Maia

Yet now before the girls' eyes was disclosed a sight even more astonishing than that of the Leopard gathering. Beyond the precinct, on the right bank of the Monju brook where it ran out of the city beneath the walls, stood the fabled Tamarrik Gate, designed and constructed eighty years before by the great Fleitil, grandfather of Fleitil the sculptor. This, a wonder of the empire rivalled only by the Barons' Palace and the Ledges of Quiso, was (until its

destruction by the Ortelgans several years later) an integral part of the cult of Cran, conferring upon it a numinous splendor virtually irresistible alike to the dullest heart and the most skeptical mind. In function it was a water-clock, driven like a mill by the brook; but this is like saying that Alexander the Great was a soldier.

A swift-flowing carrier from the Monju encircled the whole area of the Tamarrik, its shelving i

Immediately within the ring of the carrier stood a double half-circle of sycamores, between the leaves of which (the water driving their concealed mechanism) appeared from time to time, half-visible, the likenesses of the seven deities of the empire-Cran, Airtha, Shakkarn, Lespa, Shardik, Canathron and Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable.

The Tamarrik Court itself faced due south towards the temple precinct and Storks Hill. In the center, on a circular bronze platform ten yards in diameter, stood the sundial of Cran. The life-sized, naked figure of the god, cast in bronze covered with silver leaf, reclined on a bed of malachite grass, speckled with red and blue flowers of car-nelian and aquamarine. Its great, erect zard, stylized and engraved with fruit, flowers and ears of corn, formed the gnomon of the dial, and round it, in a shallow spiral precisely designed and placed for the indication of time throughout the day, stood, in various postures of an arrested, ecstatic dance, twelve silver girls, each the guardian of an hour-point on the dial at her feet and herself representing one of the empire's twelve provinces or independent domains-Bekla, Belishba, Chalcon, Gelt, Lapan and Kabin of the Waters: Ortelga, Paltesh, Tonilda, Ur-tah, Yelda and Sarkid of the Sheaves. The spiral dial above which they danced was a concave groove, about a foot broad. At its summit sat a golden, purple-lacquered kynat-bird, which every hour, by the operation of the water, released, as though laying an egg, a silver ball to roll down the spiral and be caught at its foot in a cup held by the figure of a kneeling child. (To keep the sundial and wa-

terclock in synchronicity, a skilled task, required continual vigilance and adjustment and was carried out by six of the priesthood, their sole duty being to attend to this business from dawn till sunset.)

Behind and above the dial, but in front of the square gateway at the back of the Tamarrik Court, stood the famous concentric spheres of silver filigree-threads crisscrossing between slender, silver ribs-which represented the city and the sky above it. Bekla, standing in the midst of an open plain, commanded a virtually hemispherical view of the stars and accordingly, accurate observation of their places and movement had been a function of the priesthood from earliest times. The i

A stone canopy protected the spheres from wind and weather, and this bore on its pediment four dials which showed the month of the year, the phase of the moon, the day and the hour. From its roof one end of a narrow bronze bar, trough-shaped, projected over the courtyard below. This was balanced on a fulcrum mounted on the parapet, and its padded i

Beyond the gate, just outside the city walls, stood the grove of tamarrik trees universally believed to be sprung from the seed cast down from Crandor's summit, ages

before, by Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable. That the whole marvel stood in a deliberately-made breach in the walls symbolized the impossibility of an enemy ever taking the city by storm.

Occula and Maia, halting on the edge of the precinct while the High Counselor's litter was carried on into the temple, stood gazing in awe and astonishment at one and another part of the wonder before them. Maia, unable to imagine the purpose or meaning of the dials (except that they were obviously magical and on that account disturbing), was nevertheless delighted by the nympholeptic spiral of hours, the reclining god and the purple-and-gold kynat above. Gazing, she remembered with amusement how, on the night of the Rains banquet, she had been disconcerted by the sight of the erotic fountain in the Lord General's lower hall.

"What the hell are you gigglin' about?" asked Occula rather tensely.

"Just thinking I know now why you're always swearing by Cran's zard," answered Maia.

"He did even better than that, though, did Fleitil," said Occula, with more composure. "D'you know what happens at the ceremony?"

"Well, yes, kind of-that's to say, Tharrin told me a bit about it, once."

Suddenly she caught her breath, all her ribaldry gone as for an instant the face of Lespa looked out at her from among the leaves.

"Oh, Occula! Did you see?" She turned and, despite the crowd and the blaze of noon, seemed almost ready to run.

"Steady!" said the black girl. "It's only a trick, banzi. Cran and Airtha! you were Lespa yourself the other night- and very good, too, by all I hear."

"Why, whatever can valuable property like you two be doing standing out here in the boiling sun?" said a voice behind them.

They both looked round. It was Ne

"Oh, we're just gettin' toasted, ready for the supper-

party by the Barb tonight," said Occula. "It'll go easier with sunstroke, I dare say."

"But have you really been told that you've got to stand out here all through the ceremony?" persisted Ne

"Well, tell you the truth, I'm not sure," answered Maia. "Reckon as long as we're back here 'fore the ena"-"

"You can't go in?"

"We're slaves, aren't we?" said Occula.

Ne