The Violent Climax Approaches

(On very close inspection, this book is Agent Of The Terran Empire by Poul Anderson in French but it is very hard to see.)

The Game Of Empire -

in CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, Diana and co arrive on Zacharia;

in CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, Olaf Marnusson and Dominic Flandry converse elsewhere;

CHAPTER NINETEEN, back on Zacharia, begins:

"The climax was violent." (p. 402)

Thus, with one single-chapter interruption, the arrival on Zacharia is followed by the violent climax. Events move quickly. We might afterwards think that we had read about Diana and co spending quite some time on Zacharia but we hadn't.

At the end of CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, Kukulkan Zachary tells Diana:

"'Humankind needs your genes. They are valuable. It is your duty to pass them on.'" (p. 385)

It is not. Women and men control their own bodies. Everyone has the right not to procreate.

Narrative Action

The Game of Empire.

We want the narrative to linger in some of the exotic locations imagined by Poul Anderson but the action has to move fast if it is to reach its resolution by the end of a not-too-lengthy novel. In CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, Targovi's group arrives on the island of Zacharia. At the end of this chapter, Kukulkan Zachary is urging Diana to pass on her genes... (That is not where the action is going to be, though.)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN is an "interlude," if we can use that word without disrespect towards overtly more important characters, about Olaf Magnusson and Dominic Flandry meeting on the planet Sphinx. CHAPTER NINETEEN, returning to the main narrative thread on Zacharia, begins:

"The climax was violent." (p. 402)

Thus, events on Zacharia have proceeded directly from arrival to climax. After all the violence, Targovi, Diana and Axor will flee from the island, taking with them the military intelligence that they had come to gather, at the end of CHAPTER TWENTY. In a while, I will do a breakdown of how many chapters are devoted to each setting: Imhotep, Zacharia etc. Terra and Sphinx get one chapter each.

Tomorrow, like last Saturday, will hopefully involve a long day trip, this one longer, to London, setting of at 6:30 AM as against 8:00 AM. Please do not be surprised if there are no posts.

Some Minor Details

I thought that I had found a small inconsistency in Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire but careful rereading showed that I had not. Diana Crowfeather is on Zacharia Island where:

"...the sight of the Hellas peaks from her south window was breathtaking."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 374,

and:

"Southward, vision was bounded by the Hellene snowpeaks, softly aflame." (p. 385)

The map of the northern part of Zacharia visited by Diana and her companions shows the Averroes River descending through the Mencius Hills into Nacre Bay but does not show any Hellas or Hellene mountains. However, the answer is simply that, if these mountains are further south but high enough, then their peaks are visible above the Mencius Hills. And that was made clear when the characters arrived on Zacharia, at the airfield on the bay:

"Through [the Mencius Hills] flowed the Averroes River, glacier-fed by the Hellas Mountains further south." (p. 368)

In other words, Anderson has covered all the angles. On a first or even a second reading of the novel, I had not consulted the map and accepted the text at face value so that, if "Hellas" mountains were referred to, then I did not question them. But, whenever details are questioned, the text has the answers. Anderson has created a consistent environment extending beyond the boundaries of his maps and also beyond the activities of his characters. Another example is the seven other consistently named planets in the Patrician System.

There is also some humor. Targovi wants their small group to remain on Zacharia for intelligence-gathering purposes whereas Axor, whose purpose is merely scholarly, realizes that they must leave soon:

"'I should not lament my departure'...'Ahead of me, while this mortal frame lasts, lie pilgrimages to those planets about which I have learned, to the greater glory of God.'
"'Well good,' mumbled Targovi. 'Know you when we must leave?'" (p. 403)

"Well good," mumbles the pagan Targovi when his innocent companion enthuses about the greater glory of God!

Axor is ordained in the Galilean Order (another joke, surely?) but has taken his Christian name from a Jesuit missionary and quotes the Jesuit motto which, in Latin, is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. If I may interject both a personal note and a wider literary note at this point, I will add that, like James Joyce, I have unhappy memories of education by Jesuits but that, unlike Joyce, I have subsequently sought guidance from the clergy of a different and older tradition.

