At a command from Rhaen, a company of the priests bore the struggling form of a man from behind the pillars and proceeded to chain him down on the basalt slab near its center. He was fettered and gagged; but even so trussed up, he fought frantically, giving the priests much trouble before they had him chained in such a fashion that he could scarcely move a limb.
Now came the turn of Rose.
As the priests bore her to the altar and lifted her, she saw that the man who lay there was Ensign Brooks, of the Minnetonka. He had been fetched from the mines by order of Rhaen to take the place of Everson. When the girl saw the young sailor, chubby and cheerful no longer, but worn to skin and bones, and with eyes that glared in their sockets, she would have cried out in horror and pity—for to the last she thought not of herself—but she was gagged and helpless to utter one word of comfort.
Brooks saw her as she was borne past him, and he struggled terribly. His utmost effort resulted only in a violent shaking of his head.
The servants of Rhaen chained Rose to the rock midway between the sailor and the head of the bull. Aided by his priests, Rhaen clambered onto the rock and took his stand at the foot of the orichalcum pillar. He bent his head in prayer. While his lips moved, the priests knelt on the pavement with lifted hands and upturned faces. Every eye was fixed on the dome. Whatever was to come, it was evident that it would proceed thence.
Lying on the black altar, doomed to be the first sacrifice to Shamar in the Feast of Years, Rose for a time was dazed and near to fainting. Then her mind cleared, and a mad whirl of tortured thought began. What of Polaris? With the memory of her lover came a stab of grief so keen that it banished all fear of the priests and what they could do. No pain that they could bring to her body could be so terrible as this anguish that made her very soul quail.
Minutes passed. Again she became calm and fell to studying her surroundings. What manner of doom was coming? Fire in some shape, she was sure. She had noticed that the surface of the basalt slab was deeply scored down its center, where she and Brooks were chained, and its substance was crumbled and calcined as if by the passing of a fierce heat many times repeated. She besought her God that before Shamar struck, her senses might leave her, so might she die in peace.
Rhaen prayed on. Above in the dome the brilliant colors played and shifted. Their magnificence hurt the girl's eyes, and she closed them. Would the end never come? Out in the city the din of war swelled louder.
Bel-Ar spoke harshly, bidding Rhaen delay not. The arch-priest quit his mumbled prayer long enough to reply with some show of spirit that the doings of the god could not be hastened.
The truth of the matter was, Rhaen was proceeding slowly, and with a reason. Rhaen was a politician. He had watched through the long weeks the course of war, and he did not find it hard to guess whose would be the ultimate victory. When that time came, what mercy would the king of Ruthar show to those who had given his lady to the tortures of Shamar? He lifted his hands high above his head, finally, and led his priests in a sonorous chant.