Red Unicorn

by Tanith Lee

  On a flight of steps among some ornamental yews, someone was singing badly to a badly played lute.

  "Her eyes, sweet as a sheep's . . ."

  Oynt?

  Tanaquil drifted invisibly near.

  There he sat on the steps by a large pot full of geraniums. He wore a nasty yellow color that clashed with everything all by itself. His little fat face was full of hopeless sorrow.

  "Oh, Lady Feather,

  We should be together!

  But you vanished away

  Like a needle in hay!"

  Tanaquil grimaced. Even the geraniums looked fed up. But Oynt was now one more lost lover. In a way it was a nuisance. If Tanaquil put on her disguise as Lady Feather, Oynt would tell her what a vyger was.

  Oynt put aside the lute upon some words about sailing down a river with a zither, to seas green as peas.

  "If she'd been here, I could have told her about vygers. I'm sure they don't have vygers in Umbrella."

  Tanaquil invisibly blinked. Had she made him say this?

  Oynt continued aloud to the apparently empty air.

  "How the vygers are green, with stripes, and huge green eyes. How they hunt in packs. They mark their tree, and creep up on it. They leap as one, and eat all its leaves. So after the attack it stands bare, as in winter." Oynt raised mournful eyes. "Just like my heart.

  "Oh, (tinkle-squeak went the lute) Lady Feather,

  You stripped my heart like a vyger,

  Of all its leaves of love!"

  The peeve made a gesture of putting his paw down his throat in order to throw up.

  Really, the peeve was now far too human. Adma would probably have cured him. But would he ever see Adma again?

  "I suppose, if they're all going on this hunt, we'd better go too," she said to the peeve, among the shrubbery.

  Two young girls passed along the path.

  One said to the other, "I heard someone speak in that bush!"

  "Yes. Don't look. There's wild magic about. Some man in a village found a pocketful of blonks. Seventeen and a half people have seen a red unicorn."

  Tanaquil stared after them.

  So she had been able to repay Stinx. But as before, did the unicorn hold the key to all this madness?

  I like order. That's why I mend things.

  A little voice seemed to answer Tanaquil in her head, "And that's why you always end up living in chaos. So you can put it right."

  If life is a race of rotted chairs, I have to mend them?

  Indeed everyone seemed to go on the hunt, except for Oynt. He was in disgrace, having only just told the Princess Tanakil, who anyway, in her rage and mix up, had forgotten, that the spy-assassin-sorceress had escaped the dungeon.

  Tanaquil had witnessed this scene, the princess screaming and Oynt cowering, through a window.

  "She could be anywhere!"

  "Yes, madam. I'm sorry, madam. There's wild magic. She was probably only part of that. Some demon. I met a demon, too, madam. It took the form of a wonderful woman. But she's vanished away like a—"

  "Get out!"

  Tanaquil was reminded of her thoughts about the camel getting upstairs in her mother's fortress, because the court of the Sulkana rode out for the hunt down a broad stairway that ran to the beach. And their mounts were some large creatures, softly dappled fawn, with very long necks. Guafs, they were called. They seemed placid, not even bothered by the roar of the waterfall. They stepped with care down all the steps, their peculiar built-up saddles creaking. Tanaquil floated after.

  Crowds were on the beach beside the sea, which might have been said to be green as peas, perhaps.

  Everyone cheered. The people cheered the court and the court cheered the people.

  "Do they have to do something different here every day?" Tanaquil, unthinking, asked aloud.

  "Oh, yes," replied a young man on a guaf. "It's the tradition at Tablonkish." Then he turned to his neighbour and added, "Did you say that?"

  "I said, who were you talking to."

  They glared at each other, and the procession of great gliding, swaying guafs went on, along the pale green beach, where gulls were flying over, or swimming in and under the water. Then up through pastures of scarlet poppies, and inland, back to the forest-jungle.

  Riding through the forest, musicians played, and people sang, so maybe leaving Oynt behind had been the best idea.

  The trees were richly green, and in places grapes hung from wild vines. The red flowers twined with orange flowers. Birds made their own music, or hooted, and sometimes mysterious bluish forms, which might have been some sort of monkey, swung over, and flowers, white this time, fluttered down from far up in the forest canopy.

