“Checkmate.”
He thought he had the upper hand. I had convinced him of this. My manoeuvring goaded him to this end.
I began to laugh.
“What’s so funny, August?” Chester the Penguin said. “There’s checkmate! It’s done! You’re finished!”
“Aren’t you going to capture my king, Chester, O lord of the Black Pieces?”
“Why should I? He’s held in by my rook, a bishop and a knight. There’s no move he can make that will save his skin, and none of your pieces are in a place where they might assail me! The day is mine, Wahnsinger! Admit it!”
“I admit nothing until you have taken the king.”
“Fine!”
Chester moved the rook to the king’s square, and pushed the defeated monarch over.
“Are we satisfied?”
I laughed again. This laughter was deep. It began in my diaphragm and worked its way up until exploding out of my mouth. “Yes!”I said between belts of uproarious mirth. “We are indeed satisfied!”
“It was a good game August. I was surprised even, usually you’re far better than this, but today–”
“Today is not over, Chester Blackpieces! Seat yourself and have at you! This game has only begun!”
“What the deuce are you going on about, Wahnsinger?”
“You think you have checkmate, but you’re wrong! Since hostilities erupted between the black pieces and the white, the White King disguised himself as a simple peasant – and left a deadly assassin in his stead!”
“No!”
“Yes! Your rook is no more!” I ceremoniously pushed the piece over. “Now, having the ruse uncovered, and received his payment, the assassin-king leaves the war-ravaged countryside in peace, only to slay again another day!”
Chester’s dismay grew into bitter frustration as I took the king piece off the board. “How can this be? Which pawn is your king?”
“You will never know until you have captured each and every one of them!”
Chester examined the board with tenacity, considering the moves of every pawn and every pawn’s retainer. He had captured the better half of my forces, this was true, but Chester was always effective at wars of attrition. It was the endgame and the diplomacy where he lacked, and in his weaknesses I found my strengths. Besides, he had yet to take my queen!
Several more skirmishes erupted; Chester sent the full brunt of his forces after my pawns, which he should have noted I had hesitated to sacrifice. The board was overrun with little white peons fighting a fight that greater men would have already lost. The battle was not entirely without boons for my sake; while Chester came close to capturing my king-incognito, my leader always slipped his grasp. In the meantime, I took several of his pawns, a knight and his other rook.
I finally positioned my queen to seize upon his king. In a bold, sacrificial move, he placed his last knight in the way of my lady. “A desperate act, indeed!” I said, “that you would put such an heroic warrior before the wrath of the White Lady!”
I swooped in and captured the knight without abatement.
Chester let a wry smile cross his face. “Who now is the fool, Wahnsinger? It was never my knight’s intention to capture your queen – oh no! Rumours of her desperation and loneliness have trickled out since the revelations about the king’s disappearance were made public...”
“No, she wouldn’t!”
“Oh, Wahnsinger, she did!”
“The wanton hussy!”
“And she told the knight everything!”
“No!”
“Oh, Wahnsinger, I know it hurts – to have victory stolen away through such despicable acts! But take this as solace – after the queen had taken her fill of forbidden love, her conscience returned to her. She could not stand to live with herself after betraying the noble monarch who had sacrificed his privileges and title in order to preserve his country.”
“But... my lady!”
“While in the throes of despair, she pressed the knight’s mightiest blade against her throat—”
“Say no more! Say no more, O vile penguin!”
“She opened herself up, and made blood atonement for the great and virtuous man whom she had betrayed!”
“But does the knight feel no remorse?”
“He is a black knight, Mr. Wahnsinger. Remorse is not his code. He got everything he needed from her. She is now just another body to put into a shallow grave.”
“But if he got everything he needed—”
“Yes, I know where your king now hides!”
My king stood only a few desperate moves away from victory. It was risky, but the chance was there. He could no longer disguise himself. Once word reached him of his wife’s treachery, he tore his robes and took a crown of steel upon his head. “Onward!” he cried, “to victory and ruin! To grandest life and noblest death! My warriors! My men! Follow me – for the sake of the White Kingdom!”
Rising again as the White King, he moved diagonally, one space at a time, towards the black king, who now had none to come to his defence.
“Checkmate!” I screamed.
