The street they were following ran straight to the centre of the city and gradually widened out to become the Avenue of Heroes. All the city’s most important buildings stood on either side of this street, and along the grassy verge that separated its two carriageways stood marble statues of former Fellowship members.

     “You've come a long way since the Fall of Agglemon,” said Keller as the carriage pulled into the long driveway in front of the Grand Hall of Truth and Justice. “To think that you started off as nothing more than half a dozen priests and paladins. Going around righting wrongs and fighting bandits.”

     Resalintas gave him a sharp look. “You know little of paladins if you think you can use the words ‘nothing more than’ in relation to them.”

     “I only meant that they were few in numbers,” said the Sergeant. “I apologise. I meant no offence.”

     “None taken,” said the paladin. “You're right, we did start out small. At the time we were just one of several such bands. Trying to hold civilisation together. Trying to keep hope alive in that time of darkness. It was a close thing. We came so close to failure, to the very concept of civilisation dying out. We persevered, though. We endured, and we grew in numbers. We absorbed the other bands of heroes into our ranks to become a single organisation spanning what was left of the known world…” He fell silent as a footman arrived to open the door, and the passengers disembarked.

     Resalintas had been here before, but it had been many years and so the wonder in his eyes as he gazed around was almost as great as that of Keller, who was seeing it for the first time. Other carriages were moving along the wide avenue, and young people in smart uniforms were going in and out of the buildings opposite. Pargonn University and its associated library. “My son goes there,” the priest heard the Haldornian delegate saying to his aide. “My family has been sending our children here for five generations.”

     There was a wide flight of steps leading up to the Grand Hall's main double doors and Gelrad led them up as the Haldornian continued to describe his son’s achievements to his aide in proud, glowing terms. Resalintas tuned him out of his attention as they passed through the doors that had been left wide open to let a refreshing breeze blow through the building.

     The inside of the building was just as palatial as the outside. The corridors were wide with high, arching ceilings. The floor was tiled in a checkerboard pattern and statues of eminent historical figures stood on plinths in alcoves in the wall. There were padded chairs at intervals, one of them occupied by by a mousy looking man studying a sheaf of papers. He nodded to them as they passed by.

     Gelrad led them along corridors and around corners until they reached the conference room, where they saw that most of the delegates had already arrived. Most of them were still standing. Chatting to people they already knew, shaking hands and asking after each other’s children. Resalinates went straight to the large, circular table, though, where he looked for his name tag and sat down, Keller sitting beside him. The name tag at the spot beside him held the name of the Callinian delegate, Colonel Tuska, but the man himself was in animated conversation with a man Resalintas didn't recognise. He was young and energetic looking, though, and wore the uniform of a Beltharan Corporal. Resalintas guessed that he was the Colonel’s aide.

     Gradually, the delegates took their seats under the gentle urging of Fellowship ushers. The Sidonian delegate and his aide sat beside Tuska, and beyond them were the delegates from Belthar itself. A very self important looking young man in his twenties dressed in magnificent, expensive clothes and a General who spoke humbly to him and treated him with great deference. Resalintas guessed, correctly, that he was one of the sons of the Emperor himself, and hoped that he’d have the sense to let the General do the talking for him. Although the Emperor himself was highly respected and held in great esteem throughout the Empire, his children had a less favourable reputation, and were generally held to be rather arrogant and bigoted. Resalintas prayed silently that he’d keep his mouth shut and not say anything to anger the other delegates. The last thing we need is to start fighting amongst ourselves, he thought grimly.

     The other provinces of Belthar weren’t represented, because they all lay on the far side of Belthar and wouldn’t be involved in the war unless, the Gods forbid, the heartland of the Empire fell. On Resalintas’s other side, though, were the delegates from Fu Nang and two of its provinces, dressed in very elaborately decorated red and gold robes decorated with highly stylised gold dragons. They sat perfectly still with inhuman patience, arms folded and inscrutable smiles on their yellow faces while the room bustled around them, giving an unmistakable impression of aloof superiority that was perhaps understandable in light of the fact that their country had never been successfully invaded at any time during their two thousand year history. Not even by the Agglemonians. Their long hair, as black as a raven’s wing, was tied back by glossy silk ribbons. Their eyes were slanted, and long, droopy moustaches dangled down past their chins, curling upwards slightly at the ends. Looking at them, it was hard to believe that they belonged to the same species as the other humans sitting around the table. They looked even stranger and less human than the shae folk from Lourell, or even the trogs from Arok who were sitting nearby.

