Sarkid. Listen, then, and judge whether they may not fall for me, as for the Lord Deparioth long ago.'
As Elleroth began speaking in Yeldashay, Kelderek wondered how many of those in the hall understood his words. It had been an error to allow him to address them. Yet in Bekla this privilege had always been accorded to any nobleman condemned to die, and to have withheld it would have undone much of the effect of granting him a merciful death. However he had gone about the business, he reflected bitterly, nevertheless a man like Elleroth, with his self-possession and aristocratic assurance, would have been bound to make his mark, and to contrive to show the Ortelgans as harsh and uncivilized.
Suddenly his attention was caught by an alteration in the tone of the voice. Looking up, he was astonished at the change that had come over the proud, haggard figure before him. Elleroth, with a look of the most earnest supplication, was leaning forward, speaking in a tone of passionate intensity and gazing from one to another about the hall. As Kelderek looked at him in amazement, he saw tears in his eyes. The Ban of Sarkid was weeping: yet clearly not for his own misfortune, for here and there, at his back, Kelderek could hear answering murmurs of sympathy and encouragement. He frowned, mustering his smattering of Yeldashay in an effort to understand what Elleroth was saying. misery no different from that suffered by many common men,' he made out; but lost the thread and could not distinguish the next words. Then 'cruelty to the innocent and helpless' – 'long searching to no avail -' After an interval he discerned '- the heir of a great house -' and then, spoken with a sob, '- the vile, shameful Ortelgan slave-trade.'
To his right Kelderek saw Maltrit, the captain of the guard, lay his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking quickly round as the murmuring grew throughout the hall. He nodded to him and gestured quickly with his hand twice, palm upward. Maltrit picked up a spear, hammered the butt on the floor and shouted 'Silence! Silence!' Once more Kelderek forced himself to look Elleroth in the eye. 'You must needs have done now, my lord,' he said. 'We have been generous to you. I ask you now to repay us with restraint and courage'
Elleroth paused, as though collecting himself after his passionate words, and Kelderek saw return to his grey face the look of one striving to master fear. Then, in a tone in which controlled hysteria mingled oddly with stinging contempt, he said in Beklan, 'Restraint and courage? My dear riparian witch-doctor, I fear I am short on both – almost as short as you. But at least I have one advantage – I haven't got to go any further. You see, it's going to be such a terribly long way for you. You can't realize how far. Do you remember how you came up from the Telthearna, all slippity-slop for a spree? You came to Gelt – they remember it well, I'm told – and then you went on. You went to the foothills and laid about you in the twilight and the rain. And then your meaty boys smashed the Tamarrik Gate -do you remember that, or did you perhaps fail to notice what it looked like? And then, of course, you got mixed up in a war with people who quite unaccountably felt that they didn't like you. What a long, long way it's been! Thank goodness I shall be having a rest now. Cut you won't, my dear waterside wizard. No, no – the sky will grow dark, cold rain will fall and all trace of the right way will be blotted out. You will be all alone. And still you will have to go on. There will be ghosts in the dark and voices in the air, disgusting prophecies coming true I wouldn't wonder and absent faces present on every side, as the man said. And still you will have to go on. The last bridge will fall behind you and the last lights will go out, followed by the sun, the moon and the stars; and still you will have to go on. You will come to regions more desolate and wretched than you ever dreamed could exist, places of sorrow created entirely by that mean superstition which you yourself have put about for so long. But still you will have to go on.'
Kelderek stared back at him, frozen by the intensity and conviction of his words. His own premonition had returned upon him, closer now, its outline more distinct – a sense of loneliness, danger and approaching calamity.
'The thought makes me feel quite cold,' said Elleroth, controlling his trembling with an effort. 'Perhaps I should warm myself for a short spell before the man with the chopper interrupts these joyous, carefree moments.'
