He glanced from face to face. The Elder Sesom was beaming broadly—as he had every right to do, being Nibro's chief mentor. Yorgen, Danoy, Dmorno, and Hebylla, Nibro's main supporters, were smiling. The others seemed in internal conflict.
"You must remember one of the early acts of the Director when affairs stabilized after the destruction of the School and Temple," Nibro said carefully. "He taxed the banks—and built five new schools. Money for schools—and not for a Temple!"
"The Council in office at that time permitted the expenditure," Lokness said.
"The Council of that time was under the thumb of the Director!" Nibro roared. "The Elders had been chosen by the Director and his cohorts, if you will be good enough to recall. The Council was packed by illegal means." He paused; he realized he had better not press that point too hard.
"Very well," Nibro said. "Thirty years have passed. The Council has once again attained a measure of freedom—and the weakness of the Director in Tammulcor is known to alclass="underline" Let us: tax the banks once again—and rebuild the Temple!"
There was a moment of stunned silence in the auditorium. Nibro had finally phrased the dream of every priest since the destruction of the Temple—and the words hung nakedly in the murky air.
Slowly, they seeped in.
"Just a minute!" Lokness thundered. He rose from his seat. "I think you've got an almighty nerve, Elder Ghevin! You come in here, untouched by the silver of age, scarcely half a day since you were elected to this august body, and presume to order us around and tell us what to do.
"The late Elder Ghevin was Elder Leader, but don't think that you lead the Council just because you have ... ah ... taken his place." The emphasis on the verb was hardly subtle.
Nibro smiled coldly at the thin-faced Elder. "A very good point, and one which we may as well decide right now. Since the Elder Leader's position is now vacant and the Council leaderless, we must elect a new one. Have you any suggestions?"
Lokness opened his mouth to say something, but the Elder Sesom beat him to the punch. "I say it should be the Elder Ghevin."
Lokness' mouth stayed open for a moment, then snapped shut as he darted his eyes around the Council.
"Ghevin," agreed Brajjyd.
"Ghevin," repeated Yorgen.
"Ghevin," said the Elder Vyless, who had been the chief candidate for the post before Nibro's sudden propulsion into the Council.
When it was over, nine were definitely arrayed on Nibro's side. The Elder Dmorno attempted feebly to place Lokness in the running, but nothing came of it, and when no second was forthcoming he switched to Ghevin. After that, it was a landslide.
Shattered, Lokness sank back in his seat. Fourteen votes had been cast.
"Your vote, Elder Lokness?"
For a moment Lokness said nothing. Then, softly, he spoke—one word.
"Ghevin."
The fifteen Elders turned, then, and looked at the new Elder Grandfather Nibro peSyg Sesom Ghevin, Elder Leader of the Council of Nidor at the age of thirty-three.
Nibro looked well satisfied with himself. "Very well," he said. "Let us proceed with the business at hand. I mean, of course, the Temple."
The Temple must be rebuilt. Must be. Nibro peSyg had known that ever since he had been old enough to realize what the trouble was with Nidor.
Nidor was a single small continent surrounded by an endless sea. A layer of clouds cloaked the planet without break, hiding the bright sun and providing only the warm glow known and worshiped as the Great Light.
Ever since the legendary Cataclysm of four thousand years before, the people of Nidor had lived together peacefully, quietly, in utter stability, governed by the Law and the Way of the Ancestors.
Until the Earthmen came.
With the coming of the Earthmen, a hundred thirty-three years before, Nidor had entered into an era of unrest and trouble, of doubt and ambivalence.
The Earthmen had been accepted as emissaries of the Great Light by the priesthood that ruled Nidor; they had founded a school, the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law, and for a century had taught Nidor's finest minds at their school. And with them had come the Plague of the Hugl, the economic failure of the Edris-makers, a curious crumbling of Nidor's most hallowed traditions, and then the Great Panic caused by the overproduction of peych-beans, Nidor's staple crop. Like a series of body blows to the Nidorian civilization, each had left its bruising mark.
And then, after a hundred years of their interference, the Earthmen 'had been driven off Nidor by an army led by the Great Martyr, Kris peKym Yorgen, who had shown the Earthmen up as the demons they were.
Kris peKym had not lasted long as Director; he had been struck down by an assassin's bullet not long after taking control of Nidor away from the Council. But his successor, Ganz peDel Vyless, had taken over smoothly, and begun rebuilding. For the first twenty-five years, he had done well, but his evident grief over the death of his Secretary, Norvis peKrin Dmorno, had reduced him to a useless nonentity five years before.
Now, reasoned Nibro, it was time the Council of Elders reasserted their age-old prerogative and took control of the government away from the Directorate.
The time of troubles was over; it was time to return to the Way and the Law.
After all, the Directorate could not function without the Council, could it? No law or edict was legal until it had been passed by the Council of Elders.
For thirty years, however; the Council had been packed with yes-men for the Directorate. But now that the Directorate was useless, that was no longer so. The Council could—and would—rule Nidor without its aid.
And the first thing to do in reasserting the power of the priesthood was to remind the peoples of the Five Provinces of their religious duties—and of the unquestionable spiritual leadership of their priests.
The Great Temple of Holy Gelusar, which had stood for four thousand years until its gutting by fire thirty years before, would again become the spiritual center of Nidor, just as the Holy City of Gelusar was its economic center.
After the new Elder Ghevin had spoken, the Council deliberated—for all of five minutes.
And the project was begun.
Within three weeks, the orders had gone out. The people of Nidor had been told of the glorious project and had been exhorted to aid and support the rebuilding of Nidor's greatest and most honored monument to the supernal glory of the Great Light.
And, at the end of the third week, a visitor came to the small Kivar Temple where the Council had its offices.
Elder Leader Nibro peSyg looked up from his desk as he heard the timid rap of one of the acolytes at the door of his office.
"Yes? What is it?"
The door opened and the young acolyte stepped in. "There's a man to see you, Elder Leader," he said. There was an odd expression on his face.
Nibro scowled. "A man? That doesn't tell me much. Be explicit. What is his name and business?"
"He says ... he says he's the New Lawyer."
Nibro peSyg's eyes narrowed. For more than two cycles, a man calling himself the New Lawyer had been going about the country, preaching a return to the honest worship of the Great Light. But, although he had never come out against the priesthood directly, his teachings tended to undermine the authority of the Council of Elders.
"What's he like?" Nibro asked.
The acolyte gestured uncertainly. "I don't know. He seems harmless. Gives blessings as though he were a priest. I told him you had more pressing business, but he told me to announce him immediately."