It tempted to desiccate itself and retreat into its hardened shell-like condition but the fire within the closing shell burst it apart and open and then it was again like a lake of burning oil, with portions of the shell tossed like flaming chips upon it For better than an hour it burned and then the basin of the pool, now black, in places the marble fused and melted, was empty, save for smears of carbon and grease, and some cracked, blackened bones, and some drops of melted gold, what had been left perhaps of the golden drops which Saphrar of Turia had worn over his eyes, and the two golden teeth, which hall once held the venom of an ost.

"Kutaituchik is avenged," said Kamchak, and turned from the room.

Harold and I, and the others followed him.

Outside the compound of Saphrar, which was now burn- ing, we mounted kaiila to return to the wagons outside the walls.

A man approached Kamchak. "The tarnsman," he said, "escaped." He added, "As you said, we did not fire on him for he did not have with him the merchant, Saphrar of Turia."

Kamchak nodded. "I have no quarrel with Ha-Reel, the mercenary," he said. Then Kamchak looked at me. "You, however," he said, "now that he knows of the stakes in these games, may meet him again. He draws his sword only in the name of gold, but I expect that now, Saphrar dead, those who employed the merchant may need new agents for their work and that they will pay the price of a sword such as that of Ha-keel" Kamchak grinned at me, the first time since the death of Kutaituchik. "It is said," remarked Kamchak, "that the sword of Ha-Keel is scarcely less swift and cunning than that of Pa-Kur, the Master of Assassin" "Pa-Kur is dead," I said. "He died in the siege of Ar." "Was the body recovered?" asked Kamchak.

"No," I said.

Kamchak smiled. "I think, Tart Cabot," he said. "you would never make a Tuchuk."

'Why is that?" I asked.

"You are too innocent," he said, "too trusting."

"Long ago," said Harold, nearby, "I gave up expecting more of a Koroban."

I smiled. "Pa-Kur," I said, "defeated in personal combat on the high roof of the Cylinder of Justice in Ar, turned and to avoid capture threw himself over the ledge. I do not think he could fly."

"Was the body recovered?" Kamchak asked again.

"No," I said. "But what does it matter?"

"It would matter to a Tuchuk," said Kamchak.

"You Tuchuks are indeed a suspicion lot," I remarked. "What would have happened to the body?" asked Harold, and it seemed he was serious.

"I-suppose," I said, "it was torn to pieces by the crowds below or lost with the other dead. Many things could have happened to it."

"It seems then," said Kamchak, "that he is dead."

"Surely," I said.

"Let us hope so," said Kamchak, "For your sake."

We turned the kaiila from the courtyard of the burning House of Saphrar and, abreast, rode from that place. We rode without speaking but Kamchak, for the first time in weeks, whistled a tune. Once he turned to Harold. "I think in a few days we might hunt tumits," he remarked.

"I would enjoy that," remarked Harold.

"Perhaps you will join us?" inquired Kamchak.

"I think," I said, "I shall leave the Wagons soon for I have failed in my mission on behalf of Priest-Kings." "What mission is that?" inquired Kamchak innocently. 'No find the last egg of Priest-Kings," I said, perhaps irritably, "and to return it to the Sardar."

'Why do Priest-Kings not do their own errands?" asked Harold.

'Whey cannot stand the sun," I said. "They are not as Men and if men saw them they might fear and try to kill them the egg might be destroyed.

"Someday," said Harold, "you must speak to me of Priest Kings."

"Very well," I agreed.

"I thought you might be the one," said Kamchak.

"What one?" I asked.

"The one that the two men who brought the sphere told me might come one day to claim it."

"The two men," I said, "are dead their cities warred upon one another and in battle they slew one another." "They seemed to me fine warriors," said Kamchak. "I am sorry to hear it."

"When did they come to the wagons?" I asked.

"As recently as two years ago," he said.

"They gave you the egg?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "to keep for Priest-Kings." He added, "It was wise of them, for the Wagon Peoples are among the farthest and most fierce of the Goreans, living free hundreds of pasangs from all cities, save Turia."

"Do you know where the egg is now?" I asked.

"Of course," he said.

I began to shake in the saddle of the kailla, trembling. The reins moved in my hands and the beast shifted nervously. I reined in the kailla.

"Do not tell me where it Is," I said, "or I should feel bound to attempt to seize it and take it to the Sardar." "But are you not he who is to come from Priest-Kings to claim the egg?" inquired Kamchak.

"I am he," I said.

"Then why would you wish to seize it and carry it away?" he asked.

"I have no way to prove that I come from Priest-Kings," I said. "Why would you believe me?"

"Because," said Kamchak, "I have come to know you." I said nothing.

"I have watched you carefully, Tarl Cabot of the City of Ko-ro-ba," said he, Kamchak of the Tuchuks. "Once you "pared my life, and we held grass and earth together, and from that time, even had you been outlaw and knave, I would have died for you, but still, of course, I could not give you the egg. Then you went with Harold to the city, and so I knew that to seize the egg against such overwhelming odds you were ready to give your life. Such a venture would not in all likelihood have been attempted by one who labored only for gold. That taught me that it was indeed probable that you were he chosen by Priest-Kings to come for the egg." "That is why," I asked, "you let me go to Turia though you knew the Golden Sphere was worthless"

"Yes," said Kamchak, "that is why."

"And why, after that," I asked, "did you not give me the egg?"

Kamchak smiled. "I needed only one last thing," said he, Tarl Cabot."

"And what was that?" I asked.

"To know that you wanted the egg for Priest-Kings alone, and not for yourself." Kamchak put out his hand and touched my arm. "That is why," he said, "I wanted the golden sphere shattered. I would have done it myself had it not been broken, to see what you would have done, to see if you would have been enraged at your loss, or if you would have been overcome with grief, on behalf of Priest-Kings." Kamchak smiled gently. "When you wept," he said, "I knew then that you cared for it, and for Priest-Kings that you had truly come for the egg and that you wanted it for them and not for yourself."

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

"forgive me," he said, "if I am cruel for I am a Tuchuk, but though I care much for you I kind to know the truth of these mattes."

"No forgiveness is necessary," I said. "In your place, I think I might well have done the same thing."

Kamchak's hand closed on mine and we clasped hands. 'Where is the egg?" I asked.

"Where would you think to find it?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "If I did not know better, I would expect to have found it in the wagon of Kutaituchik the wagon of the Ubar of the Tuchuks."

"I approve of your conjecture," he said, "but Kutaituchik, as you know, was not the Ubar of the Tuchuks."

I gazed at him.

"I am Ubar of the Tuchuks," he said.

"You mean" I said.

"Yes," said Kamchak, "the egg has been in my wagon for two years."

"But I lived in your wagon for months!" I cried.

"Did you not see the egg?" he asked.

'No," I said. "It must have been marvelously concealed." "What does the egg look like?" he asked.

I sat still on the back of the kaiila. "I don't know," I said.

"You thought, perhaps," he asked, "it would be golden and spherical?"