Shardik (6 page)

‘To Quiso, tonight? What can this mean? God protect us! Are you sure?’

‘Yes, my lord. Would you speak yourself with the girls who brought the message?’

‘Yes - no, let it be. She would not send such a message unless -Go and tell Ankray and Faron to get a canoe ready. And see that this man is put aboard.’

‘This man, my lord?’

‘Put aboard.’

The bead curtain clashed once more as the High Baron passed through it, across the Sindrad and out among the trees beyond. Zelda, hurrying across to the servants’ quarters, could sec in the light of
the
quarter moon the conical shape of the great fur cloak striding impati
ently
up and down the shore.

5
To
Quiso
by
Night

Kelderek knelt in the bow, now peering into the speckled gloom ahead, now shutting his eyes and dropping his chin on his chest in a fresh spasm of fear. At his back the enormous Ankray, Bel-ka-
Trazet
‘s servant and bodyguard, sat silent as the canoe drifted with the current along the south bank of the
Telthearna
. From time to time Ankray’s paddle would drop to arrest or change their course, and at the sound
Kelderek
started as though the loud stir of the water were about to reveal them to enemies in the dark. Since giving the order to set out Bel-ka-Trazet had said not a word, sitting hunched in the narrow stern, hands clasped about his knees. More than once, as the paddles fell, the swirl and seethe of bubbles alarmed some nearby creature, and Kelderek jerked his head towards the clatter of wings, the splash of a dive or the crackle of undergrowth on the bank. Biting his lip and clutching at the side of the canoe, he tried to recall that these were nothing but birds and animals with which he was familiar - that by day he would recognize each one. Yet beyond these noises of flight he was listening always for another, more terrible sound and dreading the second appearance of that animal to whom, as he believed, the miles of jungle and river presented no obstacle. And again, shrinking from this, his mind confronted dismally another life-long fear - the fear of the island for which they were bound. Why had the Baron been summoned thither and what had that summons to do with the news which he himself had refused to tell?

They had already travelled a long way beneath the trees overhanging the water, when the servants evid
ently
recognized some landmark. The left paddle dropped once more and the canoe checked, turning towards the centre of the river. Upstream, a few faint lights on Ortelga were just visible, while to their right, far out in the darkness, there now appeared another light, high up; a flickering, red glow that vanished and re-emerged as they moved on. The servants were working now, driving the canoe across the stream while the current, flowing more strongly at this distance from the bank, carried them down.
Kelderek
could sense in those behind him a growing uneasiness. The paddlers’ rhythm became short and broken. The bow struck against something floating in the dark, and at the jolt
Bel
-ka-Trazet grunted sharply, like a man on edge. ‘My lord -‘ said Ankray. ‘Be si
lent!’ replied Bel-ka-Trazet instantl
y.

Like children in a dark room, like wayfarers passing a graveyard at night, the four men in the canoe filled the surrounding darkness with the fear from their own hearts. They were approaching the island of Quiso, domain of the Tuginda and the cult over which she ruled, a place where men retained no names - or so it was believed -
weapons had no effect and the greatest strength could spend itself in vain against incomprehensible power. On each fell a mounting sense of solitude and exposure. To
Kelderek
it seemed that he lay upon the black water helpless as the diaphanous
gylon
fly, whose fragile myriads clotted
the
surface of the river each spring; inert as a felled tree in the forest, as a log in the timber-yard. All about them, in the night, stood the malignant, invisible woodmen, disintegrators armed with axe and fire. Now the log was burning, breaking up into sparks and ashes, drifting away beyond the familiar world of day and night, of hunger, work and rest
.
The red light seemed close now, and as it drew nearer still and higher above them he fell forward, striking his forehead against the bow.

He felt no pain from the blow; and to himself he seemed to have become deaf, for he could no longer hear the lapping of the water. Bereft of perceptions, of will and identity, he knew himself to have become no more than the fragments of a man. He was no one; and yet he remained conscious. As though in obedience to a command, he closed his eyes. At the same moment the paddlers ceased their stroke, bowing their heads upon their arms, and the canoe, losing way entirely, drifted with the current towards the unseen island.

Now into the remnants of Kelderek’s mind began to return all that, since childhood, he had seen and .learned of the Tuginda. Twice a year she came to Ortelga by water, the far-off gongs sounding through
the
mists of early morning, the people waiting silent on the shore. The men lay flat on their faces as she and her women were met and escorted to a new hut built for her coming. There were dances and a ceremony of flowers: but her real business was first, to confer with the barons and secondly, in a session secret to the women, to speak of their mysteries and to select, from among those put forward, one or two to return with her to perpetual service on Quiso. At the end of the day, when she left in torchlight and darkness, the hut was burned and the ashes scattered on the water.

