But a few, at least, seemed transfigured by the honor that had come to them. Their eyes were turned rapturously toward Kosa Saag and their faces were shining with an inner light. It was wonderful to see those few.
“Look at Galli’s brother,” I whispered to Traiben. “Do you see how happy he is? That’s the way I’m going to be when my time comes.”
“And so will I.”
“And look, look, there’s Thrance!” He was our great hero then, an athlete of legendary skill, flawless of shape and tall as a tree, a godlike figure of wondrous beauty and strength. Everyone around us stirred in excitement as Thrance emerged from Pilgrim Lodge. “He’ll run straight up to the Summit, I’ll bet, without ever stopping to catch his breath. He won’t wait for the others—he’ll just take off and keep going.”
“He probably will,” said Traiben. “Poor Thrance.”
“Poor Thrance? Why do you say a strange thing like that? Thrance is someone to be envied, and you know it!”
Traiben shook his head. “Envy Thrance? Oh, no, Poilar. I envy him his broad back and long legs, and nothing else. Don’t you see? This moment right now is the finest moment of his life. Everything can only get worse from here on for him.”
“Because he’s been chosen to be a Pilgrim?”
“Because he’ll run ahead of the others,” said Traiben, and turned away, wrapping himself in a cloak of silence.
Thrance went trotting past us down Procession Street, a jubilant figure, head upraised toward the mountain.
We were almost at the end of the Procession now.
The last of this year’s Pilgrims had passed by, and had taken the turn past the huge scarlet-leaved szambar tree in the plaza, the place where all roads meet, the spindle marking the point from which everything in our village radiates. They swung sharply around the tree and went to the right: that would put them on the road toward Kosa Saag. Behind them came the final group of marchers, the saddest ones of all—the great horde of defeated candidates, whose humiliating task it was to carry the equipment and baggage of the winners as far as the village boundary.
How sorry I felt for them! How my heart ached for their shame!
There were hundreds and hundreds of them, marching five abreast past me for what seemed like forever. These, I knew, were merely the ones that had survived the long ordeal of training and selection; for many die during that time. Even after those deaths there were still, I suppose, eighty or ninety defeated ones for each of the chosen Forty. It has always been like that. Many come forward, but few succeed. In my year, which was a large one though not unusually so, there were four thousand two hundred and fifty-six candidates: each of us had less than one chance out of a hundred to be chosen.
Yet these defeated ones marched as proudly as though they had been winners—heads erect, eyes staring toward the mountain. It was like that every year, and I had never been able to understand why. Well, it is an honor, after all, to have been a candidate, even an unsuccessful one. But I would not have wanted to be among their number.
They went by, and suddenly Procession Street was empty.
“There should be Sweepers at the end as well as at the beginning,” said Traiben. “To clear away the spirits that come flocking in after the people have passed.”
I shrugged. Sometimes I had no patience with Traiben’s strangeness. My attention was focused on the road to Kosa Saag, off to my left on the northwest side of town. The Pilgrims were in the flat part of the road now and therefore out of sight, with their pitiful train of baggage-bearers still in view behind them. Then the baggage-bearers vanished into the dip of the road and a moment later the first of the Pilgrims reappeared, visible again on the steeper part of the road where it rises just west of the center of the village and ascends into the foothills of the Wall. The double light of brilliant white Ekmelios and blood-red Marilemma cloaked them in an eye-dazzling aura as they made their way up the golden-carpeted road.
Watching them, I felt the most powerful sort of agitation, almost to the point of sickness. I trembled; my throat went dry; my face became stiff as a mask. I had seen this moment of the Pilgrims’ departure every year of my life, but this time it was different. I imagined myself among them, going up and up and up the Wall. The village dwindled to a dot behind me. I could feel the air growing cooler and thinner as I climbed. I put my head back and stared toward the remote unknown Summit and my brain whirled with wonders.
Traiben was gripping my arm again. This time I didn’t brush him away.
Together we counted out the names of the mileposts as the Pilgrims ascended:
“Roshten … Ashten … Glay … Hespen … Sennt …”
Ordinarily the Sennt milepost was as far up the Wall-road as one could see from the lowlands. But as I have said, that day had become one of great clarity, and we were able to make out one more winding of the road, to the milepost known as Denbail. Traiben and I whispered its name together as the Pilgrims reached it. That was where the golden ceremonial carpet came to its end and the stone-paved road lay bare. Here the defeated ones had to hand over the equipment, for they were allowed to go no farther on the upward route. We stared, straining our eyes, as the Forty took their packs and gear from those who had borne them up till now. Then the defeated ones swung around and began their descent; and the Forty resumed their climb, continuing on up the road until within moments they were lost to our view in the mists and twists of the upward path.
3
That night was the first night that what I call my star-dream came to me. It was a night of many moons, when spangled light danced on the wall of our house. Some find it hard to sleep in all that brilliance, but I was tired from the day’s events, and I slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted. In the depths of the night I found myself dreaming of the worlds beyond the World.
In my dream I climbed Kosa Saag with no more effort than if I were climbing to the top of someone’s barn. Up and up I went, through each of the Kingdoms of the Wall, and it took no time at all. Traiben was with me, somewhere just behind, and other friends too, but I paid no heed to them and went on and on with tremendous ease and swiftness until I had attained the Summit. And there I stood beneath the worlds of Heaven, which are the stars. I saw those far worlds swarming in the sky like blazing fiery spirits. In some lofty place I danced beneath their cold light. I felt their force and strangeness. I sang with the gods and tasted the wisdom that they have to teach. My great ancestor the First Climber, He Who Climbed, the holiest of men, appeared and stood before me, and I became one with His spirit. And when I came down from the Wall my face was shining and I held out my hands to those who greeted me and they knelt before me and wept with joy.
That was my dream. It would come to me many times again in the years ahead, as I lay sleeping under the shadow light of the spirit sky. And those who lay with me as I dreamed it would tell me afterward that I turned and tossed and murmured in my sleep, and reached upward with my hands as though trying to grasp Heaven itself.