Roger Zelazny - Unicorn Variations

This story came into beingin a somewhat atypical fashion. The first movement in its direction occurredwhen Gardner Dozois phoned me one evening and asked whether I'd ever done ashort story involving a unicorn. I said that I had not. He explained then thathe and Jack Dann were putting together a reprint anthology of unicorn stories,and he suggested that I write one and sell it somewhere and then sell themreprint rights to it. Two sales. Nice. I told him that I'd think about it.Later, I was asked by another anthologist whether I'd ever done a story set ina barroomand if so, he'd like it for a reprint collection he was doing. Iallowed that I hadn't. A week or so after that, I attended a wine tasting withthe redoubtable George R. R. Martin, and during the course of the evening Idecided to mention the prospective collections in case he had ever done aunicorn story or a barroom story. He hadn't either, but he reminded me thatFred Saberhagen was putting together a reprint collection of stories involvingchess games (Pawn to Infinity). "Why don't you," he said"write a story involving a unicorn and a chess game, set it in a barroomand sell it to everybody?" We chuckled and sipped. A few months later, Iwent up to Vancouver, B.C., to be the guest of V-Con, a very pleasant regionalscience fiction convention. I had decided to take my family on the InlandPassage Alaskan cruise after that Now right before I left New Mexico I had readItalo Calvin's Invisible Cities, and when I read the section titled"Hidden Cities. 4." something seemed to stir. It told of the citywhere the inhabitants exterminated all of the vermin, completely sanitizing theplace, only to be haunted then by visions of creatures that did not exist.Later, during the convention, things began to flow together; and on my way downto the waterfront to board the Prinsendam, I stopped at a number ofbookstores, speed reading all of the chess sections until I found what Iwanted, two hours before sailing time. I bought the book. I sailed. I wrote"Unicorn Variation" in odd moments during what proved a fine cruise.My protagonist is named Martinany similarity to George (who is a chess expert)is not exactly unintentional. (I'll include a note on the game itself as an afterpieceto the tale.) Later that year the Prinsendam burned and sank The storydidn't. I sold it a sufficient number of times to pay for the cruise.

Thanks, George.

Abizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost daintydeliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece ofevening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truestnatureswirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note ofdesert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pagesof unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song.

Goneagain. Back again. Again.

Power,you said? Yes. It takes considerable force of identity to manifest before orafter one's time. Or both.

As itfaded and gained it also advanced, moving through the warm afternoon, itstracks erased by the wind. That is, on those occasions when there were tracks.

Areason. There should always be a reason. Or reasons.

Itknew why it was therebut not why it was there, in that particularlocale.

Itanticipated learning this shortly, as it approached the desolation-bound lineof the old street. However, it knew that the reason may also come before, orafter. Yet again, the pull was there and the force of its being was such thatit had to be close to something.

Thebuildings were worn and decayed and some of them fallen and all of them draftyand dusty and empty. Weeds grew among floorboards. Birds nested upon rafters.The droppings of wild things were everywhere, and it knew them all as theywould have known it, were they to meet face to face.

Itfroze, for there had come the tiniest unanticipated sound from somewhere aheadand to the left. At that moment, it was again phasing into existence and itreleased its outline which faded as quickly as a rainbow in hell, that but thenaked presence remained beyond subtraction.

Invisible,yet existing, strong, it moved again. The clue. The cue. Ahead. A gauche.Beyond the faded word SALOON on weathered board above. Through the swingingdoors. (One of them pinned alop.)

Pauseand assess.

Barto the right, dusty. Cracked mirror behind it. Empty bottles. Broken bottles.Brass rail, black, encrusted. Tables to the left and rear. In various states ofrepair.