Just as the jerky, reptilian movements of the crocodile sent a thrill of revulsion through me, so the appearance of this creature revolted me. There was something unnatural about it, as if multiple animals had been chopped up and sewn together. What sort of monster was this, and where had it come from? I realized that Ismene was close beside me, and gave a start. Had sorcery created this abomination?
Ismene drew closer. She whispered into my ear. “Choose left, not right. Don’t flee, but fight.”
What doggerel was this? I was about to ask her to repeat herself when Artemon placed one hand squarely between my shoulder blades and gave me a hard shove. With a howl of protest I staggered forward and abruptly found myself atop the wall that bisected the pit. The wall was topped by a series of slender palm trunks laid end to end, like a rail. These trunks were as wide as my foot, but rounded, so that securing a steady purchase was difficult. As I struggled to find my balance, I heard a creaking noise and felt the whole wall jerk and sway beneath me. When I instinctively stepped backward, something sharp poked the small of my back.
“No turning back, Pecunius. You can only go forward.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw that Artemon was holding a long spear, with the point pressed firmly against my back. I turned to look ahead, straining at every moment to keep my balance. From the men lining the edges of the pit I heard a roar of laughter. Did they mean for me to walk the whole length of the rickety wall, from one end of the pit to the other?
“Impossible!” I hissed, though clenched teeth. “This is madness!”
No one heard me. They were laughing too hard.
I had thought that the men of the Cuckoo’s Gang were my friends, or at least not my enemies. They had welcomed me to their ranks; they wanted me to become one of them. Now the applause and cheers I had received only moments earlier seemed a cruel joke. No man could possibly walk the whole length of such a narrow, rickety wall without falling to one side or the other. And if I fell …
In my right ear I heard the snapping of the crocodile’s jaws, and a clattering of bones as it swept the ground with its powerful tail. In my left ear I heard the bloodcurdling yowl of the monster.
“Best get on with it, Pecunius,” said Artemon. He chortled and gave me a poke with the spear.
Standing there, trapped atop the wall with no way back, surrounded by laughing onlookers, gripped by the realization that my life might come to a horrible end in a matter of seconds, I experienced one of those supremely strange moments that come to a man only a few times in his life. My senses had never been so acute; every sight and sound seemed at once hugely magnified and yet distilled to its essence. Smells, too, registered with unprecedented intensity. Each of the creatures in the pit below me exuded its own particular stench. The monster emitted a sour, putrid smell, like that of a festering wound. The crocodile had a rank, moldering odor, like seaweed rotting under the hot sun.
And yet, in that moment, I felt no fear. Indeed, I seemed to feel nothing at all, as if I were a mere observer of a scene that was peculiar and mildly interesting but had nothing to do with me.
I looked at the faces of the onlookers, and wondered at their expressions. Yes, they were laughing, but in a good-natured way, not jeering or shouting insults. They seemed to be richly amused at my plight, yet exhibited no signs of malice, as if they were responding to a joke, not delighting at the prospect of a man about to be torn to shreds. What sort of men were these? Or more to the point, in what sort of situation did I find myself? That was my first inkling that all was not as it appeared to be.
Among them, poised at the very edge of the pit above the enclosure with the monster, I saw Djet. He alone seemed not to understand the joke. His eyes were huge and his face was pale. He swayed unsteadily, as if he might faint, but I had no fear that he would fall, for I could see that Menkhep was holding him firmly by the shoulders.
From somewhere I found the necessary motivation-I can hardly call it courage, since fear had deserted me-to raise my right foot and bring it down in front of my left.
“That’s the way to do it!” shouted Artemon.
“That’s the way!” said Menkhep. “Go for it! Go!”
The men began to clap and chant. “Go! Go! Go!”
Now they seemed to be encouraging me, not to fall but to get on with crossing the wall, as if such a feat might actually be possible. A thought occurred to me: if this was truly the gang’s standard initiation ritual, and not some wicked trick, then many or most or perhaps all of the men present had gone through the very same ordeal and come out alive. If they could do it, then so could I.
I took another step.
“Go! Go! Go!” they shouted.
I glanced at Djet. His eyes were still huge, but he slowly raised his hands and began to clap in time with the others.
I took another step, and another. Then more steps. My balance was flawless. I took a deep breath, and felt at peace. After all, traversing the top of the wall was no more difficult than walking a straight line on solid ground.
Then, on my next step, the wall pitched ever so slightly to one side, then to the other, then seemed to sway madly back and forth.
The laughter and clapping abruptly stopped. I was surrounded by a chorus of gasps. I swung my arms and kept my eyes straight ahead to see that Artemon and Ismene had circled around to the far end, as if to meet me, if I should get that far.
By some process beyond rational thought, my body righted itself. Slowly the wall stopped its motion and became steady again. The swaying had been only a tiny thing, I realized, a matter of a finger’s width, but it had felt enormous.
I took another step. I was now more than halfway across. Above the pounding of my heart I heard the men begin to laugh and chant and clap again.
In my abstracted, tightly concentrated frame of mind, I had almost forgotten the creatures in the two enclosures below. Had they been moving about and making noise the whole time? If so, I had not been aware of it, but suddenly I heard the snapping of the crocodile’s jaws to my right and the roar of the monster to my left, both very close, as if each was right below me. The stench from both creatures combined to create a supremely foul odor that made my head spin. My heart pounded even louder in my ears, and I felt a quiver of fear.
“Begone!” I said aloud, not to the two beasts, but to the fear. For a moment, at least, the spell seemed to work, for I managed to take a few more steps.
Then I came to the gap in the wall.
Somehow, I had not seen it before. From the vantage of my starting point, the top of the wall had appeared to run continuously from one end to the other, without interruption. This illusion had persisted as I took one step after another. Yet now, looking down, I saw that the wall suddenly dropped several feet, then after a considerable gap returned to its previous height.
How was I to continue? At first I thought I would have to climb down to the lower level of the wall, take a few steps, and then somehow climb back up to the higher level to finish the journey. Then I saw that the lower level of the wall was not topped with a palm trunk, or any other sort of rail. It was made of a series of sharpened stakes, impossible to walk upon.
Now I saw another thing I had not perceived when I set out. Directly below me, tied to the wall, were two lengths of rope. One went off at a diagonal to my right, the other to my left. In essence, these were tightropes, one pulled taut above the pit with the crocodile, the other strung above the pit with the monster.
The onlookers saw that I had finally realized my situation, and roared with laughter.
“What now, Pecunius?” From a distance that was still considerable, Artemon gazed at me with his arms crossed and a sardonic expression on his face. I had thought he circled around to the far side to welcome me, but now it seemed he had done so just to see the look on my face at this moment. Next to him stood Ismene. Her face was unreadable, but when our eyes met, she slowly nodded and moved her lips, as if to remind me of the words she had whispered in my ear. Choose left, not right. Don’t flee, but fight.