Black Unicorn (Dragonflight) (12 page)

She stepped away and lowered her arms, eyes still closed.

The Gate was whole. It was like a galaxy—like jewelry—like—like nothing on earth. But its entirety was obvious. It was a smashed window where every pane of glass was back in place. There was no doubt.

Then Tanaquil opened her eyes, and after all, she
saw
the Gate. Saw it as now it appeared, visibly, in her world.

You could no longer look through the arch. A dark, glowing membrane filled it, that might have been water standing on end, and in the stuff of it were spangles, electrically coming and going.

Tanaquil was not afraid of it, but she was prudent. She moved back a few more steps. And frowned.

What was it? Something, even now—not incomplete, yet missing.

She turned round and walked out of the arch.

The sea had drawn off again, as the tide of night came in. As she moved out on the sand beyond the rock she heard the huge midnight bell from the palace in the city borne on silence, thin as a thread.

She remembered Lizra, Zorander. She remembered Jaive. But in front of her was the unicorn. It had walked down almost to the arch. It was all darkness. The horn did not blaze; even the pale cloudy moon was brighter.

"I've done what I can," said Tanaquil. "Only there's some other thing—I don't know what."

The unicorn paced by her, to the entrance. It gazed in at the sequined shadow. She saw its eyes blink, once, garnet red. Then it lowered its head to the ground, opened its mouth—she caught the glint of the strong silver teeth she recollected from its skull. But two other items glimmered on the wet sand.

Tanaquil went across, keeping her respectful distance from the beast, although it had once dragged her by the hair, to see what had been dropped.

"Did you kill him for these?"

The unicorn lifted its head again. It gave to her one oblique sideways look. She had never confronted such a face. Not human, not animal, not demonic. Unique.

Then it dipped the horn and pointed it down, at the base of the cliff. The horn hovered, and swung up. It pointed now toward the clifftop twenty feet above Tanaquil's head. After a second, the unicorn sprang off up the sand. It returned to its place of waiting. It waited there.

Tanaquil bent down and took up the two cream-white whorled fossils the unicorn had dropped from its mouth: the Festival cloak pins of the Prince. Which it must have ripped from the sharkskin. And long ago, had they been ripped from this cliffside? These then, the last components of the Gate.

Tanaquil knelt where the horn of the unicorn had first pointed. Old, wet, porous, no longer the proper shape, a wound showed in the cliff that might once have held a circling whorled shell.

"What do I have?" Tanaquil searched herself, Lizra's silk dress lent for the procession. It had no pockets or pouches for a knife, its pendant topazes unsuitable, its goldwork too soft. Finally she rent the bodice and forced out one of the corset bones—as she had hoped, it was made of bronze. With this she began to scrape at the rotted rock, using now and then a handful of the rougher sand for a file.

"One day I shall tell someone about this, and they won't believe me. "

She had managed to get the fossil back again into its setting in the rock base. The fit was not marvelously secure, but it was the best she could do. She had studied the Gate. The liquid shadow had not altered. Spangles came and went.

Tanaquil sighed. She stared up the stony limb of the cliff, toward its arched top like a bridge. It had been plain, the gesture of the unicorn. If one fossil was to be set here, the other had its origin aloft.

So, in her awkward dress and useless palace shoes, Tanaquil started to climb the rock.

She was glad the wind and storm had finished, for the rock was slippery and difficult, much harder to ascend than the hills beyond her mother's fort.

As she climbed, she thought of the unicorn dying there beneath the arch in the desert that so exactly resembled the arch of the Gate. Perhaps the likeness had soothed it, or made worse its pain, trapped in the alien world. Maybe it had scented, with its supernatural nostrils, the old sea that once had covered the desert. Or maybe, wilder yet more reasonable than anything else, everything had been preordained—that the unicorn would lie down for death under the hill, and she come to be born half a mile from its grave, a descendant of the city princes, its savior.

"I hope I am. After all this, I'd better be, for heaven's sake."

Her skirt in shreds, her feet cut and hands grazed, she reached the summit of the cliff.

She thought of the shell she had seen in the rock, in the desert, held firm in the stone. Would the situation of this fossil be the same?

No. It would lie to the left of the arch, near the opening, diagonally across from the fossil below.
How do I know? Don't bother.

Tanaquil crawled to see. She discovered beds of seaweed rooted obstreperously in the rock. With cries of outrage she pulled them up. And found the old wound of the fossil, obvious, exact, incredibly needing nothing.

She pressed the shell into it. It fitted immediately.

She was not prepared—

For the cliff shook. It shivered. And out of it, from the arch below, there came a wave of furling, curling light, and a sound like one note of a song, a song of stone and water, sand and night, and conceivably the stars.

