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 worshipping 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 worshippers 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 eastwards, downstream, towards 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 dog-like snarling of its lip in suspicion, its shrinking from the heat of the rocks in the mid-day 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 practise in earnest On the fourth evening, when the singers had formed a wide circle round 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 further 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 towards her.
A day or two later Sheldra, stepping backwards 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 fordi 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 quictly 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
