Umru stood up and bowed, with his hands clasped across his large belly. “Madam Chancellor, I would hate to be selected on false pretenses. I am probably one of the few people here who does not object to the Pilgrim Parties. My temple has prospered exceedingly out of them over the years.”

“I know,” said Querida. “You people keep taking me for a fool. I want you as a representative of the other point of view, of course. And I’ll take you, too, for the same reason.” Her hand darted out like a snake’s tongue to point at the delegate from the Thieves Guild.

He was a young man, thin and fair and clever-looking. He was extremely surprised. “Me?” he said. “Are you sure?”

“What a silly question,” Querida said. “Your guild must have made a mint from the Pilgrims, one way and another.”

A strange expression crossed the face of the thief, but he got up without a word. His clothing was as rich as that of the high priest. His long silk sleeves swirled as he walked gracefully around the table. “Aren’t the Oracles in the Distant Desert?” he asked. “How do we go?”

“By a translocation spell I have already set up,” Querida said. “Come over here, the four of you.” She led the way to the empty part of the room, where one of the large flagstones in the floor could be seen to have faint marks around its edges. “The rest of you can start reading those letters while we’re away,” she said. “And I’ll need a name for you,” she told the young thief.

“Oh . . . Regin,” he said.

“Stand here,” Querida said, pushing him to one corner of the flagstone. She pushed King Luther, Barnabas, and High Priest Umru to each of the other corners and slithered between Umru and King Luther to stand in the center of the stone herself. From the point of view of the people still sitting at the table, she vanished entirely behind Umru’s belly. Then, quietly and without warning, all five of them vanished and the flagstone was bare.

From the point of view of the four people with Querida, it was like suddenly stepping into an oven—an oven that was probably on fire, King Luther thought, shielding his eyes with his stout woolen sleeve. Sweat ran out from under Barnabas’s curls. Umru gasped and staggered and then tried wretchedly to get sand out of his embroidered slippers and loosen his vestments at the same time.

Only Querida was perfectly happy. She said, “Ah!” and stretched, turning her face up to the raging sun with a blissful smile. Her eyes, the young thief noticed, were wide open and looking straight into the sun. Wizards! he thought. He was as uncomfortable as the other three, but he had been trained to seem cool and keep his wits about him. He looked around. The Oracles were only a few yards away. They were two small domed buildings, the one on the left so black that it looked like a hole in the universe, and the one on the right so dazzlingly white that sweat ran stinging into his eyes and he had to look away from it.