"If I were serving Asmodeus then instead of warning you about the attack on Almas and helping kill Lorthact I would have left you to be surprised and helped kill Morgethai." A fact which should be obvious without her saying it, really.

"We have only your word that Lorthact was even involved, nobody saw him -"

"Ask Clepati, and if you imagine she's in on my plot too then your war is absolutely hopeless and you may as well give up. I assume you won't take it as proof of anything if I pull his corpse out of my pocket."

"Not particularly."

"Is this going anywhere, other than to establish that you don't trust her?" Jan asks. "Because I think we do not need to trust each other perfectly to make this deal."

"Very well. I don't think my suspicions should be the determining factor here either, but I don't want us neglecting the possibility."

There are more details to be clarified but not really anything else to be decided. They're all very busy right now; they wrap it up in a few more minutes. They have an outline to take to the lawyers.

"Do you have any further matters for us?" Jan asks Alfirin.

"No, none. I'll be back tomorrow to sign." She leaves the room.

Marit's here to provide history advice, not to lecture people. But. "What is achieved by telling her you're suspicious of her? Check if Clepati confirms the Lorthact story, by all means, but why tell her you intend to?"

"I wanted to bring it to the Lord-Watcher's attention, and she might have had some reassurance or proof… It was an error, though. I'm sorry, sir."

They don't work for him. He does not really want to hang around scolding them for everything he can possibly notice, and not noticing she might be lying is objectively more of a vice than noticing it and then immediately saying to her that you noticed it. "That's approximately the person I knew. I'd be surprised if she's undead because I'd expect it to have changed her more."

"Thank you for the analysis. Do you think the Goddess may have been wrong in advising us to treat her as an ally in this?"

"There's enough at stake it's worth even expensively checking. But no. I expect she wants to fight Hell, or she'd be doing something else. Iomedae knew her better than anyone, and was right there, with something like a tenth of Her attention. I don't think She missed anything."

They've passed Nefreti's deadline and all is not lost; far from it, they now have three archmages instead of two. Cansellarion's army reaches the Tomarsulk with the main Chelish army too far east to contest the crossing or get between him and Egorain. According to his plans last week, he would've crossed the river and tried to lure the Chelish army into a fight on the plains of Chelam. He thinks he can do better, now. How does Morgethai feel about doing another teleportation circle to move his army north of Ostenso and clear out the Eastern army engaged on the border with Andoran?

Wildly in favor, obviously. Is Nefreti still willing to help? 

For unclear Nefreti reasons, no. But they're getting some help from another archmage who is very secretive and doesn't want their involvement advertised. (He checked, he's allowed to tell Morgethai that much.)

Morgethai is very confused, but if Cansellarion thinks this will work she'll do it. (Andoran's border forts will…probably hold, with her dropping by to hit the Chelish attackers? But this will be a much better solution and means she's less tied down shortly.) Where does he want his army to be.

Does she know how much scouting the Chelish armies on the border are doing in their rear? He wants to be able to get the whole army through before they can get attack it with a sizable force, which might mean five miles behind the Chelish forts if the scouting is thorough or two if it's not.

She thinks they're being sloppy in their hurry to get across the border before Andoran can get help. It's one of those things where Nefreti would helpfully pipe up and tell them for sure, though.

Seems like one of those things. He's not going to bother her again about this operation, though, she didn't pipe up with any warnings when he asked her about the circles, and she seems to have limited patience for him and he doesn't want to spend that down when he might need it for warnings about bigger things.

Well, she'll do two miles or five, as he prefers, as soon as tomorrow morning.

…Two, why not. Most of the things Cheliax has that might actually endanger his army don't actually have to march to get places.

So at dawn they place the circle in a valley two miles out from where an Andoren border fortress north of Ostenso is besieged, and then Morgethai flits off to help at a different one.

They march through the teleportation circle and the extra two miles and straight into battle. It's not very different from a normal march into battle, apart from not being able to split up and take multiple roads until they're on the far side of the teleport. In some ways, it's simplifying.

Cheliax in fact has a disciplined, well-equipped army with a lot more spellcasters than anyone else in Avistan. The typical soldier has some Worldwound experience; it's not the embarrassing strong-only-on-paper nonsense of the time of the Andoran and Galt revolutions.