Chapter 21

"A lot of people have small latent bits of what we call 'talent', Garion. Who knows if his will is strong enough to do anything."

"That's just it, Grandfather," Garion insisted. "How can we be sure he isn't as strong as you or me?"

"Unless we test it, we can't. Remember Senji? He knew the secret and had the ability, but he was nowhere near as strong as us. He might have become so with a few thousand years of training, but he had neither the inclination, nor the temperament. And there was no one to teach him."

"I wonder whatever happened to him," Garion mused idly.

"He's working for us," Pelath said, entering the cabin. "He's very good at bullying information out of people."

"Really?" Belgarath asked. "That's good. Senji needed something important to do. That turning lead into gold thing really wasn't the most worthwhile occupation."

"I think Eriond might consider him for discipleship soon," Pelath said with a smile. He sat down in a chair across the table from Garion. He squinted at the small cask of ale that sat in front of him. "Is that really any good?" he asked.

Belgarath lifted out a tankard and handed it to him. Pelath took a small sip. Garion expected him to react to it the way any Angarak would when confronted with Alorn brewed ale, sniff, sip, then find the nearest porthole. To Garion's surprise, he smacked his lips thoughtfully. "Not bad," he commented. Garion had a sudden vision of Pelath and Senji sitting side by side, both drinking from tankards of ale. He looked at Belgarath and remembered an almost identical scene of the old sorcerer and Beldin. It seemed things were still repeating themselves, even if only in a small way.

It took them almost two weeks to get to Rak Urga. As they approached the city, Garion looked over to where the Drojim Palace stood in the center of the crooked streets. He laughed. "It seems Prala has decided to make a few changes," he observed, looking at the domes and spires, recently painted a sedate yet attractive grey.

Urgit met them at the pier. "To what do I owe this visit, Captain?" he shouted across to Greldik.

"I bring royal visitors, Urgit," Garion's was not the only title Greldik seemed to disregard.

"Belgarion," Urgit greeted in a surprised voice. "And dear brother. What brings you down here?"

"Oh something in the nature of a family visit," Silk told him with a look that said there was much more.

Luckily the King of the Murgos was as shrewd as his brother. "Do come on to the Palace. Prala will be happy to see you."

Barak gave instructions to the crew of Seabird before it followed Greldik's ship out of the harbor.

"Is it at all possible to skip all those tiresome formal introductions?" Belgarath asked him as they walked their horses along the city streets. "We have some business that requires a certain amount of discretion, if you catch my meaning."

It was obvious Urgit did, but he knew better than to ask about it in the street. "Of course, Ancient One."

When they reached the palace, Urgit rather brusquely shooed his guards away. "This way. There is a back entrance that does not require us to go anywhere near the throne room."

Silk laughed. "You are definitely a Drasnian at heart, brother mine. Back entrance, indeed."

Urgit winked at him, his nose twitching.

The door was little more than a service entrance. They waited until there was no one about, then calmly walked through the door. It entered upon a little used corridor where the carpet was faded and the candles on the walls were very short.

"Quite a large party you have here," Urgit observed as they filed into a faded, yet well furnished chamber some distance down the corridor. "Anything I should be worried about?"

"Actually yes," Belgarath told him, producing the parchment with the Styric word written on it. "Does this look at all familiar?"

Urgit took the parchment. "What is this?"

Belgarath explained the situation to him, glossing over some details, Sparhawk noticed. "We have reason to believe that this is all inspired by the Bear Cult," he finished.

"Angaraks in the Cult. It's unthinkable."

"Well Bear Cult and think have never really been synonymous. But we do have quite a bit of hard evidence, and it seems that the Prophecy is once again involved. I don't think it's as serious as last time, but I think another mistake has been made somewhere."

"I haven't heard any of these names. Although that doesn't mean much."

"Durnik thought that it may have had something to do with a Mallorean Grolim named Harakan. He took over the Bear Cult right after Prince Geran was born, about the time he was kidnapped."

"I seem to remember something about that. You sort of hijacked me to go running around Southern Cthol Murgos."

"He was going around in the north with the alias 'Ulfgar'. Later on he turned up in Mallorea as some Karand named Mengha. Liselle here decided that he didn't need to live anymore."

"Actually," she put in, "it was Zith who did the deciding, and I never thought to ask what she had against the man. It might have been impolite and snakes I hear are pretty sensitive about politeness."

"That alias is very similar to the name of this Ulfgrim. We think it might be a little too similar. Although that may or may not be his real name, and it may or may not have anything to do with leaders of the Bear Cult that were in power over ten years ago. But it seems to line up better than anything else we've found, and I like to move fast. Our investigation led us here, via your seal on that parchment."

"I can see that," Urgit said, staring at the paper. "And I haven't hired anyone new since I cleaned up the palace ten years ago." He thought a moment. "No wait, I did have to replace someone who contracted a fever two months ago. It had been going around and within two weeks of catching it he was dead. He was pretty important to me so I needed to position filled quickly."

Vanion looked skeptical. "A fever? A high-ranking official? It sounds to me like this illness was man made."

"Have you irritated any Nyissans lately, brother?" Silk asked him.

"Come to think of it, no. But it did seem pretty easy to fill in the position. A man showed up in my private office about a week after the death. He looked a little different than the Angarak toadies I'd been interviewing the day before, and his voice and manner seemed trustworthy. Almost too trustworthy."

"And that didn't tip you off? I'm disappointed in you. You would never hold your head up in Drasnia with that scam on your record."

"Let it lie, Silk," Belgarath said. "What is this man's name."

