I looked down at my left hand, and saw that it was holding a winged fish, carved of black wood. I had not been conscious of picking it up, but must have taken it to toy with while I spoke. I put it down as Sahuset asked.

"I will require a drop of blood from you," he said, "and a drop of blood from an impure woman."

"I will gladly give you a drop of mine," I told him, "and go into the city to find such a woman for you, if you wish it."

From a drawer Sahuset took a long, straight knife with a thin blade of bronze, the tongue of the crocodile of green stone that formed its grip. "I doubt that will be necessary," he said.

He took my left hand in his and examined all its fingers, looking, as it seemed to me, for the places in which they had touched the fish. At last he pricked the fourth finger, and squeezed drops of blood into a small red bottle.

"And you," he said, motioning to Myt-ser'eu.

She came forward, trembling. He did not search her fingers as he had searched mine, but pricked the palm of her hand, caught her blood in the blood-groove of the blade, and crossing the room to the corner where Sabra stood, presented it to her.

She dabbled her fingers in it and dabbed it on her face, reddening her cheeks with it. That was the last time I saw her move.

When it was done, he poured water into a wide bowl and dropped the red bottle that held my blood into it. From a metal box he took dust the color of old blood, which he sprinkled with great care over the surface of the water.

We waited for a time that seemed long to me. At length the surface was disturbed, as if by a frog or some such creature swimming below it. This persisted for a time, then ceased. Sahuset peered intently at the pattern of floating dust, sighed, stroked his chin, and last picked up the bowl and dashed its contents on the floor. "You have been cursed by a foreign goddess," he said, "a goddess of the north."