The Fanta Morgan Gambit
Camping does something odd with time, by the time we finally started eating our mashed potato breakfast the sun wasn’t overhead. The shadows were still on the long end.
Maybe it was nine, I didn’t know.
“What time is it O Dove?”
“Morning!” She said through a mouth full of mashed potatoes. “And lets pack more food next time!”
Heh… she didn’t know either.
The two telescopes sat under a gentle and impossibly thin leather cover, one for each one. I hadn’t seen my clever little dove conjure them in the night.
In my youth I had among my younger cousins named a notable dove at the beach ‘tramp stamp.’
I love birds, they are so aggressive. It’s very honest.
I probably shouldn’t nickname my Queen ‘Tramp-stamp.’ Even if she was a picture of that little grubby pigeon.
But looking at her form under the slightly too small riding clothes, seeing the gentle bulge of her soft form ride against her leathers here and there, the intrusive thought was stuck forever.
Gross…
I almost asked if she was comfortable before I was reminded of how itchy my socks were.
I guess this is just normal for the dark ages.
The mountain was already a field, a desert, the dry air above clouds below, I can’t smell light but I could have sworn I might. No sunglasses but between us and the sun there were no clouds. The happy flowers and grasses and shrubs absorbed the ultraviolet with a serene peace.
Wind tossed the scraggly old trees that sprouted from the ridges that caught the moisture or shreds of shade. Something about mountains fills my mind with IRL minecraft projects never made. I stood and drew my sword fearing a red blade.
No I had cleaned it last night, the metal was shiny and clean.
“O Mighty Lion?” The Dove’s voice would have pulled me out of any rage.
“O Dove of my Heart?” I responded.
“Why did you draw your sword?” I looked at her, her smug smile hiding the anxiety that surly would have encouraged such a question.
I guess the sound of metal on scabbard was the equivalent of a modern gun chamber being loaded. Or I guessed at that.
If I was right the Dove’s knowing poker face was flawless.
“I wanted to see it was clean!”
“Did you forget that it’s rude to draw a naked blade before a woman?” She asked as if it was naughty innuendo.
“It’s very important to keep a blade clean and checking is very satisfying would you like to have a look?” I held the sword out, inviting her to approach.
“Oh Lion I know very well already. You sharpened it well last night you are just showing off now.”
She was right.
“We were going to view the kingdom today?” I changed the subject and slid my sword back into it’s scabbard.
She sighed, “I don’t like business. It’s a lot of work…”
“What is so hard, is it more than looking through the scope?”
“Well I brought a ledger.”
“We don’t have to document anything. We are king and queen.”
“But we should document everything. Oh how I wish we could retire to a cozy farm.”
Cute, but at this point I believed she was reading my mind, my dreams, my paranoia.
“Would you like to flee to see the ocean? I can catch you a real shark.”
“They really exist?”
“They taste good.”
She was sitting and stood as an old women, she grabbed her staff which she had stood against the branches of a scraggly evergreen that gave us only a sliver of shade. It wasn’t much taller than I was.
“I suppose we can’t until we conquer the world.”
The world? Is that really where I was? The entire world? I looked at the telescopes. Worlds?
You got to murder the fads before the fads murder you and yours.
And this stupid sword of mine can only cut down unarmored peasants that don’t run away.
My queen wasn’t the only magic user out here, I could have a gun, a tank, a jet, a nuke… the dark ages wouldn’t care.
In heaven all the demons are stupid and deserving of death… in hell the angels are always right and never make a mistake.
The sword itched for blood. Living was to use it.
So life was ninety nine percent death… ironic.
The queen lazily lifted her staff. “Give it a bit, let me clear our view.”
I didn’t ask what she was doing, magic was evil.
I wasn’t happy this morning.
“I never had a dream in my life because a dream is what you want to do but still haven’t pursued I knew what I wanted and did it till I was done, so I’ve been the dream that I wanted to be since day one!”
Which would send me to an early grave. So dreamer I remained.
I don’t know who said that first but I’m pretty sure someone wrote it on the mountain somewhere. This mountain I was on in fact.
Where was it?
I could feel a driving madness in me, the madness that made killers, monsters, dancing stoats, evil cults, screaming kids, barking dogs. A sick hunger, a sick hunger that I knew could not be satiated.
Where was this coming from? Where was the chessboard? I needed to calm myself before I attacked the queen.
Not that she didn’t deserve it.
I entered our tent and brought it out into the sunlight next to our little smoldering fire campsite.
White was brilliant and marble, Black was a delicate obsidian.
Obsidian… volcanic…
Marble and Obsidian stone…
Come to think of it this mountain wasn’t one I remembered from back home, it was a hybrid…
I sat on a log, craving asparagus and an omelet.
The sword pressed awkwardly into my flank.
This is why I don’t carry weapons, I like to use them. It was bad enough to have thumbs and knuckles.
I needed a target rich environment…
I looked at the chessboard unthinkingly.
My mind raced.
I realized what was happening.
The queen had summoned a wind, or something. I paused as I looked down the mountain, the clouds that filled the realm in front of us was rising and the sky was darkening as a mist.
“Oh king… we arn’t far enough up yet, I’m out of order this morning.” The queen was suddenly at my arm pressing her body into my back. “But it’s ok, with your consent I can cheat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we need to reach that peak for the perfect view… but by the time we do, well... I fear the light won’t be good.”
“We woke too late?”
The queen giggled. “Maybe I was too successful when I selected this body.”
She said it not me.
“So how would you cheat the natural order?” I asked.
“We will have a shallow angle, but I think I shall be able to shade us properly and extend our visual range.”
“With the clouds?”
“Yes… I want to try it… I don’t get to experiment with magic very often.”
My mind raced at the physical implications. What did she know? She knew a little optics I knew that.
“That sounds complicated… Are you sure you can do that?”
“No! Which Is why I ask your consent.”
“Are you sure you want to do it?”
“Of course my king!”
This was bad data-science.
And it was technological progress. Why was I tolerating it.
“Is my Observant Dove worried about the data?” I asked
“Come now my Silly Lion, you know our living souls are much larger errors than any experimental method I can imagine.”
“I’m just along for the ride.” I grinned at her. “Do you need to focus?”
“Not anymore. I already did it, I just wanted to show off.” her face beamed with mischief. “We can just watch!”
She made to sit next to me on the log, I pulled her into my lap instead.
We watched the clouds form slowly as commanded. They parted into unnatural columns and spiraled into the sky as the sun blasted the kingdom below with it’s warmth.
I thought about it.
“Will you need to focus?” I asked.
“You will have to fill out this clay tablet because I will need to sleep when it starts.”
So it was difficult for her…
A stack of soft clay tablets appeared near our fire.
I frowned, this might be a few hours.
Data entry does not relax me. But it can distract me.
Movement, my eyes tracked the black bishop moving as if moved by invisible hand from C eight, to D seven.
A threat…