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.

Here they entered. It was a rounded chamber with a curved roof, almost bubble-like in appearance. Larick spaced them about a rock formation resembling a cauldron, near its center. Again, a chanting commenced and again Pol knew the oceanic feeling, the detachment he had experienced at the other stations, though here it was mixed with something of depression, sadness. His left arm acquired the tingling sensation at this point, and when his turn had come and passed and all was done it resembled the right exactly in its transformation.

This time he accepted the change with less distress, as part of the total experience. The others must be undergoing similar experiences, he decided. He followed them to a well-like depression across the way, discovering as he did that sensation, mobility and control were returning to his arms.

He watched the others. A knotted rope fastened about a nearby rock hung down into the hole. One by one, the candidates took hold and climbed down it, vanishing into the darkness. When his turn came he did likewise, with great ease, pleased with the enormous strength which now resided in his arms and shoulders.

In the yellow-blue cavern to which they descended the now-familiar ritual formation was established and the rite carried out about a large, spherical crystal set upon a pedestal. Before it was concluded, Pol's left hand felt as if he had dipped it in boiling water. He gave no outward evidence of this, not even looking down upon it, until after this phase, too, was completed and Larick led them out through an opening in the wall to the left.

The hand still throbbed, but the sensation of heat had vanished. When he viewed it, he saw that it had grown massive, purplish, scaly; the nails were thick, dark, triangular, hooked, at the ends of long, powerful-looking digits which reached almost to his ankle. The robe he wore concealed much of the change within its folds, its long, wide sleeves. Still... He looked about again. None of the other candidates seemed to have noticed his discomfort. Again, he forced the thought of it away. He trekked after the others along a broad, level tunnel, his gait somewhat disturbed, as if by overbalancing and compensation.

A sword hung from a chain midway between floor and roof at the near end of the next chamber. This, in its turn, became the object of their meditation, swinging and glinting redly as the words circled it. The visions which swam through his mind at this, as at the previous station, barely registered themselves on his consciousness, as the feeling of the power of his new limbs came to occupy his awareness with the burning pang in his right hand--this time a thing of masochistic pleasure to him. He spoke the words in a ringing voice and did not even look down, already knowing what he would see.

When it was over, he turned and joined the line filing out through another opening and into a downward-slanting tunnel, moving now as if within a dream, his actions determined by some alogical pattern he could feel about him, no longer wondering whether the others' notions of personal transformation coincided with his own.

The way was steep; sweet odors rose up it. The walls were a living net of pale fire. The floor sparkled, almost moistly. They continued downward for a long while, coming at last to a small chamber into which they were crowded about a simple, unadorned cube of stone. The place was strewn with flowers, accounting for the odor he had detected on the way down. Here he found the smell almost sickly sweet in its intensity. When the words were spoken in these close quarters they hurt his ears. He felt excessively warm and became very conscious of the beating of his heart. A wave of dizziness passed over him, but he knew that even if he fainted there was no place to fell, so closely were they packed together. Later, he believed that he had actually succumbed to unconsciousness briefly, for there was a gap in his memory up until he found himself speaking. It seemed that there had been another vision, one which had partly numbed his senses. He could not recall the details. His heart was beating rapidly now, with an unusually heavy throbbing. He became peripherally aware that the candidates who stood at either hand were removed a greater distance from him than they had been the last time he had been aware of their presence. The aroma of the flowers had diminished sharply, or else he had become accustomed to it.