"He knows the language," Garion replied. "He doesn't speak it very well, but he knows it."

"One is sure he understands better than he speaks," the she-wolf said.

Garion stared at her, slightly startled that she had understood the conversation. "The language of the man-things is not difficult to learn," she said. "As the man-thing with the white fur on his face said, one can learn rapidly if one takes the trouble to listen. One would not care to speak your language, however," she added critically. "The speech of the man-things would place one's tongue in much danger of being bitten.''

A sudden thought came to Garion then, accompanied by an absolute certainty that the thought was entirely accurate. "Grandfather," he said.

"Not now, Garion. I'm busy."

"I'll wait."

"Is it important?"

"I think so, yes."

Belgarath opened his eyes curiously. "What is it?" he asked.

"Do you remember that conversation we had in Tol Honeth— the morning it was snowing?"

"I think so."

"We were talking about the way everything that happened seemed to have happened before.''

"Yes, now I remember."

"You said that when the two prophecies got separated, things sort of stopped—that the future can't happen until they get back together again. Then you said that until they do, we'd all have to keep going through the same series of events over and over again."

"Did I really say that?" The old man looked a bit pleased. "That's sort of profound, isn't it? What's the point of this, though? Why are you bringing it up now?"

"Because I think it just happened again." Garion looked at Silk. "Do you remember that old gold hunter we met in Gar og Nadrak when the three of us were on our way to Cthol Mishrak?"

Silk nodded a bit dubiously.

"Wasn't the old fellow we just talked with almost exactly the same?"

"Now that you mention it. . ." Silk's eyes narrowed. "All right, Belgarath, what does it mean?"

Belgarath squinted up at the leafy branches overhead. "Let me think about it for a minute," he said. "There are some similarities, all right," he admitted. "The two of them are the same kind of people, and they both warned us about something. I think I'd better get Beldin back here. This might be very important.''

It was no more than a quarter of an hour later when the blue-banded hawk settled out of the sky and blurred into the misshapen sorcerer. "What's got you so excited?" he demanded crossly.

"We just met somebody," Belgarath replied.

"Congratulations. "

"I think this is serious, Beldin." Belgarath quickly explained his theory of recurring events.

"It's a little rudimentary," Beldin growled, "but there's nothing remarkable about that. Your hypotheses usually are." He squinted. "It's probably fairly accurate though—as far as it goes."