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by A. A. Attanasio

  demon-man in full possession of his powers if there is any hope at all of making a place for ourselves in the new world to come."

  "I would not want that place to be in the molten belly of the Dragon."

  "Nor I, brother. The Daoine Sid have empowered

  me to act as queen of the Celts." She lifts her chin in a gesture of authority. "I must be free to command my people as I see best. You must not stand against me."

  The prince looks offended, and the moth-lights in

  the chamber deepen toward a redder pitch of sunset. "You serve King Someone Knows the Truth as do we. We stand together. We must feed the Dragon."

  A sad expression flickers from Ygrane. "No, Bright Night. I serve my people first. And they are torn between the old way of the Dragon and the new promises of the Fire Lords and their Christian kings."

  " Old way of the Dragon?" Bright Night laughs, and the fathomless green of his eyes darkens. "In your memory it may seem old. But not to the Sid, for we remember when we lived in the Storm Tree under the starwinds and the sun and the moon. We did not always serve the Dragon. But now, we do—and we must feed that beast if we are to live long enough to get out of here and reclaim our place in the Tree."

  "You must trust me, brother. I have a vision for Lailoken."

  "We trusted you with Gorlois," the elf prince says acidly, "and now there is Morgeu. She is a dangerous wrong turn."

  Ygrane shrugs off his protest. "The Druids gave me to Gorlois. He was not of my choosing."

  The elf prince edges closer, and a scent of moss

  and river-rubbed rocks accompanies him. "The Daoine Sid and the Celts are allies, Ygrane. More so now than ever, we must work together to find the safe path between the Dragon's hunger and the influence of the Fire Lords. Do you not see? By holding on to both the unicorn and

  Lailoken, you favor the Fire Lords."

  "Trust me—Lailoken will redeem our alliance with

  the Romans. I have seen it."

  "The Romans are no more. The husks they left

  behind are only shadows of the conquerors who drove us from the Great Tree. They are Britons." He names them coldly. "One of the old tribes that served us once and now serve the nailed god. They are faithless."

  "They have learned much from the Romans, much

  in the way of war. We need them to fend off the Furor."

  The prince paces angrily, and the sparks around

  him ruddy almost to purple. "The Daoine Sid would rather return to the Tree on the backs of the Romans and the Britons. We do not want alliance with their nailed god. We have more in common with the Furor than these invaders from the Radiant South."

  Ygrane lifts a surprised eyebrow at this outburst.

  "The Daoine Sid learned much of their magic from the southern tribes and the Fire Lords. Is that not precisely why the Furor rejected me when I offered myself to him?"

  Bright Night stops and runs both hands through his

  shiny hair, trying to contain the great confusion of his mind.

  He must do something. The Dragon is ravenously intent on feeding its dreamsong. He knows Ygrane is right, and they must wait. But how? There is no time.

  His anger bears down on the one who has driven

  them to this desperation: "The Furor is mad. He is obsessed with the purity of the Abiding North. He thinks we taint that purity. We, who once ruled from the tundra to the Indus when he was no more than a godling crawling about the rootlands. How did he come to power, I ask you? By parsing himself to a troll! And now he dares to say that we are tainted and must be purged from these lands? I tell you now, sister, I am glad he did not accept you."

  Ygrane smiles affectionately. "Even though we have so much in common with him, brother?"

  Bright Night puffs his cheeks out, trying to blow

  away his confusion. "I misspoke. Since our exile from the Tree, we have lost all that we once shared with the Rovers of the Wild Hunt. He means to destroy us, to do what the Fauni could not. He is no kinsman. Not anymore. Though I wish he were—for I do fear the nailed god."

  "Rightly so, brother," she says in a placating voice.

  The wild look in his eyes worries her. She understands his despair, his desperation to do something, anything to help himself and his people, and she prays with secret

  inwardness that her vision will see them through these frightful times.

