I snapped the book shut. That was enough for today. Leaning back in my chair, I ran my wrinkled hand through the last of my white hair. After a thousand years, old age finally had its due. It was a new experience, feeling as though death deserved to catch up with me, having been so patient for so long.

  “We’re fifteen minutes out,” Alban flicked the controls of the shuttle’s cockpit.

  I squinted my eyes in the starlit black of the void. The station was still impossible to see, but I could make out the smallest of embers. It was the distant ruins of a broken world, scorched and left uninhabitable. It was a familiar and yet ugly sight each time.

  “It occurs to me that you haven’t said a word since we left the Yemata.” I took out a zakon dart and lit it. “Usually people won’t ever shut up, asking me for this and that. That, or they fall on their knees singing my praises to the outer heavens.”

  “It isn’t my job to talk, Your Eminence,” Alban replied.

  “Come on.” I cracked a smile. “Tell you what, as payment for your service here today, I’ll grant you one request. Anything in the galaxy. Name it and it’s yours.”

  Alban gave me a sideways glance. The young man might as well have been stone. “Why did you abdicate the throne?”

  I laughed. “My thinning hair and walking cane didn’t give it away?”

  My pilot turned back towards the viewscreen, his hands on the control sticks. “Men shouldn’t leave their jobs unfinished.”

  “You don’t understand the job of Imperatore then. The last part is to hold onto power for too long—until I’m giving orders from a medical bed. Go mad in my old age, carve up my empire for a few dozen squabbling heirs, and then die thinking it’ll last for a million years when it won’t stand a hundred. That’s the problem with crowns. They make the same bad choices for you. After the life I’ve lived, I like to think I’m a man who knows when to let go.” I puffed a cloud of grey smoke in the cockpit.

  “Is that why you’ve come here? Letting go?” Alban asked.

  “Call it finishing some unfinished business.” I sighed, tapping the zakon dart on the cushioned armrest. “I started rather late for the memoirs. It occurs to me that if I don’t put these affairs in order now, I’ll never get the chance.” I turned to Alban. “Tell me, are you old enough to have any regrets?”

  Alban stared straightforward. “I’m just a pilot, Your Eminence.”

  I chuckled and puffed again. “So that’s a yes. It’s a sad thing. It’s the duty of us elders to make sure the young don’t grow up wishing they were someone else. I suppose I’ve done more than my fair share. Maybe it was always an impossible dream. But I don’t think it was wrong of me to want that—a world where we can finally put the wrongs right.”

  The planet—what was left of it—was in full view now. It reminded me too much of Tartarus and its moon as black as soot. A chunk had been gouged out of this world’s side, exposing the molten mantle. I saw the rolling lava flows, the scorched continents covered in ash, the hollows where the ocean had been burned away. This world was crumbling in on itself. Reports said it didn’t have long now. Once the outer crust collapsed, there would be nothing left that could be done.

  I craned my neck to see the small space station silhouetted against the crimson fire. It was a miracle it had survived all these years, though I suppose history had a hard time letting go of a few mementos.

  “Is it nostalgic, being back here after all these years?” Alban asked.

  “Not in the slightest,” I replied. “It’s just bad memories.”

  The shuttle pulled alongside the station. A plasteel umbilicum extended from the station, connecting with the side of the shuttle. There was a subtle shudder and then we were docked. I groaned as I pushed myself up from my seat. Alban flicked a few switches and then handed me my walking cane.

  “It occurs to me that I’ll need a pilot for the rest of what I’m planning to do. You’re free to leave any time. I won’t waste a young man’s years with an old man’s business. But if you stay, I have a deal for you. One request for each trip. Anything you want in the galaxy, and it’s yours.”

  Alban pressed a button and the cockpit door opened. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. But even you can’t bring people back from the dead.”

  I gave a sad smile as I stepped over to the airlock. “That is true. But would you believe me if I said I know where to start looking? Maybe we’ll go searching for it together?”

  The final aperture opened, and I breathed in the ancient air of the station. Vas Du’Kaal had at last returned to the Looking-Glass Palace.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  …

  The sphere hub of the palace was covered in a thick layer of dust. At some point, a retrofit had removed half the wall in exchange for a gigantic glass pane—now staring down at the burning planet. I glanced up at the empty balconies, surprised how small they were in the distance. I wondered which one me and Ingrish had sat at. Oh well, those empty seats only entertained ghosts now. I looked to the central platform. There sat a single Rhodeshi at an empty table.

  Anúabhair, the last Rhodeshi Game Master, watched the ash storms swirl on his homeworld. I knew he was the last because I executed all the rest. Everyone who participated in The Death Games, except for the one who managed to get away. The Game Master did not turn at the ticking of my walking cane as I climbed the steps and joined him.

  No one gets away forever.

