"In the sky, miss!" whimpered Ogma.
Disconcertingly, Ogma fell on her knees at Maia's feet.
"Oh, Miss Maia, don't be angry! It isn't only me! Everyone's that scared-everyone! I went up on the roof-only
I'd forgotten I'd left the clothes there to dry-and there it was! They're all out in the streets-everyone-"
This certainly sounded like trouble of some sort. What could it be-a riot? Bad news from one of the battle-fronts? She listened, but there was nothing to be heard. She turned to the man, shrugged her shoulders and asked him to be so good as to accompany her. Together they went upstairs and then up the flight of outside steps onto the flat roof.
The previous two nights had been, for once in a way, cloudy-at all events to the north and west-but tonight the sky was as clear as usual at midsummer. The sight that met their eyes caused Maia to start back with a cry, clutching at the parapet.
In the northern sky, fairly low though well clear of the horizon, hung a brilliant luminescence. "Star" it could scarcely be called, first because it was far brighter than any star, but secondly because its refulgence had an unde-marcated, gaseous quality, like an incandescent vapor, dimming at the periphery to become a kind of glowing fog as it spread into the surrounding void. From its lower edge tapered a streamer of filmy, powdery light, slightly inclined to the left, giving the whole phenomenon the likeness of a sword poised above the distant Gelt mountains. It appeared perfectly still and (unlike stars, which look like bright studs fixed into the sky and left there), as though invisibly but intentionally displayed by some supernatural agency.
Maia, oblivious of the man beside her, stared at it in dread. After a time (she did not know how long), like someone in a disaster or a wreck vaguely recalling the appointed procedure, she tried to stand unaided and extend her arms in the customary posture of prayer; but her knees gave way and she turned and clung once more to the parapet.
Faintly, in the lower city below, she could discern that the roofs were covered with people. There were all manner of sounds-calls and crying, ululations of prayer, what sounded like some soldiers raggedly singing a marching song-rising together in a cacophonous tumult, like that of a herd of frightened beasts, out of the obscure dimness. Yes, she thought; that was one thing the noises had in common; they all expressed fear. Yet the light itself was calm and silent as a seraph.
At this moment Sarget's man touched her arm.
"Saiyett, you're afraid: I'm afraid, too. This is a portent. Lespa's displeased, and who can tell why? But whatever it may foretell, the star itself won't do anything; nor we shan't alter anything, you and I, by standing here and letting it terrify us. Whatever's going to happen won't happen tonight."
Maia hardly heard him. The terrible thing, she thought, about the enigmatic light was its inescapability. You could not fly from it, you could not shut it out. If you were to run from Bekla to Zeray, it would still be there above you.
The man spoke again. "Saiyett, I'm just someone who works for U-Sarget, and you're a great lady of the upper city; I know that. But there are times-there are things- well, I've got two married daughters older than you. We're all men and women, saiyett-to Lespa we are. May I advise you?"
She nodded abstractedly.
"You swam the river, saiyett. That lot down there- you're their heroine. Whatever's coming, we can all try to keep our dignity, wouldn't you agree? Set them an example, you know."
Maia was highly suggestible and, as we know, it seldom took her long to make up her mind. "Yes, I
It is, on the whole, easier to appear brave when you already have a reputation that way and feel that courage is expected of you. Maia's third soldier was nowhere to be found, but this did not bother her now. Within twenty minutes the Serrelinda, dressed to kill, unveiled and seated in her golden jekzha, was entering the lower city through the Peacock Gate.
There was light enough for her to be recognized; and recognized she was, before she had gone two hundred yards down the Street of the Armourers. A big, brawny man-plainly one of the smiths-broke away from a crowd of his mates and ran across to the jekzha.
"Yes, it is the Serrelinda!" he called back over his shoulder. Then, standing squarely in the way and looking up at her, "What's up, lass? Are you leaving the city, or what?"
"Leaving? Of course I'm not leaving!" she answered.
There were seven or eight of them clustered round her now. "What on earth would I be leaving for?"
Their answers came all at once, like a handful of gravel thrown at her.
