On The Coveted Recipes of Fabled Stones, Intersecting Interests and the Fraud-Proof Quality of Shatranj
How does one cheat at Shatranj? The question ate away at the back of Amram's mind for deep down he knew it to be an impossibility, despite his pride claiming otherwise. Dice could be loaded and cards cleverly hidden. Shatranj however, was a tried and true battle of wit where no piece of information hides from the public and where the usual suspects of sleight of hand and trickery are virtually useless, in the face of the glorious checkered board.
Yes, he had most definitely been the victim of a swindle. That foul, pretentious man cheated and bagged an unjust victory. There could be no other logical explanation for the loss that haunted the Abyssinan's thoughts, none whatsoever.
"Goodness gracious, Amram. Are you still thinking about it?" Zelikman, the Abyssinian's now hatless, dark garment-wearing companion, grumbled. The lithe Frank had yet to drink from the foul liquid in his mug. Not that the most expensive beverage in the seedy, low-life ridden tavern would have pleased him either way.
Amram sighed and partook in his drink. His tenth one of the day in actuality as the spills on his leather jerkin attested to. "We were unjustly tricked, Zelikman. Why is it that you cannot find it in your heart to support me in the most dire of moments? Are you not my partner in crime, in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows?"
"You lost, Amram. Your overconfidence claimed the better of you and now we are without funds, without steeds and stuck in the foulest part, of the foulest city, in the foulest country of the entire known world! Oh and need I not remind you. You also lost my hat!" He finally drank, downing it all in one go. He gasped. "So if you would be so kind and get over it."
"Forgive me, old friend, but it is not my hurt pride nor our lost funds that enrage me, no, those are but mere trivialities. It is the knowledge that somewhere, someone has marred the good name of an immaculate pastime, through the detestable act of cheating," he drank again, furiously this time. "And you exaggerate, really. Italy is not that bad."
Zelikman laughed mockingly. "Really now? The horse robber crying foul against implausible treachery. Why, if I were drunk enough I would no doubt double-cross you and turn you over to those high and mighty Templars mucking about outside. But then again, I sincerely doubt the reward money would amount to much of anything, beyond the purchase of a mangy and prideful ass ."
Amram looked ahead, his eyes lost in thought, completely ignorant to his companion's diatribes. He frowned. "That spiteful, confident smirk. Oh, he knew it full well, Zelikman. He took me for a fool, and played me like a fiddle."
"That does it!" Zelikman got up. "Bid farewell to your freedom, my soon-to-be incarcerated companion! Bid farewell!"
"Learn to hold your liquor, Zelikman," he nonchalantly pulled the Frank back to the table. "Coin can be obtained at any turn or crossroad, but the healing of a wound, cut open by festering shame, now that is an entirely different matter."
Zelikman huffed. "Oh! Of course, for riches are of such ease to come by! Such as the time when we went for weeks on end, without as much as a single carriage robbery to our name, while stranded in the middle of a blasted desert! Oh, but no, I always exaggerate don't I, Amram?"
Amram looked ahead, still lost in his own Shatranj-related thoughts.
"Fine! So be it! Let us wait for your childish pride to simmer and with a little luck we shall only be rotting and maggot-devoured by then! In fact, let us also wait as well, for providence itself to bless us with the miracles of easy riches!"
At that moment, the tavern door slammed open. A desperate, scrawny, weasel-like man stood there at the entrance, shaking. The diminutive man scrambled through the unfriendly characters of the shoddy establishment, blabbering pleads that either fell on deaf ears or received naught but deathly glares and pointed blades.
Zelikman turned a blind eye. "Keep your sight away, Amram. For the love of God, do not meet his gaze…he saw us, did he not? Oh god, do not tell me he is coming this way, please, Amram."
"Over here!" Amram cried out.
Zelikman screamed inwardly.
The man started with a nasal voice. "Oh b-bless your empathetic nature k-kind sirs. N-not everyone is so keen to lend a helping hand around these parts."
"Indeed, kind we are. Now come, come, what is this about?" Amram asked. He ignored Zelikman's intense stare.
"W-well," his eyes shifted nervously about the tavern and his voice lowered to a whisper. "It is a matter of delicate importance, you see, most delicate. W-Word has spread that the infamous Bartolomeo and his gang of thugs have obtained a coveted secret, the recipe for the making of a most prized stone of legend."
