Heck handed me a singlesuit that had seen better days and pointed to a pair of boots on the pool deck. 'If you would put them both on ...'
I began to pull on the suit, glancing at the apparatus that now spanned the deep end of the pool. A polished wooden beam ran between two pedestals - one on each side of the pool, a distance of more than ten meters. Each pedestal was three steps high. The beam - less than ten centimeters wide - was a good two meters above the water - and the water depth was at least five meters. After the suit came the boots.
Ileck looked at me. 'You're going to walk across that.'
Fair enough. I started toward the pedestal before me.
'No ... not like that.' He held up a blindfold. You get up on the second step, and then I'll fasten this in place.'
Walk the beam blindfolded?
'This is just the beginning,' Ileck added.
Keeping my thoughts about that buried, I stepped up and waited as he fastened it across my eyes. 'What might be the reason ... ?'
'Symbolic analogue. You're better off if you don't know much beyond that yet. I'd appreciate it if you didn't ask.'
From his tone I could tell I'd be seeing more symbolic analogues, even if I had no idea what their purpose might be. The old Dzin philosophy insisted that true ignorance was far superior to shallow knowledge. I smiled wryly. I was truly ignorant at the moment.
'Try to sense the beam, to visualize where it is. Take your time.'
Take my time? I certainly would.
I felt for the beam with my left boot, and it slid. The beam surface was as slick as wet glass or oiled tile. Slowly, I eased my left foot onto what I felt was a centered position before shifting my weight onto it. I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, then slowly oozing down my back. I repeated the maneuver with my right booted foot. Foot by foot I struggled across the beam, a beam that neither flexed nor bent.
By the time I managed to get all the way across, if wobbling several times, I was soaked with sweat. On the other side I stopped and reached for the blindfold.
'Turn around and start back.'
'Now?'
'Now.'
Slowly, I turned.
Not three steps had I taken when a blast of trumpets shivered the air around me, almost palpably pushing me sideways. I shifted my weight, but I was too off-balance and - rather than plunge awkwardly - I stepped sideways and pointed my booted feet, dropping past the beam.
The blindfold ripped off as I plunged into the cool water, and I bobbed to the surface and swam toward the side where- Ileck waited. The drag of the wet singlesuit and the waterlogged boots turned a decent overarm crawl into an elbow-dragging, pseudopaddle.
'Climb out. You need to try it again.' Ileck gestured.
My exit from the dark water was graceless and left puddles of water along the black composite. Ileck had another blindfold waiting. I wiped water from my face and stood on the step pedestal and let him fasten it again.
'You have to concentrate on where you are, Tyndel. This is not a meaningless exercise.'
None of what the demons did was meaningless. Frustrating, exhausting, difficult, but never without meaning. I stepped onto the beam once more.
In the middle of my very first step, instruments of all types - horns, strings, harps, and drums - as well as tones I'd never heard, assailed me. I staggered but managed to put my foot down on the glass-smooth surface of the beam despite the power of the music. It was music, not cacophony, though I had never heard its like before.
With my second step, the music swirled into a dance of some sort, and my third brought a ballad, faintly familiar. Although the beam remained firm, my legs trembled with each step and the variation in music volume.
Salty sweat built up under the blindfold, and my eyes burned with the last few steps before I felt the pedestal underfoot.
'Good,' declared Ileck. 'You can take off the blindfold.' I almost shook myself as I stood there, blotting the sweat from my eyes.
Ileck stood below me, his eyes level with mine, holding a stained grayish canvas pack filled with something. He lifted it easily and extended it to me. 'Here. Put it on.'
So heavy was the pack - a good fifty kilograms -1 nearly dropped it, and holding on to the straps left me teetering on the edge of the pedestal and struggling not to topple into the water below. After straightening, I struggled into the straps, pulling them in place over the wet green singlesuit. My feet were not unwelcomely cool inside the soaked leather boots.
'Turn around.' Ileck had another blindfold in his hand.
I blotted my eyes dry, then turned. He fastened the blindfold in place.
'Start across.'
I managed two steps before a wall of sound - an ancient organ as loud as a shuttle first breaching the atmosphere? - slammed me off balance, and the weight of the pack toppled me into the dark water below. Swimming to the edge was a true struggle with the weight on my back, but I knew that was part of whatever Ileck had in mind.
'You need to try again.' That was all he said.
I clambered out of the pool and trudged to the pedestal steps once more, where I handed him the soaking blindfold. Silently, he replaced it. For symbolic analogues, he was certainly putting a great deal of verisimilitude into my training.
It took two more attempts before I could get across with the heavy pack on my back against the walls and arrows of music and sound.
'Be careful this time,' Ileck said after the successful effort.
I turned and took a step.
Not only did an off-tempo march with volume enough to shiver my very skull strike me with the first step, but my second was greeted with a beam of heat that seemed to sear me, followed as quickly by a gust of ice-chilled air that felt as though it froze my soaked singlesuit to my skin. My fourth step took me into the water, colder by far, or so it felt, than earlier.
I had to hang on to the edge of the pool for a time before I could pull myself out.
'Once more,' insisted Ileck, his voice impassive.
I made one more slow trip across the slick beam carrying the heavy pack, assaulted by music and other sounds, and the heat and chill. My knees trembled, and moving each leg had gotten to be agony.
At the other side, Ileck waited, as usual. 'That is enough for today.'
I took a deep breath. 'Thank you.'
He smiled, almost ironically. 'This is the beginning.'
The way I felt, I didn't ask exactly what I was beginning.
Below, in the locker room, I took an old-fashioned hot shower, luxuriating in the steam, before I dried and dressed in my pale green singlesuit. Then I walked slowly to the nearest lounge, since the dining area in the transient quarters was somehow depressing.
The lounge held five tables widely spaced, all of dark oak, polished, bound at the edges in shimmering brass. The dark oak chairs also were brass bound, with a dark gold and blue brocade over the upholstered seats.
After scanning the menu on the reformulator, I picked both the Serian chicken and the Dorchan hot noodles and a mixed fruit salad, with Arleen tea. I'd eaten about half of the enormous meal when a woman in green and silver walked into the lounge, followed by a wide-eyed younger woman with braided hair coiled at the back of her head. The wide-eyed one was scarcely more than a youngster.
The Rykashan glanced at me, taking in my pale green singlesuit, and murmured to the girl. 'He's a Web pilot trainee. You can tell by the light green of the suit and by the eyes. You'll learn more about Web jockeys later. Very respected ... Now, this is a lounge. Anyone can eat here ...'
I sipped the last of the Arleen tea in the mug, then rose to get another.
The woman - dressed in the same deeper green that Cerrelle had worn - did not look up, but kept talking to her charge. 'Runswi is very different from Dezret... women are equal ... women administrators, pilots, and specialists ... have you meet Alicia deSchmidt sometime. You'll see.'