by Simon Archer
“Vanna,” I said seriously, “I’m going to need you to step back.”
She shook her head and adjusted her seat in the grass. “I am not leaving him. Alona, take Meeja back to the house. Tell Styu and Rebekah what is going on but do not tell the children.”
“Mama!” Meeja cried. Alona scooped up the girl, and she wailed again, “Mama!”
“It is okay, baby, everything is going to be okay,” Vanna called after the pair of them.
We heard Meeja’s screams all the way back to the house. I tried to drain them out and focus on the light. I asked it to come forth and help me. As the thought occurred, streaks of light glowed against the skin of my hands and receded up to my forearms. Like a doctor preparing for surgery, I held my hands up and away from me.
“Vanna, you can stay,” I warned, “but you will have to keep your eyes closed. Please.”
Vanna nodded and closed her eyes. She clutched Miji’s hand and held it steady against her lap. Slowly and silently, her lips moved as if reciting a prayer.
I turned my attention back to the light when I saw a large shadow cover the scene. I looked up at my djer and offered him a soft smile. Ffamran’s face, in contrast, was grim and gaunt.
“Is it the corruption?” Ffamran asked the million-dollar questions.
“I guess I’ll find out,” I said.
Then, I placed my hands on the center of Miji’s chest and delved into the light. The streaks transferred from my body to his and spread out like roads on a city map. My inner eye examined the inside of the young boy’s body, trying to find the source of his sudden ailment. Unfortunately, the search did not last long.
At the base of his throat, right where it met the stomach, a black mass swirled and wrapped around his organs. It elongated like a spider stretching its legs. It was a putrid, disgusting thing, though smaller than I had seen in other bodies.
Immediately, I wrapped the light around it. The first step was to contain the corruption, to keep it from spreading. This was something I could do more easily than destroying the corruption altogether. That battle took more light and, consequently, more effort from me. While I had gotten practice since the first time when I had healed Ffamran and the entire town of Remklat, it was best to stage the battle, first cutting it off to weaken the corruption, then gathering my reserves to go in for the kill. If I didn’t, well, I could still knock myself out as I had those times before.
Nerves crept along my skin, and I wiggled my fingers a bit to shake them off. A sudden chill accompanied the nerves. The cold seemed to grow as I urged the light to approach the corruption. With each millimeter, the itchy feeling intensified along with the freezing air.
In the brief moment before touching the corruption, I knew something was wrong. My body screamed at me that this corruption was different from the previous types I’d encountered. Something about this version of the disease was dangerous, and here I was, about to poke it.
Nevertheless, determined to heal Miji, I ventured on and disturbed the corruption. Upon contact, my vision left me and transported me into an oh-so-familiar white space. My body soon followed, with the light trailing in waves behind me.
I stood stock-still as I observed my new surroundings and my new guest. Before me was a thin gentleman with salt and pepper hair, wearing an all-black ensemble.
“It is good to see you again, Martin,” said King Hennar, creator of the corruption.
3
“You have got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed.
“I assure you, Martin, this is no joke,” Hennar said with a smirk. “And I meant it. It is good to see you again.”
“No, it’s not, you lying piece of shit,” I snapped.
“There is no need to be so hostile,” Hennar said pleasantly.
“You haven’t seen hostile,” I sneered. I took a single step forward, and the minute I did, all the light in my hands snuffed out. “What the hell?”
“I suggest you take a step back,” Hennar said.
Wearily, I did as I was told. Immediately, the light returned in full force. It slivered and swayed up my arms. I wiggled my fingers just to comfort myself, and the light followed their movement.
“That is just a precaution,” Hennar explained. “I do not want you to come much closer to me unless you have agreed.”
“Unless that agreement is for you to stop the corruption, then I’ve got nothing to discuss with you,” I said. Then I held out my hands, threatening to blast him as I did before when I healed Ffamran from the same illness.
“I want to play a game with you,” Hennar offered.
I surged the light from my palms, visibly building it up. “I told you. I’m not interested.”
“Then I will just have to kill this boy.” As he said that, Hennar’s own hands started to glow. Instead of bright light, they shimmered with an inky blackness. It looked like moving tattoos as they circled and vibrated off his skin.
“Over my dead body,” I said. With that, I blasted Hennar with two heavy beams of light.
At the center point between us, his dark met my light, and they clashed. When they collided, a thunderous roar echoed in the white space, like a giant gong. They splattered against one another, like paint. They pushed and pulled as Hennar and I battled for dominance.
I stretched out my legs to adopt a stronger stance, yet I couldn’t make any headway. We strained against our stalemate. Well, I strained. Unfortunately, I didn’t see Hennar break into any kind of sweat. If anything, he seemed bored.
“What’s your game?” I shouted over the clatter of the elements. I figured I could hear him out rather than continue to drain my resources in this unmoving game of tug-of-war.
“What was that?” Hennar said.
“I know you heard me, old man,” I shouted, not wanting to repeat myself.
“I will let you know if you relent,” Hennar bargained.
“On the count of three?” I offered.
