He perused the wares on display behind its barred windows, his gaze stopping on a collection of old timepieces. A pocket watch fashioned of tarnished silver with gold trim rested at the center of the sixteen watches. The crystal’s otherwise smooth surface marred by a single stellate crack at its center, the watch’s hands were frozen in perpetuity at 10:57.
“Grey?”
It was the wizard’s turn to be startled as the quiet voice shocked him out of his reverie.
“Audrey?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Of course not.” Grey wiped the tear from his cheek before turning to face her. He noted Audrey had been crying as well. “What troubles you, my dear?”
“I need to ask you something.” Audrey choked back a sob. “Something important.”
Grey studied her for a long moment. “Very well.”
“The others can’t know I’m asking you this.” Audrey shifted on her feet, her eyes welling with tears. “And no sugarcoating. I want it straight. The truth.”
“I will do my best to keep your confidence, and if my suspicions about what you intend to ask are correct, I assure you my answer will be the truth, as well as I can say.”
“Fair enough.” Audrey took a breath. “I was thinking. Each of us: me, Steven, the others. The pouch picked us all for a reason, right?”
“That is correct.”
“And if we’re all in this thing because we’re supposed to be, it means something about us sets us apart. Makes us different.”
“True.”
“Well, we’ve all been so focused on surviving and making it through to the Game that none of us have talked about what comes after. I mean, if we’re all as special as you say, handpicked from millions to fill our various roles in the Game, who’s to say we won’t win?”
“A very astute observation.”
“If we do win, what then? Do Lena and Emilio return to Baltimore and go back to high school like nothing ever happened? Does Archie go back to the hospital to live the rest of his days as a feeble old man after getting a second taste of youth?”
“Go on.” Grey rested a fatherly hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Ask the question you really want to ask.”
Audrey stared at him, her shock melting into fury. “What’s going to happen to me, Grey?” She blinked the tears from her eyes. “When this is all over and this Game of yours is through with me, what next? Am I cast aside like a broken toy? Do I survive all this shit just to let the leukemia finish me off? If that’s the case, then all of this is nothing but a cruel joke.”
Grey turned back toward the pawnshop window, his voice barely a whisper. “With each iteration, the Game takes the Pieces it needs and empowers them for the duration of play, briefly bringing together the opposing forces of that particular correction to fulfill its sole purpose. Once the Game is played out, however, the forces involved return to quiescence and the surviving Pieces return to their native state.
“In the past, some have chosen to remember their experiences, but most have opted to have the Arbiters return them to their places of origin and strip their memory of any recollection of the Game.” Grey turned and faced Audrey’s distraught stare. “These provisions were meant to be a kindness, a way to minimize the impact on the individuals’ lives and—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Audrey’s body shook with righteous fury. “Want some advice on minimizing impact on people’s lives? Don’t kidnap us and force us to play a Game where the other side is doing its level best to kill us.”
“It was never meant to be this way.” Grey whispered. “No one was ever supposed to die. Zed’s machinations over the centuries have warped the Game into something I never intended, but even so, it changes nothing. Regardless of the consequences, the Game must be played.”
“That’s a load of shit. You talk about consequences like your life is the one on the line. Well listen, Mister Immortal Wizard, it may be your Game that’s being played, but we’re the ones paying the price of admission.”
Remembering Grey and Emilio’s interaction from earlier in the afternoon, Audrey steeled herself for the brunt of Grey’s ire and found herself unprepared for the words he spoke instead.
“I am truly sorry, Audrey Richards, for all of this—the danger, the false hope, all of it. Though the Game has become the very definition of a necessary evil, I have spent centuries searching for an alternate solution, a way to undo what we wrought all those many years ago.
“The power, and more importantly, the knowledge required to make such a change has long since vanished from this world. The only person alive who could conceivably aid me in such an endeavor clearly has other plans. It took a council of many to bring this terrible Game into being, and despite the accrued wisdom I have gleaned over nearly two millennia on this planet, I am still but one man.”
“Answer me this, then.” Audrey glared at Grey through bloodshot eyes. “Of all the billions of people on the planet, why pluck a girl off her deathbed to play this stupid Game if the end result, win or lose, is she ends up six feet in the ground?”
“The truth?”
Audrey’s voice cracked. “Please…”
Grey drew close, his lips turned up in an enigmatic smile. “I cannot be sure, but perhaps the Game in its perverse wisdom chose you because of your illness, not despite it.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
The wizard’s eyes burned through her. “A person with nothing to gain is also a person with nothing to lose.”
Before Audrey could respond, Grey’s attention shifted back toward the square.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The others,” Grey said. “Something is happening.”
Audrey’s heart froze as Grey took off at a dead sprint leaving her beneath the pawnshop’s overhang. She retrieved the Queen icon from her pocket and noted its white marble surface gave off only the dimmest glimmer.
“Well, at least it’s not them.” Audrey raced down the sidewalk after Grey. Between the shadows and the thinning crowd, he was barely visible in his voluminous coat, but Audrey had learned how to pick out the wizard’s form despite the murk and magic. She caught up to the grey-clad wizard by the theater entrance and scanned the square for Emilio and the others. Her heart sank with each stranger’s face.
