For a long time, the only sound on THE Firmament Mountain was the blizzard.
Then Sir Moriarty rose from his throne of instruments!
There was no slow, pleased rising this time. He simply stood and when he spoke his voice cut through the howling wind as cleanly as a blade through cloth.
"The Convocation is ended."
The Plain went still inside the storm!
"Every one of you will return to their mountain with their Keeper. Now." His spectacles were white with frost. "There will be no Favors granted. There will be no closing rite. Go."
There was no warmth in it at all. None of the dry amusement, none of the scholar's delight, nothing but precision, each word set down exactly where it was needed and not one word more.
Nobody argued!
Noah looked out across the Plain, at the blizzard tearing sideways over the golden clouds, white and endless and roaring. He could feel it stretching away past the edge of the mountain, past the Legacy, past anything he could perceive.
