“Yes, many,” Pol replied. “They might fill a book.”
“Do any stand out in your memory as particularly significant?”
“No.”
“I get the impression that you do not like to talk about these things. All right. There is no requirement that you do so. But if you would tell me, I would like to know one thing.”
“What is that?”
“A white magician may on occasion use what is known as black magic, and vice-versa. We know that it is all much the same and that it is intent that makes the difference—and that it is from intent alone that the magician’s path might be described. Have you yet chosen one path or the other?”
“I have used what I had to use as I had to use it,” Pol said. “I like to think that my intentions were relatively pure, but then most people so justify themselves in their own eyes. I mean well, most of the time.”
Larick smiled and shook his head.
“I wish that I had more time to talk with you, for I feel something very peculiar behind your words. Have you ever used magic with great force against another human being?”
“Yes.”
“What became of that person?”
“He is dead.”
“Was he also a sorcerer?”
“Not exactly.”
“ ‘Not exactly’? How can that be? A person either is or is not.”
“This was a very special case.”
Larick sighed and then smiled again.
“Then you are a black magician.”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
The three final candidates now approached the group and were introduced. Larick looked them all over and then addressed them:
“We are late getting started. We will head along this way immediately and then proceed until we have departed the city. The trail will commence shortly thereafter and we will begin our climb. I do not know yet how many—if any—rest stops we may make along the way. It depends on our progress and the time.” He gestured toward a heap of folded white garments. “Each of you pick up a robe on the way by. We’ll don them right before we enter.”
He turned and passed under the arch, moving away.
Mouseglove approached Pol.
“I’ll be at the exit point in the morning,” he said. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Pol hurried after the others, moving toward the head of the group. When he glanced back, Mouseglove was gone. He continued his pace until he caught up with Larick, felling into step beside him.
“I am curious,” he said, “why you are trying so hard to make me out a black magician.”
“It is nothing to me,” the other replied. “Those of all persuasions meet and mix freely in this place.”
“But I am not. At least, I don’t think I am.”
“It is of no importance.”
Pol shrugged.
“Have it your way, then.”
He slowed his pace and fell back among the group of apprentices. Nupf came up next to him.
“Bit of a surprise here, eh?” the apprentice said.
“What do you mean?”
“The suddenness of it all. Ibal doesn’t even know I’m on my way. He’s still—” he paused and grinned. “—occupied.”
“At least he got my name onto the list before he turned his attention to other matters.”
“It was not entirely altruistic of him,” Nupf replied. “I envy you considerably, should you come through this intact.”
“How so?”
“You don’t know?”
Pol shook his head.
“Madwands—particularly those who make it through initiation,” Nupf explained, “are, almost without exception, the most powerful sorcerers of all. Of course, there aren’t that many around. Still, that is why Ibal would like to have you remember him with a certain fondness and gratitude.”
“I’ll be damned,” Pol said.
“You really didn’t know?”
“Not in the least. Could that have anything to do, I wonder, with Larick’s efforts to find out whether I’m black or white?”
Nupf laughed.
“I suppose he hates to see the opposite side get a good recruit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t really know that much about him, but the rumor going around among the other candidates has it that Larick is so lily white he spends all of his free time hating the other side. He is also supposed to be very good—in a purely technical sense.”
“I’m getting tired of being misjudged,” Pol said. “It’s been going on all my life.”
“It would be best to put up with a little more of it, for now.”
“I wasn’t thinking of disturbing the initiation.”
“I’m sure he’ll run it perfectly. Whites are very conscientious.”
Pol laughed. He adjusted his vision and looked back at the cone of power. It had grown noticeably. He turned away and moved on toward the mounting clouds. Belken had already acquired something of radiance beneath them.
VI
Seated upon the wide ledge outside the cavemouth, three-quarters of the way up the mountain’s western face, Pol finished his bread and drank the rest of his water while watching the sun sink beneath the weight of starless night. There had been only one brief break on the way up and his feet throbbed slightly. He imagined the others were also somewhat footsore.
There came a flash of lightning in the southwest. A cold wind which had followed them more than halfway up made a little whistling noise among rocky prominences overhead. The mountain had a faint glow to it, which it seemed to acquire every night, only tonight it continued to brighten even as he watched. And when he shifted over to second seeing it seemed as if all of Belken were afire with a slowly undulating blue flame. He was about to comment upon it to Nupf when Larick rose to his feet and cleared his throat.
“All right. Put the robes on over your clothes and line up before the entrance,” he said. “It will be a bit of a walk to the first station. I will lead the way. There is to be no talking unless you are called upon for responses.”
They unfolded the coarse white garments and began donning them.
“ . . . And any visions or transformations you may witness—along with any alterations of awareness—are occasions neither for distress nor comment. Accept everything that comes to you, whether it seems good or bad. Transformations themselves may well be transformed before the night is over.”
They lined up behind him.
“This is your last chance for questions.”
There were none.
“Very well.”
