…This is a game of stacks and flats and stones and taks.

Of shattered walls and woeful falls.

Of hard-won feats,

and cunning deceits….

— Witch Aleinna The Forthright and Forewarned

* * *

And so they played, the Wizard and the Fae.

They played as no Wizard, Witch, man, woman or child had played in less then an age. More.

The forest around the glade was still. The crickets and the night birds waited and watched, and, above it all the full, white moon glowed pale and cold in the sky, larger and closer than it should have been.

Time stretched incrementally.

The fire crackled and the wind wove fragrant aroma of fresh jasmine and orange tea through the air.

Two children huddled close. They stayed away from The Forerunner, and crouched close to Leinan on the side where the Wizard sat.

They watched the board intently, though with little understanding, holding each other’s hands and barely fidgeting.

They understood in a round about way that their lives were tied to the game on the board. The game the Wizard played with The Forerunner.

And what a game it was!

Stones, like shattered masonry littered the board, but each piece polished to shine like satin and no masonry had ever shattered with such rounded corners and flat edges.

White stones spread this way and that haphazardly, fanning out and piling on top of one another. Black stones harried them, cutting through paths and enveloping patterns.

Stones stacked to make spires. And those spires grew like empires and stalked across the board like armies, and then they dispersed to make new, smaller towers which also grew and spread and were overthrown or dispersed in turn.

Walls went up and were struck down and eons seemed to pass as the cartography of the board changed.

And through it all the players had eyes for nothing else. They sat in trances as the towers grew and charged and fell.

One stroked his beard meditatively and muttered inaudibly to his Hat which also — somehow — looked meditative.

The other had hair the color of starlight-dappled snow which curled above her shoulder blades just so, and lips redder than the reddest berry. She sat as still as an ice sculpture and watched and waited and did not move as the Wizard lifted one black stone piece high above the board and carefully placed it on the board with the solid thonk of shifting destiny.

* * *

The board they played on was six squares across and six squares wide, thirty-six identical squares in total. When the digits were added together, they became nine.

Three was also the second prime, and six devolved into two threes. Therefore, thirty-six, when devolved to primes, became two, two, and two, which was, of course, six. UNLESS you added in the number of instances using the Neebler Method — which was a contentious paradigm among many wizards — in which case the six, now became a nine.

Back to nine.

Nine was a factor of thirty-six and partnered with four. Nine plus four was thirteen, a highly inauspicious number, but if you continued straight passed that blindly, and gritted your teeth, then the Billiadbarnum Paradox came into play and three plus one made four, which was auspicious because it factored into a pair of two’s. Two represented Sacred Duality, and there were two twos here, so that became a very sacred quadruple… which when recursive logic was applied, continued to devolve into ever increasing sacredety… forever.

All of this was nonsense of course, but it was helpful nonsense! Except for now… when it wasn’t.

Barnibus quailed as the greater than human monster before him delicately lifted a stack of a single black piece and three white ones — devolving to thirteen — and tramped across the board, upsetting his burgeoning road, and smashing down his last defensive wall with the crowned piece at the very top.

“I win again.” She purred with a smirk to lift the hair on a Cheshire Cat.

“Uuuuggghh,” Barnibus gasped, as he reeled back. “Wh-when, d-d-does this — it end?”

“When you want it to. When your will dies. When you surrender.”

The Witch’s eyes peered out from beneath the brim of her tall, black hat, and pierced him where he quailed.

Her hat was bent a bit, almost wizardly, he noted in a far off corner of his brain that had already reeled as far as it could and therefore had freedom to note such things. Her brim flared in a wide, ragged sweep and, from underneath, her eyes fixed on his.

They did not glimmer or twinkle like a wizard’s might. They did not even burn. They were flat eyes, and hard, and sharp like daggers.

“Do you surrender, Barnibus?” She asked delicately.

