The Archon floated down from her aerial perch to land standing on the raised platform, just in front of her chair. She motioned Tif forward with a golden hand--which gave Tif a thrill--and then turned, walking through the now open curtain. Past it, Jer’s ma gradually disappeared as she stepped down the back of the stand to the das board situated behind. Tif had hoped that the board’s presence would make her more likely to agree to her challenge, and from the Archon’s immediate use of it, it seemed like it had.
As Tif walked, she stole a glance back at Jer and saw that he was obviously very concerned, looking completely unlike how someone who had just become a knight should. Then Tif was climbing the steps of the division leader stand--the same steps that two arcknights had used, making it feel like hallowed ground. Atop the platform, she had to walk between the high-backed chairs to reach the Archon. Jer’s grandfather sat to the left, and, unsurprisingly, didn’t watch Tif as she approached but instead the space just above. To the right was the mature keshe, Ihl-Ves-Lee, who gave Tif a severe look. Tif smiled back at her, glad that someone of such strength was on the wall, keeping them all safe.
In only a few more strides Tif was past the division leaders and to the back of the stand, where a set of much shallower steps confronted her, each as wide as the platform itself. Unlike when she had snuck into the curtained area in the middle of the night, Tif could see that the steps ended at a cultivated stone garden, a few trails of white marble weaving through potted succulents of pale green and purple to the oversized das board.
The Archon already stood behind the left side, so Tif hurried down the back of the stand and then used a garden path that took her to the right. As she neared the black board with grey pieces, she reviewed her plan: the Archon was a busy person, and according to Jer, fighting off frequent assassination attempts, so she wouldn’t have time to indulge in das, making her rusty or completely unpracticed. Tif knew, too, that the Archon was always bold in her rulings and didn’t shy away from conflict with her enemies, so Tif thought she’d probably play the same way--putting her highest tiles on her own patron and Tif’s instead of sneakier maneuvers. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a better chance than trying to face any of the division leaders or Archon in one-on-one combat. Also, das matches took time, and hopefully in that time the Archon would feel how much she desired to be a knight. Tif could feel it fit to bursting, like her dream was rattling around inside her, ecstatic to be so close to being made real.
“We’ll be playing one game,” the Archon said in her perfect voice.
Tif stumbled as she reached her side of the pieces, eyes wide. The Archon had felt her desire that the match go long that clearly and quickly over the space? The oversized board was at least twenty feet long. Tif had thought beating Sur-Rak meant she had a chance against the Archon, but she should have known that the difference between two seals of Gold and five would be significant. Maybe das hadn’t been the best idea after all…
Tif shook her head, ridding herself of doubt before it could take hold. She hadn’t gotten this far and been given this opportunity to lose sight of things now. She was a good das player, very good in fact, she could win this. Her eyes roamed the board, searching for the number tiles to begin her placement. She imagined they would be much larger than normal, considering that each playing piece was taller than her, probably six feet high. However, much like her attempts the previous night to find the tiles, she didn’t spot them, and oddly, it was the same for the patron die, which she expected to be the size of her head. What she did see was that the enormous playing pieces were all a dull metal and though beautifully sculpted, were dented and scraped, as if they had taken a beating.
Tif glanced at Pep in confusion, but Pep didn't have an explanation for that.
“And we’ll be playing in the style of arcknights,” the Archon said, causing Tif to look over. The Archon was floating in the air again, a few feet above her pieces, making her easy to find. Jer’s ma had a smile on her face, and while the shape of it reminded Tif of her son, it didn’t hold any of the same warmth.
Noises behind her spun Tif around, and she saw that the spectators were off of their viewing platforms, crowding en masse barely a dozen feet away, some yellow robed servants keeping them from getting closer. Turning back to the board and looking through the pillar-like pieces on her side and the Archon’s, Tif saw that a similar group had formed behind Jer’s ma with even more servants making a living wall between the people and their leader. Unlike on the stands, the spectators shifted, jockeying for position since the space was poorly designed to have so many people watching.
“Ready?” the Archon said, her flawless voice cutting through the murmur of the people watching.
Tif tensed. Ready? How could either of them be ready without having placed their tiles? What did it mean to play in the style of arcknights?
The air all around Tif was suddenly cool, like a gust coming down the mountain when the cap was white with snow. But there was no wind, just a distinct and sharp drop in temperature that caused Tif’s flesh to pimple.
With the arrival of the cold, the first piece on the Archon’s side moved of its own accord, tilting forward like the eager spectators and sliding across the black stone board with an ugly grating sound. Tif stood frozen until the metal aquaros smashed into her fairy, knocking it onto its winged back, at which point Tif jumped at the loud clang of metal hitting the white marble pathway she stood on.
Stolen story; please report.
“That’s one,” the Archon said at nearly the same time her next piece, the four-armed spidra came sliding toward Tif’s cyclops.