“If you insist,” Hennar agreed.
“How do I know you’re not going to consume me if I let this down?”
“My word,” Hennar said, exasperated.
“Like that’s worth much,” I replied, though it wasn’t like I had much else to go on.
“One,” Hennar shouted, beginning the countdown. “Two. Three!”
Taking one of the biggest risks of my life, since following a dragon down a well and transporting myself to a different world, I ordered the light back into my hands. I dropped the defense and hoped I wasn’t about to get eaten alive by blackness.
Instead, I saw Hennar’s face across the way. He had also dropped his attack and stood as he had done moments before. It was like nothing had ever happened. Apparently, Hennar wanted to treat it as such.
“Would you like to begin again?” Hennar offered with a half bow.
“Just tell me what you want,” I said, exasperated. I had no desire to play this wicked man’s games, but if he was going to put up that kind of defense against my light, I was in deeper shit than I thought.
“I want to play a game with you,” Hennar repeated, this time slower.
“What game?” I asked.
“You will find out once you agree,” Hennar said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“No dice.” I shook my head. “I need to know what I’m getting into.”
“I didn’t think it would matter,” Hennar taunted, “if I offered the boy’s life as your prize for winning.”
Admittedly, that offer gave me pause. I stopped for a moment and cocked my head at him. I had a sinking suspicion that anything I agreed to was going to screw me royally, but what choice did I have? Miji Dyers was one of the people I cared about most in the world of Insomier, and I wasn’t going to let him die because I didn’t accept Hennar’s challenge.
“If I win,” Hennar went on to say, “you will give me a strand of light.”
“That’s not a thing,” I said because I really believed it wasn’t. “I don’t even think that’s possible.”
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“Did you think it was possible to shoot light from your hands when you first came here? Did you think dragons were real?” Hennar said with malice. “No, you did not because they did not exist in your world.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tried to say with a defensive tone, but I couldn’t convince even myself. How the hell Hennar knew I wasn’t originally from this world baffled me. I could count on one hand the number of people that knew that information, and this asshole sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
“This game is going to require honesty,” Hennar said, “so you should get used to that now.”
“Thanks for the hint,” I said. Then I thought back on his words and wondered something. “Wait, you just want a strand of light. You don’t want to kill the boy?”
“Not unless I have to,” Hennar said with a shrug. “He is more leverage than anything else… as will the other ones be.”
“Other ones?” I leaned my neck forward and blinked several times in surprise. “What other ones?”
Hennar released a chilling laugh that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Did you think this would be the only time we see each other?”
“I really thought it was going to be a one-time thing,” I admitted. “Since that wasn’t really you, I’m guessing this isn’t either.”
“You would be correct,” Hennar confirmed. “But as I mentioned before, each part of the corruption is a part of me so I can visit anytime I want to. I have started to get lonely, so I thought I would see what my favorite dragon king is up to.”
At this revelation, I stared with an open mouth. The fact that the last remaining dragons claimed me as their king was something I had told no one. Literally not a living human. The only beings on the planet that knew were me and the seven dragons.
“What the actual hell?” I asked. “Who are you?”
With a flourish, Hennar bowed. “King Hennar, who requests an audience with King Martin.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
“You do not like your new title, my lord?” Hennar taunted.
“No,” I snarled, “you do not deserve the right to call me that. You have no right to address me at all as far as I’m concerned.”
“What do you say, Martin?” Hennar said, reverting back to my real name and not my title. “Want to play?”
I openly rolled my eyes and didn’t bother to hide my irritation. I sucked my teeth and glared at the man standing feet from me.
While he had appropriately monologued the last time we met, I still didn’t quite understand why he was doing what he was doing. The desire to hurt people was incomprehensible to me. He claimed it was to make the world as he wanted, and that this whole thing was a selfish act. Where did those urges come from, unless from some broken psyche? Apparently, fantasy worlds had their own brand of psychopaths.
Curiosity pricked at my brain. I wondered if I could bend Hennar’s own rules to my benefit, if I could pry information out of him that could help us defeat him.
“I have a condition of my own,” I proclaimed.
Hennar’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Go on.”
“Every time we play a game, I get to ask you a question, and you have to answer me honestly,” I said.
“As long as you agree to the same,” Hennar said, the wrinkles around his eye deepening with his sick smile.
I expected as much from him, so I quickly agreed. “Sure. I can handle that.”
“Then you agree to the game?” Hennar double-checked.
“Let’s play, I guess,” I confirmed.
Hennar flicked his wrist with a flourish. A two-person dining set appeared before us. It was as black as his robes and looked rigid and uncomfortable. Atop the small square table was a chess set.
My face fell. “Seriously?”
“You do know how to place, don’t you?” Hennar asked as he crossed to the chair closest to him and sat down.
“I mean, yeah,” I said, letting my unease slip through.
