Chapter 18
"What do youmeanyou died!?" Mr. S asked with obdurate panic.
The question was a natural one, and perfectly proper considering the circumstances; and Mister Schnee, for his part, showed great magnanimity, and patience, and care, when he answered it the first four times.
"I mean that I died!" he answered sharply on the fifth go. "Get over it!"
"Then how are we talking?" Mr. S asked, a distant quality staining his voice as he drew in on himself in rapid thought: "There's no way you could have been brought back to life," Mr. S' eyes glazed over in wonder, mumbling and carried away in self discourse as, inexorably - and with unerring rationality - he trundled his way through to the undeniable conclusion:
"But, there's no way my memories got transferred in an instant. The synaptic shock that would create in your body…" His eyes widened with great realization: "you should be dead!" he blurted, quickly retracting the insensitive pronouncement at a smoldering look from Mister Schnee.
Mister Schnee stooped in an expectant silence for the first few seconds. "Should I wait longer?" he said at last. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your repetitive questions, or perhaps distract from your blazing insights into what I've already said."
"Who cares about that!" Mr. S, if he noticed the sarcastic remarks, showed no signs of being bothered by it, more concerned by the immediate, mortal danger his words implied. "Don't try to hide it from me!" Mr. S said, with an accusatory tone; "the only reason you'd activate this power is if you had nothing to lose from doing so!" Mr. S went on with the wild careening of his speculations, "and the only way that that would be the case w-"
"Yes, yes," Mister Schnee interrupted, waiting impatiently for the man to get over his crisis, "the power is triggered by the impending death of the user."
"Well…!?" Mr. S, painfully expectant, trained on the other man's lips as a man, dying from thirst, might watch a rusted tap.
The thing about wells in the desert, however, was that they were slow to give water.
"Well?" Mister Schnee echoed, in his own bewilderment. " 'Well,' what?"
"How did you die!" Mr. S asked.
"Well, that's just the issue," Mister Schnee started, leaning casually back and letting the stone base of his body carry his weight. "I was asleep when it happened, and my recollections of it are vague at best."
Mr. S looked at him with a gaunt and starved expression, waiting in tortured silence as Mister Schnee brought a clean hand up to his chin in thought, crossing his opposing arm over the stone diaphragm underneath his elbow.
"I think… there's a small chance it could have been a stroke." Mister Schnee said.
Mr. S felt his throat dry. "Pardon?" he almost whispered, his stomach and legs weakening.
This... was the worst! The Absolute Worst! Of all the things it could have been: the idea that he was walking around in a stroke prone body was the worst! That he could be strolling around, minding his own business, only to be taken out by an unexpected stroke was unbearable, untenable to him as a human being. The shock and paranoia alone would be bad enough to kill him, before the stroke could even manage its job!
"Don't look so hopeless," Mister Schnee cheered; "as I said, it's only a small possibility, considering I've so far had excellent health. No," he assured, "Most likely, I was poisoned."
Mr. S's felt his throat desertifying. "Pardon?" he whispered; his stomach and his legs, he couldn't feel anymore, for all he knew he was floating in a vacant, empty space of hopelessness.
This was even worse! Of all the things it could have been, the idea that he was walking around in apoison assassinprone body was the worst! The absolute worst! The idea that he could be strolling around, minding his own business, only to be taken out by an unexpectedassasinwas unbearable, untenable to him as a human being. The shock and paranoia alone would be enough to kill him, before thepoisoncould even manage its job!
Mister Schnee kept a silent vigil, waiting for the man to return to his senses.
Eventually, Mr.S did manage half that job, regaining enough of his mental faculties that he no longer needed to plagiarize his earlier thoughts, and coming out with the fresh, new idea:
"What do you mean,you were poisoned!?"
"Please, let's not do this," Mister Schnee begged.
"Ok, fine." Mr. S tore himself away from the comforting hopes that the man would change his mind, and retract the discomforting statement. "But, what do you remember?" Mr. S asked, "are you sure you were poisoned? Maybe you ought to tell me what happened."
