Each Stone of the sacred inner circle was now occupied by a figure. The candidates and the two local Lords of the Sun were there in the flesh; the others were in astral form, visitors from across the world, from China, from Egypt, from the high Himalayas and the low-lying rainforests of the tropics... Quilla was there from Crete, the Island of the Bulls. She was no longer as young as she had been when Kyra first encountered her — the fearless acrobat who danced with bulls — but her body was still lithe and firm and her carriage proud. She might teach more than she performed these days but the crowds still roared with admiration at her appearance among the athletes in the great bull-yard, and she had lost nothing of her physical, mental and spiritual agility. Kyra and Khu-ren allowed themse
