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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3177571" data-attributes="member: 3448">The funerary pyre burned, with the Archducal Council standing in a group, closest to the pyre.  Select nobles and ambassadors also stood nearby in small clots.  A ring of Archducal and palace guards blocked off the mass of mourners.  Thousands of merchants, factors, nobles not favored with attendance with Lord Alastair and his friends, and other substantial citizens formed a massive crowd behind the ring of guards. Another ring of guards stood behind those citizens, and beyond them, as many of the common people as could find a way out of toil for a few hours clustered in a massive thong.The Archbishop finished his invocation and sped the Lady Ashberry’s spirit on its way to the Lord of Light.  Local tradition then took hold.  Those who had worn the unrelieved black armbands advanced, one at a time, to the pyre to cast themselves within.  One of the reasons for the guards was to prevent any mass show of sorrow on the part of the populace, who loved the Lady well. Solemnly, old men and women, whose lives had been given to the Throne, tottered forward and, mostly without a sound, joined the Lady in her final journey.  Out of the corners of their eyes, the Council saw a lithe middle aged woman, dressed in finest black silk with a shawl of woven spigga silk, advancing toward the fire.  She was not a member of the royal party, nor known to any of the Council.  A pair of guards rushed to intercept her.  She sidestepped the lieutenant, somehow entwining him in her shawl as she passed, and simply touched him on the shoulder.  He stumbled forward and fell, struggling with the silk, seemingly unable to free himself.  The second guard she tapped with a closed fan -- a fan that seemed to be of ebony and ivory, with some glittery substance at the edges.  She stepped aside again as he soundlessly toppled to the ground.   She advanced toward the pyre, where clerical guards stood from the temple.  As she did so, the Council saw the cruder black of the armlet of sacrifice against the black of the arm of her silk gown.  Her fingers flashed, rapidly, signing in what Alistair knew to be Thieves’ Cant and Kit could actually understand.Two more palace guards rushed forward.  She spun lightly, touched one on a shoulder, and somehow maneuvered them into a collision with each other, using her fan.  All wit seemed to have fled them, for they seemed unable to untangle themselves from each other.Her fingers flashed again, more urgently, as the priest who was in charge of the paladins guarding the pyre itself stepped forward, and handed the ceremonial crook of his office to a young page, thus freeing his hands.  He shrugged his cloak back off his shoulders and begins to prepare a spell.Kit’s fingers worked frantically as she signed back.  “Wait!  Who are you?”The woman’s fingers continued in their motions.  “I preceded you.  It was from me that your messages came.”“Please don’t do this.  I need to know what you know.  At least wait.”  While Kit was earnestly trying to persuade the woman not to commit suicide, she knew that she was not doing a very effective job.“I will carry out my last duty.  You must continue the work from here.”  The woman snapped her hand out and the odd fan she carried flew through the air towards Kit.  As it reached her, it folded itself up and landed at her feet.  A man in the crowd behind the Archducal party cried out in despair as the woman turned away from the dais.  The priest cast his spell to bind her motionless, but she simply shook her head at him with the smallest hint of a smile.  With a graceful dive, she leapt high into the flames of the pyre.  In seconds, she was just another part of the flaming memorial.As Kit reached down to scoop up the fan, she said to Dame Brionna, “I need to speak with the man who cried out.”Dame Brionna nodded and gave some quick orders to the guards that surrounded them.  Several guards began making their way back through the crowd, towards where the man remained weeping.</blockquote>

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