THE GAME OF LIFE … AND DEATH
The orphan, Richard Blaine, is thrust into a surreal chess game with One many fear is the Devil itself.
THE GAME OF LIFE … AND DEATH
“Man loves recalling life, but hedoes not enjoy living.”
- Lamashtu Morton
“I think I’ll stand,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because you want me to sit.”
Morton shook that withered,emancipated head.
“You see yourself as a hero inone of those historical melodramas in your library. You are deluded.”
Its face was living contempt.
Not mercy, not compassion, noranything remotely human glimmered in its wet stone eyes.
But then, considering who I thoughtit might be, what else did I expect?
“Real life is filled withinvisible razors under your bare feet. It is cruel. It doesn't care aboutheroes and happy endings and the way things should be.
In real life, bad thingshappen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil wins every day.”
It flashed a smile of smugassurance. “Like with this game of life … and death.”
“You’ll have to play to find out,sir.”
“Sir? Respect?”
I shook my head. “Acknowledgementof more years than mine.”
“I was sung into being before thevery concept of time, you talking chimpanzee!”
“Figured as much … sir.”
Its face was a living sneer.
“Whatdreary painting do you suppose one of your sentimental, literal-mindedsimpletons would craft of this moment?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Whatothers think of me matters nothing to me.”
Its caricature of an eyebrowlifted. “Really?”
I smiled darkly, knowing of whomhe spoke. “Helen Mayfair is not a simpleton nor an Other. She is one of a kind,unique.”
“More true than you know …simpleton.”
“Not so simple that I don’trealize that the spread of evil is merely the result of a vacuum.
Whenever evilwins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the factthat there can be no compromise on basic principles.”
It snorted. “And tsunamis ofgenocide have washed away millions fighting over which culture’s basicprinciples were correct.”
I shrugged. “I never stated thatmankind wasn’t flawed. Sometimes the darkness lives inside you, and sometimesit wins.”
“Then, not a complete simpleton,merely a backwater hayseed.”
“Coming into Jerusalem, riding adonkey.”
Its eyes narrowed, and I continued,“All that we have, all that we are is on loan. Our lives are not about us.”
Its eyes were mere slits, and I wastempted to ask how it could see that way, but I shelved that idiot question andinstead asked,
“I do not know who my father was,do you?”
A coldness emanated from it that Icould feel deep in my bones.
“I’ll take that silence as a no.Here’s a thought: what if in our chess game, every time we make a move, reality is changed.”
“We have not made any ….”
It stared at the shimmering boardwhose pieces were scattered all over it. Many of his black pieces were completelyoff to the side.
As we watched, one of my pawnsblurred, becoming a second Queen.
“You are cheating!” it hissed.
“It is a perfectly legitimate move.You are allowed to promote one of your pawns to a second Queen. It happens allthe time in chess games.”
All the time, yes. But not in theway it had just happened. Besides, we both knew neither of us had moved anypieces.
Someone else was responsible.
Perhaps Someone who frowned on Mr.Morton going back on its word not to harm me in this game? Who knew?
But judging from the furious,scared look on Morton’s face, it suspected the same Someone I did.
My second Queen blurred, becominga second King – something that absolutely never happens in chess.
It’s face became livid, and I lamelysmiled, “I guess you prefer to be your own choreographer.”
It sprang up from its goldenthrone, (modest it was not) and charged around the table, sharp, black clawsoutstretched.
“Check out time,” I muttered andpulled the only weapon I brought with me: one of the two artifacts which keptMorton from Stearns’ quarters –
The handheld Mirror of Enigmas,which showed the viewer who and what he was.
Apparently, Mr. Morton, unlike Socrates,was not into self-examination.
It wailed, throwing up its clawsin front of its wizened face.
I stumbled in my haste to makehaste, and another set of claws latched onto the back of my neck.
I was wrenched off my feetbackwards into a secret passageway that I had not known existed in Morton’s mansion.
Guttural words hissed into myleft ear as we scurried down wet, slippery cobblestones, “Could you not havelet That One win in his own lair?”
Deborah!
“It was taken out of my handsactually.”
“Well, this has certainly severedThe Dark One’s bond with my People. For saving you like this, I and my Peoplewill be hounded by Morton!”
A maddeningly familiar voicesaid,
“This has been ordained where such things must be. I will take you andyour People to a place even the Dark One may not go so as to await the time of Armageddonwhere you and the librarian may be reunited.”
Harsh, but strangely soft, lipsbrushed my cheek.
“So be it. Richard Blaine, we makepromise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine: yeshall feel that my strength is yours:
In that day of Armageddon, at the lastgreat fight of all, Our Houses will stand together, and the pillars will notfall.”
“But I have no House,” I protested.
‘Yet,’ a smallstillness murmured within my mind.
The almost-familiar voice chuckled,
“Now, that is a sentiment I can get behind. In fact, I will be there myself to do so. Now,Librarian, off with you to fight a doomed battle with the fledgling.”
As Deborah and I both yelped atthat statement,
I was pushed out of the passageway to stumble beside a stunnedHelen Mayfair into the sort of alleyway a wino would hole up in to die.
“When first we met, I did notguess that Love would prove so hard a master.” - Helen Mayfair
The Music below really is stirring.Give it a listen.
