board

The storm raged ever stronger. The clouds were dry and blank, and yet, it was pouring rain like it was the end of the world. Once it had been like this. Only once before. When it was what humans now know as Noah’s flood. Other than that, never at this scale. No one could have imagined it. It was beyond the wildest dreams of the people. Of any people. The storm raged overhead. Thunder cracked like a whip in the sky. Yellow, blue, white. Fire on the lands. Water flooding everywhere else. The earth was breaking. The earth was cracking. The air was burning, and with it, it singed your nostrils, an acrid smoke that hung everywhere. There was chaos and confusion. The ones that were left were in a daze, unable to believe what was happening. They had said we had at least another 50 years. Poor, sad saps. Trying to hold on to the last vestiges of life, not knowing that all was in vain. And in vain it was.

The board told the story. Even though the pieces themselves were barely recognizable, it seemed that they gave off shadows, images standing over them, with the remains of the pieces at the center, that indicated what they were. Two angry regal kings, two queens, the pieces glowing in the center, standing tall, standing proud, one had her hair tied up in a bun, the other kept it long and flowing. One bishop remained, he of the western whites, broken and cracked along his core. Three knights, the horses foaming at the mouths, their manes glistening with sweat. No rooks. A smattering of pawns. All were exhausted. The battles had been going non stop for months. But this was what they had been crafted for. This was their purpose. The Maker had whispered their finals roles to each of them as he placed them in their starting squares for the first time. They would fulfil their roles. To their dying breaths. All the pieces present were made of marble and stone, and lined with precious stones, and imbued with power. But the most important thing was that all had honor breathed into them.

And so they would keep on going. To guide the way. To tell the story. 

And the way they did guide. The story they did tell.

The shadow rajah roared as one side lost its queen. The pain in that screech left even the small sphere that protected them from outside elements, and outside elements from them, and it travelled far and wide. Continents shook. Oceans shivered. Something was going on. Something powerful, and he intended to have it stopped before it could turn the tides. He sent his most trusted lieutenants, those of the shadows below and above. He sent them to find out what. They slithered away, in the shadows, of the shadows. They rode the shadows in the air. They rode the shadows underneath the earth.

The storm raged. Thunder cracked like a whip in the sky. The air was burning. Two men sat playing chess, untouched by the elements.