Black Unicorn (Dragonflight) (13 page)

In the gathering dark, therefore, she could not see the unicorn well, the gleam of an eye, the mask of ebony—

"Unicorn," said Tanaquil. That was all she could say.

The fierce head flung up. The stars on the horizon threw diamonds to the seashell of the horn. It burst alight like white fires. It wheeled and the sky toppled. What had happened? Had she been impaled? Without terror, Tanaquil tried to understand. For the moon-fire horn had touched her forehead, for half a second, the needle tip, gentle as snow.

"Hey," said the peeve, "good, nice." And it lifted its face.

And the burning sword of the horn went over Tanaquil's shoulder as the unicorn put down its head. Black velvet, the tongue came from its mouth. It licked the peeve, quickly, thoroughly, roughly, once, from head to tail.

The scent of the unicorn's breath was like water, and like light. Of course.

Tanaquil and the peeve hung on the hill in space, breathing, as if lost, and found. And the black unicorn jumped aside and flew up the slope behind the shaft of light, and at the top leapt out, out into the air, and the last of the green sky. Became a star. Was gone. The final vanishment.

"That was goodbye," said Tanaquil.

"Mrrr," said the peeve. It fell suddenly asleep.

And, alone responsible, Tanaquil resumed their retreat from Heaven.

During the night of the perfect world, two moons rose in the east together. One was a golden moon at full, the other a slim, bluish crescent. Their radiance was sheer, and with the stars the landscape showed bright as day.

And the stars came in constellations. And they formed images, not as they were said to do in Tanaquil's world, but exactly. First a woman, drawn from east to west as if in zircons and beryls, holding a balance. And as she went over and began to sink, a chariot rose in quartz and opals. It had no horses in the shafts. No shafts. For each hour, it seemed to Tanaquil as she walked, another constellation came into the sky. After the chariot, a lion, and after the lion, two dolphins, a tree, a bird, a crowned man, a snake that crossed the sky like a river of silver fires.

"You see," Tanaquil muttered, as each came up, "how could we manage
here
?"

The moons and the stars showed her the burnt grass, the blackened flowers. Never had any path been made so easy.

Under the cool-warm lamps of the night, panthers gamboled on the shore of the lake. In the forest foxes upbraided her. Would she have shed tears if it had been possible? Surely she would have been angry.

She came at last back to the orchards above the sea. In the moonlight, under the sinking starry hand of the king, the line of water was like mercury. The star serpent coiled over the orchards, and their song went on by night as by day.

Tanaquil walked through the orchards, and came under one silent tree. She had expected this. It was the tree where she had touched the apple.

The peeve woke. It interrogated the apple tree.

"No insect."

"No insect. My fault."

They walked from the orchards through the flowers. Like blackened bones, the snapped stalks where they had trodden before.

They reached the shore. She was not fatigued. Fast and grim, the egg of darkness hung on the light-rinsed sky. The Gate. Theirs.

Tanaquil gazed across the land of trees and flowers and beauty.

"Forgive me."

The peeve shook itself. Its ears went up in points and its whiskers flickered at her cheek.

"Insect."

A weird motion was on the ground. The flowers were rising up again, the black husks crumbling from them. Like a fire along the earth the healing ran up from the shore and away across the plain. She could not hear the silent apple tree begin to sing, but the sharp ears of the peeve had caught it.

A response to apology? Because she was removing them from the world and, like some unbearable weight, as they were taken from it, it might breathe again?

Tanaquil did not know. A pang of ordinary rage went through her. Was it their fault that they had been polluted by being made second best?

"Hold tight!"

She ran into the sea and the mercury water splashed up; nearing the dark Gate she catapulted herself into the air and dived forward. The peeve clawed her shoulder. There was a different sort of night, and perfection was gone for good.

12

Outside, it was daylight. Imperfect daylight that glared, and ripped blinding slashes in the sea. The sea was also darkly in the arch under the cliff, piled up somehow, though the tide elsewhere had drawn away.

Tanaquil, up to her knees in harsh salt water, ploughed to the arch mouth and let the peeve jump free onto the dry beach.

She spared one look for her world. She was not ready for it yet. But there were things to be done.

She tried to feel nothing, though all the normal feelings—anger, dismay, grief, disbelief, mere muddle—were swarming in on her. She stood in the tide pool before the shimmer, the glowing oval, so like an invitation—as the Gate on the other side was a warning—and, thrusting in her arms up to the elbow, like a furious washerwoman, she pulled the Gate apart.

She tore it in pieces and cast the pieces adrift. And as she did so the light of the Gate crinkled and went out, and only smears of luminescence like the trails of sorcerous snails, remained.

Tanaquil sensed two tears on her face, and blinked them off into the salty sea.

She kneeled in the water and fumbled at the base of the cliff. The fossil came to her hand. She wrenched it out. And standing up again, sopping wet, she beheld all the sheen of the Gate was gone. She could see through to the far side of the cliff, the glare of the sun, and the barrenness of the sand.