Back to Anderson's humor. Axor on Diana:

"'...I have begun to fear for that maiden's virtue.'
"[Targovi] choked back a yowl of laughter." (p. 404)

Laughter seems appropriate. Is Diana still a "maiden"? Yes, surprisingly. But anything that occurs between her and her male Zacharian host is their business and no one else's, certainly not Fr Axor's. (Incidentally, we are told that his species, the Wodenites, are uninterested in sex except when on heat so that celibacy is easier for them.)

Dragoman

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Kukulkan Zachary transports Axor, Targovi and Diana to the island of Zacharia in a first class passenger cruiser with a transparent observation lounge so that they seem to stand in the sky. Because it is night on Daedalus, the planet without a horizon, the sun-ring lies around the Phosphoric Ocean. Sea gleams at the sun-ring, then shades through turquoise to jet sparked with the swirling green of minute organisms. Stars glimmer in a sky deep violet-blue above but berylline near the water. To the east, towering clouds conceal a moon which frosts their peaks and ridges. Lower steeps and canyons of cloud are amethyst while the sun-ring makes rain gleam bronze and silver. Zacharia has argent rivers, lakes and mists, roseate snowpeaks, static lights of dwellings, resembling diamond dust, moving lights of sea and air vehicles and surrounding cays. Kukulkan offers to be Diana's "'...dragoman...'" (p. 372)

The narrative moves at a brisk pace. Only recently, the characters arrived in the quaint Cynthian town of Lulach. Now they are whisked through light and splendor to the mysterious Zacharia.

Zacharia

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

The island of Zacharia is two hundred kilometers from east to west and eighty at its widest from north to south. Approaching by air, Diana sees the island in its entirety on this planet without a horizon.

In CHAPTER FIFTEEN, Targovi had told Diana that, on the horizonless planet, people on both land and sea have seen extra landings and takeoffs of unfamiliar spaceships on Zacharia. It must be extra hard to hide anything on such a planet. On the other hand, Targovi is the only individual who has been interviewing eyewitnesses and drawing conclusions. Disguising spacecraft would have been difficult and probably no one had imagined that it might be necessary.

Having, against all the odds, got himself and his companions onto the island, Targovi must now find whatever it is that the Zacharians are concealing.

Targovi's Moment Of Realization

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWENTY.

It had to happen. Targovi and his team, Axor and Diana, have a problem. They are fugitives on the island of Zacharia and it can only be a matter of time before they are apprehended. So what does Targovi do? He has an Andersonian moment of realization. Thus, he ponders the problem, then suddenly, dramatically realizes the solution but does not articulate it yet. We will learn what the solution is when it is implemented.

"Still the Tigery prowled. 'I am thinking, I am thinking -' Abruptly he halted. He drove the knife into a bole so that the metal sang. 'Javak! Yes, it was on my horizon - But we must needs hurry, and not give the foe time to imagine we are crazy enough to take that way.'" (p. 427)

Some action or gesture like driving the knife into the tree is necessary at the moment of realization. Needless to say, they will escape from Zacharia. The only question is how.

Night Flight On Daedalus

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Kukulkan Zachary takes Diana, Axor and Targovi to the island of Zacharia in a flying:

"...first class passenger cruiser..." (p. 365)

- because only this is big enough:

"...to carry the Wodenite in comfort..." (ibid.)

They stand in an observation lounge with a completely transparent floor. Would you find that comfortable? It reminds me that Wonder Woman used to fly an invisible plane. However, in this cruiser, metal ribs cross the otherwise unseen floor and there are both fore and aft bulkheads.

During their night flight:

the sky is deep violet-blue above and berylline near the ocean;

a few stars are visible;

the Daedalian sun-ring surrounds the Phosphoric Ocean making distant rain and the sea below the ring gleam;

that sea gleam shades to turquoise, then to black which however swirls and sparks with green life;

Zacharia shows rivers, lakes, mists, mountains, valleys and light from dwellings and from other travellers by air or water.

