I AM DANGLING, AND IT IS ONLY MY FATHER'S BLOODslicked grip around my wrist that stops me from falling.
He is on his stomach, stretched out over the rocky ledge. His muscles are corded. Sticky red covers his face, his arms, his clothes, everything I can see. Yet I know he can pull me up. I do everything I can not to struggle. I trust him to save me.
He looks over my shoulder. Into the inky black. Into the darkness that is to come.
"Courage," he whispers. He pours heartbreak and hope into the word.
He lets go.
'he he he
"I KNOW I'M ALWAYS TELLING YOU TO THINK BEFORE YOU act," says the craggy-faced man slouching across the board from me, "but for the game to progress, Vis, you do actually have to move a gods-damned stone."
I rip my preoccupied gaze from the cold silver that’s streaming through the sole barred window in the guardroom. Give my opponent my best irritated glare to cover the sickly swell of memory, then force my focus again to the polished white and red triangles between us. The pieces glint dully in the light of the low-burning lantern that sits on the shelf, barely illuminating our contest better than the early evening’s glow from outside.
“You alright?”
“Fine.” I see Hrolf’s bushy grey eyebrows twitch in the corner of my vision.
“I’m fine, old man. Just thinking. Sappers haven’t got me yet.” No heat to the words. I know the way his faded brown eyes crinkle with concern is genuine. And I know he has to ask.
I’ve been working here almost a year longer than him, so he’s wondering again whether my mind is losing its edge. Like his has been for a while, now.
I ignore his worry and assess the Foundation board, calculating what the new red formation on the far side means. A feint, I realise immediately. I ignore it. Shift three of my white pieces in quick succession and ensure the win. Hrolf likes to boast about how he once defeated a Magnus Quartus, but against me, it’s never a fair match. Even before the Hierarchy—or the Catenan Republic, as I still have to remind myself to call them out loud—ruled the world, Foundation was widely considered the perfect tool for teaching abstract strategic thinking. My father ensured I was exposed to it young, often, and against the very best players.
Hrolf glowers at the board, then me, then at the board again.
“Lost concentration. You took too long. Basically cheating,” he mutters, disgusted as he concedes the game. “You know I beat a Magnus Quartus once?”
My reply is interrupted by a hammering at the thick stone entrance. Hrolf and I stand, game forgotten. Our shift isn’t meant to change for hours yet.
“Identify yourself,” calls Hrolf sharply as I step across to the window. The man visible through the bars is well-dressed, tall and with broad shoulders. In his late twenties, I think. Moonlight shines off the dark skin of his close-shaven scalp.
“Sextus Hospius,” comes the muffled reply. “I have an access seal.” Hospius looks at the window, spotting my observation of him. His beard is black, trimmed short, and he has serious, dark brown eyes that lend him a handsome intensity. He leans over and presses what appear to be official Hierarchy documents against the glass.
“We weren’t told to expect you,” says Hrolf.
“I wouldn’t have known to expect me until about thirty minutes ago. It’s urgent.”
“Not how it works.”
“It is tonight, Septimus.” No change in expression, but the impatient emphasis on Hrolf’s lower status is unmistakeable.
Hrolf squints at the door, then walks over to the thin slot set in the wall beside it, tapping his stone Will key to it with an irritated, sharp click. The hole on our side seals shut. Outside, Hospius notes the corresponding new opening in front of him, depositing his documentation. I watch closely to ensure he adds nothing else.