Shardik (7 page)

More disturbing and awe-inspiring than the empty terrace, with its basins of flame, was the square opening cut in the rock wall behind. A carved pediment overhung it
, supported by a pillar on eithe
r side, and to him it seemed that the black space between was gazing upon him inscrutably, like the unseen face of the cowled woman on the shore. Disturbed, he turned his eyes away, yet still, like a prisoner standing in a crowd
ed court, felt himself watched;
and, looking back once more, saw again only the flame-lit terrace and the opening beyond.

He stared downwards into the ravine. A little to his right, scarcely visible in the flickering darkness, he could make out a waterfall, not sheer, but cascading steeply over rocks until lost in the deep cleft below. In front of this, close to the falling water and gleaming wet with spray, a felled tree-trunk, no thicker than a man’s thigh, spanned the ravine from bank to bank. The upper side had been roughly planed; and upon this, with no hand-rail, the two women were now crossing as easily as they had walked over the shore. The pliant trunk sprang beneath
their
weight and the lantern tossed upon its pole, yet
they
moved with an unhurried grace, like village girls at evening carrying their pitchers from the well.

Slowly Kelderek descended from the spur. Coming to
the
nearer end of
the
bridge he began, fearfully
, to put one foot before the oth
er. The cascade at his elbow showered him with its cold spray; the invisible water below sent up its echoes about him; after a few steps he crouched upon his knees, fumbl
ing one-handed along the undulati
ng tree-trunk. He dared not raise his eyes to look ahead. Staring down at his own hand, he could see besides nothing but
the
grain of the wood, knot after knot coming into his circle of vision and disappearing under his chin as he edged
forward. Twice he stopped, panti
ng and digging his nails into the curved under-side as the trunk swayed up and down.

When at last he reached the further end, he continued groping blindly along the ground on his hands and knees, until by chance he caught and crushed a handful of creeping
locatalanga
and, with that pungent scent about him, came to himself and realized
that
he was no longer clutching and tossing above the water. He stood up. Ahead, the women were crossing the centre of
the
terrace, one behind the other as before. Watching, he saw them reach the edge of the heap of embers within their fleece of ash. Without a pause they stepped into it, lifting the hems of their cloaks exa
ctly
as though wading a ford. As the hindmost raised her hem he glimpsed for a moment her bare feet. Ash and sparks rose in a fine dust, as chaff rises about the feet of a miller. Then they were pacing on beyond, leaving behind them an exposed, dull-red track across the circle of the dying fire.

Kelderek, moaning, sank to the ground and buried his face in the crook of his arm.

This, then, was the manner of his coming to the Upper Temple upon Quiso o
f the Ledges - this bringer of
the tidings that generations had awaited but never heard: injured, drenched, grovelling and half-hysterical, shutting out what lay before his eyes, determined — strange determination - only upon the surrender of whatever shreds of will-power the island had left him. When at length the High Baron and his servants came to the edge of the ravine and in their turn tottered like cripples along the leaping tree, they found him lying prone on the edge of the terrace, cackling and gasping with a sound more dreadful than the laughter of the deaf and dumb.

6
The Priestess

As Kelderek became quiet and seemed to fall asleep where he lay, a light appeared within the opening in the rock wall. It grew brigh
ter and two young women came out
, each carrying a burning torch. They were sturdy, rough-looking girls, bare-footed and dressed in coarse tunics: but no baron’s wife could have matched the half of their ornaments. Their long ear-rings, which swung and clicked as they walked, were formed of separate pieces of carved bone, strung together in pendants. Their triple necklaces, of alternate
penapa
and
ziltate,
shone rose and tawny in the firelight On their fingers were wooden rings, carved to resemble plaiting and stained crimson. Each wore a broad belt of bronze plates with a clasp fashioned like the head of a bear; and on the left hip an empty dagger-sheath of green leather, whorled like a shell, in token of perpetual virginity.

On their backs they carried wicker baskets filled with fragments of a resinous gum and a black fuel hard and fine as gravel. At each tripod they stopped and, taking handfuls from each other’s panniers, threw them into the bowls. The fuel fell with a faint, ringing sound, lingering and overtoned: and the girls, as they worked, paid no more attention to the waiting men than if they had been tethered beasts.

They had almost finished their task and the terrace was bright with fresh light, when a third young woman came pacing slowly from the darkness of the cave. She was dressed in a pleated, sheathlike robe of white cloth, finer than any woven in Ortelga, and her long, black hair hung loose at her back. Her arms were bare and her only ornament was a great collar of fine gold links, more than a span broad, which completely covered her shoulders like a vestment.

As she appeared the two girls slipped their baskets from their backs and took up places side by side upon the edge of the ashes.

Bel
-ka-Trazet raised his eyes to meet those of the young woman. He said nothing, however, and she returned his loo
k with an impassive air of authority, as though every
man had a face like his and
they
were all one to her. After a few moments she jerked her head over her shoulder and one of the girls, coming forward, led
the
servants away, disappearing into the darkness under
the
trees near the bridge. At the same moment the hunter stirred and rose slowly to his feet Ragged and dirty, he stood before the beautiful priestess with an air less of callowness than of simple unawareness either of his appearance or his surroundings.

Like the tall woman on the beach, the priestess stared int
ently
at
Kelderek
, as though weighing him in some balance of her mind. At length she nodded her head two or three times with a kind of grave, comprehending recognition, and turned once more towards the High Baron.

‘It is meant, then’, she said, ‘that this man should be here. Who is he?’