  There was no sign of and no word spoken of the savage vygers that attacked trees. But there had been a little more said of them at the start. It seemed they were capable of tearing you limb from limb, and so the hunt was quite chancy.

  Tanaquil wondered if the hunt intended to kill the vygers. There were large baskets slung on some of the guafs. Perhaps they were full of bows, spears, axes, and knives.

  Personally, Tanaquil disliked hunts. She had been taken on one during her travels about her own world. The prince of that region was a very keen huntsman. Tanaquil knew that many people needed to eat meat, and had no quarrel with that. But the preposterous view that killing something, often quite carelessly, messily, and cruelly, was a sport had caused her to dislike the jolly and condescending prince, said by everyone else to be noble and goodhearted. (She had already been disappointed in his princess. Everyone had also said she was elegant, lovely, and concerned with the well-being of the kingdom. But Tanaquil found her showily but badly dressed, self-obsessed, and tiresome.) When the prince offered to teach Tanaquil how to pot birds, "a fine day out, she must not be so silly and squeamish," she gave him such a loud lecture comparing the size of his nose and ears with that of his brain, a personal thing she would normally never have mentioned, that she was asked to leave the kingdom before sundown.

  Somehow, though, this hunt did not have the same feel.

  Near noon—the warm sun was high in the forest—the court party rode into a clearing.

  Another waterfall, much smaller but just as busy as the one in Tablonkish, plashed into a dark green pool. The flowers grew so thickly here that they were like a carpet.

  Across the pool was a marvellous, insane house made, so it looked, from fallen trees, which had grown back into the ground and started new trees, which in their turn added to the house. Between the green and black of the trunks and boughs were crimson and white stained glass windows, and mobiles of golden stars hung clinketing delicately in the breeze.

  Tanaquil, floating unseen in the air among the riders, had become quite bold. She whispered in the pearl-hung ear of Velvet, "Where's this?"

  "The hut of Fnim," said Velvet, "son of Phnom."

  "I know, darling," said Rorlwae.

  "Know what?" said Velvet.

  Birds flew up from Fnim's hut roof. They circled over, and went back among the trees and glass.

  There was a door of black wood, which now opened. A black pig came out, walking on its hind legs and leaning on a staff. It wore a helmet.

  "Password," said the pig.

  The whole court took a breath and shouted: "Ook, said the bad goose."

  The pig stood stolidly.

  "Wrong. That was last month."

  There was laughter and exclamation, and Fnim came out, and patted the pig, which got back on four legs.

  Fnim's clown's face was all smiles. He had excellent, clear gray eyes.

  "He's only joking. What's a password? Come in and dine."

  The noon dinner was informal. They sat about a huge room with walls and roof of trees, and hung with stars and colored silks. They sat on benches, chairs, rugs on the floor. The pig and Fnim waited on them, bringing dishes of white cheese and nuts, green onions, berries, hot loaves, iced cakes, grapes, plums and apples, and bottles of wine. Not one plate or glass in
Fnim's hut was the same as another, but all were beautiful, of strange patterns, shapes, tints.

  Sunlight trickled through in sprinkles of gold, and probably if rain fell, it would do the same. There were stacks of rainshades in every corner.

  Fnim finally sat down with the Sulkana and Jharn. Tanakil sat alone, at some distance.

  There had been a small mishap on the way, the only one. Something in a saddlebag Tanakil had been fiddling with had blown up suddenly, turning half her dress, and all of the veepe, bright emerald. Now both of them sulked. Her face was squashed down in awful lines.

  Jharn and Lili began by being very formal. But then Fnim kept making them laugh. Fnim made everyone laugh, including invisible Tanaquil. The peeve showed signs of wanting to appear to Fnim. Tanaquil restrained the peeve.

  The black pig had been joined by a pink pig. They were brewing tea in a large cauldron at the central hearth. Neither talked now, and Tanaquil wondered if the black pig had only been trained to grunt in a particular way that sounded like words.

  Studying Fnim, Tanaquil saw he entertained less by telling jokes, than by the way he carried on. His face seemed made of rubber. Once he turned, without warning, a flawless somersault. Lili clasped her hands. For a moment she looked about ten years old.

