"Damn the bitterness and wrath that spawneth these dread polyps.  I shalt not succumb to it,
nor shalt any man that wisheth to call hisself my brother.  Silence shalt be my ward 'gainst
the emptiness of spite and my actions shalt overcome't.  So 'tis and shalt be in this 
campaign 'gainst our eldest foe.  Our life shalt be as a lantern that burns long after we
crumble and brings back the lost that greedily quaff from their chalices of despair.
So, brothers, let us proceed with caution and high song, quickspeed to this heretical Hall
of the Builder Queen.  Let us leave our limbs free to wreak carnage in the enemy, our minds 
free of irresolution and withering compromise.  For we can taste victory in their 
dissolution, as long as our rearguard holds firm.  Above all, walk ye unfettered by this 
ghastly foreboding and threat so that the Builder might save us from battles that are not
worth the fight."
"So the blood of the ancients sinks its staff in the soil, so we do not accept circumstances
that dictate standards.  Rather, we must use standards to dictate circumstances."

Calloran senses that Constantine is lying when he says that Illastrius has granted him 
freedom of expression in the foreign, and still unstable, land of Alsaid.  It would mean
that he had independently chosen to take action without consulting the Emperor.  The thought
is reinforced when he hears that the Emperor has at the time been engaged in consultations 
with the Alchemists in the North.  Decisions such as these can be taken by someone of such
stature as the Cardinal, but Illastrius himself is a man of eminent learning and knowledge
and men of knowledge rarely make decisions or at least are often loathe to do so.

Mechanist Order - arose from a doctrine concerning the internal workings of good and evil
within one man - Constantine, one who is said to have had equal parts of each in his worldly
and divine aspects respectively.  The Mechanist Order was a very inward-looking organisation
and one which often found a spiritual home for the technically-minded.  Cavador himself came
from a family of clock-makers, and though he was a man of Ferrum Miurus, it is not, as was 
at first presumed, a fact that it was members of the Metal Order alone that comprised the 
founders of the Mechanist Order.  Rather, they were a mixture with a large component of that
Order's teachings.
It has long come to the attention of this Church that there is a hint in the scriptures that 
the Mechanist Order shalt arise again, born of some new renaissance that shalt fight back a
dark threat in times to come.

Cravonians - Accused of 'excessive alchemy'.

Gypsy - "I'd love to believe in the religion of the Hammerites.  It must be a wonderful
thing.  Life, it seems, would be so much cleaner and fresher in the light of such unwaning 
hope.  But I do not believe.  I KNOW that this world and its present order are not for long
and that so many innocents will die, even those who foresee the horrors to come will not be
spared nor honoured in their time in this life.  God is dead."

Constantine - a variation on the classic Norse Master Builder myth, who wishes to claim the 
moon (collective unconscious?) and the sun (enlightenment?).  The difference for Shivan 
being that he wishes to take them and give them to the people (or enable 'she who must 
teach' i.e. Alacassandra, to come to power).  The ultimate judgement is that Constantine is
dangerous and proud and that Shivan is merely a fool.

(from old notes)

Do not fight nature.  Fight injustice.

LORD CONSTANTINE  A charlatan or false friend  one that uses the teachings of the Empire 
to befit himself.  Shivan later accuses the Empire of the same sin via its propaganda but 
finds a greater investment in truth and compassion.  (He supports the preservation of 
illusions?)

THEATRE OF ALSAID  Your illusions shape your desires and the glamour defines you.  It 
comes to anyone and takes all but the most needful, realistic and honourable.  If more of 
this countrys people had those qualities, this Empire would not last another day, but 
would be overthrown.  The desert gives you such insight.

ALCHEMISTS  The tree stripped bare reveals its workings.  Along its wooden arms, the 
alchemists sons and daughters are distributed, poised to move back and forth to assist the 
creation.  Wary though they be of Ianian cunning, they watch themselves with equal distrust 
as their beloved home.  Misapplied effort, the shadow of sin and self-deceit, creep up on 
the initiate like blemishes upon his visage.  All hail he who are privy to all of the best 
perspectives of the tree, who can see the crooked branch and the firm limb, and doth direct 
most auspiciously.  A little knowledge of these initiates are all that he doth require, 
meticulously selected.  For a dream canst die so quickly, like a dead leaf falling, its 
pin-sharp veins pointing in melancholy to its failings.

LADY OF ACQUUSA  So contemptuous was she of all things grandiose and all that was designed 
to inspire and induce feelings of the numinous.  Nothing was more real to her than 
suffering.  A picture betrayed no content.  The power of words could not move her.  Temples, 
steeples and towers all sickened her.  They were just empty geometries, little more than 
traces in the sand.  The forests of Darkmere were more like home to her.  This place did 
not live and breathe as the legends had so awestruck claimed, but nor did it lie dormant.  
Its vines and sinuous shoots pumped sap that caused its irregular flora to move in a 
constant shift, so much more so than any forest under the Imperial flag.  It was a place of 
wild, entrepreneurial creation, possessed of the essence of that raw and ineffable will 
that Gaia, the earth mother, first granted in her primordial swamps.  Change took a hold 
beyond the inklings of human intelligence and formed its own stubborn path away from any 
mere animal intervention.  Overnight, its leaves crept, wasted and fell in a too-fertile 
parody of mankinds own desire to tame its homeworld, like a reminder of natures 
impulsive persistence twisted into a malevolent and all-too-comprehensible energy.
The creepers came upon the unwary sleeper like a patina of ice upon a pane of glass, briefly 
unveiling its workings as it studied, revised and assimilated its prey.  Then it would be 
known to its victim that the creatures of Darkmere had a greater history than any of the 
Empires books had told, since all of it was silent and all of it stalked its undergrowth 
incarnate like a perpetual dream.
Viktoria  As long as the Empire rules, mankind will remain like Frankensteins monster  
alone and out in the cold.

VIKTORIA - I looked upon the men of the Palace of this Grand Imperium and thought, 'are 
these insipid golems all that I am to expect of that great pantomime called love?  How can
they possibly harness all that is within me and needs to flourish?  Even the finest I have
known lack its true expression.  Only shadows, vague inklings.  I have not the tiniest mote
of faith in it - that love can conquer the savage barbs that life thrusts upon us.  There is
naught but dreams and fondness.'