Now she shrank back as though a knife had pricked her.

“Oh! blame me not,” she moaned, “it was but policy which bound me to this madman, whom I ever loathed.  They urged me to it; yes, even you, Simbri, my uncle, and for that deed accursed be your head—­urged me, saying that it was necessary to end the war between Rassen’s faction and my own.  That I was the last of the true race, moreover, which must be carried on; saying also that my dreams and my rememberings were but sick phantasies.  So, alas! alas!  I yielded, thinking to make my people great.”

“And yourself, the greatest of them, if all I hear is true,” commented Leo bluntly, for he was determined to end this thing.  “Well, I do not blame you, Khania, although now you tell me that I must cut a knot you tied by taking the life of this husband of your own choice, for so forsooth it is decreed by fate, that fate which you have shaped.  Yes, I must do what you will not do, and kill him.  Also your tale of the decree of the heavens and of that vision which led you to the precipice to save us is false.  Lady, you met me by the river because the ‘mighty’ Hesea, the Spirit of the Mountain, so commanded you.”

“How know you that?” Atene said, springing up and facing him, while the jaw of old Simbri dropped and the eyelids blinked over his glazed eyes.

“In the same way that I know much else.  Lady, it would have been better if you had spoken all the truth.”

Now Atene’s face went ashen and her cheeks sank in.

“Who told you?” she whispered.  “Was it you, Magician?” and she turned upon her uncle like a snake about to strike.  “Oh! if so, be sure that I shall learn it, and though we are of one blood and have loved each other, I will pay you back in agony.”

“Atene, Atene,” Simbri broke in, holding up his claw-like hands, “you know well it was not I.”

“Then it was you, you ape-faced wanderer, you messenger of the evil gods?  Oh! why did I not kill you at the first?  Well, that fault can be remedied.”

“Lady,” I said blandly, “am I also a magician?”

“Aye,” she answered, “I think that you are, and that you have a mistress who dwells in fire.”

“Then, Khania,” I said, “such servants and such mistresses are ill to meddle with.  Say, what answer has the Hesea sent to your report of our coming to this land?”

“Listen,” broke in Leo before she could reply.  “I go to ask a certain question of the Oracle on yonder mountain peak.  With your will or without it I tell you that I go, and afterwards you can settle which is the stronger—­the Khania of Kaloon or the Hesea of the House of Fire.”