The Game

    “What are you up to little brother?”
The question startled Demar; he had not known she had entered.
    “I did ask you not to call me that Lisseal. We are not siblings after all.” He stated not bothering to look up at her.
    “I know” Lisseal said with a small smile. “I don’t know why it bothers you so much though, and until you tell me I think Ill keep doing it.” “Anyway my questions still the same. What have you been doing all this time?”
Now it was Demar’s turn to smile.
  “Playing the game Savan gave me.”
  “What?!! This long? It’s been?”
    “About eleven years, give or take,” sneered Demar.
  A sad expression crossed Lisseal features. She truly thought Demar was brighter than this.
    “Little brother you know you can not win, don’t you?” She said as kindly as she could, trying desperately not hurt his feelings.
Demar was concentrating on the pieces on the board, not seaming to be paying any attention to her.
  “Listen to me Demar. I heard Savan gloating about that stupid game. He created the game and made it so there is no way you can win it. He laughed about it. Telling everyone how he had set you up to play the fool.”
Demar continued to ignore her as he made several complex moves on the board. He sat back and watched as the competitive objects shifted on their own. Moving to block and destroy everything Demar had just set up, and then continue down the length of the edging border.
  “You see”, she sighed, and attempted to explain again, “you need to stop this. It’s impossible.”  This time spoken in a tone usually reserved with the patience of one who speaks to idiots and the mentally unstable.
  Annoyed Demar looked up at her. “I know, the stones and the board are both wrapped in spells, the spells are designed to see into my thoughts, and based on this, each time it’s the boards move it sets up to stop what ever strategy I apply.” “I figured that out within the first year or so.”
  Now Lisseal’s face twisted into the perfect picture of frustration.
“IF YOU KNOW THAT WHY DO YOU PLAY? THE ODDS ARE STACKED AGENTS YOU! WHY PLAY WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN?” she yelled.
Demar could not hide his smile this time.
  “Nothing is impossible.”
“Oh yes, somethings are.” She ran her had through her hair in frustration, “I can name two right off the top of my head” she checked off her points with her fingers. “First there’s that game. She said gesturing disgustedly towards the table.  “The second; is you.”
  Demar had gone back to focusing on the board.
  “Look, I know you think..”
  whatever she was about to say the words died on her lips as she watched him move six more pieces.  Then he sat back with a look of total amusement on his features.
She watched as the invisible opponent’s stones tried several times to move. The tokens seemed to take on an air of anger and resentment as it franticly sought out its next move only to be blocked again and again by Demar’s game pieces.
  “You might want to move back a bit.” Demar said with a loud exclamation.
  The board was shaking now. Each token of the game was vibrating like a man having a fit. It lifted off the stone table, the complex board sinking in on its self.  The stones rotating around it like hundreds of little moons. Finally in a flash of bright orange light and a loud thunderous roar it was gone.
  “What just happened?” Lisseal asked, taken back by what she had just witnessed. 
The smile on Demar’s face stretched from ear to ear.
  “I won.” he said simply.
  “But how?” she stammered “The game was unbeatable, you said so yourself. If it could pick up on everything you were trying to do, and then stop you, then how could you beat it?” Lisseal asked in a shushed, almost awed voice.
  “The answer came to me about five years ago, with what Savan did with his spells it was not easy, but then one day it hit me, the spells were set in place to stop me from accomplishing anything I set out to do. So I figured the only way to win was to set out to loose. That way the game did everything it could to keep me from doing that. The hardest part was not letting it know what I was up to.”
  Suddenly Lisseal was laughing so hard she was having trouble standing.
  “What’s so funny?” Demar asked, chuckling himself simply because her laughter was infectious.”
  “Savan is going to have such a headache when that spells backlash hits him.”