The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

POTV.

“What was it that sent so many of them home, then?” Grant asks. “What happened here?”

“We asked,” Wenzai says. “Only thing they kept saying was due to my personal beliefs et cetera. You hear anything more specific, Corska?”

Ondai tilts her head to one side. “Well, understand I don’t speak Eqtorish. But I did hear a name come up a lot, I think. Mortak. Something like that.”

Ruaq raises her hand. “It wasn’t Multraq, was it? Ecclesiast Multraq?”

“Multraq?” Ondai rubs her jaw. “That’s familiar.”

Not a cult.

“Apqar’s hairy asshole,” Ipqen says. “I figured qer celebrity would kinda just fizzle out after annexation.”

“Okay, so.” Ruaq sucks air in through her carnivorous teeth. “Ecclesiast Multraq is a keeper on Eqtor who leads a pretty significant Uvaniqist sect.”

“Uvaniqist.” Grant tries to remember if he’s heard that before. “Is it a cult?”

Ruaq laughs musically. “No, Majesty. Not a cult. We’re Uvaniqist. It’s one of the biggest sects in the Children of Eqt.”

Grant’s face reddens. “Oh.”

“Multraqi Uvaniqism is a little culty, babe,” Ipqen says. “Be fair.”

Ruaq’s fringe ripples. “Sorta but not really. It’s like—they don’t believe anything the rest of us don’t, not exactly. It’s just they believe it harder.”

“Great,” Wenzai says. “Zealots.”

“That’s probably the better word,” Ipqen says. By her side, Ruaq grimaces. “The Uvaniqists believe that keepers are the direct voice of the Gods.”

“I thought you all believed that,” Grant says.

“Not all of us,” Ruaq says. “The line outside of Uvaniq’s teachings is an ecclesiast is… interpreting, right? Uvaniq attested that when qe put on the ceremonial robe qe was straight-up establishing a connection. Lotta xhurr mysticism, lotta real big personalities. But the services are really energetic and the songs are tight and there’s a lot of stuff about, uh—multiplying. As part of the faith. So historically we sorta bred ourselves into the majority. Most Uvanaqists are born into it.”

“And some Uvaniqists convert because we got real big crushes on keepers,” Ipqen adds.

“If I was a hardcore Uvaniqist,” Ruaq says, “I’d be out here wearing the robes all the time and insisting you all use my temple signifiers and acting like Ipqen was my, uh—”

“Servant,” Ipqen says.

Ruaq bats her lashes. “Yes?”

“I was finishing your fuckin’ sentence.”

Ruaq titters at her mistress’s sour face. “The point is, Majesty, that submitting oneself to a venture like yours, an alien-led one, would be unthinkable to the Multraqi.”

“They think that the word of the Gods resides on the tongues of the keepers,” Ipqen says. “Any venture not run by them is necessarily Godless.”

“Multraq is a hardcore Uvaniqist, then,” Grant says.

“Hardest of cores. Qe never drops qer temple signifier, qe refuses to acknowledge the new trio ways… basically qe’s a keeper supremacist.”

Ruaq laughs uncomfortably. “Babe.”

“I mean, qe is.” Ipqen raises an eyebrow. “I’m Uvaniqist, too. I get to say that.”

“This qe word,” Grant says. “You called that a temple signifier?”

Ruaq nods. “When a keeper ecclesiast is speaking for the Gods, they put on this golden robe and swap from she and her to qer. I’ve done it a couple of times on, like, ceremonial stuff. Like when I first got my nquiuk I was a qe for the afternoon. Most of the time, we just go with female signifiers. It’s easier that way. But Multraq goes to fuckin’ sleep in the robe. So it’s qe and qer all the time.”

“So why is a person like, uh, like qer getting such influence over our people?” Sykora asks.

There’s not many Multraqi, but their words carry the weight of a kind of… guilt. Another councilor is speaking, a man with broad, geometrically scarified forearms. It’s sort of a thing where you know you can’t live that way, but you know you’re supposed to, and you admire that someone is. I don’t know if that makes sense.

The Taiikari look blankly. Sykora squints. “Not exactly.”

“It does to me,” Grant says. “Guilt is a heavy hitter in the religion my family had.”

“Interesting.” Wenzai perches her chin on her wrapped-around tail. “Sometimes I think Maekyonites are closer to Eqtorans than to Taiikari.”

“Has this Ecclesiast Multraq not been on your radar, Qilik?” Sykora asks. “I would consider clamping down, if I were you.”

We didn’t—er. Qilik looks to the other councilors. We had always presumed that it would be simpler and more harmonious to simply keep qer broadcasts… controlled. Not to crush, per se, but to quarantine.

“So how’s qer proselytizing spreading?” Sykora asks.

Independent radio signals, perhaps, Qilik says. Or even handed-off materials. It certainly bears investigation, Majesty.

“My thoughts exactly.” Sykora squares her shoulders. “This is your first Imperial exigency. Multraq’s message, as I understand it, goes expressly counter to Taiikari doctrine. Would anyone here disagree with that?”

Tense silence across the Eqtoran council.

“You have a great deal of trust and goodwill thanks to your diplomacy during the annexation, Governess,” Sykora says. “But if the Empress were made fully aware of this sect and its operation with relative impunity, she would authorize a severe response, and expect to see it executed. So we will have to act decisively.”

“Here’s the thing.” Wenzai raises a hand. “At a guess, Governess, you were already dealing with this stuff during the era of the republic. Keeper supremacy was surely against yourdoctrine, too. Right? And you counterprogrammed Multraq then.”

Yes, Countess.

“And you’ve been given more power to keep it tight post-republic. Not less.”

We have. There is perhaps a certain reluctance to use it—

“Sure. Sure.” Wenzai waves a hand. “But Multraq’s resurgence is unorthodox, right? Proven methods breaking down. Now, part of that might an increasing fundamentalism in the face of the new Imperial order, but… I dunno. Isn’t it odd that this is the project where it first rears its head? Why aren’t the Multraqi breaking through about the Omnidivine, or the military integrations?”

“You suspect she—uh, qe—is receiving a boost, don’t you?” Grant says. “You think this is another piece being played against us.”

“Can’t say for sure,” Wenzai says. “But it’s the pattern. Subtle and deniable, and leaving someone else to shoulder the blame.”

“A certain Marquess,” Grant says.

“A certain Marquess,” Sykora agrees.

A certain Marquess? Qilik furrows her heavy brow.

“Just our private suspicions, Governess,” Sykora says. “Not quite ready for public divulgence. We’ve planted false intelligence in some quarters, feigning poor relations with the Eqtoran council. This is a wedge seeking a crack. Let us agree, Qilik, that it will find none.”

You have my oath that it won’t, Qilik says. If this certain Marquess believes us to be a feckless flock of god-botherers to be wielded as a bludgeon, they are in for a rude reaccounting.

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