"Of course. Carlota and I were going to go speak to the queen, so I don't have all night but -

Which matter?"

"The intent to outlaw the worship of all evil deities, including infernal powers, and then enforce that ban by creating and renewing various specialized inquisitorial organizations. I understand that Lastwall bans it, and I understand that in a healthy society it would be disallowed. But - to respect your schedule, I worry that enacting a ban now will result in an enormous number of deaths, largely of people who have not yet received any significant guidance into any other form of religious practice."

"What do you mean by 'any significant guidance,' do you have an example of the sort of case you're thinking of?"

"In Kantaria, and in the marches to the north, we sent the theologians we received with the tax caravans, when we sent the children from the preparatory school home to their villages. But we had thirty men, for an Archduchy of half a million people. Most of the empowered priests of other gods have received no formal training; they know only that a god has chosen them, and can give only their own advice. Many villages in other parts of the Archduchy have not been reached by any priest or theologian at all. Those that have been reached by trained priests or theologians, for the most part, have received one or two sermons, for a day or two six months apart, and then the priest had to move on with the caravan. But one or two sermons do not erase a lifetime of religious practice, not for anyone who was not already hoping every day for permission to stop. When the priests first came to Menador, they found that many people were afraid to speak honestly with them or admit to any of their confusions, because they were afraid that their thoughts and feelings would themselves be grounds to kill them.

I am certain that there are tens of thousands in Menador alone who still pray daily to Asmodeus. Not because they cannot be dissuaded, but because no one has come to dissuade them, at least no one who was not deeply confused themselves. Menador is a dramatic case, because of the difficulty of travel, but I am certain that the same is also true in other places."

"...And in Lastwall, in most countries in the world where the worship of Asmodeus is banned, it's - an uncommon thing, a deliberate thing, something which no person does by rote or by habit... I see your concern. I worry, somewhat, that - it may be an evil to treat Asmodean worship as harshly as it's treated in other countries, but it would also be a mistake to make it legal, to condone it - and the convention does not seem to me like a body capable of great nuance. If we were to propose something more akin to what is done in Osirion, where the worship of chaotic and evil gods is not forbidden but spreading their faith is - Do you foresee problems with that?"

"My understanding is that proselytization for infernal powers is already forbidden by law. That's not, of course, to say that it isn't still happening, but at least to proselytize is a deliberate action. I worry that making prayer or belief illegal will badly harm the people's ability to seek guidance from the new priests, badly harm their ability to learn to be honest about anything they think or feel, badly harm their ability to change course and save their souls. But on its own, with a light penalty, at least it wouldn't be a bloodbath.

But the committee also wants to bring back the old Arodenite punishments. It wants to bring back burning, with the guideline that burning be used specifically for heresy. And the committee wants to reinstate various inquisitorial organizations that served under the Thrunes, and create new ones, which in practice will be staffed by many of the same people who served in the secret police two years ago. And it would turn them not just on demon cultists, but on everyone who still prays to infernal deities. Cheliax's experts are very, very good at rooting out proscribed belief, quite likely the best in Avistan. And in that situation, if we turn the Order of the Pyre and its kind on men and women who are not criminals by temperament, who do not know to hide what they're doing, who are doing what the law has required of them all their lives, they will find them very easily, and they will find them in massive numbers. And those, together, will be a bloodbath."