Mister Wolf took a deep breath. "All right. As long as it's come up, let's go into that too. Sorcery - if that's what you want to call it - is a disruption of the natural order of things. Sometimes it has certain unexpected effects, so you have to be very careful about what you do with it. Not only that, it makes-" He frowned. "-Let's call it a sort of noise. That's not exactly what it is, but it serves well enough to explain. Others with the same abilities can hear that noise. Once Polgara and I start changing things, every Grolim in the West is going to know exactly where we are and what we're doing. They'll keep piling things in front of us until we're exhausted."
"It takes almost as much energy to do things that way as it does to do them with your arms and back," Aunt Pol explained. "It's very tiring."
She sat beside the fire, carefully mending a small tear in one of Garion's tunics.
"I didn't know that," Barak admitted.
"Not many people do."
"If we have to, Pol and I can take certain steps," Wolf went on, "but we can't keep it up forever and we can't simply make things vanish. I'm sure you can see why."
"Oh, of course," Silk professed, though his tone indicated that he did not.
"Everything that exists depends on everything else," Aunt Pol explained quietly. "If you were to unmake one thing, it's altogether possible that everything would vanish."
The fire popped, and Garion jumped slightly. The vaulted chamber seemed suddenly dark, and shadows lurked in the corners.
"That can't happen, of course," Wolf told them. "When you try to unmake something, your will simply recoils on you. If you say, 'Be not,' then you are the one who vanishes. That's why we're very careful about what we say."
"I can understand why," Silk said, his eyes widening slightly.
"Most of the things we'll encounter can be dealt with by ordinary means," Wolf continued. "That's the reason we've brought you together - at least that's one of the reasons. Among you, you'll be able to handle most of the things that get in our way. The important thing to remember is that Polgara and I have to get to Zedar before he can reach Torak with the Orb. Zedar's found some way to touch the Orb - I don't know how. If he can show Torak how it's done, no power on earth will be able to stop One-Eye from becoming King and God over the whole world."
They all sat in the ruddy, flickering light of the fire, their faces serious as they considered that possibility.
"I think that pretty well covers everything, don't you, Pol?"
"I believe so, father," she replied, smoothing the front of her gray, homespun gown.
Later, outside the tower as gray evening crept in among the foggy ruins of Vo Wacune and the smell of the thick stew Aunt Pol was cooking for supper drifted out to them, Garion turned to Silk. "Is it all really true?" he asked.
The small man looked out into the fog. "Let's act as if we believed that it is," he suggested. "Under the circumstances, I think it would be a bad idea to make a mistake."
"Are you afraid too, Silk?" Garion asked.
Silk sighed. "Yes," he admitted, "but we can behave as if we believed that we aren't, can't we?"
"I guess we can try," Garion said, and the two of them turned to go back into the chamber at the foot of the tower where the firelight danced on the low stone arches, holding the fog and chill at bay.