Guardians of the West

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."