The lemur could see no sky, no moon, through the slanted grate of the cell. Only curling vines of thorn and hanging purple flowers. The cell was small and smooth, the walls made of marble, the door a heavy brass.

Moments passed after that door was slammed shut when the beast didn't know why it had allowed itself to be caged; Imani’s promises had seemed sound outside, but in here they were fading echoes. The first instinct was to throw itself against the walls until they broke, or its bones were ground to dust. Its whole body itched with the hunger to try, to fight, and somehow the knowledge the walls would win made that worse; as if panic was a heavy liquid in the lungs, getting pumped higher with each breath.

But it leaned against the wall and thought of the moon, of its family. Thought prey-thoughts from before the reshaping of its mind. The smallness became comforting, the urge for violence fading deep into the recesses of his skull.

In the corner a thing chittered. One of the other-lemurs, soft and small, was poking its nose through the grate. It was trying to crack a heavy nut using the metal of the bars.

Reaching up, the lemur slowly ran one leather-clad fingertip over the little creature’s skull, chittering softly in the crooning dialect of nurseries and nests. It tilted its head and let him scratch its ear. With one hand, he took the nut and crushed the shell to a powder, lifting up the fragments of meat within for the smaller beast to chew away at.

The lemur felt confused. The sensation lingered as the little one pulled away, vanishing off down the winding pathways of vine. The dull light of the gleaming insects on the city’s rooftops washed down through the bars in square beams of blue.

It sank slowly against the walls, heavy with bloody cuts and places where embedded glass stung him from just below the skin when his weight.

His body felt ungainly now, outside of battle. He lay and groaned a soft chittering groan and let his eyes sink closed for a time, waiting, trusting, hoping…

The moments shimmered past as the moth-lights rustled.

And the door creaked open. A stone woman stood in the way, body guarded by a loose dress of bronze scale bound at the hips with an ornamented belt, a pauldron in the shape of a lion cast over one shoulder. She gestured with her head, the marble curls of her hair unmoving.

“Come along.”

The cell was within the vast pyramid he’d seen in the city’s center, which was a hollow shell containing a second, smaller city. Unlike the one beyond, this was well lit, floating bronze spheres casting golden light down on simple square houses.

It should have been beautiful.

But as the woman led him from his cell, the lemur was struck by how eerie it was. The trees that grew in the green courtyard were ashy and covered in ropey veins that crossed the trunks. Flowers grew, but they were brittle and thin like bits of glass, and the fruit in the branches above was all sour-smelling and drawing clouds of flies.

This was a grim, ugly place.

The stone woman smiled. “The trees of the Arkborn.” She reached out, and the tree trunk began to shift, bending away to reveal a man nestled within a pod of sickly white sap. The skin was oddly perfect, untouched by any mark, the body plump with fat. “They wait for a guardian to awaken them.”

The tree closed up as her hand retreated.

“But it won’t be you, monster.”

She led the way down a shallow stairwell, and into a sunken path at the courtyard’s center. It led across the gardens towards the far wall of the temple, where All around the raised embankments stood more of the stone warriors, Imani among them, looking uncomfortable. She was the only one not clad in metal scales and bearing a spear.

The sunken path led to a single tower in the center of the pyramid’s inner hollow, rising up, in three layers. The lowest was a square base of stone carved with golden murals, the next highest ringed with columns in the shape of dancing women, and the final a miniature pyramid made of red stone and capped in dark bronze.

The doors were the same dull bronze-black material, sealed with a tablet of pressed between the doors with the stamp of a hand across it.

A flicker of moonlight ran between the doors, the lemur knew why he was here.

Standing in his way was a cracked, broken statue-woman, one of her arms ending in a stub. She sat before a little wooden table covered in pieces.

The lemur knew the name - chess - but the purpose confused him. And the horses. They confused him very much, very very much. To his surprise it wasn’t the woman sitting at the board who spoke to him. It was the tower. Every statue opened their mouth and sung in symphony.

“We are the tri-part test. Born to await the moon’s guardian. To prove yourself, you must show you understand the Lady of the Lunar Eye’s philosophy on the board.” They spoke.

The lemur paused for a long moment.

“You may move first.”

He picked up a pawn, chewing at it. This seemed…

Wrong.

His foot smashed into the chessboard from below and flung it head over heels, scattering pieces in all directions. It landed in a splintering crash a few feet away.

“Ah. You understand our Lady’s mind well. The second test will now begin.”