It was the Tree: the roots of the Tree, sunk deep in the Mountain … the stone of the Mountain’s inmost cavern now rearing up, thrusting up around the separate roots as if trying somehow to bind them. From older trees in the park, Rhiow knew that in any such contest between tree and stone, the tree always won eventually. But here it seemed to have been fought to a draw: the stone seemed to be closing in.
Before it, between them and the Tree, the River of Fire spilled down the last of its steps and out into a broad channel … the final barrier. It looked more like the archetypal River now: inimical, a fire that would burn cold rather than hot, one in which nothing could survive—certainly not memory, maybe not even the passing soul. By the light of that river, Rhiow could make out that something else was wound about the Tree, among the stones, resting on them in some places: a long shining form, dark as everything else was here—but the light of the River caught its scales coldly, glinted black fire back. That form lapped the Tree in coil upon immense coil; the mind wanted to refuse the sight of it. Taking it all in, the trunk of the Tree, the roots of the Tree, the coiled shape, was like trying to take in a whole mountain in a glimpse from up close, as well as the river of fire that wound about its feet, and the other river of darkly glittering light, which wound about it higher up: a river with eyes.
And under the spot where eyes lay brooding in a gigantic skull, where the massive jaw rested, at the top of one mighty root, Rhiow saw a great deep jagged gouge, gnawed into the Tree. The gouge bled pale light, too pale to illumine much. The gouge was deep—perhaps a third of the way through the whole trunk, on that side. And the old, dark, wise, amused eyes looked at them, and smiled.
Rhiow threw an almost panicked glance at Arhu, for it was in his voice that she had first heard the warning. Claw your way to the Root. The Tree totters… And did the trunk have just the slightest leftward slant? As if it were thinking about falling?
What else will fall with it?
They all stood there, in that massive, archaic silence, and looked at those dark eyes. Rhiow felt those eyes on her and felt ineffably ephemeral, helpless, small. Beside her, Saash was staring, silent. Beside her, Arhu looked once, and looked away as if burned. Ith— Ith crouched down to the stony ground in what even to Rhiow was plainly a gesture of reverence.
It was not entirely misplaced, Rhiow knew. She took a step forward, sat down, curled her tail about her feet, looked the Old Serpent in the eye, though she trembled all over, and said as clearly as she could, “Eldest, Fairest, and Fallen… greeting; and defiance.”
Things began to shake. A long rumble, a roar, as of many voices, fading away … laughter. A long soft laugh, fading, as if the earthquake laughed.
Rhiow saw Arhu shudder all over at the sound. She was not in much better state herself. She was going to have to cope, though. Off to one side she caught a movement. Urruah, heading for the River—
She opened her mouth to shout at him to stop—and found herself muzzled: those dark eyes were concentrating particularly on her, and the pressure made speech impossible for the moment. But Urruah kept going. He would probably have ignored me anyway. Urruah!!
Straight out over the deadly River he went, as casually as if he were walking across Seventy-eighth Street, heading for his Dumpster. He passed the River, unhurt, though Rhiow thought she caught a scent of scorching fur. Urruah sauntered slowly over to the nearest root of the Tree where it sank among the tumbled stones, a massive gnarled pillar, and looked it over; then reared up on his hind legs, and began, thoughtfully, insolently, to sharpen his claws on it.
Rhiow stared at him open-jawed, filled with disbelief, indignation, and a kind of crooked admiration. She had leisure to indulge herself in the feelings, for Urruah didn’t hurry any more than he might have rushed himself while working on some badly fenced-in sapling on a city street. Finally Urruah was done. He dropped to all fours again and strolled back over the river, back to the team: a tom finished marking just one more piece of territory.
Only you would pull a stunt like that, Rhiow said to him as he came.
Possibly that’s why I’m here, he said, and smiled, then turned back to face their enemy. But sometimes you can be a little too formal. If we’re going to play hauissh … let’s play hauissh.
I’m surprised you didn’t spray it, Saash said.
Hey, yeah, I forgot. He started to get up, and Rhiow put a big heavy paw down on his tail, without the claws … for the moment. Urruah looked over his shoulder at her, then grinned and sat down again.
Is it the Fight? Arhu said silently. The one you and Yafh were showing me?
If not the original, Urruah said, close enough. Keep your tactics in mind. Find your position and don’t be moved off it. Half of a good fight is bluff, so yell as loud as you can, break your throat if you have to: it heals faster than broken claws. Don’t waste your time with ears: no one breathes through their ears. Throats are the target—
What is this, the pregame show? Rhiow said silently, annoyed, but still amused. How am I supposed to make a mission statement with this going on? Save it for later.
She stood up. “Well, Lone One,” she said, “you’ve been working on something a little less obvious down here, it seems. Often enough You’ve tried striking directly at individual wizards, with mixed results at best. But here, now, obviously it’s suited You to strike at the Gates by undermining the Tree, and enslaving the poor saurians down here, that You tricked so long ago. Well, the Queen has noticed You… and She and the Powers have a little surprise for You as a result. The first saurian wizard…”
That laughter, like the earthquake, rumbled again. And when it faded to silence, a voice spoke.
“There is another?” It said, amused.
From out of the shadows stepped a tall shape. Arhu looked up and growled in his throat.
It was a tyrannosaur: slate-blue, striped gaudily in red. It looked down at them all with an expression that stretched into a mocking grin, and flexed all its twelve claws.
“You again,” Arhu said.
“You’re a bit older than when I saw you last,” said the tyrannosaur … in the Speech. “But you won’t get much older than you are now,… never fear.”
“This is the one I saw the first night,” Arhu said. “After the rats.”
“Haath,” Rhiow said. “The Great One’s ‘sixth claw.’ ”
“Feline mammal,” Haath said, and grinned at her in her turn. “I will not say ‘well met on the errand’; it will not be so, for you.”
Rhiow’s heart sank. Surprise, she thought, furious with herself for being so blind, for the Lone Power had been way ahead of her. Here, in the heart of this place where the structure of wizardry itself was being deranged and perverted, It had been able to cause wizardry to present itself to a saurian of Its choice, without involving any of the other Powers That Be. It had taught the wizard everything It wanted him to know, and pushed him through an Ordeal that had probably been a parody of the real thing, but real enough to produce the result: a wizard who walked the entropic side, who killed casually or for pleasure, who changed the life around him without reason, who knew nothing of preservation or slowing down the heat-death … who probably knew nothing but his Master’s will. At the mere thought of such perversion of the Art, Rhiow hissed and spat, fluffing up.