'The Baron's house was commandeered by an officer from Elleroth's staff - a man called Tan-Rion.' 'I had to do with him in Kabin.'

'Yes, so he told me, but that came later. He was cold and unfriendly at first, until he learned that our sick lady was none other than the Tuginda of Quiso. After that he put everything he had at our disposal - goats and milk, fowls and eggs. The Yeldashay seem to do themselves very well in the field, but of course they'd only come from Kabin, which they seem to have milked dry, as far as I can make out.

'The first thing Tan-Rion told me was that an armistice had been agreed with Bekla and that Santil-ke-Erketlis was negotiating with Zelda and Ged-la-Dan at some place not far from Thettit. He's still there, as far as I know.'

'Then - then why send Yeldashay troops over the Vrako? Why?' He was still afraid.

'Stop exciting yourself, my darling. Be quiet and I'll explain. There are only two hundred Yeldashay all told this side of the Vrako, and Tan-Rion told me that Erketlis knew nothing about it until after they'd left Kabin. It wasn't he who gave the order, you see.'

She paused, but Kelderek, obedient, said not a word.

'Elleroth gave the order on his own initiative. He told Erketlis he'd done it for two reasons: first, to round up fugitive slave-traders, particularly Lalloc and Genshed - the worst of the lot, he said, and he was determined to get them - and secondly to ensure that someone should meet the Deelguy if they succeeded in crossing the river. He knew they'd started work on the ferry.'

Again she paused and again Kelderek remained silent.

'Elstrit did did reach Ikat, you see. I might have known he would. He gave Erketlis the Baron's message, and it seems that the idea of the ferry appealed so much to the commander of the Deelguy with Erketlis that he immediately sent to the king of Deelguy suggesting that pioneers should be sent down the cast bank to begin work opposite Zeray and try to get the ferry started. I suppose be had the notion that any reinforcements sent from Deelguy to join the army after it had marched north might be able to avoid crossing the Gelt mountains. Anyway, those were the men you and I saw that afternoon, when we were on the roof. They're still there, but when I left no one had crossed the strait. Actually, I don't yet see how they're going to. reach Ikat, you see. I might have known he would. He gave Erketlis the Baron's message, and it seems that the idea of the ferry appealed so much to the commander of the Deelguy with Erketlis that he immediately sent to the king of Deelguy suggesting that pioneers should be sent down the cast bank to begin work opposite Zeray and try to get the ferry started. I suppose be had the notion that any reinforcements sent from Deelguy to join the army after it had marched north might be able to avoid crossing the Gelt mountains. Anyway, those were the men you and I saw that afternoon, when we were on the roof. They're still there, but when I left no one had crossed the strait. Actually, I don't yet see how they're going to.

'But Elleroth had a third and more important reason, as Tan-Rion told me - more important to himself, anyway. He was going to find his poor son; or if he couldn't, it wasn't going to be for want of trying. There were eight officers altogether with the Sarkid company that entered Zeray, and every one of them had sworn to Elleroth, before they left Kabin, that they'd find his son if they had to search every foot of ground in the province. As soon as they'd been in Zeray twenty-four hours and found out all there was to learn - that is, that Genshed wasn't there and that no one had seen him or heard of him - they set out upstream. They'd already sent a detachment north on the way in, to close the Linsho Gap. That must have been closed two days after you left Zeray.'

'It was only just in time, then,' said Kelderek.

'I went north with the Yeldashay, and I went on the Tuginda's express order. She regained consciousness towards evening of the day you set out. She was very weak, and of course at that time we were still afraid that the house would be attacked by those ruffians who'd injured her. But as soon as the Yeldashay came and the fear of being murdered was off our minds, she began making her plans again. She's very strong, you know.'

'I do know - who better?'

"The night before the soldiers left Zeray she told me what I had to do. She said that with Ankray and two officers staying behind she felt perfectly safe; and I was to go north. I reminded her that there was no other woman in the house.

