When last we left our heroes... dawn had come to House Neras, and the companions gathered for a melancholy breakfast in Vianrei's kitchens. Yalafir was dead, his warning still undelivered; the Giver was beneath the king's own roof; and Thargash, returned from his unexplained night abroad, had much to say about eggs and bread and breakfast wine, and very little about the business that had brought them there. Ineia reminded him of the promise with which he had first drawn them into his affairs: he owed them the truth about the elders of Cheykor.
Before that truth could be spoken, the companions remembered the watcher behind Inayin's blood-weeping eyes, and Herek took him outside. Then Thargash accused all three elders of complicity in the Vulture Cult, naming Eldress Falaru as the most inventive of them. She had paid him to investigate the Bell of Time, he said; the cult sought a road into the past by which the forging of the Sword of Kings might be prevented and all the history of Amboria changed. In the river of time from which he came, their conspiracy had failed. Reiana of the Red Isle might tell them more, though the companions could only answer that their own mistress had vanished months before.
Ineia asked him to come home with them. Their age stood upon the brink of civil war, and she would have his help rather than see him hazard another world in pursuit of the one he had lost. Thargash could promise neither that their home would survive his working nor that the river into which they returned would be the river they had left. He spoke of theories, of worlds so nearly alike that no one might know the difference, and of the wife and companions whom he still hoped to recover. Ineia answered that his losses were not a reason to make her lose the people she loved.
At last he named the instrument he intended to use: the Anvil of Lanenomen, carried by Anaris in the caravan they had met upon the Jade Road. The caravan had reached Sothalkarr during the night, and his drunkenness had been a disguise. He had slipped out to watch its arrival. Anaris was now lodged at the palace, where the Giver also dwelt, and Thargash wished the companions to take the Anvil from her keeping before the final night of the feast. In the history he remembered, she had already carried it west across the Cheyth to the tower the companions knew as the Sorcerer's Tower. Its presence here meant that events had already diverged from the course he knew.
His first scheme was to gain entry beneath the cover of an audience for Yalafir's warning, take the Anvil while the king listened, and carry it to the Bridge of Jade when the stars converged. Ineia proposed another way: invite Anaris to House Neras, tell her what they feared, and seek her willing help. Thargash's reluctance to meet her proved to have a more personal cause. He died and returned, he confessed, remembering his earlier lives only by degrees; Anaris returned likewise, and in some of those lives they had loved one another. She wanted him to be her own Tengelbur. But for his part, his heart was given to another.
Outside, Lord Akdhēras drew up in his carriage and offered to take Inayin to the promised healing. Herek and Inayin declined the ride, but arranged for him to bring his remedies to House Neras after the noon meal. Then he asked after Rinsos, remarking upon the night's comings and goings, and departed. The two companions continued toward the shrine on foot, hoping to ask the priest more about the Bridge and to warn him of the lord's interest.
Fjalenar joined the breakfast council, still weary from the night's labour, and heard the proposal. The companions settled upon approaching Anaris before attempting any theft, though whether to ask her to bring the Anvil immediately or speak with her first remained unsettled. Thargash went at last to bed. Herek and Inayin were upon the road to Rinsos; Ineia, Tenuyala, and Fjalenar meant to seek Anaris at the palace, after gathering herbs and asking what blades might be had. Neither errand was yet accomplished. Above the waking city the same moon held its vigil, and two days remained before the jade door would open.
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