The Kingdom of the Seven Stars: Chaturanga

Chapter 9

Alex and Captain Zachary ran through the doors into their second room just behind Alice and Ellen.

The doors started closing behind them as soon as they were through. Alex kept his tunic over his mouth and he and the captain used their hands to wave away the small tendrils of gas that were creeping through the doors after them, until they finally closed. An air-tight seal hissed on. Once he was sure all the gas was gone, Alex lowered his hand and breathed easily again.

"Thank the sisters," said Captain Zachary. "And thank you, Princess Alice."

"Don't mention it. I should have worked it out faster," said Alice.

"And you should have told us what we were playing, Chata," said Ellen. "Chata?"

They all turned around and looked at the second room. It was larger than the first one and had a sunken floor. Three steps led down from the doors towards another giant chessboard with red and black squares. This was the same size as the one in the first room, but the rest of the room was big enough for a circle to be drawn on the floor around the chessboard, touching all four of the board's corners. Two complete sets of chess pieces, black and white, were on the board, but they were not lined up in their starting positions Instead, they were spread out all over the board as if they were halfway through a very complicated game. In fact – Alex craned his neck to see – the game was already over. The white queen and one of her pawns had the black king checkmated in the middle of the board.

"Chata?" said Ellen again. "Are you here?"

Alex looked up. The wall screens in the room were all black and switched off. There was no sign of Chata.

"Where is she?" said Ellen. "I thought she said she could be everywhere."

"Maybe the systems in here are damaged as well, your highness," said Captain Zachary.

"They'd better not be," said Ellen. "If they are, Lord Blackstar's are going to get ahead of us. We need a different..."

There was a loud, electronic ringing sound. They all looked around. Built into one of the walls was an old fashioned internal communications system – a telephone, Alex remembered, from the last time he had seen one in the Magenta Technology Museum. He went over and picked up the handset and held it to his ear the way his class had been shown.

"Hello?"

"Oh, thank Shiva! At least this is still working," said Chata's voice. "Sorry about this, Prince Alex. My view screens in this room are linked to the chessboard. You need to step on to it to activate them."

"If this room's broken, we're not waiting for you to fix everything," said Ellen, who had come close enough to listen. "We want a different room."

"Don't worry, Princess. It'll take less than five seconds," said Chata. "Just step onto the board and I'll explain."

"OK," said Alice, frowning slightly, as the telephone clicked off. But she led the way across the floor. Above them, one of the view screens extended out from the wall, as far as its flexible neck would reach, over the circle drawn on the floor and stopped above the left side of the chessboard. It stayed there and its screen stayed blank. Alice stepped onto the chessboard, followed by Ellen and Captain Zachary. None of the screens switched on.

"Oh, great. That's broken too," said Ellen. "This isn't fair. They're going to get ahead of us."

"Maybe it needs to be all of us, your highness," said Captain Zachary.

"Come on, Alex."

"Yes. Coming," said Alex, pausing as he looked at the circle on the floor around the chessboard. As he had stepped over it, he had noticed that it was not painted or printed onto the floor. It did not seem to be any kind of mark at all. It was clearly the same material, but the circle was darker and rougher than the floor on both sides of it, almost as if it was somehow older and more weathered. Alex shook his head. He did not have time to wonder about it because Ellen could be right. Lord Blackstar might be storming through the rooms ahead of them. They needed to catch up. He jogged the last three metres and stepped onto the chessboard.