Belgarath the Sorcerer (68 page)

Then the priest of Belar arrived. As Pol had told me, his shaggy beard covered most of his face, but it didn't hide his eyes - those angularly-shaped eyes of the typical Angarak. How could Gelane and the other Alorns around that fire have been so stupid that they hadn't noticed that? When the robed priest reached the fire and I could make out his face more clearly, I redoubled my swearing.

The priest of Belar who'd led Iron-grip's heir astray was Chamdar himself.

It all fell in around my ears at that point. The Dagashi in the Nyissan robe back in Tol Honeth had known exactly what he was doing. Chamdar would
not
have gone running off to Tol Honeth or to any other city in the west in response to my carefully arranged fashion statement, because Chamdar had known where Pol and Gelane were all the time. I'd just wasted better than half a year persuading ladies all over the western kingdoms to duplicate Pol's distinctive
trade-mark, and it hadn't accomplished a thing. This time, Chamdar had tricked
me
!

‘
You'd better get here right away, Pol
.' I sent the thought out as a whisper - largely because Chamdar was no more than twenty feet from the tree where I was perched. Fortunately, he was talking to the cultists at the time, so he didn't hear me.

He was in the process of pronouncing a benediction on the Rivan King, ‘who shall lead us into the kingdoms of the south, where all whom we meet shall be converted to the worship of the Bear-God.'

Then Gelane started to talk, and I saw no evidence whatsoever of that self-effacing modesty that's been the predominant characteristic of his family since the time of Prince Geran. Gelane was obviously very full of himself. ‘Behold!' he declaimed. ‘I am the Godslayer of whom the prophecies speak. I, Gelane, am the Rivan King, and Overlord of the West, and I call upon the kingdoms of the west to submit to me. Where I lead, you
will
follow, and all of Angarak will tremble before me.'

That
went on for quite some time, and he was still admiring himself when Pol arrived.

 

Just to set the record straight here, let me say at this point that Gelane's descent into idiocy wasn't his own idea. Garion can give you a very detailed description of just how subtly Chamdar can take over somebody else's mind. At Faldor's farm when he was growing up, Garion probably saw Asharak the Murgo about every other week, and he was prevented from telling anyone about it. The process is an old Grolim trick that's been kicking around in Angarak societies since before the cracking of the world. The absurdities implicit in the Angarak religion almost demand that the Grolims have
some
means to control the thoughts of others. Now that I think about it, though,
all
religions do that - except mine, of course.

 

Polgara had wisely chosen the form of the brownish-colored spotted owl when she came to that grove to join me. White birds
do
tend to stick out in the dark. She settled onto the limb beside me and listened to Gelane's extended self-congratulation without comment.

‘The so-called priest of Belar is Chamdar, Pol,' I whispered to her.

‘So
that's
what he looks like,' she replied, her hooked beak clicking. ‘What now, father?'

‘I was hoping
you
could come up with an idea. I'm at my wit's end on this one. Chamdar's got Gelane totally under his control at this point. We
have
to break him clear of that control.'

‘There's something that
might
work,' she said. She sat looking at Gelane with those huge, unblinking eyes. ‘Are you willing to gamble?'

‘My whole life's been a gamble, Pol.'

‘Yes. I've noticed. I used something back at Vo Wacune once when an Asturian spy had wormed his way into the Duke's confidence. Chamdar's a Grolim, though, so there might be some way he can counter it. If Gelane's completely under Chamdar's domination, he won't believe anything we tell him about his master, will he?'

‘Probably not. What have you got in mind?'

‘Chamdar's got to expose himself, then.'

‘How do you plan to manage that?'

‘All I have to do is make Chamdar's thoughts audible. That's how I persuaded the Wacite Duke that his new friend wasn't all he seemed to be. The Asturian spy was only an ordinary man, though. This might not work on a Grolim.'

‘You'd better give it a try, Pol. Otherwise, I'm going to have to do something fairly serious to Gelane.'

‘Just
how
serious, father?'

‘We
can't
have Iron-grip's heir under Chamdar's control. That's unthinkable. I might have to erase most of Gelane's
mind. He won't be able to make barrels any more, but he'll still be able to father children.'

‘You can
do
that?'

