The best option is one most easily carried out on an infant, Seisyll returned coldly. But I shall await your further deliberations. Please convey my fraternal greetings to our new member.

With that, his image faded in the crystal and the spark in its heart died out. Dominy de Laney sighed and briefly closed her eyes, and Vivienne eased a crick in her neck and shook out her hands. Barrett had briefly palmed his hands over his sightless eyes, and Michon and Oisín exchanged glances.

«Exceedingly well done, all», Michon said to the room at large, and grinned as he added, «I did tell you that Seisyll would be abed at this hour».

«Disturbing, however, that more progress has not been made in Mearan matters», Barrett replied.

«Aye, but that does not surprise me», Michon replied. «There will be war in Meara before another decade is out — mark my words. It will be yet another legacy of Malcolm's marriage with the Princess Roisian: they, who had thought to settle the Mearan succession by the marriage bed rather than war, after Killingford».

The others merely looked at him, knowing that he had the most direct experience of that great battle, for though none of them had been alive for that war, Michon's father had fought there and lived to tell of it. An uncle and a cousin had not been so fortunate.

«Enough of thoughts of war», Oisín said quietly, after a moment. «Do you wish me to approach our new member-elect?»

The others immediately turned their thoughts from the Mearan question, and even the question of Sief’s death, to the more immediate question of Sief’s successor. Slowly Michon nodded.

«Can you bring him tomorrow night?»

«I can bring him tonight, if you wish. If he accepts, he can be sworn to the Council immediately, and we can be about our further business».

After a glance at the others, Michon slowly nodded.

«Go, then. We shall await your return».

«Without counsel purposes are disappointed; but in the multitude of counselors they are established».[6]

In the royal palace at Djellarda, in the princely state of Andelon, Prince Khoren Vastouni made his way back to the workroom adjoining his apartments, pleasantly fuddled with good wine and good company and well content with the course of the day.

He was a younger son whose elder brother had sons, so he had never entertained much likelihood of ever having to rule; but that had left him free to pursue interests of his own choosing, more artistic and academic than the arts of war and political intrigue, and to anticipate becoming a mentor to his nephew's children in due course. Now nearing his half-century, he was blessed with a loving wife and family of his own, and that morning had seen his young nephew, his brother's heir, happily remarried.

Which was well, because Fate had dealt the redoubtable Mikhail of Andelon a double blow in the past twelvemonth, making him Sovereign Prince the previous autumn, through the death of his father and Khoren's brother, Prince Atun, and then taking Mikhail's beloved Ysabeau in childbirth in the spring just past. At twenty-seven, having gained a throne but lost a wife, Mikhail had only daughters by his first marriage — the two-year-old Sofiana and the infant Michendra — but his new bride, the Lady Alinor, adored his children, and had professed herself eager to give him sons as well as more daughters, and as soon as possible.

«Oh, Mikhail, I do want lots and lots of babies!» she had declared, as she dandled little Michendra on her knee at the wedding feast and watched Sofiana playing with Alinor's own little brother, the two-year-old Thomas. «Mother, would you look at this sweet, chubby little thing?»

Approaching the door to his workroom, happily replete with good food and excellent wine, Khoren found himself smiling and even shaking his head a little at that sweet image of domestic anticipation. There had been several stillborn sons in the early years of Mikhail's first marriage, so Khoren hoped that the lovely and radiant Alinor would soon attain her heart's desire and that, in her embrace, his nephew would speedily find new happiness — and sons!

In all, the marriage augured well for the future. Only reluctantly had Khoren taken early leave of the continuing wedding festivities — which were very much a family affair, bursting with Vastouni and Cardiel cousins and even a smattering of younger royals from neighboring Jáca and Nur Hallaj. His wife would linger happily in that company for many more hours to come, along with several of their children and grandchildren, but Khoren could no longer ignore the call of a particularly intriguing manuscript he wished to consult again before retiring, written in a dialect that only slowly was yielding up its secrets.

For a fine point of translation had been eluding Khoren Vastouni for nearly a week — and had crystallized in an almost staggering flash of insight during the most solemn part of the nuptial Mass earlier in the day, nearly making him laugh aloud with sheer delight. His beloved Stasha had given him the most mortified look.

Still basking in the satisfaction of his moment of revelation, Khoren set his splayed hand against the lock plate on the door and keyed the spell that would release the lock. At its click, he pushed the door open and slipped inside, at the same time removing the jewel-studded cap he had worn in lieu of a coronet.

This he set jauntily atop a human skull on a stand just inside the door; the reassembled skeleton of its owner hung by wires from a hook in a corner of the room, for he was an anatomist among his many other interests. Then he shrugged off his outer robe and tossed it over a nearby stool, emerald damask spilling onto a carpet patterned with pomegranates as he headed toward his worktable and the unfurled manuscript lying open upon it, its edges weighted down with several stream-polished rocks, pleasing to hand and eye.

It was then that he noticed the faint glow emanating from around the edges of a velvet curtain screening off a corner of the room: his Portal, set in semi-trap mode. It enabled visitors to come and go at will, and even to leave messages, but no one could venture past the Portal's boundaries unless he gave them leave. Khoren had no enemies — at least none he was aware of — but even in Andelon, where Deryni were accepted as a matter of course, one could never be too careful.

«All right, who's there?» he called out, heading toward that corner of the room. «Anyone with half a brain would know that I've been at my nephew's wedding today».

A flick of his arm sent the curtain skittering to one side in a slither of fine rings against wire. The man waiting behind it was well known to Khoren: trim and comely, of somewhat middling height, casually clad in riding leathers of a rich oxblood hue. As a patient smile touched his lips, the calloused hands lifted in a gesture of guileless denial.

«In truth», the visitor said lightly, «I expected you'd be working on that manuscript I brought you; I knew how close you were to cracking the translation. I've not been here long, though — and even from here, I have enjoyed just taking in the peacefulness of your workroom. You should have been a monk, Khoren».

Khoren snorted and released the wards on the Portal with a wave of one capable hand, grinning as he opened his arms to the man who stepped across its boundaries.

«Oisín Adair, I might have known it would be you», he said as they embraced. «Seriously, what brings you here at this hour, when you knew what my day would be like?»

«Seriously, I've come on a mission of the utmost importance — though I'd forgotten that today was Mikhail's wedding day. Still, will you come with me for an hour or so? I mayn't tell you where».

Khoren drew back to look into the other man's eyes, feeling the rigidness in the other's shoulders that echoed the shields suddenly stiff between them.