“Leave me alone!” I shout at the Dude in the Red’s outfit, but his grip is like a chain of steel. “I have to save The Pillar.”
In his silence, as usual, the Dude passes me another note, and I am already fed up with those: It’s his time. Leave him be.
“No, I won’t,” I say, still trying to find my way back down, but a swirl of winding snow has already covered the hole below and I can’t see anything.
Another note: It’s the price you will have to pay for saving Jack.
I turn and glare at him. “How do you know about Jack?”
A note: It doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that’s part of the laws of time travelling. Having cheated Time and saved Jack, Time will demand an equal sacrifice.
“What does that mean?”
Note: Time will take The Pillar’s life for Jack’s, Alice, and there is nothing you can do about it.
“The hell with time!”
Note: You don’t know what you’re talking about. Time is the one thing that lasts while we all die eventually.
I swallow a lump of snow for having my mouth open wide. “But why should I be the one to kill The Pillar?”
A note: Because you’re the one who saved Jack. Cheat time and enjoy a dear person’s resurrection, but pay the price and live with another dear person’s loss.
“So time knows how much The Pillar really means to me.” I tell myself.
A note: Now take a breath, and give it up. The Pillar is gone. I killed the monks by the way. We’re leaving soon.
It’s hard to really accept this, but the wind is stirring quite stronger, and my survival instincts take over. The Pillar’s death is shoved to the back of my head, though I can’t believe I am really doing this.
Next to me, I see monks spread dead on the ground. “Where did you come from?” I ask.
Note: I’m British, from Kent.
“You know I didn’t mean it that way,” I say. “Did you follow me? Why are you helping me?”
No note this time, because The Pillar’s pain below is tearing me apart.
“Another hit, sweet big stupid thing.” I hear The Pillar roar at the giant from below – at least he is not dead yet.
I turn to the Dude. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Note: Anything you want.
“Help him.” I point to The Pillar below.
Note: No. The Pillar isn’t on your side, anyways.
“What do you care? Didn’t you say you’d do anything I want?”
Note: Anything you want, that’s always in your best interest.
“This man cares for me,” I insist.
Note: He surely may act so, but you don’t really know what his grand plan is.
“Look, others have warned me of him before. They’re all wrong.”
Again, my words are interrupted by The Pillar’s pain.
The Dude points at a balloon he has ready in the distance. It seems like this is his escape plan.
“I am not leaving The Pillar,” I say.
Note: You have to stop the Chessmaster.
“Like I don’t know that? I need to save The Pillar first.”
Note: He is a lunatic, asking the giant to keep hitting him.
“I know,” I sigh. “I wonder why he is doing this.”
The Dude churns out another note: Alice, listen to me, you have to stop the Chessmaster. You have no idea who he is.
This gets my attention. “You know who the Chessmaster is?”
Note: I do. He is the scariest man on earth. Only you can stop him.
“Enough with the puzzles. Who is the Chessmaster?”
The Dude points at the balloon and writes a note: Get on the balloon and I will tell you all about him.
I turn and look at the poor Pillar, then back at the Dude. I am torn with what the right thing to do is. But I am so curious about the Chessmaster.
The Dude passes me another note. This one is prewritten. It’s the size of a letter.
“What is this?” I ask.
The story of who the Chessmaster is.
Chapter 40
The Dude disappears in the white of snow, as the wind begins to swirl all around me. It's a sudden and extreme change in the weather, as if unseen forces in the universe want to prevent me from reading the note.
I duck on all fours and clamp onto the note, trying to read it under the safety of my orange hood, still faintly hearing The Pillar's pain. There is hardly anything I can do about it now, but I wish the wind weakens the giants punches.
Underneath the protective hood I begin reading the note. Two separate parts actually. But even though it's hard to read it in detail.
The first note is written in old English. It almost has the tone of fairy tales or formal old English letters.
Skimming through, it talks about an eternal war between black and white. The black calling themselves Black Chess and the white, the Inklings. The note mentions it as a prediction since at the time of writing – probably a long, long time ago – the two forces had no names.