"The name he gave me was Rokor. I'm beginning to think that was a falsity too."

Silk threw his hands up. "I should have stayed here with you and made sure you could do this by yourself. After all, that's what older brothers are for."

Urgit looked hurt. He turned to Belgarath. "The man had credentials and documents of service from previous positions. It was all very official and it seemed completely airtight. I would have hired Torak himself under those circumstances."

"This is Cthol Murgos, Urgit. Even you don't have that clean of a record," the old sorcerer pointed out.

Urgit sighed and dropped into a chair. "My brain must have been turned off. It seems I have been seriously duped." Then his face hardened. "I won't be so again though. I shall make an example of this miscreant."

"Right, ho, good King, we shall flush him out like the vermin he is, and do war upon his body so that many others may know that the King of their fair country may not be so foully used."

"Mandorallen, be quiet," Belgarath said. "We have to do this carefully. If we alert him that we suspect anything, he may just slither back into his Nyissan poison bottle."

"But how can we make a move now that won't let him know that we're on to him?" Urgit asked, his nose giving a telltale twitch.

"I have an idea," Hettar said.

"Thanks all the same, Hettar," Polgara told him, "but we do need to get answers out of this man. So you can take your hand off of your saber now."

"What is his position?" Sparhawk asked.

"He handles the disputes of high ranking landowners and merchants."

"You don't handle those yourself?" Garion asked.

"No. That way I don't ever play favorites and I don't run the risk of the loser decorating my back with daggers. Besides, most of Murgodom refuses to listen to the king anyway, so if I have someone in the actual government do it, it has more of an impact."

They racked their brains for a few more minutes, then Polgara stood. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a bath." She looked around. "Let me rephrase, I do know about the rest of you."

The ladies spent a long time on their bath, but Garion was back in his room and changed in under a quarter of an hour. Puttering around with his map, he was startled when someone knocked on his door. He jerked, knocking Iron Grip's sword over. It clattered to the floor, the heavy hilt chipping the marble. The orb flickered at him with a sharp rebuke. Garion wondered if he had hurt it. It didn't seem to be cracked. It had left a nice round dent in the floor, however. "Sorry," he said to it. He picked it up and walked over to open the door.

It was Sparhawk. The big knight looked past him into the room. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just clumsy," Garion waved him inside. "Was there -" he broke off, looking at the brightly blazing orb. "What are you doing that for? I said I was sorry." He stood the sword over in a corner. The stone still glowed a steady blue. Garion chose to ignore it.

"I was wondering of you had any plans for tonight," Sparhawk asked him.

Garion looked amused. "If your wife knew you were asking other men questions like that…"

Sparhawk smiled. "I was talking to Belgarath and he hinted at maybe making an excursion of some kind after it gets dark."

"An excursion?"

"He wasn't too clear, he was in a hurry to see Urgit when I bumped into him. He said he would explain it at dinner once he got his facts straight."

"I hope so. Sometimes Grandfather can take cryptic to an art form. Not as much as the friend in here, though," Garion tapped his forehead.

"What is he, really?" Sparhawk asked curiously.

"He's the prophecy, or more specifically, he is the voice of purpose. The universe has a purpose, and that purpose has an awareness. Up until recently there were two prophecies, two purposes, and two awarenesses."

"That must have been exciting. Did you ever ask it?"

"Ask it what?"

"What it was. What the purpose of the universe really was, or is for that matter."

"I never really thought about it," Garion admitted, frowning. "I didn't need anything else to worry about at the time. I don't really think I'd want to know though. I may have to fix it, but I don't necessarily need to know why."

Belgarath's plan was a good one. At dinner he explained it to them. "I asked Urgit if he had noticed any strange behavior along about midnight involving the people in his government. Namely this Rokor. He told me that it wasn't unusual for the man to be looking dead some mornings and he guessed it to be from lack of sleep."

"You mean more dead than they normally look?" Garion asked.

"It happened usually right after obscure holidays like solstices. Also the man has really been interested in the price of fur."

"Any particular kind?" Garion asked, though he knew the answer.

"Brown bear."

"Has he been limping?" Sparhawk asked.

"Not recently, but Urgit told me he had a horse step on his foot about a week after he was installed in office. At least that's what the man told him. I'm convinced that's a lie and that he had been branded. He's probably not Ulfgrim, but he's somebody fairly important."

"So what's the plan for tonight, Grandfather?"

"It seems that tonight is the autumnal equinox. There are no forests around, but this afternoon I checked out a couple of weedy ravines where there is a lot of mesquite and sagebrush growing. Those kinds of secluded places attract Cultists like a dead dog attracts flies. It should be a fair guess to assume that our friends will be out there in one of them. All we have to do is fly over. We'll be able to see them fairly well. I'll go pick up a few bearskins of our own and we can just shuffle into camp with the rest of them. If we keep our faces pretty much in shadow we shouldn't be too conspicuous."

"Just us three?" Sparhawk asked.

"I don't think we'll want to take any more. I've asked Pol to stay around here and keep an eye out for suspicious things along about nightfall."

"Why doesn't she go with us?" Sparhawk asked.

"Women aren't really invited to these sort of things."

"What about Talen?" Sparhawk asked. "He used to be a sneak thief, so he can be as inconspicuous as a shadow, and if he can get a good look at the one in charge he'll have us sketches by morning."

"That sounds good to me, Grandfather. Cultists like even numbers so four might fit in better than three."

"Alright," Belgarath agreed. "I'll pick up four bearskins then."