Unicorns? Get Real!

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Menschmik!” The name ripped from Gundernsap’s throat in an agonizing sound.

  “Holy monk bones, we’re in the wrong place! We should be back at the castle, not here at this stupid boys’ camp!” The princesses looked at Alicia in amazement. This indeed was a turnaround for the Princess of All the Belgravias.

  Before the moon had risen, the girls were on their ponies riding hard back to Camp Princess.

  Chapter 19

  DROPS OF BLOOD

  As they slid off their ponies, Kristen, Alicia, and Myrella were peppering Gundersnap with questions.

  “Did you understand the verse?”

  “What’s the wings like silk?”

  “I don’t get the pouch of gold. Whatever is the pouch of gold?” Alicia asked.

  “I told you. Remember when Gortle brought me the letter about Menschmik, he also brought me the clippings from Menschmik’s mane? Menschmik’s mane looked like pure gold. That’s why I called him Menschmik. It means ‘bright as gold’ in Slobo.”

  “You have to thread the needle with the hair from his mane, then?” Myrella gasped in excitement. “That’s probably why it didn’t work last time.”

  “Yes! It was a mess,” Gundersnap said.

  They ran first into Gundersnap’s chamber in the South Turret. From one of her bedposts hung the very ordinary-looking leather pouch with strands of Menschmik’s mane. She grabbed it and they dashed out, down the stairs, through the long corridor, and into the portrait gallery.

  “Hurry up! Hurry up!” Gundersnap ordered, almost dancing on her toes in front of the portrait of the Ghost Princess. It seemed to be opening more slowly than ever. At last the portrait swung wide open to reveal the winding staircase to the hidden turret. But it seemed again as if everything were moving painfully slow, as if in a bad dream. Gundersnap muttered under her breath that the number of stairs seemed to have doubled since they were last there.

  Her hands were shaking so hard when they arrived that she could not thread the needle. “Here, let me do it,” Myrella said. With her tiny hands and fingers, she quickly had four needles threaded with the golden strands from Menschmik’s mane.

  They all began sewing furiously. The picture seemed to grow and grow around the stitches they had originally sewn. Alicia, who was working on the head of the creature, blurted out, “It’s definitely not a pony. It’s a unicorn.”

  Then Kristen began to squint hard and sew faster. “This is unbelievable. This is totally ice. What we thought before was a complete royal mess isn’t at all.”

  “What is it?” Myrella stood on her tiptoes.

  “It’s Gundersnap! She’s riding the unicorn!”

  Then there was a small, sharp yelp. The three princesses turned toward Gundersnap. There were spots of blood on the tapestry.

  “Did you prick yourself? Here, let me see,” Alicia asked.

  “No! I did not prick myself. I sewed those. The gold thread turned red. I am stitching blood drops. They are drops of blood. Menschmik’s blood!”

  “The rhyme, the rhyme,” Kristen whispered. “Say it again. What does the rest mean?”

  Gundersnap began reciting the verse once again, slowly this time, as if she were almost chewing on every word.

  “Take that pouch with threads of gold

  To make your stitches thick and bold.

  Then a picture will appear:

  A creature hurt, a creature dear.

  On wings like silk you then will fly,

  And let us hope that he’ll not die.”

  “SILK!” all four princesses exclaimed at once.

  “Of course!” Gundersnap’s eyes widened and sparkled with new hope. “Remember that was the one of the things Frankie said no one was sure about—how unicorns could sometimes travel vast distances in something the ancients called flash time.”

  “Well now’s the time to prove it,” Alicia said.

  “Yes.” Kristen nodded. “Fact or fiction?”

  In the stables the three princesses helped Gundersnap prepare Silk. The unicorn stood patiently as Kristen tightened the girth of the velvet saddle and Gundersnap fitted the bridle into his mouth. The scent of roses was strong in the stall. It seemed that Princess Myrella was the only one who had truly kept her wits about her as they completed sewing the scene of the tapestry. She ticked off the important points. “The battlefield is on a peninsula that juts out into the Hottom Sea. There is a forest on the west side, the side that you’ll be approaching from, and there is moss, which is where the drops of blood were. So if you follow those drops of blood once you get there…” She hesitated. “Well, that’s where he’ll…Menschmik will be.”

