Zilton Walker stood at the head of the table. He had sent word to five people fifteen minutes ago. He had not sat down while he waited.
They arrived within minutes of each other, entering through the hall's single door in the order they had been summoned.
Elder Garan came first. He was the oldest of them—late sixties, thin through the shoulders, and slightly stooped in the way that years of intensive cultivation sometimes produced in men who had pushed their bodies harder than their frames fully agreed with.
His robes were dark and well-kept but old, the fabric worn to a particular softness at the cuffs that spoke of long use rather than neglect. His face was deeply lined, his hair white and thin, but his eyes were completely and entirely sharp—the eyes of a man whose body had conceded things to time that his mind had refused to.
He moved with the caution of someone who had learned decades ago not to waste anything, including movement.
