I sang the song which Kynrr had himself fashioned in exile, one which spoke of the stars he loved to watch, the softness of the nights, the harshness which came with the day, and above all the loneliness that ate into one apart.
Why that one of all the songs of his own making he had given to me came now I did not know. It was as if this was proper and rightful for this day and twilight time.
“Where learned you that?” The last notes dropped from the strings even as Allitta was upon me. There was not the scornful withdrawal which always seemed to possess her when she looked at me. She was inwardly aflame, almost I could see her hand tense as if to aim a blow.
“From its maker. He who called himself Kynrr—
“A dead man does not sing!” she hissed as might one of the kottis.
“True. Yet when he taught me this he was not dead. Though the Great Essence took him later.”
She raised that fisted hand and bit at the knuckles. Across those she looked at me as if she would reach into my mind and pull forth the stuff of memory.
“But that is not— There was no known Kynrr’s song in this tune!”
“I knew such.” Swiftly I spoke of the hermit and of his place of exile. Of how he had spoken of Vapala and of how he had died, having given his strength to my rescue.
She listened. Then I saw that her eyes in the lamplight glistened.
“Kynrr,” she repeated the name when I had done. “It was indeed Master Kynrr whose blood that one bore. I believed him dead in the night’s slaughter. That he won free—” She shook her head slowly. “The last of the sworn ones, and so that was his ending.”
She might be speaking to herself as she dropped down upon the cushions opposite me. Some strength could have, for the moment, gone out of her. There was desolation in both her eyes and her voice. Now she reached forward and touched the Kilongg I had put down, touched it as if she might so put finger on a great treasure.
“True enough—this was of Kynrr—and Kiticar treasured it. Had any saved it, it would have been him. Many times I have heard him play—he was one of the great ones, even as was Kynrr long ago, though ever said he was not the master as that one was.”
She grasped the Kilongg fully now and drew it into her lap. Her fingers found the strings. What came forth was not the lament which had been born by my playing, but rather small gem notes which spoke of growing things, of the dancing of feasters, of the quicking of hearts. Never had I heard such from the man who had called himself Kynrr, yet somehow I knew that this song was also of his fashioning in another and happier time.
I leaned back a little against the bulk of Murri, who, as usual, had settled behind me to listen in delight. There was something which came to lighten the heart, assure the hearer that beyond all cares lay happiness and beauty.
It was not to last. Sharply came other notes, crystal clear but with nothing gentle in them. They rang through the walls. Allitta’s fingers ceased to move, she was again stern of face, shaken out of that which had possessed her. Ravinga straightened in her place.
“Haban-ji goes to his sealing.” she said. “A time ends, new begins.”
I wondered what mysteries now were in progress in the Vapalan House of the Past. How long would this new resident there be remembered? Oh, yes, any child could recite the toll of Emperors going back for generations. The sing-song of that roll came even now to the fore of my mind. But how many of them had set any lasting mark upon that roll, save for their names?
“Tomorrow,” Ravinga had to raise her voice to compete with the chimes of departing, “they will choose.”
I moved, shifted. Must I now again face her belief that I was one who would make that choice? If she expected some answer from me she did not get it. After a moment she arose to go into her own quarters. Allitta slid the Kilongg from her knee to the floor and abruptly departed also without a word, leaving me to seek my own bed. However, this night I did not go alone, for Murri paced beside me as he had in that trial by travel through which we both had come.
The chimes sounded once more in the morning, all of them in a clamor which was ear-splitting to one who came from the relative silence of the desert. Still I was drawn with Ravinga, and Allitta, and seemingly all those of the households of Vapala who could crowd into the square before the Hall of the Past.
There was a bright splash of color on the high flight of stairs leading up to the wide portal of that hall. The Queens were a-glitter with gems, their foremost courtiers made a back tapestry. Before them were the Herald and the Head of the foremost House of Vapala. Between those a sleepy beast wore a netting of diamonds about its ears—the Blue Leopard, always companion guard to the Emperor, in himself the symbol of power.
For a last time the chimes of the Great Mobile, shining rainbow patterns in the sky above us, sounded and then were silent as the
Herald came forward. He had the reaching voice of his office and it carried over the throng massed below.
“The Great Haban-ji is now of the Final Essence. There must be one to follow him. These are the tasks, O men of courage and skill. Listen well and then take oath you shall reach for the triumph of the crown.” He pointed to the Great Crown set in the heart of the mobile.
“From ancient times it has been that he who would rule must prove himself to each of the queendoms, that he may well understand the life of those whom he shall rule.
“First: in Thnossis he must venture close enough to the ever-flowing lava river to bring back one of the ruby cats of QUIT from that temple which the river now threatens to engulf.
“In Azhengir he must join in the harvest of salt crystals, proving to those who labor there his fitness to be considered their equal in skill.
“In Twahihic he must harvest from the haunted garden.
“In Kahulawe he must discover and challenge the Leopard Keeper of lasting knowledge that he may touch the talisman and so be given the high power of judgment both good and evil, himself being judged thereby.
“On his return here, he must claim the crown from its place aloft.
“He who can return a victor in all—Emperor shall he be!”
More likely, I thought, he will have passed to the Essence. What mortal man could survive that? Each of the trials was long known to be well nigh impossible. Yet I also knew that there would be no shirking, that it must and would be done even as the Herald had outlined. Among those massed here below was a man who would stand there at last with the crown in his hands, no matter how many lives would be gone to gain that.
Chapter 21
MASSED BEFORE THE STEPS on which the dignitaries stood were those who offered themselves for trial. I knew that many of them had started from their homes before the actual death of Haban-ji, when the first rumors of his decline had been spread. Now they were gathered, each in a group of the land of their birth—clad in their best finery, armed, and already on show to their fellows.
To me, well back in the throng, they were one mass of warrior wigs, to be sighted now and then when there was some ripple of movement in the crowd. I heard around me some names mentioned, but none of those except that of Shank-ji were known to me.
The leopard stirred and of a sudden the hum of the gathered people ceased. Though the chimes of the lesser mobiles continued, those of the great would not be heard now until the final test.
Down the steps flowed that sleek animal. The sunlight made an azure glow of his fur, his eyes were fierce gems of a milky grey. He came to the candidates. The crowd about me pressed backward until I was near the opening of one of those streets which fed into this plaza. I could no longer see what was happening, but I knew well the leopard was a-hunt.
There was a rising sound. Those who had come from Thnossis opened their tight group and from that a single one of their number stepped to the second stair to face his Queen, who greeted him as her champion, gave into his eager hands the emblem of this search. From that moment forward he would be free of all other demands upon him, set only to the task ahead.