Domaris was supervising the slave women as they folded and sorted clean garments. The room was filled with afternoon sunlight and the fragrance of fresh, smooth linens. The women—little dark women, with braided hair and the piquant features of the pygmy race of the Temple slaves—chattered in birdlike trills as their diminutive brown bodies moved and pattered restlessly around the tall girl who stood in their midst, gently directing them and listening to their shrill little voices.

Domaris's loose hair moved smoothly upon her shoulders as she turned, questioning, toward the door. "Deoris! At this hour! Is Micon—?" She broke off, and turned to an older woman; not a slave, but one of the townspeople who was her personal attendant. "Continue with this, Elara," Domaris requested gently, then beckoned Deoris to her. She caught her breath at sight of the child's face. "You're crying, Deoris! What is the matter?"

"No!" Deoris denied, raising a flushed but tearless face. "I just—have to tell you something—"

"Wait, not here. Come—" She drew Deoris into the inner room where they slept, and looked again at the girl's flushed cheeks with dismay. "What are you doing here at this hour? Is Micon ill? Or—" She stopped, unable to voice the thought that tortured her, unable even to define it clearly in her own mind.

Deoris shook her head. Now, facing Domaris herself, she hardly knew how to begin. Shakily, she said, "Micon and Rajasta were talking about you ... they said—"

"Deoris! Hush!" Shocked, Domaris put out a hand to cover the too-eager lips. "You must never tell me what you hear among the Priests!"

Deoris twisted free, stinging under the implied rebuke. "But they talked right in front of me, they both knew I was there! And they were talking about you, Domaris. Micon said that you—"

"Deoris!"

Before her sister's blazing eyes, the child knew this was one of those rare occasions when she dared not disobey. She looked sulkily down at the floor.

Domaris, distressed, looked at the bent head of her little sister. "Deoris, you know that a scribe must never repeat anything that is said among the Priests. That is the first rule you should have learned!"

"Oh, leave me alone!" Deoris blurted out wrathfully, and ran from the room, her throat tight with angry sobs, driven by a fear she could neither control nor conceal. What right had Micon—what right had Rajasta—it wasn't right, none of it was right, and if Domaris wouldn't even listen, what could she do?

III

Deoris had no sooner left the library than Rajasta turned to Micon. "This matter must be brought to Riveda's attention."

Micon sighed wearily. "Why? Who is Riveda?"

"The First Adept of the Grey-robes. This touches him."

Micon moved his head negatively. "I would rather not disturb him with—"

"It must be so, Micon. Those who prostitute legitimate magic into foul sorcery must reckon with the Guardians of what they defile, else they will wreak havoc on us all, and more than we can undo, perhaps. It is easy to say, as you say, 'Let them reap what they sow'—and a bitter harvest it will be, I have no doubt! But what of those they have injured? Would you leave them free to torture others?"

Micon looked away, silenced, and his blind eyes moved randomly. Rajasta did not like the idea of what visions were in the Atlantean's mind then.

At last, Micon forced a smile, and a kind of laugh. "I thought I was to be the teacher, and you the pupil! But you are right," he murmured. Still, there was a very human protest in his voice as he added, "I dread it, though. The questioning. And all the rest... ."

"I would spare you, if I could."

Micon signed. "I know. Let it be as you will. I—I only hope Deoris did not hear all we said! I had forgotten the child was there."

"And I never saw her. The scribes are pledged to silence about what they hear, of course—but Deoris is young, and it is hard for mere babies to keep their tongues in silence. Deoris! That child!"

The weary exasperation in Rajasta's voice prompted Micon to ask, in some puzzlement, "You dislike her?"

"No, no," Rajasta hastened to reassure him. "I love her, much as I love Domaris. In fact I often think Deoris the more brilliant of the two; but it is only cleverness. She will never be so—so complete as Domaris. She lacks—patience. Steadfastness is not Deoris's virtue!"

"Come now," Micon dissented, "I have been much with her, and found her to be very patient, and helpful. Also kind and tactful as well. And I would say that she is more brilliant than Domaris. But she is only a child, and Domaris is—" His voice trailed off abruptly, and he smiled. Then, recalling himself, "Must I meet this—Riveda?"

"It would be best, I think," Rajasta replied. About to say more, the Priest stopped and bent to peer closely at Micon's face. The deepening lines he saw etched there made the Priest turn and summon a servant from the hall. "I go to Riveda now," Rajasta said as the servant approached. "Guide Lord Micon to his apartments."

Micon yielded gracefully enough—but as Rajasta watched him go, the muscles in his face were tight with worry and doubt. He had heard that the Atlanteans held the Grey-robes in a kind of reverence that bordered on worship—and this was understandable, in a way, when one considered the illnesses and disease that constantly troubled the Sea Kingdoms. The Grey-robes had done wonders there in controlling plague and pestilence... . Rajasta had not expected Micon to react in quite this way, however.

Rajasta dismissed his faint misgivings swiftly. It could only be for the best. Riveda was the greatest of their Healers, and might be able to help Micon where Rajasta could not; that, perhaps, was why the Atlantean was disturbed. After all, Rajasta thought, Micon is of a noble lineage; despite his humility, he has pride. And if a Grey-robe tells him to rest more, he will have to listen!

Turning, Rajasta strode from the room, his white robes making sibilant whispers about his feet. Even before this, Rajasta had heard the rumors of forbidden rituals among the Grey-robes, of Black-clad sorcerers who worked in secret with the old and evil forces at the heart of nature, forces that took no heed of humanity and made their users less human by degrees.

The Priest paused in the hall and shook his head, wonderingly. Could it be Micon believed those rumors, and feared Riveda would open the way for the Black-robes to recapture him? Well, once they had met, any such doubts would surely melt away. Yes, surely Riveda, First Adept among the Grey-robes, was best fitted to handle this problem. Rajasta did not doubt, either, that justice would be done. He knew Riveda.

His mind made up, Rajasta strode down the hallway, through a covered passageway and into another building, where he paused before a certain door. He knuckled the wood in three firm and evenly-spaced knocks.

IV

The Magician Riveda was a big man, taller even than the tall Rajasta; firmly-knit and muscular, his broad shoulders looked, and were, strong enough to throw down a bull. In his cowled robe of rough gray frieze, Riveda was a little larger than life as he turned from contemplation of the darkling sky.

"Lord Guardian," he greeted, courteously, "what urgency brings you to me?"

Rajasta said nothing, but continued to study the other man quietly for a moment. The cowl, flung loose on Riveda's shoulders, revealed a big head, set well on a thick neck and topped with masses of close-clipped fair hair—silver-gilt hair, a strange color above a stranger face. Riveda was not of the true Priest's Caste, but a Northman from the kingdom of Zaiadan; his rough-hewn features were an atavism from a ruder age, standing out strangely in contrast to the more delicate, chiselled lineaments of the Priest's Caste.