Ascendant (42 page)

As my exploration of the woods continued, I found two more corpses in various states of decomposition and three more unicorns, each of which vanished as soon as I came close, each of which sported tails gnawed to nothing and open wounds as if they’d been fighting.

At last I reached the center of the enclosure, the roots of the large tree that had once been the den for Fats and Angel. I closed my eyes and stretched out my senses. Ten little pinpricks of light, ten lives of hunger, terror, boredom, and desperation. And beneath all those emotions, something else, something that grated against my senses like the wrongness of rotting meat. Lunacy. These unicorns weren’t just withering away in here. They were going mad.

This couldn’t continue. The Remedy was a fraud, and so was this experiment in einhorn captivity. Perhaps at some point, it had been worth it to sacrifice these animals for the good of mankind, but not anymore.

But what should I do? I could kill them all, right this moment, put them out of their misery. They were all sick, weak, violent. They might not survive even if I did set them free. They’d certainly be a danger to the people of the surrounding countryside. I could hunt them down, slaughter every last one by morning.

I tipped my face skyward, tasting the spring breeze and the traces of unicorn on the wind.

Cognosce te ipsum
. Know thyself.

I
could
kill them all. But I wouldn’t.

I returned to the fence line and waved to René. “You were right,” I said when he came over. “I’ll help you.”

We made our plans through the fence. René brought over another man: short, with a scarred leather jacket and an equally pockmarked face. Not that I was one to talk.

I remembered him from before. He was the one who’d warned René not to talk to me. He seemed no less suspicious now. Though he introduced himself as Thierry, his habit of not meeting my eyes made me doubt the claim. They explained their plans to me, passed them through the holes in the fence in little rolled-up bundles of paper. I read each plan with the benefit of unicorn magic and flashlight glow.

And then I laughed.

I rolled the pages up again and shoved them back into the links. “This one,” I said, punching it through, “will get you all killed by the unicorns.” I punched at the second. “Killed by the unicorns.” The third. “And, oh yes, killed by the unicorns.”

They stared at the crumpled plans.

“You say you’ve been watching them.” I crossed my arms. “Haven’t you seen how vicious they are? You can’t just let them roam freely around the countryside. The first thing they’ll do is eat everyone in your camp. This fence isn’t here for
their
protection.”

“What do you recommend?” René asked.

“Me, of course. That’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”

“We came to you for help breaking into the fence.”

They most certainly did not. A tractor could accomplish that. “You’ll need a lot more than that if you expect to survive this little endeavor.”

“We have people who have dealt with wild animals before.” Thierry shook his head. “We’ve always managed in the past.”

I stood in silence for several seconds, and then I said, “I will not assist you until I can be sure that doing so will in no way harm the people in your camp, on this property, or in the surrounding countryside. I’m a unicorn hunter, which means it’s my job to protect people from unicorns, in whatever way is necessary.”

Thierry narrowed his eyes. René looked increasingly nervous. I stood my ground.

“I believe,” René said at last, “that Astrid knows what she is talking about in this matter.”

“We’re not going to have her release the unicorns only to shoot them dead.”

“And I’ll shoot them dead in a flash if I have the slightest inkling they’ll cause trouble once they’re free.” My voice was even, my expression mild, but my very presence was scary enough to let Thierry know I was serious. One nice thing about having brain damage, people are inclined to believe you might fly off the handle at any moment. And I came armed.

“We appreciate your concern for us,” René began.

“It’s not just concern for you,” I said. “If you do this, you must promise that no harm will come to anyone in the château, either.”

René blinked. Thierry twitched. And in the throes of unicorn magic, I noticed everything.

“The unicorns are freed,” I said. “Gordian is untouched. And the second I think a unicorn might become a danger to us, I kill it. Those are the terms.”

After a long hesitation, Thierry nodded curtly.

“Now,” I said, “the difficult part. What can we do with the einhorns after we free them?”

By morning, when the Gordian technicians came to retrieve me from the enclosure, we’d hammered out a strategy and my partners in crime had returned to their tents. Another nice thing about having brain damage is people don’t think much of you. So when I goofily batted at the hand of the technician working the lockbox and pretended not to understand a word of his French, he merely rolled his eyes at me and entered it again, muttering the code to himself.

Step one.

When Isabeau asked me if I’d made a decision, I said I was still torn. And then I told her the truth—or most of the truth. Another nice thing about brain damage is that no one expects you to lie. I told her that Brandt had come to me last night, but I didn’t tell her that he’d shared the secret of the Remedy. Instead, I’d focused on his romantic aspirations. I told her that I’d gone out to be with the unicorns, and had been horrified by the state I’d found them in. I asked her why, if they were no longer in need of the einhorns to make the Remedy, they needed to keep the animals, and if the change in their condition had anything to do with a shift in treatment now that they were no longer a priority.

In other words, I gave her one last chance. Isn’t that what I owed her, after everything she’d done for me? She’d given me a home, an education, beautiful clothes, a real chance at a future. She’d given me more affection than my own mother, and taught me that there was an actual place for my magic.

And, with that knowledge, I’d realized that my only choice was to save the einhorns. To betray her.

