Unicorns

by Jack Dann

  "I'll speak to the innkeeper now and see if he knows anything," Deverish said tautly, his words barely above a whisper.

  "All right, all right, we've gone this far, go ahead." Wallaby belched, and took a long pull from his glass. "Though I'm beginning to think that photograph of yours was some kind of forgery or perhaps just a shot of an ibex or aurochs. You probably wouldn't know the difference anyway."

  With a surge of secret satisfaction, Deverish composed himself. He, after all, was the master of this situation. There had never been any photograph, merely the maudlin mumblings of an old Greek in a Salonika bar drunkenly bemoaning his native Karanakis where unicorns still lived and flited through the forest glades. Deverish had been amused at first, but the old man's words held the germ of an idea. He had met Sir Marius Wallaby for the first time the day before at the Travellers' Club, where he had eloquently requested the wealthy baronet's backing to publish a volume of his verse, only to be summarily rebuffed and packed off like a beggar with a fiver stuffed in his pocket as a token of Wallaby's largess—which, to make it worse, he was forced by dint of circumstances to accept. But Deverish knew of Wallaby's reputation as a hunter; the old man had stalked everything from elephants in Africa to cougars in Peru, and photo stories of his expeditions appeared regularly in the lurid illustrated press. If the opportunity to bag the greatest game of all—the last surviving unicorn—presented itself, could the cold fool resist the temptation? Wallaby's childlike credulity needed little priming from Deverish, and the baronet accepted the tale eagerly, immediately moving to outfit an expedition. Now, three weeks later, the two of them were alone in one of the most desolate areas of Greece, two hundred miles from the nearest police station, in a mountainous countryside where accidents were bound to occur, particularly to someone fat, clumsy and slow of foot—someone, above all, with the equivalent of two thousand English pounds in Greek drachmas stuffed in his pockets.

  Breaking off his reverie, Deverish strode to the kitchen and peremptorily ordered the innkeeper to their table.

  Panayotis followed, but not, Deverish noted irritably, with the alacrity he displayed in response to even the rudest of Wallaby's summonses. Once seated, the old Greek gratefully accepted a glass of Metaxa and listened closely as Deverish explained their quest in fluent Greek, frowning thoughtfully before finally replying in tortured English—Wallaby didn't know a word of any foreign language not featured on menus—that he had never heard of such an animal.

  "But, milord," Panayotis continued haltingly, addressing only Wallaby as was his custom, "there is an old man, a priest, who lives in the woods. He stayed many years in a monastery on Mount Athos and is now what you would call hermetos, for he exists only on nuts and berries, and will kill no living thing for food. There are some who say he is mad—"Panayotis crossed himself surreptitiously at the blasphemy—"but I see much truth in his eyes. He lives in a cave at the foot of Karajides mountain, but once in awhile he comes here, and I give him bread and wine." He took another sip of Metaxa. "This priest knows the woods and mountains like none of us, who are all farmers and seldom wander far from our fields. I have seen him in the forest once or twice, and the animals follow him, even the deer, and are not afraid. He feeds them and sometimes he talks to them." Panayotis looked momentarily embarrassed fearful the Englishman would despise his credulity. "Of course, milord, for all I know he is not even a real priest; the priest at Calabaris in the valley comes here once a month to preach since we have no church of our own and he says he knows nothing of this hermetos. But I think he is a holy man."

  Wallaby gestured impatiently with one pudgy hand.

  "I don't care if he's a saint or a highwayman. If he knows the woods and mountains of this territory, I want to speak to him. We've been going around in circles for three weeks because your damned peasants have eyes for nothing beyond their bloody turnip plots. Can you bring him to us?"

  The innkeepers' brow furrowed doubtfully.

  "That I do not think, milord. He visits here only when he desires, and you could wait weeks before he come again." He brightened perceptibly. "But I could lead you to his cave—it is not a long walk."

  Wallaby heaved agonizedly out of his chair and began waddling towards the stairs, the bottle of Metaxa dangling loosely from one hand.

  "All right, we'll leave at seven in the morning. Wake me at six, prepare a warm bath, and for breakfast fry me six eggs, coffee, some toasted bread, and a side of bacon." He cut off the innkeeper's protest. "Then kill the pig, I'll pay you for it. Seven o'clock." He nodded curtly to Deverish and hauled his bulk laboriously up the stairs.

