Shardik (75 page)

⁴
Each of us failed Lord Shardik once,’ she answered,
⁴
but we won’t do so again - not now. He’s offering us both redemption, and by the Ledges we’ll t
ake it, even if it means death
‘ Giving him her hands, she looked at him with the authority of Quiso in her face, even while the single, wan lamp-flame showed the tear-streaks down her checks.

⁴
Come, my dear and only beloved, we’ll return now to the Tuginda and tell her that you’re going to Lak.’

For a moment he hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders.

^‘
Very well. But be warned, I shall speak my mind.’

She took up the lamp and he followed her. The fire had sunk low and as they passed the hearth he could hear the minute, sharp, evanescent tinkling of the cooling stones and dying embers. Melathys tapped at
the
door of
the
Tuginda’s room, waited a few moments and then went in. Kelderek followed. The room was empty.

Pushing him to one side in her haste,
Melathys
ran to the courtyard door. He called
‘
Wait! There’s no need -‘ But she had already drawn the bolts and when he reached the door he saw her lamp-flame on
the
other side of
the
courtyard, steady in the still air. He heard her call and ran across. The latch of the outer door was in place, but the bolts had been drawn back. On
the
wood, hastily traced, as it appeared, with a charred stick, was a curving, star-like symbol.

^‘
What is it?’ he asked.

⁴
It’s the sign carved on the Te
reth stone,’ she whispered, distraught.
⁴
It invokes the Power of God and His protection. Only the Tuginda may inscribe it without sacrilege. Oh God! She couldn’t help leaving the bolts drawn, but this she could do for us before she went,’

‘Quickly!’ cried
Kelderek
. ‘She can’t have gone far.’ He ran
across the courtyard and beat on
the shutters, shouting ‘Ankray!
Ankray!’

The moon gave light enough and they had not far to search. She was lying where she had fallen, in
the
shadow of
a
mud wall about half-way to the shore. As
they
approached, two men who were stooping over her made off as sil
ently
as cats. There was
a
broad, livid bruise at the back of her neck and she was bleeding from
the
mouth and nose. The cloak which she had been weari
ng over her hastily-donned cloth
es was lying in the mud
a
few feet away, where the men had dropped it.

Ankray picked her up as though she had been
a
child and together
they
hastened back;
Kelderek
, his knife ready in his hand, repeatedly turning about to make sure they were not being followed. But none molested them and Melathys was waiting to open
the
courtyard door. When Ankray had laid
the
Tuginda on her bed
the
girl undressed her, finding no grave injuries except the blow at the base of the skull. She watched beside her all night, but at dawn the Tuginda had not recovered consciousness.

An hour later
Kelderek
, armed and carrying money, food and
the
seal-ring of
Bel
-ka-
Trazet
, set out alone for Lak.

Book
VI

Genshed

48
Beyond
Lak

It was afternoon of the following day; hot enough, even during this season of early spring, to silence the birds and draw from the forest a steamy, humid fragrance of young leaves and sprouting vegetation. The Tel
thearna glittered, coiling swiftl
y and sil
ently
down towards Lak and on to the strait of
Zeray
below. From a
little
north of Lak a region of forest, several miles across, stretched northwards as far as the open country round the Gap of Linsho,
which divided it from the footh
ills and mountains beyond. It was from the southern extremities of this forest, dense and largely trackless, that the bear had been attacking
the
sheds and herds of Lak.

The shore hereabout was broken and indeterminate, undulating in a series of knoll-like promontories. Between these, the river penetrated up creeks and watery ravines, some of which ran almost half a mile inland. The promontories, grassy mounds on which grew trees and bushes, extended back from the waterside until, amongst thicker undergrowth, they ended abruptly in banks standing like
little
cliffs above the interior swamps. Frogs and snakes were numerous and at twilight, when
the
wading birds ceased their feeding, great bats would leave the forest to swoop for moths over
the
open river. It was a desolate place, seldom visited except by fishermen working offshore in their canoes.

Kelderek
was lying at the foot of an
ollaconda
tree, almost concealed among the thick, exposed roots curving all about him like ropes. There was no breeze and except for the hum of the insects no sound from the forest. The opposite shore, bare and rocky, showed hazy in the sunlight, almost as distant as he remembered seeing it from
Ortelga
. Nothing but birds moved on the river’s surface.

In the hot shade,
the
silence and solitude, he was deliberating upon an exploit so desperate that even now, when he had determined to attempt it, he was still half-hoping that it might be delayed or frustrated by the sudden appearance of fishermen or of some traveller along the shore. If fishermen came, he thought, he would take it as an omen - would call to them and ask to return to Lak in their canoe. None would be the wiser, for no one had been told what he intended. Indeed, it was essential to his purpose that none should know.

If the Tuginda were still alive Melathys, he knew, would never leave her. She would remain in
Zeray
, enduring the dangers of that evil place: and if the Tuginda were later to recover, would accompany her to Lak - not now to escape from
Zeray
, but solely in order to be nearer to Shardik - perhaps even to seek for him herself. But if the Tuginda were to die - if she were already dead - Melathys, though no longer a priestess of Quiso, would be indissuadable from the belief that she herself must now assume the Tuginda’s duty to find Shardik: yes, he reflected bitterly, to seek to divine God’s will from whatever accidents might attend
the
last days of a savage, dying animal. This remnant of an arid, meaningless religion, which had already brought him to grief, now stood between him and any chance he might have of escape from Zeray with the woman he loved.

