Read Pawn of Prophecy for Free Online Page B

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.
    "But I don't have any money," he objected.
    "I've enough for us both," Wolf assured him, stopping their horse before a large, low building with a sign bearing a picture of a cluster of grapes hanging just above its door. There were words on the sign, but of course Garion could not read them.
    "What do the words say, Mister Wolf?" he asked.
    "They say that food and drink may be bought inside," Wolf told him, getting down from the cart.
    "It must be a fine thing to be able to read," Garion said wistfully. The old man looked at him, seemingly surprised. "You can't read, boy?" he asked incredulously.
    "I've never found anyone to teach me,"