“My healing isn't as strong as Rose's could be, but it should be enough,” Tomás commented after taking the time to treat his wounds now that they were in the Dimension and he had access to his abilities. “How does it feel?”
Jacob placed his hands on his hips and twisted his torso from side to side, mimicking a stretching exercise.
“Not bad, Tomás… Not bad. It still hurts, but I don't feel like the wound is going to open again with the slightest movement.”
“That's good. Cat, have you figured anything out?”
Cat, on the other side of the small room, was carefully studying the board standing between them and one of the exits.
“Not much beyond the obvious,” Cat said, resting one hand on her chin. “I mean… It's clearly a chessboard, but with fewer pieces than it should have.”
The surface in front of her was a grid made up of red and black marble tiles. On the opposite side of the board, toward the door, stood what appeared to be two-meter-tall obsidian statues whose shapes represented conventional chess pieces. Except not all the pieces a normal game should have were there, nor were they arranged in the same order. There wasn't a single piece on their side.
“A chess game with only opposing pieces?” Jacob observed as he approached.
“And what about the numbers? Can't you think of anything there either?” Tomás asked, joining his companions.
“A three on the walls, and our assigned numbers on these horrible uniforms,” Cat began. “Six,” she said, pointing at Jacob, “eight,” she pointed at Tomás, “and ten,” she pointed at her own chest. “I don't see any correlation…”
Tomás sighed before saying:
“I wish Mica were here. He'd surely come up with some crazy idea that would end up being correct.”
“We don't need Mica. We can do this ourselves,” Cat protested, sulking. “I can be just as good as him when it comes to puzzles… And if I fail again, I have you two. Besides, it's Mica's fault we're here.”
“I don't think—”
“I know, I'm sorry… Obviously, it's not Mica's fault. It's probably the Hunter's fault… It's just that I thought… I was sure he'd managed to infiltrate my Dimension because of me, because I was an idiot and believed that… I hoped Mica would be different, that maybe he'd have what I was missing. I don't know. I'm talking without thinking.”
“Cat, you're one of the strongest members of this group,” Jacob told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. But he withdrew it as quickly as he'd placed it there. He couldn't get distracted by that kind of nonsense. The group needed him to save them once again. It was his responsibility as the most experienced one. Besides, he'd made a promise to Mica. “Well, we have no choice but to move forward.”
“Shouldn't we take the time to…?”
“For what, Tomás? We have to accept it. We won't understand any more than we already do without taking the next step. Besides, the others might be in trouble while we're wasting time here.”
Setting the example, Jacob stepped down onto the board, stepping onto the red square directly in front of him. In immediate response to his movement, an enormous screen lit up above the two doors in the room. The one behind the board and the one behind them, which they had already tried to open without success.
“Welcome to Challenge Three,” a mechanical voice began over the static coming from the screens. “Eons have passed since the last real wars, and half that amount of time since the last time any being inhabited a body of flesh and blood. Elevated to a higher level of permanence, the brightest minds and bravest spirits decided to wage their few conflicts through symbolic games such as the ones you, champions who have made it this far, have overcome one by one. Chess is a resource almost as old as time itself, still used by cosmic entities to engage in duels of intelligence, strategy, and, of course, intrigue. Champion number six, transformed into a king, has decided to make the first move.”
As it said this, the characters F1 appeared on the screen in red letters. Immediately afterward, they vanished and were replaced by H5, followed by an arrow and F5. The edge of the screen also began flashing red. At the same time, the pitch-black statue resembling an enormous fortress dragged itself across the marble and positioned itself four squares in front of Jacob.
Guided by instinct, Jacob tried to move aside to get out of the path of the threatening structure, but just before he could step onto the black section to his left, Cat stopped him with a shout.
“No! Don't even think about moving there! Look ahead.”
In the opposite direction from that square, an intimidating structure awaited him, shaped like an elegant woman with a sword in one hand and a crown on her head.
Jacob swallowed. He didn't know how to play chess, but he knew that the queen was, for some reason, a powerful piece.
More aware of his situation, he surveyed the rows of statues that were now his opponents. He had the rook in front of him and a knight mounted behind it. A soldier carrying an enormous jousting lance stood on the other side of the board, with a second mounted knight diagonally behind him. Beside the latter stood a gallant, powerful figure wearing an enormous crown that had to be the king. What made him sweat was the fact that two threatening queens protected it from the two positions in front of it.
“Is it normal for there to be two of those?” he asked.
“It's possible, but it's not normal,” Cat replied. “It's as if we're picking up someone else's game.”
“Someone who was completely eliminated…” Tomás added.
“What do we do? I mean, what do I do?”
“According to the narrator, you're the king, Jacob.”
“And what does that mean?”
“That you're the main target of all seven of those pieces.”
Jacob looked back at what stood in front of him, now seeing it from a different perspective. More nervous. But when he looked at Cat again, he saw her staring intently at the entire board, her arms crossed as she lightly tapped her lips with a closed fist. Something about the sight made him feel relieved. He trusted Cat to help them get through this.
I'm glad to know you finally trust someone.
That soft, feminine voice spoke to him—the one that occasionally sounded inside his mind to make comments he was certain he hadn't thought himself. He closed his eyes and shook his head, as though it could make the voice go away.
