Red Unicorn

by Tanith Lee

  The peeve had vanished at the doors outside, snuffling down and off along the dunes. At least, it was glad to be here, but then all places were alike to it, full of potential, questions, and absurd delights.

  Tanaquil paused in the door's blue shadow. She listened. It was so quiet.

  "I suppose," she said, "you sent the soldiers packing too."

  Worabex raised one eyebrow. He would.

  "Most of them have left. One or two . . . well, they're lazy drunkards, rather silly, aren't they? No one would want them. So these remained."

  Tanaquil, furious, could not stop herself. "You're the sternest critic of the soldiers, then."

  "I don't criticize them, I simply see what they are. The world needs fools as well as genius."

  "Why?"

  "For balance."

  Tanaquil had a mental picture, Prune, Yeefa, Pillow, Pillow's noisy child, Bird, the kindly cook . . . the funny, tipsy soldiers who were always so tactful, so nice to Tanaquil . . . the old men who had been retainers since the days probably of Jaive's own mother. All of them tramping out into the barren sand with their bundles, and the crossbows done up in brown paper. Her eyes filled with tears, but whether of pain or rage she was not sure. She had sometimes lost patience with these people.

  Worabex had gone on into the wide passage beyond the door, and stood waiting.

  Tanaquil recalled this part of the fortress only vaguely. Perhaps it had even been altered.

  Just then, drifting over the courtyard, came a gauzy sparkly thing, unmistakably some sort of demon. It alighted on the camel, and gently but firmly rode it through an arch, presumably to be stabled. The camel, a cynic, made no trouble.

  "So the new servants are all demons?" said Tanaquil sweetly.

  "What else," said Worabex, "in the house of a sorceress, would you expect?"

  Nothing, thought Tanaquil. Absolutely nothing else.

  II

  Tanaquil was not given her old room, the room she had known for sixteen years.

  Instead, another dainty, gauzy, half-transparent thing with the head of a deer, led her up to a guest chamber. Here everything worked, even the silver taps shaped like bell-flowers in the bathroom. Hot water splashed into a marble tub and Tanaquil presently lay soaking, having shouted the deer-thing rudely from the room.

  No doubt she had seen the guest suite before. She must have done. But she did not remember its ice-cream-green walls with little jewel-like paintings of palaces and gardens. The large bed with its sunrise-colored canopy looked itself new as a morning. When you pressed a golden lever, a flight of adorable blue birds flew over the ceiling. Rather like something similar in the royal bedroom of Lizra, when Lizra was only a princess by the sea.

  After the bath, Tanaquil found a table laid with tea and wine and cake. None of this turned into anything else, as food so often had done in former times, although one of the marble columns of the fireplace had changed into an orange tree with ripening fruit. Perhaps that was deliberate, anyway.

  So far, Tanaquil had not seen Jaive. She had thought Worabex was taking her to Jaive. But when the deer-thing appeared and beckoned her, bowing, Worabex explained that she would see Jaive this evening, just before the feast.

  Tanaquil said, "I have a right to see my mother now."

  "Do you? She has, of course, a right also. And Jaive suggested she would meet you before dinner."

  Tanaquil felt herself flush as red as her hair.

  As she did so, she recalled only too vividly running away with the black unicorn, staying away with the gold unicorn. Although her adventures had not been entirely of her own choosing, she had left Jaive and not gone back at the time she had said she would. Jaive could be exasperating, but she was not stupid. Jaive must know Tanaquil had put other matters first, other people.

  She thought of the—rather pompous?—letter she had written to Jaive nearly two years ago: "We'll have things to talk about. You'll have to trust me, please."

  The last time they had spoken face to face, Jaive had been standing on the ocean, or her illusion had.

  "Tanaquil, you're a sorceress. "

  "Of course I'm not."

  But Jaive had proved it to her.

  And Jaive had been beautiful and warm . . . and proud of her.

  But after that came so much. They had lost each other again. I lose them all, don't I? Mother, sister, love.

