Shardik
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| Author | Richard Adams |
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| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Avon |
| Released | 1974 |
| Media Type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | varies between editions |
| ISBN | ISBN |
| Followed by | Maia |
- This page refers to the novel by Richard Adams. For the bear after which the novel is named, see Shardik (bear).
Shardik is a fantasy novel written by Richard Adams in 1974.
Contents |
[edit] Characters and places
[edit] Kelderek
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Kelderek is a young hunter and the protagonist. He is called "Kelderek-play-with children" because he is known not to socialize with the other people his age. He prefers to play with the children of Ortelga.
[edit] Melathys
Melathys is a priestess of the island of Quiso who was born on a slave farm in the Beklan Empire and grew up unaware of either of her parents. Eventually, the Beklan army captured and shut down the farm, and a northward-travelling soldier took Melathys with him. He was headed to the island of Quiso to see its head priestess of sorts, the Tuginda, a renowned healer whom he expected to relieve him of some wound. Once there, Melathys is accepted into the secretive cult of the small island, and she quickly and skillfully ascends the ranks until she is second only to the Tuginda in early womanhood.
Soon, Kelderek arrives on Quiso to tell the Tuginda he has discovered that Shardik , the divine bear in which is invested the power of God, has returned, as prophesied. However, when a small party (including Kelderek, the Tuginda, and Melathys) find the bear, it is of such a frightening size and ferocity that she loses confidence and runs off, effectively nullifying her position as priestess.
Melathys is largely absent until the end of the story. Weak and destitute, Kelderek and the Tuginda come upon her in the rogue town of Zeray. Shardik is missing and all three are quite vulnerable to the various brutes, murderers, and other undesirables that populate Zeray. Melathys had fled here since leaving the others, and for a breif time, she allied herself with the ex-High Baron of Ortelga, Bel-ka-Trazet, who briefly introduced some organization and justice to the town. Illness has since claimed him, though, and she fears that soon Zeray will lose the little structure the Baron had added and that she will soon die. The three live in the Baron's house under the protection of his bodyguard, Ankray. The ailing Tuginda also forgives Melathys of her betrayal.
However, news that Shardik is nearby soon reaches the group. Kelderek sets out to find him while Melathys stays behind to take care of the Tuginda. Finally, the Southern army, led by Santil-kè-Erketlis, moves into Zeray, making it safe enough to leave the Tuginda with them and reach Kelderek with a smaller detachment of the army. She finds him, with Shardik dead and having suffered greatly after being captured by the slave trader Genshed. Invited by the Southern aristocrat Elleroth, Kelderek and Melathys take up the governance of Zeray and the surrounding country of the Transvrako, which the South has plans to civilize and through it extend contact with neighboring empires. They live out the remainder of their lives in Zeray, leading humble lives and carrying out the divine duty of serving children they believe Shardik showed to them.
[edit] Zakalon
Zakalon is an empire similar to ancient Persia neighboring the Beklan Empire. As it is revealed near the end of the novel, little is known of Zakalon. It appears to be a kingdom far more advanced than the Beklan Empire, with a dazzling capital, studies in metaphysics (and presumably other areas of philosophy), and horses, of which the citizens of the Beklan Empire were previously unaware.
[edit] Siristrou
Siristrou is a metaphysician from the empire of Zakalon and the first "ambassador" to the Beklan Empire.
[edit] Quiso
Quiso is a small island in the river Telthearna, just east of Ortelga. It is the home of the Tuginda, her priestesses, and other women who constitute the cult of Shardik.
The island is narrow, and roughly elliptical, oriented in with its upstream extremity pointed northwest and its downstream extremity southeast. It consists mostly of beaches and a large, central mountain where the Tuginda and her women dwell. Part of the north face of the mountain was carved into a series of enormous, steplike ledges, which converge on a single point at their base. Near the northern extremity of the island is a quarry where much of the stone the makes up the architecture of the island was mined.
[edit] Plot introduction
Shardik takes place in an imaginary world. It is the story of a lonely hunter, Kelderek, who pursues Shardik, a giant mythotic reproducing bear believed to have the Power of God within him. Kelderek becomes involved in the politics of his entire empire and in a personal story of sin and atonement. Other key issues in the story are the strength and potential held in children and the task of adults to meet children's needs of responsibility and entertainment in hope of a better future.
Adams, famous for writing stories from the point of view of animals (Watership Down and The Plague Dogs), here creates a story in which the animal, Shardik the Great Bear, is an antagonistic force that generates the entire plot and yet cannot communicate overtly and is merely a template for the characters and readers to impose their views upon. At no point in the story is it explicitly confirmed that Shardik is a divine creature and several points in the story can be interpreted equally each way.
