A 30-minute short story from ‘Chessworld’ (working title). My submission for my Writing Prose 1 assignment at St. Andrews University.
CONTENT WARNING: Racism, colonial language, misgendering, misogyny.
KARPOV PLACE, CENTRAL CITY, 12:30AM
The commotion erupted from the Jade Velvet upholsters, in Karpov Place, jolting Courier B2-1, a Pawn, awake from their first sleep. As they let the shutters squint, they could just make out a line of Knights of the Order, armourless and creeping under the dim street lamps. Shillings spilled from their breeches and glittered in the street. Three voices soon filled the air:
Aʏᴇ, ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴀʟᴋ! Tʜᴀᴛ’s ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ɢᴇᴛs ғᴏʀ ʜɪs ᴡᴀɴᴅᴇʀɪɴ’ ʜᴀɴᴅ sʏɴᴅʀᴏᴍᴇ.
Philandery? Something even worse – unwarranted, excessive philanthropy.
An iron crash, followed by screaming tinnitus. Jade sparks scattered across the cobblestones. The Courier heard the sound of raining money. Two more crashes followed. And some more. Now the street was joining in on the brawl.
“The King shall have thy head, Ó Clubs! Death to Suits! Death! Death!”
Two people carried a body at either end – dead, or just out cold?
“Aye? Don’t flatter yourself, ya poxy gowl!”
The first voice was familiar; the second was a Knight; the third was Roy Ó Clubs, a Suit, and the Courier’s boss.
The Courier fluttered their eyelids. Responsible for the argy-bargy that caused this calamity? Sure; they’d “discovered” magic, and it’d stunk up Central City’s olfactories like a curried fart in a rose garden. But, although they’d only just moved to the Centre, this was still the median Friday night at the Jade Velvet’s hidden tearoom: another chancer’d went all-in on a Chousen bet, and refused to lose. Despite everything else, this had nothing to do with them.
That was how things started – or, was it how they’d ended? Roy would be sure to tell the tale, in the morning…
EARLIER THAT NIGHT: JADE VELVET, KARPOV PLACE, 11:20PM
Roy Ó Clubs, owner of the Efir district’s posting house, was marched into the Jade Velvet by some twenty Knights of the Order – the Light King’s cult-cum-private army. He’d plans to spend his Friday night playing Chousen with some friendly faces, but then His Majesty’s senior advisor had dropped in on him, earlier that morning, utterly unannounced, after the Courier left. Airy words were spreading about this new runner, their “feat of the gods,” and when he saw the Order flush out the night watch, Roy knew he’d only be playing one opponent that night.
In other words: he was going to be interrogated.
Ten Knights stayed upstairs, and lit candles to ward off the evil in the bric-a-brac littered through the workshop – wooden dolls, empty money boxes, a model ship; a skeleton in the back-left corner, fake jewels in its eye sockets, propped up by metal, monitored their every move. Meanwhile, the others pushed Roy towards the light stabbing upwards through the open hatch.
There was only one table in the cellar’s tearoom, surreptitiously arranged, and hunched over, facing him, sat he, the interrogator. He, in his buttoned-up off-white cassock, faded hair and bald spot, setting up the wedges; he, who’d used the Courier as a proxy for his own ends; he, the Jade Velvet’s highest roller for three months; he, Fullbright. Bishop. His Majesty’s senior advisor.
Chousen was a Suit’s vice. Two centuries ago, they rolled dice to determine which wedges could move. It hadn’t been played like that in generations, but it was still prohibited: two millennia of Light and Dark hegemony, and after all that bloodshed, a farcical culture war against all things Suits was where they’d found peace. They’d always jutted out of the caste hierarchy: Pawns, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, Queens, and Kings.
Chousen was banned – except when Fullbright played. But that wasn’t what’d kept his hands dirty. Courier B2-1 didn’t just deliver that morning – they’d received a strange gold talisman, put it down somewhere, and Fullbright bezzled it under their noses. That was before the rumours spread – he’d skipped happenstance and coincidence, and gone straight to enemy action. The Courier was magic, the talisman was magic, and they both knew.
He triple-checked the things he’d seen that morning in his mind. Interrogating each other’s trespasses was going to be brutal craic.
