“Did I?” Tom raised an eyebrow.
“You did,” the scrawny cook said. “I’m Chopper by the way. Chopin the Chopper.”
“Oh,” Tom said. “Brilliant nickname.”
“It’s not a nickname.” Chopin waved his hand in the air. “Ever heard of Frédéric Chopin, the French composer?”
“He was Polish.” Tom felt the need to correct him.
“Whatever,” Chopin tensed, his knuckles whitening around the knife. “His father was a cook like me. A cook who liked to chop. Chopin, you get it?”
“I got it the first time.” Tom challenged him.
“So, you want to know who the Fourteen really are or what?” Chopin said.
“I do.” Tom nodded.
“Then follow me downstairs in Oxford’s most underestimated kitchen.” Chopin inclined his stiff head in an unusual way, as if about to tell Tom a secret. “You know I’ve been secretly feeding Oxford’s student’s cats instead of fish for the past five years?”
“Blimey.” Tom said.
“Not any cats. Cheshire cats.”
Tom swallowed hard, trying to remember if he’d eaten in the university.
“Why do you think Oxford’s students are the smartest all over the world. ‘Cheshire meat is all you neet.’”
“You mean ‘need’.”
“Of course I meant ‘need’. Had to change it, so it rhymes.” Chopin’s face went red. “Now follow me down the rabbit hole.” He snickered, then itched his back with the kitchen knife.
Tom went to follow him, reluctantly, but first he had to wake up Inspector Dormouse from another sudden nap.
Chapter 59
Chess City, Kalmykia
I am astonished, staring at the three Wonderlanders behind the glass, among others I have never met. My attempts to break through the glass proves futile, so I stop, sensing that I will need my energy soon.
“You didn’t expect that, did you?” The Chessmaster’s voice attacks me from a hidden microphone inside the glass box.
“I’m confused why you didn’t kill them.” I say.
“Because Lewis’ magic that connected them to their pieces didn’t only allow me to kill them right away, but it gave me a chance to play with them the way I want.”
It suddenly strikes me that all I had to do was throw the chess pieces away — or maybe return them back in place — in order to save them. By that, I mean saving Fabiola. Whether she wanted to kill me or not, I still like her and know she is one of us.
Margaret and the Queen, I’ve never cared for.
“Pillar!” I call out, wondering if he could hear me. “Get rid of the pieces and save Fabiola!”
“Don’t bother,” the Chessmaster said. “I’m not counting The Pillar in this game. My men have already taken him to a place where he will be tortured equally to what he deserves. As for you, princess, we have a game to play.”
“What do you mean?” I lower my voice – why, I’m not sure. It’s like there is a suppressed memory that wants to break free all of a sudden.
“You don’t remember, do you?” The Chessmaster sneers.
“Should I remember something?”
“Me and you, dear Alice. Me and you,” he says. “But no hurries. It will all come to you. Besides, I love to torture you while you’re still amnesic. Oh, the pain of not knowing, Alice. If you ever know how it cuts deep.”
“Stop it! What do you want? Why have you saved Fabiola, the Queen, and the Duchess?”
“To use them against you,” The Chessmaster says, and a sheath erupts out of the ground in my glass block. It peels off on its own, showing a sword inside. A hell of a long and heavy-looking sword. “Pick it up, Alice. You will need it.”
For the first time, I’m not doubting him. I pick it up to protect myself from whatever is about to happen. Boy, is it heavy.
“Now let me tell you about the rules of the game,” the Chessmaster says. “Each of you Wonderlanders inside his or her glass box is taking their position in a chess game. The Queen of Hearts is the Black Queen. White Queen is Fabiola. Margaret is the Rook in the Black army. I’d have preferred if more chess pieces were found, so we’d have one hell of a game, but maybe later.”
“So, we’re playing chess with real Wonderlanders in a life sized chessboard? That’s lame.”
“Patience, dear Alice,” the Chessmaster says. “It’s not a game of chess, but a game of bloody chess.”
“Meaning?” I ask, staring at the sword in my hand, all kinds of scenarios start playing in my head.
“Black will play against white. When it’s time for a piece to kill another, it will kill it, except this time, the killing will be real.”
“How so?”
“You will see how,” he says. “But you haven’t asked me what your role in this game is, Alice?”
“I see I’m in the position of a pawn,” The words escape me, and I remember The Pillar talking about how pawns are the soldiers sacrificed by their governments.
“Are you asking yourself why you’re a pawn, Alice?” the Chessmaster’s voice sends chills down my spine. “Because Lewis made you so. In the Looking Glass book he made you a pawn, wandering in a world of chess. How sneaky of him, making you the weakest piece in the game; the one that’s on the frontline; the one that’s like most citizens in most countries in the world, oblivious of what’s really going on but also asked to defend their home country. Why Lewis betrayed you, you will have to ask him later… in the afterlife. Or maybe it’s an After-Wonderland.”
My neck hurts so much and I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. It’s hard to escape the Chessmaster’s logic. If Lewis loved me so much, why make me a pawn? Maybe he did it later, when I joined Black Chess. I must have done terrible things to deserve this.
“Lewis is a coward,” the Chessmaster says. “You know why? Because a wise man once told the government, ‘If you can’t stand behind your soldiers who’re defending your country, feel free to stand in front of them.’”
Now his laughter echoes against the sides of the glass box, its waves resonating back against me, buzzing me like shock therapy.
“I hope you’re ready, Alice,” he says, and my glass box moves forward on the board, two blocks, like in a normal game of chess. I’m the white pawn, and I make the call, kick-starting the game.
Behind the foggy glass, I catch a glimpse of the black pawn on the block parallel to mine making a move. Two steps forward as well.
I know what this means. It means my next move should be killing it with my sword.
“Do I have any control of my glass box?” I ask. “Can I open it on my own terms?”
“Of course,” he says. “You just say ‘check’.”
In a moment of utter heroic recklessness, I shout from the top of my lungs: ‘Check!’
The glass box slides down in an abrupt move, and I swing my sword to chop off the black pawn’s head. But I may have been too slow because a lot of blood splatters on the chessboard before me. The blood that could possibly be mine.
Chapter 60
The blood isn’t mine. It’s the black pawn’s whom I have just killed. His head rolls down his body onto the chessboard. It’s the head of a man I don’t know. A man who tried to kill me, and I had to kill instead. We’ve never met before, and will never meet again, unless it’s in the pit in hell.
Suddenly, I realize how ugly war is.
“Don’t bother if he kills us,” Fabiola shouts from her block, her glass box suddenly open now. “He is using us – mainly me – to get to Carroll’s Knight.”
“How?” I shout, about to step out of my block to get closer to her.
“Don’t try to leave your block,” Fabiola shouts frantically. “It has an invisible electrical field that will fry you to death if you do!”