The Wizard's Gambit

by Kylie Betzner

  Margo’s eyes grew wide as the ogre’s shadow fell over her. Her bottom lip trembled. Of course, Wizard White Beard didn’t blame her. Ogres weren’t known for their diplomacy.6

  “Be respectful of our guest, Margo,” he told her. “Please rise and welcome King . . . what is your name?” he asked the ogre.

  “Grrargh,” he said, though Wizard White Beard wasn’t sure he’d offered his name or simply uttered a sound. For the sake of simplicity, he decided to roll with it.

  “King Grrargh.” He presented the ogre to the others.

  Warhammer rose from her seat and slammed the end of her weapon onto the ground. A metallic sound rang through the hall. “Kin’? Like fools gold he is!” she shouted. “He’s nae a kin’. He’s a squatter!”

  Lindolyn chuckled into his sleeve.

  “Ye think ’at’s funay dae ye? Weel let’s see if yoo’re still laughin’ when those mingin’ ogres drive aw th’ wolves an’ giant cats south intae yer lands. See hoo ye like havin’ yer homelands overrin.”

  “My people have nothing to fear of large dogs and giant cats.” Lindolyn waved a dainty hand in dismissal. “You and the ogres can fight over that giant rock pile for all I care.”

  “Don’t you be thinking of sending those creatures my way,” Walder chimed in. “I’ve got enough problems dealing with those savage men of the south coming into my lands to steal my livestock.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your pathetic cow thieves, you pitiful human,” Lindolyn snarled. “Those eastern brothers of yours have infiltrated my woods. They are hunting our wildlife, polluting our streams, and cutting down our trees.”

  “Shut it!” Warhammer slammed her fist down to silence them. Wizard White Beard bemoaned the bottle of pain medicine he had left on the vanity in his dormitory. Warhammer’s voice boomed inside his head as she continued: “Daen’t go oan abit yer neighbors. Nane ay ye has tae deal wi’ those barbaric tribes folk north ay th’ moontains comin’ doon an’ stealin’ yer game, leachin’ yer resoorces, an’ waltzin’ aroond oan top ay yer haem! An’ noo, Ah’ve got tae shaur whit wee Ah hae left wi’ those damn ogres!”

  Just when Wizard White Beard thought the situation couldn’t get more out of hand, the doors burst open once more, emitting the remaining representatives from the other three kingdoms into the council chamber. They were already heated from having run into each other outside in the courtyard.

  “What is the meaning of this, wizard!” Empress Eiko of Ōkoku, the eastern kingdom, stormed into the room as swiftly as she could while wearing five layers of clothing and a fifteen-pound headdress. She was a withering blossom of sixty-nine years, but she was still as fierce as a newly blown storm. Admittedly, Wizard White Beard found her no less enchanting than the first time they’d met, even though her face was weathered beneath all those layers of makeup. She frowned at him, the expression enhanced by the dark red color on her lips. “You invited me here to receive a gift from the magic box, and I find you’ve invited others, too, without my knowing. Explain yourself.”

  “Yes, wizard, please explain,” Buziba, the ruler of the Southlands, chimed in. He was a short, elderly man whose skin had both browned and wrinkled under the sun. Despite his age and apparent frailty, Wizard White Beard knew to stand clear of him; there was still fire in him.

  “Empress Eiko, Chief Buziba, please have a seat. I will explain everything,” he said, tugging on his beard. The darn yak’s wool was so itchy, especially when he sweated.

  “You’d better,” said Kavik, chief of the Northlands. He was backed by half of his tribesmen, all large men with hands the size of bear paws and weapons made from animal bones—animals they probably took down bare-handed. Wizard White Beard gulped as they surrounded him, their brows and mouths turned down.

  “Kings, chieftains, leaders of the realms, please hear me out,” he pleaded. “I admit I lured you all here with false promise. I regret to inform you that I did not bring the box with me today.” He waited while the leaders erupted in outrage. When their anger subsided, he raised his hands and continued: “I mean you no disrespect, but you’ve all forced my hand. I’ve invited you to council, but you do not attend and you ignore all of my pleas for peace. Meanwhile, you continue to spread your hatred like a fever and divide your borders with blood. Presently, there is more hatred and stupidity in this room than it can contain. Do you smell that horrible stench? That’s the funk of 1,001 years of ignorance. It’s time for everyone to make peace.”

