"Well, Deoris? Do you consult the Oracle for your fate or mine?"

But she was unyielding in his arms, and after a moment he released her, puzzled.

"What is it, Deoris? Why are you angry with me?"

The last flicker of her body's resentment flared up. "I do not like to be mauled like that!"

Ceremoniously, the Adept inclined his head. "Forgive me. I shall remember."

"Oh, Riveda!" She flung her arms about him then, burrowing her head into the rough stuff of his robes, gripping him with a desperate dread. "Riveda, I am afraid!"

His arms tightened around her for a moment, strong, almost passionate. Then, with a certain sternness, he disengaged her clinging clasp. "Be not foolish, Deoris," he admonished. "You are no child, nor do I wish to treat you as one. Remember—I do not admire weakness in women. Leave that for the pretty wives in the back courts of the Temple of Light!"

Stung, Deoris lifted her chin. "Then we have both had a lesson today!"

Riveda stared at her a moment, then laughed aloud. "Indeed!" he exclaimed. "That is more like it. Well then. I have come to take you to the Grey Temple." As she hung back a little, he smiled and touched her cheek. "You need not fear—the foul sorcerer who threw you into illusion that previous time has been exorcized; ask, if you dare, what befell him! Be assured, no one will dare to meddle with the mind of my chosen novice!"

Reassured, she followed him, and he continued, abridging his long stride to correspond with her steps, "You have seen one of our ceremonies, as an outsider. Now you shall see the rest. Our Temple is mostly a place of experiment, where each man works separately, as he will, to develop his own powers."

Deoris could understand this, for in the Priest's Caste great emphasis was placed on self-perfection. But she wondered for what sins the Magicians strove. ...

He answered her unspoken question. "For absolute self-mastery, first of all; the body and mind must be harnessed and brought into subjugation by—certain disciplines. Then each man works alone, to master sound, or color, or light, or animate things—whatever he chooses—with the powers inherent in his own body and mind. We call ourselves Magicians, but there is no magic; there is only vibration. When a man can attune his body to any vibration, when he can master the vibrations of sound so that rock bursts asunder, or think one color into another, that is not magic. He who masters himself, masters the Universe."

As they passed beneath the great archway which spanned the bronze doors of the Grey Temple, he motioned to her to precede him; the bodiless voice challenged in unknown syllables, and Riveda called back. As they stepped through the doors, he added, in an undertone, "I will teach you the words of admission, Deoris, so that you will have access here even in my absence."

II

The great dim room seemed more vast than before, being nearly empty. Instinctively, Deoris looked for the niche where she had seen the Man with Crossed Hands—but the recess in the wall was hidden with grey veils Nevertheless she recalled another shrine, deep in the bowels of the earth, and could not control a shudder.

Riveda said in her ear, "Know you why the Temple is grey, why we wear grey?"

She shook her head, voiceless.

"Because," he went on, "color is in itself vibration, each color having a vibration of its own. Grey allows vibration to be transmitted freely, without the interference of color. Moreover, black absorbs light into itself, and white reflects light and augments it; grey does neither, it merely permits the true quality of the light to be seen as it is." He fell silent again, and Deoris wondered if his words had been symbolic as well as scientific.

In one corner of the enormous chamber, five young chelas were grouped in a circle, standing in rigidly unnatural poses and intoning, one by one, sounds that made Deoris's head ache. Riveda listened for a moment, then said, "Wait here. I want to speak to them."

She stood motionless, watching as he approached the chelas and spoke to them, vehemently but in a voice pitched so low she could not distinguish a word. She looked around the Temple.

She had heard horrible tales about this place—tales of self-torture, the saji women, licentious rites—but there was nothing fearful here. At a little distance from the group of chelas, three young girls sat watching, all three younger than Deoris, with loose short hair, their immature bodies saffron-veiled and girdled with silver. They sat cross-legged, looking weirdly graceful and relaxed.

Deoris knew that the saji were recruited mostly from the outcastes, the nameless children born unacknowledged, who were put out on the city wall to die of exposure—or be found by the dealers in girl slaves. Like all the Priest's Caste, Deoris believed that the saji were harlots or worse, that they were used in rituals whose extent was limited only by the imagination of the teller. But these girls did not look especially vicious or degenerate. Two, in fact, were extremely lovely; the third had a hare-lip which marred her young face, but her body was dainty and graceful as a dancer's. They talked among themselves in low chirping tones, and they all used their hands a great deal as they spoke, with delicately expressive gestures that bespoke long training.

Looking away from the saji girls, Deoris saw the woman Adept she had seen before. From Karahama she had heard this woman's name: Maleina. In the Grey-robe sect she stood second only to Riveda, but it was said that Riveda and Maleina were bitter enemies for some reason still unknown to Deoris.

Today, the cowl was thrown back from Maleina's head; her hair, previously concealed, was flaming red. Her face was sharp and gaunt, with a strange, ascetic, fine-boned beauty. She sat motionless on the stone floor. Not an eyelash flickered, nor a hair stirred. In her cupped hands she held something bright which flickered light and dark, light and dark, as regularly as a heartbeat; it was the only thing about her that seemed to live.

Not far away, a man clad only in a loincloth stood gravely on his head. Deoris had to stifle an uncontrollable impulse to giggle, but the man's thin face was absolutely serious.

And not five feet from Deoris, a little boy about seven years old was lying on his back, gazing at the vaulted ceiling, breathing with deep, slow regularity. He did not seem to be doing anything except breathing; he was so relaxed that it made Deoris sleepy to look at him, although his eyes were wide-open and clearly alert. He did not appear to move a single muscle ... After several minutes, Deoris realized that his head was several inches off the floor. Fascinated, she continued to watch until he was sitting bolt upright, and yet at no instant had she actually seen the fraction of an inch's movement, or seen him flex a single muscle. Abruptly, the little boy shook himself like a puppy and, bounding to his feet, grinned widely at Deoris, a gamin, little boyish grin very much at variance with the perfect control he had been exercising. Only then did Deoris recognize him: the silver-gilt hair, the pointed features were those of Demira. This was Karahama's younger child, Demira's brother.

Casually, the little boy walked toward the group of chelas where Riveda was still lecturing. The Adept had pulled his grey cowl over his head and was holding a large bronze gong suspended in midair. One by one, each of the five chelas intoned a curious syllable; each made the gong vibrate faintly, and one made it emit a most peculiar ringing sound. Riveda nodded, then handed the gong to one of the boys, and turning toward it, spoke a single deep-throated syllable.

The gong began to vibrate; then clamored a long, loud brazen note as if struck repeatedly by a bar of steel. Again Riveda uttered the bass syllable; again came the gong's metallic threnody. As the chelas stared, Riveda laughed, flung back his cowl and walked away, pausing a moment to put his hand on the small boy's head and ask him some low-voiced questions Deoris could not hear.