Alright, here we go again! Sorry about the long wait.
Chapter 9
Sai was listening in the background as Michael and Dresden quietly discussed the situation. He had somewhat calmed down from his initial fright, for the shadow that stood between them and the exit didn't appear to be threatening. It simply blocked their way. In fact, instead of fear he was beginning to feel extremely strong annoyance. He glowered indignantly at the shadow when Dresden looked at its way. It stood between him and Hikaru, delayed them from finding the boy – and for all he knew, every moment might be precious.
He wanted to tell the men to hurry, to stop talking and do something. Certainly a great wizard and a Knight of the Cross should be able to defeat this thing – not that he was quite certain what a Knight of the Cross was, but it sounded impressive. But they talked on and on, and he forced himself to stay quiet. He did understand the value of planning, and the dangers hasty moves might lead to… but still, it was vexing to wait.
Finally Dresden nodded, and Sai looked up in excitement. He felt how Dresden began to gather his will and waited eagerly for whatever was to come.
This will not help, my host, a female voice said suddenly, and Sai let out a startled yelp. Dresden swore quite ardently.
"Harry?" Michael asked, but the man just shook angrily his head.
I told you to stay back! Sai heard him snapping – although he did not speak aloud.
I am sorry, the female voice said, without sounding sorry at all. Sai was glancing fervently around, trying to spot the source of the voice. But I had to warn you before you would do something stupid. You cannot fight this entity – at least not without spending longer to prepare than we can afford.
So what'd you have us do? Dresden asked grumpily. Set camp here? Start roasting marshmallows and sing camp songs?
Ask it, the voice said calmly. Ask it what it wants for letting you pass.
You want me to start striking deals with creatures of Nevernever, Dresden said dryly, sounding – and feeling – absolutely pissed off. Now that's smart advice.
Given as you forgot to pack the marshmallows, that's the best you can do.
Dresden was positively seething in his mind, but said nothing.
Uh, Sai breathed. Who is…?
You be quiet! Dresden snapped, and Sai fell silent in mid-sentence, withdrawing to the background.
"Never thought I'd have to worry about crowd control in my mind," the man muttered darkly.
Michael gave him a worried look. "Harry…?"
He shook his head again with a great sigh. "Never mind." He fixed his gaze at the shadow, calm in appearance if not inside. "So. Doesn't hurt to ask, I guess. What is your price for letting us to pass?"
There was a moment's thoughtful silence. A GAME, the voice declared then.
Dresden paused. "A game?" he said then. "Just… what kind of a game?"
The entity spent another moment considering. I ENJOY RIDDLES.
"Riddles," Dresden said very flatly. "Michael, you know any riddles?"
"I must admit that's not my strongest point," the man said, calm, but something in his tone suggested to Sai he too was beginning to reach the limit of his patience. "How about you?"
"I know the Hobbit ones. Like, voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters…"
WIND, the voice declared immediately. Michael and Dresden shared a look.
My host, I could… the female voice said in Dresden's mind, but the man cut it short.
No. Stay quiet. "Can't you pick anything else?" he said aloud.
YOU CHOOSE, the voice said with the sense of a disinterested shrug.
Michael and Dresden shared another silent look. Dresden grimaced. "Not sure I wanna start playing poker with this one…"
Excuse me, Sai said in a very, very small voice, hesitant to draw attention to himself. How about go…?
"Go?" Dresden said aloud, sounding surprised. Think you could win?
I know my skill, Sai replied, forcing his voice calm despite his fluttering nervousness. Not this opponent's skill.
Dresden nodded thoughtfully.
You would take his help, but not mine… the female voice said reproachfully, and he snarled.
I've told you to stay quiet!
Sai winced at the strength of his voice. He wasn't sure what happened, but he got a feeling of a door slamming shut and a lock clicking.
A GAME OF GO WOULD CERTAINLY BE INTRIGUING. IT HAS BEEN LONG SINCE I HAD ONE.
