger. "Here lieth Perivor," he told them, "and here doth lie the reef of Korim."