The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography

by McKenzie, Duncan

  I said, “What do you mean, Bitian Teppel? Explain yourself?”

  He did not answer me, but his face assumed the strangest expression, as if he was seeing something very wonderful and remarkable. Then his eyes closed again, and a few minutes later he died.

  I was annoyed, for it was clear, whatever visions were before Bitian Teppel at that moment, he could not be bothered to share them with me, who was probably his closest friend upon the earth, but rather chose to enjoy them for himself. That is what these artists are like—particularly painters. I am sure if it were me dying, I would not hesitate to provide any onlookers with as much useful information as I could glean.

  A strange thing though: Bitian Teppel’s last breaths exactly coincided with the moment the deck of the Moray went under the waves. I took this to mean he wished to be buried at sea with my ship, and so I pushed his body back into the water and let it float off on its way.

  By then, the bow of the Flame was completely submerged, although the stern was lifted right out of the water. The Indian sailors had lost their rowing boat earlier, thanks to my fine work with the ballista, and now they leaped from their ship into the water.

  I watched the Flame sink, feeling great pleasure at the sight. When the show was done, I made my way back to where the ships had been and rowed around for a time, searching for those of my enemies who were floating in the darkness. When I found them, I struck each upon the head with an oar, saying, “You see, the Moray still has a little bite in her!”

  I killed a dozen of those warlike Indian sailors this way. When I could find no more, I turned my boat around and made for land.

  A Thirteenth Section Of The Eleventh Part

  In Which I Tell Of How I Fought The Indians On Land

  The loss of my ship did not discourage me one grain from my mission, and I decided, since I could no longer fight at sea, I would join up with some army and fight on the land.

  As for the deaths of my friends, I did not feel too much sadness, for they had all died bravely, and I had avenged them well. I was a little sorry, though, that all my slaves had died, for they were a good crew.

  Still, I was near to the battlefields now, and, after I had made my way to shore, I continued on foot, wandering across the country until I found an encampment where the tents bore the crest of Cyprus.

  The army here was led by a commander called Raella. I presented myself to this man without delay and asked him how the land was set out here.

  He said, “A large Indian army lies a short way to the east occupying the town of Chonia.”

  I said, “Chonia, is it? That is an important town. I will warrant that a victory for us in Chonia might send waves of despair throughout the Indian army, perhaps yielding us much greater victories throughout the length and breadth of our domains.”

  He said, “As to that, I cannot say.” He was no more than a field commander, you see, and lacked my grander perspective.

  I said, “I have some experience commanding myrmidons. Is there some way I can make myself useful?”

  He said, “Yes, indeed. Take five slaves and scout out the areas to the north. If I wore the enemy’s boots, I would attack from that direction.”

  Well, directing slaves was not the kind of job I was looking for, so I said to him, “I have a much better idea, which will make a more profitable use of my various talents. You and I will enter Chonia as spies. Then I will find the commander of the Indian myrmidons and learn from him, using clever and subtle questioning, many facts which will aid you in your battle plans.”

  Raella did not care for my plan, and he said he would rest easier knowing there were no troops massing to attack from the north.

  I scoffed at his views, for they were timid. “Besides,” I said, “a spying expedition will be a great adventure, such as befits intrepid fellows like us, whereas even the most inexperienced of your officers could carry out the simple scouting mission you have described.”

  He said, “No no, it is not a good idea,” and then told me all the dangers spying would present.

  Well, I spoke frankly to him then, saying, “This is no way for a commander to talk! Still, if the job is not suited to your own timorous disposition, then you can wait behind, and I will go alone!”

  He said I was free to do as I pleased, provided I did not interfere with his own plans, and he added that he hoped I would be hanged when the Indians caught me.

  I said, “I will not be hanged, you may be certain of that, but you will hang your head in shame when you think back on your callous words. I will be back before long, and with much useful knowledge in my head.” Then I left him, and went into a nearby village, so I might set myself up for spying.

  For my purpose, I carefully assumed the appearance of a herb merchant, taking care to wear only such humble garments as a poor merchant might wear, and placing various leaves and herbs in my hat and belt. It was an excellent disguise, and when I looked at my reflection in a puddle I was astonished at how exactly like a herb merchant I looked.

  The next day, a couple of hours before dawn, I left the village. I did not march straight for the enemy, but instead marched around in a great circle, so I entered Chonia from the east side. I reasoned, you see, that if the enemy myrmidons saw me coming from the west, they might suspect I had come from Raella’s army.

  I arrived in the town about mid-morning. It was a small place, and it was not difficult to find the enemy commander, for I saw a group of myrmidons on guard outside a mealhouse. So, I entered the place, as if I was hungry and looking for my breakfast—although in actual fact I had eaten well on my long walk.

  The commander was sitting at a table, playing at chess with a person from the town, while others stood around and watched, commenting upon the cleverness of the commander’s moves.

  Now, I saw a great opportunity in this, for chess is a game I am very good at, and I always win. I decided, then, to play a game against the commander, so I could enter into conversation with him. When he had beaten the man he was playing, I asked if I might try my hand. He said yes, and I sat down at the board.

