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  The Last Defender Of Camelot

  Roger Zelazny

  Roger Zelazny

  The Last Defender Of Camelot

  INTRODUCTION

  Though it is contrary to my general practice to introduce my own works, I decided to say a few words to go before this collection and some before each story itself because I have put this one together out of materials drawn from the beginning, middle and recent sections of the eighteen-year period I have been writing. I have changed during that time, a condition I share with the world around me, and I redden now or blanche (as the case my be) to read over much that I once considered adequate. For this reason, there are dozens of stories that I prefer keeping interred beneath bright covers in yellowing sheets, stories that 1 will never willingly see reprinted. I feel some affection for the ones I have gathered here, however, and I will say some things about them in the proper places.

  The nature of my work and my working habits shifted radically in the late 60's, when I went in more heavily for the writing of novels. I had started out as a short story writer, and I still enjoy writing short stories though I no longer do nearly as many as I used to in a year's time. The reason is mainly economic. I went fulltime in the late 60's, and it is a fact of writing life that, word for word, novels work harder for their creators when it comes to providing for the necessities and joys of existence. Which would sound cold and cynical, except that I enjoy writing novels, too.

  I have no desire to explain, attempt to justify or apologize for anything that I have written. I have always felt that a story should be able to deal with such matters itself. My individual forepieces are intended only to place them within the context of my own evolving experience —which makes this an autobiographical work for me, if not for anyone else.

  So, to even things up and answer a number of requests, I'll tell you a little about myself (purely subjective, not dust jacket material)—

  If I couldn't write worth a damn, I think I'd like to own a hardware store. I've long been fascinated by the enormous varieties of tools used to maintain our society, as well as the clips, hinges, pins, brads, screws, pulleys, wires, chains, clamps and pipes that hold it together. Not to mention the putty, piaster, cement and paint that keep it looking well io places. Even more than a book store, where I probably wouldn't get to read much anyway, I believe that I could have been fairly happy m a good general hardware shop, But then, I would probably open late and stay open late because I'm a night person- I prefer sunsets to sunrises. I pick up steam in the late hours. I've probably done most of my best writing after midnight.

  There is a group of writers living within about a 100mile diameter circle around here who get together once a month for lunch. On one such occasion, Stephen Donaldson asked me what book by someone else I wished I had written. I gave him a quick answer which seemed appropriate at the moment. I thought about it later, though, and changed my mind. Something like War and Peace or Ulysses, while impressive or dazzling, massively tragic or comic and invested with tons of scholarly and lay mana would only be egotistical choices, not things that I could have enjoyed writing as well as enjoyed having written— if I were able. I got it down to two books—one tragic, one comic — and I couldn't decide between them: Malraux's Man's Fate and Norman Douglas' South Wind. I have nothing deeply philosophical to say about either of them here, just a wistful bit of self-revelation and an attempt to answer Steve's question honestly in a place where I am talking about myself, anyway.

  The most encouraging thing I have seen in recent years was nothing at all. That is to say, nothing where I had expected to see something. Back m 1975, I visited Trinity Site, which is open to the public one day a year. It had been some thirty years since the first atomic bomb was detonated over that hot, dusty, windy plain. A long line of cars was met by a military escort at a shopping center north of Alamogordo and taken some seventy miles out into the White Sands Missile Range. We finally parked, disembarked and walked to Ground Zero. There was realty nothing to see. I had read how that first blast had left a crater of fused aluminum silicates twenty-five feet deep and a quarter-mile across. It was gone. The desertwinds had filled it in, the desert plants (unmutated) had taken root above it. The radiation level was only slightly above normal background. The place looked pretty much like parts of my backyard. After a moment's disappointment at the absence of a spectacle following the long drive, I suddenly felt elated as I realized how completely the earth had recovered in the span of a single generation, Life's resilience.

  Some years ago, a scientist who was planning on beaming some television pictures outward, in an attempt to communicate something concerning us and our ways to whatever might be watching the late show, asked me to suggest some of the content for the program. Along with a lot of predictable technical and social stuff, I recall suggesting a symphony orchestra with closeups of the individual instruments being played, sailboats and—I believe—a flight of hot air balloons—as these seemed three sorts of objects where form has been so perfectly and uniquely married to function that our tools have become works of art—which I suppose puts even my esthetic thinking into a kind of Platonic hardware store.

  I enjoy being a writer and I even like the paperwork. That's enough about the author. Here are the stories.

  PASSION PLAY

  This was my first published story, as it states below. A while back, Jonathan Ostrowsky-Lantz, the editor of Unearth: The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries— a noble publication dedicated to the encouragement of new science fiction writers—began a policy of reprinting first stories by professionals in the area, along with introductory essays by the authors telling how the stories came to be written and including some advice to beginning writers.

