Alanna was not able to help much directly, instead giving me a short brief on how to set up larger-scale divine magic, which was... a little underwhelming. Unlike the books of magic she'd lent me, which (even when they were written by odd, pedantic, or otherwise frustrating people) showed signs of rigor and an underlying structure to magic, divine magic seemed to just be "wish fulfillment" writ large, and as a consequence, actually performing said magic was tricky.

It sounded kind of unsettlingly like old Earth mysticism--drive away bad spirits and hostile influences, don't let your doubts and fears control you, set up a magic circle and only let the power you want into it. There was obviously more reality to it than it sounded like, because we gods could see and feel the influences, and because the spells had real results; soulflame was real magic power, and in a world powered by it, real things happened. But, just the same, there seemed to be a real problem with things sneaking into a powerful spell.

"It gets more complicated as your religion gets complex, especially with ongoing magic," said Lucile's shadow. "Angels connected to your Key will try to influence ongoing wishes, and in the long term, they might succeed. That thing I said before about myth, and Angels finding a place to feed off of myth instead of reality... well, the dead often have nothing better to do than 'feel out' magic and try to find their place within it. With no body and very little to ground them, their lives are defined by your world. If they feel that myth makes more sense to them than the duty you assigned..." The shadow gave a shrug. "Forever is a long time to be bound."

I considered that, my thoughts going to the Temple of Blades and the weapons of the Fallen, most of the details of which were laid out in the book--and I'd only skimmed that part, since it seemed heady and mostly unrelated. "That just sounds like there needs to be some afterlife. Something more than eternal service."

"It's been tried, but I don't know much. Father didn't do anything like that, and... the few gods I've spoken to didn't, either." That only confirmed, again, that she didn't talk to Ciel'ostra... despite living nearby. Had they been actively hostile? I let the thought fall away.

"Then, you believe Necromancy is similar?"

"Necromancy and blood magic use soulflame, so they must be similar to Divine Magic," answered Alanna quickly. "But by all accounts it should be weaker. It must be. We're empowered by the Mystic Key, something descended from the first gods. I don't know exactly what the Key does for us--you'd probably have to ask a djinn to know for sure--but there's no way that it isn't important. Whether, like you say, it's some kind intelligent part of us, or whether it's just a tool, or the souls of dead gods, or crystallized wisdom... who knows."

Aside from the advice on protecting my workings from necromancy, Alanna didn't seem to have any specific suggestions. Protecting the work would let me build a larger spell in advance and use it, but... at the same time, I wasn't clear on how to turn the situation around, and military matters definitely not in her purview. I checked on Miana to see if she had more questions, but for the moment, she didn't. She seemed to be thinking very hard about something else, and I let her be.

I let Alanna go after that, then tried dipping my toe back into the Council chambers. Intent, I knew, mattered; before I had come in ringing a bell demanding to be heard, but now I came gently, more wondering if anyone was there than demanding or even asking.

Because the pressure was off, I found that I had a long moment when I successfully connected to the place but nothing had happened, and I took a better look around. The place was spiritual, like my Little Gods' Room or the meeting spaces I'd made sometimes with Alanna, but it had an oppressive weight that made my own rooms seem only slightly more substantial than fog. Everything here was made of powerful magic, and (bearing in mind what Alanna herself had just said) I quickly realized about half of it was very powerful shielding, the likes of which would stop any god from simply commanding the space and making it their own. Things like my bell-ringing announcement or even my Eye of Condemnation would have a very muted effect here, making me wonder why I had gotten away with what I did in the first place.

But as my eyes adjusted to the room, as it became clearer in my head, I realized that the room was otherwise almost empty.

Yes, there were a few enchantments to bind rules into place, and I could see permanent avatars for the councilmembers, but the place itself seemed largely meaningless. I had thought when I first came that this must be a place where godly secrets are kept, a secret place with secret meaning and hidden ways, but... perhaps it was only a meeting place, as it seemed to be.

I suppose it was like coming to a national capital and expecting to find secret passages and rooms full of gold, but finding meeting rooms instead. Useful, important... but ultimately a little disappointing.

"So, you're still alive."

The only one who seemed awake was the large muscled god, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that his words weren't meant to wake anyone else, either. There was an echoing quality that he'd had before... and it wasn't there now, which meant he recognized me as not searching for an audience, exactly.

I am sure that the exhausted relief on my face told a story. "Yes. So far."

"And I'm sure you still search to rewrite all of reality." His voice was some mixture of emotions too thick for me to parse. "You've yet to understand your place."