' "Then perhaps you or Tan-Rion will get me a decent girl from Lak," she said, "but north you must certainly go, my dear. The Yeldashay are not looking for Lord Shardik; they're looking for Elleroth's boy. Yet you and I know that both Shardik and Kelderek are wandering somewhere between here and Linsho. What holy and sacred death Lord Shardik is doomed to die none can tell, but come it must. As for Kelderek, he is in great danger; and I know what is between you and him as surely as though you had told me. The Yeldashay believe both him and Shardik to be their enemies. You are needed both as friend and as priestess, and if you ask me what you are to do, I reply that God will show you."

' "Priestess? " I said. "You're calling me me a priestess?" a priestess?"

' "You are are a priestess," she answered. "I say you are a priestess and you have my authority to act as such. It is as my priestess that you are to go north with the soldiers and do what you find to do." ' a priestess," she answered. "I say you are a priestess and you have my authority to act as such. It is as my priestess that you are to go north with the soldiers and do what you find to do." '

Melathys paused for some moments to regain command of herself. At length she went on, 'So I - so I set out, as a priestess of Quiso. We went to Lak and there I learned first of Shardik and next that you had been there and gone. Nothing more was known of you. The day after, the Yeldashay began moving north towards Linsho, searching the forest as they went. Tan-Rion had promised the Tuginda to look after me and it was he who gave me this Yeldashay metlan. metlan. He'd got the cloth with him - he bought it in Kabin, I believe - I wonder who for? -and a woman in Lak made it up to his orders. "You'll be perfectly all right with the men as long as you look like a Yeldashay girl," he said. "They know who you are, but it'll give them the idea that they ought to respect you and look after you." He gave me this emblem too.' He'd got the cloth with him - he bought it in Kabin, I believe - I wonder who for? -and a woman in Lak made it up to his orders. "You'll be perfectly all right with the men as long as you look like a Yeldashay girl," he said. "They know who you are, but it'll give them the idea that they ought to respect you and look after you." He gave me this emblem too.'

She paused, smiling, and picked it up. 'Popular girl. Would you like me to throw it in the river?'

He shook his head. 'There's no need. Besides, it might excite me, mightn't it? Go on.'

She put it back on the blanket.

'The second day after we'd left Lak, in the morning, we found the body of a child - a boy of about ten - cast up on the shore. He was dreadfully thin. He'd been stabbed to death. He had a pierced ear and chain-marks on his ankles. The soldiers were wild with rage. That was when I began to wonder whether you might have been murdered by the slave-traders. I was frantic with worry and God help me, I thought more of that than of Lord Shardik.

'About the middle of that afternoon I was walking up the shore with Tan-Rion and his tryzatt when two canoes came downstream, manned by a Yeldashay officer, two soldiers and two villagers from Tissarn. That was how we learned that Radu had been found and Genshed and Lalloc were dead. The officer told us how Lord Shardik had given his life to save Radu and the children, and of how he split the rock. It was like a miracle, he said, like an old tale beyond belief.

'The Yeldashay, of course, could think of nothing but Radu, but I questioned the officer until I found out that you had been with Genshed and that Shardik had saved you too. "Wounded, feverish and half out of his mind," the officer said, but they didn't think you would die.

'One of the canoes went on to Zeray, but I made Tan-Rion give me a place in the other that was going back. We travelled upstream all night, inshore against the current, and reached Tissarn soon after dawn. I went first to Lord Shardik, as I was in honour and duty bound. No one had touched him; and just as the Tuginda had said, I knew then what I had to do. Tan-Rion has already set about the preparations. He made no difficulty when I asked him. The Yeldashay feel very differently now about Lord Shardik, you sec.

'But I've talked too long, my darling. I mustn't tire you any more tonight.'

'One question,' said Kelderek. 'One only. What of Radu and the children?'

'They're still here. I've met Radu. He spoke of you as his friend and comrade. He's weak and very much distressed.' She paused. 'There was a little girl ?'

