Party of Five - A game of Po

by Vasileios Kalampakas

  ***

  The ship was the Mary Drunkard; a twelve-gun fast runner, light and deadly as a hawk when it was first put to sea. Three hundred and twenty three years later though, it was a small miracle or perhaps even a feat of magic that vessel still remained afloat. Anyone who could afford a bit of common sense would have bet an arm and a leg that a ship filled with gaping holes and made out of maggot-infested, rotten wood would happily sink to the bottom like a shapely rock. The few unlucky souls who made those kinds of bets gave a small bump in the always-in-demand, but never-really-breaking-it-big, prosthetics industry.

  The original owner, a rich eccentric drunkard that liked to spend his vast wealth in pointless exotic travels and self-inflicted adventures, had indeed named the ship in one of his drunken binges. If one were to judge by the way it teeter-tottered ungainly as it tried to navigate the unbudging fog, it was a very fitting name indeed.

  Lernea looked skeptical, while Theo sported a withdrawn expression, thoughtful to the point of weariness. It had everything to do with the game-board he was glued to, its multi-colored tiles and numerous pieces too much for the untrained eye to handle.

  “What if...” Lernea suggested at one point and inched a finger closer to one of the pieces. Theo stopped her in her tracks with a single, wild-eyed glance. She drew her hand back onto her lap where Bo sat, her bunny eyes going back and forth between Theo and the captain, as if a tiny spark was all that was needed to ignite a deadly silence into a veritable mayhem, even though all they were doing was sitting comfortably around a table, sipping some tea and playing Po.

  “No. If he moves his Guardian onto an Assailant’s tile then all the outbound Runners will be cut to pieces. I’ll never be able to summon another Army like that. And it looks like this will be one of those games,” Theo said nibbling at one of his fingernails.

  “What kind of game would that be, lad?” Captain Van der Breckenrod asked with an abruptly aroused suspicion, holding his chin up; the pipe in his mouth followed suit and remained stuck upwards as it glowed, ember-red after he drew heavily on it.

  “Po,” replied Theo without skipping a beat or breaking his concentration. The Captain looked around him for a moment, then looked at the table and let the smoke out of his nostrils. A small cloud hovered between him and Theo before he finally rolled his eyes and as if waking from a dream, fluttered his eyelids and said, “Of course, Po!”.

  Bo fidgeted in Lernea’s lap; she couldn’t sit still. She had been growing more and more nervous by the minute. She voiced to Lernea and Theo, for their minds alone to hear: “He suspects something. He knows. He’s hatching a plan, we’re in grave danger!”

  Lernea tried to control her breathing; her face jerked slightly, involuntarily, as if something had bitten her. She picked up Bo and looked her in the eyes, those wonderful red-hued bunny eyes with the propensity to spout fiery wrath when provoked. Bo looked rather adorable in her fluffy white bunny form, and Lernea was a young woman of noble heart, scion to a kingdom and very lady-like, good and proper in her manners, just and swift with her bow. But she was an inch away from actually breaking the bunny’s neck, and Bo could feel she was at the edge of a chasm.

  “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, you were afraid, for some reason well-founded or not that a particular set of events might occur in the future. Like taking an arrow to your knee that would prevent you from living the life of an adventurer. Or some stranger you just met was awfully weird and had really bad bladder control on top of a drinking problem that made you suspicious of him. That man would not constitute a let’s say, clear and present danger against your person, without showing overt aggressiveness in the form of killing you outright, in your sleep, or at least trying to throw you overboard to the killer whales, now. In which case I would be more than happy to do something about it to the best of my ability. Seeing though, as there isn’t any evidence to support such a claim, I would be remiss to not point out that going on and on about a hypothetical situation without any basis on reality bent as it may be under certain circumstances can drive a person mad. It would thus be, by any account, not unlikely for a person under duress to be driven into acts of temporary insanity as can be proven under law, to which extent said person might not be held liable for his actions and be set free, even after killing said person with the imaginary fears. Wouldn’t you agree, overall, gentlemen?” Lernea said without tearing her eyes away from Bo who remained perfectly still, soaking in what was mostly intended for her ears.