  He looked down the rows of men, elves, and dwarfs, daring them to make a comeback. No one uttered a sound, except for Grrargh, who offered the occasional grunt.

  After a moment’s silence, Walder cleared his throat and asked, “What do you suggest we do about all this bad blood if we can’t bleed it out?”

  “I suggest . . .” Wizard White Beard drew a blank. After months of planning for this encounter, he was not prepared to offer any suggestions. His original plan was to mediate a discussion among the leaders, let them decide what needed done. But now that they were all present, he realized that was no longer an option. Sweat dotted his forehead as he searched the recesses of his mind for a solution, any alternative to war. If he did not think of one fast, there would be a battle right here in the council room.

  “Well?” Walder pressed.

  “I, uh . . .” Wizard White Beard stuttered, digging in the pockets of his robe to keep his hands busy. His fingers brushed against something round at the bottom of his pocket. He smiled and lifted his head to address the council.

  “I offer an alternative to war, a match that does not require bloodshed,” he said and showed them the item. “I offer you this.”

  “A prize from a coin machine?” Walder snorted when he saw the plastic ring.

  “Not just any prize from a coin machine,” said Wizard White Beard, “the prize. I’m going to hide it somewhere, anywhere in the woodlands surrounding this castle. Whoever finds it will be the ultimate champion and can single-handedly determine the outcome of this war. No soldiers. No weapons. No bloodshed. Just clean competition. I assign each of you to nominate one representative to compete for your kingdom. In six months’ time, we will meet again here at the ruins of Capitol City, where you will present your representatives.”

  “Sae yoo’re sayin’ if Ah win, Ah gie tae decide whit happens tae th’ losers?” Warhammer rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Meanin’ it’d be aw reit if Ah banished them aw intae Th’ Gray?”7

  Of course, she’d want to banish them to The Gray, that barren dump barely able to sustain life. If only he’d listed that among the exclusions. “Theoretically speaking, yes, but why would you want to—”

  “Coont me in.”

  “And me as well,” said Lindolyn.

  One by one the others conceded.

  “Pretty birds.” Grrargh pointed up at the doves in the beams.

  What had just happened? He’d offered them an alternative to bloodshed and they planned to use their victory to clear the map. Somehow, he hadn’t seen this coming, but it was too late now; they’d already consented to the plan.

  “All right then,” he said, returning the item to his pocket. “If we’ve reached a consensus, I’d like to close the meeting. We’ll reconvene in six months. Good luck, and please refrain from fighting on your way out.”

  With that the leaders dispersed, leaving only Wizard White Beard and his pupil alone at the table. Margo’s usual look of melancholy was replaced with that of confusion.

  “So,” she said eventually. “Did that go well?”

  Of course not! He wanted to shout, but instead he nodded and said, “As well as it could have gone, I suppose. Thank goodness I was here.”

  “What exactly did you do?”

  “Only put into motion an event that is going to change the world,” he said, unable to hide his offense. “I hope you took notes,” he continued. “That was the perfect example of what a wizard does. We direct key players to make the right moves, not do things for them. Tha
t is our role on this earth: to shape those who shape it.”

  “That was . . . inspiring,” said Margo woodenly.

  “I hope it was,” he said, daring a smile. Perhaps the plan was not as bad as he thought. Maybe, with some meddling on his part, it could work. Only time would tell. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but make preparations, which were minimal on his part. And there was still the business of that missing prince. Of course, he had no time for trivial matters such as that, what with the upcoming competition and all. He turned to Margo. “I have an assignment for you.”

  “Oh?” Her expression was that of dread.

  “Yes,” he said. “One I’m sure you’ll find . . . challenging. After all, he could be anywhere.”

  A hundred or so miles away . . .