Isabeau reacted about as I’d expected. She blew up at Brandt, then sent him away. (Step two.) Then she pretended to be shocked and appalled that the unicorns were doing so poorly. Then she apologized profusely for both situations, and started explaining to me what kind of new experiments they were using the unicorns for. Just because the Remedy was a bust didn’t mean the rejuvenation ability of the unicorns couldn’t supply the company with a major scientific breakthrough. Isabeau even took me down to the lab again to show me some of their most recent data.

Step three.

It was actually pretty interesting. Too bad it was over. I couldn’t countenance the suffering of the einhorns for anti-aging cream. Saving human lives was one thing, cosmetology another.

Later, when Isabeau was occupied, I packed a change of clothes, my money, and my valuable documents in a backpack, and hid both backpack and sword case out near the enclosure. Yet another nice thing about having brain damage is that when your boss’s secretary sees you wandering through your house with your luggage and asks if you’re going somewhere, you can just act disoriented and say something nonsensical like, “I’m having a picnic, want to come?” and they write you off.

I
do
want to get better, but at the same time, I don’t think I mind people assuming I’m dumb.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait. I’d been a unicorn hunter for a year. I’d spent nights in tree stands, days staking out a field, weeks trapped in a monastery with only my bow, arrow, and target range for company. I’d spent hours upon hours alone in a forest, stretching out my senses for the slightest trace of a monster.

I was really good at waiting.

T
hat night, I waited for a text message from René that everything was in place. Then I entered the einhorn enclosure using the keypad and deactivated the electric boundary. Unfortunately, that was the easy part.

Five minutes of sitting on the ground, meditating and projecting soothing and attractive thoughts toward the unicorns achieved nothing. Not a single one approached me from the woods, and my vision of leading them, Pied Piperlike, in a single-file line toward freedom began to evaporate into the moonless night.

Where were the unicorns that had once circled me in submission? Had I lost their trust when I left them here alone to kill one another? Were they beyond reaching?

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to identify each animal in the woods, to pinpoint their minds like the blinking lights on their collars had so recently marked out their locations. Ten little unicorns, scared as could be. Ten little unicorns, scared … of me.

Once upon a time, I’d been able to make them do as I willed, merely by thinking it. When I met Wen at the Cloisters, I learned that her control of Flayer worked on a similar principle. Their bond was so great that he knew exactly how she wanted him to behave and obeyed.

The re’em could read our thoughts, as the one who’d almost killed me had. These einhorns could read mine if I wanted them to. And if I wanted them to do something badly enough, I could place the compulsion right into their minds. I could make them come to me.

I took a deep breath and called to them. I showed them freedom, and mercy, and endless open ranges. Safety and surcease of pain. Nights without chemical sleep, days without the madness of captivity.

Come to me
.

Ah, here they were, drawing near at last. My hand tightened on the hilt of my knife.

Ten little, nine little, eight little unicorns …

These were okay. Fats, and Breaker, and a juvenile female I vaguely remembered. They were terrified, but I sensed no violence from them.

Seven little, six little, five little unicorns …

Not so with these new ones. Stretch was there, and the thread of his thoughts made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What had happened to my playful friend, the one I’d saved from death? He watched me warily, but with eyes that gleamed with bloodlust. I caught my breath. I did not want to kill Stretch, no matter what he’d become. But if he was too dangerous, too far gone … I couldn’t risk it.

The other two were with Stretch. They waited for him to make a move. Little thugs, both of them, but if I took Stretch out, then they’d fall in line.

Four little, three little, two little unicorns …

More einhorns on the edge of madness. Some of these had killed others, eaten others. Fats and the little girl shied away. I clenched my teeth and concentrated harder. Soothing thoughts, warning ones, containing ones above all.
Just stay here and stay still…
.

One little unicorn boy
.

There he was, the last of the einhorns. The angry one. The one who had spread his poison of rage through the others. It was Gordian who was to blame for his captive lunacy, but that didn’t change the facts. A junkyard dog was mean because of the abuse and neglect it had suffered, but it still needed to be put down.

Stay still
, I thought to the unicorns as I hurled my knife through the angry one’s eye.

He crumpled to the ground, and the seething pulsation of his thoughts vanished with a pop. The unicorns stood frozen, some crouched in fear, prepared for flight.

Stay
.

Run run fly run escape charge run run run dart jump no death run
.

Stay. Calm. Done
.

And in my mind, I saw Bucephalus killing the head of the rogue kirin. I’d culled the mad unicorn from this pack. I hoped it would be enough.

Another few heartbeats as I retrieved my knife and wiped it off on the grass. The unicorns waited for me.

Okay. Come. Calm
.

One by one I led them through the double gates of the fence. They jostled together, snuffling and grunting—one even squealing when another jabbed it in the butt with its horn.

Calm. Slow
.

Simple emotions worked best with the einhorns. They didn’t have the communication ability of, say, Bucephalus. I led them around the side of the enclosure, skirting close to the fence though there was little point in trying to hide; their white coats stood out like beacons in the night. We went past the remains of the campsite—most of the protesters had quietly packed up and left—and onto the public lands, where Thierry and René were supposed to be waiting with the truck.

But when I arrived, nine little unicorns in thrall and in tow, only Thierry stood there, his face set in grim lines.

“Where is René?” I asked.

“Detained.” Curtly. “Keep them back while I open the hatch.”

I hesitated. “What happened to him?” Where would René be detained at this late date? He’d been the one to text me only a few minutes ago. Hadn’t he?