"His wife?"
She nodded and carefully put the bearskin tunic back in the broom closet.
"Let's go outside," she whispered.
"I don't want him to come down and find us in here."
We went back out into the street and walked down to the corner.
"Anyway," she took up her account,
"Gelane's mother's been quite ill of late, so I've had to stay with her. She seems to be recovering now, and last evening I finally had a chance to follow him. He went down into the shop and stuck that tunic into a sack. Then he went on down to the lakeshore and followed the beach to a large grove of trees about a mile east of town.
There were a dozen or so other Alorns standing around a fire in the center of the grove, and they were all dressed in bearskins. Gelane put on that tunic, and he fit right in. It's fairly obvious that he's become a member of the Bear-cult."
I started to swear.
"That's not accomplishing anything, father," Pol told me crisply.
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm not sure. Who seemed to be in charge of that little get-together last night?"
"There was a bearded man wearing the robe of a priest of Belar who did most of the talking."
"Did he say anything significant?"
"Not really. Mostly he just repeated all those worn-out old slogans.
"Aloria is one," "Cursed be the children of the Dragon God," "Belar rules" --that sort of thing
"Pol, you're supposed to be keeping an eye on Gelane. How did you let this happen?"
"I didn't expect it, father. He's always been so sensible."
"Is this priest attached to the local Alorn church?"
"No. As far as I can tell, he's not from Seline."
"What does he look like?"
"He's fairly bulky, but that could be the robe. I couldn't really see very much of his face. That beard of his seems to start just underneath his lower eyelids."
"Is his hair blond? I mean, does he look like an ordinary Alorn?"
"No. He's very dark. His hair and beard are almost coal black."
"That doesn't really mean anything. There are a lot of dark-haired Drasnians and Algars. Does Gelane go there often?"
"Almost every night."
"I'll follow him this evening, then. I want to have a look at this shaggy priest of Belar. Go on back home, Pol. I'll stay away from Gelane's shop today. Suspicion's built into Bear-cultists, and if Gelane gets any hint that I'm around, he might decide to skip this evening's meeting."
I loafed around Seline for the rest of the day, keeping my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. Now that I knew what I was looking for, picking out members of the Bear-cult wasn't too hard. They were all Alorns, of course, and they had that shifty-eyed, nervous suspicion and over dramatic caution about them that stupid people with secrets to hide all seem to share.
The thing that baffled me was the fact that there was a chapter of the cult anywhere at all in Sendaria. Sendars, no matter what their racial background, are just too sensible to get caught up in that kind of fanaticism.
I loitered in the street outside Gelane's barrel works as evening descended on Seline. It was just getting dark when he emerged furtively from the shop with a canvas sack over his shoulder. Gelane was in his late thirties by now, and the slenderness he'd shown as a child had been replaced by a stocky muscularity. Inevitably, he was now sporting a beard.
All Bear-cultists wear beards, for some reason. He started down the street toward the lakeshore, and I went off in the other direction. I knew where he was going, so I didn't really have to follow him every step of the way.
I went out one of the other gates, chose the form of a barn owl, and flew on ahead, so I reached the meeting place in that grove of trees a quarter of an hour before Gelane did. The cultists who were already 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 da
rk. 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 his heart.
"What are you doingT' 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 trans located 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 bearskin 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 a 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 bearskins, 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 facedown on the ground, weeping uncontrollably in shame and remorse.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
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 Selin
e, 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.
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