“For many seasons there has been trouble, trouble which was so faint that even the Great Essence could only dimly convey—and then only to some born sensitive to such nuances. Now this trouble is rising faster. The Plain of Desolation has a lord power.”
I think I was staring at her gape-jawed. Trying to make sense of such a wild statement. For there could be no life in the Great Desolation—no House for any lord power to use.
Behind me I heard a sudden growl, felt Murri stir.
“Listen—” his throat speech carried. “This is the speech of wisdom.”
Even the kottis, those on Allitta’s lap and the one which had settled down beside her, opened wide their eyes to regard Ravinga’s with that unblinking stare of their kind.
“There are the great rats—” Suddenly I thought of those we had slain and how they were different from their fellows. And I had heard tales of how such large ones have come out of the Desolation—though how they could abide there—
“Yes, the rats—a testing—to see how alert and ready we may be.” She reached within to a pocket of her robe and brought out in the hollow of her hand a round ball of a dead-black substance, a black so intense that it appeared to draw light to it for the quenching and the room became darker as she set it down on the table before her.
I leaned forward to take a better look but her hand curved over it instantly, shielding it from my sight. “Not so! I do not know the full power of this. You have one shield—” she pointed to my pendant, “but you have had no training. We do not risk you now—
“Risk me?”
“From the day that you were able to find the cursing on my beast I knew that you had that within you which might answer.” Again she changed the subject. “The kottis, the beasts, they sensed it in you, for in many ways their measurements are more accurate than ours.
“Allitta,” she nodded to her apprentice, “is also one who has inner sight. She has learned a little in her way, you have in yours. We shall need those who can stand up to dangers far different from any that our peoples have known for generations.”
“I am no warrior!” I protested. Had not all the trouble in my life sprung from the seed that I was not by nature such?
“There are many kinds of struggle, and a sword, lance, or other weapon in one’s hand may not be the answer to such. We need others than warriors, though it may well follow, and probably will, that we shall see lances readied against what comes.
“We need more now those who can walk other ways, who are ready to be attuned to the most subtle warnings of the Great Essence. Firstly we are in need of a new Emperor. Vapala has supplied the last two Emperors. There is a candidate very ready here now who would change the source of custom—for it has always been forbidden that the rule should rest in the hands of any one House.
“Though we now dwell in peace as to nation, there are dark workings between House and House.” Her hand went out and touched that of Allitta which now lay on the table. There was a harsh stiffening of her apprentice’s whole body, an odd sharpening of feature which could be evil memory possessing her for an instant or two. “Yes, there are many darknesses under the surface of our apparent safety. Thus we need no scheming of House against House to add to future danger. Our Emperor must this time have no tie with Vapala.”
She spoke as if she were issuing an order and now she turned her head and looked straight at me as might a commander look at his troop.
“No!” the denial burst from me. “I am no Emperor, nor can I be! Nor will I try—
The girl leaned forward and her sharpness of feature was matched by her voice as she said:
“One does what is demanded of one—or one is—nothing!” She smacked her hand, palm down, on her own small table so the cup there nearly toppled to its side. Her eyes were as cold as those my father had often turned on me and there was certainly a measure of disgust in the curl of her lips.
“I am no Emperor,” I repeated firmly. The thought that these two women could see me a candidate made me suddenly suspicious of all the vague warnings Ravinga had been mouthing. That I should offer myself for such a trial—there would rightfully be mocking laughter and I would be ranked one bereft of wit.
But Ravinga now did not seem disturbed. Her hand that was over that black ball raised and under her touch the ball rolled towards me.
“Let us see,” she said.
As when her mistress had given me the cat mask long ago, Allitta made a disputing gesture with her own right hand but said nothing.
The ball rolled across Ravinga’s table, passed on to mine. I could not understand how it had crossed the short space between the two tops. Then it was before me. Though Ravinga did not order me—she did not this time refuse my study of the object.
It had nothing of a crystal about it. There was no gleam or glitter. The sphere repelled the eye as might a ball of some noxious dried algae. I had no desire to touch it. But it was changing before my eyes. The ball outline writhed, it became different shapes. For an instant only I was looking down at the head of a cat—not a kotti, nor of Murri’s lineage, but the sleek one of a leopard—the same leopard which, when blue, was the symbol of rulership.
Leopard it was, but it went on changing and then I saw a rat—the representation of one of those strange and direful larger beasts.
Leopard for ruler, that symbolism flashed into my mind—and rat—rat for the end of all good.
Chapter 20
FOR ONE used to the relative silences of the outer lands Vapala was a place of clamor—though I could not say that my ears were assaulted by raucous sounds. Those musical mobiles which were a part of the inner city were always a-chime from dawn, when they were released to any wind which might be blowing, to dusk. The streets teemed with life, and during the next few days when more and more travelers and trading caravans came crowding in, one had to push one’s way through throngs such as an outer dweller certainly never saw gathered together even for a major feasting.
I had hoped for more enlightenment from Ravinga, yet at the same time I did not want to become involved in any argument over the preposterous idea that I would put myself forward for the Leopard Throne. She had somewhat ensorceled me by all the hints she had made on the first night I was under her roof. But in the morning she did not take up the subject again, nor was I minded to do so either.
It was a busy time within the shop. Emperor dolls were in demand—even when they were only clay images of the cheapest sort bought for a couple of fruits, or a small bundle of firewood by those too poor to have anything in a purse. To display one of these over one’s doorway, even the doorway of a dilapidated hut, was considered necessary by custom. I saw that Ravinga and Allitta even gave these away to those who looked longingly but had not anything to trade. The Emperor might have been absorbed in the Greater Essence, but it remained that something of his strength might still abide with those who so honored him.
For the time being there was little trade in her other products and I was able to survey them at my leisure. Men, women, and children from all the queendoms, of every rank from the Queens and their courtiers and guards, to the lowest of servants or slaves, were represented in the collection.
Whole companies of desert scouts were assembled with their mounts, their equipment complete to even the deadly boot knives which were now worn mostly for show and no longer settled death duels. There was one entire trader’s caravan which marched along a top shelf. The salt gatherers of Azhengir with their crystal-lined branches were there, the guides of the dune sail riders with their light craft from Twahihic. Nor were the miners of Thnossis nor my own people lacking. And in the fore were the lords and ladies, the people of Vapala itself, from the lowest street cleaner to the Queen and her court.
If Ravinga had fashioned examples of all the two-footed inhabitants of the queendoms, she had done as well for the four-footed. There were kottis engaged in all manner of play and hunt, there were oryxen, their fierce horns not trimmed, patient yaksen, with and without carts, and, in a corner to themselves, sandcats.