“Oof lad!” cried the priest good-naturedly. “No need for panic.”

“That was the alarm bell just now!” cried Quentin, inching around the puffing priest. “We must hurry!”

“No need. The servants of Ariel do not run. Besides,” he added with a wink, “that was a summons bell. Not the alarm.” Quentin suddenly felt very foolish. He felt his face coloring; his eyes sought the stone flagging at his feet. The jovial priest placed a heavy arm on his young shoulders. “Come, we will see what drags us from our warm slumbers so early on this chill morning.”

The two moved off down the corridor together and shortly came to the vast entrance hall of the temple. A cold, stinging wind was rushing through the huge open doors at the entrance. A priest in a scarlet cassock, one of the order of temple guards, was already pulling the giant wooden doors closed. Three other priests stood round a large, shapeless bundle lying at their feet on the floor. Whatever it was, the dark bundle, uncertain in the dim morning light, had been recently dragged in from the outdoors-a trail of snow attested to the fact, as did the snow-encrusted bundle itself.

Closer, Quentin saw the bundle was that of a human form wrapped heavily against the cold. The priests were now bending over the inert shape which to all appearances seemed dead. Biorkis placed a warning hand on Quentin’s arm and stepped slowly forward.

“What is this, good brothers? A wayward pilgrim early to the shrine?”

“This is no pilgrim by the look of him,” said the guard rubbing his hands to restore the warmth. “More likely a beggar for our feastday orts.”

“Then he shall have them,” replied Biorkis.

“He is past nourishment,” observed Izash, the eldest priest of the temple whose symbol of office was a long braided beard. “Or, he very soon will be, I fear.” He tapped his sacred white rod and stirred the air in front of him, indicating that the man should be turned over the better to see his face.