Book V

39 Across the Vrako

In Bekla he had heard of the country east of Kabin - the midden of the empire, one of his provincial governors had called it - a province with no estates and no government, without revenue and without one city. Forty miles below Ortelga the Telthearna turned, in a great bend, to flow southward past the eastern extremity of the Gelt mountains. South of these mountains and west of the Telthearna lay a remote wilderness of wooded ridges, of marshes, creeks and forest, without roads and with no settlements except a few miserable villages where the inhabitants lived on fish, half-wild pigs and whatever they could scratch from the soil. In such a region, to seek and find a man was all but impossible. Many a fugitive and criminal had disappeared into its wastes. There was a proverb in Bekla, 'I would kill So-and-So, were it worth the journey to Zeray.' Rough, unruly boys would be told by their mothers, 'You'll end in Zeray.' It was rumoured that from this isolated place - for town it could not be called - where the Telthearna narrowed to a strait less than a quarter of a mile wide, a man who could pay might be taken across to the eastern shore and no questions asked. In the old days, even the northern army of patrol had fixed the eastern limit of its march at Kabin, and no tax-collectors or assessors would cross the Vrako for fear of their lives. Such was the country which Kelderek had now entered and the place in which, by Elleroth's mercy, he was free to remain alive for as long as he could.

Having taken the fresh shoes from his pack and put them on, he walked fast for some while down the narrow, overgrown track. What more likely, he thought, than that, once the gate and ford were open, some might follow in the hope of overtaking and killing him? For although he knew well enough that he was likely to the in this country and indeed could find in himself little desire to save his life, yet he was determined not to lose it at the hands of any Yeldashay or other enemy of Shardik. Within an hour he came to a place where an even wilder path branched northward to his left, and this he followed, clambering for a time through the undergrowth beside it to avoid leaving traces on the track itself.

At last, a little before noon, having heard and seen no one since his crossing of the Vrako, he sat down by the bank of a creek and, when he had eaten, fell to considering what he should do. Underlying all his thoughts, like a rock submerged in a swirling pool, was the conviction that he had passed some mysterious but nonetheless real spiritual boundary, over which he could never return. What was the meaning of the adventure at the Streels of Urtah, the news of which the shepherds had heard with so much awe and fear? What had befallen him in his oblivion on the battlefield, while he lay at the mercy of the unavenged dead? And why had Elleroth spared the life of one whose rule had brought about the loss of his own son? Pondering these inexplicable happenings, he knew that they had quenched the strength and faith that had burned in the heart of the priest-king of Bekla. Litde more than a ghost he now felt himself to be, a drained thing haunting a body wasted with hardship.

Deepest bell of all that tolled in his heart was Elleroth's news of Shardik. Shardik had crossed the Vrako and was believed to be dying - in that there could have been no deceit. And if he, Kelderek, still set any value on his life, his best course would be to accept it. In a country of this nature, to look for Shardik would be only to invite such danger and hardship as neither his mind nor his body were capable of withstanding. Either he would be murdered, or he would the in the forests of the hills. Shardik, whether alive or dead, was irrecoverable; and for the least chance of life he himself ought to head south, contrive somehow to make his way into northern Tonilda and then reach the Ortelgan army.

