Queen's Peril

by Darin Kennedy

  Niklaus laughed. “I’m still seeing two of you, so…no.”

  Steven opened the envelope and inspected the contents—another folded missive, the paper yellowed and crumpled like the letter that Lena had showed them earlier.

  Niklaus squinted in the dim light. “What does it say?”

  “Yeah.” Lena drew close. “And is it the same handwriting from my note?”

  “Looks like it.” Steven could barely read even the first sentence, the fine script difficult to make out with only a lone sputtering streetlamp providing illumination. “Same fancy calligraphy. We’ll study this along with the other two letters when we’re safe back at the hotel.” He returned the letter to the envelope and shoved it into his coat pocket. “You okay to travel, Nik?”

  “Is the other option staying here and freezing my ass off behind the nightclub where I got taken down by a freaking senior citizen?” Niklaus took a few hesitant steps, and then headed for the mouth of the alley. “Come on, everyone. Coast is clear.”

  Lena and Emilio followed, leaving Steven alone for a moment. He peered up and down the dimly lit space between the buildings, hoping that somehow, the mysterious woman helping them might reappear and explain what the hell was going on.

  Meow.

  Directly above his head, crouched on a low fire escape, a jet-black cat peered down at Steven, its green feline eyes iridescent in the low light of the space. The all-but-invisible creature sent his mind flitting back to another Chicago club and a night that wouldn’t occur for another seventy years, leaving his chest heavy with anxiety, anticipation, and no small amount to guilt.

  The woman who would become the Black Queen of this strange Game that had taken over all their lives lay burned and screaming on a table a few dozen steps away. Flashes of her hairless scalp, ruined face, and burned body, all flavored by a potent combination of agonized screams and the stench of burned flesh set his every hair on end.

  Steven had wondered for months what could fill a human being with such fire, such rage, such burning hatred.

  The answer, ironically, left him cold.

  29

  Questions & Answers

  Dearest Steven Bauer,

  You and your five friends now stand reunited. Each of the events necessary to ensure that all will be as it should upon your return to your own time are now complete. Though the iteration of the Hvitr Kyll in your possession does not hail from your own era, this version of your mentor’s artifact will serve more than well enough as both conveyance and guide. One last crossing and all that has gone awry should be set right.

  This letter is the third and final assistance you will receive from me. I have no doubt that you are curious as to my identity, but the time for that revelation has not yet come. Simply know that I owed you a great debt and that debt is now fulfilled.

  May good fortune travel with you on your journey home. Do not tarry, for the Game awaits.

  -A Friend

  Back at the hotel that had been Audrey and Lena’s home for the last few months, Steven sat on the bed next to Audrey’s sleeping form, the mysterious message resting on his lap.

  “You’ve read that thing a hundred times, Steven.” Niklaus eyed the letter, his dubious gaze that of a man unsure if his foot rested on a landmine. “You think it’s going to start sprouting new words?”

  “There’s got to be a clue here somewhere.” Steven rested his hand on the letter, crumpling the paper. “The woman who wrote this and the other letters went to a lot of trouble both to help us and to make sure we knew we were being helped.”

  Lena cleared her throat. “Again, you’re assuming the woman from the club is the one who wrote the letter in the first place.”

  Steven groaned. “If whoever wrote this is such a ‘friend,’ then why does it feel like we’re all being led down the cherry path?” He folded the letter together with the other two missives from their mysterious benefactor and shoved all three back in his pocket.

  “I’m just glad you’ve all returned safely.” Archie breathed a sigh of relief. “When the second letter appeared under our door, I feared the worse.”

  Steven rubbed at the bruise below his eye, one of many that had blossomed since his back-alley chat with Milo. “We’re fine.” He brushed Audrey’s hand gently with his fingertips. “But we’re back to square one on getting ourselves home.”

  “Not to mention we just created a monster.” Niklaus cracked his neck. “The Black Queen…”

  “Is all our fault.” Steven buried his face in his hands. He didn’t know which struck him as stranger, the fact that the woman who had attempted to first seduce and then kill him at the beginning of all this was apparently a nonagenarian or that the flames which had nearly ended all of their lives had likely been kindled by his own hand. “No wonder she hates us all so much.”

