Into the Land of the Unicorns

by Bruce Coville

  As Grimwold continued, Cara felt herself moving into the trance of the story. The power of his telling brought the tale to life inside her, drawing her back to a time long gone. . . .

  * * *

  “Back in the morning of your world [said Grimwold] when things were sweeter rougher stranger cleaner and more savage than they are today, the unicorns came forth. No one knows from whence they came. No one knows why. They just were. Their numbers were few, as if the world could only hold so much of their magic. And magic they were, for in their horns, in their hooves, in their very being, they carried the power to transform things.

  “At first even the unicorns did not know the extent of their powers. But as time went on they found that they could clear water, heal wounds, quicken growth.

  “In that early time the unicorns lived in harmony with the world, bringing it sweetness and guarding some of the small animals for whom they took a fondness. They gathered much wisdom, which they stored in their heads, as they had no means of writing it down. Of course, in the newness of the world, there was less to know, and among them the unicorns could hold all that they had learned. Because they can communicate so easily, the knowledge was accessible to all.

  “Eventually another creature came to power. That was man. And though your species has many virtues, child, there is a strain of savagery running through it that has driven much of the best and most beautiful that your world once offered into extinction, or — as in the case of the unicorns — exile.”

  The Dimblethum growled softly, as if remembering some old anger. Grimwold nodded toward him, acknowledging his right to complain, then continued his story.

  “Man hunted. He hunted for food, for skins to warm himself and his family, even for sport. But he did not hunt the unicorns.

  “Now death comes for all things, even unicorns, though they are remarkably long-lived. When the first of their kind died, a great mourning overtook the unicorns. The twelve oldest came to her body and with their horns changed her flesh to soil, her bones to water, her mane and tail to flowers. But they could not change her horn, for it was too powerful. The horn stayed as it was.

  “From its perfect beauty flowed inestimable tragedy.”

  Cara felt Lightfoot shiver.

  “A man found the horn and brought it back to his people,” continued Grimwold. “But to make himself seem braver and more honorable, he did a dishonorable thing. He told a great lie about the ferocity of the unicorn from which he had taken the horn, claiming that she had attacked him in the wood, and that he had battled it to the death. In that falsehood lay the seeds of the tragedy that followed.”

  15

  A TALE OF

  BLOOD AND SORROW

  “The story of the fierce unicorn was repeated often, and the wide-eyed children who heard it had no reason to disbelieve. Yet the power of the horn was such that it began to transform the man who had found it. The lies retreated from his heart and with them the need to feel higher than his fellows. Slowly he learned to use the horn to heal, to help, to protect.

  “Eventually he even tried to take back the story of how he had obtained it. But lies have a life of their own and are harder to kill than either men or unicorns.

  “People began to come from great distances to be touched by the horn. But since the horn was no longer part of a living being, the magic it held could not be replenished. Over the years its power was slowly drained, until at last it was empty of everything save beauty.

  “Now, even before the horn had lost its magic, other men had desired one of their own, longing for the power and prestige that would come to whoever possessed such a miracle. With the horn drained, the dream of owning one became even more intense, for no healer who walked the Earth at that time had the certain power of the horn.

  “Even so, only the bravest went seeking unicorns. For while the horn had lost its power, the lie told by its finder had grown in strength. Men now believed the story of fierce and deadly unicorns as if they had experienced it firsthand.”

  “We can be fierce if need be,” said Lightfoot proudly

  “It is something you learned in the terrible years that followed,” replied Grimwold. He paused, then turning to Cara said, “It started with a girl about your age. She was the child of a great hunter, a man both ferocious and determined. His wife had died giving birth to the girl, and thereafter he had lived alone in the forest with only his child for company. He called her ‘Beloved,’ for he had given all his heart to her.

  “Beloved fell ill. On the first day of her sickness, the hunter tended her himself. But on the second day she was much worse, so he went to the village and brought the healer back to their forest home.

  “But the healer could do nothing. ‘Alas that we no longer have a unicorn’s horn,’ he muttered as he left the hut.

  “The father’s quick ears heard these words.

  “With each passing day, Beloved’s condition grew worse. On the third day after the healer’s failure, the hunter said to himself. ‘I shall find me a unicorn. I care not for its ferocity. I care not for my own life, should Beloved die. I will hunt, and I will find, and I will tear the horn from its head.’”

  Cara could feel Lightfoot shudder. Horrible as the story was, she wondered what it would be like to have a father who loved her like that.

  “Such was the hunter’s love for his daughter,” continued Grimwold, “that he never questioned whether his vow was good or evil, wise or foolish. The child alone was in his mind and his heart as he went a-hunting.

  “His quest carried him far and wide. But each night he returned to the cottage to care for Beloved and tend her needs. He was a solitary man, and even had he known someone who could come and help with the child, he would not have known how to ask. Alas, each night when he returned to the cottage, the child was worse than when he had left her. The days drew on. She begged him to stay by her side until she died, as she was sure now that she must do.