Of course, there was still the chance that Mr. S could change the man's mind for him.
Mister Schnee, in answer, was hopelessly efficient with his words. "I was lying in bed when a sudden shock struck me, starting, I think, in the space just inside my inner ear. It spread rapidly throughout my body, and a cold sensation flashed through my veins. A horrible, brittle, cracking, burning sensation spread across my skin, and eventually my heart gave out."
"Yeah, you were poisoned," Mr. S admitted dejectedly.
"And by a powerful drug, as well," Mister Schnee added, "the Atropa plant can be quite potent when distilled."
"You know which plant you were poisoned with?"
"Yes," Mister Schnee said, lost in his own thoughts now. "It's a lucky thing you asked me to recount it, because the particulars of my death just struck a chord in my memory. The Henbane toxin is… exceedingly difficult to get a hold of these days. But, it has the advantage that, once prescribed," he said, with a hint of humor, "it can, with the right preparation, be set to attack a person's central nervous system. Likely, they trained it to take out my sense of balance along with my cochlear nerve to make for a more natural looking death if I happened to be in the presence of company when it took effect."
"You keep saying 'they'," Mr. S noted. "Who would want to kill you!?"
Mister schnee only answered with an incredulous frown, looking vaguely disappointed at the sheer naivety of the question.
"Ok, whowouldn'twant to kill you?" Mr. S corrected. "We can start from there."
Mister Schnee, for the first time, paused a moment to think very carefully about the answer, a slightly depressive look becoming him when he finally found it.
"Uh… Ironwood," he said.
There was an awkward pause as Mr. S took a moment to realize that there wouldn't be a deluge of other names following that one.
"What?" Mr. S asked.
"Ironwood," Mister Schnee replied, more confident this time.
"Are you serious right now!?"
Mister Schnee's confidence rapidly fell back a step. "Uhh, maybe my mother," he offered quickly.
"Dude!?" Mr. S said with excited exasperation, "evenIhave more friends than that!"
"I have friends!" Mr. S sternly denied, adding more calmly, "I just can't be sure most of them wouldn't kill me, given the right circumstance."
There was a weighty silence as Mister Schnee collected himself and Mr. S took a moment to appreciate the wonderfully philosophical air which now wafted about him. He wasn't exactly sure why it never occurred to him so distinctly, but, all his life, Mr. S had wanted to be an astronaut. Really.
Alas, it seemed clear, now, that the closest he would ever come to achieving that dream would be to repeat the words of one when he, quoting that great American hero, looked hopelessly at the figure before him and said, with the quietest grace:
"You are a sad, sad little man."
"Can we move on!?" Mister Schnee said with patent exasperation and a rapidly expiring patience.
Sensing the dangerous tone and remembering the deadly consequences afoot, Mr. S eagerly complied.
"Right," he began, "Is there anyone in particular who might have done you in?
"I don't know," said Mister Schnee.
"Is there anyone I should keep an eye out for?"
"I can't say."
"Is there anyone I should ignore?" said Mr. S, with slightly more effort.
"I can't say."
"Have you had any recent arguments with anyone?" growing more desperate now.
"I can't say," Mister Schnee said, with that same, pervading sense of calm.
Mr. S
"Why can't you trust your freinds!?
"Is there life after death!?
"What is the meaning of 'is'!?
"Come On, Man, Give Me Something!" Mr. S implored, growing more overstated with each question.
Mister Schnee took a moment to process the requests, and, after a brief period of thought, said, "I can't say."
The brief epoch of stinging annoyance Mr. S underwent, though painful, was a productive one. Namely, it reminded him of a similar annoyance he'd experienced in elementary school: involving the precise definition of "can" as opposed to "may."
"Wait," he breathed with momentary relief. "You're saying that youcan'ttell me, not that you don't know. Why?" He structured the sentence as he thought it, disjointed and questioning.
