Rajasta followed the young couple as Arvath, with tender possessiveness, escorted his wife down the long stairway. He felt reassured: Domaris was safe with Arvath, indeed.

II

As the others disappeared into the shadows, Riveda turned and sighed, a little sorrowfully. "Well, Domaris has chosen. And you, Deoris?"

"No!" It was a sharp little cry of revulsion.

"A woman's mind is strange," Riveda went on reflectively. "She is sensitive to a greater degree; her very body responds to the delicate influence of the moon and the tidewaters. And she has, inborn, all the strength and receptivity which a man must spend years and his heart's blood to acquire. But where man is a climber, woman tends to chain herself. Marriage, the slavery of lust, the brutality of childbearing, the servitude of being wife and mother—and all this without protest! Nay, she seeks it, and weeps if it is denied her!"

A far-off echo came briefly to taunt Deoris—Domaris, so long ago, murmuring, Who has put these bats into your brain? But Deoris, hungry for his thoughts, was more than willing to listen to Riveda's justification for her own rebellion, and made only the faintest protest: "But there must be children, must there not?"

Riveda shrugged. "There are always more than enough women who are fit for nothing else," he said. "At one time I had a dream of a woman with the strength and hardness of a man but with a woman's sensitivity; a woman who could set aside her self-imposed chains. At one time, I had thought Domaris to be such a woman. And believe me, they are rare, and precious! But she has chosen otherwise." Riveda turned, and his eyes, colorless in the moonlight, stabbed into the girl's uplifted face. His light speaking voice dropped into the rich and resonant baritone in which he sang. "But I think I have found another. Deoris, are you . . . ?"

"What?" she whispered.

"Are you that woman?"

Deoris drew a long breath, as fear and fascination tumbled in her brain.

Riveda's hard hands found her shoulders, and he repeated, softly persuasive, "Are you, Deoris?"

A stir in the darkness—and Riveda's chela suddenly materialized from the shadows. Deoris's flesh crawled with revulsion and horror—fear of Riveda, fear of herself, and a sort of sick loathing for the chela. She wrenched herself away and ran, blindly ran, to get away and alone; but even as she fled, she heard the murmur of the Adept's words, re-echoing in her brain.

Are you that woman?

And to herself, more than terrified now, and yet still fascinated, Deoris whispered, "Am I?"

Chapter Four: THE SUMMIT AND THE DEPTHS

I

The opened shutters admitted the incessant flickers of summer lightning. Deoris, unable to sleep, lay on her pallet, her thoughts flickering as restlessly as the lightning flashes. She was afraid of Riveda, and yet, for a long time she had admitted to herself that he roused in her a strange, tense emotion that was almost physical. He had grown into her consciousness, he was a part of her imagination. Naive as she was, Deoris realized indistinctly that she had reached, with Riveda, a boundary of no return: their relationship had suddenly and irrevocably changed.

She suspected she could not bear to be closer to him, but at the same time the thought of putting him out of her life—and this was the only alternative—was unbearable. Riveda's swift clarity made even Rajasta seem pompous, fumbling . . . Had she ever seriously thought of following in Domaris's steps?

A soft sound interrupted her thoughts, and Chedan's familiar step crossed the flagstones to her side. "Asleep?" he whispered.

"Oh, Chedan—you?"

"I was in the court, and I could not ..." He dropped to the edge of the bed. "I haven't seen you all day. Your birthday, too—how old?"

"Sixteen. You know that." Deoris sat up, wrapping her thin arms around her knees.

"And I would have a gift for you, if I thought you would take it from me," Chedan murmured. His meaning was unmistakable, and Deoris felt her cheeks grow hot in the darkness while Chedan went on, teasingly, "Or do you guard yourself virgin for higher ambition? I saw you when Cadamiri carried you, unconscious, from the seance in the Prince Micon's quarters last year! Ah, how Cadamiri was angry! For all of that day, anyone who spoke to him caught only sharp words. He would advise you, Deoris—"

"I am not interested in his advice!" Deoris snapped, flicked raw by his teasing.

Again, two conflicting impulses struggled in her: to laugh at him, or to slap him. She had never accepted the easy customs and the free talk of the House of the Twelve; the boys and girls in the Scribes' School were more strictly confined, and Deoris had spent her most impressionable years there. Yet her own thoughts were poor company, confused as they were, and she did not want to be alone.

Chedan bent down and slid his arms around the girl. Deoris, in a kind of passive acquiescence, submitted, but she twisted her mouth away from his.

"Don't," she said sulkily. "I can't breathe."

"You won't have to," he said, more softly than usual, and Deoris made no great protest. She liked the warmth of his arms around her, the way he held her, gently, like something very fragile ... but tonight there was an urgency in his kisses that had never been there before. It frightened her a little. Warily, she shifted herself away from him, murmuring protesting words—she hardly knew what.

Silence again, and the flickering of lightning in the room, and her own thoughts straying into the borderland of dreams... .

Suddenly, before she could prevent him, Chedan was lying beside her and his arms slowly forced themselves beneath her head; then all the strength of his hard young body was pressing her down, and he was saying incoherent things which made no sense, punctuated by frightening kisses. For a moment, surprise and a sort of dreamy lassitude held her motionless ... then a wave of revulsion sent every nerve in her body to screaming.

She struggled and pulled away from him, scrambling quickly to her feet; her eyes burned with shock and shame. "How dare you," she stammered, "how dare you!"

Chedan's mouth dropped open in stupefaction. He raised himself, slowly, and his voice was remorseful. "Deoris, sweet, did I frighten you?" he whispered, and held out his arms.

She jerked away from him with an incongruous little jump. "Don't touch me!"

He was still kneeling on the edge of the bed; now he rose to his feet, slowly and a little bewildered. "Deoris, I don't understand. What have I done? I am sorry. Please, don't look at me like that," he begged, dismayed and shamed, and angry with himself for a reckless, precipitous fool. He touched her shoulder softly. "Deoris, you're not crying? Don't, please—I'm sorry, sweet. Come back to bed. I promise, I won't touch you again. See, I'll swear it." He added, puzzled. "But I had not thought you so unwilling."

She was crying now, loud shocked sobs. "Go away," she wept, "go away!"

"Deoris!" Chedan's voice, still uncertain, cracked into falsetto. "Stop crying like that. Somebody will hear you, you silly girl! I'm not going to touch you, ever, unless you want me to! Why, what in the world did you think I was going to do? I never raped anyone in my life and I certainly wouldn't begin with you! Now stop that, Deoris, stop that!" He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her slightly, "If someone hears you, they'll ..."

Her voice was high and hysterical. "Go away! Just go away, away!"

Chedan's hands dropped, and his cheeks flamed with wrathful pride. "Fine, I'm going," he said curtly, and the door slammed behind him.

Deoris, shaking with nervous chill, crept to her bed and dragged the sheet over her head. She was ashamed and unhappy and her loneliness was like a physical presence in the room. Even Chedan's presence would have been a comfort.