by Susan Dexter
The unicorn followed at the end of the straw rope, its head drooping low. It must be exhausted, Tristan thought. It had lost its grace. Its pewter muzzle nearly dragged the leafy ground. Its silver hooves stumbled over roots.
Once relief at being out of the bog wore off, Tristan was faltering too. Perhaps they ought to rest. At least till the moon climbed high. It was too easy to trip in the dark, or fail to spot a low-growing branch not quite far enough overhead.
Tristan halted. The unicorn stopped. It simply stood. It did not sniff the air. It did not look about. Tired enough to sleep standing up, Tristan guessed with sympathy.
He looked around. A drift of soft leaves was what he wanted to see. That would make a softer bed than dry earth. Finding a good spot, he led the unicorn gently to it. The spell he’d used to make the rope still seemed enough to secure it. It went where he did, stopped when he stopped.
Tristan smiled in the dark. His spells were stronger, since he’d found the unicorn. Its magic was helping his own. When they had been friends for more than a handful of days, who knew what might happen? What might they not do? He settled for sleep.
Tristan’s dreams were pleasant. Contentment swelled his heart. The leaves were soft under him, and the unicorn was warm beside him. His dreams were full of the creature.
No one was going to laugh at him now. No one would pity him. He’d have respect. He’d be a proper wizard at last. All the things Blais had struggled to teach him would bear fruit, beyond his wildest hopes. The world was his. He held it in his hand. It was warm against his back. Tristan had never known such happiness, such excitement, such wonderful peace.
The Prisoner
Tristan sat up, blinking. For a moment, he had no idea where he was. Who he was felt entirely out of reach.
He was cold. Something was wrong, but Tristan could not, half asleep, decide just what. He groped after the last shreds of his dream, but awake he couldn’t hold them. The loss tasted bitter, like drinking seawater.
Oh. The unicorn was on its feet. That must be what had disturbed him. It pulled gently at the rope, testing the binding of straw and spell. Tristan had looped the rope about his left wrist while he slept. Held, the unicorn stopped where it was. It did not struggle. It stood still, a statue of silver.
Overhead, the moon had risen. It was still dim, tarnished. Tristan was used to that now. He could make it out, centered in a gap between leafy branches.
The unicorn was looking at the moon too. It pulled once more at the rope.
Did it think they should move on? Tristan had intended to, but the dim moon gave scarcely any light. Tristan felt he would rather wait for the sun. His brief sleep had showed him just how weary he was. It couldn’t be long till dawn, and it would be so much easier to move through the wood in daylight, when he was rested.
The unicorn itself gave off light. It wasn’t merely reflecting the starlight that fell upon it. Hide and horn shone bright enough to show him Thomas, sitting among the gnarled roots of a beech tree a dozen feet away. The cat’s eyes shone silver-green, but their expression wasn’t one Tristan could read at a distance.
Again the unicorn tipped its slender head toward the sky. The fluted horn seemed almost to touch the moon. That was an illusion, of course. A trick of sleep-sanded eyes. The moon was far, far out of reach. Only children believed they could actually touch the moon when it hung full in the sky.
Was it too weary to rest? Tristan could recall once or twice being too exhausted to sleep. Blais had dosed him with catnip tea and warm milk. What would soothe a unicorn? He had no milk, but he did have a few leaves of catnip. He could make a fire, now that there was dry fuel. He could make tea.
Tristan rose. He went hand over hand along the rope till he reached the unicorn’s shoulder. Maybe a friend’s touch would calm the creature. The unicorn turned its head, and Tristan’s fingers brushed across the spiral horn.
Images flooded through his head, like water dumped carelessly into a bowl. They rushed past, no more than jumbled fragments which seemed to catch behind his eyelids.
Tristan saw the fat full moon sliding into the deep velvet of the eclipse. He watched the silver moonshine slip free of the moon. Drawn to the glitter of water far below, it dove through the dark air. It took shape as it went—the shining beams mingled and jelled. They became a silver beast with a single, shining horn. The unicorn had swift, slender legs, a long neck, a proud head. For part of one night, then moonshine was free. Free to dance. Free to roam.