"I was wondering when you'd catch on," Mister Schnee said, breathing his own sigh of relief "There are limits on what I can reveal."
"Pardon?" Mr. S said, an icy chill encasing his words.
"We're not talking now as we would if we were in different bodies. It's our souls that are doing the communicating."
"So?" Mr. S said.
In answer, Mister Schnee recited,
"There… are certain truths,
those which a soul holds dear,
from which it may never part;
No matter how clear."
quoting that oft quoted section of poetry, which he'd first picked up from his literature tutor. Mister Schnee reminisced a moment about the cantankerous old Wintergezode: he'd always been a stringent romantic, instilling in the young Jaquez a stringent awareness of the power poetry held to communicate, clearly and comprehensively, even the most profound and inexpressible of ideas.
"What are yousaying?" Mr. S was aghast. Here they, but mostly him, were facing death, and the man was talking in riddles!
Mister Schnee just barely held back from rolling his eyes. "I'm saying you should count yourself lucky that we're even having this conversation. Communicating like this is… rife with difficulties, and naturally there are certain, very close matters of conduct of which I will not be able to speak."
"Wait, close matters?" Mr. S said, with horrible, dawning awareness. "Are you saying that the more important something is, the less likely it is you're going to be able to tell me about it!?"
"Precisely." Mister Schnee was past pulling punches. That'd show him who had no friends.
"Oh, oh gosh," Mr. S suddenly found sudden difficulty breathing.
"Calm down," Mister Schnee announced at last in a loud, calming voice. "'Important' - in this case - means 'important to me.' I wouldn't necessarily have any deep feelings tied up in passwords or bank records," he said, assuring; "Matters like this are rarely laid out in the objective sense, after all."
Still in the midst of his panic attack, Mr. S reached out a hand, "We've covered most of the important stuff, though, right?"
"I can't say."
"What!"
"Whether I've told you everything is also one of the things I can't tell you."
"Are youseriousright now!?" Mr. S asked.
"I can't say," Mister Schnee answered.
Mr. S swore he could see the bastard smiling. "Well, whatcanyou tell me?"
"I can tell you enough," Mister Schnee said, regaining his purposeful tone. "It would do you good to be calm when you take it in."
"Ok, ok," Mr. S felt his breaths deepen, sucking in more air with each bellow of his chest despite the crisp awareness that his imaginary lungs weren't doing him too much good in his circumstance. "Who is the person, that is closest to your soul," he asked, adding after a reflective moment, "...which you can actually talk about." He walked himself slowly through the sentence as if in desperate lack of company.
"Ironwood." Mister Schnee answered the question.
Now that he was paying attention, Mr. S could see a particularcharacterdevelop around the man as he spoke, as if physically holding him back from naming any of the other, deeper bonds he'd forged over the course of his life. Still, Mr. S could easily see that even Ironwood was almost too close to Mister Schnee's core to be named.
"You really trust him that much?" Mr. S asked.
Mister Schnee vacillated, proposing his words with an accompanying waver of the hands: "It's not so much that I trust him, as much as I hate his guts.
"I'm... not sure-"
"But, still, I trust that he wouldn't assassinate me. He was always a hardass for the rules," Mister Schnee broke away from his previous composure to express, in his tone, a hint of admiration for the man. "Besides," he added, "even if he did want to kill me, this isn't his style."
"What is his style?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure," Mister Schnee shrugged, as if admitting that fact to himself, "he'd probably challenge me to a duel; maybe carpet bomb my living room."
Mr. S couldn't help himself. "Well, actually, guided munitions are generally more effective even on a cost-"
"Anyway," Mister Schnee interrupted, "we were talking about the information limit."
"Right, you were saying something about souls if I heard correctly?" Mr. S asked, not willing to take the word too literally.
"Yes." Mister Schnee answered simply and without further explanation, as if not really feeling the need to add anything more to that statement.
And, Mr. S, despite his incredulity, couldn't, to his overt exasperation, find anything wrong with that answer.
