[locke]

I don't think it was teleportation. Probably something more akin to walking the shadow way, like akka/xin did in TWP.  If they really thought it was teleportation, i doubt they would have bothered training dogs to smell saffron if they really thought that the Cish could just blink in whenever they wanted.

This also begs the questions, why, if they could teleport in, couldn't they teleport out after they kill the grandmaster? Teleportation that only works one way is much less useful.

Two reasons:
1. There must be cishaurim bodies as incontrovertible evidence for the scarlet spires to engage themselves with complete and total conviction to an eternal war with the cishaurim

2. Moenghus didn't come with them, he just opened the door. There was no one to open a door out.


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[Wilshire]

Reason one is a possibility, but seems unlikely. Eleazarus went on and on about seeing sorcery without the mark, it was pretty clear that it was the Cish... However a little push to solidify that point might have seemed to be reasonable. Then again, sacrificing even a few Cishaurim seems way out of line with schoolman and Cishaurim philosophies. They value themselves so much.
A sacrifice only a dunyain could possibly extract.

For me, reason 2 doesn't make sense. If moe was able to open the portal from shimeh to get them there, he should be able to open it again, from shimeh, for them to come back through. Its the same, unless its a 1 way opening and you can only enter from where the portal is opened and exit where the portal ends up. We know teleporting works via kellhus, not sure why the cish and/or more would have a less functional method of it.

[H]

Well, we don't really know if there is anything comparable from the Psukhe to the meta-Gnosis.  Is there a meta-Psuhke?  Is that even possible?

There are tons we don't know.  I still don't think they could have expected to walk back out, since the Spires would be literally be in the midst of all the highest ranking members.  However they got in, I doubt if it's a simple task you could do whole being assaulted by some of the strongest (non-Gnostic) sorcerers in the Three Seas.

[Wilshire]

Whats curious is that they didn't storm the SS compound. Imagine if they walked in with the might of their school? There would have been no SS left. Their grandmaster, and most of their highest ranked members, would have died immediately in that room, and they wouldn't have had time to organize concerts. So much chaos, and at the center a cadre of  Cishaurim. They could have done so much more and probably lost even fewer.

The point kind of being that if they were really just looking for revenge of some sort against the SS for the skin-spy, why do so little? Must have been some other machinations - it must have been Moenghus.

[H]

Whats curious is that they didn't storm the SS compound. Imagine if they walked in with the might of their school? There would have been no SS left. Their grandmaster, and most of their highest ranked members, would have died immediately in that room, and they wouldn't have had time to organize concerts. So much chaos, and at the center a cadre of  Cishaurim. They could have done so much more and probably lost even fewer.

The point kind of being that if they were really just looking for revenge of some sort against the SS for the skin-spy, why do so little? Must have been some other machinations - it must have been Moenghus.

My guess is that is the most they could teleport (or walk the Shadow Way) or whatever.

The other idea could be that they weren't sure what the response would be.  If they had everyone pop out and something disastrous happened, like, some kind of Ward they didn't anticipate, they'd have lost everyone.  The loss they took was big, but not devastatingly so.  Losing all their Primaries would probably have been the literal end.

[Cynical Cat]

All the evidence suggests that Kelhus is correct in his evaluation of Moenghus's strength. 

1) Moenghus admits that sending to Ishual tests his strength to the limit.  He could be lying, but he could also be telling the truth.

2) There was no teleportation involved in the Scarlet Spires assault.  Scott has confirmed that what Eli saw was the Cishaurim appearing from stealth, not them stepping across space.  That's why the Scarlet Spires responded in part by having patrols with trained dogs help secure the halls.

3) The two definite feats we've seen Moenghus perform are long range communication and incinerating a single Skin Spy.  Incinerating a single target is peanuts as far as sorcery goes in this series and long range communication is well within the capabilities for minor Schoolmen (as evidenced as Cnauir's force had a single acolyte as their long range communicator)

4) Moenghus does not instantly turn to salt when touched with a Chorae.  We know that especially powerful Quya begin to salt when close to a Chorae so the clear implication is that the more powerful the sorcerer, the more lethal the Chorae is.  And Moenghus doesn't go fast.

[themerchant]

I think Moe and the chorae is more a function of how they interact with Cish as opposed to an indicator of power.

he also provided face time communication between the emperor and Skauras. Which is something the scarlet spires cannot do.

[Cynical Cat]

The Cishaurim in the battle of Shimeh instantly went down when struck by Chorae, Moenghus did not so we can definitely tell his slow death wasn't due to him being Cishaurim.  As for the long range communication, the Scarlet Spires are capable of that and its easy enough that you don't need a sorcerer of rank to handle it.  It's clear that the long range communications powers of the Cishaurim work differently, but no other sorcerers blast people by pouring burning light from their foreheads either.  The Psukhe is different and there's no indication that sending Skaurus's image required brute strength as opposed to skill and we know Moenghus had skill.  Moenghus never demonstrates any sorcerous strength at all.

[Cynical Cat]

Upon consideration, we cannot rule out that particular form of long range communication from being within the capabilities of the other branches of sorcery.  It is the only instance that I can recall of communication between two fixed points at an appointed time.  All the other times its between an unknown point (the sender) and a fixed point (the receiver).  In the case of projecting Skaurus, it involves a scheduled appointment between Skaurus's citadel with an unknown number of Cishaurim and Moenghus at the other end in the Emperor's throne room.  I imagine it to be likely, given the broad capability overlap shone between the branches, that the other types of of magic could manage that as well.

[Madness]

Upon consideration, we cannot rule out that particular form of long range communication from being within the capabilities of the other branches of sorcery.  It is the only instance that I can recall of communication between two fixed points at an appointed time.  All the other times its between an unknown point (the sender) and a fixed point (the receiver).  In the case of projecting Skaurus, it involves a scheduled appointment between Skaurus's citadel with an unknown number of Cishaurim and Moenghus at the other end in the Emperor's throne room.  I imagine it to be likely, given the broad capability overlap shone between the branches, that the other types of of magic could manage that as well.

Cnaiur's assigned a Sorcerer from the Spires at Joktha and he's required to sleep until noon or something in order to maintain scheduled communications with the Holy War.

[Cynical Cat]

Let me clarify.  Cnaiur's sorcerer is not a sorcerer of rank.  He's doing the same trick Akka does to communicate with the Mandate and Moenghus uses to contact the Dunyain:  he connects to a known location during dreams. The army marches to Joktha to await the fleet to take the Nansur home.  Mobile point.   

That's not what happens with Skaurus, which is unique.  It's not a simple projection but an interactive event set place and time with Skaurus and an unknown number of Cishaurim on the other side and Moenghus and the Emperor on the other.  It's not on It probably only requires one Cishaurim on Skaurus's side because it seems to be a sorcery that requires more skill than brute strength, but we don't know either way.  It's a singular, prearranged incident its performed only by the Cishaurum but there is no indication that it couldn't be done by the other types of sorcerers.  That particular combination of ability, need, and circumstance doesn't show up again.

So we don't know for sure either way, but there are several things we do know about sorcery.  The all share the same broad capabilities.  All of them can do dream sending and Anagogic and Gnostic Sorcery tend to do complexity better that the Psukhe.  So we don't know for sure that the Scarlet Spires can or cannot match that feat, but we do know that the available evidence strongly suggests that they can.

[Madness]

So we don't know for sure that the Scarlet Spires can or cannot match that feat, but we do know that the available evidence strongly suggests that they can.

You've left it an open possibility .