Summer of the Unicorn

by Kay Hooper

  She sat on the ground, wrapping her arms around her upraised knees. “What is magic?” Shrugging, she gazed off toward the herd. “Something not completely understood? By that definition, I suppose magic is as good a word as any. But why does it have to be defined?”

  “Man’s quest for knowledge,” Hunter said automatically.

  Siri nodded a little, but she wore a taut smile. “Man? You mean men like you—and the Huntmen?”

  “They aren’t like me,” he protested.

  “No? You’re all human. You all sprang from a single world uncounted centuries ago, didn’t you?”

  He looked at her, intrigued by the curious complexities inherent in her. Accepting so much on faith, and yet with obvious knowledge of other worlds. “Maybe some of us did,” he admitted. “But not all of us. There are humanoids on many worlds, who developed independently just as my ancestors did.”

  “On your home world?” She felt a sudden curiosity, and told herself it was because she needed to know about Hunter and his people in order to discover the best way of persuading him to leave her and the valley in peace.

  “No. No, my people live on a world they traveled to generations ago.”

  “Which world did they leave?”

  He shook his head. “They fled from a war, or some natural catastrophe; they chose not to preserve that part of their history. All I know—all any of us know—is that they called it Earth.”

  She turned her head and gave him a strange, searching look. For the moment, it seemed her hostility had vanished. “I see. And man’s quest for knowledge? Is that what drove you to leave your world?”

  He was silent for a moment, and then spoke slowly. “When my people left their home world and went into space, never knowing if they’d survive long enough to find a habitable planet, they left so much behind. All their history. Only their knowledge and their mythology survived. They used their knowledge to build a new world for themselves, a new culture composed of bits and pieces of what had to be memories of their history. A simple society on a planet that was at first hostile to them. They held tight to their myths. Ancient heroes and adventurous quests. Magical creatures. They were careful to preserve those.”

  “Why did you leave?” she asked again.

  “It started out as a simple Quest,” he said. His mouth twisted faintly. “I just wanted to find a unicorn. Myths were once so important to my people—so important that they chose to take that part of themselves to a new world.” An innate caution kept him silent about the rest. “It was only that, at first.”

  “Only that?” An odd question, she thought, disturbed.

  He frowned a little. “I—yes. All my life, I had been fascinated by myth.”

  “And then?”

  Hunter was gazing at the unicorns, but he was seeing something else. He was seeing what he had seen for years in his travels. “I found other humans on other worlds with no memories of their beginnings,” he said softly. “As if our entire race had been driven from its home world and scattered out into space. They had their myths, though. My myths, and my people’s. They were all the same. Dragons. Pegasus. Centaurs. Pandora’s box, and divine beings, Fates and Muses, demigods like Hercules, heroes like the Argonauts and Odysseus.

  “They were all there. On dozens of worlds whose technology ranged from the primitive to spacegoing, I found the same mythology. And almost all had been altered, either minutely or greatly, to fit the needs of each world. But the names remained the same. And only one myth survived exactly the same way on each world. Unicorns. Always, they represented purity and grace and wisdom and strength.”

  Siri waited, watching him.

  “Oh, I found humanoids with no mythology at all. And in each case where a world had forgotten or contained no myth, no dreams of beauty, the societies were dying. They were in chaos, at war, destroying themselves. They had forgotten how to dream, and they were dying of the lack.”

  She listened, realizing that he had not grasped the importance of that, but curiously unwilling to point out what he had not yet discovered on his own. He had to understand for himself, she knew. Somehow, he had to understand.

  He looked at her, his expression that of a driven man, a fierce and determined man. “My world is losing its myths, Siri. Do you understand? My grandfather saw it happening; my father saw it happening; I see it happening. Generation by generation, they are increasingly losing the ability to dream. Forgetting the legends of their past. And that beautiful, simple society is beginning to lose the threads holding it together. In another few generations, my world could become like those others: in chaos, destroying itself.”

  “So your Quest,” she said softly, “is to save a world. By presenting to them myth alive and breathing?”

  Intensely, he said, “They need to see that dreams are real! They need to know that.”

  She returned her gaze to the herd, thinking. An important Quest, she realized. But he did not yet understand why his solution to his world’s problems was based on a fallacy. And she could not explain. “Could it be that easy?” she asked softly.

  “Easy?” He laughed shortly. “I’ve spent years searching, Siri. I’ve been drawn into wars against my will. I’ve been stranded on hostile planets, captured by antagonistic cultures, forced to participate in rituals and customs I barely understood. I’ve had to learn new responses, new languages. I’ve had to fight for my life when that was never what I wanted to become adept at.”

  She pushed aside her sudden curiosity. “I didn’t mean that your Quest was easy. I meant could it be that easy to mend a torn society? What would you show them? A horse with a horn?”

  “A unicorn.” He stared at her. “A dream.”

  He had to understand for himself; she couldn’t force him to see the truth. “And destroy my valley for your world.”

