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, headlong flight – so those in the hall realized that Shardik had broken loose and was among them.
And as those further away from the dam, hearing, wherever they may be, the rumble of the collapsing wall, the roaring of water and the unexpected tumult, stand still, looking at one another wide-eyed; recognizing the sounds of disaster, but as yet ignorant that what they have heard imports nothing less than the work of years ruined, the destruction of their prosperity and the discredit of their name -so those in the upper city, outside the halclass="underline" the peering sentinels on the wall, the gardeners and cattle-men coughing and shivering at their work along the shores of the Barb, the delegates' servants loitering at their masters' doors, the youths abandoning archery practice for the morning, the court ladies, muffled against the cold, looking southwards from the roof of the Barons' Palace for the sun to clear the shoulder of Crandor and disperse the fog – all heard the fall of the beam, the clang of the bars and the uproar that followed. Each in his own manner realized that some calamity must have befallen and, fearful but not yet suspecting the truth, began to move towards the House of the King, questioning those whom he met on the way.
As Shardik came clambering over the pile of wreckage, fragments of iron and wood were scattered and it shifted and sank beneath his weight. He mounted on the tie-beam and for a moment crouched there, looking down into the hall, dire as a cat in a loft to the mice who run squeaking. Then, as the beam began to tilt under him, he leapt clumsily down, landing on the stones between the brazier and the execution bench. All about him men were clamouring and pushing, striking and tearing at one another in their effort to escape. Yet at first he went no further, but remained ramping from side to side – a movement frighteningly expressive of fury and violence about to break forth. Then he rose on his hind legs, looking, above the heads of the fugitives, for a way out.