Kelderek drew in his breath sharply, and nodded.

'Elleroth has been sent for,' she said. 'The other children - I've not seen them. Some are recovering, but I'm told that several are in a very bad way, poor little things. At least they're all in good hands. Now you must sleep again.'

'And you too, my dearest Travel-All-Night. We must both sleep.*

'Goodnight, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. Look, the daylight's quite gone. I'll ask old Dirion, bless her, to bring her lamp and sit with you until she's sure you're asleep.'

56 The Passing of Shardik

Although it was now quite dark he could hear, some distance away, the sounds of men working - concerted, rhythmic shouts, as though heavy objects were being lugged into place; hammering, splintering and the knock of axes. A faint glow of torchlight was discernible from somewhere near the river. Once, when a deep splash was followed by a particularly loud shouting, Dirion, sitting by her lamp, clicked her tongue reprovingly. She said nothing in explanation, however, and after a little he ceased to wonder what urgent demand of war could have come upon the soldiers in this remote place where, so far as he knew, no enemy threatened. He fell asleep, waking to see moonlit ripples reflected in the roof and Melathys sitting by the lamp. Somewhere outside, a Yeldashay sentry called, 'All's well,' in the expressionless, stylized tone of one who observes routine.

'You should sleep,' he whispered. She started, came over to the bed, bent and kissed him lightly and then nodded, smiling, towards the neighbour room, as though to say she would sleep there: and at that moment Dirion returned. Yet much later in the night, when he woke, crying and struggling, from a dream of Genshed, it was still Melathys who was with him. He had somehow struck his wounded finger-nail. The pain was sickening and she comforted him as infants or animals are comforted, repeating the same phrases in a quiet, assured voice, 'There, there; the pain will go soon, it will go soon; wait now, wait now,' until he felt that it was indeed she who was making the pain subside. As the darkness began to melt into first light he lay awake, acquiescent, listening to the river and the growing sounds of morning - the birds, the clang of a pot and the snapping of sticks which someone was breaking across his knee.

He realized that for the first time since leaving Ortelga he was taking pleasure in diese sounds and that they were filling him, as once long ago, with expectancy of the coming day. To eat a meal, to complete a day's work, to come home tired to a fire, to greet a girl, talk and listen - a man free to do these things, he thought, should wear his blessings like a garland.

Yet when he had eaten and Melathys had changed his dressings he fell asleep again, waking only a little before noon, when a random sunbeam touched his eyes. He felt stronger, in pain certainly but no longer its helpless victim. After a time he put his foot to the floor, stood up dizzily, holding on to the bed, and looked about him.

His room and another comprised the upper storey of a fairly large hut: plank floor and walls, with an Ortelgan-style roof of reed thatch over zeilapa zeilapa poles. The eastern side, behind the head of his bed, was a gallery, half-walled and open to the river almost immediately below. poles. The eastern side, behind the head of his bed, was a gallery, half-walled and open to the river almost immediately below.

He hobbled to the gallery wall and leaned upon it, looking out across the Telthearna to the distant Deelguy shore. Far off, men were fishing, their net stretched between two canoes. The midstream current glittered and close by, a little to his left, a few gaunt oxen stood drinking in the shallows. It was so quiet that after a time his ear caught the sound of breathing. He turned and, looking into the next room, saw Melathys lying asleep on a low, rough bed like his own. She was no less beautiful in sleep, lips closed, forehead smooth, her long eyelids curved, he thought, like waves lapping on her cheeks in dark ripples of lashes. This was the girl who for his sake had slept very little last night and not at all the night before. He had been restored to her by Shardik, whom he had once cursed and planned to destroy.

He turned back towards the river and for a long time remained leaning on the half-wall, watching the slow clouds and their mirrored images. The water was so smooth that when two duck flew across a white cloud, wheeled in the sky and disappeared upstream, their reflections were plain as themselves. This he saw with a sense of having seen the like before, yet could not remember where.

