This act, according to Tedric's plan, was to end the program--but it didn't. Long before the fiery mass struck water his attention was seized by a long, low-pitched, moaning gasp from a multitude of throats; a sound the like of which he had never before even imagined. He whirled--and saw, shimmering in a cage-like structure of shimmering bars, a form of seeming flesh so exactly like the copper image in every detail of shape that it might well have come from the same mold! "Lord Llosir--in the _flesh_!" Tedric exclaimed, and went to one knee. So did the king and his family, and a few of the bravest of the courtiers. Most of the latter, however, and the girl acolytes and the thronging thousands of spectators, threw themselves flat on the hard ground. They threw themselves flat, but they did not look away or close their eyes or cover their faces with their hands. On the contrary, each one stared with all the power of his optic nerves. The god's mouth opened, his lips moved; and, although no one could hear any sound, everyone felt words resounding throughout the deepest recesses of his being. "I have taken all the strength, all the power, all the force, all of everything that made Sarpedion what he was," the god began. In part his pseudo-voice was the resonant clang of a brazen bell; in part the diapason harmonies of an impossibly vast organ. "I will use them for good, not for ill. I am glad, Tedric, that you did not defile my hearth--for this is a hearth, remember, and in no sense an altar--in making this, the first and the _only_ sacrifice ever to be made to me. You, Trycie, are the first of my priestesses?" The girl, shaking visibly, gulped three times before she could speak. "Yea, my--my--Lord Llosir," she managed finally. "Th--that is--if--if I please you, Lord Sir." "You please me, Trycie of Lomarr. Nor will your duties be onerous; being only to see to it that your maidens keep my hearth clean and my statue bright." "To you, my Lord--Llo--Llosir, sir, all thanks. Wilt keep...." Trycie raised her downcast eyes and stopped short in mid-sentence; her mouth dropping ludicrously open and her eyes becoming two round O's of astonishment. The air above the yawning abyss was as empty as it had ever been; the flesh-and-blood god had disappeared as instantaneously as he had come! Tedric's heavy voice silenced the murmured wave of excitement sweeping the bowl. "That is all!" he bellowed. "I did not expect the Lord Llosir to appear in the flesh at this time; I know not when or ever he will deign to appear to us again. But this I know--whether or not he ever so deigns, or when, you all know now that our great Lord Llosir lives. Is it not so?" "'Tis so! Long live Lord Llosir!" Tumultuous yelling filled the amphitheater.