It physically hurt to do it, but I turned and met his gaze. His eyes might as well have been the sun; they were direct, ancient, and unyielding, and every doubt that crossed my mind seemed to be a loss in some kind of metaphorical combat between us, combat that I hoped wasn't going to cost me soulflame.

But I looked at that sun, trying not to waver, although I wanted to collapse. "What do you think my place is?"

He chuckled. "It's quite simple, young god. You don't want me to tell you your place." He shrugged, and his voice carried an edge of whimsy. "And that's it. You don't want to be ruled, you don't want someone else deciding things for you. That's the lesson."

I frowned, a pressure building in my head that told me... something. "The lesson."

"Your place is to live in a world with other people. They're not so different." He raised his chin at me. "When he," he gestured to the small man, the meddler, asleep at his station, "wanted to interfere, you hated him. Would it change how you felt if you knew, for sure, that he meant to help? That he believed he was doing right? No. You believed in a world without sacrifices, and you fought for that, against the advice of older, wiser gods. And since then you decided to interfere, and so you are hated."

Intellectually, after a moment, I thought I understood what the man was saying, but a part of me wanted to deny it, fervently. "So what you're saying is... people don't... want me to save them."

He shrugged. "Would you want to be sacrificed so that someone else could believe themselves a hero?"

I studied his face, but didn't quite meet his eyes. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"You already know how to kill the necromancer," replied the ancient god. "You even have just the right tool to do it with, but you don't like it. For you, this fight is not about killing. It's about proving that you were right--that we should not have sacrificed a goddess, a person, for our own ends. A person who, I shall be clear, was no ally of ours."

I matched his eyes, finding it less painful this time. "Yes."

"Except that we did not sacrifice her, we simply did not save her. You have already failed to save others. How much did it cost you?"

I grit my teeth. That argument reminded me of speaking with upper management--so reasonable, so clear and clever, but always with an eye towards themselves above all else. "And what would it have cost you to interfere?"

The large man's lips quirked downwards. "You want to believe that we have power to spare. It is not so, young god."

All I could imagine in my head was the djinn's chambers, packed with soulflame so dense it was solid, in such abundance that she could drink it like wine. But was the other man really the same? "You cannot earn more?"

"Most of the council were bound by Creton, curse his name. Some of us, including me, are Nameless, so that mortals cannot reach us. Though we may choose to walk this world incarnate and harvest whatever power we stumble upon, there can be no religion to a Nameless god. So long as we live, or until we are killed, we must gain power directly."

Somehow, that sounded familiar, though I wasn't sure if I had heard it before or if my memory was playing tricks. "You can't simply pass your keys on?"

The man's face flickered for a moment, to a face that reminded me very much of the djinn's--ancient, withered, twisted, and rotting. "We decline."

I studied him, not having any reason to argue about that in particular. The more I looked, the more I could tell that his eyes were something special--that somehow he truly saw more, that he was somehow truly insightful. As god of eyes, it interested me, but this was hardly the time. "So you believe I should tempt the creature here."

"You should have. Perhaps now it is late enough that the action would be folly."

There was a familiar sense, if very carefully muted, and I turned to look at the djinn skeleton. "What do you think?"

She only barely lifted her head, and I could see a tiniest glint from her eye socket. Instead of the previous booming voice, there was a raspy whisper. "TIME IS THE ENEMY OF ALL. IN SURVIVING YOU DEFEAT YOUR FOE; IN SURVIVING, YOUR FOE DEFEATS YOU."

I just sighed. That was, of course, no help.

"You are kind, young god," said the large man. "Because of that, you believe that failure comes easily, and victory with great difficulty. Those that die before their time are sacrifices in your eyes. However, the failures of today are not yours; you only live through our failures. If we had succeeded, there would be no necromancers, no mark of Creton's malice upon the world. We give you leave to interfere with our revenge against his people, but only because one way or another, the Necromancer will die. If she kills all three of you and arrives here with four keys, we will still destroy her."

"THAT WILL BE ANOTHER FAILING," replies the djinn, with a hint of a dry laugh.

"...yes." The judge leans his head back. "Perhaps we should not have let you interfere. Perhaps we should have bound you to our service to do our bidding, and forced you to leave. Then you would not feel that this weight was upon your shoulders."

I bristled at the thought of that. "I am not merely a toy, a tool to be used."

"WHEN YOU NO LONGER FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT MORTALS," replied the djinn, "THEN YOU MAY SPEAK SUCH WORDS IN THIS SACRED PLACE."

I turned to look at her, but a wave of dizziness caught me, and I was ejected from the Council.