EARLIER THAT DAY: MARKET STREET POSTING HOUSE, CENTRAL CITY, 7:00AM
Roy instructed the Courier to wait by themself in the sorting office next door. He wanted to use the daily stand-up to brief the team, but kept sounding like a cult leader, speaking in tongues. The kid just wouldn’t be described with words: they made the exotic familiar, the familiar exotic; they were a semester in anthropology, or a culture shock that defied all introduction.
The first remark anybody made about the Courier was that they were four feet tall. Not all Pawns were little folk, but a Casting doctor didn’t need callipers and metal helmets to tell you, based on a sample size of one, that all little folk were Pawns. This one, with black tousled hair, light ochre skin, and khaki duster coat, looked like a terracotta soldier that’d had an accident in the kiln.
The ‘they/them’ fandango wasn’t one of Roy’s brighter ideas. He’d reasoned that most folks knew how to turn branches of government into a singular, monolithic ‘they.’ Most folks did this knowing that Their Majesties’ Post was, as the Crown, co-owned by the Light and Dark Kings. Any time Roy referred to a ‘they,’ either someone anticipated an identical twin, thought Roy was talking about himself and the Courier, or, since the Courier looked boyish enough, ‘they’ became ‘he.’ Gender non-conformity had its price.
Most importantly, the kid just had a “gift.” It was an easy lie – one the world would find out in its own time. Magic was the only explanation that made sense. Such talent would be wasted dying in the Duke of Betwo’s army; toiling in the Markizo de Sablo’s mines would’ve made an even shorter life.1 That’s why he had to – as he put it – nudge their circumstances.
EARLIER THAT DAY: MARKET STREET POSTING HOUSE, 7:05AM
Ever since the Courier could remember, everyone back home in Dinkumloddie called them the eerie kid. Take the messages2: strolling at a leisurely pace, the Courier figured it took as much time for a pot of rice to boil, and yet, even when they wormed through the desert, on their belly, they always returned to find that little time ever passed for everyone else. Duration halted – but time marched on. It wasn’t like in stories, where time slowed like diluting a pint of beer in a lake; things kept going like they were borrowing beer from someone else’s pint entirely.
If Pawns had names, then calling the time-travelling Courier ‘Patience’ would’ve been the height of cruelty. Heel of their boot bouncing off the floor, they pressed an ear against the sorting office door. While they’d avoided military service by being flat-footed, what prevented them from doing their job now was Roy’s insecurities.
Complaints creaked through the teak: “…Not a job for all of you mé féiners… This ain’t your usual cross-country gallivant, folks… a runner of a certain tact, and character… Look, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I have to prove a point to— haul your arse back here!”
‘Mé féiners.’ Mé féiners were everywhere – it meant ‘hero,’ in an ironic sense, like someone giving to get.
Roy ranted about how he’d swindled the Postmaster – anything to stall the inevitable. As good a time as any for the Courier to surreptitiously slip through, and declare their existence.
Above the talking, they yelled: “Not to act outta line, boss, but I was bored out my gourd in there!”
Their faces all landed on a spectrum that ran from horrified to mortified. One of their new co-workers, a middle-aged Knight by the name of Darren Greengables, let the air expel from his chest in disbelief.
“A Pawn?” he said, “We’re working with Pawns now? A child, no less?”
Roy raised his hands to chest level, to push the accusation aside. “Hey, hey, hey. Courier B2-1’s eighteen.”
“He’s four feet tall! He can’t mount a horse without a cord and anchors!”
“They’re a bigger man’n you, soldier. This is my branch of Their Majesties’ Post, and I don’t care who you are, where you come from, what caste you are, how short you are, we’re all family to Mother Duty here. We’re at the frontier o’ progress.”
Darren stood motionless, as though every second word had been a slur. Then he plucked the silver greyhound from his coat’s breast – TM Post’s insignia.
“Tell that to the single mothers. And their daughters. And the homeless. And the simple – and all the Knights and Bishops who should be in his place! Tell me, who or what is so dangerous that we can’t send anyone – in the postal service, the Army, the Navy; hell, while we’re at it, let’s rule out the FLS3 – anyone, Roy, but him?”
