On a Darkling Plain

He often plays chess alone, and black always wins. Sometimes when I visit he asks me to join him, knowing that I will refuse. I always refuse. It is a matter of principle between us – even that is now a matter of principle.

Years ago, while we were still in school and it was innocent, we would often play chess together. We were of two houses, opposed but still alike in dignity then, and he was two years younger than me. I should not have been seen with him.

I risk death by seeing him now. My comrades will have no qualms if it is discovered that I come to meet him like this. Consorting with the enemy. No quarter. Many have had their souls destroyed for less.

He looks up at my approach, his hand, his thin, pale hand, arrested in the action of moving a black bishop across the board. His eyes are the polished ebony of the chesspiece, and sometimes, more and more often now, I can catch a glint of red in them.

They used to be blue, so lovely with his black hair. He was a handsome boy, clever, and polite, and helpful in the kitchens. And ambitious, so horribly ambitious, but they encouraged it then, even the man who is now his archnemesis. They saw him rising in politics, but I knew even then that he would not choose that path.

I did not know what path he would choose. I feared for him, sometimes, knowing of his prodigious gifts and energy and wondering what outlet he would find for them. I did not know that, even as we played our various innocent games, he had already chosen the path of evil. There are times when I blame myself – they tell me not to, that no one could have foreseen it.

“Good evening,” he says, and his voice, beneath it all, still sounds the same. The same voice that once said, “Look what I’ve found!” and “Let’s go to the library”. “Is it evening?” he asks.

“Would I be here otherwise?”

“Stalking in the night. Still the same as ever, my dear.”

Search earth and heaven, there is nothing I can answer to that. He knows it.

“Won’t you sit down?”

I approach with – “feline grace” he called it, his smile tinged with irony – and perch lightly, on the chair by the side of the table rather than the seat of the invisible opponent

“How are you?” I ask. I do not call him “my lord”, as the men on his side do, nor “you bastard”, as do the ones on mine, but neither do I ever use his name. He does the same – “my dear” is the most he ever permits himself – knowing that, deprived of my anonymity, I will not come again.

For reasons I can only try to comprehend, he needs me to come. It’s strange, having this power over him, power even my leader, the only man he fears, will never possess. My claws can harm him, even now.

“Such a difficult life, being a Dark Lord,” he says, with a mock sigh. He smiles at me, causing a shudder to run down my ramrod straight spine. It caused a very different shudder once. We do not remember that.

“Do you expect me to sympathise?” It is a counterattack – sometimes, he forces me to play chess after all. There was a time when I enjoyed it. Now it is a drug, destroying a fraction of my heart each time, but undeniable.

Undeniable, until now. I have not come here to play chess, this time.

“This is the last,” I tell him. He drops the chesspiece, and it rolls along the board and nearly topples to the ground before his steady hand catches it.

“You’re in my power,” he says, and I can tell that, in that place deep down where he keeps the relics of his emotions, he is angry. “I can have you killed.”

“Kill me,” I say calmly, “and you destroy the last, the very last record of your humanity.”

“I hate you,” he says, and his voice is also steady. Years ago, it would have trembled, just slightly.

“Perhaps,” I say. “But you also need me.”

“You’re right.” He bows his head and his hair falls forward, and for a moment, but for the pallor of his skin, I might mistake him for a boy I once knew. “Come again.” Half plea, half command, uniting the roles he plays with me.

“No.” There is a relish in holding this power, and for a fleeting moment, I can almost understand what led to his choice. Almost – it is as close as I ever get.

“You will not come.” An admission, as dignified as he ever was admitting to being caught out after hours. “Why?”

“You are a monster,” I say simply. “I cannot save you. I will not die for you.”

“Nor by my hand.” He can promise this now, but I doubt he will keep it. I doubt that it would matter. “I shall not ever see you again.”

“No.”

“Min—“ He means to call me by name – I cannot allow it. I lean over in my chair, very deliberately, and press my lips to his.

My friends know how much I hate him. They would kill me if they knew the extent to which I also love him. Still. Always.

I quickly break away.

I glance over at the board, where the white king stands in a corner, choked by his own figures. “Checkmate,” I whisper, and he nods solemnly.

My heart breaking, I turn at the door, just before making my escape, and say, “Goodbye, Tom.”

And yet I know, as he does, that I will be back. We often play chess together, and black always wins.