"Well… ok, fine then!" Mr. S conceded, shrugging his arms ridiculously, "how come our souls are in the same body? You think there wouldn't be enough room. And if they are crammed together, how come we can't talk? You'd think being next to each other would help!"
"All people on remnant have the capacity to host two souls," Mister Schnee explained, "It's a contingency matter, I was told, one which has been... co-opted, to bring us together."
"You make it sound like this was done with some intelligence," Mr. S said, frowning wearily.
"Our meeting was… facilitated with the assistance of a pair of beings," Mister Schnee started. "You may call them gods, if you like. Despite their efforts, there are still other issues which prevent our cohabitation." Mister Schnee gestured to his growing, stone half in explanation.
"Gods," Mr. S said, disbelief roiling at the borders of his words.
"Yes," Mister Schnee acceded, again feeling little impulse to justify his response.
A great, terrible wonder overcame Mr. S at this. Gods! They actually existed, and here he was being told that by a soul.
It was so strange an experience, to stand bare with the opportunity before to just… ask those billion questions that a hundred thousand years of human thought had concluded to be unanswerable.
To know the "name of god"… Mr. S almost fainted at the thought. Dare he ask it-
Before he could even consider the matter, the question slipped out. "What are their names?" Mr. S asked with a parched whisper, too late to do anything except cringe in the intensity of the coming answer.
Mister Schnee could see the great and terrible hearth this question held for the man, so he let a respectful, quiet moment stand before, at last, saying: "I can't say."
"What-" Mr. S bit back his own curse.
"And I'd rather we not waste time with empyrean matters," Mister Schnee advised. "We have far more practical concerns to attend to; besides, what little I have yet seen is not for living ears to hear of." This, Mister Schnee warned with an ominous, foreboding countenance which, if nothing else, succeeded in directing Mr. S's attention back to those practical matters.
"Ok," Mr. S conceded,"you said earlier that our souls weren't compatible. Why is that?" Already, Mr. S was cringing in anticipation of another rebuke; this time, however, Mister Schnee found he could muster an answer to the question.
Again, the man paused to consider his words. Mr. S noted the increasing frequency with which he was doing that, as well as the increasing intensity with which thatcharacterwhich limited him seemed to be making an appearance.
"While it is true that the men of remnant are capable, in theory, of hosting more than one soul," Mister Schnee explained, "this capability usually ends with the two souls merging together into one. The people of your world have souls of a different character, and that prevents our souls from mixing."
"Souls of a different character?" Mr. S challenged. "What does living on a different plant have to do with souls?"
"Well, perhaps soul isn't precisely the right term to use. Rather, it's due to an incompatibility in our Auras."
'Auras,' huh... This guy was going new-age on him, fast. Although, Mr. S consoled himself, it was the future, they probably had better awareness of things like this if they were having liaisons with actual gods. Well, that, or this guy made his wealth selling yoga mats to the critically uncritical.
Reminding himself that he could fact check this guy later, Mr. S, for the moment, accepted the concept without rebuttal. Although, he was past pretending to understand what the other man was talking about anymore.
"Alright," Mr. S said, "but, what exactly do you mean by 'aura' in this case, and how is it different from a 'soul'?"
"Oh," Mister Schnee startled, with a hurried countenance, to explain, "I suppose it's probably difficult to tell the difference. In fact, I'd say most people on remnant wouldn't recognize that there even is one, but, in some philosophical circles, they isolate 'aura' to mean 'the physical manifestation of the soul;' being separate from the soul proper.
"Although, I must admit," he added, "I'm ignorant of the word your people use to describe the phenomenon, if, indeed, your people ever even saw a reason to make the distinction."
"Oh, uh, a bioelectric field, maybe," Mr. S announced, hastening not to sound ignorant and feeling unduly pressured not to seem like the simple-minded primitive he increasingly felt he was. "But, more importantly, this means our souls are incompatible? What are we supposed to do if it's impossible for us to talk to each other?"
