As I went I listened for any sound which might be that of a rat that had managed to reach that point, but only my own breathing, the muffled thud of my boots against rock, and the swish of my staff were all which reached my ears.
I have no idea of how long that shaftway into the rocky heart of the isle was, though I tried to count strides. To me, in the present case, it seemed to reach forever.
Then, as suddenly as I had come into this thick and stifling dark, so did light break upon and about me.
Here was a circular room but its rock walls were utterly unlike anything I had seen before. They were veined with glittering riverlets of gold, silver, copper. And those riverlets were on the move, twisting and turning, sometimes slowly, sometimes racing, always giving off a light as vivid as a score of lamps.
In the exact center of the chamber was a pedestal, as wide as Ravinga’s work table, and on that rested a great ball—clear as glass.
Within it floated, or raced in their turn, motes of vivid color. Those, as light as air, were ever in motion, to form colonies for an instant and then break apart again into separate strings and whirls. Once seen, it held one’s eyes, kept one’s full attention.
Until something behind it moved. There arose to overshadow that globe and its dancing motes a leopard—not the blue of that imperial symbol—but rather as black of fur as that passage which had brought me here. And it was larger than any leopard I had ever seen, even larger than a sandcat.
One giant paw, claws extended in warning, arose to flatten on the top of the globe. The ears tightened against the skull and the lips a-snarl showed fangs which glistened of their own accord as if coated with diamond dust.
“Thief!”
Even as I could understand the sandcats, so did that throat rumble make sense for me.
“Not so,” I struggled as always to produce the proper sounds with my ill-fashioned human lips and throat.
I laid my staff on the rock floor and did as I would with a stranger of my own species—holding out my hands, palms up and empty, in a sign of peace. My sleeve had been tucked back and the scars of my blooding among the sandcats showed.
The leopard eyed me from head to foot and back again.
“Smoothskin—what you—what you do?”
“I seek the rulership—to lead my kin—
“You are not of the blood—yet you speak—” His ears went up, but his giant paw still embraced the globe.
I reached within my clothing and pulled out that which I had worn secretly while with those who brought me to this shrine— the cat mask pendant. Like the vivid color lines in the walls, that flashed brightly.
The great eyes of the leopard turned upon that.
“I dance with the furred ones,” I said slowly. “I wear this, and this.” I held forth my wrist still farther that the tooth-carved band might be seen. “I go not armed against the kin.” It was difficult to shape throat speech, and how well the guard beast understood I could not tell.
He watched me still, but I thought no longer as he might possible prey. Then he drew back, lifting his paw from the globe. I had been given no instruction as to what I must do in this hidden place to prove my “worthiness” but it seemed that the Essence had its ways of guidance.
I stepped over my staff, moved forward to the pedestal. Reaching out with my hands, though I did not will that gesture myself, I put them palm down against the sides of the globe.
Those spots of color within were set in frantic motion. Patches collected to form the shape of my hands within as if they were inner shadows. The cool surface of the globe began to warm.
The more that the colored patches thickened, the more that heat increased.
Now it was as if I had laid my hands against sun-warmed rock at mid-day, then as if skin and bone were thrust into a fire. The skin itself became transparent and I could see the bones through it.
Fire, I was afire and still I could not loose my grasp of the globe. Nor was I aware of anything about me now, nor saw anything but my two transparent hands with the shifting colors in the globe.
This was like the torment which had been forced upon me when Maraya had given me the wound to make me free of her kinship. What would be the consequence of this!
I thought that I could summon no more strength within me to counter that pain which ate through my body. Yet somehow I held fast.
It was some time before I realized that that pain was growing less, receding. No longer could I see my bones through the skin. The motes within were breaking up their concentrations, whirling back into a dance—forming lines and blots which looked almost like the words of some very ancient records. I had a feeling that if I could only make a fraction more effort, I could understand what was to be read there.
However, the last of the energy had been leached from me by pain. I dropped to my knees, my hands slid loosely down the globe sides to hang limp. My breath came hard as might that of a man who had made a mighty run or pulled himself up a high cliff.
The play of lights in the globe still held my eyes, though there was a flickering now which might even mean that they knew exhaustion, too. What was the meaning of this test I did not know. Nor could I even be sure of how well I had acquitted myself.
With an effort I broke eye connection with the globe to look for its guardian. There was no leopard there. A little wildly I turned my head from side to side seeking the beast. His black form was nowhere in that chamber. He might have been a dream save that I was very sure he was not.
I settled back and lifted my hands. By the rights of what I had endured they should have been charred and useless stumps. However, what I saw were normal. Then I turned them palm up. In the shallow cup of flesh at mid-point there was a dark spot. My head still was unsteadied by pain and I had a hard time focusing my sight on those spots.
The skin was not truly charred—as the color of those spots indicated. Rather I now bore on both hands a branding—the head of a leopard to resemble the guardian of this place.
Gingerly I touched the brand on my right hand with the fingers of my left. There was no pain; rather the flesh there felt hard as if I had a thick callus won through demanding labor.
Within the globe the motes had formed a single line, coiling from the base to the top. They moved no more, resting frozen in that loose pattern.
I got to my feet. It seemed to me that the lines upon the chamber walls were dimming. The belief grew in me that whatever I had come for in that testing was now a part of me—a part which I would always wear.
When I stooped for my staff I felt as tired as if I had ventured a whole night’s journey on foot, and that at a goodly pace.
With my mask once more in place I again entered the thick dark of that corridor to the outer world. In spite of my weariness I felt something else, a small spark of confidence, almost a flare of pride. I had faced the testing of my own land and I was alive and free. One of the trials was behind me.
There were the first heralds of the sunrise in the sky when I came out between the legs of the cat. In this better light the horror of devastation was more fully revealed. I wanted nothing but to be out of the stink, away from the threat of poison.
My weariness, however, was with me still. Even by the aid of the rope it was difficult to gain the heights above the befouled pool. One of the rocks uncoiled proving to be Murri, his fur so much the color of the land about us that he was hidden until he moved. He came to me in a bound and licked the hands I held out to him, the rasp of his tongue moving over those imprinted palms which I was now sure I would wear until I was absorbed by the Last Essence.
“Good—” he told me. “Kin brother—great fighter?”
“Not yet—” I sat down beside my pack. “There will be more—