Only Annan's voice rang through the Dark Hall, echoing again and again. Gradually, he grew quieter. At last, he shut his mouth and stole a glance at the Bard.
"Go on."
Annan hurriedly shook his head. "I'm not saying any more..."
"I told you to speak."
"You'll just get angry again..."
The Bard said patiently, "I won't get angry. Go ahead."
"Well, you asked for it." Annan perked up. "Bard, you may hold a lofty position, but to me, you're still a rookie."
"No one understands chaos better than me!"
The Bard did not take offense. Instead, he asked with interest, "Oh?"
"Am I wrong? What's the essence of chaos? Disorder! And what's disorder? It's certainly not the sorry state the Chaos Cult is in now. As Bishop, you let the Church become like this. That's your fault!"
The Bard remained unruffled. "What if my decision to let the Chaos Cult develop freely is itself part of chaos?"
"That's only chaos from your subjective point of view. I'm talking about chaos that exists objectively." Annan had talked a Dragon around when he was still a young Wizard. How hard could it be to talk circles around a human Legion Commander?
"Subjective? Objective? What do you mean?" The Bard had taken the bait.
"Subjective means looking at something from your own perspective. Objective means looking at it from the perspective of how this world operates." Annan spoke with easy confidence. "You can call a fish a fish, but if it looks like a person, acts like a person, and talks like a person, then it's a person."
"By the same logic, you think letting the Chaos Cult develop freely means putting chaos into practice. But objectively, the Chaos Cult has gone over to Order."
The Bard heard many ideas he had