Appendix A.

Vol. I BYZANTINE// Side A. BOARDWALK RHAPSODY

The Longest Game is an Occult Pulp Noir serial. To begin at the begin, or find your way around, see the Table of Contents.

Games of cards invoke water, Venilov thought. He ran through his notes while shuffling a standard deck. Cross-legged on the ground: earth. But we set down a tray so the cards don’t get soggy, so we’re not on the earth. Is the tray wood?

They played cards by the pool; four students studying under the gaze of a great carved face spewing chlorinated water. A Green Man, by both design and oxidation. He seemed surprised so much water could tumble from his parted lips into the spotless pool.

Between Venilov and the pool was his opponent, Amber. Her face remained inscrutable behind a curtain of pink bangs. She was often careless with concealing her hand, but Venilov had learned by now this was half her strategy. She wanted you to look.

Wood. Water and wood, ludospex of… what does that combine into, fucking pulp? Were there little pulp-sprites that played games? Venilov missed when he’d made a buck playing poker at the casinos. Poker made sense back then, and the cards adored him. The dry heat-- he later learned-- the over-saturation of stimuli, it rendered the things in the game drunk and utterly predictable.

Now, some chick was kicking his ass at Texas Hold’Em by literally showing her hand. Scrawny little Dimitri sat behind Amber, checking his notebook for the sort of tricks Amber never needed to win. Venilov once glimpsed the ludospex just once, for a moment, and they’d practically worshiped her. There were dozens of the little things, impossible mouths agape; monkey-shapes and sock puppets and cylinders of puffy pink gravel vying for her attention.

He could feel them, even now, curving her luck. No, she didn’t need Dimitri’s help.

Venilov’s consort sat behind him, unhelpfully quiet. He was the fourth student, the new blood they’d taken to calling Sprigs after an inspired moment where he won a game of Catan by sprinkling dried thyme on the board. No such bolt of insight in this moment, it would seem. “Any help?” Venilov asked.

Sprigs shrugged, tugging at a septum piercing. “She set the board, man.”

“She is waiting for you to do something,” Amber said as she fanned herself with her hand.

Huh. Venilov did some quick math. She had put the board down, hadn’t she? Unusually considerate and polite. The fuck was wood and water, anyways?

Venilov was a gambler at heart. He never had the head for this ludospex stuff, but he knew how to bluff with the best of them. He pushed two green chips forward. “I meet and raise. And--go fish.”

Venilov tossed his hand onto the floor, appealing to the wet poolside tiles and not the earth underneath. The pool’s tiles were blue and white. Aqua, fucking aqua. Be water, be water, water on water on water.

The game shifted, as a translucent tendril sploshed from the poolside, pulling from his reserve of chips to name their price. He visualized the game’s spirits, a school of little marble-eyed fish on invisible poles bobbing as they sang about learning, sharing, and entropy.

Amber was too busy watching the wet cards on the tile to notice the humanoid shape rising from the pool, but Dimitri turned in time. “Hey, uh--”

---

Shadowstriding felt buttery as Brewster moved inward through the Warrens. The gravity of the dark felt as if it folded inward, an inexorable centeredness terminating somewhere far deeper below Glimsvale than he had yet wandered. Deeper than he was yet willing to go. Holding a sulking Tom’s hand, he rounded a bend and moved through the halls of a sunken office space.

Fluorescent lights were still humming, alerting Brewster the maintenance tunnel was still in use. In his pocket, three pennies changed their gravitational alignment every minute or so, gently sliding through his pocket. He’d graded the homework.

“Where are we going?” asked Tom. “I wanted to finish my game.”

“I let you reach a save point,” Brewster frowned.¹

“I need bombs, Eddie! There’s a crack in the wall under the inn, and I think that’s where I get the lantern.” Tom was breathing faster, about to go on a tangent.

“There is more to life than Zelda, Tom. I need to concentrate. I…” It was easier to navigate the Warrens than it was before his second skin, but far more challenging to retrace his steps. His body was loathe to leave this place.

“It’s what you wished for,” Tom shrugged. “I like playing Zelda.”

Brewster realized he was right. He’d just wanted to finish his game with Tom, after the ice but before his brother got too sick to beat the game. Before Mom gave up. What was it False Angornicant said in Four Philosophers? ‘To live thy life by unplayed turn, in turn the--’²

“Howdy.” A rosy-nosed janitor was pushing a cleaning cart around a corner. He gave a close-lipped smile, with his eyes kept down. Brewster returned the same, as Tom waved. Out of sight, Brewster found a pocket of shadow to turn into, bringing them closer underground to the grotto.