  “And yet, she never let on that she knew us.” Emilio held Lena tight, the two of them standing over Audrey like a pair of guardian angels.

  “None of them did.” Steven’s eyes narrowed. “Not Magdalene, not Zed, not even Grey.”

  “Think it’s one of those space-time continuum things like Doc Brown is always going on about in the Back to the Future movies?” Niklaus did his best to catch everyone’s eye and brighten the moment with his trademark smile. “Like, one of them says the wrong thing, time rewrites itself, and all of a sudden we’re the bad guys and sporting goatees?”

  Steven chuckled at that last bit. “Yeah, Nik, I’m sure it’s something like that.” He looked up into Archie’s concerned eyes. “You’re sure nothing changed with Audrey while we were gone?”

  “No change.” Archie took a seat opposite Steven on the bed and rested a hand on Audrey’s forehead. “It’s strange, you know? My time in the Game may represent only a few months of my life, but the ability to heal with just a touch like Jesus and his Apostles was a dream come true—an answer to years of prayer.” His head dropped. “To sit here and watch Audrey wither away, knowing that in another time and place I could help her, is a nightmare.”

  “We’re all powerless for the moment.” Steven patted the pocket that contained the trio of letters. “But if what this third letter says is true, we may be closer to home than any of us understand.”

  “Good.” Audrey’s eyes flickered open. “Because the last time I felt this bad, it almost killed me.”

  Audrey’s feeble response to her own joke came out more cough than laugh. Steven maintained his concerned smile, refusing to let the fear show on his face.

  An old fear Steven knew all too well.

  A rapid fire of images hit him like a freight train going full tilt through a lifetime of memories.

  His mother’s beautiful smile juxtaposed with the straight set of her lips as she lay in the coffin.

  Katherine’s sparkling eyes the night he asked her to marry him followed an instant later by the moment those eyes closed forever.

  The terror in Audrey’s gaze as the Black Queen summoned black flame from the pits of Hell itself to burn her alive in her bed.

  “No.” Steven turned his head away. “Not this time.”

  Audrey reached weakly for Steven’s face. “I take it from all these bruises the talk with Magdalene didn’t go as well as you’d hoped.”

  “Believe it or not,” Steven said despite the lump in his throat, “she got the worse end of the deal by a solid mile.”

  “Really? That’s—” Audrey’s reply descended into a peal of hacking coughs.

  “It’s okay, Audrey.” Steven patted her back, feeling more and more helpless by the second. “Everything’s okay.” He met Lena’s gaze and raised an eyebrow, the unspoken question answered with a resigned nod that sent a fist of ice straight through his chest.

  It can’t end this way. Steven rested his hand on the small of Audrey’s back, wishing he could pour his strength, his very vitality into her wasting body. It can’t.

  “Don’t try to talk.” Archie took Audrey’s hand. “A lot has happened since Lena and S
teven left earlier to track down our friend with the fiery disposition. Listen for a minute and let them catch you up.”

  Steven and the others pulled no punches reviewing the events of the preceding hours: the providence of the second letter; Steven’s near death at the hands of a gorilla in a suit named Milo; their mad plan to save Lena.

  And last, the Black Queen’s fiery fate.

  With every twist of the tale, Audrey gasped or winced or laughed or applauded, but as Lena and Emilio described in excruciating detail the immolation of Magdalene Byrne, she didn’t bat an eye or show an ounce of emotion.

  When they were done, Audrey raised a trembling hand. “May I see the last letter?”

  Steven pulled the envelope from his pocket and extricated the third of the collection of yellowed pieces of paper folded within.

  “Hm.” Audrey squinted at the fine script. “The letter says that the pouch will serve as both our way home and our guide to get there.”

  “That’s it.” Steven craned his neck around to read the letter again, as if afraid Niklaus’ joke about new words appearing on the page had come true. “Right?”