  The old Rhodeshi wore golden vestments very similar to that of Oberyn’s. His mottled face bore a startling resemblance too, and I suddenly wondered if this Rhodeshi was perhaps some long lost descendent. Then again, it might’ve been my mind playing tricks on me. I never did have a good memory for alien faces.

  Anúabhair did not greet me nor did he say a word.

  “It is strange how we take these things for granted. How they’ll always be there for us. There was a time when I thought I would have my mother and father forever. Then they were gone in the blink of an eye, and I spent the next two hundred years learning what I lost.”

  I looked down at the Game Master. “You should know I saw Rhodon in its glory. Your people did not treasure it back then. Even when they were forced back down to the surface, they spat upon its soil. And now, I imagine you would do anything to claw it back.”

  “Is this why you have come? To gloat?” Anúabhair asked.

  “Not at all. I came here to tell you that I never desired to take away your world. When I set my fleets on your people, it was only to end the Death Games. It was your leaders who presumed my intent, bombing their planets out of spite. But I know what it is to live without a home. I never wanted to inflict that upon your people, even after everything you had done.”

  “You stole our way of life.” The Rhodeshi Game Master accused me.

  I laughed. “Not quite. You should know I took a glance at your ancient history. The first Game Wardens, those who decided upon the contest—they were all human. Your people merely adopted the title and tradition after us. Following the old rules, I get to set the game to be played. And as it happens, you should know many in my empire wanted blood.”

  Resting my back, I took a chair and sat at a table.“Do you know how many humans came to me, with such creative punishments? The Strogoddon play games too. They raise legions of their enemies with invasive cybernetics.” A wicked smile passed my expression.

  The Rhodeshi Game Master turned to me with cold eyes that were beyond despair. “Do what you will.”

  I rapped the table silently, staring down the alien. A moment later, and I sighed. “I’ve long decided the galaxy can do without the ways of the Stroggodon.” I lifted an old wooden box from the folds of my robes and set it on the table.

  “What torture is this?” Anúabhair asked, expecting some monstrous design from the Emperor of Scourges.

  “Planar Chechen,” I replied. “Otherwise colloquially known as human 3-D chess.” I raised the lid which swung into hexagonal boards of varying heights.

  I began placing the marble pieces on the tiles. “Last time I came to Rhodon, I was a piece much like the ones here. I was to be sacrificed for a move that would’ve cost my player the match and secured himself in history. But now, I was just hoping to ask you for a game.”

  The Game Master bitterly laughed. “What kind of ridiculous gesture is this?”

  “Come now, you’ve made your living playing in tournaments across the galaxy. Are you going to make a point of pride now, that this game is beneath you?”

  “You know nothing of the artistry.” Anúabhair spat. “We did not turn to Pa’Zac for the killing. That was only a necessary requirement. Games have no meaning if they have no stakes.”

  “Quite right. But I ask you to look a little closer,” I said, staring at the pieces. “These pawns have more riding on them then all the Death Games put together. This will be the most important game in your life—in the history of your people. I pray you won’t turn this chance down.”

  The Game Master looked at me if I was insane. “What are you talking about?”

  I glanced up at him. “Kananak Anúabhair, I challenge you to a game of chechen. You win, and I will give you back your homeworld. A wave of my hand and a thousand terraformers will be sent to save your planet.”

  “And if I lose?” The Game Master asked, looking for some trap beneath my words.

  I put the final piece on the board and rested back in the chair, crossing my arms. “I don’t need to punish you or the Rhodeshi people. You’ve seen to that yourselves. You lose and that’s that. Your world collapses, and it’s gone forever.”

  The Rhodeshi’s eyes all went wide. The alien was absolutely stunned, and all he could do was stare at me if I was the strange one in the room. He looked up to the empty balconies. I did not know what he was searching for until he turned to me again.

  “How do I know you’ll keep your wager?”

  I grinned. “You’re looking for an audience? I don’t need one. I’m a man of my words.”

  The Rhodeshi’s four eyes quickly flicked to the board, already thinking of strategies. But he stopped himself suddenly. Straightening his back, he finally realized the question he should be asking. “Why are you doing this?”

  I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. This isn’t some gesture of mercy nor do I intend on holding back for some misplaced kindness. You see, this is my revenge against the Death Games, the story of your people. Because no matter what happens, your kind will look back on one game and one game only.” I tapped the chechen board. “For the rest of time, your species will see it all rests upon today, this moment here, in the Looking-Glass Palace. Whether it be squandering your last chance or winning the salvation of your species, that I leave up to you.”

  Anúabhair looked horrified at me. “I thought you were just a human, but you think like a Rhodeshi. Not even the Eremites could contrive of something so cruel. You won the game before you’ve made your first move.”

  I studied the board, contemplating the play. “How do you think I got to my position? I’ve been playing these Death Games since I was a child. While your kind sat in your gilded halls with token soldiers, I bled on the battlefield. You traded in toys while I gambled for the fate of this galaxy. And here, I’ve come to do it once again.”

  I picked up the white pawn and opened with my first move.