Letters to Legate Gloamingdaith

[Hierophant]

Legate Balstan Gloamingdaith,

Our discussion the other day gave me much to mull over and though I've yet to decide what league suits me best, I had one notion to add. A statement more so than anything.

Perhaps also living proof of my true meaning; if the deciding factor for what political affiliations to choose is mathematics and the odds of victory in a Primary, taking note of each associate aligned or maligned, then does this not show true how flawed the politick of Ephia's Well is?

If I am to pursue the jungle that is Ephian politics and policy, then I will do it as an artist would. You named the League of Lilies as idealists with little knack for practice, or at least such is how I interpreted your words.

Fret not, I am ever in your gratitude for the lesson, and should a Legate's seat ever grace my hind, I hope to work fruitfully with whomever sits beside me and show my fellows the courtesy of an august tenure endowed in undying love for our home, our Ephia's Well.

But it is not difficulty that bars my way forward, nor what I fear. Nor is it even near my compass. I have no interest, I have realized, in the path that bears the least resistance, the least tension. I want to feel alive again, and I want my home to feel alive again; so I will embark on the most arduous path, and perhaps some will call me masochist but the clique of the Lily I mean to shatter with my silver palm.

May you find everlasting peace and success in your endeavors. John Syter would be proud of the way you exemplify your care for the people, even the Voiceless as I am, and you have my thanks for allowing me the opportunity to contemplate my own future and not have it dictated by another with falsity upon their pale lip.

Yours truly,
Leo Tzimiskes

[Ziya]

28 Tammuz IY 7788

Leo Tzimiskes,

To begin, you will have to forgive me my belated reply. From one day to the next, Ephia's Well seems rocked by crisis after crisis, and each requires my attention. Serendipitously, many has since been settled, or are now left to simmer, which permits me the hour I desire to see penned my thoughts proper in writing. I trust that you will find my dilatory reply with kindness, and regard it in the spirit of goodwill and fellowship.

Your decision is met with disappointment and favor in equal measure. The League of Gold would benefit from one such as yourself, but yet if your heart sings for the Lily then your spirit would only be diminished if gilded with a sheen of gold. We must each choose as our spirit sings, and since be it the nectared wine or the bitter gall that shall come of our choices we must drink alone, we cannot abrogate that duty of choice. To be gilded gold if your heart be white, because of another's honeyed or cajoling words, would only have you become untrue to yourself, and to bear false witness to one's own desire is to walk a very miserable road.

In any case, I am certain that there shall be plenty of opportunities for us to work together. There are yet words that we ought share, and your name I have floated amongst a few friends within the League of White. You may find that in the sennights to come, your hopes and mine may not be far apart.

I have heard tidings that you have a sister? Is she in Ephia's Well? As I have turned curious eyes upon you, be aware that both your political views and your associations have become interesting to certain powers. You will forgive me - and them - the nosiness, but in deciding to wade into the political arena, I am confident that you have appreciated that such attention would be drawn.

Did you attend the opening of Ephia's Well Gallery? If I may lend an unsolicited counsel, it is that you ought to see about frequenting more such affairs, if you may. Whether you can make time for them will weigh towards your merits, and I would offer the cautionary tale of my rival in my election - Nasreen's time was limited, and that weighed heavily against her, for despite being a woman of much merit, her absence became too conspicuous for even her supporters to deny or defend.

Finally, if I may be permitted to inquire of you a philosophical and jurisprudential query.

There is the intuitive moral sense that people should not be morally assessed for what is not their fault. Common is the refrain that a person, therefore, cannot be punished for what is beyond his control. Where an offender acts in a particular way because of the unsoundness of his mind, the law takes cognizance of the fact that he cannot help but be of unsound mind. Similarly, when he acts under duress, the law recognizes that he is not acting of his own free will. We absolve such offenders of criminal responsibility, either wholly or partially, because they were not in control of their actions at the material time.

Consider, then: two men were driving a camel's wagon drunk and recklessly down the streets of Ephia's Well. For the first man, naught transpired, and he delivered his cargo safely. Minutes later, the second man followed the first man, but this time, a child ran impetuously across the street before his wagon, and the child was grievously injured.

The second man was hauled before the Hall of Jurisprudence, and he contends that he was no more blameworthy than the first man, for it was beyond his control whether a child would run before him or not. His only fault, he contends, is that of ill luck, his misfortune that the child ran across the street before his wagon and not the first man's. Nevertheless, it is undeniable and undisputed that the second man had caused grievous harm to a child.

Should the first man be punished? Should the second man be punished? If the second man should be punished, should his punishment be equal to or greater than that of the first man? Why?

I look forward to your reply with eager anticipation.

Live and drink,
Balstan Gloamingdaith

[Hierophant]

Legate Balstan Gloamingdaith,

Perhaps it is you they should be calling the Unifier, for you understand something few Legates ever have, and why I liken you to John Syter. You understand that behind that Golden Toga, behind that Legate's title, you are and always shall be a fellow citizen, a fellow Ephian.

You've delved into many questions of my character in this letter and of my family. Perhaps I should have known that it was your affluence that drew these eyes to my every step. Life has lost its privy, and I thought this only the subject of fame, and yet I am no one special.

