---
-IS 530-
Commander Schvarzeleber,
I have not forgotten you.
-Sasarai
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S-
I know.
-Futch
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-IS 533-
Commander Schvarzeleber,
I have not forgotten you.
-Sasarai
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S-
It's mutual, you know. And I still think of you in a favorable manner, even though you're cooperating with that bastard.
-the Enemy Commander
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Commander Schvarzeleber,
And I you, despite your position at the forefront of this senseless resistance. Whatever happened to Goyan isolationism?
-Sasarai I
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S-
It died with Hugo.
-the Enemy Commander
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Enemy Commander-
That was thoroughly unnecessary.
By the by, I suggest you appoint a new Third. I do not think Orosi shall be releasing your current one any time soon. Besides, isn't his rank to be rescinded after the loss of his mount?
-Black-Square Bishop under the White King
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BSB-
Tell the Great White Turncoat to say goodbye to his flagship.
-Queen's Knight on Black, even though Black's been dead seventy years
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Queen's Knight-
How do the words of that threat taste?
-Black-Square Bishop
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BSB-
Like your fifth shot of peach schnapps, lightweight.
-Queen's Knight
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Queen's Knight-
This is fast becoming rather trite, don't you think?
-Lightweight
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Lightweight-
You have a point.
By the way, your birds have gotten rather tight-beaked as to your location. This makes sense, given where I've deduced you to be, but I suggest you get anyone you care about as far away from Orosi as possible. While you're at it, get everyone I care about away from him too. Including you. Especially you.
Yeah, I know, I wouldn't dare. But A, this has nothing to do with the war, and B, I'm not Geddoe, and he'd dare.
-Futch
---
-IS 534-
Commander Schvarzeleber-
I would say, 'let him try', but the remains of my left hand would refuse to seal such a missive.
-"The Miner"
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Miner-
Good choice.
You could betray him, you know. In fact, I'm suggesting that you do, for reasons that aren't entirely self-serving.
-Futch
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Commander Schvarzeleber-
After all of the comments you have made to the effect of despising Lord Silverberg for his betrayals of yore, I am inclined to believe that you would think less of me were I to abandon him, even for your sake. The answer is an emphatic no, for reasons that are, likewise, not entirely self-serving.
Also, if you are still in contact with Geddoe, warn him that he will have to go through me again if he desires the chance to kill my son. If that does not deter him sufficiently, well, so much the better for Our Divine Father's plan.
-Sasarai I
-
S-
Two things. One, I didn't hate you for stepping aside from Harmonia to fight against your brother. I wouldn't hate you now if you pulled out of the Islands and let this goddamn war end.
Two, I despise that piece-of-shit Silverberg because I believe his murder-toll is about to cross into the hundred-millions. The fact that he's a smug, self-promoting asshole, a demon-calling witch, and a traitor only makes it easier.
-Futch
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Commander Schvarzeleber-
There are too many old men in this world, it would seem. There are those of us who do not die, and those of us who will not die, and those of us who cannot die. Among those old men, there are many of whom it can be said that they have never lived, and a few for whom having never lived is the best thing possible for the world. There are men who, though they breathe and eat and hatch their manifold schemes, do not matter for the hair in their noses. There are men who, when they are gone, will be forgotten.
Then there are those who have both lived and died, and remain with us after they have gone back to the earth. These are the missing in action, the willed-animate. Chief Hugo is one of these, through no fault of his own, just as his predecessor. In a way, Lord McDohl is also as these. People speak of them in the present tense despite the generations that have passed since one could stand in their shadows or feel their breath as they spoke. They live beyond death in the truest sense possible.
Lord Silverberg will be neither of these, no matter your efforts, Futch. He will live, and he will die, and people will rejoice when he is definitively gone and speak of him in the past tense. They will dance jigs around his corpse, if they ever find it, if there is a corpse to be had. But no matter when, how, if you kill him, he will have lived, and he will continue to act despite being emphatically dead.
For your own safety, do not be the hand to strike him down. For the safety of your country, do not send a hand to strike him down. I will be so bold as to say that for the safety of future generations, let no man strike him down. He is a creature of limited concerns; himself, his family as an extension of himself, and his posterity. You can trust him to quell the bloodshed when any of these cease to be served by it. The more heed you pay him, the more his causes are served.
And I do not lie; I have reason to believe that he does, in fact, have a means of acting after his death that goes beyond the words he will leave his scions. You are always so kind to remind me that he has as the most powerful of his acolytes a certain demon. Permit me to remind you that this demon is like us, and does not, or will not, or cannot die. I do not presume that he will continue to obey Lord Silverberg's express will after the man has ceased to breathe--having been present among their manner of cooperation--but the man's ways have left their mark on the demon's modus operandi. I will not be so pedantic as to expound upon how perilous that already is.
Take heed, Commander Schvarzeleber, of those casualties already inflicted on you by this man. Win your war--he will permit that--and lose your men--he will ensure that--but do not strike him down. He will welcome that. It is what he has been waiting for nearly all his life.
In a way, I am betraying him by aiding him to this degree. Were I truly his man, I would be begging you to send your most capable, yourself even, to hack his graying pate to ribbons. I would be giving you imperatives and directions and even an escape plan if one existed, but I care too much for you and yours to risk you dying in ignorant compliance with his wishes.
We pray for your sound judgment and the well-being of those you hold dear.
-Sasarai I
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Lightweight-
That really doesn't sound like saving my life. It's kind of scary, actually, how little it sounds like saving my life. But if you were really planning on having me killed, you wouldn't have sent a letter in that condition.
Consider your advice taken for the time being. I'll warn you in a year or so if things change.
-Futch
---
-IS 535-
Commander Schvarzeleber-
I would think it well of you to learn patience sometime this century. It will be useful down the line.
-Sasarai I
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S-
I know patience. It's just that when I see someone about to blow up an island and kill another twenty thousand people, give or take a homestead, my protective instincts kick in and I can't help but want to run the bastard through.
You're going to tell me that either way, I will be complying with him. I let him kill people, he gets what he wants. I hack him down lengthwise, flash-fry the pieces, and let Bright eat him, and he still gets what he wants. Is there any way for him to not get what he wants?
-Futch
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Commander Schvarzeleber-
At this point? No.
-Sasarai I
---
-IS 536-
S-
I've given him a year. I've given him more, actually. It was fall when I told you I'd lay off for a bit, and another fall happened, and now it's spring. Almost summer. At least up here. You're still down in the islands, and I hear the weather sucks.
My companies are complaining about storms, which is a given, and about leviathans, but even if those weren't a given we expected them and prepared for them. We're also still good to deal with the battles and intrigue and politicking, and the assassination attempts and the searching and the recovering of stolen artifacts. We didn't expect the rivers of blood and the disappearing islands and the paperwork, but we've gotten used to it. And we're as prepared as we can be to keep burying our dead at sea.
But we're sick of it. Not just the royal we, like you've stopped using around me, but the we that I represent by being part of this alliance. We the Coalition of the Honorable. The Dragon Knights of Goya, the Free Knights of Kamaro, the Knights of Gaien and of Razril, the Order of the Sun, Kanakan, the Republic, the half of the Island Federation that consists of decent human beings, and all the cultures you've subjugated. We are prepared to keep fighting until that witch and his demon give us a reason to stop. And that apparently means we'll keep throwing ourselves under his carpet so he can stand on our faces and poke us to death with his cane.
You have one more chance to persuade me not to kill him.
-Futch
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Commander Schvarzeleber,
I have not forgotten you.
-Sasarai
-
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