Dresden glanced yet at Michael who gave him a shrug, a hand still on the hilt, then at Mouse who was sitting on the ground, watching them with tilted head. He nodded. "Fine. Let's play then."
...
The silence was the worst.
For the past two years, he hadn't been alone for a single moment. Sai had always been there, every second of his life, even when he woke up in the middle of the night. Always ready to chat, of go, of the strangeness of modern life, of days long past. Past two years he hadn't had to spend a moment in silence if he hadn't wanted to. Now he had only his own thoughts, and they weren't pleasant company.
Sai… was gone. In two days his parents would be gone. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around that fact. He couldn't imagine a world where his mother wouldn't come to drag him out of bed in the morning, nag about schoolwork, have silly worries about how he'd make it as a professional go player. Nor a world without his father… even though he barely ever saw the man, hidden behind the morning newspaper during breakfast, coming home in the evening at the time he was about to go to sleep. Still, his father always was there, somewhere in the background, taking care of things. Always would be there. That's what he had thought.
And Sai.
Though he had never thought of the fact that the day would come when he would lose his parents, technically he had known that some day he'd move out and live on his own, and he wouldn't have them as a daily part of his life forever. But Sai… he had thought he would have Sai as his constant companion until the day he died. Then Sai would just move on, find another go board to dwell in, maybe haunt someone else. But what proof did he have that would happen? Just because it had happened once, he had assumed things would work out the same way, always.
So stupid.
Why had he never thought he might lose Sai? He had assumed… so many things. That Sai wanted to stay with him, for one thing. The ghost seemed happy enough…didn't he? But…
But.
Sai wanted to play more. And he wanted to play his own games. They had tried the online go thing… but Sai created too much of a buzz, even there.
So he had thought it'd be better for Sai to stay in the background for now. Anyway, they could still play together, no problem with that. And Sai could follow all his pro games, wasn't that something? Watch it all. Just… watch.
He swallowed. Would that be enough for him?
…now that Sai had been separated from him… would he want to return, even if he could? If he found someone else, someone who would let him play as much as he wanted. Like Torajiro had, once, ages ago. Sai always spoke so warmly of that boy. Maybe… maybe Sai would be happier, somewhere else, with someone else. Maybe…
… he shouldn't think of these things. He should try to think of a way to escape. Way to save his parents. Way to find Sai and get him back. There had to be a way.
Had to.
He started talking to Molly again, just to fill the silence.
...
There were thirteen goldfishes in the pond, each of them of different color. She knew that, yet she had only seen twelve. The thirteenth was hiding, and it was her way out. She was crouching by the water, hugging her knees, staring intently at the shadows that moved beneath the water's surface. She had a spell on her lips, ready to be cast the moment she saw the fish. The other twelve circled around, at times coming to the surface, round fish mouths gasping the air dumbly. Their movements made her reflection on the water ripple. As it settled again, she frowned; the image seemed to be talking. She could see the mouth moving, but couldn't hear the words.
Confused, she leaned closer. Yes, the reflection definitely was saying something, but she couldn't make out what… the words were distorted, as if the speaker truly were underwater. Should she too submerge to hear it?
Something large and fast moved in the water, so quick she had barely time to gasp when a black fish jumped at her, tiny mouth gaping open impossibly huge. She fell back, screaming, the spell in her mind crumbling apart just like the dream when the fish swallowed…
"No!"
The fish froze in the air, mouth open, and pieces of the dream – water droplets of the pond, the rainbow colored fishes, leaves from the trees that had stood around her – floated in the air as in a whirlwind captured in a slow-motion movie.
"No," she repeated. "I must not wake."
She paused, astonished. Wasn't waking up what she wanted? What she had tried to do for so long? Through countless barely remembered dreams… she shook her head.
"I have to stop," she told herself. "I have to stop trying to wake up. It doesn't help. Every time when I'm about to wake up, I do wake up… in another dream. I sleep, I dream – and this is my dream. So I will have to control it."
She waved with her hand, and everything disappeared. Standing in the middle of vast colorless emptiness, she started to think.
...
