“So we begin?” Joe said. He clicked the metal torch and a small fire billowed in its cauldron. He lit a few torches to brighten the night, and they crackled against the blizzard that was scorching their cozy cabin and probably turning their windows into brittle candy. The scent of smoke mixed with the fantastic aroma of the turkeys they had devoured.
Joe cracked a mischievous smile. He felt luckier than a lucky dime, luckier than a lucky dame who had inherited her grandfather’s fortunes, and even luckier than a man marrying a princess. Because as luck had it, he was about to slam his arrogant scallywag of a brother in Kings & Queens.
“Yes, of course we’ll begin. It’s my birthday after all, and I’m feeling like things will go my way. Right, James?”
James sat right across their family roundtable. Plaques, swords, knit sweaters, and all sorts of trinkets were pinned to the wall behind him. His voice rose over the fire. “Oh brother, oh brother. Still an ignoramus, are you?” He shook his head and chuckled. “You haven’t beaten me in ten years. I hope this brings your birthday to a miserable end.”
Joe’s caramel face flushed a bit red. Little disgusting…. No, no, happy words, happy words. James had put on a few pounds and even more stress in the past decade, so he had reason to be touchy. “Today that—“
Tiff hugged James and pulled him over, smooshing their young son Wilde in between. “Oh boys, can’t we just celebrate together today?” She pecked James on the cheek. “You’ll end up atop each other with daggers at your throats by the end of the night if this goes on.”
“Not so,” Gim butted in. He was at least two heads shorter and twice as thin as the two brothers. His wife Loris and his daughter Pam flanked him, and his face was somber. “Joe n’ James will have the daggers stuffed down their throats and their cards strewn over the table, but I’ll be basking in my victory.”
Everyone stared at him.
“What?”
“Gonna stuff those daggers down our throats with your superior strength and stature?” James said.
“No need, you’ll be so ashamed after this round you’ll just do it to yourselves.”
Everyone but James and Gim laughed and filled the shack up with a few friendly slaps and jabs, indeed, everyone but James, Gim, and Sarah.
She sat next to her mom, Tiff, and her face looked like a pumpkin that had been sitting out in blistering heat for several years too long.
“What’s wrong, Sarah? Aren’t you ready to see your pop James go down in flames?” Joe said. She turned her head away and looked down.
“Nothing.” Tiff rubbed her arm while keeping Wilde reigned in with her other arm. He squealed. “She just isn’t feeling well tonight.”
“Well then, let’s get this going,” Gim yelled.
Joe brought out the cards. Kings & Queens was simple. The player with the most kings and queens in hand at the end of ten rounds won. However, even other cards—Bishops, Knights, Peons, Traitors, and Princes—had abilities to disrupt the game and other players. It was a game of strategy, timing, and ever-present luck, just like Joe loved it.
The first three rounds went as normal as Joe dealt hands and they all passed their turns.
Joe moved his cards around in his hand until he had three Traitors lined up. Normally, it was best to hold a Heist until your opponents had obviously gathered up a few Kings and Queens. However, Gim and James had developed a few bad tells. They always played slow when they had good hands.
“Heist.” Joe said. It was a risky play for a huge, back-cracking payoff.
James and Gim blinked and didn’t move.
“No way,” Gim stammered.
“No way,” James followed.
Joe revealed his Traitors and discarded them.
“Heist.” He licked his lips. Ooh, how sweet a well-brewed strategy tasted. “Trade in five cards in your hand, and draw five new cards.” With that, they had no Kings or Queens left, but Joe had two Kings. A massive advantage.
Everyone in the family with a love for Kings & Queens threw up an uproar, which included Tiff. Again, everyone except for Sarah, who was now standing and clearly very, very angry.
“What’s wrong with you all?” She said. Her voice was piercing.
“Playing this stupid game when we’re all about to die? You know Pop has been having dreams! Dreams of fire, death, destruction all around us…” She whimpered. “Dreams of Mom dead and Joe dead and even Auntie Marianne…”
“Young woman,” James got up and tipped her chin. “I have already ordered you to keep your silly mouth shut. Do not speak of this again, do you understand?”
She whimpered. “But I’m scared.”
“I said, do you understand?”
She nodded.
“We’re all afraid,” Joe said. James snapped his head over and looked as if he was ready to growl.
“There’s no way to fight.” He admired the fine blades and spears and axes around the room, but they were only decorations. Joe was a craftsman by trade, not a warrior. “No way to run. Marianne is pregnant, and she didn’t even feel strong enough to be with us tonight. She could hardly sustain a journey.”
“And my lovely James hardly understands his dreams,” Tiff added. She hugged Wilde tighter. “So there’s certainly not a method to stop a catastrophe when we don’t know what it is.”
“Yet it all comes true,” Gim said. “The One Above has given our boy James here a gift, and he’s used it to help us prosper, used it to lift us up from nothing. But the only thing it’s doin’ now is assuring our demise.”
“Enough.” James said. He flared again. “My words to Sarah go to all of you. I want to hear absolutely nothing of this again.”
The family took a moment to regain their composure, Joe hardly said a word to James while he tried to comfort Sarah, and the night went on for hours as Joe’s lead in Kings & Queens didn’t turn into a crushing victory as he hoped. Still, he held on, and he won by a narrow play involving a Knight forcing Gim to give over one of his Queens. Lady Luck was with him after all.
Unfortunately, none of them realized they needed someone much more powerful than Lady Luck to save them from what awaited.
…
Joe opened the hatch in the corner of his shack and led James and Gim down its dark tunnel.
“Don’t ya have a torch?” Gim asked.
