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 exhiliration 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--gently, 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.