Геннадий Логинов – Hired Self-killer or The Winner’s Trial (страница 4)

Looking up, from where a punishing blow had fallen upon his former idol, the White Knight reflected about his place in the world for a long time. It wasn’t about the current move or a particular square on a chessboard, but his place in general. The matches he had survived, the pieces he had won, the announced checks – at this moment, everything seemed so insignificant and vain, lacking any positive meaning…

And at the same time, he had only just begun to understand that the sense of life truly existed: the roots of this meaning lied far beyond the limits of the playing board, but it was the place where the answers to all questions were. He meant eternal questions as to how and from where the board appeared, where did the pieces come from, and also – what was the origin of files and ranks, squares and game rules? At the same time, the White Knight was more interested in “why” and “for what purpose” questions than in answers to “how” and “where”.

Of course, he was neither the first nor the last one to whom such thoughts came to mind. Some thinkers studied the composition of pieces’ bodies and correlated it with the composition of the board material. They assumed that chessmen had originated naturally from the board, and the squares were nothing more than the result of the pieces’ activities, as well as gradually formed rules of the game. Others claimed that the pieces had been created before the board. Third ones believed that they had been brought here from the outside, from another board.

Philosophers argued about what had appeared earlier – the game or the rules; researchers traced the physiological path of modern Queens from the faded ancient pawns discovered during archaeological excavations under the playing board. But all these theories were distant from life; they were certainly interesting but distracted from the essence. In reality, there was no difference for the White Knight whether chessmen came from ancient pawns, generated in time immemorial in the depths of the board itself, whether someone made them and placed on the board, or whether they were brought from any other board. Besides, the last version didn’t answer the question about the origin of pieces but raised the question of how they had appeared on that another board. And all these were particulars, which didn’t give the White Knight an answer to the question of who stayed behind the moves and crushed the “green nightingale,” but he passionately wanted to find the solution that could give him the key to understanding everything else.

Meanwhile, the path didn’t wait, and, deciding to return to his reasoning at a different time and in a more comfortable environment, the White Knight continued the interrupted journey. Faithful Dog followed him.

“Hey, you!”

The White Knight stopped.

“Look who’s that – a horse in the hat! Hey, the Horse, I’m talking to you! You’re not local, ah? Where are you from?”

The cheeky voice didn’t bode well. The clouds were gathering above. The mocking Black Pawn, miserable, but confident in his power and impunity, emerged from the darkness, accompanied by his chess gang. Perhaps these villains didn’t even know who they were messing with, since the White Knight had made multiple devastating raids on the enemy’s camp in the recent past. Destroying strategic reserves and undermining the fighting efficiency of the enemy’s army, he had won a lot of Black Pawns like this one. Some of them had died with dignity, others had stained their name with shame, but in any case, in the clash with the White Knight, they couldn’t be saved by fleeing or superiority in numbers.

“Are you talking to me?” the tired wanderer asked, stretching slowly before the upcoming fight.

“With you, sure. Think faster, Nelly!” one of the Black Pawns answered spitefully.

Their rudeness, vulgarity and self-assurance began to enrage and annoy him.

“You are lucky that a temporary truce had been declared between us. Therefore, I give you one last chance to move away from here and hinder me no further,” the White Knight said with quiet menace. The answer was laughter. Suddenly, the Black Knight jumped over the squad of maliciously grinning opponents. He hadn’t changed after their last meeting, although many moves had passed since then.

“Well, here we are again. The time goes on,” the Black Knight said as if delaying something he didn’t want but had to do by virtue of duty. “And you are still travelling alone. They could escort you after all. Of course, it will be too noticeable for the scout and will slow you down, but at least it would be much safer for you than going by yourself. Or with your ridiculous sugar lump.”

“His name is Dog,” the White Knight hastily corrected.

“It doesn’t matter,” his interlocutor dismissed the remark. “Perhaps, in that case, I could somehow play a failure or convince the command that I wasn’t sure about the outcome of the action. But now – I’m sorry, you have complicated everything for yourself. You could travel safely, and your guards would loom somewhere on the horizon. But I understand; the White King has lost many defenders recently. And also – he has developed paranoia. The burden of power, you know…”

“So you’ve decided to forget about all the agreements, get rid of me, and prevent me from bringing almost complete information to the headquarters. I guess you want to pocket the data and transfer it to the Black King,” the White Knight stated.

“Hey, please, don’t dramatize. It’s our job. We both fulfil our duty. We cannot act as fellows. It just happened,” the enemy admitted in a tone that was seemingly full of genuine regret. “Don’t you worry – we will honour you as a hero.”

“I don’t worry at all. Because you won’t have such an opportunity,” the White Knight answered. He understood that the Black Knight and the Black Pawns were covering each other, while he stood in front of them openly, without any protection from other pieces. The knight-horse had to make some move – for example, retreat to one of the previous squares, thereby failing his task, but his self-esteem didn’t allow him to do so. He could win the Black Knight, and that would mean an equivalent exchange and would be formally reasonable from the position of the general strategic plan. However, his life was behind this “equivalent exchange”, not to mention the fact that the task would also be failed. And in this case, the intelligence information which he had compiled with hard work would get into the enemy’s hands. Moreover, the Blacks would present the situation as if the Whites were violators of the truce.

In other words, his hoofs were shackled by a whole mass of obligations, laws, rules and restrictions; he didn’t have the right to commit reckless actions under the influence of momentary impulses. He thought that maybe the White King had a hard time too, deciding to bring this or that piece under attack, and sacrificing them for the sake of a more advantageous strategic position.

But at the moment, everyone forgot about the sugar named Dog, who wasn’t bound with all these rules and obligations. Sensing the danger for his master, he rushed headlong through the squares that separated him from a handful of enemies, and, bumping with force to the very centre, scattered the lifeless pieces across the chessboard. He slid along an uneven path, so he fell from the board edge and disappeared, hitting at something in the darkness.

Being in an indescribable confusion from shock and grief, the White Knight couldn’t find thoughts for a long time to describe everything that was happening in his soul at the moment. He became hysterical. He had a fever. His heart galloped like some horse on the field: hop hop, hop hop, clack-clack, hop hop…

But there was still no time for grief and self-torture. It was quite possible that the first wave of attackers could be followed by a second, control wave which had to confirm the success of the task and report to the Black King’s headquarters quickly. If the White Knight remained in his stupor now, he would miss the precious time won by his faithful friend, and the sacrifice of poor Dog would be useless.

He must go forward. Only forward. Don’t stop. One more step. A little more. He has almost reached…

Almost… Reached…

Treading his hooves heavily on the ground of a desiccated desert full of once-varnished, but now cracked squares, the White Knight stumbled and was close to collapse and losing consciousness, falling asleep forever among the intersection of files and ranks dappling before his eyes. But his will, faith and duty forced him to summon his strength and go on, on, on…

Well, not only that. The knight-horse also had to find the answer to the main question. And he had to return to his native dark square “g1”, where he could lie down on cool grass and rest. He must do the first thing, but he also wanted it; the second desire had nothing to do with duties and obligations – he simply wanted it.

From afar, he saw the gathered crowd of White pieces chanting his name, and smiled weakly, realizing that his gruelling and dangerous tour was close to its long-awaited completion. What did he feel at the moment? Probably, first of all – fatigue, severe, all-consuming fatigue, in which everything else was drowned, leaving only a barely visible island of joy, where the tree of faith blossomed, rising above the waves.