For example, the only chapter in which Shardik communicates expressly with the reader is the first; a confused chapter which shows him fleeing a forest fire and heading towards water. This act is later interpreted by the Ortelgans as Shardik seeking them out as prophesied, yet it could easily result from a natural instinct in an animal remarkable only for its size.
Scenes of a slaver torturing both the slave-children and the main character may be extremely disturbing to some readers. Adams, however, put in his preface: "Lest any should suppose that I set my wits to work to invent the cruelties of Genshed [the slave trader], I say here that all lie within my knowledge and some - would they did not - within my experience."
[edit] Plot summary
The plot of the story begins when Kelderek, also known in his village as "play-with-the-children" because of his simple nature and love of small children, spies a great bear in the forest surrounding his home. Kelderek believes that this bear is Shardik, a gift of god who is sent to restore power to Kelderek's people, the Ortelgans, who once ruled the continent. Kelderek's people are now limited to a small string of islands led by a small barony. Kelderek, after convincing the local priests and barons that it is in fact Shardik, is a pivotal figure in leading the army of Shardik to the capital. Their conquest of the empire sometimes hints at divine intervention. For example, the bear is caged and sedated by the priestesses so that he may be transported behind the army. On the path ahead the army is fighting a losing battle, but when Shardik awakens from his slumber, angered by after-effects of the drug, he breaks his cage and roars in bloodlust as the remainder of the cage rolls him down into the opposing army, devastating them.
Over the course of the story Kelderek becomes high priest to the bear Shardik, and the army re-establish a corrupt and brutal rule. Kelderek is dismayed with this in many ways, and ultimately when Shardik escapes and flees the people into the forests it is Kelderek who alone follows the bear. Shardik and his priest spend a great deal of time in the forest as their empire is destroyed by rebels in the city they abandoned. Kelderek, on the brink of madness after days alone with no sleep, follows the bear unknowingly to a location called the Streels of Urtah. Here, Shardik enters one of the ravines comprising the Streels, and is presumed dead. A shepherd, who later reveals himself as a guardian of the Streels, informs Kelderek that any who enter them are beings of great evil who are destined to die. He also tells of one person who entered the Streels only to climb out again; this woman was then fated to die in a horrible fashion but by her death bring about greatness. This woman gave birth to a son as she left the Streels, a son who later grew to be a great hero instrumental in the destruction of Kelderek's people's previous empire. As this story is told, Shardik emerges from the ravine and flees again into the woods.
Kelderek continues to follow Shardik, meeting many foes along the way. Ultimately he ends in an outlaw town just beyond the borders of civilisation. Here he meets Melathys, an ex-priestess of Shardik whom he had known previously. Kelderek, who has lost Shardik and his faith, is enslaved along with a group of children and is cruelly treated. Meeting the children with kindness, Kelderek discovers that one of them is the son of a baron whom Kelderek had previously crossed paths with and who was responsible for letting him flee beyond the borders. Kelderek and the children are ultimately rescued when Shardik, mad and half-starved, erupts from the woods and defeats the slavers by killing the cruel and sadistic slaver Genshed, before collapsing before Kelderek in the river. Kelderek, his faith and kindness restored but now tempered with knowledge of the world, returns to the town with the children and attempts to re-establish a lawful society.
Here the story skips a number of years to a time when Kelderek is the mayor of the town. The closing chapters are told from the perspective of the leader of a party of travellers from Zakalon, a kingdom to the east similar to ancient Persia, who constitute the first expedition from Zakalon following up a visit from a native of the Beklan Empire. He arrives first in the town Kelderek has built. The town is home to hundreds of orphans and refugees who come to the town to work together to build a better future. Kelderek is widely regarded as a fair and wise leader and is married to his love, Melathys. Kelderek takes the traveller into his home and tells him of the bear Shardik who is known now as a great animal who taught the people of the land the meaning of both kindness and hardship. In the final passages the leader, Siristrou, stirs the logs in the fireplace and plays a game of spotting images in the flames: an island, a glowing knife, a barred cage, an old woman, a deep ravine, a shaggy bear; he recognises these images in turn, and finally remarks "That's a beautiful fire".
[edit] Trivia
Adams later wrote a novel called Maia that takes place earlier in the same world. Several characters appear in both novels.
A bear by the same name also appears in Stephen King's The Waste Lands volume of the Dark Tower series as one of the many allusions to other fictional works present in that novel. See Shardik (Dark Tower).
The early editions included hand-drawn pictures by Alfred Wainwright, perhaps better known as a fellwalker.