"Not impossible," Mister Schnee corrected, "a soul is still a soul, after all. I imagine one of us knew the other as well as they know themselves, we wouldn't be needing this to keep us stable," at this, he again tapped the creeping stone, which had now reached his mid chest.
"So, if we 'knew each other' well enough, that would take care of our problems?" Mr. S said, feeling patent in his failure to truly grasp the concept.
"Perhaps," Mister Schnee said, failing to show any concern for the topic, looking nervous about something.
"What is it?" Mr. S asked.
Mister Schnee lacked the characteristic forbearance he'd shown thus far. "I… suppose you've noticed by now that I've been trying to persuade you."
"Yeah," Mr.S nodded, "'the world needs a champion' was a bit too Hollywood for a desk job."
More than that, Mr. S noticed that Mister Schnee was, like every recruiter he'd ever met: disturbingly nicer than he should have been. This made sense when one considered that he was trying to get him to sign up for a dangerous job with not enough benefits. It made less sense when one considered that, unlike with recruiters, Mr. S didn't really have the option to quit… unless.
"Are you saying I can go home?" he asked, a lively bent to his eyes.
Mister Schnee was startled by the speed of the deduction. Still, he didn't delay in affirming the fact.
"I… do need to give you the option," he stated, gesturing to the border-less portal beside him that Mr. S was certain had been floating there all along.
Mr. S felt strange as he looked through the portal: watching the indistinct silhouette of a man lying in his bed.
"That's me, I take it?" Mr. S asked, pointing at the picture.
"You'll be returned to your body at your request," Mister Schnee answered. "You may experience some discomforts at the loss of memory, but otherwise you wouldn't be inconvenienced by this detour."
"And, if I don't request to be returned?" Mr. S asked.
"Then your body will die. Your mind and soul will be preserved here, of course, but-"
"I'll stay," he interrupted the man, not caring to hear his words any further.
Mister Schnee only mustered a placid blink in surprise.
"Brave man," Mister Schnee complemented.
Mr. S looked once again at the man lying at the edge of his too-large bed. "Not as brave as you think."
"Still, you're facing death."
"Yeah," Mr. S agreed, with a distant quality to his voice, "that could be a problem." Worried creases drew soft lines across his face. "But, to be honest, I get the feeling you knew I wouldn't be going back," he guessed, trying to lift the mood now.
"I didn't," Mister Schnee denied. "I filtered for people that would be useful, and the likelihood of staying was among the selection criteria, but I couldn't be sure whether you would stay, especially considering how well you seem to have done for yourself." He gestured at the nice house and nice bed his body still lay on, and which Mr. S refused to look at any further.
Mr. S let out a humorless chuckle. "I thought you of all people would know money isn't worth much when the world makes you lose your appetite."
"What happened?" Mister Schnee asked.
"A plane crash," Mr. S admitted. "I lost," he looked up with a calculating look as if counting the misfortunes, "basically everything I care about in that." He sucked a painful breath through his teeth and blinked rapidly before turning his measured gaze back down.
"If it's any consolation-"
"Look, it happened a long time ago," Mr. S lied, "I just got distracted because I was reminded of it so suddenly. Let's not spend the next several years dancing around it?"
Mister Schnee didn't bother to argue. Time was running short, in any case, and he looked down at his now mostly stone chest.
"I suppose you're right," he admitted.
"I always am," Mr. S said with manufactured braggadocio. "In any case, since I'm staying, is there anything I ought to know?"
"Very much." Mister Schnee said. "If you want to pass yourself off as me, there are a lot of things you'll have to learn. We don't have much time so-"
"Just tell me," Mr. S interrupted, the freshly raw state of his heart belaying any attempts at courtesy, "I have a good memory."
Mr. S only looked at him with a credulous expression that he struggled to maintain. "Very well," he acquiesced, and their next several dozen minutes together consisted entirely of an information dense stream; of passwords, contacts, etiquette, ongoing projects, insurance plans, phone numbers, names, faces, bank-account numbers, and innumerable other scraps of uncatalogued information relating to his business life, as well as to the as-of-yet-unsolved conspiracy which he'd passed on to Mr.S.