  Tanaquil ate some cake and drank the tea. She went to the window and opened the immaculate glass. Below was the old garden court she remembered, with vines and palm tree, and three fawn escaped goats grazing peacefully on a rose bush. Not everything had altered, then.

  Tonight, when she met her mother, Tanaquil must make an effort. She wondered where the peeve was, but going to open her travelling bag in the dressing alcove, she found a dress on a stand, obviously intended for the dinner.

  Tanaquil forgot the peeve. She forgot Jaive on the ocean.

  "Oh, Mother. For God's sake."

  As she climbed the stairs that evening to her mother's sorcerium, Tanaquil, busy managing the dress, was conscious of the carvings on the wooden banisters, which, oddly, were keeping completely still. Conscious too, on the landings, of the openings to the roof walks and battlements, empty of soldiers.

  When she reached the big black door, Tanaquil stopped and waited, looking at the head of green jade. But instead of its usual superfluous questions, the head said to her, "Welcome, Tanaquil." And the door, without its recollected creak, swung wide.

  The chamber beyond smelled of smoke, fire, spices, furry animals, electricity, and wild invention. But it looked quite tidy. Books were stacked upon the chests with markers dripping from them. Veils hung over magical mirrors. Much clutter had been put from sight, and only two purple kittens were playing with a ball under Jaive's impressive worktable. On which only one glass bubble let off little puffs of soft steam.

  Jaive stood behind the table.

  She was alone. Tanaquil had been thinking Worabex might be there with her. In a way, he was.

  Tanaquil's mother looked radiant. She wore a gown of plain rich silk the shade of the kittens, and a delicate necklace formed like a golden snake holding its own tail in its mouth. The scarlet hair was smooth as the stillest pool.

  "Here you are," said Jaive. "How are you?"

  "Here," said Tanaquil.

  Jaive gave a little laugh. Tanaquil realized with uncomfortable unsurprised surprise that her mother seemed to be nervous.

  "I meant . . ."

  "I know. I'm sorry. It's simply that . . . he—" Tanaquil broke off. Without even hearing the name Worabex, Jaive was prettily blushing, like a girl of sixteen. She was a great deal older than that.

  Well, why shouldn't she like him?

  Tanaquil frowned. She thought of the peeve learning to frown from constantly watching her frown.

  "I'd hoped to see you first. That's all."

  "But," said Jaive, "you must have been tired."

  "Not really."

  Perhaps this was not quite true. Tanaquil had spent some of the day asleep on the green and gold guest bed.

  "Anyway. Now we meet. After so long."

  "Yes. I'm sorry."

  "He . . . told me about it."

  "Oh. Did he?"

  "You've had extraordinary experiences, Tanaquil. Just as a sorceress should."

  "So I'm finally measuring up," Tanaquil snapped. She shook herself. "This is silly. Shouldn't I kiss you? I've brought you a present."

  Jaive looked at her. "That's very kind."

  Oh God, now she's gone all remote and polite.

  Tanaquil moved forward, with difficulty, and put down the emerald necklace, carefully wrapped in emerald paper tied with a velvet bow.

  "What lovely wrapping! Shall I open it?"

  "Or just put it in some cupboard." Tanaquil grimaced.

  "I'm sorry. This is awful, isn't it? If you'd rather open it when I'm not here . . . Mother, why this dreadful dress?"

  Jaive's mouth fell ajar.


  "I thought purple would be festive."

  "Not your dress. You look sensational. You always do. But this for me—"

  Tanaquil balanced there, held hard and breathless by the boned waist of the garment. It was red copper in color, flounced and embroidered, with a hem two inches thick in gold. From the sleeves exploded out undersleeves that felt as heavy as iron from pearls and gold and beads.

  "You look beautiful in it," said Jaive, very cold now. "I chose the colors for your hair."

  "Mother, I'm not beautiful."

  "You are," said Jaive frozenly. "Of course you are."

  Below, as in days long gone, the dinner gong sounded, raucous and inappropriate.

  Jaive shook back her hair. Suspended upside down from each ear was a small black bat with silver-tipped wings, fluttering quietly. How typical.

  "We must go down," said Jaive, "to the feast."

