The sun broke over the hills. More and more two-foots crowded into the square, surveying the contents of the stalls and conversing with their overseers. Goods and little disks of silvery skystuff changed hands. An oddly familiar scent reached the dark unicorn. Smoky and sweet, it clung to his nostrils. Turning, hunting it, he nearly stumbled over a very old two-foot who crouched upon a patterned falseskin spread upon the paving stones. Baskets of spicewood shavings and dried flower petals surrounded her, and figurines of blackened skystuff.
Tai-shan recognized their form: the body of a two-foot with the incongruous, flatbrowed head of a da. Fragrant smoke rose from the red-rimmed nostrils. A crescent moon blazoned the breast of each figure, most of which stood fiercely poised, brandishing in one forepaw a long, flattened skewer and in the other a tuft-ended vine. Tai-shan noticed, however, that a few of the figures were different. The skewer had become a horn upon the da head’s brow, the vine a unicorn’s tail sprouting from the base of the two-foot torso’s back. The crescent moon-shape appeared not upon the chests of these different figurines, but upon their brows.
Selecting a curl of spicewood from one of the baskets, the elderly two-foot cupped it in one forepaw and struck a sliver of skystuff against a stone. Sparks flew up, bright as fireflies. The dark unicorn stared, incredulous, as the spicewood curl began to burn, sending up a fragrant, smoky plume. The two-foot unfastened a hinge in the belly of the unicorn-headed figure before her and thrust the crackling curl inside. Smoke rose through the figure’s nostrils.
Tai-shan stood dumbstruck, staring. The two-foots could make fire! For all his hosts’ mastery of the sorcerous stuff, it had never once occurred to him that they held the secret of its creation. Fire was the greatest mystery his people knew: it glanced through storm-tossed heavens; its substance formed the sacred sun and stars. Generations of unicorns lived and died without ever glimpsing an earthly flame. Yet these two-foots could summon such at will. Tai-shan stood trembling—for it was a power he knew his kind could never share. Lacking nimble forepaws, no hoofed creature such as himself could even hope to manipulate skystuff and flint into striking a spark. No unicorn could ever kindle fire.
“Dai’chon!” The exclamation brought Tai-shan back to the wintry square. The two-foot firesmith had caught sight of him. Her eyes widened. She started up. “Dai’chon!”
“Emwe,” Tai-shan replied haltingly, pronouncing the difficult inflections with the greatest care. He bowed courteously. “Emwe ki Tai-shan.”
Greetings from Moonbrow–with Ryhenna’s help, he had deciphered enough of the two-foots’ tongue to attempt a simple phrase. Fervently, he hoped he had spoken clearly. A rush of triumph overtook him as he saw comprehension light the other’s eyes. Dropping her flint and the sliver of skystuff, she sank to her knees, pressing her forehead to the patterned falseskin. Tai-shan frowned, puzzled by her response. Muffled sounds came from the elderly two-foot, like moans.
“Pella! Pell’!” Look, behold. He heard gasps all around him suddenly, shouts of dismay and cries of what sounded at first to be his name. Yet when he pricked his ears, he discovered that many of the two-foots were calling out “Dai’chon” instead of “Tai-shan.”
That baffled him. He had no idea still what the word could mean.
“Emwe!” he cried out boldly as two-foots began to cluster around him. “Tai-shan nau shopucha!” Moonbrow greets you. To his consternation, many fell back at the sound of his voice and, like the old female, crumpled to the ground. Were they so surprised to hear him speak? Others, by contrast, pressed forward eagerly, forelimbs extended as to caress him. The dark unicorn sidled.
“Tash,” he cried out quickly. “Homat!“ No, stop.
Mercifully, they seemed to understand. Others were sinking to their knees now. An onlooker tossed one of the tiny disks of silvery skystuff at him. It clattered onto the cobbles near his hooves. Tai-shan danced away, half shying in surprise. More disks of skystuff followed, along with bits of spicewood, dried flower petals, berries, and nuts.
