Liberty Roar

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

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 Tyrion 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 Tyrion'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 sound ing 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 Chiefs 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 dark ness, the hut was burned and the ashes scattered on the water.

When she stepped ashore she was veiled, but in speaking with the Chiefs 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, Tyrion 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 under stand?' Tyrion, 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 Chief? 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 driven by the power of God, but now chaos was his master. His mind and body were unseamed like an old garment and whatever was left of himself lay in the power of the numinous, night-covered island.

His head was still resting on the bow and one arm trailed overside in the water. Behind him, the paddle dropped from Ankray's hands and drifted away, as the canoe grounded on the upstream shore, its occupants slumped where they sat, tranced and spell-stopped, not a will, not a mind intact. And thus they stayed, driftwood, flotsam and foam, while the quarter moon set far upstream and darkness fell, broken only by the gleam of the fire still burning inland, high among the trees.

Time passed. - a time marked only by the turning of the stars. Small, choppy river-waves chattered along the sides of the canoe and once or twice, with a rising susurration, the night wind tossed the branches of the nearest trees: but never the least stir made the four men in the canoe, huddled in the dark like birds on a perch.

At length a nearer, smaller light appeared, green and swaying, descending towards the water. As it reached the pebbly shore there sounded a crunching of footsteps and a low murmur of voices. Two cloaked women were approaching, carrying between them, on a pole, a round, flat lantern as big as a grindstone. The frame was of iron and the spaces between the bars were panelled with plaited rushes, translucent yet stout enough to shield and protect the candles fixed within.

The two women reached the edge of the water and stood listening. After a little they perceived in the dark the knock of the water against the canoe -a sound distinguishable only by ears familiar with every cadence of wind and wave along the shore. They set down the lantern then, and one, drawing out the pole from the ring and splashing it back and forth in the shallows, called in a harsh voice, "Wakel'

The sound came to Tyrion sharp as the cry of a moorhen. Look ing up, he saw the wavering, green light reflected in the splashed water inshore. He was no longer afraid. As the weaker of two dogs presses itself to the wall and remains motionless, knowing that in this fies its safety, so Tyrion, through total subjection to the power of the island, had lost his fear.

He could hear the High Chief stirring behind him. Bel-ka-Trazet muttered some inaudible words and dashed a handful of water across his face, yet made no move to wade ashore. Turning his head for a moment, Tyrion saw him staring, as though still bemused, to wards the dimly-shining turbulence in the shallows. The woman's voice called again, 'Comel' Slowly, Bel-ka-Trazet

climbed over the side of the canoe into the water, which reached scarcely to his knees, and waded towards the light. Tyrion fol lowed, splashing clumsily through the slippery pools. Reaching the shore, he found confronting him a tall, cloaked woman standing motionless, her face hidden in her cowl. He too stood still, not daring to question her silence. He heard the servants come ashore behind him, but the tall woman paid them no heed, only continuing to gaze at him as though to perceive the very beating of his heart. At last- or so he thought she nodded, and thereupon at once turned about, stooped and passed the pole through the iron ring on the lantern.

 Then she and her companion took it up between them and began to walk away, unstumbling over the loose, yielding stones. Not a man moved until, when she had gone perhaps ten paces, the tall woman, without turning her head, called 'Follow!' Tyrion obeyed, keeping his distance behind them like a servant.