Pawn's Gambit

by Darin Kennedy

  Lena put her fingers over Emilio’s lips as Steven turned to Archie.

  “I’m not sure if they know about you yet, but I’m betting it won’t take them long to figure out we’ve found our Bishop. You may want to get in touch with your family as well.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but everybody’s out of town this week. They’re down in Wilmington at my great niece’s wedding. Doubt the bad guys will know to look there.”

  “You have a great niece?” Audrey raised an eyebrow.

  “You know us black folk,” Archie answered with a chuckle. “We age pretty well.”

  Lena broke into a hesitant laugh, unsure if Archie’s comment was meant as a joke.

  “Hey, Archie,” Steven said, “maybe it’s time to clear the air a bit.”

  Archie nodded, and all of them, Grey included, listened intently as the priest recounted the events that led to his hospitalization, the circumstances surrounding his induction into the Game, and the miraculous transformation that left him better than two generations younger than when he awoke that morning.

  “You’re really seventy-three?” Audrey asked when he was finished. “That’s…”

  “Impossible?” Archie said. “Yesterday, were you not eaten alive with cancer and waiting for the good Lord to call you home? Was not Lena here lying in a coma behind those very doors? If you ask me, miracles seem to be the order of the day.”

  “But why?” Lena asked.

  “It is the Game’s nature to desire to be played,” Grey interjected. “Regardless of circumstance or context, when the time of correction comes, the Game will use whatever means necessary to ensure its own eventuality. This instinct, if you will, was designed into the Game from the start, a failsafe to prevent another cataclysm.” As if on cue, the cable news channel came off commercial and the ongoing coverage of the tsunami resumed in earnest. Grey grimaced as the image of several pale corpses being dragged from a swamped California storefront trailed across the screen, some no more than children. At his absent wave, the television flickered and went dark.

  “I believe we’ve seen quite enough of that.” Grey said. “Now, where was I? Oh yes.” He steepled his fingers before his chin. “Understand that when the Game is played, it wishes to be played well.” His gaze flitted around the room, lighting for a moment on Archie, Audrey, Lena, Emilio. “If any particular Piece is deemed too old, too infirm, or too injured to be a valid part of play, the Game moves to rectify the situation in as simple and direct a manner as possible.”

  “You talk like the Game is alive.” Lena’s statement captured everyone’s attention. Even Emilio glanced up from his self-imposed silence as Grey answered her.

  “No, Lena, the Game is not alive, though it does possess an inherent intelligence of sorts. As I explained to you before, the forces that empower its play exist whether the Game is played or not. The format, conventions, and rules, however, are intrinsic to the Game itself, all governed by the residual power and intellect of some of the greatest minds to ever walk the earth.”

  “When you defeated the Queen last night, you mentioned something about Arbiters,” Steven said. “Do you remember that?”

  “Like something out of a dream,” Audrey said. “Or a nightmare.”

  “Arbiters?” Emilio asked.

  Grey nodded. “The Great Arbiters have presided over every iteration of the Game since the beginning. They provide both the structure and the substance of the Game while containing the immense conceptual power of each correction and channeling those same forces into the various aspects of play. They reside in a place beyond perception and watch all that transpires, awaiting each iteration of the Game with a patience even I cannot begin to fathom.”

  “So, these people or ghosts or whatever sit around and wait hundreds of years for the universe to blow an alternator, all so they can watch a stupid chess game?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Grey answered, “yes.”

  “And who are these Arbiters?” Audrey asked. “Where did they come from?”

  “As Zed suggested he and I become the immortal champions for the Black and the White, so did I suggest some form of governing body be created to supervise and regulate play. Zed fought me on this, but I was able to convince the others of the wisdom of my words, wisdom that has certainly borne out over the past few days. The remaining seven, all of them approaching the end of their time on this plane, volunteered along with the two of us to become an immortal part of this construct we now call the Game.”

  “They were once your friends?” Audrey asked.

