Melody's Unicorn

by Richard Swan

  Ieuan broke in immediately. ‘I said we were honest,’ he protested. ‘I never said we told the whole truth all the time.’

  Melody looked at him until he dropped his eyes. ‘Yes, that’s one of the things I’m going to have to decide. How far I can trust a dwarf.’ Ieuan looked up momentarily as if he was going to protest again, then hung his head. ‘Good. I’m learning already. The answer is that I can quite clearly trust you most of the time, but not all the time. You won’t lie to me, perhaps, but you won’t tell me all the truth, and you’ll conceal things from me unless I ask you directly. How am I doing so far?’

  ‘Fairly well,’ Ieuan admitted grudgingly.

  ‘OK then,’ Melody continued. ‘So what do we have? We have a dwarf who appears from nowhere shortly after I disappear, to work alongside my father and to discover information. So, why did he come here? Was it his own choice, or was he sent?’ She looked expectantly at Ieuan.

  ‘I was sent,’ muttered Ieuan unwillingly.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘By the other dwarfs. The dwarfs are earth creatures, and we dig in the deep places, often in forests where the trees have already dug for us. So we have an affinity with the forests and the creatures of the forest. But there have been disturbances in recent years. Strange creatures have been sighted in more and more places, then a unicorn was seen. Tales began to circulate of a girl with special gifts who would bridge the gap between the worlds, through the power of the unicorn. We had hardly discovered a little about her when the rumour came that she had disappeared, and then came the news that dragons were stirring again in the west, after a long long absence. That could hardly be a coincidence, so several of us were sent to see what we could find out. I came here, where you were last known to live, to see whether your father knew of your whereabouts. It soon became clear that he knew no more than we did, but he was confident that you’d return in time, so I waited here too.’

  ‘You’ve been a good friend, too,’ put in Melody’s father. ‘I wish I’d known more of this before, but I guess you were doing what you’d been instructed to do.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Ieuan.

  ‘So what now?’ Melody asked

  ‘Now I’ve found you, many of our questions are beginning to be answered. You’ve been to Faërie. You’ve met a unicorn, and you’ve found favour with the king of the feys.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Ieuan gave her a reproving look. ‘It’s obvious. In the first place, you would never have been permitted to walk in Faërie unless the king wished it so, and you would certainly have never been allowed to leave. Secondly, you’re wearing gold from Faërie on your finger, and that didn’t come to you by chance.’

  ‘You recognise the ring?’

  ‘I recognise the gold. The gold of Faërie is fabled and almost unknown. I have only ever seen one other piece.’

  ‘But I was given the ring here, not in Faërie! Ruric gave it to me, in Ealing.’ Melody didn’t mention the idea that the ring might have been made by Merlin.

  ‘That may be,’ said Ieuan, unperturbed. ‘The gold came from Faërie, nevertheless, and I’m guessing it was made there. Who brought it to this world is another matter.’

  ‘Can you enter Faërie?’

  ‘A shrewd question! No, no dwarf has ever trodden in the fey king’s realm. He believes, quite rightly, that we would want to dig for gold there, and disturb the balance and the ways of his kingdom. When he rides out into this world we offer him gold from our own mines, but he laughs and won’t exchange his riches for ours. The ring you wear would command devotion from every dwarf within the four seas.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘Naturally. I’m here to serve you, doubly so now that I’ve seen what you are. I shall come with you and aid you as far as I can in your quest to find the dragon.’

  ‘Which answers my next question. I was going to ask for your help, since you know so much. What should I do now?’

  ‘That’s an easy matter, I think. You must return to London. The centres of power are there, and I don’t doubt that your destiny leads you back there. I shall accompany you, for although I don’t know London well I know much of the matters with which you’re now dealing.’

  ‘And what of me?’ asked her father, not unkindly but with emphasis. Both Melody and Ieuan looked at him.

  ‘Father,’ said Melody carefully, laying her hand on his arm, ‘I don’t think this business is yours. You let me go before, and I think you knew then that I had to find my own path. This time that’s doubly true, and I don’t think you can help me. But at least this time you know where I’m going, and I shall have company and help.’

  Her father hesitated. ‘I know where you’re going, in a general sense, but I don’t what you’re going into. It’s obviously dangerous, but it’s more than that. Already you’ve come back changed; I think that next time I shan’t recognise you at all.’

  Melody smiled gently. ‘Oh yes you will. Still your daughter, always your daughter. Remember?’

  Her father smiled back. ‘I remember.’

  It was as they turned to walk back to the Land Rover that the trouble started. From the trees at the edge of the clearing emerged a pack of wolves, fifteen or twenty of them, led by a huge snarling brute with fierce eyes. The pack spread out across the path, blocking the way.

  ‘There’s no way through that lot,’ said Melody’s father. He sounded concerned but not panic-stricken, and Melody guessed he’d encountered wolves in these woods before. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Is there another way round?’ Melody asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ said Ieuan. ‘This group is out to prevent us leaving. If we go another way, they’ll cut us off.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We fight. Or rather, you fight.’

