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done the unthinkable. Now the rest of Talonnorn has been forced to start to think. The bloodletting the Watchers just reported is nothing to the bloodletting that will now come.”
    â€œForgive me, Revered Mother, but the Watchers of Ouvahlor aren’t the only ones who have been watching over Jalandral Evendoom. You charged me with this same duty yourself, and I have been attentive to it. I have watched this Lord Evendoom, and he is clever, and energetic, and cunning—
very
cunning. Most of his foes are already dead, and although it can be argued that slaying a Talonar noble just transforms his blood-kin into your next deadly foe, Evendoom has already eliminated most of the capable and influential Talonar nobles, and subverted the Holy of Olone who might have stood against him. His hands are already aroundTalonnorn’s neck; any who dare to oppose him now will have to flee smartly, or be dead even more swiftly. Talonnorn’s time of greatest weakness is right now.”
    Excited by her own unfolding words, Semmeira started to stride about the chamber, waving her hands dramatically. “If we give Jalandral Evendoom the time he needs to get Talonar defenders into the habit of obeying his orders without dispute or delay, and those defenders better ordered and deployed, Talonnorn will soon become even more formidable than it was when we defeated it. Far weaker in spellrobes and sheer numbers of fighting sword, yes, but with the internal dissension that so sapped them then—infighting that mattered more to Talonar even than our invading forces striding their very
streets!
—banished. Smaller swords than Talonnorn could once assemble, yes, but swords that obey one command, not fighting each other with a dozen masters more interested in settling Talonar disputes than the intrusions of Ouvahlor or anyone else.”
    â€œAnd if this Evendoom is already arming Talonnorn for war, and our attack on him becomes the very flame that forges the Talonar into one blade against us? What price your bright scheming
then
?”
    â€œWhy, then we will at least strike at them before they are ready and have taken their forces out into the Dark, so the fighting will again be at the very doors of Talonar houses, bruising their pride and shaking their loyalty to this new High Lord to whom they have given so much authority, in exchange for . . . what? No protection that they can credit! We may well doom Evendoom to face new knives at his back, new traitors in ‘his’ streets who otherwise would dare not challenge him!”
    â€œYou are persuasive, Semmeira. Yet ears are all too often bent by loud and oft-winded war-horns, where softer warnings should perhaps be better heeded. Ithmeira, what say you?”
    The other dark-clad priestess spread her hands and said mildly, “Revered Mother, you know that I have long clung to another view. I cleave to it still. That if ever we truly humble Talonnorn, we make our greatest mistake.”
    Semmeira shook her head in exasperation, but Ithmeira raised her voice a trifle and continued. “So long as Talonnorn proclaims its peerless and ‘rightful’ greatness, and in its prideful folly presumes to publicly hold opinions as to what all other Nifl should do—and lashes out at other cities at will, with their Flying Hunt raids and by various Talonar noble Houses sponsoring their own attacks on merchants and slave-bands just as they please, they are seen as the great evil.”
    Ithmeira turned to face Semmeira directly, and added, “Against the great and ever-restless peril of Talonnorn, other Niflghar see Ouvahlor as a lesser evil, and a useful bulwark against Talonnorn’s ambitions. We are the traditional foe of the City of Spires, the rival who feels its armed might most frequently and heavily, and who strives ever to ‘get even.’ Is this not so?”
    Semmeira shrugged. “It is so, yes, but—”
    Revered Mother