A go board with a set of stones had appeared out of nowhere. Dresden sat down by it, cross-legged – Sai couldn't help feeling a little odd at that – and gave the set a look.
So how does this thing work? the man asked.
Sai took a breath. It might be simpler, he said softly, if you just could consider… He left the suggestion hanging, guessing that the man knew what he was talking about.
Let you in control for the game's duration. Dresden did not sound pleased about the idea.
It would be easier than trying to tell you where to play, but I'm sure we can manage…
No. It's okay. Go ahead.
Sai took another breath, calming his nerves. "Shall we nigiri?" he said, and was deeply startled hearing the question coming from Dresden's mouth.
GRASP THE STONES, the entity said, and he did so, telling himself this was not the time to get squirmy. His opponent guessed for an odd number and he held five stones, so he ended up playing white. As he collected the stones back to their bowl, he tried to get over the distorting feeling of using someone else's hands than his own. The left hand, he noted, covered in the glove as usual, was oddly stiff, half useless. Luckily it wasn't needed in the game.
This… is truly disconcerting, he thought to himself, and heard Dresden snort.
You telling me?
He would have replied, but at that moment the first black stone appeared on the board – appeared, wasn't played. He blinked at it, realized then that the game had started, and played his first move.
This was one of the weirdest games he had ever played. And that was saying a lot, in the end… he had played against a spirit inside a skull, and against invisible opponents on those computer-box-things which he had never quite understood. He was now happy of those experiences, for it made a little easier not to freak out when he raised his eyes to look at his opponent and saw only darkness. The way the black stones appeared on the board wasn't that different from computer go, really.
What he was more concerned about was that he couldn't get a grasp of his opponent's game. Unlike Bob, this one did not follow any old conventions. In fact, in some ways the spirit's go seemed to be the exact opposite of Bob's. There where Bob had clearly known the game but not felt it, this one didn't seem to know anything of the usual strategies at all, but just felt where to play.
Sai stifled the excitement that tried to start bubbling inside him, and stored some of the spirit's moves in his mind for later analysis. Now, he needed all his skill, all his intuition to win.
This was not the kind of game he could truly let himself enjoy. Of course, he wanted to be the best, wanted to reach the top, strived after the divine move, and a game like this, so freely exploring the boundaries of the game would normally have delighted him to no end. Victory alone didn't define a good game. The ultimate goal wasn't to win but to explore, to learn, to reach a higher level – together with an opponent who could take him to those heights. But now, he had to win. The necessity of victory wasn't something to spur him on, rather it was a hindrance. Was a risk worth taking? Too much was on stake.
They played on, stone after stone, and he knew he was behind. Not hopelessly, yet, but even so, unless he came up with something new, he would have to resign already before endgame. Black played boldly, adding pressure to all his groups, and for a moment, all he could do was defend. But it wouldn't do to be timid. When black played a hane, he replied in kind, not shying away from battle, and there was, perhaps, a slightly longer pause than usual before his opponent made the next move.
Even so, his largest group of stones was isolated, in grave peril. He took a breath, refusing to be overwhelmed. He played a cut, his opponent immediately enclosed his stone. He sighed, and kept on thinking. There was something he could try, but it was risky. He wasn't sure if it would work out in the end – and if it didn't…
If it didn't, he would lose. And in this game that wasn't an option.
He remembered another game, from long ago, that he could not afford to lose. Remembered the quiet snaps of the stones on the board against the distant song of cicadas, the perfect silence broken by wild accusations, mean-hearted whispers… remembered the shattered stones of the ugliest game he had ever played – and his dreams which that game had also shattered.
He stared at this board, heart in his throat, hand on the stone bowl, and knew how he wanted to play… but didn't dare. If his opponent realized too soon what he was up to, he would end up losing more stones than he could afford. Unable to make his decision he bit his lip, hand grasping a stone but not making any movement to place it on the board.
Hey, he heard Dresden's voice whisper somewhere in the back of his mind. Thinking about it… this thing just asked for a game, remember? It said nothing about us having to win the game.