  “Friends.” Grey’s eyes grew downcast. “Family.”

  “Your grandfather.”

  “Yes, Steven.”

  “But they’re not like you, are they?” Steven asked. “I mean, you’re still living and breathing after a thousand years, while they—”

  “They are dead,” Grey said, “at least from a conventional point of view. The seven who chose to become Arbiters of the Game volunteered to enter a twilight state between life and death, forfeiting their bodies and lives on this earth so their influence could last across the ages. While mine and Zed’s link to the forces in question has contributed to our physical longevity, the remainder of our order now exist only in spirit, their disembodied essences a part of the very Game they helped design.”

  “Buddies or not, they’re the ones letting Zed run all slipshod with the rules, right?”

  Grey bowed his head at Emilio’s pointed question. “I cannot fathom why our opponent’s many deviations from even the most basic rules of play are not being met with appropriate consequences. Very few ways exist in today’s world of empiricism to interact or communicate with the Arbiters, even for me. In the past, the various manifestations of their will upon the Game were anything but subtle. I would argue, however, that despite our opponent’s blatant disregard for the many conventions of the Game, something has brought the lot of you safely through to this point.”

  “Safely?” Emilio’s face went red. “Have you forgotten where we are? Why we’re here?”

  “Listen, boy.” The fluorescent lights throughout the room dimmed as Grey turned on Emilio. “Do not presume to lecture me on matters of the Game. I have walked this sphere for longer than your limited mind can comprehend, buried friends from fifty different generations, watched lovers wither and die like cut flowers under the summer sun.

  “I have lived through three iterations of this terrible Game I helped create, watched friends and enemies alike cut down in their prime, all to satisfy the capricious whim of an unfeeling universe. Though I understand those few deaths served to stave off the destruction that would otherwise have occurred, it does little to silence the voice inside me insisting there must have been another way.”

  Steven stepped in front of Emilio, the boy’s wide-eyed face pale in the face of Grey’s quiet fury. “What you’re suggesting is maybe the Arbiters aren’t as oblivious as we were led to believe. That’s why we’re all still breathing.”

  Grey, his anger already fading like a summer squall, nodded his assent. “In the last several days, have not each of you spoken with words not your own or become possessed of knowledge, however fleeting, outside of your specific frame of reference? It seems the Arbiters are not dealing with Zed directly, as this iteration has yet to commence. The fact that our young Queen was able to defeat her abductor mere moments after claiming her icon, however, makes their involvement undeniable fact.”

  Audrey’s eyes brightened. “You mean they were there when I… when the—”

  “Yes, Audrey,” Grey answered. “Your encounter with the Black Knight was influenced by forces beyond your perception.” He turned to face the rest of the group. “All of you should take some small measure of comfort knowing this iteration of the Game may not be quite the anarchy I had assumed. The enemy’s absence at the recent conscription of our Bishop supports this theory. Zed may be playing his most aggressive Game yet, but he is no fool.”

  “So, what do
we do now?” Lena asked.

  “Claim the White Rook,” Grey said. “The rest will play itself out as it will.”

  Somber silence filled the space for a moment as the gravity of Grey’s words sunk in. Archie dropped his head in prayer, his silent lips working in earnest. For the moment, at least, Emilio put aside his sullen facade and comforted Lena, though his acerbic stare remained focused on Grey.

  Audrey looked up at Steven, her eyes as full of sadness, fear, and longing as Lena’s and he had to fight harder than he cared to admit not to follow Emilio’s lead. He barely knew this woman, Audrey, yet she already held a place in his heart that had remained empty since he stood graveside at Katherine’s funeral all those months before.

  “Steven,” Lena said. “I’m trying to get my aunt on Grey’s phone but I keep getting the stupid machine. Do you think—”

  “I don’t know, Lena. We’ll keep trying to get in touch with them, but for now, leave them a message. Say whatever it takes to get her and anyone else in your family out of town for at least a couple of days.”

  Steven turned to Grey. “I need you to do something for me.”

