{{NavChap|[[Chapter II - Brotherhood]]|[[Chronicles of the First Crusade#Table of contents|Table of contents]]|[[Chapter IV - Sylvan Exile]]}}

{{Quotation|''Bélénor Nébius, narrator'' • ''Cheng Lai'SuKi, illustrator''|

Pü said these few words while gritting his teeth, squinting to control himself. He left the hut without looking at his family and picked up the sacred basin on the ground, which was emptied and filled with water every evening in anticipation of the great moment. Undressing completely, he knelt down and poured the contents of the well over his head, as the tradition asked. Under normal circumstances, '''the bite of the icy water''' would probably have seemed painful to him. But as the burn of the shoot bruised his face, the sensation of the icy liquid was almost life-saving. Naked as a newborn and washed of his impurities, he was now ready to be reborn during the ritual. But he still had to survive until then. Still kneeling, the young Zorai opened the small chest put next to the now empty basin. It contained two tools that were essential to the sprouting ceremony: a ceremonial dagger and a whistler-stick. Pu put the whistler-stick in his mouth and struggled to his feet. Finally, with the dagger in his hand, he headed for the deeper place in the village: the Ceremonial Square.

Pü was almost arriving his destination when he saw the first glimmers appearing between the huts, now situated high above him. Finally, he climbed down a ladder, with difficulty, reaching the deepest part of the village. Here the light was scarcer, and the cold of the deep caves was rising to the surface. The Ceremonial Square was a large circular pit about twenty-five meters in diameter, five meters deep, and the bottom was covered with bark chips. Apart from the gigantic totem pole that occupied the center, it was completely empty. The structure was an impressive wooden pylon completely covered with Zoraïs masks tattooed with various pictograms. These tattoos represented the merit of the Zorai. The more a mask was tattooed, the more deserving the Zorai was. The ultimate tattoo consited of a total covering of all the others, the origin of the so revered Black Mask. Moreover, only those tribesmen who had respected the precepts of the Black Cult of Ma-Duk all their lives could hope to appear on the totem pole at their death. '''Surviving alone the growth of the mask was one of these precepts'''. With trembling legs, Pü knelt halfway between the ladder and the totem pole and stabbed his dagger into the ground. His vision blurred by pain, he lingered on each of the faces, invoking the names of his heroes, and seeking in their deadened gaze a way to lessen his torment. He had already repeated his prayer a great  many times when the first member of the tribe joined him in the square, as the sharp growth was beginning to pass his eyebrows. Blinded by the cephalgias and the drops of acidic sweat that beaded in his eyes, the young Zorai did not succeed in making out the newcomer. He had to wait for him to speak.

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.

{{NavChap|[[Chapter II - Brotherhood]]|[[Chronicles of the First Crusade#Table of contents|Table of contents]]|[[Chapter IV - Sylvan Exile]]}}

{{Portal|The Great Library}}

{{Portal|Zoraï}}

[[Category:Chronicles of the First Crusade‎]]