On the eve of their dispatchment, the hall was aflutter with voices. Coming from the last of their lessons, the crowd had filtered in by ones and twos, congregating in small scattered throngs at tables and in corners, until the room was filled to bursting. Qual looked upon it from his place at the far end of the hall; this must have been the whole population of this year's graduates, or nearly so. The sheer number of them surprised him. It was rare for them to converge together like this, and theirs had been an unusually populous year.
There were faces he recognized amongst the crowd, and a few called out to him in greeting, one hand raised with its fingers touched to the place where their horns protruded from the crowns of their heads. He returned the gesture, sometimes with a smile, sometimes without. None of his acquaintances drew close to converse with him, and he made no move to seek them out. From his place at the edge, he could see the ebb and flow of the crowd, and that held his interest better than the conversation.
At length, however, their chatter was brought to a halt by the appearance of one of the elders. The Master of Combats moved with an efficient grace that drew the eye, and the ripples of silence soon spread among the gathered students, bringing their murmurings to a halt. Even from a distance of twenty meters, Qual could feel the chill that radiated from her gaze. However, it was Illadri, the crooked and bent Master of Histories that ascended to the podium. He spoke a few words, but even in the quiet instilled by the Combats master, his voice could not carry the length of the room.