  ‘I can’t fight that many,’ said Melody. She remembered killing the wolf in these woods, but that had been alone, and she had been filled with rage. Here were more wolves than she could count, and she didn’t want to kill anything if she didn’t have to.

  ‘You don’t have any choice. Your father and I are unarmed. There are axes here, but they’re meant for chopping wood, not slashing at fast-moving predators. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Won’t they let us past?’

  ‘Not these. They’re here to stop us leaving, or rather to stop you leaving. You can try and bargain with them if you like, but I don’t think they’ll listen to reason.’

  Melody faced the wolves. They weren’t moving forward to attack, but they were watching her. If she turned away they could spring forward in moments. She looked on each side, but there was no alternative path. If they were going to get back to the Land Rover, it would have to be through the wolves.

  ‘I can’t kill them. Even if I kill one the rest will get me.’

  ‘You may not have to kill them. I don’t know. But you do have to fight them. There’s no other way.’

  Accepting this, Melody moved slowly forward. The wolves instantly became poised, ready to spring. She stopped, and raised her hand, showing them the ring. They paused as if judging her, then tensed again.

  ‘It’s not enough to frighten them,’ commented Ieuan, ‘or to threaten them. You have to act.’

  Melody agreed, but didn’t know quite what to do. She took another cautious step forward. And the leading wolf sprang. It took three bounds towards her, covering the distance with terrifying speed, and jumped for her throat.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Melody, speaking direct to the wolf and simultaneously aware of a burning feeling from her ring.

  The wolf stopped, slammed to a halt in mid-air as if it had smashed into a steel door. Its whole body was compressed and mangled by the force of the shock, and it fell to the ground and lay in a crumpled heap.

  For a second there was total silence, then two more wolves ran forward and leapt towards Melody.

  ‘Stop!’ she shouted again without thinking, more as a warning than a command, but the same
thing happened to the two wolves as had happened to their leader. Again the bodies were halted as if by an unseen force, and two more lifeless and twisted bodies slumped to the ground.

  Melody stepped forward and stood trembling beside the corpses. She glared at the remaining wolves. ‘Go!’ she cried. ‘Go before death finds you and your bodies feed the ground.’

  Within seconds the path was clear. The wolf pack split and vanished, slipping between the trees on each side of the path and disappearing amongst the foliage as silently as they had appeared. Melody turned to her companions, and they saw that there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Can we bury them?’ she asked.

  ‘No time,’ said her father. ‘Those others may have run, but they’ll return if we linger.’

  ‘And no need,’ said Ieuan grimly. ‘They should lie here as carrion, for the good of the forest. But if you insist, you can burn them.’

  Melody looked at him, and thought of Tamar. He was the arsonist, the one capable of setting things alight through his own power. Yet she saw the necessity, and she could do it here. She nodded, and without a word turned towards the three bodies.

  ‘Go now,’ she said, ‘in peace and with my blessing. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t have to.’ Raising her left hand she pointed at each corpse in turn, and as she did so a plume of blue fire rose from each of the bodies, grew to an intolerable intensity, then faded away. In its place was a small circle of charred earth, and nothing but a little smoke on the breeze. Slowly she walked away to the path, and her companions followed her.

  As they reached the first tree a figure stepped out of the shadows, tall and green and willowy. A dryad.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ it said. ‘There was nothing we could do. There were too many wolves for us to deal with, and we didn’t even have time to warn you. I regret what was necessary.’

  Melody nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘Even a dead wolf is to be lamented,’ said Ieuan, coming up to join them, ‘but she did what had to be done. We had best leave while we can; the dryads will watch as far as they’re able.’

  ‘We will. Go quickly.’

  Melody walked automatically along the path and climbed into the Land Rover, which her father shoved into gear and drove roughly along the track back towards the city. None of them felt like speaking. There was too much to say, or nothing at all. Melody sat in the back seat and tried to draw herself inwards, hiding inside her body. She felt sullied, dirtied by her actions and the deaths of the wolves. She told herself over and over again that she’d had no choice, all of them had said she’d done what she had to do, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  Back at the house, Ieuan busied himself with preparations for their return to London the next day. Her father found Melody sitting alone in the dining room, and tried to comfort her.

  ‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘you mustn’t blame yourself. You’ve done something you thought you’d never have to do. The time before, you didn’t think about it, you believed you were doing something for your mother. This time you acted deliberately, and you didn’t mean to kill them.’

  ‘But I did though, didn’t I? I’m no better than a murderer.’

  ‘No, no. A murderer is someone who deliberately decides to deprive another being of its life, with clear purpose and intention. That’s not what you did. You defended your own life, and ours. The only way you could do that entailed the deaths of those creatures, but their deaths don’t lie on your conscience. If you could have let them live, you would.’

  ‘They’re still dead.’

  ‘And we’re still alive. It was one or the other, and no creature chooses its own death above another’s. Their choices forced yours.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it easier.’

