I'd guess that OWL has a SNARC on Mistress Marzho at all times, and that anything out of the ordinary is flagged for immediate attention by Nahrmahn in hyper-heuristic mode.Sharp Claw wrote:Mistress Marzho is not only the head of her cell but the head of Nynians Zion organization, so she could do considerable damage if she was captured and told all she knew. Hopefully, Nynian is watching with a SNARC and can get other members of Helm Cleaver, one of owls remotes or a sejin to rescue or assassinate her before she is whisked away to the temple.
Unfortunately our heroine has two major problems: the nearest seijin is over 5000 miles away, while the second is probably close to 7000. The fastest Merlin has ever dared fly was Mach 5 en route to rescuing Sharley from the assassination attempt at the abbey. That's around 3500 mph, and puts him about 90 minutes away once he manages to break away from whatever he's doing when OWL sounds the alarm and he races to meet the skimmer. (Better hope it's night with a thunderstorm over Siddar City!)
The other problem is that Merlin and Nimue don't dare get too close to the Temple. So if the captive is dragged off to the Citadel of Schueler, which is specifically mentioned in HFaF as being the part of the Temple complex where prisoners are held while they're tortured, and where I presume she'd be put to the Question and the Punishment, the PICAs can't rescue her.
The Temple complex is huge, but we know that Gwylym Manthyr and the thirty Charisian seamen who survived both the Question and the Punishment were able to shuffle to the posts in the Plaza of Martyrs to be burned - which is where Manthyr spit in Clyntahn's face. Of course they may have been carried there in wagons, then forced to walk the final distance.
So if the citadel is far enough away from the Temple for a PICA to dare going inside, we could see another demonstration of what a 10 gauge shotgun can do as a seijin shoots his way inside to rescue our unfortunate heroine. If stealth and skullduggery are required, Merlin could have the chance to be sneaky while leaving a trail of dead inquisitors in his wake, which is of course the best kind of inquisitor!
Of course we have only a partial scene here and don't know the entire context. It may not occur at Mistress Marzho's Fine Milliners - it might be further away from the Temple, or the winter weather may slow the inquisitor's return trip to the Temple enough that a seijin will have time to intervene. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that Merlin gets within sniping distance...
I don't like the odds though. It's sad when you have to hope that the woman who's about to be brutalized and horrifically murdered is Zhorzhet Styvynsyn and not Mistress Marhzo!
Mistress Marhzo can give away quite a bit more than Zhorzhet, including that the seijins have access to at least one hikousen to fly quickly from place to place. I was absolutely shocked when Merlin let that tidbit get out to the Fist of God, since it's crucial to his ability to pose as multiple seijins, and despite OWL's remotes acting as seijins now and then, if Aivah could figure out that he was the only seijin, although with Nimue there's two of them, with enough sightings of short and tall seijins correlated with unexplained absences by Merlin or Nimue, the Inquisition could draw the obvious conclusion as well. That would be a Bad Thing!
On the other hand, the Fist of God may be lying in wait outside and Zhorzhet may be serving as bait to trap the inquisitors inside. (Wherever inside may be.) So some inquisitors may be about to die, after which OWL or Nahrmahn will inform Merlin that the only casualty of the latest plot by the Fist of God was an agent's elbow.
Whoever it is will spill her guts (literally once the torturers begin administering the Punishment!) but Zhorzhet can only give up Mistress Marhzo and the other members of her cell. If they disappear fast enough, the Inquisition will find itself with a useless list of names, since the people on the list will be long gone.
Aivah may lose the Fist of God, but not all of its fingers...
