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

She shook herhead at it as it went on its belly through the grass. And so theycontinued after the unicorn, which now and then, still, seemed to glance back at them, and which had not attempted to leave thembehind.

The sun set. All of the sky became rose red, and the disc ofthe sun itself was visible, a shade of red it seemed to Tanaquil she had never seen, but perhaps she had. After the sun had goneunder the world, the cluster of diamond day stars stayed on thehem of the sky, growing steadily more brilliant. The east light ened and turned a flaming green.

Miles off, a hill or mountain sent a plume of sparks into theair, and something lifted out of them. It flew on wide flashing wings, passing over, not to be mistaken. A phoenix.

“Poor Mother,” said Tanaquil. “Wouldn’t she love this? Why did she never try to find a way in?”

Nightingales began. The hills were a music box.

The last slope came, and not knowing, Tanaquil mounted it,the peeve bustling along at her side. At the hill’s peak, the land opened below, enormous as the sky. It was like a garden offorests and waters, all blurred and glimmered now by the flowerred and emerald of dusk. And floating over it, distant and oddlyshaped, was a single broad cloud.

Tanaquil thought there were stars in the cloud. They were not stars.

“Peeve—”

The peeve sat staring on the hill with her. If it knew what itwas looking at, it did not say.But Tanaquil knew.The cloud was not a cloud, either. There were banks and ter

races, although perhaps no outer walls. Tapering towers with caps like pearl, and buildings ruled straight by pillars, and statues ofgiants—and the lamps were being kindled. There, in that city floatingin the air, the windows of silver and gold let out their light.

“There had to be,” said Tanaquil, “I knew there had to be—people—but—people?”

And then in the green-apple rose of the sky, she saw dimshining figures, with a smoke of hair, and wings. Around and around they flew, a sort of dance, and faintly on the wind sheheard that they had music, too.

There could be no unhappiness and no fear in that place, andyet, somewhere in the depth of her, were both. Such emotionshad become strangers. She felt them in her heart and mind, andwas puzzled. But she turned from the winged people and the castles in the air, and looked back again, the way she had come.

She had not seen before. Or had not wanted to see.

The grass and flowers over which she and the peeve hadtrodden, having sprung up, had dropped down again. The stemswere squashed or broken, and in the softness and color, a harsh withering had commenced, the mark of death.

“This world isn’t ours. Even invited, we shouldn’t have come in. Look, look what we’ve done.”

The peeve put its paw on her foot. “Sorry.”

Tanaquil knelt and stared into its yellow eyes. They werecomrades, they were, it and she, from an imperfect world. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”“Sorry,” said the peeve again, and, experimentally: “Bad?”“I must carry you,” said Tanaquil. “You’ll have to let me.

Over my shoulders. And I’ll tread only where I’ve already—it’sso terrible, like a burn.”

Just then, she noticed the unicorn. It had gone some way down the other side of the hill, toward the enormous gardenunder the floating city. Its horn burned bright.

Should she shout after it? Probably it had forgotten them.Now and then it had glanced back only at some noise they made,or maybe it had seen the ruin of the flowers and grass, had wished them away. But here it would not attack, it could not chase them off as they deserved.

They had been so careful, she, and the peeve also, not tospoil. But their presence was enough. The very steps they took.

She picked up the peeve, and it allowed this. It let itself bearranged, warm and heavy, about her neck. Its back legs dangled,and its tail thumped her shoulder. It fixed its claws into her dress and glared at everything, its face beside her own.

Tanaquil descended the hill, her back to the city. She put herfeet exactly into the ruin they had already made. She did not examine it closely, and the light of dusk was merciful.

She had gone about two hundred steps when she heard the

drumming of hoofs pursuing her. She stopped at once, not inalarm, for you could not feel alarm here. Yet she was amazed. She swung round, with the peeve, and confronted the unicorn,which ran at her, and halted less than two feet away. Now itshorn had faded to a shadow.

In the gathering dark, therefore, she could not see the uni corn well, the gleam of an eye, the mask of ebony—

“Unicorn,” said Tanaquil. That was all she could say.

The fierce head flung up. The stars on the horizon threwdiamonds to the seashell of the horn. It burst alight like whitefires. It wheeled and the sky toppled. What had happened? Hadshe been impaled? Without terror, Tanaquil tried to understand.For the moon-fire horn had touched her forehead, for half a second, the needle tip, gentle as snow.

“Hey,” said the peeve, “good, nice.” And it lifted its face.

And the burning sword of the horn went over Tanaquil’sshoulder as the unicorn put down its head. Black velvet, the tongue came from its mouth. It licked the peeve, quickly, thor oughly, roughly, once, from head to tail.

The scent of the unicorn’s breath was like water, and like light. Of course.

Tanaquil and the peeve hung on the hill in space, breathing,as if lost, and found. And the black unicorn jumped aside andflew up the slope behind the shaft of light, and at the top leaptout, out into the air, and the last of the green sky. Became a star. Was gone. The final vanishment.

“That was goodbye,” said Tanaquil.

“Mrrr,” said the peeve. It fell suddenly asleep.

And, alone responsible, Tanaquil resumed their retreat fromHeaven.

During the night of the perfect world, two moons rose in theeast together. One was a golden moon at