The Great winds care not for the trees in their path. But the trees can stand firm and weather, or falter and fall forever.

— Witch Alainna The Forthright and Forewarned

* * *

“Your losing it Barney.”

“I will thank you, to not call me by that name, Hat.” Barnibus answered evenly. It was important to be dignified about such things, even if they seemed mundane.

“What name? Barney? Its a nickname. Your nickname. And I am your Hat, against all of my vast and far superior judgement. Why shouldn’t I call you ‘Barney’?”

“Because I am not a Barney, Hat.” Barnibus retorted, still evenly. And, because he was being even, he threw in a belated, “’T’all!” And blushed under his beard. “I am a Wizard! And this Wizard’s name is Barnibus Jefferson Montgomery Barnwinkle!”

“Ye-es…” Hat responded with an elongated pause. “Yes, bravo. You are a — echem —” Hat coughed even though he obviously had no throat that needed clearing — “Yes. A Wizard… mediocre one. And I am a Hat. I still don’t see —”

“Oh, beard burrs Hat! I don’t want to be called Barney!”

“… Barnibus then.” And Barnibus kept himself stately and calm even though he could hear the eye-roll in Hat’s voice. Even though Hat had no eyes to roll…. Or a voice to be inflected by such. “You’re losing it, Barnibus.” His hat said.

Barnibus paced away from the table and over to one of the bookshelves. After a moment he asked, “What am I losing?”

“Your mind. What else?”

Barnibus reached again to rest his hand on the spine of one of the books. The book tried to skitter away from him.

“And… don’t do that.” Hat said, sounding strained. “Its hard enough keeping this room in order without having to generate all the information too.”

“Ah.” Barnibus dropped his hand, feeling sullen. He really wanted to touch the book. The leather binding called to him and so did that chair in front of the fire.

Oh! If only he could just take the book from the shelf and recline on that chair and kick his feet up and read like he used to.

He really wanted to, he realized. More than just about anything else in the world right now. He just wanted to be a Wizard, in his library, and do Wizardly things. Like read. Or brew a potion. Or — actually, just reading sounded good. This book, with its dark, aged, brown leather and the title he could make out in faded etching on the spine ‘Grimoire of —’ and a name he was pretty sure was ‘Emanuel’. It called to him.

Barnibus sighed and turned away. He paced. “My mind seems as present in my head as it ever did, Hat.”

“Oh? Well if you haven’t lost your mind, Barne — Barnibus — How do you think I’ve stuck it in here?”

Barnibus harrumphed, and Pondered a moment on this dilemma. “Well, it occurs to me that you might have always had this ability, Hat.” Barnibus responded finally.

“I assure you, this is new even for me.”

“Ah!” Barnibus exclaimed jabbing his finger above his head. “Well, then if you have not been able to do this before, and my mind is not lost, than I must have lost something entirely different!”

“….And what is that?”

“My body.”

“Your body…”.

“Quite right.”

“Do — do you remember where you are?” Hat asked, sounding hesitant. “I didn’t break something drawing you in here did I?”

“In a forest, of course!” Barnibus said, feeling a bit affronted by this line of questioning. “I haven’t lost my mind!”

“And… and you’re doing what exactly?”

“Playing a game. A Beautiful Game. Again-s-t…”. Barnibus slowed in his pacing. “Against The Forerunner… of all the Fae.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And I’m losing.” Barnibus resumed pacing, more slowly than before.

“Your mind.”

“My body!”

“Oh! For the love of seamstresses! Why does it matter?!”

“Because, Hat,” Barnibus explained calmly and evenly. It was important to be even. “I know where my mind is. It’s right here in this room with you. I have no idea where my body is.”

"That is…fair, I suppose” Hat replied graciously. “It is still in the forest. With Leinan, and the children, and The Forerunner.”

“Ahah! Well there is that problem solved. Now I know where my body is!” Barnibus’s pace quickened again.

“No Barnibus, you don’t.”

Barnibus Harrumphed. “Why, of course I do. Give or take an eldritch hole and a quick fall from the sky, I know precisely where my body is within a Realm with a forest in it or many.”

“No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re not in that forest. You lost yourself along the way.

* * *

How you opened up mattered, Leinan thought, flipping one of the stones between two fingers. It felt oddly right to do so, as if the stones had been polished just right and sized and weighted just so as to allow it.

