Noreê!” uttered another vocate, a dark-haired man who moved with catlike grace and wore a sword at his side. “Please ignore my colleague’s ill-temper, Nimue. Talk as it suits you—though it’s true that it doesn’t matter what you say. The real questions, and answers, will not involve words.”
“They never do. Naevros,” she added impishly, reading his name floating on the surface of his mind. He had been thinking of introducing himself but then thought better of it.
His pleasant face didn’t twitch, but inwardly he recoiled violently when he realized what she’d done.
The gray-caped thains weren’t as self-controlled and moved farther away, as if that made their thoughts safer from intrusion. Since they were taking her to have her thoughts intruded on, Nimue found this amusing and laughed outright.
“Well, Guardians,” said a tall, bendable, fair-haired vocate, “she’s either got nerves of stone or she has no idea what’s ahead of her. Or she’s crazy. Or maybe there’s something I haven’t thought of; it’s just barely possible. Madam, I’m called Jordel. Naevros you know, and he has introduced Noreê to you. It remains to me to introduce the brooding silent craglike figure yonder, known with bitter irony as Illion the Wise.”
Illion’s wry jester’s face grinned a little wider and he said, “Ignore him, Nimue. We all do.”
“Except when you need me.”
“We never need him. Shall we introduce the thains, too, Jordel, or should we be off?”
“First, you should be off. Second, she already knows their names. Third, I can’t remember their names. Fourth, I don’t want to know their names, because I don’t anticipate needing the services of these quivering custards in gray capes on any future occasion.”
Sullenly, the thains closed in again, their clenched determination to do their duty like heads of barley on the long wavering stalks of their fear.
Jordel and Illion led the way with two of the thains while the others followed. As he walked Jordel chatted with her, the thains, Illion, and stray passersby—either to set her at ease, or to pass the time, or because he couldn’t bear to do otherwise. Underneath he was like steel—so guarded in his thoughts that she wondered if even he could hear them.
They came finally to the old wall of the city. It had long since fallen into ruin through disuse, but the Chamber of Stations was there, where the ruined wall met the river Ruleijn. There the Graith of Guardians had met since before there was history (so Earno said). The chamber was faced and domed in red marble, a beautiful if somewhat sinister shade, reminding her of dried blood. A single thain stood on the steps outside the chamber, spinning her heavy spear idly in her fingers as if it were a stylus. Her hair was mingled red and black; her eyes were amber; her skin was pale; her mouth was like a wound. She frightened Nimue more than anyone she had met in the Wardlands.
“Maijarra, my dear—” Jordel began.
“I’m not your dear.”
“Thain Maijarra, then. We want to return these thains for the money back, please. They were quite useless.”
Maijarra’s yellow eyes scanned the abashed thains. “Oh?”
“Yes. Fortunately, Nimue came along quietly. Otherwise Illion and I would have had to subdue her with bare fisticuffs.”
“What’s a fisticuff?”
“How should I know, and me being a man of peace?”
“I’ll talk to them. The others are inside.”
The thains stayed behind and spoke with Maijarra in low voices while Nimue and the vocates mounted the gray steps to the door of the red dome.
The others, many others, were indeed there. The barrel of the dome was ringed with windows and there was plenty of light, but still Nimue felt a darkness and a chill in that chamber. There was a round table on a dais, and standing at the table were many red-cloaked figures: the vocates of the Graith of Guardians.
Earno was not standing with them. He stood at the foot of the dais along with Merlin, whose wrists were bound with golden cords. Earno was speaking passionately about something. The First Decree, or monarchy, or freedom, or something. But he was thinking about slaughtering season on his family’s farm, how he used to run and hide, how they always dragged him there to watch the killing and, on one nightmarish occasion, to actually kill a beast: an old ram with scraggly wool. In Earno’s mind, Merlin was that ram, which Nimue thought was quite amusing. She was less amused to realize that her face was on one of the dead beasts