Tanaquil clung onto the cliff. She expected it to collapse, to be thrown off, but the shivering calmed and ceased, the light below melted to a faint clear shine. She looked then away at the unicorn. She supposed it would dart suddenly towards the cliff and under and in, and away. But the unicorn did not move.

"What is it? Go on!" Tanaquil called. "Before anything else happens—anyone comes—or isn't it right?"

Yes, yes. It was right. The Gate was there, was there. And yet the unicorn lingered, still as a creature of the stone.

Tanaquil hoisted herself over the bridge, and began to let herself down the cliff again. She was urgent now, and not careful enough. She lost her grip once, twice, and eventually fell thirteen feet into a featherbed of sand.

The unicorn was digging her out. She swam through the smother and emerged, spitting like a cat. It was not the unicorn.

"Pnff," said the peeve. "
Bad.
"

"Yes, thank you. Very bad." She pulled herself upright and scattered sand grains from hair and ears. The peeve ticklingly licked her cuts, so she lugged it away. "Why is it standing there? The Gate is—" And she saw the Gate as now it was. Open. Waiting. In the spangled dark, an oval of light. It was the light of the sun of another dimension. Warm and pure, both brighter and softer than any light she had seen in the world. In
her
world. And through the light it was possible to glimpse—no, it was impossible. Only a kind of dream was there, like a mirage, color and beauty, radiance and vague sweet sound.

Tanaquil rose. She shouted at the unicorn. "Go
on!
"

Then the unicorn tossed its head. It leapt upward like an arrow from a bow. All its four feet were high in the air. It flew. In flight it spun forward, like thistledown, ran like wind along the sea.

It passed under the cliff. And Tanaquil saw it breach the glowing oval of the Gate and go through. She saw it there inside, within the beauty and shining.

And then the peeve shot from between her hands.

"
Nice! Nice!
" squealed the peeve, as it hurtled toward Paradise.

"No—you mustn't—come back you fool, oh, God, you
fool!
"

She saw the unicorn had turned, there in the dream. Its head moved slowly. There was no denial. Was it a beckoning?

The peeve squawked and dove through the gate of light.

With a sickening misgiving, with a cruel desire, Tanaquil also ran, over the sand, under the arch. She felt the Gate, like a sheet of heavy water, resisting her, and making way. And she too rushed into the perfect world.

11

To the sea's edge the flowers came. Some grew, it seemed, in the water. Their color was like quenching thirst. Blue flowers of the same blueness as the ocean, and of a darker blue passing into violet. And after those, banks of flowers of peach pink, and carmine, and flowers yellow as lemon wine. Trees rose from the flowers. They were very tall and tented with translucent foliage of a deep golden green. Glittering things slipped in and out of the leaves. The plain of flowers and trees stretched far away, and miles off were mountains dissolving in the blue of the sky. A single slender path of blossomy clouds crossed this sky, like feathers left behind. The sun burned high. Its warmth bathed everything, like honey, and its gentle light that was clear as glass. Even the waves did not flash, and yet they shone as if another sun were in the depths of the sea. And all about the sun of the sky, great day stars gleamed like a diamond net.

One of the birds slid from a tree that overhung the ocean. It wriggled down into the water. It was a fish. It circled Tanaquil once, where she stood in the shallows, then swam incuriously away.

She looked behind her. The shining sea returned to the horizon. Sea things were playing there, and spouts of water sparkled. A few inches above the surface of the waves, not three feet from her, a leaden egg floated in the air. It was the Gate.

I should close it. No. I shouldn't be here—I have to go back—

The Gate was blank and uninviting. It did not seem to her anything would want to go near it. Even the fish, now plopping like silver pennies from the trees, swam wide of the place.

She looked forward again. The peeve, which somehow itself knew how to swim, had followed its pointed nose to the shore, emerged, and now rolled about in the flowers. They were not crushed. They gave way before it and danced upright when it had passed.

On the plain, the unicorn galloped, swerved, leapt and seemed to fly, a streak of golden-silver blackness, while the sun unwound rainbows from its horn.

"This water can't be salt," said Tanaquil, "or else it's a harmless salt. The flowers don't die."

She waded out of the shallows and stood among the flowers. Their perfume was fresh and clear, like the light. She moved her feet, and the flowers she had stood upon coiled springily upright.

"We should go back," Tanaquil said to the peeve.

The peeve rolled in the flowers.

Tanaquil did not want to go back. If this was the perfect world, she wanted to see it.