‘One whom I have brought, saiyett,’ replied Bel-ka-Trazet briefly, as though to remind her that he too was a person of authority.

The priestess frowned. Then she stepped close to the High Baron, put her hand upon his shoulder and, assuming the air of a wondering and inquisitive child, drew his sword from the scabbard and examined it, the Baron making no attempt to stop her.

‘What is this?’ she asked, moving it so that the light of
the
flames flashed along the blade.

‘My sword, saiyett,’ he answered, with a touch of impatience.

‘Ah, your -‘ she paused, hesitating a moment, as though the word were new to her
-‘
sword.
A pretty thing, this - this
sword.
So - so -so -‘ and, pressing hard, she drew the edge three or four times across her forearm. It made no cut
and left no mark whatever. ‘She
ldra,’ she called to the remaining girl, ‘the High Baron has brought us a — a
sword!
The girl approached, took the sword in both hands and held it out horizontally at the height of her eyes, as though admiring the sharpness of the edge.

‘All, now I see,’ said the priestess lightly. Drawing the flat of the blade against her throat and motioning the girl to hold it firmly, she made a little jump, swung a few moments by her chin on
the
sharp edge and then, dropping to the ground, turned back to
Bel
-ka-Trazet.

‘And this?’ she asked, plucking his knife from his belt This time he made no reply. Assuming a puzzled look, she drove the point into her left arm, twisted it, drew it out bloodless, shook her head and handed it to the girl.

‘Well - well - toys.’ She stared coldly at him.

‘What is your name?’ she asked.

The Baron opened his mouth to speak, but after a moment the twisted lips closed askew and he remained looking at her as though she had not yet spoken.

‘What is your name?’ she said to
Kelderek
in the same tone.

As though in a dream,
the
hunter found himself perceiving on two planes. A man may dream that he is doing something - flying, perhaps - which, even in the dream, he knows that he cannot do. Yet he accepts and lives the illusion, and thus experiences as real the effects following from
the
discounted cause. In the same way
Kelderek
heard and understood the priestess’s words and yet knew that they had no meaning. She might as well have asked him, ‘What is the sound of the moon?’ Moreover, he knew
that
she knew this and would be satisfied with silence for an answer.

‘Come!
‘ she said, after a pause, and turned on her heel.

Walking before
them
- the grim, mutilated Baron and the bewildered hunter - she led them out of the circle of blue-flaming bowls and through the opening in the rock.

7
The Ledges

The darkness was broken only by the indirect flame-light from
the
terrace outside; but this was sufficient to show
Kelderek
that they were in a square chamber apparently cut out of the living rock. The floor beneath his feet was stone and the shadows of himself and his companions mo
ved and wavered against a smooth
wall. On this he glimpsed a painting which seemed, as he t
hought, to represent some giganti
c creature standing upright. Then they were going on into the dark.

Feeling his way after the priestess, he touched the squared jamb of an opening in the wall and, groping upwards - for he feared to strike his head - could find no transom above. Yet the cleft, if tall, was narrow enough - scarcely as wide as a man - and to save his injured shoulder he turned sideways and edged into it, right arm first. He could see nothing - only those mysterious, fain
tl
y-coloured clouds and vaporous screens that swim before our eyes in darkness, seeming exhaled
, as it were, from our own sightlessne
ss as mists rise from a marsh.

The floor sloped steeply downwards underfoot. He stumbled on, groping against the wall as it curved away to
the
right. At last he could make out,
ahead, the night sky and, outline
d against it,
the
figure of the waiti
ng priestess. He reached her side, stopped and looked about him.

It was not long after midnight by the stars. He was high up in some spacious, empty place, standing on a broad ledge of stone, its surface level but the texture so rough that he could feel the grains and nodules under
the
soles of his feet. On eith
er side were wooded slopes. The ledge stretched away to the left in a long, regular curve, a quarter-circle a stone’s throw across, ending among banks of ivy and the trunks of trees. Immediately below it extended another, similar ledge and below that fell away many more, resembling a staircase for giants or gods. The pitch was steep - steep enough for a
fall to be dangerous. The faintl
y-shining, concentric tiers receded downwards until
the
hunter could no longer distinguish them in the starlight. Far below, he could just perceive a glimmering of water, as though from the bottom of a well: and this, it seemed to him, must be some land-locked bay
of the island. All around, on e
ither side, great trees towered, an orderly forest, the spaces between them free from the creepers and choking jungle of the mainland. As he gazed up, the night win
d freshened and the rustl
ing of leaves became louder and higher, with a semb
lance of urgent repetition - ‘Yess! Ye
ss, yess!’ fo
llowed by a dying fall - ‘Sshow! — Sssh-ow!’
Mingled
with
this whispering came another sound, also liquid and continuous, but unal
te
ring in pitch, lower and li
ghtly
plangent. Listening, he recognized it for the trickling and dropping of water, filling all
the
place no less than the sound of the leaves. Whence might
this
come? He looked about.

They were standing near one end of the uppermos
t tier. Further along its length
a shallow stream - perhaps that of
the
ravine he had crossed earlier that night - came whelming smoothly out of
the
hillside and across the le
dge. Here, no doubt because of some tilting of the stones, it spread in either direction, to become at the edges a mere film of water trickling over the rough, level surface. Thence, it oozed and dripped and splashed its way downward, passing over one terrace after another, spreading all abroad, shallow as rain on the pitch of a roof. This was
the
cause of the faint shining of the ledges in the starlight and of the minute, liquid sounds sparkling faindy about them, myriad as windy heather on a moor or crickets in a meadow.