  Tanaquil felt angry and apologetic. She felt ashamed of herself. She had wanted to say a thousand things. Instead—

  "Just stand with me on this carpet," Jaive was saying, graciously.

  Numbly Tanaquil moved on to it, trying not to fall over flounces and goldwork.

  "Down, slave," commanded Jaive.

  The carpet plunged.

  Tanaquil had a horrible sickening vision of stone dissolving and flying off, walls, stairs, doors rushing past. Her mother stood in the midst, a pillar of purple and fire.

  They landed in the dining room with a flurry of sparks and vapors, to the loud applause of the assembled guests.

  Tanaquil, swallowing her stomach, had now very little left to say, and none of it particularly friendly. In all the days of her youth, Jaive had never employed such a device.

  Jaive's hall had always been drafty. Now it was not, it was cosily but refreshingly warm. In three fireplaces burned green and red fires. The silk curtains were without a tear or darn. The enormous round window of red and emerald glass—broken by the exit of the black unicorn—had been tidily restored.

  Worabex sat at the table's centre, at Jaive's right hand. Both had ebony chairs.

  Everyone else had chairs heavily plated with silver.

  Worabex had come towards Tanaquil and Jaive after the carpet landed, and offered to each an arm. They went sailing to the table covered with exquisite cloth, crystal, gold, gemmed cups, and a dozen other royal-looking objects.

  Tanaquil had wanted to refuse the arm of Worabex, but thought it better not to. The occasion was heavy with a sense of Proper Behavior, shades of the court of Prince Zorander, worse—of Lizra's military dinners, which only Honj had lightened. Honj.

  Tanaquil now found herself seated by Worabex. On Jaive's other side, as they sat down, she saw the captain of the soldiers, and his second-in-command. They wore their gilded mothball-scented mail and sashes, pinned with all their battle honors that might even be real. They were stiff as posts, with angry pale faces. Not even drunk. But the captain suddenly got up, and strode to Tanaquil's chair.

  "A great happiness to see you here, lady," said the captain.

  Tanaquil pushed back her own chair and rose. She held out her hand and he clasped it in both of his. His eyes looked bleak and wounded. What had the magician done to him? Taken away the little pride he had left?

  And then the captain glanced sidelong at Jaive, nestled next to Worabex, flushed and lovely, offering him wine from a crystal flagon.

  The captain said, "You'll find us changed, ma'am."

  "Yes. I have."

  The captain's second had also come up. He clanked his heels together and bowed.

  "Madam is very taken up with new things," he said, in a hoarse, resentful low tone.

  A look of understanding passed between Tanaquil and the soldiers. Tanaquil said, quite clearly, "It's always good when old friends aren't forgotten in the pleasure of making new ones."

  The captain's eyes sparkled for a moment.

  "There you have it, lady."

  Worabex and Jaive seemed not to have noticed.

  The two bats had flown down from Jaive's ears, and she was letting them lick drops of wine from her fingers, while Worabex admiringly gazed at her.

  Then there was a fanfare. A pair of demons of the gauzy type, with elephant's heads, blew it by means of their trunks. Other charming demons came in through the doors, and the feast began.

  It was, you had to admit, impressive.

  All the demons were of the gently cute-looking sort, with the heads of animals—deer, cats, elephants, horses. They did everything efficiently, somehow smilingly, and from them wafted perfumes. You wanted to hit them.

  To add to the rarity of the dinner, all the colossal tureens and salvers were borne each upon a single giant feather. Gulls' for the fish, flamingoes' for the ices, the towering roasts each on an eagle's plume, and the myriad stunning desserts that completed the extravagant nine courses, upon iridescent peacocks' feathers. Nor did the demons in anyway support these feathers, simply steered them balletically along through the air to the table, where they floated down, then withdrew, untouched, from the steaming, gleaming dishes.

  With every course came different colored wines and juices. If the performance itself had not made her sick, thought Tanaquil, the feast would have done. But she ate very little, and now and then shot the captain—drunk at last—worried glances as he stuffed huge helpings of everything down his throat.

