at his rival and glaring up at him with malicious and baneful eyes. But
the other still maintained his strange silence and met his look
unmoved.

Prince Ember watching this phantom of himself from the shelter of the
Cloak of Ash, marvelled at the power of the Shadow Witch who, by her
magic, could so delude their foe. As he watched, he held himself in
readiness to draw his sword when his companion gave the word.

Still higher towered the phantom Prince, and after him sprang Curling
Smoke, wreathing his murky spirals upward, and crying out more and more
boisterously as he grew the more enraged by every vain effort to reach
and overleap him.

The two had almost reached the dome, and Prince Ember's hand tightened
on his Sword, for he felt that the time to use it was near.

"Not yet, my Prince," whispered the Shadow Witch. "Not yet."

An arm's length higher she sent her phantom, and made him pause. Seeing
this, sure now that his enemy could go no further, Curling Smoke shot up
with lightning swiftness and stood above him at last, stretched to his
full height, an immensely tall and straight and slender column, poised
on tiptoe to spring and overleap him. His voice rang out hoarsely. "Ah,
now you shall not escape me! At last your time has come!"

"Strike!" breathed the Shadow Witch to the waiting Prince. "Strike now!"

Swiftly Prince Ember threw back the Cloak of Ash. The Sword of Fire
glowed red as it swung through the air, and redder still as it struck
the limbs of Curling Smoke and clove them. As the strange heat of that
fairy Sword rushed through his giant frame, Curling Smoke became as
naught. His limbs were seized with faintness and trembling. The phantom
Prince vanished suddenly from before him, and his own Veil that Blinds
rose in darkening folds across his eyes. The Veil that Chokes swept
across his mouth, and his turbulent voice was stilled. He began to
shrink upward, to waver and fade, and presently he drifted helplessly
into the great smoke dome and was swallowed up in it.

Then, also, before the mighty heat that flowed from the Sword of Fire,
the walls and dome of the vast smoke chamber, and the smoke wreaths upon
the ground, were themselves dissolved, and Prince Ember and the Shadow
Witch stood free in the Plain of Ash.

"Ah, my brave Prince! By your Sword of Fire, how gloriously you have
conquered!" exclaimed the Shadow Witch, with sparkling eyes.

"Forget not the magic of my dear Lady of the Shadows,