[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon (19 page)

The driving rain no longer fell, but stormwind continued to batter. The dark unicorn panted with effort, churning with all four limbs just to keep his head above water. Waves heaved and tossed. Land lay nowhere in sight. He could not tell if the darkness were that of storm alone or of night. It had all come back to him now: his people and their Vale, his title among them—Korr’s son, prince of the unicorns. He remembered his journey to the Summer Sea at solstice time, the long months of mock-sparring and wooing. A flush of warmth suffused him as he recalled the courting dance on equinox eve. Memory of Tek blazed up, and wild longing filled him to return to his fellows and rejoin his mate.

Too weary to fight the riptide anymore, Jan lay in a daze as the cold, gusting stormrain began to abate. His limbs felt violently jolted, his ribs badly bruised. After he and Ryhenna had sprung from cliff’s edge toward the storm-high surf below, strong ocean currents had dragged them far from shore. Alongside him, whenever the wind fell, he heard the coppery mare’s panting breath as she, too, struggled against the fierce, running sea. After a time, her thrashing roused him.

“Don’t…,” he managed, slinging a wet draggle of mane from his eyes. “Don’t fight the waves. Breathe deep, and keep your nose just above water. Use your limbs as little as possible.”

Eyes rolling and wide, the coppery mare turned to him with a gasp of relief. “My lord—great Dai’chon—ye stir!”

Jan shook his head weakly. “I am no Dai’chon. Ryhenna, I am Aljan, prince of the unicorns. I have remembered my own truename at last.”

“Alj—Al-jan?” she stumbled, still flailing frantically. “But—I saw the divine fire spring from thy hooves and horn….”

Again the dark unicorn shook his head. Breathing hurt his ribs. He had suffered some injury in the fall. The pain weakened him. “Don’t swim so fiercely,” he urged her. “You’ll spend yourself.”

Reluctantly, Ryhenna slowed her vigorous paddle. She seemed fearful of sinking without the constant motion of her limbs.

“Call me Moonbrow, as before, if you wish,” he said, snorting cold seawater, “though that is not the name by which my people know me.”

The coppery mare gazed at him. “Tell me of thy people, my lord Al-jan, Moonbrow,” she whispered, “and whence thou comest.”

Jan told her of his people, the children-of-the-moon, and of his life among them in the Vale. He spoke until his voice became ragged, rough. Ryhenna’s breathing calmed. Her efforts at remaining afloat grew more steady. She paddled determinedly now, no longer desperate, and listened, hushed, as he described the free lives of unicorns.

“Ye have no keepers,” the coppery mare murmured, awed, “and yet ye do not starve? Ye find your own shelter against the cold and wet, and defend yourselves from harm? And ye follow your own god, this Mother-of-all, this Alma?”

Jan nodded, talked out, spent. His tale had taxed his waning strength. He let himself drift, treading the waves as slowly as possible, saw the coppery mare watching him, trying to do the same. The grey sea had calmed somewhat, though the sky remained windblown, dark. Abruptly, she turned away.

“I have no such loving god to watch over me,” she murmured bitterly. “My god was a sham, naught but a mortal two-foot in a mask. Oh, Al-jan—Moonbrow—if only I might see this marvelous Vale of thine and meet thy fellows and know the blessings of thy goddess Alma, I might die content.”

Jan stirred uneasily, thinking of his dreams. He remembered only snatches—of killing winter cold and starving unicorns; his own father with a false moon painted in white clay upon his brow, ramping and shouting as one mad; Tek and Dagg fleeing together through driving snow, pursued by haunts or wolves. The dark unicorn shivered. All around, the cold waves heaved and chopped.

“Where are we?” he heard Ryhenna beside him asking, her voice plaintive. Clearly she was beginning to tire. He himself felt drained and chilled, at the end of his strength. How long had they been in the sea—all day? Was it dusk now? Evening? He saw no stars overhead, but the sky was so dark, he was not sure if it were night or only cover of cloud.

