The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (72 page)

He paused. “Then suddenly there was movement in the pine—just a shadow of something, nothing more than that. I remember thinking that my eyes were playing tricks on me yet another time. I was going to say something to Dain; he was working just off to my left. But I held my tongue—too tired, maybe, to want to say anything. I just sort of stopped what I was doing there in the brush and the heat and I watched the place of the movement to see if there was going to be any more.”

He took a deep breath, and his jaw tightened down. “There was this darkening of the little sunlight that remained then—as if clouds had screened it away for a moment. I remember how it felt. The air was all hot and still; the wind had died down into nothing. I was looking, and the brush came apart and there it was—the unicorn, all black and fluid like water. It seemed so tiny. It stood there staring at me—I don’t know how long. I could see the goat’s feet, the lion’s tail, the mane that ran down its neck and back, the fetlocks, that ridged horn. It was just as the old stories described it—but more beautiful than they could ever make it. Sweet mother, it was glorious! The others saw it, too, a few of them anyway. Dain caught a glimpse; another two said they
saw it close up. But not as close as me, Lord! No, I was right next to it, it seemed! I was right there!

“Then it bolted. No, not bolted—it didn’t flee like that. It bounded up and seemed to fly right past me; all that motion and grace, like the shadow of some bird in flight cast down on the earth by the sun passing. It came by me in the blink of an eye
—whisk!—
and it was gone. I stood there looking after it, wondering if I’d really seen it, knowing I had, thinking how marvelous it was to view, thinking it truly was real …”

He choked on the words as they tumbled out one after the other, released from his throat in a rush of strange emotion. His hands were raised before him, knotting with the intensity of the telling of his story. Ben quit breathing momentarily, awed by what he was seeing, not wanting to break the spell.

The hunter’s eyes lowered then, and the hands followed. “I heard later that it flew right into the teeth of the chase. I heard it went past the whole mess of them like wind through a forest of rooted trees. Dozens saw it. There was a chance to hold it, maybe—but I kind of wonder. It came right over the nets. There was a chase, but … but you know what?” The eyes lifted again. “The unicorn came right up against the Lords of the Greensward and the King’s men—right up against them, sweet mother! And the wizard—the very one that organized all this—conjured up some nonsense and it rained flowers and butterflies all over everything. The chase broke up in the confusion, and the unicorn was gone before you could spit!” He smiled suddenly. “Flowers and butterflies—can you imagine that?”

Ben smiled with him. He could.

The hunter drew up his knees then and hugged them. The smile disappeared. “That was it, then. That was all she wrote. The hunt was done. Everyone sort of broke up and went away after that. There was some talk of continuing, of taking the whole line back east again, but it never came to anything. No one wanted any part of that. It was like the heart had gone out of the chase. It was like everyone was glad the unicorn got away. Or maybe it was just that no one thought it could ever be caught anyway.”

The hard eyes lifted. “Strange times we live in. The King sacked the wizard and the dog, I hear. Threw them out the minute he heard what had happened. Just dismissed them out of hand for what the wizard had done—or what he thought he’d done. I don’t think the wizard could have done much one way or the other anyway. Not with that creature, not with it. No one could have. It was too much a ghost for anything mortal, too much a dream …”

There were sudden tears in the hunter’s eyes. “I think I touched it, you know, when it went past me. I think I touched it. Sweet mother, I can still feel the silk of its skin brushing me, like fire, like … a woman’s touch, maybe. I had a woman touch me once that way, long ago. The unicorn felt like that. Now I can’t forget it. I try to think of other things, try to be reasonable about
the fact of it having happened at all, but the sense of it stays with me.” He tightened his face against what he was feeling. “I been looking for it on my own since I left, thinking maybe one man could have better luck than a whole hunting party. I don’t want to catch it exactly; I don’t think I could. I just want to see it again. I just want to maybe touch it one more time—just once, just for a moment …”

He trailed off again. The campfire sparked suddenly in the stillness, a sharp crackling. No one moved. Darkness had settled down across the valley, and the last daylight had dropped from view. Stars and moons had appeared, their light faint and distant, their colors muted. Ben glanced down at Edgewood Dirk. The cat had his eyes closed.

“I just want to touch it once more,” the hunter repeated softly. “Just for a moment.”

He stared vacantly at Ben. The ghost of who and what he had been was swallowed in the silence that followed.

T
hat same night Willow dreamed again of the black unicorn. She slept huddled close to the faithful Parsnip in a gathering of pine at the edge of the Deep Fell, concealed within a covering of boughs and shadows. Her journey north from Elderew was five days gone. She was now only hours ahead of Ben Holiday. The hunt for the black unicorn had delayed her for almost a day as it swept the hill country west of the Greensward and turned her east. She had no idea what the hunt was about. She had no idea that Ben was searching for her.

The dream came at midnight, stealing into her sleep like a mother to her slumbering child’s room, a presence that was warm and comforting. There was no fear this time, only sadness. Willow moved through forest trees and grassland spaces, and the black unicorn watched, as if a ghost come from some nether region to trail the living. It appeared and faded like sunshine from behind a cloud, now in the shade of a massive old maple, now in the lea of a copse of fir. It was never all visible, but only in part. It was black and featureless save for its eyes—and its eyes were a mirror of all the sadness that ever was and would ever be.