‘Yes, I can. I wouldn't like it much, though.'

That's going too far, father.'

‘We don't have any choice, Pol. We've lost heirs before. It's the line that's important, not individuals, and the line must
not
be under Grolim domination.'

I think
that
notion made Pol concentrate all the harder. There are some limitations on what you can do when you're not in your natural form, so she swooped to earth behind the tree we'd been perched in and changed back.

I tend to be a little noisy when I use the Will and the Word - out of sheer arrogance, most likely - but Pol's always been very subtle. Even though I knew in a general sort of way what she was going to do, I could scarcely hear so much as a whisper when she released her Will with a single murmured Word.

Gelane was still spouting gibberish, telling his fellow cultists what a great fellow he was, when a new voice overrode his. He faltered, and then he stopped talking entirely.

The voice was Chamdar's, but Chamdar's lips weren't moving. The sound of that voice seemed to come from just over his head, and he appeared not to realize that his thoughts had just become audible. ‘Ctuchik will reward me if I kill this dolt,' that hollow-sounding voice mused, ‘but Torak himself will reward me even more if my plan works. As soon as I have this feeble-minded Alorn completely in my power, I'll take him to Riva, and he can seize Cthrag Yaska. Then I'll chain him and deliver him to the Dragon God to kneel and deliver that accursed jewel to Torak as a sign of his submission. So great a service
must
be rewarded. I will become the Dragon God's fourth disciple - and his most favored. I
will
be first disciple, and Ctuchik and Urvon and Zedar will be compelled to bow down to me. Torak will gain Lordship and dominion over all the world as the
result of my gift, and I shall sit at his right hand for all of eternity as my just reward.'

I actually heard the sound when Chamdar's hold on Gelane's mind was broken. We'd had a few hints in the past that Gelane was moderately talented, and Chamdar's audible musings were enough to bring him to his senses. With a great wrench, Gelane tore his mind free, and the full significance of what had happened came crashing in on him. The noise was absolutely awful.

Then, since he was Alorn, Gelane's reaction was fairly predictable. He advanced on the startled Grolim with blazing eyes and with murder in his heart.

‘What are you
doing?
' Chamdar's voice was shrill.

Gelane answered with his fist. He struck Ctuchik's underling with a blow that would have felled an ox.

 

I've speculated any number of times about how the course of history might have been changed if Gelane had been carrying an axe that night. In the long run, though, I guess the fact that he wasn't worked out for the best.

 

Chamdar reeled back, his eyes glazed and his Will evaporating. He fell heavily to the ground, and the pair of pseudo-Alorns from Ashaba immediately jumped in to protect their employer. I was just about to take steps, but the other cultists beat me to it. They'd sworn fealty to Gelane, and that's a religious obligation in the Bear-Cult. They swarmed all over the two Dagashi. The confusion, however, gave Chamdar time to recover his senses and make good his escape. He translocated himself to the edge of the grove, took wing, and flew off into the night.

‘We've been tricked!' Gelane roared. ‘That was no priest of Belar!'

‘What are we to do, Godslayer?' a cultist demanded in a helpless voice.

‘Don't
ever
call me that again!' Gelane screamed at him. I'm
not
the Godslayer! This was all a trick! I've dishonored
my name.' He tore off his bear-skin tunic and threw it into the fire. ‘The Bear-Cult is a lie and a deception! I'll have no further part in it!'

‘Let's find that false priest and kill him!' one big fellow shouted, and, since they were Alorns, they tried to do that. They floundered around in the woods for half an hour or so, but Chamdar was miles away by then.

Finally, they gave up and returned to the fire. ‘What do we do now, your Majesty?' the big Alorn demanded.

‘First off, we'll all forget about that “your Majesty” business.' Gelane replied. ‘I'm
not
the Rivan King, so don't any of you ever call me that again.' He straightened. ‘I'll have your oaths on that. No word of this must ever leak out. From now on, I'm just Gelane the cooper, and nothing else. Will you swear?'

Naturally they swore. What else could they do?

‘Now go home to your families!' he commanded. ‘Get rid of those stinking bear-skins, go back to your lives, and forget that any of this ever happened.'