  She will not lie to him, any more than she would

  deceive herself, so she continues: "We must never forget, the Fire Lords are alien. The magic they taught the Radiant

  South, the magic that the nailed god bears north with him out of the whirlwind desert, that magic they call the Word is dangerous. It changes everything. We discovered that

  ourselves during our time in the south, when we learned number and runes. It changed us, so much so that the

  Furor, our ancient kin, rejects us now. The magic of the Word changes everything. The nailed god himself admits this, for he says that if we ally with him we shall not die, yet we shall all be changed."

  The prince makes a soft noise of accord and begins

  to fade. "Sister—these changes frighten us. The Sid have endured so much change already—can we bear more?"

  "The Sid, like their allies the Celts, are survivors.

  Our fates have been conjoined since the time of the

  Mothers, and together we survived the change to the time of the Chiefs. We will survive this change, too. Go now with my goodwill, brother Bright Night, and know that with the demon Lailoken and the unicorn serving us, the Dragon will soon drink again the lives of our enemies."

  The dusk motes in the shrine darken to purple and

  to ultra-purples beyond sight, and the chamber brightens with the sugary glow of morning light.

  *

  Soldiers lead Lailoken to the principia, a massive building with blue timber colonnades, stone stairs, and colorful mosaic floors depicting scenes of alien Roman gods. Most of the rooms remain bare, dark, and dank—

  empty as the day the legions withdrew.

  The marble bath, however, is luminous beneath a

  domed skylight. The handsomely appointed chamber

  gleams with several full-length silver mirrors, saffron draperies, polished chests of clothing, and wooden

  benches carved with the intricate scrollwork of the Celts.

  While a young harpist's dolorous music serenades

  him, Lailoken sponges away the grime of his travels. He examines his body in the mirrors. A heron, he thinks. His white-feathered hair falls well past the bony wings of his scapulae. He lifts his tangled and matted beard to reveal clavicles, ribs, and sternum molded tautly by pallid skin.

  His face has a crane's beaked sharpness, and his long arms and legs appear thin and knobbed as his staff.

  At length, an aged, stern-browed soldier comes by

  to soak his matted beard and locks in a sudsy,

  mucilaginous herbal broth that smells of decaying

  grasslands. Patiently, the soldier struggles with a bronze comb and shears to unknot and coif the old man's long whiskers.

  When he finishes, Lailoken's silver mane and full-cut beard accent the bony contours of his face. His reflection fetches a giggle from that stern visage. Heightening the effect, he dons the garments given him: a midnight blue tunic, mocha leather sandals, and black robe with crimson stitchwork.

  Lulled by a fine meal of braised salmon, venison pie, and hazelnut bread, the wizard returns to the garden. The queen has gone. When he inquires, the guards inform him that Ygrane has been called south to rally her fiana against barbarian raiders swarming ashore along the Saxon Coast.

  Surprised, he learns that he will join her at her

  fortress in Maridunum—and he will have to travel there in the company of her daughter, the princess Morgeu.

  *

  The unicorn stands light and muscular as fog in the

  tunnel of the forest. Scattered flowers and fallen fru
its burn in the gloom like exotic shells washed up from an alien sea.

  It waits for Ygrane's summons. Now it must follow

  where she leads. To fulfill its mission for the Fire Lords, it must trust in this human, whose silver-ringed fingers smell of thunder. Where is she leading it—and why?

  A nearby creek mutters in everlasting portent.

  Events linked into consequences run on into other deeper and stranger consequences. The unicorn wants to go

  home, back to its fields of the sun. It has taken enough energy from the Dragon. It has seen all and more than it wants to see of the parasitical lives thriving on the Dragon's pelt.

  Why it stays seems too large a question, especially

  in the days since Raglaw almost killed it. The wisdom that it needs to understand why will not fit into its skull. Yet, the unicorn stays. It has learned from its encounters with the Fire Lords that it is a dutiful creature, and of a larger order than the small lives infesting the Dragon.

  With that knowledge comes a responsibility from

  which it cannot flee. It has been chosen. Of all in the herd, it alone has been chosen. For the honor of its breed, it must stay and complete the work it has been sent here to do.