“Tomás, I need you to enter the board,” Cat began. “But I need you to do it while clearly thinking of yourself as a rook. Also, I need you to do it by jumping over Jacob. It's necessary… No, it's vital that you start in front of Jacob.”
Tomás nodded, took several steps back, and used the difference in height between the surface where he was standing and the board to jump over Jacob and land sitting on the square in front of him.
“Champion eight, transformed into a rook, has decided to join the contest,” the mechanical voice said as Tomás stood up, groaning and rubbing his backside. The screen displayed F2, and the edges stopped flashing red.
“Cat! It worked!”
“Don't celebrate yet,” Cat muttered loudly enough for Jacob to hear her over the sound of the queen statue sliding across the marble toward them.
The queen advanced one, two, three, four squares. On the fifth, Jacob had to make a greater effort to contain his panic.
“Is it normal for that thing to be able to move that far?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Cat replied. “But…”
The statue finished its movement, positioning itself two squares in front of Jacob, horizontally, crossing almost the entire board. Then the statue rotated to face him directly, revealing its terrifying expressionless face and the tip of its sword. The screen displayed C7 to C1, and the edge began glowing once again.
Jacob was nervous and sweating. Cat, on the other hand, smiled from ear to ear.
With a casual movement, she stepped down onto the same square where the queen now stood and, with an exaggerated flourish of her hand, gave it a delicate tap.
The obsidian statue exploded into thousands of pieces at the girl's touch. The fragments struck the group but caused no significant injuries. Then, when they fell to the ground, they passed through it and disappeared.
“Okay… I definitely wasn't expecting that,” Cat said, standing up after crouching in response to the explosion.
“Champion ten, transformed into a queen, has decided to join the contest,” the mechanical voice narrated. “Champion ten has obliterated one of the opposing queens. Congratulations,” it celebrated along with a small musical fanfare.
“This reminds me of that scene from Harry Potter,” Tomás said, smiling, though his smile instantly disappeared. “I hope it doesn't end exactly like that scene from Harry Potter…”
The knight carrying the jousting lance, which represented a bishop, moved one step diagonally, and the screen displayed B6 to A6, causing the edges to flash once again and confirming to Jacob that all the opposing pieces had only one objective: to destroy him.
“Oh no,” Cat breathed.
“What?”
“We're in trouble…”
“Already?”
“I'm sorry… It's just that I…”
“I don't really understand this, but I only have to move to the right to dodge that guy and that's it, right?”
“No,” Tomás intervened. “If you do that, that queen will move horizontally, behind the knight and that rook, and position herself in front of you,” he explained, pointing at the remaining queen, which slowly rotated in place as if eager to begin its move.
“And then? I'll move somewhere else and…”
“And then they'll attack Tomás,” Cat said in a faint voice. Tomás nodded.
“Then we could do something else. Maybe…”
“No, Jacob. It's our only possible move,” his companion told him, looking downcast. “If you don't get out of the bishop's path, he can attack you, and if you move to your left, the queen will.”
“Let them. I'd rather have them attack me. I won't let anything happen to you if I can help it.”
“I'm glad to hear that, friend… But there's no other option. If they attack you, all three of us lose.”
On the other side of the board, Cat began to tear up as she muttered, “I'm sorry. It was my fault,” over and over.
“Tomás… Never say there's no other option. I've always told you that. You're forbidden from saying that there…”
“In this case, Jacob. There isn't. The rules…”
“To hell with the fucking rules!” Jacob exclaimed. “I'm not going to follow rules imposed on me by someone else! And much less if it means sacrificing a friend!”
“But… Jacob. You don't understand. That's not how chess is played. You have to…”
“So what!? I don't know how to play this fucking game!”
Then, Jacob made the gesture of drawing his daggers, and two glowing knives of light materialized in his hands. With a graceful movement, he threw them one after the other at the two pieces threatening them, the bishop and the rook. When the knives struck them, the statues exploded into thousands of pieces.
“Champion six has… obliterated two pieces by making a completely unexpected move,” the mechanical voice said, hesitating. “Congratulations… I suppose.”
“Did it work!?” Tomás exclaimed. “But… The rules…”
“The rules can su—!”
Before he could finish the sentence, the knight's horse in front of them neighed and charged straight at Tomás. The now-living statue galloped across the board, ignoring all its limitations. But it didn't make it halfway before a glowing arrow from Cat struck the mount right in the neck. The piece exploded.
“Champion ten has… made a move out of turn and… I give up,” the mechanical voice exclaimed. At that instant, all the other black pieces came to life at once and lunged toward Jacob in unison.
Knives and arrows flew through the air, answered by hundreds of thousands of pieces of obsidian. In the blink of an eye, the board was deserted.
“Congratulations, you've won the game, blah blah blah, get out of here,” the narrator said, opening the door in front of them.
“I hope you learned something,” Jacob said proudly, stepping ahead of the other two and walking through the door.
Tomás and Cat looked at each other, still stunned by what had just happened, and shrugged.
“I don't know if what I just
learned
is good or not,” Cat said, wiping the tears from her face. “But I sure learned something.”