The First Causality of Battle is the Battle Plan

By noon, messengers were sent out from the Grand Cathedral to all the Cardinals present within the City.

Because of the upcoming spring festival, all happened to be present within Verdenka City.

The messages were a call for the Conclave of Cardinals to come together for an emergency Conclave. Though not unprecedented, the call didn’t come from the Pope but rather Cardinal Malachi which was unusual.

The type of conclave that Cardinal Malachi was calling for was a Judgmental Conclave with Cardinal Privilege. That hadn’t happened in more than a hundred years when two Popes claimed dominion over the Church.

This meant that the Pope or his staff were not allowed to attend the first portion of this Conclave.

Elevant Samuel was standing on the veranda of his office looking out over the market grounds with a perplexed look on his face. He had heard about the conclave, and he wasn’t happy at all about it. Even though he only directly controlled a handful of powerful Cardinals, he was sure that there were enough fence sitting Cardinals that were easily swayed to his will by the Cardinals that he did control.

So why was Cardinal Malachi, usually a non-confrontive person be calling for a Judgmental Conclave to begin with.

He thought that with the elimination of Cardinal Mallow, it would have effectively warned him of what would happen if he stepped out of line.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to arrange another such accident, so he had to be sure how to proceed.

Since he hadn’t had enough time to get to know Seer Millicent enough to trust her with soothing this information, he had to venture down to the stacks and deal with that unpleasant woman.

He turned and proceeded to the main stairway to the dungeons and stacks.

Meanwhile:

Rowen stood in the Conclave’s chambers beside the podium waiting for the Conclave to come to order. Cardinal Malachi was looking nervous as the other Cardinals were chatting and taking their time to find their way to their seats.

The Podium stood in the center of a circle of seats, twenty-seven in all, facing it. The twenty seventh seat was the only seat that stood apart as it was more of a throne than a seat. One of the twenty-six Cardinal seats was draped in black cloth. Rowen assumed that that was Cardinal Mallow’s seat.

Behind the Cardinals’ seats were several more seats that were for the myriads of Bishops and other attendants to stand ready to support the Cardinals as needed.

While he was standing there he remembered the meeting he had had with Xyarra, Katrina and Jade earlier that day:

Rowen said, “The only hole in our plan so far is dealing with the escorting forces that the delegate from the Nordac Empire brought with them.”

Kat looked thoughtful and said, “If I had some troops, I could take that part on. I’m said to be a fair commander.”

Rowen looked thoughtful, but he noticed that Jade looked like she wanted to say something, so he asked, “Yes Jade?”

“Well, Master…” She looked unsure how to proceed.

“What is it Jade? You can feel free to put your two cents in here.”

“Well, master I don’t want to speak out of line.”

Xyarra said, “Now don’t be silly, Jade darling. You’re one of us. You should feel free to put your opinion forward.”

Rowen nodded in agreement and added, “Yes Jade. You have always come through for me, so I trust you implicitly. The worst that could happen is we would disagree with your input. We would never chastise or punish you for putting it forward. Whereas if you don’t put your opinion forward and it would have been an idea that would have been crucial…” he deliberately trailed off.

Jade smiled shyly and said, “Thank you master. For my plan to work, I’m going to need use of the mirror gate…”

Rowen was brought back to the present by the sounds of one of the Cardinals, a rather rotund one at that, began grumbling quite loudly, “This is not the time for a conclave. This is the eve of the Spring Festival. We should be out merry making!”

The Cardinal seated next to him rebuked, “There is always time for that Cardinal Jasper, the Mother Church beckons us now to do her bidden.”

Cardinal Jasper eyed the aged fellow with a jaundice eye and said, “Cardinal Mortimer, you are of a dying breed. You and your kind have all but died off. Much like our fellow, Cardinal Mallow.”

Cardinal Malachi leaned over to Rowen and whispered, “I have misgivings about doing this in this manner.” He then let out a long sigh and asked, “Is there a chance that this will proceed peacefully?”

Rowen just smirked back at him.

The aged cleric sighed again and said, “That’s what I thought.”

As the last of the Cardinal seats were filled with clerics in red robes and miter hats Cardinal Malachi rose from his seat and stepped over to the podium and grabbed the white marble ball that was set on a black marble half bowl with a large square base and slammed the ball into the bowl three times. This made a hallow magically enhanced thudding sound that seemed to demand attention.

It felt somehow familiar to Rowen, but he couldn’t place why.

Xyarra mentally said to Rowen, “Dragon magic. This gavel was a gift from my father to the first pope.”

The group of Cardinals turned their heads from whatever side conversations they were having towards the podium.

Rowen looked out at the various Cardinals and other clerics and thought, “What a motley looking group we have here.” Remembering the news broadcasts and movie representations of what a Catholic Conclave looked like.

Some of the Cardinals were barely fitting in their robes. Hardly any of their robes looked as if they had seen an iron in years if ever.

He then looked down at the suit that he was wearing that he had created at X’s direction. It looked both martial and princely like from a Disney fantasy cartoon, with pale blue jacket, dark blue trousers with yellow stripes down them. His shoulder boards were white with a blue crown on the outer aspects of the boards then a gold rose, red rose and towards the inner part a black rose.

He looked over to his wife Xyarra who was wearing a proper noble women’s gown that was somehow even blacker than her skin with a black rose motive embroidered on the hem of the skirt.

She wore a gold tiara with a black ivory crest of the Swarden Clan on her forehead.

Her golden eyes glowing with a defiant sheen.

Cardinal Malachi announced, “My brethren, I have called for this conclave together for some dire reasons. As we all know and yet we have all been guilty of turning a blind eye to is that dark and evil rot has set itself upon our beloved church…”

Down in the stacks Dethlial approached the back of the ancient crone waiting for her usual defiant rebuke of his approach, but none came. She sat there, her back to him, her incense candles burned to mere nubs, and she had a rank smell about her that he had never noticed before.

He circled around to stand in front of her to see her sitting crossed legged slumped over with a serene, almost joyous look on her face. She was quite dead. By the smell, she must have passed right after his last visit with her.

He looked down at the parchment that was loosely rolled in front of her with a quill that had dried laid across the top of it. Next to the scroll was a inkwell that was toppled over with a dried puddle of ink next to it.

He reached down to the scroll and opened it to read, “Your house of cards tumbles down, foul demon.” Followed by a line as if her hand trailed off uncontrollably.