Yet an hour later he was once more climbing northwards, holding, with no attempt at concealment or self-protection, to the track as it wound into the lower hills. Elleroth, he thought bitterly, had rated him accurately enough. 'Take my word for it, neidier he nor the bear can harm us now.' No indeed, for he was the priest of Shardik and nothing else beside. Afraid of Ta-Kominion's contempt, and influenced by him to believe that the will of God could be none other than that Shardik should conquer Bekla, he had stood by while the Tuginda was bound and led away like a criminal, and had then gone on to set himself up as the mediator of Shardik's favour to his people. Without Shardik he would be nothing - a rain-maker mumbling in a drought, a magician whose spells had failed. To return to Zelda and Ged-la-Dan with the news (if they did not already know it) that Elleroth was with the Yeldashay and Shardik lost for ever would be to sign his own death-warrant. They would scarcely lose a day in getting rid of such a figure of defeat. Elleroth knew this. Yet he knew more. He had understood, as many an enemy would not, Kelderek's passionate faith and the integrity of his belief in Shardik. As an experienced master, though privately entertaining contempt for a servant's personal values and beliefs, can nevertheless perceive that by his own lights that servant is capable of sincerity, even, perhaps, of courage and self-denial; so Elleroth, hating Shardik, had known that Kelderek, whatever gleams of hope fortune might tempt him with, would be unable to separate his own fate from that of the bear. And this was why, since he also knew - or supposed that he knew, thought Kelderek with a sudden spurt of forlorn defiance - that Shardik was dying, he had seen no harm in sparing the priest-king's life. But why had he actually gone about to impose his will in this matter upon those surrounding him? Could it be, Kelderek wondered, that he himself had become visibly marked with some sign, perceptible to such as Elleroth, of being accursed, of having passed through merited sufferings to a final inviolability in which he was now to remain, to await the retribution of God? At this thought, shuffling slowly on through the solitude, he sighed and muttered under the burden of his misery, for all the world like some demented old woman in a desolated town, bearing in her arms the weight of a dead child.

Even in this notorious no-man's land he had not expected so complete an emptiness. All day he met never a soul, heard no voice, saw no smoke. As afternoon turned to evening he realized that he would be forced to pass the night without shelter. In the old days, as a hunter, he had sometimes spent nights in the forest, but seldom alone and never without fire or weapons. To send him across the Vrako without even a knife and with no means of making a fire - had this perhaps been intended, after all, as nothing but a cruel way of putting him to death ? And Shardik - whom he would never find - was Shardik already dead? Sitting with his head in his hands, he passed into a kind of waking oblivion that was not sleep, but rather the exhaustion of a mind unable any longer to grip thought, slipping and sliding like wheels in the mud of the rains.

When at last he lifted his head he at once caught sight, among the bushes close by, of an object so familiar that, although it had been carefully concealed, he felt surprise not to have noticed it earlier. It was a trap - a wooden block-fall such as he himself had often set in days gone by- It was baited with carrion and dried fruit, but these had not been touched and the trip-peg was still supporting the block.

The evening wanted no more than two hours to nightfall and, as well he knew, those who leave traps unvisited overnight are apt to find the next day that scavenging beasts have reached them first. He scratched out his footprints with a broken branch, climbed a tree and waited.

In less than an hour he heard the sounds of someone approaching. The man who appeared was dark, thick-set and shaggy-haired, dressed partly in skins and partly in old, ragged garments. A knife and two or three arrows were stuck in his belt and he was carrying a bow. He bent down, peered at the trap under the bushes and was already turning away when Kelderek called to him. At this he started, drew his knife in a flash and vanished into the undergrowth. Kelderek realized that if he were not to lose him altogether he must take a risk. He scrambled to the ground, calling, 'I beg you, don't go! I need help.'

'What you want, then?' answered the man, invisible among the trees.

'Shelter - advice too. I'm a fugitive, exile - whatever you like. I'm in trouble.'

'Who isn't? You're this side the Vrako, aren't you ?'

'I'm unarmed. Look for yourself.' He threw down the pack, raised his arms and turned one way and the other.

'Unarmed? Then you're mad.' The man stepped out from the bushes and came up to him. He was indeed a ruflian of frightening appearance, swarthy and scowling, with a yellow, mucous discharge of the eyes and a scar from mouth to neck which reminded Kelderek of Bel-ka-Trazet.

'I'm in no state to play tricks or drive a bargain,' said Kelderek. 'This pack's full of food and nothing else. Take it and give me shelter for tonight.'

The man picked up the pack, opened and looked into it, tossed it back to Kelderek and nodded. Then, turning, he set off in the direction from which he had come. After a time he said, 'No one after you?'

'Not since the Vrako.'

They walked on in silence. Kelderek was struck by the complete absence of that friendly curiosity which usually finds a place in strangers' meetings. If the man wondered who he was, whence he had come and why, he evidently did not intend to ask; and there was that about him which made Kelderek think better of putting any questions on his own account. This, he realized, must be the nature of acquaintance in this country of shame for the past and hopelessness for the future - the courtesy of the prison and the madhouse. However, some kinds of question were apparently permissible, for after a time the man jerked out, 'Thought what you're going to do?'

