“You’re not thinking with portals; we have blood bee honey and an entire abandoned orchard, as well as a local swamp. Between that and whatever survived in the seed archive, I bet you I could grow something decently poisonous, and vegan too.” Sam cocked her head. “I wonder if that poison was plant or mineral based. Hmmm.”

"I don't doubt it, but we need it in a few days, and plants take time to germinate. Would be a good idea though, long-term. Most poisons have medicinal properties, if you know how to use them correctly."

"Oh, and the specific compound I had in mind uses a mixture of both minerals and plants. Although for this, we can probably ditch the mineral components."

"We need it today, and it'll take us several days just to get back to the ship," Felix adds. "We're gonna have to work with local components. Luckily, this isn't our first rodeo. Nate here is a master of using natural components to make medicines and medicine-like substances."

Felix pats Nate on the shoulder.

"Alright, so he's not a good man," says Ortzel. "I've never met him, but I can accept that there are churchmen who are not good men. But this - this goes so far that -" He waves his hands vaguely in the air.



"There are limits!" insists Ortzel. "There must be limits. There must be things that people can't - just be corrupted into doing! It's not a magic wand. Corruption is not mind control. I - I just can't believe that someone could possibly have been bought down that thoroughly, that far, without being caught along the way!"

He takes a deep breath. "And you're right. If he's bought before me for judgement, then I must put aside my horror and look at the evidence alone. And if he - if he's done one tenth, even one twentieth of what you're accusing him of, then, then there is no sentence I could pronounce that would balance the weight of even that much..."

--------------



"The sort of folks I have access to ain't Patriarchs, guv. I... know a few people in this city. Here and there. Some of them will do stuff, little things - others of them will handle bigger stuff but they'll want paying. But none of them can do a thing inside the Basilica. I just don't have those sorts of contacts."

Arkady nods. "I am guessing that you are right. But the Divine is not bound by the same limits. Were it being me, I would remand the case as efficiently as possible to that court for sentencing. There is more than enough to do here cleaning up the mess.

"As for corruption?" He shrugs. "Yes, it is more of a road traveled than a spell. But from what I am hearing, since he became Primate, Raven has answered to nobody but Arch-Prelate Cluvonius; and that worthy was not one to ask questions. You can go a long way if no one is watching you travel."

Felix talks to Nate and tries to work out exactly how much of what they'll need in order to poison/not poison the various people that are aiding Raven.

Ortzel snorts. "That's not right. Under which Patriarch's authority does Raven fall?"

"That would be Patriarch Slipstein, Your Grace," says Vanire. "He's almost as old as Cluvonious was, though he's kept a lot more of his faculties. Either way, though, he is elderly, and has been delegating most of his duties to the Primate Raven."

"And no-one alerted him to this?"

Vanire shrugs. "I did so personally on no less than three occasions. Slipstein was... disinclined to believe that Raven could possibly be guilty. Of anything. Largely, I imagine, because Raven was writing all the reports that Slipstein read, and even on occasion bribing people to claim to have witnessed this or that personally. It wasn't hard for him to pretend to innocence when he controlled the investigation. And official reports through Church structures go through the Patriarch's desk."

"Well, that will have to change." Ortzel frowns. "Whether these accusations are true or not, this is clearly a weakness in the Church bureaucracy. And, on that subject, another thing! You!" Ortzel points at Felix, who has just finished working out quantities with Nate. "I don't want to hear anything more about you poisoning anyone, and I certainly don't want to hear about several Patriarchs being taken off sick, is that understood? It might look like a small and harmless thing to you, but I will not have someone else start down the path that Raven is reputed to have taken, and especially not for my sake."

"I realize that the next words out of my mouth are going to be sketchy as all hell, so take it with a grain of salt, but the local power structure is really into poisons, sir. All times Terran envoys have chanced an encounter with someone of a less than stellar moral character, poisons were not only talked of as being plentiful and well known, but generally readily available. I would be willing to bet that not only are we far from the first person to think about poisoning any of the Patriarchs, I would be extremely surprised to find that there aren't attempts being made on them already. Hell, half of my study is how to make sure your food doesn't spontaneously become inedible by itself." Sam shrugged. "All I'm trying to say, sir, is that when you heard whats-his-fluff's rap sheet of assorted shadiness, your first response was 'I mean, treason, fraud and regicide are bad, sure, but magic is where I draw the line' and I think that says kinda a lot about your current political climate."