  “I wish we could go with you,” Alicia said.

  “If we had only captured more unicorns.” Kristen sighed. “Imagine it—the four of us riding together.”

  “But do you know the way to Hottompot?” Alicia asked.

  “Certainly. Mummy always gives us very complete geography lessons on any kingdom she is planning to invade. It is part of our strategic war unit, taught by herself and her best general, Commander Gokinblat. I know the place like the back of my hand.”

  “But will Silk know how to get there?” Myrella asked.

  “If I guide him right. If I ride him well. We will get there,” Gundersnap replied confidently.

  “But how will you ever get Menschmik back?” Kristen asked.

  “I’ll figure that out when the time comes. First I must save him. Then I must bring him back, and he will never, ever be in battle again.”

  Then Alicia, who was holding the reins of Silk’s bridle as Gundernsap mounted, looked up at the squat little princess who seemed to glow the second she settled on the unicorn’s back and said softly, “Gundersnap, I think you are beginning to believe in magic—practical or not.”

  “The heart insists!” Gundersnap smiled broadly.

  Chapter 20

  WHEN FACT MEETS FICTION

  Kristen opened the gates of the corral and Gundersnap raced through. The three princesses watched but only briefly, for within a few seconds Gundersnap and Silk had disappeared over the horizon. The gleam persisted for several seconds, as if a sun had just set, even though it was midnight. The princesses, still waving, could just barely smell the lingering scent of roses that stirred in the wake of the unicorn, and then the gleam was gone.

  “Well, I guess that’s one faction proved.” Kristen clapped her hands together as if to punctuate what she was about to say. “Unicorns can cover vast distances very quickly. Maybe she should have named him Streak instead of Silk.”

  The princesses planned to return to Camp Burning Shield before they were missed and, of course, they had to hatch a plan to cover Gundersnap’s absence.

  “Why don’t we just say,” Myrella spoke up, “that the note she received on the archery field suggested that there was some emergency, and her mother required her presence in court. It’s sort of true, after all.”

  “You’re right,” Alicia said. “And we can tell Gortle the truth. He’ll understand, if anyone will.”

  “It’s a fact all right!” Gundersnap whispered to herself as she saw great hunks of a large continent disappear under her. She hunkered down flat against Silk’s mane. Sometimes she was not sure if Silk’s hooves were even touching the ground. But was it really flying? And so far there were no wings. They were traveling east, and soon she saw water ahead that must, she guessed, be the sea of Hottompot. Reaching out into that sea like a long, crooked finger was the peninsula where the battlefield lay! Gundersnap felt her heart beat wildly. They had made good time, but there was still a long way to go, for they must follow the contour of the shoreline all the way around to the peninsula. She heard Silk breathing hard. “Oh, dear Lord, don’t let his breath give out now.” But there was an ominous deep rumbling in the unicorn’s chest, and she felt the pounding heart skip a beat and then another. “Oh no…Oh no,” Gundersnap moaned as his gallop slowed.

  Then she felt a strange movement under h
er calves. She looked down. “Vyne Vott! Berfluggen splurplunkne faction. Ingrotz Silkmi hoff!” Which roughly translated from Slobo means, “My Lord! A faction comes true and is not a fiction. Silk is growing wings!” She moved back in her saddle to give the wings full range, and soon she felt herself and Silk leaving the ground. Then, caught on a warm updraft, they began to float higher and higher and were soon over the sea of Hottompot. The wind rushed by her ears in a satin rustle. A wave of moonlight swept across them as Silk flew, and overhead stars scattered and broke the night into one immense sparkling flower. Silk’s wings had unfurled completely now and were glorious to behold. Transparent, with flushes of iridescent colors near the edges, they glimmered in the night.