Barnibus licked his lips and — for the briefest moments —his nerve failed him. “Why! Why do this?!” He cried out. “Why me? I-I’m just an Apprentice Wizard. I organize tomes when the Wizards finish with them and sometimes they ask me to help stir their potions! I-I-I don’t — I — why challenge me?”

Witch Aleinna The Forthright and Forewarned looked at him and eons seemed to drip from the blades of her eyes. “Need a Witch explain herself to a Wizard now?” She asked almost wonderingly. “Does it matter, Barnibus of Barnwinkle? The great winds care not about the trees in their path, but the tree may stand firm and weather, or falter and fall forever. As with yee.”

The shadows seemed to deepen about the witch and her long braid almost looked to be coiling itself about her. Her hands steepled. “You have a grand hat, Apprentice Wizard Barnibus.”

Barnibus perked up, surprised at the compliment. “W-why, thank you!” He babbled. “I-I mean — ah —”

“It’s too big for you.”

“—Ah… oh” Barnibus slumped.

“Now. It need not always be. Grand deeds does a grand hat make.”

Barnibus’s eyes lingered on the Witch’s own hat. It was black, as were most witch hats now a days and it rose into a slender steeple which curved just a little bit as it rose. The brim cut out almost jaggedly from the base, and spread like a stiff, ragged, black disk from around her head.

It was in no way artistic, this hat, so much as functional, and neither was it grand. But there was something about it that made Barnibus want to lick his lips nervously….

He licked his lips nervously. “I-if it’s not too rude to ask, Witch Aleinna — ah — The Forthright and Forewarned — echem — but h-how old are you?” By which he meant, how long had she been a witch?

The Witch took it as such, and cackled. “I have worn this hat for two years now.” She grinned toothily.

“Two…”. Barnibus had worn his for ten and he was an… “Are you an Apprentice Witch?”

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“An apprentice?” Witch Aleinna jeered. She sniffed. “A witch has no need for such terms of pageantry.” She pointed across the table at Barnibus. “A Witch. Is.”

“B-b-but….” Two years and her hat looked… weathered. And her eyes were so sharp, Barnibus felt he should have cuts where she gazed.

Witch Alainna felt old, her hat felt old… though she did not look it.

“Grand deeds. Grand Hats. Grand Wizards, and Grand Spats. None started grand. So, what do you say, Apprentice Wizard Barnwinkle?” The Witch tapped a long finger against the game board. Once, twice, thrice… seven times — Barnibus shuddered — and peered at him with those cutting eyes. “Do you falter here? Do you surrender?”

Barnibus’s teeth grit together, but he shook his head rapidly. “No.” He gasped out.

“Huzzah!” The Witch cackled triumphantly. She clapped her hands thrice and the pieces swept themselves off the board and into neat piles of thirty tiles and a crowned piece each, white on her side and black on Barnibus’s. “I offer up my wand for your win.”

“A-a-a-and I” Barnibus piped up —

* * *

“I offer up a tiger eye —”

The Forerunner blinked gimlet eyed at him over the game board. She sniffed. “I hath no need for such a gem —” and then paused as Barnibus pulled a plastic bag from his robe containing what was obviously a very large eye, with some of the flesh still attached to it in places.

“ — to hunt and spy, and pray in the darkest night, and avenge even the merest slight!”

“Ah! The golden eye of a hunter without par.” The Forerunner clapped her hands delighted. “For such a trinket, I offer up a Great Eagle’s wing feather.” And with that same flourish that produced that pale switch, produced a golden feather about the size of Barnibus’ forearm. “To fly free an’ far with ne’er a tether.”

Then they played, and Barnibus — lost.

* * *

The Wizard — lost.

Leinan’s hands were gripping her cloak so hard her fingers stood a good chance of boring holes through the fabric. Her stomach was tying itself into knots. How could the Wizard — did that mean — but, no.

Leinan breathed.

There they were, rearranging the board again and re-stacking the tiles, one looking significantly more self-satisfied than the other.

Barnibus looked chagrinned, and a bit confused.