Whatever Mr. S wasn't told, which, to be fair, was quite a bit, he was informed would be contained in various external sources that Mister Schnee had collated over the course of his life; many of them consisting, as they often did, of digital media that were stored away on various files that had built up over his career.
All in all, the list was detailed, and rehearsed, and expertly laid out, with enough sources to fill an encyclopedia, and not lacking at all in any necessary aspect. Except, Mr. S noted, it was lacking in the most necessary aspect.
"Ok, but what am I supposed to do about the poison?" He could see the stone had now reached up to the base of the man's neck, and he was in a desperate panic.
Mister Schnee was far more calm about the situation - seeing how it soon wouldn't be his problem - and magnanimously decided to lend, to Mr. S's benefit, some of the rational perspective such an apathetic state of mind allowed for.
Mister Schnee lowered his chin, thought about the conundrum, and, with infinite sagacity and unbounded erudition, instructed: "Stay away from bottled water."
Mr. S, still far too frazzled to make sense of such wisdom, said: "what?"
He said this with a frustrated, and almost impertinent tone, but, for this, he must be forgiven; after all, one can not always make sense of such striking insights. Really, he was usually such a smart guy.
Mister Schnee, of course, understood and accepted the other man's plight with a welcoming grace, and clarified: "Well, the palace water supply is drawn from a common source, and it's filtered both on the production and the consumption end, so it should be safe against most methods of attack. And, to be honest, the entire system would dilute any plausible dose of poison to inefficacy, so tap water would be your best bet if you ever got thirsty. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for the city water supply."
"Ok," Mr. S nodded obviously, "drink tap water to avoid poison, but what am I supposed to do about the food!"
Mister Schnee - once again - lowered his chin in thought and - after a long period of focused reflection said with startling intelligence an answer that any onlooker would have to agree was, not only correct, but, indeed, the best conceivable solution: "Well, the human body can survive two weeks without food. I suggest you resolve this situation before then."
Mr. S thought he had been desperate to ask such pointless questions earlier. But, only now did he realize that he hadn't been desperate, and his questions hadn't been pointless. He realized this because he was nowtrulydesperate, andtrulyreadying to ask pointless questions like:
"What?" Mr. S said, with a growing weakness in his tone. "But, but-" He could feel his legs failing him, and he felt the world going sideways.
"Also," Mister Schnee heroically added at the last minute, "you may want to focus your attention on the manor. The people who poisoned you are obviously well connected and powerful to have gotten hold of such a deadly poison, but their true danger comes from the fact that they've gotten someone inside the castle working with them."'
"Are you sure there's a traitor? Couldn't they have just snuck in, or maybe used some other sort of tactic or something?"
"No one has infiltrated the Schnee manor in half a millennium, and I assure you, it's undergone extensive upgrades under my tenure," Mister Schnee assured, confident. "They would have needed someone to administer the poison to my food within thirty minutes of it being served to me, otherwise it would have degenerated in the open air; not to mention, they would have to administer it in such a way that it bypassed normal safety mechanisms. They would need someone on the inside for that."
"But-"
"We don't have much time left," Mr. S lowered his eyes vainly to look at the stone just now creeping up the middle of his neck, "try to make the most of it."
"Will we be able to talk after this?" Mr. S asked, despite the fact that he already knew the answer would be:
"No," Mr. Schnee shot down coldly. "We won't be talking again, I should think. In fact, I'm sure this is the last conversation I'll ever have." He said this with a harrowed look that Mr. S decided not to take personally.
"Are you sure?" Mr. S asked.
"Yes, just keep steady, and keep Ironwood close at hand."
"Again with Ironwood, is there really no one else? What about your wife?"
Mister Schnee sighed with a resigned air, "Do you remember when you asked who'd want to kill me?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"She's probably at the top of the list."
