Roger Zelazny - Unicorn Variation

Preface from Unicorn Variations: This story came into being in asomewhat atypical fashion. The first movement in its directionoccurred when Gardner Dozois phoned me one evening and asked whetherI'd ever done a short story involving a unicorn. I said that I hadnot. He explained then that he and Jack Dann were putting together areprint anthology of unicorn stories, and he suggested that I writeone and sell it somewhere and then sell them reprint 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 astory set in a barroomand if so, he's like it for a reprintcollection he was doing. I allowed that I hadn't. A week or so afterthat, I attended a wine tasting with the redoubtable George R. R.Martin, and during the course of the evening I decided to mention theprospective collections in case he had ever done a unicorn story or abarroom story. He hadn't either, but he reminded me that FredSaberhagen was putting together a reprint collection of storiesinvolving chess games (_Pawn to Infinity_). "Why don't you," he said,"write a story involving a unicorn and a chess games, set it in abarroom and sell it to everybody?" We chuckled and sipped. A fewmonths later, I went up to Vancouver, B.C., to be the guest of V-Con,a very pleasant regional science fiction convention. I had decided totake my family on the Inland Passage Alaskan cruise after that. Nowright before I left New Mexico I had read Italo Calvino's _InvisibleCities_, and when I read the section titled "Hidden Cities. 4."something seemed to stir. It told of the city where the inhabitantsexterminated all of the vermin, completely sanitizing the place, onlyto be haunted then by visions of creatures that did not exist. Later,during the convention, things began to flow together; and on my waydown to the waterfront to board _Prinsendam_, I stopped at a number ofbookstores, speed reading all the of the chess sections until I foundwhat I wanted, two hours before sailing time. I bought the book. Isailed. I wrote "Unicorn Variation" in odd moments during what proveda fine cruise. My protagonist is named Martinany similarity toGeorge (who is a chess expert) is not exactly unintentional. (I'llinclude a note on the game itself as an afterpiece to the tale.)Later that year the _Prisendam_ burned and sank. The story didn't. Isold it a sufficient number of times to pay for the cruise.

Thanks, George.

A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft,almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like astorm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between theflares was more akin to its truest natureswirl of black ashesassembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind downthe arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unreadbooks or stillnesses between the notes of a song.

Gone again. Back again. Again.

Power, you said? Yes. It takes considerable force of identity tomanifest before or after one's time. Or both.

As it faded and gained it also advanced, moving through the warmafternoon, its tracks erased by the wind. That is, on those occasionswhen there were tracks.

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

It knew why it was therebut not why it was _there_, in thatparticular locale.

It anticipated learning this shortly, as it approached thedesolation-bound line of the old street. However, it knew that thereason may also come before, or after. Yet again, the pull was thereand the force of its being was such that it had to be close tosomething.

The buildings were worn and decayed and some of them fallen andall of them drafty and dusty and empty. Weeds grew among thefloorboards. Birds nested upon rafters. The droppings of wild thingswere everywhere, and it knew them all as they would have known it,were they to meet face to face.

It froze, for there had come the tiniest unanticipated sound fromsomewhere ahead and to the left. At that moment, it was again phasinginto existence and it released its outline which faded as quickly as arainbow in hell, that but the naked presence remained beyondsubtraction.

Invisible, yet existing, strong, it moved again. The clue. Thecue. Ahead. A gauche. Beyond the faded word SALOON on weatheredboard above. Through the swinging doors. (One of them pinned alop.)

Pause and assess.

Bar to the right, dusty. Cracked mirror behind it. Emptybottles. Broken bottles. Brass rail, black, encrusted. Tables tothe left and rear. In various states of repair.

Man seated at the best of the lot. His back to the door. Levi's.Hiking boots. Faded blue shirt. Green backpack leaning against thewall to his left.

Before him, on the tabletop, is the faint, painted outline of achessboard, stained, scratched, almost obliterated.

The drawer in which he had found the chessmen is still partlyopen.

He could no more have passed up a chess set without working out aproblem or replaying one of his better games than he could have gonewithout breathing, circulating his blood or maintaining a relativelystable body temperature.

It moved nearer, and perhaps there were fresh prints in the dustbehind it, but none noted them.

It, too, played chess.

It watched as the man replayed what had perhaps been his finestgame, from the world preliminaries of seven years past. He had blownup after thatsurprised to have gotten even as far as he hadfor henever could perform well under pressure. But he had always been proudof that one game, and he relived it as all sensitive beings to certainturning points in their lives. For perhaps twenty minutes, no onecould have touched him. He had been shining and pure and hard andclear. He had felt like the best.

It took up a position across the board from him and stared. Theman completed the game, smiling. Then he set up the board again, roseand fetched a can of beer from his pack. He popped the top.

When he returned, he discovered that White's King's Pawn had beenadvanced to K4. His brow furrowed. He turned his head, searching thebar, meeting his own puzzled gaze in the grimy mirror. He lookedunder the table. He took a drink of beer and seated himself.

He reached out and moved his Pawn to K4. A moment later, he sawWhite's King's Knight rise slowly into the air and drift forward tosettle upon KB3.

He stared for a long while into the emptiness across the tablebefore he advanced his own Knight to his KB3. White's Knight moved totake his Pawn. He dismissed the novelty of the situation and movedhis Pawn to Q3. He all but forgot the absence of a tangible opponentas the White Knight dropped back to its KB3. He paused to take a sipof beer, but no sooner had he placed the can upon the tabletop than itrose again, passed across the board and was upended. A gurglingnoise followed. Then the can fell to the floor, bouncing, ringingwith an empty sound.

"I'm sorry," he said, rising and returning to his pack. "I'd haveoffered you one if I'd thought you were something that might like it."

He opened two more cans, returned with them, placed one near theedge of the table, one at his own right hand.

"Thank you," came a soft, precise voice from a point beyond it.

The can was raised, tilted slightly, returned to the tabletop.

"My name is Martin," the man said.

"Call me Tlingel," said the other. "I had thought that perhapsyour kind was extinct. I am pleased that you at least have survivedto afford me this game."

"Huh?" Martin said. "We were all still around the last time thatI lookeda couple of days ago."

"No matter. I can take care of that later," Tlingel replied. "Iwas misled by the appearance of this place."

"Oh. It's a ghost town. I backpack a lot."

"Not important. I am near the proper point in your career as aspecies. I can feel that much."