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.

Chapter 45

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?’