“Near the coast still, rest sure,” he answered, forcing his own voice to sound reasoned and calm. “The storm can’t have taken us so very far from shore. If only we knew what direction, I imagine we could swim it.” Seeing her casting about worriedly, he added, “Sooner or later, we’re bound to drift back toward land.”

He turned away for a moment, fearful to catch her eye, and told himself that his words were not a lie. He had no doubt that eventually they would wash up on shore—but he knew that could be days, even weeks hence: long after their spirits had leapt free of the world to join with the Mother-of-all, leaving only bloated corpses on the waves.

Great Alma, save us!
he cried inwardly, fighting his own panic down.

Jan shook himself, paddling as much for warmth now as to remain afloat. He saw Ryhenna scanning the horizon intently. Underneath her seeming composure, he sensed she was terrified still, nearly exhausted. The sea began to grow rougher again. Waves pitched and slapped at them. As darkness deepened, Jan realized that true evening must be falling at last, that the grey dimness encompassing them before had been only storm-shadowed daylight. The wind rose, gusted, but with no sign of rain.

Time passed. Beside him, he heard Ryhenna’s sobbing breaths. His injured ribs ached. His limbs hung numb. He felt his eyelids straying shut. Only for a few moments, he told himself: he would rest, then swim on. Part of him knew that he was drowning, beginning to sink—down, the long way down to the soft, silt bottom, where firefish and sea-jells would pick his bones. But he could not struggle, could not swim another stroke. He had lost track of the coppery mare, unsure whether she still drifted beside him. Seawater filled his mouth and nose.

Into your keeping, Great Alma,
he bade the goddess silently,
take me and my companion Ryhenna.

A splash of spray. Something long and sleek broke the surface alongside him. Jan started, choking, jerking his head once more into the air above the rocking darkness of waves. A tumult in the waters all around. He paddled reflexively, blinking, stared at the gently curving back of the large dark form that had just surfaced before him. The blowhole atop its rounded head spouted a spurt of steaming breath.

Similar creatures—nearly a score—crowded around him and Ryhenna, bearing them up. Across from him, the coppery mare floundered, dazed, only half aware of their rescuers. The dark unicorn could only gaze in wonder as he felt the smooth, shifting surface of the ocean creatures’ backs supporting him, lifting him partially free of the waves. His own struggles ceased as, in the depth of his mind, he heard a soft, laughing voice gently mocking him.

Aljan, my foolish colt. Did you really think I’d let you drown?

The seabeast nearest Jan turned to look at him with its bright black eye. The creature clicked and chattered through its steaming blowhole. Its fellows did the same. Across from him, the coppery mare’s thrashing had subsided. She lay insensate, swooned. Jan felt himself growing light-headed, faint. He seemed to be floating through dark, star-filled sky instead of sea. Burning sea-jells and firefish swirled, surrounded him like stars. The strange, streamlined creature gliding before him through the darkness clacked and chittered still. From its short, blunt snout—he beheld now, staring—grew the long, twisting spiral of a unicorn’s horn.

The dream of stargliding endured for a great span before Jan returned to himself, found himself once more in the night-dark sea. For hours, it seemed, he could do little more than lie exhausted against the slick, pliant backs of the unicorns-of-the-sea. They were mostly dark grey, though a few were silvery with great black spots. Across from him, Ryhenna slept peacefully, sprawled across the shifting backs of the obliging sea-unicorns. Much of the cloud cover above him had blown off now, and Jan was able to see stars. The few ragged, scudding clouds that remained threatened no rain. The breeze had turned unexpectedly, mercifully warm.

Not all their rescuers possessed the tusk-horn, Jan noted after a time. Only about half did, most of whom appeared to be the larger males—and yet, among those with the longest, keenest, and most elegant horns swam two that were plainly females with half-grown calves. One of the group even sported a pair of horns, one spiral skewer sprouting from each side of the jaw. The group’s leader was evidently the beautifully tusked young male who had broken the surface first. In the beginning, he only clicked and whistled at Jan, but presently switched to the common tongue of unicorns and
daya.

“Among my folk,” he began, “I am known as A’a’a’….” A string of crackling squeals followed, baffling Jan’s ears. The sea creature tossed his head, flipping a shower of spray. “But I realize this designation is difficult for your kind.”