The eyes made Willow cry, and her tears stained her cheeks as she slept. The eyes were troubled, filled with pain she could only imagine, haunted beyond anything she had believed possible. The black unicorn of this dream was no demon spawn; it was a delicate, wondrous creature that somehow had been terribly misused …

She came awake with a start, the image of the unicorn clearly etched in her mind, its eyes fixed and staring. Parsnip slept next to her, undisturbed. Dawn was still hours away, and she shivered with the night’s chill. Her slim
body trembled at the whisper of the dream’s words in her memory, and she felt the magic of their presence in her fairy way.

This dream was real, she realized suddenly. This dream was the truth.

She straightened back against the pine’s roughened trunk, swallowed the dryness in her throat, and forced herself to consider what the dream had shown her. Something required it—the eyes of the unicorn, perhaps. They sought something from her. It was no longer enough to think simply of retrieving the golden bridle and carrying it to Ben. That was the command of her first dream, the dream that had brought her on this quest—but the truth of that dream was now in doubt. The unicorn of that dream was entirely different than the unicorn of this. One was demon, the other victim. One was pursuer, the other … hunted? She thought perhaps so. There was a need for help in the unicorn’s eyes. It was almost as if it was begging her for that help.

And she knew she must give it.

She shuddered violently. What was she thinking? If she even came close to the unicorn, she could be lost. She should forget this madness! She should go to Ben …

She let the unfinished thought trail off, huddled down against the night and the stillness, and wrestled with her indecision. She wished her mother were there to comfort her or that she could seek again the counsel of the Earth Mother.

She wished most of all for Ben.

But none of them was there. Except for Parsnip, she was alone.

The moments slipped by. Suddenly she rose, a soundless shadow, left Parsnip asleep in the gathering of pines, and disappeared silently into the Deep Fell. She went not on reason, but on instinct, without doubt or fear, but with certainty that all would be well and she would be kept safe.

By dawn, she had returned. She did not have the golden bridle in her possession, but she knew now where it was. Her fairy senses had told her what even the Earth Mother could not. The bridle had been stolen yet again.

She woke Parsnip, gathered together her few things, cast a brief glance back at the dark bowl of the hollows, and started walking east.

THIEVES

W
hen Ben Holiday and Edgewood Dirk awoke the following morning, the hunter was gone. Neither had heard him leave. He had departed without a word, disappearing so completely that it was almost as if he had never been. Even his face was just a vague memory for Ben. It was only his story of the hunt for the black unicorn that lingered on, still vivid, still haunting.

Breakfast was a solemn affair. “I hope he finds what he’s looking for,” Ben muttered at one point.

“He can’t,” Dirk replied softly. “It doesn’t exist.”

Ben was beginning to wonder about that. The black unicorn seemed as elusive as smoke and about as substantive. The unicorn was seen, but never for more than a few moments and never as more than a fleeting shadow. It was a legend that had assumed a scant few of the trappings of reality, but which remained for all intents and purposes little more than a vision. It was altogether possible that a vision was all the unicorn was—some strayed bit of magic that took form but never body. In Landover, you never knew.

He thought about asking Dirk, but then decided against it. Dirk wouldn’t give him a straight answer if he knew one, and he was tired of playing word games with the cat.

He decided to change the subject.

“Dirk, I’ve been giving some thought to what the Earth Mother told us about the golden bridle,” he said when breakfast was finished. “She told Willow that it was last in the possession of Nightshade, but she didn’t say anything about what had become of the witch since I sent her into the fairy mists.” He paused. “You knew I had done that, didn’t you? That I had sent Nightshade into the mists?”

Dirk, seated on an old log, shifted his front paws experimentally. “I knew.”

“She sent my friends into Abaddon, and I decided to give her a taste of her own medicine,” he went on by way of explanation. “I was given Io Dust by the fairies, a powder that, if breathed, made you subject to the commands of the one who fed you the Dust. I used it later on the dragon Strabo, too, as a matter of fact. At any rate, I used it on Nightshade first and caused her to change herself into a crow and fly off into the mists.” Again he paused. “But I never knew what happened to her after that.”

“This rather boring recapitulation is leading somewhere, I trust?” Dirk sniffed.

Ben flushed. “I was wondering whether or not Nightshade had found her way out of the mists and back into the Deep Fell. It might help if we knew that before we waltzed blindly on in.”

Dirk took a long moment to clean his face, causing Ben’s flush to heighten further with impatience. At last the cat looked up again. “I have not been down into the Deep Fell myself in quite some time, High Lord. But I understand that Nightshade might well be back.”

Ben took a moment to let the news sink in. The last thing he needed just now was an encounter with Nightshade. He no longer had the medallion to protect him—if indeed it could protect him anyway from a creature as evil as the witch. If she recognized him, he was dead. Even if she didn’t, she was hardly likely to welcome him with open arms. And she was hardly likely to welcome Willow either—especially once she learned what the sylph was after. She wasn’t about to hand over the golden bridle, however convincing the arguments Willow might offer. She would probably turn Willow into a toad—and turn
him
into a toad. He thought wistfully of the Io Dust and wished he had just a single handful. That would even the odds considerably.