Tarlac accepted the cup, raised it in salute to the Lords, and drank, almost nauseated by the syrupy, too-sweet liquid. He returned the empty cup and turned again to face the Supreme, who reached out and rested extended claws just below the base of Tarlac's throat. "Tell me, Ranger, when the sweetness turns bitter," the Traiti said quietly. "I will." The liquid, Tarlac knew, was a highly specific drug called Ordeal poison, the dose measured carefully for his body mass and metabolism. It was primarily a nerve-impulse enhancer that affected pain responses most strongly during its short period of influence--but it had another, more dangerous property. Losing consciousness while the drug was working was fatal. This part of the Ordeal tested willpower and endurance with direct, basic simplicity; while Traiti were harder to injure than humans, and healed more rapidly, they were as subject to pain as their smaller cousins. Even the drug's brief effect cost some candidates their lives as agony robbed them of consciousness. But remaining conscious was all--all? Tarlac thought--that was required. If he made it that far, he'd be getting medical help within seconds, from the clan's chief physician herself and from a human doctor, one of the prisoners, whom Channath had asked to have present. The Ordeal poison was working. Tarlac tasted bitterness from the foam forming in his mouth, and the Supreme's claws seemed to gouge his skin, though he knew they were touching him as lightly as before. "It's happening," he said steadily. The Supreme inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, it seemed to Tarlac, of more than his words. Then the claws dug in, made a swift slash down the Ranger's chest and upper belly. Tarlac screamed and fell to his knees, blood running over hands that instinctively clutched at the terrible wounds. He'd been hurt before, sometimes badly. He'd been hit by shrapnel, burned, shot--everything that could happen to someone in combat, short of death--but none of it had prepared him for this drug-aided agony that left him unable to move, gasping for irregular breaths as blood soaked the front of his trousers and began pooling on the altar dais. His world narrowed to himself, to the pain in his upper body and the need to remain conscious. Nothing else could be allowed to matter: not the blood he couldn't hold back, its loss draining his strength; not the bitter foam that choked him, obstructing his already-labored breathing. He had to concentrate his full attention on staying away from the darkness that offered to gather him into its eternal peace if he should relax for even an instant. Hovan stood watching Steve's motionless struggle to remain conscious. He himself had been neither silent nor unmoving under the torment the man he sponsored was now enduring, and he felt deep pride in his clanmate. He'd seen nearly a hundred n'ruhar go through this, and Steve was doing very well. Yet . . . something was wrong.