He stood up to pray, but could not raise his wounded arm and after a short time, his weakness overcoming him, was forced once more to support himself against the half-wall. For a long time his thoughts formed no words, dwelling only upon his own past ignorance and self-will. Yet strangely, these thoughts were kind to him, bringing with them no shame or distress, and turning finally to a flood of humility and gratitude. The mysterious gift of Shardik's death, he now knew, transcended all personal shame and guilt and must be accepted without dwelling on his own unworthiness, just as a prince mourning his father's death must contain his grief and be strong to assume, as a sacred trust, the responsibilities and cares of state which have fallen upon him. In spite of mankind and of all folly, Shardik had completed his work and returned to God. For his one-time priest to be absorbed in his own sorrow and penitence would be only to fail him yet again, the nature of the sacred truth immanent in that work being a mystery still to be grasped through prayer and meditation. And then? he thought. What then?

Below him the stones lay clean on the empty shore. The world, he reflected, was very old. 'Do with me what You intend,' he whispered aloud. 'I am waiting, at last.'

The fishermen had left the river. There appeared to be no one below in the village. So much quiet seemed strange in the early afternoon. When he heard the soldiers approaching he did not at first recognize the sound. Then, as they drew nearer, what had been one sound resolved into many - the tramping of feet, the clink of accoutrements, voices, a cough, a shouted order, a tryzatt's sharp admonition. There must be many soldiers - more than a hundred, he guessed; and by the sounds, armed and equipped. Melathys still slept as they passed by, unseen by him, on the landward side of the hut As their tramping died away he suddenly heard Yeldashay voices talking below. Then there was a knock: Dirion opened the door and spoke a few words, but too quietly for him to make out what she had said. Supposing that the soldiers must be leaving the village and wondering whether Melathys knew of it, he waited and after a little Dirion came clambering up the ladder into the further end of the gallery. When she was half-way across the room she suddenly saw him, started and began scolding him back to bed. Smiling, he asked, 'What is it? What's happening?'

'Why, the young officer, to be sure,' she answered. 'He's here for the saiyett - to take her down to the shore. They're ready for the burning, and I must wake her. Now you go back to bed, my dear.'

At this moment Melathys woke as silently and swiftly as the moon emerges from behind clouds, her eyes opening and looking towards them with no remaining trace of sleep. To his surprise she ignored him, saying quickly to Dirion, 'Is it afternoon? Has the officer come?' Dirion nodded and went across to her. Kelderek followed more slowly, came up to the bed and took her hand.

'What's happening?' he repeated. 'What do they want?'

She gazed gravely up into his eyes.

'It is Lord Shardik,' she answered. 'I have to do - what is appointed.'

Understanding, he drew in his breath. 'The body?'

She nodded. 'The appointed way is very old - as old as Quiso. The Tuginda herself could not recall all the ceremony, but what has to be done is plain enough, and God will not refuse to accept the best that we are able to offer. At least Lord Shardik will have a fitting and honourable passing.'

'How does he pass?'

'The Tuginda never told you ? '

'No,' replied Kelderek sadly. 'No; that, too, I neglected to learn.'

'He drifts down the river on a burning raft ' Then, standing up, she took both his hands in her own and said, 'Kelderek, my dear love, I should have told you of this, but it could not have been delayed later than today, and even this morning you still seemed too tired and weak.'

'I'm well enough,' he answered firmly. 'I am coming with you. Don't say otherwise.' She seemed about to reply, but he added, 'At all costs I shall come.'

He turned to Dirion. 'If the Yeldashay officer is still below, greet him from me and ask him to come and help me down the ladder.' She shook her head, but went without argument, and he said to Melathys, 'I won't delay you, but somehow or other I must be dressed decently. What clothes do you mean to wear?'

She nodded towards a rough-hewn, unpolished chest standing on the other side of the bare room, and he saw lying across it a plain, clean robe, loose-sleeved and high-necked, dyed, somewhat unevenly, a dark red - a peasant girl's' one good dress'.