  There was another little problem, too. The second-in-command had turned out allergic to the feathers. The poor fellow spent most of the meal trying to scratch himself, unseen, and sneezing into a big mauve handkerchief.

  But Jaive and Worabex took no notice.

  Nor was there any of the former ritual of saluting the dishes. Jaive was too busy discussing everything with her beloved, and he with her. The feast, it seemed, had been constructed sorcerously, hence its sumptuous abundance. Yet it was utterly convincing, the fish clean and fresh, the meat flavorsome and rich, the apple and chocolate puddings delicious to the point of insanity.

  "A-chaugh!" bellowed the second-in-command for the forty-fifth time, and a salt cellar set with rubies rolled onto the floor.

  Farther down the table the other three guests took very little notice either of anyone else. They were old people, all three, and Tanaquil had seen before that sometimes the very old, as with the very young, had little real interest in any but their own peers.

  The two ladies were elegant, slender and upright, and dressed in glamorous gowns. The old man wore dreadful, filthy clothes that gladdened Tanaquil's heart. She recognized him as the gravy steward of Jaive's former dinners, about the time she recognized that the ladies were her old nurse, and the fish stewardess. All three had long grey hair, and the women had wound theirs with pearls and diamonds. There was no denying they looked well and attractive, in a way she did not recall, a bloom on their lined cheeks, their eyes bright. They were strong too, cracking walnuts with their teeth, (surely the nurse had lost her teeth?) and once having a playful, and dangerous, little fight with the meat knives.

  "A-chuff!"

  "My nurse looks very fit," said Tanaquil to Worabex.

  "Your nurse? Oh, yes."

  "You cast some spell for her? I thought you believed it was wrong to interfere with things like aging or finance or the environment. Yet there she is with all her teeth."

  "Perhaps I wouldn't want to make her young," said Worabex, turning regretfully from Jaive, who was feeding her bats apple pudding. "There's no disgrace in growing old. But why shouldn't one enjoy one's old age? I removed the stiffness in their joints, improved their circulation and digestion, hearing, eyesight, and so on. And yes, some teeth grew back."

  "Did they ask you to do that?"

  "Obviously they did."

  "They never thought to ask Jaive."

  Worabex said, softly, "There are some spells that I have been able to share with your mother."

  "You mean she couldn't have done it, and you can."

  "Jaive is also able to perform magics
that I've never learned."

  "A-choof!"

  "Perhaps you could take away that poor man's allergy."

  "Perhaps the poor man doesn't want me to."

  Tanaquil swore. When she did so, Worabex laughed.

  The gravy steward of eighty-eight was removing the cork from a bottle with his teeth.

  Worabex turned back to Jaive.

  A final dish had appeared, simply materialized on the table. It was the savory which concluded the meal.

  Tanaquil sat bolt upright, held by the boned dress. She would not look at her mother and her mother's lover. She thought, I'm like some disapproving parent.

  After the savory, the guests got up and walked about, although how some of them could move after all the food was a mystery.

  Music played in the air, and Jaive and Worabex began to dance, holding each other's hands. Then the steward invited the stewardess, and they danced too, limber as thirty-year-olds.

  The captain rose and came staggering to Tanaquil. "May I have the hic the honor?"

  Although she had learned dancing on her travels, Tanaquil could see he was in no state to dance.

  "I'm too tired, Captain. But please sit here with me."

  He sank into the chair. It had been Worabex's.

  "A-ach-plaush!"

  "Do you think he needs some fresh air?"

  "He's all right. Good man. Stuck with me. Stayed. Nothing for us here. Oughta go."

  "Then you should," said Tanaquil.

  "Well, y'see," said the captain. He lowered his eyes and one startling drunk tear rolled down his cheek. "All these years here, guarding her. I've always . . . she used to rely on me."

  He loves her, thought Tanaquil in horrified realization. All the time, he loved her. And now—what a mess.

  As Jaive and Worabex returned to the table, the second-in-command jumped up and managed to sneeze with astounding violence all over the magician.

  The captain winked sadly at Tanaquil. "Saved himself for that."