Domaris knew better. It was power that had been sealed there, though—and she suspected that the power had been invoked and unleashed, and this made her afraid as she had never dreamed of being afraid; frightened for herself and the child she carried, for Deoris and the child conceived in that dark shrine, and for her people and everything that they stood for... .

She set her teeth, and sweat ran cold from her armpits. "I must!" she whispered aloud; and, giving herself no more time to think, she opened the door and slipped through, shutting it quickly behind her.

She stood at the top of an immense stairwell leading down ... and down ... and down, grey steps going down between grey walls in a grey haze beneath her, to which there seemed no end. She set her foot on the first step; holding to the rail, she began the journey ... down.

It was slow, chill creeping. Her heaviness dragged at her. Pain twisted her at intervals. The thud of her sandalled feet jerked at her burdened belly with wrenching pulls. She moaned aloud at each brief torture—but went on, step down, thud, step down, thud, in senseless, dull repetition. She tried to count the steps, in an effort to prevent her mind from dredging up all the half-forgotten, awful stories she had heard of this place, to keep herself from wondering if she did, indeed, know better than to believe old fairy-tales. She gave it up after the hundred and eighty-first step.

Now she was no longer holding the rail, but reeling and scraping against the wall; again pain seized her, doubled and twisted her, forcing her to her knees. The greyness was shot through with crimson as she straightened, bewildered and enraged, almost forgetting what grim purpose had brought her to this immemorial mausoleum... .

She caught at the rail with both hands, fighting for balance as her face twisted terribly and she sobbed aloud, hating the sanity that drove her on and down.

"Oh Gods! No, no, take me instead!" she whispered, and clung there desperately for a moment; then, her face impassive again, holding herself grimly upright, she let the desperate need to do what must be done carry her down, into the pallid greyness.

Chapter Three: DARK DAWN

I

The sudden, brief jar of falling brought Deoris sharply upright, staring into the darkness in sudden fear. Micail still slept in a chubby heap, and in the shadowy room, now lighted with the pale pink of dawn, there was no sound but the little boy's soft breathing; but like a distant echo Deoris seemed to hear a cry and a palpable silence, the silence of the tomb, of the Crypt.

Domaris! Where was Domaris? She had not returned. With sudden and terrible awareness, Deoris knew where Domaris was! She did not pause even to throw a garment over her nightclothes; yet she glanced unsurely at Micail. Surely Domaris's slaves would hear if he woke and cried—and there was no time to waste! She ran out of the room and fled downward, through the deserted garden.

Blindly, dizzily, she ran as if sheer motion could ward off her fear. Her heart pounded frantically, and her sides sent piercing ribbons of pain through her whole body—but she did not stop until she stood in the shadow of the great pyramid. Holding her hands hard against the hurt in her sides, she was shocked at last into a wide-awake sanity by the cold winds of dawn.

A lesser priest, only a dim figure in luminous robes, paced slowly toward her. "Woman," he said severely, "it is forbidden to walk here. Go your way in peace."

Deoris raised her face to him, unafraid. "I am Talkannon's daughter," she said in a clear and ringing voice. "Is the Guardian Rajasta within?"

The priest's tone and expression changed as he recognized her. "He is there, young sister," he said courteously, "but it is forbidden to interrupt the vigil—" He fell silent in amazement; the sun, as they talked, had crept around the pyramid's edge, to fall upon them, revealing Deoris's unbound hair, her disarranged and insufficient clothing.

"It is life or death!" Deoris pleaded, desperately. "I must see him!"

"My child—I do not have the authority... ."

"Oh, you fool!" Deoris raged, and with a catlike movement, she dodged under his startled arm and fled up the gleaming stone steps. She struggled a moment with the unfamiliar workings of the great brazen door; twitched aside the shielding curtain, and stepped into brilliant light.

At the faint whisper of her bare feet—for the door moved silently despite its weight—Rajasta turned from the altar. Disregarding his warning gesture, Deoris ran to fling herself on her knees before him.

"Rajasta, Rajasta!"

With cold distaste, the Priest of Light bent and raised her, eyeing the wild disarray of her clothing and hair sternly. "Deoris," he said, "what are you doing here, you know the law—and why like this! You're only half dressed, have you gone completely mad?"

Indeed, there was some justification for his question, for Deoris met his gaze with a feverish face, and her voice was practically a babble as her last scraps of composure deserted her. "Domaris! Domaris! She must have gone to the Crypt—to the Dark Shrine."

"You have taken leave of your senses!" Unceremoniously, Rajasta half thrust her to a further distance from the altar. "You know you may not stand here like this!"

"I know, yes, I know, but listen to me! I feel it, I know it! She burned the girdle and made me tell her ..." Deoris stopped, her face drawn with conflict and guilt, for she had suddenly realized that she was now of her own volition betraying her sworn oath to Riveda! And yet—she was bound to Domaris by an oath stronger still.

Rajasta gripped her shoulder, demanding, "What sort of gibberish is this!" Then, seeing that the girl was trembling so violently that she could hardly stand upright, he put an arm gingerly about her and helped her to a seat. "Now tell me sensibly, if you can, what you are talking about," he said, in a voice that held almost equal measures of compassion and contempt, "if you are talking about anything at all! I suppose Domaris has discovered that you were Riveda's saji."

"I wasn't! I never was!" Deoris flared; then said, wearily, "Oh, that doesn't matter, you don't understand, you wouldn't believe me anyhow! What matters is this: Domaris has gone to the Dark Shrine."

Rajasta's face was perceptibly altering as he began to guess what she was trying to say. "What—but why?"

"She saw—a girdle I was wearing, that Riveda gave me—and the scars of the dorje."

Almost before she had spoken the word, Rajasta moved like lightning to clamp his hand across her lips. "Say that not here!" he commanded, white-faced. Deoris collapsed, crying, her head in her arms, and Rajasta seized her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Listen to me, girl! For Domaris's sake—for your own—yes, even for Riveda's! A girdle? And the—that word you spoke; what of that? What is this all about?"

Deoris dared not keep silent, dared not lie—and under his deep-boring eyes, she stammered, "A treble cord—knotted—wooden links carved with ..." She gestured.

Rajasta caught her wrist and held it immobile. "Keep your disgusting Grey-robe signs for the Grey Temple! But even there that would not have been allowed! You must deliver it to me!"

"Domaris burned it."

"Thank the Gods for that," said Rajasta bleakly. "Riveda has gone among the Black-robes?" But it was a statement, not a question. "Who else?"

"Reio-ta—I mean, the chela." Deoris was crying and stammering; there was a powerful block in her mind, inhibiting speech—but the concentrated power of Rajasta's will forced her. The Priest of Light was well aware that this use of his powers had only the most dubious ethical justification, and regretted the necessity; but he knew that all of Riveda's spells would be pitted against him, and if he was to safeguard others as his Guardian's vows commanded, he dared not spare the girl. Deoris was almost fainting from the hypnotic pressure Rajasta exerted against the bond of silence Riveda had forced on her will. Slowly, syllable by syllable at times, at best sentence by reluctant sentence, she told Rajasta enough to damn Riveda tenfold.