“Ah, yes,” Belgarath murmured. “Sometimes I lose sight of that.”
They walked on in the direction the scholar had indicated. “If he doesn’t give his students any more specific directions than that, they probably come out of this place with another vague idea of the world,” Beldin observed. The directions they received from others gradually grew more precise, and they finally reached a blocky-looking building constructed of thick gray rock and solidly buttressed along its walls. They went up the steps in front and entered a hallway that was also shored up with stout buttresses.
“I don’t quite follow the reason for all the interior reinforcement,” Garion confessed.
As if in answer to his question, there came a thunderous detonation from behind a door partway up the hall. The door blew outward violently, and clouds of reeking smoke came pouring out.
“Oh,” Garion said. “Now I understand.”
A fellow with a dazed look on his face and with his clothes hanging from his body in smoking tatters came staggering out through the smoke. “Too much sulfur,” he was muttering over and over again. “Too much sulfur.”
“Excuse me,” Belgarath said, “do you by any chance know where we might find the alchemist Senji?”
“Too much sulfur,” the experimenter said, looking blankly at Belgarath.
“Senji,” the old man repeated. “Could you tell us where to find him?”
The tattered fellow frowned. “What?” he said blankly.
“Let me,” Beldin said. “Can you tell us where to find Senji?” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “He’s got a clubfoot.”
“Oh,” the man replied, shaking his head to clear his befuddlement. “His laboratory’s on the top floor—down toward the other end.”
“Thank you,” Beldin shouted at him.
“Too much sulfur. That’s the problem, all right. I put in too much sulfur.”
“Why were you shouting at him?” Belgarath asked curiously as the three of them went on down the hall.
“I’ve been in the middle of a few explosions myself.” The hunchback shrugged. “I was always deaf as a post for a week or two afterward.”
“Oh.”
They went up two flights of stairs to the top floor. They passed another door that had only recently been exploded out of its casement. Belgarath poked his head through the opening. “Where can we find Senji?” he shouted into the room.
There was a mumbled reply.
“Last door on the left,” the old man grunted, leading the way.
“Alchemy seems to be a fairly dangerous occupation,” Garion noted.
“Also fairly stupid,” Beldin growled. “If they want gold so badly, why don’t they just go dig it up?”
“I don’t think that’s occurred to very many of them,” Belgarath said. He stopped before the last door on the left, a door showing signs of recent repair. He knocked.
“Go away,” a rusty-sounding voice replied.
“We need to talk with you, Senji,” Belgarath called mildly.
The rusty voice told him at some length what he could do with his need to talk. Most of the words were very colorful. Belgarath’s face grew set. He gathered himself up and spoke a single word. The door disappeared with a shocking sound.
“Now that’s something you don’t see around here very much,” the grubby little man sitting in the midst of the splintered remains of his door said in a conversational tone. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a door blow in.” He started picking splinters out of his beard.
“Are you all right?” Garion asked him.
“Of course, just a little surprised is all. When you’ve been blown up as many times as I have, you sort of get used to the idea. Does one of you want to pull this door off me?” Beldin stumped forward and lifted the remains of the door.
“You’re an ugly one, aren’t you?” the man on the floor said.
“You’re no beauty yourself.”
“I can live with it.”
“So can I.”
“Good. Are you the one who blew my door in?”
“He did.” Beldin pointed at Belgarath and then helped the fellow to his feet.
“How did you manage that?” the grubby little man asked Belgarath curiously. “I don’t smell any chemicals at all.”
“It’s a gift,” Belgarath replied. “You’re Senji, I take it.”
“I am. Senji the clubfoot. senior member of the faculty the College of Applied Alchemy.” He thumped on the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “Explosions always make my ears ring,” he noted. “You—my ugly friend,” he said to Beldin. “There’s a barrel of beer over there in the corner. Why don’t you bring me some? Get some for yourself and your friends as well.”