Amram frowned. "Stone of legend?"
"Y-yes," he got up close to Amram's ear. "The philosopher's stone and I need not tell you the tragedy it would be for its insurmountable power to fall upon the hands of such a vile, treacherous man and his legion of cohorts. The stone not only holds the power to transmute the lowest of feces into the finest, most lustrous of gold, worthy of a monarch's crown, but it is also a source of unquantifiable power, prime fuel for sorcery. It would be pandemonium itself, were it to befall on the likes of Bartolomeo ."
Amram's eyes glinted with curiosity, not out of the small man's superstitious warnings, nor the prospect of some magical stone, but of the coincidental kinship between the two. The hatred of treacherous fiends.
"And you are relaying this delicate information to us, why exactly, may I ask?" he cupped his hand over the man's ear.
The man looked around and pulled out a small tube of parchment from within his ragged clothing with surprising swiftness.
"Here lies the location of Bartolomeo's hideout in this city, one of the many he holds a grip over all across Italy. Please, I beg of you, fine men. I am not a man who can put an end to this menace, but you , you are without a doubt, truly exceptional! A trail of adventure and wondrous feats follows you. I knew that at first sight, with every fiber of my being!" He stammered, glanced around and shook his head. "So, please, I beg of you. There is not much time, Bartolomeo's men hound my every step! You must find and destroy the unholy concoction before it is too late-"
A zipping noise whizzed through the air, and in the blink of an eye, the small man dropped face-first into the grimy tavern floor. A feathered dart protruded at the back of his neck.
Immediately, Amram peered about in the search of the unsavory character who may have perpetrated the crime. Unfortunately, that made up the entirety of the establishment. Fortunately, when he was just about to return to drown his sorrows, the sight of a cloaked figure exiting the tavern caught his eye, as did the loud slamming of the entrance telling the Abyssinian everything he needed to know.
Amram rose up and picked Zelikman up by the back of his garments. "Come, Zelikman! We cannot allow him to escape!"
"I detest you so much right now."
The duo's performance at the chase was less than stellar, to say the least.
The cloaked assassin evaded them at every twist and turn, moving about with mocking glee. They eventually reached the rooftops of the merchant ring, while the assassin continued on making the wildest of acrobatics, leaping and bounding from roof to roof with flaunting ease, as if taunting the duo's comparatively lower proficiency at such stunts. Until suddenly, brought upon by their mutual frustration, the duo fell for one of the pompous killer's tricks.
They leaped, thinking the assassin was finally within their reach, only for the cloaked man to roll over in the nick of time with his impressive agility. The duo, unable to react fast enough (and still rather numbed by their drinks), slipped over the roof and fell into the stable below.
Luckily to an extent, Amram and Zelikman's landing was no more than bothersome, thanks to the considerable mound of mule feces that softened their fall. However, due to the intensity of the ruckus and the open presence of their brandished ax and lancet respectively, they now found themselves in the middle of the merchant street, face to face with a large patrol of Templars and their large captain, who looked at them with disgust and condescendence.
"Have I told you how much I detest you at this current time," Zelikman muttered.
Amram shook his head. "Forgive me, Zelikman, for I am not keeping count."
"Silence, heathens!" the captain shouted. "What is the meaning of this foul-smelling criminality I see before me? Have you two no shame at all? No fear of the lord by brandishing your filthy blades within a walled, holy city? Shame on you! May shame rain down upon your immortal souls after your punishment is due!"
Amram countered with a pleasant smile, which he also directed at Zelikman. "Oh no, my good man, this is just a simple misunderstanding. A murderer is on the loose and we could not afford to stand idle and watch the man wander unpunished. As you can see, I am no stranger to the distaste of foul play myself!"
A vein on the captain's face popped. "You dare imply, Abyssinian, that a criminal has escaped my patrol's notice and by proxy my very own? I who revere the word of the lord, gifted by his blessings of sight beyond sin? You are gravely misunderstood, heretic! No act of sin ever gets by my watch!"
The Templars behind the captain began to murmur with a tinge of amusement, that is until the captain's unamused glare shut them up altogether.
