And so where she appears is not in one of the nicest bits of Kyonin! It's not in the Tanglebriar, but not by that much; it is, instead, in the Teleport Trap in the Winter Council's favored stronghold, which is pretty close to the border. One of Carnaneth's daughters, Thossbraigh, is watching; her sword was forged nine hundred years ago by a smith who considers one sword a century to be an acceptable rate, and she never had quite as much skill with spells as she did with tearing people to pieces with shifted claws and antlers and enchanted blade.

She nods as Morthalas appears. "Welcome to Medueig. You are expected."

(Also watching: various animals. Possibly, various trees. Possibly various extremely invisible or hidden things, though if so they're doing a pretty good job of the hiding.)

She bows very slightly, really more of a nod, but a more pronounced nod than Thossbraigh's.

"Thank you for your hospitality," she says. "I have come to seek the Council's aid against our mutual foe, the false god Razmir, who has invaded my country and placed my mistress under compulsion."

"You are welcome in our lands so long as you share our enemy, kin of the blood of Castrovel," said Thossbraigh, who thinks she is being extremely polite, and then turns to lead Morthalas to where three of the actual members of the Winter Council can decide. (Thossbraigh is a flunky.)

One is Arcanist Fainalach, archmage of Kyonin and master scholar, one is the dreaded General Allevrah, scarred marshal of the armies of Kyonin, and the last is, yes, Carnaneth, druid of the eighth circle and Mother of the Forest of Kyonin. 

Carnaneth is so, so tired. She is not really sure that if she makes the Boneyard, she is going to come back, instead of just going back to following her instincts and heading to Nirvana.

But, well, she is here and it is now and she has a duty, because there is exactly one piece of the elves left, and she is not going to abandon her daughters to Treerazer. Which means, right now, putting up with a manstained youth, because she is short of better allies. Ugh.

"Morthalas Halfblooded to speak to the Lords of the Council," says Thossbraigh, bowing, before accepting a dismissal from Allevrah and departing.

"Welcome to Medueig," says Allevrah. "You bear news of our enemies?" (General Allevrah does not use the divine We, but is not actually that far from it.)

"News, and a plea, my lords," she says. "The false god Razmir, tyrant of the land once known as Melcat, came upon my adopted country of Ustalav in the night and placed its nobles under Dominate Person, compelling them to surrender and swear fealty to him. I come on behalf of my mistress, the Countess Carmilla Caliphvaso, Lady of Caliphas, who is under compulsion, and speak as I believe she would bid me speak, were her mind her own. I would ask your help in freeing her from Razmir's spell."

"Our own lands are desperately besieged," says Carnaneth, audibly exhausted, "assailed from north and south, east and west." She has SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED just murdering Cyprian already, but Fainalach is pretty sure that won't work, his defenses are too good. "We must look to our own defenses, and have little time to spare for crusades against distant evils, however dire."

"If you help my Countess," she says, "you may find one of your borders at least freed from assault. Razmir has overextended himself to take Ustalav; the whole country would rise against him, for a thousand diverse reasons, but for the compulsion-spells he has laid upon our leaders. I expect that, were they broken, he would quickly find himself with more important concerns than making war upon Kyonin."

Well. That is, in fact, an argument.

Of course, it is also true that he is probably too busy to do anything right now, what with incorporating his domains into his empire. And, being in fact a human, he will probably die before he's done doing that, and his empire will fall apart.

... Unless he becomes a lich. Another lich. They have too many goddamn liches already, the bloody things keep accumulating.

(The Winter Council presently shares a telepathic bond, and these thoughts are shared with her fellows, as are their own threads of the argument with her. They prefer not to debate in front of petitioners, so as to maintain a single, unified voice free of all dissent.)

"What assistance," says Fainalach, "would you require?"

(And what are you prepared to pay for it, in money or treasure or secrets or better yet in Lawfully sworn favors, is implicit.)

"Only the aid of a caster strong enough to reliably overcome the magic of Razmir's so-called priest—who is, to my knowledge, a mostly ordinary fifth-circle wizard, although the bonds which Razmir lays upon his slaves may, indeed, grant them some power which the contents of their spellbooks would belie."

