surge of relief. He’d made it. He’d passed. He hadn’t given up. He’d hadn’t pulled the—Something touched his leg.
What was that?
It curled around his ankle, twisted around his calf. A snake. Kip looked up and some many-legged thing dropped on his face.
He reached a spastic hand up to sweep a spider away, but felt a manacle snap over his wrist and pull his left arm away, lock it into place. He tried to kick the snake away from his feet. Snap, snap. Shackles closed around his feet and yanked them wide apart.
Kip screamed.
The spider fell into his mouth.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Kip bit down fiercely on it, crushing it in his teeth, sour goo squirting into his mouth. He screamed again, sheer defiance. Something landed in his hair. Dozens of slithering things roped around his feet, climbed his legs. He was going crazy.
“I’m not pulling the rope!” he shouted. “You bastards, I’m not pulling the rope!”
Kip convulsed. Orholam have mercy. His whole body was covered with loathsome things. He was weeping, screaming—and salvation lay in his hand. There was nothing wrong with farming. No one would hold failure against him. He didn’t need to see these people ever again. And what did he care what they thought of him anyway? The whole game was stacked against him. He was finished. It was over.
With an inhuman cry, Kip took the rope, with all his loathing and fury and despair rising in him, totally overwhelming him, failure calling his name—and threw it out of the hole. He sank against the wall, burying his face in the rock, crying.
Colors flashed past once more, but the snakes and spiders didn’t go. They covered his body.
Still the oppressive darkness continued. Something heavy and hairy landed on his back. Little claws stabbed him through his shirt. A rat. Then one on his thigh. Another landed on his head, scratching him as it slid off his wet hair.
Kip froze. Fear like lightning flashed through his entire body. He was in a cupboard, helpless, starving, parched. He shivered uncontrollably.
His motion disrupted the nasties and something bit him. He yelped, humiliated, furious. He twisted. More prickly bites, stinging bites, savage bites covered his arm, his legs, his groin, his back. Kip thrashed, throwing himself against one wall and then the other, trying to crush the beasts. Rats were climbing up his body on every side, and they refused to let go. He was weeping. He was so ashamed. There was something about the spider. The spider he’d bitten.
It was too much. He couldn’t take it anymore. He was finished. Kip couldn’t stop himself. He reached for the rope. He was a failure, a shame, a fat, blubbering coward. A nothing.
He felt the rope pressed back into his hand. “Here you go, Tubby,” a satisfied voice whispered. The taste, Kip. The taste was wrong, a kind voice said.
What the woman had said didn’t quite register. They were all over him.
Kip pulled the rope. Failure.
A distant clang, high overhead. At once, the stinging ceased. Every slithering, crawling, clinging, stinging thing evaporated, disappeared. They weren’t real. They hadn’t been real rats. Kip should have known from the spider he’d bitten. Would have known, if he hadn’t been such a coward. That goo inside hadn’t been guts, it had been luxin. It was all illusions, fake fears. He’d been tricked.
He’d failed. As the platform rose, Kip’s brain—no longer fogged with terror—realized what the woman had called him: “Tubby.” It was what Ram used to call him. Kip died a little. He’d proved Ram right. Again.
As he emerged, though, the men and women were now dressed in festive robes of their own colors, dazzling sapphire blues, emerald greens, diamond yellows, ruby reds. They appeared jubilant.
“Congratulations, supplicant!” Mistress Varidos said, coming to join the circle.
Kip stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Four minutes and twelve seconds. You should be very proud. I’m sure your father will be.”
She was speaking some language Kip didn’t understand. Proud? He’d failed. He’d shamed himself, shamed his father. He’d given up. The rage and frustration that had been building up suddenly had nowhere to go, leaving him feeling stupid.
“I failed,” Kip said.
“Everybody fails!” the incredibly muscular superviolet said. “You did great! Four minutes twelve! I only lasted a minute six.”
“I don’t understand,” Kip said.
The nymphish yellow laughed. “That’s how the test is designed. We all failed.”
They surrounded him, men pounding him on the back, women touching his arms or shoulder, all congratulating him. It was a bit intoxicating to