The body slept, and the Hands met in the Lantern Hall, and Idrin, who had dreamed of that long low room every night since the Crossing, walked down its length again with his hands in his coat pockets and his breath going out in small grey clouds.
It was a hall of lamps. Each seat had one, set in a bronze holder on a plain stone shelf, and the lamps burned steadily in their rows down both walls, so that the whole length of the room was lit in a warm, uneven gold, like a field of late barley at dusk. Nine lamps burned for the nine who were awake. Their flames were tall and clear and very still. At the far end of the hall the tenth lamp stood cold, its wick black and its bronze holder dull with a season’s neglect, and Idrin had never once looked at it straight. He did not glance at it now. He kept his eyes on the others, as a man keeps his eyes on the road when he knows there is a ditch at the side.
The Quiet Hands came down the hall one at a time, in their own dreams, dimmer than the others, each with a single line, as the body’s dreams had always allowed.