“Captain Groenback, sir,” the Courier said, “Scourge of the Aefour archipelago. Deliverin’ parchment to a pirate ship’s tricky. Thinkin’ of inquirin’ down at the harbour – any of you’s got any ideas?”
Maybe you could’ve heard a pin drop in the moments that followed, but that’d be a lie. Everyone had to absorb the jovial, go-getter cadence in which the Courier had laid out their mission. It was the silence itself that had fallen to the ground. And then, when the howling laughter came through, that’s when it bit the curb. First, a light, patronising chuckle, followed by ironic hooting; once Darren was at the cackling stage, some co-workers, including the Courier, joined in with their own nervous laughter. Theirs was a laughter to feign that they’d gotten the joke; his was directed at someone who’d told a joke unawares, like a child who’d run into the study and began a conversation with, ‘Two nuns…’
When the punchline subsided, Darren stomped to the door. Maybe he’d come to regret no friendly goodbye, but he’d seen the future, and for their sakes, a parting shot was the kindest he could muster:
“You’ve actually cracked, Roy. I got into this trade to get out of killing; and this? This – chicanery? This, this great replacement scheme – and don’t tell me it’s not! This is how you repay us. What a sick joke! No wonder more of us are joining the Order! Oh, today, it’s just him – sweet, baby him – but read my lips, people: tomorrow, it’ll be his little brothers and cousins next! ‘Cos Pawns don’t get paid much, do they, Roy? Lo, and there it is – he’s your own private vassal! Death of us all, the pair of you! Moneymakers, and moneytakers!”
The shockwave from the door’s impact with the frame felt like marrow separating from bone.
EARLIER THAT NIGHT: JADE VELVET, 11:35PM
As he descended the steps to the tearoom, Roy said: “Just a quick friendly, eh, Ernie? Just a quick one, so Kingy doesn’t know you’re here.” He sat down in the chair opposite – only then did Fullbright look up, and acknowledged Roy’s existence with a frigid, uninterested stare.
They opened the match as most players did, pushing the seventh and third-file Wicks (Fullbright called those ones Pawns), to bare the unlimited diagonal range of their Brokers (such tricky, graceful movement was the hallmark of a Bishop – so Fullbright argued). Every game began with a stand-off, a choice of take or block, though Roy’s blocking with the 6th-file Wick was always better. Fullbright brought his only developed ‘Pawn’ further, making a marcato snap as it went. If this was a sharp game, then he’d articulated that move like a dagger.
Roy put his elbow on the table, and rested his left cheek on his knuckle.
“Where’s that wit of yours?” he said. “Or is this the real Ernest Fullbright, flesh and bone, stuck in his own skin? No stakes, no money. We’re not even playin’ for your dignity.” Then he parked his right-hand Silver in front of the Gold (Fullbright was stumped – the Suits had made an original allegory without rebuttal. The true beauty in money was control).
“The King sends his graces,” decreed His Most Unwaveringly Devoted from on high.
“Sure he does,” said Roy. He turned his head to scoff, then brought his left hand over to grip his right shoulder. “Brutal allergies, again? That’ll be why he’s in the city. Never known a devil to avoid showin’ up to his own chinwag!”
“Why do you protect the Courier. That’s all we want to know.”
Roy leaned back. “You first: what’s the craic with that talisman? In fact, I’ll make tea—”
As he pulled himself up, Fullbright raised his right palm, and a heavy, opposite force pushed Roy back into his seat.
“We have a teawife tonight,” said Fullbright. “Ms. Mori!”
He heard the miserable chimes of Fullbright’s dinner bell, but he just couldn’t take his eyes off that face. Mori-san? Teawife? She’d picked up her dad’s woodcarving skills via osmosis, inherited the Centre’s high demand for furniture, and managed her team of upholsters by day – hosting Chousen in her cellar’s tearoom on Friday nights was as much a hobby for her as any other Suit. There wasn’t a single table, chair or Chousen board down here that she hadn’t crafted. An empress of an ottoman empire, she was.
But she’d decided she was no wife.
And the bellows – both men had blew up the charcoals many a time. They were wheezy, but they didn’t sound like someone who was trying to dry heave without being heard. Someone in the kitchenette – the mizuya – failed to minimise their presence. Bad bodings had already been brewing in Roy’s stomach, but the fury he felt, knowing it was Mori-san in there, singed the back of his throat and left an acrid taste.
