Shardik Page 12

  He rose and began to walk slowly toward the edge of the forest. Yet it was as though he, awake, observed himself moving in a dream. The dream was his own life of time and sensation, of hunger and thirst, which he now watched from a pinnacle of shining silence. He saw his forearm scratched by a spray of trazada and felt, far-off in his flesh, an echo of pain. Slowly, very slowly, he floated down to rejoin his body. They came together as broken reflections resolve on the surface of a pool returning to stillness; and he found himself looking out across the open grass and scratching his arm.

  Shardik, the sun sinking behind him, was approaching down the slope, now rambling uncertainly here and there, now halting to gaze about at the trees and the distant river. At some distance from him, in a wide half-circle, moved eight or nine of the women, among them Rantzay and the Tuginda. When he hesitated they too paused, swaying in the rhythm of their chant, equidistant one from another, the evening wind stirring their hair and the fringes of their tunics. As he went on they moved with him, so that he remained always central and ahead of them. None showed haste or fear. Watching, Kelderek was reminded of the instinctive, simultaneous turning of a flock of birds in the air, or a shoal of fish in clear water.

  It was plain that Shardik was half-bemused, though whether from the continuing effect of the drug or the hypnotic sound of the singing the hunter could not tell. The women pivoted about him like wind-tossed branches radiating from the trunk of a tree. Suddenly Kelderek felt a longing to join in their dangerous and beautiful dance, to offer his life to Shardik, to prove himself one among those to whom the power of Shardik had been revealed and through whom that power could flow into the world. And with this longing came a conviction--though if he were wrong it mattered nothing--that Shardik would not harm him. He stepped out from beneath the trees and made his way up the slope.

  Until he was less than a stone's throw off, neither the women nor the bear gave any sign of having seen him. Then the bear, which had been moving toward the river rather than the forest, stopped, turning its lowered head toward him. The hunter also stopped and stood waiting, one hand raised in greeting. The setting sun was dazzling him, but of this he was unaware. Through the bear's eyes, he saw himself standing alone on the hillside.

  The bear peered uncertainly across the sunlit grass. Then it came toward the solitary figure of the hunter, approaching until it appeared as a dark mass before his light-blinded eyes and he could hear its breathing and the dry, clashing sound of its claws. Its rank smell was all about him, yet he was aware only of the smell of himself to Shardik, puzzled and uncertain in his awakening from illness and drugged sleep, afraid because of his own weakness and his unfamiliar surroundings. He sniffed suspiciously at the human creature standing before him, but remained unstartled by any sudden movement or act of fear on its part. He could hear once more the voices, now on one side of him, now on the other, answering each other in layers of sound, bewildering him and confusing his savagery. He went forward again, in the only direction from which they did not come, and as he did so the human creature, toward whom he felt no enmity, turned and moved with him toward the twilight and safety of the woods.

  At a signal from the Tuginda the women stood still, each in her place, as Shardik, with the hunter walking beside him, entered the outskirts of the forest and disappeared among the trees.

  14 Lord Kelderek

  THAT NIGHT KELDEREK SLEPT on the bare ground beside Shardik, with no thought of fire or food, of leopards, snakes or other dangers of darkness. Nor did he think of Bel-ka-Trazet, of the Tuginda or of what might be taking place in the camp. As Melathys had laid the sword's edge to her neck, so Kelderek lay secure beside the bear. Waking in the night, he saw its back like a roof-ridge against the stars and returned at once into a sleep tranquil and reassured. When morning came, with a gray cold and the chittering of birds in the branches, he opened his eyes in time to catch sight of Shardik wandering away among the bushes. He rose stiffly to his feet and stood shivering in the chill, flexing his limbs and touching his face with his hands as though his wondering spirit had but newly entered this body for the first time. In some other place, he knew, in some other region, invisible yet not remote, insubstantial yet more real than the forest and the river, Shardik and Kelderek were one creature, the whole and the part, as the scarlet trumpet-flower is part of the rough-leaved, spreading stolon of the trepsis vine. Musing he made no attempt to follow the bear, but when it was gone turned back to seek his companions.

  Almost at once he came upon Rantzay alone in a clearing, cloaked against the cold and leaning upon a staff. As he approached she bent her head, raising her palm to her brow. Her hand shook, but whether from cold or fear he could not tell.

  "Why are you here?" he asked with quiet authority.

  "Lord, one of us remained near you all night, for we did not know--we did not know what might befall. Are you leaving Lord Shardik now?"

  "For a while. Tell three of the girls to follow him and try to keep him in sight. One should return at noon with news of where he is. Unless he can find it for himself he will need food."

  She touched her forehead again, waited as he walked away and then followed behind him as he returned to the camp. The Tuginda had gone down to bathe in the river and he ate alone, Neelith bringing him food and drink and serving him in silence on one knee. When at last he saw the Tuginda returning he went to meet her. The girls with her at once fell back, and again he talked with her, alone beside the fall. Now, however, it was the hunter who questioned, the Tuginda paying him close heed and answering him carefully yet without reserve, as a woman answers a man whom she trusts to guide and help her.