  Deverish sat hunched over his brandy for at least another hour, and the innkeeper was puzzled by the Englishman's sporadic bouts of smirking laughter. Yes indeed, he thought, savoring the words, do kill the pig. And you will pay for it, dear Marius, you will surely pay for it.

  Deverish awoke after a restless night on a hard pallet-like bed and shaved painfully in cold water brought him in a chipped porcelain basin by the innkeeper's eldest son, a handsome boy in his late teens with tousled coal-black hair, smooth olive skin, and the classic features of a young Homeric prince. He eyed the youth appraisingly for a moment, and then dismissed the thought. Later back in Athens or elsewhere on the Continent, but not here not now. He could afford no taint of suspicion, much less scandal—the stakes were too high.

  Downstairs, Wallaby crouched over a three-week-old copy of the Times he had purchased in Ioannina, the last stage of their journey maintaining vestigial contact with the outside world. He had already polished off his breakfast, and looked up irritably as Deverish took his place at the table and accepted a steaming mug of harsh black tea from the innkeeper.

  "Can't you ever be on time, man? I said we'd depart at seven, and seven it is, whether you've eaten or not. Hurry up with that breakfast!" Panayotis, who had been hovering over Wallaby's shoulder, resignedly padded out to the kitchen, no trace of resentment on his face, and Wallaby immersed himself in the paper for a few more moments before hurling it to the table with a muted imprecation.

  "Must know the damned thing by heart now," he growled. "I can recite King George's movements from morning to night, and throw in a verbatim report of the Kaiser's speech at Potsdam." He looked accusingly at Deverish. "If I'd known we'd be running about half of Greece on this mad chase of yours, I'd have taken some serious reading matter along."

  Deverish's lip curled imperceptibly. Wallaby's idea of serious literature was the latest issue of the Strand, and the peregrinations of Conan Doyle's absurd fictional fabrication—or, on a more refined level, the muddled bleats of eunuchs such as George Manville Fenn, Dick Donovan and W. Clark Russell. For hours on the coach from Athens, Wallaby had rattled on with indefatigable enthusiasm over the latest literary excretions of those favored pygmies—all the while oblivious to the presence at his side of one who could burn his words into the ages if only freed from the material shackles binding lesser men and allowed to breathe, to move, to create. Once, at the very outset of the trip, when his plan had not as yet fully crystallized, Deverish granted Wallaby a second chance to become his patron and read the fool several of his best poems. Wallaby had listened abstractedly, finally nodding judiciously and patting Deverish on the shoulder. "Nice stuff, I'm sure, but I prefer poets who make themselves clear, like Kipling or Housman. All this agonizing over life and death is a bit deep for me. But keep at it, old boy, by all means keep at it." Wallaby had returned with evident relief to his copy of Nature, and neither of them referred to the subject again.

  Under Wallaby's impatient eye, Deverish wolfed an indifferent breakfast of lumpy porridge and cold slabs of greasy bacon and then departed with the innkeeper for the hermit's cave. As the small party left the village and passed through the open fields of the valley, Deverish's spirits failed to lighten, although it was a cool, antiseptic morning, with a clean summer breeze rippling the air and scudding ragged tufts of cloud across a sky of the washed metallic blue found only in the Medite
rranean. Deverish wanted Wallaby alone high in the mountains, not on a hiking trip through the forest in quest of some half-crazed recluse, but he had waited this long, and could afford to wait a few hours or a few days longer.

  A short journey it might be to the innkeeper, but for Deverish the trek appeared interminable, burdened as he was with both their hunting rifles and a rucksack containing rations and extra cartridges. For all his bulk Wallaby pressed on relentlessly through the fields and into the thick woods of hawthorn and birch lapping at the foot of the more lightly forested mountain slopes, his plump cheeks redder than usual from exertion, intermittently whistling bawdy tunes and pausing only for an occasional swift swig of brandy from his capacious silver flask. Deverish was consistently astounded and repelled by the man's insatiable appetite for liquor, and by the fact that it never exacted a toll the following morning, whereas his own four brandies of the night before had bequeathed him an aching head and churning stomach, tinged with the bleak edge of nervous despair always attendant to his hangovers.