“Where are they?” she asked.
Where Archie and Emilio had been sitting, a young couple worked to quiet a screaming child, much to the dismay of the skateboard crowd gathered on the corner where Lena had stood minutes before.
“Grey?” Audrey’s voice grew frantic. “Do you think—”
Before she could finish her question, her wandering gaze fixed on a face she had waited far longer than that night to see.
“Steven.”
She sprinted across the crowded square, and blushed when Steven caught her gaze with a casual smile that was already far more than familiar. Flanked on either side by Emilio and Lena, Steven held up a hand to quiet Archie as Audrey negotiated a mob of children to join their circle.
“You’re late, you big dummy.” Audrey swatted his arm with half-playful ire, a jumble of mixed emotions tugging at her heart. “Is everything… okay?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Took a little longer than I… hey, have you been crying?”
Audrey rubbed at her eyes and forced a smile. “It’s nothing. I’m just worried about Mom and Grandpa. Grey was doing his best to cheer me up, in his own morbid sort of way.”
“And how’s that, dare I ask?” Steven asked.
“As I said before,” Grey said as he strode across the square toward them, “their deaths would serve no purpose other than to enrage our young Queen. Though such a tactic is far from beneath him, I fear Zed’s plans for Audrey’s mother and grandfather are far more insidious.”
“See what I mean?” Audrey asked.
“Yeah,” Steven agreed, “pretty morbid.”
A large banner hanging betw
een the buildings caught Steven’s eye. “Center in the Square, huh?” He met Grey’s gaze and smiled. “Nice.”
“Where else would I bring the gathered White to wait? The center is after all the strongest position on the board.” Grey returned Steven’s grin, the expression odd on his wizened old face. “And your father? Is he well?”
“Still alive and kicking. As best I could tell, no one’s come around to see him in the last week besides me. He agreed to get out of town, but God only knows if he’ll follow through. Typical Don Bauer, stubborn to the end, not that I really blame him on this one. Even the most stripped-down version of the last four days would be pretty hard to swallow.”
“At least you got to see your father,” Audrey said. “I’d give anything if I could just know my mom was okay.”
“He drove me back into town. Dropped me off a few minutes ago. Last thing he said before he pulled away was for me to get a haircut.” Steven let out a sad chuckle. “What if that’s the last thing he ever says to me?”
“All right. Enough with all the negative crap.” Emilio held up his hands in exasperation. “We’re going to make it through this, dammit.”
“Not all of us,” Archie said.
Steven spun and caught a glimpse of the strange glint in Archie’s eye.
“What do you know?” Steven asked. “What have you seen?”
“Tell him about the Rook,” Lena said.
“The Rook?” Steven asked.
Archie and the others worked together to recount the priest’s brief insight into the White Rook’s plight. Steven’s expression grew more solemn with each detail of Archie’s vision.
“No rest for the weary, it seems.” Steven gazed around the circle at each face. “You ready, Emilio?”
“Enough talk.” Emilio kept one eye on Archie as he stepped forward. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Steven turned to Lena. “You still with us?”
“You know the answer to that one,” Lena said. “Where Emilio goes, I go.”
“All right. You two mount up and meet us back here.” Steven locked gazes with the priest. “Archie, you good?”
“I am ready,” he said, “though I fear we may be too late.” His face lost all expression. “I see a white tower surrounded by a sea of black.”
“That can’t possibly be good.” Steven cupped his hand at his mouth and shouted after Lena and Emilio to hurry. He turned to face Audrey and noticed her hands trembling at her side despite the stifling heat and the voluminous cloak draped about her shoulders.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little case of the jitters. That’s all. I’m good to go.”
Steven pulled close to her. “Are you sure?”
Audrey’s eyes narrowed, her voice taking on a new edge. “I’m fine.”
“All right. I guess that leaves…” Steven scanned the area. “Grey?”
Their charcoal-clad mentor had again withdrawn, most likely watching from one of the many shadows in the square. No heartfelt goodbyes. No last words of advice. Merely the certainty that at some point, when the time was right, their paths would cross again.
The roar of Rocinante’s motor returned Steven’s attention to the here and now. Lena and Emilio pulled up astride the metallic beast’s gleaming chrome body, its gentle purr punctuated by the occasional rev of the engine. Audrey and Archie joined them in the street, the bike parked diagonally across the middle of the intersection, and there the four of them waited. Steven had a flash of what Patton must have felt as he looked over his troops before they charged into battle.
“All right, everyone,” Steven said. “Somewhere out there, the White Rook is in it deep, and chances are he doesn’t even know it. I wish I could give you some idea of what to expect or what we’re up against, but as usual, we’re in the dark. It’s just the five of us and you can be damn sure the Black will be there in force. Watch out for yourselves and each other.”
Lena raised a timid hand as if she was addressing a teacher in school. Steven sighed. For all her bluster and bravery, she was still just a seventeen-year-old girl.
“Everything okay, Lena?”
