There is a chessboard. Two people play on it, one dark and cloaked, the other impeccably dressed in a white suit. There is glory in the dark of the cloak and something dark and crawling in the handsome bright suit.

Pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn, rook, bishop, knight, king, queen.

Pain on one side of the table, a sort of willful hatred on the other.

Pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn pawn make your move.

The figure in the white suit reaches out, eyes glittering with a dark malevolence, and moves a bishop. "Perhaps you would be more comfortable a little less overdressed."

The figure in the cloak moves a pawn. "I would not be less uncomfortable."

"Really." A knight moves forward and sidles left. "You do not need to be so *cold*, old friend."

The cloaked figure does not answer that, except to move another pawn.

"After all, the differences between us are mere philosophical differences."

The cloaked man moves his queen, because he is in trouble.

"Mere rhetoric."

"Stop that and play."

"I'll always play the Game. Check."

The cloaked man moves his king. He has not lost it yet. They play, and he has to leave eventually, and when he returns, the board is set up anew.

He has not lost.

He has not won.

"Mere philosophical differences, Asmodeus?"

Not yet.