  Captain Van der Breckenrod looked at Lernea sideways for a moment and then looked at the glass in his hand. There was a little tiny piece of handicraft floating in it, an umbrella or some would argue, a parasol and it was slowly sinking in the dark, cherry red mixture of unidentifiable alcohol and rum. He downed the glass in one go, frowned heavily for a while, checked the bottom of the glass for signs of more liquor and then looked at her and told Lernea, the tiny umbrella still stuck on his beard:

  “I, for one, Miss Testarossa, am agreed. I am quite agreeable a person, after all,” he said and threw away the tiny umbrella with the intention of sending it overboard. Instead, it somehow stopped in the air and flew around in circles and settled on Theo’s hair, who was too preoccupied with planning his next move to afford the most perfunctory of looks. He did nod though, but only to himself in relation to a possible move he was contemplating.

  “That’s quite alright, Mr. Van der Breckenrod. Silence is after all, a common indicator of approval. Isn’t it?” Lernea said and Bo seemed to nod imperceptibly. She remained silent indeed, and almost managed to look prudish somehow.

  “Well, if my crew is any indication, you are spot on,” the old pirate said and raised his glass. It was pretty soon floating mid-air in the direction of the ramshackle captain’s cabin. Lernea had noticed a lot of that was going on around the ship; sails hoisting themselves, ropes being tied up as if by way of magic, giant waterproof holes in the hull. Yet it had nothing to do with magic, or else Bo would have at least found a real possible threat to take into account. It had something to do with ghosts and Theo was the only one who could see them, but talk to them as well. It was all about Rho, the ever-present life force of sorts that exists in everything living, according to what Theo had been taught. Somehow, that even involved the undead.

  “Still, a skeleton crew; no pun intended. How do you manage?” Lernea asked and put Bo down on the deck. Her voice was weary, but noticeably calm.

  “How do you mean?” the captain said while scanning the board of Po with a squinted gaze.

  “I mean, it’s just you and what was it, three ghosts?” she said and Theo nodded reassuringly to her. He had made his move and thus was now aware of what it was that Lernea was talking about. “You’ve been lost at sea for fifteen years. Don’t you find it, taxing? I mean, isn’t there a home you’d like to get back to? At some point?”

  “Ah. I’ve turned the sea into my wife and mistress; this ship is my home, and the bottom will be my grave if all goes well,” the captain said nodding to himself. “Sometimes though, I do wake up and see what’s for breakfast and I wish I were dead, yes. But then I’m reminded I might end up as ghost crew in a ghost ship and I just know the kind of heartless bastards that run those ships,” he said and gave the main mast an angry, crazed stare. “That brings me back to my senses,” he said and took a swig from his pipe before moving a pawn shaped like an extravagantly built windmill to a blue tile on the Po board.

  “Interesting,” said Theo and reshuffled himself in his seat. He was rather more quiet and thoughtful than his usual self. He hadn’t raised many questions since he had woken up, and he had made no mention of Tejwel, the bear involved in whatever that thing they blew up in Tallyflop was. Theo must’ve thought him a real friend indeed though, judging by the way he so easily and quite impressively killed the Ygg as if they were nothing more than monstrous dolls at play. It had certainly had some effect on him; he sometimes appeared grim and boring, all grown-up. Even the g
ame they had been playing seemed utterly drab, and he seemed to be enthralled in it.

  “What is it that’s interesting exactly? I haven’t heard of this game before. All I see is a mosaic of tiles painted on an irregularly shaped board, and lots of different pieces made out of all sorts of things. Not to mention you’ve been playing for four hours straight,” Lernea said and sat up straight in the utilitarian stool. She produced a comb out of a small pocket of her vest, and began combing her hair. Apart from not doing much to rectify the sad affair that her hair had been reduced to, the combing had the deleterious effect of grains of sand falling onto the game-board with a rasping, cluttering sound.

  “Could you do that someplace else?” Theo said while the captain extended a hand blindly to receive his flying, refilled glass of the cocktail he was drinking, complete with a tiny umbrella and everything, up to and including a slice of pineapple. Lernea looked at Theo and noticed his stare wasn’t the usual bland-eyed stare he seemed to confront the world at large with; it had a purpose and a hint of ire this time. She stopped combing her hair and apologized, though she hadn’t expected anyone to notice.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise a little sand was that much of a problem.”

  “This is a game of Po. Sand is definitely a real problem.”

  “What’s so special about this game?”

  “Everything!” the captain roared, and Theo nodded, intently fixed on the game-board.

  “It is just a game, isn’t it?”

  “You do realize games are simulations, don’t you?” the captain said, and the dead stuffed parrot hanging onto his shoulder seemed to nod the way the old pirate made a vibrant gesture with his hands, roughly shaping up a sphere in the air.

  “I thought games were supposed to be fun,” Lernea said and noticed Bo was looking at the pirate intently, ears standing tall and upright like antennae. Though she remained silent, Lernea felt she was ready to absorb everything the captain was saying. Theo, on the other hand, was looking at the game-board with a heavy frown, too absorbed in planning his strategy.

  “They have to be fun, so people will want to play them. Do keep in mind, people’s idea of fun differs greatly. For instance, Mr. Gunnadeer, my navigator, while he was still alive, thought it’d be fun to throw away all the navigating equipment.”

  Lernea nodded with a frown, while the captain let the barbed comment sink in. After seemingly observing a moment of silence, the captain spoke again:

  “We’re not having that discussion, again, Mr. Gunnadeer,” he said flatly and drew on the pipe. “You see, Ms. Testarossa, fun and games can be quite productive past-times. The risk-taking, the strategy involved, the planning, the logistics of the thing, your opponent and his idea of you, your idea of him...” he said and straightened the dead parrot on his shoulder. “If that’s detailed enough, it’s like war and all that fighting that goes on and on everywhere. But if you play it out first, in something as innocuous looking as this little board of Po, it might show you an advantageous situation, a way out of trouble or a way into it. You might learn a winning strategy, or the cost of defeat. It’s more of a tool, Po. It has the added benefit it’s pretty hard to injure yourself with. Unlike sword-fighting and full-scale war.”

  “So in essence, it’s like Zatrik,” Lernea said nodding. Both the captain and Theo were instantly adamant in their rebuttal.

  “It’s nothing like Zatrik!” they said in one voice and glowered at her for a moment.

  “No need to get excited. I’ll take your word for it,” Lernea said and noticed Bo was nowhere to be seen. Which was quite unsettling knowing she could flame her eyes up in a split second and start fire-balling everything for no apparent reason. Adding her latest streak of paranoia did not help either. “Theo, have you seen the bunny?”

  “What?”

  “Bo, the bunny. The white magical bunny?”

  “No. But she must be aboard the ship. I can sense her aura.”

  “It’s good to know you’re keeping tabs,” Lernea said and went off to find Bo. Perhaps she just wanted to converse with Lernea in a slightly more secluded spot - the ship offered plenty of those.

  “I’m not doing that; I’m playing Po,” he said long after Lernea had left the table. Stringing words together rather than someone talking, his eyebrows raised in a wide arch, the captain asked Theo: “Whose turn is it?”

  “Turn? I thought we were playing real-time.”

  “If we’d been playing real-time, this would’ve been over in a few minutes,” the captain said in disbelief.

  “Then why haven’t you overrun me already?”

  “I’m too drunk to play real-time Po in real time. So I take turns with myself, in-between drinks, mostly,” the captain admitted.

  “You do not sound inebriated,” Theo said, coounting with one hand silently.

  “No, I don’t slur. But I’m so drunk right now, I couldn’t put my finger to my nose without losing an eye.”

  “Why would you want to put your finger to your nose?” Theo asked, counting tiles on the board.

  “Why should I know? I’m drunk, remember?”

  “That sounds more like an excuse, actually,” Theo commented, lazily.

  “Well even if it is, I don’t care, because... I’m drunk! It’s a beaut, isn’t it?” the captain exclaimed enthusiastically.

  “Land ho!” came a shout suddenly. It was Lernea and she sounded positively enthused as well.

  “What? That’s impossible!” the captain said with an unnervingly confused, drunken grin, spilling a good portion of his drink onto the deck.

  “I don’t think it is,” Theo said and looked around him, the tiny umbrella still stuck in his dreadlocks. The fog was clearing up; the first purely golden rays of sun shafted through from above. It was as if someone had delineated an invisible line on some grandiose map, where one side was all grey and bland and the other side was shiny, green and sported cute depictions of butterflies and cupids. It looked like the ship had just passed it and emerged on the fancy, nice side of the map.

  “So, it worked,” Bo sent to Lernea’s mind happily. She was standing precariously on the ship’s prow, like a living figurehead, eyes slightly glowing orange, not unlike tiny beacons.

  “What did you do?” Lernea said with a wide, appreciative smile.

  “Not much, really,” Bo sent to Lernea’s mind with a sigh. It seemed like the perfect answer to Lernea for a moment; her mind was indeed elsewhere.

  Her gaze wandered up and down the coastline that unfurled itself graciously. The sun was almost noon-high, shining with all its might. Its warmth was a pleasant contrast to the fresh, icy breeze; they were still someplace cold but at least there was warmth to be found in the daylight. At the farthest reaches, Lernea could still make out large rocky cliffs and islets. A spatter of snow and ice hugged their topsides. But the way the ship was pointed, they were sailing straight for a small bay, surrounded by golden-brown thickets. In the distance beyond, a hilly terrain formed, slightly sloping into a grey phantom vision of a mountain ridge. What was more telling, she could see thin columns of smoke rising up from the bay.

  “Look! Civilization! Village people! We’re saved!” Lernea exclaimed with a beaming smile, managing to not throw up her arms in the air in a childish fashion at the last instant. “What did you do?” she said and helped up Bo like one would a furry trophy or a lovable pet. She restrained herself from squeezing in a damaging way.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. I just unlocked the rudder,” Bo sent to her mind. It felt like she was mildly confused herself.

  “By using magic?”

  “No, with my paw,” Bo sent and as if to illustrate the point, nudged Lernea with a paw in a cat-like manner.

  “That’s all it took?”

  “Pretty much,” she sent and her bunny eyes blinked in a sort of animal way.

  “So we were going in circles all this time?”

  “From what I can gather,” Bo sent and Lernea put the bunny down on
the deck again. She put a finger to her lips and raised an eyebrow. It was a deeply concerned expression, the one usually associated with decisions that put men at the gallows and condemned young women to unhappy wedlocks.

  “That would mean it was either done on purpose or that this man hasn’t been near a ship before in his life,” Lernea whispered to herself.

  “That’s a fair assessment,” Bo sent and felt uneasy. It was either the feeling of hungering for some fresh lemon-grass or the wary look on Lernea’s face.

  “It means... You were right all along,” Lernea whispered so as not to be overheard.

  “About what?” Bo sent, scurrying around, sniffing the air which was filled with the currents of a salty breeze and completely lacked the pleasant brusqueness and faint bitterness of lemon.

  “You were right to distrust this man,” Lernea said in a hushed voice, leaning towards the bunny, nodding slightly over her shoulder. “We’re in terrible danger,” she hissed and her hands slowly began reaching for her bow and arrow.

  “We are? Why?” Bo sent, looking up to Lernea uncannily.

  “Because, he’s lied to us,” came Lernea’s hissed answer.

  “But, we’re clearly out of the fog. We’re heading for a harbor. It looks safe enough now,” Bo sent. The bunny made a grumbling, slightly disquieting stomach noise; Bo’s hunger was now audible.

  “It could be a trap. There could be armed men waiting for us. Or assassins might try and have a go at us while we least expect it. I’m not waiting around for that to happen,” Lernea mumbled under her breath, the lines on her face taut with determination.

  “Right now?” Bo asked with a gleamy haze in the bunny’s eyes. One of her bunny ears dropped suddenly, dejectedly.

  “In our sleep. Murderous, cantankerous bastard that he is, he’ll slit our throats and leave our blood to dry on his deck before skinning us alive, parading us like animals to his alien masters,” she said and turned around to face the pair of Theo and the captain, still engrossed in their game of Po. Her face was darker somehow, seething with a devout sense of anger, liable to explode at any moment.

  “Oh, there’s that, I guess,” Bo sent, before realizing the import of Lernea’s words. “We’re in terrible danger!” she sent to Lernea and Theo as she realized it, but her brother barely acknowledged the message, rolling his eyes for a moment and sparing a glimpse at the sky, as if he half-expected death from above. The next instant he shrugged and went back to the board of Po and his game.

  “Reveal thyself for what you truly are, you whited sepulcher of a man!” Lernea shouted with an arrow strung in her bow, ready to let it fly. It was squarely aimed at the captain, who turned to face her with a blank stare.

  “But it’s me, Theo! That’s my natural hair color!” Theo proclaimed, showing his silver-white dreadlocks with a confused, consternated smile.

  “Not you, by Svarna’s calling! Him!” Lernea nodded and slightly rocked her bow towards the captain.

  “The ghost?” Theo asked with a furrowed brow and pointed with his left thumb to thin air next to him. Lernea closed her eyes for the barest moment and allowed herself a sigh of frustration.

  “Him! The captain!” Lernea yelled and purposefully took a few steps toward the two of them. “Stand still! Do or say nothing! Explain yourself! Why was the helm locked into a turn?” she yelled and Bo’s eyes flared up. Bo made a slow, rumbling noise; it was her stomach, literally dying for some grub.

  “I never was partial to maritime affairs, that’s true. But these are hard times,” the pirate captain said with some weariness in his voice. He stood up and looked Lernea in the eye, before averting his gaze and bowing ever so slightly.

  “I said, don’t say anything! Your beguiling charms and spells have been swept away! Explain yourself!” she demanded authoritatively once more, without really taking into account it was impossible for most people to speak without uttering audible words. She was a bit nervous, it seemed.

  “I don’t think he can explain himself without talking,” Theo said and nodded reassuringly, mostly to himself. Lernea squinted a bit, and seemed to give the notion some thought. The captain remained still; she could discern the early signs of a grin forming on the old man’s mouth. Bo’s eyes had the touch of a flame about them, ready to sparkle up to fire-spraying level at the flick of an eyelid.

  “Forgive me, Mistress Lernea, but I do prefer to speak. Words can have a taste of their own, don’t you agree?”

  “Keep still. Frozen like a statue would be preferable,” Lernea said and nodded. “Speak, and make it worthwhile lest I sent you down oblivion’s path.”

  “No Skrala to welcome me to the heavenly abode? No Svarna to guide my soul to the Eternal Light?”

  “You tempt me, malfeasant. Speak not of my Godly Forefathers with your foul, perfidious mouth,” Lernea said and her voice sizzled. A tense moment passed, everyone resting in silence except Bo whose grumbling stomach defiantly asked for sustenance. “How did you know I pay my respects to the Holy Mountain?” Lernea asked the man with a raised eyebrow, the bow in her hands unwaveringly taut and aimed at the captains forehead.

  “Let me ask you: Why does the eagle soar higher than the peaks?” the captain asked in turn. Lernea was taken by surprise; she blinked rapidly and nearly lost her focus; her breathing became shallow. “That’s a question, isn’t it? How can anyone answer a question with another question?” Theo asked himself. Bo’s eyes flicked back and forth between the captain and Lernea.

  “Because of the clouds. Why does the turtle hide in its shell?” Lernea asked with a wavering voice.

  “Because it is soft and squishy in the eyes of an eagle,” came a confident, smiling reply from the captain.

  “It can’t be... Master Sisyphus! You’re alive!” Lernea yelled with relief and dropped her bow and arrow on the deck before she ran with open arms to meet the embrace of the old captain whose face was slowly changing to that of another, even older-looking man.

  “I take it that is someone important, isn’t it?” Theo asked and received no answer, other than Bo’s growling stomach.

  “I can’t believe this! Master Sisyphus, I thought you were dead! We saw the carriage go up in flames!”, Lernea shouted with a mix of giddy excitement and barely-held tears.

  “Appearances can oft be deceiving. Apart from my crew of course, which has really passed on to the great beyond, I’m afraid,” said the elderly man smiling gently. His hazel eyes gleamed with intelligence and his face beamed with mirth. It was a joyous occasion for the two of them.

  “But, how? Why this charade?” Lernea asked of him with a wary look.

  “Desperate times, my queen. I had to be sure. Deceitful foes abound.”

  “Where is this place? And however did you end up here?”

  “This place?” Master Sisyphus repeated incredulously and began laughing merrily, before getting hold of himself. “My dear Lernea, you never were good in geography,” he said and pointed at the faint mountainside behind the fishing village they were bound for. “That is the north-eastern face of Mount Ytamos, itself the first great mountaintop of the Sacred Ridge.”

  “You mean to say...” Lernea managed to reply in a whisper before her voice trailed off into a gasp.

  “We’re in Nomos, my queen. You’re home,” Master Sisyphus told her and a tear left her eye like the overflow from the lip of a dam.