  This commander’s name was Tary. He was around my age at that time, which is to say, close to his sixtieth year. He was tall and fat, with a round, foolish face. He spoke in an amusing way, panting, as if he was short of breath, after he had spoken just a few words.

  In any case, I had hardly sat upon the bench when this fellow began to set up the pieces and said, “Let us begin, then. Shall we play with bishops-out, or do you prefer pawns-ready.”

  I said, “Not so fast. Let us first decide upon the stakes. I propose three arrans.”

  He said three arrans was too rich for his blood, and suggested four grotecs.

  “That hardly makes the game worth the playing,” I said. “Let us settle upon a single arran.”

  He agreed to this, even though it was a large sum, for I could see he had every expectation of winning, and he placed his money upon the table, as I did.

  Then I said, as I always say, “And let us agree now that if either player should withdraw from the game before it is resolved, then he will have forfeited his stake, and it will go to the other.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Tary, who was all ready to make his first move. “Now, let us begin. Did you say you favoured bishops-out?”

  I never begin a game in such haste, for I find it is in the negotiation over the terms of the game where I achieve half my victories. So, I like to ensure the negotiation preceding the first move is a drawn-out and complicated affair, in order to make my opponents tired and angry. I always begin by making demands which are somewhat in my favour.

  Therefore, I said to Tary, “No, I do not care for bishops-out—it makes for a dull game. Let us have more exciting terms. I propose you shall lose all your pawns save only for the centre ones, and, further, you shall play without queens or rooks.”

  “And your terms shall
be the same?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “That would make the game predictable, for we could mirror each other’s moves. Rather, I propose that I shall take a penalty which is identical in value to your own, but different in form. Specifically, I shall lose the two pawns which stand before the rooks, and in the place of these pieces I shall have two dragons, and you may not capture either of them with any of your pieces until they have made a single capture of their own. Further, I shall sacrifice the movement of my knights, for I find the hopping ways a distraction and difficult to calculate, and instead they shall move and capture exactly as a queen does.”

  Tary did not care for these terms in the least, and he said he did not care to start the game with dragons, for they are too powerful. In this he was quite correct: they spoil the skill of the game, and I would never allow my opponent to have the use of one; although if I were permitted the use of dragons, and my opponent were not, then I should surely accept the terms, for a dragon is very difficult to capture by any other piece.

  He also said I had substituted my knights for queens at no cost at all. There was something to what he said, of course, but even so, I refuted his words with great passion, pointing out that although my knights might move and capture as queens, their horselike heads showed they were still obviously knights, as any observer could plainly see.

  Then he said my terms were ridiculous, and unfair to him,

  I responded that, on the contrary, my side was now so powerful that I would certainly become lazy as I played, making dangerous mistakes, whereas he, being constantly on guard for further depletions to his puny force, would inevitably play the more skilful game.

  He dismissed these arguments, however, suggesting instead that we start with crescent layouts, which I flatly rejected as being too symmetrical.

  Then he suggested my crescent layout against his pawns-ready, but I rejected this too, saying it was unfair to me.

  Then he offered me the pawns-ready layout, with the crescent for himself, but I rejected that on the grounds it was unfair to him, and I wished to take my money honestly.

  He said I should take my turn once more at suggesting the terms, since his were clearly disagreeable to me, whereupon I made some other outlandish suggestion. I do not remember what it was.

  Then he made other proposals, which I rejected, until at last he said, in his panting way, the thing my opponents always say:

  “Since you will not be reasonable in setting the terms to the game, I will not play against you.”

  I picked up the money and said, “If you wish to walk from the game, then you may do so. I will pocket my winnings, for, as we agreed, your withdrawal carries the cost of forfeiture.”

  But he gripped my wrist, making me drop the arrans, and said he did not wish to withdraw just yet.

  So we returned to this obstinate haggling, and we continued for half an hour or so. When he had grown very bored and frustrated from the debate, and angry too, so he was on the verge of coming to blows with me, I finally made a proposal that was reasonable, this being that he should lose his king’s rook and the five phalanx pawns (which is to say, those in front of the rooks, bishops and queen) in exchange for a second queen in the rook’s square. For myself, I would keep my full complement of pawns, and my king would have not only its natural movement, but also the movement of a knight.

  These, incidentally, are the final terms I always insist on for myself, and, provided I get them, I will agree to any of the common terms for my opponent, though, as I have said, I do not permit dragons, and neither do I permit phantoms, for, if there is to be a piece upon the board, I want to see it, and not to trust upon the reliability of some third person, who may, after all, be in league with my opponent. I sometimes permit my opponent rockets, if he is willing to lose enough pawns for the privilege, because they really do not offer so great an advantage as people think.

  In any case, we began our game, and I began to hum a little tune, while moving each of my pawns one square forward, starting at the leftmost pawn, and going to the rightmost, while he moved various pieces into play. I pretended I was paying little attention to the board. I looked around the room, and I ate bread, and I called out flattering words to a pretty young girl who sometimes walked through the room carrying dishes.

