of Tisana's mind she drew increasing comfort from the nearness of the other woman. Slowly drowsiness overtook her. Still she fretted — about the Testing, about what the others would think about their going off together so early in the evening, about the technical violation of regulations that they had committed by sharing the wine this way — and eddying currents of guilt and shame and fear swirled through her spirit for a time. But gradually she grew calm. She slept. With a speaker's trained eye she kept watch on her dreams, but they were without form or sequence, the images mysteriously imprecise, a blank horizon illuminated by a vague and distant glow, and now perhaps the face of the Lady, or of the Superior Inuelda, or of Freylis, but mainly just a band of warm consoling light. And then it was dawn and some bird was shrieking on the desert, announcing the new day.
Tisana blinked and sat up. She was alone. Freylis had put away the candles and washed the wine-bowls, and had left a note on the table — no, not a note, a drawing, the lightning-bolt symbol of the King of Dreams within the triangle-within-triangle symbol of the Lady of the Isle, and around that a heart, and around that a radiant sun: a message of love and good cheer.
'Tisana?'
She went to the door. The old tutor Vandune was there.
'Is it time?' Tisana asked.
'Time and then some. The sun's been up for twenty minutes. Are you ready?'
'Yes,' Tisana said. She felt oddly calm — ironic, after this week of fears. But now that the moment was at hand there no longer was anything to fear. Whatever would be, would be: and if she were to be found lacking in her Testing, so be it, it would be for the best.
She followed Vandune across the courtyard and past the vegetable plot and out of the chapter-house grounds. A few people were already up and about, but did not speak to them. By the sea-green light of early day they marched in silence over the crusted desert sands, Tisana checking her pace to keep just to the rear of the older woman. They walked eastward and southward, without a word passing between them, for what felt like hours and hours, miles and miles. Out of the emptiness of the desert there began to appear now the outlying ruins of the ancient Metamorph city of Velalisier, that vast and haunted place of forbidding scope and majesty, thousands of years old and long since accursed and abandoned by its builders. Tisana thought she understood. For the Testing, they would turn her loose in the ruins and let her wander among the ghosts all day. But could that be it? So childish, so simpleminded? Ghosts held no terrors for her. And they should be doing this by night, besides, if they meant to frighten her. Velalisier by day was just a thing of humps and snags of stone, fallen temples, shattered columns, sandburied pyramids.
They came at last to a kind of amphitheater, well preserved, ring upon ring of stone seats radiating outward in a broad arc. In the center stood a stone table and a few stone benches, and on the table sat a flask and a wine-bowl. So this was the place of the Testing! And now, Tisana guessed, she and old Vandune would share the wine and lie down together on the flat sandy ground, and do a speaking, and when they rose Vandune would know whether or not to enroll Tisana of Falkynkip in the roster of dream-speakers.
But that was not how it would be either. Vandune indicated the flask and said, 'It holds dream-wine. I will leave you here. Pour as much of the wine as you like, drink, look into your soul. Administer the Testing to yourself.'
'I?'
Vandune smiled. 'Who else can test you? Go. Drink. In time I will return.'
The old tutor bowed and walked away. Tisana's mind brimmed with questions, but she held them back, for she sensed that the Testing had already begun and that the first part of it was that no questions could be asked. In puzzlement she watched as Vandune passed through a niche in the amphitheater wall and disappeared into an alcove. There was no sound after that, not even a footfall. In the crashing silence of the empty city the sand seemed to be roaring, but silently. Tisana frowned, smiled, laughed — a booming laugh that stirred far-off echoes. The joke was on her! Devise your own Testing, that was the thing! Let them dread the day, then march them into the ruins and tell them to run the show themselves! So much for dread anticipation of fearsome ordeals, so much for the phantoms of the soul's own making.
But how—
Tisana shrugged. Poured the wine, drank. Very sweet, perhaps wine of another year. The flask was a big one. All right: I'm a big woman. She gave herself a second draught. Her stomach was empty; she felt the wine almost instantly churning her brains. Yet she drank a third.
