Morning brought the arrival of the Chancellor of Kahulawe and she came to me directly. There was no sign of favor in her manner.
“You go thus—” She turned a fraction and pointed westward. “The rest of this journey is yours alone, Klaverel-va-Hynkkel.” Her lips folded tightly together.
It was plain that in her eyes I was no fit representative for my country. Her scorn did not strike me less strong as such had done in the past, for I might not be a warrior, but I had—my one hand clasped and caressed the scars on my other wrist—danced with the sandcats and out there waiting for me now was one whom none of these would face without drawn steel.
I bowed my head with courtesy as I answered:
“Great One, I accept this path.”
Once more her lips twisted as if she tasted a sour and bitter mouthful. “May the Essence possess you in this—” The tone of her conventional words left much to be desired.
I laid out my pack to discard all which might make an extra weight, slowing me down. Somewhere ahead was an island of legend. What I was to confront there I was not sure. I could only hope that in this test, which was of my own land, I would not fail.
At twilight I set out and they watched me out of camp. There were no cheering words and about me their disbelief was like a smothering cloak. Only that was a spur to action and not a deterrent.
I had pushed well away from the torchlight of the camp when there was a darker spot against the night gleam of the sands and Murri came to me. He rubbed his head against my thigh and I went on one knee to stroke the thick fur of his head and neck, scratch behind his ears. Our meeting was heartening. Under just such rising stars as these had I seen his kin in their dancing and, even as that memory crossed my mind, the sandcat whirled about like a kotti playing tail-I-must-catch, giving voice to a singing purr of excitement.
Hardly knowing what I did, my own steps became not those of one patiently slogging through the sand, but rather I, too, advanced in the formal steps and then short leaps I had used at the feast meeting of his clan.
For some moments it was so with us and then that which I must do broke through the small snatch of freedom. Murri ceased his own bounds to come to me.
“What waits—?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Truly I do not know, save that I must search out the heart of Kahulawe and there face that which guards it— and they say the path lies ahead.”
We traveled on in the direction the Chancellor had set for me. There arose out of the sand two of the stone guardian cats, set on a line, with a space between them.
Unlike the other such guide posts of the land, these each held up a paw as if in warning, and the gem glow of their eyes was the orange red of those gripped by the heat of anger, ready to attack all who might dare the road between them. Still they did not stir as I walked between.
Against and rising from the gleaming sands was an isle, dark, very dark in the night. Murri slipped ahead of me, to stand waiting at the foot of what seemed to be a cliff. When I reached him I near gagged at a stench which seemed to be exuded from the very rock.
That stench I knew well. Somewhere, not too far away, was a befouled algae pool. Befouled—by the rats?
My staff I must sling across my shoulders if I would climb. My knife? I loosened it a little in the sheath. Then Murri rumbled:
“Evil ones have been here—
His natural senses were all much keener than mine. At this moment he must be my guide.
“They are still?”
“Who can tell?” His answer held little satisfaction for me.
Already the cat was clawing his way up the cliff. I dropped my small pack, lashed a rope end to it and the other end to my belt. Then with my staff securely bound to my back I began the climb. It was not to be easily done—the handholds and toeholds (for I had also left my boots within my pack) were not easily found. Had I not been faced by similar demands during my days as herdsman I might have found it even more exhausting than a night’s march.
However, at length, I won to the top and found that so I was on the rim of a hollow, almost as perfect in contour as the inside of a ceremonial cup. From that rose an overpowering stink. Under the sun, I thought, that it might well overcome any who dared draw near its source.
So rough were the edges of that cup that, after drawing up my pack, I needed to use both hands and feet in a kind of crawl to make my way around towards that part of the island beyond, which appeared to be again higher.
I had gone only a short distance when Murri, still proceeding me, stopped short to look down into the pool of noisome stench. My staff was in my hands and I squirmed around until a spur of rock was at my back so I was best ready to face attack.
“What you seek is there—” Murri jerked his head forward and then coughed as if the stench had eaten at his lungs. I looked down into the hollow.
The walls appeared even more precipitous than had those of the outer cliff. To venture down into that stench—I had heard of herdsmen and hunters who had been overcome by the reek of spoiled algae. If I was to try that descent and should become light-headed—
Murri was still looking down. One half of the cup lay in full dark, the wall holding it in shadow. The other side was revealed somewhat by the glimmer of the rocks under the starred sky. On that side there was carving again.
A giant cat, fashioned as if it were emerging from the wall, sat upright there. Between the forelegs showed a dark opening into what must be inner ways.
Murri’s head swung towards me and his eyes were lamp globes in the dark.
“I not go here. Be place for smoothskin only.”
I stared down into the bowl-like valley below. The overpowering stench of the rotting algae was sickening. Could I dare such a descent?
My pack lay at my feet and I stooped to open that and rummage within. There was a mass of soggy algae in a container—the medicinal scent of which reached me even through the overpowering odor about. With my knife I worried a strip of cloth from the edge of my cloak and rolled that mass within to tie it over my nose and mouth. It limited my full breathing to be sure, but still it kept me from the threat of reek of this place.
Fastening my staff firmly to my back, and looping a rope end around a spur, I pushed over the rim, leaving Murri behind.
The descent was not as difficult as the climb up the outer cliff had been. My boots thudded to the ground in the shadow thrown by the rise behind me, but the cat-guarded entrance I could see very well.
I must pick a careful way to that doorway. The poisoned algae spattered by my boots might well touch skin to raise dangerous blisters. However, it was not algae alone which made a stinkhole of this place. The carcasses of rats were scattered about. None of them bore long fang tears so it would seem that they had not been brought down by their fellows as was the custom when part of a pack turned upon the weaker members for food.
As I approached that dark doorway in the wall, so overshadowed by the pillar-like forelegs of the cat, I found more and more of the dead beasts and they looked as if they had tried to make some advance in that direction and been mowed down.
There were among these at least three of those larger rats, and one had reached a point nearly between the cat’s feet.
I circled by the body and, with staff in hand and ready, lest the darkness ahead could hold some of the pack more lucky, I entered that portal of darkness.
Chapter 22
I WAS IN UTTER DARKNESS, so thick that I swung my staff before me, sounding walls and flooring lest I be swallowed up by some crevice. The dark gave me such a feeling of being smothered that I pulled down the mask I had assumed against the stench. Luckily here I found that the odor was much less and continued to disappear the farther I advanced.