“Homat!” the dark unicorn cried again: stop. “Apnor!” Enough. Instantly, the shower of offerings ceased. The dark unicorn cavaled. Before him, two-foots melted back, allowing him passage. Almost all had fallen to their knees by this time. The rest stood gaping. Tai-shan bowed his long neck to them all and hurried on. None followed. Relieved, Tai-shan slipped through the crowd. The possibility of admirers swarming after him, pelting him with gifts, made his skin twitch.
Dodging around a stall, he nearly collided with a da standing before a massive wooden bin heaped with tubers. They smelled musty of starch and earth. A webbing of vines lashed the da to the bin, which creaked and swayed atop a pair of great wooden disks caked with muddy snow. The dark unicorn stared. Dragging such a strange contraption, Tai-shan wondered, could this da–or another similarly burdened—have cut the odd ruts which had first led him to the square?
“Dai’chon!” the da exclaimed, falling back with a start. “Great lord, ye walk among us. So it is true. At last. At last!”
Dull brown like other daya, this da looked much thinner and shabbier than the bluebloods he had met in the palace of the chon. Odd marks crisscrossed the deeply swayed back, and one skinny flank bore a crescent-shaped scar. The da’s posture, formerly weary and slumped, changed to joyous cavaling as the scrawny neck bowed reverently.
“Nay, friend,” the dark unicorn answered. “I am called Tai-shan.”
Still bowed, the other exclaimed, “Ah, lord, by whatever name ye choose, your faithful know you at a glance.”
As Tai-shan shook his head, the daïcha’s adornment rattled loosely about his face. The da before him wore a similar device, the dark unicorn noted, one fashioned of brown strips of hide, not links of burnished skystuff.
“I am a stranger to this place,” Tai-shan told the other. “Tell me, what is this great burden you drag?”
The other whickered. “Truth, it is nothing, Lord. I haul it gladly, in your name.”
“What is it that you haul?” Tai-shan asked, scarcely following the other’s reply.
The da shrugged humbly. “Whatever my keepers put in the cart: firewood, grain sacks, jars of oil. Bolts of fabric. Foodstuff. Dung.”
“Why is that?” the dark unicorn persisted. The point of such labor escaped him.
“Our keepers have need of such goods,” the other told him. “We daya cart for them.”
Tai-shan frowned, eyeing the chafed spots on the other’s raw bones where the vines had rubbed. The cart looked heavy. Amid the myriad clashing odors of goods and two-foots all about, he caught scent of the da before him at last, a warm, musty aroma close to that of unicorns. Yet though clearly older than halfgrown and not past prime, the flatbrow had the air of neither stallion nor mare: genderless as a beardless newborn or the very, very old.
“Of course, my lord,” the other was murmuring, “the burdens of gelded commoners need not concern you, dwelling so far above us as ye do, First Stallion to your own sacred brood mares in the stable of the chon….”
Tai-shan’s frown deepened. Many of the other’s phrases were new to him.
“Gelded?” he asked. The word had an ugly ring.
The flatbrow’s head cocked, as though the explanation were self-evident. “Fillies and foals are born in equal numbers, my lord, as ye know—but only the finest colts become breeding stallions.” He sighed. “As for the rest, we are made geldings.”
Once more the dark unicorn shook his head, still not following.
“These…these geldings,” he said. “You get no young?”
The other glanced sadly away. “Nay. We lose all interest in the mares after the priests cut us.”
Tai-shan fell back a step, staring. “Cut you?” he stammered. “Cut you?”
The one before him nodded. “Aye, underneath. Back between the legs. Then they mark us upon the flank with fire. Thus we are gelded and given the brand. Then our servitude begins.”
The dark unicorn snorted, gagging. His nost
rils filled with the imagined screams of mutilated foals. His senses reeled. Could such a shameful thing be true?
“But why?” he demanded hoarsely. “Your claim makes no sense—why maim innocent colts?”
The gelding da stared back at him, plainly alarmed and baffled by the dark unicorn’s response. “Such is the geldings’ lot, my lord, just as mares are for brood and stallions for stud—by your own decree! It is the will of Dai’chon.”
Appalled, Tai-shan backed away from the gelded da. What was this infernal dai’chon with which daya and two-foots alike seemed to have associated him? No, he would not believe a word the other said—it went against his every impression of the gentle daïcha and her folk. The flatbrow’s words could be no other than a cruel jest, a haunt’s tale to play upon a stranger’s ignorance—and yet before him loomed the heavily loaded cart, the crescent scar upon the strangers flank, that odd, blank odor of genderlessness.
