I've been wanting to do this for a long time: an angst one-shot that is sort of a prologue to A Game of Chess. I finally did it, and all of the major characters are included (even Morris gets involved with the angst). You don't necessarily need to have read that fic to get it, although if you've read the first few chapters it certainly helps.
Chapter 14 is being a nuisance, so this might be the update for the week. I don't know.
Disclaimer: The trilogy isn't mine. Still.
Like Pawns, We Fall
"Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be." –Bob Dylan
Tick. Tock.
Time was running out.
Tick. Tock.
He swore under his breath one more time as his fingers ran over the large annexes of the library. Any minute now a guard would be coming, something he could not afford. Each book was ancient, with rough and tattered bindings, and he supposed he was lucky to already have so many calluses over his fingers or else they would have been blistered.
A low growl emitted from his lips as he realized he was on the wrong shelf. He hurried into the aisle and looked up at the signs above each row of shelves before silently approaching the row whose sign read: "Historic Artifacts".
Tick. Tock.
The room was very cold, and the preserving molecules laced into the air made his head feel light and dizzy. But he wouldn't lose his focus, not now, for this would be the worst time to let his concentration slip away. He must focus. He must not fail. Everything he had worked for would just be thrown away as if it were trash. He could not fail.
Damn, he thought to himself. Where is it?
Tick. Tock.
He stepped back and scanned over the shelf quickly with his eyes. None of the titles stood out to him, and he swore once more. This was not good.
Biting his lip anxiously, he spun around on his heels. If the book wasn't on this shelf, then this had all just been a wild goose chase. And if he was risking his life for a wild goose chase…
Tick. Tock.
He skimmed through the books on this shelf, but yet again, none stood out to him. All were about the Greeks and Romans and even the Mongols. Wait, was that something about Atlantis? And right next to it, the Indus Valley civilization…
His focus was slipping. He shook his head and began looking over the shelf once more. It had to be here. This was the hidden library, the ancient texts no one was allowed to read. He knew what book he was looking for, and it must be here. Otherwise, it was just nonexistent.
Tick. Tock.
Time was running low. He needed to find it soon, or else he would – no, he wouldn't think about the consequences. He had put more than five years of work into this, and those five years would not be spent in vain.
Suddenly, his hand hit a book and it was knocked from the shelf. It hit the floor hard, and he worried that it had fallen apart. He bent down to pick it up and put it back when he noticed the title.
He grinned.
It was the book he had been looking for.
There was a chime from the clock and the door opened briskly. His eyes darted to the side in shock.
Time was up.
-
The finger – or, stub of a finger, rather – was decaying. There were hints of black and green at the fringes of the spot were it had been severed, and it did not take much of an education to realize the black and green spots were bacteria gnawing away at the flesh. There wasn't much besides that, to tell the truth: no exterior DNA, mysterious substances, or anything else, for that matter.
Morris sighed. Well, this should be fun. Figuring out what had caused this would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, something he knew was very hard and hurt very much if you did not find the needle with your hands but rather the back of your neck.
"Hold on," he said to an assistant walking out of the lab. He picked up the finger with a pair of miniature tongs and dropped it into a plastic bag before jutting it out at the assistant. "Get this to Kellington and see if he can identify the source of the wound from marks on the body."
The assistant twittered her eyelashes at him. "There is no body."
"What?" How could there be no body? "So they're giving me a finger without a body and asking me to give them solid information?"
"Why don't you ask Mandrake yourself?" the assistant shot back. "He'll be in his office in a few minutes."
Morris shook his head. "Nah, I guess I'll get a pay raise if I solve this without any help. And of course, Mandrake's always busy. Don't know what he could be doing. There can't be that much work for someone that short these days."
She rolled her eyes at him and walked away, leaving him alone once more. Well, that suited him just fine. Screw her. Screw everybody. He worked better alone, thank you very much, and didn't need anyone else's help.
Although friends were always nice.
He reminisced on the last true friends he'd had as he returned to his microscope. How long had it been, two, three years? Then he went to work here and his ties were slowly broken with those he had once known. All because he was a magician.
Hey, those bacteria were dead. That was odd.
And it wasn't like he was a good magician, really. He'd never even summoned a foliot at all, and usually got a fair amount of undesired satire from the imps he called forth. What was wrong with him? Was he just not intimidating enough as a master, or not strong enough, or was his reputation so tarnished that imps gave him lip?
He poked the dead bacteria with a metal instrument and zoomed in the focus on the microscope. Why was that entire cluster dead?
But he was more of a loner. He didn't like having spirits around his flat. They gave him the willies. One time, an imp had used the guise of a toddler with devil horns and he had passed out, right then and there. So nowadays, Morris refrained from summoning imps whenever possible. Mouler balls were much more efficient, and much less scary.
Hold on, was that a strand of orange? Yellow?
He missed his friends. They were easy-going, like him, and didn't really care about awards and such. He hadn't been particularly good at sports. That was fine. He couldn't remember a famous magician to save his life. Hell, they actually liked that. And his strongest trait, his ability to solve a problem when in a bind, they appreciated. They even went so far as to say that he had a good sense a humor, but Morris knew that was a load of bullshit, as he liked to say.
He pulled the strand of orange out. That wasn't just any strand. That was a strand of –
"Yarn? Rope?" His head snapped towards the assistant, who had just walked back into the lab. "Where was this found?"
She thought about it for a moment. "A sweater factory, I think."
