Schrödinger seemed a little put out as it set the bone down, then twisted around and ran back down the cliff wall; soon it came bouncing back up and spat out the Eye of the Earth. Amon hastily put the Eye of the Earth away and shouted, "Schrödinger, we're leaving!"
From the thicket below the cliff wall came the iron-armored beast king's roar again, mixed with the crack and swish of shrubs and saplings being snapped and swept aside — the fierce beast was clearly in a foul temper. Amon turned and vanished from the high ground, while Schrödinger, still unwilling to leave it behind, picked up the bone-like thing in its mouth and jumped into the leather pouch by itself.
By the time the beast king got back to the pool, the four big iron-armored beasts were only then poking their heads fearfully out of the thicket; all that met the eye was the frozen pool and the den entrance breaking the surface. The beast king crawled across the ice and into the den, and an earthshaking roar followed at once, so loud that the nearby ice sheet gave off faint cracking sounds.
On a path through the dense forest high in the mountains, where cloud and mist veiled the way, Link — face white as a sheet, teeth bared in a grimace — was anxiously hashing something out with Metatron. "That thing is really something, chasing us that far. Lucky it doesn't run as fast as we do on mountain paths; once we're out of its territory it shouldn't chase us anymore... But Mr. Amon is still back there by the pool. What do we do? Should I go back and gather all the tribe's braves to reinforce him?"
Metatron: "By the time you've gathered your people, will it still be in time? And anyway, could those so-called braves of yours block even one swing of the beast king's tail? We drew the beast king off. Amon can handle the other four big iron-armored beasts, and getting away should be no problem — his skills are far beyond the two of us."
Link said, panting, "You've got a point. Mr. Amon can handle four big iron-armored beasts, no problem. I'm just afraid he'll run into the beast king again on his way back."
Metatron spat. "You think Amon's as dumb as you? That beast king runs and roars the whole way — you can hear that racket from miles off. He'll have gone around it long ago."
The cold sweat on Link's forehead had not yet dried, but he retorted, thoroughly unconvinced, "What makes you say I'm dumb?"
Metatron seized him by the front of his hide jacket. "If you're not dumb, who is? Who told me the beast king was only about as strong as four big iron-armored beasts put together? The two of us couldn't block a single blow from it — we're lucky Amon covered our escape."
Link leaned back against a rock by the path, shrinking down. "Easy, easy — I'm injured! ...It was an elder of our tribe who told me. How was I supposed to know that's how it really was?"
Metatron snorted. "An elder? How old an elder? Has he ever crossed blades with the beast king? Just flapping his mouth, and you, a chief, believe him — it nearly cost us both our lives! When we get back I'm having that man hauled in for a proper questioning, to hear exactly what he has to say."
Link's features had scrunched into a knot. "Can't question him — the man who told me died last year... Never mind that for now. Amon still isn't back. Shouldn't we slip back and reinforce him? ...Seems to me we lost out just now because we didn't know what we were up against. With your swordsmanship, you should really have been able to hold out for a while."
"If you'd set your stance and been ready, the two of you could indeed have held out for a moment — but you'd still have had to run, and if you were slow you'd be just as dead! ...Link, where did you get the idea that the beast king wouldn't be hard to handle?" Amon's voice suddenly came from behind the rock, and with it he came around the boulder onto the path.
"You're back! I knew a man of your skills would come through!" the two cried together in surprise and joy. Cradling his arm and gritting his teeth, Link added, "Messenger of the gods — no, the god Amon, I mean! I explained this already: the old man who told me exactly how strong the beast king is has been dead since last year!"
They had gone to the pool to get in some practice and throw their weight around, and instead they had ended up asking for a beating. Link's arm was broken; luckily Metatron had splinted it for him on the way, so it was just a matter of letting it heal slowly once they were back.
After they got back, Link fell ill. He moaned and groaned from morning to night — it wasn't only his arm that hurt, his whole body seemed out of sorts, till there wasn't a single sound part left of him. While teaching Link over the past while, Amon had also trained himself in a simple low-order healing art, and these days he often helped treat Link's "illness."
But he found Link's "illness" strange: his healing art could ease the suffering but not remove the symptoms. Link's ailments kept coming — a pain here today, a pain there tomorrow — as though some god had cursed him. Amon remembered his own time in Duke Town, when for a spell every old injury he'd ever taken had flared up again and again, and even the old madman couldn't cure them.
This was no illness. It was the trial a first-rank warrior faced in advancing to second rank after the power of one body with two faces was awakened — purity of the body. That trial was arriving now alongside the step from first-rank to second-rank divine artist. That Link's trial had come so fast was, of course, down to his having studied an incomplete form of the earth elemental divine arts since childhood; his foundation was, after all, not bad.