  For whatever such a preface may be worth in this place, 1*11 cause it to occur between here and the story itself—

  INTRODUCTION

  I had wanted to write for many years, but did not have an opportunity until I had completed my master's thesis and taken a job with the government. I was assigned to an office in Dayton, Ohio for training, and I reported there on February 26, 1962. As I had decided to try writing science fiction, I spent a week reading all the current science fiction magazines and some random paperbacks. I then sat down and began writing, every evening, turning out several stories a week and sending them off to the magazines. I drew a number of rejection slips, and then in March I received a note from Cele Goldsmith at Ziff-Davis, saying that she was buying this story, "Passion Play." It appeared in the August, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories.

  Whether it actually was or was not, it seemed to me an almost classic case of applied insight, because I had done something right before I wrote it which I had not done before. I had gathered together all of my rejected stories and spent an evening reading through them to see whether I could determine what I was doing wrong. One thing struck me about all of them: I was overexplaining. I was describing settings, events and character motiva-tions in too much detail. I decided, in viewing these stories now that they had grown cold, that I would find it insulting to have anyone explain anything to me at that length. I resolved thereafter to treat the reader as I would be treated myself, to avoid the unnecessarily explicit, to use more indirection with respect to character and motivation, to draw myself up short whenever I felt the tendency to go on talking once a thing had been shown.

  Fine. That was my resolution. I still had to find a story idea to do it with, as I was between stories just then. Now, I do not know how other people do it, but there is a certain receptive state of mind that I switch on when I am looking for a short story notion. This faculty is dulled when I am working on a novel, as I Usually am these days, so that if I want it now it generally takes me
a full day to set up the proper mental climate. It comes faster if I am between books. Whatever, in those days I kept it turned on almost all the time.

  The government wanted everyone in my class to have a physical examination. They gave me the forms and I drove up to Euclid over a weekend to see the closest thing we had to a family doctor, to have him complete them. When I sat down in his waiting room, I picked up a copy of Life and began looking through it. Partway along, I came upon a photospread dealing with the death of the racing driver Wolfgang von Tripps. Something clicked as soon as I saw it, and just then the doctor called me in for the checkup. While I was breathing for him and coughing and faking knee jerks and so forth, I saw the entire incident that was to be this short short. I could have written it right then. My typewriter was in Dayton, though, and I'd the long drive ahead of me. The story just boiled somewhere at the back of my mind on the way down, and when I reached my apartment I headed straight for the typewriter and wrote it through. I even walked three blocks to a mailbox in the middle of the night, to get it sent right away.

  Cele's letter of acceptance was dated March 28, almost a month after I'd begun writing. Strangely, the day that it arrived I had gotten the idea for what was to be my next sale ("Horseman!", Fantastic Stories, August, 1962). I returned the contracts on "Passion Play" and followed them with "Horseman!" 1 sold fifteen other stories that year. I was on my way.I cannot really say whether I owe it to that resolution I made on reviewing my rejects, but it felt as if I did and I have always tried to keep the promise I made that day about not insulting the reader's intelligence.

  Another factor did come into operation after I sold this story. It is a subtle phenomenon which can only be experienced. I suddenly felt like a writer. "Confidence" is a cheap word for it, but I can't think of a better one. That seems the next phase in toughening one's writing— a kind of cockiness, an "I've done it before" attitude. This feeling seems to feed something back into the act of composition itself, providing more than simple assurance. Actual changes in approach, structure, style, tone, began to occur for me almost of their own accord. Noting this, I began to do it intentionally. I made a list of all the things I wanted to know how to handle and began writing them into my stories. This is because I felt that when you reach a certain point as a writer, there are two ways you can go. Having achieved an acceptable level of competence you can keep producing at that level for the rest of your life, quite possibly doing some very good work. Or you can keep trying to identify your weaknesses, and then do something about them. Either way, you should grow as a writer—but Ihe second way is a bit more difficult, because it is always easier to write around a weakness than to work with it, work from it, work through it. It takes longer, if nothing else. And you may fall on your face. But you might learn something you would not have known otherwise and be better as a result.

  These are the things I learned, or fancy I learned, from "Passion Play" and its aftereffects. I do have one other thing to say, though, which came to me slowly, much later, though its roots are tangled somewhere here: Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant—you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along .the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place.

  Trust your demon.At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time. The average days of dimness and moisture decrease steadily in number, and those of brilliance and cool air begin to enter the calendar again. And it is good that the wet times are behind us, for they rust and corrode our machinery; they require the most intense standards of hygiene.

  With all the bright baggage of spring, the days of the Festival arrive. After the season of Lamentations come the sacred stations of the Passion, then the bright Festival of Resurrection, with its tinkle and clatter, its exhaust fumes, sorched rubber, clouds of dust, and its great promise of happiness.

  We come here each year, to the place, to replicate a classic. We see with our own lenses the functioning promise of our creation. The time is today, and I have been chosen.

