He turned to enter the chamber himself, reasonably sure that Kashet would get himself to where he belonged, because even if he got confused, by now one of the other Jousters would have heard he was stalking through the streets and come to guide him back. Or else Aket-ten would send someone to get him.

Or both, Kiron thought, as he slipped in through the doorway, and started to edge around the walls to get to his spot among the other councilors.

He saw that there was a woman in the gown of a priestess—a compromise between the tightly-pleated mist linen of the Tian priestesses, and the loosely-draped, heavier linen of the Altans, this was mist linen for coolness and comfort, but without pleating, and held in place by twin shoulder pins and a belt. Most other women of Sanctuary wore purely Altan gowns, since most women here were Altans.

“. . . and every one of them has confirmed it,” the speaker was Tir-ama-ten, the Priestess of Beshet of the Far-Seeing eye. She looked very unhappy. “I do not know how it is that those whose Gift is to see forward did not warn us about this!”

“Because, Great Lady, their gaze was confused and befogged,” Kaleth said soothingly. “As my gaze has been increasingly confused and befogged. We have known this was happening, as the Magi make the future more uncertain. There is no responsibility to be laid on you or on them; rather, allow me to thank you for always having the eyes of one of your Far-Seeing Priestesses keep watch over the Winged Ones of Alta. Your duty is to the people of Tia, not of Alta, and yet you have been bending your eyes to my folk. If you had not, we would never have known they were besieged until it was too late.”

“Besieged?” Kiron said—though it was not really a question. “The Magi, of course.”

“And every armed man of their private guard they can put around the Temple of the Twins,” Kaleth confirmed. “I think they would have used the army to break down the doors, except that they knew the army would not obey them in such a task.”

“I wonder how they get even their private guard to attack priests,” Lord Khumun said, looking grim. “To raise hands against the servants of the gods—”

“They grow bold, these Magi,” said Pta-hetop the Tian Thet priest. “First they move to take our acolytes, and now your priests. I wonder that they do not use your army.”

“I do not think they could gain obedience from the army to move against the servants of the gods,” Haraket said. “Oh, yes, it has happened in the past—the far past—of our land, but only when the priests themselves were corrupt, so corrupt that the people wept beneath their heels.”