18 18. Chess

Sylvia sat by the river.

Her friends were messing about in the water. They had their shirts off, their boots back on the banks. Zair put his hand on Azra's bareback, then smiled, pointing. Azra shook his head, but mercy was for the weak; Zair shoved him into the water. Falling, Azra thrashed around and screamed in pain. The riverbed had pebbles and stones. Screaming transformed into laughter.

Sylvia's fingers twisted over one another. A week ago, they had been claws.

The sun was hot and red.

A self-conscious Louis had gotten into the deep water where his big figure wouldn't be seen, splashing to where the severed church bell was dumped. He couldn't enjoy himself, looking at Sylvia, his red face bobbing in the water.

Everyone came ashore. Shirts were pulled back on. Boots strapped up.

Zair reached into his bag and took out an enamelled box.

'I know a game we can play. Chess.'

'What?' Azra said.

'It's called chess, It's something new. I got the box from Peaks. He said he'd gotten it from a shop in the east after having sacked a city. He wandered into the middle of an abandoned house and found this game.'

'How do you play it?' Lou asked.

'On a board,' Zair said.

Louis scooped up a stone and tossed it at the sunken bell. The stone hit the side and made a sing-song echo.

Azra laughed. Then looked disapproving.

'One day you'll throw a rock at that bell and it'll bounce right back and kill you.'

Lou gave the bell a sad look.

'That's what I hope every day,' he muttered.

They played chess at the church entrance.

Zair propped the board out on the stone stair-rest. He took small figures out and placed them on opposite ends.

'These are knights. Your knights against my knights. That's the game.'

He gestured to the board.

'You advance your figure diagonally using only your squares. For instance, if you're playing as the white knights you can only move using the white squares, and the black knights can only use black squares. You win by claiming the other person's king. Are you ready? Great. Then let's begin.'

Zair pushed his black knight along.

Sylvia shifted in her chair. Very bored.

'How did you learn?' she asked.

'Caleb taught me.'

'Not Sir Peaks?'

'When it comes to chess, Cal's a master,' Zair looked up from the board. 'He knows every move in the history of time.'

'Has chess been around that long?'

Zair wasn't taking his move.

'Why, yes. It has. Apparently, they used to play it back where I was from, or so he told me. Cal was very knowledgeable on that subject.' Zair broke from the game, which was forgotten now. His hand hovering, he spoke in a sobered tone. 'So he started telling me all about my people and how we all descended from royals: he said we used to be kings but then all the knights came to our lands and sacked them.'

'Did he apologise?'

'No need. Cal said we're going to continue killing each other for the next five hundred or so years so there'd be no point whatsoever in apologising this early.'

The game went slow. Sylvia had a reluctant hand, cautious of making wrong moves. She found herself liking her king and all his knights. Nobody was going to get taken. Yet her eyes kept drawing to the gargoyles. Their retching mouths and bald heads looked so violent in the sunlight.

Chess was absorbing. They sat up and let themselves get soaked up in the game. It was another few moves before they talked again.

Sylvia folded her arms, thinking about the game, thinking about Cal.

'Sir Caleb's a fascinating person,' she said.

He understands a whole lot more than I understand,' Zair said, his eyes lifting up: 'I'm guessing he understands more you can understand.'

Sylvia blinked

'What exactly do you mean by that?'

'We're mere mortals. By the way, he talks, Cal's been up to the stars already and he knows what's coming down from them.'

Sylvia rested on her hands. 'Well, what does he talk about?'

'For example,' Zair began, elbow sliding on the board; did you know the Earth revolves around the Sun?'

Sylvia looked up. It couldn't be. 'What?'

'I know, right. Insanity. It contradicts everything we've been told —'

Their hands swiped over the board, taking quick moves, the game moving faster.

'Or, for example,' Zair went on. 'That the Earth isn't flat, it's round.'

'What?'

Zair wasn't finished: 'The universe was created by a giant explosion!'

'Ludicrous!'

'People are descended from apes!'

Sylvia knocked over her chess pawn 'Oh my God!'

She slumped back in her chair, more out-of-ease than ever. Thinking, she chewed her palm. Sylvia couldn't imagine being descended from apes...now wolves, that was a different story; where did she fit into all this?

Zair coughed, and Sylvia's attention was drawn back to the board.

Nearly all her chess pawns were missing. And like that, Zair had won the game. Sylvia, she shrugged — now, wasn't that just the way it was?

Her eyes flitted to Azra. He was distracting. Look at him there: stooped across the board, arms pressed together, his eyes glinting in the heat. She supposed Zair had a better view from his side of the board. When Azra looked down at him, he would turn his head and make faces.

Zair pushed a figure along, towards the pawn.

Sylvia threw up a hand in surrender.

'Go ahead, take my knight.'