"Father," Polgara said ominously. "This is beginning to make me cross. Will one of you please explain all this hysteria?"
Beldin and Belgarath were capering hand in hand in a grotesque little dance of glee.
"Will you two stop that?" Polgara snapped.
"Oh, this is just too rare, Pol," Beldin gasped, catching her in a bear hug.
"Don't do that! Just talk!"
"All right, Pol," he said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. "Kell is the holy place of the Dals. It's the center of their whole culture."
"Yes, uncle. I know that."
"When the Angaraks overran Dalasia, the Grolims came in to erase the Dalasian religion and to replace it with the worship of Torak—the same way they did in Karanda. When they found out the significance of Kell, they moved to destroy it. The Dais had to prevent that, so they put their wizards to work on the problem. The wizards laid curses on the entire region around Kell." He frowned. "Maybe curses isn't the right word" he admitted. "Enchantments might be closer, but it amounts to the same thing. Anyway, since the Grolims were the real danger to Kell, the enchantments were directed at them. Any Grolim who tries to approach Kell is struck blind."
"Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?" she asked him tartly.
"I've never really paid that much attention to it. I probably even forgot about it.
I don't bother to go into Dalasia because the Dals are all mystics, and mysticism has always irritated me. The seers all talk in riddles, and necromancy seems like a waste of time to me. I wasn't even sure if the enchantments really worked. Grolims are very gullible sometimes. A suggestion of a curse would probably work just as well as a real one."
"You know," Belgarath mused, "I think the reason we missed it was because we've been concentrating on the fact that Urvon, Zandramas, and Agachak are all sorcerers. We kept overlooking the fact that they're also Grolims."
"Is this curse—or whatever you call it—aimed specifically at the Grolims," Garion asked, "or would it affect us, too?"
Beldin scratched at his beard. "It's a good question, Belgarath," he said. "That's not the sort of thing you'd want to risk lightly."
"Senji!" Belgarath snapped his fingers.
"I didn't quite follow that."
"Senji went to Kell, remember? And even as inept as he is, he's still a sorcerer."
"That's it, then' Beldin grinned. "We can go to Kell, and they can't. They'll have to follow us for a change."
"What about the demons?" Durnik asked soberly. "Nahaz is already marching toward Kell, and as far as we know, Zandramas has Mordja with her. Would they be able to go to Kell? What I'm getting at is that even if Urvon and Zandramas can't go there, couldn't they just send the demons instead to get the information for them?"
Beldin shook his head. "It wouldn't do them any good. Cyradis won't let a demon anywhere near her copy of the Mallorean Gospels. No matter what other faults they have, the seers refuse to have anything to do with the agents of chaos."
"Could she prevent either of the demons from just taking what they want, though?"
Durnik looked worried. "Let's face it, Beldin. A demon is a fairly awful thing."
"She can take care of herself," Beldin replied. "Don't worry about Cyradis."
"Master Beldin," Zakath objected, "she's little more than a child, and with her eyes bound like that, she's utterly helpless."
Beldin laughed coarsely. "Helpless? Cyradis? Man, are you out of your mind? She could probably stop the sun if she needed to. We can't even begin to make guesses about how much power she has."
"I don't understand." Zakath looked baffled.
"Cyradis is the focus of all the power of her race, Zakath," Polgara explained. "Not only the power of the Dals who are presently alive, but also that of all of them who have ever lived."
"Or who might live in the future, for all we know," Belgarath added.
"That's an interesting idea," Beldin said. "We might want to discuss it someday. Anyway,'' he continued to Zakath, "Cyradis can do just about anything she has to do to make sure the final meeting takes place at the correct time and the correct place. Demons aren't a part of that meeting, so she'll probably just ignore them and if they get too troublesome, she'll just send them back where they came from."
"Can you do that?"
Beldin shook his head.
"But she can?"
"I think so, yes."
"I'm having a little trouble with all this," Silk admitted. "If none of the Grolims can go to Kell without going blind, and if the demons aren't going to find out anything, even if they do go there, why are they all running toward it? What good's it going to do them?"
"They're putting themselves into a position where they can follow us when we come out," Belgarath replied. "They know we can go there and that we'll find out where the meeting is going to take place. They probably plan to tag along behind when we leave."
"That's going to make it very nervous when we leave Kell, isn't it? We'll have half the Grolims in the world right behind us.'‘
"Everything will work out, Silk," Belgarath replied confidently.
"Fatalism does not fill me with confidence at this point, old man," Silk said acidly.
Belgarath's expression became almost beatific. "Trust me," he said.
Silk glared at him, threw his arms in the air, and then stamped away, swearing under his breath.
"You know, I've been wanting to do that to him for years" the old man chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling. "I think it was actually worth the wait. All right. Let's get things together again and move on."
They transferred some of the supplies from the box across the back of the little carriage to the packhorses, and then Durnik stood considering the vehicle thoughtfully. "It's not going to work," he said.
"What's wrong with it?" Silk asked him a bit defensively.
"The horse has to be hitched between those shafts. If we put the wolf on the seat, she'll be right behind him. He'll bolt at that point. Nothing could stop him."
"I suppose I didn't think of that," Silk said glumly.
"It's the smell of the wolf mat sends horses into such a panic, isn't it?" Velvet asked.
"That and the snapping and snarling," Duraik replied.
"Belgarion can persuade her not to snap and snarl."