Kill the King and fuck the Queen

Caissa, the muse of chess, was no less ruthless than the muse of poetry. Muses had a way of killing those whom they inspired.

The Eight, by Katherine Neville, originally published in 1988, is a rollicking thriller full of puzzles and esoteric plot points that starts with a chess match — one minor faceoff in a tournament for the ages. With symbols enough to make Robert Langdon's head swim, Neville takes us on a tour of the corridors of power connecting Napoleon and Catherine the Great with ancient Masonic orders as well as America's founding fathers. 

One must never lose sight of the big picture. And remember: a pawn that reaches the eighth rank can be promoted to Queen. (I mean, Caïssa wasn't one of the original Nine.)

"Chess, my dear, is such an Oedipal game. Kill the King and fuck the Queen, that's what it's all about. Psychologists love to follow chess players about to see if they wash their hands too much, sniff at old sneakers, or masturbate between sessions. Then they write it all up in the Journal of the AMA."

From 1970s Manhattan, our (female!) computer wiz protagonist sets off for Algeria on a work contract. The story slips through time, spanning cultures and continents — from Phoenician mythology and the French Revolution to the Colonies and the looming OPEC crisis. 

Basically, The Eight has a serious Assassin's Creed vibe, only the Pieces of Eden are pieces of a legendary chess set (fictitious), gifted to Charlemagne by the Moors, scattered across the globe. There's no overt alien angle, but it brushes up against arcane formulas like the Music of the Spheres that unlock secret knowledge like the elixir of life.

Neville imagines an encounter between Leonhard Euler and Johann Sebastien Bach in which the composer has translated the mathematician's knight's tour to music, producing philosophical alchemies where physical transmutations are wanting for proof.

Cameo appearances feature William Blake, Benedict Arnold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, painter Jacques-Louis David, and William Wordsworth, among others.

"This one — the man with the head of a bird — is the great god Thoth. He was a doctor who could heal any illness. He invented writing, too. It was his job to write the name of everyone in the Book of the Dead. Shahin says each person has a secret name given him at birth, written on a stone, and handed to him when he dies. And each god had a number instead of a secret name...  [...] We believe the universe is comprised of number, and it is only a question of vibrating to the correct resonance of these numbers to become one with God."

Caïssa, by Domenico Maria Fratta

[When I was in grade 8, in the early 80s, my teacher was something of a computer enthusiast. We were the only grade-school classroom in the region with a computer "lab" — three monster machines we took turns on. I wrote a program in Basic to complete the calculations for an income tax return. Our teacher was an immovable force, physically resembling a very tall, thick brick wall. He had a bushy black moustache and a Ukrainian name, and he spoke softly but forcefully, like he might be holding you at gunpoint. Because he maintained our student records on computer, he argued that it was easier to call us by number than to remember our names. I was number 8. I've held an affinity for this number ever since.]

The novel is about chess the same way Alice Through the Looking Glass is, with no great insight into the game or its players, but it pauses to ponder whether to play the man or play the board, and speculates that chess's popularity in America is not evidence of intellect so much as of morality.

Neville quotes Polish Grand Master Savielly Tartakower: "Tactics is knowing what to do when there something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do." I realize I am becoming a master strategist of life.

The secret was not hidden beneath a rock in the desert. Nor was it tucked inside a musty library. It lay hidden within the softly whispered tales of these nomadic men. Moving across the sands by night, passing from mouth to mouth, the secret had moved as the sparks of a dying bonfire are scattered across the silent sands and buried in darkness. The secret was hidden in the very sounds of the desert, in the tales of her people — in the mysterious whispers of the rocks and stones themselves.