In a panic, Tif rushed up behind her thick metal piece, bracing the cyclops with her body. Arcknights had the fourth seal of gold, which let them manipulate their shroud and use it to move things. They must do this against each other, pushing their pieces together until one fell instead of using tiles.
Tif was afraid that if her cyclops pitched backward like her fairy had, she’d be crushed underneath. However, with her arms up beside her head, Tif could see the Blood ris bright on her skin, which bolstered her.
“It’s okay, if it falls on me, I’ll heal.”
Tif heard the metal spidra almost on top of them, and she pushed forward in expectation of the hit, like she had done to stay upright in the first challenge.
But instead of the spidra piece attacking straight on, it swung out and then sideswiped Tif’s cyclops. She felt her piece tilt in her grasp and tried to hold it steady, but her hands were in the wrong spot and the metal on the back of the cyclops was too slick and the piece was just so big and heavy. Tif growled in frustration but let go, lest she be pulled down with it, and her cyclops fell to the side, landing on the board where her fairy had previously stood with a another clang.
“That’s two,” the Archon said.
The Archon’s metal keshe advanced toward Tif’s own, and this time Tif didn’t hesitate: she ran out onto the das board to meet it. The oversized piece wasn’t quite halfway across when Tif slammed her body against it, so hard she was sure she’d bruise. The metal keshe tilted back slightly, but it started forward again so quickly she might have imagined it. In desperation, Tif wrapped her arms around it. The piece was too big for her to get her fingers to touch, and though her feet were pushed out behind her, the metal keshe kept sliding slowly forward. Tif struggled with all of her might, feeling her body sweat despite being suffused in the cool air that had to be the Archon’s power.
The Archon’s power.
Jer’s ma was strong enough to move the giant metal gargant, which meant that Tif’s resistance would never be enough. But Tif didn’t need to go against it, she just needed the piece to fall. Tif quickly shifted position so she was diagonally in front of the metal keshe and tried to pull, using the piece’s own momentum to get it to topple without hitting hers. However, even with the nicks and scratches on the metal, the piece was too large for her to get a good grip on, and worse, it was sliding faster forward now without her holding it back. If only her Blood ris gave her strength instead of just--
Tif spread her hands flat against the metal and pushed heat from her palms into the piece. Then she pulled with everything she had, and her hands held, stuck fast to the surface. The metal keshe started to lean in her direction but not enough to fall, and it was almost on top of her own piece now. Tif threw her whole body backward, and her weight combined with the Archon’s power pushing from behind was enough to make the piece topple toward Tif. She heard it bong against her own piece as it dropped, but Tif was scrambling to not get crushed. She released the heat from her right hand, unsticking it, and used the leverage of her still affixed left hand to pull her body out from under the giant metal keshe. Her back hit the stone of the board hard, and then the large piece landed on her right arm, which she hadn’t been fast enough to yank away. She cried out as she felt a bone snap, pain lancing up through her shoulder.
Tears in her eyes, Tif saw her own keshe piece rocking back and forth.
“Aspect, please don’t let it fall,” she prayed.
And, with a large gasp from the crowds who Tif had completely forgotten about, her piece stilled, remaining standing.
“Well done,” the Archon said.
Tif’s relief at the praise was short lived though because the Archon’s next piece moved: the cyclops.
Tif’s trapped arm no longer hurt, whether from the healing of her ris or her desperation to intervene, she didn’t know or care. She pushed at the metal keshe that lay atop her arm with her free hand and when that didn’t work, her feet. But the overlarge piece was too heavy for her to budge, and so Tif was forced to watch from her back as the metal cyclops crashed unforgivingly into her spidra, knocking the four-armed piece well off the board.
“Game,” the Archon said, the word like a gong when spoken in her perfect register.
Tif had lost; even if she could get up and knock another piece over it would still be three to two. Looking up to where Jer’s ma hovered, radiant in her Gold ris--which seemed not diminished in the slightest from the das match--Tif finally understood what Sur-Rak and Jer had been trying to tell her all along: she’d never stood a chance.
Tif couldn’t help herself. She shouted, “That was amazing!”
The Archon gazed down at her, her golden countenance serene but for a single eyebrow twitching up, moving the geometric tattoos around it slightly.
“Will you play me again like that when I’m an arcknight?” Tif asked across the gulf between them.
The Archon lifted the same eyebrow further. “Should you achieve the position in the future...I will grant you a rematch.” She turned her shaved head to the side. “Hur, conclude things.” Then, instead of drifting to the ground like before, the Archon began to walk through the air, away from Tif. Her steps stayed level with the ground, but when she reached the servants and the crowd some ten feet below, they were pushed aside by the Archon’s wide shroud. Jer’s ma didn’t slow, and Tif saw two Gold Aspects use the opening to follow in the Archon’s wake before it closed after them.
Tif laid her head back on the sun-warmed black stone of the board. She had spoken to the Archon today, and the Archon had spoken back. It wasn’t the whole of her dream, of course, but it was part of it. The rest…the rest would have to wait.
And then, Tif let herself cry.