He turned quickly. Two paces took him to the side of the brazier. Maltrit stepped forward, uncertain of his intention yet ready to forestall any irregular or desperate act; but Elleroth merely smiled at him, shaking his head as easily and graciously as though declining the advances of Hydraste herself. Then, as Maltrit stood back, responding instinctively to his smooth and authoritative manner, Elleroth, with a selective air, deliberately plunged his left hand into the brazier and drew out a burning coal. Holding it up in his fingers, as though displaying for the admiration of friends some fine jewel or crystal artifact, he looked once more at Kelderek. The appalling pain had twisted his face into a sickening travesty of relaxed good humour and his words, when they came, were distorted – grotesque mouthings, an approximation to speech which was nevertheless clear enough to be understood. The sweat ran from his forehead and he shook with agony, yet still he held up the live coal in his hand and aped horribly the manner of one at case among his comrades.
'You see – bear king – you holding live coal -' (Kelderek could smell burning flesh, could see his fingers blackening and supposed that he must be burned to the bone: yet still, transfixed by the white eyes writhing in his face, remained where he stood.) 'How long you a'le go on? Burn you up, hobble pain, carrying burning fire.* 'Stop him!' cried Kelderek to Maltrit, Elleroth bowed.
'No need – 'blige you all. Come now, little pain' – he staggered a moment, but recovered himself – 'little pain – nothing some 'flicted by 'telgans, 'sure you. Let's make haste.'
With assumed carelessness and without looking behind him, he tossed the coal high over his shoulder, waved his hand to the crowd in the hall, strode quickly to the bench and knelt down beside it. The coal, fanned brighter by its course through the air, flew steeply over the bars and fell into the straw close to where Shardik had paused a moment in his restless prowling. In seconds a little nest of fire had appeared, the small, clear flames between the blades of straw seeming, at first, as still as those trailing mosses that grow among the branches of trees in a swamp. Then they began to climb, fresh smoke joined that already in the foggy air and a crackling sound was heard as the fire spread across the floor.
With an unnatural, high-pitched cry of fear, Shardik sprang backwards, arching the huge ridge of his back like a cat facing an enemy. Then, in panic, he fled across the breadth of the hall. Blindly, he ran full tilt against one of the columns on the opposite side, and as he recoiled, half-stunned, the wall shook as though from the blow of a ram.
The bear got up, rocking dizzily, looked about it and then once more ran headlong from the now fast- spreading fire. It struck the bars with its full weight and remained struggling as though among the strands of a net. As it rose once more on its hind legs, one of the ties running from the bars to the wall was pressed against its chest and in frenzy it beat at it again and again. The bolted end of the tie pulled out of the wall, dragging with it the two countersunk stones into which it was morticed.
At this moment Kelderek heard overhead a heavy, grinding movement and, looking up, saw a patch of light in the roof slowly narrowing before his eyes. Staring at it, he suddenly realized that the great beam above him was moving, tipping, slowly turning like a key in a lock. A moment more and one end, no longer supported by the wall, began to scrape and splinter its way down the stonework like a giant's finger.
As the beam fell, Kelderek flung himself across the floor, away from the bars. It dropped obliquely across the line of the ironwork, smashing down a quarter of its length to a depth of three or four feet. Then it settled, one end suspended in that iron tangle and the other canted against the opposite wall, and the bars bent and drooped beneath it like blades of grass. Slowly, the whole mass of wreckage continued to subside downwards. Behind it, the fire still spread through the straw and the air grew thicker with smoke.
Shouting and tumult filled the hall. Many were looking round for the nearest way out, others trying to keep order or to call their friends together. At the doors the soldiers stood uncertainly, waiting for orders from their officers, who could not make themselves heard above the din.
Only Shardik – Shardik and one other – moved with unhesitating certainty. Out of the burning straw, over the broken bars came the bear, clawing at the iron with a noise like the storming of a breach.
As, when a dam gives way in some high valley of the hills, the water falls in a thunderous mass through the gap and pours on in obedience not to any will of its own but simply to inanimate, natural law: overwhelming or sweeping aside all that hinders it, changed in an instant from a controlled source of gain and power to a destructive force, killing as it runs to waste and devastating as it escapes from the restraint of those who supposed that they had made it safely their own – so Shardik, in the savagery of his fear, made his way, smashing and clambering, over the broken bars.
As those below the dam, dwelling or working in the very path of the water, perceive with terror that a disaster which none envisaged is even now upon them, indeflexible and leaving no recourse but immediate,