The captain of the Templars looked back at the manure-covered duo, his face reddened with rage.
"I should flog you and your Frankish partner-in-crime at this very spot! Such acts of insolence and vigilantism will not go unpunished, this I assure you!"
Amram ignored Zelikman's smirk. "I truly meant no offense, sir. I would never lay such claims on a holy man, for I know your word is as true as the guiding light above. Knowing that, can we not agree as well on the virtues of man and our mutual distaste for treachery and let this mere misunderstanding pass us by, as if but a fleeting thought?"
"Silence, Abyssinian!" the captain raised his ceremonial blade. "You shall not attempt to entice me further with your empty flattery and heretical arguments. For every new, sinister word that comes forth from your vile mouth, shall be torture more painful and elaborate than the last! Seize them!"
Zelikman smirked still. "Ever the charmer."
The Templars ran amuck in the city square, shouted at and bossed around by their irate leader, but of the Abyssinian and the Frank they found no sign.
"Have we lost them, Zelikman?" Amram asked as he held his companion on his shoulders, allowing the Frank to gaze upon the entrance to the city sewers.
"It would appear so," Zelikman grunted and jumped off the Abyssinian's shoulders. "First a pissing hole, then mule droppings and now an actual sewer. Are there any other picturesque locales you may have planned for this adventurous journey of ours? Or should I ask not, as to not spoil the surprise?"
Amram frowned pensively. "Now that you remind me, we do have a certain thief hideout that dead weasel of a man pleaded for us to find. I almost forgot about it, truth be told," he chuckled. "I do suppose we should be searching for that, we are likely to come upon some fine, sizable hoard of stolen goods at the very least (the existence of magical stones turning feces into gold notwithstanding)."
Zelikman kept his comment about Amram's optimism to himself and sighed. "Well, have you the directions of this hideout?
Amram nodded, but then, his eyes bulged and he stopped. He felt Zelikman's incriminating stare bearing down on him and did quite a poor job of ignoring it altogether.
"You forgot to take the tubed parchment from the man's corpse, did you not?"
Amram pursed his lips.
Zelikman massaged his temple. "Honestly, Amram, are you purposefully going out of your way to make my life living purgatory, or is it merely that your overflowing pride—on a board game no less, has claimed your senses to such ridiculous degrees?"
"Come now, Zelikman; have you no trust in my sharp wit, my abilities of logical reasoning, honed to perfection through the venerated practice of a 'board game'? What better way to hide from the outside world than dwelling in that which lies beneath? If I were to lay the foundations of my own wide-scale briganding operation, I would no doubt place it in the middle of a sewer. Having come to that sound conclusion, it is only a matter of time before we come across the hideout in question!"
Just as Zelikman was about to meticulously tear apart Amram's dodge of a response, mirthful whispers and footsteps came from the end of the tunnel, growing louder with every passing moment. Hearing this, Amram and Zelikman hid in one of the darkened parts of the sewer walls and remained silent, watching and listening.
Two rugged-looking men strolled by, dressed in torn clothing, meager leather armor, and two rusty gladius blades hanging by their respective belts. The duo snickered.
"That snorting swine of a Templar sure loves to make a fool out of himself, does he not? Chasing some idiots around and losing trace of them in broad daylight. No wonder the man has yet to find the hideout, let alone catch the boss," said the shorter and leaner of the two.
The tall and broad one chuckled. "Truly, Leonello's stupidity knows no bounds."
"You dare speak heresy? I shall flog you on the spot, you vile heathen!" The short one said in an admittedly accurate imitation of Templar Leonello. He cackled. "The laments of fools aside, have you seen the high spirits of Bartolomeo as of late? It must be because of that prized alchemical formula he just recently acquired, or rather, swiped from under yet another fool's nose. Do you truly believe it is the recipe for the fabled stone? And if so, what do you think shall be the first thing he will attempt to transform into gold?"
"I do not believe in none of that superstitious nonsense, but alas, the boss's interest in the art of alchemy is none of my concern, nor is his taste in headwear. After all, it is his share of the coin he chooses to spend on such a dubious pastime."
The two thieves went on with their debacle on the veracity of alchemy and passed on by headed straight for their hideout, hidden deep within the sewers of the city. Meanwhile, the other duo, shrouded in the shadows of a side corridor, peered out and began to follow their trail.