  Here on the sacred grounds of Le Mans I will perform every action of the classic which has been selected. Before the finale I will have duplicated every movement and every position which we know occurred. How fortunate! How high the honor!

  Last year many were chosen, .but it was not the same. Their level of participation was lower. Still, I had wanted so badly to be chosen! I had wished so strongly that I, too, might stand beside the track and await the flaming Mercedes.

  But I was saved for this greater thing, and all lenses are upon me as we await the start. This year there is only one Car to watch—number 4, the Ferrari-analog.

  The sign has been given, and the rubber screams; the smoke balloons like a giant cluster of white grapes, and we are moving. Another car gives way, so that I can drop into the proper position. There are many cars, but only one Car.

  We scream about the turn, in this great Italian classic of two centuries ago. We run them all here, at the place, regardless of where they were held originally.

  "Oh gone masters of creation," I pray, "let me do it properly. Let my timing be accurate. Let no random variable arise to destroy a perfect replication."

  The dull gray metal of my arms, my delicate gyro-scopes, my special gripping-hands, all hold the wheel in precisely the proper position as we roar into the straightaway.

  How wise the ancient masters were! When they knew they must destroy themselves in a combat too mystical and holy for us to understand, they left us these ceremonies, in commemoration of the Great Machine. All the data was there: the books, the films, all; for us to find, study, learn, to know the scared Action.

  As we round another turn, I think of our growing cities, our vast assembly lines, our iube-bars, and our beloved executive computer. How great all things are! What a well-ordered day! How fine to have been chosen!

  The tires, little brothers, cry out, and the pinging of small stones comes from beneath. Three-tenths of a second, and I shall depress the accelerator an eighth of an inch further.

  R-7091 waves to me as I enter the second lap, but I cannot wave back. My finest functioning is called for at this time. All the special instrumentation which has been added to me will be required in a matter of seconds.

  The other cars give way at precisely the right instant. I turn, I slide. I crash through the guard rail.

  'Turn over now, please!" I pray, twisting the wheel, "and bum."

  Suddenly we are rolling, skidding, upside-down. Smoke fills the Car.

  To the crashing noise that roars within my receptors, the crackle and lick of flames is now added.

  My steel skeleton—collapsed beneath the impactstresses. My lubricants—burning. My lenses, all but for a tiny area—shattered.

  My hearing-mechanism still functions weakly.

  Now there is a great hom sounding, and metal bodies rush across the fields.

  Now. Now is the time for me to turn off all my functions and cease.

  But I will wait. Just a moment longer. I must hear them say it Metal arms drag me from the pyre. I am laid aside. Fire extinguishers play white rivers upon the Car.

  Dimly, in the distance, through my smashed receptors, I hear the speaker rumble:"Von Tripps has smashed! The Car is dead!**

  A great sound of lamenting rises from the rows of unmoving spectators. The giant fireproof van arrives on the field, just as the attendants gain control of the flames.

  Four tenders leap out and raise the Car from the ground. A fifth collects every smouldering fragment.

  And I see it all!

  "Oh, let this not be blasphemy, pleasel" I pray. "One instant more'"

  Tenderly, the Car is set within the van. The great doors close.

  The van mov
es, slowly, bearing off the dead warrior, out through the gates, up the great avenue and past the eager crowds.

  To the great smelter. The Melting Pot!

  To the place where it will be melted down, then sent out, a piece used to grace the making of each new person.

  A cry of unanimous rejoicing arises on the avenue.

  It is enough, that I have seen all thisi Happily, I turn myself off.

  HORSEMAN!

  Horseman! was my second published story. As with the previous one (and within a few weeks of that sale), it was purchased by a lady I met only once—Cele Goldsmith, a charming person, whose taste I considered impeccable. She bought stories from a great number of now well-known writers at the beginnings of their careers—Ursula K. Le Guin, Piers Anthony, Thomas Disch ... Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures came into an autumn bloom in those final Ziff-Davis days.

  This story was suggested to me while driving south on Route 71 in Ohio, by a pre-storm cloud formation which resembled a group of horsemen.

  ^ When he was thunder in the hills the villagers lay dreaming harvest behind shutters. When he was an avaj| lanche of steel the cattle began to low, mournfully, II deeply, and children cried out in their sleep.He was an earthquake of hooves, his armor a dark tabletop of silver coins stolen from the night sky, when the villagers awakened with fragments of strange dreams in their heads. They rushed to the windows and flung their shutters wide.

  And he entered the narrow streets, and no man saw the eyes behind his visor.

  When he stopped so did time. There was no movement anywhere.

  —Neither was there sleep, nor yet full wakefulness from the last strange dreams of stars, of blood. ...

  Doors creaked on leather hinges. Oil lamps shivered, pulsated, then settled to a steady glowing.

  The mayor wore his nightshirt and a baggy, tossled cap. He held the lamp dangerously near his snowy whiskers, rotating a knuckle in his right eye.