  Where are the Fire Lords in their soft wings of light?

  Where are their watchful eyes?

  The unicorn looks and sees blue-cut pieces of the

  sky shaped by leaves and branches trapped inside the

  wind. It listens and hears only the interminable omen of the creek that runs toward a depth that will swallow it whole.

  *

  "You shall never have the unicorn," the princess Morgeu threatens as Lailoken rides beside her on a frisky black stallion that requires his full attention. He has never ridden such a beast before, and he is unaccustomed to the stubborn single-mindedness of the horse. His feeble legs cannot prevent his being jostled and jiggled about. The steed's muscular excitement at every twist of wind and inviting plume of oat grass along the roadside tests his determination, and he must use all his physical strength to master the beast.

  "I do not want the unicorn," Lailoken answers truthfully. Not wanting to meet her mocking grin, he looks away, down the shrubby slopes to where the sea sparkles.

  Beyond wheeling gulls, the profile of Mona beneath castles of summer clouds.

  "You told me you were pursuing the animal,"

  Morgeu presses. "Are you a liar?"

  "I was pursuing the unicorn—and it led me to you.

  For that reason alone, we should be friends." Lailoken looks about for the child's guardian, some authoritative adult who can save him from this youngster's impudence.

  The guards on their horses attend only to the

  underbrush at the roadside and the sun-glinting trees on the slopes above. Most trail behind, guarding the boar-skin-covered wagon that hauls supplies from the fortress.

  "If we are to be friends," she says, her eyes chilled as polished pebbles, "you must give me a gift."

  "You have the gift of Lailoken's friendship," he replies evenly, and tries to pull his mount away.

  She is the far superior equestrian and stays close by his side. "Prove your friendship to me, Lailoken," she insists, glowering at him like a temple demon. "Give me a gift, I tell you. Something simple. Say, that crude, ugly staff you carry." She reaches out and tugs free the stave that the wizard had secured to his saddle.

  "Return that, young lady—" the old man calls loudly, too loudly, startling his horse and sending it prancing forward. Morgeu delivers the haunches of the beast a

  sharp rap with the hard stave, and it bolts into a full run.

  Lailoken flings himself forward, clinging to its neck, the ground blurring below.

  Desperately, he uses magic to reach into the animal

  with his heart strength, trying to calm the startled creature.

  Before he can master his own fright, a mounted warrior reaches out, deftly seizes his reins, and steadies the stallion for him.

  Lailoken turns sheepishly about in the saddle, prepared to face Morgeu's scornful laughter. Instead, he meets her churlish face aquiver with fear. From the trailing wagon, a flap of boar-skin has lifted above a gnarled, two-fingered hand. A hideously rent face, warped, cracked, and bleached as a weathered plank scowls at the girl and

  vanishes behind the dropped hide.

  Morgeu, lower jaw trembling, timidly hands the staff

  to a nearby guard and retreats to a position behind the wagon.

  With the staff returned to him, Lailoken rides well

  away from Morgeu, and the remainder of that day's journey continues without incident. Not until late that night does he see again the crone's withered visage.

  After the party has eaten and enjoyed harp-songs

  and heroic stories, after the campfires are banked and the night given to sleep under the guardianship of the white-shrouded moon, the hag comes to him.

  A spidery touch summons Lailoken from his first

  sleep under a blanket since the days of his mother's love, and he blinks awake.

  "Come away with me, wizard," the hag whispers with a breath sour and sweet as gone apples. "Come walk with me in the night."

  She speaks in Brythonic, and by the time the wizard

  revives that old Celtic tongue from his demonic memory, the witch has shrunk into the lunar night.

  He sits up and peeks around for the others. All sleep soundly beside the breathing embers of the campfire, and even the sentinels slump drowsily at their posts.

  Crone's work, he thinks, and grasps his staff as he departs the fire circle.

  At the brink of the roadside beside a many-stalked

  elder, Lailoken finds the old woman sitting on her heels staring down at the sea's glittery collection of polished spoons.

