“I see I’m in the position of a pawn,” The words escape me, and I remember The Pillar talking about how pawns are the soldiers sacrificed by their governments.
“Are you asking yourself why you’re a pawn, Alice?” the Chessmaster’s voice sends chills down my spine. “Because Lewis made you so. In the Looking Glass book he made you a pawn, wandering in a world of chess. How sneaky of him, making you the weakest piece in the game; the one that’s on the frontline; the one that’s like most citizens in most countries in the world, oblivious of what’s really going on but also asked to defend their home country. Why Lewis betrayed you, you will have to ask him later… in the afterlife. Or maybe it’s an After-Wonderland.”
My neck hurts so much and I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. It’s hard to escape the Chessmaster’s logic. If Lewis loved me so much, why make me a pawn? Maybe he did it later, when I joined Black Chess. I must have done terrible things to deserve this.
“Lewis is a coward,” the Chessmaster says. “You know why? Because a wise man once told the government, ‘If you can’t stand behind your soldiers who’re defending your country, feel free to stand in front of them.’”
Now his laughter echoes against the sides of the glass box, its waves resonating back against me, buzzing me like shock therapy.
“I hope you’re ready, Alice,” he says, and my glass box moves forward on the board, two blocks, like in a normal game of chess. I’m the white pawn, and I make the call, kick-starting the game.
Behind the foggy glass, I catch a glimpse of the black pawn on the block parallel to mine making a move. Two steps forward as well.
I know what this means. It means my next move should be killing it with my sword.
“Do I have any control of my glass box?” I ask. “Can I open it on my own terms?”
“Of course,” he says. “You just say ‘check’.”
In a moment of utter heroic recklessness, I shout from the top of my lungs: ‘Check!’
The glass box slides down in an abrupt move, and I swing my sword to chop off the black pawn’s head. But I may have been too slow because a lot of blood splatters on the chessboard before me. The blood that could possibly be mine.
Chapter 60
The blood isn’t mine. It’s the black pawn’s whom I have just killed. His head rolls down his body onto the chessboard. It’s the head of a man I don’t know. A man who tried to kill me, and I had to kill instead. We’ve never met before, and will never meet again, unless it’s in the pit in hell.
Suddenly, I realize how ugly war is.
“Don’t bother if he kills us,” Fabiola shouts from her block, her glass box suddenly open now. “He is using us – mainly me – to get to Carroll’s Knight.”
“How?” I shout, about to step out of my block to get closer to her.
“Don’t try to leave your block,” Fabiola shouts frantically. “It has an invisible electrical field that will fry you to death if you do!”
Her words catch me with the tips of my toes on the edge. I freeze in place and ask her, “How do you know that?”
“I designed it!” Fabiola says. “It lets you reach out your sword to kill your opponent, but never lets you out unless it’s your turn in the game.”
“Then what’s the point of all this?” I wonder.
Fabiola hesitates, readying her Vorpal sword. “He wants to trick you into winning the game.”
“Trick me?”
“He is using you to win the battle on the chessboard because he knows you’ll be willing to save me, and if you do win, something big happens, something he’s been waiting for all these years.”
“Let me guess,” I say, “If I win, Carroll’s Knight will be found?”
Fabiola nods.
“So give him the stupid knight, if it will save us!” The Queen of Hearts jumps up and down in her place upon the black block, her glass box is open as well now. “Give him whatever he wants or he will kill us!”
“Shut up,” Margaret yells at the Queen from her position at the far corner. “You short little stocky ball of evil.”
“I will chop your head off when I survive this,” the Queen warns Margaret.
“Stop it!” I yell. “Both of you! Maybe it’s time we all stand on the same side, or we’ll die and the Chessmaster will get his knight. And who knows what he can do with it?”
“Well said, Alice,” the Queen remarks. “Why not start with you playing on the side you’re supposed to?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re on the white tiles. You don’t belong there. Stop pretending. The Pillar messed with your head,” the Queen insists. “Come over, honey. Come join the Queen.”
I find myself turning and looking at Fabiola. Her look is blank and I can’t read it.
“What do you think, White Queen?” I ask her. “Do you still think I belong to the black side?”