The goddess and the mortal girl rolled on the ground together, and there waslittle difference between them. They both shone, blazing lightlessly with rageand godhead. The goddess had more experience fighting, perhaps, but Mriga hadthe advantage of a strength not only divine but insane. And there might be otheradvantages to a life's worth of insanity as well. Mriga's absorption of godheadwould not be hampered by ideas about gods, or about mortals not being gods. Shetook what power came to her, and used it, uncaring. She was using it now; shehad Siveni pinned. Their struggle brought her around to where she suddenly sawHarran looking at her. That look did strike him like lightning, though he wouldnot have traded the pain of it for anything. Mriga saw him. And in four quick,economical gestures, she stripped Siveni's bright helm off, flung it clangingdown the avenue, and then took hold of Siveni's head by the long dark hair andwhacked it hard against the stones. Siveni went limp.

He never had needed to show her anything more than once....

The street fell blessedly silent. Harran sat up on the stones-it was the best hecould manage at the moment; his night was catching up to him. More than just hisnight. For there was Mriga, limping over to him, still halt as before-but therewas a kind of grace even to that, now. He wanted to hide his face. But he wasstill enough of a god not to.

"Harran," she said in the soft husky voice that he had never heard do anythingbut grunt.

Harran was still mortal enough not to be able to think of a thing to say.

"I want to stay like this," she said. "I'll have to go back with her beforedawn, if the change is to take."

"But-it was only supposed to be temporary-"

"For an ordinary mortal, I suppose so. But I'm not ordinary. It will takefor me." She smiled at him with a merry serenity that made Harran's heart ache;for it was very like what he had expected, dreamed of, from Siveni. "If youapprove, that is...."

"Approve?!" He stared at her-at Her, rather; there was no doubt of it anymore.Moment by moment she was growing more divine, and looking at her hurt his eyesas even Siveni had only at the beginning. "What in the worlds do you need myapproval for?!"

Mriga looked at him with somber pleasure. "You are my love," she said, "and mygood lord."

"Good-" He would have sickened with the irony, had the terrible, growing gloryof her presence not made such a response impossible. "I used you-"

"You fed me," Mriga said. "You took care of me. I came to love you. The restdidn't matter then; and it doesn't now. If I loved you as a mortal-how should Istop as a goddess?"

"You're still crazy!" Harran cried, almost in despair.

"It would probably look that way," said Mriga, "to those who didn't know thetruth. You know better."

"Mriga, for pity's sake, listen to me! I took advantage of you, again and again!I used a goddess-"

She reached out, very slowly, and touched his face; then took the hand backagain. "As for that business," she said, "I alone shall judge the result. Ialone am qualified. If you've done evil... then you've also paid. Payment isnow, is it not? Would you believe you've spent five years paying for what youwere doing during those five years? Or would you put it down to a new goddess'scraziness?"

"Time..." Harran whispered.

"It has an inside and an outside," Mriga said. "Outside is when you love. Insideis everything else. Don't ask me more." She looked up at the paling sky. "Helpme with poor Siveni."

Between the two of them they got the goddess sitting up again. She was in asorry state; Mriga brushed at her rather apologetically. "She hurt you," Mrigasaid. "If I hadn't been crazy already, I would have gone that way."

After a few moments ministration, the gray eyes opened and looked at Harran andMriga with painful admiration for them both. One of the fierce eyes wasblackened, and Siveni had a bump rising where Mriga had acquainted her with thecobbles. "The disadvantage of physicality," she said. "I don't think I care forit." She glanced at Mriga, looking very chastened. "Not even my father ever didthat to me. I think we're going to be friends."

"More than that," Mriga said, serenely merry. Harran found himself wonderingvery briefly about some old business ... about the old Mriga's love for edgedthings, and her strength, and her skill with her hands... and her gray eyes.Those eyes met his, and Mriga nodded. "She'd lost some attributes into time,"Mriga said. "But I held them for her. She'll get them back from me... and lendme a few others. We'll do well enough between us."

The three of them got up together, helping one another. "Harran-" Siveni said.

He looked at her tired, wounded radiance, and for the first time really saw her,without his own ideas about her getting in the way. She could not apologize;apology wasn't her way. She just stood there like some rough, winning child, atroublemaker at the end of yet another scrap. "It's all right," he said. "Gohome."

She smiled. The smile was almost as lovely as Mriga's.

"We will," Mriga said. "There's a place where gods can go when they need a rest.That's where we'll be. But'one thing remains." She reached out and laid her headon the burned place where Harran's hand had been... then slowly leaned in andtouched her lips to his.

Somewhere in the eternity that followed, he noticed that her left hand seemed tobe missing.

When the dazzle unknotted itself from around him, they were gone. He stood alonein false dawn in the Avenue of Temples, looking down toward where a pair oftwisted brass doors lay in the middle of the street. He wondered while he stoodthere whether some years from now there might be a small new temple inSanctuary... raised for an addition to the Ilsig pantheon; a mad goddess, amaimed and crippled goddess, fond of knives, and possessing a peculiar crazedwisdom that began and ended in love. A goddess who right now had only twoworshippers; her single priest, and a dog....

Harran stood there wondering-then started at a sudden touch. His left hand-thehand he hadn't had, and now had-a woman's hand-reached up without his willing itto touch his face.

Payment is now....

Harran bowed ever so briefly to Ils's temple: and with grudging respect, toSavankala's-and went on home.

Elsewhere in the false dawn, a soft, rough cry from the windowsill attracted theattention of a dark-clad woman in a room scattered with a mad profusion oftreasures and rich stuffs. Ischade leisurely went to the window, gazed with aslow smile at the silvery raven that stood there, watching her out of eyes ofgray... and silently considering both messenger and message, took it up on herarm and went to find it something to eat....