‘What about that Grolim?' the big belligerent fellow demanded, ‘the one who pretended to be the priest of Belar?'

‘My family will deal with him,' Gelane replied. ‘Now go home.'

And then, when they were all gone, Iron-grip's heir fell face down on the ground, weeping uncontrollably in shame and remorse.

Now that Gelane had recovered his senses, he was so overcome with guilt that he was virtually incoherent. ‘How could I have been so foolish, grandfather?' he wept. ‘I'm unworthy! I'm unfit to bear my name! I've betrayed everything we stand for!'

‘Oh, stop that!' I told him. ‘It doesn't accomplish a thing.'

‘Who
was
that man, grandfather?'

‘His name's Chamdar, and he's a Grolim priest. Couldn't you tell from the shape of his eyes that he's an Angarak?'

‘This is Sendaria, father,' Polgara told me. ‘People don't pay that much attention to race here.'

‘Perhaps, but Gelane should have realized that somebody with an Angarak heritage couldn't possibly be a priest of Belar.' I looked rather sternly at my grandson. ‘How did he get such a hold on you, Gelane?' I demanded.

‘Flattery,' he replied in a tone of self-contempt. ‘Sometimes I wish that Aunt Pol had never told me about who I really am. That's what made it so easy for that Grolim to get his hands on my soul.'

‘What's your identity got to do with it?' I demanded.

‘I'm not really a very important person here in Seline, grandfather. People who come into my shop to buy barrels treat me like some kind of servant. Back during the war, when mother and Aunt Pol and I were at the Stronghold and Kal Torak was besieging the place, some of the people there treated me with a great deal of respect because they knew that I was really the Rivan King. Here in Seline, I'm just another tradesman. Who respects a barrel-maker? When some brewer or wine merchant starts putting on airs, I sort of wrap myself in my real identity. It keeps me from
feeling small and insignificant. That's how the Grolim captured me.'

‘You didn't tell him, did you?'

‘He already knew. He came into my shop one day, and he bowed to me and hailed me as the Rivan King. He told me that he was a priest of Belar and that the auguries had told him who I really was. Nobody'd called me “your Majesty” since we all left the Stronghold, and it went to my head.'

That's the way it usually works, Gelane,' I told him. ‘More people have been tripped up by their own hubris than you could possibly imagine.'

‘Hubris?'

‘Overweening pride. It's when you get so impressed with yourself that your head stops working. That little speech you were making here this evening was a fair indication of it. You're not the first to be infected with it, and you probably won't be the last. How did Chamdar get you involved with the Bear-Cult?'

‘He worked his way up to it gradually. At first all he talked about was how I ought to go to Riva to claim my throne. He said that all of Aloria was waiting for me.'

‘That's probably true, Gelane,' Pol told him, ‘but Aloria doesn't know that it's waiting. We've kept your family fairly well hidden for a long time now.'

‘He seemed to know all about it.'

‘Naturally,' I replied. ‘The Grolims have prophecies of their own. We've been able to hide you, but we couldn't keep your existence a secret. Chamdar's been tearing the world apart looking for your family for about three centuries.'

‘I'll kill him!' Gelane said fiercely, stretching forth his hands in a hungry sort of gesture.

‘No,' I disagreed, ‘actually you won't. That's my job, not yours. Your job is to stay out of sight. What you're going to do right now is go back to town and start packing. You're going to take your wife and your mother and go down the
deepest hole your aunt and I can find for you.' I thought about it for a moment. ‘Val Alorn, I think.'

‘You're not
serious
!' Pol objected.

‘Val Alorn isn't so bad, Pol, and Chamdar can't hide his race from the Chereks the way he hid it from the Sendars. Chereks are usually blond, and with that black beard and those funny-shaped eyes, Chamdar'd definitely stick out on the streets of Val Alorn. King Eldrig's got a standing reward for the head of any Angarak found in his kingdom. It's a sizeable amount of money, and that encourages the Chereks to keep their eyes open for foreigners. I'll have a talk with Eldrig, and we'll pick some village where no veterans of the war in Arendia live.'

Gelane looked puzzled.

‘Your grandfather and I were a little conspicuous at Vo Mimbre, Gelane,' Pol explained. ‘Someone who'd been there might recognize me, and Chereks talk too much when they get drunk - which happens almost every night, I've noticed.'

