I did not dream and I awakened quickly to sound—the growl of my companion. There was no need for explanation—rat stink was heavy on the air and it was evening. Yet the enemy did not come boiling out at us as I expected. I could indeed pick out forms slinking from place to place and they were ingathering. To dismantle my shelter in order to free my staff for battle took but an instant or two.
After, I made my way quickly to the edge of the cave. For both our sakes it was better that we stand together against the surge when it came. The fact that they had not already struck at us began to add to my uneasiness. All my knowledge of the creatures was being questioned and the tactics I had been taught to use perhaps would not now be of much service.
Was there out there somewhere another of those giants wearing that evil thing the other had borne? Rats answering commands—it was unnatural and so doubly threatening.
I could hear low squeals now, picked up by some chance of the rocks about us and echoed back. There was no telling how big a pack we might be facing. The other cat—we could well use her strength and fighting ability if she had only stayed with us.
Out of my shirt I pulled the cat mask and instantly the light it had shown of itself before was there. From slightly behind me my companion gave a howl, surely a challenge. And that the rats answered. They slipped and slid around and over rocks to come at us, a vicious dark flood of death.
Again we fought and this time the cat had drawn well towards, even a little before, me, swiping out with his good paw and smashing the brutes away, sending their bodies back to crack bones against the rock. While I swung my staff, fighting with what was to me a new assurance and strength. I began to note that the rats would not face me squarely, that whenever I moved and the light from the mask touched any one of them, it would squeal and leap away to darkness.
It was to my utter astonishment that the attack suddenly withdrew, for this was completely out of rat nature. I remained alert listening intently to the noises out of the night. The hissing of the drifting sands was a monotone but across that came a series of squeals and to my mind they seemed to make a pattern. There was the skittering sound of rat claws on rock and I braced myself for another wave.
It was gloomy within the chamber. Ravinga had ordered the curtains drawn at dusk. Not only did those, thin as they were, keep out all the lights of the Vapalan city but much of the air, so one could no longer smell the flowering qutta trees in the garden. Instead there arose curls of aromatic smoke from the brazier placed on a tripod in the exact center of that secure chamber.
I sat straight-backed on the stool my mistress had indicated, holding in my hands the box she had pressed upon me. This was not the first time I had assisted at such a ceremony nor would it be the last if I were to achieve my purpose and gain the knowledge I desired, for such wish was as an ever-eating pain within me.
Ravinga herself crawled across the floor, pulling with her the square of painted oryxen hide. That design had occupied her for many nights, sometimes with long pauses between one touch of a paint-thick brush and the next. It was as if she must drag the pattern from very far depths of memory.
On that hide now rested small figures. These were not the dolls which we sold in the markets to gain our bread but were far more elaborate ones. The small face on each had been molded over and over until the features suited my mistress. Some I knew well-There was the Diamond Queen of Vapala with all her crown and formal robing. And the Topaz Queen of Azhengir, that most barren and forbidding of lands. Here was also the Grand Chancellor of the Outer Regions with the Sapphire Queen of Kahulawe.
All were fashioned of Ravinga’s secret clay mixture which gave the appearance of living flesh to heads and hands. And they were all garbed in fine bits of fabrics, miniature jewels so perfect that one wondered indeed at the maker’s great skill.
By each Queen stood her Minister of Balance, his features rock hard as if he fronted some period of a weeding of flocks and perhaps even of people.
There was also Shank-ji, who was not one of such an exalted company by any right of office. Son to the Emperor he might be, but our lord took no formal wife and any get of his held naught but a position of minor nobility. I looked upon Shank-ji and I remembered—my thoughts straying from the pattern I had been set to hold. Old hatreds run deep and cannot always be kept under control, at least not by one who has not followed the rituals into the Higher Plane.
Ravinga glanced at me with anger. She, being who and what she was, could read emotions, if not minds. Resolutely I made my eyes move on from the doll which was Shank-ji; the next was the Emperor—not as he had appeared at the last great court, a curiously shrunken figure with a hand which shook when he held the leopard staff of authority, as if that shaft was too heavy for him. No, this was a representation of the Emperor as we had not for years seen him. And beside him his Chancellor.
The four remaining figures were not human but animal. There in all his majesty of office, first bodyguard of the Emperor, was the Blue Leopard, and with him two of his own following. But the last certainly had no place in any company save that of death itself, for it was a faithful representation of a rat.
That did have meaning of a sort, for it was a symbol not only of death but also of evil, which could not be touched nor in any way governed by even those who held to the old knowledge and were such as Ravinga.
She reached the other side of the brazier and there three shadows awaited her, Wa, Wiu, Wyna, the black kottis that had been a part of her household ever since I had taken refuge here. They sat erect now, their eyes upon Ravinga while she began to place the figures upright on the floor as if they might indeed march off about their business.
Emperor flanked by the two Queens and they in turn by the Chancellor and their Ministers of Balance, before the Emperor the Blue Leopard and the guard that one commanded.
But the rat remained lying upon the hide, under its carefully fashioned body a symbol drawn in a red of fresh-spilt blood. Ravinga did not reach for it, rather she snapped her fingers. I answered at once to her signal.
From the box I brought her she took out two more figures, each rolled in a fine silken cloth. The cloth covering one was the gold of clear citrines and there was a wandering thread wreathing through it of the rust red of certain rocks, such as I had seen in our travels to Kahulawe. This she drew away to display that doll which she had showed me before when she had begun this ritual days ago.
A youth—yes, I even knew his name—Hynkkel—and I had heard of him, too, and not only from my mistress. What she appeared to approve, others found a reason to disparage. Second son of a gallant warrior, he refused to follow the trade of arms. In his own family he became a servant, and not even one of prideful background since he had not gained that position (as most of the low-born may) through his own efforts.
He was a herder of beasts, a runner of errands, one who bought and sold in the market, one whom those of his own rank would pretend not to see.
Yet Ravinga had dressed his representation in the fine robes of a great lord and had by some magic of her own given him the look of one who would rightfully wear such.
Now she placed him directly facing the Emperor. There was also a staff of honor in that small hand of his but the insignia topping that was a sandcat. Seeing what she did I wanted to decry it all. This youth was no leader of men, no bearer of the old blood of Vapala—no, he was a barbarian and held by his own people to be of little worth. Ravinga—what strange fault of thinking had made her shape him thus?