Rhydon bowed wordlessly, his eyes slightly mocking.

“Then I bid you good evening,” Thorne said—and vanished.

HIGH on a guarded plateau, in a great, octagonal chamber with a vault like faceted amethyst, the Camberian Council was gathering.

Beneath the purple dome, an expanse of onyx floor tile caught the gleam of hammered metal doors extending from floor to ceiling on one side of the room. Wood-limned panels of ancient ivory, richly carved, angled the other seven walls, light from scores of new wax tapers flickering on the incised figures of men and women famed in Deryni history. Brighter brands, thick as a man’s wrist, blazed in golden cressets on the wood between the panels. The center of the room held only a massive, eight-sided table and eight high-backed chairs. By five of the chairs stood Deryni.

Three men and two women stood at ease under the purple dome, all save one garbed in the gold and violet raiment of the Deryni Inner Circle. The lone exception, Denis Arilan, held himself aloof and somber in his black cassock and purple bishop’s cloak, nodding occasionally in response to a conversation between the stately Lady Vivienne to his right and a dark, intense young man with almond-colored eyes: Tiercel de Claron.

Across the table, a white-haired man with pale, translucent hands was speaking with a girl half a century his junior. The girl smiled and listened with interest, her tawny-colored hair pulled like a flame at the nape of her neck. Arilan suppressed a yawn, then turned as the golden doors parted to admit Thorne Hagen.

Thorne appeared to be upset, his normally florid face pale save for two spots of color high on his plump cheeks. He glanced away as he saw Arilan looking at him, hurrying across the room to engage in conversation with the girl and the old man at the opposite side of the table. He calmed as he spoke to them, his face resuming its usual, disarming expression, but not before Arilan saw him wipe sweating palms surreptitiously against his thighs, or soon enough to hide the slight tremor in his hands as he hid them in his violet sleeves.

Curious, Arilan turned half-away and pretended to follow the conversation of his two companions, schooling his expression to one of indifference, but his mind was not on the hunting tale Lady Vivienne was relating.

Something had shaken Thorne’s composure tonight, but what? No human, surely. And if Deryni, then Thorne certainly had nothing to fear in this, of all places. Even if Thorne had provoked the ire of another Deryni, he was safe in here. No Deryni might raise power against his fellows while in the confines of this chamber. Indeed, unless a majority of those present willed it so, and the subject was also willing, no magic might function here at all. The bond of protection was sealed by a blood-oath required of every member, raised and renewed with the acquisition of each new initiate to the Inner Circle. No danger lay here for Thorne Hagen.