Kelderek dragged himself to the rock and knelt beside it, weeping and beating upon the stone. One enormous forepaw, thick as a roof beam, hung down beside his face. He took it between his hands, crying, "O Shardik! Shardik, my lord, forgive me! I would have entered the Streel for you! Would to God I had died for you! O Lord Shardik, do not die, do not die!"
Looking up, he saw the teeth like stakes, the snarling mouth fixed open and unmoving, flies walking already on the protruding tongue, the blackened pelt burned to the skin, the arrow protruding from the face. The pointed muzzle jutted in a wedge against the sky. Kelderek beat his hands on the rock, sobbing with loss and despair.
He was roused by a hand that gripped his shoulder, shaking him roughly. Slowly lifting his head, he recognized the man standing beside him as an officer of the Yeldashay army, the corn sheaves of Sarkid blazoned upon one shoulder. Behind him stood his young, hard-bitten tryzatt, sword at the ready in case of trouble, in his wary eye a look of bewilderment and disdain as he stared uncomprehendingly at the huge carcass slumped over the rock and the three filthy vagabonds groveling round its base.
"Who are you?" said the officer. "Come on, answer me, man! What are you doing here and why are those children chained to that stone? What were you going to do?"
Following his gaze, Kelderek saw soldiers standing beside the children on the bank, while a little farther off, among the trees, a group of villagers stood staring and muttering.
The officer smelled like a clean butcher's shop--the smell of the meat-eater to him who eats none. The soldiers stood up as effortlessly as trees in spring. Their straps were oiled, their harness glittered, their eyes traveled quickly here and there, their controlled voices linked them like gods in smooth communication. Kelderek faced the officer.
"My name is Kelderek Play-with-the-Children," he said haltingly, "and my life--my life is forfeit to the Yeldashay. I am willing to die, and ask only to be allowed to send a last message to Zeray."
"What do you mean?" said the officer. "Why do you say your life is forfeit? Are you the slave trader who has committed these unspeakable crimes? Children we have found in the forest--sick--famished--dying, for all I know. Is this your doing?
"No," said Kelderek. "No, I'm not your slave trader. He's dead--by the Power of God."
"What are you, then?"
"I? I'm--I'm the governor-man from Bekla."
"Crendrik, king of Bekla? The priest of the bear?"
Kelderek nodded and laid one hand on the massive, shaggy pelt that rose like a wall above him.
"The same. But the bear--the bear will trouble you no more. Indeed, it was never he that troubled you, but misguided, sinful men, and I the worst of them. Tell your soldiers not to mock him dead. He was the Power of God, that came to men and was abused by men; and to God he has now returned."
The officer, contemptuous and bewildered, felt it best to avoid further talk with this bleeding, stinking scarecrow, with his talk of God and his expressed readiness to die. He turned to his tryzatt, but as he did so another figure plucked at his arm--a boy, his hair matted, his body emaciated, his blackened nails broken and a chain about his ankles. The boy looked at him with authority and said in native Yeldashay, "You are not to hurt that man, captain. Wherever my father may be, please send someone at once to tell him you have found us. We--"
He broke off and would have fallen had not the officer, his perplexity now complete, caught him with one arm about his shoulders.
"Steady, my boy, steady. What's all this, now? Who is your father--and who are you, if it comes to that?"
"I--am Radu, son of Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid."
The officer started and as he did so the boy slid from his grasp and fell to the ground, pressing his hands against the broken rock and sobbing, "Shara! Shara!"
BOOK VII
The Power of God
55 Tissarn
A DRY MOUTH. Glitter of water reflected from beneath a roof of reeds and poles. An evening light, red and slow. Some kind of woven covering rough against the body. A small, urgent, scratching sound--a mouse close by, a man farther off? Pain, many pains, not sharp, but deep and persistent, the body infused in pain, finger, ear, arm, head, stomach, the breath coming short with pain. Weary, a weariness to be conscious and to feel the pain. Drained away; void with hunger; mouth dry with thirst. And yet a sense of relief, of being in the hands of people who intended no harm. Where he was he did not know, except that he was no longer with Genshed. Genshed was dead. Shardik had destroyed him and Shardik was dead.
