He gazed back at her in consternation. The future had suddenly turned black before his eyes. Will Domaris never learn caution? She leaves me no choice... . Wearily, Rajasta said, "The Guardian has claimed responsibility! Deoris I leave to her sister, that she may bring forth, and her fate shall be decided later—but I strip her of honor. No more may she be called Priestess or Scribe." He paused, and addressed the assembly again. "The Guardian claims that she has cursed—by ancient Ritual, and the ancient Power. Is that misuse?"

The hall hissed with the sibilance of vague replies; unanimity was gone, the voices few and doubtful, half lost in the vaulted spaces. Riveda's guilt had been proved in open trial, and it was a tangible guilt; this was a priestly secret known but to a few, and when it was forced out like this, the common priesthood was more bewildered than indignant, for they had little idea what was meant.

One voice, bolder than the rest, called through the uneasy looks and vague shiftings and whispers: "Let Rajasta deal with his Acolyte!" A storm of voices took up the cry: "On Rajasta's head! Let Rajasta deal with his Acolyte!"

"Acolyte no longer!" Rajasta's voice was a whiplash, and Domaris winced with pain. "Yet I accept the responsibility. So be it!"

"So be it!" the thronged Priests thundered, again with a single voice.

Rajasta bowed ceremoniously. "The decrees stand," he announced, and seated himself, watching Domaris, who was still standing, and none too steadily. In anger and sorrow, Rajasta wondered if she had the faintest idea what might be made of her confession. He was appalled at the chain of events which she—Initiate and Adept—had set in motion. The power vested in her was a very real thing, and in cursing Riveda as she had, she had used it to a base end. He knew she would pay—and the knowledge put his own courage at a low ebb. She had generated endless karma for which she, and who knew how many others, must pay ... It was a fault in him, also, that Domaris should have let this happen, and Rajasta did not deny the responsibility, even within himself.

And Deoris... .

Domaris had spoken of the Mystery of Caratra, which no man might penetrate; in that single phrase, she had effectively cut herself off from him. Her fate was now in the hands of the Goddess; Rajasta could not intervene, even to show mercy. Deoris, too, was beyond the Temple's touch. It could only be decided whether or no this Temple might continue to harbor the sisters... .

Domaris slowly descended the steps, moving with a sort of concentrated effort, as if force of will would overcome her body's frailty. She went to Deoris and, bending, tried to draw her away. The younger girl resisted frantically, and finally, in despair, Domaris signaled to one of her attendant Priests to carry her away—but as the Priest laid hands on the girl, Deoris shrieked and clung to Riveda in a frenzy.

"No! Never, never! Let me die, too! I won't go!"

The Adept raised his head once more, and looked into Deoris's eyes. "Go, child," he said softly. "This is the last command I shall ever lay upon you." With his manacled hands, he touched her dark curls. "You swore to obey me to the last," he murmured. "Now the last is come. Go, Deoris."

The girl collapsed in terrible sobbing, but allowed herself to be led away. Riveda's eyes followed her, naked emotion betrayed there, and his lips moved as he whispered, for the first and last time, "Oh, my beloved!"

After a long pause, he looked up again, and his eyes, hard and controlled once more, met those of the woman who stood before him robed in white.

"Your triumph, Domaris," he said bitterly.

On a strange impulse, she exclaimed, "Our defeat!"

Riveda's frigid blue eyes glinted oddly, and he laughed aloud. "You are—a worthy antagonist," he said.

Domaris smiled fleetingly; never before had Riveda acknowledged her as an equal.

Rajasta had risen to put the final challenge to the Priests. "Who speaks for mercy?"

Silence.

Riveda turned his head and looked out at his accusers, facing them squarely, without appeal.

And Domaris said quietly, "I speak for mercy, my lords. He could have let her die! He saved Deoris, he risked his own life—when he could have let her die! He let her live, to bear the scars that would forever accuse him. It is but a feather against the weight of his sin—but on the scales of the Gods, a feather may balance against a whole human soul. I speak for mercy!"

"It is your privilege," Rajasta conceded, hoarsely.

Domaris drew from her robe the beaten-gold dagger, symbolic of her office. "To your use, this," she said, and thrust it into Riveda's hand. "I too have need of mercy," she added, and was gone, her white and golden robes retreating slowly between the ranks of Priests.

Riveda studied the weapon in bis hands for a long moment. By some strange fatality, Domaris's one gift to him was death, and it was the supreme gift. In a single, fleeting instant, he wondered if Micon had been right; had he, Domaris, Deoris, sowed events that would draw them all together yet again, beyond this parting, life to life ... ?

He smiled—a weary, scholarly smile. He sincerely hoped not.

Rising to his feet, he surrendered the symbol of mercy to Rajasta—long centuries had passed since the mercy-dagger was put to its original use—and in turn accepted the jewelled cup. The Adept held it, as he had the dagger, in his hands for a long, considering minute, thinking—with an almost sensuous pleasure, the curious sensuality of the ascetic—of darkness beyond; that darkness which he had, all his life, loved and sought. His entire life had led to this moment, and in a swift, half-conscious thought, it occurred to him that it was precisely this he had desired—and that he could have accomplished it far more easily.

Again he smiled. "The wonder-world of Night," he said aloud, and drained the death-cup in a single draught; then, with his last strength, raised it—and with a laugh, hurled it straight and unerring toward the dдis. It struck Rajasta on the temple, and the old man fell senseless, struck unconscious at the same instant that Riveda, with a clamor of brazen chains, fell lifeless on the stone floor.

Chapter Eight: LEGACY

I

The small affairs of everyday went on with such sameness that Deoris was confused. She lived almost in a shell of glass; her mind seemed to have slid back somehow to the old days when she and Domaris had been children together. Deliberately she clung to these daydreams and fancies, encouraging them, and if a thought from the present slipped through, she banished it at once.

Although her body was heavy, quickened with that strange, strong other life, she refused to think of her unborn child. Her mind remained slammed shut on that night in the Crypt—except for the nightmares that woke her screaming. What monster demon did she bear, what lay in wait for birth ... ?

On a deeper level, where her thoughts were not clear, she was fascinated, afraid, outraged. Her body—the invincible citadel of her very being—was no longer her own, but invaded, defiled. By what night-haunted thing of darkness, working in Riveda, has she been made mother—and to what hell-spawn?

She had begun to hate her rebel body as a thing violated, an ugliness to be hidden and despised. Of late she had taken to binding herself tightly with a wide girdle, forcing the rebellious contours into some semblance of her old slenderness, although she was careful to arrange her clothing so that this would not be too apparent, and to conceal it from Domaris.

Domaris was not ignorant of Deoris's feelings—she could even understand them to some faint extent: the dread, the reluctance to remember and to face the future, the despairing horror. She gave the younger girl a few days of dreams and silence, hoping Deoris would come out of it by herself ... but finally she forced the issue, unwillingly, but driven by real necessity. This latest development was no daydream, but painfully real.