'Not yet - die, I dare say.'

The man looked sharply at him and Kelderek realized that he had spoken amiss. Here men were like beasts at bay - defiant until they were torn to pieces. The whole country, like a brigands' cave, was divided into bullies and victims - the last place in which to speak of death, whether in jest or acceptance. Confused, and too weary to dissimulate, he said, 'I was joking. I've got a purpose, though I dare say that to you it may seem a strange one. I'm looking for a bear that's believed to be in these parts. If I could find it-'

He stopped, for the man, his mouth and jaw thrust forward, was staring at him from his oozing eyes with a mixture of fear and rage - the rage of one who attacks whatever he does not understand. He said nothing, however, and after a moment Kelderek stammered, 'It - it's the truth. I'm not trying to make a fool of you-'

'Better not,' answered the man. 'So you're not alone, then?'

'I've never been more alone in my life.'

The man drew his knife, seized him by the wrist and forced him to his knees. Kelderek looked up into the snarling, violent face.

'What's this about the bear, then? What you up to - what you know about the other one - the woman, eh ?'

'What other one? For God's sake, I don't know what you mean!'

'Don't know what I mean?'

Panting, Kelderek shook his head and after a moment the man released him.

'Better come and see, then: better come and see. You mind now, I don't take to tricks.'

They went on again, the man still clutching his knife and Kelderek half minded to run from him into the woods. Only his exhaustion held him back, for the man would probably pursue, overtake and perhaps kill him. They crossed a ridge and descended steeply towards a dreary, stagnant creek. Smoke hung in the trees. A patch of ground along the shore, cleared after a fashion, was littered with bones, feathers and other rubbish. At one side, too near the water, stood a lop-sided, chimneyless hovel of poles, branches and mud. There were clouds of flies. Three or four skins were pegged out to dry, and some black birds - crows or rooks - were huddled in a wooden pen on the marshy ground. The place, like a song out of tune, seemed an offence against the world, for which the only possible remedy was obliteration.

The man again grasped Kelderek's wrist and half-led, half-dragged him towards the hut. A curtain of dusty skins hung across the entrance. The man jerked his head and gestured with his knife but Kelderek, stupid with fatigue, fear and disgust, did not understand that he was to enter first. The man, seizing his shoulder, pushed him so that he stumbled against the curtain. He pulled it aside, ducked his head and went in.

The walls surrounded a single, evil-smelling space, at the further end of which a fire was smouldering. There was little light, for apart from the curtained door and a hole in the roof, through which some of the smoke escaped, there was no opening; at the further end, however, he made out a human shape, wrapped in a cloak and sitting, back towards him, on a rough bench beside the fire. As he peered, bending forward and flinching from the knife at his back, the figure rose and turned to face him. It was the Tuginda.

40 Ruvit

Suddenly to be confronted with a shameful deed from the past, a deed accomplished yet uneffaced, like the ruins of a poor man's house destroyed by some selfish lord to suit his own convenience, or the body of an unwanted child cast up by the river on the shore: to stumble unexpectedly upon an accusadon that no bravado can defy or glib tongue turn aside; an accusation made not aloud, to the cars of the world, but quietly, face to face, without anger, perhaps even without speech, to one unprepared for the surge of his own confusion, guilt and regret. The harp of Binnorie named its murderess, and the two pretty babes in the ballad answered the cruel mother under her father's castle wall. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak. Yet never a word said Banquo's ghost Though few can have touched a murdered corpse and seen the wounds burst open and bleed, yet many, coming alone upon old letters thrust into a drawer, have re-read them weeping for pardon; or again, burning with self-contempt, have learned from chance remarks how unforgotten has been the misery, how crushing the disappointment brought by themselves upon those who never spoke of it. The deeply-wronged, like ghosts, have no need to speak to their oppressors or accuse them before crowds. More terrible by far is their unexpected and silent reappearance in some secluded place, at some unguarded hour.

