"Lassies, if my wife ever saw me like this she'd never let me live it down."
Myrceria tapped him playfully with one manicured finger. "You look handsome, admit it. We did a good job, ladies, although he wasn't so bad to start out."
Tier looked at himself in the mirror again. If he looked carefully, he could see how the outfit might have been inspired by Traveler's garments. They wore the loose pants and the knee-length tunic - but one of the things that Seraph liked about Rederni clothes was the bright colors. Her own people wore mostly undyed fabrics or earth tones.
Tier sighed, "I'm glad there's no one here who knows me. I'd never live this down."
They covered his magnificent gaudiness with a brown robe and pulled its hood down to hide his face.
"There now," said Myrceria. "You are ready." She hesitated, and the practiced manner of a court whore faded a little. "You've made our job easier," she said. "Let me help you a little. The wizards will be waiting when we take you out the door. Go with them quietly; they won't hurt you. They'll escort you through the Eyrie - the largest room that belongs to the Path. It's an auditorium tonight, but usually it is just a room for people to gather in. The wizards will take you to the stage at the end and introduce you to the Passerines and whatever Raptors decided to come."
He took her hand in his and bent to kiss it. "Thank you for your kindness, Myrceria. Ladies."
There were four men in black robes waiting for him, just as Myrceria had promised. Like him, their hoods were pulled over their faces.
Tier hesitated in the doorway, unprepared for the fearful reluctance he felt at the sight of them and the sudden conviction that he'd seen the knobby hands of the man nearest him holding a small knife wet with blood.
He repressed his fear and the anger it called. With a small smile he set himself in the center of the procession.
"Shall we go, gentlemen?" he said pleasantly.
The Eyrie was made up of broad shelves of level flooring with short drops between sections; the level shelves narrowed as they neared the stage at the far side of the room.
The uppermost section, where Tier and his escort entered, was mostly occupied by a bar laden with food. Behind the bar was an open doorway where servants appeared with trays of food or armloads of ale mugs.
There were a few tables against the wall with white-robed men who watched Tier mostly indifferently. But most of the people in the room were young men in blue robes who quieted as the procession passed them by. By the time they reached the stage, the room was eerily silent.
The wizards walked Tier onto the stage and stopped in the middle, turning as one to face the audience. As soon as they stood there, the lights in the Eyrie dimmed except for the stones that lined the edge of the stage.
Squinting against the odd light, Tier saw that everyone in the room was slowly moving down to the chairs set in front of the stage. When they had all gathered, a hollow boom made the Eyrie shudder, and in a cloud of smoke and magic, a fifth black-robed man appeared: Telleridge.
He stood bareheaded before the crowd so that every man there could see him.
"My friends," he said. "For some of you, this will be the first introduction to the secrets of our path. Traveler Magic from the hands of the Five Gods." He lifted his right hand up and displayed an implement that looked like a morningstar without the spiked ball. Instead, dangling on the end of the chain was a large, silver owl.
"Owl who is Bard," he said.
The man on Tier's left front held up a similar item with a raven rather than an owl. "Raven who is Mage," he said.
Five gods? thought Tier. If they were using the Orders they were missing one. The other wizards called out Lark, Cormorant, and Falcon; but there was no Eagle. He would have fretted about it more, but he remembered where he'd heard of the Five Gods before: the new priest in Redern. Seraph, he thought in panic, my children - who would they take next?
A flood of magic interrupted Tier's worrying.
"For centuries," Telleridge said, his voice carried to the far corners of the room by magic, "the Travelers hid their power from us -