After listening to Ortzel forbid naughtiness, Arkady comments: "Speaking of paths, your eminence: I think it would be a good idea if you let it be known that you have rethought your position on whether or not magic exists, and will not ban the knightly orders from it's practice. There may be some who would rather vote for you than Raven, but who thought the danger to the Church and the Elene people from that policy was too great to risk."

Felix frowns at Ortzel.

"Okay... what if we use the public to try and persuade them? Spread the accusations we have amongst the populace and try to get them riled up. Use the will of the people to try and sway bribed Patriarchs away from Raven's cause?"

Reminded of something that he'd thought earlier, Arkady turns to Dolmant and Vanire. "Would it help convince any of the Patriarchs if the Preceptors were all here and supporting Ortzel? We could go fetch them, saving weeks of traveling. And possibly their lives, if Azash decides to get rid of one or more of them on the road."

“So, I was talking to Piper earlier, and maybe I’m just paranoid, but what if this is all a trap? Get all the people with power in one place, get the one thing that can theoretically destroy Azash in one place, nuke it all from orbit and steal the gem?” Sam shrugged. “Its what I would do if I was orchestrating all of this. Not only does that mean less work for them, but it’s done much more quickly and efficiently by people who seem to be better at it, with the added PR benefit afterwords.” She stood up straight in her best Press Secretary impression. “Though we are all horribly shaken by the death of every Partiarch who wasn’t senile and/or incompetent, and the death of everyone maintaining the spell to keep the Queen alive, I know that they would not want us to mourn their loss, but revel in their memory. As Acting Ruler, I hear you declare we have a feast to celebrate their lives and to bribe you peasants into not questioning my gentle sideways shimmy into power.”

"You're not," says Dolmant. "One of my cooks is currently still in the infirmary, but he's expected to make a full recovery. We've all been a lot more careful since then."

Ortzel seems a bit shaken by Sam's point. "You're not wrong. These are... not great times. Which is why the Church needs to be a strong moral compass, a staunch example to lead us out of these dark and twisted times!"



"Doubtful," says Dolmant. "I don't think anyone's voted for Raven without payment. Everyone else would far prefer a Patriarch to take up the mitre - the only point of potential disagreement is that of which Patriarch." He shrugs. "It might be worth a try -"

"And it might weaken my stance among the more conservative Patriarchs," points out Ortzel. "Aside from which, the Church Knights usually operate far from Chyrellos; I imagine that most Patriarchs think as I once did, that 'magic' is no more than trickery."



"That might work," nods Ortzel.

"Raven's bought a few detachments of Church soldiers into town," points out Dolmant. "He claims they're here to 'keep the peace' - though all they really do is patrol the streets and continually send people back home. Legally, they can't stop a Patriarch about official business - but he's keeping almost everyone else off the streets as much as possible. It will not be easy to organise any sort of popular demonstration."



"It might," agrees Vanire. "On the whole, we're not the most persuasive of speakers... but that would at the very least mean three more votes opposed to Raven. However, the Patriarchs are all in different directions from here - even with your trucks, it will take you several days to fetch them all."

"And the voting in the Basilica will start at sunrise tomorrow," adds Dolmant. "Time is... not exactly on our side here."



"We haven't got the one thing that could destroy Azash in here," points out Sir Ulath. "We don't have the Blue Rose."

"The Rings are the easiest way to use it," adds Piper, "but even if they were destroyed... other ways could be found. They're just a good deal more difficult."

"What sort of other ways?" asks Sir Sparhawk.

"Well, it might be possible to make new rings from the dust in Ghwerek's workshop..."

"Besides," says Dolmant, firmly, "the Arch-Prelate's personal guard guards the Basilica. They're famously neutral and completely unbribeable. Unless Raven is planning on marching an army up to the gates, there's no way he's going to be destroying the entire Basilica."

"Even an army won't be enough," offers Sir Ulath, thinking back to the siege at Baron Alstrom's castle.

Felix sighs, running his hands through his hair.

"So poisoning them is out. Getting them to change their opinion by popular demand is out. What else do we have?"

"I'm not sure that popular demand is out, as such," says Dolmant. "It won't be easy. But... Raven's had a while to entrench his position here, and an unbelievable amount of money to throw around, and he can be fairly devious when he wants to. I think that anything we try will not be easy. We will simply have to find the... most manageable approach."