Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings Page A

more to the murky bottom.
    It occurred to him as he struggled, drowning, amongst the weeds that if he could launch himself up in the vicinity of the log, he might catch hold of it and so remain afloat. He waved off a startled-looking frog and plunged upward again. He came up, unfortunately, directly under the log. The blow on the top of his head filled his eyes with light and his ears with a roaring sound, and he sank, no longer struggling, back toward the weeds which seemed to reach up for him.
    And then Durnik was there. Garion felt himself lifted roughly by the hair toward the surface and then towed by that same convenient handle toward shore behind Durnik's powerfully churning strokes. The smith pulled the semiconscious boy out onto the bank, turned him over and stepped on him several times to force the water out of his lungs.
    Garion's ribs creaked.
    "Enough, Durnik," he gasped finally. He sat up, and the blood from the splendid cut on top of his head immediately ran into his eyes. He wiped the blood clear and looked around for the dark, shadowless rider, but the figure had vanished. He tried to get up, but the world suddenly spun around him, and he fainted.
    When he awoke, he was in his own bed with his head wrapped in bandages.
    Aunt Pol stood beside his bed, her eyes blazing. "You stupid boy!" she cried. "What were you doing in that pond?"
    "Rafting," Garion said, trying to make it sound quite ordinary.
    "Rafting?" she said. "Rafting? Who gave you permission?"
    "Well-" he said uncertainly. "We just "
    "You just what?"
    He looked at her helplessly.
    And then with a low cry she took him in her arms and crushed him to her almost suffocatingly.
    Briefly Garion considered telling her about the strange, shadowless figure that had watched his struggles in the pond, but the dry voice in his mind that sometimes spoke to him told him that this was not the time for that. He seemed to know somehow that the business between him and the man on the black horse was something very private, and that the time would inevitably come when they would face each other in some kind of contest of will or deed. To speak of it now to Aunt Pol would involve her in the matter, and he did not want that. He was not sure exactly why, but he did know that the dark figure was an enemy, and though that thought was a bit frightening, it was also exciting. There was no question that Aunt Pol could deal with this stranger, but if she did, Garion knew that he would lose something very personal and for some reason very important. And so he said nothing.
    "It really wasn't anything all that dangerous, Aunt Pol," he said instead, rather lamely. "I was starting to get the idea of how to swim. I'd have been all right if I hadn't hit my head on that log."
    "But of course you did hit your head," she pointed out.
    "Well, yes, but it wasn't that serious. I'd have been all right in a minute or two."
    "Under the circumstances I'm not sure you had a minute or two," she said bluntly.
    "Well-" he faltered, and then decided to let it drop.
    That marked the end of Garion's freedom. Aunt Pol confined him to the scullery. He grew to know every dent and scratch on every pot in the kitchen intimately. He once estimated gloomily that he washed each one twenty-one times a week. In a seeming orgy of messiness, Aunt Pol suddenly could not even boil water without dirtying at least three or four pans, and Garion had to scrub every one. He hated it and began to think quite seriously of running away.
    As autumn progressed and the weather began to deteriorate, the other children were also more or less confined to the compound as well, and it wasn't so bad. Rundorig, of course, was seldom with them anymore since his man's size had made him - even more than Garion - subject to more and more frequent labor.
    When he could, Garion slipped away to be with Zubrette and Doroon, but they no longer found much entertainment in leaping into the hay or in the endless games of tag in the stables and