Charles L. Grant - Glow of Candles, Unicorn's eye

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A GLOW OF CANDLES,

A UNICORN'S EYE*

Charles L. Grant

I mentioned the fact that writers need to serve an apprenticeship in order to master their craft.

Charles Grant surely did, In one of the hardest and most thankless jobs any writer has ever taken

on. His exalted title was Executive Secretary of the Science Fiction Writers of America; but the

reality behind-the hyperbole was that he was the person who did everything the volunteer committee

people and officers of SFWA were supposed to do, but didn't. And he learned-as Is proven by

stories like "A Glow of Candles, A Unicorn's Eye."

There are no gods but those that are muses. You may quote me on that if you are in need of an

argument. It's original. One of the few truly original things I have done with my life, in my

life, throughout my life, which has been spent in mostly running. Bad grammar that, I suppose. But

nevertheless true for the adverb poorly placed.

And how poorly placed have I been.

Not that I am complaining, you understand. I could have, and with cause, some thirty years

ago, and for the first thirty-seven I did-though the causes were much more nebulous. But the

complaints I have now are of the softer kind, the kind that grows out of loving, and are meant-in

loving-not to be heard, not to be taken seriously.

For example, consider my beard. Helena loved it, once she became accustomed to its prickly

assaults. But I do not need it anymore. There is no need for the hiding because I have been

forgiven my sins-or so it says here on this elegant paper I must carry with me in case the message

has been lost-forgiven my

*Winner, Nebula, for Best Novelette of 1978.

trespasses. But I like the stupid beard now. Its lacing of gray lends a certain dignity to a face

that is never the same twice in one week. And it helps me to forget what I am beneath the costumes

and the makeup and the words that are not mine. Yet it's not a forgetting that is demanded by

remorse, nor is it a forgetting necessitated by a deep and agonizing secret.

It is a forgetting of years, to keep me from weeping.

Because the secret is out.

Has been, in fact, since the first evening I presented this prologues device not original,

but originally apt.

No secret, then.

But I like the beard anyway.

And so did my Helena, whose hair-such hairl-was once so wonderfully long.

Attend then--or so says the script I no longer need to guide me-but before you decide

where applause is warranted, be sure that you understand, be sure that you know exactly what you

are applauding. We are still, after all, and in the last sight of the law, criminals, you know. I

nearly murdered, and she nearly surrendered.

And I think that they will catch up with us at the last. Not because we have escaped and

were pardoned. But because we have escaped and have been free.

Gordon was alone and friendless ....

Well, not really, but at the time there wasn't much that I wanted more. I tried to be

careful, however, not to disrupt the taping session by allowing my reinforced skepticism and

growing discomfort to put lines in my face where character should be, and where, I prayed

constantly, it would stay before the bottom dropped out of this market, too, and I had to return

to so-called regular employment to build up my account. To cover myself then, I placed right palm

to right cheek in what I had been taught was an overt display of not-quite-hopeless despair

coupled subtly with the proper degree of Shakespearean melancholy, Then, working at not flinching,

I lowered my buttocks onto the conveniently flat rock behind me and stared at the river. They

called it a river. Actually, it was something less than two hundred meters of recycled water not

nearly deep enough to drown a gnat .

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. . . . his weary but undaunted brain struggling mightily for the miraculous wherewithal

to extricate him from his precarious dilemma ....

The subvocal narration buzzing in my left ear so I could follow the cues raised in me

first a gagging sensation, then an impulse to swat at a nonexistent fly. I managed to swallow

several times without its showing, then shifted my palm to my chin and supported it by resting my

elbow on one knee. I could have brought it off. But my concentration slipped. The fact that I was

naked, cold, and resignedly anticipating a drenching from the slate-gray clouds massing

efficiently overhead goaded me into a mistake. After five minutes of gazing I could not help but

frown instead of assuming the attitude of intense problem-solving on the subconscious level. And

when it was done, there was no taking it back. . . and I knew it without anyone's prompting.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to turn off the tiger.

I heard it, a grumbling that should have come from the clouds. I rose quickly as it

stalked into view, a creature so magnificent in the terror that it instilled that I could not take

my eyes from its pelt, its face, the waterlike rippling of its muscles at shoulder and haunch.

A dark-feathered bird swept in front of it, but its gaze did not leave me for even the

length of a blink.

Slowly, I backed toward the river, crouched, my fingers hooked into pitiful imitations of

claws. Eveiything inside me from heart to stomach had suddenly become weightless and was floating

toward my throat, and I felt a curious giddiness that split the air into fluttering dark spots

before coalescing into stripes, massive paws, and disdainful curled lips exposing sharp white

death.

It should have leaped when it reached the boulder I had been sitting on. And it did. And

despite the training, the quiet talks, the assurances of my continuing good health . . . despite

it all, I screamed.

The tiger struck me full on the chest, its front paws grabbing for a hold, its rear claws

reaching to disembowel. I fell as I used the creature's momentum to spin us around, dropping off

the edge of the low bank and into the water. There were three rows of fire across my ribs, six

more on my shoulder blades, but I held the tiger under, a minute, more, until at last it quieted

and I thrust it away from me and staggered back to land. The entire sequence could not have lasted

more than three minutes from start to finish, but I felt as though a dozen years had been suddenly

added to my life. What there was of it.

I fell, gasping, spitting out water, then rolled onto my back and stared at my hands. They

were bloody, and I sat up abruptly, looking around wildly for someone to patch me.

This was not supposed to happen.

I was to be strong, clever, luring the beast to its drowning... but I was not supposed to

be clawed.

Immediately, a white-coated tech raced out from behind me and waded into the water with

two assistants, the better to lug the simulacrum back to the shop for another repair job and, I

imagined, another shot at another sucker like me. A fourth man, his shirt and trousers rumpled and

soiled, wandered over to me and slapped in quick succession antiseptic and medpatches onto my

injuries. I smiled at him. He scowled. I knew what was bothering him. If I couldn't be cajoled

into doing it again, he would have to do some pretty fancy editing to keep the blood from showing.

I think he expected me to feel sorry for him. As though it were my fault.

And when he was done, with not a word of condolence, or, even of encouragement, I moved

stiffly back to my rock and sat, waiting with dripping hair while those clouds waited to soak me

until, finally, the artfully gnarled bole of a beautiful oak on the opposite bank split open with

a zipperlike tear, r and the director stepped out.

"Great," I muttered, and dropped my hands into my lap.

The director paused for a moment as if reorienting him- .. self, sighed, and retrieved a

powered megaphone from the ' rushes on the riverbank. He sniffed, looked everywhere but at me, and

yanked a crimson beret down hard over an impossibly battered left ear. '

"You're Gordon Anderson, right?" The voice should have '' been godlike, undei the

circumstances. Unfortunately, it

wasn't. It squeaked. i

I nodded.

"You okay?"

Bless you, I thought sourly, and nodded. .

"Shouldn't have done that."

I didn't know whether he meant me or the tiger.

"Gordon Anderson," he said again, as if tasting it for some hint of its flavor, or for

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