geomancers.”

“Ah, but,” cried Prince Balein of Targamon, “but I have here a smoke-colored veil embroidered with tiny gold stars and ink-horns; and it enables one to pass 43through the ardent gateway of Audela, the country that lies behind the fire. This is the realm of Sesphra: there is no grieving in this land, and happiness and infallibility are common to everybody there, because Sesphra is the master of an art which corrodes and sears away all error, whether it be human or divine.”

43

Prince Duneval of Orc said nothing. His mutely tendered offering was a small mirror about three inches square. Morvyth looked into this mirror: and what she saw in it was very little like a sumptuous dark young girl. She hastily put aside that gleaming and over-wise counselor: and the Queen’s face was troubled, because there was no need to ask what mirror Duneval had fetched to her from out of Antan.

But Thorgny of Vigeois did not love silence. And he was the next suitor.

“Such knickknacks as I notice at your feet, my princess,” stated Thorgny of Vigeois, “have their merits. Nobody denies their merits. But I, who may now address you with the frankness which ought to exist between two persons already virtually betrothed, I bring that sigil which gave wisdom and all power to Apollonius, and later to Merlin Ambrosius. It displays, as you observe, an eye encircled with scorpions and stags and”—he coughed,—“with winged objects which do not ordinarily have wings: and it controls the nine million spirits of the air. I need say no more.”

“I need to,” said Prince Gurguint. “I say that I 44have here the shining triangle of Thorston. And to say that, is to say a great deal more than Thorgny has said. For this triangle is master of the wisdom of the Duergar and of all peoples that dwell underground. Moreover, madame, when this triangle is inverted—thus,—it enables you to bless and curse at will, to converse with dead priests, and to control the power and the seven mysteries of the moon.”

44

“To such hole and corner wisdom, to such cave-men devices, and more especially to your lunar vaporings, I cry out like a bird upon the house-tops, and I cry, Cheap, cheap!” observed Prince Clofurd. “For I have here, in this shagreen case, the famous and puissant and unspeakably sacrosanct ring of Solomon, to whose wearer are subject the Djinns and the ass-footed Nazi-keen and fourteen of Jahveh’s most discreet and 

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