The Black Unicorn

by Terry Brooks

  “So that was why my half-brother sent the dreams!” Questor exclaimed, new understanding beginning to reflect on his owlish face. “He had to get back across into Landover, recover the missing books, and find the golden bridle—and quickly! If he didn’t, the black unicorn might find a way to free all the white unicorns—its physical selves—and the magic would be lost!”

  “And that is exactly what it tried to do,” Willow confirmed. “Not only this time, but every time it managed to break free. It tried to find the one magic it believed stronger than the magic of the wizards—the Paladin! Always before, it was caught so quickly that it never had any real chance. It knew the Paladin was the King’s champion, but it would never even manage to reach the King. This time it was certain it could—except that there was no King to be found. Meeks was quick to act, once he discovered the unicorn had escaped. A dream was used to lure Ben out of Landover before the unicorn could reach him. Then Meeks crossed back with him and altered his appearance so that no one—including the black unicorn—could recognize him.”

  “I think it might have recognized me if it hadn’t been imprisoned for so long,” Ben interjected. “The older fairy creatures such as Nightshade and Strabo could recognize me. But the unicorn had forgotten much of its magic while it was bound.”

  “It might have lost much as well through the wizards’ use of it,” Willow added.

  “Meeks told me that night in my bedchamber, when he used his magic to change me, that I messed up his plans in some way,” Ben went on, returning to the matter of his lost identity. “Of course, I didn’t have any idea what it was that I had done. I didn’t know what he was talking about. The truth was that everything I had done was inadvertent. I didn’t know that the books contained stolen magic and that, if he weren’t within Landover, the magic might be lost. I was just trying to stay alive.”

  “A moment, High Lord.” Abernathy was shaking his head in confusion. “Meeks sent three dreams—yours to provide him a way back into Landover, Questor Thews’ to give him possession of the missing books of magic, and Willow’s to regain for him the stolen bridle. The dreams worked as they were intended except for Willow’s. She found the bridle, but she failed to bring it back to you as the dream had told her she must. Why so?”

  “The fairies,” Willow said.

  “The fairies,” Ben echoed.

  “I said that first morning that my dream seemed incomplete, that I felt I was to be shown more,” Willow explained. “There were other dreams after that; in each, the unicorn appeared to be less a demon, more a victim. The fairies sent those dreams to guide me in my search and to teach me that my fears were false ones. Gradually, I came to realize that the first dream was somehow a lie, that the black unicorn was not my enemy, that it needed help, and that I must provide that help. After the dragon gave the bridle of spun gold to me, I was persuaded further—by dreams and visions—that I must go in search of the unicorn myself if I were ever to discover the truth of matters.”

  “The fairies sent Edgewood Dirk to me.” Ben sighed. “They wouldn’t intervene to help me directly, of course—they never do that for anyone. Answers to our difficulties must always come from within; they expect us to solve our own problems. But Dirk was the catalyst that helped me to do that. Dirk helped me to discover the truth about the medallion. Meeks had instigated the deception that led me to believe I had lost it. Dirk helped me see that I was the one fostering that deception, and that if I could recognize the truth of things, others could as well—which is exactly what happened.”

  “Which is why the Paladin was able to reach us in time, apparently,” Questor said.

  “And why the books of magic were finally destroyed and the unicorns freed,” Willow added.

  “And why Meeks was defeated,” Abernathy finished.

  “That’s about it,” Ben agreed.

  “Great High Lord!” exclaimed Fillip fervently.

  “Mighty High Lord!” echoed Sot.

  Ben groaned. “Please! Enough already!”

  He looked imploringly at the others, but they all just grinned.

  It was time to leave. No one much cared for the idea of spending another night in the Melchor. It was agreed they would be better off setting up camp in the foothills below.

  So they trudged wearily down out of the mountains through the fading daylight, the sun sinking behind the western rim of the valley in a haze of scarlet and gray. As they walked, Willow dropped back next to Ben, and her arm locked gently about his.

  “What do you think will become of the unicorns?” she asked after a moment.

  Ben shrugged. “They’ll probably go back into the mists, and no one will ever see them again.”

  “You do not think they will go on to the worlds to which they were sent?”

  “Out of Landover?” Ben shook his head. “No, not after all they’ve been through. Not now. They’ll go back home where it’s safe.”

  “It isn’t safe in your world, is it?”

  “Hardly.”

  “It isn’t very safe in Landover, either.”

  “No.”

  “Do you think it is any safer in the mists?”

  Ben thought about that a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  Willow nodded. “Your world has need of unicorns, doesn’t it? The magic is forgotten?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then maybe it doesn’t matter that it isn’t safe there. Maybe the need outweighs the danger. Maybe at least one unicorn will decide to go anyway.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  Willow’s head lifted slightly. “You say it, but you do not mean it.”

  He smiled and did not reply.

  They reached the foothills, passed through a broad meadow of red-spotted wildflowers to a stretch of fir, and the kobolds began scouting ahead for a campsite. The air had gone cool, and the approaching twilight gave the land a muted, silvery sheen. Crickets had begun to chirp, and geese flew low across a distant lake. Ben was thinking about home, about Sterling Silver, and the warmth of the life that waited there for him.

  “I love you,” Willow said suddenly. She didn’t look at him, facing straight ahead as she spoke the words.