Sai's eyes widened. But… would it really…
This is a creature of Nevernever. They're very literal. If what it meant was for us having to win in order to pass, it would have said so. If it tries to argue, we can hold it to that. Just play your best, and give it a good game.
Sai nodded. Grasped the stone, snapped it on the board between two black stones. Out of habit, he raised his eyes to his opponent. There was no face for him, the expression of which to observe, but still it seemed to him that the softly swirling darkness on the other side of the board gave a startled pulse.
...
There was a door in the emptiness. It had taken much of her to make it materialize, but there it was: an ordinary white door that could have been between rooms in any ordinary apartment. There was no lock, and it would be easy enough to open it. The only question was how to make sure that it would lead her to where she wanted to go.
The trouble was that she didn't know where her body was sleeping. Still in that hall in the Undertown? That was the place of her last memory. But it was possible she had been moved.
She thought of the boy who had been in her company, and felt a sharp twinge of guilt. She had been supposed to protect him, and in the end she had been the one to take him into danger.
She had to get back. Had to wake up, fix everything. Before it was too late.
She placed a hand on the door and concentrated. Tried to think of everything Harry had taught her about the control of her mind, hoping she had been his student for a longer time. She might not have known what to do, but she did know the facts: that she was sleeping, and so within her own body wherever that body lay, and she had to keep the control of her dream, before she would again be caught in the endless series of dreams in which she was certain the randomnest thing would wake her up.
She closed her eyes, tried to focus, but a sudden babbling voice shook her concentration. First she was annoyed, but then realized there was something familiar about it. Had she not heard this before? And the voice, quiet and distant, was speaking in Japanese, she suddenly realized. With a deep breath she shifted her focus on the voice, Listened, as Harry had taught her to do, and suddenly heard it clearly, from the other side of the door.
"Mori-san, me o samashite… me o samashitekure…"
She took a breath. Another. Pushed at the door, and suddenly flew through a dark pathway toward blinding brightness.
...
Sai waited, watching at the board, his hands (well, Dresden's) in his lap. The game was over, and he assumed his opponent knew it as well. He had reached a five moku win, at the end. His strategy had worked. That was a relief, no need to start arguing about technicalities. The whole game had changed after that single move. It had clearly baffled his opponent, and although the spirit had made no actual mistakes, it had been unable to come up with a response to that move that would have stopped Sai from reaching his goal.
The silence stretched a moment longer. Then the hollow voice echoed somewhere within their minds.
I HAVE LOST.
Sai bowed his head – and Dresden's at the same time. "Thank you for the game."
The board disappeared. THANK YOU, the spirit replied, tone as matter-of-factly as before. Whether it possibly was angry or pleased, Sai couldn't tell. He took a breath. This had been an amazing game, on so many levels. He couldn't wait until he would be able to show it to Hikaru – but they had to find the boy first. And for that, they had to get moving. He was just about to tell Dresden to take control, when the entity spoke again.
WHO ARE YOU? it asked.
Sai froze. What was he supposed to answer to that?
YOU, WHO PLAYED THIS GAME, NOT THE MAN WE SEE.
Sai twitched, nervous. Would it be mad, realizing there had been someone else within his opponent doing the actual playing? Nevertheless, he wouldn't start hiding now. "My name is," he started to say, but Dresden cut him off.
Wait. Let me.
Sai was just happy to let him in control. "He is Fujiwara no Sai," Dresden said.
The darkness bobbed, as in a nod. THANK YOU FOR THE GAME, SAI OF THE FUJIWARA. IT HAS GIVEN ME SOMETHING TO CONTEMPLATE ON.
"You're quite welcome," Dresden muttered. "And we can go now…?"
UNLESS YOU WOULD WISH TO STAY FOR ANOTHER GAME.
"I'm afraid we have no time for that," Dresden said, standing up and grasping his staff. "This took long enough."
He looked at Michael and Mouse, who came to his side, and together they walked through the dark, out of the tunnels. Sai would have wanted to glance behind, but the man kept on walking on, following the dog that again had the trail.
