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

“That sounds to me,” said Lizra astutely, “as if someone tested you, to see.” Tanaquil kept quiet. “But what about the peeve?”

“You mean the trick of making it seem to talk? That’s just aconjuring act.”

“No, I mean the fact that it does talk.”

Tanaquil stared at the melancholy, sunny view. The stunted palms rattled in a wind off the sea, and sand spurted from the feetof the ponies. A ruined house leaned to the road. The peeve,glaring through under the chariot rail, announced loudly, “Ratsthere. Let’s go house.”

Lizra said, and her voice now had some of her father’s coldness, “People always lie to me, you see. Or simply don’t tell me things. Or they tell me things that are meant to worry me,like the red hair business. Even Yilli, you know, when she caughtme by the throat with her knife, said, ‘It won’t hurt!’ ”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t have,” said Tanaquil. “Or perhaps shedid like you enough to wish it wouldn’t.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Rats,” said the peeve plaintively.

“You don’t want rats. You had an enormous breakfast,” Tanaquil said. She said to Lizra, “Everything preys on everythingelse here. And the elegant city has filthy back streets, and beggarswho are blind. Yes, I knew a sorceress. She used to tell me about

a perfect world where all things were in harmony. And she showed me a sea in a desert. But she spills magic everywhere like soup. And—the peeve got splashed. That’s why it talks.”

“My father—” said Lizra, and broke off. “Look there. That’sthe unicorn place.”The chariot drew up. The peeve leapt out and sprinted backtoward the ruin, leash whipping after, unheeded.

It became very silent, and the wind was like the silence given a thin, traveling voice. Heat burned from the sky and off thedazzling sea. A line of rocks rose up out of the water, low platforms that became cliffs as they marched inland. Where thebeach met the waves, the cliff was hollowed out, a tunnel, an arch—a bridge. The light made its darkness seemed rimmed with iridescent white, as if fire were cutting it from the sky. It was inshape and look so like the rock hill in the desert near the fortthat Tanaquil was not amazed at all.

“Do you want to walk down?”

“Yes”, said Tanaquil. She did not, and that made no difference.

“Stand,” Lizra said to the ponies.

They left the chariot and started over the dunes of the beach,which scalded their feet like the sands of a desert.

“The city began here,” said Lizra, “hundreds of years ago,but then it moved away.” They came down to where the arch ofthe cliff went up, its roots in the sand. “At high tide,” said Lizra,“the sea comes in here. There was a well, but it’s turned to salt.” They had stopped before the arch, as if before a great crystaldoor. They might see beyond it to the beach and sky through thecliff. But could not pass.

“And they say the unicorn came from the sea?” said Tanaquil,but only to interrupt the silence and the silent meowing of thewind.

“Yes. On a wave. It came out of that archway, and struckthe sand with its horn for the well. The rock was called the Sacred Gate. Even now it’s supposed to be unlucky to walkthrough, I mean right through the hole and out the other side.”

They waited on the hot sand, looking at the beach and seaand sky on the far side of the archway.

“Do you dare it?” said Tanaquil.”

“People are always going in and out, for the dare. There’s astory though of three young men going in who never came outagain. And of an old fisher-wife who went in one end and cameout the other as a dolphin!”

They grinned at each other. Then they clasped hands, andran shrieking instantly in under the rock.

The violet shade washed over them, like a wave. The sand was cooler, clammy and clinging; it seemed as if it might sud denly give way and drag them down into an abyss—and Tanaquilremembered how she had dug out the white bones and the sandshifted—and then there was a curious, indescribable moment. It was as if she had shut her eyes; more, as if she had fallen asleep for three heartbeats or five. And then they were running out onto the scorch of the beach, and the sun hammered down on them.

“Did you feel that?”

“It was strange.”

“But—just for a moment—something.”

“Aah!” cried Lizra, “You’ve changed into a dolphin.”

They really did laugh then. And suddenly flung their armsround each other. And as suddenly let go, stood away.Tanaquil said, “There is a piece of air under the rock that’slike running through torn ribbons.”

“I didn’t notice that.” Lizra said, without coldness or de mand, “I think you are a witch. A sort of witch—of some kind. After all, not all witches can be bad. It’s just my father. He toldme once how he met this dreadful witch in the desert. A demon ess, he said.” And Tanaquil, in the blaze of the sun, experiencedan arch greater, darker, deeper, more mysterious, more terriblethan any gate of a unicorn, yawning up to snatch her in. “It was just before he came to rule, just before he married mother. Hewent hunting in the desert, got lost, separated from his atten dants. He came on a sort of castle or fort. There was a red headed sorceress, and she made him her prisoner for days, beforehe outwitted her and escaped her clutches. She had snakes in herhair, he said. She was quite mad.” Lizra hesitated. “But I wish I could think who you remind me of.”

Tanaquil took a breath down to the soles of her feet.

“I remind you of yourself, Lizra, just as you remind me of me. And that’s quite reasonable. We’re sisters.”

They stood on the sand, the other side of the arch.

“I believe you,” said Lizra. “But tell me why.”

“My mother,” said Tanaquil. She felt tears, and dire amuse ment, and hard anger. “She’s the red-haired sorceress. She doesn’thave snakes in her hair. Actually, she’s rather beautiful. She saidshe