Amram gave Zelikman a mischievous look, as they prowled in near-total silence.
"You see?" the Abyssinian whispered.
"Shut up."
The duo strolled through the enormous den of thieves without a care in the world, and not a soul batted an eye. After all, their disguises were as paramount as they were fitting, the tattered rags formerly worn by those two unlucky thieves, whose corpses now floated amongst the wastes of the city.
Amram, frowning exaggeratedly, stomped his way toward a snoring thief, who lay on a makeshift bed made of dirty, contraband goods, rugs, and cloth.
"Where is the boss? We have matters of great importance to relay!"
The lazy thief did not even bother to look up and simply pointed with his thumb at a small passage at the edge of the complex, where an apathetic, droopy, club-wielding fellow stood guard. Amram harrumphed in response and stormed off, with a noticeably annoyed Zelikman lagging behind.
"We must speak to the boss at once, let us pass!" Amram growled at the indifferent guard.
"…The word of passage," said the guard with a surprisingly booming voice.
Amram did not cease his intense glare but said nothing.
The guard might have looked unimpressed, but it was honestly rather difficult to tell with his ever-half-lidded eyes.
"Have you forgotten the word of passage?"
Amram added an eye twitch to his act.
"No!"
The guard squinted his eyes by a fraction. "Do I know you?"
Amram puffed up his chest. "Who are you to impart orders and doubt loyalties around here? You are not our leader Bartolomeo !"
The guard remained quiet for a moment, before sighing. "You know, the act was wholly unnecessary…and a tad exaggerated," he moved aside. "You may pass."
The short passageway led Amram and Zelikman to a wide chamber with multiple exits and crevices, covered in a thick cloud of smoke. An enormous and steaming alchemical distill stood in the middle of the room. A wide opening on the top of the contraption showed a bubbling, red-hot liquid, and alongside it, were cluttered tables that held a myriad of glass containers, filled to the brim with all sorts of unknown substances.
There, many of the thieves that stood guard scrambled around the makeshift laboratory. They were helping whoever shouted commands from behind the mammoth contraption, lifting containers and pouring their contents inside the red-hot mixture with utmost care.
Zelikman jabbed Amram on the side, breaking the Abyssinian out of his curious stupor.
"Boss Bartolomeo, sir! We have matters of great importance to relay!" said Amram.
" No, Roberto ! I told you to bring me frog extract, not the amphibian's urinary tract!" the man yelled at one of the thieves. "What was that just now, matters of great importance you say? Well, do speak up and make haste, I am rather busy right now as you can see."
Amram and Zelikman stood still and quiet.
The man, Bartolomeo, peered from the side of the contraption. Amram and Zelikman froze further, for he not only wore Zelikman's prized hat, but he was also the same man who soundly defeated Amram at a game Shatranj, the same man that sent the duo on a downwards spiral of desperation and drinks of dubious quality.
"Speak up fools! My time and concentration are of the essence and yet you stand idle, squandering both!"
Zelikman jabbed Amram once more. "Oh, do forgive me. I meant no disrespect."
Bartolomeo raised a brow. "A skittish one are you not? Are you perchance one of the new recruits? I barely have enough time for myself, let alone to take account of the entire operation."
"Indeed, sir, quite new! In fact, we were hoping you could lend us some aid. There appears to be a breach occurring at the northernmost part of the sewers and since we are far too low-ranked to go around giving orders to our fellow, similarly-ranked, thieves we thought it would be best if you led the expedition…with us…at your…wing."
Bartolomeo frowned and quieted down. The rest of the thieves stopped working on the scalding mixture and the chamber grew silent.
"…Have we met before?" asked the leader of the thieves.
Amram gulped. His sight met Bartolomeo's at that moment, and though the thief lord had yet to recognize him, the Abyssinian knew it to be only a matter of time.
Bartolomeo smirked. It was a look of spiteful confidence, the same one Amram saw during that ruinous game of Shatranj all those days ago.
As Bartolomeo's grin grew wider, the thieves inside the chamber began to eye Amram and Zelikman with vile curiosity and malicious intent. The many hands slowly reached for the myriad handles of blades and the tension in the room grew palpable.
