<p>Tenoc pulled himself up over the last of the ridges on the way up to the plateau, the flat expanse that marked the top of the hill known to him as Tabletop. The pads of his paws, front and back, were abraded by the trail that now lay behind him. It was a rule that, on this outing, the only protection he was to have from the elements was fur and a short breechclout (a nod to modesty that, frankly, left Tenoc more amused than thankful).</p>
<p>Tenoc shivered - the temperature around him had dropped steadily during the last five or so hours of his climb from where he had awoken on the base of the cliff. As a rule, the Sintoaci were lithe creatures, but Tenoc was slim even among his own. The sleek, dense fur covering his form was great for running, excellent for swimming, but even puffed all the way out, he lacked any real thermal insulation. It was going to be a cold three days.</p>
<p>Standing atop the outermost ridge of Tabletop, he could see for several miles in all directions. Directly to the south lay the village - the collection of tents, abbreviated wooden structures, and faintly demarcated fields - that was, for all intents and purposes, the only place he had ever lived. To the east of that, was a darkening of the horizon that he knew to be the ocean. Straight out east lay the trail he had just climbed vigorously, and at the base of that, the pock-mark of dusty and cold firepits where he had awoken with dawn. To the North and slightly West stretched out the rest of the mountains. Tabletop was a free-standing butte at the tail of a long range that, it was rumored, girded the land all the way to the other side of the continent and the cold oceans. And West was simply a flat expanse of grass broken only by strands and clumps of shadow that evidenced rivers and depressions low enough for water to collect. If he strained his eyes, he could make out a very faint gray set of lines and right angles that he was told were ruins from ages past. He had never seen, until now.</p>
<p>Swinging his muscle-bound tail out of the way, he dropped straight down onto his backside and sat for several more minutes, collecting his wits about him as he gazed out west. When dawn had awoken him, he had found himself at the center of a ring of burned out fire-pits, only one of which was even vaguely warm. After pacing around the ring groggily - the pounding in his head and the aches in his joints doing nothing to clear his mind - he had found a scrap of hide weighed down under a few small stones with an arrow directing him to the trailhead, and next to that, a skin of water, enough to get him up the top of Tabletop. His clothes were gone, except for the breechclout, and paint drawn through his fur in careful strokes, arches, spirals, and sharply rebounding angles that made his eyes water and his head spin all the more.</p>
<p>Those who had already undergone their rite of passage never talked about the particulars, but by piecing together the general outlines given to him by as many adults as he could harangue into talking about it, he knew that the last meal of fish and grain he had eaten had been drugged - the first poison of three - and he had been borne to the camp in his stupor where the painting had taken place. He knew that he was to make it up to the top of the butte by nightfall, and that he would find some sort of container with the second of three poisons waiting for him.</p>
<p>Armed with this vague knowledge, he began the run up the side of the mountain. Running wasn’t always necessary, but not running simply wasn’t an option for Tenoc. The adults of the village had ever been telling him to slow down, that he would leave his life behind him if he kept moving so fast. After about half an hour, he had stripped off the cloth around his waist and wrapped it around a bicep, then knotted the cord around it to keep it there. His inner thighs had almost immediately begun to chafe from the garment, and the way it was wrapped up along one side of the base of his tail made him crazy. Normally, running nude would’ve given him all sorts of private thrills, but the pounding in his head kept those decidedly at bay; the air was too thick, too hot down at the base of the hill and the urge to climb through the thick atmosphere far outweighed any exhibitionist excitement.</p>
<p>He shivered again, clambered to his feet, and retied the cord and cloth around his waist, draping it just over his groin, rather than stringing it between his thighs.</p>
<p>Since there had been no jar, bowl, bag, or skin waiting for him at the top of the ridge, he continued down the trail leading to what looked to be a small, deep lake in the center of the slightly bowl-shaped top of the hill. The vegetation up here was a combination of tough grass, twiggy bushes, and trees that grew tall, but not very wide. That made the tumble of ruins rather difficult to miss.</p>
<p>A post sticking straight up to one side of the path greeted him, made him slow. A hundred or so yards beyond lay a tumble of logs, worm-eaten and gray, sheltering some crumbling bits of flat, powdery rock that, with time and rain, had left chalky-white outlines where it lay, leaving the ground underneath all but untouched. On closer inspection, the rocks were perfectly smooth on both sides, and some had one or two perfectly straight edges. Definitely ruins.</p>
<p>One edge of the tumble was marked out by a an abrupt cliff made of rocks - natural - piled with a deliberate neatness into a wall. Tenoc hopped the short distance from the ruins to the beach of the lake and stumbled off to the side, having almost landed on a blanket laid over a slab of stone. Centered in the blanket was another skin of water. Or maybe not necessarily water.</p>
<p>Though his head was clear by now, he stared dumbly at the setup, obviously waiting for him. It had been mentioned that there would be an obvious place for him to stay, and that the second poison was to be waiting for him there, but that is precisely the point where everyone stopped talking about the experience. They didn’t get embarrassed or angry, simply introspective. Several of those he asked, his mother included, had gotten an inward look and a thoughtful expression that bordered on a stupor, and only shook themselves of the experience with a faint smile a hour or so later.</p>
<p>Well, he was early. Something half remembered told him that he should wait until sunset, so he forced himself to turn his back on the blanket, walking north along the beach while his mind churned over the maddeningly scant details of the next several days.</p>