“What’s a tearoom without a tea ceremony?” Fullbright asked. “Gin-ten Village has the finest in the world, but it’s cloistered up north – the Darklands’ highest peak.”
“Except for tonight,” Roy uttered.
Fullbright steepled his fingers, and smirked.
“Does it trouble you, Roy? I wouldn’t force Ms. Mori to do this if she didn’t want to. We’re all friends here, no?”
This really wasn’t the Fullbright from weeks past. Sure, his had never been an easy presence, but he always opened a vein to lighten the mood with a wink, a proverb or two, some goodly humour, and an impassioned interest in the minor tangles of their lives.
He had power. But he hadn’t been cruel.
EARLIER THAT DAY?: MARKET STREET, 7:10AM?
The Courier set out for Deathern harbour on the west side, minutes after “the incident,” to show the world their “gift.” That was Roy’s strangest euphemism. “Gift” triggered images of those time-travel stories again – those made-up mé féiners, indulging themselves in paralysed spacetime, like being in a real-life painting. They’d witness life, en vivan, as gods, en vitro, and all they could do was exclaim – “Wow! People actually live here!”
That was more a “gift” than reality: hopping off the cobblestones, swivelling through the legs in motion on the Market Street flagstones, sidestepping the bustlers down Ferz Lane, dodging the carriages flying up and down Fischer Street, and leering up at the new clock tower, intimate in the knowledge that, no matter how long this would take, the street would still be busy, Old Bobby’s4 bellkeepers would still be asleep, and that lazy minute hand wouldn’t have crept an inch. People lived in borrowed time.
They walked from Market Street, all the way in Efir, out west to Deathern harbour, in an hour – three pots of rice – and what did the fishermen playing cards on the pier tell them?
“Here ye go, son.” A free book. If that’s what Groenback made people do, he must’ve said things worth writing down. Maybe people made a religion out of him. The Courier began to skim:
There’s a good reason why the Light and Dark Armies never fight naval battles in the Aefour archipelago, and that reason is named Groenback… Ships that wander there always wash up somewhere else, brittle, but intact, and with no metal valuables to be found… asset-stripped, hold and all; even the nails weren’t safe.
Just one problem.
This was children’s fiction. Captain Groenback was a spook for rich kids. It was ridiculous: a magical golden ghost ship looting vessels of their earthly possessions, circling the archipelago forever without hope of a port, looting unwisely crews, who were then cursed by the same fate.
This was either a sick joke – “haha, funny Pawn, too fick” – or, this was a test. A recipient, the Courier thought, must be reachable by some address, specified or no. They went through the book again for clues:
First: the Aubaum was sighted from miles away by a flickering glare on the horizon. A second sun that stung your eyeballs, then disappeared, and reappeared much closer. Despite every helmsman’s best efforts, Groenback always got his mark.
Second: the author had done the maths – Groenback would not chase ships with precious metals comprising less than five per cent of their total weight.
Third: except when your booty carried TM Government insignia. Groenback hated law and order above all else.
The Courier had gotten the “children’s” part right, but “fiction” was such a mild term. This felt more like “propaganda” – like myths, people generally believed it to be true. They had the insignia, and they had money; all they needed was a ship.
EARLIER THAT NIGHT: THE JADE VELVET, KARPOV PLACE, 12:00AM
Mori-san emerged from the kitchenette, covered in a black kimono, adorned with a crest, and, on a separate table, put down a tray with a cast-iron kama pot, hishaku, and china mugs. She ladled out the tea. Mostly traditional.
Roy knew she’d built this room with what she had: birch wood, smooth to the touch, a screen door to the kitchenette with paper where glass might be. Not the vintage, sticky mahogany you got at the posting inns, knotted to hell and back, miniature chasms filled in with tobacco – wood that leered up and said, “I know what you spilled on me last Thursday.” Arranged in the alcove behind the steps – the tokonoma – were miniature chairs, and blocks of wood with tiny feet. A scroll hung from a hook in the wall. It reminded him of how she’d laughed when he asked if the calligraphy was hers.