“We’re going to get along fairly well,” Beldin said.
Senji limped toward a stone table in the center of the room. His left leg was several inches shorter than his right, and his left foot was grotesquely deformed. He leafed through several sheets of parchment. “Good,” he said to Belgarath. “At least your explosion didn’t scatter my calculations all over the room.” He looked at them. “As long as you’re here, you might as well find something to sit down on.”
Beldin brought him a cup of beer, then went back to the corner where the barrel was and filled three more cups.
“That is really an ugly fellow,” Senji noted, hauling himself up and sitting on top of the table. “I sort of like him, though. I haven’t met anybody quite like that for almost a thousand years.”
Belgarath and Garion exchanged a quick look. “That’s quite a long time,” Belgarath said cautiously.
“Yes,” Senji agreed, taking a drink from his cup. He made a face. “It’s gone flat again,” he said. “You there,” he called to Beldin. “There’s an earthenware jar on the shelf just above the barrel. Be a good fellow and dump a couple handfuls of that powder into the beer. It wakes it up again.” He looked back at Belgarath. “What was it you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “What’s so important that you have to go around blowing doors apart?”
“In a minute,” Belgarath said. He crossed to where the little clubfoot sat. “Do you mind?” he asked. He reached out and lightly touched his fingertips to the smelly man’s bald head.
“Well?” Beldin asked.
Belgarath nodded. “He doesn’t use it very often, but it’s there. Garion, fix the door. I think we’ll want to talk in private.”
Garion looked helplessly at the shattered remains of the door. “It’s not in very good shape, Grandfather,” he said dubiously.
“Make a new one then.”
“Oh. I guess I forgot about that.”
“You need some practice anyway. Just make sure that you can get it open later. I don’t want to have to blow it down again when the time comes to leave.” Garion gathered in his will, concentrated a moment, pointed at the empty opening, and said, “Door.” The opening was immediately filled again.
“Door?” Beldin said incredulously.
“He does that sometimes,” Belgarath said. “I’ve been trying to break him of the habit, but he backslides from time to time.”
Senji’s eyes were narrow as he looked at them. “Well, now,” he said. “I seem to have some talented guests. I haven’t met a real sorcerer in a long, long time.”
“How long?” Belgarath asked bluntly.
“Oh, a dozen centuries or so, I guess. A Grolim was here giving lectures in the College of Comparative Theology. Stuffy sort of fellow, as I recall, but then, most Grolims are.”
“All right, Senji,” Belgarath said, “just how old are you?”
“I think I was born during the fifteenth century,” Senji replied. “What year is it now?”
“Fifty-three seventy-nine,” Garion told him.
“Already?” Senji said mildly. “Where does the time go?” He counted it up on his fingers. “I guess that would make me about thirty-nine hundred or so.”
“When did you find out about the Will and the Word?” Belgarath pressed.
“The what?”
“Sorcery.”
“Is that what you call it?” Senji pondered a bit. “I suppose the term is sort of accurate, at that,” he mused. “I like that. The Will and the Word. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“When did you make the discovery?” Belgarath repeated.
“During the fifteenth century, obviously. Otherwise I’d died in the normal course of time, like everybody
“You didn’t have any instruction?”
“Who was around in the fifteenth century to instruct me? I just stumbled over it.”
Belgarath and Beldin looked at each other. Then Belgarath sighed and covered his eyes with one hand.
“It happens once in a while,” Beldin said. “Some people just fall into it.”
“I know, but it’s so discouraging. Look at all the centuries our Master took instructing us, and this fellow just picks it up on his own.” He looked back at Senji. “Why don’t you tell us about it?” he suggested. “Try not to leave too much out.”
“Do we really have time, Grandfather?” Garion asked.
“We have to make time,” Beldin told him. “It was one of our Master’s final commandments. Any time we come across somebody who’s picked up the secret spontaneously, we’re supposed to investigate. Not even the Gods know how it happens.”