All a Game
U nseen and undetected, a wisp of grayish blue smoke escaped the draw of the chimney and fingered its way out of the hearth, beneath the mantel, and into the chamber.
The wisp lengthened, thinned, broadened, drifted, and took on the appearance of an apparition, roughly man shaped.
It was, however, no simple revenant of the afterlife, nor was it a wraith of any kind, but a fully intelligent entity.
It observed Karigan G’ladheon from behind as she worked at her desk unaware of the intrusion. The entity hovered in the shadows. It did not approach or attempt to interact with her. It just watched.
Soon a runner came to her door. “The queen requests that you attend her,” the boy said.
“Now?”
He nodded. “Aye. You’ll find her in the solar.”
The entity sensed her reluctance about attending the queen and wondered about it. A mystery for another time.
Following her departure, the entity drifted to her desk to look at her work and found it consisted mostly of columns of numbers, which proved to be the same as usual and of little interest.
The entity extended an armlike tendril and opened the top drawer, which revealed personal effects—hair ribbons, nibs, pots of ink, a piece of hard candy stuck to the bottom.
Other drawers contained a gray eagle’s feather, a drawing of various unknown people, scraps of paper, handkerchiefs, and other clutter.
The entity proceeded to her wardrobe and went through her garb and found assorted uniform parts, some civilian clothes, and a blue dress. All in all, it found nothing new or remarkable among Karigan G’ladheon’s belongings.
A little feline entered the chamber through the cracked doorway and detected the entity at once. He arched his back, puffed up, and hissed and spat. The entity hissed at it in return and laughed to itself when the feline turned tail and bolted back into the corridor.
This was not the entity’s first visit to the Green Rider’s chamber.
It had entered it on previous occasions, sending but a fragment of its own form to remain undetected and to spare its energy.
These excursions to the solid environs of the Earthly plane were taxing and left the entity greatly diminished.
During its visits, it had watched her work in this chamber, laugh with friends, and ready herself for the day. It had watched her sleep.
It learned of her exploits since last they had met and saw the scarring of her back. The most important detail it had discovered about her, her greatest secret, was her association with her people’s god of death. She was his vessel, an intriguing development.
Yes, most intriguing.
It was not only Karigan G’ladheon the entity watched, however.
On previous visits, it had hidden high among the shadowy rafters of the throne room and listened to the news of the realm and beyond as presented to the king and queen by messengers, courtiers, lords and ladies, and commoners.
It heard about battles and fires and, in the east, strange sightings of sea monsters that sounded an awful lot like dragons. It also heard about the upcoming ball.
It had spent some of its visits to the castle drifting in corridors, hiding in shadows, and eavesdropping on those who walked about from place to place, but much of the conversation provided little insight beyond the mundane.
The entity limited its excursions to conserve the toll on its energy.
Currently its strength was draining away quickly.
The expenditure to interact with the material world, whether looking through drawers or hissing at cats, was of greater cost than just simple watching, and it was time to curtail this outing, but it had one more thing to do before it left.
Upon the entity’s misty palm appeared a small green glass figure mounted on a horse used in the playing of the game Intrigue.
The mounted figure represented a messenger.
The entity set the game piece on Karigan G’ladheon’s dusty mantel behind a ceramic horse figurine and, as an afterthought, tipped it over into the “dead” position.
How long would it take her to notice it?
It was all a game, was it not?
The entity drifted back into the fireplace. It was not drafted up the chimney even then, but absorbed through the back of the hearth in a vortex that returned it to the world of its own, but it would be back.