Kael sank into the divan, head tilted back, and closed his eyes.

  So that’s what Elan is…

  The inner movement of all things.

  His thoughts collided, swirling without logic. He slowly straightened. Across from him, Dubium was already resetting the chess pieces, methodical, silent.

  But one question had obsessed Kael since the beginning of this loop.

  He took a sip of tea. The pieces were in place. The board awaited only his first move.

  He finally decided to speak.

  “What is the Immaterial?” he asked, advancing his first pawn.

  Dubium responded with a precise move, almost ceremonial. Then he lifted his eyes to Kael and declared:

  “It is a vast subject, young man. Vast beyond measure.”

  He paused.

  “What do you know about time?”

  Kael played his move, slightly hesitant.

  “Not much, to be honest.”

  Dubium advanced a piece, as calm as ever.

  “And how do you represent it?”

  Kael was surprised by the question. It caught him off guard. As he reflected, he played his next move slowly.

  “I… I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

  He frowned.

  “But if I had to answer right now… I’d say… a carriage? No, a car. Yes, a car speeding past us.”

  He inhaled deeply.

  “Time, for me, is that. Something impossible to grasp.”

  It had barely been a month since he had left the Broken Crown. And yet he had the strange impression that fifteen years had passed.

  Dubium studied the chessboard thoughtfully.

  “Time, Kael, leaves traces. I believe you have noticed that.”

  Kael looked away. He did not need to search far to understand what Dubium was referring to.

  Dubium continued, a piece between his fingers:

  “Time can be divided into three state : the past, the instant, and the future.”

  He played his move.

  Kael spoke in turn, intrigued.

  “When you say ‘the instant,’ you mean the present?”

  He moved a piece, focused.

  Dubium nodded slightly.

  “The present is an illusion, Kael. A blurred addition of the past and what we call ‘the instant.’”

  He set his piece down calmly.

  “And the instant, by essence… is ungraspable.”

  Kael did not understand where Dubium was going with this. Why speak of the instant as something ungraspable? He saw neither the logic nor the purpose. Still, he played his move — a direct, almost brutal advance that pushed his offensive forward without hesitation.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Dubium, noticing that Kael had not grasped the heart of his point, slowly lifted a piece between his fingers.

  “Do you see this piece?” he asked.

  Kael nodded.

  “Imagine that I place it on the board.”

  Kael complied easily. He visualized the movement. He even knew, instinctively, where Dubium would place it.

  Then Dubium lowered the piece and set it gently on the board.

  At the same time, he completed his move. A simple one, without great risk.

  Then he looked up.

  “Can you recall the exact moment when I placed that piece on the board?”

  Kael stared at him, one eyebrow raised.

  “But… you just did it. I remember.”

  And suddenly, he understood.

  His eyes widened.

  Dubium smiled faintly, satisfied.

  “There. You have just understood what I meant by ‘ungraspable.’”

  Kael lowered his gaze, then played a more cautious move this time. More grounded in reflection.

  Dubium continued calmly:

  “We can only grasp the instant in two ways, Kael. By imagining it… or by remembering it.”

  He let his voice linger in the still air of the library.

  “But as it unfolds… it escapes us..”

  Dubium played a controlled move. Nothing spectacular, yet every piece he moved seemed meaningful.

  Kael watched him, then took a deep breath.

  “So… if I understand correctly… It’s as if we can’t truly experience the instant while it’s there.”

  He searched for his words, hesitated.

  “It’s there… but we don’t feel it until it’s already gone. It’s… like a heartbeat that fades the moment you try to listen to it.”

  He shrugged slightly, frustrated by his own phrasing.

  “It’s blurry. But I think I see what you mean.”

  Kael answered Dubium’s move with one more daring than he would have expected. An ingenious move, almost instinctive.

  “Alright…” he said, still somewhat lost, “but I don’t quite see the link between all this and the Immaterial.”

  Dubium raised his hand slightly, as if to stop him, without aggression.

  “We have not yet finished establishing what time is.”

  He played his move. Sharp. Precise. Incisive.

  “Time consists of the past, the instant, and the future. But… what unites them all?”

  Kael frowned. He thought, advancing a piece. Dubium responded immediately with a move of perfect control. Silent. Composed.

  Kael thought back to earlier. The piece Dubium had asked him to imagine, to visualize, then to remember. What made all of that real? What made it… perceptible?

  The answer came to him. Not as a logical deduction, but as an obvious truth.

  He placed a piece on the board. A sharp, clear sound echoed in the silent library.

  Then he looked up.

  “What connects all of it… is perception.”

  Dubium picked up a piece and pointed it toward Kael, not aggressively, but with unmistakable intensity.

  “Exactly.”

  He paused.

  “Now that you know what time is… how would you represent it?”

  He set his piece on the board. The sound, crisp and precise, echoed through the library just as Kael’s had moments earlier.

  Kael remained silent. He observed the board, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

  How would he represent time?

  He ran a hand along his chin, thinking aloud.

  “It’s not an hourglass… nor an arrow… not really a road either…”

  Then an idea emerged. Confused, but persistent.

  “Maybe… a book?”

  He frowned.

  “Yes. A book.”

  He straightened slightly, the words coming to him as he spoke them, as if discovering them in real time.

  “The past… would be the ink already dry. The ink that has already marked the page. It’s there, fixed, impossible to change.”

  He looked up at Dubium, uncertain.

  “And the instant… would be the pen. It traces. It writing. It is in motion. But we cannot seize it… we can only guess what it is doing.”

  He hesitated again.

  “The future… would be… the inkwell. It contains everything that can still be written. Everything is there, but nothing has yet touched the page.”

  He looked at Dubium, more confident now.

  “And perception… would be the book itself. It is what holds everything together. Without it, there would be no page, no word, no meaning. Just… scattered elements.”

  Dubium slowly lowered his gaze to the chessboard.

  “Time,” he said, “is a story we write without rest… and often only understand once we have read it.”

  Kael did not answer. He stared at the board, his thoughts still steeped in the image of the book, the ink, the pen.

  Then, without a word, he moved a piece.

  A lucid move.

  Obvious to him — yet completely unexpected.

  A movement that cut cleanly through the structure of the game, challenging multiple dynamics at once. A displacement so subtle that Dubium paused, eyes fixed on the board.

  Kael kept his gaze on the game, serene. As if the move were nothing special.

  But Dubium knew.

  It was a stroke of genius.

  Dubium observed the board for a long moment, as if allowing the silence to digest the last words.

  Then, without a word, he moved a piece.

  A simple movement. Seemingly harmless.

  But Kael immediately felt that something had shifted.

  Dubium raised his head slightly.

  “Now, we can begin speaking about the Immaterial.”

  He paused.

  Then added in a neutral tone:

  “Checkmate.”