'They're kind people,' she said. 'The elder's wife gave me the cloth - her own - and her women made it yesterday.' She smiled. 'That's two new dresses I've been given in five days.'

'People like you.'

'It can be useful. But come, my dearest, since I'm not going to try to cross you in your resolve, we have to be busy. What will you do for clothes?'

'The Yeldashay will help me.' He limped to the head of the ladder as Dirion came struggling up it for the second time, lugging with her a wooden pail of cold water. Melathys said in Beklan, 'The washing's like the clothes. But she's the soul of kindness. Tell the officer I shan't be long.'

The Yeldashay officer had followed Dirion half-way up the ladder and now, looking down, Kelderek recognized Tan-Rion.

'Please give me your hand,' he said. 'I'm recovered sufficiently to come with you and the priestess today.'

'I didn't know of this,' replied Tan-Rion, evidently taken aback. 'I was told you would not be equal to it.'

'With your help I shall be,' said Kelderek. 'I beg you not to refuse. To me this duty is more sacred than birth and death.'

For answer Tan-Rion stretched out his hand. As Kelderek came gropingly down the ladder, he said, 'You followed your bear on foot from Bekla to this place?'

Kelderek hesitated. 'In some sort - yes, I suppose so.' 'And the bear saved Lord Elleroth's son.'

Kelderek, in pain, gave way to a touch of impatience. 'I was there.' Feeling faint, he leaned against the wall of the dark, lower room into which he had climbed down. 'Can you - could your men, perhaps - find me some clothes? Anything clean and decent will do.'

Tan-Rion turned to the two soldiers waiting by the door and spoke in his own tongue. One answered him, frowning and evidently in some perplexity. He spoke again, more sharply, and they hurried away.

Kelderek fumbled his way out of the hut to the fore-shore, pulled off the rough, sack-like shift he had been wearing in the bed and knelt down to wash, one-handed, in the shallows. The cold water pulled him together and he sat, clear-headed enough, on a bench, while Tan-Rion dried him with the shift for want of anything better. The soldiers returned, one carrying a bundle wrapped in a cloak. Kelderek tried to make out what they said.

- 'whole village empty, sir,' he heard - 'decent people - can't just help ourselves - done the best we can -'

Tan-Rion nodded and turned back to him. 'They've brought some clothes of their own. They suggest you put them on and wear a sentry's night-cloak over the top. I think that's the best we can do at this short notice. It will look well enough.'

'I'm grateful,' said Kelderek. 'Could they - could someone - support me, do you think? I'm afraid I'm weaker than I thought.'

One of the soldiers, perceiving his clumsiness and evident fear of hurting his heavily-bound left arm, had already, with natural kindliness, stepped forward to help him into the unfamiliar clothes. They were the regulation garments of a Yeldashay infantryman. The man fastened the cloak at his neck and then drew his sound arm over his own shoulders. At this moment Melathys came down the ladder, bowed gravely to Tan-Rion, touched Kelderek's hand for an instant and then led the way out into the village street.

She was wearing the plaited wooden rings of a priestess of Quiso. Were they her own, he wondered, hidden and kept safe throughout her wanderings, or had the Tuginda given them to her pardoned priestess when she left Zeray? Her long, black hair was gathered round her head and fastened with two heavy wooden pins - no doubt the very best that Dirion could borrow. The dark-red robe, which would otherwise have fallen straight from the shoulder like a shift, was gathered at the waist by a belt of soft, grey leather with a crisscross pattern of bronze studs, and from below this the skirt flared slightly, falling to her ankles. Even at this moment Kelderek found himself wondering how she had come by the belt. Had she brought it with her from Zeray, or was it the gift of Tan-Rion or some other Yeldashay officer?