‘Let's go back a bit here,' I said to Gelane. ‘Exactly how did Chamdar enlist you in the Bear-Cult?'

‘He started out by warning me that I have to be very careful, because there are all sorts of people looking for me, and they don't all look like Angaraks. He said that the only people I can really trust are Alorns. Then he said that there was a religious order in the Alorn kingdoms that's sworn to protect me and to see to it that I can take my rightful place on the throne in the Hall of the Rivan King. My head was so swollen up by then that I even made it easy for him. I said that I wanted to met these people who were so devoted to me, but he told me that Bear-Cultists are forbidden to reveal their affiliation with the Cult to anybody who wasn't a member. Would you believe that I actually volunteered to join at that point?'

‘He led you into it rather carefully, Gelane.' I replied. ‘Every time you accepted something he told you, his hold on you grew stronger. Grolims are very good at that. By
the time you volunteered to join the Cult, he'd have been able to get you to do almost anything.'

‘Were the other Alorns from Seline really Cult-members?'

‘They probably thought they were, but I doubt that any real Cultists even knew that they existed. The Cult doesn't have much of a following here in Sendaria. This little group in Seline was living in a vacuum, totally isolated from the rest of the Cult, and I'd imagine that Chamdar added quite a few items that aren't a part of standard Cult dogma. Just to be on the safe side, though, I think I'll have a talk with the Alorn Kings. I think it might be time for the Cult to be put down again.' I looked around at the trees. ‘We've got things to do. Why don't we go back to town?'

‘In a moment, father,' Pol said. ‘Chamdar had Gelane almost totally under his control for several months. I want to make sure that his hold's completely broken.'

‘That's probably not a bad idea, Pol,' I agreed.

‘This won't hurt, Gelane,' she assured him. Then she reached out and took his right hand - the one with that characteristic mark on the palm - and touched it to the white lock in her hair. Her eyes grew momentarily distant, and Gelane's went very wide. I got the distinct impression that their minds had never overtly touched before. Then Polgara lightly kissed his cheek. ‘A few hints is about all, father,' she told me, ‘and they're already fading. I doubt that Chamdar could compel him to raise even one finger right now.'

‘Good. Let's head back to town, and start getting you packed. We'll set out for the capital at Sendar first thing in the morning. I'll find some Cherek sea-captain and arrange passage to Val Alorn.'

‘Through the
Bore?
' Pol said with some distaste.

‘It's the shortest way to get there, Pol, and I want to get back as soon as I can. I'd like to run Chamdar to ground someplace and get him out of our hair once and for all.'

‘
Yes
!' Gelane said fervently.

 

It didn't work out that way, of course. Asharak the Murgo had something very important still left to do. His death was the thing that opened Garion's mind and set him on the course to where he is right now.

 

This is not to say that I didn't spend a couple of years looking for the elusive Grolim. I finally gave up in disgust and went back to the Vale. Pol, Gelane, and their little family took up residence in a small farming village about ten miles outside Val Alorn, and they were fairly safe there - if any place in the world was truly safe for Iron-grip's heir.

Beldin had returned from Mallorea during the course of my search for Ctuchik's underling, and he stopped by my tower on the morning after I finally got back home. He said some very uncomplimentary things to me after I told him about how Chamdar'd tricked me, but I didn't really take offense. I'd already said things to myself that were far worse. I let him ramble on until he started repeating himself, and then I cut in. ‘What's happening in Mallorea?' I asked him.

‘Do you remember that young man in Mal Zeth that I told you about?' he replied, ‘the grandson of the old emperor Torak deposed when he left Ashaba?'

‘Vaguely. His name's Korzeth, isn't it?'

‘That's the name they gave him when he was born. There are a lot of people in Mallorea who are calling him other names right now, though. When he turned fourteen, he set his grandfather aside and took the crown for himself. In some ways, he's as cold-blooded as Torak himself. I don't know why he wanted the throne. He never sits on it. He's spending all his time in the saddle now, and he's reunifying Mallorea. The whole continent's running ankle-deep in blood. Korzeth doesn't even bother to ask people if they want to accept his rule. He just kills everybody in sight. He'll have an empire when he's done. There won't be very many people in it, but he'll own all the ground, at least.'

