The Great Game

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction!

Alice is on the verge of tears. “She was my friend. We should do this properly. We should go and find a knife.”

“I understand your feelings,” I say. “There’s no way of knowing how long that would take though. If the hotel is feeling bloody-minded… We don’t know how much time we have to spare. Are you sure about this?”

Alice shudders, and hunches in on herself, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Why do you not ask the girl for her hand?” Alice and I both look over at Massinisa, but he’s playing it deadpan. Alice shudders again.

I sigh, and say “Alright then Massinisa, why don’t you ask the dead girl for her hand?”

Massinisa glances at Alice, who’se just one step away from rocking back and forth like a Romanian trauma baby, and nods. He steps up to the pyre, and nods respectfully to the corpse.

“My dear Eadida, I beg your forgiveness for disturbing your rest. Your friend, Alice, needs your help. We seek to save her from the fate which claimed you. She must find the summoning circle that the two of you discovered. Your hand can point the way. Now that you are beyond pain, will you consent to give it to us?”

Alice and I share a look, and then Massinisa screams, the hoarse yell deafening. Bright gouts of blood spurt from all around his wrist, and he twists towards us, dropping to his knees as he does so. There are crimson streaks across Eadida’s white gown and white face, and hot splatters on my shirt. Massinisa keeps screaming, his face anguished, clutching at his right wrist. Mushy gore splutters through his fingers.

Through the screams, I can clearly hear the crunch of breaking bone. His hand is withering, all the colour swiftly leeching out. He keels forward onto his face, which muffles the noise a bit. Alice snaps out of shock quicker than I do, and she darts forward, kneeling down beside him, checking his pulse and stroking his hair.

The screams stop as if cut off with a switch, and for an instant, I’m terrified that he’s dead. But he moans softly and mumbles something, and then Alice is helping him unsteadily to his feet. He looks pale, drawn and shocked. He gingerly wipes some of the blood off his right hand, and Alice gasps. It is white, and small, and slender. His wrist tapers savagely from his broad forearm to the new hand, shading from african to pale caucasian as it does so. Eadida, it seems, has something of a nasty sense of humour.

I glance over at her blood-streaked body and sure enough, she now has Massinisa’s right hand.

Massinisa flexes the new hand cautiously. It appears to work, and he seems free of pain now. Alice looks on the verge of going hysterical, but she’s keeping it together by a fingernail grip.

Massinisa looks me in the eyes. “So. I have asked for you, and I have received for you.” He sounds angry.

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Today’s photo is Hand and Shell 6 by newpn2000.