Outside, between the huts, a double file of Sarkid soldiers, in full panoply, stood waiting. Each wore the corn-sheaves on his left shoulder. They were spearmen, and at the approach of the priestess of Quiso, followed by their own officer and the limping, pallid Ortelgan priest-king who had suffered in comradeship with the Ban's son, they saluted by beating the bronze-shod butts of their spears in succession with a dull, rolling sound on the hard-trodden earth. Melathys bowed to the tryzatt and took up her place at the head of and between the two files. Kelderek, still leaning on the soldier's shoulder, stationed himself a few paces behind her. After a moment she turned and came back to him.

'You are still of the same mind, my love?' she whispered.

'If we go slowly -I can manage it.' can manage it.'

Giving his soldier a nod and smile of thanks, she returned to her place, looked quickly about her and then, leaving it to the tryzatt and his men to follow her lead, set off with the same solemn, gliding step. Kelderek came limping, breathing hard and leaning heavily on the soldier's shoulder. The Telthearna lay on their left and he realized that they were going southward out of the village, towards the place where Shardik had died. They passed patches of cultivated ground, a shed for oxen with a great pile of manure outside it, a frame on which nets hung drying and an up-ended canoe, patched and repaired, its new caulking shining black in the sun. Hobbling between the files of soldiers, he recalled how he had once paced the streets of Bekla with his scarlet-cloaked priestesses, the train of his panelled robe carried behind him. He could feel again the weight of the curved, silver claws hanging from the fingers of his gauntlets, hear the stroke of the gong and see about him the finery of his attendants. He felt no regret. That great city he would never, he knew, see again; and gone, too, was the false illusion which had carried him thither in bloodshed and drawn him thence, alone and friendless, to suffering and self-knowledge. But the secret - the great secret of life on earth - the secret that Shardik might perhaps have been able to impart to a humble, selfless, listening heart - must that, too, be lost for ever? 'Ah, Lord Shardik,' he prayed silently, 'the empire was pride and folly. I am sorry for my blindness, and sorry, too, for all that you suffered at my hands. Yet for others' sake, not mine, I entreat you not to leave us for ever without the truth that you came to reveal. Not for our deserving, but of your own grace and pity for Man's helplessness.'

His foot slipped and he stumbled, clutching quickly at his companion's shoulder.

'All right, mate?' whispered the soldier. 'Hold on. Comin' up now, look.'

He lifted his head, peering in front of him. The two files were opening out, moving apart, while ahead of him Melathys still paced on alone. Now he remembered where he was. They had come to that part of the shore which lay between the southern outskirts of the village and the wooded inlet where Shardik had died. That it was crowded he could see, but at first he could not make out the people who were surrounding the stony, open space into which he was following Melathys. A sudden fear came upon him.

'Wait,' he said to the soldier. 'Wait a moment.'

He stopped, still leaning on the man, and looked about him. From all sides, faces were turned towards him and eyes were staring expectantly. He realized why he had felt afraid. He had known them before - the eyes, the silence. But as though to transform the curses which he had carried out of Kabin, everyone was looking at him with admiration, with pity and gratitude. On his left stood the villagers: men, women and children all in mourning, with covered heads and bare feet. Gathered behind the file of soldiers now halted and facing inwards in extended order, they filled the shore to the water's edge. Although, from natural awe and sense of occasion, they did not press forward, yet they could not help swaying and moving where they stood as they pointed out to one another, and held up their children to see, the beautiful priestess of Quiso and the holy man who had suffered such bitter hardship and cruelty to vindicate the truth and power of God. Many of the children were carrying flowers - trcpsis and field lily, planella, green-blooming vine and long sprays of melikon blossom. Suddenly, of his own accord, a little boy came forward, stared gravely up at Kelderek, laid his bunch at his feet and ran quickly back to his mother.

On the right stood the Yeldashay troops - the entire Sarkid contingent who had marched from Kabin to close the Linsho Gap. Their line, too, extended to the water's edge, and their polished arms shone bravely in the light of the westering sun. In front, a young officer held aloft the Corn-Sheaves banner, but as Melathys passed him he dropped on one knee, slowly lowering it until the blue cloth lay broad across the stones.

