Here and Now
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“Hail – and that’s all?!”
“Well, some more trifles... But I can’t put anyone to sleep.”
The chieftain spat on the floor. “I knew it. To babble everybody knows, and to do something – no one gives a hoot!”
“Wait, wait! What if...” All the glances turned to Lukerda at once, and the girl became abashed, flushed shyly. And then she started jabbering, floundering and stammering with excitement, as if she was afraid she would be interrupted and wouldn’t be able to finish. “Let’s try ourselves! Ourselves! So that there won’t be a war! Tell us, Martzin, your game... can anyone play it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” the youth glanced at the taverner’s daughter with surprise, as if seeing her for the first time. Apparently, such a thought just hadn’t occurred to him. The idea of delivering the game to the prince Razimir had possessed his soul since the moment of his teacher’s death, and he hadn’t thought of anything else.
“Then why deliver it to the prince? Maybe we can do it?! And if not – the game won’t lose its power, will it? Right, Martzin?”
“Yes.”
“If we don’t manage, you’ll take the game to Wrozlav!”
“He lies, this Martzin, he does,” Jendrich waved his hand with dismissal. But those who were in the hideout didn’t fail to notice that the chieftain’s eyes were glittering with excitement. “Let him first prove he’s a bit of a mage. Right now... it’s just fooling around.” The severe chieftain wouldn’t confess even to himself that he wanted desperately, to tears wanted to believe in a miracle. With the help of some trashy casket to turn the course of the war back, and the margrave Siegfried will never invade the lands of Opolie, and Jendrich’s gang-mates that have fallen at dawn will remain alive, and...
“Prove? How?” Martzin ruffled like a funny sparrow.
“Have you learnt at least something? To light a candle without a flint?”
“Yes.”
“Come on then!”
The chieftain blew abruptly, and the hideout became pitch dark. The tang of soot crawled into the nostrils. Rustling, vague movement. A drop of flame appears noiselessly, coming out of the darkness. It’s strange, amber, with a vertical line in the middle – like a cat’s eye. Only after two or three heartbeats do they understand that the flame is burning in the air, between Martzin’s hands brought together.
The youth brings the drop to the candle.
The wick kindles at once.
“He’s a wizad, he’s a wizad! Make more wizadly!”
“Hush, Karolinka! Bad fellas will hear – them come and take you. Hush, my daughter...”
Now Skwozhina bore little resemblance to the loudmouthed squabbler that would tell bawdy jokes and wouldn’t give a hoot about anybody. Having drawn Karolinka closer to herself, she was stroking the girl’s head tenderly with a coarse hand, trying to protect, close, hide in her bosom from the troubles awaiting the child in the evil and hostile world.
“Here...”
Jendrich Dry Storm thrust his fingers into his curly inky mane, scratched his head – and suddenly grinned merrily: “Alright, hold that I believe you. Well, mage boy! Teach us to replay fate!”
The pieces were old, part of them lacked a head or a top. Well matching the peeled and cracked casket-board. Martzin was placing them carefully, biting his lip. Giacomo Seingalt was watching the youth’s actions intently. He reached forward: “Three colours? I assume that black is for the Maintz Mark, yellow for Holne and red – our Opolie. Can we choose any side? Any camp?”
“Of course. But you must choose only a single piece. Then for a short time you’ll become the man whose image you’ve chosen. And you’ll move backwards, into the past. There you can try to change something, to give a new course to the events. You’ll have about two months. My teacher would have transferred you for some twenty years without an effort, but I...”
“This sounds alluring. I think I would risk playing for...”
“Two months? That will do! The tournament! The tournament in Maintz! Damn it, I know what to do! Lubina decided not to take part in the jousting! And he should... Oh, I’ll show this son of a bitch!”
“There’s another thing. Would the margrave Dietrich, Siegfried’s father, live at least five-six years more...”
“I know that the burgomaster of Holne has a daughter. Were I in her place...”
“Good heavens! How hadn’t it occurred to me before! Were my teacher a bit more resolute...”
“Mommy, I want play!”
“Wait, dolly. After grown men finish making fools of themselves, they’ll give you toys to play too. Damn you! Just like babies...”
“Hush! Well, lad, show how to play.”
“Have you already chosen a piece, mister Jendrich?”
“Sure!”
The chieftain reached out to the board.
“Wait! This is not how it must be done. Imagine thoroughly what you’re going to do in the chosen man’s place. Because during the game you cease being yourself. Just remember the main thing – what you are playing for. So?”
In the chieftain’s face there expressed the unusually hard labour of the mind. After some lingering Jendrich Dry Storm nodded with a visible effort.
“Then clap your hands over the board. And then, when I say, touch the piece.”
Jendrich’s arms, swelling with lumps of muscles, met in a mute clap. None of them understood where most of the pieces vanished to from the board. The chieftain’s burning eyes were fixed tightly on the image of an armoured knight with a shield and a spear in its hands. The spearhead was long ago broken, the red paint had peeled off the helm – but this didn’t matter now. Martzin took in his hands the hourglass with the massive bronze stand, shook it slightly and stared at the bulging glass. The youth’s glance became lifeless, dim – and they saw that in the lower part of the vessel there rose a thin sandstorm. One by one, faster and faster the sand grains rushed for the orifice of the vessel, to the upper part of it.