  I moved chiefly my pawns, using a strategy which I call the Creeping Wall, for the pawns advance up the board like a wall. I moved the other pieces only when it was necessary to defend a part of the wall. But still, I hummed tunes, and pretended to care little for the game.

  At first, Tary scoffed at my tactics, for he was one of those who relies on planning and predicting, so they will say, “If he advances the knight to the sixth rank, next to the bishop, then I shall be checked and in danger of losing my queen. Therefore I must place a pawn forward to defend the spot. But, if I do this, the protection will be gone from the other pawn, next to my queen...” and so on. This style of play merely taxes the mind, making one irritable and sucking all pleasure from the game. It is the way men play when they have studied the game from books, and the use of the technique is easily discovered, for such people make small movements with their fingers when looking at the board, pointing to the places where they imagine pieces will be.

  Soon, though, he began to take my moves more seriously, for he saw how relentlessly my pawn-wall was approaching. Moreover, as the game progressed, I began to change my humming, so the tune was the Lullaby of Skulls. I sang a little louder each time the pawn-wall moved forward.

  Although chess is but a game, most players will start to become fearful at this sight, for the pawns approach like a well trained army, marching to my music, moving steadily onward, fearless of any danger, and blind even to destruction within their ranks.

  Well, Tary tried the best he could to ignore my marching pawns, and he set himself upon killing my king. He threw a good many pieces into the attack, bishops and knights, and his queen too (for he had sacrificed his second queen by now for the sake of gaining a good position to strike against my king). But when he finally let the sword fall, saying, “It is checkmate for you,” I turned to him and said, “Not at all, for as you will surely remember, my king can leap to safety like a knight.” So saying, I moved my king away from his attacks.

  Now he saw it was his king and not mine which was in danger, for he had been so intent upon setting his pieces against my king that he had not protected himself from the great storm clouds floating towards his camp in the form of the dreaded pawn-wall.

  As it happened, his king managed to escape the wrath of my pawns, but this did not help him for long, because my little wooden army proceeded boldly onward to the eighth square, and once they are there, as you will know if you have studied the game as thoroughly as I have, the pawns may be transmuted to become any other piece.

  Tary said, “What will you have for your pawn, then? A queen?”

  I said, “No, not a queen, a dragon.”

  He protested then, saying I had prohibited dragons from the game.

  “Not so,” I replied. “I did not prohibit them from the game but merely from the starting terms.”

  He appealed to those who were watching the game, but they all agreed with me, for they were eager to see the dragons turned loose upon Tary’s pieces.

  Well, in just a few moves, I had three dragons on my side, and they flew around the board with a fury, killing all his men. I left his king until the end, and then, just to make the victory sweeter for me, I killed the old fellow not with a dragon, but with my own king, using its knightlike movement to strike the final blow.

  Tary was angry at the result, of course, but I had won fair and square, and he let me pocket my winnings without a fight. Then he rose from his seat and said, “I have had enough chess for this day, I think.”

  I said, “Wait, will you not have a second game for double stakes, for I sense my luck is now on the wane, and I am sur
e you will come out the better for it.”

  He said, “I think I will not.” Then he walked for the door and took his cloak from the hook.

  I could see he would talk carelessly now, so I shouted after him, “I surely hope you have more luck with your myrmidons than you do with your chess pieces.”

  He said, “I will. You shall see that for yourself soon enough, for I have a fine attack planned against the Cypriots.”

  I said, “Ah, that will be a hard battle. There must be four hundred myrmidons in the Cypriot encampment, whereas they say you have only one hundred.”

  He was walking through the doorway right then, but my words made him indignant. He turned and said, “One hundred? I will have you know I command nearly five hundred. I am a man of importance, and as such I must go now. Goodbye.”

  He left then, and I made a note of this valuable information. Then, after I had played a few more games of chess—and won every game!—I went back to Raella’s camp by the same circuitous route I had taken to get to Chonia in the first place.

  That evening, I presented Raella with the information I had gathered: not just how many myrmidons Tary commanded, but also what manner of man he was, and the way he approached the game of chess, which is very telling of a commander’s style in war. Raella was envious of my bravery, though, and, instead of thanking me from the bottom of his heart, he tried to belittle my accomplishment, saying, “I already knew the number of his myrmidons. My scouts have counted them from a hill overlooking the town.”

  I said, “What are the vague reports of scouts compared to my information, which comes directly from the enemy commander. And besides, if it were not for me, how would you have gained the detailed insights into Tary’s character which I have given you.”

  He said, “As for that information, it is as solid as vapour.”

  “Ho, these are your words now,” I said, “but I will warrant you use the facts well enough when you plan your attacks. Mark my words, this man Tary is fierce in battle, but he is reckless. Take my advice: present an obstinate defence which is like the shell of the leathery turtle, and then, when his forces are rebuffed, deliver a swift counterattack with the speed and fury of the blacksnake.”