“Yes – and we grow our own tea leaves in the mizuya!” she’d said. That was sarcasm, of course: it’d been bought at market for twopence, and reading calligraphy of that calibre was as much a skill as writing it. Besides which, it was a forgery.
Mori-san, on the other hand, knew this tearoom was never built to host the finest tea ceremonies of home. The kimono, Fullbright thrust upon her; the twenty tatami mats on the floor never fit snugly, and had space to wiggle; the hearth sat in the mizuya, not the tearoom itself, so no-one saw her labouring with the cha-sen whisk to get the matcha powder to dissolve just right; she stocked no confections to offset the bitterness, so she had to serve lumps of sugarloaf. Fullbright had dragged in the state, its organs of violence, ruptured this homely sanctuary with bloody politics; torn her down, forced her to serve, hide her bruises, bear the brunt of tranquil silence; and Roy, her friend, man of good intentions, who strived to see her right, and if not, wrong better than most, kept talking.
“Pawns do not deliver mail,” said Fullbright. He pushed his 9th-file wick forwards to meet Roy’s – whoever pushed next, the other could take.
“This one does,” Roy said, “by Royal Appointment—”
“You lied to the Crown.”
Roy’s left-hand Silver smacked down on the 7th rank. He muttered something.
“You’d rather I said the Postmaster was bought?” Fullbright said.
“Never trust a man who buys with his eyes something he only hears with his ears.”
As Roy’d said this, Fullbright hacked and sputtered. He put out his hand to signal he was fine – the tea had just gone down the wrong tube.
“I don’t,” he said hoarsely.
A slow, rolling “Ooooooh,” the universal acknowledgement of irony, was Ó Clubs’ reply. Fullbright raised an eyebrow.
“’Cos that’s Kingy to a T, ain’t it?” said Roy.
“Oh, and not you?” Fullbright countered. “Maybe you figured out the talisman was magic, but I had evidence. You, however, have no evidence for this Courier’s ‘gift.’”
“We saw it with our own eyes, Ernest. You wouldn’t have sent them otherwise.”
“He walked out of that room, and came back fifteen minutes later. That’s what you saw. What proof is that?”
“The kid was knackered.”
“Roy. Children’s shoes have far to go.”
“They’re not a child. They’re just short.”
Ernest scoffed.
“You call him ‘kid.’ You pay him like one. He’ll never worry about taxes, nor rent, and he lives across the street in one of your tenements! He’s virtually your son! And ‘they?’ He and who? His imaginary friend? Embarrass yourselves in your own time!”
“They don’t—”
“Own property?” Fullbright interjected. “That’s right, Roy! Pawns come with property. With land. Courier B2-1 is property – that you’ve stolen, let there be no doubt, from the Duke of Betwo, from the Markizo de Sablo, and are now exploiting for your own ends! It’s your move, by the way.”
Roy was too furious to hear that last sentence. “And what woulda happened, eh,” he said, “if they hadn’t found that talisman? ‘Oh, that’s Suits for you, they never send their best. We always knew Pawns were too small, too poor, too stupid to do anything other than work the land – they should’ve died in a silver mine, sixty leagues under!’”
“You really love answering your own questions, don’t you? It’s your move!”
“Both of you, that’s enough!”
Silence had the floor, just for a moment. The two men turned. Roy felt a thousand fir needles stab across his back. He hadn’t seen the forest for the trees.
It was Mori-san.
“They were here today,” she said. “I opened at seven, too – I knew I wound up the clock, I knew it read ten past when they came. They said, ‘Your ship, ma’am, Roy said you’re working on a ship.’ They wouldn’t stop following me until I gave it to them! Then they started putting coins down the hatches—”
Fullbright snapped his fingers – twice.
“If you’d had children, Ms. Mori,” he said, “you’d know they do the strangest things.” Ernest Fullbright, a man who, himself, was seventy years celibate.
“I wasn’t finished,” she uttered, matter-of-factly. “Check the clock now, if you don’t believe me. But that minute never budged until they left. That’s what I saw – I thought my girls were running late! – or would you deny me that, too?”
Fullbright reached down his chest, and produced the talisman – a gold scarab design.
“I suppose not,” he said. “It creates metal.”