And such an animal! Could
there
ever, in truth, have been a time when he had loved Shardik? Had he indeed defied
Bel
-ka-Trazet for his sake, believed him to be the incarnation of the power of God and prayed to him to accept his life? Lak, which he had reached at noon of the previous day and where he had spent the night, was as full of hatred for Shardik as
a f
ire is full of heat. There was no talk but of the mischief, craft and savagery of the bear. It was more dangerous than flood, more unpredictable than pestilence, such a curse as no village had ever known. It had destroyed not only beasts but, wantonly, the patient work of months - stockades, fences, pens, rock-pools built for fish-traps. Most believed it to be a devil and feared it accordingly. Two men, experienced hunters, who had ventured into the forest in the hope of trapping or killing it, had been found mauled to death, having evidently been taken by surprise. The fishermen who had seen it on the shore were all agreed that they had been frightened by the sense of something evil in its very presence, like that of a serpent or a poisonous spider.

Kelderek
, showing the seal of Bel-ka-
Trazet
but saying of himself only that he had been sent from Zeray to seek help in planning a journey north for the survivors of the Baron’s household, had talked with the elder, an ageing man who clearly knew
little
or nothing of Bekla, its Ortelgan religion or its war with the far-off Yeldashay. To
Kelderek
, as to a follower of
Bel
-ka-Trazet, he had shown a guarded courtesy, enquiring, as closely as he felt he could, about the state of affairs in Zeray and what was thought likely to happen there. Plainly, he took the view
that
now that the Baron was dead there was
little
to be gained from helping the Baron’s woman.

‘As for a journey to the north,’ he said, grimacing as he scratched between his shoulders and signalling to a servant to pour
Kelderek
more of his sharp, cloudy wine, ‘there’s no attempting it as long as we
are
so afflicted. The men won’t stir into the forest or up the shore. If the beast were to wander away, perhaps, or even to die -‘ He fell silent, looking down at
the
floor and shaking his head. After a
little
he went on, ‘I have thought that in full summer - in the heat - we might perhaps fire the forest, but that would be dangerous. The wind - often the wind goes into the north.’ He broke off again and then added, ‘Linsho - you want to go to Linsho? The ones they let through Linsho
are
those who can pay. That is how they subsist, those who live there.’ There was a note of envy in his voice.

‘What about crossing the river?’ asked
Kelderek
, but the chief only shook his head once more. ‘A desert place - robbed and killed -‘ Suddenly he looked up, his eye sharp as the moon emerging from behind clouds. ‘If we started taking men across the river, it would become known in Zeray.’ And he threw the dregs of his wine across the dirty floor.

It was while he was lying awake before dawn (and scratching as nimbly as the elder) that his desperate and secret project entered
Kelderek
‘s mind. If Melathys were ever to become his alone, then Shardik must die. If he were simply to wait for Shardik to die, it was very possible that
Melathys
would die first. Shardik must be known to be dead - the news must reach
Zeray
- but he must not be known to have met a violent death. The chief alone must be taken into confidence before the killing was carried out. To him the condition would be secrecy and
Kelderek
‘s price, payable upon proof of success, an escort to Linsho for himself, the two women and their servant, together with whatever help might be necessary towards paying for their passage through the Gap.

A few hours later, still pondering this plan and saying nothing of where he was going, he set out northward along the shore. Whatever traces Shardik might have left, they would have to be found without a guide. To kill him, if it were possible at all, would be the most difficult and dangerous of tasks, not to be attempted without prior knowledge of the forest outskirts and the places he frequented in his comings and goings near Lak. Arriving at the first of the inlets between the island-like hillocks,
Kelderek
began a careful search for tracks, droppings and other signs of Shardik’s presence.

Not that, as the lonely morning wore on, he was free for one moment from a mounting oppression both of fear and dread: the first showing him clearly his bleeding, mutilated body savaged by the bear’s great claws; the second revealing nothing, but hanging like a mist upon the edges of thought and conferring an uneasy suspicion.

As a thief or fugitive who cannot avoid passing some watch-tower or guard-house continues on his way, but nevertheless cannot keep from glancing out of the tail of his eye towards the walls on which there is no one actually to be seen, so
Kelderek
pursued his course, able neith
er to admit nor entirely to exclude
the
idea that he was observed and watched from some transcendental region inscrutable to himself.

Shardik’s power was dwindling, sinking, melting away. His death was ordained, was required by God. Why then should not his priest hasten that which was inevitable? And yet, to approach him as an enemy - to intend his death - he thought of those who had done so -
of
Bel
-ka-
Trazet
, of Gel-Ethlin, of Mollo, of those who kept the Streets of Urtah. He
thought
, too, of Ge
d-la-Dan setting out, high-stomached, to impose his will upon Quiso. And then, on the very point of turning back, of abandoning his resolve, he saw again Melathys’ tear-stained face lifted to his in the lamplight, and felt her body clasped to his own - that vulnerable body which remained in Zeray like a ewe abandoned by herdsmen on a wild hillside. No danger, natural or supernatural, was too great to be faced if only, by that means, he could return in time to save her life and convince her that nothing was of greater importance
than
the love she felt for him. Fighting against his mounting sense of uneasiness, he continued his search.