Chapter 65 Chapter 64: To Sacrifice a Polli
My preparations were complete. I had fashioned three, crude but effective collars and leads for the polfluks-warndars. Then, with the steady hands of a bomb disposal expert, I woke each beast from its drugged stupor. I used the smallest possible scent from the now tightly sealed bag of my used underwear, just enough to rouse them to a groggy, docile wakefulness without triggering their frenzy. When the three weary, confused animals were fully awake, I passed their leads to Chup-chup.
"Follow me at a distance," I instructed. "Do not approach unless I signal."
There was no time to pack my bags. I cast one last look around the room, a silent farewell to the remnants of my life as a Polli here. I hope Marcel will understand, I thought, mourning the loss of his beautiful creations, before I throw my knife on the sofa and firmly turned off the light, plunging the scene of the murder into darkness.
We moved swiftly through the silent palace, heading straight for the day lounge where the rushém match was to be held. My entire plan rested on a razor's edge; I had to be on time. As we neared the giant doors to the lounge, the normal guards stood at their posts. They performed their routine body checks for weapons and scans, and finally, the I.D. scan. I held my breath. The reader beeped, confirming my identity: Nanda Stone. The same DNA, despite the profound physical change. I was waved through, and Chup-chup, my Sylvan chaperone, was permitted to follow with his three "harmless" warndars in tow.
The scene before us was better than I could have hoped. The Emperor sat on his gilded stool upon the dais, observing with lazy interest. Four of the Karns were arrayed beside him. Before them, at a central table, sat Ciel and Karn Zul, a rushém board between them. The game was clearly in its final stages. Standing just off to the side were Lord Vincent, Jode, and Saul, their postures radiating a tense resignation. A large audience of aides and Sylvan noble Nates lined the walls, soaking in the spectacle.
I didn't need to hear The Emperor's gloating; I could see from the configuration of the pieces that the game was catastrophically in Karn Zul's favour. As I entered the room fully, I caught the eyes of both Lord Vincent and Saul. I saw their faces morph from grim acceptance to pure, unadulterated shock. I saw Saul's muscles coil, ready to intercept me, to demand answers.
"I trained him myself since he was a child," The Emperor gloated, his voice carrying across the hushed room.
Just as Saul began to move, Lord Vincent stayed his arm with a firm grip and a barely perceptible shake of his head. Saul stopped in his tracks, his eyes burning with questions, leaving me free to walk unimpeded up to the rushém table. I took my place standing behind Ciel's chair just as Zul executed the winning move, capturing Ciel's final key piece.
"You owe me, Vincent," Zul laughed, putting a vicious sneer on the name. "Like taking sweets from a child."
I spoke out, my new, deeper voice cutting clearly through the celebratory chatter from the Sylvan side. "Exalted Emperor! We would like to double the bet, for one more game!"
He looked at me over the distance, his eyes struggling to place me in the dim light. "Who is this upstart? One of yours, Vincent?" he laughed, amused by the audacity.
Lord Vincent answered in a powerful, rich voice, full of a confidence I'm sure he didn't wholly feel, "Why, this is Nanda Stone, my aide... and my champion rushém player, Exalted Emperor."
The Emperor laughed again, a dismissive sound. "Pollis are not permitted to play rushém!"
"I think you will find," Lord Vincent countered, his tone sharpening, "that Nanda is very much the Nate, Exalted Emperor."
A ripple of confusion went through the crowd. The Emperor's smile faltered. He could not lose face or turn down a bet after all his gloating; besides, his champion was supposedly unbeatable. He was trapped by his own pride.
"Then it's settled," he declared, a new, predatory interest in his eyes. "Take a seat, Nanda."
The room fell into a stunned silence. In that quiet, no one seemed to pay any mind to the silent chaperone who had moved to stand behind me, or to the three large beasts that now flopped on the floor around the rushém table, seemingly asleep.
No one, except for Karn Zul. His face turned as white as a sheet. His eyes darted from me to the beasts, and back to me again, the horrifying truth dawning on him.
"A changeling," he whispered, the word a venomous hiss.
I said nothing. I merely looked at him, then calmly began to reset the board for a new game.
“Black or white, Karn Zul?” I said, my voice steady. I held my two closed fists out before him. The choice was a formality, but the presentation was a message. It was obvious to us both that the knuckles of my right hand were crusted with a faint, brownish-red stain, Don-jon’s blood, a grim reminder of the stakes that lay just beneath the surface of this game.
As he stared at the bloodstain, one of the polfluks-warndars, stirred by some unseen signal, lifted its massive head and rested its muzzle on his lap in a grotesque parody of affection. Zul flinched, his composure cracking. He looked from the beast to my hands, his own trembling slightly.
