The Black Unicorn (38 page)

Then the funnel broke apart and the unicorns scattered, flooding the skies above the mountain clearing in a rush of graceful, delicate bodies—like fireworks exploding in an impossibly beautiful shower. The unicorns spread out across the skyline—buoyed by the magic of their transformation—then soared into the distance. Their cries lingered after them momentarily, then faded into silence.

The mountains had gone still again.

“There never was any black unicorn,” Willow said.

“There was, but it was only a deception,” Ben said.

Questor Thews and Abernathy, Bunion and Parsnip, and Fillip and Sot looked at each other in confusion.

They sat within the shade of a great, old oak at the edge of the meadow clearing, the lingering smell of scorched earth a pungent reminder of all that had befallen. The last of the shards of green flame had flickered out, but trailers of smoke and particles of dust and ash still floated weightless through the sun-streaked afternoon air. Abernathy had been dusted off, the others had been freed of their bonds, and the six of them were gathered about Ben and Willow, who were trying to explain what had happened. It wasn’t easy because neither of them knew everything yet, so they were piecing the story together as they went.

“It might be easier if we start at the beginning,” Ben offered.

He hunched forward, legs crossing before him. He was ragged and dirty, but at least they all recognized him now. Removing his own deception of who and what he was had removed theirs as well.

“A long time ago, the fairies sent the white unicorns into Landover on a journey to certain of the mortal
worlds. We know that much from the histories. The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of failing altogether. After all, there has to be
some
belief in the magic—however small—for any world to survive.

“But the unicorns disappeared. They disappeared because the wizards of Landover waylaid and imprisoned them. They wanted the unicorns’ magic for their own use. Remember, Questor, when you told me that the wizards were once a powerful guild that hired out—back before the King sent the Paladin to dispose of them? Well, I’m betting a major part of that magic came from the imprisoned unicorns—magic that the wizards siphoned off. I don’t know what magic they possessed to trap the unicorns in the first place—a deception of some sort, I’d guess. That seems to be their favorite trick. At any rate, they caught them up, changed them into drawings, and trapped them in those books.”

“But not whole,” Willow said.

“No, not whole,” Ben agreed. “This is where it gets interesting. The wizards separated the body from the spirit of each unicorn in making the transformation. They imprisoned the body in one book and the spirit in the other! That weakened the unicorns and made them easier to hold. The body without the spirit is never as strong. The wizards’ magic was potent enough to imprison each separately; the trick was to prevent them from joining again.”

“Which was the danger Meeks faced when the black unicorn escaped,” Willow added.

“Right. Because the black unicorn was the collective
spirit
of the imprisoned white unicorns!” Ben furrowed his brow. “You see, so long as the wizards could maintain the strength of the magic that bound the books, the unicorns could not break free and the wizards could drain the unicorns’ magic as well and put it to their own use.
Even after Landover’s King sent the Paladin to crush the wizards’ guild years ago, the books survived. They were probably kept hidden for a time. Even later, the wizards still remaining, those now in service to the King, were careful not to let anyone know the real source of their power. And the books were passed down from wizard to wizard until at last they came to Meeks.”

He touched his index finger to his lips. “But—in the meantime—there was a problem with the unicorns. Every so often, they escaped. Something would happen, the wizards would relax their vigilance, and the unicorns would break free. It didn’t happen often, of course, because the wizards kept close watch over the books. But now and again, it did. Each time, it was the
spirit
part of the imprisoned unicorns that managed to escape—the magic of the spirit always being stronger than that of the body. The spirit would burn its way free of the pages of the book of magic that bound it and escape. But it lacked a true physical presence. It was only a shadow formed of need and will, a silhouette given momentary substance and life—and not much more.” He glanced quickly at Willow for confirmation, and she nodded. “And because it was black in color, being only a shadow, it was generally assumed to be something evil rather than something good. After all, whoever heard of a black unicorn? The wizards, I am certain, spread the story that the black unicorn was an aberration—a dangerous thing, perhaps even a demon. They probably set a few examples to reinforce the belief. That kept everyone away from it while the wizards worked at getting it back again.”

“The bridle of spun gold was used for that purpose,” Willow interjected, picking up the story. “The wizards employed their magic to create the bridle after the first escape. The bridle was a magic that could draw and hold the black unicorn, giving the wizards time to imprison it anew. It was always caught quickly; it was never free for long. It was sent back again into the books of magic, the
burned pages were restored, and all was as it had been. The wizards took no chances. The books were their greatest magic, and they could not risk damage to or loss of them.”

She turned to Ben. “That was why the black unicorn was so frightened of me at first. Even in its need, it was terrified. I felt its fear each time I came close and again, later, when I touched it. It believed me to be a tool of the wizards that had imprisoned it. It couldn’t know the truth. It was not until the very end that it seemed to understand that I was not in service to Meeks.”

“Which brings us to the present,” Ben announced, straightening. “Meeks had gained possession of the books of magic in his turn and had used them as had all the wizards before him. But then the old King died and everything started to fall into ruin. The black unicorn hadn’t escaped for a very long time—perhaps centuries—and there hadn’t been any need for the golden bridle in all those years. I don’t think even the wizards before Meeks had paid a whole lot of attention to it for a while because it was apparently before Meeks’ time that it was stolen for the first time by Nightshade. Later it was stolen by Strabo and then went back and forth between the two after that. Meeks knew where it was, I suppose, but the books of magic were safely under his control, and the witch and the dragon didn’t know the real purpose of the bridle in any case. The trouble started when Meeks went over to my world to recruit a new King for Landover and hid the books of magic in his absence. I suppose he thought he wouldn’t be gone long enough for anything to happen to them, but things didn’t work out that way. When I didn’t come crawling back to give up the medallion and the Iron Mark didn’t finish me off, Meeks suddenly found himself trapped over there with the books of magic still hidden over here. The magic that imprisoned the unicorns weakened once more in his absence, and the spirit part—the
black unicorn—burned free of the pages of its book and escaped.”

“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.