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"Mekare commanded hireat thanks, and told him he was very simply the most powerful of all spirits, but he reat wit as well as his power; and that she would allow hiht time

"Meanti rushed to the aid of Akasha; Khayuards raised their swords to strike us down, she ordered the at her, silently threatening her with this spirit's power, for it was all that we had left And A the air with the hter of a spirit, that seemed then to fill the entire world

"Alone in our cell again, we could not think what to do or how to use what little advantagehad in Amel

"As for Amel himself, he would not leave us He ranted and stormed in the little cell; he arh our hair It was a nuisance But what frightened s of which he boasted That he liked to draw blood; that it pluood; and when the peoples of the world made blood sacrifice upon their altars he liked to come down and slurp up that blood After all, it was there for hihter

"There was a great recoiling in the other spirits Mekare and I both sensed this Except for those ere faintly jealous and demanded to knohat this blood tasted like, and why he liked such a thing so much

"And then it came out-that hatred and jealousy of the flesh which is in sothat we are abominations, we humans, because we have both body and soul, which should not exist on this earth Amel ranted of the times when there had been but s such as us He told us that to have spirit within mortal bodies was a curse

"Now, I had heard these coht much about them For the first time I believed them, just a little, as I lay there and I saw ht as ht before and since that maybe it was a curse to have the concept of io with it

"Or as you said, on this very night, Marius-life seemed not worth it; it seemed a joke My world was darkness at that erI looked at could make me want to be alive

"But Mekare began to speak to A him that she wouldabout forever with nothing iain He would show her what he could do!

" 'When I command you, Amel! she said 'Count upon me to choose the moment Then all men will knohat you can do ' And this childish vain spirit was contented, and spread hiain over the dark sky

"For three nights and days ere kept prisoner The guards would not look at us or come near us Neither would the slaves In fact, ould have starved had it not been for Khayht us food with his own hands

"Then he told us what the spirits had already told us A great controversy raged; the priests wanted us put to death But the Queen was afraid to kill us, that we'd loose these spirits on her, and there would be no way she could drive theued by what had happened; he believed that more could be learned from us; he was curious about the power of the spirits, and to what uses it could be put But the Queen feared it; the Queen had seen enough

"Finally ere brought before the entire court in the great open atrium of the palace

"It was high noon in the kingdood Ra as was the custo to us to see this solemnity; ere afraid these were the last hours of our lives I dreamed then of our ht have borne-fine sons and daughters, and some of them ould have inherited our power-I dreamed of the life that had been taken froht soon be complete I thanked whatever powers that be that I could see blue sky above ether

"At last the King spoke There was a terrible sadness and weariness in hi of an old ift, he told us, but we had misused it, clearly, and could be no use to anyone else For lies, for the worship of deic, he denounced us He would have us burned, he said, to please the people; but he and his Queen felt sorry for us The Queen in particular wanted him to have mercy on us