  “But the hunter had become obsessed with the quest for the horn. Wild-eyed, he refused his daughter’s pleas and instead strapped her to his back and carried her with him on his hunt. It was not hard, for her illness had wasted her and she weighed but little. Nor did she complain, for she loved her father and longed to be with him.”

  Cara sighed, thinking what that must have been like. Grimwold glanced at her, but made no comment.

  “In the forest,” he continued, “the hunter left Beloved in a place he deemed safe, a place his hunter’s skills told him was not visited by great cats or other fierce beasts. Then he began circling out, searching for a unicorn, haunted by the fear that he would come back and find his daughter dead from her illness.

  “Late that afternoon a breeze caught and carried Beloved’s scent to a unicorn named Whiteling, who was wading in a stream some miles away. The smell of her pain and need, of her approaching death, touched his heart. He began seeking the child even as her father was returning from his hunt.

  “Whiteling reached the clearing first. He did not enter at once, for unicorns were wary around humans. But something about the child drew him in — her innocence, perhaps, or her pain, or simply the knowledge that he could heal her. Silently, on feet that could cross a field of flowers without crushing a petal, he began to walk toward the girl.

  “She lay equally silent, eyes closed, breathing shallow.

  “Lowering his horn, Whiteling pointed it at Beloved’s breast even as her father drew near the clearing. The hunter’s heart filled with terror when he saw the very beast he had been seeking, the beast he had been taught from boyhood was ferocious beyond all others, heading for his daughter. He reached into his quiver, drew forth an arrow, nocked it to his bow.”

  Cara drew a sharp breath. She could feel Lightfoot grow tense beside her.

  “The unicorn bent to heal the child. The father loosed his arrow. It flew straight and true, piercing Whiteling’s heart at the very moment that his horn pierced the heart of the ailing girl. He screamed and reared, trumpeting hi
s pain.

  “Bellowing with rage, the hunter raced into the clearing. Whiteling turned on him and the two began to fight.

  “The battle was brief, but bloody. When it was done, both man and beast lay dead on the forest floor. The only living thing in the clearing was Beloved, who had watched the tragedy through wide and terrified eyes.

  “Whiteling had cured her illness. Yet her heart was filled with an icy pain. Here is the reason: When the arrow struck Whiteling, he had snapped up his head so fast that the tip of his horn caught beneath Beloved’s breastbone and broke off there. That piece of horn was now lodged in her heart, which was doomed to be forever wounded, forever healing, both in the same instant.”

  Cara put her hand to her chest, trying to imagine the feeling.

  “Though it took seven days, Beloved buried her father in that clearing, digging his grave with the broken horn that she had hacked from Whiteling’s head with her father’s knife. When she was done, she stood atop her father’s grave. Holding the alicorn with both hands, afire with pain, she swore that she and her children, her children’s children, and all the generations that followed would be foes of all unicorns, and hunt them and kill them until the last days and the ends of the Earth.

  “Only then did she return to the cottage that she had shared with her father. Eventually she found another hunter and married him, and gave birth to seven sons. Each son was trained in the ways of the wood, and the trail, and the hunt; each sought unicorns to slay, which they did by acting out their mother’s story and placing a young woman in the woods.

  “The hunters believed this lured the unicorns because they wanted to savage the innocent girl. But the real reason was even stranger. In the moment of Whiteling’s death, the unicorns had been taken by a kind of madness. He was the first of their kind to be killed, and each unicorn had felt the moment when his horn had been broken. Each had seen, for an instant, through his eyes. And what they had seen was a young girl, lost in pain and fear. These two things, the girl and the broken horn, were fused in their minds, and they sought ever and again to find the missing bit of horn and to bring peace to young maidens — usually to the unicorns’ own grief and sorrow.

  “The sons of Beloved grew old and died. But Beloved herself did not, for the piece of horn lodged in her heart kept her alive, ever wounded, ever healing. Grandsons she had, and great-grandsons after that. And as is true for many families in your world, they came to be known by what they did; they came to be called the Hunters. Of course, many are known as Hunter who do not come from this clan. And there are many born to the clan who do not know its true past. But from each generation Beloved herself selects a handful to carry on the family quest: to seek and to slay unicorns.”

  Grimwold paused and shook himself, as if coming out of a trance. Looking directly at Cara, he said, “After a time the unicorns opened the first door to Luster. They fled here to have a world of their own, where they would be safe from the Hunters, and the curse of Beloved. But that is another story and a long one at that. What you need to know now is that for centuries the Hunters sought to enter this world, in order to carry on their quest for revenge. Then something happened, and for a long time we did not hear anything of them. We even dared hope that the line had finally died out or given up.

  “We were wrong. I am sure that the man chasing you is one of the clan. His goal is to gain the amulet so he can open a door to Luster to others of his kind. Perhaps the Hunter and the delvers are in league. Even if they are not, should the delvers succeed in opening a door, the Hunters will be ready. The slaughter will begin again.”

  Cara felt a cold terror in her heart — partly because of what Grimwold had just said, but even more because she finally knew the identity of the man who had chased her grandmother and her into St. Christopher’s.