Morris looked back at the finger. This could be it… he removed the bacteria and grinned at the sight in front of him. "The bone was cut with something jagged. I know what happened."
"What?"
"Someone's finger got caught in the equipment and then the yarn kept passing over it and destroying the flesh around it so bacteria wouldn't form. I'd say this finger is at least a few months old."
"Hm. Interesting."
He put the finger in the plastic bag once more and set it to the side. Mystery solved. Maybe he was better off on his own. Then again…
"Hey," he stated as smoothly as he could as he turned to face the assistant. "Want to go get a coffee or something?"
She gave him a skeptic look and just walked away without a word. Morris shrugged.
Okay, he was better off on his own. Lesson learned.
-
Nathaniel rubbed his temples apathetically as the minister to France rambled on and on about the wonderful food the restaurants of Paris served. Save Marmadruke Fry, none were listening with any degree of consciousness, so he did not feel guilty. Besides, he was not particularly fond of France. They were not good allies, and were much too inhospitable for his liking, even to their superiors, the rulers of the Empire.
"And the drinks were to die for…"
Inhospitable to rulers of the Empire. Sounded like the Resistance, actually. This new Resistance was growing to be a very irritating nuisance, one that he had been put in charge of containing and destroying. But they had been elusive and cunning thus far, and showed patience the last Resistance did not. They knew what they were doing. It was all very odd, but he could not do anything about it, so he would have to wait until they made a mistake, tipped their hand to him. Then they would pay.
"You wouldn't believe how great the service was…"
His eyes drifted over to Rupert Devereaux uneasily. How could he sit there, so calm and under control, when people were committing treason all around the Empire? Maybe that was why he was Prime Minister. He knew that some wounds took time to heal, and could just not be patched up. They must chip away at the source of the Resistance so that no others could potentially rise against the Empire.
"I swear, it is the most beautiful country in the world…"
But he couldn't help but feel as though he was useless in the grand scheme of things. Nathaniel was exceptional, as any competent magician would admit, but besides this Resistance, how could he help? Chances were that he couldn't. He had been assigned the little kid's task once more. They did not trust his judgement. Why, he was one of the most intelligent ministers in the government! He could handle any task they would assign him, and if they would let him try to activate Gladstone's Staff, he was sure he could.
"All in all, I feel very fortunate I was able to go…"
He would bide his time. He would wait for his chance to strike, when the situation was most profitable for him. Nathaniel would not just be known as a pawn that the king used to his pleasure, but as a king himself. With patience, he would have his chance. He knew this. It was all just a waiting game.
"Really, that's all there is to say."
-
It was cold in the cellar, as it almost always was. Katherine was working on some map in the corner and Clarice was helping her, but besides them, Dylan was Kitty's only company. She wasn't sure how she felt about this – Dylan was passionate but also very stupid and could lose his temper – but he was a good ally, all in all. He wanted for the Resistance to reach its goal, and would give his life to ensure that it would.
He leaned forward in his chair abruptly and sighed. "Do you think we'll actually, you know, win?"
His question tore her from her thoughts immediately. She'd never heard Dylan questioning their fate. "What do you mean? Of course we will."
"Yeah," he said in response. "I guess."
Kitty gave him a questioning look. "Are you losing faith? We know what we're doing, Dylan. It's not like the last Resistance."
"I know." He sighed once more. "But it's been over a year and we still haven't made any progress at all, or at least that's what it feels like. We're still petty criminals to them, Kitty. We need to do something, something big, something to make them realize we're here."
"Telling them we're her is what we don't want. They're not overly concerned with us right now, so we can operate without worrying too much. That's what we want."
"Sure. Whatever you say."
She shook her head and turned away. Sometimes, Dylan could just be… irrational. That would catch up to him eventually, or at least she thought it would, but she hoped it didn't catch up to him anytime soon.
Needless to say, Kitty was wrong.
-
The Other Place was, and is, a peaceful place, but I knew I would have to leave soon. That's the way my life is. I never stay in one place for too long. I just drift with the wind.
No doubt Nathaniel would be the one to summon me, too. He has a knack for it, which I will never understand. After all, I am Bartimaeus, he who is king of satire and wit.
I sighed. It would be nice to be a magician. Well, it wouldn't be nice, but just to know where you will be from time to time, to have control… that was what I desired. Control. Freedom.
At least I knew. I would be leaving soon, for it had been almost two years since my last summoning. I guess that's some stability.
But only a little bit.
-
His breathing was sharp and irregular, but he was alive, and even better, they never even knew he had been there. He had escaped without injury and without alerting them of his presence. Perfect.
He flipped open the cellphone and dialed in a well-known number to him. The phone on the other end rung for a few seconds before it was picked up. "Hello?"
It was a man's voice, one that he knew as well as the phone number. He smiled.
"Hello," he replied cheerfully. He glanced around the street corner and lowered his voice. "I got it."
"Good," breathed the man on the other end with relief. "Now get back here so we can get to work."
"Of course."
He closed the phone and put it back into his coat pocket. With one last glance at the government building, he walked away and down the street into the bleak outline of London. He was a step closer now, a step closer to his goal of five years that he had worked so hard towards. He, unlike others, was not content to just be a pawn in some great game of chess between nations. No, he would be a king. He would make sure of that. No one could stand in his way now, for he was almost there already.
No one knew of his visit to the building besides his accomplice, but that was just fine with him.
They would know his name soon enough. It was only a matter of time.