Prior Wishart drew a deep breath. “How long ago were the gates built?” he asked.

Harmodius didn’t answer at first. He looked from one to another to another, around the circle. None flinched. The Faery Knight grinned and showed his teeth.

“You might have been a mountebank,” the Faery Knight said. “Jussst tell them!”

“At least thirty thousand years,” Harmodius said.

The bishop sighed. “My scripture tells me that the earth is between six and seven thousand years old,” he said.

Harmodius shrugged. “It might simply be wrong.”

The bishop acknowledged this with a nod.

“It might refer to somewhere else,” Gabriel said. “We are no more from here than the Duchess Mogon.”

“Thirty thousand years is a long time,” the bishop said.

Lord Krevak nodded. “Even to my people, that is too long.” He shrugged. “Too long to take seriously.”

Desiderata glanced at her captain and then leaned towards Harmodius. “I see how this could forever alter everything. But I do not see how it alters the next few days. Is there a weapon? A way to prevent this manifestation?”

Mogon now spoke. “No—I see it. Manifestation is power and weakness.”

Harmodius nodded. “If Ash is here,” he said, “he is not anywhere else, and when he is entirely here—” He paused. “Then I think he can be destroyed. Only when they distribute themselves are they immortal. And less powerful.”

Gabriel nodded. “Now I am not yawning. You want to kill a god.”

“It will be very difficult,” Harmodius said.

Gabriel winced. “We’re going to be pinched hard to win a simple field battle to protect our crops against heavy numbers and better levels of ops.”

“That part I leave to you,” Harmodius said. “Our battle will be fought here, in the aethereal, and it will all be about misdirection.”

“Mine, too,” Gabriel said. “I feel I need to remind you all of something.”

“Speak, man,” the Faery Knight said.

Gabriel looked around. “As a knight it is my duty to protect the weak. My first duty. You may be right, but please, old man, admit that you may have all this backwards. My duty is to protect the peasants in the fields, the merchants, the women bearing babies.” He looked around. “I agree that the game of gods should stop. I hate it. But men play it and wardens play it and dragons play it and wyverns and bears. It is not nearly as simple as killing a god. So let us focus, your grace and my lady and lords—on beating Thorn.”

The Faery Knight nodded agreement. “We may not even be on the right side,” he said. “We may be too puny to even understand the sides.”

Gabriel smiled at him. “I can tell a good company by riding through the streets of their camp—once. Let me meet one whore, one servant, and I know their captain.” His eyes narrowed. “I will not debate theology with you, my lords. But I know Ash by his works. I know two of these others—and whatever they may intend…” He shrugged.