  ‘It doesn’t make it easy, but it does make it easier. The day you choose to kill another being, even with necessity, that’s the day you should grieve.’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying. I even believe you, but I can’t feel it. Not yet.’

  ‘I don’t ask you to feel it yet. They died, and that’s something you have to deal with. I just ask you to see that there are different kinds of death. When you accept that, you’ll be comforted.’

  ‘I know. And thank you for helping me.’

  Melody thought that it would be a long time before she came to terms with what had happened, if she ever did, but her father’s words helped to make her see that the guilt of murder was not something she needed to feel. She got up and started to consider the days ahead in more practical fashion.

  Early next morning Melody found herself on the train, bound for London once more. There were differences from her previous journey. Then she had almost no idea where she was going or what she could expect. She went in a defiant and challenging mood, ready to take on the world and ready to assert her own worth. This time she knew, in some sense, what awaited her, and she knew she had worth, although she didn’t know the extent of it. She was not in any way the person who had previously taken this journey south. She pondered long on this as the miles poured past the windows of the train. All the time, on the seat opposite, the dwarf kept quiet watch.

  Eventually her thoughts turned to him. Who was he, exactly, and how much did he know? What was he, for that matter? She had instantly identified him as a dwarf, but nobody else seemed to take particular notice of him. She began to study the people who walked past their seats. She was ashamed to see that while most people looked carefully at her, not one person paused to look at her companion. Most simply ignored him as if he didn’t exist. The one or two who did notice him turned away, as if from somebody disabled or malformed. Not a single human being wanted to realise that he was there.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ieuan quietly; he’d been watching the way she observed the passers-by. ‘We’re used to it. We even prefer it that way – it stops people asking too many questions about us.’

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not monsters.’

  ‘No. But we’re different from them, and that’s enough. People only see what they want to see.’

  That remark reminded her strongly of Corann. She was looking forward to seeing him again; she wanted to hear what he had to say about everything that was going on. She was sure he’d be able to help her. Then a thought struck her.

  ‘Do you know Corann?’ she asked suddenly.

  Ieuan smiled. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to make that connection. Yes, we know Corann. He’s been a friend of our people for a long time, and we help each other. Your mother knew him, of course.’

  ‘My mother?’

  Ieuan frowned. ‘Yes. Didn’t you know? She was a student of his when she was very young, just as you are. Didn’t she ever tell you?’

  Melody shook her head. ‘Perhaps I was too young when she disappeared. Perhaps she’d have told me later. And maybe my father didn’t know. But he sent me to Corann to learn more about my power. He must have known something, although he never said. He never said much at all after she vanished. I wish he had now.’

  ‘He had his reasons. And it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re all she would have ever wished. You’ve gained a destiny, and you’re on your way to fulfil it. Corann will help.’

  Melody was comforted by that, and tried to settle back to enjoy the journey. She knew there would be little time to relax once they arrived in London.

  London

  As the train approached London the skies began to darken. Storm clouds had taken up position above the capital, and the air grew darker and darker until it was as black as any Melody could remember. Although it was not yet midday, the lights in the train were feeble against the gloom outside, and cast weird reflections across Melody’s pale features and Ieuan’s ruddy countenance. The train sped arrow-like on its path towards the city, and Melody felt a sense of foreboding as they approached. It seemed that London was waiting for her to return, and that in some odd way her arrival would precipitate events that were now merely held i
n check. Part of her wished to stop the train, to get off and turn back to Lichfield, to her father’s house and comparative safety. Another part knew that yesterday’s encounters had changed all that, that there was no safety and no haven until she had faced the task that was seemingly destined for her. She closed her eyes and waited for the journey to be over.

  At Euston they were met by Tamar, who looked as pale and drawn as Melody felt. Either the weather or the news from Lichfield had affected him, and he embraced Melody with an emotion that spelt much more than mere relief at seeing her again. She sensed the worry, even the fear, which emanated from him, and sought to put her own anxiety to one side.

  ‘Hi, Tamar,’ she said, striving to keep her voice light. ‘I guess you’ve missed me. Have you been OK?’

  Tamar held her close against him.

  ‘OK? That’s not quite how I’d put it. But how are you? I didn’t think you’d be going into danger.’

  ‘Danger? I suppose it was, but it didn’t feel like it. I suppose I knew I was in control. I wasn’t worried for me, only for my father and for Ieuan here.’

  Tamar released her and stood back to take a good look at Ieuan, before stretching forward to shake his hand.

  ‘It’s good to meet you. Corann told me you’d be coming with Melody, and told me you’d look after her.’

  Ieuan laughed. ‘It’s not like Corann to lie! The truth is that Melody’s been looking after me. I need her protection more than she needs mine. I’ve just been her companion on the journey, to make sure she got off at the right stop.’

  It was the right thing to break the tension, and Melody laughed too. ‘I think even I could manage to get off when the train reaches the terminus.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Ieuan. ‘You’re a strange creature. Anyway, Tamar, Melody has told me all about you, so I guess I can hand over any escort duties to you now.’