The sun was climbing fast. The edge of its forelimb had reached the top of the amphitheater wall.
'Tisana!' she cried. And to her shout she replied, 'Yes, Tisana?'
Laughed. Drank again.
She had never before had dream-wine in solitude. It was always taken in the presence of another — either white doing a speaking, or else with a tutor. Drinking it now alone was like asking questions of one's reflection. She felt the kind of confusion that comes from standing between two mirrors and seeing one's image shuttled back and forth to infinity.
'Tisana,' she said, 'this is your Testing. Are you fit to be a dream-speaker?'
And she answered, 'I have studied four years, and before that I spent three more making the pilgrimage to the Isle. I know the seven self-deceptive dreams and the nine instructive dreams, the dreams of summoning, the dreams of—'
'All right. Skip all that. Are you fit to be a dream-speaker?'
'I know how to mix the wine and how to drink it.'
'Answer the question. Are you fit to be a dream-speaker?'
'I am very stable. I am tranquil of soul.'
'You are evading the question.'
'I am strong and capable. I have little malice in me. I wish to serve the Divine.'
'What about serving your fellow beings?'
'I serve the Divine by serving them.'
'Very elegantly put. Who gave you that line, Tisana?'
'It just came to me. May I have some more wine?'
'All you like.'
'Thank you,' Tisana said. She drank. She felt dizzy but yet not drunk, and the mysterious mind-linking powers of the dream-wine were absent, she being alone and awake. She said, 'What is the next question?'
'You still haven't answered the first one.'
'Ask the next one.'
'There is only one question, Tisana. Are you fit to be a dream-speaker? Can you soothe the souls of those who come to you?'
'I will try.'
'Is that your answer?'
'Yes,' Tisana said. 'That is my answer. Turn me loose and let me try. I am a woman of good will. I have the skills and I have the desire to help others. And the Lady has commanded me to be a dream-speaker.'
'Will you lie down with all who need you? With humans and Ghayrogs and Skandars and Liimen and Vroons and all others of all the races of the world?'
'All,' she said.
'Will you take their confusions from them?'
'If I can, I will.'
'Are you fit to be a dream-speaker?'
'Let me try, and then we will know,' said Tisana.
Tisana said, 'That seems fair. I have no further questions.'
She poured the last of the wine and drank it. Then she sat quietly as the sun climbed and the heat of the day grew. She was altogether calm, without impatience, without discomfort. She would sit this way all day and all night, if she had to. What seemed like an hour went by, or a little more, and then suddenly Vandune was before her, appearing without warning.
The old woman said softly, 'Is your Testing finished?'
'Yes.'
'How did it go?'
'I have passed it,' said Tisana.
Vandune smiled. 'Yes. I was sure that you would. Come, now. We must speak with the Superior, and make arrangements for your future, Speaker Tisana.'
They returned to the chapter-house as silently as they had come, walking quickly in the mounting heat. It was nearly noon when they emerged from the zone of ruins. The novices and pledgeds who had been working in the fields were coming in for lunch. They looked uncertainly at Tisana, and Tisana smiled at them, a bright reassuring smile.
At the entrance to the main cloister Freylis appeared, crossing Tisana's path as though by chance, and gave her a quick worried look.
'Well?' Freylis asked tensely.
Tisana smiled. She wanted to say, It was nothing, it was a joke, a formality, a mere ritual, the real Testing took place long before this. But Freylis would have to discover those things for herself. A great gulf now separated them, for Tisana was a speaker now and Freylis still merely a pledged. So Tisana simply said, 'All is well.'
'Good. Oh, good, Tisana, good! I'm so happy for you!'
'I thank you for your help,' said Tisana gravely.
A shadow suddenly crossed the courtyard. Tisana looked up. A small black cloud, like yesterday's, had wandered into the sky, some strayed fragment, no doubt, of a storm out by the far-off coast. It hung as if hooked to the chapter-house's spire, and, as though some latch had been pulled back, it began abruptly to release great heavy raindrops. 'Look,' Tisana said. 'It's raining again! Come, Freylis! Come, let's dance!'
