down eventually, but Anrak was born to wander. The cousin of
Iron-grip, Bull-neck, and Fleet-foot had grey hair by now, but there
was still an irrepressible quality of youth about him. He visited with
Riva for quite some time and then joined Kamion, Daran, and me
in a blue-draped conference chamber high in one of the towers of
the Citadel. As Kamion’s seemingly endless succession of children
had begun to spill over into his study, it had become necessary for
us to find another place to work. ‘My cousin’s not going to get over
his wife’s death, is he, Pol?’ Anrak asked as we all sat at a long
conference table. ‘He talks about old times, but he doesn’t seem to
even mention anything that’s happened recently. It’s almost as if
his life ended when your sister died.’
‘In many ways it did, Anrak,’ I told him, ‘and mine very nearly
did, too.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve seen it happen before, Pol. It’s too bad.’ He sighed
again and then looked at Daran. ‘How’s he doing?’ he asked as if
‘Daran weren’t sitting right there.
‘We have some hopes for him,’Kamion replied. Then he recounted
the story of the flogging.
‘Good for you, Daran,’ Anrak said approvingly. ‘Oh, before I
forget, my uncle Bear-shoulders asked me to pass something along
to you.’
‘How is he?’ Daran asked.
Anrak shrugged. ‘Old,’ he said. ‘You still wouldn’t want to cross
him, though. He’s having trouble with the Bear-Cult, and he wanted
me to warn you about it.’ He leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful
expression on his face. ‘Back in the old days, the Cult didn’t really
have any kind of coherent system of beliefs. All they were really
doing was trying to find some theological justification for pillaging
the southern kingdoms. That all changed after Belgarath and the
others took the Orb back from Torak, though. Now they want Riva
– or his successor – to lead them south with that flaming sword.
Right now, Riva’s at the very center of what the Cultists choose to
call their religion.’
‘We’ve had some problems here, too,’ Kamion noted. ‘Elthek, the
Rivan Deacon, leads the Cult here on the Isle. Since he’s the high
priest of Belar, we have to step around him rather carefully. Iron-grip
didn’t want any direct confrontations with the Church, so he didn’t
step on the Deacon’s neck the way he probably should have.’
‘I’m not nearly as accommodating as my father is,’ Daran noted.
‘The time’s not far off when I’m going to kill Elthek.’
‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Anrak asked.
‘I’ll change the law,’ Daran replied.
I looked at him rather closely and saw that it was almost time to
pull him up short. My nephew, emboldened by his success with
Carhein and Altor, hovered right on the verge of becoming a tyrant.
‘Is Bull-neck having the same problems in Drasnia?’Kamion asked
Anrak.
‘It’s even worse there,’ Anrak replied moodily. ‘After Fleet-foot
trampled all over the Cult in Algaria, the survivors fled into the
fens and then into the border country off toward Gar og Nadrak.
The Cult controls virtually everything east of Boktor.’
‘I’d say that the core of the problem’s here, then,’ Kamion
observed. ‘This is where the Orb is, and if the Cult can gain control
of the Orb’s Guardian, we’ll all be marching south before long.’
‘You could solve that by making every priest of Belar here on the
Isle swim back to Val Alorn,’ Anrak said with an evil grin.
‘In full armor,’ Daran added.
‘No.’ I said it firmly. ‘Some of those priests are innocent, and
people need the comforts of religion. I do think that Kamion’s right,
though. We don’t want the Cult so close to the Orb.’
‘What’s the alternative to extermination, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked.
‘Exile?’ Kamion suggested.
‘You aren’t going to be popular in Val Alorn and Boktor if you
send them a fresh wave of fanatics,’ Anrak said.
‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ Kamion told him. ‘I want these
homegrown Cultists someplace where we can keep an eye on them.’
‘Dungeons are good for that,’ Anrak said.
‘It costs too much money to keep people locked up,’ Daran
objected. Why is it that every ruler in the world spends all his time
worrying about money? Then my nephew’s eyes brightened. ‘Lord
Brand,’ he said, ‘do you remember what I threatened Garhein and
Altor with last summer?’
‘Sending them to the northern end of the Isle, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The Cultists would just shed their vestments and sneak back,
your Highness.’