Shouts from behind distracted his attention. The dark unicorn whirled. The crowd of two-foots he had fled only moments before had followed after all. Tai-shan sprang away into the hustling, jostling press. He wanted only to find his way out of the crowded square and be gone from this place. He had gotten no more than a dozen paces before eager followers closed around him from all sides, most falling to their knees as before.
“Tai-shan!” some of them called out, and others echoed, “Dai’chon!”
The two words, so similar in sound, slurred and blended together. The dark unicorn ramped and sidled. Surrounded by kneeling two-foots, Tai-shan could find no opening through which to flee. All at once, screams and shouts of alarm arose from the back of the throng. Violet-plumed two-foots shouldered through the crowd, shoving their kneeling fellows roughly aside with long, sharp-tipped staves.
Scrambling to their feet, many fled, but others only fell back a few paces, staring sullenly, as the purple-plumes cleared a path from the edge of the square. Beyond, a broad thoroughfare climbed toward the chon’s palace, visible on the hillcrest above. Down this avenue, a glittering raft approached, mounted on poles and borne upon the shoulders of eight brawny two-foots. Atop the platform sat the chon, resplendent in falseskins of purple and gold. He glared at the crowd.
A heavy cart stood stalled directly in his path. Laden with blocks of fire-baked clay, it canted to one side, one of its wooden disks caught between two paving stones. The chon gestured impatiently, and purple-plumes wielding flails sprang forward, striking both at the pair of daya hitched to the cart and at their two-foot escort as well. The crowd cried out in protest. Many surged forward, but purple-plumes with staves held them back. Eyes rolling, the gelded daya strained mightily, but were unable to heave the trapped cart free.
“Homat! Homat!” Stop, Tai-shan cried—but his words were lost in the hubbub of the crowd. Leaping past the armed purple-plumes, he lent his own strength to that of the frightened daya as, shouldering the cart from behind, he felt it lurch free and roll ponderously out of the chon’s path. The crowd surged and began to cheer.
“Tai-shan! Dai’chon!”
At a sharp order from the chon, the purple-plumes with flails turned them on the crowd. Others, still clearing the chon’s path, shoved and struck their fellows with such violence that some at the front of the press were knocked to the ground. The dark unicorn fell back in consternation as the purple-plumes created sufficient space for the chon’s conveyance to be set upon the ground.
“Asolet!” roared the purple-plumes. “Asolet!” Silence.
The crowd quieted as the chon rose and stepped from the raft.
Brow furrowed, forelimbs folded across his chest, he stared at Tai-shan. The dark unicorn sensed the other wished to approach, for he shifted from foot to foot, his bearded chin thrust forward, mouth set. Murmuring, the crowd watched. Tai-shan bowed his neck to the two-foot ruler.
“Forgive me, chon of the two-foots,” he began in his own tongue. His store of words from his hosts’ odd, clicking language was still far too slender for him to attempt it now. “I see my absence from the palace has troubled you….”
Still the other hesitated, eyeing him warily and without comprehension—indeed almost, the dark unicorn thought uneasily, as though he had not spoken at all. The two-foot ruler approached him cautiously. He made loud clucking sounds. His manner seemed both determined and afraid.
“Bim,” he growled, slowly and clearly, as though addressing a wordless nursling or a half-wit. “Bim, Tai-shan!”
Frowning, Tai-shan held his ground. What was the other saying to him? Though the two-foot made no move to touch the dark unicorn, clearly he wanted Tai-shan to do something. Come, perhaps? Return to the palace, most likely. The young stallion took a few steps in that direction. Both the chon and his purple-plumes holding back the shifting crowd sighed in obvious relief.
“I beg you to pardon the commotion my presence here has caused,” Tai-shan offered. “I had no notion….”