"I'll do it properly," she said.

She pushed out of the arch and sneered at the cliff top.

Tanaquil had known no tiredness in the other world. Now she was worn out, as if she had gone days and nights without rest. Nevertheless, she must scramble up the slippery rock and get the second fossil out. There must be no chance again that anyone might enter Paradise. Or anything wander out of it.

She climbed the cliff. It was murderous. She hated it and told it so.

The glaring sun, which burnt you if it could, had risen further toward noon when she achieved the top. She lay there, put her hand on the second fossil, and prized it loose. With both of them, the primal keys to the Gate of the unicorn, in her fist, she fell asleep facedown on the rock.

Boom,
went the surf,
accept our offering.

Boom. Give over your rage at us.

"Stupid," said Tanaquil, in her sleep, "I'll never forgive any of you."

Oh Sacred Beast, trouble us no more.

"It won't, it won't."

The stone of the cliff top was hot, and Tanaquil was roasting. She shifted, and saw what went on, on the beach below. She had seen something like this before. A congregation of people very overdressed and in too many ornaments; horses and chariots up on the road among the palms; soldiers in golden mail. There was a sort of chorus of women in white dresses, waving tambourines and moaning. And quite near, a girl, with very black hair and a collar of rubies, was poised by the sea and throwing garlands on to it. The flowers were roses, and would die. "Stop it; what a waste," mumbled Tanaquil.

"Trouble us no more. We regret any hurt or insult," cried the girl to the sea, and to the arch mouth. She tossed the last garland proudly, and came on toward the cliff. No one kept up with her. She hesitated by the limb of the arch and said quietly, "May God protect us from the horn of the unicorn. And may God watch for the safety of my father, the Prince Zorander. And for my lost friend and sister, Tanaquil, carried off by demons."

"Lizra," Tanaquil called softly, "Don't jump. I'm alive. I'm up here."

Lizra raised her head. She was white and blank, like paper without writing. What would be written in?

"It was a demon of my mother's," said Tanaquil. "It saved me from Gasb and brought me here. The unicorn's gone now. But I thought it—I mean, the Prince is well, is he?"

There was still no writing on Lizra's face.

"Yes, my father the Prince is well. Are you, Tanaquil?"

"Definitely. And this is the wreckage of your dress. What can I say? I've got a lot to tell you."

"We came to placate the unicorn," said Lizra, like a sleepwalker.

"Well, as I said, it's gone. Back through the Sacred Gate."

"If that's true, my father will rejoice."

"I'll bet. By the way, if you want proof of me, look down there."

Lizra turned. The peeve was snorting and sneezing its exit from a burrow in the sand. Catching sight of Lizra, it pounced forward. Lizra dropped to her knees and embraced it. The peeve seemed startled but not offended; it licked Lizra's cheek.

Tanaquil had moved her attention to the crowd on the beach. The courtiers only stood there, glittering and gaping. But among the chariots on the road there was a flurry of unpromising movement.

Lizra got up. "Gasb's here. Father sent him with the escort."

"Lovely," said Tanaquil.

Men were running, gleaming military gold, from the road. The sun described faultlessly spears, lances, crossbows, and swords. And Gasb, who strode after in a hawk hat.

Over the sand, like memory, she heard his ghastly voice.

"The witch has returned. She haunts the Gate of the Beast! Did the fishermen not tell us weird fires have burned in the Gate for the past three nights, and that they avoided it in fear?"

Three nights,
Tanaquil thought, bemusedly.
I was only gone a day.

She sat up, on the cliff. Something said to her,
Stay flat.
But even now she did not quite credit the weapons. In front of all these people, would Gasb openly kill her? He might.

"The unicorn is—" shouted Tanaquil—

"Don't let her speak a spell!" screeched Gasb. "Silence her!"

And suddenly, as simply as that, Tanaquil beheld the spear that was to be her death arcing toward her through the sunlight. For to a practiced spearman, the distance up the rock was nothing. And she, sitting against the sky, made an excellent target. It was as though she had reasoned all this before and helped them, helped the man and the spear. She saw it come, soaring up, as if rushed by a cord to her heart. She saw it, and imagined swerving sideways, but although the spear came slowly, she moved more slowly still. And in the last instant the point of the spear was there before her, and it blinded her with light.

So she did not see, only heard, a kind of splintering sizzle. She had an impression of fireworks and bits of wood. The courtiers on the beach were screaming.

Then she saw again. The spear, in shreds, was tumbling down the cliff. People who seemed to have recalled an urgent appointment were hurrying toward the road, falling in the sand, and tottering on again.

The spear must have hit something, some obstacle, just before it reached her.

Gasb had backed away. His hat fluttered. He threatened the soldiers, but they only stood there under the cliff goggling at the fallen spear and at Tanaquil. The man who had made the spearcast was gabbling nonsensically. In the middle of this, the peeve pelted from the cliff base and bit him on the leg, right through his boot. The soldier howled and, perhaps instinctively, kicked viciously with the bitten leg at the peeve.

