Around him, his entire tribe was beginning to arrive from the heights of the village, descending the stairs and ladders in religious silence. They gradually placed themselves in a semicircle on the half of the square opposite the one where Pü was kneeling. The last to arrive was Grandmother Bä-Bä, helped by Looï. The old woman was the only one allowed to join the semicircle where Pü was. She stood between the little being and the big totem pole and raised a withered hand. This one contained her famous dice game, which she used regularly to catalyze her power and accurately predict the tribe's future. At his gesture, the few lights still present at the level of the heights of the village flew in his palm, which had become the only source of light. A small phosphorescent ball was now floating there. The Zoraïs, although accustomed, never got tired of this bewitching spectacle. A few long seconds passed, silently, then the witch blew on the small star, which lit up with red and flew to the totem. Upon contact with the ball of light, the building instantly burst into flames and the empty orifices of the masks lit up. Grandmother Bä-Bä then began the ritual that each of those present had experienced as a child. She chanted dark incantations for the next few hours, waving her hands in a strange way, while her children hummed liturgical songs in chorus. Deep in the darkness, somewhere in the huge stump, shadows danced in rhythm. Farther into the jungle, emanating from the gigantic dead sky-tree, one could catch sight of a reddish glow illuminating the sky, and guess at sinister whispers in the wind's complaint. The Cursed Stump, definitely, lived up to its name for the ignorant. The hypnotic ritual seemed never to stop, and none of the Zorais would have risked interrupting it. Tirelessly, they stared at the young child, who, still in a trance, occasionally broke the monotony of the ceremony with his muffled cries. They thought they would lose him for good an hour after the ritual began, when, barely conscious, Pü tore the dagger from the ground and split his mask in line with each eye. But the youngest of Sang and Looï Fu-Tao held on. Everyone there in the pit knew what he was going through. They too had experienced it. All of them had been forced to dive into the abyss. And they had all come out of it greater.