"Couldn't we rig a sail of some sort?" Silk asked hopefully.
"Easily," Durnik replied. He wet one finger with his tongue and held it up. "I'll do that just as soon as you work out a way to make the wind blow.''
Silk's face fell.
"While you're doing that, I need to go talk with Ce'Nedra." He went back up the beach and gently shook Garion's sleeping wife awake.
"You know? Sometimes he has a very warped sense of humor," Silk observed.
When the first light of day began to tinge the misty eastern horizon, they pushed out into the fog and took their places at the oars. "I don't want to seem critical, Goodman," Sadi said to Durnik, who stood in the stern with his hands gripping the tiller, "but I've seen a lot of fog in Nyissa, and, once it's fully daylight, you won't have the faintest idea of where the sun is. How do you plan to keep your course?"
"Ce'Nedra's taking care of that," the smith replied, pointing toward the bow.
The Rivan Queen was leaning over the portside intently watching a floating piece of wood attached to a long cord. "What's she doing?" Sadi asked, sounding a bit perplexed.
"She's watching the current. We'll be quartering it, but as long as that cord stays at the same angle from the boat, we'll be right on course. I put a mark on the rail to show her what the angle ought to be."
"You think of everything, don't you?" Sadi said, continuing to pull his oar.
"I try. You can usually avoid problems if you think your way completely through a job."
Ce'Nedra raised one arm and pointed imperiously to starboard. She seemed to be taking her job very seriously. Durnik obediently moved the tiller. Once the eastern shore of the great river vanished in the fog, it seemed to Garion that time had stopped entirely. There was no real sense of motion, though he bent his back over his oar with monotonous regularity. "Tiresome, isn't it?" Silk said.
"Rowing always is," Garion replied. Silk looked around, then spoke quietly. "Do you notice a change in Durnik?" he asked. "No. Not really."
"What I'm getting at is that usually he's so self-effacing that you almost forget that he's around, but back there on the beach, he just son of took charge."
"He's always been like that, Silk. When we're doing something he doesn't know all that much about, he just follows along and keeps his eyes open; but when we come to something he knows about, he steps in and does what has to be done." Garion smiled affectionately back over his shoulder at his old friend. Then he looked slyly at Silk. "He also learns very fast. By now, he's probably at least as good a spy as you are, and he watched you very closely while you were manipulating the bean market back there in Melcena. If he ever decides to go into business, I think you and Yarblek had better start keeping a close count of your tail feathers."
Silk looked a bit worried. "He wouldn't really do that, would he?"
"He might. You never really know about Durnik, do you?"
As the sun rose higher, the fog diffused its light, and the world around them became a monochrome—white fog and black water with no hint at all that they were making any progress or, if they were, that it was in the right direction. Garion felt a bit strange, knowing that they were entirely at Ce'Nedra's mercy. It was only her eyes on that cord lightly lying across an angled mark on the rail that kept them on course. He loved her, but he knew that she was sometimes flighty, and her judgment was not always the best. Her insistent little gestures to port or to starboard, however, showed no sign of hesitancy or lack of certainty, and Durnik obeyed them implicitly. Garion sighed and kept on rowing. About midmorning, the fog began to thin, and Beldin drew in his oar. "Can you manage here without me?" he asked Belgarath. "I think we ought to know just exactly what we're running into. There's all sorts of unpleasantness going on in Darshiva, and I don't think we'll want to come ashore right in the middle of it."
"And you're getting tired of rowing, right?" the old man replied sarcastically.
"I could row all the way around the world if I wanted to," the gnarled-looking little hunchback replied, flexing his oak-stump arms, "but this might be more important. Do you really want to beach this tub and find Nahaz waiting for you on the sand?"
"Do whatever you think is right."
"I always do, Belgarath—even if it makes you unhappy sometimes." The grimy little gnome went forward toward the bow. "Excuse me, me little darlin'," he said to Ce'Nedra in an exaggerated brogue, "but I must be off now."
"I need you at that oar," she objected. "How can I keep the course if everybody runs away?"
"I'm sure y' kin manage, me little darlin'," he said, patting her cheek; then, leaving a ghostly laugh behind him, he disappeared into the fog.
"You come back here!" she shouted after him, but he was already gone.
There was the faintest touch of a breeze then. Garion could feel it brushing across the back of his sweaty neck as he rowed. The fog eddied and swirled slightly, thinning even more. And then there were looming black shapes all around them.
"Garion!" Ce'Nedra exclaimed.
A number of triumphant shouts came out of the rapidly dissipating fog. They were surrounded by ships that moved purposefully to block them.
"Do we make a run for it?" Silk asked in a tense, hoarse whisper.
Belgarath looked at the ships moving to surround them, his eyes like flint. "Run?" he said. "In this tub? Don't be ridiculous."
A boat had moved directly in front of them, and, as they drifted closer, Garion could see the oarsmen. "Mallorean soldiers," he noted quietly. "Zakath's army."
Belgarath muttered a few choice oaths. "Let's sit tight for a bit. They may not know who we are. Silk, see if you can talk us out of this. ‘'
The little man rose and went to the bow of their barge. "We're certainly glad to see imperial troops in this region, Captain," he said to the officer commanding the boat blocking their path. "Maybe you can put a stop to all the insanity that's been going on around here."
"I'll need your name," the officer replied.
"Of course," Silk said, slapping his forehead. "How stupid of me. My name is Vetter.
I work for Prince Kheldar. Perhaps you've heard of him?"
"The name's familiar. Where are you going?"
"Actually, we're bound for Balasa down in the Dalasian Protectorates. Prince Kheldar has interests there—that's assuming we can make our way across Darshiva. Things are in turmoil there." He paused. "I wonder, Captain, do you suppose you could spare us a few soldiers to act as an escort? I'm authorized to pay quite handsomely."