We try to summarize a descriptive passage accurately and wind up writing something almost as long as it. For another attempt at the same passage, see also:

Night On Daedalus

Persuasion And A Travelogue

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Next, Targovi must persuade the Zacharians to allow him and his companions to visit their island of Zacharia. Demonstrating his by now evident ability to persuade anyone of anything, he argues that Axor's fund of galactic knowledge should be of interest to Zacharian scientists. Diana will also be of interest to Zacharian men - who spread their superior genes throughout the species.

There is a kind of sf that might be described as "future travelogue." I have recently reread A Torrent Of Faces by James Blish and Norman L. Knight which definitely fits this description. In The Game Of Empire, Diana and co. travel:

in Targovi's Moonjumper, from Imhotep to Aurea on Daedalus;

by train, from Aurea to Paz de la Frontera;

by river, from Paz to Lulach;

by flying first class passenger cruiser, from Lulach to Zacharia - for the big showdown.

Thus, they miss Ghundrung, the Donarrian settlement, which is further down the Highroad River with, apparently, some Ancient ruins in the jungle to the south of it. However, Axor will have ample funds and opportunity for his research after the Magnusson Rebellion has been foiled. And we want to know more, of course.

Targovi Persuades Diana

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The Merseians lost to Magnusson through either incompetence or connivance. Merseian prisoners are embittered but have not been interrogated.

Landings and takeoffs of unrecognized spaceships have been seen at the autonomous island of Zacharia.

Targovi's superior in Intelligence ordered him to stop these investigations and to return to Imhotep.

Thus, he persuades Diana that she, he and Axor should visit Zacharia - like Yewwl visiting Dukeston in A Stone In Heaven. (See Yewwl's Intelligence Gathering.)

There are at least two other points of interest in this chapter. First, Diana's question, which I have quoted before:

"'Why?...A whole galaxy, a whole universe, a technology that could make every last livin' bein' rich - why are we and they locked in this senseless feud?'" (p. 349)

Targovi's answer:

"'Because both our sides have governments...'" (ibid.)

- rings hollow to me. Is there a contradiction in Anderson's narrative? On the one hand, he is writing a traditional story of inter-imperial conflict. On the other hand, he has just suggested, through Diana's question, that such conflicts have become redundant. The contradiction is quickly covered over by Targovi's reply, blaming "governments."

Secondly, Targovi says:

"'What I have is a ghosting of hints, clues, incongruities. They whisper to me that naught which has been happening is what it pretends to be - that we are the victims of a gigantic hoax, like an ice bull which a hunter stampedes toward a cliff edge.'" (ibid.)

Some people live and breathe such hoaxes. A scare about an epidemic is a hoax perpetrated by sellers of paper masks...

The Characters In The Game Of Empire

Diana Crowfeather is the central character of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire (IN Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012) but Targovi the Tigery is the real hero of the intelligence operation that exposes the rebel Olaf Magnassun's link to the Merseians. It is Targovi who asks questions, becomes suspicious, follows the trail and confirms the suspicions despite the opposition of superiors supporting the rebellion. For this reason, Targovi, with his alien senses and abilities, becomes the view point character of several long passages.

Axor in his quest for Foredweller ruins is pushed from pillar to post - from Imhotep to Daedalus, then from Lulach to Zacharia - as cover for Targovi's intelligence operation but nevertheless makes significant progress in the quest and, by his physical bulk alone, is crucial to the trio's escape, with the stolen evidence and database, from Zacharia.

Anderson had presented a straightforward and uncomplicated account of how, in order to steal the data, Targovi scaled a wall, entered a building, killed a Merseian, severed his head (as evidence), downloaded the database and exited by the same route. The escape from the island is even more straightforward. The dinosauroid Axor, carrying and sheltering the gun-wielding Diana, crashes through a fence, runs onto the space field and fights resisting Zacharians while the loping Targovi burns through the lock of a Merseian spaceship, kills its occupants and steals the ship in which the trio escape.

