Guardians of the West

  ‘How do I tell the difference?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. Maybe after you’ve read them all, you’ll be able to come up with a way to separate them. If you do, let us know. It could save us all a lot of time.’

  Garion looked around the library in dismay. ‘But, Grandfather,’ he protested, ‘this could take years!’

  ‘You’d probably better get started then, hadn’t you? Try to concentrate on things that are supposed to happen after the death of Torak. We’re all fairly familiar with the things that led up to that.’

  ‘Grandfather, I’m not really a scholar. What if I miss something?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Belgarath told him firmly. ‘Like it or not, Garion, you’re one of us. You have the same responsibilities that the rest of us do. You might as well get used to the idea that the whole world depends on you—and you also might just as well forget that you ever heard the words “why me?” That’s the objection of a child, and you’re a man now.’ Then the old man turned and looked very hard at Errand. ‘And what are you doing mixed up in all of this?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Errand replied calmly. ‘We’ll probably have to wait and see, won’t we?’

  That afternoon Errand was alone with Polgara in the warm comfort of her sitting room. She sat by the fire with her favorite blue robe about her and her feet on a carpeted footstool. She held an embroidery hoop in her hands and she was humming softly as her needle flashed in the golden firelight. Errand sat in the leather-covered armchair opposite hers, nibbling on an apple and watching her as she sewed. One of the things he loved about her was her ability to radiate a kind of calm contentment when she was engaged in simple domestic tasks. At such quiet times her very presense was soothing.

  The pretty Rivan girl who served as Polgara’s maid tapped softly and entered the room. ‘Lady Polgara,’ she said with a little curtsy, ‘My Lord Brand asks if he might have a word with you.’

  ‘Of course, dear,’ Polgara replied, laying aside her embroidery. ‘Show him in, please.’ Errand had noticed that Polgara tended to call all young people ‘dear,’ most of the time without even being aware that she was doing it.

  The maid escorted the tall, gray-haired Rivan Warder into the room, curtsied again, and then quietly withdrew.

  ‘Polgara,’ Brand greeted her in his deep voice. He was a large, bulky man with a deeply lined face and tired, sad eyes and he was the last Rivan Warder. During the centuries-long interregnum following the death of King Gorek at the hands of Queen Salmisra’s assassins, the Isle of the Winds and the Rivan people had been ruled by a line of men chosen for their ability and their absolute devotion to duty. So selfless had been that devotion that each Rivan Warder had submerged his own personality and had taken the name Brand. Now that Garion had come at last to claim his throne, there was no further need for that centuries-old stewardship. So long as he lived, however, this big, sad-eyed man would be absolutely committed to the royal line—not perhaps so much to Garion himself, but rather to the concept of the line and to its perpetuation. It was with that thought uppermost in his mind that he came that quiet afternoon to thank Polgara for taking the estrangement of Garion and his queen in hand.

  ‘How did they manage to grow so far apart?’ she asked him. ‘When they married, they were so close that you couldn’t pry them away from each other.’

  ‘It all started about a year ago,’ Brand replied in his rumbling voice. ‘There are two powerful families on the northern end of the island. They had always been friendly, but a dispute arose over a property arrangement that was involved in a wedding between a young man from one family and a girl from the other. People from one family came to the Citadel and presented their cause to Ce’Nedra, and she issued a royal decree supporting them.’

  ‘But she neglected to consult Garion about it?’ Polgara surmised.

  Brand nodded. ‘When he found out, he was furious. There’s no question that Ce’Nedra had overstepped her authority, but Garion revoked her decree in public.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Polgara said. ‘So that’s what all the bitterness was about. I couldn’t really get a straight answer out of either of them.’

  ‘They were probably a little too ashamed to admit it,’ Brand said. ‘Each one had humiliated the other in public, and neither one was mature enough just to forgive and let it slide. They kept wrangling at each other until the whole affair got completely out of hand. There were times when I wanted to shake them both—or maybe spank them.’

  ‘That’s an interesting idea.’ She laughed. ‘Why didn’t you write and tell me they were having problems?’

  ‘Belgarion told me not to,’ he replied helplessly.

  ‘Sometimes we have to disobey that kind of order.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Polgara, but I can’t do that.’