There was something very strange about these stones, Leinan noted idly as she focused.

Or, at least, it would have been strange back in the village. Here, the strange stones were monumentally dwarfed by all the other strangeness not least of which was slouched across from her.

But, still, it was strange enough that her mind turned to it just for a moment and she peered hard at the black piece in her hand.

It was square, perfectly so. Too perfectly so, and so were the other pieces. It was like each piece had been crafted and planed by a master craftsman and when she looked closer she noticed that the edges had been planed as well, chamfered to reduce the edge.

What craftsman had the time? Leinan thought. What craftsman had the inclination to craft mundane stone so? And they were so polished. Almost reflective. How?

And at the same time, it also wasn’t surprising. Nothing was really surprising anymore. It just was. Like the Wizard pulling trinkets from his robe just was. Like her switching just was. And the fire and the moon just was.

The piece in her hand? It wasn’t even magic, as impossible as the craftsmanship seemed. She could tell in a sort of odd, round about way. There just wasn’t anything More to it. It was just a piece of stone. Just… a far too perfect piece of stone.

“Dost thee see thine worth in yon stone, Mortal kine? How small thee art?” Wondered The Forerunner.

Leinan flinched and hated herself for doing so. Still doing so. She played the piece and quickly forgot about the perfect planes…. At least for now.

Leinan opened cautiously when playing chess. It was always important to remember that you played the opponent, not the game, and the opponents changed.

So Leinan favored wide probing maneuvers which could fade back to cover if threatened too heavily.

Learn the opponent, then engage. That was the plan.

Chess, though, was a game of resource management. You started each game with a finite array of pieces and capabilities, and those whittled away as the game progressed.

In that regard, this game seemed more a kin to stones. Each individual piece meant quite little in the scheme of the game, but in aggregate, was momentous.

Stones was a game of patterns and area domination. Capture and hold enough territory on the board, and you won.

This game, this Beautiful Game — and it was beautiful, Leinan decided remembering the spires like small cities of stone — was more like that.

With this thought, Leinan deployed her pieces in a loose spread across the board.

Her pieces. Her armies. She placed them loosely, with squares between each and possible reinforcements.

A wavy control, She thought. Each piece was weak on its own, but to attack any one of them would take resources. A commitment. Then she could pounce.

Let The Forerunner attack, Leinan thought grimly. And when she does, my armies shall fall like an avalanche from all sides.

The Forerunner attacked like a winter whirlwind and Leinan’s avalanche crumbled before her.

* * *

“It is all rather embarrassing,” Hat said primly, ruffling his brim. “But, in my defense, it has been a rather tumultuous day. That combined with your latent levels of mediocrity being more poignant than usual….”

Barnibus shuffled his feet uncomfortably and wished he had a hat to adjust in the face of his… hat.

“Firstly, Barnibus. The amount of time you spent in that river was, frankly, ridiculous. Seven hours? In a frigid river? With nothing but a Wizard’s Robe?” Hat huffed. “That is extra-ordinary. Even for you.”

“Are you saying, Hat,” Barnibus cut in slowly, “That Grandfather’s circle transported us through the Land of Fell Doom and Grand Demise and into —” Barnibus breathed harshly and clutched at his beard tightly. “The Fae Realm?”

And then he was struck by an even more uncomfortable thought. His eyes widened. “Or — or perhaps the land of Fell Doom and Grand Demise that Grandfather was referring to IS the Fae realm!”

That was a horrible thought. Being in a completely strange land was bad enough, more so one associated with Fell Doom and Grand Demise.

But for a Faery land to be so, Barnibus supposed furiously, the Doom had to be very very Fell and the Demise rather more Grand than usual.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

At least, on the order of thirteen, Barnibus thought, stroking his beard furiously. “Beard Barnacles!” he muttered.

“That. Is simply. Ridiculous.” Hat said, deadpanned, “Even as grand a Wizard as your grandfather, could not open an eldritch portal into the Fae Realms.”

“Oh,” and Barnibus experienced a torrential Flood of Relief.

“But!” Hat continued acerbically. “Any Wizard who spent seven hours — SEVEN Barney — in a frigid river with nothing but his robe, is probably not paying close attention to the shore he’s actually climbing out on. And if the Fae realm just so happened to be open, at that time, in that place… and the wizard just so happened to be frigidly cold and sopping wet and mediocre and distracted…. Brim stitching, do you understand where I am going with this?”

