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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilex" data-source="post: 5430818" data-attributes="member: 82687">18x04On the eve of Ehkt Rising, Arden followed the gentlefolk as they filed back into Lord Ono's office.  The man had summoned them for an urgent meeting, but at first, he didn't seem to be present.  Then, from the floor behind the desk, came a low moan.  Ono was lying on the ground there, eyes closed."Lord Ono-san!" Savina raced forward.  "Are you hurt?""I wish.  If I were, maybe I could take a day off.""Do you have a migraine?" Savina pressed."Always."Savina started to pray for healing, but Ono sat up and brushed her off.  "I'm fine, I'm fine.  I didn't accept this job because it'd be easy.""Why did you accept it?" asked Kormick."When I remember, I'll let you know."  Ono took his place, straight-backed, behind his desk and surveyed them with a more professional air.  "I informed my superior, Lady Akiko-san, that the Mother Superior here in Cauldron has been implicated in the Tide conspiracy," he said.  "Lady Akiko-san was… not thrilled.  But we both agree that the evidence is plausible and an Inquest must be opened into the matter.""That's good news!" said Savina."Wait for it…" muttered Kormick."Unfortunately," continued Ono, "because the Priesthood is up the Circle from the Inquisition—meaning that they have authority over us—they can put a stop to any investigation we begin.  We cannot exert power directly upon them.  As I feared, we must go the long way around the Circle."  He had used that phrase before, Arden recalled, but he hadn't yet clarified its meaning.  He apparently felt it must be obvious."That is an exceptional measure," Nyoko said.  Clearly the meaning of the phrase was obvious to her, as well.  "I noticed," said Ono.  "Why else do you think my head is pounding?  What's worse, Lady Akiko-san and I agree that our best chance of pulling it off successfully is to give the job to our heathen Inquisitors, here.  That is, to you all.  No one will suspect you of playing so deep a political game until it's too late.  We hope.""All right," Kormick sighed.  "I sense a complicated explanation coming about intricate yet scrupulously logical Sovereign governmental structures and procedures.  Let's get started.  What's the Circle, again?"Ono looked at Kormick from under lowered brows and muttered, "'What's the Circle,' the man asks.  May Kettenek defend us." "<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5188540-post247.html" target="_blank">The Circle</a>," Nyoko reminded them, "is the basic structure of Sovereign government.  It is a circle of seven divisions, called Rings.  Each Ring has a leader, each has a specific set of responsibilities, and each has power over the two Rings 'below' it in the Circle.  In this way, no single Ring has total power.  Everyone is subject to someone else.  The Inquisition is below the Circle from the Priesthood, so the Priesthood can disallow any Inquest it wishes.  The Mother Superior of the Priesthood, you may recall, would have intervened to save her nephew Kawazu from you had he reached Cauldron before you captured him.""And this procedure you keep talking about?  Going the long way around the Circle?""That," continued Nyoko, "is the only avenue open to a Ring that's in the Inquisition's situation in this case.  To exert authority over a Ring that has power over you, you must gain the cooperation of the Rings that have power over them."“And that is done… how?”“Traditionally,” Nyoko said, “by gaining the cooperation of the Rings that have power over them.”Kormick blinked and turned to Twiggy.  “Are you following this?  Because I’m--” “Unfortunately,” Lord Ono interrupted, “it’s not quite that simple.”“No. No, of course it isn’t.”  Kormick looked at Nyoko.  “Just to be sure, the word ‘simple’ here means the same thing that it does where we come from?”“Traditionally,” Lord Ono continued, "on the rare occasions when a Ring has successfully gone the Long Way around the Circle, the Head of the other Ring recognizes that they have been outmaneuvered and backs down.  In this case, the Mother Superior has much to lose—including potentially her life.  If she does not back down, she can still overrule our Inquest of her, at which point we will be forced to exert our power over her, and the entire Circle will bog down into a stalemate.”“So… how do we stop her?” Savina asked."The heads of the four churches here in Cauldron are known as the Synod, a body that came into existence only after the Affirmation.  They are an advisory council to the Mother Superior, mostly a figurehead group with very little power.  But the Synod can, by unanimous consent, overrule the Mother Superior in her decision to order or end an Inquest.  If we can get all four members of the Synod on our side as well, she will not be able to end our Inquest.  She will have no further legal recourse, and will be forced to concede when the Rings above her order her to step down.”Silence met this proclamation.“I should add that no Synod has ever actually exercised this power. They will probably be... reluctant. So. There’s that.""Is this a matter of taking a few meetings, then?" asked Tavi.  "It is not," said Ono, "because if the Mother Superior receives even a hint of what we're doing—even the slightest whisper—she will shut us down.  