Etherwalker Read Free

from the mountainside. Enoch went to check on the sheep as his master took the iron he had purchased into the tool shed.
    They had a silent dinner of stew and toasted bread, sweetened with a dollop of red berry preserves that Master Gershom kept at the top of the pantry. Enoch supposed that the rare treat was some sort of unspoken sympathy for the earlier trauma. It certainly wasn’t an apology.
    Enoch went to his bed near the stove, tired and aching. Sadly, his mind would not let him sleep, replaying too-clear images and sounds and memories of hard fists against his jaw. Enoch decided these thoughts wouldn’t take him anywhere, so he pushed his thoughts back to the game he had seen Ben and Jason playing. It was a simple pattern, but it held so much potential for complexity.
    Enoch played through the game again in his mind, trying to discover if there had been some hidden trap in the four-gray-stone defense. By the time the full moon had risen over the cottage, Enoch had concluded that the strategy was as useless as it had seemed—in fact, it was one of fifteen possible formations that guaranteed a loss. Enoch began to devise different action strings that would have granted Jason a victory in less than ten turns. The patterns and their subsequent responses were just as fascinating as a duel, and Enoch lost all track of time.
    By the time the sky began to grow bright, Enoch had constructed a rolling unit of black and gray stones in his mind; the unit could be arrayed in five turns and could sweep the board clean in three more looping “super turns,” after which it would fold in on itself until only one white stone was left in the center hole.
    Enoch sat up in bed, rubbing his head as Master Gershom began to stir in his bed across the kitchen.
    What a foolish game—it is impossible to lose if you move first.
    He puzzled over it until his master had started cooking breakfast, thin strips of mutton sizzling in an iron pan. The older man finally noticed the red, puffy eyes of his charge.
    “Couldn’t sleep?”
    Enoch blinked a few times and shook his head.
    “No . . . I’m just . . . I just can’t stop thinking about that game they were playing. I keep going over different ways they each could have moved their pieces for victory, and then finding new ways to counter each—”
    Enoch noticed that his master was frowning.
    “I should have warned you about getting your thoughts caught in that sort of thing. It can be dangerous for you, Enoch.”
    Enoch was not sure what he meant. “You mean I can’t play games like that?”
    “No, no—you can certainly play them. In fact, they can be wonderful tools for sharpening your . . . your talents. You just need to learn how to moderate your fascination.
    “This particular game is called jedrez demonyos, and has been around in one form or another for ages. Your dear young friends were right about one thing; the stones represent beasts and warriors from ages past. The object of the game is to collect prey for your angels while denying the angels of your opponent.”
    “Except there is no use in pretending the pieces are living things, Master,” said Enoch. “They don’t vary in strength, and they don’t tire or grow hungry. They always move exactly like they are supposed to. They are more like a series of actions.”
    “Of course you see it that way, Enoch. You see patterns and sequences where others see the pieces as tiny replicas of the creatures they were named after, unable to look beyond symbolic individuality and into the actual workings of the game. Their moves will always be reactive and shortsighted against an opponent who understands the variability of sequence.”
    Master Gershom smiled, in a warm mood for some reason this morning. He went on to describe the jedrez tables he had seen in his youth, obsidian and marble carved to the exacting detail of every wart and feather.
    Enoch yawned and tried to listen, even though he was still upset; it was rare