The eye went to The Forerunner who promptly ate it.

Leinan kept her eyes turned staunchly away from The Forerunner, so she didn’t see what that looked like, but she had a pretty good view of the Wizard’s bearded face, and the alarming shade of green he turned was all the information Leinan required.

Leinan focused hard on the board. Focused, and thought. She could not falter now. She needed to be strong. She, Leinan, had to get them out of here. Both children were huddled next to her, and Aemon breathed in her ear.

“She made a road! Look sister Lei! A road from stones, and the Wizard couldn’t stop her.” Aemon shifted, confused for a moment and scratched his head. “Why couldn’t he stop her? His wall…”. Aemon looked at his sister, but Kaimen just shook her head grimly.

Leinan focused, and thought, and above all listened to her two special children!

A road of glittering white, slightly frosted stones slashed in a jagged cut across the board. It zigzagged passed walls — those stones placed on their edges — edged passed a crooked, black tower with a crowned piece on top… and touched an edge. A dazzling road to victory.

And beside her, The Forerunner sang.

It was a wordless song, and noiseless, but obviously singing from how her head moved and her shoulders swayed.

The Forerunner sang only for a few moments, but afterward, she spun her hand through the air and then placed something completely invisible onto the ground next to the board.

“I offer thee, the Song of the Winterly Wind for thine win. But a single gust to use as a wizard must.”

The Wizard thought for a moment, stroking his beard and adjusting his hat, and then produced a vile of glowing liquid that sloshed and spun despite him holding it still in his hand.

The Forerunner looked intrigued.

And then they played.

They started oddly, Leinan noticed. The Wizard passed The Forerunner a single black piece and was returned a white piece which he played immediately.

Leinan had played many games. She’d played tag, and Hill King with the boys. She’d played Skip and Step, and Ropes and Hurly Burly and Tribes, and she was good at them too! She never got picked last. But she also played other games that got her sideways glances from the other girls and boys in Landsend.

Leinan played Tavern Games. The ones played on boards and battled wits. The ones which men played with coin on the table and furrowed brows. The ones no one expected a girl “barely away from her mother’s skirts” to play.

What could she say? She enjoyed the rueful expressions they left with. And, the coin she won.

Her father was less understanding. 'One left step away from gambling’, he called it. But, in Leinan’s opinion, it was hard to argue with silver, and her father desultorily agreed.

Leinan played chess. That was about as commonplace in taverns and merchant caravans as bread crumbs.

She also played Stones, and every once in a while, a merchant coming from Erebor would pull out Slats which was a game similar to chess, but played with disks with symbols pressed into them instead of figurines, and the pieces moved differently.

The game the Wizard played was different from all of them, but it shared concepts which were familiar.

Like Stones, the players defended territory rigorously. Unlike Stones, it wasn’t the goal, but the technique.

Like Chess and Slats, pieces were dissimilar, and moved dissimilarly. Unlike Chess and Slats, there were far fewer discrete pieces, but tower configuration and pattern configuration were key and changed the capability magnitude.

Different. But similar.

Barnibus played wearily, Leinan noted uneasily. He seemed discomfited with The Forerunner’s win and it showed.

He was more hesitant to engage The Forerunner in the same pitched battles he’d fought before. His Towers grew, but they stayed tight to his lines and didn’t stalk the board as they had before, and his expanse across the board was slow.

He was scared.

The Forerunner moved like dancing lighting. Her pieces engaged without mercy, and her towers reeked blitzed havoc across the Wizard’s stones.

It was harrowing to watch and Leinan almost forgot to breath a couple times as the Forerunner’s pieces almost joined two sides.

Those were the key, Leinan saw. Like Aemon pointed out. Those roads won.

And then the Wizard won, though it was close, and he won differently.

He simply ran out of stones. They counted the uncovered pieces on the board, and the Wizard had more, if only by three.

Neither looked happy by this, The Forerunner for obvious reasons, but the Wizard’s brow was also furrowed and Leinan had the distinct impression that this win was more of an accident than intentional.

