Reading with Rasta: Tales of the Forgotten Founders
Tales of the Forgotten Founders by C.W. Allen. Chapter 1: Duty Calls.
“Protect the queen!”
Zed’s eyes darted around in alarm as his grandmother’s warning jolted him back to his senses.
“Quickly, we don’t have much time!” Baba urged again. What to do? Zed fumbled through his imagination, but every plan he came up with seemed less promising than the last.
“It’s hopeless,” his sister Tuesday declared. “She’s completely surrounded.”
But Zed wasn’t ready to give in so easily. Things might look hopeless, but Baba of all people should know the power of persisting against the odds—they didn’t call her the General for nothing. There had to be an escape route somewhere… or better yet, an opening to strike back instead of retreat. His eyes slid from the castle on the left, up to the front line.
Zed smiled. He’d spotted a vulnerability in the enemy’s formation. If only he could get there in time…
An alarm blared, dissolving Zed’s concentration. No! But that meant—
“Too late,” Baba sighed. She switched off the timer and rose from the table to reset the chess board.
Zed had gotten so wrapped up in planning his attack strategy, he’d almost forgotten it was only a game.
Zed slumped back in his chair and looked around the spacious private library of his new home. It was the third place he’d called home in the last six months, and though he would have preferred a bit more stability in his family’s living arrangements, he had to admit this one was a definite upgrade. Sure, the small suburban house he’d grown up in was cozy and familiar, surrounded by woods and only a short walk from a cheerful neighbor. The secret base he’d moved to next was far less cozy, but hanging out with a bunch of secret agents and their ingenious inventions had definitely been more exciting (especially when the base got raided by undercover soldiers.) But over the winter, his mother had inherited her childhood home, so his family had moved one more time. And this one was their best house yet because it wasn’t really a house. It was a palace. Not a castle, exactly—the style was less Medieval European and more like the Greek-inspired buildings supported by tall white columns Zed had seen in fancy museums and banks. But that was just a technicality.
It wasn’t perfect, of course. Palaces are almost always old, and their atmosphere often lacking in homey comforts. Still, they do tend to come with certain perks, like private libraries. And that suited Zed just fine.
He was less excited about the reason his family had done all that moving around, but that could hardly be helped. It wasn’t his fault his parents were fugitives from an alternate dimension. When rogue soldiers from that dimension decided to attack his normal, suburban house, the only way to escape had been for his family to move to Falinnheim, where his parents had been born. Discovering this had been enough of a shock, but then the rest of the story came out: Zed’s mother was Falinnheim’s last surviving princess. And now that the dictator who had wiped out the rest of her family had been defeated, that left Mom in charge of… well, everything.
Zed’s attention turned to the chess board in front of him. This, too, was almost normal—and yet just different enough from the game he’d played back home to throw him off. The board layout and rules were basically the same as he’d learned in the school chess club last year. But instead of hollow plastic, the pieces of this set were heavy and solid, made from two different shades of hand-carved wood. Instead of folding cardboard, the board was made of interlocking squares of polished stone, white marble alternating with black volcanic rock. Strangest of all, this chess set had no bishops. Their places were filled by a pair of eerie ravens, their wings wrapped tightly around their carved bodies like winter cloaks.
“I almost had you that time,” Zed told his grandmother as he collected the ravens and set them back into place beside the knights.
“No, you didn’t,” said Tuesday. She leaned in to give his king a flick, toppling the piece with a heavy thunk.
Tuesday was right, of course. Baba won every time. But even though his sister was two years older, she had never managed to beat their grandmother at chess either, so at least that was some consolation. Baba never went easy on either of them, and Zed chose to take that as a compliment. One of these days he was going to earn his victory.
