"I hope this finds you both in good health and I send greetings to your daughter, whether she has already arrived or if her birth be still impending. I have not, I hasten to assure you, become suddenly clairvoyant.” Cyradis said once that she was no longer blessed with her vision. I have come to suspect that she was not entirely truthful on that score.

"A great deal has happened here since we parted. The imperial court, I suspect, was more than a little pleased by the alteration in my personality which was the direct result of our journey to Korim and by what happened there. I must have been an impossible ruler to deal with. This is not to suggest that all here in Mal Zeth has become a fairy tale of good feeling and felicity. The general staff was mightily upset when I declared my intention to conclude a peace treaty with King Urgit. You know how generals are. If you take their favorite war away from them, they snivel and complain and pout like spoiled children. I had to step on a few necks quite firmly. Incidentally, I recently promoted Atesca to the position of commander-in-chief of the armies of Mallorea. This also enraged the other members of the general staff, but no one can please everybody.

“Urgit and I have been in communication with each other, and I find him to be a rare fellow quite nearly as droll as his brother. I think we'll get on well together. The bureaucracy very nearly went into collective apoplexy when I announced the autonomy of the Dalasian Protectorates. It's my feeling that the Dals must be permitted to go their own way, but many members of the bureaucracy have vested interests there, and they sniveled and complained and pouted almost as much as the generals did. That came to an abrupt halt however, when I announced my intention to have Brador conduct a thorough audit of the affairs of every bureau chief in the government. The sound of a massive divestiture of all holdings in the protectorates was well-nigh deafening.

"Rather surprisingly, an ancient Grolim arrived at the palace shortly after we returned from Dal Perivor. I was about to send him away, but Eriond insisted rather firmly that he remain. The old fellow had some unpronounceable Grolim name, but Eriond changed it to Pelath for some reason. The old boy has a sweet disposition, but he sometimes speaks very strangely. The language he uses sounds very much like that of the Ashabine Oracles or the Mallorean Gospels of the Dals. Very peculiar."

"I'd almost forgotten that," Garion interrupted his reading.

"What's that, dear?" Ce'Nedra asked him, looking up from her knitting.

"Do you remember that old Grolim we met in Peldane? That night when the chicken bit you?"

"Yes. He seemed like a very nice old man."