  Wallaby, predictably enough, was in the best of spirits and insisted on regaling Deverish with his hunting exploits.

  "Only thing I've never killed is a fox," he said as the old Greek led them through a copse of silver birch and into a small sun-swept clearing at the foot of a rugged, barren hillside. "No sport there, the poor terrified beast doesn't have a chance, run to ground by a pack of bloody baying hounds and a hundred horsemen. A coward's pastime, if you ask me—I always give my game a sporting chance." He pulled out his flask again and took a quick, slobbering gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of one scarlet hand. "Whatever else they say about that fellow Wilde, he had the fox hunter's number: 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.' Eh?" Wallaby burst into a sudden peal of laughter and slapped one meaty thigh, as if the words had been his own spontaneous observation. Deverish merely grimaced—there was something blasphemous at the words of Wilde dribbling from the flaccid lips of this great oaf—and joined the old Greek, who had halted in the middle of the clearing.

  "The holy man lives here," Panayotis whispered reverently, as Wallaby lumbered to his side, "in that cave there, milord." He pointed to a black gash in the pitted face of the hill. "I will go on ahead and see if he will talk with you." Panayotis dropped his pack to the ground and extracted two bottles of wine and a sack stuffed with flat bread, dates, feta cheese, and pungent black Calamaris olives—it had been decided that a bit of discreet bribery might lubricate the priest's tongue—and entered the cave.

  Wallaby and Deverish stood together without speaking in the clearing for several moments after the innkeeper left them. Deverish was restless and nervy, and the insistent glare of sunlight pained his eyes. He was suddenly conscious of the intensity of bird song in the surrounding trees, and as he looked closely he saw hundreds of different birds arrayed in the branches, their voices beating out to serenade the men in the clearing. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a pleasant scene, but now the noise was too orchestral, too insistent, and Deverish found it vaguely disturbing, if not actively tinged with menace. There were too many birds for such a small clearing, and he had a tingling sensation of their awareness, as if their tiny eyes were all fixed on his, the jarring cacophony of bird song directed at him alone. He jerked around to face the cave, sweat springing out on his brow, just as Panayotis emerged and waved them to enter.

  Deverish followed Wallaby and the innkeeper into a dank warren littered with scraps of food and fouled linen. The air was so noxious Deverish almost choked, and abruptly he experienced a wild impulse to flee back into the sunlit glade. But then he saw the man huddled in one corner, and his artist's fascination with the grotesque dispelled all fear. The hermit was tall, at least six feet four, and incredibly filthy, his bony frame draped in the tattered remnants of a soutane, a huge, hand-carved wooden crucifix dangling from his neck. His hands and feet were polished black with a solid patina of filth, and greasy, tangled dark locks fell below his shoulders. The hermit's beard was a living thing, a coiled snake dangling to his waist, encrusted with grime and particles of food, but his teeth, when he smiled to greet them, were startingly white, and his eyes were the clear light blue of the bleached sky outside. The man should have been repellent, but even to Deverish he was strangely impressive. He did not rise but remained crouched in the corner, extending both hands in a mute gesture of welcome. Deverish wondered if they were expected to sit on the filthy floor of the cave, but Wallaby merely squatted on his haunches before the old man and motioned Deverish to explain their mission, while Panayotis hovered edgily by the entrance, occasionally casting awe-struck glances at the hermit. Deverish explained that he and Wallaby had heard reports of a unicorn surviving in these remote hills, and wished to verify them. The old man was silent for a long moment, his eyes cast down and pensive, before he looked directly up at Deverish and spoke softly. Deverish couldn't follow him at first, but finally he realized the old man was speaking classical Greek, the words pure and clean as a mountain stream.

  "But are not unicorns mythical beasts, stranger?" The old man employed the word barbaros, a proper classical usage, but with a faint underlay of emphasis that vaguely disturbed Deverish.

  "Who can say for sure what is myth and what reality, father?" he replied carefully, the ancient words creaking with disuse on his tongue. "We seek only truth."

  The old man's smile faded, and he sighed. Deverish watched with loathing as a louse crawled from the tangled mat of hair under his armpit and struggled laboriously along the tattered remnants of one sleeve.

  "If you seek only truth," the hermit continued. "then I shall answer you with truth. But first I must know more of your purpose in coming here. Is it only the search for knowledge that impels you?"