Birds sang from the trees. It was not that their songs were more beautiful than the beautiful songs of earth, yet they had a clarity without distraction. The air was full of a sort of happiness, or some other benign power having no name. To breathe it made you glad. Nothing need worry you. No pain of the past, no fear for the future. No self-doubt. No lack of trust. Everything would be well, now and for always. Here.

The unicorn had used up its bounds and leaps for the present. It moved in a tender measure through the flowers, going away now, inland. And once, it glanced toward the shore.

They went after it, without haste, or reluctance.

Not only birds sang.

As they walked over the plain through the silk of the flowers, a murmuring like bees . . . There were orchards on the plain, apple and damson, fig and orange, quince and olive. The fragrant trees rose to giant size, garlanded with leaves and fruit. And the fruit burned like suns and jewels. Not thinking, Tanaquil reached her hand towards a ruby apple, and it quivered against her fingers. It lived. Never disturbed, never plucked, never devoured. It
sang.

"Oh, listen, peeve.
Listen."

And the peeve looked up in inquisitive surprise.

"Insect."

"No, it's the apple. It's singing."

No fruit had fallen. Perhaps it never would. As they went in among the trees, the whispering thrumming notes increased. Each species had a different melody; each blended with the others.

When they came out of the great fragrant orchard, there were deer cavorting on the plain. The unicorn had moved by them, and from Tanaquil they did not run away. Birds flew overhead, sporting on the air currents in the sun.

"What do they eat? Perhaps the air feeds them, and the scents, they're so good."

The peeve stalked the deer, who whirled and cantered back, playing, but the peeve took fright and raced to Tanaquil.

"They won't hurt you."

"Big," said the peeve, with belated respect.

The sun and the day stars crossed the sky above them.

They must have walked for three or four hours, and Tanaquil was not tired. She was not hungry. The peeve showed signs only of vast interest in everything. She had been nervous that it might try to dig something up, nibble something, or lift its leg among the flowers. But none of these needs apparently occurred to it.

In what was probably the fifth hour, the plain reached its brink and unfolded over, down toward a lake of blue tourmaline. A forest lay beyond, and in and out went the flaming needles of parrots. Tanaquil saw animals basking at the lakeside. The unicorn, a quarter of a mile ahead, stepped peacefully among them. They turned to see, flicked their tails and yawned. They knew unicorns, evidently.

"Are they—? Yes, they're lions. And look, peeve."

The peeve looked. Tanaquil was not sure it realized what the picture meant. The pride of tawny lions had mingled and lazily lain down with a small flock of sheep. Some had adopted the same position, forelegs tucked under and heads raised. Others slept against each other's flanks. Some lambs chased lion cubs along the lakeshore, bleating sternly. They all fell over in a heap, pelt and fleece, and started to wash each other.

Tanaquil felt no misgiving as she and the peeve also descended among the lions. And they paid her no special attention. The sheep bleated softly, and one of the sleeping cats snored. The sheep were not grazing on anything. She saw how alike were the faces of the lions and the sheep, their high-set eyes and long noses.

The unicorn walked on, circling the shore.

A leopard stretched over the bough of a huge cedar. It stared at them from calm lighted eyes.

Swans swam across the lake mirror.

They passed a solitary apple tree, singing, its trunk growing from the water.

"Insect," said the peeve.

In the forest were massive cypresses, ilexes, magnolias. In sun-bathed clearings orchids grew in mosaic colors. Deer moved like shadows, and lynxes sat in the shade while mice ambled about between their paws. The parrots screamed with laughter. Monkeys hung overhead like brown fruit. Ferns of drinkable green burst from the mouths of wild fountains. Water lilies paved the pools. There were butterflies in the forest, and bees spiraled the red-amber trunk of a pine.
Do they have a sting?
Snakes like trickles of liquid metal poured through the undergrowth.

The unicorn might be seen walking before them down the aisles of the forest. It no longer appeared fantastic. Here, it was only right.

When they came from the forest they were high up again, and turning, Tanaquil saw the country she had traveled flowing away behind them. The mountains had drawn nearer, and the sun and its attendant stars were lower in the sky. A rose-gold light, like that of a flawless late summer afternoon, held the world as though inside a gem. Again, as with everything, it was not that she had never seen such light the other side of the Gate. It was that here nothing threatened or came between her and the light. In Tanaquil's world, the best of things might have a tinge of sadness or unease. Nothing was sure, or quite safe. The light of the perfect world was the light of absolute truth. And Tanaquil, who had yearned in Jaive's fortress for order, adventure, and change, knew that here there were other things. To be happy would not become sickly. To be at peace would not bore. Happiness and peace allowed the mind to seek for different challenges. She could not guess what they were, but she sensed them in the very air. Would she come to know them? Would they be hers?