  He came walking through the morning mist like a strange apparition. Strange, not so much for his outfit, consisting mostly of leather and furs, nor for his wiry red hair, which grew out of his head like an overgrown houseplant. It wasn’t even the fact that—despite the terrain and the distance he had to travel—he was making the entire journey barefoot when most people would have opted for a horse or a pair of shoes. On their own, all of these little details could have passed for ordinary—or less strange at least—but combined with the fact that he carried a dwarvish axe and an elvish bow—two weapons never before carried by one single person, a human no less—the final result was rather shocking.

  Those who knew him wouldn’t even blink twice. They’d grown accustomed to his uncivilized ways, so much so they just called him Mongrel. It wasn’t so much a name as it was an occupational title. It suited him well enough anyway, considering how often he roamed. He never stayed anywhere long enough to call home, just long enough to get his hopes up before being shoved back out into the wilds. And no one, not even he, knew his origins or what destiny lay ahead. In his eighteen short years, he’d never known a life other than that of a stray dog.

  He walked until the sun rose over the horizon, shedding light on this seemingly ordinary fantasy landscape covered in trees and hills and whatnot. Where the line of trees receded, Mongrel paused. An unnatural structure loomed in the distance. He didn’t know what it was, but it signaled the end of his journey. Perhaps this would be his new home.

  * * *

  1 Upon the completion of wizard training, a wizard receives not only their hat and celestial robes but a moniker relating to the color of their beard—or fake beard for those incapable of growing their own (e.g. women and prepubescent teenage boys).

  2 All things—kingdoms, heavens, and hells—must come in sevens; it’s an unspoken rule in most fantasy realms.

  3 Violet-eyed people are invariably special, prone to possessing strange or mysterious talents. Those with black or red eyes, however, are always evil.

  4 The kind of blond one can only attain from a box with a name like Pure Starlight Blonde Number 9 printed on the top.

  5 The kingdom of Kingsbury had a bad habit of misplacing its heirs to the throne, a mishap that occurred every fifty years or so and took another fifty or more to sort out.

  6 On the contrary, ogres were known for their insatiable hunger and non-discriminatory eating habits.

  7 A barren wasteland void of all life, a land so undesirable no species wished to claim it, not even the ogres who were otherwise homeless. As far as anyone was concerned, the lands were uninhabitable, or at least uninhabited, not that anyone could see through all the fog—hence how it earned its name.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The gatekeeper had seen many strange things come and go from the city, but in his thirteen years on the job, with a spotless attendance record to boot, he had never encountered anyone or anything that topped the young man who came out of the forest that morning.

  He looked like a wild man, cloaked in pelts and wearing mostly leather. The only item of clothing not made from animal hides was the wool tunic he wore under a leather jerkin that was, to no surprise, lined in wolf fur. From where he stood, the gatekeeper couldn’t tell what type of footwear he was sporting, though he assumed they’d be made of rawhide. He could plainly see the man had red hair by the way it caught the afternoon sun. In fact, it was the red hair, glowing like a torch, that had alerted the gatekeeper to his arrival in the first place.

  How jealous the gatekeeper’s wife would have been of the man’s luminous red locks—that is, she would have been if the gatekeeper had a wife. The gatekeeper himself wasn’t worried so much about how the man looked—no, his attention was on his weaponry. Never before had he seen such a variety of weapons in the hands of one man. He could only speculate on how he might have acquired them. Thievery and murder were at the forefront of his mind, which should have concerned him more, only he just noticed the man was barefoot.

  After some thought, he decided to bypass the customary “’oo goes there” to confront the issue at the forefront of his mind.

  “Ain’t yer feet cold?” he hollered down from the wall as the man came within earshot.

  “Are my feet cold?” The man paused to consider the gatekeeper’s question. Then he shook his head. “No, my feet aren’t cold, but thanks for asking.”

  “Yer welcome?” said the gatekeeper and then remembering formalities added, “So, wot business ’ave you ’ere?”

  The man stopped within a foot of the wall and stared, mouth agape, at the giant slab of stone in front of him. When at last he spoke, his voice was filled with wonder.