  "The Singing, saiyett," he began. "What is the Singing and what is its purpose?"

  "It is one of the old secrets," she replied, "of the days when Lord Shardik dwelt upon the Ledges. It has been preserved from that time to this. Those long ago who offered the Singing showed, by that, that they offered their lives also. This is why no woman on Quiso has ever been ordered to become a singer. Each who determines to attain to it must do so of her own accord; and though we can teach her what we know ourselves, always there is a part which remains a matter of God's will and her own. The art cannot be sought for self-advancement or to please others, but only to satisfy the singer's own longing to offer all that she has. So if the will and devotion of the singers were to falter--or so I was taught--the power of the Singing would falter too. Before yesterday evening no woman now alive had ever taken part in offering the Singing to Lord Shardik. I thanked God when I saw that its power had not been lost."

  "What is the power?"

  She looked at him in surprise. "But you know what it is, Lord Kelderek Zenzuata. Why do you ask for words, to go on crutches, when you have felt it leaping and burning in your heart?"

  "I know what the Singing did to me, saiyett. But it was not to me that it was offered last night."

  "I cannot tell you what takes place in the heart of Lord Shardik. Indeed, I believe now that you know more of that than I. But as I learned long ago, it is a way by which we come nearer to him and to God. By worshiping him thus we put a narrow, swaying bridge across the ravine that separates his savage nature from our own; and so in time we become able to walk without stumbling through the fire of his presence."

  Kelderek pondered this for some little time. At length he asked, "Can he be controlled, then--driven--by the Singing?"

  She shook her head. "No--Lord Shardik can never be driven, for he is the Power of God. But the Singing, when it is offered devoutly, with sincerity and courage, is like that power which we have over weapons. It overcomes for a time his savagery and as he grows accustomed to it, so he comes to accept it as the due worship which we offer to him. Nevertheless, Kelderek--" she smiled--"Lord Kelderek, do not think that any man or woman could have done what you did last night, simply because of the Singing. Shardik is always more dangerous than lightning, more uncertain than the Telthearna in the rains. You are his Vessel, or you would now be broken
like the leopard."

  "Saiyett, why did you let the Baron go? He hates Lord Shardik."

  "Was I to murder him? To overcome his hard heart with a harder? What could have come of that? He is not a wicked man, and God sees all. Did I not hear you yourself begging him for forgiveness as he strode away?"

  "But do you believe that he will be content to leave Lord Shardik unharmed?"

  "I believe, as I have always believed, that neither he nor anyone can prevent Lord Shardik from performing that which he has come to perform and imparting that which he has come to impart. But I say yet again--what will ensue we can only await with humility. To devise some purpose of our own and try to make use of Lord Shardik for that end--that would be sacrilege and folly."

  "So you have taught me, saiyett; but now I will dare to advise you also. We should perfect our service of Lord Shardik as a man prepares the weapons with which he knows he will have to fight for his life. Worship yields nothing to the slipshod and half-hearted. I have seen men's worship which, if it had been a roof they had built, would not have kept out half an hour's rain; nor had they even the wit to wonder why it left their hearts cold and yielded them neither strength nor comfort. Lord Shardik is in truth the Power of God, but his worshipers will reap only what they sow. How many women have we, both here and on Quiso, who are adept in the Singing and able to serve close to Lord Shardik without fear, as they did long ago?"

  "I cannot yet tell--perhaps no more than ten or twelve. As I said, it is more than a matter of skill and brave hearts, for it may turn out that Lord Shardik himself will accept some but not others. You know how a child in Ortelga may train to be a dancer and dream of breaking hearts in Bekla; but she grows up unshapely or too tall and there's an end."

  "All this we must search out and prove, saiyett--his singers must be sure as an Ortelgan rope in a storm, his hunting-girls observant and tireless. He will wander now; and as he wanders, so we can perfect our work, if only we are given time."

  "Time?" she asked, standing still to face him--and he saw once more the shrewd, homely woman with the ladle who had met him below the Ledges. "Time, Kelderek?"

  "Time, saiyett. For sooner or later, either Shardik will go to Ortelga, or Ortelga will come to him. On that day, he will either prevail or be extinguished; and whichever way it goes, the issue will come about through us alone."

  15 Ta-Kominion

  KELDEREK CROUCHED LISTENING in the dark. There was no moon and the forest overhead shut out the stars. He could hear the bear among the trees and tried once again to make out whether it was moving away. But silence returned, broken only by the vibrant rarking of the frogs on the distant shore. After some time his straining ears caught a low growl. He called, "Peace, Lord Shardik. Peace, my lord," and lay down, hoping that the bear might rest if it felt that he himself was tranquil. Soon he realized that his fingers were thrusting into the soft ground and that he was holding himself tense, ready to leap to his feet. He was afraid: not only of Lord Shardik in this uncertain, suspicious mood, but also because he knew that Shardik himself was uneasy--of what, he could not tell.