  ‘No, I suppose you couldn’t.’ She turned to look at Errand, who was closely examining an exquisite piece of blown glass, a crystal wren perched on a budding twig. ‘Please don’t touch it, Errand,’ she cautioned. ‘It’s fragile and very precious.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘I know.’ And to reassure her he clasped his hands firmly behind his back.

  ‘Well.’ She turned back to Brand. ‘I hope the foolishness is all past now. I think we’ve restored peace to the royal house of Riva.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ Brand said with a tired smile. ‘I would definitely like to see an occupant in the royal nursery.’

  ‘That might take a bit longer.’

  ‘It’s getting sort of important, Polgara,’ he said seriously. ‘We’re all a bit nervous about the lack of an heir to the throne. It’s not only me. Anheg and Rhodar and Cho-Hag have all written to me about it. All of Aloria is holding its breath waiting for Ce’Nedra to start having children.’

  ‘She’s only nineteen, Brand.’

  ‘Most Alorn girls have had at least two babies by the time they’re nineteen.’

  ‘Ce’Nedra isn’t an Alorn. She’s not even entirely Tolnedran. Her heritage is Dryad, and there are some peculiarities about Dryads and the way they mature.’

  ‘That’s going to be a little hard to explain to other Alorns,’ Brand replied. ‘There has to be an heir to the Rivan throne. The line must continue.’

  ‘Give them a little time, Brand,’ Polgara said placidly. ‘They’ll get around to it. The important thing was to get them back into the same bedroom.’

  Perhaps a day or so later, when the sun was sparkling on the waters of the Sea of the Winds and a stiff onshore breeze was flecking the tops of the green waves with frothy whitecaps, a huge Cherek war boat maneuvered its ways ponderously between the two rocky headlands embracing the harbor at Riva, The ship’s captain was also more than life-sized. With his red beard streaming in the wind, Barak, Earl of Trellheim, stood at his tiller, a look of studied concentration on his face as he worked his way through a tricky eddy just inside one of the protective headlands and then across the harbor to the stone quay. Almost before his sailors had made the ship fast, Barak was coming up the long flight of granite steps to the Citadel.

  Belgarath and Errand had been on the parapet atop the walls of the fortress and had witnessed the arrival of Barak’s ship. And so, when the big man reached the heavy gates, they were waiting for him.

  ‘What are you doing here, Belgarath?’ the burly Cherek asked. ‘I thought you were at the Vale.’

  Belgarath shrugged. ‘We came by for a visit.’

  Barak looked at Errand. ‘Hello, boy,’ he said. ‘Are Polgara and Durnik here, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Errand replied. ‘They’re all in the throne room watching Belgarion.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Being king,’ Belgarath said shortly. ‘We saw you come into the harbor.’

  ‘Really impressive, wasn’t it?’ Barak said proudly.

  ‘Your ship steers like a pregnant whale, Barak,’ Belgarath told him bluntly. ‘You don’t seem to have grasped the idea that bigger is not necessarily better.’

&n
bsp; Barak’s face took on an injured expression. ‘I don’t make jokes about your possessions, Belgarath.’

  ‘I don’t have any possessions, Barak. What brought you to Riva?’

  ‘Anheg sent me. Is Garion going to be much longer at whatever he’s doing?’

  ‘We can go find out, I suppose.’

  The Rivan King, however, had concluded the formal audience for that morning and, in the company of Ce’Nedra, Polgara, and Durnik, had gone through a dim, private passageway which led from the great Hall of the Rivan King to the royal apartments.

  ‘Barak!’ Garion exclaimed, hurrying forward to greet his old friend in the corridor outside the door to the apartment.

  Barak gave him a peculiar look and bowed respectfully.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ Garion asked him with a puzzled look.

  ‘You’re still wearing your crown, Garion,’ Polgara reminded him, ‘and your state robes. All of that makes you look rather official.’

  ‘Oh,’ Garion said, looking a bit abashed, ‘I forgot. Let’s go inside.’ He pulled open the door and led them all into the room beyond.

  With a broad grin, Barak enfolded Polgara in a vast bear hug.