But the earth below was sucking mud and faithless quicksand. The gleaming water was nothing less than a trap. The flitting, chittering dwellers of the bogland had laid their snare with all the cunning they could muster. The unicorn was deceived. It was tangled in a maze of shadows, of mud. It was tricked by the mirror of the water. And as it sought to flee, its precious horn was seized. Its mane was snared by the black branches of a dead tree’s bones, wrapped round and round.
Wind whipped it, teased it with the hope of freedom. Darting shapes tormented it. However it moved, it was caught, held closer and closer yet. Soon, it was snared so completely that it could scarcely stir a cloven hoof.
Small wonder that the moon remained dark when the eclipse ended. Without her shine, the moon’s face would always be a mere shadow upon the sky. The unicorn must go back. It must return home, or never again would the moon paint the earth with silver. Never would she wash the land with pearl.
But the unicorn was a prisoner still, more bound than ever.
Tristan tightened his grip on the rope. He took his hand from the horn and shook his head as if to chase a dream away. Let his unicorn go? No! That would never do. The unicorn was his. He’d found it. He’d saved it. He’d led it out of the bog, dragged it behind him every step.
The unicorn’s head drooped, as if it had received his thoughts along the straw rope. Its eyes closed, long lashes hiding the dark almonds.
“No,” Tristan told it, his voice harsh. He stroked the unicorn’s neck. Its hair was like warm silk. “I can’t,” he said more gently.
You can’t? Or you won’t? Thomas asked. He still sat among the roots. Has it changed one prison for another, then?
“What do you know about it?” Tristan snapped, sharper than he meant. “You’re just a cat!”
Thomas blinked at him. The cat said nothing more. He raised a paw and washed it. Tiny, precise strokes of his tongue adjusted every hair till each lay in place. He didn’t look at Tristan again. His contempt could not have been made more clear.
Tristan turned his back on the cat. Thomas didn’t understand, that was the thing. He was only a cat, after all. Not an apprentice who longed so desperately to be a wizard. Not an apprentice who’d studied and practiced and still found his desire to be as elusive as…as moonshine! Thomas didn’t understand what his meddling had touched.
Since he’d found the unicorn, Tristan’s spells had force. They had real power. They did what he meant them to do. Sometimes they did better. The hasty enchantment he’d thrown upon the straw rope—it was still holding just fine!
None of his most painstakingly crafted incantations had ever been half so effective. Even when his spells had more or less worked, it had never been like this. Tristan understood for the first time how power felt, what it was like to know that his spells would make magic and not just a mess.
If he let the unicorn go, he gave up all that. This wasn’t like snatching a bird from a cat’s paws and helping it return to the sky. If he let the unicorn loose, he would lose its magic. And his own magic without it was so…unreliable.
Without the unicorn, he’d be as he was before. He would have nothing. No hopes. No dreams. No glow of power to warm him.
He’d be the wizard’s brat again, that’s all he’d be. Blais’ apprentice, that couldn’t clean ashes out of the fireplace. Blais’ apprentice because the wizard knew he had nowhere else to go!
Tristan wrapped the rope around his hand, three times. That used up all the slack, and it couldn
’t come undone by accident, either. He’d build the unicorn a stable, once he got it home. Not a lean-to like the one that sheltered the cow at night. No, a proper stable. He’d be able to do that. Why, he could make the logs saw themselves into boards!
He’d bed the stall with the most tender hay, with the long leaves and yellow flowers of sweet flag. He’d use flowers of every sort. And a bucket of silver, for drinking water. All the best. That was what the unicorn would have. It would not suffer for staying with him.
Tristan looked at the unicorn fiercely, as if he could hold it with his eyes alone. Once the moon had set, it would forget all this nonsense. He’d have it home before the moon rose again. In the stable, it wouldn’t be able to see the moon. It wouldn’t be troubled.
It was his. He’d keep it safe.
The unicorn began to weep. It didn’t make a sound, but tears of crystal caught the starlight. The almond eyes looked ancient as the sky. Empty of stars, they were all darkness. Save for the flowing tears, they could have been the eye-holes of a mask.