     The people of Fu Nang were the last remaining example of the amazingly vast cultural and racial diversity that had characterised the human race in the days before the Agglemonian Empire had blurred them all out of existence. Regional variations were slowly becoming evident once more, however, among peoples who had been cut off from the rest of the continent since the fall of the Empire, and one example of this was the pair of dark skinned humans who sat almost directly across the table from the priest. Their hair was jet black and pleated into long dreadlocks, and their earlobes were stretched to well over twice their normal length by the weight of massive gold earrings. They wore short skirts and open, armless tunics made from the leather of some large animal, and around their necks they wore necklaces made from the teeth of rybears, creatures they hunted armed only with a knife and a spear during their rites of manhood. They were Nyundians, a proud and fierce people from the equator, very close to the great shae Kingdoms with whom they had strong trading links, and the priest was very pleased to see them. They had been allies of the Shae Folk of Lourada for centuries in their wars with the fell men. Their fighting prowess was legendary. Their co-operation and friendship in the war had to be gained at any price.

     Sitting next to the Nyundians was a face he recognised. Tragius Demonbinder, representing Lexandria University, of which he was head of conjuration. He looked magnificent in his silver and black robes embroidered with arcane runes and sigils, each one containing a spell designed to protect him against a specific danger or form of attack. Seeing him wearing it reminded the priest of the time, long, long ago, when they’d been travelling companions, along with a motley collection of other crazy characters, with whom they’d travelled the length and breadth of the continent on their mission to rid the world of all known evil. Their eyes met briefly across the table and the wizard grinned at him, raising his hand in greeting. The priest merely gave him a curt nod in return. They were here on serious business. This was no time for nostalgia.

     All in all, about fifty people sat around the table, all but a dozen of them human, and they all stood respectfully as the doors opened without fuss or fanfare and an old Paladin walked in. He carried no weapon, but was surrounded by an aura of holiness so powerful that it could almost be felt radiating from him like the warmth of the yellow sun. It was accompanied by the feeling of tremendous power just barely held in check, as if this feeble old man could bend iron bars with his bare hands, or even just by frowning at them. Resalintas knew that this could only be Lanaris himself. The most senior Paladin in the world and head of the Fellowship of the Golden Griffin.

     He was followed in by a curious assembly of creatures. First of all was a ferocious looking creature with the head of a lion and the wings of an eagle. It bore a passing resemblance to a griffin but was more regal looking and much more intelligent. More intelligent, Resalintas knew, than most humans. It was a dor-maja, and despite its fearsome appearance it was one of the gentlest and noblest creatures in the world, rivaling even the royal dragons in this respect. They were solitary creatures that roamed the world using their magical powers to fight evil and protect the innocent and the priest wasn’t surprised to see one on Pargonn.

     Behind it walked a priest of Samnos. Not just any priest of Samnos either, but Pronias himself, the strongest, most powerful priest of Samnos in the world. Around his waist was buckled the fabulous Sword of Retribution, the most powerful, most magical, most holy sword in the world. It was the second most powerful holy weapon possessed by the priesthood of Samnos, second only to the Sceptre of Samnos itself, and in many ways it was much more important than the man who wielded it, for priests came and went, their brief lives passing like the ticking of a clock, but the Sword went on and on. It was indestructible, and said to have been forged by Samnos Himself at the dawn of time. It was carried only by the most powerful priest of Samnos in the world, and when he died, it instantly teleported to the next most powerful priest. No lesser person could even touch it, except to die on it.

     Finally, following the priest, came four very strange creatures covered from head to foot in long, dark robes. The first two were humanoid, and walked with such careless, flowing grace that Resalintas thought at first that they were shae folk, but a glimpse of one of their hands as a fold in his robe parted momentarily revealed short, stubby fingers, totally unlike the slender, leaf shaped hands of the fair race. Must be another race of humans, thought the priest, but if so they were much more slender and delicate of body than any human he’d ever seen before, and he found himself pleased by this new sign of humanity’s growing racial diversity. Could they possibly be demi shae folk? he wondered. People born of one human and one shayen parent? Maybe they were twins, but if so they would be the first twin demi shaes he'd ever heard of.

     The two behind them, though, the last to enter before the doors were closed by a pair of attendants, were different, and Resalintas found himself profoundly disturbed by their appearance. It was nothing he could put his finger on. Something about the outline of their bodies beneath their concealing robes and the way they walked. Alarm bells began ringing in the elderly priest's head, warning him that there was something profoundly wrong with them, with their being here among the greatest and best from all over the continent. He didn’t need to cast any spells to know that they were malignantly evil, and a frown of worry creased his granite face, looking completely out of place there. What in the name of the Gods are such creatures doing here? he wondered. How could Lanaris possibly allow their presence here on Pargonn?

     For a moment, he wondered whether the Paladin, and possibly the dor-maja and Pronias too, could be under their control, forced to bring them here, to sabotage the meeting, but he dismissed the idea almost immediately. It was difficult enough to hypnotise any paladin, and there wasn’t a creature in the world who could control Lanaris’s mind. The only possible explanation was that the creatures were prisoners, brought here so that the Paladin could make some point or other to the other delegates, but they weren’t acting like prisoners. Quite the opposite, in fact. They moved a few yards away from the Paladin, probably unable to stand his aura of holiness, and then stood there haughtily, as if they owned the place. What are they? wondered the priest again. He tried to see their faces, but they were hidden in the darkness of their hoods.