at last it did so, the mile-wide silence was broken by her long, ululant cry of 'Shardik! Lord Shardik's fire!' A moment after, a streaking, dusky tongue of flame leapt up the thirty feet of the pitch-coated pine-trunk erected on the palace roof, appearing from the city below as a column of fire in the southern sky. From along the walls dividing the upper from the lower city, the priestess's wailing call was answered and repeated, as five similar but lesser flames rose, one after another, from the roofs of the equidistant guard-turrets, like serpents from their baskets as the reedy note of the snake-charmer. Then, from the lower city, there followed in appointed order the flames of the various gates and towers – the Blue Gate, the Gate of Lilies, the towers of the great clocks, the tower of Sel-Dolad, the tower of the Orphans and the tower of Leaves. Each flame soared into the night with the speed of a gymnast climbing a rope, and the poles burned in long, blazing waves, the fire rippling like water along their sides. So for a little they stood alone, indicating the length and breadth of the city where it lay upon the plain like a great raft moored under the steep of Crandor. And as they burned, their crackling alone breaking the silence that returned upon the ceasing of the cries from the towers, the streets began to fill with growing numbers of people emerging from their doors; some merely standing, like the sentry, in the dark, others groping slowly but purposefully towards the Caravan Market. Soon many were assembled there, all unspeaking, all standing patiently in a moonset, flame- flecked owl-light almost too dim for any to recognize his neighbour.
Then, far off against the Leopard Hill, appeared the flame of a single torch. Quickly it moved, bobbing, descending, racing down through the terraces towards the Barb, through the gardens and on towards the Peacock Gate, which stood ready open for the runner to enter the street of the Armourers and so come down to the Market and the reverent, waiting crowd. How many were gathered there? Hundreds, thousands. Very many men and some women also, each one the head of a household; justices and civic officers, foreign merchants, tally-keepers, builders and carpenters, the respectable widow side by side with Auntie from the jolly girls' house, hard-handed cobblers, harness-makers and weavers, the keepers of the itinerant labourers' hostels, the landlord of The Green Grove, the guardian of the provincial couriers' hospice and more, many more, stood shoulder to shoulder in silence, their only light the distant glinting of the tall flames which had summoned them from their homes, each carrying an unlit torch, to seek, as the gift of God, the blessing of the renewal of fire. The runner, a young officer of Ged-la-Dan's household, honoured with this task in recognition of courageous service in Lapan, carried his torch, lit from the new fire on the Palace roof, to the plinth of the Great Scales and there at last halted, silent and smiling, waiting a few moments to collect himself and to be sure of his effect before holding out the flame to the nearest suppliant, an old man wrapped in a patched, green cloak and leaning on a staff.
'Blest be the fire!' called the officer in a voice that carried across the square.
'Blest be Lord Shardik!' replied the old man quaveringly, and as he spoke lit his torch from the other's.
Now a handsome, middle-aged woman stepped forward, carrying in one hand her torch and in the other a yellow-painted wand, in token that she was deputizing for a husband absent at the war. There were many such in the crowd.
'Blest be the fire!' cried the young officer again, and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' she answered, looking him in the eye with a smile that said, 'And blest be you too, my fine fellow.' Holding her lit torch aloft, she turned and set out for home, while a rough, heavily-built man, dressed like a drover, took her place before the plinth.
There was no jostling or haste, but a measured and joyous solemnity as torch after torch was lit. None might speak until the gift of fire had been bestowed upon him. Not all waited to receive fire from the actual torch carried from the Palace. Many, eager, took it as it was offered by those who were moving away across the square, until on all sides resounded the happy shouts of 'Blest be the fire!' and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' Gradually the square became full of more and more points of light, like sparks spreading across the back of a hearth or the surface of a smouldering log. Soon the tossing, dancing flames were flowing out in every direction along the streets, while loosened tongues chattered like birds at first light and the rekindled lamps began to shine in one window after another. Then, on the roofs of the houses up and down the city, smaller fires began to burn. Some were poles, in imitation of those already lit on the gates and towers, others braziers full of wood or clearer fires of scented gums and incense-sprinkled charcoal. Feasting began and music, drinking in the taverns, dancing in the squares. Everywhere, the gift of light and warmth by night manifested the power over cold and darkness bestowed by God on Man and Man alone.