  “Your valley?”

  She rose to her feet, absently brushing dust from her pants as she gazed at him. “My valley. I’m the Keeper.”

  “Was it always your valley?” he probed cautiously.

  “I was born the Keeper.”

  He hesitated, then decided to press for at least one answer while she seemed amenable. “Were you born here in the valley?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  Hands on hips, Siri stared down at him. “It means that I was born inside The Reaper, Hunter. Now, do you want to sit out here while I patrol, or would you rather go back inside?”

  “I’ll stay here.”

  She nodded briefly, glanced toward Cloud as if sending a silent message, then struck out through the trees.

  Hunter watched until he could no longer see her, then turned his baffled gaze to the black sentinel brooding high above the valley. Inside The Reaper? How could that be?

  The unicorns were grazing peacefully now and more or less ignoring him. He watched little Rayne trot over to the small lake, dip her nose into the water briefly, then spit out a mouthful with an irritated squeal. Distracted from his thoughts, he watched as Dawn lifted her head and nickered softly and her foal answered with another squeal before darting through the woods in an awkward baby gallop.

  Hunter noted that the foal had followed Siri’s path, and he waited for nearly ten minutes for her return, his mind working keenly. When Rayne trotted back to the herd, her long legs were wet all the way up to her body.

  Nodding to himself, Hunter looked back toward the lake. He followed the lake’s feeding stream with his eyes until he could barely pinpoint its origin in the wellspring low on The Reaper’s slopes. “A mineral spring, probably,” he murmured aloud. “The waters undrinkable.” He looked toward the trees and the path Siri and the foal had taken. “There must be another stream.”

  He filed the information away in his mind and watched the unicorns, dazzled by their grace and beauty…and the strength of their personalities.

  —

  A kind of pattern was established during the next few days. After breakfast, S
iri would help Hunter out to the seat in the shade where he could watch the unicorns. She would then leave on her “patrol,” returning from time to time apparently to keep an eye on him. Sometimes she would stay for a while, telling him more about the unicorns and avoiding any mention of herself and her past. There were flashes of hostility, moments when she looked at him grimly, but for the most part she was virtually emotionless. She prepared meals for them, efficiently stripped Hunter of his clothing once—entirely against his will—so that she could clean his garments, and generally treated him rather like a bothersome houseguest on sufferance.

  Grimly, Hunter waited for his body to recover its strength, exercising gradually more and more each day. He meant to abide by his promise to Siri; he would never again take advantage of her helping him. Instead, he meant to stand on his own two feet, meeting her strength with his own. And he meant to make his desire reality: He and Siri would be lovers.

  As for Siri, she was counting each sunrise and sunset as bringing her closer to the end of the Summer—and the safety of the Unicorns. She tried in vain to keep her thoughts focused on that goal and off the disturbing presence of Hunter in her valley and in her home. Tried.

  He haunted her awake and asleep. Driven by the necessity of protecting the Unicorns, she had no choice but to consult the cards daily, and each time the prophecy remained the same: She and the man would be lovers. And as the days passed, she became less and less certain she could impose her will on that prophecy. Her body’s response to his was an ever-present thing now, and it was difficult for her to hide that from him.

  But she tried, fiercely, to do just that. She couldn’t allow him to see awakening instincts and senses, because she knew from what she had learned about all men that he too would reach out for what he wanted without counting the cost to her.

  To do him justice, she was almost certain that he honestly had no idea of the single inviolate taboo in her life, and it was something she could not tell him. Cruel of the Guardians, she thought more than once, to impose that structure on Keepers. We may not know the physical love of a man, and we may not explain to him why we cannot. The one immutable law of Keepers was that she could not live outside the valley. Outcast, she would die.

  He didn’t know; she couldn’t tell him; and the cards predicted that it would come to pass.

  And something new had entered the cards’ prophecy. Something that puzzled and alarmed her. Green eyes again. But this time there were three green eyes, one of them so hazy and indistinct she could barely see it. She didn’t know what it meant.

  —

  Hunter woke with the uneasy feeling of something being wrong. The cabin was lit only by moonlight shining through the windowpanes, and as he pushed himself to his elbows and let his eyes follow the shaft of light, he realized what had disturbed him. The shelf Siri had made into a bed for herself was empty.

  Stronger now, he had no difficulty in getting up. He didn’t bother to reach for the shirt lying nearby but went to the door wearing only pants. He opened it softly and went outside. A glance upward showed him that the moon had risen, its light spilling brilliance over the valley. It was easily as bright as day, but the light was eerily white and each object cast a stark shadow. The lake was glimmering darkness, the tall meadow grass still and silent, and nothing stirred in the night.

  Until…

  Unconsciously holding his breath, Hunter saw two shapes emerge from the trees, two white creatures of such purity that their snowy coats seemed to glow with translucence. Dimly he realized that he was watching Storm and Fancy, the arrogant prince and his flighty princess, but identities didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was the result.