I'd say that sort of diminishes the Mallorean threat,' I noted approvingly. ‘Is Zedar still holed up in that cave with Torak's body?'

‘He was, the last time I looked. I flew over there on my way home.'

‘Are the Murgos doing anything worth mentioning?'

‘Fortifying the walls of their cities is about all. I think they're expecting an invasion.'

‘Why would we want to do that? We accomplished everything we needed to at Vo Mimbre.'

‘The Murgos aren't so much worried about us as they are about Ran Borune. After those two disasters, there aren't really very many Murgos left, and they
do
have all those gold mines. I guess they expect Ran Borune to start biting large chunks out of the middle of Cthol Murgos.'

‘Any idea of what Ctuchik's up to?'

‘Haven't got a clue. As far as I know, he's holed up at Rak Cthol. Urvon's made it back to Mal Yaska, and he's sitting tight as well. I think that Vo Mimbre persuaded the Angaraks to give peace a chance.'

‘Good. I need a rest anyway. Have you got any definite plans?'

‘I think I'll go back to southern Cthol Murgos and keep an eye on Zedar. If he decides to move old Burnt-face, I'd like to know about it.'

After Beldin left, I loafed around my tower, intermittently cleaning up several decades' worth of dust and debris. I didn't make a major project out of it, though. I can usually find something more interesting to do than house-cleaning.

I'd been home for about a month when the twins came over to my tower one fine morning in late spring. ‘We've found something rather puzzling in the Darine, Belgarath.' Beltira told me.

‘Oh?'

‘It mentions a couple of “helpers”. They won't be as
significant as the “Guide” or the “Horse Lord” or any of the others, but they
will
be making a contribution.'

‘I'll take all the help I can get. What's so puzzling about them?'

‘As closely as we can make out, they're going to be Nadraks.'

‘Nadraks?' I was a bit startled by that. ‘Why would any Angaraks want to help us?'

‘The Darine doesn't say, and we haven't found the corresponding passage in the Mrin yet.'

I thought about it for a few moments. ‘Nadraks have never really been all that fond of Murgos or Thulls,' I mused. ‘Now that Torak's been put to sleep, they might decide to strike out on their own. I'm not doing anything right now; maybe I ought to go have a look.'

‘These “helpers” won't have emerged yet,' Belkira pointed out. ‘And we don't know anything at all about the families they'll descend from.'

‘You're probably right there,' I admitted, ‘but if I nose around a bit, I might be able to get a sense of the general sentiments among the Nadraks.'

‘It couldn't hurt, I suppose,' Beltira agreed.

‘I'll check in with you from time to time,' I promised. ‘Let me know if you find anything in the Mrin. A few more details might help me to locate those families.'

There wasn't anything particularly urgent about this project, as far as I could tell, so I stopped by the Stronghold as I went north and bought a horse. There's quite a bit of effort involved in traveling the other way, and I was feeling a little lazy.

It took me several weeks to reach Boktor, which the Drasnians were busy rebuilding. In a certain sense, Kal Torak had done the Drasnians a favor when he destroyed all their cities. Alorn cities have always tended to sprawl out, and the streets follow whichever cow-path happens to be handy. Now the Drasnians had the chance to start fresh and actually plan their cities. I found Rhodar conferring
with a number of architects. They were having a fairly heated discussion about boulevards, as I recall. One school favored wide, straight streets. The other preferred narrow, crooked ones, justifying the inconvenience with the word ‘coziness.'

‘What do you think, Belgarath?' Rhodar asked me.

‘It all depends on whether you want to build another Tol Honeth or another Val Alorn, I guess,' I replied.

‘Tol Honeth, I think,' Rhodar said. ‘Tolnedrans have always looked down their noses at us because of the way our cities look. I get very tired of being referred to as “quaint”.'

‘Have you had any contacts with the Nadraks since the war?' I asked him.

‘Nothing official. There's a little bit of trade along the border, and there are always gold-hunters in the Nadrak mountains. The gold deposits aren't as extensive as the ones in southern Cthol Murgos, but there's enough gold up there to attract people from other countries.'