  ‘Barak,’ she said a trifle breathlessly, ‘you’d be much nicer at close quarters if you’d remember to wash your beard after you’ve been eating smoked fish.’

  ‘I only had one,’ he told her.

  ‘That’s usually enough.’

  He turned then and put his bulky arms around Ce’Nedra’s tiny shoulders and kissed her soundly.

  The little queen laughed and caught her crown in time to keep it from sliding off her head. ‘You’re right, Lady Polgara,’ she said, ‘he definitely has a certain fragrance about him.’

  ‘Garion,’ Barak said plaintively, ‘I’m absolutely dying for a drink.’

  ‘Did all the ale barrels on your ship run dry?’ Polgara asked him.

  ‘There’s no drinking aboard the Seabird,’ Barak replied.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I want my sailors sober.’

  ‘Astonishing,’ she murmured.

  ‘It’s a matter of principle,’ Barak said piously.

  ‘They do need their wits about them,’ Belgarath agreed. ‘That big ship of his is not exactly what you’d call responsive.’

  Barak gave him a hurt look.

  Garion sent for ale, removed his crown and state robes with obvious relief, and invited them all to sit down.

  Once Barak had quenched his most immediate thirst, his expression became serious. He looked at Garion. ‘Anheg sent me to warn you that we’re starting to get reports about the Bear-cult again.’

  ‘I thought they were all killed at Thull Mardu,’ Durnik said.

  ‘Grodeg’s underlings were,’ Barak told him. ‘Unfortunately, Grodeg wasn’t the whole cult.’

  ‘I don’t exactly follow you,’ Durnik said.

  ‘It gets a little complicated. You see, the Bear-cult has always been there, really. It’s a fundamental part of the religious life of the more remote parts of Cherek, Drasnia, and Algaria. Every so often, though, somebody with more ambition than good sense—like Grodeg—gains control and tries to establish the cult in the cities. The cities are where the power is, and somebody like Grodeg automatically tries to use the cult to take them over. The problem is that the Bear-cult doesn’t work in the cities.’

  Durnik’s frown became even more confused.

  ‘People who live in cities are always coming in contact with new people and new ideas,’ Barak explained. ‘Out in the countryside, though, they can go for generations without ever encountering a single new thought. The Bear-cult doesn’t believe in new thoughts, so it’s the natural sort of thing to attract country people.’

  ‘New ideas aren’t always good ones,’ Durnik said stiffly, his own rural background painfully obvious.

  ‘Granted,’ Barak agreed, ‘but old ones aren’t necessarily good either, and the Bear-cult’s been working on the same idea for several thousand years now. About the last thing Belar said to the Alorns before the Gods departed was that they should lead the Kingdoms of the West against the people of Torak. It’s that word “lead” that’s caused all the problems. It can mean many things, unfortunately. Bear-cultists have always taken it to mean that their very first step in obeying Belar’s instructions should be a campaign to force the other Western Kingdoms to submit to Alorn domination. A good Bear-cultist isn’t thinking about fighting Angaraks, because all of his attention is fixed on subduing Sendaria, Arendia, Tolnedra, Nyissa, and Maragor.’

  ‘Maragor doesn’t even exist any more,’ Durnik objected.

  ‘That news hasn’t reached the cult yet,’ Barak said drily. ‘After all, it’s only been about three thousand years now. Anyway, that’s the rather tired idea behind the Bear-cult. Their first goal is to reunite Aloria; their next is to overrun and subjugate all of the Western Kingdoms; and only then will they start to give some thought to attacking Murgos and Malloreans.’

  ‘They are just a bit backward, aren’t they?’ Durnik observed.

  ‘Some of them haven’t even discovered fire yet.’ Barak snorted.

  ‘I don’t really see why Anheg is so concerned, Barak,’ Belgarath said. ‘The Bear-cult doesn’t really cause any problems out there in the countryside. They jump around bonfires on midsummer’s eve and put on bearskins and shuffle around in single file in the dead of winter and recite long prayers in smoky caves, until they get so dizzy that they can’t stand up. Where’s the danger in that?’

  ‘I’m getting to that,’ Barak said, pulling at his beard. ‘Always before, the rural Bear-cult was just a reservoir of undirected stupidity and superstition. But in the last year or so, something new has been going on.’

