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One dark brown bull, finally goaded into a fury of frustration, lowered his head, pawed the earth a few tireat bellow Durnik esture with one hand, and the bull was suddenly charging away from the fence, turned around so it He ran for several hundred yards before it occurred to hi substantial He slowed and raised his head in astonishment He looked dubiously back over his shoulder at the fence, then turned around and gave it another try Once again Durnik turned hi direction The third tied over the top of the hill and disappeared on the other side He did not coravely at Errand and then he winked Polgara ca her hands on her apron, and noted the fence which had so the breakfast dishes She gave her husband a quizzical look, and Durnik see sorcery rather than an axe

"Very nice fence, dear," she said encouragingly to hietically "Those coell, I had to do it in a hurry"

"Durnik," she said gently, "there's nothingyour talent for this sort of thing and you should practice every so often" She looked at the zig-zag pattern of the interlocking rail fence, and then her expression became concentrated One after another, each of the junctures of the rails was suddenly bound tightly together with stout rosebushes in full bloom "There," she said contentedly, patted her husband's shoulder, and went back inside

"She's a remarkable woman, do you know that?" Durnik said to Errand

"Yes," Errand agreed

Polgara was not always pleased with her husband's ventures into this new field, however On one occasion toward the hot, dusty end of su to wilt, Polgara devoted the bulk of onea sently herding its sodden puffiness toward the Vale of Aldur and, arden

Errand was playing along the fence when the cloud came in low over the hill to the west and then stopped directly over the cottage and the waiting garden Durnik glanced up fro, saw the blond-haired boy at play and the oently pulled in his will He esture with one hand "Shoo," he said to the cloud

The cloud gave a peculiar sort of twitch, almost like a hiccup, then slowly flowed on eastward When it was several hundred yards beyond Polgara's parched garden, it began to rain -a nice, steady, soaking downpour that very satisfactorily watered several acres of erassland

Durnik was not at all prepared for his wife's reaction The door to the cottage banged open, and Polgara e cloud a hard stare, and the soggy-looking thing gave another of those peculiar hiccups and actually ara turned and looked directly at her husband, her eyes a bit wild "Did you do that?" she de at the cloud

"Why -yes," he replied "I suppose I did, Pol"

"Why did you do that?"

"Errand was out there playing," Durnik said, still concentrating most of his attention on the harness "I didn't think you'd want hi all of its rain on grass so deeply rooted that it could have easily survived a ten- turnip tops and pathetic beans She clenched her teeth tightly together to keep in certain words and phrases which she knew ht shock her strait-laced and proper husband

She raised her face to the sky and lifted her aric voice "Why ?"

Polgara told hith

Durnik spent the next week putting in an irrigation systearden, and she forgave him for his mistake almost as soon as he had finished it

The winter caered in the Vale The twins, Beltira and Belkira, came by just before the snows set in and told thearath and Beldin had left the Vale, and that each of theone aith that serious expression on his face that arath's company that winter To be sure, the old sorcerer had, ara, but Errand felt somehow that he shouldn't really be expected to devote every wakingout of trouble When the snow caain After she had watched hi down the hill and across the ara prudently asked Durnik to erect a barrier at the stream bank to prevent a recurrence of the previous winter'sa woven wattle fence to keep Errand on dry land that he happened to glance down into the water Because the often muddy little rills that emptied into their stream were all locked in ice now, the water was low and as clear as crystal Durnik could very clearly see the long, narrow shapes hovering like shadows in the current above the beds of gravel that for," heon that peculiarly abstracted look "I've never noticed the," Errand said "But most of the ti underwater"

"I ireed He tied the end of the wattle fence to a tree and thoughtfully walked through the snoard the shed he had built at the back of the cottage A ed with the skein of waxed cord in his hand; fiveErrand s his sled behind hie, hooded young woman awaited hi woman pushed back her hood to reveal the fact that a dark cloth was tightly bound across her eyes "Thou art the one they call Errand?" she asked Her voice was low and musical, and there was a peculiar lilt to her archaic speech