“That one,” he whispered, pointing a shaky finger at my unbloodied left fist.
I turned it over, revealing a black piece.
“Black.” I was to make the first move. For the first time since setting foot in Sylva, I was taking the initiative.
The game began, and it was immediately clear this was no friendly match. It was a silent war; a brutal conversation played out in stone and strategy. Every aggressive advance I made, Zul countered with a rigid, defensive parry. Every subtle trap I laid in the margins of the board, he seemed to anticipate, sidestepping the danger with the practiced ease of a Nate who had spent a lifetime navigating court intrigues. Every charge I launched against his formations, he stopped cold, his pieces forming an unyielding wall.
Yet, for all his skill, he did no better than I. My playstyle, forged in the fire of dieball tactics and a mind used to, thinking three steps ahead in a fight, was alien to him. My moves were not those of a traditional rushém master; they were unpredictable, sometimes seemingly reckless, forcing him into positions that were fraught with their own peril. We were perfectly matched, two predators circling each other in a confined space, neither able to find a killing blow.
We chased each other around the eighty-one squares of the board for over an hour. The atmosphere in the room split in two. The skilled rushém players in the audience, aides, generals, even The Emperor himself, were on the edge of their seats, their eyes flicking across the board, muttering to each other about brilliant sacrifices and devastating counters. For them, it was a masterpiece unfolding. For the non-players, it was an exercise in exquisite boredom, a silent, protracted struggle they could not comprehend, their patience wearing thin with each passing minute of tense silence. But for Zul and me, there was no audience, no room, no empire. There was only the board, and the relentless, exhausting hunt for a single, fatal weakness.
This was no longer a game; it was a duel. The air was so thick with tension it was difficult to breathe. I reached for my next piece, a seemingly minor defensive unit, and moved it across the board. I let my hand tremble ever so slightly, a calculated, tell-tale shake of feigned exhaustion and desperation.
When I released the piece, a huge, triumphant smile broke across Zul’s face. He had seen the tremor. He thought he had spotted the crack in my facade.
“Fool!” he crowed, swooping down to capture another piece with a violent snap of his fingers. “You have sacrificed your Polli, Nanda Stone! A reckless, sentimental move!” He fell back into his chair, laughing with vindictive glee, his stirring causing the polfluks-warndar on his lap to grumble and shift.
I let him have his moment. I let the triumph wash over him. Then, in the silence that followed his laughter, I met his eyes.
“Yes, I have sacrificed my Polli, but not for the first time tonight,” I said, my voice cold and flat.
And I played the winning move.
It was a piece he had entirely disregarded, positioned three turns ago. It slid into place with a soft, definitive click, severing the head of his formation and leaving his key piece utterly defenceless. The game was over. The wager was mine.
“You fool!” The Emperor shouted, not at me, but at his son, who sat frozen, staring at the board as if it had betrayed him.
I rose from the table, the movement causing the other two warndars at my feet to lift their heads. I made my way toward Lord Vincent and the others, but not before I pulled the small, sealed plastic bag from my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, I threw it through the air in a high arc.
“A gift from me to you, Karn,” I said, my voice cutting through the stunned silence.
Zul, his eyes still glazed with the shock of his defeat, caught it on reflex. He looked down at the innocuous bag in his hand, uncomprehending.
“Well done, Nanda!” Lord Vincent boomed, his voice so full of pride and relief that it seemed to shake the very walls. The sound, loud and sudden, finally woke the other two beasts fully from their drowsy state. Their ears pricked up, and their massive heads swivelled, nostrils flaring.
“I think it’s time we left now,” Saul said, his voice a low, urgent command. His hand was already on my arm, guiding me. “The hopper is waiting.”
I didn't look back. I didn't need to. I followed our group as they moved with newfound speed toward the great doors, the Sylvan court too shocked and confused to stop us.
But at the threshold, I allowed myself one last look over my shoulder.
It was just in time to see Karn Zul, in a fit of pique and confusion, break the seal of the plastic bag. The intimate, potent scent of a Polli’s stigma, my scent, captured on the fabric within, bloomed into the air, a direct and irresistible trigger.
The three polfluks-warndars, now fully alert and standing mere meters from him, froze for a split second. Then, as one, their docility vanished, replaced by a unified, feral snarl. Their eyes locked onto the source of the scent, the bag in Zul's hand, and by extension, the Nate himself.
We were already through the doors when the first scream tore through the day lounge, a raw, guttural sound of pure terror, followed by the snarls of frenzied beasts and the panicked shouts of the court.
We could all hear the screams, clear and horrifying, even as we boarded the armoured hopper and its heavy door hissed shut, sealing us away from the bloody chaos we had left behind.