Slowly Karamy rose to her feet. There was no hope in her eyes; no mercy
in Gamine's. The two pairs of eyes, cat-yellow and blue, fought for a
moment; it was Karamy's that fell. The Dreamer woman smiled faintly.
"My brothers and my sisters," she said at last, "Karamy is beautiful,
is she not?"
I suppose no woman on earth has ever been or ever will be as beautiful
as Karamy the Golden. She stood proudly, turning to Adric, and I saw
longing and love break forth in the man's eyes. He gazed and gazed, and
Karamy laughed and held out her arms, and Adric, bemused, went toward
her--
"Hold him," commanded Narayan tersely.
One of the Dreamers made a curious sign with his left hand and Adric
was arrested; stood gripped in a vise of invisible force.
"See?" Gamine said in a ringing voice, "But now see Karamy--shorn of
the Illusion her Dreamer threw! See the form of Karamy that she made
_me_ wear! _This!_" She reached out and touched Karamy with
the little Talisman she held.
There was a gasp of horror from many throats. Karamy--Karamy the
Golden--there are no words for the change that took place before our
eyes. I was sick and retching with horror before the metamorphosis was
half complete, and turned away my eyes; Cynara was sobbing softly into
her skirt; but Adric, frozen, could not look away.
Gamine's laugh--low and sweet and doubly deadly for its
sweetness--reached my ears. "Shall I lend you my veils--sister?" She
murmured, mocking, and again the horrible laugh. "NO? Go _forth_!"
Her voice was a lashing whip, and with a broken wail, the thing that
had been Karamy threw up an arm across the staring sockets and fled
away into the night. And we never saw it again.