  “What is this thing?” he asked the gatekeeper.

  “Wot, the wall?”

  “Wa-ll,” He sounded the word out like one learning a new language. He let that information sink in before shifting his gaze to the gatekeeper. Curiosity lit his eyes like a kiln, and he offered the gatekeeper a bemused smile.

  “So what does a wall do?”

  “Wot does it do?” The gatekeeper scratched his jaw as he considered the question with some seriousness. He had never been asked that question before. At length, he shrugged and replied, “Uh, I spose it does wot any wall does; it keeps thing out.”

  “What kinds of things?” he asked.

  “Wot kinds o’ things?” repeated the gatekeeper.

  He nodded.

  The gatekeeper blew out his cheeks and then popped his lips as he thought.

  “Um, things that don’t belong on the bloody other side.”

  “Ah . . . I see,” said the man, attention wandering. It stopped on the row of tiny slits near the top of the wall. “What are those?”

  “Those’re murder ’oles,” said the gatekeeper. “And before you ask, they do just wot the bloody name implies.”

  “Oh, I see.” The man took a few cautious steps away from the wall. Then he turned back to the gatekeeper with an expectant gaze, similar to one his own child would have—that is, if he’d ever had a child.

  “Can I come in?" he asked. “I’d like to see what’s on the other side.”

  The gatekeeper frowned. “That depends. Wot business ’ave you in the city?”

  “Well, I’ve come to live here.”

  There was something about his blunt honesty the gatekeeper didn’t trust.

  “Hmm.” He crossed his arms tight to his chest. “We don’t often let mysterious wood folk into our city.”

  Without a word the man reached into his tunic, took out a lump of gold, and held it high so the gatekeeper could see. It winked in the sunlight like a sassy maiden.

  “Perhaps this will change your mind.”

  The gold certainly caught the gatekeeper’s attention, but he shook his head. “Sorry, but me answer is nah.”

  “I’ve got some diamonds in my pocket—”

  “Leave them there. You can’t bribe me. I’m a man o’ integrity.”

  The man sighed. “Is there nothing you’ll take?”

  “Nothin’ that comes to mind.”

  Defeated, the man lowered his head and turned away. That’s when the gatekeeper noticed something peeking out from the satchel at his side.1
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  “Wot’s that, you’ve got there?”

  “Oh, this?” The man looked down and flushed. With one hand he tried to push the thing back down into the bag. “It’s nothing of interest.”

  “Ain’t it though?” said the gatekeeper knowingly. “Show it to me.”

  After much hesitation and even more prompting from the gatekeeper, the man took out the item of interest, a rabbit’s head mounted on a plaque, and held it up for the gatekeeper to scrutinize.

  “It’s nothing, see, just a stuffed rabbit’s head.”

  “I can see that, but wot’re those things you’ve got stuck on its noggin?” The gatekeeper narrowed his eyes.

  “Antlers,” said the man, looking away. “I put antlers on it.”

  “Antlers, eh?” The gatekeeper leaned forward to take a peek, nearly falling off the wall as he did so. Sure enough, there were antlers, just as the boy said. He slapped a hand against the wall as if he were killing a large bug. Then he chuckled and proclaimed, “I want that!”

  The man blinked. “You want this?”

  “Yeah, ’ow much?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .”

  “I’ll trade you for it!”

  A smile stretched across the man’s face. “What are you willing to give me for it?”

  “Wot am I not willin’ to give?” said the gatekeeper too quickly before backpedaling. “Keep in mind, I’m a man o’ integrity.”

  “How about letting me in that wall?”

  “I told you, boy, I’m a man o’ integrity.”

  “If you say so . . .” He slid the keepsake back into the bag.

  “Right, right, in you go.”

  Not wasting another second, the gatekeeper gave the command, and the gate was opened. The man just stood there, awestruck. The gatekeeper came down to greet him.

  “There you ’ave it,” he said, coming down the steps to collect his prize. “Welcome to Kingsbury. Ironic title, really, considerin’ we don’t ’ave a king.”