But Link's foundation on the other side was comparatively weak; his body was no match for Amon's. Amon's sturdy frame owed a debt not only to the miners' craft of Duke Town but also to that cleansing bath in the mysterious cold pool. Life in the wild was harsh for the dwarf tribe, and its people had taken wounds beyond counting, great and small; some had healed on the surface while leaving hidden damage inside, and now that the trial was upon him, they had broken out one after another.
Luckily Link had been the son of the former chief since childhood and had not, all told, been through too many dangers among the dwarves; otherwise this hurdle would have been even harder to clear.
Having worked out the cause, Amon told Link the truth: he must use sheer toughness of will to overcome the torments, and not give up his combat-arts training. This was a trial and a threshold at once; once across it, he would attain the level of second-rank divine artist and could train second-rank combat arts as well.
Link had been badly frightened, suspecting some strange poison on the beast king's tail or an unknown curse laid on him, and only felt easy once Amon had explained. Though he still cradled his arm and groaned, he kept up his combat-arts training every day and often went to Metatron for advice.
Link trained through his "illness," while Metatron had been feeling poorly these last few days too — he had actually caught a chill. Metatron had genuinely fallen mildly ill, feeling that his whole body was out of sorts and that his strength had drained away, a man utterly unlike the fellow of a few days ago, bursting with energy and nowhere to spend it. Since Amon knew a healing art, he came to Amon for treatment too.
Metatron's case had Amon puzzling for the better part of a day, and in the end he tentatively settled on one thing: Metatron had run into the trial of "purity of the body" as well.
Metatron was already a fourth-rank warrior and had passed this trial long ago without even realizing it. Now that the power of one body with two faces had been awakened in him, going through the trial a second time was far easier than for Link — it amounted to no more than the chill and light illness he'd caught by the pool a few days ago. Amon told him much the same thing: if he persevered, he would become a second-rank divine artist. Metatron was overjoyed.
That the two men's second trial had come so quickly surprised Amon a little, but on reflection it made sense. They had each trained a long time — one in incomplete divine arts, the other in proper combat arts — so once the power of one body with two faces was awakened, reaching the peak of first-rank attainment was no hard thing.
Seeing his two "students" about to reach his own level, Amon, their "teacher," had his own troubles and vexations. The disaster the old madman had foretold was slow in coming, and he could not see the message left in the Eye of the Earth. He had long since trained second-rank divine arts and second-rank combat arts to their peak, yet the trial of "firmness of faith" would not come.
Could the old madman have guessed wrong? Amon was starting to feel unsure of his ground. These last few days, whenever he practiced meditation, the most basic exercise of the divine arts, he was restless and could not settle, and his power had scarcely grown at all, as though his attainment in the divine arts had reached its end forever.
Schrödinger, by contrast, had been lively as anything these days, dashing all over the village by daylight. People held the cat in considerable respect, regarding it as an attendant of the gods, and good food and drink went without saying. The lazy, greedy fat cat of Duke Town had finally had its moment in the sun; life among the cave-dwelling wild folk agreed with it so well that even its coat had turned glossy and clean.
The bone-like thing Schrödinger had carried out of the beast king's den went into its straw nest once they were back, and it kept one paw on it even in sleep. Amon had taken it out to look as well: flat and round, long and slender, curving in an arc, pointed at one end and blunt at the other — it brought to mind the shape of the boats in the temple murals.
At the sight of it, Amon unconsciously touched his own ribs — it looked far too much like a human rib! And yet its substance was utterly unlike ordinary bone: so light it weighed almost nothing, yet hard beyond imagining, hard enough that even a sharp refined-iron blade could not scratch a trace on it. Its surface was smooth as polished white stone; if it were bone, it should long ago have rotted instead of looking like this.
Amon could make no sense of it. It was Schrödinger's find in any case, so let it stay in the straw nest. At another time Amon might have tried one method after another to study it, but lately he had no taste for it; whatever he did, he seemed absent-minded, easily irritated, prone to drifting off. Even walking along, the sight of a bird flying past would set him spinning wild fancies — and yet it was as though he thought nothing at all.
In such a state he could not cultivate the divine arts. Was it that his very first fight had ended in a setback against the beast king, and the boy's confidence had been shaken? One night Amon sat upright in his room practicing meditation again, yet for the longest time he could not settle into that focused state. A jumble of thoughts came crowding in, and he could not help recalling this and that from Duke Town far away.
He was wondering how his father was getting on, and how much he had been drinking these days. What exactly was the great disaster the old madman had foretold, and how would Duke Town be affected by it? Thinking on and on, he naturally could not practice his divine-art meditation. Realizing it, Amon let out a sigh — and heard Schrödinger sigh too, from its straw nest.
That sigh seemed to remind Amon of something. He suddenly slapped his head and muttered to himself, "How can I be so stupid! This is the trial of cultivating the divine arts! Firmness of faith is the settling of the soul — and steadfastness of belief!"