The Tuginda stood beside the bench, her eyes half-closed against the smoke. For some moments she did not recognize him. Then she started, jerking up her head. At the same instant Kelderek, with a sudden, sharp sob, thrust his hand between his teeth, turned and was already half-way through the entrance when he was pushed violently backwards and fell to the ground. The man, knife in hand, was staring down at him, gnawing his lip and panting with a kind of feral excitement. This, Kelderek realized on the ghastly instant, was one to whom murder must once have been both trade and sport. In his clouded mind violence hung always, precarious as a sword by a hair; by another's fear or flight it was excited as uncontrollably as a cat by the scuttling of a mouse. This was some bandit survivor with a price on his head, some hired assassin who had outlived his usefulness to his employers and run for the Vrako before the informer could turn him in. How many solitary wanderers had he killed in this place?

The man, bending over him, was breathing in low, rhythmic gasps. Kelderek, supporting himself on one elbow, tried in vain to return the maniac glare with a look of authority. As his eyes fell, the Tuginda spoke from behind him.

'Calm yourself, Ruvit! I know this man - he is harmless. You are not to hurt him.'

'Hiding in the woods, talked about the bear. "Up to tricks," I thought, "up to tricks. Make him go in, don't tell him anything, ah, that's it. Find out what he's up to, find out what he's up to -" '

'He won't hurt you, Ruvit. Come and make up the fire, and after supper I'll bathe your eyes again. Put your knife away.'

She led the man gently to the fire, talking as though to a child, and Kelderek followed, not knowing what else to do. At the sound of her voice the tears had sprung to his eyes, but he brushed them away without a word. The man took no further notice of him and he sat down on a rickety stool, watching the Tuginda as she knelt to blow the fire, put on a pot and stirred it with a broken spit. Once she looked across at him, but he dropped his eyes; and when he looked up again she was busy over a clay lamp, which she trimmed and then lit with a kindled twig. The wan, single flame threw shadows along the floor and as darkness fell seemed less to brighten the squalid hut than to serve, with its guttering and wavering in the draughts that came through the ill-made walls, as a reminder of the defencelessness of all who might have the misfortune to be, like itself, solitary and conspicuous in this sad country.

She had aged, he thought, and had the look of one who had endured both loss and disappointment. Yet she was unextinguished - a fire burned low, a tree stripped by a winter gale. In this horrible place, beyond help or safety, alone with one man who had betrayed her and another who was half-crazy and probably a murderer, her authority asserted itself quietly and surely; in part as mundane as that of some shrewd, honest farmer talking with those whom he makes feel that it will be better not to try to cheat him. But beyond this open foreground of the spirit he could perceive, as he had perceived long ago - as he knew that even poor, murderous Ruvit could sense, in the same way that a dog is aware of the presence of joy or grief in a house - the deeper, more mysterious country of her strength. She was possessed of the immunity not only of priestess, pilgrim and doctor, but also of that conferred by the mystery whose servant she was - by the power which he had felt before ever he met her, when he had sat slumped in the canoe drifting down to Quiso in the dark. No wonder, he thought, that Ta-Kominion had died. No wonder that the headlong, fiery ambition which had blinded him to the strength in her had also poisoned him beyond recovery.

He began to consider the manner of his own death. Some, or so he had heard, had dragged out their lives beyond the Vrako until the prices on their heads and even the nature of their crimes had been forgotten and nothing but their own despair and addled wits prevented their return to towns where none was left who could recall what they had done. Such survival was not for him. Shardik, if only he could find him, would at last take the life which had been so often offered to him; would take his life before the contemptible desire to survive on any terms could transform him into a creature like Ruvit.

Lost in these thoughts, he heard little or nothing of whatever passed between Ruvit and the Tuginda as she finished preparing the meal. Vaguely, he was aware that although Ruvit had become quiet he was nevertheless afraid of the fall of darkness, and that the Tuginda was reassuring him. He wondered how long the man had lived here, facing nightfall alone, and what it was that had made this life - a hard one, surely, even for a fugitive beyond the Vrako - the only one he dared to live.

