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

flowers. There were standards of purple, ma genta, and scarlet. There were gold chariots drawn by horsesglassily shining, with brilliants on their reins and silver hoofs.There were deafening trumpeters, and clowns dressed as wild animals and sea things, lions and porpoises, squid and jackals,who bounced and rolled, played at attacking each other, or pulling colored ribbons out of the noses of the crowd. Therewere girls in white strewing poppies, and girls in red strewinglilies. There were terracotta camels with fierce men clad for the desert on their humped tops.

Then there came the tableaux. In one was a great ship with aspread turquoise sail, rocking gently on the backs of twenty blueand silver people being the sea. In another there was a replica ofthe city in gilded wood, with even the fifteen-story palace de picted, and dolls guarding it, and moving up and down on thestreets with choppy doll movements, representing the citizens. There were others of historical moments, and myth. Last of thetableaux was an image of mythic history. In crimson and gold, aformer prince was shown, and before him stood an enormousunicorn. It was of purest white alabaster with mane and tail flutedby sparkles. Its clockwork head raised and bowed to the prince,

raised and bowed, and toward its horn of chrysolite he extendeda garland of flowers.

After the last tableau of the unicorn rode the current Prince, driven in his chariot, surrounded by soldiers with crossbows anddrawn swords. He wore the regalia that had been shown in hislibrary, the purple and the breastplate. His face was icy cool, itseemed he could not feel the heat. Down his back gleamed thesharkskin cloak, fastened at the shoulders with the two creamy fossils—old, maybe, as the earth itself. On his head was the headof a great blue shark.

After the Prince rode his daughter, the Princess, like a goldand green doll herself, in her chariot. At her side was a red-haired princess of some foreign city.

Then the nobles rode by, the ladies, and the counselors, andChief Counselor Gasb in a hat like a sea eagle.

Following the court came tamers leading the beasts of thePrince’s menagerie, some of which were reported to be clock work, but all of which snarled, strode, and stared.

More musicians rambled after the beasts, playing soft sooth ing music.

Merchants and dignitaries strutted next, and all the guilds intheir public uniforms, with their symbols and banners, the pot ters and masons, shipwrights and vintners. The Artisans’ Guildseemed unhappy, and kept glancing about, and over their shoul ders at the salters, who walked behind and had taken exception to it.

Last of all marched further battalions of soldiers, with carts of war machines, carefully oiled and wreathed, cannon in hya cinths, catapults in asphodel, battering rams in roses.

The crowd cheered everything. It enjoyed everything. Thiswas the wealth and power of the city on display. “We own that,” they said. “That’s ours,” pointing at things they saw over eachothers’ heads once a year, and at cool Prince Zorander, and thealabaster unicorn that bowed.

From her position in Lizra’s chariot, in boned silk and topazes, Tanaquil was very conscious of the presence of Prince Zorander before them, in his weapon-spiked hedge of soldiery,and of Gasb the sea eagle five chariots behind.

Lizra she did not distract. The girl stood like a statue, paleand frowning, half stifled by her clothes. Now and then she would say in a flippant voice, “Just look there,” and point

something out to Tanaquil in a regal manner. Lizra’s public stance and face were as composed as her father’s.

The sights she indicated were often extremely odd.

Not only did the procession dress up. In the crowd werepersons with indigo faces walking on stilts, huge alarming masks,barrels on legs, and men with the heads of fish. There were alsotwo clowns who had gone farther than the clowns of the Prince.They had put on the canvas skin and parchment head that made them into a horse, but the horse had a horn protruding from itsforehead. They were the unicorn of the city. To make thingsworse, the back end of the horse-unicorn was drunk or crazy.While the front stepped along proudly, sometimes tapping atpeople lightly with the horn, the back end kept sitting down, doing the splits, or curling into a ball.

“Bad luck,” said a noble in the chariot behind Lizra’s. “What can they be thinking of ? An insult to the Sacred Beast.”“There, there, Noble Oppit. The unicorn won’t see.” Gasb’svoice, like a knife ready at your back.

“Oh—quite so, Lord Gasb.”

“The Festival of the Blessing is to do with the unicorn,” saidTanaquil aloud.“Of course,” said Lizra. Tanaquil wished she had understood this sooner. Somehow

she had not. She thought of the peeve in its lair under her bed atthe palace. If something happened, as it must, she might never be able to return. Yet Lizra would care for the peeve—

They were coming into the Avenue of the Sea Horse. Up onplinths the marble sea horses stood under their lanterns, with finsand curled tails—and each with a little bright horn coming outfrom its brow.

At the avenue’s end Tanaquil saw, between the jumble of chariots and marchers, the dark blue level of the ocean. The avenue opened into a square above the sea. The square waspacked with people, and the procession flowed against them,folding to each side, allowing the central chariots of the Princeand his retinue to pass through. Before them was a high platform.A wide ramp led up to it, with purple carpet.

Prince Zorander’s chariot was driven straight up, and the restof his court followed him.

Tanaquil looked back as Lizra’s chariot climbed the ramp.The square was solid now, raised faces thick as beads in a box.And the wild beasts growling on their leashes, and the soldiers

and weapons of war, the dancing girls, musicians, and clowns, allpiled up among them, everything at a standstill, yet managing to wave its arms, shouting, throwing its flowers, and with its se quins firing off the sun. And there, the white dazzle of the alabaster unicorn, bowing and bowing.

No way of escape, Tanaquil thought,