“Wilt thou listen, Heavenly Eyes?”
“I hear thee, Yarghouz.”
“Listen then, Keuke Mongol. Take life from us as we offer it. Life is sweet. Erlik, like a spider, waits in darkness for lost souls that flutter to his net.”
“You think my soul was lost there in the temple, Yarghouz?”
“Unutterably lost, little temple girl of Yian. Therefore, live. Take life as a gift!”
“Whose gift?”
“Sanang’s.”
“It is written,” she said gravely, “that we belong to God and we return to him. Now then, Yezidee, do your duty as I do mine! Kai!”
At the sound of the formula always uttered by the sect of Assassins when about to do murder, the young man started and shrank back. The west wind blew fresh in his startled eyes.
“Sorceress,” he said less firmly, “you leave your Yiort to come all alone into this forest and seek me. Why then have you come, if not to submit!—if not to take the gift of life—if not to turn away from your seducers who are hunting me, and who have corrupted you?”