*Welcome back, warlock! Hats off.* the pale man smiled. He sat on his stool before the door, the same as ever. Dapper suit, fuzzy red booties, fuzzy red gloves. Bland, bland face. *Have I met the little sport--*

The doorman scrunched his face at Tom, deep red divots on a cheesy face. Tom put a finger to his mouth, telling the figure to keep quiet.

Brewster pretended not to notice. “If you don’t mind, I have an appointment,” he frowning. The doorman always got under his skin. He got under my old skin, Brewster noted. I see the seams better, now. A red fuzzy turtleneck, red poking from behind the ears. The pallid flesh, little more than a mozzarella mask draped over something with simple, pingpongball eyes.

~Say, have I ever told you my name?~ asked the pale man, wiggling on his bench.

This was the first thing Guava Juice taught him, way back when Brewster’s first trip to the Warrens. It was a simple game, really. You just had to change the subject. “How about you tell me another time. I have homework to correct.”

~The kiddos do curricula now, what strange days! Could I take a teensy peek?~ The eyeballs bobbled like Cookie Monster, at odds with his prissy posture.

Brewster produced three floating pennies. Trivial, really, but the thing gaped his mouth open in awe, flawless veneers glued to black felt. The door opened as the creature gave a thumbs-up.

~Beautiful.~

They were waiting by the pool, dappled in diffused mustard light. Amber, Venilov, and the new kid stood stunned by the pool as Dimitri struggled under the water. Venilov ran toward Brewster as soon as he came through. “Professor! Something pulled Dimitri and--”

Brewster backhanded the sun-tanned face of the acolyte, throwing him onto the tile. He chewed the inside of his cheek, squeezing Tom’s hand. It had been his right hand, holding onto his brother, the same hand he’d used to strike Venilov. Tom was simply holding Brewster’s left, his entire body mirrored to where it had been moments before.

Brewster’s drew blood inside his own mouth. It was like squeezing water from a stale sponge left behind a sink.

Dimitri’s face had stopped spewing bubbles, and he lay face down. A translucent fuchsia humanoid shape pulled him deeper to the bottom.

Amber and the new one looked back and forth, between the pool and Brewster.

Tom’s face was backwards, now, his freckles and markings reversed. His t-shirt spelled “ODNETNIN.”

A few of the rat-king watched from a hallway to the sauna, clutching at their togas.

Brewster sucked the crimson under his tongue. He let go of Tom, and walked to the poolside.

He sprayed blood onto the card game, the cards, the chips.

A single giant bubble roiled up from the pool and popped, and the room went still. Brewster looked about. “Venilov, can you swim?” he asked, quietly.

“Y-yeah,” Venolv said. He was a solidly-built lad, and had not expected Brewster to pack such a wallop.

“Then go pull Dimitri out of the pool, and see if you can manage squeezing water out of his lungs. Can you manage that?”

Venilov tensed, about to sprint.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Brewster made him wait.

Amber had joined them, while their fourth-- Sprigs-- watched Dimitri’s still body. “He did it,” Amber pointed at the Vegas cardshark. “He threw the cards on the ground, and summoned something.”

Brewster nodded sagely. “You put the tray down to keep mud ludospex out of this. Forced his hand, I should think.”

“I didn’t know,” Venilov protested, looking back to the pool. He looked desperate to dive in. “I didn’t know.”

For a beat, the only sound was the fountain, the Green Man spewing fresh water that filled Dimitri’s lungs.

“I’m disappointed, Venilov. You should give yourself more credit,” Brewster sighed. “Imagine when I stepped in today, I was ready to kill you myself! You’d failed to forge an everbid, while the others showed exceeding promise.”

He moved a hand into a jacket pocket and gestured back out, the three pennies floating about his hand. Three pennies, worth whatever value their forger claimed when bartered in a Game. Technically worthless, given his students (save Venilov) had forged their coins and offered them to someone else before declaring a value. And yet here they were, imbued.