Those about him, those--whoever they were--who had been to the trouble of putting him into this bed, would no doubt be content to leave him there for the time being. He could think no further, could not think of the future. Wherever he was, he must be in the hands of the Yeldashay. Radu had spoken to the officer. Perhaps they would not kill him, not only because--and this was very vague, a kind of child's intuition of what was and was not possible--not only because Radu had spoken to the officer, but also because of his destitution and his sufferings. He felt himself invested with his sufferings as though with a kind of immunity. What they would do with him he could not tell, but he was almost sure that they would not put him to death. His mind drifted away--he lacked all strength to pursue thought further--a clamor of ducks on the river--he must be very near the waterside--a smell of wood smoke--the throbbing pain in the finger nail was the worst--his forearm had been bound up, but too tightly. All that was left of him was passive, fragments swept together and cast into a corner, Shardik dead, sounds, smells, vague memories, the coverlet rough at his neck, head rolling from side to side with pain, Shardik dead, the reflected evening light fading among the poles of the roof above.
Eyes closed, he moaned, licking his dry lips, tormented by his pain as though by flies. When he opened his eyes again--not from any deliberate wish to see, but for the momentary relief that the change would bring before the pain overtook it and once more crawled over his body--he saw an old woman standing beside the bed, holding a clay bowl in her two hands. Feebly he pointed to it and then to his mouth. She nodded, smiling, put one hand under his head and held the bowl to his lips. It was water. He drank it and gasped, "More," at which she nodded, went away and came back with the bowl full. The water was fresh and cold: she must have brought it straight from the river.
"Do you feel very bad, poor boy?" she asked. "You must rest."
He nodded and whispered, "But I'm hungry." Then he realized that she had spoken in a dialect like Ortelgan and that he had unthinkingly replied to her in that tongue. He smiled and said, "I'm from Ortelga." She answered, "River people, like us," and pointed, as he supposed, upstream. He tried to speak again but she shook her head, laying a soft, wrinkled hand on his forehead for a few moments before going away. He fell half-asleep--Genshed--Shardik dead--how long ago?--and after a time she came back with a bowl of broth made of fish and some vegetable he did not know. He ate feebly, as best he could, and she skewered the bits of fish on a pointed stick and fed him, holding his hand and clicking her tongue over his wounded finger. Again he asked for more, but she said, "Later--later--not too much at first--sleep again now."
"Will you stay here?" he asked, like a child, and she nodded. Then he pointed to the door and said, "Soldiers?"
She nodded once more and it was then that he remembered the children. But when he tried to ask her about them, she only repeated, "Sleep now," and indeed, with his thirst quenched and the hot food in his belly he found it easy to obey her, sliding away into the depths as a glimpsed trout slips from the fisherman's sight.
Once he woke in the dark and saw her sitting by a little, smoky lamp, its flame shining green through a lattice of thin rushes. Again she helped him to drink and then to relieve himself, brushing aside his hesitation and shame. "Why don't you sleep now?" he whispered. She answered, smiling, "Ay--happen you won't have the baby just yet," from which he guessed that she must be the village midwife. Her jest put him in mind once more of the children. "The
children?" he begged her. "The slave children?" But she only pressed her old, soft hand once more upon his forehead. "You know, they used to call me Kelderek Play-with-the-Children," he said. Then his head swam--had she drugged him?--and he fell asleep again.
When he woke he could tell that it was afternoon. The sun was still out of sight, somewhere beyond his feet, but higher and farther to his left than when he had first woken the day before. His head was clearer and he felt lighter, cleaner and somewhat less in pain. He was about to call to the old woman when he realized that in fact someone was already sitting beside the bed. He turned his head. It was Melathys.
He stared at her incredulously and she smiled back at him with the look of one who has brought a costly and unexpected present to a lover or a dear friend. She laid a finger on her lips but a moment after, perceiving that this would be insufficient to restrain him, she slipped forward on her knees beside the bed and laid her hand upon his.
"I'm real," she whispered, "but you're not to excite yourself. You're ill--wounds and exhaustion. Can you remember how bad you've been?"
He made no reply, only holding her hand to his lips. After a little she said, "Do you remember how you came here?"
He tried to shake his head but desisted, closing his eyes in pain. Then he asked her, "Where am I?"
"It's called Tissarn--a fishing village, quite small--smaller than Lak."
"Near--near where--?"
She nodded. "You walked here--the soldiers brought you. You can't remember?"
"Nothing."
"You've slept over thirty hours altogether. Do you want to sleep again?"