Mark of the Cat and Year of the Rat Page 20

  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 the 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.

  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.

  As I went I listened for any sound which might be that of a rat that had managed to reach that point, but 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 Sand Cat.

  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 Sand Cats, 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 nicked back and the scars of my blooding among the Sand Cats 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 g
reat 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, those 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—”

  “Kin brother do, do as easily as oryxen kill,” he assured me.

  I was too tired to protest. My exultation had faded. All I wanted was rest and I pulled back into the shadows of a rock spur which was nearly wide enough to be a cave and there fell almost instantly asleep.

  I dreamed—but this was a dream which had no problems—nor did I see Ravinga. Rather I roamed the land freely, with no burden of duty laid upon me. Murri bounded at my side and there was a sense that this world was ours together and always would be. The feeling of well-being which that gave me carried over into waking.

  The sun rays were already in the west. There was an ache in my middle which I recognized, after an eye blink or two, as hunger. The dried cakes of algae in my pack had little taste, but I chewed them slowly, dividing that Murri might have his share.

  I did not want to return to the camp of my escort, yet once more the pattern of duty held me fast.

  I found them waiting—Murri had disappeared discreetly before the sentry challenged. When I came into the direct firelight, the Chancellor of Kahulawe stood waiting me. There was no lighting of countenance in greeting, and once more the old soreness of being one not counted as profit to House or clan haunted me.

  Not speaking, I rammed my staff point down into the earth and held out my hands so that she and those hard-faced guards behind her could see the signs I now bore.

  “So be it.” No congratulation in her voice, only a murmur from those gathered there. I wondered, first dully and then with growing anger, if they had been willing for me to fail and that my success was only to be recognized grudgingly.

  So be it, my mind answered that thought. Now there was born a determination in me—I would no longer be swept into this by custom, an unwilling participant in this time of trials—rather there would come a day when I would reach for the crown and my hands would close upon it! These who still looked upon me as nothing—they would learn!

  We were five nights of travel away from the border of the land where my next ordeal waited. But only one day were we in open camp. Instead we were given hospitality by various House-clans, and the last night we approached the isle owned by one of my out-kin—the sister of my father.

  She was older than he and even in my childhood I had counted her ancient and kept away from her, for her sharp remarks and piercing looks always weighed and discarded me, or so I thought. But as we came to her guesting house at sunrise, one of her serving maids waited with the message that I was to come to her.

  Though I had no robe of presence to wear, being less well clad than her servants, still I was enough in awe of her to answer that summons after I had done no more than clean the sand dust of travel from my face and hands.

  The woman I had remembered as majestic as our Queen in her person sat now in a pillowed chair. At her feet was a grey-furred kotti—its color the same as that of my hostess, for not only had her hair dulled to the colo
r of fas-sand but her skin had paled. Still there was the same vibrant life in the eyes she turned upon me.

  “So, Hynkkel, you come as a stranger—after all these years. Also you come as one who attempts much.”

  Those were statements which needed no answers. I had only murmured the conventional greeting before she had spoken. Now she leaned forward a little among her cushions. Out of the dusk behind her quickly moved a maid with a cup she held ready for her mistress. The clawlike fingers of my aunt curled about that and to my deep astonishment she held it forward in a gesture which meant I must accept it.

  Never had I been offered the guesting cup which was the greeting between equals. That she should do this now—

  Part of me wanted to put my hands behind me and refuse to accept what had never been so offered before. Another and stronger part took the offered goblet.

  “To the House, the clan, to she who rules here, may all good fortune come. May the Essence of all be hers—” I said.

  As I took the ceremonial sip and returned the cup to her, she accepted it with one hand, but her other shot forward. Those claw fingers braceleted my wrist, turned up my hand so that the marks the globe had set upon me could be clearly seen.

  “To he who comes with the favor of the Essence.” Still holding my hand in that grip, she drank from the cup which the maid then took from her. Now she peered up at me.

  “Judgment may be made too quickly at times,” she observed. “You are far more than you have ever been thought to be, brother’s son. May you prosper in days to come.”

  Her eyes fell from my face to the mark on my palm and then she ran her fingers over the scar which I wore as a bracelet.

  For a very long moment she stared at that. The kotti at her feet suddenly reared as if some morsel of food was dangled just out of its reach. I saw that her tongue tip ran across her lips.

  “You have danced, you have sung.” There was a note of awe in her voice. “So it has not been with any for ten generations, and never with one of our House. Truly you have a strange path to follow.”