  "Who dreamed the waters into being?" the hag inquires.

  The wizard squats beside her and scrutinizes her

  deformed profile. "You woke these old bones for a game of riddles?"

  "Oh, this is no game, Lailoken—nor are your bones old as they seem." Her voice crackles and hisses from brittle lungs. "I am the crone Raglaw, spiritual guardian of the queen. And you are the demon Lailoken, who ravaged the Romans, and before them the Achaean Greeks, and

  before them the Assyrians of Nineveh, and before them the Chaldeans of Babylon." She gives a humorless, peg-toothed smile to the night. "So now that we know who we

  are, tell me, Lailoken, who dreamed the waters into being?"

  "God."

  She turns her sunken face toward him, her eyes wet

  sparks in sunken sockets. "And whom do you serve by wearing these rags of mortal flesh? Tell me true, demon."

  "I serve God. I have always served Her—best as I knew how—from the time heaven cast us out."

  "Then, riddle me this, demon Lailoken: What good do mortals find on earth that God can never find?"

  The wizard puzzles over that for an awkward spell

  and admits, "I have no idea, crone Raglaw. What mortals can find, so can God."

  "Think on it, then," she counsels, "for you have not yet grasped what it means to be truly mortal until you understand this riddle." She returns her attention to the moon-spun waters. "It will come to you."

  Lailoken huffs with exasperation. "You say this is not a game—yet you speak to me as though I were a child."

  A scornful laugh sizzles from deep in Raglaw's

  collapsed chest. "Are you not, Lailoken? Have your mortal eyes beheld more than a dozen winters?"

  "No, yet I have knowledge greater than all your

  winters, old lady, even if you were as ancient as the entombed pharaohs you resemble."

  " Bah—knowledge. Is that how you hope to serve God—with your knowledge? What are you—a demon or a

  scribe? Look there, Lailoken." She thrusts her bony chin at the darkness blotting the setting constellations. "That island is Mona mam Cymru, the Mother of Our Land. Once, it fed all this country—and
not just with its grains and cattle. It fed us with knowledge, for there dwelled the Druids. These nobles of our people knew the secret ways of earth and sky, and the tree alphabet, and the oral histories of the oldest heroes and wisest women. And, I ask you, what all that knowledge was worth under the sword of the

  Romans? The invaders slaughtered them all, and their

  knowledge now is worth no more than the babbling of the wind in the trees. Knowledge— bah!"

  The hag spins about and stabs a stubby finger into

  the wizard's chest. "Open this up," she gasps. "Come, Lailoken. Open your heart to me. I know you know what I mean. Open it now and feel what you will feel."

  What reason have I to resist her? he reasons, and gently releases the flowing energy from the gate of his heart, and it penetrates her as though she were smoke.

  With frightful suddenness, Lailoken's life-force spills from him and falls through her vaporous being like a man striding into a dark stairwell and finding instead empty space. Only, rather than plummeting downward, the wizard

  falls up into the sky.

  The strangeness of the sensation grips him so

  strongly, he unravels into laughter. Seized with guffaws, he dissolves into the rising wind sliding off the sea. He rushes upward through moon-shot tree-crowns, vision bleared, soaring above dark valleys in a star-streaked headlong flight higher than time.

  A wider vision opens, and Lailoken sees years

  spread before him like a writhing, living tapestry.

  Prescience has never been a gift he possessed, even as a demon, and this frightens him.

  Time is blind, he tells himself.

  Yet to his charmed attention, time shines radiantly,

  dancing like the luminous shadows inside a surging fire.

  Flames spurt whole swatches of human history, where

  each fluttering color illuminates a lineage, flares of generations; each hue carries a life, shading scenes and experiences from that life and many enclosing lives, the whole of this resplendent vista writhing and swirling like veils of fiery oil on water.

  All time seethes before him. Past and future. He

  sees across thirty centuries or more, from the first mud hut cities on the Euphrates to a future of glass and steel spires.

  His flight peaks, and, as he falls back through the