She heads out, going straight for the Third's quarters.

The Third return with her soon enough. 

"What's this about?"

Having done this once just now, explaining about Tamerlane and their suspicions is easier the second time.

When Gideon mentions feeling taunted with regard to the whole 'never dissever my soul' issue, Phae frowns a little before saying, "Scripture is similar - I've been making a list of contradictions. Even the basic mysteries - 'She was God, and She became Man; She was Man, and She became God' feel - 'taunting' is perhaps the best way to describe that. Plus, the orthodoxy around the Resurrection doesn't add up - that's my specialty - the energy requirements literally don't math."

"And if you add 'Lyctor' to the mix?"

She shakes her head. "The throughput is the issue, as much as the total energy requirements - you need a lot of energy at the same time to drag a soul out of the River, repair or reconstruct the body, and pin the soul in place before brain death can set in - there's only so much thanergy released by the death of a single human, even if you're rapidly yoyo-ing that soul in and out of the River - and even if you figured out a storage solution allowing later Resurrection, that would take forever."

"Now, we don't know what killed the Nine Houses - it's possible the Emperor was able to harness that thanergetic shock if they flipped at once rather than over time, or that several thalergy planets flipping close in space and time to each other caused enough turbulence in the River to reduce the energy requirements to something reasonable... But that's at least ten questions only masquerading as an answer."

"Suppose that's more research for us to do, then."

She nods. 

"The part of scripture about Man becoming God and vice versa also seems... Suspicious to me, with what we now know about Lyctors."

"So like, the Emperor and Tamerlane are Lyctors together?"

"Maybe - oh, Ninth, is Tamerlane here now?"

"Yes. She's been- interested in the conversation."

"Is there a way for the rest of us to see her? It's rude to talk about people who are present without including them, after all."

Tamerlane is THEIRS and Ellyn is getting a little twitchy about all these people anyway-

"Sixth saw her briefly when she tried to use psychometry on the book of poems."

Psychometry is not among her many talents. 

"...Maybe we could pass questions through you? And you can let us know if she seems to - have things to say."

"I can."

"For one - are we at all on the right track?"

The Body doesn't

seem to be interested in answering this question.

Which Ellyn will relay.

She sighs and nods. "Well, we can trade what we know about the technical details here..."

Vital though said details surely are for the merely mortal necromancers, they fail to hold Tamerlane's attention.

The Body seems instead