“No!”
“Checkmate!”
“Never!”
“I shall have my revenge, O Black Warlord who is not fit to be called a king!”
“Ahhhh!”
As my king approached Chester’s, the Black Warlord fell off the side of the board. “Then victory is mine!” I declared. “Admit it, Chester, I have won!”
Chester tried to bite his lip, and was frustrated in the attempt, as he didn’t have any. He glared at the board, then at me. Finally, he reached out his flipper and moved his last bishop to the centre of the board.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It is beyond your reasoning, Wahnsinger Whitelord!”
“No, I demand to know what is happening! You have lost!”
“Do you think my black bishop was a good bishop? No, haha! He comes from a long line of priests trained up after the Northern Crusades and forced conversions under King Gustav I! He has used the Holy Mother Church well to feast upon the backs of the poor and line his and his illegitimate heirs’ pockets with gold – but his cassock was merely a cloak for heathen darkness, and power that few could comprehend!”
“He isn’t about to do then what I think he’s about to do?”
“Oh, yes, Wahnsinger, he is!”
“He wouldn’t summon the Midgard serpent?”
“And why not?”
“It would be the end of everything!”
“Yes!”
“The world will die!”
“Yes!”
“Valhalla with it!”
“Yes, yes, yes to all of it! You see, Wahnsinger Whitelord, if the Black King cannot have victory – then no one can! See, now he begins to sing the song to end the world. Here, he gathers the components with which he shall summon the Yormungander! There, he sets his unholy altar before Yggdrasil, the World-Tree!”
“But Chester...”
“Yes?”
“Would not the components to perform the Rite What Endeth the Worlds be rare, exotic and difficult to find?”
“Indeed, they would be.”
“Has the countryside not been ruined with years of warfare, and has not chaos plunged this realm into the pits of confusion?”
“Well, of course!”
“How do you intend to find the many lost relics required to summon the Yormungander?”
“With force! Hence why my Black Knight now culls the countryside, slaughtering and maiming all who stand in his way!”
“But the king has returned, Chester.”
Finally, Chester turned silent. The weight of my observation cast itself over his expression.
“And,” he said tremulously, “what difference would that make?”
“The people love their king.” I let silence punctuate this point before I drew it to the logical conclusion: “And they will not abide a Black Knight rampaging across their lands while their lord yet lives.”
“Curses!”
“Yes!” I shouted as I pour two dozen white pawns onto the board, “you now have a peasant army to contend with!”
The pawns struck down the Black Knight!
“Your plans have come to naught!”
The White King led his people against the Black Bishop.
“Victory is... ours!”
“NOOOO!”
As the White King overtook the Black Bishop, Chester’s other forces scattered in fear.
“The White Kingdom stands victorious!” I proclaim. “Long live the king!”
Chester balled up his flipper into something resembling a fist. “Curse you, Wahnsinger! A million curses upon thee! You have foiled my plans for the last time!”
“I shall be waiting for you when you assail my country next. Understand that with every new assault, my people’s courage is bolstered, their will for independence redoubled!”
“We shall see. We shall see.”
“Anyway, that was a good game.”
“Oh! Quite!”
“Your opening moves really did throw me for a loop. Fortunately we added those rules to account for espionage and what-not.”
“I still haven’t quite gotten used to them, but a true military mind should never keep them out of one's strategies."
"Or contingency plans."
"Too true, Wahnsinger, too true."
I thanked Chester for a rousing good time and began making my way towards the train. I will be in New Jersey soon, attending the Wicked Winter Renaissance Faire. The chess match really was an ideal preparation for the event, what with its intrigues and collusion, not to mention the gridwork layout.
I am looking forward to attending and getting to mingle with the forthformed representatives of many different mystic and scientific societies. I am particularly anticipating audiences with Jay Lake, Catherynee Valente and G.D. Falksen. I shall also be meeting my collaborator there, Mr. Williams, and his lovely wife, Mrs. Brit Frady-Williams, who incidentally has designs to put me in a cape and have me trot about on a stage. Well, I see no reason to disoblige her, so if you want to see me and many others who will assuredly be better looking than I tromp about on a catwalk, then by all means join us tonight!
Hopefully it shall be an exciting weekend, indeed.
