In a soft and gracious voice, he asked the perfectly reasonable question about who she was and why the unknown piece allowed herself such liberty. The White Knight received a rather harsh and boorish answer. He was informed he was talking not with some chessman here, but with the Salt Cellar, and she, looking down on all their rules and concepts, would walk and stand where she wanted, how she wanted and when she wanted. But as it soon turned out, even this glaring vulgarity wasn’t yet the apotheosis of stupid rudeness, since next, the White Knight heard an obscene offer to follow a route that was not stipulated by any chess rules.

Not considering it possible and, most importantly, necessary to waste his time and energy on polite and useless conversations with every brazen figure, to argue or prove something, the White Knight moved to one of the squares occupied by the Salt Cellar, and painfully kicked her with a hoof. She didn’t expect the blow of such strength, immediately lost her balance and, rolling to the very edge of the board, fell into an unknown abyss, from which soon came a loud death ringing of broken glass.

“You can blame yourself for that,” the White Knight stated, shaking off the salt from the hat presented to him by the White King. Dog slid towards him, carefully burying its nose in his side, and the tired traveller dozed off, exhausted by the abundance of turns and impressions. He had a disturbing dream in which the Black pieces, in direct accordance with the expectations of all the alarmists, violated the accepted agreements, forgot about the truce conditions, moved their troops to the front line and, having taken a favourable position, advanced towards the Whites, without waiting until the White Knight triumphantly complete his tour. What a treachery! If the Whites had a little more time in reserve – they would certainly have done so first, and this would go down in history as a pre-emptive strike aimed at capturing the Black King in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. The White Knight hurried, wanting to deliver alarming news to the White King, and confirm all suspicions; but the chessboard was expanding infinitely, stretching its boundaries and moving away from his homeland farther and farther. And then, as out of nowhere, four eerie and ugly Horses appeared. They scattered to all four ends of the board, leaving behind only faded squares and destroyed pieces, making no difference for either the Blacks or the Whites.

With the persistent feeling of quiet horror in the first moments after his awakening, the White Knight discovered that Dog was excited, and they had an uninvited guest in the face of the Black Knight, who had inexplicably appeared on the next square.

Fearing that the creepy dream was somehow beginning to come true, the White Knight examined the stranger. They stood one opposite the other, evaluating the opponent and waiting for further development: the White Knight – on the black square and the Black Knight – on the white square. For a long time, both remained silent until, finally, the White Knight took the initiative, welcoming his recent enemy, whom he first met not on the battlefield, but in the field of peaceful actions. After all, the official truce persisted. Oddly enough, but this seemingly formal and non-binding gesture somehow relieved the situation, allowing both Knights to take a breath and, after exchanging standard greetings, they moved on to small talk.

Consciously avoiding acute political topics and not addressing the current troops number, the strategic location of the Kings and other inappropriate matters, they told different stories, talked about the weather and reduced the pressure in every possible way. Without forgetting to adhere to a certain line, they switched to a more confidential tone. The White Knight said that he came from the dark square “g1”, which was particularly wonderful at this time of the year, and repeated his cover story, stating the peaceful purposes of his travel. Based on the Black Knight’s responses, it was safe to conclude that he had received approximately similar orders from his command and also made a tour around the playing board with a certain purpose.

Understanding everything perfectly, but pretending they understood nothing due to the game conventions, the interlocutors expressed mutual surprise at such a sweet and unexpected meeting of two peaceful and harmless travellers. At some point, the Black Knight even made a surprising move, offering to keep the White Knight company in his difficult journey, but he, in turn, refused courteously, but firmly, attributing to his love of solitude, which only his faithful Dog was allowed to violate.

In fact, the Black Knight didn’t seem like a bad guy. Yes, they both understood quite well that they were on opposite sides of the barricades despite this precarious short-lived truce: too many moves were made, too many pieces were taken, too many games were played to forget everything and start with a clean slate. Moreover, it was obvious that you had no future if you didn’t honour the past. But at the same time, despite the colour difference and the choice of opposite sides, the Black Knight and the White Knight understood each other better than draughtsmen, for example. The matters of loyalty to the oath and crown were close to both of them. Moreover, in a sense, this stranger understood the White Knight even better than his fellow pieces, since they both jumped over obstacles, following an “L” pattern in their movement. Therefore, to the end of this long turn, they sang marching songs together, raised toasts for the health of both Kings and commemorated all those who had been taken from their common two-colour board, no matter whether it was a Black piece or White. They expressed hope that fallen heroes still played on other boards, where no one needed to fear the check or checkmate, there were no Kings, no Pawns, no colours, no squares, no winners or losers.

Somewhere in the distance, old houses of cards were falling. Someone was dicing with death, and small cubes were rolling on the playing graveyard with a distant rumble. But nothing could interrupt their good toasts and cheerful songs of the two lonely pieces who had met in the middle of the board.

