Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

It is a shaHmat board of the classic design. No modernist innovations, only a plain walnut battlefield, nine squares by nine in alternating black and red. The pieces are arranged in midgame. His emperor stands unmoved on the center square of his home row while his minions have been pushed forward in a complex arrangement of mutual support. The flanking councilors and leaping Hounds are in play on the princess side, although the fortresses still anchor the ends of his battle line. But the enemy princess dominates the midfield with a good chance to marry his prince and she has brought both her Hounds forward. A picture emerges. The arrangement is unstable. The least wrong move will send it all crashing into chaos. (Much like a pile of jackstraws, the fancy strikes him.)

He decides upon a move, but the councilor will not budge when he tries to lift it. Instead, one of his own minions changes color from Red to Black and shapeshifts into a Hound. The fog of war settles over the board, obscuring the opposing princess, shrouding his enemy’s moves. “That isn’t quite fair,” he says to his unnamed and unseen opponent. He reaches out to take a different piece, and…

…and it isn’t quite the right word. A three-letter word. “As as a Thistlewaite skyscraper.” The Pedant scratches his head, but his nails scrape a tender spot and he winces, bringing away fingers bright and bloody. The table bears a holocube an arm’s length long on each side. He sits on a bright outdoor patio facing an ornamental garden heavy on green shrubbery and white concrete furnishings. The Hot Gardens at the Old Valencian Palace. He recognizes the vista immediately. Before the ransacking by the “Poor Petes.”It was a pleasant place, a pleasant sight. One could grow accustomed to the life of a Valencian tyrant, save that they tended toward the short.

As as a Thistlewaite skyscraper. The Pedant thinks he ought to know this word. But rickety is more than three letters. He recalls that an old Zhõgwó dialect still informs the Thistle version of Gaelactic, and on formal occasions they employ special symbols. Ngap ngap gung? Three symbols, and the middle ngap would do for the last four letters of Ginnungap on Friesing’s World: 230 Down. “Where the heat meets the ice.” Oh, very clever!

But when he consults the list, all the clues are written in the old Tantamiž script. He sighs because on a good day the script possesses two hundred and forty six letters. And it is unclear how some of them, like , should be counted. Strictly speaking, are not letters in themselves, but only modifiers to . Should go into one space or three?

This isn’t really quite fair, he complains. But as he does so, he hears the Poor Pete mob approaching the palace and wonders if an imaginary death at the hands of an imaginary mob in the imaginary sacking of an imaginary palace would be real enough for an imaginary person.

He stretches out his arms in appeal to being or beings unseen and…

…and she finds herself standing beside a burning ghat with her arms outstretched and entertains the fancy that the mourners gathered here are pieces in a game of shaHmat. Her words here today may move them in the right direction or bring the enemy crashing down upon them all. The mourners, mutually suspicious of one another, are united, if barely, in the garland-wreathed body that lies on the traditional handcart beside the ghat. At least one, she knows, is a traitor. Complexity upon complexity, and the least wrong move would send it all crashing into chaos, like a pile of jack-straws.

The old man on the cart beside her bears a withered look: wispy white hair like a bleached field of wheat, broken here and there by puckered scar tissue. The mourners have done with their firecrackers and trumpets and now wait in silence for her words.

She stretches out her arms as if to embrace them.

Splendid and holy causes , she declares, are served by men who are themselves splendid and holy. And that splendour and pride and strength was, in him— a nod to the body— compatible with a humility and a simplicity of devotion to Terra—to all that was old and beautiful in Terra .

This is a place of peace, sacred to the dead, where men should speak with charity and restraint. We should speak of peace and of the good. But I hold it a good thing to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression; and, hating them, to strive to overthrow them. Those of Name are strong and wary; but, life springs from death: and from the graves of patriots spring living nations. Those of Name have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have purchased half of us and frightened the rest. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools!—they have left us our patriot dead, and, while Terra holds these graves, Terra unfree shall never be at peace .

She waits for the reaction, but when she looks, the burning yard is empty. The wind blows strong and rustles her short-clipped white hair, tickles the bald, scarred spots. Eloquence wasted; words sown to the wind. That isn’t quite fair , she says.

For a moment there is no answer. Then the body on the cart speaks through motionless lips. I heard .

The Silky Voice does not wait to hear more. She turns from the dead man and flees and…

…and he is running, legs pumping, breath bellowing, falling into the rhythm that eats miles. The hurdle is directly ahead of him and he gathers himself and leaps! and hits the ground running on the other side. He hears the clatter of a hurdle and laughs to himself. Another runner spilled like a pile of jackstraws. He wastes no breath on speech. A culvert looms before him and he bounds across, noticing only in passing that the culvert is a chasm so deep its base is shrouded in shadow.

He passes near the face of a cliff, and rocks roll down it. He dances through them, a grand ballabile , with boulders. A dog—a tan-and-black “sayshen”—has joined him and keeps pace, leaping with him through the hurdles, dodging the sudden obstacles. A monstrous water buffalo bars the way snorting and the dog barks and snarls and frightens the larger beast off. A black-clad warrior confronts him and the Brute spars while the dog nips at his heels.

Far ahead, he spies the princess in flight, and he hastens to catch up, but a wall is suddenly in his path. Ropes dangle from it to facilitate his passage. But dogs cannot climb, and the Brute bends over to carry the sayshen in his arms.

And the dog is a wolf and it snaps for his hand. The Brute pulls back in time and the teeth clack on air. That ain’t hardly fair! he thinks. He turns and runs toward the forest, but when he looks behind, the wolf has run after the princess, and…

…and he finds a hiding place in a bower deep within a tangled greenwood, where he huddles. There is rustling all about him, the sound of scampering feet as other hiders seek other harbors. A distant voice pipes out, Ready or not, here I come! and Inner Child hugs himself with anticipation. Adorned with greasepaint and camos, he knows that in this place he cannot be seen.

He waits because he is very good at waiting, and he listens for the sounds of pursuit. Far off, he hears occasional yelps as other hiders are discovered. The sounds come closer, but Inner Child does not move. Motion is the killer. It draws attention. But as they near his position, the cries of discovered players become more like shrieks of terror, cut horribly short. The footsteps become heavier. Trees part to allow the passage of…something. «It’s not fair!» he thinks, though he dares not speak.