The girl’s trembling mouth turned up in a stubborn grin. “Just a thought. The coffee shop has a double door and it’s the only one big enough for the bike.” A young couple cut through the tight cloister of white cloaks. “No one will give us a second thought.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Pride swelled in Steven’s chest. “All right everyone. Gather round and stay close.”
Steven led the group toward the shop’s open door, one hand clutching the pouch and the other gripped around the bike’s left handlebar. Emilio guided the motorcycle toward the doorway while Lena held tight to Audrey and Archie’s hands, the latter pair flanking the bike on either side. When they reached the door, Steven crossed its open frame, the pouch’s low drone at once comforting and ominous.
Seconds later, a flash of blue-white lightning streaked across the cloudless sky, striking the copper roof of the twenty-story tower at the center of town. As every person in the square jerked their gaze skyward to witness the bizarre lightshow, Steven whispered, “Take us to the White Rook.” The pouch pulsed in his hand, searing his fingers with its heat, and as one, the five stepped through the open doorway and vanished in a flash of silver.
28
Tower
The sky above Atlanta was black, the stars obscured by foreboding thunderheads that stretched from horizon to horizon. The main arteries into and out of downtown sat sluggish and anemic as half a million people hunkered down in the face of the most violent storm to hit the southern metropolis in recent memory. Hail the size of small fists hammered down while gale force winds whipped through the steel and glass canyons of the city. Bolt after bolt of green lightning ripped the sky, the vehement punctuation of Mother Nature’s latest missive to the far too complacent denizens of her little world.
Newscasters up and down the eastern seaboard spent the evening mocking the various meteorologists who had called for clear skies, though no sane person would have dreamed such a drastic shift in weather was possible. Common wisdom explained away the aberration as the exception that defines the rule. A small but vocal minority, however, believed the unprecedented storm a sign of the coming apocalypse. Regardless, all who faced the storm gained a better appreciation for the power of nature unfettered.
Off the beltway in the northwest corner of the city, the twin towers known to locals as the King and Queen dominated the darkened landscape. The regal latticework that crowned each of the two skyscrapers reflected the combined radiance of dozens of white spotlights, their angular spires piercing the night despite the blackened skies and pelting rain. At the base of the two towers, a brick courtyard sat empty save for the illuminated sculpture at its center, a dome divided into four quadrants sitting atop a fountain and circumscribed within an octagonal star. A banshee wind tore at the twin glass and steel edifices and whistled through the lattice walkway that connected the two buildings.
A streak of orange lightning struck between the two towers, not thirty feet from the stony dome at the courtyard’s center. A deafening thunderclap reverberated in the space as five figures stepped out of nothingness into the driving rain. Cloaked in white, the quintet surrounded a wheeled machine of ivory and chrome. Their features inscrutable in the torrential downpour, the five drenched silhouettes scouted the area before converging at the base of one of the towers. A low, throbbing pulse sounded as the last of them joined the circle.
“Any luck?” Steven yelled over the pounding rain and the escalating drone resonating from his right hip, the pouch pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
“I don’t think he’s down here,” Emilio said. “Who in their right mind would stay out in weather like this?”
“Then where is he?” The drone at Steven’s side continued to rise and fall. “The pouch is going nuts.”
“Maybe he’s inside one of the buildings.” Au
drey held up an arm to block the rain from her face. “How are we possibly going to search two whole skyscrapers? It would take days.”
“We won’t have to.” Archie’s words cut through the roar of the downpour as he pointed skyward at the topmost reaches of the nearest tower. “He’s up there.”
Steven peered up through the raging storm. “Are you sure?”
Archie gave a curt nod. “Though the Sight is clouded by the storm, I can tell you with certainty that the person for whom we’re searching waits atop the King tower and is alone.” He retrieved the bishop icon from his pocket and held it before him, its glow growing brighter with each passing second. “But not for very much longer.”
“What is he, crazy?” Audrey shouted over the whipping wind. “With all this lightning, he’s going to get himself killed before the enemy even gets a chance.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Emilio muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steven asked. “You think he wants to die?”
“Look at us, Steven.” Emilio’s tone was flat, pragmatic. “All of us. Before you came along, Archie was stuck on a psych ward, Audrey was lying in her bed waiting to die, and Lena and I were about two seconds from becoming a statistic. Not exactly the dream team I would put together for this pickup game we’ve got going. Is it that big a stretch to think this guy might be on top of a skyscraper during a lightning storm for a reason?”
“You may be right.” Steven studied the shimmering pawn icon in his hand. “But regardless of why he’s up there, we all know what the opposition wants to do. Let’s concentrate on getting our Rook safely away from here. We can sort out the rest later. Any ideas?”
“Maybe this is too obvious,” Audrey asked, “but can the pouch get us up there?”
“I don’t think so. From what Grey told me, the jaunts don’t work like that. Even if I could get the pouch to make such a specific jump, the effort might leave us too drained to fight.”
“What about the bike?” Lena asked Emilio as she stroked Rocinante’s chrome handlebar. “Do you think a jump can cover that kind of distance?”
Pawn's Gambit Page 27