Chess Quest Books · Bonus Prequel Story
Sir George and Count Drake
Before Rich Witz, another white pawn faced an old friend across the board
Set in the medieval past of the Chess Quest world, this short story follows Sir George during the final day of his pawn probation. His last required virtue is Courage. His opposing knight is Count Percy von Drake—the lifelong friend he least wants to fight.
- Place in the series: bonus prequel short story · separate from the five numbered novels
- Era: medieval Chess Quest history
- Central figures: Sir George, Count Percy von Drake, and Miles
- Core question: Is courage the absence of fear, or the choice to advance when the people you love may pay the price if you fail?
Spoiler-Light Premise
Sir George has already completed three of the four quests required of a Paladin pawn. Each successful quest has awakened another gift, and he carries an ivory white pawn in a tiny bronze cage as the visible token of his probation. Only one virtue remains: Courage.
The problem is not that George is afraid to fight. He is an experienced knight. The problem is that his Nemesis is Count Percy von Drake, a man he has known since childhood. George has delayed his final quest because completing it means the confrontation he has been avoiding can finally begin.
An Earlier Pawn System
- Four quests still govern promotion: the medieval system already requires four successful tests before the pawn can advance.
- Each quest awakens a gift: George has three active powers before his final confrontation.
- Opposing pawns are paired: George and Percy did not choose one another. They accepted different-colored pawns and inherited the roles of Paladin and Nemesis.
- The first duel does not end the rivalry: pawn promotion opens the way to higher ranks, additional quests, and later confrontations.
- Formal promotion still requires ceremony: after completing his four quests, George must travel to Camelot to exchange his pawn for a knight.
George’s Metal-Sphere Gift
One of George’s awakened abilities lets him reshape smooth metal spheres into implements he can clearly imagine. During the story he turns the same material into shields and weapons suited to changing circumstances. Miles carries spare spheres so George can remain supplied during a fight.
The power foreshadows the later series emphasis on imagination, manifestation, and tools shaped by a knight’s mind. George’s version is narrower than Rich’s later gift, but the family resemblance is unmistakable.
Major Characters
- Sir George — compassionate battle-trained Paladin pawn, reluctant to fight the friend beneath the black armor
- Count Percy von Drake — George’s lifelong friend, Nemesis, dark pawn, and dragon shapeshifter
- Miles — George’s young squire, keeper of the spare spheres, and an important participant in the story’s test of courage
- Father William — elderly priest whose gratitude begins connecting George’s deeds to the later legend of Saint George
George and Percy
The central tragedy is that the Paladin–Nemesis conflict does not begin between strangers. George and Percy grew up together, trained and traveled together, and shared years of friendship before the pawns placed them on opposing sides. Percy increasingly defines himself through the dark order, while George continues trying to reach the friend beneath the role.
Their history anticipates one of the main series’ most important ideas: the chessboard can assign positions, but it cannot fully explain the person occupying the square.
Themes
- Courage: bravery requires real fear, not a manufactured danger that never truly matters.
- Friendship versus inherited conflict: an ancient system can turn people with genuine bonds into opponents.
- Mercy and duty: George wants to save Percy without allowing innocent people to suffer for that compassion.
- Old wounds: small humiliations can become powerful when resentment is cultivated rather than healed.
- Manipulation: Percy exploits Miles’s trust and George’s fears to force the duel he wants.
- Promotion as responsibility: finishing the pawn quests is the beginning of George’s larger service, not the end of it.
Deep Canon · Full-Story Spoilers
The Dragon and the Fourth Gift
- Percy manipulates Miles into revealing that George feared scaled creatures as a child.
- Using one of his dark gifts, Percy transforms into an enormous black dragon and attacks the church where Miles and the townspeople have taken refuge.
- George realizes that his true fear is not the dragon itself but the possibility that he will fail Miles and the innocent people depending on him.
- He advances anyway, and the pawn accepts the deed as the authentic Quest of Courage.
- George’s fourth gift opens Percy’s emotional memories to him. George sees an old humiliation at a midsummer ball and years of smaller wounds that the dark order has encouraged Percy to feed.
- The power can soothe the hold of a painful memory, but it cannot erase what happened or manufacture forgiveness.
- George apologizes sincerely, weakening the rage driving Percy, but still must strike when innocent lives remain threatened.
- Percy survives the duel because his dark powers sustain him even through a grievous wound. He warns George that this was only their first contest.
- George has now completed all four quests, defeated his Nemesis in their first confrontation, and is ready to exchange his white pawn for a knight.
- He and Miles set out for Camelot, where the Paladin Order still performs the formal promotion ceremony.
- Father William begins spreading accounts of George’s deeds, providing an in-world bridge toward the later identity of St. George.
Why the Prequel Matters
The story demonstrates that the rules Rich encounters are not a modern invention. Pawns, paired Nemeses, virtue quests, awakened gifts, promotion ceremonies, and escalating ranks stretch far back into the family’s history. At the same time, George’s story shows that the moral problem at the center of Chess Quest has always been larger than white pieces versus black pieces: people can inherit opposing roles while still carrying friendship, regret, responsibility, and the possibility of change.
Michael D. Young 