(Neither she nor her Countess are Lawful, but they both know what it means to grant a favor, or to owe one, and the Countess is very wealthy, even more so well-connected, and would consider the Council to have her gratitude, if not forever, then for a rather longer time than humans are accustomed to live. And the Council, of course, knows that last part full well.)

The Winter Council silently confers.

"This," says Allevrah, "may, perhaps, be possible."

That part of the Whispering Way which thought Razmir was, perhaps, pretty cool, for having cowed the Church of Pharasma into confessing his godhood in a day (those of them who know who Yasmardin Senir really is laugh), might perhaps have felt pretty stupid when he invited in the paladins of Lastwall, possibly the only force upon the face of Golarion that's even worse, to keep his peace.

The whispers are now nearly of one accord: Razmir must be forced from Ustalav, and preferably destroyed. How exactly this is to be accomplished, when the Whispering Way is presently without a godlike archmage of its own—

Oh, is it?

(A brief digression:

The Whispering Way does not have leaders. Oh, they say in Pharasma’s churches that it’s the cult of the Whispering Tyrant, seeking to restore Tar-Baphon to the dominance in Ustalav he once possessed, but in fact it’s really more of a mutual assistance group for necromancers, swapping spells and trading tips on how to best animate dead so they know how to fight, bind ghosts to obey instead of tear your throat out, and dodge the paladins and witch hunters that are the perpetual bane of Ustalav. Nonetheless, there are Whispering Way members who other members are, perhaps, more inclined to listen to than others. Being a lich helps.

So does having been an Emperor of Taldor. They call him Remek Czaszar, now, for his last subjects were savages, but there was a time he was Emperor Taldaris II, and every knight from the Arch of Aroden to the steppes of Kelesh gave him homage, and - thus he told himself - he was a just ruler, wholly worthy of his name, a monarch wise and good, a conqueror and a lord feared and respected. Wizardry he had pursued in his youth and wizardry he pursued after the throne was his, to continue his rule forever and so break the laws of eternal civil war that were the doom of Taldor. But, for some reason, when he became a lich, oh no, every Good and half of the Neutral churches in the entire Taldane Empire joined his generals to pull him down and replace him. Being a lich, he survived this, and being a lich, he has spent the past three thousand years attempting to retake the Empire of Taldor against the concerted opposition of basically everyone else in Avistan, plus the Kelesh Empire, and while he’s retaken his throne before he’s never managed to hold it.

His attempt before last involved acknowledging the Whispering Tyrant as his overlord, which is why since the failure of his last attempt some four hundred years ago (involving the creation of the small but thriving nation of Videk, east of Galt and Taldor, as an accidental byproduct) left him withdrawing to a secret fortress in the Hungry Mountains warded against all detection, there to wait out his enemies while he rebuilt his strength; hidden in his fortress are deadly traps for any intruders who dare to approach it, stockpiles of weapons and armor readied against the day of his return, legions of the undead unaging until the day they are to be unleashed, and a fanatical cult of disciples, who study his ways so that they may one day approach his glory.

He’s not the leader of the Whispering Way. It doesn’t have a leader. He’s not even one of them. But of the “the Whispering Tyrant has failed us and instead of awaiting his return we should now unite under a new leader to establish a necromantic dominion over the continent” subsubfaction, he’s one of the three or so candidates most frequently brought up as a potential leader, though those three are not really a majority when combined unless you eliminate “ME!!!” from the list of candidates.)

There is a sense in which Remek Czaszar, Great Emperor, Grand Prince of Taldor, is "weaker" "than" "Razmir." He has fewer ridiculously powerful magical items. He's a spell circle lower. He's a much worse crafter, and has not even begun to study Tian ritualism.

And then there's a very different sense, which is that he is smarter, wiser, more charismatic, equipped with a large collection of capable lieutenants bound to serve him but who also desire to serve him, has allies across Ustalav, and has spent three hundred years, not twenty, building up resources.

The Grand Prince of Taldor wishes to - "discuss matters" - with his fellows of the Whispering Way, without the time lag produced by Sending.

There are, of course, customary methods of arranging this.

