by Cameron Jace
I lift my head up and shrug, wishing the Red would explain further. But he nods, takes the glass back, and leaves.
Did he just give me a clue how to win this game? And how come those are the Pillar’s words? “He Who Laughs Last” was the Pillar’s theory in killing the giant. How can I implement this in the game of chess I’m about to play?
Then there is the silly “I will die when I say so,” those words the Pillar was feeding to the old people in the hospice.
Are those really the solution to my struggle? I can trust the Red, my guardian, but do I want to take advice from the Pillar after all I just heard about him?
74
The Vatican
The Cheshire watched the people of the Vatican panic, confused about who would take the deceased Pope’s place. Though he knew there were prolonged and accurate processes to elect a new one, there seemed to be an unexplained urgency to find a new Pope immediately. Maybe because the Vatican hadn’t gone to sleep yet. They needed a Pope before that happened.
None of this was of interest to the Cheshire, though. He’d just flown over to amuse himself. After all, he was bored, unable to find one soul to possess and stick to—and he’d watched so many movies that he couldn’t meow anymore.
Needing to make a phone call, he possessed the first old lady with a mobile he came across. She wore a terrible perfume that he hated, but he tolerated it until he finished the call.
“Did the Pillar find Mr. Fourteen?” the Cheshire asked.
“Looks like it,” the voice at the other end of the line said.
“The one in London?”
“Yes.”
“Not the other Mr. Fourteen?”
“No, only the one in London.”
“Looks good,” the Cheshire said in the woman’s voice. “The plan is on. He will find the one in London and kill him, then stop looking. Soon, he will die of his illness without knowing it, and I get rid of him forever.”
“It seems like you will also get rid of Alice. The Chessmaster has her cornered.”
“So he found Carroll’s Knight.”
“He did.”
The Cheshire grinned. It was such an unsettling grin that a few people stepped away from the old woman. “Then Alice is dead, too. She can’t win against the Chessmaster.”
“It’s a beautiful day, Chesh.”
“Beautiful indeed. Two of my enemies dead in one day, after all these years.” The Cheshire hung up and walked out of the Vatican.
He found a shortcut through an empty and darkened alley, so he took it, only to be stopped by a black figure in the dark.
“Oh.” The Cheshire shrugged, lowering the woman’s head.
“Didn’t expect me?” the man said in a baritone voice.
“No, but it’s always a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jay.”
“I don’t show myself much, but I thought we could use a little talk.”
“Whatever you ask.”
“I know you’re not a Black Chess employee, and that you have interests of your own, so I never pressured you into joining.”
“That’s right, sir. I’m most irritated with the Queen of Hearts. I don’t think I can work with her in the same place, ever.”
“Understood.”
“Besides, you’re all interested in this Wonderland War, and I’m just a cat. I want to have fun.”
“And you want to crush your enemies. I just learned about your rivalry with the Pillar. The fourteen souls.”
“You did?” the Cheshire said. “Well, me and the Pillar go way back.”
“I know.”
“Besides, I think not only will he die soon, but Alice, too.”
Mr. Jay stood silent, his breathing the soundtrack of a horror movie. “I don’t want Alice to die.”
“I just figured out the stupidity of my implication. I’m most sorry.” The Cheshire bowed his head a little lower.
“But I’m also not concerned with Alice’s safety.”
“Pardon me?”
“Alice is my best employee. She will beat the Chessmaster.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible with my dark little angel,” Mr. Jay said. “I’m not here to talk about her. I’m here to talk about you.”
“Me?”
“It’s time you stick to one soul, or you’ll lose your mind.”
The Cheshire purred. Mr. Jay always knew how to see through him.
“I’m not going to ask you to work for me, but I will hand you a soul you have no means of possessing. How about that?”
The Cheshire grinned. He was thinking it was a Wonderlander—someone other than the obnoxious Queen. “Who?”
“Let me show you,” Mr. Jay said.
75
The last chess game, Chess City, Kalmykia
The Chessmaster is unbeatable. Two moves now, and two drinks, and I feel like I’m going to lose after the next.
“Afraid?” The Chessmaster grins.
“I prefer not to talk while playing.”
“But we know you’re not playing, Alice. You’re dying.”
“Then I’d prefer to keep the last minutes of my life to myself.”
“They’re hardly minutes. I can finish you in much less time.”
“How so, when you can’t make your move before I make my third?”
“Then make your third move, drink the poison, and move on.”
His last words ring in the back of my head. I realize that to win this game, I can’t just keep on playing. It is a fool’s hope that something will suddenly happen and save me.
In my mind, the Pillar’s words pop up in the back of my head. He Who Laughs Last. It’s an old None Fu trick.
My mind flashes to a memory from the hole in Tibet. I see the Pillar fight the giant again, bluntly asking him to hit him more and more until the giant has lost confidence in himself, and just when he does, the Pillar attacks him, full throttle.