"Seriously? Is there anyone who you can trust?"
"Like I said, Ironwood and..." he paused a moment, and, observantly, Mr. S could see thatcharacterform about to restrain him, and, even more interestingly, Mr. S could see that Mister Schnee was overcoming it. "...and also Charra, at the IS plant. She runs the entire Vale-Vacuo sector of the company; I trust her as I do my eyes," he said, shivering slightly as if he'd walked through an electrified fence.
"But I don'twantto talk to Charra from the IS plant!" Mr. S snarled petulantly, "I want to talk with you!" still overcome with the high emotions that had overtaken him, and, irrationally, overcome with a great sadness at the fact that he'd never be seeing this man again.
"I mean," Mr. S continued, searching plaintively for any rationalization that could support his irrational objections, "I wouldn't even know what to do! I'm not sure if I told you this, but the stock's tanking right now, and I'm pretty sure that was partially my fault!"
"Look," Mr. S said with an irreproachable sense of self assured confidence, "don't worry too much about the stock. In fact, even thinking about the stock is one of the biggest mistakes any business leader can make because, really, the stock is completely pointless as a measure of anything-"
"Oh, is that why you have a five story television screen blasting stock numbers through your office wall?"
"That's just there for morale purposes," Mister Schnee denied, halted momentarily by the incisively skeptical looks Mr. S shot his way.
"Ok, stocks matter a little," he acquiesced. "But, really, don't let it overwhelm you. It may seem complicated, but it's really people behind all of this chaos, and it's people behind the numbers on the screen, and those people just need a leader-"
"Look, I already gave myself this pep talk. It doesn't work. You can't be a leader if you have no idea what the fuck you're doing!"
"Now, that's where you're wrong." Mr. Schnee shot back with uncharacteristic swagger, desperate to finish this conversation off on a positive note.
Mr. S sputtered, shaking the frustrations away. "Just, look; are you sure there's nothing we can do about the communication barrier? Didn't you say earlier that it would stop being a problem if we 'knew each other' or something along those lines."
Mister Schnee shook his head with a frustrated sigh at the man's insistence. "That was a purely academic argument, there's no practical-"
"Why didn't you mention Charra earlier?" Mr. S asked suddenly.
"What?"
"Earlier, when I asked you to list everyone you could trust, Ironwood was the best you could do. Now, you just mentioned Charra, who, if anything, seems even closer to you, considering you 'trust her as you do your eyes.'"
"W-"
"If I had to guess," Mr. S interrupted with a brash, unwavering sense of deduction, "you're either lying to me, or you're lying to me," - in a cold voice adding - "which is it?"
To his eternal surprise, Mister Schnee laughed with a relieved and slightly appreciative tone. "You're more discerning that you seem, at first," he complemented, mixing the observation with the trail end of his dying chuckles.
"I'm not sure-"
"And, I didn't lie to you," Mister Schnee added. "It's true that I can tell you some things that are close to my heart, but there is a limit to how far I can do so. In order to tell you one thing, I must keep another hidden, and the supply of critical information far exceeds the amount that I can give to you. I would have told you this, but it didn't seem necessary that I go into such details. In either case, there's a finite store of truly important things I can say."
"Then why are you wasting it telling me about your favorite middle managers!?" Mr. S asked, "why not just tell me what I need to know to break the communication barrier in the first place?"
"Charra is a good and trusted friend of mine," Mister Schnee chastised with a hard tone, quickly reverting to his more manageable expression of sincere calm. "And your suggestion isn't as simple as you make it sound."
"Why not?"
"Because... there is a secret of mine that you must know in order to break the communication's barrier. And this secret, which is the only thing that can break the communication barrier, is precisely the secret most deeply lodged within it."
"Well, why couldn't you have used all of your 'important information' passes to tell me that one! We could've been talking all day by now!" Mr. S expressed frustration.