To be honest, convincing Baba to come for a visit at all had been a kind of victory. Even when they’d lived together at the base, his grandmother had been far too busy for puzzles, or chess, or even a family dinner. Leading an underground resistance movement was apparently a round-the-clock responsibility. Now that Falinnheim’s former dictator Tyrren was sitting safely in a jail cell, Zed had hoped Baba would have more time to catch up on all the grandmothering she’d missed during her duty as the Resistance General, but it seemed she was as busy as ever managing the new refugee resettlement agency. And she wasn’t the only one, either. Mom was busy with princess duties, trying to straighten out the mess Tyrren had left behind in the sixteen bloodstained years of his takeover. Dad was leading the palace guard, attempting to sort out who could be trusted and which soldiers might still be hanging on to old loyalties.
Even his great-grandmother had a new job. Though Obaachan was nearly one hundred years old, she insisted she couldn’t just hang around collecting dust—she had appointed herself to manage all the palace staff. And she was good at it, too. She was kind but firm and practical, and had a sharp eye for detail. No one ever argued with Obaachan. Especially not her daughter-in-law. Which is how after weeks of nagging, Obaachan had finally managed to talk Baba into visiting the palace for a bit of Grandma Bootcamp.
Things had been going… okay, so far. Two days in, and Zed and Tuesday already taken Baba on a tour of their new bedrooms, played a dozen games of chess, and even talked her into working on a jigsaw puzzle in the library while they ate lunch. The Royal Librarian, Gilford, hadn’t seemed thrilled about letting them bring food anywhere near his precious books, but in the end he ran out of excuses to stop them. Maybe he figured with Baba there to supervise, they’d be less likely to make a mess. Or maybe he just couldn’t work up the nerve to argue with the stern, silver-haired woman. Much like Obaachan, nobody argued with the General. And since only Zed and Tuesday were allowed to call her Baba, she was still the General to everyone else.
Suggesting a more friendly nickname for her grandchildren’s use was about the only concession she had made so far, though. Zed knew she was trying, but she wasn’t the cuddly sort of grandmother who baked cookies and told bedtime stories. After all, Baba hadn’t even known she was a grandmother until his family’s secret return to Falinnheim a few months ago—she’d spent over a decade believing her son was killed during Tyrren’s takeover. The news that her son had escaped to another dimension with the princess he’d been assigned to protect—and then married her, and had a couple of kids in the meantime— must have come as quite a shock to a bitter, all-business resistance leader. A single week of Grandma Boot Camp probably wasn’t going to change much, no matter how Obaachan tried to smooth things over.
Still… no way to know until he tried. “What’s next?” Zed asked as he helped Baba return all the pawns to a straight line. “I bet if we went down to the kitchens the chef would let us use one of the workstations to make cookies.”
“The kitchen staff will make cookies for you any time you want,” his grandmother reminded him. “You don’t have to make them yourself.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t you rather make them ourselves? Not only to get a snack, but, you know… for fun.”
Baba didn’t respond. She just kept lining up chess pieces.
“Maybe we could teach Baba some games from home,” Tuesday suggested. “We don’t have the right equipment for video games or board games, but I bet we could find a deck of playing cards.”
Baba appraised her silently for a moment. “But you are home,” she said at last. “You mean games from the other Earth.”
“Sure, whatever,” Tuesday answered. “Same thing.” The conversation moved on, but Tuesday’s thoughts lingered behind.
It was not the same thing at all.
In the end there was no point in arguing over what to do next—the schedule came to them. Their mother swept into the library just as the final chess piece was set back in place, but she barely had time to say hello before a massive shadow streaked past her and launched into Zed’s chair.
“Ugh, Nyx!” Zed exclaimed, laughing and sputtering. “Get down!” He raised an arm to ward off the long, snuffling snout and slobbery tongue, but the enormous black dog carried right on licking his face. Zed knew he was fighting a losing battle. No one tells a Gabriel Houndwhat to do. No one besides Mom, that is. And on the rare occasion his mother felt the need to correct her pet’s behavior, she could do it without giving a single command. Zed grew up assuming Nyx was playing favorites, or perhaps his mother simply had a knack for dealing with animals. It was not until the truth came out about his parents’ links to Falinnheim that he learned Mom and Nyx could literally read each other’s minds.
“Perfect timing!” his mother exclaimed when she saw that the chess match was over. “I was afraid I’d have to interrupt your game to get you there on time.”
“Get us where?” Tuesday asked.