They were walking through an empty wasteland covered with dead grass, with a few old leafless tree trunks scattered here and there. The sky was of a dull shade of grey, without sun or moon or stars. There was no wind, nothing moved.
Good game, Dresden said after a while to Sai. It was an interesting experience to follow your thought processes through it.
…thank you, Sai replied. It was also very 'interesting' to realize that had happened. Why didn't you let me introduce myself? he asked, deciding to ignore all the disturbing sides of this affair.
Names have power. You should be careful with who you tell your full name. If they hear it from your own lips, the exact way you say it, they can use it against you.
Oh. Eh, thank you, I guess.
De nada, the man replied. Sai blinked, not understanding.
They didn't have to walk long before Mouse stopped in front of two dead trees that were standing side by side with a couple of meters between them, their barren branches touching and interweaving between them.
The dog glanced at Dresden and the man nodded. "A gate, huh? This is where we go through again," he said to Michael.
Go through? Sai asked carefully.
Back to our own world.
"Any idea where this place will lead us to?" Michael asked.
Dresden shook his head. "Somewhere where no one's been living for a while. Somewhere… abandoned. A dead place. That's all I can say."
"At least there shouldn't be civilians around getting on the way, then," Michael said, and Dresden nodded crisply.
"That's a good point. Other than that – we might end up in the middle of their stronghold, far from any potential help."
"I think we knew this when we started," Michael stated.
Dresden nodded again. "Enough with chatting. You ready? Let's go then." He pointed his staff between the trees, called out his spell, and the air between the trees turned shimmering red, as the gate back to reality opened.
...
Hikaru was crouching next to the sleeping girl, talking to her, begging her to wake up – pointless though he knew it to be, but it was the only thing he could do. Perhaps she would hear him, somehow. Perhaps she would find a way to answer. He had long since given up trying to talk in English, though. Instead he just babbled on, thinking aloud.
"I need your help, Molly. Try to wake up. I know you can do it, he said you're good with this kinda stuff. Just try your best, please? I need you…"
Evening had finally arrived. The guards had brought him dinner which he had just nibbled. Then he'd got an idea, born out of necessity, and he'd told them he needed to go to toilet. But instead of taking him to one, they had brought him – a pot. For once he had been happy that Molly was sleeping. He studiously avoided looking at the thing (thankfully emptied) that the guards had left in the room.
"Molly…" he whispered to the girl. "If you'd just wake up… wake up, and then we can escape this place. Together. I can't do it alone, I'm sorry… I would want to help, want to, to… do something, anything, but I just… can't. Molly, open your eyes. Please open your eyes…"
And the girl opened her eyes. Hikaru froze, his own eyes widening as the girl lay there, blinking. Slowly her eyes focused on him. She frowned. Then a smile spread on her face.
Notes:
The game between Sai and the thingy is very loosely based on the fourth game played between Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, the first computer program that defeated a professional go player. I actually watched that game, and it was surprisingly exciting – very different kind of drama from Hikago games, though. xD That was the only game out of five that Lee won.
The game with commentary (love that commentary! "Like an earthquake, the wedge at 78 tore apart the cracks in Black's fortress!" xD So properly dramatic...) is available online. I'll put the link in my bio for anyone curious. The link takes you to the 77th move. White 78 by Lee is the move that turned the game.
Also, about the title of this fic. I'm awfully bad at naming stuff (cough still have one fic called simply The Untitled Heian Fic...) and when I started this one I just called it Chicago. And then I decided to write it in a Japanese kind of way, change c to k, that is… and realized that Chikago is just C+Hikago. Yeah, that was a complete coincidence. Also, chika in Japanese means underground, and now I got one underground (kinda) go game into the fic, so yay.
I'll try to get back to more regular updates, but I make no promises about next week. Should write one research plan for next week's Thu, and I'm not even sure of my topic yet. xD
Oh, and, I posted that story I talked about in the previous chapter as a separate fic. Story id 13097418.