Cedorpul waved dismissively. ‘Every fad fades in time, historian. If you would be the purveyor of hoary frenzies from before the age of modern enlightenment, then make a study of this chamber. Line the statues into a library of stone and mouldy bronze. Drag up a desk, light a candle, and pen your treatise.’

‘And what treatise would that be, priest?’

Cedorpul shrugged, glancing around. ‘The past is a litany of naїve expectations.’

‘But at last, we are now much wiser.’

‘Just so.’

‘Well, there are indeed some, even other scholars, who find comfort in the belief that past ages in history can be seen as phases of our childhood, thus absolving them of knowing any better, and thus absolving us, in the present, of any lingering sense that maybe, once, long ago, life was better than it is now.’

‘Is this the reason for summoning me? I’d rather a rough draught on a tattered scroll set upon my desk, where I can get to it a few decades from now, when at last I have the time.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Rise Herat replied, still studying the Azathanai bronze. ‘But things are not better, are they?’ He turned, waved a hand in a broad sweep. ‘See here, in our Tarnished Chamber, our surrendered ideals. Such childish optimism!’

Cedorpul began turning away. ‘If that is all—’

‘Speak to me of sorcery.’

The priest paused, twisted to regard him. ‘What do you wish to know?’

‘The reach of your power. Your control over it.’

‘And in this, you are taking an academic interest?’

‘No. In this, I work at the bidding of the High Priestess.’

A faint shadow seemed to crease Cedorpul’s cherubic features, as if showing, in an unguarded instant, his old man’s face belonging to some distant future. ‘She has cause to doubt me now?’

‘Perhaps it is our newfound need, priest, to protect us from ourselves. Cast me in the cloak of a spy. Familiar ground to ease your discomfort.’

‘As court seneschal, I will not embarrass her.’

‘Then you claim to some prowess.’

‘I claim sufficient confidence.’

‘I think, Cedorpul, that both prowess and confidence have swept away the young, cheerful man that I once knew.’

‘Is there more you would ask me?’

‘Who is your enemy?’

‘My enemy?’

‘If you are gathering power – those streams of sorcery – against whom will you unleash it?’

‘I am a servant of Mother Dark.’

‘That kind of servant she has not asked for, Cedorpul.’

The priest suddenly bared his teeth. ‘Ah, yes, I recall now. Your mysterious audience with Mother Dark, in the company of Lanear and that Azathanai. But the details of that meeting? Why, none of you deigned to inform me, or anyone else for that matter. I hear that you earned Lord Silchas Ruin’s ire, and even this did not sway you. Thus, a well of secret knowing that you can draw from at will, as it suits your moment of need.’