The longer he looked at those eyes, the worse Tristan felt. He turned his head away. He tried hard to think about his future. Perhaps he’d be a greater wizard than Blais. That was how wizardry worked. Every wizard built on what those who’d gone before him had learned, what they had recorded in their grimoires, what they had written in their treatises on the Arts Magical. Tristan had known despair, certain he would never be a part of that tradition. But he could. He knew it now. All his work, all his study, would be rewarded at last.
Its muzzle was impossibly soft, as if a silk-tree had been crossbred with a peach. Surely unicorns must feed on only the tenderest of flowers. Well, it would have them! Whatever it needed. Flowers, rare fruits. Dew to drink, if that was what it preferred.
The unicorn’s neck arched like a swan’s. There its flesh felt different, for the silken skin stretched over muscle, not just sculptured bone. Tristan scratched timidly along the roots of the white mane, having heard that horses enjoyed that attention. All he knew of large animals concerned cows—specifically, their elderly milk-cow. She was a touch eccentric, after years of exposure to Blais and his magic. She might not any longer even be typical of cows. She liked to have the base of her tail scratched, and the space between her jaws rubbed.
The unicorn gave no sign that it enjoyed his scratching, but neither did it draw away from Tristan’s fingers. When he reached its shoulder, the mane dwindled. A line of longer hair ran along the unicorn’s spine, until it met and joined with the tail. Perhaps a unicorn could raise that crest of hair at will, the way cats did. It was written that unicorns were fierce fighters. They killed lions without trouble and did not hesitate to match their strength against dragons.
The legs were like a deer’s, very slender. Longer than a cow’s. Nothing to them but bone and sinew. The cloven hooves glistened like the pearly insides of oyster shells. Their tips were sharp as knives. That was how unicorns killed lions.
The shining horn was an endless spiral. He didn’t want to risk touching it again, but Tristan could imagine no harm in looking at it. The tiniest shaving from it would ransom a king, and it could preserve that king from any poison. Almost no one ever saw a whole unicorn’s horn. Fewer still saw it attached to the living unicorn. Tristan’s heart ached with the wonder of that. He hoped he would never grow so used to the sight that he went numb to it. He didn’t want to be blind and deaf to such a wonder. He swore he would not. He pledged it fiercely in his heart.
The straw rope was coarse. Its fibers were prickly as thistles. Tristan slid his fingers beneath the collar, scratching and soothing. The unicorn rested its chin upon his shoulder. It sighed deeply.
Good. It was settling. He’d known it would. It would sleep. Then he could do likewise. The moon would set. The sun would rise. He would lead the unicorn through the forest and back to Blais’ cottage. There, he’d begin to discover what it was like to truly be a wizard.
Tristan’s heart was full, but his stomach hurt. He couldn’t have eaten anything that disagreed with him—the little food he’d carried was long gone. He’d actually eaten nothing in the past day but those few drops of honey while he spoke with the bees.
Most likely, his belly hurt because it was empty. That made sense. He could endure hunger for a few hours more. No trouble there. Still, Tristan felt odd. Sleep would not come.
The shadowy moon overhead caught his eye, and his stomach twisted, hard. Tristan looked away—straight at the unicorn.
It was staring at the moon again. No tears fell from its long eyes now. Nor did it cry out. No shrieks, no groans. It only watched, as the moon drew slowly across the sky.
Tristan felt another twinge, this one right under his heart. He swallowed hard, shoving the pain away. He’d had plenty of practice with that sort of thing. It hurt to watch his spells fail, no matter the care he took with them. It hurt to be friendless, to want a friend so much that he’d take any chance to gain one—let Rho sport with him, let Jock trick him and trap him and torment him.
His whole life hurt, most days. Tristan knew pain, even if he had no idea who he truly was or why his parents had abandoned him. They’d left a helpless baby in an orchard one winter’s night. Had they known Blais would find him? Had they cared? Was he truly an orphan—or merely discarded? He didn’t know. He doubted he ever would know.