With an extraordinary sense of grave, solemn joy, such as he had never known, Kelderek braced himself to go forward over the shore. Still he could not see the river, for between it and Melathys a third group were facing him - a single line, parallel with the water's edge, extending between the villagers and the soldiers. At its centre stood Radu, pale and drawn, dressed, like Melathys, in villager's clothes, his face disfigured with bruises and one arm in a sling. On each side of him were some five or she of the slave children - all, it seemed, who had been able to find the strength to stand and walk. Indeed, it appeared to Kelderek, looking at them, that there might be some who could scarcely do so much, for two or three, like himself, were leaning on companions - village boys, they looked to be -while behind the line were benches, from which they had evidently risen at the approach of the priestess. He saw the boy with whom he had talked in the night and who had told him about Leg-by-Lee. Then he suddenly started, recognizing, at one extremity of the line, Shouter, who caught his eye for a moment and looked quickly away.

As Melathys halted, soldiers took away the benches, the children moved apart in either direcdon, and now for the first time Kelderek saw the water's edge and the river beyond.

A small fire was burning on the stones, a little in front of the shoreward extremity of the soldiers' line. It was bright and clear, with hardly a trace of smoke, and above it the air wavered, distorting the distant view. Yet this he scarcely noticed, standing, like a child, with one hand raised to his open mouth, staring at what lay immediately before him.

In the shallows a heavy raft was moored - a raft bigger than the floor of a dwelling-hut, made of sapling trunks lashed together with creeper. It was covered with high piled brushwood, logs and dry faggots, over which had been sprinkled flowers and green boughs. Upon this great bed, pressing it down, as a fortress settles upon the ground where it is built, lay the body of Shardik. He was lying on one side, as naturally as though sleeping, one fore-paw extended, the claws hanging down almost to the water. The eyes were closed - stitched, perhaps, thought Kelderek, observing with what care and pains the villagers and soldiers had carried out their work of preparing for his obsequies the Power of God - but the long wedge of the muzzle, if it had once been shut, had in some way burst its binding, so that now the lips snarled open round the pointed teeth. The poor, wounded face had been cleaned and tended, yet all that the soldiers had been able to do could not obliterate, to the eyes of one who had once seen them, the marks of Shardik's wounds and sufferings. Nor could the long, careful combing, the removal of briars and thorns and the brushing in of oil disguise the starved desolation of the body. It was not possible for Shardik to appear small, but less colossal he looked; and as it were, shrunken in the grip of death. There was a faint odour of carrion, and Kelderek realized that Melathys, from the moment that she heard the news, must have grasped the necessity of speed and known that she would barely have time to carry out all that the Tuginda would wish. She had done well, he thought, and more than well. Then, as he took yet a few more painful steps forward, his line of vision became direct and he saw what had been concealed from him before.

Between Shardik's front paws lay the body of Shara. The extended paw covered her feet, while her raised head rested upon the other. She was bare-headed and dressed in a white smock, her hands clasped about a bunch of scarlet trepsis. Her fair hair had been combed over her shoulders and round her neck had been fastened a string of pierced and coloured stones. Although her eyes were closed, she did not look as though she were asleep. Her thin body and face were those of a dead child, drained and waxen: and cleaner, stiller and more tranquil than ever Kelderek had seen them in life. Dropping his head on the soldier's arm, he sobbed as uncontrollably as though the shore had been deserted.

'Steady now, mate, steady,' whispered the kindly, decent fellow, ignoring everything but the poor foreigner clinging to him. 'Why, they ain't there, you know. That ain't nothing, that ain't. They're off somewhere better, you can be sure of that. Only we got to do what's right and proper, 'aven't we?'

Kelderek nodded, bore down on the supporting arm and turned once more to face the raft as Melathys passed close to him on her way to speak to Tan-Rion. Despite their debt to the Yeldashay she spoke, as was right, out of the authority conferred upon her and not as one asking a favour.