* * *

“I offer up the wand of a witch who’s hat was as old as time. She was young as love, and cold as rime. The witch’s eyes held blades within, and on her words did my head spin.”

The Forerunner narrowed her eyes at him and then at the pale wand that he produced. “Dost thee offer me a lover’s token, then, Wizard?”

Barnibus pinked. “Of course not!” He blustered hurriedly, and, thankfully truthfully. But.…

The Forerunner’s lips quirked and continued quirking into a wide smirk. “Ah. A scorned love mayhap? A wish left unspoken an’ unrequited? I accept thine offer.” She purred.

The Forerunner furrowed her brow and tapped her chin in thought. Then she brightened. “Ah!An’ in return I offer a mortal trinket of elder years. A ring as gold as love unfold! The ring now sits ‘pon a hand of bone” — The Forerunner somehow smirked even wider displaying an uncomfortably large number of white teeth — “an’ there is a spell within the stone.”

The Forerunner produced from somewhere a hand that was quite obviously chopped off at the wrist and was also… very bleached bone.

On the hand was a golden wedding ring with a startlingly pink gem the size of a chicken’s eye which glowed just a tad more than seemed natural in the firelight.

* * *

The Wizard lost. This game wound on and on with towers and walls chasing each other across the board. Then it ended suddenly with a high pitched cackle from The Forerunner and a sound like a gut punch from the Wizard.

* * *

“I offer up one ring wrought of Midnight’s Gloom.”

“I-I offer — ”

* * *

The Wizard lost again, almost immediately. And Leinan really began to fear.

* * *

“I offer a way,” The Forerunner purred with a grin of such heart-stopping cruelty that Leinan’s own heart stumbled just hearing the words shaped by it. “To escape this fray, an’ live to fight another day.”

“I-I offer,” Barnibus gasped out, swaying dangerously. “I offer my Wizardly S-s-slippers….”

The Forerunner’s eyes flashed.

Barnibus continued, licking his lips and his eyes fluttered this way and that. He seemed caught somehow! “W-With such slippers a wizard might stroll and stray and otherwise stay on foot by night and so by day.” He grit out. “But lo, if come ‘pon unexpected, and flee he must or else be bested. A Wizard might Jump in Fright and flee in flight, an’ ne’er be caught by a foe of might.”

He gulped several times afterwards, and his toes wiggled nakedly as oddly fluffy shoes were placed by the fire.

“Sufficient.” The Forerunner crooned.

The Forerunner turned the Wizard on a spit this time. She harried him without respite, deluging his lines in enemy pieces and seeming to care little at all about winning but instead beating and hammering the Wizard into the game board.

By the time The Forerunner connected two sides of the board and donned the Wizard’s fluffy slippers, the Wizard sat huddled in a quivering wreck and could only shiver as The Forerunner cackled.

Leinan felt Aemon and Keimen sitting stiffly next to her. They were cold and rigid and they didn’t comment anymore.

Leinan saw the Wizard’s mouth move again, and his beard wobble as he started to — “I-I o-of-offer —”

Another challenge. He was going to challenge again. He was going to — and Leinan knew that she couldn’t let him.

“I-I-I offer my r —”

“I challenge.” Leinan blurted out, and for wonder her mouth moved.

The words came. High, and sharp, and they reverberated through the campsite like a struck cord.

These words she could say, she realized with a surge of something that wasn’t quite Elation. These words.

And as the two twins stiffened even more, by her side. As the Wizard spun about so fast his hat slid on his head and The Forerunner herself jumped in place, Leinan’s mouth drew itself into a sharp, grim line.

She couldn’t pull her eyes from the fire-golden flame.

She could not lock eyes with the monster and stare hate back into that cold gaze. She could not say the words she had to say — ‘I stand against thee an’ all…’.

But by all the Fell Shadows she could say —

“I challenge The Forerunner of all the Fae!”