Belgarath squinted around the room, and his eyes fixed on several full crystal decanters and some polished glasses sitting on a sideboard across the room. “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing at the decanters. “I think better with a glass in my hand.”
“Help yourself,” ’Zakath replied.
The old man rose, crossed to the sideboard, and poured himself a glass of ruby-red wine. “Garion?” he asked, holding out the decanter.
“No, thanks all the same, Grandfather.”
Belgarath replaced the crystal stopper with a clink and began to pace up and down on the blue carpet. “All right,” he said. “We know that demon worship persists in the back country of Karanda, even though the Grolim priests tried to stamp out the practice when the Karands were converted to the worship of Torak in the second millennium. We also know that Mengha was a priest himself. Now, if the Grolims here in Mallorea reacted in the same way that the ones in Cthol Murgos did when they heard about the death of Torak, then we know that they were thoroughly demoralized. The fact that Urvon spent several years scrambling around trying to find prophecies that would hint at the possibility of a justification for keeping the Church intact is fairly good evidence that he was faced with almost universal despair in the ranks of the Grolims.” He paused to sip at his wine.
“Not bad,” he said to ’Zakath approvingly. “Not bad at all.”
“Thank you.”
“Now,” the old man continued, “there are many possible reactions to religious despair. Some men go mad, some men try to lose themselves in various forms of dissipation, some men refuse to admit the truth and try to keep the old forms alive. A few men, however, go in search of some new kind of religion—usually something the exact opposite of what they believed before. Since the Grolim Church in Karanda had concentrated for eons on eradicating demon worship, it’s only logical that a few of the despairing priests would seek out demon-masters in the hope of learning their secrets. Remember, if you can actually control a demon, it gives you a great deal of power, and the hunger for power has always been at the core of the Grolim mentality.”
“It does fit together, Ancient One,” Brador admitted.
“I thought so myself. All right, Torak is dead, and Mengha suddenly finds that his theological ground has been cut out from under him. He probably goes through a period of doing all the things that he wasn’t allowed to do as a priest—drinking, wenching, that sort of thing. But if you do things to excess, eventually they become empty and unsatisfying. Even debauchery can get boring after a while.”
“Aunt Pol will be amazed to hear that you said that,” Garion said.
“You just keep it to yourself,” Belgarath told him. “Our arguments about my bad habits are the cornerstone of our relationship.” He took another sip of his wine. “This is really excellent,” he said, holding up the glass to admire the color of the wine in the sunlight. “Now then, here we have Mengha waking up some morning with a screaming headache, a mouth that tastes like a chicken coop, and a fire in his stomach that no amount of water will put out. He has no real reason to go on living. He might even take out his sacrificial gutting knife and set the point against his chest.”
“Isn’t your speculation going a bit far afield?” ’Zakath asked.
Belgarath laughed. “I used to be a professional storyteller,” he apologized. “I can’t stand to let a good story slip by without a few artistic touches. All right, maybe he did or maybe he didn’t think about killing himself. The point is that he had reached the absolute rock bottom. That’s when the idea of demons came to him. Raising demons is almost as dangerous as being the first up the scaling ladder during an assault on a fortified city, but Mengha has nothing to lose. So, he journeys into the forest up there, finds a Karandese magician, and somehow persuades him to teach him the art—if that’s what you want to call it. It takes him about a dozen years to learn all the secrets.”
“How did you arrive at that number?” Brador asked.
Belgarath shrugged. “It’s been fourteen years since the death of Torak—or thereabouts. No normal man can seriously mistreat himself for more than a couple of years before he starts to fall apart, so it was probably about twelve years ago that Mengha went in search of a magician to give him instruction. Then, once he’s learned all the secrets, he kills his teacher, and—”
“Wait a minute,” ’Zakath objected. “Why would he do that?”
“His teacher knew too much about him, and he could also raise demons to send after our defrocked Grolim.
Then there’s the fact that the arrangement between teacher and pupil in these affairs involves lifetime servitude enforced with a curse. Mengha could not leave his master until the old man was dead.”
“How do you know so much about this, Belgarath?” ’Zakath asked.
“I went through it all among the Morindim a few thousand years ago. I wasn’t doing anything very important and I was curious about magic.”
“Did you kill your master?”
“No—well, not exactly. When I left him, he sent his familiar demon after me. I took control of it and sent it back to him.”
“And it killed him?”
“I assume so. They usually do. Anyway, getting back to Mengha. He arrives at the gates of Calida about six months ago and raises a whole army of demons. Nobody in his right mind raises more than one at a time because they’re too difficult to control.” He frowned, pacing up and down staring at the floor. “The only thing I can think of is that somehow he’s managed to raise a Demon Lord and get it under control.”
“Demon Lord?” Garion asked.
“They have rank, too—just as humans do. If Mengha has a grip on a Demon Lord, then it’s that creature that’s calling up the army of lesser demons.” He refilled his glass, looking faintly satisfied with himself. “That’s probably fairly close to Mengha’s life story,” he said, sitting down again.
“A virtuoso performance, Belgarath,” ’Zakath congratulated him.
“Thank you,” the old man replied. “I thought so myself.” He looked at Brador. “Now that we know him, why don’t you tell us what he’s been up to?”
Brador once again took his place beside the map, fending off the same kitten with his pointer. “After Mengha took Calida, word of his exploits ran all through Karanda,” he began. “It appears that the worship of Torak was never really very firmly ingrained in the Karands to begin with, and about the only thing that kept them in line was their fear of the sacrificial knives of the Grolims.”
“Like the Thulls?” Garion suggested.
“Very much so, your Majesty. Once Torak was dead, however, and his Church in disarray, the Karands began to revert. The old shrines began to reappear, and the old rituals came back into practice.” Brador shuddered.
“Hideous rites,” he said. “Obscene.”
“Even worse than the Grolim rite of sacrifice?” Garion asked mildly.
“There was some justification for that, Garion,” ’Zakath objected. “It was an honor to be chosen, and the victims went under the knife willingly.”
“Not any of them that I ever saw,” Garion disagreed.
“We can discuss comparative theology some other time,” Belgarath told them, “Go on, Brador.”
“Once the Karands heard about Mengha,” the Melcene official continued, “they began to flock to Calida to support him and to enlist themselves on the side of the demons. There’s always been a subterranean independence movement in the seven kingdoms of Karanda, and many hotheads there believe that the demons offer the best hope of throwing off the yoke of Angarak oppression,” He looked at the Emperor. “No offense intended, your Majesty,” he murmured.
“None taken, Brador,” ’Zakath assured him.
“Naturally, the little kinglets in Karanda tried to keep their people from joining Mengha. The loss of subjects is always painful to a ruler. The army—our army—was also alarmed by the hordes of Karands flocking to Mengha’s banner, and they tried to block off borders and the like. But, since a large portion of the army was in Cthol Murgos with his Majesty here, the troops in Karanda just didn’t have the numbers. The Karands either slipped around them or simply overwhelmed them. Mengha’s army numbers almost a million by now—ill-equipped and poorly trained, perhaps, but a million is a significant number, even if they’re armed with sticks. Not only Jenno but also Ganesia are totally under Mengha’s domination, and he’s on the verge of overwhelming Katakor. Once he succeeds there, he’ll inevitably move on Pallia and Delchin. If he isn’t stopped, he’ll be knocking on the gates of Mal Zeth by Erastide.”