Tanaquil was a witness now. The kicking foot, rather than striking the peeve, met something in the air. It was invisible, but effective. The soldier was dashed away, as if he had been lifted and thrown by an adversary of great strength. He landed in the sand thirty feet from the peeve, with a terrific thump, and did not move.

The peeve spruced itself. It did not bother with questions, merely watched in apparent glee as the other soldiers sprinted off up the beach and plummeted into the chariots, while streams of courtiers ran by them toward the city, wailing and tripping.

Only Gasb was left. He held up his hands, warding off Tanaquil and her power.

"Mighty sorceress, don't harm me, be kind—" And as her vanquishing blow did not smite him, Gasb too turned tail and bolted for the chariots, and as before when he had run away, his hat flew off and dropped to the ground, glad to be rid of him.

"The unicorn," said Tanaquil. Because she was seated, she got up. Not sure what to do, she started to climb down the cliff. As she climbed, she listened to the pandemonium on the road, the rattle of departing chariots.

At the bottom of the cliff, Lizra stood with the peeve. She was still white above the rubies; maybe they made her look worse. If anything was written on her face, it was a strange worried smugness.

"You
are
a witch. I said."

"The unicorn touched me. It touched the peeve. I suppose—"

"The unicorn touched Father," said Lizra. "It raked him across the chest with its horn, when it stole the shells from his cloak. He'll always have the scar." It was her public voice.

"Lizra, I'm sorry, I didn't intend to frighten you. I didn't know it would happen. I mean, it's extraordinary."

"You're invulnerable," said Lizra. She bowed. "Great sorceress." It was not a joke.

"Bow to the peeve, as well," grated Tanaquil. "This is too much. I've seen something wonderful that didn't want me—that none of us can have. Friend and sister, you said."

"Everything's changed," said Lizra. She had ceased being a princess. She was small and bleak, a frost child. "And you."

"I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all."

Lizra grew a little. Then she was fifteen again. She said, "I'll have to show you. Anyway, you can't go on in that dress."

"What would you suggest instead?"

"The soldier's shortish, and thin. His mail would fit you. Anyway, he's all that's available."

They went over to the fallen soldier. He had come down on his back. His mouth was open and he grunted vaguely. The peeve's toothmarks showed in his boot.

Tanaquil took off his boots and tried them. They were too large, but would do.

While the man lay unconscious they removed his mail, and left him in neat undergarments embroidered by some doting hand. Tanaquil draped the remains of her dress and petticoat over him to shield him from the sun until he woke.

"Keep the topazes," said Lizra. And Tanaquil, hearing the words, heard behind them another phrase: A parting gift. She thought of the unicorn.
That's goodbye.

Angrily, she let Lizra help her dress in the mail. She bundled her witch-red hair up into the big helmet.

"Now what?"

"They've left my horses and chariot. How deliriously kind of them. Last time, on the platform, they ran off with those, too."

They walked along the beach. The waves splashed on the shore, hard and bright. The peeve slunk to them, and drew away.

"What happened after my mother's demon came for me?" said Tanaquil.

"Gasb and the soldiers turned somersaults and fled into the palace. I went to my father. I thought the unicorn had killed him."

"It hadn't."

"Only taken the shells and left the scar." Tanaquil held the fossils more tightly in her fist. She had not shown them, she had never let go. What the unicorn had given her was stupendous. She could not accept it as yet; probably there was some mistake. She wanted an ordinary memento. "My father needs me now," said Lizra.

That's goodbye.

"And you still feel vast loyalty to him, do you?" said Tanaquil, acidly.

"He's my father."

"Oh, has he remembered?"

"Yes," said Lizra.

It was the chariot from the avenue, painted and gilded but today without any flowers. The small white horses perched in the shafts, alert, unpanicked. The two girls got in, followed by the peeve, and Lizra drew up the reins. "Gallop." And off they went, back along the beach road toward Zorander's city.

Remember the sand castle. Where is it now?

"Why are we going to the city?" asked Tanaquil.

"Because the palace is there, and I want you to see."

"What?"

"I want to show you, not tell you. That's why we're going."

The hot mail was uncomfortable; it itched. Had the soldier had fleas? Abruptly Tanaquil felt pity for him. It was not his fault he had been driven to cast the spear.

They did not return into the city by the entrance they had used before. Driving the chariot up into some groves above the beach, Lizra brought them to the city wall and a large gateway with large stone lions at either side. Here there was a fuss, and they were provided an escort. "Only this one lad stayed with you, ma'am? I never heard the like. Frightened by a beggar girl on the beach! I never did."

The city did not seem altered. There was the old noise and activity, the masses of people going about, the elegant shops and exotic market. Then, as they turned into the street of octopuses and camels, topped by the fifteen-story palace of the Prince, they were forced to a halt.

A crowd milled over the avenue, and had gone up the lantern poles. In the middle of the roadway, a chariot lay spilled. Its horses were visible inside the crowd, thieved, being led off to new lives.

"Clear the way!" thundered the escort's captain.