When she stepped ashore she was veiled, but in speaking with the barons she wore the mask of a bear. None knew the face of the Tuginda, or who she might once have been. The women chosen to go to her island never returned. It was believed that there they received new names; at all events their old names were never spoken again in Ortelga. It was not known whether the Tuginda died or abdicated, who succeeded her, how her successor was chosen, or even, on each occasion of her visit, whether she was, in fact, the same woman as before. Once, when a boy, Kelderek had questioned his father with impatience, such as the young often feel for matters which they perceive
that
their
elders regard seriously and discuss
little
. For reply his father had moistened a lump of bread, moulded it to the rough shape of a man and put it to stand on the edge of the fire. ‘Keep away from the women’s mysteries, lad,’ he said, ‘and fear
them
in your heart, for they can consume you. Look the bread dried, browned, blackened and shrivelled to a cinder - ‘do you understand?’
Kelderek
, silenced by his father’s gravity, had nodded and said no more. But he had remembered.

What had possessed him, tonight, in the room behind the Sindrad? What had prompted him to defy the High Baron? How had those words passed his lips and why had not Bel-ka-
Trazet
killed him

instantly? One thing he knew - since he had seen the bear, he had not been his own master. At first he had
thought
himself driven by the power of God, but now chaos was his master. His mind and body were unseamed like an old garment and whatever was left of himself lay in the power of the numinous, night-covered island.

His head was still resting on the bow and one arm trailed overside in the water. Behind him, the paddle dropped from Ankray’s hands and drifted away, as the canoe grounded on the upstream shore, its occupants slumped where they sat, tranced and spell-stopped, not a will, not a mind intact. And thus they stayed, driftwood, flotsam and foam, while the quarter moon set far upstream and darkness fell, broken only by the gleam of the fire still burning inland, high among the trees.

Time passed - a time marked only by the turning of the stars. Small, choppy river-waves chattered along the sides of the canoe and once or twice, with a rising susurration, the night wind tossed the branches of the nearest trees: but never the least stir made the four men in the canoe, huddled in the dark like birds on a perch.

At length a nearer, smaller light appeared, green
and swaying, descending towards
the water. As it readied the pebbly shore there sounded a crunching of footsteps and a low murmur of voices. Two cloaked women were approaching, carrying between them, on a pole, a round, flat lantern as big as a grindstone. The frame was of iron and the spaces between the bars were panelled with plaited rushes, translucent yet stout enough to shield and protect the candles fixed within.

The two women reached the edge of the water and stood listening. After a
little
they perceived in the dark the knock of the water against the canoe - a sound distinguishable only by ears familiar with every cadence of wind and wave along the shore. They set down the lantern then, and one, drawing out the pole from the ring and splashing it back and forth in the shal
lows, called in a harsh voice, ‘Wake!’

The sound came to
Kelderek
sharp as the cry of a moorhen. Looking up, he saw the wavering, green light reflected in the splashed water inshore. He was no longer afraid. As the weaker of two dogs presses itself to the wall and remains motionless, knowing that in this lies its safety, so Kelderek, through total subjection to
the
power of the island, had lost his fear.

He could hear the High Baron stirring behind him. Bel-ka-Trazet muttered some inaudible words and dashed a handful of water across his face, yet made no move to wade ashore. Turning his head for a

QUISO

NORTHERN SHORE

moment,
Kelderek
saw him staring, as though still bemused, towards the dimly-shining turbulence in the shallows.

The woman’s voice called again, ‘Come!’ Slowly,
Bel
-ka-Trazet climbed over the side of the canoe into
the
water, which reached scarcely to his knees, and waded towards the light. Kelderek followed, splashing clumsily through the slippery pools. Reaching the shore, he found confronting him a tall, cloaked woman standing motionless, her face hidden in her cowl. He too stood still, not daring to question her silence. He heard the servants come ashore behind him, but the tall woman paid them no heed, only continuing to gaze at him as though to perceive the very beating of his heart. At last - or so he thought — sh
e nodded, and there
upon at once turned about, stooped and passed the pole through the iron ring on the lantern. Then she and her companion took it up between
them
and began to walk away, unstumbling over the loose, yielding stones. Not a man moved until, when she had gone perhaps ten paces, the tall woman, without turning her head, called ‘Follow!’ Kelderek obeyed, keeping his distance behind them like a servant.

Soon they began to climb a steep path into the woods. He was forced to grope among the rocks for hand-holds, yet the women went up easily, one behind the other, the taller raising the pole above her head to keep
the
lantern level. Still
they
climbed and still he followed breathlessly in the dark until, the way growing less steep and at last level, he thought that they could not be far below the very summit of the island. The trees grew thickly and he could no longer see the light ahead. Groping among the ferns and drifts of leaves he could hear — louder as he went on — the sound of cascading water and suddenly found himself standing on a spur of rock overlooking a ravine. On the opposite side lay a stone-paved terrace, in the middle of which were glowing the embers of a fire. This, he felt sure, must be the source of that light, high up, which he had seen from the river - a beacon lit to guide them. Beyond, a wall of rock rose into the dark, and
this
he could see plainly, for round the edges of
the
terrace stood five tripods, each supporting a bronze bowl from which rose translucent flames, yellow, green and blue. There was
little
smoke, but
the
air was filled with a resinous, sweet scent.