The tiger had begun by leading him southward along the bottom of the gorge. He kept waiting for it to turn away westward, or double back upon its tracks, since the sandstone hills that formed the southern border of his world were the unsleeping realm of the mountain cats. And though the tiger was the match of any unaltered creature of the winter forests, these powerful, saber-toothed throwbacks were not to be tested. And at the point where the sandstone and granite ridges met….. He could not even think about that. With every step he became more leery, and whispered as loudly as he dared for the tiger to stop and turn back. But to his utter dismay, it held fast to the deepening gorge until the end.
Like a nightmare Kalus' felt his fears surround him, and all hope and safety slip behind. The walls at either hand became too steep to climb. His messenger and guide, who for its own sake he dared not abandon, refused to heed his warnings. The shadows grew deeper, and up ahead he began to describe, half in fearful imagination, half in stark reality, the outline of the darkest shadow that yet lived in all the Valley. Like a hole broken in the side of some ancient subterranean dungeon, straight ahead of him, larger than natural life, he saw the yawning blackness of the Commodores' cave. Only once before, as an adolescent, had he observed it, from the high western wall. And when the side-winding, forty foot reptile had sauntered out, tasting the hot summer air with its tongue, he had run like the fleetest antelope, oblivious to the singular (and dangerous) spectacle he made, his one desire to be as far from the killing serpent as possible. His more recent encounter had only galvanized his fears.
Yet here he was, after years of struggle on the brink of a personal victory, with love and hope in sight, being drawn irresistibly to the one place above all others that he was loathe to go. Indeed, it was the peril of these Winter-sleeping creatures that made him most uneasy in thoughts of the coming Spring.
His anger and fear merged into maddening exasperation, but still the tiger plodded forward, heedless. It reached the dark overhang of sandstone and gazed back at him. Yet again he repeated the gestures of withdrawal, made unable by the consequences to speak. The tiger nodded its understanding, or seemed to, but then to his horror and final consternation, dove headlong into the grinning maw of death.
Once again Kalus was faced with the terrible choice: loyalty to one he loved, or survival for himself. He stood trembling on the threshold, frozen with fear and burning with inner conflict. He looked back upon the sunlit world and thought of his home: of his woman, and the cub. But what kind of home would it be if he abandoned his friend at greatest need? Swallowing hard a cry of rage to deaf gods, he drew out the ready steel of his sword, and plunged into darkness.
*
The hollow funnel of the passage had been worn flat by the years, and by the constant passing of the inscrutable reptiles. Kalus saw and heard nothing—-only the pounding of his heart, and the gentle rasp of his fur boots against the life-dry sandstone. He moved by sense of feel and air, in times of doubt probing ahead of him with the sword. How far ahead the tiger had gone he had no way of knowing. And more and more he began to feel that if he must come upon the scene of its shadow-sprung peril, he would at least come upon it after, and in silence. He crouched lower and (if possible) stalked more quietly, advancing in a state of warlike readiness.
How far he walked he could not say. But suddenly, or perhaps only made sudden by the final acceptance of a half believed message from his eyes, he became aware of a soft light in the distance. This morning-like glow held fast at the edge of sight, and as he drew closer, began by slow degrees to reveal its source. Ahead of him the funnel reached its narrowest point, a squarish hole still broad enough for five men to pass abreast, that opened into a deepening expanse. Coming toward the rising, hard-rock lip of it, he went down on his belly, crawled forward, and looked over into the heart of the thing he feared.
There are times when a man's worst fears are justified, and when he cannot, with any hope of survival, confront them. But often through patience, perseverance, and the fullness of time, the antithesis of his life can be worn down, altered, or made in the end less terrible. And while it is the height of foolishness for any man to laugh in the face of death, neither must he deify the many smaller deaths of Fear.
There in the sunken center, the stage, as it were, of this vaulted subterranean amphitheater, stood the tiger on a patch of sandy earth, among a tangle of living scrub. A soft and warm light shone down on him through a broad opening in the stone overhead. Nor was it a mere hole to the world beyond. Through one of the many wonders of Nature, a vein of crystalline quartz interceded, allowing the sun's light to pass, while gathering and holding a fair measure of its warmth.