Suddenly, the sounds of screaming and clashing steel exploded from outside and all around the chamber, putting everyone on immediate alert, and not long after, a group of blood-drenched, sword-wielding Templars burst from every direction, from the main passageway to the exits spread all over the chamber.
Leonello, the captain of the Templars stood upfront, his face mad with glee and his sword pointed directly at Bartolomeo from a distance.
"Bartolomeo! At last, you are within my grasp. Pray you heathen; pray as you have never before, for soon your soul shall be judged by the highest order!"
Bartolomeo shook his head. "Leonello? What…how? Whatever is the meaning of this?"
"He had a little help!"
The nasal voice came from one of the exits, and from the darkness appeared a short man, the same whom Amram and Zelikman had last seen dead at the tavern floor.
"Piccolo?" asked Bartolomeo.
Piccolo scoffed. "Who else, Bartolomeo? Yes, I guided Leonello and his forces to your filthy hideout, for I could not let your treachery go unpunished!"
"Treachery?" Bartolomeo asked dryly.
Piccolo grit his teeth. "Do not play yourself the fool, Bartolomeo; I know your act full well. You stole the recipe I toiled for endlessly! Thousands of sleepless days and nights, countless ancient texts, and failed experiments to pave the painful path to success and for what? For a thief, a former mediocre practitioner of the art of alchemy, to simply take it away from me! You were never one for the hardships of true academic labor, Bartolomeo, you merely took what you wanted and claimed it as your own!"
Bartolomeo shrugged. "Life is for those that take its reins, Piccolo. It is not my fault that you trusted me so with your acclaimed recipe, and I do not see what you gain by allying yourself with this pompous idiot. Alchemy is a heretical art, as we all know. You may as well have signed your own demise by revealing your true intentions."
Leonello stomped the ground. "Silence, heathen! This kind heretic came to me in my time of need and revealed your slippery whereabouts. He spoke of nothing but the truth and I, a righteous arm of the lord as I am, could only reward his earnestness with the gift of revenge and the pardoning of his sins."
"And I suppose you shall also destroy the concoction that is about to bear its fabled fruit?" Bartolomeo asked Piccolo with a knowing smirk.
"As long as you fall it matters not if the philosopher's stone is lost!"
Leonello assumed a fighting stance, as did the rest of his Templars. "I commend your piousness, repenting practitioner of sorcery. Let us deliver due punishment to this vile criminal! For his countless robberies, his putrid schemes, and the forced defilement of purity!"
Bartolomeo cackled as his thieves also prepared for battle. "Forced? Leonello let us not kid ourselves. Order the sisters to confess all you may, but you shall only find that they acted out of their own free will, and quite eagerly so!"
Leonello's face turned beet red. "Any more confessions you wish to add to your sentence?"
"Not that I know-"
" He bested me at Shatranj through treachery !" shouted Amram, interrupting Bartolomeo.
All swords lowered and all heads turned as everyone stared at the Abyssinian. A cough echoed in the chamber.
Bartolomeo tilted his head in flat doubt. "How does one cheat at Shatranj?"
"Silence! You are a swindler as everyone else here can attest to!" said Amram.
"I loathe agreeing with a renowned criminal, but Bartolomeo is right. Shatranj is a game impervious to the sinful machinations of vile men," Leonello's eyes sparked with recognition. "Say…are you and your partner, not the same fugitives who escaped my grasp a short while ago?"
"Uh…" said Amram nervously.
"And the same ones who forgot to take my directions to the hideout! And yet here you are, quite the good fortune you two seem to carry," said Piccolo.
"Shut up and start killing yourselves already!" shouted Zelikman, before picking up a flask containing a purple, sizzling liquid and throwing it at one of the Templars.
The small explosion not only killed the man, but it also re-ignited the spark of bloodlust, which a Shatranj-related debacle had very nearly extinguished. A large ball of violence ensued. Blood spilled, bone cracked, gore splat and odd bits of teeth and eyeballs flew about.
Amram dodged a blow from one of the Templars and countered with his ax, chopping the man's head off. "Whatever did you do that for, Zelikman!"
"I have had it up to here with your pointless debacle, nor am I leaving without my hat!" Zelikman ducked and evaded one of the thief's strikes and countered by skewering the man's throat with his lancet. "Quick Amram! While everyone else is focused on killing one another!"