  Ben nodded. He was quiet a moment. “I’ve been meaning to say something to you about that. You tell me you love me all the time, and I can never say it back to you. I’ve been thinking lately about why that is, and I guess it’s because I’m afraid. It’s like taking a chance you don’t have to take. It’s easier to pass it by.”

  He paused. “But I don’t feel that way right now, right here. I feel altogether different. When you say you love me, I find I want to say it back to you. So I guess I will. I love you, too, Willow. I think I always did.”

  They walked on, not speaking. He was aware of the increased pressure of her arm about his. The day was still and restful, and everything was at peace.

  “The Earth Mother made me promise to look after you, you know,” Ben said finally. “That’s part of what started me thinking about us. She made me promise to keep you safe. She was most insistent.”

  He could feel Willow’s smile more than see it. “That is because the Earth Mother knows,” she said.

  He waited for her to say something more, then glanced down. “Knows what?”

  “That one day I shall bear your child, High Lord.”

  Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Oh.”

  It was two days before Christmas.

  Southside Chicago was chill and dreary, the snowfall of the previous night turned gray and mushy on walks and streets, the squarish highrise projects and tenements vague shadows in a haze of smoke and mist. Steam rose out of sewer grates in sudden clouds as sleet pelted down. Not much of anything was moving. Cars crawled by like prehistoric beetles, headlights shining their luminous yellow eyes. Pedestrians ducked their heads against the cold, their chins buried in scarves and collars, their hands jammed into coat pockets. Late afternoon watched an early ev
ening’s approach in gloomy silence.

  The corner of Division and Elm was almost deserted. Two boys with leather jackets, a commuting businessman, and a carefully dressed woman, headed home from shopping, stepped from a bus, and started walking in different directions. A shop owner paused to check the locks on the front door of his plumbing business as he prepared to close up for the day. A factory worker on the seven-to-three shift ducked out of Barney’s Pub after two beers and an hour of unwinding to begin the trudge two blocks home to his ailing mother. An old man carrying a load of groceries shuffled along a sidewalk path left in the snow by a trail of icy footprints. A small child engulfed by her snowsuit played with a sled by the steps of her apartment home.

  They ignored each other with casual indifference, lost in their own private thoughts.

  The white unicorn flew past them like a bit of strayed light. It sped by as if its sole purpose in being was to circle the whole of the world in a single day. It never seemed to touch the ground, its graceful, delicate body gathering and extending in a single fluid motion as it passed. All the beauty in the world—all that was or could ever be—was captured by its movement. It was there and gone in an instant. The watchers caught their breath, blinked once, and the unicorn had disappeared.

  There followed a moment of uncertainty. The old man’s mouth dropped open. The child put down her sled and stared. The two boys ducked their heads and muttered urgently. The businessman looked at the shop owner and the shop owner looked back. The carefully dressed woman remembered all those magical stories of fairies she still enjoyed reading. The factory worker thought suddenly of Christmas as a child.

  Then the moment passed, and they all moved on. Some walked more quickly, some more slowly. They glanced over at the misted, empty street. What was it they had seen? Had it really been a unicorn? No, it couldn’t have been. There were no such things as unicorns—not really. And not in cities. Unicorns lived in forests. But they had seen something. Hadn’t they seen something? Hadn’t they? They walked on, silent, and there was a warmth within each of them at the memory of what they had experienced. There was a feeling of having been a part of something magical.

  They took that feeling home with them. Some of them kept it for a time. Some of them passed it on.

  Visit www.delreybooks.com—the portal to all the information and resources available from Del Rey Online.

  • Read sample chapters of every new book, special features on selected authors and books, news and announcements, readers’ reviews, browse Del Rey’s complete online catalog and more.

  • Sign up for the Del Rey Internet Newsletter (DRIN), a free monthly publication e-mailed to subscribers, featuring descriptions of new and upcoming books, essays and interviews with authors and editors, announcements and news, special promotional offers, signing/convention calendar for our authors and editors, and much more.

  To subscribe to the DRIN: send a blank e-mail to sub_Drin-dist@info.randomhouse.com or you can sign up at www.delreybooks.com

  Questions? E-mail us

  at delrey@randomhouse.com

  www.delreybooks.com

  For Amanda

  She sees unicorns that are hidden from me …

  BY TERRY BROOKS

  Shannara

  FIRST KING OF SHANNARA

  THE SWORD OF SHANNARA

  THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA

  THE WISHSONG OF SHANNARA

  The Heritage of Shannara

  THE SCIONS OF SHANNARA

  THE DRUID OF SHANNARA

  THE ELF QUEEN OF SHANNARA

  THE TALISMANS OF SHANNARA

  The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara

  ILSE WITCH

  ANTRAX

  MORGAWR

  High Druid of Shannara

  JARKA RUUS

  TANEQUIL

  STRAKEN

  The Genesis of Shannara

  ARMAGEDDON’S CHILDREN

  THE ELVES OF CINTRA

  THE GYPSY MORPH

  THE WORLD OF SHANNARA

  The Magic Kingdom of Landover

  MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE—SOLD!

  THE BLACK UNICORN

  WIZARD AT LARGE

  THE TANGLE BOX

  WITCHES’ BREW

  Word and Void

  RUNNING WITH THE DEMON

  A KNIGHT OF THE WORD

  ANGEL FIRE EAST

  SOMETIMES THE MAGIC WORKS:

  LESSONS FROM A WRITING LIFE

  STAR WARS®:

  EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE™