Artery and Vein gather below me. Their faces split into evil leers. The teeth in Artery’s hands gnash dreadfully. Vein’s eyes appear beadier than ever. She grips the web with her human hands. Crawls towards me. Artery not far behind.
Thrashing—tearing at the web—trying to bite through the strand nearest my face. I call upon my magical abilities—wish myself off of the web—it doesn’t work! Blind panic—the demons closing in—here comes the kill!
A CHANGE OF PLAN
Vein creeps closer. Artery slithers next to his demonic sister. Both growling softly. My cries die away to a terrified whimper. Watching, sickly fascinated, accepting my doom.
“No!” Dervish roars, and he’s suddenly floating above the demons. Grabs each by the scruff of the neck and hurls them across the width of the cellar, where they crash into webs on the opposite side. He reaches down, grabs my arms and rips me free of the sticky strands. Presses his fingers into my back where the bones broke. A warm surge of power—the bones knit together.
“This is unpardonable, Dervish,” Lord Loss mutters from his place at the chess boards. “To abandon our game while it’s in progress…” He tuts disapprovingly. “You have broken the rules of our agreement. I am now free to summon as many of my familiars as I wish and set them loose upon you and the boys.”
“Wait!” Dervish roars as Lord Loss rises. “I’ll return to the game!”
“Too late,” Lord Loss sighs. “Besides, what would be the point? Grubitsch is out of his depth. Let us put an end to this sham. You have disappointed me, Dervish, but there will be other Gradys and other matches.” Lord Loss extends five of his eight arms, picks up Dervish’s kings from each board and starts to crush them.
“What if Grubbs plays you?” Dervish shouts.
Lord Loss pauses. “That was not our deal.”
“We’ll make a new deal,” Dervish hisses. “The game continues where I left off. Grubbs assumes my position. I pit myself against your beasts.”
“Why should I agree to that?” Lord Loss asks. “I have already won.”
“No,” Dervish disagrees. “We may have forfeited the game—but you haven’t won. You can take our lives now, quickly, or you can prolong the agony and savour Grubbs’s desperation and sorrow as he loses to you.”
Lord Loss’s eyes light up at the mention of desperation and sorrow, but he hesitates before replying. “What if he doesn’t lose?” he finally murmurs. “I will have sacrificed the pleasures of a certain victory for the humiliation of defeat.”
“It’s a gamble,” Dervish agrees, “but Grubbs is a poor player. Our chances are slim. Imagine the satisfaction you’ll extract as Grubbs slowly and painfully comes to realise he can’t win.”
“You make it sound almost irresistible.” Lord Loss smiles thinly. “But what does the boy think?”
Dervish looks questioningly at me. I shake my head uncertainly. “I just want it over with,” I sob. “We’re going to lose anyway—why drag it out?”
“As long as there’s life, there’s hope,” Dervish replies quietly. “And it’s not just yourself you’d be playing for—it’s me and Billy too. Will you throw away our lives without a fight?”
I stare at my uncle’s cold expression, then at the howling Bill-E in his cage. Wearily, I nod. “I’ll try,” I mumble. “If Lord Loss agrees to it, so will I.”
Dervish’s head whips round and he glares at Lord Loss. “Well?” he barks. “Can you match this child’s courage, or will you flee with the easy victory?”
Lord Loss rolls the kings around in the stubby layers of flesh at the ends of his arms, considering the proposal. Then, with a smile, he replaces them on the boards. “Come,” he says, gesturing to the seat which Dervish vacated.
Gliding to the floor. Dervish sets me down. Pain flares in my left foot. I ignore it. Hobble forward. Gaze at the five boards, the ranks of white and black pieces, then into the demon master’s cunning eyes.
Breathing raggedly. Clearing my thoughts. Trying to remember every lesson Dad and Mum ever taught me.
I sit.
Instant peacefulness. An unnatural silence. I stare around the cellar, startled. Everything seems to have stopped. Dervish stands motionless, facing the demons, while Bill-E’s frozen at the bars of his cage. Then I realise they are moving—only incredibly slowly.
“What happened?” I gasp.
“I have separated our time frame from theirs,” Lord Loss says. “It allows us to play without distractions.”
I watch as Dervish’s right hand slowly comes up, fingers unfurling, red flames streaking from the tips. Slower than snails, Vein and Artery break to the sides, out of the path of the firebolts.
“Come,” Lord Loss says, tapping the middle board. “The fight is no longer your concern. Focus on the match.”
With an effort I tear my eyes away from Dervish and the demons and stare at the pieces lined up in front of me. Assessing the damage. I immediately note that the game on the far right board is beyond saving—that’s where Lord Loss took Dervish’s queen with a bishop. The game on the centre board also looks like a lost cause, with white down both knights and a bishop.
“Depressing, isn’t it?” Lord Loss sighs, looking more miserable than I feel. “Dervish was not at his best tonight. His fear for you affected his game. I warned him about that, but he would not listen.”
Lord Loss picks up the queen he took from the far right board and toys with it. “It’s your move, Grubitsch,” he says, “but take your time. There is no rush. Study the pieces. Plan a campaign. Search for openings.”
I reach towards a rook on the board to my immediate left. Pause. Withdraw my hand without touching the piece. “Can I move any piece, on any board?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I run an eye over the five boards again, then pick up a pawn on the board to my far right and move it forward a space. The battle’s already lost on that board, so I might as well start there and treat it as a warm-up. Hopefully work my worst moves out of my system.
“Ah,” Lord Loss nods. “A cautious approach. Very wise, young Grubitsch.” He moves a knight forward and checks my king. “It will make no difference to the end result, but at least you may lose with some dignity. Perhaps that will provide you with a glimmer of comfort when you and your unfortunate companions roast tonight in the fires of my own personal hell.”
It takes Lord Loss nine moves to checkmate me on the far right. When he wins, my king melts into a foul-smelling white puddle. Lord Loss picks up the board, snaps it into pieces and tosses it aside.
“Then there were four.”
Sweating. Fidgeting. Trying to concentrate on the boards. Eyes constantly flicking to Dervish and the demons, locked in slow-motion combat.
I’m trying to keep play confined to the board on my left—taking the contest one game at a time—but Lord Loss won’t oblige. He makes a few moves on that board, then switches to another, then another.
Though I have a free run of the boards, I can’t make more than one move on any board until Lord Loss has replied to it. So, if I make a move on the middle board, and Lord Loss then moves a piece on the board to my far left, I can’t make a second move on the board in the middle—I have to wait for Lord Loss to move one of his pieces on it. He’s tied by the same rules as me, of course, but it feels like the odds are stacked in his favour, as if I’m the only one restricted.
I’ve played chess like this before, but not often, and not recently. Dad tried me on multi-boards when I was younger, saw I wasn’t able to maintain my focus, so worked on improving my individual game. Perhaps he’d have tested me again when I was older—if he’d lived.
It’s impossible not to think about my parents and Gret. Did Dad sweat this much when he faced the demon lord? Was Gret half-frozen in time, like Bill-E is now, unaware of what was occurring, but somehow sensing doom? Did Mum lose limbs to the familiars during the fight?