  “And that we need to find ‘one last crossing’ to get us home.”

  Steven leaned in close. “I feel like you’re picking up on something I missed.”

  “It may be nothing.” Audrey folded the letter and rested it on her lap. “But when you were traveling at the beginning, you’d always end up pretty wasted when the pouch would take you to a specific location to find one of us, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking about what you told me about arriving in Florida, then Wyoming, and most recently here in Chicago.” Audrey’s tired eyes filled with hope. “Not once did you mention feeling tired on any of those jaunts. Is it possible there’s a reason for that?”

  “Crossings.” Steven’s eyes grew wide in wonder. “It’s not just about finding the right place from which to take off…”

  Audrey squeezed his knee. “But finding the right place to land.”

  “The woods in Florida. The ridge in Wyoming. The alleyway here in Chicago. None of those places are random.” Steven rose from the bed. “Without the energies of the Game to empower the pouch, it’s been taking us where and when we need to go each time via the path of least resistance. How did I not see it?”

  Niklaus stepped up. “Not like it would’ve done any good. You think we could’ve found our way back to the exact spot in the woods in Florida?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Or back to where we appeared in Wyoming?”

  Steven shrugged. “We could’ve followed our own tracks back, maybe.”

  “Not in that blizzard.” Archie steepled his fingers before his face. “I’m guessing to travel from crossing to crossing, the spot has to be exact.” The priest smiled. “And now, we have that.”

  “How so?” Steven asked.

  “Our mysterious helper.” Archie eyed the girl with a warm smile. “Her first letter took Lena right to the place where we arrived from Wyoming. I’m betting the crossing there can function as both an entrance…”

  “And an exit.” Steven sucked in a breath. “The way out.”

  “If that’s the case,” Audrey sat up in the bed, “then let’s not wait another—” Yet another peal of coughing cut her words mid-sentence.

  “Audrey’s right.” Steven rubbed her back and offered a silent prayer that they would somehow get back in time to save her. “Pack your bags, everyone.” Worry and hope and pain and relief all warred for supremacy in Steven’s soul. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “This is the place?” Steven asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Steven.” Lena pointed to the ground at Steven’s feet. “You were here, Niklaus here, and Archie and Emilio stood right there.”

  “This is the spot.” Audrey sat in a chair they’d “borrowed” from the hotel, wrapped head to toe in blankets to protect her from the elements. She still shivered, but from the cold or the excitement, Steven wasn’t sure. “I can feel it.”

  “The pouch would seem to agree.” Niklaus motioned to the Hvitr Kyll hanging at Steven’s side, its quiet drone a welcome return after days of rarely broken silence. “Shall we give it a shot?”

  “Gather round, everyone.” Steven assumed his position behind Audrey’s chair. “Unless I miss my guess, we’ll only have one shot at this.”

  “Home, then?” Archie asked. “You’re sure that’s the best play?”

  “As we agreed.” Steven shuddered in the cold. “Audrey’s life comes first.”

  Their reunion was complete, save one. The most important piece.

  Their King.

  But if they lost their Queen in the process…

  “We’ll find Grey—I swear it—but first we’ve got to get everyone well.” Steven surveyed all of them, and in their steadfast gaze, found the vote unanimous. “I found all of you. We’ll find him too.”

  At Steven’s beckoning, Lena and Emilio came up on one side, Archie and Niklaus the other, and with Steven, the five formed a tight circle around the White Queen upon her humble throne. Steven grasped the Hvitr Kyll in one hand and held out the other, palm down. Each of the others placed their hand atop his with Audrey going last. The struggle of simply raising her arm clearly took its toll on her fragile form.

  “Here.” Steven broke from the huddle and reached for her forearm. “Let me help you.”

  “No.” She brushed away his hand with sudden strength. “You focus on the pouch. I’ve got this.” With Herculean effort, she brought her hand atop Archie’s, the effort leaving her visibly winded. “There,” she panted, “see?”

  Hold on just a little longer, Audrey. Steven looked skyward. And God, if you’re listening, please help us. This has to work.

