Black Unicorn, Tanith Lee [famous ebook reader txt] 📗

Prune, Yeefa, and Pillow screamed. The nurse, the old stew ardess, and the goats of the meat chariot gave quavering bleats.The cook turned to face the doors, her spoon and swat at theready. The captain and his second were on their feet, wavering slightly, but with drawn swords.

“Fear nothing, Madam.”Jaive was bland. “It will be a demon,” she said. “I shall deal with it firmly.”Then the doors shuddered as if they had been rammed. Theyburst open.

What galloped through was a whirlwind of lights. It seemedto have no substance, only motion and prismatic flame. Colorsdanced off from it, blindingly. There were no chimes now. Butthere was the unmistakable whirr of wheels, the sharp striking ofhoofs. More fearsome than the soldiers’ swords, a savage hornslashed the air in pieces.

The skeleton of the unicorn. After all, it had begun to move.It had erupted into movement with a kind of luminous rage. Ithad snapped chains, knocked away doors, vaulted stairways.

It rushed along the hall, and Prune, Yeefa, Bird, Pillow, andSausage jumped from its path squeaking. The boys yelled, the

retainers doddered, the cook fell over in a bundle, the soldiers bellowed, jabbed and—missed.

Tanaquil had an impression of long streaks of lightning. Intheir center were tiny bronze whirlings. She saw a shake of therainbow skull, and the soldiers flung themselves behind the wineflagons.

Jaive had got up from her chair. She called out some incom prehensible mantra and lifted her arms like sequined wings. Rings of power rolled out of her, but the unicorn was too swift. Nothing could catch it, stop it, slow it down. It leapt upon thetable—plates and goblets were hurled away. The gravy in themeat dishes splattered up. Prune, Yeefa, Bird, Pillow, and Sau sage rushed howling up the hall; the boys, the nurse and one or two others crawled under the tablecloth. The meat steward threw his stick, which smote the captain on the nose.

“Spirit of air or water, clockwork of fire or earth, take heedof the universal commandment!” declaimed Jaive.

The unicorn of bone splashed through her plate, and there,on the sequins of the sorceress, and in her scarlet hair, glowed gravy drops like sneers.

“It’s me that it wants,” said Tanaquil. She braced herself forthe pain of the perfect horn breaking her heart. There was nomargin for fright; she was not afraid.

But the racing framework of the unicorn dived by her. Shedropped back into her seat astounded. “Stop, I say!” shouted Jaive. Her face was flushing. She hadhad to come down from the heights, and she was angry .Tanaquil watched her mother lose control in a marvelousfascination. Had she ever been able to make this happen?

The unicorn of bone pelted round the hall. It ran right toleft, somehow sprang over itself and ran left to right, like the mechanism of a clock gone mad.

The goats kicked and butted and upset the meat salver.Everyone huddled at the core of the wild circlings. The captain,his purple sash to his bleeding nose, made rushes without leavingthe table. “May the God help us,” prayed the nurse complain ingly from below.

Jaive clenched her ringed fists. Her body seemed to growtaller and to expand like a storm cloud.

“I call upon the force of iron to bind, of heat to consume—”

Tanaquil saw, across the turmoil of the hall, the peeve sittingin the open doorway. Its fur was all on end, its tail like a chimney

brush. Like Jaive, it had made itself twice its proper size.

Tanaquil laughed.

There was a ripping noise. One of the silk curtains had caught the wild horn. The silk tore for several feet and fell down.The unicorn of bone was swathed in rosy silk.

“Do as I tell you!” screeched Jaive. “Obey me! ”

And she flung some gout, some boulder of her magic, acrossthe hall, at the unpredictable flying bone and silken thing that was chaos.

The air quaked.

“Oh the God,” said the cook on the floor, “she’s done something now.”

Then everyone was silent. Probably they did not even breathe. The big, echoing draughty hall was abruptly choked, filled, as if stopped time had been stacked there. No one could move. Tanaquilthought she felt her heartbeat, but miles away beneath her feet.She turned her head, and it went with difficulty, as if she weresubmerged in thick glue.

And how gluey dark it was. The torches and the fires had changed to a horrible black-red.

Across the length of the room strewn with quivering girls,broken crockery, gravy, and goats, Tanaquil saw the heap of torncurtain brought down where the flying thing had been. Jaive’sboulder had hit it. Now the curtain had no shape. No smart ofhoofs, scud of wheels, no cosmic gleam and glitter.

“Mother, what have you done?”But Tanaquil’s voice did not leave her mouth, because theglue was also in her throat.

As for Jaive, she had shrunk back, not to her natural domi nant size, but somehow smaller. Her hair, in the gloom, was without any color.

And then a spear of pure light lanced across the hall.

Tanaquil gasped. It was as if strings were fastened in herheart, and now someone pulled on them.

The heap of torn silk bubbled; it erected itself like a tent,then suddenly slid over. Something rose up, and the silk ran offfrom it.

Jaive’s hall was now filled by the light of a snow moon.

And in the light, which was of its own making, the radianceof its seashell horn, Tanaquil beheld the unicorn.

The unicorn.

It was no longer only a beast of bone. It had grown flesh and

form. It was black as night, black as every night of the worldtogether, and it shone as the night shines with a comet. On this burning blackness, the mane and the flaunting tail of it were likean acid, golden-silver fire off the sea, and it was bearded in thissea-fire-acid, and spikes of it were on the slender fetlocks. Itseyes were red as metal in a forge. It was not simply beauty andstrength, it was terror. It rose up and up to a height that wasmore, it seemed, than the room could hold, and its black shadow