How does an organization uniformly Evil, without Law or leader to which they owe common obedience, meet in person without exposing themselves to an unacceptable risk of death (insofar as they can, in fact, still suffer it)? They cannot meet in the private fortress of any of their number, for no one is invited to their councils who is so weak that they could not, in their own territory, destroy any of the others; nor is there any neutral site secure enough that they would not invite the paladins of Lastwall or the inquisitors of Pharasma's church to descend upon their gathering in force in the hope of ridding the world of a dozen scourges with a single stroke. (A doomed hope, for any force which either of those factions is actually likely to muster against them, but one does not rise to be invited to the councils of the Whispering Way without being the sort of person who guards obsessively against the possibility of their enemies actually trying.)

The simple answer, then, is that they don't, themselves, meet in person. But all invited possess slaves worth no more to them than a fingernail, and the spell Dominate Person, with enough force behind it, does not actually permit the caster to see through the target's eyes, but comes close enough to permit communication. So it is those slaves, hapless and empty-eyed, who gather in a barren and nameless valley of the Hungry Mountains, chosen by throwing a dart at a map of those areas of Virlych the paladins do not frequent.

One might expect that being a severed head forced to share a body with someone Good might be an impediment to the acquisition of disposable slaves. In the eyes of Iselin Odronti, however, his condition is all the more reason to locate some anyway. He, in fact, already keeps one of his host's less remarkable servants continually under Dominate Person, refreshing the spell whenever he has control, so as to have any ability to affect the world while Muralt is in charge. (He has not, yet, figured out a way to Dominate Muralt; alas, the mechanisms of arcane magic do not appear to allow him to cast the spell on "himself".)

He Teleports his slave to the meeting place well in advance of the appointed time; he does not know how long he'll retain control. There is water here, if no food, and it is not so cold even in this high valley that the man will die of exposure in two days.

The Grand Prince of Taldor can round up a mortal; he has many servants who are of value to him, who will rise high under his rule, but there are also villages in the tall mountains that pay him homage for wiping out the truly dangerous predators near them (a failed attempt to bolster his channeling capacity; his powers have stagnated since his ascension, for nothing is capable of truly threatening him) and from these he can find a disposable mortal, who bears his Arcane Mark.

He does not particularly consider Iselin one of his main rivals; the necromancer has grit, yes, and hate, but his stagnation has left him merely fifth circle, and Remek Czaszar has servants of greater arcane power than he. Still, the Head has resources, and his secret control of a county may give them insight into Razmir's deliberations without needing to consider one of Razmir's candidates.

To Odranti, Remek Czaszar is obviously a powerful wizard, and a reasonably capable leader, and he will follow him while that seems to be the best way to rid Ustalav of Razmir and his Iomedaen allies, but never again will he swear any oath of fealty. If there were one who could restore him to his proper body, he might reconsider, but Czaszar cannot do that.

His servant bows to the Grand Prince's; this is no mark of obeisance, only an acknowledgement that Czaszar can kill him more easily than he can kill Czaszar, insofar as what is already dead may die at all.

And Czaszar's servant will acknowledge it, sham obedience though it is, with a lordly nod of his head. His own court still follows the practice of ancient Taldor, but he is not in his own court, now is he?

They are, of course, joined by a number of their fellows. The witches of Caultheart have sent their initiate dressed in the robes of a Pharasmin initiate, the black monastery of Renchurch has spewed forth an enslaved cultist eager to enter into the pleasures of death, the undying knights of Morthold have sent a disposable spawn. Cultists of Urgathoa, corrupt sorcerers and dark wizards, spawn of vampires and lich-blooded - there are a great many captains of the dead who assemble here through their proxies, to plot the end of Razmir and his paladinical allies.

And there is another.

He calls himself Mirrorgrave, the count of mirrors, lord of reflections, for this title he was given by the Whispering Tyrant. It is said that he made a pact in the Plane of Shadow with the lord of the soulslivers, these beasts that lurk in the half-world inside mirrors and sneak out and impersonate whoever catches the wrong reflection for their own ends, that they would forever serve his will, scouting and spying for him across the mortal realms. It is said that though he is a lich he has no phylactery, for his soul is hidden in his own reflection, and that he cannot be slain so long as a single image of him exists.

And it is said - mainly by him - that he is the Whispering Tyrant's most loyal servitor. 

Oh, great, now that jackass is here.

Feeling's mutual, pal.