Beside the Barb, in the upper city above the Peacock Gate, another, graver messenger had arrived with his torch – none other than General Zelda, his full armour dully reflecting the smoky light as he strode towards the ripples lapping on the shore. Here, too, suppliants were waiting, but fewer and less fervent, their emotions modified by that detachment and self-conscious restraint which characterizes the aristocratic, wealthy or powerful participating in popular customs. Zelda's invocatory 'Blest be the fire' was spoken indeed with raised voice but in a formal, level tone, while the responding, 'Blest be Lord Shardik', though uttered sincerely, lacked the hearty ring of flower-girls or market porters in the lower city, breaking two hours' darkness and silence with the words appointed to commence one of the great frolics of the year.
Kelderek, robed in saffron and scarlet and attended by the priestesses of Shardik, stood waiting on the highest terrace of the Leopard Hill, surveying the city below; the torches spreading through the streets like water flowing from a sluice along dry irrigation channels; the multitudinous shapes of doors and windows emerging in light out of the darkness, as though called into existence by the new fires kindled within them; and nearer, the lines of flames lengthening, extending further along the shore of the Barb. So sometimes may news actually be seen to spread through a crowd, wind across a dusty plain, or sunrise down the western slope of a valley. About him burned the salts and gums and oils prepared for the fire festival, mysterious and splendid in combustion – kingfisher blue, cinnabar, violet, lemon and frost-green beryl – each transparent, gauzy fire, in its bronze bowl, carried upon rods between the shoulders of two women. The gong-like bells of the palace towers were ringing, their shuddering harmonies vibrating over the city, fading and returning like waves upon a shore. As he watched, the slip of the new moon sank at last below the western horizon and upon the lake appeared the gliding shape of a great dragon, a grinning monster all of fire, green-eyed and clawed, its jaws spouting a plume of white smoke that trailed behind it as it gathered way. Shouts of admiration and excitement broke out, young men's battle-cries and the stylized calls of the chase. Then, as the dragon reached the centre of the Barb, there sprang into being upon the further shore another fiery shape, erect upon its hind legs, thirty feet tall, round-eared, long-muzzled, snarling, one clawed fore- paw raised aloft As the cries of 'Shardik! Lord Shardik's fire!' rose higher and echoed from the walls about the garden, the figure of a naked man, bearing a torch in each hand, appeared in the bear's jaws. One moment he paused on that high, bright platform; then leapt out above the water. Secured to his shoulders and unrolling behind him was a long strip of tarred canvas which, burning, made it appear as though the bear were salivating fire. The leaper, plunging into the water below, slipped out of his harness and swam to the shore. Another followed, and now it was the shape of a fiery arrow which fell from the bear's mouth to the water. Quicker and quicker came the leapers, so that the flaming shapes of swords, spears and axes poured from between the bear's teeth to hurtle down over the lake. At length, as the dragon, belching smoke, glided beneath the towering effigy of Shardik, a burning noose dropped to encircle the prow forming its throat. The lights of its hot eyes went out and amid shouts of triumph its smoky breath died away as it floated captive at the glowing, ember-shaggy feet
Meanwhile, Kelderek and his train had already begun to descend the terraces in slow procession. The chanting of the priestesses rose about him with a sound that wrung his heart, for it was that same andphony that he had first heard in the forests of western Ortelga. Then, the voices of Rantzay and the Tuginda had formed part of a wall of sound encircling a summit of the spirit, sublime above the mortal world of fear and ignorance. Yet of this memory his grave, lean face showed no outward sign. His clasped hands were untrembling and his body, beneath the heavy robes, moved firmly on towards the appointed destination. The plant-scents of the night, thin and evanescent in the early spring air, mingled with the resinous odours of the coloured fires and the drift of torch- smoke on the breeze; and bemused, perhaps, by these and by his fast since sunrise, by his memories and the sound of the singing, he imagined first one and then another companion to be walking beside him towards the torch-lit garden and the dragon-reflecting lake: a dark girl wearing a broad, golden collar, who laughed and plunged the point of an arrow into her white arm before turning to him a face wan with fear: a tall, gaunt woman, limping exhausted on a staff, her sweating hands clutching a box where bladders lay packed in moss: and an old, red-eyed hag, who tottered at his elbow in filthy rags, bearing in her arms a dead child and imploring his help in mumbled words beyond his understanding. So real did they seem that dread and foreboding came upon him, pacing on. 'Shardik,' he prayed, 'senandril, Lord Shardik. Accept my life. Redeem the world, and begin with me.'
And now he is come to the garden, where the lords and ladies fall back before him and the barons raise their swords in salutation of the power entrusted by God to the priest-king. The priestesses' singing dies away, the
