"You've done this before, I see," Silk said to Kresca.

"A few times, yes," Kresca admitted.

"If all goes well today, you and I might want to have a little talk. I have a business proposition that I think might interest you."

"Is that all you ever think about?" Velvet asked him.

“A missed opportunity is gone forever, my dear Liselle,” he replied with a certain pomposity.

"You're incorrigible."

"I suppose you could say that, yes."

An oil-soaked wad of burlap in the hawsehole muffled the rattling of the anchor chain as the heavy iron hook sank down through the dark water. Garion felt rather than heard the grating of the points of the anchor on the rocks lying beneath the heavy swells.

"Let's board the longboat," Kresca said. "The crew will lower her after we're all on board.” He looked apologetically at them. "I'm afraid you and your friends are going to have to help with the rowing, Garion. The longboat only holds so many people."

"Of course, Captain."

"I'll come along to make sure you get ashore safely."

"Captain," Belgarath said then, "once we're ashore, stand your ship out to sea a ways. We'll signal you when we're ready to be picked up."

"All right."

"If you don't see a signal by tomorrow morning, you might as well go on back to Perivor, because we won't be coming back."

Kresca's face was solemn. "Is whatever it is you're planning to do on that reef really that dangerous?" he asked.

"Probably even more so," Silk told him. "We've all been trying very hard not to think about it.”

It was eerie rowing across the oily-seeming black water with the grayish tendrils of fog rising from the heavy swells. Garion was suddenly reminded of that foggy night in Sthiss Tor when they had crossed the River of the Serpent with only the unerring sense of direction of the one-eyed assassin Issus to guide them.

Idly, as he rowed, Garion wondered whatever had happened to Issus.

After every ten stokes or so, Captain Kresca, who stood in the stern at the tiller, signaled for them to stop, and he cocked his head, listening to the sound of the surf. "Another couple hundred yards now," he said in a low voice. "You there," he said to the sailor in the bow who held another sounding line, "keep busy with that lead. I don't want to hit any rocks. Sing out if it starts shoaling."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n."