The chon ignored him, already climbing back onto his conveyance. The brawny bearers crouched to lift it, when shouts halted them. Tai-shan turned to see several purple-plumes striding from the crowd into the open space before the chon. One dragged an elderly female roughly by one forelimb. Another two carried a heavy bundle between them. This they tossed with a clash onto the cobbles. Figurines of blackened skystuff spilled from the patterned falseskin. The dark unicorn recognized the old firemaker suddenly, along with her wares.
One of the purple-plumes knelt before the chon, speaking urgently. The ruler’s frown deepened as his eyes turned briefly to Tai-shan before coming to rest on the tangled heap of figurines. He barked an order, and a kneeling two-foot snatched one of the figures from the pile, held it up before his ruler’s gaze. This was one such as the dark unicorn had seen in the past: a hornless da’s head atop a two-foot’s frame, skewer and frayed vine grasped in the forepaws, crescent moonshape upon the breast.
Next, the kneeling purple-plume lifted one of the newer kind, the sort of figurine Tai-shan had not seen before today, with its unicorn’s head and tail, moon blaze upon the brow. The chon’s eyes widened. He snatched the new figurine from the kneeling purple-plumes and stared first at it, then at Tai-shan. With a cough of rage, the chon hurled the unicorn-headed figure onto the cobbles. Shoving his kneeling minion aside, he pulled other, similar figures from the heap. These, too, after a brief inspection, he cast down in disgust.
Murmurs ran through the crowd. The chon growled another order, and the elderly female was dragged before him. Uttering horrified cries, she collapsed at his feet, hiding her face with her forepaws. Brandishing one of the unicorn-headed figures, the chon stood over her, shouting. Tai-shan stared in astonishment, unable to follow the other’s tirade.
Onlookers shifted, rumbling, trying to push past the purple-plumes’ pointed staves as the chon grasped the old female’s falseskin and dragged her upright. She wailed and cowered. Impatiently, he shook her, as though demanding some reply. At her timid shriek, he flung her to the pavement once more. Outrage flared in the dark unicorn’s breast. Did these two-foots bear no respect for their elders? Was their leader allowed to abuse his people so?
“Tash! Apnor!” No, enough, he cried. “Homat!” Stop.
But the chon did not so much as turn his head. Once more, Tai-shan knew, the tumult of the milling, agitated throng had drowned out his voice. Desperately, he clattered across the cobbles to stand between the angry chon and the cowering firesmith. Another cheer rose from the crowd.
“Desist, I beg you,” the dark unicorn exclaimed. “How has this old one offended you?”
Eyes wide, the two-foot ruler fell back before Tai-shan—and the dark unicorn realized he had spoken in his own tongue, not the chon’s. Clearly, the other could not understand his words. Behind Tai-shan, the aged female wailed and wrung her forepaws. Gently, the dark unicorn bent to touch the old firesmith, hoping to reassure her—but with a shriek, she shrank away, lurched to her feet and, ducking under a purple-plume’s staff, disappeared into
the crowd. More cheering. The astonished look upon the face of the chon changed rapidly to one of fury. His purple-plumes leaned against the surging, cheering throng, which had begun to chant alternately “Tai-shan!” and “Dai’chon!”
The chon roared orders, and purple-plumes dashed forward to surround the dark unicorn, their pointed staves braced and ready. Tai-shan wheeled to stare at them as shrieks of alarm and angry shouts rose from the crowd.
“Tash! ‘Omat!” the dark unicorn shouted at the chon through the deafening noise. “Call off your minions. I mean you no harm….”
Tai-shan’s skin twitched as something brushed his near flank. A similar sensation slithered about his throat. Vines! At the chon’s command, the purple-plumes were casting vines to ensnare him. With a whinny of disbelief, the dark unicorn reared. He kicked desperately at the two-foot holding the vine that encircled his hind heel. The kick knocked the other to the ground. The vine slackened. Tai-shan danced, and the cruel pressure against his pastern eased.
All at once, his head was jerked violently around. Three purple-plumes gripped the free end of the vine about his neck, using their combined weight to anchor him while another pair flung a second vine about his throat. It tightened suddenly, throttling him. Choking, unable to breathe, the dark unicorn lunged at the three purple-plumes nearest him. Two dropped their vine and managed to dodge, but the third, slower than his fellows, suffered a slash across the ribs. With a yell, he sprinted away, clutching his bleeding side.
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