  His gaze cut to Archie whose knowing glance suggested he had somehow heard Steven’s silent prayer. Though everyone else stared expectantly at the pouch Steven held above Audrey’s head, Archie’s eyes were, as always, fixed on him. The hairs on Steven’s neck, already on end, tingled in warning, but as usual, nothing in Archie’s words or actions crossed enough of a line to warrant telling the others.

  And yet, the feeling remained.

  Could he be wrong? Could everything he’d been noticing for months all just be a bizarre misunderstanding?

  Yet again, questions for another day.

  Without warning, the pouch emitted a skull-shaking drone and pulsed in Steven’s hand like a beating heart.

  “Just like old times,” Emilio whispered under his breath.

  “Do it, Steven,” Niklaus said. “Take us home.”

  “You heard the man,” Steven voiced to the pouch as he held its warm leather high. “Return us to our time.” He focused, as he had at Victor Brenin’s ranch in California and Ed Leedskalnin’s Coral Castle and every other time he’d brought the pouch to bear.

  This time, however, nothing happened.

  “What’s wrong, Steven?” Lena’s voice trembled. “Why are we still here?”

  Frustrated, Steven gripped the pouch even tighter. “Hvitr Kyll, ancient pouch of the Game, I command you to take us home.”

  Again, the pouch answered with nothing but a continued drone.

  “I don’t understand.” Despite all his misgivings, Steven turned to Archie. “Why isn’t the pouch responding?”

  Archie considered for a moment. “In all things, the pouch serves the Game. I would argue that in every other instance, your desires and the Game’s have been the same.”

  “The Game doesn’t want us to go home?”

  “We must go home,” Archie answered. “That much is clear. But, perhaps, not quite yet.”

  Steven’s eyes flicked in Audrey’s direction. “She might not have much time left,” he whispered to Archie. “If we go off on another jaunt right now, she might not make it.”

  “I may be sick,” Audrey croaked, “but my ears work just fine.” She removed her hand from the huddle and gripped Steven’s
wrist. “Take us where the pouch needs us to go. I’ll be fine.”

  “But, Audrey…”

  Her grip doubled in strength. “Pouch, hear your Queen. Take us from this place so that we may continue our path home.” Her weak voice grew in volume with each word. “Now.”

  The pouch screamed in answer, the pulse shaking Steven’s teeth.

  “Where is it taking us?” Emilio shouted over the cacophony.

  “I have no idea,” Steven bellowed as the pouch’s drone doubled in volume, “but I think were about to find out.”

  In an instant, the dark Chicago alleyway faded into nothingness, replaced by desert sands and a landscape that belonged on a 70s album cover.

  “The pyramids.” Lena gasped. “I never thought I’d see them in my lifetime.”

  “And you haven’t.” Steven stood opposite the rest, his gaze focused on a completely different wonder. “This is fourteen centuries before any of us were born.”

  Lena spun around. “And how could you possibly know—” Her gaze followed Steven’s into a shallow valley to the west. There, two sides of light and dark formed up on a checkered battlefield of blinding marble and glistening obsidian, the squares each better than twenty feet across. A line of foot soldiers armed with spears fashioned either from white poplar or dark ebony formed the vanguard of both forces while the back row of each side broke down into four pairs of warriors. Each corner boasted an armored chariot driver holding the reins of an equally armored stallion in one hand and an implement of war in the other. Mounted warriors occupied each of the next squares, one side armed with spiked maces, the other with cruel flails. Where the bishops should have been waited a sight that Steven still couldn’t believe, though he’d seen all of this before.

  Archie looked on agog at the bronze-plated behemoths. “My, how things have changed.”

  “Archers atop elephants.” Lena looked on in disbelief. “Instead of archbishops.”

  “And at the center, two men.” Audrey’s voice cracked. “Where are the Queens?”

  Steven smiled, remembering the moment he asked Grey the exact same question. “As I understand it, the Game always reflects the rules and mechanics of chess at the particular time of that iteration. The queen didn’t become a part of the game for a few more centuries.”