I remember telling myself I could never imitate the Pillar’s move, but I have no choice but to consider it now. This is what the Red wrote for me on the napkin.
But how can I laugh last with the Chessmaster? How can I play like I don’t care and I am not going to lose until my moment comes and I strike back?
I scratch my head. It’s impossible, because striking back in this game means making a bold, brilliant chess move, and I know I can’t.
Think, Alice. Think.
“Ready for your third move?” the Chessmaster asks.
“No, I’m not,” I say. “But maybe I could use your help.”
His suspicious look troubles me. He senses I’m onto something. I am, but the funny thing is, I don’t know what it is either.
“Why would you think I would advise you on a good move?” he asks.
“I didn’t say you would do that,” I say. “But since I’m losing anyway, you might want to amuse yourself with my moves. Maybe use a move that makes me look like a total fool.”
“I like that.” He nods and reaches for my knight.
Knight, Alice, why did he reach for your knight? Remember when the Pillar said he’d prefer to be a knight in a chess game? Because they’ll never see you coming.
“Just a second.” I stop the Chessmaster, buying myself some time.
“What now? Changed your mind?”
“Actually, no, but I thought we could spice up the game a little.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Why, Alice, why?
“Because of the audience behind me.” I point over my shoulder. “They need some entertainment.”
A few men and women in the dark agree.
“You see?” I say. “They don’t want to watch a game where they know I will just die in the end.”
“Then what do they want to watch?”
“A game where there is the slightest possibility I will win. Just a little bit.”
“I can’t help you with that,” the Chessmaster says. “It’s you who is dumb, not me.”
“Yes, but you could play on my behalf.”
“This is what I was about to do when you stopped me.”
“But you could play a brilliant move on my behalf, not a bad one,” I say.
“Again, why would I do that?”
“To show your audience how you can excel and win, even with such a brilliant move.”
The Chessmaster’s smile broadens. He likes it. He just bit into a wasp’s nest without knowing it. Even when I’m only buying time, not knowing what to do.
And then he makes a third move on my behalf.
76
This obliges me to drink my third drink. I haven’t felt anything from the last two, but the third is definitely dizzying. That’s not good; I need my mind alert to think of something else.
Surprisingly, the Chessmaster struggles with topping his own move. A few members of the unseen crowd hiss with wonder. The Chessmaster tenses.
A few minutes later, I see him sweat. Is he really that stupid, or hasn’t he played against his ego before?
But finally he manages and responds to his own move.
“Brilliant!” a few members of the audience hail.
“Now I should play your fourth move,” he tells me.
And just right there, when his hand reaches for my fourth move, I get hit with a lightning bolt in my head. I immediately stop his hand.
“What now?”
“I think I can make my next move,” I declare.
“Is that so?”
“I think I can beat you,” I say.
“Really? Again? Do you really think you have the slightest idea what you are talking about?”
“I think I do.”
The audience members in the dark gasp.
“Come on,” the Chessmaster says. “You don’t really believe she can—”
I interrupt him with my next move. The winner’s move.
The Chessmaster squints at it. His face dims. His forehead knots.
Then the Chessmaster bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” He points at the chessboard. “You’re so easy, you have no idea.”
“Why?” I act surprised, afraid, worried, and shocked.
“You just handed me an early win with your move,” he says.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. You totally lost it. This is the worst move possible. I can checkmate you right now.”
I stop a small, sneaky smile from shaping on the corners of my lips. Unfortunately, he catches it.
“Wait.” He leans back. “You have a bigger plan, don’t you?”
I dim my face and tense my shoulders on purpose. “I wish I had. I really thought this was the best move.”
“Really?” He thinks it over. “You know, none of the world leaders I played with, no matter how bad at chess they were, made such a bad move.”
“Oh.” I cup my mouth with my hands. “Did I do that badly?”
“You could have shot yourself in Russian roulette and never done this badly.”
“Can you please give me a chance to correct it?” I plead, reaching for his hands.
The Chessmaster pushes them away. “Of course not. You know why? Because your move is so bad, I have no other move but to checkmate you. I mean, literally, I have no other option but to end the game now.”
As I’m still pleading with him, he, still enraged, unthinkingly reaches for his favorite knight and checkmates me.
The crowd behind me claps and hails and chirps with enthusiasm, cameras flashing from all around.
“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he tells me, mirth wrapping his soul. “I’ve killed you, Alice.”
That’s when I sit back, cross one leg over another, place my elbow on the rim of the chair, and glance with disgust at him.
The Chessmaster doesn’t sense at first what has really happened here, but some in the audience do. They let out a series of uncontrollable shrieks, saying, “She tricked him!”
The Chessmaster’s face knots so tightly I think he’s going to bleed. He stares at the chess pieces, the checkmated king, and doesn’t get it. What’s the fuss about? Why is the audience saying that the little girl from Wonderland tricked him?
Then his eyes shift toward the poison cups.