Inspiration, thou art whore!³

Brewster winked at Tom, and set his memories straight. The boy again looked more or less compatible with foggy winter memories. He turned to his three remaining students. “It’s time to improvise! What a lucky day for you, Venilov. Summoning a naiad, how poetic-- you earn excellent marks today. The stakes won’t be so high for you. As the rest…”

He fisted the three pennies, and they vanished. “I claim your everbids. Their value is: your light. I offer my boons to thee, Byzantine! Three coins, three pawns, to join your auspicious game!”

In the shadow of his closed palm Brewster let the coins fall away, an improvised twist to his shadowstriding. He did not know where the elusive game hid, but knew the spirits would ferry the coins in good faith to the board. In the past minute, his fist had held a daemon by the hand and struck in violence. For the moment, the right unseen ludospex thrummed about this fist. Flesh, chaos, aftershave, violence, and pennies.

Amber and Sprigs collapsed to the ground, coughing. Dimitri’s body began to convulse there, in the water, obscured by his black hoodie.

“Here is your next assignment. Wipe Calumn Quothe off the board. He was last seen down here somewhere in the Warrens, perhaps not far. If you find him in the flesh, kill him. If you can find the Byzantine, wipe him off the board-- his pawn is called the Archer. Now go.”

At that, Amber and Sprigs ran for the door, while Venilov knelt watching the pool. Dimitri hadn’t made it, despite the body climbing out of the pool to obey. Its eyes and tongue stuck out of their moorings, pink and panicked.

Venilov ran for the door, while Dimitri began a deliberate clumsy march.

“Let’s go, Tom. We can go back to Zelda, isn’t that nice?” He took his brother’s hand, to head for the door. It would be difficult to shadowstride their way out, this deep in the Warrens. His power seemed heavier, here.

“Before you go--”

Brewster startled at the sight of the three folks in togas. Appendages of the Rat-King, who had been listening. He balked when he recognized the woman standing before him, toga over a soaked polo shirt and capri pants. She stood tall without her roller.

“Guava Juice? Explain yourself!”

His mentor shrugged. “I was in the Game long before you, Prof,” she said with her chain-smoker laugh.

“But this is inconceivable,” Brewster spat. “I have accomplished things you never dared. How is it, at the moment of my triumph, it is your tail thrown in with the bunch? Explain yourself!”

He felt patches of his face grow hot and cold with anger, his vibrating at the outrage.

“You’re real cute, trembling like a chihuahua. Look no hard feelin’s Prof. I won a bet, is all.”

“A bet. You won a bet,” said Brewster, his tone hammered flat by agony.

“Sure! I bet ‘em a tied tail that you’d get fucked ten ways t’ Tuesday with this Byzantine bullshit!”

Guava Juice began to cackle, looking for the others to join in. One, who looked like a used car salesman in a Speedo beneath his robe, did his best to suppress a chuckle. The other appeared to be a nutmeg-colored bug mummy under a hooded white wrap.

Brewster’s anger radiated through his body and into Tom, whose eyes rolled as though he were seizing. “Have you come to gloat?” he asked through bit teeth.

The mummy cleared its throat, goading Guava to task. “No, actually, but was hoping you’d ask, sweetie. Here on uh, official poolside business, Prof.”

“Speak, then.”

The Speedo Salesman ran a hand through his wet and thinning hair. The steaming droplets running down his hairy shoulders and toga smelled of luxuries beyond Brewster’s reach. The Ambassador gave an apologetic come into work on a holiday shrug. “Sorry to bother you, pal. What was that you said about an Archer, guy?”

COMING UP NEXT…

It looks like the Warlock has trouble planned for Calumn! What will he find at Gimlet’s Gambit, and who will close in for the kill— the Warlocks, or the Port Authority? Find out soon, in Chapter 13: Enter the Gimlet!

You can always peruse the Table of Contents, or read the latest newsletter, //DEAD.MANUSCRIPTS//2.26.

As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.

1. A floating blue diamond in the pixelated village maintained Tom’s progress, and his constellations, fixed. He did not recall the blue save diamonds in Zelda, but knew they were from some game or another. It had distracted him from trying to recall Tom’s eyecolor, eye shape. The more he thought about the boy next to him, the more he seemed to blur like a sharpied message on a paper towel dropped into a swimming pool.

2. “To live thy life by unplayed turn, in turn the unplayed matches yearn… For yester’s daybreak, yester’s grid: Unmade, unset, unbroken, hid.”

-- Kleptis, Four Philosophers.

3. “My inspiration, thou art whore! abed, prov’d yet virgin by thy artless flailings.”

-- Kleptis, Four Philosophers