I told my story in as few words as possible and it came curtly enough. He listened, I saw, with the same care he might give to some report of importance.
At the end I turned my wrist for him again to view that scar which was my key to the councils of those who had been so long the enemy.
He was frowning a little when I had finished. “That might be a bard tale,” he commented, “save that you have shown us what you can do. Strange indeed, for between our kind and the Great Cats there has always been war.”
“Always?” I was remembering then the half legends Ravinga had spoken of—of a time when man and sandcat had been fellow warriors against some great but now forgotten ill.
His frown grew deeper. “You speak of things which are not for all ears.” He sent his oryxen forward, leaving me once more to speculate upon what seemed to be an unseen web which had somehow gripped me fast.
Nor did he speak to me again. On the fifth day we came to the border of Azhengir and saw there the guard and Chancellor of that land waiting. But this time there was no lucky candidate in their midst and I could guess at a failure, how disastrous a one I did not yet know.
Chapter 24
WE ARE ALL deeply akin to the lands of our birth. The essence of that enters into us so that no other place can mean so much. I had faced the threats of the fire-ridden Thnossis yet that in its way had not seemed as fearsome as did Azhengir, into which I now passed.
There were no insects in the slickrock country, nor had I suffered from the attentions of such in either Vapala or Thnossis. But here the salt pans sent up winds of them against all comers. They bit, they crawled across any exposed skin, they sought out the corners of eyes and mouth until their assaults were maddening.
Also, in some way the very Essence here was repelling. I felt that, following each stage of our journey into Azhengir, there grew stronger the feeling that I was an intruder to be routed, that the desolate world about me would spew me forth.
Yet to the guard who had met me at the border this land was a way of life, barren and hard as that might be.
The salt pans were in themselves traps. Azhengir’s one export was salt but that could not easily be dredged from the pans, as its collection was a thing of peril. There were thermal pools within the pans and those grew no algae, or if a few plants made rooting there they were not of any use—either for eating or the soothing of any body hurt.
However, those of Azhengir planted in these scattered pools branched rods which resembled those of the trees of Vapala. Upon those branches there gathered in the course of time clear crystals of salt. These were the harvest which brought the trade to supply those who gathered such crops with the bare necessities of life.
However, to plant those bushes and then reclaim them with their fruit was a perilous undertaking. The harvesters were equipped with long rods of their own to sound out a path ahead, as the scumlike surface hid sucker ponds which could draw into a speedy death any who broke their crust.
Nor could they depend upon landmarks to set a clear trail to any pond no matter how many times they made that journey. For the undercrust traps moved and changed in thickness. Thus each trip to the harvest was a test of skill in judgment, as well as a matter of sheer fortune.
On the fourth day after we had crossed the border we entered one of the small villages which were anchored firmly by the same rock ridge which formed the only road.
It was a squalid place, the buildings hardly more than huts, and, as far as I could see, no attempt had ever been made to ornament any of them. No guardian cat statues stood beside doorways, not even that of the largest hovel in which the chief of this village sheltered. No color relieved the dirty grey of the walls, no banner, save a large pole encrystaled with salt deposit, stood before that place of rulership.
The people turned out to greet us. Though I fought off insect clouds, those of the salt lands did not seem to mind when such crawled over them, raising a hand only now and then to drive away some more persistent attacker. The natives were dark of skin but it was not a ruddy darkness such as I myself show, or that possessed by the miners and metal workers of Thnossis. Rather this appeared to have an overshadowing of grey which was as repelling as their homes and echoed the lank locks of hair which hung about their gaunt faces. No one tied back those straying strands with any band, nor did their women wear the bright metal combs and catches I was used to. In fact there was very little metal in sight.
They watched us without expression and, as I slid out of the saddle, I knew that they were mainly eyeing me. Then he, as gaunt and colorless as all the rest, who stood before the chief hut, beckoned, making no move to step forward. It was as if in this place even the courtesy of guesting were unknown.
So I was led into the presence of Dar-For-It, Voice for the village. He was very old, a veritable skeleton figure crouched on a stool within the hut. One of his eyes was filmed as grey-white as his straggle of hair.
Behind him was a gathering of what must be his personal guard, though the only weapons they carried (if weapons those were) were long rods, the tips of which reached well above their unkempt heads. There were both men and women there, the Heads of various Houses, I judged. Yet none were better arrayed than the crowd of commoners without.
In the center of the chamber was a fire which was hardly more than a ruddy handful of coals. Over that, supported on a tripod of legs, was a bowl of discolored metal from which a lazy curl of smoke arose.
“You have come a long way to die.” The greeting certainly was not in any way one to encourage. “He who was first here was of our kind and yet he is now gone.”
There did not seem to be any answer to that.
The old man stared up at me through his fringe of hair. “It is only right that he who would wear the Great Crown must first share life with those to be governed, say you not also?”
“Yes,” I made short answer. All knew the purpose of these tests—that the Emperor-to-be must know the life of others.
The chief nodded. Then he lifted a hand. Those who had stood behind him spread out, some of them circling behind me. I did not like the feeling which came with that encirclement. Again the chief signaled.
One of the others, a woman who looked as old as he and wore the first ornament (if you could call it such) that I had seen— a necklace of what could only be rat teeth threaded together with beads of salt—knelt by that slowly simmering basin and dipped into it a misshapen cup which, brimming with a sickly greenish liquid when she brought it forth, I saw to be an oversized rat skull.
“If you would be one of us—a harvester,” the chief said, “then you will prepare even as we do to try the ever-changing trail. Drink, outlander!” The last two words were uttered as a firm order—one against which no argument could be raised.
The stuff gave off a vile odor and I guessed it would have an even worse taste. However, I had no choice. Somehow I choked it down and then had to fight against nausea. To spew it up again— I was sure that was what they expected. I would not please them so much.
The nausea remained and with it came gnawing pain in my middle. Poison? No, I was sure that they would not dare to dispose of any candidate of the trial. The cup I had put down was taken up by the women, refilled twice, and given so to two of the others.
That answered in part my question. It must be a required ritual for those setting out into the pans.
Somehow I got out of the hut, fighting the revulsion which gripped my body. A rod was pressed into my hand and I summoned strength to grasp it.
With at least half the village as an escort we made our way down from the firmness of the ridge to the edge of the pan. The chief did not accompany us, but the seeress was very much to the fore and I saw her eyeing me with a grin of anticipation.