Beldin spread his hands helplessly, but Durnik was pacing up and down, his face creased with thought. "Maybe it's not so much what they're saying, but how."

"And you accuse me of being obscure," Beldin said to Belgarath. "What are you getting at, Durnik?"

"I'm groping," the smith admitted. "The noise, or sound-whatever you want to call it—isn't a signal that somebody's turning people into frogs." He stopped. "Can we really do that?" he asked.

"Yes," Beldin said, "but it's not worth the trouble. Frogs multiply at a ferocious rate. I'd rather have one person who irritated me instead of a million or so aggravating frogs."

"All right, then," Durnik continued. "It's not the noise that sorcery makes."

"Probably not," Belgarath agreed.

"And I think Ce'Nedra's right. Nobody really understands what the Dals are saying—except for other Dals. Half the time I can't follow what Cyradis is saying from one end of a sentence to the other."

"What does that leave?" Beldin asked intently, his eyes alight. "I'm not sure. I've got the feeling though that 'How' is more important than 'What.' " Durnik suddenly looked slightly embarrassed. "I'm talking too much," he confessed. "I'm sure that some of the rest of you have more important things to say about this than I do."

"I don't really think so," Beldin told him. "I think you're right on the edge of it. Don't lose it.''

Durnik was actually sweating now. He covered his eyes with one hand, trying to collect his thoughts. Garion noticed that everyone in the room was almost breathlessly watching his old friend labor with a concept that was probably far beyond the grasp of any of the rest of them.

"There has to be something that the Dals are trying to protect," the smith went on, "and it has to be something that's very simple—for them at least—but something they don't want anybody else to understand. I wish Toth were here. He might be able to explain it.'' Then his eyes went very wide. "What is it, dear?" Polgara asked.

"It can't be that!" he exclaimed, suddenly very excited. "It couldn't be!"

"Durnik!" she said in exasperation.

"Do you remember when Toth and I first began to talk to each other—in gestures, I mean?" Durnik was suddenly talking very fast and he was almost breathless. "We'd been working together, and a man who works with someone else begins to know exactly what the other one is doing—and even what he's thinking." He stared at Silk. "You and Garion and Pol use that finger-language," he said.

"Yes."

"You've seen the gestures Toth makes. Would the secret language be able to say all that much with just a few waves of the hand—the way he does it?"

Garion already knew the answer.

Silk's voice was puzzled. "No," he said. "That would be impossible."