After a time the Tuginda brought him food, and as she gave it to him laid her hand for a moment on his shoulder. Still he said nothing, only nodding wretchedly, unable to meet her eyes. Yet when he had eaten, as is the way, some shreds of spirit involuntarily returned to him. He sat closer to the fire, watching as the Tuginda swabbed the discharge from Ruvit's eyes and bathed them with some herbal infusion. With her he was quiet and amenable, and at moments almost resembled what he might have been if evil had not consumed him - a decent, stupid drover, perhaps, or hard-handed tapster of an inn.

They slept clothed, on the ground, as needs they must, the Tuginda making no complaint of the dirt and discomfort, or even of the vermin that gave them no peace. Kelderek slept little, mistrusting Ruvit both on his own account and the Tuginda's; but it seemed rather that the poor wretch welcomed the chance of a night's sleep free from his superstitious fears, for he never moved dll morning.

Soon after first light Kelderek blew up the fire, found a wooden pail and, glad to get into the fresh air, made his way to the shore, washed and then returned with water for the Tuginda. He could not bring himself to rouse her, but went outside again into the first sunlight. His resolve was unchanged. Indeed, he now saw in himself a gulf like that into which he had gazed from the plain of Urtah. The blasphemous wrong, in which he had participated, inflicted by Ta-Kominion upon the Tuginda, was but a part of that wider, far-reaching evil of his own committing - the sacrilege against Shardik himself and all that had followed from it. Rantzay, Mollo, Elleroth, the children sold into slavery in Bekla, the dead soldiers whose voices had flickered about him in the dark - they came thrusting, jagged and sharp, into his mind as he stood beside the creek. When the Tamarrik Gate had finally collapsed, he remembered, there had been a great central breach, from which had radiated splintered fissures and rifts, fragments of exquisitely carved wood, shards of silver sagging inwards, shattered likenesses no longer recognizable in the ruin. The Ortelgans had cheered and shouted, smashing their way forward through the wreckage with cries of 'Shardik! Shardik!'

His tears fell silently. 'Accept my life, Lord Shardik! O God, only take my life!'

He heard a step behind him and, turning, saw that his prayer was answered. A few feet away Ruvit stood looking at him, knife in hand. He knelt down, offering his throat and heart and opening his arms as though to a guest.

'Strike quickly, Ruvit, before I have time to feel afraid!'

Ruvit stared at him a moment in astonishment; then, sheathing his knife, he stepped forward with a shifty, lop-sided grin, took Kelderek's hand and pulled him to his feet.

'Ay ay, old feller, mustn't take it that way, ye know. Comes hard to start with, eels get used to skinning, know what they say, never look back across the Vrako, drive ye crazy. Just on me way to kill a bird. Some wrings their necks, I always cuts their heads off.' He looked over his shoulder towards the door behind him and whispered, 'You know what? That's a priestess, that is. Ever gets back, she's going to put in a word for me. 'Thought yesterday she wanted you dead, but she don't. Ah - put in a word for me, she says. That the truth, think that's the truth, eh?'

'It's the truth,' answered Kelderek. 'She could get you a pardon in any city from Ikat to Deelguy. It's for me she can't.'

'Got to forget it here, lad, forget it, that's it. Five year, ten year, call the lice your friends after ten year, ye know.'

He killed the bird, plucked and drew it, left the guts lying on the ground and together they returned to the hovel.

Two hours later Kelderek, having given to Ruvit what was left of the food he had brought from Kabin, set out with the Tuginda along the shore of the creek.

41 The Legend of the Streels

Still he could not bring himself to speak of the past. At last he said, 'Where are you going, saiyett?'

She made no immediate answer, but after a little asked, 'Kelderek, are you seeking Lord Shardik?'

'Yes.'

'With what purpose?'

He startled, remembering her strange power of discerning more than had been spoken. If she had perceived the intention which he had formed, she would no doubt try to dissuade him, though God knew she of all people had little reason to wish to prolong his life. Then he realized of what it was that she must be thinking.

'Lord Shardik will never return to Bekla,' he said. 'That's certain enough - and neither shall I.'

'Are you not king of Bekla?'

'No longer.'

They left the creek and began to follow a track leading eastward over the next ridge. The Tuginda climbed slowly and more than once stopped to rest. 'She has no strength now for this life,' he thought. 'Even were there no danger, she ought not to be here.' He began to wonder how he could persuade her to return to Quiso.