'Captain,' she said, 'by the ancient rule of Quiso no weapons must be brought into any place sacred to Lord Shardik. I tell you this, but I leave you, of course, to order the matter as you think best.'

Tan-Rion took it very well. Hesitating only a moment, he nodded, then turned his soldiers about and marched them back a little distance along the shore. There each man grounded his spear and laid beside it his belt, short sword and knife. As they returned, halted and dressed their line, Melathys stepped forward into the shallows and stood motionless before the raft, her arms outstretched towards Shardik and the dead child.

How many times has that scene been depicted - carved in relief on stone, painted on walls, drawn with brush and ink on scrolls, scratched with pointed sticks in the wet sand of the Telthearna shore? On one side the fishermen and peasants, on the other the unarmed soldiers, the handful of children beside the fire (first, the very first, of all those to bless the name of Lord Shardik), the Man supported on the soldier's arm, the Woman standing alone before the bodies on the floating pyre? The sculptors and the painters have done what was required of them, finding ways to reflect the awe and wonder in the hearts of people who have known the story since they were little children themselves. The fisher-folk - handsome, strong young men, fine old patriarchs and their grave dames - face the resplendent soldiers in their red cloaks, each a warrior to conquer a thousand hearts. The Man's unhealed wounds bleed red upon the stones, the Woman is robed like a goddess; light streams from Lord Shardik's body upon the kneeling children, and the little girl smiles as though in her sleep, nestling between the strong, protecting limbs. The fire burns lambent, the regular wavelets lap white as wool upon the strand. Perhaps - who can tell? - this is indeed the truth, sprung like an oak from an acorn long vanished into the earth: from the ragged, muttering peasants (one or two already edging away to the evening chores), the half-comprehending soldiers obeying orders, their clothes and armour, conscientiously mended and burnished, showing every sign of a hard campaign and a forced march; from Shouter, trying for dear life to squeeze out a few tears; from Kelderek's uncontrollable trembling, Melathys' weary, dark-ringed eyes and homespun robe, from the grubby village flotsam bobbing in the shallows and the sorry huddle on the raft. These things were not remarked or felt at the time and now they have long disappeared, mere grains succeeded by the massive trunk above and the huge spread of roots below. And lost too - only to be guessed at now - are the words which Melathys spoke.

She spoke in Ortelgan, a tongue largely unknown to the Yeldashay, though understood well enough by the Tissarn villagers. First she uttered the traditional invocation of Quiso to Lord Shardik, followed by a sequence of prayers whose archaic and beautiful periods fell from her lips without hesitation. Then, turning to face her listeners and changing her voice to an even tone of narration, she spoke of the finding of Shardik on Ortelga and the saving of his life by the priestesses of Quiso; of his coming alive from the Streel; of his ordained suffering, and of the sacred death by which he had saved the heir of Sarkid and the enslaved children from the power of evil. Kelderek, listening, marvelled, less at her self-possession than at the authority and humility present together in her voice and bearing. It was as though the girl whom he knew had relinquished herself to become a vessel brimmed with words old, smooth and universal as stones; and by these to allow mankind's grief and pity for death, the common lot of all creatures, to flow not from but through her. Out of her mouth the dead, it seemed, spoke to the unborn, as sand pours grain by grain through the waist of an hour-glass. The sand was run at last and the girl stood motionless, head bowed, eyes closed, hands clasped at her waist.

The silence was broken by the voice of the young flag-officer beginning, like a precentor, the beautiful Yeldashay lament sometimes called 'The Grief of Deparioth', but more widely known, perhaps, as 'The Tears of Sarkid'. This, which tells of the sacred birth and the youth of U-Deparioth, liberator of Yelda and founder of the House of Sarkid, is sung to this day, though perhaps it has altered through the centuries; just as, they say, the shapes of the constellations undergo change, no man living long enough to perceive it. The soldiers took up the lament, their solemn chanting growing louder and echoing from the Deelguy shore.