“Sadyattes is faithful.”
“Says the sand so and the stars so?”
“Says the fact so? The truth of the fact, O Meranes, is what I seek!”
“Should I not seek it too—a man encompassed by dangers? Do I not know that this one conspires and that one conspires? But Sadyattes is my old heart’s friend whom I trust.”
“The worst betrayers call themselves hearts’ friends! Let us try the balls again.” Taking the box he smoothed the sand, shook the balls in his hand and cast them. There appeared a tracing that might be made into the figure of a child. “The genii have sent a good sign!” said Artaxias. “I read it that they have in care the young Alyattes.” He examined the field more closely. “He lies as in a peaceful sleep.”
Meranes looked at the figure of the child. With his own hand he smoothed the sand, then put the box aside. “We watched the stars, and there was a passing of beings bearing lights from one quarter of the heaven to another.” He drank wine. “I go against the host attacking the southern border. On the way thither there is a disloyal town shall be razed to the earth. In the prison here wait men who carried false tales to the king, and ere I go they die in sight of me and of the town. Artificers build me a new palace among the hills, and there comes to me from my brother Seleuces a gift of a hundred golden bowls, a hundred embroidered robes, and a hundred slaves chosen from ten thousand.... Yet, in the round room of my inward thought, these things are only winds and odours!... What is this world and what is Meranes?”
The room of the silver palms was dimmed for coolness and every casement opened to the night. Meranes, rising from the cushions, looked forth, either hand upon carved stone. The star he thought of as peculiarly his own shone at this hour and season above a pillar set between trees. Meranes watched it, white, far, and bright. “How long has it burned, and how long will it burn? Whence came it at first and where will it go? What are its adventures, and what is their weight?”
The magus stood beside him. “Part of the star is dark and part of the star is light. The dark would grow—the light would grow—and they stand in each other’s path. And yet is there but one star! Then comes on the train of happenings, and the sound in the ears of victory and defeat.... That is the star, and you are of the star, and partly dark and partly light.” He wrote in the air with his finger. “May the light grow!”
When an hour had passed the magus went from the satrap’s company. Meranes paced the room alone, then clapped his hands. Attendants came. The master would go now to the seraglio. At his command word had been sent, when he returned from hunting, to Aryenis.