As Garin opened his mouth to demand a stating of the charge against him, Dandtan spoke again:
"What say you, Lords?"
For a long moment they sat in silence and then they bobbed their lizard heads in assent. "Do as you desire, Dweller in the Light."
Dandtan smiled without mirth. "Look, outlander." He passed his hand over the glass of the seeing mirror set in the table top. "This is the fate of him who rebels—"
In the shining surface Garin saw pictured a break in Tav's wall. At its foot stood a group of men of the Ancient Ones, and in their midst struggled a prisoner. They were forcing him to climb the crater wall. Garin watched him reach the lip and crawl over, to stagger across the steaming rock, dodging the scalding vapor of hot springs, until he pitched face down in the slimy mud.
"Such was his ending, and so will you end—"
The calm brutality of that statement aroused Garin's anger. "Rather would I die that way than linger in this den," he cried hotly. "You, who owe your life to me, would send me to such a death without even telling me of what I am accused. Little is there to choose between you and Kepta, after all—except that he was an open enemy!"
Dandtan sprang to his feet, but Trar caught his arm.
"He speaks fairly. Ask him why he will not fulfill the summoning."
While Dandtan hesitated, Garin leaned across the table, flinging his words, weapon-like, straight into that cold face.