To Reimh, from Prison

     To my most esteemed brother, Reimh,

     My beloved brother Reimh,

     Dear Reimh,

     I hope you will forgive me for discarding such lengthy greetings on the same sheet of paper. Such a commodity is rarely found in the bowels of the citadel. Another prisoner, a Lupe, was kind enough to provide me parchment to write this letter, on the basis that I would accept the drawings on the other side. Don’t even ask me what Jelly World is, I haven’t the slightest what he is on about. But I definitely do not want to offend his sensibilities by even trying to understand.

     The only thing other bit of information I could ever pry from him came from earlier in my imprisonment. He has never imparted to me his name, but the guards and the other prisoners have come to naming him Five, in lieu of his inability to give a name. I, however, am in no position to ridicule Five, for my own name has eluded me now for many a fortnight. It is very odd, the way memory works. I can remember the name of my own brother. I know for a fact that I am a servant of His Majesty King Skarl, for it was he himself who knighted me and commanded that I carry out his will, even should the act put me in a dungeon.

     But despite all of these things, I cannot even remember the name that my own mother gave me, for not even the guards know or even care. Being scared of reprisal on my own family, I refused to identify myself. To them, it made no difference, as long as there was something to indicate my incarceration. And now that the war is over, my silence now became my curse. I have occupied so much towards those I loved and cared about that I have neglected myself, my name now cast into oblivion. It seems that my mind has been in such deep service to those I serve and love that it completely forgot to serve itself.

     Is there anything else I can remember? Not much. There is no rhyme or reason to what my mind forgets. It will remember what I had for breakfast, but refuse to tell me who my teacher was during my education as a page. It will remind me of the fond memories of us playing without a care in the world by the lake, but it will be at a loss for words when it comes to how I exactly found myself in this cell. And if it can’t even produce a few syllables (or one maybe- it is a useless exercise in trying to narrow it down) to give me my name, what even is the point in trying to make sense of it all?

     In place of my name, however, is the recursively branching tree of move sequences that established itself to win the twisted game of a sadist. I do not mean this metaphorically as in some unspoken mind game (although the sport does require a great deal of thinking,) but as an actual physical contraption of torment. But why would I describe such a thing as so? After all, it is not as if I were to be physically harmed should I lose. But some pains and torments, my dear brother, are not physical. For the warden, Vex- a very fitting name- dangles hope in front of us like a carrot to a stick.

     The Mynci imagines himself to be a kind and merciful warden, as he gives us the promise of release should we beat him in this cursed game. And we have absolutely no choice in the matter. We must play. As a knight sworn to protect the realm, I have been trained to consider hope a virtue- a reason to keep fighting onward for the good of the kingdom. But when theory handed itself to praxis, I have come to a very different conclusion over however long I have remained here. Hope is not a virtue, but an evil. It is one of the worst miseries ever to have been inflicted upon me, and the warden knows it.

     Do you know how many openings there are in Cellblock, Reimh? Are you aware of how many permutations there can be on only a hundred squares? I have seen almost all the countless aggregations of pieces that attempt to colonize and expand across the board, like the freezing of water in a vial around an impurity. I know all the traps and techniques, the useless collection of names for moves that give one a decisive advantage, should the correct position arise. And I definitely know how to go about it slow and steady. I have watched my opponent desperately try to obtain short-term wins, only to be foiled at every step of the way, all the while being slowly smothered by the inevitable crystallizing of a win from small advantages. The game deserves every bit of its name because at its most fundamental level, it is as mentally suffocating as a prison cell.

     It is astonishing how much one can learn in such a short period of time. I have never understood why the guards (save the warden himself) would always defeat my cellmates so easily when the promise of freedom from captivity dangles so tantalizingly close above one’s grasp. I highly doubt that either the Grarrl or the Skeith have ever obsessed over the game. But I have. It took a while, perhaps a few months, but eventually, my mind crossed the threshold. It is by no means pleasant, as your mind connects every aspect of your life outside the game to winning. The bricks that make up your cell shift into squares of that familiar ten by ten grid. Your mind will do whatever it can to transform the very food the guards give you into some familiar tactical pattern you have gone over fifty times during the game but still missed. It becomes impossible to leave the pieces alone- even when you physically left the board hours ago- because the pieces themselves refuse to do you the courtesy of the converse.

     Indeed, after putting myself through all of this frivolous torture of the mind, I was afforded the privilege of a game with the warden. When it came to my previous opponents, I was able to exploit their lack of discipline, their inability to think one further move ahead to justify their calculations. Vex would certainly not afford me such a privilege, but at least he wouldn’t be as childish enough to want to tear off my limbs in the face of loss like my last opponent.

     I had to keep my mind sharp. Although there were a limited number of openings to this game, I could not give in to the temptation to play mindlessly, only to hope that I would suddenly think deeper later in the game. But it was not that heavy a burden to bear. I had gone over every plan, every contingency, playing through every variant, depending on where the rock tiles were placed at the start. However, when one plays a game like this, he cannot just hope to beat its creator. He must convince the other that he has lost. That form of persuasion does not develop overnight.

     Do you know how I felt when I won against the warden, Reimh? I felt… empty. Granted, winning against an opponent requires a best out of three, but even if I had won that second or third match, the feeling would practically be the same. I had thought that perhaps, even if the Mynci couldn’t beat me with mental ability alone, he would try to distract me during the second game with visions of freedom and of a heroic return to my homeland. But it didn’t even take that for me to lose the rest. It was like he knew of the untenable position I had reached- not in the game, but in my captivity. He saw my mind hold the key over a cliff, the key that would unbind me from my chains. And when he saw me let go of it, he knew that my fate was sealed. I have not won a single game against him since.

     You must think me to be at least borderline insane for me to occupy myself so much over something as trivial as a board game. And you may be right. I have given up on the notion of freedom a long time ago. But despite all of that, I still do not break. Despite having previously bemoaning hope, I still foolishly engage in the enterprise, although not for the aim of freedom. I do not know exactly what I am playing for anymore. I certainly am not playing for amusement, as I have extracted all I possibly could in that respect. Maybe I am doing this to find a part of myself again. Perhaps, if I managed to defeat the Warden again at his own game, I would be permitted to regain a fragment of what I once was. I do not know why I think this. My jailer does not own parts of my mind, I certainly will not give him that. It seems that hope- that cursed barb- is as integral to my condition as the thirst for knowledge is to His Majesty’s brother.

     But Reimh, if I am to be brutally honest, these words will never get to you, because not a single soul on this abominable floating rock would ever agree to deliver it. And for that, I am truly sorry. Never you will know about the inane ramblings of Jelly World. And never will you ever know what Cellblock is, outside of the word the game is derived from. But perhaps that is for the best. I would rather you think I fought valiantly for my kingdom and my most holy liege instead of you having to know how much I have degraded myself, only to fail in the struggle for my freedom.

     Within one of the bricks that make up my cell is a crack large enough to hold these pieces of parchment. There this letter will stay, should I ever wish to reread or amend it. But most likely it will remain inside, as a testament to me having the audacity to try to understand why things have happened as they did. I bid you farewell, my brother. I don’t know if I ever will see you again, but if I do, then I wish for us to walk alongside the lake we used to play in as children.

     But before that, please remind me of my name.

     Yours faithfully,

     Prisoner Six

     The End.