TRILEMMA GAME

What was that noise? A cooing chirp? "I am not Ricalu," the cat-voice answers. "I am not named. But I like to drink wine. Did you bring any?"

Again the cooing chirp. Soft paws pad toward you. The lynx is big — easily half your size — and rainbow-pastel like the stream. It bleps its tongue at the sight of the wine skin. Then it sits, its head a little higher than waist-high, its posture proud. "You may squirt the wine into my mouth," it says, and gapes open fangéd jaws.

After several gulping swallows, the big cat abruptly closes its jaws; a little wine splashes on its snout, which it licks clean with a very long tongue. "Thank you, honored guests," it says. "Come in the house of the Ricalu. This way!"

The lynx turns away from you, and pads into the darkness ­— abruptly out of sight, its eyes not visible.

Do you follow?

You traipse after the lynx, which shadowy moves around a large boulder and squeezes through an opening taller than your heads but so narrow that you must turn sideways. Inside is a cavern that smells very much of cat, a large space beyond your torchlight. The lynx turns around a few times on a large bed of faded grass, then settles down with its head on its crossed front paws. It yawns. "At the back of the cave you can go left, or right," it says. "Either way you'll meet the Ricalu."

Who is carrying the lit torch at this point? Is that Dahlia? If not, does the torchbearer go with Dahlia?

In any case, the torch is flickering low and blue. Another torch need be lit.

Left or right?

The leftward opening leads into a cramped and damp passageway, its stone walls scored by tools. The torchlight shows faint streaks of fluorescent pigments in the rock. It seems this passage might once have been a mine tunnel.

You hear footsteps and then turn a corner in the passage and confront a small wrinkled creature with pale skin as iridescent as an opal. Multicolored and faintly glowing tattoos seem to crawl on that skin.

"What are you doing up out of the works?" the creature demands of you. "Get back down the shaft at once!"