Shardik by Richard Adams Read Free Book Online

lord -‘ said Ankray. ‘Be si lent!’ replied Bel-ka-Trazet instantl y.
    Like children in a dark room, like wayfarers passing a graveyard at night, the four men in the canoe filled the surrounding darkness with the fear from their own hearts. They were approaching the island of Quiso, domain of the Tuginda and the cult over which she ruled, a place where men retained no names - or so it was believed - weapons had no effect and the greatest strength could spend itself in vain against incomprehensible power. On each fell a mounting sense of solitude and exposure. To Kelderek it seemed that he lay upon the black water helpless as the diaphanous gylon fly, whose fragile myriads clotted the surface of the river each spring; inert as a felled tree in the forest, as a log in the timber-yard. All about them, in the night, stood the malignant, invisible woodmen, disintegrators armed with axe and fire. Now the log was burning, breaking up into sparks and ashes, drifting away beyond the familiar world of day and night, of hunger, work and rest . The red light seemed close now, and as it drew nearer still and higher above them he fell forward, striking his forehead against the bow.
    He felt no pain from the blow; and to himself he seemed to have become deaf, for he could no longer hear the lapping of the water. Bereft of perceptions, of will and identity, he knew himself to have become no more than the fragments of a man. He was no one; and yet he remained conscious. As though in obedience to a command, he closed his eyes. At the same moment the paddlers ceased their stroke, bowing their heads upon their arms, and the canoe, losing way entirely, drifted with the current towards the unseen island.
    Now into the remnants of Kelderek’s mind began to return all that, since childhood, he had seen and .learned of the Tuginda. Twice a year she came to Ortelga by water, the far-off gongs sounding through the mists of early morning, the people waiting silent on the shore. The men lay flat on their faces as she and her women were met and escorted to a new hut built for her coming. There were dances and a ceremony of flowers: but her real business was first, to confer with the barons and secondly, in a session secret to the women, to speak of their mysteries and to select, from among those put forward, one or two to return with her to perpetual service on Quiso. At the end of the day, when she left in torchlight and darkness, the hut was burned and the ashes scattered on the water.
    When she stepped ashore she was veiled, but in speaking with the barons she wore the mask of a bear. None knew the face of the Tuginda, or who she might once have been. The women chosen to go to her island never returned. It was believed that there they received new names; at all events their old names were never spoken again in Ortelga. It was not known whether the Tuginda died or abdicated, who succeeded her, how her successor was chosen, or even, on each occasion of her visit, whether she was, in fact, the same woman as before. Once, when a boy, Kelderek had questioned his father with impatience, such as the young often feel for matters which they perceive that their elders regard seriously and discuss little . For reply his father had moistened a lump of bread, moulded it to the rough shape of a man and put it to stand on the edge of the fire. ‘Keep away from the women’s mysteries, lad,’ he said, ‘and fear them in your heart, for they can consume you. Look the bread dried, browned, blackened and shrivelled to a cinder - ‘do you understand?’ Kelderek , silenced by his father’s gravity, had nodded and said no more. But he had remembered.
    What had possessed him, tonight, in the room behind the Sindrad? What had prompted him to defy the High Baron? How had those words passed his lips and why had not Bel-ka- Trazet killed him
    instantly? One thing he knew - since he had seen the bear, he had not been his own master. At first he had thought himself