“I climbed right into it!” Barnibus shuffled his feet, Pondering furiously.

“Climbed right into it,” echoed his hat.

“How — ah — how do you know?”

“Why, the rock of course!”

“…. The rock?”

“The one The Forerunner was sitting on when she made herself known to you. It most definitely was not there before. Your memories are quite clear on that account.”

“…. The... rock?”

“Rocks are normally very metaphysically stable.” Hat said with an Air of Utmost Superiority.

“Of course. Of course!” Barnibus muttered, pulling desperately at his beard. He paused and then said graciously. “I actually think this might have been my fault Ha — ”

“Oh, thank Seamstresses!” Hat exclaimed with his own torrential Flood of Relief. “Yes. Barnibus. This is your fault.”

* * *

Leinan grit her teeth and yielded a stone. Then another. She fell back behind her lines, desperately placing stones and yielding ground, square by square.

It was painful yielding. As if each square was real ground that her armies could not hold, and her eyes streamed as she back tracked. Back. Back.

There was an extra dimension here, she realized. Resource management. Like chess again! Except different. A binary choice.

You could place, or you could move, but not both.

Add to your resources, or use your resources.

If she kept shifting her armies to keep them alive, she’d fall to The Forerunner’s white flood with an alacrity far dwarfing her intended avalanche.

So Leinan placed stones behind her lines. She back-placed and shored up holes behind, and watched as The Forerunner danced and reeked blitzed havoc among her forward forces.

She couldn’t save them, and she blinked back pained, frustrated tears realizing. She needed to hold. To weather.

Towers grew on The Forerunner’s territory and Leinan desperately threw walls in their paths — pieces on their edge that could only support but not win — and The Forerunner danced around them and laughed.

But The Forerunner overextended, just slightly in her last blitz, and Leinan took a piece.

Just one, but when The Forerunner tried to stride across the board to reclaim it, Leinan defended — and for a wonder, held.

She took a stone. And another. And a stack grew and she fortified with her Crowned Piece — a limited resource that she could have used later — and another wall, and she blunted The Forerunners attack.

Leinan gasped breath that had not realized she was holding.

She had a foothold in a sea of white. It was something.

“The flank, Sister Lei.” Aemon breathed into her arm. “Her tower moves to take the flank.”

Leinan dared not nod or even acknowledge the boy. But she pursed her lips and spent her hard won tower to reach just far enough.

And The Forerunner made an annoyed sound from in throat.

Leinan held.

* * *

“She holds.” Barnibus breathed.

There were windows in the walls between the shelves. Barnibus hadn’t remembered there being ANY windows when he first found himself here, but this was Hat’s creation, and he figured if a Hat could make a room, he could also build in windows when he wanted.

“Yes.” Hat replied, sounding almost as worn and threadbare as Barnibus was feeling. “Doing better than you were.”

“I won!” Blustered Barnibus. “Some.” He amended uncomfortably after a moment.

Hat glared at him. It was a curious experience being glared at without eyes, but the wrinkles and folds in the hat were quite clearly a scowl. “You were losing it.” Hat said. “All of it. Your mind —”

“ — Body!”

“Body. The game. The Games…. All of it, Barnibus! What happened?”

Barnibus turned back to the window and fingered his beard worriedly. “I was losing,” he muttered.

“You were losing,” echoed his hat behind him.

“The great winds care not for the trees in their paths….”

“Why were you losing?” Hat pressed. “You played against a witch with blades like razors in her eyes. A witch with a hat as old as time.” Hat seemed to shudder on his desk. “Gave me more Heebie Jeebies than a bucket full of moth larvae, too.”

In front of him, Leinan made a dazzling play. She played well! Even beginning, and was obviously picking up the game as it continued.

Leinan toppled her own wall with her crowned piece, solidifying her hold on one of the towers The Forerunner was threatening and at the same time tying up The Forerunner’s road in a skirmish which tore it apart as Barnibus watched.

Then another pale road appeared from nowhere, and Leinan stretched herself, sending pieces tearing across the board desperately.

Barnibus squinted at the road trying to understand what he was seeing.

He grasped the window sill with shaking hands. “Fae Craft,” He breathed. "Deception.” He spun toward his hat gesturing at the window frantically. “The Forerunner cheats!”

