The Ageless One: Beginnings

The Ageless One: His Friend

It was a chess set of wood, but finely carved with the pieces colored purple, green and gold on one side with red, white and black for the other; the squares were green and red.  It had a sort of jester, masquerade theme to it.  The king was a jester sitting on a throne, and the queen was a jester woman.  The bishops next to them were jesters with recently fired bows, arrows in their heads, and sad expressions.  The knights were jesters trying with great difficulty to mount horses while the rooks were towers with jesters hanging upside-down from the battlements.  And lastly the pawns were comedy masks, each portraying a different emotion, and a few rude faces.

It was with this chess set that Doelan and his friend Liri sat down to a game.  Liri was thirteen, dark haired, and a little taller than Doelan, who was twelve.  Liri also had a knowing, confident expression about him.  The two of them were dressed in cloaks, sitting down in a clearing with one tree in it.  In the distance a set of quaint marble cottages, a city of sorts, could be seen, and on the other side of the boys the sun was low, casting a yellow light over everything.  Doelan and Liri were looking at the game, ready to make their moves, well, for the most part anyway.

“Are you sure you want to play this game?” asked Doelan. “Playing against me can’t be too hard.”

“Oh come one Doelan,” said Liri. “You’re getting better.”

“I can tell,” said Doelan sarcastically. “Last time we played instead leaving me with just my king, like you first did, you left me with my king and a pawn.”

After a second of silence they laughed.

“Well, that is better,” said Liri. “Even if just a little.  Now, it’s your move.”

Doelan thought for several seconds and then moved the pawn in front of the king forward one space.

“You think about it that long?” Liri inquired. “That’s been your first move every time we’ve played.  I know it’s good to think about it but only if you do something clever.  Moving the same first piece every time isn’t clever.”

“Well,” Doelan hesitated. “I don’t know I...”

“Doelan!” cried a boy’s voice from in the distance.

“Oh,” said Doelan. “That’s Erid.  I guess I’d better get back to the orphanage.”

“Already?” asked Liri, checking the sky. “It’s hardly sundown.”

“You know how Erid is,” said Doelan. “He’s really annoying that way; worse than a pack of flies.” he began to imitate buzzing noises. “Buzz.”

“Doelan you really shouldn’t disrespect to your elders like that.”

“Ah yes, everyone says that Erid, Mayor Aralor, and all the others are our elders, but I still can’t believe it.   I mean...”

“Is this the problem where you think they don’t look that much older yourself?”

“Well, Erid is supposed to be thirty two, and the mayor is supposed to be Forty one, but they look the same to me.  And they look exactly the same as the other elders too, even though they’re supposed to be over a hundred!”

“Well that’s a common thing for our people.  When you’re a gisler you stop aging when you turn fifteen.  That’s why outsiders call us the ageless ones.”

Doelan grunted.  He knew that, but it still seemed odd.  He couldn’t really understand why he felt that way.  If he had known his parents then maybe they could have told him.  If Doelan had a gold piece for every time he thought something like that...