“To your dress fitting, of course. I told you about this at breakfast, remember?”
Tuesday made a face like someone had waved a sardine smoothie under her nose.
“Don’t give me that look,” her mother scolded. “The coronation ceremony is less than three weeks away. You can’t show up looking like you’ve been playing hide-andseek in a chimney. You’re a princess now, and people will expect you to look the part.”
Tuesday rolled her eyes. “You’re the princess. The rest of us are just tagging along. It’s your coronation—I don’t see why it matters what I wear.”
Princess Theadora might not have telepathic links to anyone besides her pet, but it didn’t take a mind reader to know she meant business. And if Tuesday thought her grandmother might help her get out of this, a single glance at Baba was enough to squelch any hope of rescue. Mom and Baba wore identical frowns, and they were both folding their arms and doing the Mom Look.
“Come on Tuesday, it can’t be that bad,” Zed argued. “Just go and get it over with. Baba and I won’t have too much fun without you, I promise.”
Now it was Zed’s turn to get blasted with the Mom Look. “Nice try, mister,” said his mother sternly. “You’ve got an appointment with the tailor too. And you’re about to be late, so get moving.”
“Honestly,” said Baba as she ushered Zed and Tuesday out the door, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. All you have to do is stand still for an hour or so. It’s not like you’re being tortured.”
“Is torture an option?” Tuesday grumbled under her breath. “At least that would be exciting.”
Everyone followed Princess Theadora out of the library and through the maze of hallways (some following more reluctantly than others) until they reached the tailor’s workshop on the fourth floor. “When you’re done here, head straight back to the library,” she instructed. “Your new tutor is ready to start work—he asked you to meet him there. He said he wants to squeeze in a tour of the portrait gallery before dinner, so don’t dawdle.”
“But we’re supposed to be hanging out with Baba this week!” Zed protested. “Can’t school wait?”
“Look, I understand things have been hectic,” his mother said patiently. “We’ve all been so busy getting moved in and starting new jobs… I’ve had to lead transition teams for both the palace staff and government officials, not to mention I have village councils from all over Falinnheim clamoring for my attention. Getting all the changes sorted out means you’ve been out of school for weeks already. If your tutor is ready to get started there’s no reason to put school off even longer. You’ll still have plenty of time to see your grandmother between lessons.”
Zed wanted to argue that the opposite conclusion made more sense—if several weeks out of school hadn’t caused a problem, then surely a couple more days to enjoy Baba’s visit couldn’t hurt. But he knew there was no point. After all, Mom was a princess, and after the coronation she’d have some even fancier title. And if no one was allowed to argue with generals, or Gabriel Hounds, or even Obaachan, then talking back to the leader of an entire dimension wasn’t likely to go very well.
Mom and Baba turned to leave, but Nyx didn’t follow them this time. Instead she lay down and sprawled across the workshop’s doorway, as if to block Tuesday and Zed from escaping.
“Isn’t Nyx going with you?” Tuesday asked.
Her mother turned back with a sheepish expression. “Actually, that’s why I came to get you myself instead of sending a messenger. I had a meeting with my advisors this morning, and a few of them claim they’d be more comfortable if Nyx didn’t accompany me to all my appointments. Apparently, she makes some of the palace staff nervous.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why,” said Tuesday flatly. Nyx had just rolled on her back with her mouth hanging open, allowing her tongue to flop on the flagstone floor and exposing dozens of gleaming, dagger-sharp teeth.
“That’s what I said!” her mother agreed, completely missing Tuesday’s sarcasm. “But anyway, they all insisted it would be better if I gave Nyx some other job to keep her busy. After all, with your father in charge of palace security there’s really no reason to have a Gabriel Hound for a bodyguard anymore. And you know Nyx never follows Dad’s instructions, so I can’t put her on patrol duty. But then I remembered what a fantastic job she did keeping you and Zed company when you first arrived in Falinnheim, so I decided we’d give that arrangement another try.”
“What?” Tuesday yelped. “You mean we have to babysit a dog?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Baba as she continued up the hall. “The dog is babysitting you.”