  But beneath her she saw a battle raging, and soon they began their descent. Settling in a thickly wooded area on the fringes of the battlefield, they could hear the din of war. Great bonfires burned where gunpowder kegs had exploded or the clashing armies had attempted to burn each other’s supplies and weapons. The forest itself was out of reach of the flames, but it was nonetheless bright with the fiery glow of the battlefield. The sound of cannons and muskets being fired was deafening.

  Where to begin? Gundersnap thought. I must look for the drops of blood. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the tapestry in the hidden turret. She could picture those drops of blood so clearly. They glistened now in her mind’s eye, bright as rubies, rubies on moss. “We must look for the moss first,” she whispered to Silk. She dismounted and began to walk, leading Silk with satin reins.

  It was not long until she found a patch of moss and soon another patch and another and another, until there was a soft moss path. Then, on a sprig of a small white flower called moondrops that poked through the moss, she saw the first spot of blood. She bent down and touched it. “It’s still warm!” she whispered to Silk. Her face was pale with fear. “We’ll follow this trail. I see more drops of blood ahead.”

  With her heart beating like thunder, Gundersnap pushed on. She had not gone far when she heard a weak whinny between the blasts of cannon fire, followed by a groan. Her eyes opened wide in horror. “Menschmik!” she cried. She pushed aside a low hanging branch and saw her bloodied and panting pony sprawled on the ground.

  Gundersnap dropped Silk’s reins and fell to her knees beside the pony. His eyes were glassy with fear but seemed to soften as his mistress stroked his head. There was a terrible gash on his head that was bleeding freely.

  Just then a large, familiar shadow slid across the fire-stained night.

  “Myshussenfreit! Grott mykin! Shussenfreit schussenfreit nincompoopen.” Gundersnap heard the words and could hardly believe it.

  Gutten grieffen gobben ich stynken Mummy! The shadow was that of her mother in her full battle dress—metal breastplate, her chain-mail gown, and the helmet with the horns of the giant Slobodkonian bull. She was riding her great warhorse, the charger Thrompen Monschtark, or Thunder Monster. They were apparently looking for wounded and dead, and any enemy weapons they could find scattered about. Gundernsap began to tremble uncontrollably as she heard the crunch of footsteps nearing. Scouts! She’s sending in scouts to search. She knew that the rule of the battlefield was that badly wounded animals—warhorses or ponies—were killed instantly. Menschmik was badly wounded.

  The footsteps were coming nearer and nearer. Suddenly Gundersnap felt Silk’s head nuzzling her shoulder. “Calm yourself, calm yourself,” he seemed to be saying. Just before the scout stepped out into the clearing, Gundersnap slid behind Silk. She heard a small gasp. She peeked around. The scout was Frizzmor, a favorite of her mother’s. “Eininhorken!” he blurted out. He turned around and rushed to where the empress waited on her charger.

  “Empress minghotten styrnofkein ingen eininhorken!”

  He was telling the empress that he had seen a unicorn, but said nothing of Menschmik. Was it possible that he had not even noticed the poor animal? Suddenly Gundersnap heard the unmistakable, loud, raucous, hysterical laughter of her mother.

  “Eininhorken schneer vissen bish vyn vott idiot nincompoopen.” The other soldiers accompanying her began to laugh as well, for when the empress laughed, everyone laughed.

  This is unbelievable, Gundersnap thought. Her mother did not believe in unicorns. Therefore they did not exist. Therefore anyone who did believe in them was not simply impractical but a fool, an idiot, and a nincompoop, and she would never even deign to go look. The commander of one of the fiercest armies on earth, commander in chief of Operazynggen Bluffyn Klompen—which translated from Slobo meant “Operation Blow ’Em Up and Stomp ’Em Out”—would not go into a woods to chase fairy tale creatures. No siree, not Maria Theresa, Empress of All the Slobodks.

  The shadow receded. Gundersnap stepped out from behind Silk, whose head was bent low over the wounded pony. And now it was the princess’s turn to gasp. The terrible gash in Menschmik’s head had stopped bleeding. She was stunned as Menschmik began to raise himself to his knees. She blinked and inhaled sharply. Where the pony had lain, there was a scattering of rubies. But Gundersnap would have traded all the rubies in the world for what happened next.

