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

Jaive said, quite steadily, “I greet you. But by the powers Ican summon, be careful of me.”

And the unicorn snorted, and a fiery gas came out of itsnostrils. It scraped the floor with its forehoof, and there was a rocking in the hall, like a mild, threatening earth tremor.

And then the unicorn leapt up into the air. It was like an arcof wind, and passed with a sound of far-off roaring, bells, thunder.

Where it came down, beyond the dinner guests, the mess,and the table, it struck the round sorcerous window with the horn. The window gave like a plate of ice. Fragments sheered off to hit the sky and the cold of the night and the snow blew in. Butthe unicorn blew out. It soared into the pit of empty darknessand was gone.

Then Tanaquil knew what tugged on her. She knew becauseit pulled her up and forward in a ridiculous scramble. Before sheunderstood what she did, before anyone could think to grip her, she had bolted over the hall, into the hole of the window, and jumped down onto the snow-crusted sand. She felt the freezingthrough her silk shoes as she ran, and dimly wished she had notworn them. But really she did not grasp what had happened. Thesky was colossal, and the land too. And the unicorn raced. Andfaintly at her heels she heard the fur barrel of the peeve thump down after her, and the skitter of its paws pursuing her, as shechased the unicorn into the desert waste.

Part Two

4

She was very cold.

Perhaps she should get up and light the fire.

Tanaquil opened her eyes. She was already on her feet, andher room had grown much too large. It had no furniture. Therewas a carpet of white snow, walls and high ceiling of pale blackmoonlit night.

A sheet of horror fell down and enveloped her .

She knew what had happened, what she had done. Of course, she had been enchanted or possessed—her meddling with thebones had seen to that. In thrall to the unicorn she had chased after it, in a mad trance. Now, coming to, she found herself onthe face of the desert, and, turning slowly round, saw nothinganywhere that was familiar, but only the snow and the sand and the night, which were everywhere the same. Her mother’s for tress was not in view. The rock hills were out of sight.

Something gleamed in the moonlight on the snow, comingdown from a rise. It was a track created by the narrow hoof-marks of the unicorn. Each had filled with ice and curious green ness. Each shone like a pock of stained glass from Jaive’s shattered window. The other way the track led on across the snow into thedistance. She must not follow this track. She must retrace the steps the way they had come. Her own footfalls had left no imprint.

Tanaquil walked quickly along the glassy trail. She went upthe rise. This must have taken a quarter of an hour. At the top she looked over and saw the snow and sand stretching to the edgeof vision, nothing on it, no clue. And the weird trail of the unicorn had vanished. Some night wind had blown over and erased it.

Had she really come all this way? She could not remember

it. It was as if she had been asleep, yet in the midst of an exultantdream, like those she had had before of running across the snow. Well, there were no doubts now. She had emerged from theensorcellment and would freeze to death in a matter of hours.

“No,” said Tanaquil aloud. There would be rescue. Jaive would send the soldiers after her. They would catch up to hersoon, she had only to wait.

Miles off, a jackal gave a wail at the moon.

Tanaquil listened. Sound carried vast distances. Yet she could hear nothing of any soldiers. But then, they would haveto come from the fort, they would be erratic and fuddled . . .could they find her? Probably Jaive would put the magic mirrorinto service. But again, there were no landmarks here. Even if Jaive gained a glimpse of her daughter, could she be sure whereshe was exactly?

Tanaquil was now too cold to shudder. Her feet and hands were numb. She jumped up and down and beat her palmstogether.

As she was doing this, she saw something bounding toward her.

Was it a starving dog or antisocial jackal?

Dressed for the dinner, she did not even have her knife. She must use her fists, then. “Hey!” shrilled the dog or jackal. It was neither.“Peeve—” “Rock,” said the peeve, flinging itself against her legs, “bigrock with hole.”

“Do you mean the hills?”

“Rock,” said the peeve. It took a mouthful of her dress andpulled on her. Tanaquil gave up and ran with it. They hurriedover the snow, sometimes slipping or falling. The night had become one large ache of cold and blundering.

The rock seemed to appear from nowhere, looming up outof the dunes. Tanaquil had never seen it before. It was the size ofa room and had a low doorway, a cave that pierced into it.Tanaquil and the peeve crowded in. It was a shelter, but felt nowarmer than the open ground outside. In a shaft of the westering moonlight, Tanaquil began to see tufts and skeins of thornyplants growing inside the rock. The forlorn idea came that, if shehad had her tinderbox, she could have made a fire.

The peeve would survive in the desert, it was a desert animal.Unless it had forgotten how, from living at the fortress.

When she sat down facing the cave entrance, the peeve gotinto her lap. They pressed close for warmth.

“If my mother’s soldiers don’t find me . . .” said Tanaquil.She felt exhausted. She would drop asleep, and might not wakeup again. She talked on determinedly. “But they will. What a fool I was.”

“Gravy,” said the peeve, apparently for no reason. It slept.

“How did you know about the bones?” asked Tanaquil.“The unicorn must have ensorcelled you, too. Must have drawnyou there