  Outside, the long-necked guafs browsed.

  "Oh—one's eating your roof, Fnim."

  "It can do with a prune."

  "The guaf?"

  "The roof."

  "Unless we give the guaf some prunes," said Lili. She looked surprised at her quip. Fnim smiled at her. She said, "Will you come with us on the hunt, Fnim?" Her pale face had flushed as if with her own smile. Perhaps she had caught the sun.

  "Why not?" said Fnim. "I'll bet you, Lili, I can take three vygers."

  Tanaquil frowned. The peeve, watching her, frowned.

  In her corner, Tanakil, frowning, was tearing a green edge off her half-green gown, and stuffing it into a small flask.

  Then putting her silver-ringed finger over the top of the flask, she seemed to be letting something drip inside.

  The hunt did not go out again until the sun was westering over the forest. This was the right time, apparently, for vygers.

  Tanaquil kept near her double. In the end, she was sitting behind the princess on her guaf, and the peeve was creeping invisibly round and round the green veepe, blowing on it or snickering in its ears.

  After the veepe had jumped in the air and fallen off the guaf ten times, it bolted away, jumping instead into one of the weapons baskets slung over another animal. Rummaging, it disappeared under the basket's cover. Princess Tanakil, her frown now set in stone, seemed not to see it had gone.

  Tanakil's eyes were fixed only on Lili. The Sulkana rode between Fnim and Jharn. Velvet and Rorlwae were just behind. They were all laughing and singing and telling silly stories, yes, even the Sulkana. Even the spare guaf, given Fnim to ride, looked pleased.

  Everyone seemed to be pleased, in fact, except for Tanakil.

  Her eyes look red like her hair. At last now, her eyes are truly full of murder.

  Yet, if Tanakil had been making her poison as they rode, and in the hut, she had done it in front of them all. Did she want to be seen?

  The forest was darkening, purpling, as the sun moved. There began to be a lot of clearings, and here and there a growing tree stood bare. This was sinister, the shadows gathering, the leafless summer trees. Evidently, they were in the place of the vygers.

  Rorlwae held up his arm.

  At once, everyone reined in their guafs. Silence fell.

  No birds were singing, not in this part of the forest. No monkeys swung over. Not even a single butterfly played.

  An ominous low rumble began.

  The hair rose on Tanaquil's invisible scalp. She gripped the peeve, whose tail she alone could see was bushy as a chimney brush.

  Then through the trees, through the shadows, they came. A huge slinking pack. Great ghostly green cats, striped and barred with black, their eyes like burning lamps. They were all purring. This purr was one of the most frightening sounds Tanaquil thought she had ever heard.

  Then came the slam of basket lids, the rush of dropped coverings. The weapons were coming out—

  Tanaquil ducked with an oath as a hail, a storm of huge green missiles, went roaring over her head.

  They bounced down among the vygers: Cabbages; lettuces; cauliflowers; marrows; spinach.

  And the vygers were growling now, pouncing and rending, tearing up the vegetables, stuffing their vicious and whiskery faces green into green.

  Brave, mad Fnim was off his guaf. He was running forward. A huge vyger tore towards him and he threw a lettuce neatly into its jaws.

  Cries of acclaim. "Brilliantly done, Fnim!"

  "Better even than Phnom!"

  Everyone was dismounting, running in among the deadly vygers, stuffing their muzzles with vegetables.

  Tanaquil laughed. She hugged the peeve weakly. "I see—do you see? If they feed them, it lessens the damage to the trees. Oh, peeve, what a world."

  Jharn was there, pushing a head of broccoli between a vyger's grinning teeth.

  The enormous yellow claws were padding with pleasure now. The vygers purred in menace, growled when happy.

  And there, there in the trees, that flame of red—what was it? A fire, the setting sun?

  The red unicorn flickered through the clearing and was gone.

  It was at this instant that someone, probably by mistake, of all the green things in the baskets, threw Tanakil's dyed veepe to the vygers.

  The veepe flew through the air, chops full of lettuce, and dropped towards the center of the thrashing pandemonium.