EARLIER THAT DAY?: DEATHERN HARBOUR, ??:??AM
The Courier put their thumb on their wrist and, with their heartbeat, felt time passing. Or not. The sky held its breath, and flushed hues of pink, to red, to purple, to black. Moonbeams sliced the air into shades of green. This night was always an illusion – it’d still be morning back at the posting house.
Alone, they dropped onto the beach nearby. With Mori-san’s ship raised aloft, they faced the sea, became the Aubaum’s most suspicious star, and waited.
The sea rolled on. Two minutes passed. Nothing.
Several pots of rice and two weary arms later, the Courier admitted it was always a long shot. They were miles out – even if they were right, surely any ship carrying enough weapons would’ve faced Groenback. They’d put their badge in the crow’s nest, and plugged the hatch with their tied-up parchment, and it wasn’t enough.
Well, sod that for a lark. The sea foamed around their boots and showed them the way home—
The next thing they saw was a wall of wet sand. It filled their vision, until they pushed themselves up; the glare from their badge seared their eyes and knocked them onto their back. Wherever they looked, green and purple sprites danced.
But that was definitely a bowsprit splitting the night above them. Solid gold, too. And no mistake: that was a skeleton, wearing a tricorne and evergreen-coloured tailcoat, turquoise stones for eyes, bending over to offer a bony hand to pull them up.
Captain Groenback spoke, but her jaw didn’t move: Sʜᴏᴡ ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʟᴇɢ, ʙᴜᴄᴋᴏ! It was the bedraggled, violet macaw on her shoulder, milky eyes and rusty iron beak, who did the talking. Sʜᴇ’s ᴀ ʙɪᴛ ᴡᴇᴇ, ᴇᴠᴇɴ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ. Nᴏ ᴏғғᴇɴsᴇ.
That’d be the ship. It’d fallen in such a way that the Courier’s badge bounced the moonlight straight above the water’s surface.
They hobbled over to recover it, and said, “There’s parchment in the hatch, ma’am.”
“Mᴀ’ᴀᴍ?” Bᴜᴛ, ᴍʏ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ—ʜᴏᴡ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴇ—I ʜᴀᴠᴇɴ’ᴛ ɢᴏᴛᴛᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴀɴɢ ᴏ’…
The Courier shrugged. “I just kinda knew,” they said. “Sayin’ what y’ain’t is no real pleasure. How I got your ship here, though – well, search me. I’m just the messenger.”
Groenback unrolled the parchment.
“Cᴜsᴛᴏᴍᴇs ᴀɴᴅ Exᴄɪsᴇs…” sʜɪᴠᴇʀsʜɪᴠᴇʀsʜɪᴠᴇʀsʜɪᴠᴇʀ…
The parrot shrieked: “Fʟᴀɢ-ғʟʏɪɴ’?” Bʟᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ! ‘Tɪs ᴀ ᴛᴀx ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ!
“We-ell, ma’am. Death, and taxes.”
She rolled it up again. If stones could give a half-closed, world-weary look…
Wʜᴇɴ ʙᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʏᴇ ʜᴇᴀʀᴅ ᴏ’ ᴘɪʀᴀᴛᴇs ᴘᴀʏɪɴ’ ᴛᴀxᴇs? I ᴀɪɴ’ᴛ ɢɪᴠᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴀᴛᴇ ᴀ ᴘᴇɴɴʏ ɪɴ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ʏᴇᴀʀs!
“You’re also dead. No offense.”
UNᴅᴇᴀᴅ, ᴛʜᴀɴᴋɪɴɢ ʏᴇ. I sᴛᴏᴘᴘᴇᴅ ʟɪᴠɪɴ’ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴀɢᴏ.
“Fair, fair. And the bird?”
Its eyes twitched. Sʜᴇ’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Oʀ, ᴡᴀs. Wᴇ sᴡᴏʀᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ᴅɪsᴄᴜss Aɴɴᴇ-Jᴏʟᴇɴᴇ’s ᴀɴsᴡᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ʟɪғᴇ’s ɢʀᴇᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴏ̨ᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴ.
“Aye, well.” The Courier scratched the back of their head. “What’s the next quest in your afterlife?”
