The Odds by Robert J. Peterson

Author:Robert J. Peterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2015-01-14T21:41:17+00:00

Part Four

L’ESPRIT de L’MONTAGNE

The castling move was one of the last formal changes to the ancient game’s rules. All of that happened before Deadblast, of course, but Boris Hagan occasionally passed down little packets of wisdom from his research into the Arpa. The castling move always appealed to the long-dead child inside Eldridge, the wide-eyed moppet who the Narsyans never allowed to exist. When he first saw a chessboard as a rebellious child who sprinted down to Dedrick to hang out with his ne’er-do-well friend, the redhead immediately wondered if the king could hide out inside the little castles at the corners of the board. He was right.

When the king castles, he moves two spaces to the side, and the rook leaps over him. Hagan told Eldridge that the pre-Deadblast oddsmakers added the rule to speed things up.

“It gets the rook into play a lot faster,” Hagan said.

In a Xiang tournament, however, castling was a lot more complicated. On the board, the move still worked the same, but post-Deadblast oddsmakers had modified how the rule applied to the avatar-warriors (including the King) in an effort to slow the game down. Longer Xiang tournaments meant more money for everybody, so castling became a very rare occurrence—mainly because most of the players who acted as Xiang Kings were total cowards. It worked like this:

The two Kings played a chess match via correspondence. Every time they captured a piece, two avatar-warriors would battle to the death over the square. Things got complicated when a player tried to attack the King. In pre-Deadblast chess, putting the king in check meant that the player had to get out of check somehow; usually by capturing the attacking piece, blocking the attack, or moving the king. In Xiang, a checking move typically led to another battle. If a King had to capture or block to relieve a check, then they could dispatch any of his other players to fight the avatar battle in their stead.

That’s where the castling rule change came in.

If the King chose to castle, they forfeited the privilege to ask others to fight for them and would have to fight their remaining battles themselves under pawn controls. That meant they would have to give 36 hours notice before attacking and only fight with hand-to-hand melee weapons.

But that’s not all. The post-Deadblast elder-Odds added some sweetener to the mix. In pre-Deadblast chess, the King couldn’t use the castling move to get out of check. In post-Deadblast Xiang chess, they could, no questions asked, no battle fought.

Which is exactly what Clovis was doing.

“You’re fucking castling?” Eldridge rasped, still sprawled on the ground next to his bike.

Clovis discharged little clouds of dust with each rapid breath he took. His clothes crowded around his joints in great folds of crackling corduroy and burlap.

In response to the redhead’s question, he nodded. “I have to. She’s after me.”

Eldridge pushed himself to a sitting position. “So you know who the White Queen is?”

Skin cracked around Clovis’ mouth. A frown.

“The White Queen? Why would I?”

“You called her a ‘she.

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