Above, on a hilltop, the unicorn stood against the luminous sky. A soft wind blew, and scarfed about the horn, and the horn sang, lilting and pure. But it was not the savage music she had heard in the desert. The unicorn was no longer terrible. It was only . . . perfect.

Soon they went on, climbing up the hills with no effort. Far off, on another slope, Tanaquil saw a creature glide out of some white rocks into the westering day. It was as large as a house of her world, and scaled like a great blue snake. Its crested head turned to and fro, and the wings opened like leaves of sapphire over its spine. "Peeve, it's a dragon." The peeve looked anxious. She stroked its head. Pale fire came from the dragon's nostrils and mouth, but scorched nothing on the hill. Like the salt of the sea, fire was harmless. The peeve got behind Tanaquil. She shook her head at it as it went on its belly through the grass. And so they continued after the unicorn, which now and then, still, seemed to glance back at them, and which had not attempted to leave them behind.

The sun set. All of the sky became rose red, and the disc of the sun itself was visible, a shade of red it seemed to Tanaquil she had never seen, but perhaps she had. After the sun had gone under the world, the cluster of diamond day stars stayed on the hem of the sky, growing steadily more brilliant. The east lightened and turned a flaming green.

Miles off, a hill or mountain sent a plume of sparks into the air, and something lifted out of them. It flew on wide flashing wings, passing over, not to be mistaken. A phoenix.

"Poor Mother," said Tanaquil. "Wouldn't she love this? Why did she never try to find a way in?"

Nightingales began. The hills were a music box.

The last slope came, and not knowing, Tanaquil mounted it, the peeve bustling along at her side. At the hill's peak, the land opened below, enormous as the sky. It was like a garden of forests and waters, all blurred and glimmered now by the flower red and emerald of dusk. And floating over it, distant and oddly shaped, was a single broad cloud.

Tanaquil thought there were stars in the cloud. They were not stars.

"Peeve—"

The peeve sat staring on the hill with her. If it knew what it was looking at, it did not say.

But Tanaquil knew.

The cloud was not a cloud, either. There were banks and terraces, although perhaps no outer walls. Tapering towers with caps like pearl, and buildings ruled straight by pillars, and statues of giants—and the lamps were being kindled. There, in that city floating in the air, the windows of silver and gold let out their light.

"There had to be," said Tanaquil, "I knew there had to be—people—but—
people?
"

And then in the green-apple rose of the sky, she saw dim shining figures, with a smoke of hair, and wings. Around and around they flew, a sort of dance, and faintly on the wind she heard that they had music, too.

There could be no unhappiness and no fear in that place, and yet, somewhere in the depth of her, were both. Such emotions had become strangers. She felt them in her heart and mind, and was puzzled. But she turned from the winged people and the castles in the air, and looked back again, the way she had come.

She had not seen before. Or had not wanted to see.

The grass and flowers over which she and the peeve had trodden, having sprung up, had dropped down again. The stems were squashed or broken, and in the softness and color, a harsh withering had commenced, the mark of death.

"This world isn't ours. Even invited, we shouldn't have come in. Look, look what we've done."

The peeve put its paw on her foot. "Sorry."

Tanaquil knelt and stared into its yellow eyes. They were comrades, they were, it and she, from an imperfect world.

"It's not your fault. It's mine."

"Sorry," said the peeve again, and, experimentally: "Bad?"

"I must carry you," said Tanaquil. "You'll have to let me. Over my shoulders. And I'll tread only where I've already—it's so terrible, like a
burn."

Just then, she noticed the unicorn. It had gone some way down the other side of the hill, toward the enormous garden under the floating city. Its horn burned bright.

Should she shout after it? Probably it had forgotten them. Now and then it had glanced back only at some noise they made, or maybe it had seen the ruin of the flowers and grass, had wished them away. But here it would not attack, it could not chase them off as they deserved.

They had been so careful, she, and the peeve also, not to spoil. But their presence was enough. The very steps they took.

She picked up the peeve, and it allowed this. It let itself be arranged, warm and heavy, about her neck. Its back legs dangled, and its tail thumped her shoulder. It fixed its claws into her dress and glared at everything, its face beside her own.

Tanaquil descended the hill, her back to the city. She put her feet exactly into the ruin they had already made. She did not examine it closely, and the light of dusk was merciful.

She had gone about two hundred steps when she heard the drumming of hoofs pursuing her. She stopped at once, not in alarm, for you could not feel alarm here. Yet she was amazed. She swung round, with the peeve, and confronted the unicorn, which ran at her, and halted less than two feet away. Now its horn had faded to a shadow.