I began to hum deep in my throat and a moment later heard the purring response from my companion. Though my singing in cat speech was a sorry thing, I could well recall some of the rhythm to which that tribe had danced on the isle.
Murri began the dance. He had his people’s ability to gulp in air, fluff out his fur, and take to glides as long and as high as those of the sand ships of Twahihic. That advantage I lacked but I was able to leap and twist, and I found that with practice that ability grew. We wove patterns—he as graceful as all his people, I awkwardly and far behind. Yet I persisted, and as I did I continued to sing, for it seemed somehow that the sounds I made possessed a beat which inspired my feet for each leap and turn.
When I tired I dropped cross-legged on the floor and strove to empty my mind, think only of the cats as I had seen them at their festival, and I strove to somehow tap the essence of that memory and make it mine.
I spent a second day so in the hall, striving with all my energy to master as much as I could of the dance. Whether this effort would benefit me or not I had no idea but it was all which I might summon in support.
That night there was a clatter of the door mobile and Allitta let in an officer of the Chancellor’s own guard. He looked at me stolidly as he said:
“Two signals before mid-day tomorrow—those who are chosen will face the task.”
There was certainly nothing encouraging about that bald statement. I fancied even that he resented having to deliver it to me. However, that was the summoning and there was no drawing back.
Once he had gone I spoke first to Murri. It was only the fact that I was a candidate which protected him here—a very fragile truce which would be broken in an instant at my failure.
“You go safe, brother. Now—I cannot spread claw for you soon.”
I looked to Ravinga. “Is there anything I can do to make sure that Murri does not suffer?”
Her eyes when she turned an answering gaze on me seemed cold. “Do you then doubt yourself so much, Hynkkel? Such are not the thoughts you should hold now.”
“Chance really favors no man,” I answered. “If chance fails me, I would have Murri safe.”
She pursed her lips. “There are ties which can be called upon, yes.”
I drew a deep breath. My hand went out and my fingers were buried deep in the fur on Murri’s head.
“So be it. That much I ask of you.”
Chapter 29
As THERE HAD BEEN at the selecting of the candidates, the square before the palace was crowded—though the guard kept back the throng for a space about the mobile. On the steps behind it was the throne of the Emperor while the Grand Chancellor stood a step below that holding the staff of office, and at her feet lounged the Blue Leopard.
The mobile had been lowered closer to the ground and already those who were to keep it in motion had set those pendants clanging back and forth, the sun striking vivid colors from the plates’ ever-moving surfaces. While, at the core, the crown of diamonds with its cat heads set with ruby, topaz, emerald, sapphire, those stones signifying the Outer Regions, formed a blaze of fire.
The crown hung on a chain. He who won that far must also be able to free it, then issue forth again unharmed. To pass those ever-swinging plates, the clangor of which alone was enough to deafen one, would require such agility of body that even to think of such action was daunting.
Yet we stood there ready to attempt that feat, one on either side of the mobile. Shank-ji had drawn the lot which would send him first into the whirling, cutting swing.
Stripped to breech clout he made a fine figure, surely such a one as we could want seated on the throne awaiting the winner. I knew that his body had been exercised for years in all the actions of a swordsman and a spearman of note. And he wore now the guise of one who was utterly sure of himself.
Nor were those who had escorted him hither and now behind him any less assuring. Sons and Heads of Great Houses, daughters of famous clans, they stood by custom to back him who had become their champion. Among that throng I caught sight of my brother, at the same time he was eyeing me, and there was nothing of support in the glare and sneering twist of lip he showed.
Behind me—yes, there were those showing the badges of some of the out-clans, and, closer, Murri. The people had come not because I was their choice. But Murri was there because of good will. They gave him room as he sat, his poise erect, his tail up quivering with excitement, watching the clatter of the plates in the wind as he might have eyed the scuttling of a sand lizard.
Farther back must be both Ravinga and Allitta though they were making no parade of their presence. However. I thought that Murri’s good wishes were shared by the dollmaker, if not by Allitta—of whose good will I was hardly sure.
The high priest of the Vapala temple turned a fraction. One of his followers held a gong and the high priest himself had his short rod of office ready. He swung that. The gong note was loud even through the clamor of the mobile. I saw Shank-ji’s body tense.
A second time the priest signaled. The warrior sprang. He twisted and turned, once nearly caught by the unexpected whirl of a plate which might have taken off his head had he not ducked in time. He had won within the inner circle, raised his hands to the crown. Then—
The mobile notes were broken by a louder sound. One of the plates turned as if it had been struck by a rod such as the priest held. There came a scream. Shank-ji rolled on the ground in a mist of spouting blood, his left hand clutching at a wrist from which the other hand had just been shorn as neatly as if the blow had indeed been delivered to prevent his taking of the crown.
There were shouts then, men of his war band surged forward. But the Chancellor had already signaled and the mobile swung upward enough to allow two of her own guards to crawl in and bring out the wounded man.
He was carried down an aisle quickly made in the crowd who had come to support him, and, from the limpness of his body, I thought that he had lapsed into unconsciousness. On the stone pavement where he had fallen there was a pool of blood and— the hand. Looking upon that I fought the sickness rising in my throat. Better death than be maimed.
Three, wearing the jeweled robes of the nobles of the first rank, had pushed forward to the foot of the steps below the Chancellor. And he who seemed the leader spoke vehemently, though the clamor of the crowd and the chimes of the mobile obscured his speech as far as the rest of us were concerned. He turned and pointed to the bloodied pavement.
Just beyond that hand there lay something else which had no place there, what appeared to be a stone about the size a man could hold in one hand. And certainly that had not been there earlier, for the ground beneath had been most carefully inspected before the mobile had been lowered.
A stone, now half in the pool of blood—and that pendant of the mobile which had jerked just as Shank-ji had reached for the crown. Those added up to—
Interference—a foul! Yet that was none of my doing and certainly I had no friends, even of my countrymen here, who would try such a trick. Whoever had flung that stone had skill—the skill of an expert slinger perhaps.
The mobile arose higher by jerks and, when it was well up, the nobles who had lodged that protest and the Chancellor herself went to the site. At a gesture from the Chancellor one of her guard picked up that stone and turned it slowly about under her close inspection.
Now one of the nobles, his face a mask of ugly malice, pointed to me. I felt rather than saw the movement of the crowd behind me. There were certainly those there who would be only too glad to drag me down as one who was unfit, who had broken honor of the outland peoples.
The Chancellor gave an order and her guard moved in behind me, forming a wall between me and the crowd. Or was it that they were prepared to take me prisoner as a traitor to custom and a perhaps would-be murderer? Murri! They would move against my fur brother also, only the thin line of a promise keeping them from already sending spear heads into his hide.