Larick proceeded at a deliberate pace into the cavemouth. Pol found himself near the middle of the line which followed him. His vision slipped back into its natural range. The bluish glow diminished somewhat but did not depart. The narrow, high-walled cave into which they entered pulsated in the same fashion as the outer slopes of the mountain, giving sufficient, if somewhat unsettling, illumination to light their progress. As they passed further along, the brightness and movement intensified to the point where the walls were submerged within it, vanishing from sight, and it was as if they walked a fire-girt avenue out of dream between celestial and infernal abodes, its direction being a matter of conjecture as well as mood.
A distant rumble of thunder reached them as the way curved to the left, then to the right, slanting upward. It steepened rapidly after that, and in a few step-like places the worn floor seemed to show evidence of human handiwork.
Another turn and it steepened even more sharply, and heavy guide-ropes appeared at either hand. At first, the candidates were loath to take hold of them, for the action was tantamount to placing one’s hands among leaping flames; but after a time they had no choice. There was no sensation of warmth; Pol felt only a vague tingling on his palms, though his dragonmark began to throb beneath its disguise after several moments. The air grew warmer as they mounted, and he could hear the sounds of his companions’ labored breath
ing as they hurried to keep up with Larick.
Abruptly, they entered a grotto. The guide-ropes ended. The floor of the landing on which they halted was more nearly level. Immediately before them lay a large, circular pool blazing with white light as if illuminated from below. Low-dipping stalactites shone like icicles above it. The walls came down almost to its edges, save for the stony tongue on which they stood. Almost, for a narrow ledge seemed to circle that entire bright lens of still liquid.
Larick motioned them out upon the ledge immediately. They edged their way out and around, backs brushing against the rough rock. After several minutes, Larick began signing them to halt or move on, until all of them were distributed in accordance with some plan known only to himself. Then he moved out to the edge of the spit from which he had conducted the arrangement and stared down into the radiant waters. The candidates did the same.
The light dazzled Pol’s eyes at first, but he soon became aware of his own bleached reflection, the irregular sculpture of the roof like some fantastic landscape behind it. He looked into his own eyes; a stranger, for this was the face of the disguise he still wore—heavier brow, scar upon the left cheek.
Suddenly, his reflection melted, to be replaced by the image of his true face—leaner, thinner of lip, possessed of a higher hairline—with the white streak running back through his dark locks. He tried to raise his hand to his face and discovered that a strange lethargy with a dull species of sluggishness had come over him. His hand only twitched slightly and he made no further effort to move it. Then he became aware of a voice speaking the words he had but recently learned. It was Larick’s, and when he had finished speaking they were repeated by the first candidate upon the far edge of the pool. They echoed through the chamber and tolled inside his head. A faint, sweet scent rose to his nostrils. The next candidate began speaking the same words, and in a part of his mind Pol knew that when his turn came he would be repeating them. Yet, in a way, it seemed as if something within him were already saying them. He felt himself in some way detached from time. There was no time here, only the light and the reflected face. The words rolled toward him, awakening things deep within his being. Then he saw that the reflection was smiling. He was not aware of any movement of his own face. As he watched now, the image wavered and divided itself. It was suddenly as if he had two heads—one which continued smiling to the point of a sneer, the other bearing a massively sad expression. Slowly, they turned to face one another. He was riven by peculiar emotions. How long these persisted, he could not tell, as he observed the two who were one in their archetypal debate. It was only slowly that a vague feeling of wrongness began to come over him.
Then he realized that he was indeed speaking. His turn had come and he had begun his part in the circle without being aware of it. The words vibrated within him, and the world seemed oddly altered—distanced—about him. The light from below his feet grew even brighter. The images within the pool were warped, folded back upon themselves. The two heads of his reflection merged, to become his solitary, unsmiling countenance. A feeling of exhilaration grew within him now and the sense of wrongness was swept away. His head seemed full of light as he uttered the final syllable.
It passed then to the woman to his left, who began the intonation. Pol lost all sense of self now, as well as time and place, and merely existed within the sound and the light, feeling changes pass through him, until it was over.
Without any word or visible sign, he knew when they were finished. The light in the depths coalesced, seemed to take on the form of a great egg, while the final speaker went through his part. Then, for a long while they stood in silence regarding the depths. Without cue, Pol suddenly raised his head and looked toward Larick. As his gaze moved across the chamber, he saw that all of the others were looking up and turning simultaneously. Slowly then, the candidates moved on along the ledge.
When they reached its end and came onto the pier, Larick raised an arm, gesturing toward his left, then turned and led them through a very narrow cut behind a screen of rock which none had noticed before. After several paces, moving sideways, it widened. Almost immediately, Larick dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into a small, black hole. One by one, the others did the same. The pale, flame-like light and the undulance were present there, also, but inches away in any direction.
Progress was slow, for they worked their way downward, fighting against slippage, crawling flat-bellied through particularly low places, twisting and scraping themselves as they negotiated turns.