Mᴇ ᴄʀᴇᴡ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍsᴇʟᴠᴇs sᴄᴀʀᴄᴇ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ sɪɢʜᴛ ᴏ’ ᴅʀʏ ʟᴀɴᴅ. I’ᴅ ᴄʜᴀsᴇ ‘ᴇᴍ ᴜᴘ, ʙᴜᴛ I’ᴠᴇ ɴᴏ ᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ʜᴜʀʟ ᴘɪss ɴᴏʀ ᴠɪɴᴇɢᴀʀ.
Groenback thrust the parchment forwards.
Wᴀʟᴋ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏᴍᴀɴ ᴡʜᴏ ғᴀsʜɪᴏɴᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ sʜɪᴘ.
EARLIER THAT NIGHT: 12:20AM
Roy parroted Fullbright: “It creates metal? They could’ve told me!”
Fullbright sneered. “Creates, destroys, makes the wearer impervious to, metal objects. But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Cause another catastrophic economic cock-up, wouldn’t you? Suits! All of you – you’ve always had it out for the Crown!”
Mori-san leered down at him. “The Crown has it out for itself,” she said, “and it’s your suzerains who demand taxes in metal. Suits can pay, but back in Gin-ten, we had to pay each other in credit – tallies, paper money.”
“The Courier’s mother–“ Roy began, before feeling the lump in his throat, “Bless her – she’d three older boys who faced their destiny in war. She entrusted her last kid to me, for want of silver. Melt the family silver, or sell your children – to war, to the mines, or to someone better off. That, is the Crown’s doing. Not ours.
“Make or destroy as much metal as you’d like, Ernest. We both know not a penny more will find its way to Dinkumloddie. The cruelty’s the point.”
Fullbright leaned back, resting his chin on his right hand. It covered his closed fist.
“I think we can draw this game to a close,” he said, and dropped his hands. “You’ve got a mate in five here.”
Chousen wedges are never removed from play – they go into one’s hand, where they can be dropped back onto any empty square – save for one exception. Fullbright had backed his own ‘Mogul’ into a corner, with no way out (he bit his tongue, calling this wedge the King, but it was the objective). Indeed, with some fancy footwork, mate in five was guaranteed.
Roy could play by the rules. He also had a Wick in hand, which could give checkmate now. But Wicks couldn’t be dropped to give checkmate.
Except for tonight. It landed in front of the Mogul to the snap of two centuries’ torment.
The dagger sank into the table, right next to the board – and Roy’s closed fingers. Mori-san leapt back in panic, and, on reflex, grabbed the now-empty kama pot. The Knights around them drew closer.
‘”Cruelty?’” Fullbright said. “Cruelty’s the tactic. Now, power – you would’ve had me there.
“Knights, find that Courier! I’ll deal with these two myself. Ladies first, Ms. Mori – the chance won’t come again.”
“They stay out of this!” Roy shouted. “She’s suffered enough!”
“Silence, Jack on the Ardbaile omnibus! Strike, Ms. Mori! I won’t feel a thing—”
An iron crash heralded the fall of silence. Fullbright crumpled to the floor.
Roy’s mouth opened and closed.
“Mild concussion,” she said. “You shouldn’t talk so much, Roy. Help me bring him up. I’ll cry when the rush wears off.”
Roy gave a sombre smile, and nodded. They took Fullbright from each end, and left the tearoom empty.
Upstairs, the skeleton was grandstanding. From the rafters, a purple blur dropped onto its shoulder. The Knights at the cellar stair readied their blades to skewer the ghoul, when a voice like chattering teeth rattled their helmets:
Sᴛʀɪᴋᴇ ᴍᴇ! it said. It turned a bony hand, and taunted. Sᴛʀɪᴋᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ, ᴍᴀɴ!
A steely flash obliged—
Jade sparks scarpered from the blade, and where it caught in Anne-Jolene’s beak, the white-hot magic transferred to tip and base. Droning, iron squeaks filled the workshop with tinnitus that would last for weeks. The whole blade glowed, then oozed like slag from the forge. A thousand silvery raindrops trickled to the floor.
Captain Groenback gave her second, and final, command: Sᴜʀʀᴇɴᴅᴇʀ ʏᴇʀ ʙʟᴀᴅᴇs ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʀᴍᴏᴜʀ, ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴇ ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴀᴡᴀʏ ғʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴇɴ.5
One by one, the Order filed into the night in their doublets. A year’s pay to be a coward for one night? They couldn’t devour their valour quick enough. Free men, indeed.