Earlier, I had shared Targovi's amusement when Axor - a Catholic priest, although Diana is not of his flock - had expressed "'...fear for that maiden's virtue.'" (p. 404) Surely Diana is not still a virgin? Yes, she is. She avoids dependent relationships and unplanned pregnancy and has spent much time among Tigeries. She gets close to Kukulkan Zachary but comes to regard him as an "alien" when she learns of the Zacharians' collusion with the Merseians. (p. 424)

The Appolonium

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

On Zacharia, the "Appolonium" is a:

"'...center of learning, research, philosophy, arts. They do not call it a university because it has no teaching function. Being what they are, Zacharians require no schools except input to their homes, no teachers except their parents or, when they are mature, knowledgeable persons whom they can call when explanation is necessary.'" (p.403)

That sounds like a good aspect of Zacharia. I hope that the whole of society will be raised to that level in the future.

My daughter, Aileen, when young, read about Greek mythology. She asked me, "Why didn't Hercules fight at Troy?'" I replied, "I think you'll find he was dead by then. He was an Argonaut. Generally speaking, the sons of the Argonauts fought at Troy, then that was the end of the Heroic Age." She read more, then fed back to me, "He wasn't dead. He'd gone to Olympus as an immortal!" A perfect teacher-pupil relationship, I thought.

A guy wallpapering a room in our house asked me, from his stepladder, "Paul, why were the Buddha and the authors of the Upanishads Kshatriyas, not Brahmins?" I thought that there was a period of social peace so that not only priests but also rulers and warriors were able to give their attention to philosophy and spirituality. (That is what can happen when you hire a decorator in a University town.)

Intelligence-Gathering II

The previous post mentioned three spies of different species in the Technic History:

Erannath, Ythrian;
Rax, from somewhere distant and unpronouceable;
Flandry, human.

Another hero of intelligence-gathering is Targovi, Tigery, who learns that:

there is discontent and a sense of betrayal in the Patrician System, especially among Navy personnel;

the discontent is being fomented with unfounded allegations, inflammatory slogans and hostile japes;

spacecraft have been seen to land surreptitiously on Zacharia island;

the recent Merseian attack was led with unprecedented stupidity, flying straight into an obvious trap;

however, the Terran fleet under Admiral Magnusson could have pursued its advantage and inflicted greater damage but instead allowed most of the Merseian armada to retreat;

Captain Jerrold Ronan, in charge of Naval Intelligence for the Patrician System, is displeased by Targovi's report and refuses to explain why, citing official secrets;

Jerrold hints that the landings on Zacharia are a secret Navy operation and orders Targovi to speak no more about them;

he adds that Targovi had no right to question Merseian prisoners and is qualified neither to discuss strategy nor to criticize Magnusson;

in fact, Targovi is ordered to drop this line of inquiry and not to initiate any further investigations.

What does all this mean? That Magnusson is about to rebel and is a Merseian sleeper.

However, the supreme spy of the Technic History has to be Aycharaych the Chereionite, an agent of Merseia, simply because he is an unprecedented universal telepath.

Axor's Quest

In Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Axor's quest for Foredweller ruins is pushed so far into the background that the reader might miss how much progress Axor does make:

in Chapter Three, he and Diana were en route to the Starboard and Larboard Islands on Imhotep "'...to look at what may be ruins left by fay-folk of old...'" but are interrupted by Targovi persuading them instead to travel to the planet Daedalus (Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 241);

in Chapter Fourteen, they plan to explore probable Ancient ruins with inscriptions in the jungle south of Ghundrung on Daedalus but Targovi persuades them instead to visit Zacharia (an island, not another planet);

in Chapter Nineteen, on Zacharia, Axor "'...retrieved scores of descriptions, pictures, studies of sites unknown to me...'" and, although he has not yet deciphered the symbols, has "'...identified regularities, recurrences, that look highly significant...'" (p. 403);

in Chapter Twenty-Three (the last), back on Imhotep, Axor and Diana "...were at sea on an archaeological expedition..." (back to the Starboard and Larboard Islands?), when they are interrupted by searchers engaged by Dominic Flandry who promises to "'...obtain adequate funding for [Axor's] research.'" (pp. 449, 453)

Thus, considerable progress is being made and it would have been interesting to learn more about it. Possible sequel(s):

Targovi and Diana are an interstellar trader team and Intelligence operatives;
Axor leads a well funded research team to Foredweller sites on the Patrician planets and elsewhere;
the Merseians are preoccupied with changes of plan and organization necessitated by Terran Intelligence's use of the database stolen by Targovi (p. 434) so they are not an immediate threat (in fact, is this last disappointment the start of their irrevocable decline?);
Axor meets Aycharaych who survived the destruction of Chereion and is also visiting Ancient sites for different reasons?;
Targovi and Diana encounter an embittered Edwin Cairncross leading some barbarians?;
whatever else happens, their paths cross Axor's.