The candidate before and below him halted suddenly, and Pol did the same. He heard a grunt from the rear as the one behind him was drawn up short. The walls had paled somewhat to a grayish tone with a pink cast to them.
The candidate before him began inching forward again and Pol did the same, slowly. This continued for approximately one body-length, then was followed by another halt. Pol, still giddy from the opening experience, felt unable completely to control his thoughts. He alternated between mild distress and resignation over this.
After a brief pause, they advanced again, a similar distance. Several more such, and Pol saw its cause. There was a circular opening in the floor. The candidates eased themselves down through it, hung at arm’s length and then dropped.
He waited for a time after the one before him passed through, then lowered himself, hung a moment and let go.
It was not a long drop. He landed with his knees bent and immediately moved to the side. Shortly, he joined the others, who stood near the center of the chamber where the roof was high, arranged in a circle in accordance with Larick’s gesturing, around the most prominent object in sight—a pink stalactite several times his own height, rising from a large, bumpy, roughly rectangular piece of rock.
When they were all in position about it, Larick motioned them back, spreading the formation to positions as far away from the towering object as the geometry of the cavern permitted. For a moment, the man’s eyes met his own, and Pol, unaccountably, felt that there was pain within them. Then Larick moved away, to mount a rock at the for corner of the chamber. Shortly, everyone’s gaze left him and returned to the object before them.
Pol relaxed, assuming a contemplative state of mind once again. He looked up and then down the monolith. He felt the power in the place. He slipped his vision into the second seeing for a moment, but there was no change other than an increased brightness to the stalactite. There were not even any drifting strands in the vicinity, a phenomenon which struck him as somewhat odd when he thought about it much later.
At the first slow words from Larick he returned his sight to normal, feeling only the physical sensations which the sounds and their echoes stirred within him. The experiences of timelessness and distancing came over him more quickly than they had on the previous occasion. Now, as he watched, the light on the surface of the towering formation began shifting. It seemed almost as if the thing were moving slightly.
Larick grew silent and some member of the circle began the intonation. The cavern slowly faded about him as this occurred. Pol felt that the huge form was the only tangible object in existence. The words followed him, however, filling this version of the universe which he now occupied. Then, suddenly, the monolith seemed larger, its shape indefinably altered.
Another voice took up the words. Pol watched, fascinated, as the object moved and shifted its appearance. The lumpy base seemed more and more to be the knuckles of three folded fingers, the single upright a forefinger extended, a small, low prominence on its other side the joint of a bent thumb. Of course . . . It had been a hand all along. Why hadn’t he noticed sooner?
The voice moved nearer. The hand was indeed stirring, turning in his direction. The finger began to dip, slowly.
His breathing ceased and a sense of awe came over him as it continued to descend toward him. The narrowing distance between them was filled with power. Unaccountably, his right shoulder and arm began to tingle.
The finger, large enough to crush him, reached—g
ently, delicately—and brushed very lightly against his right shoulder.
He almost collapsed, not from any weight but from the feelings which invaded him at that moment. He steadied himself as the source of the words came even nearer. The finger was retreating now, moving back toward its upright position.
The tingling continued in his arm and shoulder, to be succeeded first by a dull ache and then by a numbness when it came his turn to speak the words. The cavern returned, however, and the hand became once again a stalactite upon a rough rock.
The words went full circle, they meditated in silence for a spell and Larick then motioned them to follow him through an opening in the wall behind the rock upon which he stood.
Pol moved slowly, awkwardly, puzzled by the dead weight which hung at his right side. He reached across and seized his right biceps with his left hand.
His upper arm felt swollen, immense; it was tight against the cloth of his sleeve.
He ran his hand down his arm. The entire limb seemed suddenly grown oversize. Also, it was uniformly diminished in sensitivity. With great effort, however, he found that he could move it. When he lowered his eyes, he discovered that his hand—still normal in appearance and feeling—hung far lower than usual, in the vicinity of his knee. He felt for the power of his dragonmark, but it, too, seemed to have been numbed. Then he recalled Larick’s words on the matter of transformations this night—that they should be accepted without distress and not be permitted to interfere with the business at hand. Nevertheless, he glanced surreptitiously at the others, to see whether he could detect any malformations. The few he was able to view before entering the tunnel did not exhibit any gross impairments. And no one seemed to notice his own.
They walked. The way was level, straight and sufficiently wide. The illumination persisted. They passed through an empty chamber without halting—where it seemed that a high-pitched musical tone was being constantly sounded, just beyond the bounds of audibility—and they continued until another grotto opened before them.
Here they entered. It was a rounded chamber with a curved roof, almost bubble-like in appearance. Larick spaced them about a rock formation resembling a cauldron, near its center. Again, a chanting commenced and again Pol knew the oceanic feeling, the detachment he had experienced at the other stations, though here it was mixed with something of depression, sadness. His left arm acquired the tingling sensation at this point, and when his turn had come and passed and all was done it resembled the right exactly in its transformation.
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