“No.” Joe would’ve shrugged but the thought of falling kept him from doing something so stupid. “My wonderful brother-in-law, we won’t need one when we get to the bottom.”
They descended into the musty, humid cellar and finally came to the bottom where light began to flutter in and coolness wafted around the damp floor. A window etched into a hillside gave a beautiful view off into Joe’s favorite countryside and the sprawling town Marck afar.
“This is where I come when I need a break from my lovely wife. She’s so good to me, you know? Yet I still need my time alone every once and again.”
“So what’re we doing in your manhole?” James said.
Joe sighed and sat in his recliner beside his work desk. He pulled a key from its drawer and inserted it into the storage chest beside his desk.
Gim and James gasped. “Why?”
The fire rifles in his chest weren’t to hurt anyone. Adonai forbid it. He didn’t want to steal or murder or break any of The One Above’s commands. Just like he told Sarah, he was afraid, and he had to do something about it.
“James, your dreams. I’ve been thinking about them. What you’ve seen. Well, what Tiff has told me you’ve seen.”
James was despondent.
“James!” Joe yelled. “We will die if we don’t act now. Tell us what you’ve seen. Please.”
James gaped and glanced at Gim who simply stared back at him.
He gulped. “I saw us down here.”
“You saw us here?”
“I saw us here. Now. More vividly than I’ve ever ‘seen’ before. Slightly chilly. Standing in the sun. You were at your desk. And then a flash. Marianne went into labor and strange men showed up at your door soon after. Another flash. We fled Marck as quickly as we could in a carriage with your newborn. Behind us was a sea of blood and the smell of burning flesh. Pain pierced my stomach, and I yelled Tiffany’s name. Loris sobbed. Gim and Marianne weren’t there. Then I wake up.”
“We were here, then my wife…”
“Joe,” Gim grabbed Joe by the shoulder.
Joe’s eyes widened. “James, why didn’t you—“
“Joe!” Gim yelled. He emphasized every word. “A flash, then Marianne goes into labor.”
“By Adonai…”
…
They rushed up from the cellar until they heard Marianne’s groans and then they climbed with the vigor of twenty wyverns. The children were in the “Big Bedroom” of the cabin by Marianne’s side, and Loris and Tiff guided her through labor.
“I love you,” Joe whispered and clasped Marianne’s hand.
“I love you too,” she croaked.
…
The wooden planks creaked beneath James like ships bending to the will of the sea. He breathed in, tasting the cedar-tinted air, and slowly pulled the door of Joe’s preposterously impoverished shack open. Marianne shouted in pain in the foreground, but this was important. Too important to leave to a few hillbillies in his family that thought they were doing the right thing. Hopeless, the entire lot of them. He had to live for them all.
Like Gim said, his dreams always came true. He didn’t just see Gim and Marianne missing. He said we fled Marck. In reality, he fled Marck.
“Where should we go?” James said. He pushed against the tall stranger and eased the door shut behind him. The two circled about each other as if they had decided to learn to dance Town Tango style. The odd man looked ajar like he was cracked; shuffled hair, scuff, and a single, silver-colored eye with a patch over the other eye.
“Who might you be?” The man said.
“Don’t play dumb,” James reached for the dagger hitched to his belt.
The man raised his hands in the air. “Ah, maybe we should start with, say, introductions? Of course, my name will mean nothing to you. However, you might know me as a Waysider.” He coughed. “News of a birth passed through us one by one, and, it seems I was the most eager of us to find the child. I just want to see the boy. Hold him. He’s important. Maybe the most important boy in this entire land.”
“And?“
“And… the boy is in danger. The Archknight of Marck knows what we know. I’ll be belly-up if I could figure out how he’s finding this stuff out. For now, I have come to welcome the boy into the world and help his family.” Something glimmered in the man’s closed fist. Slimy conniver thought he was sneaky, huh? “Would you like to introduce yourself, yes?”
“I’m the boy’s uncle,” James spit. “Tell us what to do. I’ll pass on the message.”
“I would still prefer to see the boy,” the man glanced to the shack. He stuck his finger in his ear and dug around. “Ah, whatever. Head to Marck. There will be a man in the Red Bell Inn named Roarin. He’s a Waysider, and he knows a band of us who’ll get you as far as Selah safely.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Yes, of course. Now how about we get the rest of you—“
James whipped a pistol from a holster inside his coat and aimed for the stranger’s head. Fool.
He pulled the trigger and combustion fueled the steam-mechanical pistol, sending a ripple of hot pressure through the air that sent the man crashing into a bush. He fell limp.
Blood pulsed through James, and for the first time, fate was his to control. Destiny molded itself to him. He clenched his fists.
“Now, I have a world to change.”
…
As the curtain of the night fell, a baby’s cry was heard. It’s hard to say if only this one small family heard it or if his cries resounded through the world such that all would hear him. His conception changed everything. Not in a visible sense, rather, the world felt it. The hopelessness heavier than the sun bearing down at dusk vanished. It was a slight change in the moment, but it would ripple through the ages forever. He would crush fear.
The stranger left for dead was not left dead at all. James, perhaps in his negligence or in his humanity, did not take due process to make sure he had really killed the man. Sarah found him soon after, and they nursed him back to health as the heard him speak about Marianne’s newborn, Iesa, about the Archknight after his life, and about James’ betrayal.
James found his way to Marck and then to Selah and then to who knows where. His adventure would take him places he never expected to do things he never thought he would do. Some great. Some terrible.
As for how Joe and his family escape? It involved much planning, sacrifices, and promises. Indeed, it was simply the beginning of their story. However, that’s another story for another day, and it can wait to be told.
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