Jan’s heart seized at the other’s words. He moved a half pace nearer. The pans twitched, pulled back, but did not flee. The greybeard held his ground.
“Elder, have you seen another of my kind this day?” Jan asked urgently. “A night-dark stallion such as I, but lawless, gaunt—It is he I seek.”
Carefully, the bearded male nodded. Around him, the goatlings murmured, uneasily. The aged female, now risen to stand beside her mate, answered, “Such a one came upon us near noon this day. What can you tell us of him?”
Jan drew a deep breath. “He is Korr, king of the unicorns.” Gasps, angry cries rose again from the goatling band. The furrows in the brows of the two elders deepened.
“If he is Korr,” the greybeard said evenly, “do you, Jan, prince of ufpútlaki, now come to revel in your broken truce?”
The young prince’s ribs constricted. “I come seeking him,” he answered slowly, carefully. “He is my sire, and he is mad. Having fled our Vale this day, he now imperils not only himself and his folk, but our allies as well. I must find him and return him to the Vale, that his madness may be healed.”
More murmuring from the pans. They eyed him, suspicious still. He sensed a slight—if only very slight—easing in the two elders. The fire crackled. The young prince waited. No one spoke. Finally he broke the silence.
“Tell me, I implore you, where I may find him. What deeds of his have made you so wary and put our peoples’ hard-won truce in jeopardy?”
Glancing at one another, the elders considered. The rest of the goatlings held silent, watching. At last, the wizened female spoke.
“This midday,” she said, “while we rested in the shade of the brittle-blossom trees, this mad ufpútlak stampeded among us, cursing us—so we surmise—in his own tongue. None were spared: not elders nor suckling young.” Her tone grew hard. “Even children he would eagerly have trampled, had fathers and mothers not snatched them from his path.”
Jan felt the blood drain from him at the thought of the mad king charging unchecked among these slight, retiring goatlings, only lately come to trust unicorns. “Did he harm any of you?” the young prince breathed, praying to Alma his worst fears might not prove true.
“Nay,” the greybeard replied, and Jan’s heart eased. “To our relief, your king drew no blood. We fled and dodged. Our warriors drove him off with volleys of stones—as we shall drive away all unicorns from this day forward! Your king is well-bruised. He fled toward the grassy land that borders our Woods. What do you call it? The Plain.”
Jan’s breath caught in dismay. The Plain was far more dangerous than the Woods: rife with grass pards that ambushed their prey. Sharp-toothed dogs that hunted in packs. Unicorns, too, roamed the Plain—wild wanderers outside the Ring of Law, of a tribe other than Jan’s own. Korr had sworn eternal enmity toward these so-called Renegades. If he were reckless enough to attack Plainsdwellers as he had this goatling band, he would do so at his peril. The Free Folk of the Plain were as dauntless in their own defense as any Ringborn unicorn. Jan set his teeth. He must fly with all speed to intercept his sire.
“My heart grieves with you that this outlaw from my Vale has caused you such alarm,” he answered, bowing deeply before the two elders of the goatling band. “My own tribe as well has suffered such inexplicable acts of his madness. A terrible secret haunts his mind. I mean to discover it.”
He scanned the pans, gauging their mood, hoping desperately that the damage Korr had done the newborn alliance was not truly beyond repair.
“Meanwhile, I beg you not to let his trespass spoil our peoples’ long-sought peace.” Jan turned his eyes back to the elder pair. “Korr will be stopped. That I vow. Even now I hasten to call him to account. I ask only that you send runners to my Vale. There you will find my mate, the regent Tek, with her foster sisters, Sismoornnat and Pitipak, and their dam, Jah-lila. Treat with them before you decide to abandon the peace. Tell them I seek my sire upon the Plain and will not rest until I find him.”
Silently, the pans deliberated. The elders’ eyes roved over the rest of the band, seeking consensus. Jan felt his heartbeats pulsing one by one, his muscles growing taut. At last, the aged goatlings nodded.
“Very well, Moonbrow,” the greybeard replied. “We will do as you ask. The newfound friendship between our two peoples is indeed too precious to be lightly shed.”
His mate beside him echoed, “Find your sire, Prince Jan. Our goodwill speed you.”
