"Do you think you can stay out of trouble now?" Barak asked him gruffly, obviously feeling the same way. "It upsets Merel when she wakes up in the morning to find that she's been sharing her bed with a bear.”

"I'll do my best," Garion promised.

"Do you remember what I told you that time just outside Winold when it was so frosty that morning?" Silk asked.

Garion frowned, trying to remember.

"I said that we were living in momentous times, and that now was the time to be alive to share in those events."

"Oh, yes, now I remember."

“I’ve had some time to think about it, and I believe I'd like to reconsider." Silk grinned suddenly, and Garion knew that the little man did not mean one word he said.

"We'll see you at the Alorn Council later this summer, Garion," Anheg shouted across the rail as Seabird prepared to depart. "It's at your place this year. Maybe if we work on it, we can teach you to sing properly."

They left the city of Sendar early the next morning and took the high road to Muros. Although it was not, strictly speaking, necessary, Garion had decided to see his friends all home. The gradual eroding of their company as they had sailed north had been depressing, and Garion was not quite ready yet to be separated from all of them.

They rode across Sendaria in late-spring sunshine, crossed the mountains into Algaria, and reached the Stronghold a week or so later. King Cho-Hag was overjoyed at the outcome of the meeting at Korim, and startled at the results of the impromptu conference at Dal Perivor. Because Cho-Hag was far more stable than the brilliant but sometimes erratic Anheg, Belgarath and Garion went into somewhat greater detail about the astonishing elevation of Eriond.

“He always was a strange boy,” Cho-Hag mused in his deep, quiet voice when they had finished, "but then, this entire series of events had been strange. We’ve been privileged to live in important times, my friends."

"We have indeed," Belgarath agreed. "Let's hope that things quiet down now for a while, at least."

“Father," Hettar said then, ”King Urgit of the Murgos asked me to convey his appreciation to you."

"You met the Murgo King? And we're not at war?" Cho-Hag was amazed.

"Urgit's not like any other Murgo you’ve ever met, Father," Hettar told him. "He wanted to thank you for killing Taur Urgas."

"That's a novel sentiment coming from a son."

Garion explained Urgit's peculiar background, and the normally reserved King of Algaria burst out in peal after peal of laughter. "I knew Prince Kheldar's father," he said. "That's exactly the kind of thing he would have done."