I seize the moment and reach for my fourth cup and gulp it with all the ease in the world. It does drive me crazy and makes me dizzy, but I don’t show it, because I’m in for the grand prize: saving the world.
“You tricked me.” The Chessmaster slumps back in his chair. “You little b—”
“Save the swearing for when you burn in hell,” I tell him, remembering what the Pillar taught me. “I made you play with my rules, not yours.”
“Who taught you such a trick? Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?”
“Because they’re afraid of you. You’re the terrorist who bombs a building with innocent people because he’s been hurt in the past. You force people to play your game by scaring them.” I am so excited I can’t even catch my breath. “And all I had to do was play my game, not yours.”
“By making me think you made your best move when in fact it was deliberately your intention to make your worst.” The Chessmaster moans, knowing his time has come.
“Exactly,” I say. “You forced me in a game where I have to try winning in a losing war; where, when I lose in the end, I have no choice but to drink the seventh poisoned cup that will kill me.”
“And you fooled me by losing earlier and not buying into my game.” The Chessmaster is amazed but saddened and disappointed with this whole outcome. “Now that you made the most stupid move in history, I had no choice but to checkmate you in the fourth round.”
“Stupidity is so underrated.”
“And by recklessly checkmating you in the fourth round, you will never reach the seventh cup, and you will simply not die,” he says. “You bought yourself out of hell by being a moron.”
“I prefer being called mad.”
“And that’s not all.” The Chessmaster nails his own coffin with his last words: “Having been unable to kill you, I’m obliged to drink all seven cups, even though I checkmated you. It’s the rules of the game.”
“Let me just correct that part. In reality, I checkmated you. Kinda kicked you in the balls, wrapped you up in choking coils made out of your anger, and rolled you down the rabbit hole of hell.”
The Reds in the place crash onto the stage and force the Chessmaster to drink the seven cups of poison.
I watch him give in, the audience behind me applauding, reminding myself of the man who taught me this trick.
The Pillar.
With my Red guardian reminding me of the technique written on the napkin, I was the one who laughed last. I didn’t buy into the Chessmaster’s game, made him think he was winning, and struck when it was hot.
Now that I’ve practiced what I’ve learned and saved the world, I have to finish my masterpiece with a few last words. Words I was taught by the Pillar, whom everyone says is a devil.
A broad smile, a euphoric feeling of transcendence, and a breeze of hope caress me as I stand above the Chessmaster, Death himself, and tell him,
“I will die when I say so!”
77
London
Inspector Dormouse had finally reached the address where Mr. Fourteen resided. He’d managed to extract it from the conversations in the recordings and had driven from Oxford to London, hoping he wasn’t too late.
He stopped the car by a place called Lifespan, a hospice where Mr. Fourteen hid, pretending he was a dying man, just to stay away from the Pillar’s wrath.
With everyone asleep, the lazy inspector stepped up and entered the main hall. He pushed the sleeping nurse aside and flipped through the guests’ names. He’d learned the name from the recordings too.
There he was, a resident in a private room on the sixth floor.
Dormouse hurried to the lift but found it dead. Maybe the lifts had fallen asleep
too.
He had to struggle with the misfortune and pain of climbing up the stairs. Gosh, six storeys?
Inspector Dormouse was incredibly out of shape. The last time he had climbed six storeys must have been in his sleep.
Three floors up, panting and wheezing and feeling his limbs fall apart, he fell asleep again. He just couldn’t resist it.
A few minutes later he woke up, shocked and disappointed with himself. What if the Pillar had reached Mr. Fourteen earlier?
Like a slow-chugging locomotive, the inspector trudged step after step, now coughing out thick fumes he preferred not to look at.
Finally, there he was. On the sixth floor. A few strides ahead and he’d be inside Mr. Fourteen’s room—even if he’d found him asleep, he would still be able to protect him.
But first, Dormouse needed to drink. He stopped by the cooler in the corridor and gulped water, wetting his shirt and pants in the process of his slurping.
Fresh now, he still had to tie the loosened laces on his shoes, and then he approached the room.
He knocked once but no one answered. Mr. Fourteen was unquestionably asleep.
But what was that blood seeping from under the door?
Enraged, Inspector Dormouse kicked open the door into a dark room.
A switch flicked by the opposite wall. A faint yellow light that only showed two things: a man dead on the floor, probably Mr. Fourteen, and the Pillar with a gun in his hand, sitting nonchalantly under the yellow light.
“Too late, inspector.” The Pillar smirked.
“You killed him,” Dormouse said. “You killed Mr. Fourteen.”
“Had to be done,” the Pillar said. “It took me a long time to find him.”
“What kind of beast are you?”
“Call it what you want. I made my choice.”
“You call killing an innocent man a choice?”
“What makes you think he is so innocent?”
“I know all about you, Pillar. I know about your deal. You and Alice. The ritual to gain more lives than the Cheshire.”