Planet Ignis | Ch. 5

...I struggled to understand why the sixth one was the least used.

One of the purposes of this truth is to remind us that emissions are more effective the closer you are to your target. Another is to encourage us to think about what’s in front of us instead of focusing on what might never come to be.

My only problem with the wording of this truth is that many in our tribe have never seen a star. Since most of our tribe will never go up to the surface or see a starry sky, I suggest that this truth might be slightly altered. Instead of ‘A nearby ember warms more than a distant star,’ my recommendation is that we change it to ‘A nearby ember warms more than a distant furnace’. Children will more readily visualize a furnace than something they have never seen. This will, perhaps, render this truth more effective.

From “A Proposal for the Review of the Nine Truths” by Trother, the Wise

“Your mind is not in the game today. You don’t usually make mistakes like this. Checkmate.”

Brodnir laughed, seeing Trother’s childish angry expression. As far as the Burrows knew, Trother never lost his cool nor his composure. None of them even suspected that Trother was a very sore loser. The reason for this ignorance was straightforward; no one could beat him at chess, but him. Trother refused to admit defeat, though.

“Don’t forget who taught you how to play in the first place.” Addressing the AI managing the virtual space, Trother shouted: “Faren, please reset the board and give us each a card!” Invisible hands reset the board, and two random cards hovered before each player.

Trother looked at the card he got: ‘Barafor, the forger.’ The card description read, ‘Every round, you gain one extra longevity stone.’

“What did you get?”

“Barafor. You?”

“Yung, the Rebel.” The card’s effect was ‘Spend five longevity stones to turn one enemy piece into your own. You can only do this once every game.’

“This is going to be an interesting game.” Faren made the board spin randomly. It eventually came to a stop. The black pieces were facing Trother.

“White pieces? I guess I’ll go first. What’s on your mind?” asked Trother’s opponent while making his first move. “Is it the boy?”

“Yes, my king.”

Rarely had the blue king seen Trother think so long and hard about a student.

“I told you in the report that he was special.” The blue king moved his bishop and took one of Trother’s knights. “After all, he beat many of my records.”

“I would have been more surprised if he had beaten any of mine,” taunted Trother as he took Brodnir’s bishop. “But yes, you’re right. He is special. I saw that as soon as I saw him in his Initiation.”

“What do you make of him?” asked the king.

The game went on for several minutes before Trother said anything. It wasn’t because he was trying to gain momentum and take full advantage of the card he got at the beginning of the chess game or to fight off the nasty move the king had pulled when he converted Trother’s AI into his own. Brodnir waited for the old man to put the thoughts in his mind into words.

“He is talented. His burst efficiency is impressive. He tends to go below a threshold, though.”

“That’s not a bad habit to have. After all, it’s always better to go under and slowly increase the output of the burst than vice versa. It’s more prudent.”

“Unless you’re doing battle,” countered Trother. At the same time he said it, he moved his knight menacingly as if to make his point.

“It’s improbable that the boy will see battle in his lifetime. There hasn’t been any rebellion in generations. Survival keeps us busy enough.” After moving his rook, Brodnir asked. “What else?”

“He hates waste. And he loves the tribe.”

“Good. Good.”

“Do you know what his first question was in the interviews?”

“What?” Brodnir couldn’t make up his mind about whether he should sacrifice the AI he had converted, or he should sacrifice his knight to keep it alive.

“He asked if he could ask all his questions after hearing all the other students ask theirs. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

“He...?” Brodnir let out a loud laugh. “Oh. How I wish I could have seen the look on your face.”

“His second question then was what question I thought he should ask me.”

“I like this kid. He’s got guts and a brain! So, what has got you thinking?”

Trother remained silent for a long time. It was so long that Brodnir decided to break the silence.

“I looked at the results of the Evaluation. He is going to live a life of eternal torture,” declared Brodnir. Brodnir looked at Trother’s last move. He came to the grim conclusion that this game wasn’t going so well for him anymore.

“And you think that would make him a good king?” tested Trother. “perceive. Check.”

Brodnir scratched his head, pondering, and finally seeing a way out of the trap the old man had set, he made his move. “I have no successor. I think he should be next in line to the throne. The Burrows need a king. Besides, weren’t you the one who once told me that pain refines a man?”

“I think enough pain refines a man, but too much crushes him. Checkmate.”

Brodnir took a deep breath. It turns out there had been a trap within a trap. It was alright. He’d get the next game. As Brodnir surrendered, he didn’t miss the pleased smirk on Trother’s face. The board was once again reset, and Faren dealt them new cards. This time, Brodnir was playing with the black pieces, so Trother went first.

Halfway through this game, Trother signaled he had decided his student’s future.

“The boy shall become a lit,” Trother declared as he moved his lit bishop. Brodnir wondered if Trother had already decided this earlier but had waited for when he would move his lit bishop to add some dramatic flare to his statement. The old man was a sucker for theatrics.

“Why not a yellow? Why can’t the boy be a king? emission. Your rook.”

“What would you have him do as a yellow? The guard? Become a chemist? Join the couriers?” Brodnir saw how the lit had mentioned the last category with pain in his voice. “No… he needs to focus on others to help him keep his mind off the pain. That’s the only way to help him reach his full potential.”

As Trother said this, he took one of Brodnir’s orange rooks. Brodnir tried to respond by moving his golden knight.

“As for being king… hunger and guilt are already heavy enough for the boy. Adding the weight of the Globular Throne will crush him. Checkmate.”

Brodnir looked back at the last few moves. He now realized that, as Trother shared his thoughts, he moved the chess pieces according to what he said. He sighed. A game was never just a game for the old man. He always did two things with one move. He’d been using the games to decide the future of his students.

“I won’t get in the way of your decision.”

“It’s true that the Burrows need their king. But that’s why we have you, Brodnir.”

“I still think this boy can be a good king.”

“But he will be an even better teacher. A great king requires a great teacher. He shall be the latter. When I am gone, he shall guide your successor.” After a few moments, Trother changed subjects. “What about the tribe? How goes everything?”

“We’re running low on everything, as usual. The worst right now is nitrogen and sulfur. If things keep going this way, we will have to summon for a termination down at the lower levels of the mine.”

“I see.”

“I wanted to ask you something. Why is it, you think, that you think terminations work?” Brodnir had been thinking about this over the last few days. Giving final approval to terminations inevitably made one think about it.

“At what level?”

“In terms of volunteering.”

“The drive to survive is coded deep in our DNA. It’s not something that can be denied or overlooked. But there’s something even stronger than that.”

“Which is...?”

“Love. The love of a parent for a child.” Saying this, Trother took his eyes off the game and gave Brodnir a warm smile. “The love of a husband for a wife. The love of a friend for another friend. The reason why life in our settlement is possible has never been the ignium nor the Celer mutation, oh king. It’s always been the love for others. How else would human beings willingly sacrifice their lives if not for a reason like this?”

Brodnir pondered over what Trother was saying.

“So, you mean to say that love is the basis of our society.”

“Well, you know about the four great rebellions. Sometimes people couldn’t deal with the fact that they would die in their youth. What failed there wasn’t that they didn’t love. It was simply that they loved themselves more than they did others. This was so because they weren’t properly taught. No. Love is not it. Being able to teach the tribe to love is. That’s why, oh king, not every talented red that comes along becomes the king. Without the king, the tribe would go on. But without lits, it would soon collapse. Check-mate!”

Ch. 6