The Black Knight spoke frankly about how tired he was because of all these endless wars and endless chess problems that the constantly lying authorities were in no hurry to solve, demonstrating incompetence for which they deserved to be demoted. He was also annoyed by rumours, of which supporters of the “Queen’s plot” spread. According to them, the Whites were preparing to create eight queens from the pawns right away and to place them on the game board so that no two queens threatened each other and could control the entire field.

Then the Black Knight continued the conversation, talking about his family affairs, in particular – about the cute little pawn, who had been born recently. His offspring wanted to follow his footsteps, but he would like to give her a proper education enough to be promoted to Queen in the future. However, finances were limited, so the Black Knight chose for her between the Rook or the Bishop career.

Anyway, on the next turn, two Knights parted, preserving good memories of each other. They had no illusions and understood that, despite mutual respect and the absence of any reasons for personal hostility, the game could bring them together in a battle and then, most likely, one of them would honourably fall at the hands of the other. This proposition seemed quite sad, but they shared one thought – maybe they would be lucky enough to survive.

In any case, the White Knight remained loyal to the White Kingdom, believing that, right or wrong, it was still his Motherland, great and dear…

…Having already overcome most of his planned route, he hung over the map, checked the guiding compass and noted road observations in his shabby travel diary, when quite unexpectedly, he saw the familiar White Man. To be precise, he was no longer the Man, but one of the draughts White kings.

Now, he seemed prideful and was on his high horse, speaking figuratively, rushing off in a luxurious white carriage. He didn’t dignify the old acquaintance with a look, not to mention a small nod or a usual greeting. He disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared, riding to the end of the playing board in a twinkle of an eye, and left the White Knight in slight bewilderment. Perhaps he was just in a hurry, and so he didn’t even notice him? Or maybe he did, but didn’t have time to nod? It was unlikely. But what was the possible explanation? Had the White Knight changed a lot in his journey, and the draught piece just didn’t recognize him? Or maybe, it was not him who had changed drastically..?

What had happened with this nice fellow, who had praised the ideals of partnership and unity? Was the same Man towered now above his brothers-in-arms, revelling in the feeling of superiority? Where were his beliefs, perhaps naïve, but still kind, nice and respectable? Apparently, they remained in the chronicles of past moves only.

The sugar ran up, gently pushing the White Knight to cheer him up at least slightly. The traveller gave up his attempt to understand and said to himself, “Alright. Let’s forget about it.” But he couldn’t just forget. In any case, not right away, in the same turn.

Making his way through the jungle of multi-coloured squares, files and ranks, he no longer had in himself a hundredth of the former excitement since he had experienced too much. He was tired – not only physically but also mentally. And the White Knight’s thoughts kept returning to his native side and his countrymen. Some of them were captured en passant, some participated in the castling, some walked stubbornly to the edge. Well, fate had scattered chessmen across the board.

He tried to entertain himself with thoughts about how he would return and tell everyone what he had seen during his difficult, long and dangerous journey: about the green nightingale’s wondrous singing, about the arrogant and rude Salt Cellar, about an interesting and worthy opponent he had met in the face of the Black Knight and about the unpleasant metamorphosis that had happened with the once honest and bold White Man. He imagined how he would introduce Dog to everyone and retire, starting to write memoirs based on his travel notes, where he would tell future generations about the structure of the universe, transferring to them the invaluable experience of his trip around the board…

A familiar buzz interrupted the White Knights’ path again. Having circled above, the nightingale landed before him on the board and froze, rubbing its front feet, as if it was expecting something.

“And you are all the same – vile, disgusting and smelly. I don’t know who you are or what you are, but now it seems to me, nightingales don’t smell like that, don’t sing and don’t fly like that,” the traveller said grimly. He had noticeably matured, become stronger and wiser after his tiresome wanderings through chess rivers and lakes, chess seas, mountains and jungles, chess deserts, cities and villages. He wasn’t the same young and naïve romantic as he had been at the very beginning of the journey, many moves ago. Perhaps he lost not only sentimentality but also his enthusiasm. But at the same time, unnecessary thoughts and unreasonable unrest had decreased. Maybe another piece in his place would have committed suicide long ago, jumping from the edge of the board into the unknown, but the White Knight wasn’t this kind of chessman. He was used to seeing everything through till the end, – of course, if he was sure this made any sense, and nothing objectively deprived him of such an opportunity.

Actually, he wanted to go home more than anything else: no honours, no awards, no titles, he just wished to gallop against the wind, inhale the air of freedom, and graze grass in his native dark square “g1.” But that was still ahead: he left behind most of the path, but the tour itself wasn’t completed yet.

A sharp clap brought the White Knight out of stupor. In the blink of an eye, something huge descended from heaven and fell upon the “green nightingale” (whatever this creature truly was), leaving some kind of flattened vile substance in its place.

Peering at the remains of the so-called nightingale, in which false sweet voice he had naively believed once, the White Knight sighed and put his hat over his eyes. The royal gift had now become worn, but it was the last thing that remained dear to him. With the death of the pale-winged creature, he felt as if a part of himself had also perished – maybe it wasn’t his best part, but its loss still left a void inside.

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.