  Grey shook his head. “I cannot do what you ask. It violates the rules of—”

  “Screw the rules. The way I see it, Zed is playing so hard and fast, it might as well be a different game.” Steven’s eyes narrowed. “You know what I need, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Watch over them for a few hours,” Steven said. “I’ll be back before sundown.”

  “But the repercussions could be—”

  “Look, for once, skip the cryptic crap. Are you going to do it or not?”

  Grey sighed, his eyes the color of a thunderstorm on the horizon. “Very well. I will watch after them while you are gone.” His gaze wandered the room, stopping briefly at each of the four in their now shared charge. “We shall await you at the town center.”

  As Steven turned for the exit, Audrey grabbed him by the arm. “Hey.” More than a small measure of fear colored her words. “Where are you going?”

  “There’s someone I’ve got to see. Don’t worry. I won’t be long. Grey’s going to keep an eye on you guys till I return.”

  “I want to come with you.” Audrey bit her lip as her trembling gaze fell to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Audrey, but this is something I’ve got to do alone.” Steven took her chin and brought her eyes back to his. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  “All right,” she whispered. “Hurry back.”

  Steven’s gaze followed Audrey as she walked to a window. A summer shower pelted the thick glass like the angry tears of a thousand angels.

  “Nothing can happen to them,” Steven whispered to Grey. “Do you understand?”

  “More than you know.” Grey turned to join the others. “Sundown.”

  Steven took one last look at Audrey’s auburn locks and headed for the elevators.

  “Sundown.”

  26

  Home

  A family of white-billed American koots paddled by Steven’s feet in the afternoon shadow of the old sycamore that had stood by the water’s edge since he was a child. The river birches he and his dad planted by the lake when he was fourteen had thrived, their topmost branches swaying in the gentle breeze a good twenty feet above his head.

  The roar of a Harley Davidson motorcycle sent the waterfowl flapping across the still water. Before Steven could stop himself, the pawn icon was in his hand.

  “So, this is PTSD,” he muttered, returning the icon to his pocket. The road crossing the dam was far busier than he remembered. Though he couldn’t rule out the embellishment of time’s passage, in the back of his mind Steven could recall hours of silent solitude spent by the lake when he was a boy. Life certainly seemed far simpler then.

  A flopping fish broke the water’s placid surface, jogging another memory that brought a smile to Steven’s face even as it hurt his heart. In a flash, he was twelve again and on the lake in his family’s old Coleman canoe. His mother sat in the front, reading one of those thrillers she loved by the fading light of early evening, while Steven and his father sat in the rear casting line after line in hopes of reeling in their dinner for the night.

  Not long after, the raging hormones of adolescence had taken much of the joy out of such simple pleasures, but in that moment, the part of Steven’s heart that still remembered his mother through the eyes of youthful innocence ached.

  The familiar crunch of gravel under tires brought Steven back to the present. Up the hill sat the one-story ranch he used to call home. The red Chevy Blazer his father had been driving since the early nineties pulled to a stop by the small porch off their kitchen. As he headed up the hill to greet a man he hadn’t spoken to in over two years, he struggled to come up with something—hell, anything—to say. The events of the preceding seventy-two hours were far beyond anything Don Bauer would listen to, much less believe.

  An only child, Steven had always been close with his parents, his memories of growing up filled with images of his mother’s unquenchable zeal for life and his father’s quiet pride. In the summer of his junior year at Georgetown, however, everything had changed. He could still see the hastily scrawled note he found lying on the kitchen counter.

  Steven,

  Come to the hospital. 6th floor.

  The only word Steven remembered hearing that day was cancer. He took a semester off from school to be with his mother as she fought with all she had against the malignancy that had grown unnoticed for months in her left breast. Despite the surgery and every therapy her team of doctors brought to bear, she succumbed less than three months after her diagnosis. “We were too late,” the doctor said with a coldness Steven had never forgotten.

