"Indeed," the storyteller agreed. "Quite the strangest you'll likely meet."

"I like you all the same," Garion said quickly, not wanting to give offense.

"That's a comfort, boy," the old man said. "Now go to bed. Your Aunt Pol will be worried about you."

Later, as he slept, Garion's dreams were troubled. The dark figure of maimed Torak loomed in the shadows, and monstrous things pursued him across twisted landscapes where the possible and the impossible merged and joined as that other world reached out to claim him.

Chapter Three

SOME FEW MORNINGS later, when Aunt Pol had begun to scowl at his continued lurking in her kitchen, the old man made excuse of some errand to the nearby village of Upper Gralt.

"Good," Aunt Pol said, somewhat ungraciously. "At least my pantries will be safe while you're gone."

He bowed mockingly, his eyes twinkling. "Do you need anything, Mistress Pol?" he asked. "Some trifling thing I might purchase for you—as long as I'm going anyway?"

Aunt Pol thought a moment. "Some of my spice pots are a bit low," she said, "and there's a Tolnedran spice merchant in Fennel Lane just south of the Town Tavern. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding the tavern."

"The trip is likely to be dry," the old man admitted pleasantly. "And lonely, too. Ten leagues with no one to talk to is a long way."

"Talk to the birds," Aunt Pol suggested bluntly.

"Birds listen well enough," the old man said, "but their speech is repetitious and quickly grows tiresome. Why don't I take the boy along for company?"

Garion held his breath.

"He's picking up enough bad habits on his own," Aunt Pol said tartly. "I'd prefer his not having expert instruction."

"Why, Mistress Pol," the old man objected, stealing a cruller almost absently, "you do me an injustice. Besides, a change will do the boy good—broaden his horizons, you might say."

"His horizons are quite broad enough, thank you," she said.

Garion's heart sank.

"Still," she continued, "at least I can count on him not to forget my spices altogether or to become so fuddled with ale that he confuses peppercorns with cloves or cinnamon with nutmeg. Very well, take the boy along; but mind, I don't want you taking him into any low or disreputable places."

"Mistress Pol!" the old man said, feigning shock. "Would I frequent such places?"

"I know you too well, Old Wolf," she said dryly. "You take to vice and corruption as naturally as a duck takes to a pond. If I hear that you've taken the boy into any unsavory place, you and I will have words."

"Then I'll have to make sure that you don't hear of anything like that, won't I?"

Aunt Pol gave him a hard look. "I'll see which spices I need," she said.

"And I'll borrow a horse and cart from Faldor," the old man said, stealing another cruller.

In a surprisingly short time, Garion and the old man were bouncing along the rutted road to Upper Gralt behind a fast-trotting horse. It was a bright summer morning, and there were a few dandelion-puff' clouds in the sky and deep blue shadows under the hedgerows. After a few hours, however, the sun became hot, and the jolting ride became tiresome.

"Are we almost there?" Garion asked for the third time.

"Not for some time yet," the old man said. "Ten leagues is a goodly distance."

"I was there once before," Garion told him, trying to sound casual. "Of course I was only a child at the time, so I don't remember too much about it. It seemed to be quite a fine place."

The old man shrugged. "It's a village," he said, "much like any other." He seemed a bit preoccupied.

Garion, hoping to nudge the old man into a story to make the miles go faster, began asking questions.

"Why is it that you have no name—if I'm not being impolite in asking?"

"I have many names," the old man said, scratching his white beard. "Almost as many names as I have years."

"I've only got one," Garion said.

"So far."

"What?"

"You only have one name so far," the old man explained. "In time you may get another—or even several. Some people collect names as they go along through their lives. Sometimes names wear out just like clothes."

"Aunt Pol calls you Old Wolf," Garion said.

"I know," the old man said. "Your Aunt Pol and I have known each other for a very long time."

"Why does she call you that?"

"Who can say why a woman such as your Aunt does anything?"

"May I call you Mister Wolf?" Garion asked. Names were quite important to Garion, and the fact that the old storyteller did not seem to have one had always bothered him. That namelessness had made the old man seem somehow incomplete, unfinished.

The old man looked at him soberly for a moment, and then he burst out laughing.

"Mister Wolf indeed. How very appropriate. I think I like that name better than any I've had in years."

"May I then?" Garion asked. "Call you Mister Wolf, I mean?"

"I think I'd like that, Garion. I think I'd like that very much."

"Now would you please tell me a story, Mister Wolf?" Garion asked.

The time and distance went by much faster then as Mister Wolf wove for Garion tales of glorious adventure and dark treachery taken from those gloomy, unending centuries of the Arendish civil wars.

"Why are the Arends like that?" Garion asked after a particularly grim tale.

"The Arends are very noble," Wolf said, lounging back in the seat of the cart with the reins held negligently in one hand. "Nobility is a trait that's not always trustworthy, since it sometimes causes men to do things for obscure reasons."

"Rundorig is an Arend," Garion said. "He sometimes seems to bewell, not too quick of thought, if you know what I mean."

"It's the effect of all that nobility," Wolf said. "Arends spend so much time concentrating on being noble that they don't have time to think of other things."

They came over the crest of a long hill, and there in the next valley lay the village of Upper Gralt. To Garion the tiny cluster of gray stone houses with slate roofs seemed disappointingly small. Two roads, white with thick dust, intersected there, and there were a few narrow, winding streets besides. The houses were square and solid, but seemed almost like toys set down in the valley below. The horizon beyond was ragged with the mountains of eastern Sendaria, and, though it was summer, the tops of most of the mountains were still wrapped in snow.

Their tired horse plodded down the hill toward the village, his hooves stirring little clouds of dust with each step, and soon they were clattering along the cobblestoned streets toward the center of the village. The villagers, of course, were all too important to pay any attention to an old man and a small boy in a farm cart. The women wore gowns and high-pointed hats, and the men wore doublets and soft velvet caps. Their expressions seemed haughty, and they looked with obvious disdain at the few farmers in town who respectfully stood aside to let them pass.

"They're very fine, aren't they?" Garion observed.

"They seem to think so," Wolf said, his expression faintly amused. "I think it's time that we found something to eat, don't you?"

Though he had not realized it until the old man mentioned it, Garion was suddenly ravenous. "Where will we go?" he asked. "They all seem so splendid. Would any of them let strangers sit at their tables?"

Wolf laughed and shook a jingling purse at his waist. "We should have no trouble making acquaintances," he said. "There are places where one may buy food."

Buy food? Garion had never heard of such a thing before. Anyone who appeared at Faldor's gate at mealtime was invited to the table as a matter of course. The world of the villagers was obviously very different from the world of Faldor's farm.