The prince of the unicorns bowed low before them. Their fire, untended, had dwindled to a feeble glow. Jan turned and launched himself, galloping away through the moonlit trees. Alma’s daughter, waning now, illumined his path. Behind, he sensed the glow of coals newly stoked and fanned to life again, heard the panpipes resume their plaintive song. He headed west through the still, dark wood, sprinting in the direction of the Great Grass Plain.
6.
Summer
Tek stood in the entry to the cave. Moonless night breathed warm around her. Above, a myriad of summer stars flocked the heavens like thistledown. Still discernibly blue, the early evening sky held onto the set sun’s light. Nine weeks. The pied mare shook her head. Most of summer flown since the serpent’s dance, since peacemaking with the gryphons and, a few days following, goatling envoys.
Snorting, the warrior mare marveled. No diplomat, she had had no fine phrases such as her mate always used to win his enemies’ trust. Instead, she had employed her storier’s art, reciting the tale of how, two winters past, Korr’s derangement had slaughtered nearly half her own people, driven her from the Vale, and imperiled her unborn young. Only intervention by Sismoomnat and Pitipak had enabled Tek and her twins to survive. That seemed to mollify the pans.
She spoke with loathing of Korr and of how, were it not for her faith in Jan, she and others would have fallen upon the mad stallion years ago and driven him from the Vale. In the end, the peace held—but Tek knew it could shatter in a moment if Jan proved unable to capture his sire. Korr had, so the envoys averred, now fled the Pan Woods for the Plain.
Tek gazed up at the summer stars, gradually brightening as evening deepened. Breeze lifted her forelock, and she breathed in the scents of yellowing grass and distant evergreens. The breath became a sigh. She longed for her mate, knew the twins missed him sorely. Where could mad Korr have hidden that Jan must spend moons hunting him? Twice Tek had sent search parties after her mate. Each time they had returned without success.
Night sky grew jet black, its white stars fabulously bright: legend called them Alma’s eyes. The piping cry of a mourning-will sounded, high and sweet, from the Vale’s far slope. Moments later, its mate answered. Tek turned from the night, back into the cave. Luminous mushrooms clung fan-shaped to the grotto’s walls and ceiling, intermingled with phosphorescent lichens. Pale yellow or white, some blue, plum, amber, even rose and brassy green, they cast a glow that was warm and steady.
She did not see the twins and realized they must be in the little alcove at the back of the cave. There a tiny spring welled up. Tek peered around the bend into the dark alcove. Only a scattering of mushrooms here. She spotted the twins. They stood side to side, gazing intently into the black, mirror-smooth water. Their dam moved closer.
“What see you, children,” she whispered. “A cavefish?” Neither took eyes from the water. Tek, too, peered down. Painted Aiony leaned against her.
“Nay, Mother,” Dhattar replied. “We watch for Jan.”
The pied mare laughed. “Watch for Jan—in a cavepool? Your father’s leagues distant, on the Plain.”
Aiony nodded. “We know. But we find him sometimes, when we watch.”
“Water is best,” Dhattar continued, “but we see him in clouds and moving grass as well.”
His sister shrugged against Tek’s chest. “Night is a better time than day, especially when you are wishing for him. That helps us.”
Puzzled, Tek bent to nuzzle her. “How do you mean?”
“Stand between us,” Dhattar w
as saying. “Then you’ll see him, too.”
Still frowning, Tek shifted to bring herself between her twin filly and foal. They pressed against her.
“Look deep,” Aiony said.
Eerie sensations flitted through Tek. The pool lay far from still, she realized. Currents swirled below its glassy surface, rippling the image of the stone bottom. The reflected glow of the lichens shifted, trembled.
“Think of him,” Dhattar murmured. “He is never far from your mind—or ours—but think of him directly now. School your thoughts.”
The pied mare’s pulse began, slowly, to pound. Her image in the water before her seemed to grow distant and fade. She felt the twins’ warmth, their young heartbeats, more rapid than hers, perfectly synchronized.
“Be at ease,” Aiony soothed. “Naught is to fear.”
