“That is shocking,” I said. “I’m half convinced you’re pulling my leg.”

“I couldn’t believe it myself, at first,” Lio said, laughing. “Made me feel like such a hayseed. But the system works. You get to listen in on conversations you’d never get to be a part of otherwise. As years go by you move up and become a doyn and get a servitor of your own.”

“What if your doyn is an idiot? What if it’s a bad messal with the same boring conversation every evening? You can’t get up and move to another table like we do at Edhar!”

“I wouldn’t trade it for our system,” Lio said. “It’s not such an issue now, because the people who get invited to a Convox tend to be pretty interesting.”

“So, who is your doyn?”

“She’s the Warden Fendant of a small math on the top of a skyscraper in a big city that is in the middle of a sectarian holy war.”

“Interesting. And where is your messallan?”

Lio said, “My doyn and I rotate to a different one every evening. This is unusual.”

“Hmm. I wonder where they’ll put me.”

“That’s why you need to get on top of those books,” Lio said. “You might get in trouble with your doyn if you’re not prepared.”

“Not prepared to do what—fold their napkin?”

“You’re expected to understand what’s going on. Sometimes, servitors even get to take part in the conversation.”

“Oh. What an honor!”

“It might be a great honor, depending on who your doyn is. Imagine if Orolo were your doyn.”

“I take your point. But that’s out of the question.”

Lio brooded for a while before answering. “That’s another thing,” he said, in a quiet voice. “The aut of Anathem has not been celebrated at Tredegarh for close to a thousand years.”

“How can that be? This place must have twenty times the population of Edhar!”

“All the different chapters and dowments make it possible for weirdos and misfits to find homes,” Lio said. “You and I grew up in a tough town, brother.”

“Well, don’t go soft on me now.”

“That is unlikely,” Lio said, “when I spend every day sparring with Valers.”

This reminded me that he was exhausted. “Hey! Before you go—one question,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Why are we here? Isn’t this Convox a sitting duck?”

“Yes.”

“You’d think they’d have dispersed it.”

“Ala’s been busy,” he said, “drawing up contingency plans for just that. But the order hasn’t been given yet. Maybe they’re worried it would look like a provocation.”

“So—we are…”

“Hostages!” Lio said cheerfully. “Good night, Raz.”

“’Night, Lio.”

In spite of Lio’s advice, I couldn’t get a grip on the books that had been left for me. My brain was too jangled. I tried to skim the novels. These were easier to follow, but I couldn’t fathom why I had been assigned to read such things. I got about twenty leaves into the third one, and the hero jumped through a portal to a parallel universe. The other two novels had also revolved around parallel-universe scenarios, so I reasoned that I was supposed to be thinking about that topic, and that the other books must relate to that theme. But all of a sudden my body decided it was time to sleep, and I was barely able to stagger over to bed before I lost consciousness.

I woke to bells ringing strange changes, and Tulia calling my name. Not in a happy way. For a moment I fancied I was back at Edhar. But when I opened one eye—just a slit—all I saw was trailer.

“My god!” Tulia exclaimed, from terrifyingly close range. I came awake to find her standing at the foot of my bed. No bubble suit. The look on her face was as if she’d found me sprawled in a gutter outside a bordello. I did some groping, and satisfied myself that most of me was covered by my bolt.

“What is your problem?” I muttered.

“You have to move now! Instantly! They are holding up Inbrase for you!”

That sounded serious, so I rolled out of bed and chased her out of the trailer. The airlock had been torn down; we trampled the plastic. She led me across the courtyard, under an arch, and down some ancient Mathic catacomb whose far end was sealed off by an iron grille—the sort of barrier used to separate one math from another. It sported a gate, which was being held open by a nervous-seeming fid who clanged it shut behind us as we burst through into a long straight lane guarded by twin rows of enormous page trees. This lane cut through the middle of a forest of them.

My feet had grown soft from wearing shoes and I kept mincing over stones and root-knuckles, so Tulia outran me. On its far side, the page-tree wood was bordered by a stone wall, thirty-odd feet high, pierced by a massive arch, where she paused to catch her breath and wait for me.

As I drew near, she turned to face me and raised her arms. I gave her a big hug, lifting her off the ground, and for some reason both of us broke out laughing. I loved her for that. She was the only one I’d met who was responding to Orolo’s death with something other than sadness. Not that she wasn’t sad. But she was proud of him, I thought, thrilled by what he had done, glad that I had survived and come back to be with my friends once more.

Then we were running again: through the arch and into a rolling green, splashed with coppices of great old trees, that seemed to extend for miles. Stone buildings rose up every few hundred feet, and a network of footpaths joined them. These must be the dowments and chapterhouses Lio had spoken of. I was more impressed by the lawns than anything else; at Edhar, we couldn’t afford to waste ground this way.

The bells were getting marginally closer. As we came around the corner of an especially huge building—some sort of cloister/ library complex—the Precipice finally came in view. Tulia led me to a broad tree-lined lane that would take us straight to it. Then I was able to see the Mynster complex massed at the base of the cliff.

The Precipice had been formed when a dome of granite, three thousand feet high, had shed its western face. Avout had cleaned up the mess below and used the crumbly bits to make buildings and walls. Since no artificial clock-tower could compete with the Precipice, they had built their Mynster at the base of the cliff and then cut tunnels and galleries and ledges into the granite above, sculpting the Precipice into their Clock, or vice versa. A succession of dials had been built over the millennia, each higher and larger than the last, and all of them still told time: all of them told me I was late.

“Inbrase,” I gasped, “that’s—”

“Your official induction to the Convox,” Tulia said. “Everyone has to go through it—the formal end of your Peregrination—we did it weeks ago.”

“A lot of trouble for one straggler.”

She laughed once, sharply, but couldn’t maintain it owing to air debt. “Don’t flatter yourself, Raz! We’ve been doing these once a week. There’s a hundred other peregrins from eight different maths—all waiting on you!”

The bells stopped ringing—a bad sign! We picked up our pace and ran silently for a few hundred yards.

“I thought everyone got here a long time ago!” I said.

“Only from big concents. You would not believe how isolated some are. There’s even a contingent of Matarrhites!”

“So I’m with the Deolaters, eh?”

I was getting the picture that the chapterhouses closest to the Mynster were the oldest: ring around ring of cloister, gallery, walk, and yard. Glimpses, through Mathic gates and shouting arches, of chapterhouses so tiny, mean, and time-pitted that they must date back to the Reconstitution. New towers striving to make up in loftiness and brilliance what their ancient neighbors owned by dint of age, fame, and dignity.

“Another thing,” Tulia said, “I almost forgot. Right after Inbrase there is going to be a Plenary.”

“Arsibalt mentioned those—Jesry did one?”

“Yes. I wish I had more time, but…just remember it’s all theater.”