  ‘Oh?’ Belgarath looked at him curiously.

  ‘There’s a new leader of the cult—we don’t even know who he is. In the past, Bear-cultists from one village didn’t even trust the ones from another, so they were never organized enough to be any problem. This new leader of theirs has changed all of that. For the first time in history, rural Bear-cultists are all taking orders from one man.’

  Belgarath frowned. ‘That is serious,’ he admitted.

  ‘This is very interesting, Barak,’ Garion said, looking a bit perplexed, ‘but why did King Anheg send you all the way here to warn me? From what I’ve been told, the Bear-cult has never been able to get a foothold here on the Isle of the Winds.’

  ‘Anheg wanted me to warn you to take a few precautions, since this new cult’s antagonism is directed primarily at you.’

  ‘Me? What for?’

  ‘You married a Tolnedran,’ Barak told him. ‘To a Bear-cultist, a Tolnedran is worse than a Murgo.’

  ‘That’s a novel position,’ Ce’Nedra said with a toss of her curls.

  ‘That’s the way those people think,’ Barak told her. ‘Most of those blockheads don’t even know what an Angarak is. They’ve all seen Tolnedrans though—usually merchants who deal quite sharply. For a thousand years, they’ve been waiting for a king to come and pick up Riva’s sword and lead them on a holy war to crush all the Kingdoms of the West into subjugation, and when he does finally show up, the very first thing he does is marry an imperial Tolnedran Princess. The way they look at it, the next Rivan King is going to be a mongrel. They hate you like poison, my little sweetheart.’

  ‘What an absolute absurdity!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Of course it is,’ the big Cherek agreed. ‘But absurdity has always been a characteristic of the mind dominated by religion. We’d all be a lot better off if Belar had just kept his mouth shut.’

  Belgarath laughed suddenly.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Barak asked.

  ‘Asking Belar to keep his mouth shut would probably have been the most futile thing any human being could even contemplate,’ the old sorcerer said, still laughing. ‘I remember one time when he talked for a week and a half straight without stopping.’

  ‘What was he saying???
? Garion asked curiously.

  ‘He was explaining to the early Alorns why it wasn’t a good idea to start a trek into the far north at the beginning of winter. Sometimes in those days you really had to talk to an Alorn to get an idea through to him.’

  ‘That hasn’t really changed all that much,’ Ce’Nedra said with an arch look at her husband. Then she laughed and fondly touched his hand.

  The next morning dawned clear and sunny, and Errand, as he usually did, went to the window as soon as he awoke to see what the day promised. He looked out over the city of Riva and saw the bright morning sun standing over the Sea of the Winds and smiled. There was not a hint of cloud. Today would be fine. He dressed himself in the tunic and hose which Polgara had laid out for him and then went to join his family. Durnik and Polgara sat in two comfortable, leather-upholstered chairs, one on each side of the fire, talking together quietly and sipping tea. As he always did, Errand went to Polgara, put his arms about her neck and kissed her.

  ‘You slept late,’ she said, brushing his tousled hair back from his eyes.

  ‘I was a little tired,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t get much sleep the night before last.’

  ‘So I heard.’ Almost absently, she pulled him up into her lap and held him nestled against the soft velvet of her blue robe.

  ‘He’s growing a bit big for your lap,’ Durnik noted, smiling fondly at the two of them.

  ‘I know,’ Polgara answered. ‘That’s why I hold him as often as I can. Very soon he’ll outgrow laps and cuddling, so I need to store up as much as I can now. It’s all very well for them to grow up, but I miss the charm of having a small one about.’

  There was a brief tap on the door, and Belgarath entered.

  ‘Well, good morning, father,’ Polgara greeted him.

  ‘Pol.’ He nodded briefly. ‘Durnik.’

  ‘Did you manage to get Barak put to bed last night?’ Durnik asked with a grin.

  ‘We poured him in about midnight. Brand’s sons helped us with him. He seems to be getting heavier as he puts on the years.’

  ‘You’re looking surprisingly well,’ Polgara observed, ‘considering the fact that you spent the evening at Garion’s ale barrel.’