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powers were dead in me as Karrakaz had said, how had I healed? How? Or had they healed themselves by their own belief in me? It was their hands which had snatched mine. And I seemed to remember a book with an open page:
    â€œMaster,” cried the woman, “heal me, for I am sick as you see.” And he said: “Do you believe that I can do this thing?” And the woman wept and said: “Yes, if you will.” “Then, as you believe, so be it,” he said, and went away, not even touching her. And she was healed at once.
    The tenth day. Outside: noise, hammering, shouting, sound of moving logs of wood, a work-gang singing. At midday a bell beating to summon who would to a communal meal. Darak and his men had organized things very well it seemed.
    Then a great crunching of feet, laughter, voices. After that, quiet. A vast, warm noonday quiet, and a slow, still yellow heat.
    I crossed the floor to the doorway of the temple, and stood there. The village was a different thing, caged in places by scaffolding, here and there rebuilt and half-patched with tiles. Far up the street a rough wooden shelter, a brass bell—pulled from some temple roof presumably—swinging a little on a pole outside. A cow wandered lazily in the sunshine. Otherwise, the place was empty. Darak had called them to some council then, on the low hill beyond the houses. Yes, that would be it. A little king on a little throne, lording it because his subjects were smaller even than his smallness.
    My eyes slid to the volcano. Dark pinnacle, without a cloud. Asleep again, sated, terrible for all that. A black two-edged sword waiting in the sky, to let fall its red blows on the back of the land, whenever its passion moved it. There then, is the king, Darak.
    A darting movement, snake’s-tongue flicker over rock.
    A woman hurried across the open space before the temple, casting an indigo shadow. A man stirred uneasily in a doorway, holding a stave, looking up the road to where the people had followed Darak.
    â€œHelp us!” cried this woman. “Our three children are sick, and the doctor from Sirrain has said they’ll die. I couldn’t bring them—they screamed when I tried to move them.”
    I looked at her closely. She was no more than twenty years. Perhaps I was her age. But she looked old, her young face creased into lines, her hair faded by the sun.
    â€œQuickly, Mara,” the man hissed from across the street.
    â€œPlease,” she said.
    â€œDo you believe the goddess can cure your children without seeing them?”
    â€œYes—oh, yes—”
    â€œThen believe I can, and they will be cured.”
    Her face changed, the lines smoothed out, ripples running from a pool.
    There was noise from the hill.
    â€œMara!” the man cried.
    She turned to run with him.
    â€œWait,” I said. They stopped, nervous, anxious not to offend either Darak or myself. “Tell whom you wish,” I said, “whoever invokes my name, believing in it, can cure or be cured of any sickness. There is no longer any need to come to me.”
    They made obeisance to me, blessing me, then ran like frightened mice.
    Dust billowed down the street. The crowd was coming back, noisier than ever. There had been wine up on the hill. A small shrine there, perhaps, some old sacred meeting place Darak had thought would impress them.
    There was a stone bench set at the top of the temple steps. I sat on it, waiting.
    The cow ran down the street first in fright, lowing indignantly. Then came men, talking, impatient, grasping wineskins, followed by groups of women. Darak’s people were easily spotted. They were better dressed than the villagers, and more gaudy. Leather boots with tattered silk tassels, silk shirts, scarlet and purple. Belts with iron studs, gold rings, fringes on the jackets—torn like the tassels, not so much from wear as from hard fighting. Mostly they were men, but five or six girls