'Saiyett, why have you come here? Are you also seeking Shardik?'

'I received news in Quiso that Lord Shardik was gone from Bekla and then that he had crossed the plain to the hills west of Gelt. Naturally I set out in search of him.'

'But why, saiyett? You should not have undertaken such a journey The hardship-'

'You forget, Kelderek.' Her voice was hard. 'As Tuginda of Quiso I am bound to follow Lord Shardik while that is possible -that is, while the Power of God is not subjected to the power of men.'

He was silent, full of shame; but later, as she was leading the way downhill, he asked, 'But your women - the other priestesses - you did not leave Quiso alone?'

'No, I received news also of the advance north of Santil-ke-Erketlis. I had known already that he meant to march in the spring and that he intended to take Kabin. Neelith and three other girls set out for Kabin with me. We planned to seek Lord Shardik from there.'

'Did you speak with Erketlis?'

'I spoke with Elleroth of Sarkid, who told me how it came about that he escaped from Bekla. He was well-disposed towards me because some time ago I cured his sister's husband of a poisoned arm. He told me also that Lord Shardik had crossed the Vrako in the foothills north of Kabin, not two days before.'

'You say Elleroth treated you as a friend - and yet he allowed you to go alone and unescorted across the Vrako?'

'He does not know that I have crossed the Vrako. Elleroth was friendly to me, but on one thing I could not move him. He would lend me no help to find Lord Shardik or save his life. To him and his soldiers Shardik means nothing but the god of their enemies and of all that they are fighting against.' She paused and then, with a momentary tremor in her voice, added, 'He said - the god of the slave-traders.'

Kelderek had not thought that he could suffer more bitterly.

'He told me of his son,' went on the Tuginda, 'and after that I asked nothing more of him. He told me, too, that some of his soldiers had come upon Lord Shardik in the hills and felt sure that he was dying. I asked him why they had not killed him and he replied that they had been afraid to attempt it. So I do not myself believe that Lord Shardik is dying.'

At this he was about to speak, but she went on, 'I had hoped that Elleroth might give me some soldiers to conduct us across the Vrako, but when I saw that it was useless to ask, I let him believe that we meant to return to Quiso, for he would certainly have stopped me from crossing the Vrako alone.'

'But would none of the girls come with you, saiyett?'

'Do you think that I would bring them into this country - the thieves' kitchen of the world? They begged to come. I told them to return to Quiso, and since they are bound by oath to obey me, they went. After that I bribed the guards at the ford and once across the river I turned north, as you did.'

'Saiyett, where do you mean to go now?'

'I believe that Shardik is trying to return to his own country. He is making for the Telthearna and will cross it if he can. Therefore I am going to Zeray, to seek help in watching for him along the western shore. Or if he has already swum the Telthearna, we may learn of it in Zeray.'

'Elleroth, perhaps, was right. Shardik may indeed be dying, for since leaving Bekla he has once more been wickedly and cruelly wounded.'

She stopped, turned and stared up at him. 'Did Elleroth tell you that?' He shook his head.

She sat down but said no more, only continuing to look at him with eyes full of uncertainty and questioning. Seeking for further words, he burst out, 'Saiyett, the Streels of Urtah - what is their mystery and their meaning?'

At this she gave a quick, low gasp, as it were of dread and consternation; but then, recovering herself, answered, 'You had better tell me what you know yourself.'

He told her how he had followed Shardik out of Bekla and of their crossing of the plain. She listened silently until he came to the adventure at Urtah, but as he spoke of his awakening and of the wounded Shardik climbing from the Streel to scatter his attackers, she began to weep bitterly, sobbing aloud, as women mourn for the dead. Appalled by this passionate grief in one whom he had hitherto thought of as stretching out her sceptre over all ills besetting the heart of man, he waited with a hopeless, leaden patience, not presuming to intrude upon her sorrow, since he perceived that it flowed from some bitter knowledge which he, too, must presently possess.

At length, becoming calmer, she began to speak; her voice was like that of a woman who, having learned of some terrible bereavement, understands that henceforth her life will be a waiting for death.