“Does she?” Drawled his hat. “Or are you not playing?!”

* * *

Leinan breathed harshly. She had eyes for nothing but the board in front of her. She couldn’t have looked up even without fear of The Forerunner’s gaze. The game was too much and it consumed her everything.

She had three tall towers now, one with her crowned piece and troops fortifying the edges like a giant net that could not break. One mis-step. One crack in her defense and she was a roast pheasant on The Forerunner’s table.

The Forerunner had more towers and her Crowned Piece had just been placed and together they flailed at her lines like a battering ram.

And she felt every blow like it was physical. She clenched her fists and resisted and she lost a tower to The Forerunner’s force.

Why hadn’t she seen — Leinan breathed harshly, almost as harshly as Aemon into her arm. Keimen tightened her arms around Leinan’s waist.

It was like there were clouds growing in her mind, as she focused everything at this game, they blocked her vision and washed the color from the pieces.

Leinan desperately redeployed. She halved one of her other two towers and sent it careening passed a white wall to capture three of The Forerunner’s troops.

She’d lose this battle to the wall she knew, with tears in her eyes, but at least the road couldn’t form with a wall. Two moves it might buy her. Time, and nothing more.

Desperate tears streamed down her face and she reeled as the wall moved. ‘Let it end’ a traitor voice said from the back of her skull. ‘Let it be done!’

And Leinan flinched, because that voice didn’t care. It didn’t care about her hate. It didn’t care about her fear. It didn’t care about getting home. And it definitely didn’t care about her children.

It was the voice you heard before you lost, she knew. The voice all prey eventually heard.

Fear had a shelf-life Leinan knew. Eventually prey just stopped caring. Eventually they just stopped and watched their end approach.

This was that voice that all prey heard and Leinan flinched away from that voice hard enough that she shifted on her log.

Her lashed bottom burned searing lines across her hips as she shifted and she let out a whimper.

The Forerunner had made those last four the Wizard had added on zingers. Especially the eleventh and… the sudden pain parted the clouds in front of her.

And. Leinan. Saw.

* * *

What did she see? Leinan shifted again, deliberately this time, and through the pain and the tears she saw it again. A plan. The Forerunner’s last attack, being prepared under cover of the clouds. And an opportunity.

Play the person.

Leinan’s face stayed grim, and tears still streamed down her face. But inside a savage grin stretched across her heart.

Play the person. Not the game.

* * *

“Oooh. It looks like the fool girl’s noticed something. Sharper than you by far Barney — bus.”

“How can The Forerunner cheat?!” Barnibus thundered. “This is a genteel game. She is my guest! How —”

Hat sighed, almost a little fondly it seemed. “You fool Wizard.” Hat said. “She is Fae. This is the Fae Realm. And you said she could.”

Hat cleared his throat. “Or did you not say:

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

Of shattered walls and woeful falls.

Of hard-won feats,

and CUNNING DECIETS….’?”

“Well,” blustered Barnibus. “I must correct this travesty. Release me from this false abode Hat!” Barnibus commanded. “I must inform The Forerunner posthaste!”

“No!” Exclaimed his hat. “That is the worst idea I have heard in centuries of Wizard heads!”

“I beg your pardon! Release me, Hat I must stop —”

“No!” Thundered back his head covering. “You’re forgetting! You promised to ENTERTAIN her. How do you entertain the Fae? Forget Leinan. Look at her! Look at The Forerunner! She is Fae! Deception. Is. What. Fae. Do!”

Barnibus looked, and his heart plummeted as he saw.

Hat, of course, was right.

The Forerunner glowed and from more than the Moonlight streaming down from the sky.

There was an intensity to her gaze as she watched the board mirroring Leinan, and her own hands clenched and twitched in her lap. She was transfixed.

“She is loving this.” Hat breathed behind him. “And Leinan — that beautiful, fool, audacious girl — is holding! She’s holding against The Forerunner of All The Fae! And her deceptions! How do you entertain the Fae, Barnibus? You’re doing it! Objective achieved. She is not going anywhere.”

Barnibus stumbled back away from the window.

“I — I don’t know if I can, Hat. A board game is one thing. Playing at cheating with The Fae.” His beard wagged as he shook his head in horrified awe. “That is another Hat entirely.”

“You have a choice, boy. My brim on it.”

“I — Hat, I’m not Wizard enough.” Barnibus said and he quivered where he stood.

