there were shambling around the fire in that peculiar swaying walk that
Bear-cultists seem to think approximates the walk of a bear. I’ve seen
a lot of bears in my time, and I’ve never seen one walk that way.
Actually, you very seldom see a bear trying to walk on its hind feet at
all.
The Alorns were chanting all the usual slogans in unison. I guess
idiocy’s more fun when it’s shared, and there’s nothing in this world
that’s more idiotic than the Bear-cult. I’ve never understood the idea
behind choral chanting, but it always seems to comfort religious
fanatics of whatever stripe.
When Gelane, now wearing his own bearskin tunic, arrived, the other
cultists all bowed low to him, proclaiming–again in unison–“All hail
the Rivan King, Godslayer, and Overlord of the West. Where he leads
us, we will follow.”
The secret that Pol and I had so carefully kept for almost nine hundred
years was obviously out of the bag now. I started muttering curses,
savagely biting them off with my hooked beak.
When I finally got my anger under control, I carefully probed the minds
of the individual cultists gathered around their hero. Most of them
were just the usual dimwitted Alorns that have always filled the ranks
of the cult. A couple of them, however, were not. I picked the word
“Kahsha” out of their thoughts, and Kahsha is the mountain in the
Desert of Araga that’s the headquarters of the Dagashi. Chamdar had
finally gotten ahead of me. I started swearing again.
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
angular-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 trademark, 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 wits’ 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 feebleminded 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