A gathering sense of motion. Tek’s heart hammered, then seemed to stop. Time hung suspended as a strong, invisible current began to sweep her more and more swiftly along. She was aware of standing still within the cave beside her young—yet at the same time, some other part of her was galloping free, infinitely swift, like the Mare of the World, who had matched the sun in his race and won her heart’s desire. Images of lichenlight in the dark water brightened and shrank, becoming stars. The Vale lay below. Wind buffeted. The Pan Woods raced by, and then the Plain.
Renegades loped across its grassy, rolling back. Starlit grass pards crouched and sprang. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of one who might have been Korr, dark as shadow, but only a glimpse. More Plainsdwellers thundered by, leaping and prancing in a long, snaking dance such as Tek had never before seen. Drawing closer, she heard their snorts and whinnies, felt the drumming of their hooves, caught the scent of their manes and sweat. They vanished over horizon’s edge.
The Plain lay empty but for starlit grass. Clear, hornlike notes sounded in the distance, from the throats of thickset, square-nosed oncs grazing unseen. A banded pard prowled by, gave its low, coughing cry. Jan lay in a hollow not twenty paces from it, Tek saw with a start. The prince’s eyes were closed. His ears twitched to the sound, but the wind was with him. The pard, never scenting him, padded on.
“Jan,” Tek murmured. “Jan…”
Again he stirred.
“Hist. Don’t wake him,” Dhattar beside her whispered. “Ordeals undreamed of lie ahead.”
Aiony nodded. “To find his sire sooner than he knows.”
Dhattar sighed. “And chase him longer than he need.”
“Ordeals?” the pied mare breathed.
“Fear and anger,” the white foal hissed. “Grief and loss. Loneliness. A wound so great it alters time.”
Tek’s motionless heart started again with a thump. “When will he return…?” she began, baffled.
“Never,” the painted filly replied.
A waft of terror swept over Tek. Dhattar nipped her gently.
“No fear. You will see him again, but not here. He will never return here. In the Hallow Hills will you behold him, when he scours the wyverns’ dens with the fire of the end of the world.”
The cool of morning woke him. Dawn, not far from breaking, barely paled the sky. The thousand thousand summer stars, winding across the dark like a river of milk, were fading. Jan lifted his head, inhaling the scent of earth and grass that was the Plain, a vast rolling veldt that sprawled from the cool south, where the Summer Sea lapped, northward past the Pan Woods and the Vale to the warmer Hallow Hills and beyond. Somewhere to the eastern south, so rumor claimed, rose the Smoking Hills, home to red dragons.
Still couched, Jan stretched his leg, craned his neck and shook himself. He nibbled at the dew-drenched grass. His throat ached with thirst. He had not come upon water since before yesterday. Food, of course, was plentiful. But danger abounded, too. The rolling land hid many hollows where grass pards might lie. Thrice the sandy-colored predators had sprung at him from the haycorn. Each time he had shied, taken to his heels unscathed. More than once, he had found the bones of unicorns. He kept his ears pricked, avoided places above which kites circled, traveled into the wind whenever he could.
Tracking Korr had proved daunting. The mad king meandered and doubled back. At best, Jan found himself forever a day behind the haggard king. Evidence of struggles scattered Korr’s path: two with predators—one in which the pard had lost its life, the other in which the wounded cat had retreated, trailing blood. Worse still were the ambush sites. Jan had found tracks clearly showing where the mad king had charged among small bands of Plainsdwelling unicorns—a stallion and two mares, or a mare with both her half-grown and suckling foals—and scattered them, fencing with those he could catch. Perhaps inflicting other harm which did not show in the tracks.
Sickened, Jan rolled to scrub his back against the loamy ground. He had spent most of the summer chasing Korr all over the Mare’s Back, and not once had he spoken to a free-ranging unicorn of the Plain. Often enough he had seen them in the distance, but one glimpse of him and always they fled. He had given up pursuing them. They were fleet as wind and seemed to regard him with a terror better deserved by Korr.
Jan felt the beat of hooves before he heard them, vibrating up through the earth. Three sets of larger heels: warriors, one of whom sounded lighter than the other two—probably a mare. The fourth set was tiny, doubtless a filly or foal. All four headed in his direction at a trot. Jan rolled to get his limbs under him, but did not rise. The sound of their approach drew nearer and nearer yet. Jan waited until they were almost upon him, before he rose from the long grass, calling, “Peace! I am no enemy, but a stranger seeking water. Can you tell me where I may drink?”
