A scant ten minutes later, Sire Dagon sat bleary eyed, wearing a robe loosely wrapped about his gaunt frame. Mist so clouded his head that his servants had to carry him—against his muted protests—and prop him up in his chair. Even sitting there, with the bay windows thrown open to a chill breeze and lamps on high, he as yet floated on the chorus of angelic voices he conducted during his mist dreams. His head swirled with song, his body light as a silken puppet and able to dance in midair, only now being tugged back down to earth. Blinking, he asked the messenger what could possibly merit the interruption at such a delicate hour.

“I came in haste,” the man said.

“So I gather,” Sire Dagon said, cocking his head back in a manner that for some reason helped him see middle-distance objects more clearly. The man spoke with clipped Ishtat Inspectorate tones, a fact that registered a spike in the leagueman’s attention. Ishtats were so highly trained that rarely were they charged with tasks as menial as delivering a message. “What I don’t yet know is why, but I trust you are about to tell me. Who sent you?”

“The League Council.”

“Why did they not send a messenger bird from Thrain?”

“The news I carry was deemed too grave to be put in care of a pigeon.”

“In care of a pigeon?” Sire Dagon found that amusing. Images of officer pigeons with military bearing, cooing orders to a small legion of birds, dancing up from the ground with the aid of the music yet pulsing in his veins …

“Sire, you need to listen.”

Quite impertinently, the messenger shouted for Sire Dagon’s servants. He demanded they bring a sobering concoction to match the leagueman’s mist distillation. He needed him back completely, and immediately, he said. He must have said a few other very convincing things as well, because before Dagon could stop it his manservant stuffed an invigorating pill up one of his nostrils. Not pleasant but effective. Within a minute he was more awake than he wished, the burning itch in his nose and at the back of his throat making sure of it.

“Forgive me, Sire,” the messenger said, bowing to him now that his orders had been heeded. “I was commanded that I waste not a minute in delivering my message. But you have to be able to hear it and understand it, too. This message is from the Council, without dissent. I wear on my neck this collar, secured with a truth knot that confirms my words are truth.”