Else's respect for the masters of the Five Families and Collegium, was failing. Paludan Bruglioni was not unique in his mental and moral malaise. He did fill up on the best food.

A NEW FACE ACCOMPANIED GRADE DROCKER WHEN THE SORcerer arrived, limping. Drocker seated himself, straining against his pain. His companion faced the assembly. "I'm Voltor Wilbe. From the Special Office at the Father House. Will you all please stand?"

Else was not surprised. Chaldareans prayed before, during, and after everything they did collectively.

Wilbe said, "Follow me in the Rite of Abjuration."

Startled murmurs.

Else worried. What was a Rite of Abjuration?

One of the Emperor's generals demanded, "What the hell is that?"

Irked, Wilbe explained, "The Rite of Abjuration. Created by the Special Office. It lets good Chaldareans formally renounce the Great Adversary and the Tyranny of the Night."

The general snorted his contempt.

The Rite of Abjuration was a responsorial. Voltor Wilbe chanted. His audience repeated his chant, renouncing everything to do with the Adversary and all things of the Night.

When Wilbe chanted, "I renounce the Tyranny of the Night. I renounce the Instrumentalities of the Night," responses were almost nonexistent. The clerics said nothing at all. Wilbe was nonplussed.

Wrong crowd, Else thought. Even Grade Drocker failed to participate. By common standards God Himself was in Instrumentality of the Night.

"Pardon me," Wilbe said. "I got carried away. I just want to banish any dark spirits."

"They're gone," Drocker growled. "Get on with it."

"Yes, sir. Gentlemen, there's been a sea battle. It took place in the strait between Penalt and Dole Hemoc." Wilbe seemed to expect his audience to know the geography. "It involved the fleet bound here from Staklirhod. It was an accidental encounter that became a running battle that lasted several days and involved ships from Sonsa, Dateon, Vantrad, Triamolin, the Eastern Empire, and our own warships at the end. Initially, the enemy was a Lucidian fleet carrying troops to Calzir."

"Silence!" Grade Drocker bellowed into chatter beginning to interfere with Wilbe's report. “This will affect our planning." Drocker's outburst had a potent impact. Even members of the Collegium shut up.

Voltor Wilbe detailed a battle that had been a long time in the making.

Naval commanders in the Eastern Empire and Crusader states of Vantrad and Triamolin began to suspect the Lucidians of preparing a naval adventure over a year ago. Ships, troops, and supplies were collecting in several ports. There was speculation about an attempt to invade Staklirhod. Scout ships prowled the Lucidian coast. Sea skirmishes ensued. The Lucidians wanted their intentions kept veiled.

The mercantile republics sent warships to protect their merchantmen and properties when the Calzirans started raiding. Which remained untouched by Calzirans, who focused on the Church.

But Pramans on the scores of small islands in the eastern Mother Sea tried to take advantage of the confusion farther west. They began attacking Chaldarean shipping. The mercantile republics objected.

Else understood before Wilbe explained. There was an inevitability at work. The Lucidian fleet, once it sailed, carried five thousand veteran soldiers, with horses and equipment, weapons and supplies, all destined for al-Healta in Calzir.

So. Lucidia started getting ready to help Calzir long before the Calziran rabble began assaulting the Episcopal Church.

Principatй Donel Madisetti ran out of patience. "What does that have to do with us? Where does the Brotherhood come in?"

"Your Grace, the Brotherhood fleet became involved because it turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time."

A pickup gang of Chaldarean warships, mostly small but fast, began harassing the Lucidians as soon as they put to sea. The Brotherhood fleet got involved because the mess outbound from Lucidia got in their way when they were trying to sneak through to Brothe without being noticed. The Lucidians were trying to sneak, too.

The circus sounded like insanity under oars – coupled with the kind of coincidence the Instrumentalities of the Night conjured for their own amusement.

The appearance of the Brotherhood force doomed the Lucidians. Tide and current carried their older, weaker, smaller ships toward the Chaldareans.

But tide and current carried the Chaldareans as well, around the cape of Dole Hemoc, into the path of a Dreangeriean fleet also intent on sneaking through those islands. It, too, was carrying aid to Calzir.

The Instrumentalities of the Night just kept compounding the joke.

Only two Brotherhood ships escaped. Brother Wllbe was aboard one of those. The Praman survivors sailed on to Calzir. Wilbe said, "We shadowed them. They made landfall near al-Stikla, on the east coast of Calzir. The Lucidians disembarked there. The Dreangereans and some Lucidians went on to al-Healta. We couldn't determine how strong they still were. The Dreangereans' seamanship was awful."

Else offered a silent prayer on behalf of those Sha-lug who had perished. Gordimer built his fleet too fast. Its sailors hadn't had time to learn. Dreanger was last a naval power before the rise of the Old Empire.

Wilbe said, "There was a powerful sorcerer with their fleet. His presence made the difference."

This got uglier by the second.

He had to lead a major force against er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen?

He would fight Lucidians and Calzirans only. Weakening the Lucidians would benefit the kaifate of al-Minphel

At some point, unannounced, the Emperor drifted in. He remained in the background, small, silent, unnoticed until he declared, "This isn't a disaster. Unless you didn't get away. Adjust your thinking to the new reality." He indicated the wall map that showed only Calzir, Alameddine's cantonments, and the marches of several small principalities bordering those two. "We block the passes through the Vaillarentiglia Mountains. Here. Here. Here. We blockade their harbors. Their crops are going to come in short. Fishing will stop because their fishermen and boats didn't come back. Prefamine conditions will obtain by winter's start. Burdening Calzir with thousands of unproductive soldiers and animals will hasten the bad times. The Lucidians and Dreangereans won't be able to import food."

"Why?" one of the Principals asked.

"Brother Wilbe said they offended Sonsa, Dateon, the Eastern Empire, Vantrad, Triamolin, and Staklirhod. All those sovereignties will be watching for a chance to even scores."

Else studied me big map intently. And saw a potential Praman disaster much bigger than that festering in the Emperor's mind. Johannes was not looking at Calzir as a whole.

Someone, with the stink of er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen on him, had plotted and schemed, pulled strings and machinated, until he was sure he had engineered a situation where Sublime and his Episcopal brethren would become bogged down in their own quarter of the world, unable to make themselves obnoxious in Dreanger or the Holy Lands.

But -

Er-Rashal's dream was about to become a nightmare. That chance meeting of fleets had killed any chance that Patriarchal and Imperial forces could be lured into a huge ambush. The Praman allies, despite their victory at sea, were caught in a bottle. And Else suspected that they would not realize that before the hunger started.

Else glared at the map. He saw nothing but disaster for the Faithful. Hansel was too pessimistic.

Unless er-Rashal did have some deep, unfathomable scheme proceeding, he had clevered himself into the loss of two fleets and two armies of seasoned soldiers. Unless defeat was part of the plan.

Else still had no idea why er-Rashal had wanted the mummies from Andesqueluz.