For that matter, she could order an Inquest of us. The Inquisition must somehow find ways to meet with these leaders without Mother Kawazu knowing, which is why Lady Akiko-san thinks you heathens are the only ones with a hope of pulling it off.  Once you've set up the meetings, then there's only the problem of persuading all those power players to go along with this harebrained and totally unprecedented scheme.""Let me get this straight," said Kormick.  "You're asking us to secretly persuade five of Cauldron's leaders, plus four heads of churches, that their vastly esteemed chief priestess is corrupt and needs to be unseated?  Us?"Ono nodded and then flashed a wry smile.  "In your spare time, you might also investigate the Tide itself, in case their next attack is imminent.  Recall that I trust very few of my own men with such a job."  Ono paused. "You see why I was under my desk.""I begin to see that, yes."  Kormick sounded bemused and beleaguered, and Arden could practically hear the old refrain running in his head:  This was supposed to be a quick job… pampered city girl... nice trip to view the countryside…  Arden surveyed the room, gauging how the rest of the group was feeling:  Tavi glanced at Rose, who shrugged at him, still pointedly refusing to influence the group's choices.  Savina looked resolute, as if unaware that there was even a choice to be made.  Twiggy was whispering to Mena.  Arden caught the words "dying king" and "Akiko-san is his heir" and knew that Twiggy was reminding Mena that a good relationship with Akiko might help them investigate the prophecy's words.Ono was studying the room, too.  Seeing no one leaping for joy at his proposal, he spoke again, softly this time:  "If anyone can do this, you can.  I know it sounds crazy, but Mother Kawazu would be onto me and my usual men in a heartbeat.  Assuming she's truly got something to hide, she'll be watching for us to make a move.  But she'd never suspect a group of heathen visitors.  You're our best bet for bringing down the Tide in Cauldron."Arden hadn't forgotten the anger she'd felt a few days ago when she heard that the Tide had massacred the Honored Mother and his Alirrian sisters in Lord's Edge.  She had wanted them punished, and now Lord Ono was putting the means for such punishment into their hands.  Whatever other priorities she had, whatever other priorities Rose and the others had, stopping the Tide was what they needed to do now."We have to stop the Tide," said Savina, and Arden considered how strange it was to hear her mistress, of all people, speak the same idea she had been thinking."Any objections?" asked Kormick.The room was silent."Then I guess we're in," Tavi said. Lord Ono did not look as reassured as Arden might have wished.  They left the House of the Inquisition in the evening.  No one spoke much.  The unfamiliar yet gigantic challenge Ono had asked of them—going the long way around the Circle—hung ominously before them;  even the task of planning their first move was daunting.  That said, in a few hours it would be Ehkt Rising: the day set aside for making bold personal resolutions and facing the challenges of the year.  If they were going to face this task, Arden decided, they could hardly find a better time.###The festival day—the first day of summer—dawned with overcast skies and a few fitful gusts of wind, but the rain never came.  Instead, by midday, the clouds had burned away and sun baked the pavements of the city as they walked to Cauldron's central Temple for the noontime service.  They took places in the vast crowd and waited for the Mother Superior—their new and unwitting quarry—to arrive and begin the prayers.As Temple acolytes began a long procession down the main aisle, bearing torches and singing a strangely solemn hymn, Arden thought back to her resolution on this holiday one year ago.  Chained in the bleak muddy depths of an Aegosian mine, her Ehkt Rising resolution had been, in her opinion, eminently bold, clear-cut, and realistic: to drop dead as soon as possible.  That hadn't worked out.  Then again, neither had most of her other Ehkt Rising resolutions, going back years—owners always interfered somehow.The procession reached the front of the Temple, and a steel-haired woman in elaborate black and white robes swept her arms wide in a gesture of invocation:  the Mother Superior—the secret leader of the Tide—had arrived.She welcomed them all to the services commemorating the day of "Ehkt's Folly," and then she began to preach.  As she spoke, Arden was amused to realize that the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/251423-rose-wind-saga-halmae-updated-december-23-2010-a-18.html#post5195383" target="_blank">Sovereign version</a> of the holiday painted the god of summertime and challenge as a reckless and violent troublemaker—a rapist and fratricide, even—who was unable to control his own temper and desires. The sermon was thus a somber Kettenite version of an Ehkt Rising message, exhorting everyone to set aside selfish goals and instead boldly resolve to make the world a more just place…  This hypocrite doesn't have a clue what that really means, Arden thought suddenly.  And even if she did… I think I'm done with resolutions.  I'm sick of watching them fail.  But the deepest, most secret part of herself made a resolution anyway.  And when the summertime sun of Ehkt rose the next day, they began to go the long way around the Circle.</blockquote>

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