Amram tripped a charging thief and delivered a deathly blow on the back. "Quick what?"
Zelikman pointed at the steaming distill. "The contraption. All we need to do is throw these sizzling substances into it from a distance, and it will be sure to explode and take out everyone nearby! Quick!"
However, just as the two picked up a pair of containers, two feathered darts zipped by, knocking them off their hands. Amram and Zelikman immediately reacted by jumping backward, but they were still knocked back by the combined strength of the explosions. As they regained their footing, two shapes appeared from the smoke that now clouded the skirmish. It was Piccolo and the same, cloaked assassin from before.
"I am thoroughly confused," Amram admitted.
"I concur," said Zelikman.
Piccolo brandished a pair of small daggers. "A ploy it was you see. A clever trick to feign my own demise through the practical applications of a somniferous dart, to be precise. This of course made all the more convincing when you hire an expert, tongue-less killer to play his part. Not that it mattered much in the end," he shrugged. "Amusing how life unfolds at times."
The assassin too donned a pair of daggers and crouched, ready to leap into action.
"I thought you no longer cared about this sham of a stone?" asked Amram as he tightened the grip on his ax.
Piccolo twirled his dagger with blinding speed. "Foolish of you to believe my words, though that does not surprise me. Once those brutes kill one another, I shall claim the spoils of battle for myself, my rightful breakthrough in the art of alchemy included. Unfortunately, since I have already wasted my only somniferous concoction, I am afraid your lives must end the old-fashioned way."
In a flash, the opposing groups collided. Steel met steel in a chaotic clash, full of parries, feints, and near-deathly blows. Such was the intensity of the battle, that those unlucky few who intruded fell prey and dead to the flurry of combat. However, it took little time for Amram and Zelikman to realize the difference in speed between them and their opponents. Even Zelikman, the lithe, quick-footed one of the duo, found himself unable to rely on his agility alone to best the rival pair.
Knowing this, and realizing that the longer the fight went on, the worse their odds at victory would become, they did the only thing they possibly could.
They cheated.
"My eyes!" Piccolo cried out in disgust, for the Abyssinian had spat at them with unparalleled accuracy.
Taking advantage of Piccolo's utter shock at his rancid spittle, and Zelikman's distraction of the assassin, Amram lunged in, swung his ax in a mighty arc and cleaved the small man in two.
Now two against one, Amram and Zelikman pressured on with their dual assault, driving the assassin into a figurative corner on the smoke-ridden battlefield.
The assassin, in his desperation (and the realization that his employer and pay were no more) opted for a much-preferred retreat, rather than to fall prey to either the Abyssinian's ax or the Frank's lancet. Unfortunately, his theatricality became his downfall, for as he performed a jaw-dropping leap to escape the duo, he unceremoniously plopped to his death inside the scalding-hot mixture of the obscured distill.
The unstable, alchemical contraption began to shake wildly, riveting, bubbling, whistling, and spewing far grander amounts of smoke than ever before. Amram and Zelikman shared a quick look and stormed off. With every step, the sounds of incoming disaster magnified and just as they reached for one of the visible exits, amidst the thick cloud of steam, they jumped.
The chamber exploded.
Amram and Zelikman rode towards the beautiful sunset, atop two fine, recently acquired steeds and equipped with a week's worth of salted rations and full wineskins. All sponsored by some of the stolen goods and riches left in the ruins of the hideout.
They considered taking a much-needed bath at one of the many inns, but both agreed that the sooner they left the city the better. The sinkhole would be ridiculous to lay blame on two mere men, but they had already done much out in the open as it were, and they did not wish for any more trouble.
Amram looked at Zelikman and grinned. Of alchemically transmuted bits of gold, there had been no sign (as a modern reader could have easily intuited), but what they did find in the wake of the explosion was miraculous enough. Zelikman's hat had not a scratch, not a mark, and the Frank made no effort to hide his child-like glee, which he bore all the way from the purchase of their new steeds to the present moment as they rode towards the horizon.
"So what have we learned today, Zelikman?"
Zelikman beamed at his beloved companion.
"You can't cheat at Shatranj!"
Amram shoved Zelikman off his horse and galloped off.