"I—I feared that—"

"I am no apostate," Micon reassured firmly. "I served not there. My service is not subject to compulsion!"

"Compulsion?"

Micon did not move, but the lift of his brows and the curl of his lip gave the effect of a shrug. "They would have compelled me." He held out his mutilated hands. "You can see that they were—eloquent in persuasion." Before Rajasta's gasp of horror, Micon drew back his hands and concealed their betrayal within the sleeves of his robe. "But my task is undone. And until it is completed, I hold death from me with these hands—though he companion me most closely."

Micon might have been speaking of last night's rain; and Rajasta bowed his head before the impassive face. "There are those we call Black-robes," he said bitterly. "They hide themselves among the members of the Magician's Sect, those who guard the shrine of the Unrevealed God—whom we call Grey-robes here. I have heard that these ... Black-robes—torture! But they are secret in their doings. Well for them! Be they accursed!"

Micon stirred. "Curse not, my brother!" he said harshly. "You, of all men, should know the danger of that."

Rajasta said tonelessly, "We have no way of acting against them. As I say, we suspect members of the Grey-robe sect. Yet, all are—gray!"

"I know. I saw too clearly, so—I see nothing. Enough," Micon pleaded. "I carry my release within me, my brother, but I may not yet accept it. We will not speak of this, Rajasta." He arose, with slow carefulness, and paced deliberately to the window, to stand with his face uplifted to the warm sunlight.

With a sigh, Rajasta accepted the prohibition. True, the Black-robes always concealed themselves so well that no victim could ever identify his tormentors. But why this? Micon was a stranger and could hardly have incurred their enmity; and never before had they dared meddle with so highly-placed a personage. The knowledge of what had befallen Micon initiated a new round in a warfare as old as the Temple of Light.

And the prospect dismayed him.

II

In the School of Scribes, Mother Lydara was in the process of disciplining one of her youngest pupils. The Scribes were the sons and daughters of the Priest's Caste who showed, in their twelfth or thirteenth year, a talent for reading or writing: and thirty-odd intelligent boys and girls are not easy to keep in order.

Mother Lydara felt that no child in all her memory had ever been such a problem to her as the sullen little girl who faced her just now: a thin angular girl, about thirteen, with stormy eyes and hair that hung dishevelled in black, tumbled curls. She held herself very stiff and erect, her nervous little hands stubbornly clenched, taut defiance in her white face.

"Deoris, little daughter," the Scribe-Mother admonished, standing rock-like and patient, "you must learn to control both tongue and temper if you ever hope to serve in the Higher Ways. The daughter of Talkannon should be an example and a pattern to the others. Now, you will apologize to me, and to your playmate Ista, and then you will make accounting to your father." The old Priestess waited, arms crossed on her ample breast, for an apology which never came.

Instead the girl burst out tearfully, "I won't! I have done nothing wrong, Mother, and I won't apologize for anything!" Her voice was plangent, vibrating with a thrilling sweetness which had marked her, among the children of the Temple, as a future Spell-singer; she seemed all athrob with passion like a struck harp.

The Scribe-Mother looked at her with a baffled, weary patience. "That is not the way to speak to an elder, my child. Obey me, Deoris."

"I will not!"

The old woman put out a hand, herself uncertain whether to placate the girl or slap her, when a rap came at the door. "Who is it?" the Priestess called impatiently.

The door swung back and Domaris put her head around the corner. "Are you at leisure, Mother?"

Mother Lydara's troubled face relaxed, for Domaris had been a favorite for many years. "Come in, my child, I have always time for you."

Domaris halted on the threshold, staring at the stormy face of the little girl in the scribe's frock.

"Domaris, I didn't!" Deoris wailed, and, a forlorn little cyclone, she flung herself on Domaris and wrapped her arms around her sister's neck. "I didn't do anything," she hiccoughed on a hysterical sob.

"Deoris—little sister!" chided Domaris. Firmly she disengaged the clinging arms. "Forgive her, Mother Lydara—has she been in trouble again? No, be still, Deoris; I did not ask you."

"She is impertinent, impudent, impatient of correction and altogether unmanageable," said Mother Lydara. "She sets a bad example in the school, and runs wild in the dormitories. I dislike to punish her, but—"

"Punishment only makes Deoris worse," said Domaris levelly. "You should never be severe with her." She pulled Deoris close, smoothing the tumbled curls. She herself knew so well how to rule Deoris through love that she resented Mother Lydara's harshness.

"While Deoris is in the Scribe-School," said the Scribe-Mother with calm finality, "she will be treated as the others are treated, and punished as they are punished. And unless she makes some effort to behave as they behave she will not be long in the School."

Domaris raised her level brows. "I see ... I have come from Lord Rajasta. He has need of a scribe to serve a guest, and Deoris is competent; she is not happy in the school, nor do you want her here. Let her serve this man." She glanced at the drooping head, now snuggled into her shoulder; Deoris looked up with wondering adoration. Domaris always made everything right again!

Mother Lydara frowned, but was secretly relieved: Deoris was a problem quite beyond her limited capabilities, and the fact that this spoilt child was Talkannon's daughter complicated the situation. Theoretically, Deoris was there on an equal footing with the others, but the daughter of the Arch-Administrator could not be chastised or ruled over like the child of an ordinary priest.

"Have it as you will, Daughter of Light," said the Scribe-Mother gruffly, "but she must continue her own studies, see you to that!"

"Rest assured, I shall not neglect her schooling," said Domaris coldly. As they left the squat building, she studied Deoris, frowning. She had seen little of her sister in these last months; when Domaris had been chosen as Rajasta's Acolyte, the child had been sent to the Scribe-School—but before that they had been inseparable, though the eight years difference in their ages made the relationship less that of sisters than of mother and daughter. Now Domaris sensed a change in her young sister that dismayed her. Always before, Deoris had been merry and docile; what had they done to her, to change her into this sullen little rebel? She decided, with a flare of anger, that she would seek Talkannon's permission to take Deoris again under her own care.

"Can I really stay with you?"

"I cannot possibly promise it, but we shall see." Domaris smiled. "You wish it?"

"Oh yes!" said Deoris passionately, and flung her arms about her sister again, with such intensity that Domaris's brow furrowed into lines of deep trouble. What had they done to Deoris?

Freeing herself from the clinging arms, Domaris admonished, "Gently, gently, little sister," and they turned their steps toward the House of the Twelve.

III

Domaris was one of the Twelve Acolytes: six young men and six young women, chosen every third year from the children of the Priest's Caste, for physical perfection, beauty, and some especial talent which made them archetypal of the Priest's Caste of the Ancient Land. When they reached maturity, they dwelt for three years in the House of the Twelve, studying all the ancient wisdom of the Priest's Caste, and preparing themselves for service to the Gods and to their people. It was said that if some calamity should destroy all of the Priest's Caste save only the Twelve, all the wisdom of the Temples could be reconstructed from these Twelve Acolytes alone. At the end of this three-year term, each married his or her allotted mate, and so carefully were these six young couples chosen that the children of Acolytes rarely failed to climb high in the Priesthood of their caste.