The Game Of Empire, Contents Of Chapters, Continued

The Game of Empire, CHAPTERS

THIRTEEN Targovi with Rihu An in Lulach

FOURTEEN Targovi persuades Pele, then meets Diana

FIFTEEN Targovi persuades Diana

SIXTEEN  Targovi spies on Pele and Kukulkan

SEVENTEEN The team arrives on Zacharia

EIGHTEEN Magnusson and Flandry on Sphinx

NINETEEN Targovi gets proof of Zacharian-Merseian collusion

TWENTY They escape from Zacharia

TWENTY-ONE Magnusson's background

TWENTY-TWO Aftermath on Daedalus and Merseia

TWENTY-THREE Flandry with Diana etc on Imhotep

And that is the end of the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic History, unfortunately.

More About Maps And Multi-Species Interactions

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWO.

See Maps II, then On The Highroad River I.

When a Tigery visits an inn run by a Cynthian, she serves him a bowl of tea to be followed by roast cowbeef! Then he converses with the other guests who are human. This is multi-species interaction gone mad! Tea has spread not only into the Merseian Roidhunate but also into the Patrician System which is on the frontier of the Terran Empire and in danger of being occupied by the Merseians.

In the inn, a Navy man says that the Empire has gone soft and needs a new Argolid dynasty. Combarelles, the Intelligence officer, cautions him to silence but then she herself makes even more incriminating remarks. Admiral Magnusson is:

"'...trying to set matters right, but - No, I shouldn't say more.'" (p. 225)

(Like Desai.)

She knows that Merseians too are bitter. Targovi innocently asks how she knows. She has spoken to prisoners. Again she says:

"'No. I'd better not say any more...'" (ibid.)

She is suspicious of some spaceships landing on the independent island of Zacharia. (Targovi pretends not to know where it is.) The suspicious ships look too sleek to be smugglers. They might be the Admiral's... Again:

"'No more!'" (p. 226)

Every time she says "No," she gives Targovi something else to investigate: Merseian prisoners and Zacharia.

Targovi's Suspicions

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWO.

Targovi interviews a Merseian. Because the latter recognizes him as a Starkadian, Targovi is able to argue that Starkadians should try to gain some understanding of the Merseians in case that race occupies the Patrician System after their next attack. Initially, Fodaich Eidhafor the Bold, Vach Dathyr, invokes his oath to the Roidhun and his honor within his Vach but he is won over to talk about issues which are not secret in any case.

I have been rereading in the knowledge that Targovi is an Imperial Intelligence agent but this is not confirmed until we are told that:

"...it would grossly have blown cover for Targovi, obscure itinerant chapman, to see [Captain Jerrold Ronan, in charge of Naval Intelligence for the Patrician System] in person." (p. 229)

We learn some important facts about Ronan:

he is believed to have the confidence of the Admiral;

when Targovi, calling from his van, says that he feels that the discontent is being fomented, Ronan dismisses the impressions of a non-human;

when Targovi reports that spaceships have been landing on Zacharia, Ronan reminds him that the Navy conducts secret operations and warms him not to speak about this to anyone;

when Targovi reports that he has spoken with a Merseian, Ronan asks him how he dared;

when Targovi reports that the Merseians lost in space because they were led with stupidity but that the Imperial forces did not pursue their advantage, Ronan, outraged, tells him to drop this line of inquiry.

Official secrets are involved. Targovi is to await further instructions, if any, and, if he is not careful, he is dead.

So there it is. Magnusson is fomenting discontent and colluding with the Merseians, who are landing on Zacharia.

Outside On Zacharia

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Targovi goes out of doors on the island of Zacharia:

the breeze is cool;

it smells of leaves and sea;

it ruffles his fur - and he is almost naked;

the moon, Icarus, tinges the clouds argent while the sun-ring, stretching around the sky of horizonless Daedalus, tinges them bronze.