"'That one,' is not a secret that can just be told. It is the most dearly held secret of a soul, and it has a quality… different to that of a person's every other aspect. It is the one thing, if anything, that can define the true nature of a person's character, it is the 'untellable secret' of the poem."
"What poem?"
Mister Schnee, this time, failed to not roll his eyes. "Nevermind," he said. "The point is, I wouldn't be able to tell it to you."
"Well, whatcanyou tell me about it?"
"Why are you so eager to know?" Mister Schnee asked, a strangely defensive character to his voice.
"So that we can talk without this stupid barrier!" Mr. S said, his voice a frustrated caricature of itself.
Mr. S quickly recovered himself when he saw the deadly serious, and painfully considerate, mask Mister Schnee hid himself behind.
"Look," Mr. S said after a moment, understanding. "I get that you wouldn't want other people to know your secret. But, if it helps, I probably won't judge you too harshly," he said, unhelpfully. "Besides," he cantered on, "I doubt there's anything you could say that would cause me to bail on this whole mission."
"It's not that," Mister Schnee said. "I could tell you something about it, but it's as unhelpful as it is expensive. I'd have to give up on telling you anything else important just to get the words out! Besides, the secret has long since been buried, there's no chance-"
"Look," Mr. S said with a sternness that surprised himself. "I'm the one who's going to be walking around posing for sniper scopes after this, so do me a favor and at least grant this request. If you can't even trust me to make the right decision on something as simple as this, then the only option you'd have is to tell me everything you know about the secret and hope you can come back to make the right decisions for everything else."
Mister Schnee found he really couldn't argue with that. This was in mutiny with his burning desire to argue against it, however.
"Very well," he said at last, regret and obligation piling heavily on his words.
Painfully, with a ponderous turn of intent and expression, Mister Schnee passed himself against thatcharacteronce more, which was now almost glowing with the imperious reality of its presence.
"I… have a secret," Mister Schnee said, calm and pausing for a dead moment, carefully considering his limited supply of words, "It's… something I regret doing, but that I can't possibly regret the consequences of."
"That all you can say?" Mr. S asked, worry gnawing at the excited titters of his gut.
"That's all I can say."
"Have you told anybody?" Mr. S asked.
"I can assure you, there's not a soul left alive on Remnant who knows."
Mr. S felt himself shrinking back from the hard, refined surface of his voice. He wanted to ask another question, any question, even if only to feel that he was being productive in the final moments. But, he restrained himself; looking at the man encased in a dungeon of stone he asked: "When I go out there, is there anything you want me to do?"
Mister Schnee was immediate in his reply.
"Weiss," he said, "my youngest daughter. She will hate you… me. Do not think this is something that can be fixed with words, or fixed at all, she… she is hurt, because of what I've done to the family name, and she despises that I've disowned her from it- for her safety!" he said, preempting Mr. S's rebukes.
Mister Schnee sighed, regaining his train of thought. "She hates me for what she sees as besmirching the family name, and she will continue hating you unless you can meet her impossible standards. "She's an idealist," he said wearily, "despite my best efforts."
"Why tell me this now?" Mr. S asked.
"Because that idealism - along with her opinion of me - will make her… difficult." Again, he saw the need to preempt Mr. S. "-Whatever you may think of me, or of her," he said, with a quickly peaking tone, "you must promise that youwillthink of her. You must think above all of Whitley and of all my daughters; before the company, before the city, before your life." This, he said without flourish or decoration, stating it as simply as if it were fact.
"Look," Mr. S said with an appeasing, exhorting quality to his voice, "I wouldn't just-"
"Promise me," Mister Schnee demanded. "Promise me, as one father to another."
The sudden, recalcitrant shock of the request was enough to wake the man, and before he could even measure his words, Mr. S found himself speaking. "I promise," he said, meaningfully, as the stone creeped over an invisible border around the man's neck, and with a tripped, blinding flash struck forth, leaving Mr. S staring, bewildered, at the dignified, stone countenance of Mister Schnee.