‘It’s a little hard to sneak across open water, Kamion,’ Daran
laughed. ‘There are some little islets strung out above the main Isle.
If we send all the cultists up there, we won’t have to worry about
them any more.’
‘They’re Alorns, your Highness,’ Kamion reminded him.
‘Boatbuilding’s in their blood.’
‘What are they going to build boats out of, my Lord?’
‘Trees, I’d imagine.’
‘There won’t be any trees on those islets, Kamion. I’ll have all the
trees cut down before we exile the Cult.’
‘You’re still going to have to feed them, Daran,’ Anrak said.
‘They can feed themselves. We’ll give them seed, animals, and
farm tools, and they can either take up farming or starve.’
Anrak’s grin grew broader. ‘It’s got some possibilities,’ he agreed.
‘You’ll have to patrol the coast of their private little prison to keep
their adherents from rowing boats across the water to rescue them,
though.’
‘I think I can persuade my grandfather Cherek to handle that for
me. He doesn’t want any more Cult priests in Val Alorn, so I’rn
sure he’ll want to keep our Cultists here. He’s got ships out there
to hold off the Angaraks anyway, so it won’t really cost him anything
extra.’
‘The only thing left is to find an excuse for it,’ Kamion told them.
‘Any cooked-up story would work, wouldn’t it?’ Anrak asked.
Kamion winced. ‘Let’s try for a little authenticity, Anrak. Lies get
out of hand sometimes. You have to keep expanding them.’
‘Maybe we could catch them during one of their secret
ceremonies,’ Anrak suggested. ‘They’re fairly offensive to decent
people.’
‘Oh?’ Daran said. ‘What’s involved?’
Anrak shrugged. ‘They all put on bear-skins and get roaring
drunk. Their wives and daughters don’t wear anything at all, and
there’s a lot of indiscriminate -‘ He hesitated, looked at me, and
then he actually blushed. ‘Anyway,’ he rushed on, ‘the priests
perform what they call magic, which isn’t really anything but fairly
clumsy carnival trickery, and
‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed.
‘I didn’t follow that, Aunt Pol,’ Daran said.
‘Didn’t Elthek persuade your father to outlaw witchcraft?’
‘Well – yes, I suppose so. It was really just a way to keep the
physicians from curing illnesses, though – getting rid of the
competition.’
‘A strict interpretation of those laws would make those secret
Cult ceremonies with all that imitation magic a form of witchcraft,
wouldn’t it?’
‘Oh, that’s beautiful, Pol!’ Kamion said admiringly.
‘If we can find out where and when one of those ceremonies is
taking place, we can swoop in during the entertainment and round
them up,’ Anrak said. ‘We’ll have enough to indict the whole Cult.’
He thought for a moment. ‘If you can hold off until the autumn
equinox, you’ll probably get every Cult-member on the Isle. That’s
a big day for the Cult.’
‘Oh?’ Daran said. ‘Why’s that?’
‘There’s a tradition that Torak cracked the world on the autumnal
equinox. I’m not sure why, but the Cult always celebrates the event.
Every district in Cherek, Drasnia, and Algaria has its own Cult party
on that night.’
‘I’ve got informants among the general population,’ Kamion
mused. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to find out where those ceremonies
take place. I’ll put out the word, and we should have what we need
in a week or so.’
Daran sighed disconsolately. ‘Another perfectly good idea just
went down a rat-hole,’ he mourned.
‘Which idea was that, dear?’ I asked him.
‘I was hoping that I could make Elthek himself take up farming,
but if we exile the whole lot of them, the ordinary people in the
Cult are probably going to feed the priests.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Daran,’ Anrak said.
‘I’ve sailed along the north coast of the Isle. There are lots of islets
up there, but none of them is really big enough to support more
than a half-dozen people. If he wants to eat, Elthek’s going to have
to get his hands dirty.’
‘Marvelous,’ Daran beamed.
Kamion’s spies advised us that, unlike the Cult practice in the
other alorn kingdoms, the Cultists here all gathered in a narrow
gorge in the mountains rearing above the Citadel. Evidently our
Deacon believed in keeping a firm grip on his adherents.
Kamion and I had a small argument about a week before the
autumnal equinox. He was very upset when I told him that I was
going with him to that gorge. ‘Out of the question,’ he told me. ‘It’ll