The young male swam alongside, bright-eyed, smiling. The dark unicorn could not escape the impression that he was being politely laughed at.

“You may therefore call me A’a.”

Despite his bone-wearying fatigue, Jan managed a bow. “A’a,” he began, “I am called Aljan. My companion is Ryhenna. We are both deeply grateful for your aid. But I have never seen or heard tell of your kind before. What are your people called?”

“We are narwhals,” A’a replied: “Moonspawn, blessed of the Great Mother. We are on our spring voyage east along the silver coast to our calving grounds off the Birdcat Mountains.”

Birdcat Mountains. Jan grew suddenly more alert. Might such be the name of the Gryphon Mountains among A’a’s people? The dark unicorn felt his whole body quiver. If the unicorns-of-the-sea knew of the Gryphon Mountains, then surely they knew of the Singing Cliffs where the seaherons nested, from which he could easily find his way back to the Vale.

“We sing to one another constantly beneath the waves,” A’a continued. “My pod was closest to you when our dreamers harkened Red-One’s hail entreating your rescue.”

Red-One? Jan blinked. All the narwhals in his view were dark silver, mottled grey, or black. “Who is Red-One?” he asked. “Is that one among you now?”

A shower of staccato clicks marked A’a’s laughter. “Nay. She is of your kind,” he replied, “though once, like your companion, she lacked a horn. Years ago, we aided her flight from the two-footed boat-builders. We curse their kind! They kill us when they can—though we have never offered them the slightest harm. They steal our tusks and dappled skins, our rich fat and strong, supple bones. They would harness us as they do their hapless
daya,
we think, could they but devise a means.”

A storm of angry crackles and squeals came from A’a’s fellows, evidently signaling agreement.

“Where does this red mare live?” the dark prince asked as the tumult subsided.

“Inland,” A’a replied. “She visits us from time to time, coming down to the golden shore in spring when we are passing by. Sometimes she travels with us a while. We tell her of all the realms undersea that we have visited, and she speaks of the drylands she has seen. Several of us have learned her tongue, and she speaks our own tongue a little, too.”

The swells rolled dark and warm around them.

“You are fortunate, O friend of our great friend,” the sleek sea-rover added, “to have such an ally to intercede on your behalf.”

Jan lay silent a moment, thoroughly confused. A hornless
da
mare, having escaped the two-foots, now living as a unicorn? Surely he could not have heard the other right.

“You say this mare once lacked a horn…?” he began. The narwhal leader clacked and nodded. “Drinking from a sacred pool guarded by white poisontails transformed her,” he replied. “A horn now grows upon her brow.”

The dark unicorn snorted, shook his head, still utterly perplexed. Could A’a be referring to the sacred wellspring of the moon, Jan wondered, deep in wyvern country?

“But how could this Red-One,” he murmured, only half-realizing he was thinking aloud, “many miles inland, know of our plight—and send you word?”

The black narwhal laughed. “Red-One glides through our dreams,” he answered. “Her spells conjured the storm that raised the sea above the rocks and enabled your escape from the stinking boat-makers. It was surely a mighty leap to fling her powers so far. We are uneasy for her now, having received no further sending from her these many hours since.”

Jan felt a stab of recognition now. Could Tek’s dam be the one of whom the narwhals spoke? He had known all his life that the Red Mare was a magicker, able to enter dreams and bring weather. He knew she often traveled far from the Vale on mysterious errands never explained. It had been Jah-lila, years past, who had saved him from a wyvern’s sting and hinted at origins far stranger than merely being the offspring of renegade unicorns—outlaws of the Plain—as most of the herd believed.

The sea-unicorns bobbed and whistled. Despite the mildness of the air after the storm, all Jan’s limbs felt suddenly chill. Had Jah-lila once been a
da
in the city of the two-foots? Could drinking of Alma’s sacred pool deep in wyvern-occupied territory somehow have transformed her? For all its healing powers, could that miraculous well truly change hornless
daya
into unicorns? The prospect both disturbed and excited him.