  She knew, but she dare not tell.

  16

  THE SCRYING POOL

  Lightfoot shifted uneasily beside her. “I do not like that story,” he said. “It makes me unhappy.”

  “I did not tell it to brighten your day,” replied Grimwold sharply. “I told it because you have become part of it.”

  “But how do you know that the man who is chasing us is a Hunter?” asked Cara.

  “Who else would seek the amulet? Someone else might have heard of it, I suppose. But when you add the amulet to the tracking, the pursuit of you and your grandmother, it smacks to me of Hunters.”

  “Do you think he would have hurt my grandmother?” she asked.

  Grimwold frowned. “It is hard to say. Though their quarrel is only with the unicorns, they can be ruthless in their pursuit.”

  Cara groaned. “What should we do now?”

  “Let us try to contact the Queen,” said Grimwold.

  “How do we do that?”

  “Through the scrying pool,” he said.

  Cara wrinkled her brow. “What’s that?”

  Rather than answering directly, Grimwold said, “Follow me.” He rose and led them to a door in the side of the Story Room.

  When they stepped through it, Cara caught her breath in wonder and desire. If the Story Room was the best room she had ever seen, the contents of this next room were — especially for someone who could think of little better than to live in a library — overwhelming.

  It was a room of books, shelves and racks and rows of books. And every one of them looked old and mysterious, as if it held secrets too fascinating to be put in more modern-looking volumes. Scrolls there were as well, and four or five polished wooden stands where thick books lay open with ribbons marking their pages.

  “What are all these?” she asked.

  “The Unicorn Chronicles,” replied Grimwold. “They hold the history of all that has happened since the unicorns first came to Luster.”

  “But where did they come from?”

  Grimwold shrugged. “From me. From the unicorns. The unicorns bring me their stories and I write them down.”

  “You wrote all of these?” she asked in astonishment.

  “I have been here a long time,” he replied, as if that explained everything. “And please remember, I do not invent the stories — I simply record what the unicorns tell me. You will be in here, too, before long, because you are part of one of their stories as well. Though should things go wrong with this one . . .” He trailed off, as if the possibility was too horrible to contemplate.

  “But where do the things to make them come from?” she asked. “The paper and the ink and the pens and — well, everything!” she finished, waving her hands in a gesture that took in not only this room, but the one they had just left, and the hall beyond that, with its paintings and portraits.

  “You are not the only human who has come to Luster,” said Lightfoot gently.

  “More’s the pity,” growled the Dimblethum.

  They had reached an arched door at the far side of the library. Grimwold paused with his hand on the thick metal latch and said, “The unicorns have lived here for a long time now. In the time since they first opened the passage to this world, humans have stumbled, fallen, lied, cheated, bought, magicked, and hoped their way here. Whether or not they are allowed to stay is a complicated matter. But any who do are expected to serve the Queen. My job is to chronicle the days of the unicorns. Others there are who make paper, who bind books, who fashion things of beauty and worth.”

  “Or fix things,” said Thomas cheerfully.

  “Where do the other humans live?” Cara asked.

  “Here and there,” said Grimwold with a shrug. “Usually in clumps and clusters, the way humans tend to, though some are solitary, and live in cottages built far from the beaten path.”

  “Some just travel,” added Thomas.

  Grimwold, who clearly did not like to be interrupted, shot him a nasty look. Thomas took out one of his watches and looked at it as if it contained important information.

  “The people who find their way here often tend to be loners,” continued the dwarf. “So some do not live any
place at all but wander the paths of Luster, doing errands when the Queen summons them.”

  Thomas smiled and nodded.

  Grimwold snorted and opened the door he had been holding. The others followed him out of the library into a cave that had been left in its natural form. In its center three tripods supported small cauldrons filled with something that glowed a soft orange. By this dim light, Cara saw irregular stone walls, and a scattering of stalactites and stalagmites. Centered between the tripods was a stone basin much like the one that had held the cold fire in the main cavern. However, rather than fire, this basin held dark, cold-looking water.

  “The scrying pool,” said Grimwold. Then he ordered Lightfoot to dip his horn in the basin.

  The unicorn nodded and stepped forward. When he bent his horn to the water, silver shimmered across the surface of the basin.

  “Stand beside me,” the dwarf said to Cara, positioning himself at the edge of the basin.

  She stood where he indicated.

  “Look into the water.”

  Again, she complied. To her surprise, the surface of the water began to shimmer. Slowly an image began to appear. It was not her reflection, nor a reflection of the cavern, but an entirely different place, green and pleasant looking.

  “Summerhaven,” said Lightfoot, who was standing behind them. He backed up a step or two. “I’d just as soon you not tell the Queen I’m here,” he said to Grimwold.

  The Squijum had jumped onto the rim of the basin and was looking into the pool with fascination. “Very much good pretty,” he said, reaching out to touch the water.

  Cara expected Grimwold to snap at the little creature and shoo him away. But before the dwarf could move, the water roiled and darkened.

  “Yikes!” squealed the Squijum, leaping onto Cara’s shoulder.