It had been a long time since I’d played. My father had taught me at a young age since he’d been captain of his chess club in high school and college, but I didn’t have the patience for the game. He used to tease me that I could sit at a canvas for hours on end, but I couldn’t sit still for one game of chess. I tried to explain to him that when painting, my hand was always in motion, and my mind always active. In chess, there was a lot of waiting and plotting. I didn’t like being dependent upon others to make their move so I could make mine. Painting was a solo art for a reason. Still, we’d played a lot together, and I remembered getting relatively good at it.
Hennar opened his hand, inviting me to sit. Cautiously, I pulled out the chair and sat. As predicted, the chair was stiff and hard against my body. I shifted a bit and tucked my legs atop it, crisscrossed. I slouched a little and leaned my elbows on the table and then my head in my hands. I chanced a glance up at Hennar, who looked at me with one raised eyebrow.
“What?” I asked.
“There are some things so obviously foreign about you,” Hennar commented with a straight face, “but then there are times you seem so familiar to me.”
Now it was my turn to look at him strangely. “Okay,” I said, unsure how to take that.
Hennar brushed the comment away like dissipating a puff of smoke. “Please disregard my nostalgia. Now, shall we play? Black or white?”
I looked down at the wooden pieces, painted in a pearl white and a black opal, respectively. The pieces were polished and intricately carved, with decorations on the knights and the spires on the bishops looked as sharp as needle points.
I plucked a white pawn and a black pawn off the board and switched them about in my hands under the table. Then, with closed fists, I offered my hands out to Hennar. “Pick one.”
He pointed to my right hand, so I opened it. Inside was a black pawn. I put both pieces back on their place on the board. Hennar then spun the board so that the white pieces now faced me, and the black faced him.
Without hesitation, I placed the pawn in front of the king two spaces out to the center of the board. The game had begun.
“Were you a chess player in your other life?” Hennar wondered casually.
“Am I going to have to endure a conversation with you as well as a game?” I asked as he mirrored my movement and placed his pawn to meet mine.
“We can play in silence if you prefer,” Hennar offered. “I find a simple conversation makes the game go by faster, and if we are going to be spending this much time together, it makes sense to get to know one another, don’t you think?”
“How often do you expect to be seeing me?” I pushed out my bishop to the side of the board and eyed him.
“Is that your question? The one you wish me to answer honestly?” Hennar said as he moved another pawn to come out and stand next to the first one, putting my pawn in danger.
“I don’t know,” I replied as I ignored his pawn and instead moved my queen out into the fray. “I just want to know how many more people are going to get hurt.”
“Quite a few, I am afraid.” Hennar as he studied the board for a moment before taking my pawn.
“Then you’ll have many more chances to beat me, Hennar.” I smiled at him. “This time, though, you’ve lost.”
“What?” Hennar looked down at the board, shock written on all his features. “What do you mean?”
I picked up my queen and slid her along diagonally toward an open spot near his king, where the pawn he had used to take my piece had once been. I took my finger off the queen. She wobbled a little and then righted on the square, ending the whole game.
“Checkmate,” I announced.
The queen put the king in check, but there was nowhere for him to move his king. He had to take the queen, and he moved his king to do so.
“Ah, ah, ah,” I warned with a single finger. I tapped the top of the bishop I’d moved early on, who was protecting the queen.
Hennar slum
ped back in his chair and let his legs fall to the ground. “You played me.”
“That’s the point of the game,” I said without a hint of remorse. “You will leave Miji alone now?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “He will be fine now?”
“Yes, the corruption will be contained and will not grow,” Hennar growled at me. “Next time, though, I won’t lose so easily.” He glanced at the board, and the look he gave it made me wonder if he’d let me win because it reminded me of pool sharks. The kind who would let you win a few rounds before getting you to bet something that really mattered.
“Hang on,” I said abruptly. “You said you would heal him. That you wouldn’t kill the boy.”
“I never said I would heal him,” Hennar corrected, finally meeting my eye. “I said I would not kill him. The corruption will not kill him, but it will sicken him.”
“That’s not…” I growled, but Hennar cut me off.
“Until next time, King Martin.” He smirked at me. “Maybe you can play for that next time.”
With that declaration, Hennar disappeared before my eyes. Slowly, the whiteness dissolved before me and morphed back into the world of Insomier. I was back by the trees, kneeling over Miji’s body with Vanna across from Ffamran guarding over us and me.
“Martin!” Vanna exclaimed. She didn’t move toward me as she cradled Miji in her arms. “What happened? Where did you go? You looked like Maji, caught in a trance.”
“I tried to heal Miji, free him from the corruption,” I said, my own voice foreign to me.
“Is he going to be okay?” Vanna asked, worry coating every word.
“For a while, yeah,” I said.
As if on cue, Miji’s eyes fluttered open. “Mama?” his weak voice croaked.
Vanna released a cry and hugged Miji to her breast. She rocked him back and forth and kissed the top of his head repeatedly. I watched Vanna’s relief and joy and tried to feel the same. Instead, dread had made a home in my stomach, and I didn’t think it was going to vacate any time soon.
Ffamran seemed to catch on to my distress because he paged me mentally. “What happened? Did you kill the corruption?”