“I’m a Library Wizard, Hat. I — I brew potions and sometimes I can sell them. I study and make discoveries which are questionable and I organize grandfather’s grand library. I am no Merlin. I am no Gandalf or Dumbledore. I’m not even a Harry Potter! A horrific excuse for a wizard if ever there was one.”

Barnibus stumbled away from the window as Leinan played and swept a tower across the board in her own lightning fast blitz.

“Hat — I — My hat” — Barnibus peered through quivering, bushy eyebrows at his Hat sitting tall and broad on the desk — “My Hat is arguably big enough,” Barnibus muttered. “But I — I’m not grand. I don’t deserve to stand in this study. I… I’m too small of a wizard.”

“Oh, my boy,” Hat said and for a wonder, his voice sounded gentle. “No Wizard started grand. They won it. By daring grandly. Through deeds grander than they were! Grand deeds doth a Grand Wizard make.

“B-but I —” Barnibus sniffed and there were tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks and into his beard now.

He looked dismally down at himself. “B-but I — my Robe of Mystery is sopping wet. My dignity is stitched together and hanging by threads. My Hat is too big for me, and — and — and my Staff of Power is still in Grandfather’s Library! How can I stand against — against…”. He sniffled. He couldn’t even say it.

“Oil Smears and Mothballs, boy!” Hat said. “Remember the words of Grand Wizard Meliborbackus The Wanderer!”

“‘It was the man!’” Hat quoted. “'Had not Merlin the Man stood at the gates of Avalon!’”

“Grand Wizards. Grand Hats. Grand Deeds and Grand spats! I have been on the heads of wizards for a long, long time, boy. More wizards than I can remember! And remembering is what Hats do! Let me tell you. No wizard is big enough now! None of them. There is not enough in the world anymore.”

Hat’s brim frowned almost in a full upside-down ‘U’.

“You come from a waning world, boy.” He said. “A world where Wizards stay in their libraries and Mortal men Doomed to Die build towers and empires and machines that can fly. A world where magic happens on tablets of metal and glass and no one remembers good King Arthur and Camelot and his great knights except in cinema!”

Barnibus stared at his hat, and behind him in the window, Leinan placed one. Perfect. Piece… and The Forerunner screeched and fell up one of the trees.

He didn’t hear because the windows were purely visual, and he didn’t see because his back was turned. He studied his hat, transfixed as his hat spoke, more clearly and more rawly than he had ever heard his hat speak before.

Hat breathed raggedly. His trunk swayed back and forth, and his brim shuddered. “You come from a world where the Vampires are genteel and the Werewolves stick to their schedules and — and there are rules governing Demon Summoning and everyone knows not to seek beyond the Outer Realms. But Barnibus…. I remember when Wizards bandied with Dragons!”

“Barnibus.” Hat shook himself as if pulling himself from his revery… or his own Pondering.

“Wizard Barnibus Jefferson Montgomery Barnwinkle! ‘The Great winds care NOT for the trees in their path….’”

“‘But the trees can stand firm and weather.’” Barnibus supplied under his breath. “‘Or falter and fall forever.’” Barnibus clenched his fist around his beard and his other around his Courage and he turned back to the window where The Forerunner was capering and struggling and climbing trees in Chagrin.

“No.” He breathed, and in his mind a Forewarned Witch with a hat as old as time, and his own very, very, very old Hat stood at his shoulders and watched him.

“No," he answered both. “I do not surrender. If deceit is the game, then a game of deceit shall we play. And NONE shall stop me.” Barnibus thundered. “Not even this Fae!”

And those words he could say.

* * *

“Theil. Theil!” Flynn hissed. Theil turned partially to look at him.

In the gloom of the forest, Theil should have been just a dark silhouette in the night, but some of the larger than normal moon’s glow filtered through the leaves and cast a wan light over the forest floor.

In that pale glow, Flynn could see the tautness in his friend’s face. He could hear it in his voice too when he responded.

“What?”

“So, we aren’t in the Werewood anymore. Right?” Flynn gestured around at the tree’s and the moon vaguely. “No danger markers. Odd trees. Right?”

Theil’s silhouette nodded.

Flynn gulped, and clutched his sling cords in his hand tighter. “Soooo… what’s to say that wolves are the only thing we need to worry about here?”

The only warning they had was the sudden thrumming of wings.