EARLIER THAT DAY?: JADE VELVET, 07:15AM?
To the Jade Velvet, they walked through daybreak.
Araminta Groenback, like any pirate, was an economist. That was the second thing the book got wrong:
Yᴇ ɢᴏᴅs, ʜᴇ’s ᴀʟʟ ʙɪᴄᴇᴘ. Hᴇ’s ᴀ ʜᴏ-ʜᴜɴᴋ-ᴜʟᴜs.
She was one of the first Suits: born two centuries ago as a woman, she smuggled her way to the top of TM Treasury as a man. She dissolved a financial crisis by adding silver to the gold standard, which, to her credit, worked wonders in the short term. And then, the short term had to drag its heels into the long term’s office – namely, an even bigger financial crisis. She fled into hiding, and joined the company of the merchant ship Aubaum.
Now, Captain Aubaum had been onto something whenever he muttered about magical talismans, jade seeds, and white leeches. It’s just that he, like most of his cryptic, mystical doggerel, was insane. Two rounds of unanimous hands and one mutiny later, Aubaum was out, and Captain Groenback was in.
“But you found the talisman,” said the Courier, “You opened it up an’ it stripped you to the bone.”
Mᴏʀᴇ ᴏғ ᴀ ʟᴏᴄᴋᴇᴛ, ᴀɪɴ’ᴛ ɪᴛ? Iᴛ ᴡᴏɴ’ᴛ ʜᴜʀᴛ ʏᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ɪᴛ ɴᴏᴡ. Bᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ ᴜs, THIS ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏᴍᴀᴋᴇʀ.
The talisman’s elytra opened, and Groenback took out a small jade torus – the Seed – with a white leech floating inside it – the Leech. She’d learned how to channel the Leech to ‘eat’ metal; the Seed could then take some of that stored metal, and tell the Universe what form it should take. What’d looked like spontaneous metal creation was actually a credit history of loot.
However, no matter how magic changed things, you’d never end up with more than you’d started with. Strain your brain, pop some veins, tighten your chest to the point of a heart attack, a pumpkin wouldn’t become a carriage by itself. Groenback knew you didn’t need magic to create and destroy money. A scarce resource didn’t make it valuable – be it a gold coin, or tally stick, currency was a token of trust. To say it existed was enough.
The Courier, then, told her about their “gift” of infinite time – the Jade Velvet was coming into view, but they had to be back at the posting house.
Cᴏᴜʟᴅ ʙᴇ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ; ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ’s ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇᴀᴠᴇs ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴛᴏɢᴇᴛʜᴇʀ. Sᴏᴍᴇᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʟᴏɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ᴏ’ ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴ’ sᴛᴜᴄᴋ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴋɪɴɢs, ᴡᴇ ғᴏʀɢᴏᴛ. Bᴜᴛ ɪғ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴍᴇ ᴀs ᴡʜᴀᴛ’s ᴋᴇᴇᴘɪɴ’ ᴍᴇ ᴜɴᴅᴇᴀᴅ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ’ᴅ ʙᴇ ɴᴏ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇ ɪɴ ʟʏɪɴ’.
‘Tɪs ᴜɴᴄʜᴀʀᴛᴇᴅ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀs, ᴍᴇ ʙᴜᴄᴋᴏ. Wᴇ’ʟʟ ᴀʟʟ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ғɪɴᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ, ɪɴ ᴛɪᴍᴇ. ‘Tɪs ᴀʟʟ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ғᴏʀ.
They opened the Jade Velvet’s door, and she went inside.
- The Marquess of the Dunes fancied himself an academic, and so used his title’s lango frankaj translation. ↩︎
- “Going to market” in Dinkumloddie vernacular. ↩︎
- TM Forestry and Land Service conserved the Board’s woodlands. War led to deforestation, so a warden’s fieldwork was cut out for them; it wasn’t entirely out of their purview to act as a runner. ↩︎
- The clock tower’s name – the bell’s was Fh’tagn. ↩︎
- Groenback, accounting for inflation, discovered that taking the King’s shilling didn’t mean as much as it used to. ↩︎
The Talisman of Aubaum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.