With snorts of alarm, the Plainsdwellers halted. The wind was wrong for them. They had not scented him. One of their number nearly bolted, but Jan called again.
“Peace! I need your aid.”
The party did indeed consist of a mare, two stallions, and a suckling filly. Feathers of birds entangled their manes. The mare was brilliant crimson, her filly palest blue. The younger and slighter of the two stallions was fair gold, his companion brindled grey. The pair circled forward to protect the mare, who stood to shield her foal.
“Look! Look!” The gold stallion whistled. “’Tis he of whom Calydor warned: the black Moondancer. Flee!”
Wide-eyed, the grey looked half persuaded, but the mare held her ground.
“Nay,” she muttered. “’T cannot be. Calydor described a haggard stallion of middle years…”
“I am not he,” Jan broke in swiftly. “It is he I seek. He has wronged my folk and our allies. I must capture him ere he harms others…”
“Already he has wronged others,” the grey snorted. “Pursued, even injured some. Calydor foresaw and warned us from his path. By your speech, you are Vale-born, your hue jet black. What assures us you are not the mad destroyer?”
Jan turned his head so that the green gryphon feather might come into their view. He remembered from a brief encounter on his initiation pilgrimage years ago that unlike his own folk, who dipped only the neck, Plainsdwellers bowed by going down on one knee. The prince of the unicorns now did the same.
“Free People of the Plain,” he answered, “I am Aljan Moonbrow, prince of my folk. The one I seek is Korr, our king, though he no longer rules us. For years we contained his madness within our Vale, but now he has broken free. He must be found. This I am come to do.”
The golden stallion frowned, suspicious still. The grey seemed somewhat less so, but the crimson mare nodded. The brown and the white feather, each tethered in the long strands of her hair, bobbed.
“Aye, Korr,” she murmured. “The one whose name means thunder… All sooth, you are not he,” she said suddenly. “I know you now—for I have seen you ere time. Recall you this? You were but a colt half grown, and I a filly about the same age. You had slipped away from your pilgrim band to sing the dead rites for a mare of ours killed by a pard. My dam and I and our companion came upon you. You told us your name. ’Twas—’twas…”
She paused, searching.
“Aljan, the Dark Moon!” she exclaimed, triumphant. “We later heard you succeeded Korr. You are now called Aljan-with-the-Moon-upon-his-Brow, are you not? A Moondancer, but fair-spoken, aye. And honorable.”
Jan drew back, astonished. Memory washed him—of his initiation pilgrimage four years before, and the Renegades he had met upon that journey—at the end of which had lain the wyvern in her den. The young mare—had she been the filly he had met? She looked so much older now, a mated mare. “I am Aljan,” he murmured, still struggling to recall, “though I never knew your name.”
“Crimson,” she told him, whickering, as though the answer were obvious. She nodded toward the other three. “And these, who were not with me when first we met, are Ashbrindle, my sire.” The grey-and-white nodded. “My brother-belovèd, Goldenhair.” The younger stallion tossed his head. “And my filly, called Bluewater Sky till she grow wit enough to choose her own name.”
Jan bowed his head to each in turn, even Sky, before returning his gaze to the mare.
“Will you aid me, Crimson?” he implored. “I intend no ill against the Free People of the Plain, only to find my sire. Do you know where I may discover him?”
Before him, the three warriors exchanged a glance, seemed to reach agreement. The suckling filly began to nurse.
“Calydor will know,” the grey stallion replied, coming forward now. “Ask of him.”
Jan looked at him. “Calydor,” he mused. “Who is this Calydor?”
“Our prophet,” the golden stallion declared. “He recks much and dreams more. He will judge if your words sing true.”
“Hist, belovèd,” the crimson mare broke in. “Let us speak this stranger fair.” She turned to Jan. “Calydor is a farseer. Many call him Alma’s Eyes. Were he not our close kin, we might do the same.”
The dark unicorn felt his spirits lift. “Where may I find this seer?” he asked. “You say he can scry my lost sire? Will you guide me to him?”
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