He was the largest of the Qar who came to the table, but not the strangest. Vansen had seen all these shapes before, and others, but he was still far from used to it. Here came the one named Greenjay, who looked like a cross between an exotic bird and a costumed Zosimia fool. Some of the other Qar looked almost human, their origin betrayed only by the shapes of their skulls or their coloring-Vansen knew no ordinary man or woman whose skin was touched with hues of lavender or mossy green. Others like the Elementals were manlike only in seeming to have a head and four limbs: Vansen had seen them in their fiery, naked forms in the Qar camp, and still saw those shapes in his dreams, but the two present today had been more discreet, wrapping themselves in robes that betrayed nothing of what smoldered beneath.

Bent or straight, small or tall, the Qar filed in to fill the other side of the table, as varied as the bestiaries so carefully painted in the margins of old books. The one thing they all seemed to have in common was the quality of watchfulness: as they took their seats they did not speak to each other, but only looked across at the gathered Funderlings and their guests.

And then, at long last, Yasammez herself came into the chamber, tall and silent, wearing her angular black armor and strange cloak like a cloud of dark fog. She looked neither to one side nor the other as she walked slowly to her place at the far side of the table, although she was the lode-stone to all eyes. She seated herself in the center of her people.

After a silence Yasammez spoke, her voice as slow and baleful as a funeral bell. "This battle is already lost. You must know that before we begin."

One voice rose above the flurry of disapproving murmurs-Cinnabar Quicksilver. "With all respect, Lady Yasammez, what does that mean? If there is no chance of victory, why are we here instead of at home making peace with the gods?"

"I cannot speak for you, delver," she told him. "But this is how I make peace with the gods."