  For days past the bear had been wandering through the woods and open places of the island, sometimes splashing among the reeds along the southern, landward shore, sometimes turning inland to climb the central ridge, yet always tending eastward, downstream, toward Ortelga behind its jungle wall of traps and palisades. Night and day his votaries followed him. In all their hearts burned the fear of violent death, overborne by a wild hope and faith--hope for they knew not what, faith in the power of Lord Shardik returned to his people through fire and water.

  Kelderek himself remained constantly near the bear, observing all that it did, attentive to its moods and ways--its frightening habit of ramping from side to side in excitement or anger; its indolent curiosity; the slow-moving strength, like that of a great head of water, with which it would turn over a heavy stone, lift a fallen log or push down a young tree; the doglike snarling of its lip in suspicion, its shrinking from the heat of the rocks in the midday glare and its preference for sleeping near water. At each sunset the Singing was repeated, the women forming their wide half-circle about the bear, sometimes smoothly and symmetrically in open ground, often with more difficulty among trees or on rocky slopes. During the early days most of those in the camp, ecstatic in their wonder and joy at the return of Shardik, came forward to offer themselves, eager to show their devotion greater than their fear and to put to the proof the age-old skills they had learned on the Ledges but never envisaged that they would be required to practice in earnest. On the fourth evening, when the singers had formed a wide circle around a grove near the shore, the bear suddenly burst through the undergrowth and struck down the priestess Anthred with a blow that almost broke her body in two. She died at once. The Singing ceased, Shardik disappeared into the forest and it was not until noon of the following day that Kelderek, having tracked him with difficulty for many hours, found him at the foot of a rocky bank on the farther side of the island. When the Tuginda reached the place she walked forward alone and stood in prayer until it became plain that Shardik would not attack her. That evening she led the Singing herself, moving without haste and gracefully as a girl whenever the bear came toward her.

  A day or two later Sheldra, stepping backward on a steep slope, stumbled and struck her head. Shardik, however, ignored her, shambling past as she lay dazed among the stones. When Kelderek raised her to her feet she resumed her place without a word.

  At length, as the Tuginda had envisaged in speaking to Kelderek of the days gone by, Shardik seemed to become accustomed to the attendance of the women and at times almost to play his part--towering erect and gazing at them, or prowling back and forth as though to try whether they had their art at command. Three or four--Sheldra among them--proved able to carry themselves steadily in his presence. Others, including some who had spent years in the service of Quiso and acquired every inflection and cadence, after a few evenings could no longer control their fear. To these Kelderek allowed respites, calling in turn upon one or another to play her part as best she could. As the Singing began he would watch them closely, for Shardik was keen to perceive fear and seemed angered by it; glaring with a look half-intelligent, half-savage, until the victim, her last shreds of courage consumed, broke the circle and turned tail, weeping with shame. As often as he could Kelderek would forestall this anger, calling the girl out of the circle before the bear came down upon her. His own life he risked daily, but Shardik never so much as threatened him, lying quietly while the hunter approached to bring him food or examine his almost-healed wounds.

  Indeed, as the days passed, returning thoughts of Ortelga and the High Baron came to cause him more fear than did Lord Shardik. Daily it grew harder to find and kill sufficient game, and he realized that in their eastward course down the island they must already have come close to exhausting its never-plentiful resources. As often as their wanderings brought them to the southern shore, the mainland bank of the Telthearna showed nearer across the tapering strait. How far were they now from Ortelga? What watch was Bel-ka-Trazet keeping upon them and what would happen when they came--as at last they must--to the Dead Belt, with its maze of concealed snares? Even if he were able in some way to induce Shardik to turn back, what could follow but starvation? Daily, with the women looking on, he and the Tuginda stood before the bear and prayed aloud. "Reveal your power, Lord Shardik! Show us what we are to do!" Alone with the Tuginda, he spoke of his anxieties but was met always by a calm, untroubled faith with which, had it come from anyone else, he would have lost patience.

  Now, crouching in the dark, he was full of doubt and uncertainty. For the first time since he had found him in the pit, he knew himself afraid of Shardik. All day they had killed no game, and at sunset, such had been the bear's threatening ferocity that the Singing had faltered and ceased, ragged and unpropitious. As night fell, Shardik had wandered away into dense forest. Kelderek, taking Sheldra with him, had followed as best he could,
expecting at any moment to find himself the quarry and the bear the hunter, until at last, after how long he could not tell (for he could not see the stars), he had suddenly caught the sounds of Shardik's rambling movement not far off. There was no telling whether the bear would return to attack them, settle to sleep or go further into the forest and Kelderek, already weary, set himself to remain alert and wait.

  After a time Sheldra slept, but he himself lay listening intently to each minute noise in the dark. Sometimes he thought he could hear the bear's breathing or the rustle of leaves disturbed by its claws. As the hours wore on he became intuitively aware that its mood had changed. It was no longer surly and ready to attack, but uneasy. He had never known or imagined Lord Shardik afraid. What could be the cause? Might some dangerous creature be close at hand--a great cat swum from the north bank, or one of the giant, nocturnal snakes of which Bel-ka-Trazet had spoken? He rose to his feet and called once more, "Peace, Lord Shardik. Your power is of God."