"I don't plan on it."

"I should have asked this a while ago," Iomedae says. "But I have four hundred thousand Absalom pounds. How do I use them to take Cheliax away from Hell?"

He sighs. "Everything I can think of better than 'give the money to me to spend on the Order' I've already spent the Order's funds on until it's not a better way anymore. But we try very hard to discourage the sort of culture where our paladins give all their pay right back to the order.

…I'm inclined to ignore that in your case, but only because of your - family resemblance. If you're trying to avoid special treatment."

"It makes sense to me that it would be - bad for the culture of the order, that it'd make it hard for people to have a felt sense that they are - earning money, independently, the effects of which they are responsible for independently, that it feeds the inclination to - trust anything you're in any event acting like you trust, to take your own sacrifices as evidence of their correctness. I do have that tendency, though I try to ignore it. 

But also it really seems like this is an unusual case. Not because of the family resemblance necessarily but because - it's a lot of money, you didn't pay me most of it, I'm going to earn a lot more of it, and if I'd suddenly decided I cared about nothing but my own long life I'd still really want you to take down Cheliax inside this year. And if it makes you feel better I was planning to keep enough for a Teleport and to build a new broadcasting station, if I ever want to leave."

"Are you planning on putting anything aside for things that make you happy? It's what I'd be concerned about if it were another idealistic young paladin. I do think since it's mostly not your salary - entirely not your salary if you're setting aside a teleport and a broadcast station - a lot of the usual concerns don't apply."

Iomedae looks puzzled. "Making guns makes me happy. Shooting damned people probably won't make me happy but I can't think of any other work I've done or expected to do which I didn't like. I guess I should occasionally buy Alfirin presents?"

"Usually someone pursuing a romantic relationship would be encouraged to save for - a home, a plot of land - though I suppose that advice doesn't exactly apply, for your case…I think you not having much of anything you can think of to spend the money on, selfishly, would be the sort of thing I'd be worried about if not for the family resemblance."

Iomedae tries to imagine how she might feel about it later, if she'll wish she had more selfish precious things. If she didn't have Alfirin, maybe. But she does have Alfirin. And if she and Alfirin someday want a plot of land they'll be rich enough to raise it out of the sea like Aroden did, or like the Dutch. 

And she knows what conditions make her unhappy. They aren't about deprivation. They're about not knowing if she's working on the right thing and if she's treating her allies fairly and if she'd hear about it if she was making a mistake. It really doesn't feel like there'll be some point where she'll be unable to keep going unless she stops being sure she's headed in the right direction. "She did it, though? Just worked on fixing stuff until it made more sense to work from Heaven?"

"Yes. It's an intensity that a lot of people find very tempting to emulate and usually ends badly but… I think for you it will work. Because it did."

"...I think it'll work and also if in ten years we won but I have a lot of deep emotional problems I will just…quit and work on those then, I think. I want to donate most of my money to the order, will you accept it?"

"Yes."

Cansellarion has known for a long time how he'll do it, once he has the resources to do it. Isger, then along the foothills of the Menador mountains into central Cheliax, likely meeting the Chelish army on the Fields of Chelam. The opening assault, on Citadel Dinyar where it's perched in the Aspodel Mountains, has to be high-magic; the fortress is accessible overland only by a narrow, winding mountain pass all of which is exposed to shot from the fortress. It goes on for ages, built into the mountain itself, and there's no way a small Teleport-capable team could clear it, but they can clear the walls and let everyone else march in. And then, Hellknights being at least nominally lawful, perhaps they can negotiate their surrender and send them to the Worldwound. The Godclaw's really about as not-bad as any military force defending the Thrune regime could possibly be.

The other reason to go after Dinyar first is that they have Heart's Edge. They can't even use it, not being paladins. They keep it in a vault. Cansellarion obviously does not himself feel worthy of wielding Iomedae's sword but there isn't really much question about whether She'd want him to, and the symbolism is excellent. (If the other Iomedae weren't quite so young and inexperienced there'd be the temptation to have her participate openly in the invasion, as herself, with her sword, but she flatly can't do it and it's not worth waiting until she possibly could.)

When he talked with Codwin about this a year ago Andoran planned to stay out of it. They'd be gambling their entire country, whereas Cansellarion pointedly isn't gambling Lastwall; he's launching his operations from his own holdings in Nirmathas, and even if they are defeated and destroyed it's unlikely Cheliax will be able to destroy Lastwall in their retaliation. But Andoran is much easier for Cheliax to take and to hold.

Guns change that. With guns, Andoran ought to be able to hold its border even against a much larger Chelish force. They don't have enough guns, yet, to give them to Andoran this spring, but they may well have enough by summer, at which point Andoran will quite plausibly be willing to join the war. And the Wish-attempt changed the situation too; everyone in Andoran is screaming for a fight, and Codwin intends to deliver it to them and is scrambling to figure out how to make it one that doesn’t gamble his whole country.

There's an only-loosely-affiliated rebel group in Kintargo that's planning to act when they have opportunity; Cansellarion knows almost nothing about their plans except that he will probably constitute opportunity.

If they win on the Fields of Chelam he intends to bypass Egorian and go for Westcrown. It's the true capital, and if they take Rivad they can hold the Adivian against the Chelish navy, which they otherwise lack any real way to deal with.

(Navies go down to a few Meteor Swarms. He asked Morgethai, and she said she didn't have the spell and much preferred uses of her ninth circle spells in the war effort that aren't immediately obvious to Cheliax (and therefore did not immediately communicate that she had expended her ninth circle spells for the day). He asked Nefreti, and she said…'You are going to have to wait for someone even older and more foolish than me, or someone younger, or someone wiser, or they aren't here and you will die'.

…actually.)

"Clepati," he says, when he can next spare an afternoon in Sothis, "When you told me you wouldn't help with Cheliax, did you know about Iomedae?"

"You ask such confusing questions," she complains. "I know how often there's Iomedae."

"Okay. Did you know that she was going to show up, and that's why I had to wait for someone younger than you? And older?"

Nefreti considers that for a while. "...mostly when I tell you that, Iomedae does not come. Though it helps that you are a boy."

"...But she did - Nevermind. Were you talking about her?"

"A little bit."

"Her and Alfirin, then?"

"Sometimes!"

"Who else, and do you know how I can get them?"

"You can't get them! That's not how anything works!"