Pain was constant. Tristan was used to it. The unicorn was not, yet, but it was learning. It looked once more at the moon. Then it lowered its head, so that the tip of its horn nearly dragged the ground.
Something in the gesture alarmed Tristan. What if it could die of pain, of despair? He had rather often wished that he could. What if it died right now, as the last of its hope left it? Tristan knelt and flung his arms around the unicorn’s head. It seemed heavy as a coffin. Dead weight.
Don’t, he wished it urgently. Stay with me. Please!
A warm drop slid onto his cheek, where it pressed against the unicorn. Tristan’s throat felt swollen, hot. It began to ache.
Again, his fingers touched the rope of straw. They slid beneath it, against the slippery silken hair. Tristan wrenched them back, so fast that the rope burned his skin.
No! I can’t. I can’t!
Can’t you?
He couldn’t if he thought about what he was doing. If he counted what he was losing. Tristan acted swiftly, before he could sort out consequences. Sketching a Dismissal with the fingers of his left hand, he gave a mighty yank upon the straw rope with his right.
The tough fibers parted like cobwebs, once the magic left them. The unicorn leapt up and over Tristan, like a wave breaking over a stony shore. Unlike a wave, it never fell back. It rose upward and upward, into the sky.
Tristan jumped up too, snatching after the silver shape, after his dreams. He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed at the unicorn, but his fingers captured only empty air. He lost his balance, stumbled and sprawled helplessly. The earth smacked him, solid as only the real world could be.
Home At Last
Clouds swept over, on a cold wind whistling between the treetops. For a moment the wood went very dark. Tristan lay on his back. His eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. There seemed no point in his getting up. He only breathed because his lungs were in the habit and insisted on working whether he paid attention to them or not.
The clouds parted again. A waning moon shone down, thin as a reaper’s sickle, but bright as it should be. In the shining curve of it, Tristan could plainly see the shape of the unicorn. It was home safe at last. Tristan’s stomach stopped hurting him, though he hardly felt better. His heart was like a block of wood in his chest.
Thomas patted a velvet paw on his cheek. You all right?
Tristan rolled to one side. He sat up. He brushed leaves out of his hair. “I forgot you were here.”
He didn’t answer Thomas’ question. Thomas could see he wasn’t hurt. But all right? He might never be that again, Tristan felt. Never.
* * * *
Tristan slept the rest of the night, a rest heavy as stone, barren of dreams. When he woke, he was still tired to his bones. The air was silver with mist again. The trunks of the trees were gray—dark and light, but always gray. All color, all life, had vanished. They’d left the world when the unicorn jumped back to the moon.
Tristan was soaked with the mist, except for a little spot on his left side. Thomas was curled there. The cat’s fur was covered with drops of water. Tristan ran a finger over the hair, and Thomas jumped up, hissing. He stalked away, tail fat as a bottle-brush.
In the mist, all directions looked just alike. To Tristan’s heart they were alike, except for the way which led to the bog. He put that at his back and began walking. When the sun rose, the mist turned to gold, but his spirits stayed gray.
The wood was a confusing place. Half-hidden, thick with shadowy tree trunks and lanced by spear-shafts of bright light. To keep from circling back toward the bog, Tristan walked with the light straight in his eyes. He couldn’t see much of where he was going. Once, he started sneezing and walked straight into a tree.
Thomas popped up at his side. I found strawberries, he announced.
That meant breakfast—and either a clearing or the edge of the forest. Tristan followed the cat and gathered the small red berries. Thomas crunched something with great zest, but Tristan made it a point not to find out just what it was. The berries tasted sweet.
The mist lifted until it became blue sky. The color was deep enough to break a heart—if that heart was not cracked already. Tristan looked about and decided that he knew where he was. He and Blais had come this way one spring, seeking mushrooms. If he was right, he would need to walk all day to get home, and most of the night too.
And just as well. He was going home without the unicorn and its magic, without the bees to trade for a laying hen. Not to mention with the cat he’d been ordered to get rid of. The longer his journey took, the better, Tristan felt.
