'What of me? Although I feel I am a stripling, compared to you and the abbot, I have far surpassed the lifespah of most other men,' Taita said.

Samana smiled. 'You are of good mind. Until this time the power of your intellect has been able to triumph over the frailty of your body, but in the end we must all die, as Kashyap has.'

'You have answered my first question, but I have another. Who has chosen me?' Taita asked, but he knew that the question was doomed to remain unanswered.

m, Samana flashed a sweet, enigmatic smile and leant forward to place a nger on his lips. 'You have been selected,' she whispered. 'Let that suffice.' He knew that he had pushed her to the limit of her knowledge: that was as far as she could go.

They sat together and meditated, for the rest of that day and half of the night that followed, on all that had passed so far between them.

Then she took him to her bed-chamber and they slept entwined, like a mother and child, until dawn filled the chamber with light. They rose imd bathed together, then Samana took him to an ancient stone building in a hidden corner of the gardens that Taita had not visited before.

Fansid was already there. She was busy at a marble table that stood in the centre of the large central room. When they entered she looked up at them. 'I was preparing the last of the needles,' she explained, 'but I will leave if you wish to be alone.'

'Stay, beloved Tansid,' Samana told her. 'Your presence will not disturb us.' She took Taita's hand and led him about the room. 'This building was designed by the first abbots in the beginning time. They needed good light in which to operate.' She pointed to the large open windows set high in the walls above them. 'On this marble table more than fifty generations of abbots have performed the opening of the Inner

Eye. Each one was a savant, the term by which we describe the initiates, those who are able to see the aura of other humans and animals.'

She pointed out to him the writing carved into the walls. 'Those are the records of all who have gone before us throughout the centuries and the millennium. Between ourselves there must stand no reservation. I will give you no false assurances - you would see through any attempt I made to deceive you before I could speak the first word. So I tell you truly that, under the tutelage of Kashyap, I attempted to open the Inner Eye four times before I was successful.'

She pointed to the most recent set of inscriptions. 'Here you can see my attempts recorded. Perhaps at first I lacked skill and dexterity.

Perhaps my patients were not far enough along the right-hand path. In one instance the result was disastrous. I warn you, Taita, the risks are great.' Samana was silent for a while, ruminating. Then she went on, 'There were others before me who failed. See here!' She led him to a set of time-worn, lichen-coated inscriptions at the furthest end of the wall.

'These are so old that they are extremely difficult to decipher, but I can tell you what they record. Almost two thousand years ago a woman came to this temple. She was a survivor of an ancient people who once lived in a great city named Ilion beside the Aegean Sea. She had been the High Priestess of Apollo. She was a Long Liver, as you are. Over the centuries, since the sack and destruction of her city, she had wandered the earth, garnering wisdom and learning. The abbot at that time was named Kurma. The strange woman convinced him that she was a paragon of the Truth. In that way she induced him to open her Inner Eye. It was a success that astonished and elated him. It was only long after she had left the temple that Kurma was overtaken by doubts and misgivings. A series of terrible events occurred that made him realize she might have been an impostor, a thief, an adept of the left-hand path, a minion of the Lie. At length he discovered that she had used witchcraft to kill the one who had been originally chosen. She had assumed the murdered woman's identity and been able to cloak her true nature sufficiently to dupe him.'

'What became of this creature?'

'Generation after generation of the abbots of the goddess Saraswati have tried to trace her. But she has cloaked herself and disappeared.

Perhaps by this time she is dead. That is the best we can hope for.'

'What was her name?' Taita asked.

'Here! It is inscribed.' Samana touched the writing with her fingertips, 'She called herself Eos, after the sister of the sun god. I know now that it

was not her true name. But her spirit sign was the mark of a cat's paw.

Here it is.'

'How many others failed?' Taita sought to divert himself from his dark forebodings.

'There were many.'

'Tell me about some from your own experience.'

Samana thought for a moment, then said, 'One in particular I remember, from when I was still a novice. His name was Wotad, a priest of the god Woden. His skin was covered with sacred blue tattoos. He was brought to this temple from the northlands across the Cold Sea. He was a man of mighty physique, but he died under the bamboo needle.

Even his great strength was insufficient to survive the power that was unleashed within him by the opening. His brain burst asunder, and blood spurted from his nose and ears.' Samana sighed. 'It was a terrible death, but swift. Perhaps Wotad was luckier than some of those who preceded him. The Inner Eye can turn itself back on its owner, like a venomous serpent held by the tail. Some of the horrors it reveals are too vivid and terrible to survive.'

For the remainder of that day they were silent while Tansid busied herself at the stone table, polishing the last of the bamboo needles and arranging the surgical instruments.

At last Samana looked up at Taita and spoke softly: 'Now you know the risks that you will run. You do not have to make the attempt. The choice is yours alone.'

Taita shook his head. 'I have no choice. I know now that the choice was made for me on the day of my birth.'

That night Tansid and Meren slept in Taita's chamber. Before she blew out the lamp Tansid brought Taita a small porcelain bowl filled with a warm infusion of herbs. As soon as he had drunk it he stretched out on his mat and fell into a deep sleep. Meren rose twice in the night to listen to his breathing and to cover him when the cold air of the dawn seeped into the chamber.

When Taita awoke he found the three, Samana, Tansid and Meren, kneeling round his sleeping mat.

'Magus, are you ready?' Samana asked inscrutably.

Taita nodded, but Meren blurted out, 'Do not do this thing, Magus. ) not let them do it to you. It is evil.'

Taita took his muscular forearm and shook it sternly. 'I have chosen you for this task. I need you. Do not fail me, Meren. If I must do this alone who can say what the consequences might be? Together we can win through, as we have so often before.' Meren took a series of ragged deep breaths. 'Are you ready, Meren? Are you at my side as ever you were?'

'Forgive me, I was weak, but now I am ready, Magus,' he whispered.

Samana led them out into the brilliant sunshine of the garden, to the ancient building. At one end of the marble table lay the surgeon's instruments, and at the opposite end stood a charcoal brazier above which the heated air shimmered. Spread on the ground below the table was a sheep's fleece rug. Taita did not need to be told: he knelt in the centre of the rug, facing the table. Samana nodded at Meren; clearly, she had instructed him in his duties. He knelt behind Taita, and folded him tenderly in his arms so that he could not move.

'Close your eyes, Meren,' Samana instructed him. 'Do not watch.' She stood over them and offered a strip of leather for Taita to grip in his jaws. He refused it with a shake of his head. She knelt in front of him with a silver spoon in her right hand; with two fingers of her other hand she parted the lids of Taita's right eye. 'Always through the right eye,'