Thus, four senses for a Starkadian raised on Imhotep, now visiting Daedalus. Poul Anderson's Technic History is a detailed future history series fully incorporating individual members of many intelligent species. Targovi crawls, stalks and hunts like a cat, senses with his tendrils and climbs trees and walls with his claws. He is the son of Dragoika, the friend of Diana Crowfeather, daughter of Dominic Flandry, and is with Terrans against Merseians.  

An interesting universe for Poul Anderson to construct, for us to read about and for Targovi to inhabit.

Zacharian Geography

The text of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire remains consistent with his map of northern Zacharia Island. Targovi looks up at the walls of the command post. Above and beyond that wall are the Mencius Hills. Above and beyond those hills are the Hellene peaks. The Averroes River flows through the hills into Nacre Bay and the Phosphoric Ocean, which is lit by tiny phosphorescent organisms.

Targovi has gauged, and the map confirms, that the spaceport, closed to outsiders, is on the far side of the Mencius Hills from the walled command post. Flat on the ground as a hunting Tigery, Targovi feels the shudder as something passes beneath and infers a connecting tunnel. Some who see strange spacecraft landing on Zacharia suspect smuggling. Targovi suspects worse. Indeed, Olaf Magnusson met his Merseian controller in a "...hidden place..." (p. 439) - the command post. Targovi must enter the building and return with a severed Merseian head to prove his case.

A hunting Tigery goes on his belly at night, using every cover, every trick and every sense, freezing for minutes when people pass close enough to touch, taking more than an hour to reach a nearby goal; he would kill dogs if they were there. Tigeries are intelligent but not human.

The Map Of Daedalus

Because my thought processes are entirely abstract and non-visual, I have disregarded the maps at the beginning of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire on every previous reading whereas, in fact, heeding the maps greatly increases the pleasure of reading.

One map of Daedalus shows Aurea, Paz de la Frontera, Lulach and Ghundrung along the Highroad River. Diana travels from Aurea to Paz by cable car, then from there to Lulach by riverboat. Thus, we learn that Aurea is the capital city, Paz is a colony of retired military personnel from other colonies and Lulach is mainly an arboreal Cynthian town.

Next, if we have consulted the map first, we wonder what will be revealed about Ghundrung. When Diana tells Targovi that Axor and she intend to investigate reports of Ancient ruins in the jungle to the south of Ghundrung, Targovi responds by referring to Ghundrung as the Donarrian settlement. We know from previous installments of the Technic History that the Donarrians are intelligent quadrupeds active in the Terran Empire and we also know from a previous chapter of this novel that Diana saw a Donarrian in the market square of Olga's Landing on Imhotep, the other colonized planet in the Patrician System. However, we have only ever seen individual Donarrians, usually in combat, so what will a Donarrian community be like?

We do not find out because Targovi persuades Axor and Diana to accompany him immediately to the ocean island of Zacharia which also appears on the map. Thus, of five places indicated on the map, four are visited whereas one, Ghundrung, is not visited but is described very briefly. When I read through the novel without having consulted the map, the name "Ghundrung" meant nothing when it appeared just once in the text and I certainly did not remember afterwards that there was a Donarrian settlement on Daedalus.

Because the trio travel only from Paz to Lulach by river, then proceed to Zacharia by air, the adventurous potential offered by a long river journey on a strange planet is cut short but the theme of an adventurous river journey is developed more fully in the earlier novel, The Day Of Their Return.

Unanswered Questions

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

See Northern Autumn.

The Zacharians will be dispersed among the general population:

"'And what will come of that?' Targovi mused.

"Flandry spread his hands. 'Who knows?'" (p. 453)

 

Flandry will enable Diana and Targovi to fare out yonder but will they go as traders, explorers, scientists, artists or Intelligence operatives? He lists these options.

 

He will also fund Father Axor's research and what will become of that? A history of the Chereionites? A new religious movement?

 

Incidentally, Axor killed some Merseians during the escape from Zacharia. I remember hearing that the taking of life disqualified a Catholic priest from continuing to function as a priest.