  At age fifty-eight, his father lived alone, never having recovered from watching his childhood sweetheart wither away like some uprooted plant desperate for water. The last time Steven visited was weeks after Katherine’s death on the fourth anniversary of his mother’s passing. The visit hadn’t gone well, the weekend culminating in a fight that pushed an already tenuous relationship with his father over the edge. He had picked up the phone a hundred times in the months since, but had never gotten up the nerve to make the call.

  Steven reached the top of the hill and stepped onto the wooden deck that bore the spattered grease stains of a hundred summer cookouts. Gazing through the blinding sunlight reflecting off the Chevy’s dirty windshield, he spied the crest of his father’s head as the man rummaged in the passenger side floorboard, his salt-and-pepper hair far more salt than Steven remembered.

  “I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

  Donald Bauer rose back into his seat and spotted his son’s hunched figure in the shadow of the house’s eastern side. A flash of recognition bordering on pleasant surprise crossed his face, replaced in a blink by a mask of practiced indifference. He opened the door to his truck, stepped out onto the gravel, and looked Steven up and down for a moment before speaking.

  “Hello, Steven.” His father’s voice came out muted, matter-of-fact.

  “Dad.” Somehow, this encounter wracked Steven’s nerves even more than the insanity that had overtaken his life in the preceding days. “You’re looking well.”

  “You should’ve called and let me know you were coming,” Donald said. “I’ve been out all day running errands.”

  “It’s all right. Pretty busy myself this morning. Besides, I’ve only been here a few minutes.” Steven waited in vain for his father to respond. “So, when did you take out the pier?”

  “Last year. The wood was getting pretty rickety.” After another protracted pause, Steven’s father finally caved. “So, what brings you out this way?”

  As if I lived around the corner. “Believe it or not, I happened to be in the neighborhood. Had some business down in Roanoke. Thought I’d drop by.”

  “Well.” Donald turned and headed for the house. “You still drink Dr. Pepper?”

  A sa
d chuckle escaped Steven’s lips. “Sure.”

  He followed his dad inside and took a seat at the round glass table where he used to eat Frosted Flakes every morning before school. The old parquet floor, still rippled from the edge of the kitchen counter all the way to the front door, had seen better days, its once glossy surface now dull and scratched from years of wear and tear.

  The place looked clean for the most part. No one had ever accused Don Bauer of being a slob, but anything beyond the simple day-to-day upkeep of a home had clearly been ignored for a very long time.

  Donald procured two bottles of Dr. Pepper from the old Kenmore refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen, popped the caps off of each using the edge of the counter, and set one down in front of Steven. He hadn’t lost that bit of panache, it seemed. Steven wasn’t sure how his dad was still able to score the old-school glass bottles of soda he routinely kept stocked in the fridge, but they had always agreed there was no comparison.

  “So, Dad, how’ve you been?”

  “Pretty good. Doc Hagy says my blood pressure’s not too bad for an old man and other than my trick ankle, I’m still getting around pretty good. Truck’s holding up fairly decent.” Donald cleared his throat. “Can’t complain, I guess.”

  “Guess not.” Steven’s eyes cut toward the front of the house. “Mrs. Chatsworth still stop by and check in on you?”

  “Yeah, she comes by every couple of weeks. I’ll fix some dinner, she brings apple pie, peach cobbler, or some such, and we watch the tube or sit and talk about better times.”

  “And how’s Mr. Chatsworth these days?”

  “Jim? From what Deb says his Parkinson’s getting pretty bad. She’s not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to get around on his own.”

  “That’s too bad,” Steven said. “He was always a pretty decent guy.”

  “Steven.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.” Donald’s eyes dropped for a moment, and when he again looked up, the face that had accompanied a thousand lectures during Steven’s childhood looked back. “I don’t believe for a minute you came all the way up here to ask about a bunch of long-in-the-tooth seniors you haven’t laid eyes on since you were in high school. Hell, you haven’t even darkened my doorstep in, what, going on two years now? What’s going on?”