  Silk bent his head again, and his horn touched where the gash had been on the pony’s forehead. Something different was happening. The skin was healing, but a bump was pushing up beneath it. Gundersnap’s eyes widened as she realized that she was witnessing a kind of miracle. There was magic in the woods, and slowly a horn began to emerge from Menschmik’s brow.

  It was a short little horn with only two rings, one for each of the five years Menschmik had lived.

  Gundersnap turned to Silk. Her eyes welled with tears. “He shall live many more years, for now he is a unicorn. Empress Mummy will never be able to take him away again.”

  And it was true. On this night, near a blood-drenched and fiery battlefield, a unicorn had been made. And Gundersnap’s mother, the empress, did not believe in unicorns. Thus Menschmik would be safe forever after.

  Gundersnap climbed on Menschmik’s back. His wings were just unfolding. Together the princess and the new unicorn rose into the night with Silk at their side, the words of Berwynna like a song filling Gundersnap’s head.

  Behold the gleaming unicorn

  With its ivory spiraling horn.

  The bloodied and the lame do kneel,

  Yet none but true hearts does it heal.

  Is it pony? Is it horse?

  What magic happens at its source?

  Some are born. Yet some are made,

  And some are torn from warfare’s blade.

  Chapter 21

  A GLOW IN THE DAWN

  Princess Kristen was leaning out the window of her chamber. She could not sleep. They had been back an entire day and a night from Camp Burning Shield and, although the excuse they had given for Gundersnap’s absence was generally accepted, she was beginning to worry. Gortle had to make himself scarce, as he was supposed to have been the one to escort the princess back to the palace in Slobodkonia.

  Dawn was just breaking when suddenly, on the hill where the princesses had last seen Gundersnap, Kristen saw a glow. It was as if the hill were powdered with the gold of the rising sun. But it was not the sun. Kristen ran for her high-powered binoculars that had just come from Royal Outdoor Life Catalogue. She pressed them to her eyes. It’s her! It’s her, and there are two unicorns! Immediately she rushed into Alicia’s chamber and then to Myrella’s closet.

  “She’s coming back. We’ve spotted her!” Myrella sat up so suddenly in her draw that she smacked her head. “Ouch! Gundersnap’s back?” she asked.

  “Yes, and it’s summer. We’ll just swim the moat. No one will be up for hours.”

  “Let’s get Gortle!”

  They ran to another closet and knocked on a drawer in it. “Get up, Gortle, get up! She’s back!”

  “Oh, bless Saint Gubbins!” he exclaimed. Saint Gubbins was the patron saint of dwarves.

  The three princesses and the dwarf raced down the banks of the moat, swam acro
ss it, and struck out across the field. Gundersnap spotted them immediately and raced forward. She slipped off Menschmik’s back and hugged the wet princesses and the wet dwarf. “This,” she exclaimed, “is Menschmik, believe it or not!”

  “I’d recognize him anywhere!” Gortle said joyously. “Look, his gold mane is back.”

  “Then it’s true, not just a faction nor a fiction. A horse or pony can become a unicorn,” Alicia said, her voice full of wonder.

  “Oh, so much is true.” Gundersnap beamed, and from her pocket she took out a handful of the most glorious fat rubies any of them had ever seen. So brilliant was their ruby-red light that it caught all of them in its radiance. But the most radiant of all was Princess Gundersnap, who was as beautiful as any princess in the entire camp of princesses.

  That evening when the clock began to chime midnight, the four princesses made their way up the winding staircase of the hidden turret. They took up their needles and thread and began to stitch.

  “You should do these last stitches,” Princess Alicia said, nodding toward the short little horn that grew out of the creature in the tapestry. Gundersnap stepped up with her needle and thread. She began to stitch. Now at last it was all so clear as she began to stitch the final images of two unicorns flying through a starry night. One was ridden by a princess—a radiant, lovely princess.

  Outside summer had slipped back to spring. It was almost as if the princesses could hear the new grass pushing up. And tomorrow there would be daffodils, and Gundersnap would go to a place in the meadow where she knew the sweetest clover grew to feed her dear Menschmik.