A strange thing that speaking one's mind is so congratulated, as if I am the first, and stranger yet that I am being elevated to a status beyond humble ken in this air, and what is in the air; exactly as you described it. Opportunism at every corner. It seems the League of Gold was not the only path hungering for a cause worthy of its banner. So too does the Lily thirst for water, and as they say, water is dinar.

Is it so oblivious of me to err on the side of pondering morality, and to coin such terms as Dinarcracy? You must admit, it has an endearing ring to it if teetering on a bout of cynicism. However, I do think it important to take some things in stride, and to have a rapport for comical genius. I must make up for my lack of wisdom, as you, and my lack of scholarly clause to lean upon.

As for my sister, it is true that she and I are of the same lineage, that Zoe Tzimiska. As a potential new friend has advised me, there may come a time where I shall lose her for ever, and though I wished to retort at her in kind, I thought it inappropriate between strangers. So I will entertain you with one instead. Not for eleven years has she been my sister, and now my fears have come true and I wallow in the consequence. Now I must decide if I will fight for her, or if I will succumb to temptation and lose myself again in drink and mizzar.

Now in an amusing twist of our correspondence, you ask me of slight in the law and what I think of it. I am no lawyer, nor have I studied the law. The Penal Code, as I understand it, is a naked caricature of what once was. Even Baz'eel, in its longevity, bears more resemblance to what the Orentid dynasty had established as cordial procedure in Ephia's Well. But as you call it, 'intuitive moral sense', and philosophical at that besides the jurisprudence of it all, I will again entertain it for I have come to enjoy what direction our friendship - as I hope we might be or be come of friends - has taken. Both men should be taken at fault for disorderly actions while drunk, and the second man is indeed correct when he says this was ill luck; but luck has no place in the law, I have come to understand. A child was grievously injured. So the first man would receive a simple fine for his conduct, while the second man would receive the same punishment and then serious assault. Though it is difficult to discern the tenor of your words that mean, through 'grievous' harm one might think it was serious enough to warrant consideration. Grievous wounds then might lead to death, and then it would not be serious, but capital. A trial would take place and there would be substantial evidence certainly to convict, and the man would be sentenced to death.

I do not overthink things, my friend.

Yours truly,
Leo Tzimiskes

[Hierophant]

Another reply is forwarded ahead of the other and finds its way nestled beneath, surely, the piles upon piles of correspondences the Legate must deal with on a daily. Eventually, it is unearthed, though perhaps one spell too late.

Balstan,

I have had a change of heart. It seems the more cowed and senior members of the Lily have been either unconvinced by my candor and tenor or have been demanded to make a statement. I have arranged for two meetings of my fellows on the morrow and if these meetings do not go as I planned, then I will more than likely continue my work within the League of Gold.

It seems in the end your estimations were right, and I should have known. I let my passion get the hold of me and I was blinded by dreams when realities are what 'shape dreams', as I was told by one of your contemporaries, Qari Alriyh.

If Rosie Gunmper and her weakling democrats want to mewl over how best to offer charity - a very simple and easy thing to do and yet accomplishes little - then I will find good company that is of like mind and sees the larger picture. They want to give every one their own slice of a dwindling pie, and yet have no intentions of teaching them how to bake their own. This metaphor can be written many ways and I'm sure you get my meaning.

I will seek you out.

Yours truly,
Leo

[Ziya]

3 Maribeh IY 7788

Leo Tzimiskes,

Forgive me, the frantic diplomatic overtures that I had to make with Il Modo over the past few days and the coming Kardesler had all but consumed by time. I found myself with painfully little, and the weight upon my mind made it hard to order my thoughts into letter.

Allow me to belatedly welcome you to the League of Gold.

Your decision surprises me little. It is ordained by circumstances:

First, the League of White is a dysfunctional one, torn betwixt competing interests that are both deeply cemented and antithetical to each other. Multiple Accord Signatories have influential members within, while demanding of its candidates to take often contradictory positions. It is plain, then, that League unity is not attainable while that state of affair continues.

Second, the White's tenets also offer nothing more than a bottomless pit, for to give and to give without more is to be feasted upon until naught is left. That was why the League of Gold called to me. It is not enough to give, though there is honor in the giving. One must also open doors. Create opportunities. Help others to do more than look forward to the next meal you may offer, but give them the tools and instruments with which to make their own contributions to Ephia's Well; and thereby, uplift themselves.

I must note that the allegations that you are of Orentid origin are a severe one, and it is unclear to me how they came to be laid against you. Dispelling those allegations and assuring the League's Official that such allegations are naught but calumnies would be crucial for your political career. In time, perhaps, they may also be forgotten. The peoples of Ephia's Well do have feckless memories.

In the meantime, it would be prudent to consider how you may build your reputation aside from politics to then segue within. Gausim built his as a Waterbearer of B'aara. Sol Auk as a successful and generous merchant. Marcellus was once a Scribe and the caretaker of the Temple of Izdu. Myself, a scholar and author of the Compendium to Ephia's Well. Succeeding in such a project and having it be the foundation of one's reputation can often be a great boon in one's political ambitions.

What would yours be?

Live and drink,
Balstan Gloamingdaith