The Totems of Abydos

CHAPTER 30





The lion, for we may call it that, awakened on the cliffs, in the autumn, on a rather wide ledge.

It was not used to this habitat and, after stretching, climbed, with the agility of its kind, to the summit of these cliffs. There, on the height of the cliffs, it surveyed a domain of dark forests. Behind it was a stony valley, and, on the other side of that valley, were more cliffs. In these cliffs were openings, which might serve as lairs. Before it, and about it, and behind it, beyond the other cliffs, seemingly endlessly, stretched the dark forests. Before it, slightly toward the right, in the distance, was a clearing, and, in the center of this clearing, oddly, there was a circle of upright sticks, and, within these sticks, what appeared to be conical heaps of dried vegetation. Such things seemed anomalous to it, but they did not seem to require attention either. It erected its large, pointed ears and drank in the ten thousand tiny sounds of the forest, the rustling of wind in the leaves, the cries of small birds, even the scratchings of a small rodent, of the sort called a git, more than a hundred feet below, off to one side of a large, flat, wooden structure. It lifted its head and attended then to the circumambient symphony of scent, in its ten thousand interwoven traces, as clear, and detectable, and locatable, in their own modality, as would have been individual threads in the pattern of a tapestry. Some of these scents were similar to those with which it was familiar. Others were unfamiliar. Some of these scents it did not care for. Others it found intriguing. Others, subtly, stirringly, spoke to it of warm flesh, and food. Then, when, in a shifting of wind, a grayish whisper of fog, the dry fog that chokes the throat and nostrils, and stings the eyes, was borne to it, from the circle of sticks in the distance, it uttered a low, disapproving, menacing growl. It shook its head and fur, disturbed. Somewhere in the labyrinths of its mind it recalled such ugly fog, not soft with moisture, holding scent close to the ground, but painfully bright, and glaring, or loud, and deafening, in its sensory modality, concealing, or drowning out, a thousand subtler scents. This smell, too, agitated it, and it lifted its head, for, vaguely, it recollected then humming, throbbing sounds, flashings, like lightning, the movement of objects through the air, like birds, the stinging like hail, and closed caves with shining walls, regular and cruel, and rounded trees, in alignments, through which one could not bite or tear. It looked upward, and growled, threateningly. Fragments of memory, bursting shards of memory, recollections of an incomprehensible nightmare, exploded in its brain. And then it crouched down, belly low, on the cliffs, looking about itself. But all seemed quiet here. It did not know this place, but it was not unlike the place it knew. And it could smell food. There was no dearth of food here, that was clear. This was not a familiar place, but it seemed suitable. It could make it its own.