  The startlingly blue eyes fixed on his, and suddenly the facile words caught in Deverish's throat. He could only nod feebly, and the old man sighed again.

  "I can call no man a liar, because there are too many truths. So to answer you, yes, there is such a beast in these hills, the very last one in the entire world. He is old and tired, and sleeps much in the sun, but sometimes we meet and share our thoughts. He feeds on goodness, and that is why he is old and infirm, and soon shall die, for it is a meager diet today."

  The old priest was obviously mad, but Deverish continued in order to keep Wallaby's flickering interest in their quest alive, for with the sportsman's intuitive flair, the fat Englishman had sensed the spoor of his elusive quarry and now was glancing back and forth at the two of them like a spectator at a match of lawn tennis, hoping by sheer intensity of will to fathom the alien words.

  "Where can we find this beast?" Deverish asked, choking back a smile. The momentary sense of discontinuity he'd experienced earlier had dissolved, and now he felt only contempt tinged with pity for the pathetic demented fool before him.

  "He lives on the slopes above Thanatakis mountain, five miles to the south of here. His legs are weak, and he seldom ventures far from his waterfall. He will not flee from you, for he is very tired and does not know fear."

  Deverish turned to Wallaby and gave him a quick digest of their conversation, registering with satisfaction the glint of excitement in the other man's eyes. Wallaby pulled himself to his feet and started towards the cave door, but before he could follow, the hermit's hand shot out and clutched at his sleeve. Deverish noted with disgust that the fingernails were long, talon-like, and reamed in filth. He tried to shake his arm free, but the old man's grip was inordinately strong, and suddenly the deep, distant eyes fastened on his, and again Deverish felt a vague disorientation, a falling away from reality.

  The old man spoke softly, never looking from Deverish's face.

  "You are here to kill the unicorn, are you not?"

  For one irrational moment Deverish accepted the reality of the hunt as passionately as Wallaby. The priest repeated his question quietly, and Deverish did not have the strength to lie. He felt suddenly nauseous, and the hermit's eyes were like twin stake
s impaling him. He nodded weakly, and the old man shook his head and clasped his one free hand to the wooden crucifix about his neck.

  "I had known you were coming for some time now. The birds told me."

  His grip tightened on Deverish's arm.

  "I cannot stop you, for these things are ordained," the old man whispered, "but I must tell you this: you go to slay the most precious creature left on earth."

  He paused, and Deverish again felt the eyes tearing into his mind like arrows. Wallaby called something impatiently from the doorway, but he could not move.

  "Listen to me, my son," the priest continued, the ancient words falling with liquid precision from his lips, "this beast you seek to slay is the last guardian of man's innocence. Unicorns live on thoughts of beauty, and the radiance of their souls has fallen like sunlight on the world for thousands of years, even before the Old Ones were dreamed into substance on Olympus." The priest's voice fell even lower and the mad eyes filmed with grief. "But the day Christ died on the cross the king of the Unicorns took it upon his race to suffer penance for the act, for otherwise God's wrath delivered on the heads of man would indeed have been terrible. And so on that day, while the heavens shook and the earth trembled on the brink of chaos, he ordered all the females of his race to die, and in great silver flocks they mounted the heights of Thessaly and threw themselves to death on the crags below, singing the ancient songs as they fell. Their voices reached the ear of God, and the tears of Christ rained upon Greece for three days and three nights, and beauty crept into the dreams of everyone."

  He is mad, thought Deverish feebly, why does he keep looking at me, why does he not let me out into the sunlight?

  "Since then," the priest went on, "the remaining unicorns have died one by one, always by the violence of man's hand, because Christ in his love has spared them pain or illness or suffering or death, save that inflicted by his own tormentors. And with the death of each unicorn over the centuries, something of beauty, something of innocence, has gone out of the world, and a candle has been extinguished in the heart of every man, and the darkness has grown. This poor tired beast you plan to kill is the sole custodian of that ancient, guttering flame. When he is slain the last light of God's mercy is snuffed out, and even children's hearts shall become soiled, and wonder will die slowly, strangled until it becomes only a word, and innocence shall never return. A vast darkness hovers over the earth, peopled with the horrors of the apocalypse, and this beast is man's last solitary light. So God intended it and so shall it be. Go and destroy him."