  A vyger raised its awful head and opened wide its jaws—

  Tanaquil, numb with panic, glimpsed the face of the princess. She had not even seen.

  The veepe missed the fangs of the vyger. It seized the marrow the vyger had been about to eat.

  "No—" shouted Tanaquil.

  Vyger and veepe had each one end of the marrow, and the vyger's eyes seared with wrath.

  From somewhere the peeve sprang. It had got free of Tanaquil, and become visible. People pointed it out. "Is that yours?" "No, I think it's Irk's."

  The peeve fell on the vyger's neck and sank in its teeth.

  "Foul! Foul!" yelled the court.

  The vyger spun, purring, eyes inflamed. The veepe got its tail, the peeve kicked its nose.

  They were in a heap now, brown and two unmatched greens. Flailing, honking, yowling, purring—all those teeth.

  It was Jharn, then Rorlwae, who ran forward, pushed the marrow into the vyger's jaws and hauled off the peeve and veepe. Fnim rolled the vyger over, gave it a smacking kiss. The vyger struggled up, and went loping off.

  All the vygers were running away. They made little whimpering noises.

  In disbelieving relieved disgust, Tanaquil slid down from the guaf and took the newly escaping peeve in her arms.

  "That was clever. I think. Well done, I think. But go invisible again, quickly. Do those things lose their ferocity when they've been fed?"

  She looked. The vygers were gone. All comedy was gone.

  How dark the forest was. How dark. The sun must have sunk. Above the clearing, only a smoky red, shining dully on the remains of cabbages and bits of leeks.

  Almost everybody was separated in groups. The veepe was being fed a lettuce by Velvet. There were Jharn and Rorlwae and Fnim, comparing veepe and peeve bites and vyger bruises. In the turf the paw marks of the vygers, redly-edged from sunfall as if with blood.

  And Lili, Sulkana Liliam, over there, over there at the clearing's rim, looking to where the vygers had fled.

  How dark. How dark the forest is. Nothing funny anymore.

  And there is Princess Tanakil, my double, my other self, prowling through the clearing all alone. Veepe forgotten, Jharn forgotten, everything forgotten, with that flask in her hand.

  Tanaquil, somehow having to walk, her
invisible legs made of lead, went after. She could not hurry. It was like an evil dream. She must have put down the peeve.

  "You must be thirsty," said Tanakil to her sister that she hated, her sister who was going to marry and keep Tanakil's only love.

  "Perhaps I am, a little. What is it?"

  "Just that herb tea you like."

  "Thank you, Tantal."

  She too, she too used the pet name. Lili-Liliam. Tantal. What was it from? Tantalizing, or from childhood, Tanakil a little taller than Liliam—Tan-tall . . .

  How dark the forest.

  Red all smeared from the sky. The light of star-rise. The Rose rising. Rising upon this scene of death.

  The flask. She had mixed something in it, something terrible. This time she really had. You need only look at the face of Tanakil to know.

  She watched as her sister Liliam raised the flask to her lips.

  And unseen, Tanaquil stood, frozen as the depths of winter, stripped more bare than any tree of its life. Cold.

  Soon Liliam would be colder.

  "Stop!" screamed Tanaquil. She had two voices. How?

  Because Tanakil had screamed it too.

  In a flapping lunge, she had knocked the flask from Liliam's hand. The mixture, black in the dark, steamed stickily on Liliam's once perfect dress.

  "What? Why did you—?"

  "It wouldn't be good for you."

  "Oh, Tantal, really."

  "No. I mixed it up. Something that exploded, and a herb, in my ring—"

  "Wasn't that rather complicated, just to make tea?"

  "You don't—you don't—understand. I'll tell you, I have to—"

  "Oh," said Liliam. Her face had gone utterly white. It gleamed like silver. "Oh, look. And I never thought they were real."

  Tanakil turned wildly.

  Tanaquil did the same.

  There in the shadow and the starlight stood the red unicorn.

  The rest of the court was far away. They had not seen what happened. They did not see the unicorn now.

  But Tanakil, Liliam's sister, almost her murderer, cried: "It's come to punish me. The sword of the horn. Here I am. Here!"