  In unison they moved around the lake, side by side and in perfect step. They circled the water, gliding, making no sound. Then, on the far side of the lake, they began to move about each other. Heads dipping and lifting, tails flying proudly, dark eyes gleaming, they performed a minuet to the music in their souls. Each pirouette was flawless, as though an invisible rider guided and signaled. Each arch of neck and swish of tail was music in motion. They were ethereal, luminescent shadows without substance. They were myths alive only in dream, visible only to the heart. And they breathed the mist of fantasy.

  One by one, other glowing forms joined the two by the lake. Each performed a different dance in the moonlight, from Cloud’s stately expression of age and wisdom to little Rayne’s awkward, curiously moving and joyous comedy of youth. They all danced, in silence and breathtaking beauty, and Hunter watched, mesmerized.

  He suddenly realized that Siri stood by his side, and he turned his head to look down at her. She was smiling a smile as ethereal and luminescent as the creatures’ dance, and Hunter wondered if he were really asleep and dreaming.

  “You should feel privileged.” Her voice was soft, only a breath of sound. “The Unicorns dance only when they feel safe and secure. And only once in a Season. One other man in my lifetime has seen the Dance.”

  “Who?” he asked breathily.

  “My father.”

  Hunter stared at her for a single moment out of time, then followed her gaze as she turned to watch the unicorns.

  They danced on, seemingly oblivious to the watching humans. It went on for hours, until gradually, one by one, all but the original pair faded into the trees. Storm and Fancy danced alone until the moon began to set between two mountain peaks on the far side of the valley. Then they too faded into the woods. The moon vanished from sight, stealing the brightness of a false day just as the sun began rising and splashed orange-pink light to replace what the moon had stolen.

  Hunter turned to Siri, hoping that the smile he had seen on her face was not as rare as a unicorn Dance.

  And it was not.

  She looked out across the valley, the dreamy smile still curving her lips. Her eyes were a smoky, mysterious gray, holding only faint glints of the impenetrable black to which he was accustomed. The golden sunlight bathed her delicate features with a radiance Hunter had never seen on a woman’s face. He was every bit as mesmerized by her as he had been by the moonlight Dance.

  “The first time I saw the Dance,” she murmured, “my father was with me. I was very young, and the night seemed to last forever. The Unicorns seemed to dance just for us.”

  “How many times have you seen the Dance?”

  She stirred slightly and looked up at him. “Three times. Just three.” She turned and went into the cabin.

  Hunter followed slowly, sitting down in the chair by the table as she began to prepare breakfast. Watching her move with the almost eerie, uncalculated grace that was peculiarly hers, Hunter tried to take his mind off the instant responses of his own body. But it was almost impossible, and had been growing more so every day. He shifted restlessly. “Your parents?” he probed.

  “My father’s dead,” she told him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Siri looked at him as if wondering why he was sorry, then turned back to her work. “I don’t remember him very well,” she mused conversationally. “I remember that he was a big man with broad shoulders. I remember that he loved my mother. That’s what killed him, in the end. He loved her too much.”

  Hunter was puzzled. “How could that kill him?”

  “He drowned,” Siri said, as if that explained everything.

  She seemed to be in an unusually fey mood, her expression still dreamy and abstracted, and Hunter decided to take advantage of her apparent willingness to talk. “Saving your mother?” he ventured.

  “Of course not,” she scoffed. “He didn’t listen to Mother. She’d told him that he couldn’t do it, you see, and for a long time he believed her. But then I suppose it just got to be too much for him. Loving her. And one day he went in after her.”

  “Went in?” Hunter sought to find a binding thread in the conversation and silently admitted failure. “Where was she?”

  “On the bottom.”

  Hunter ran his fingers through his hair. “The bottom?”
r />   “Of the sea,” Siri told him, looking at him in a very puzzled way.

  He knew how she felt. “She was on the bottom of the sea?” he questioned.

  “Yes.”

  “Is your mother—alive?” he asked cautiously.

  “Of course.”

  Hunter grappled silently for a moment, finally expressing himself with a shrug of defeat. “I don’t understand. Your father drowned because he went in after your mother, who was on the bottom of the sea. But he didn’t go in to save her? And she didn’t die?”

  Siri nodded, clearly finding it odd that Hunter didn’t understand. Realization suddenly hit her and she smiled. “My mother lives on the bottom of the sea. She’s a Mermaid.”

  Hunter heard the rest through a haze. At least this shock distracted his mind from desire, he thought.

  “Mother says it’s the tragedy of loving men rather than Mermen. A man can never resist a Mermaid, but he can hardly grow gills and sleep with her in her sandy bed. And it’s sad, because the more he loves her the more likely he is to drown trying to be with her.”

  Through his haze, Hunter saw her frown.

  “It has given Mermaids a very unfair reputation, too. A Mermaid can’t stop a man from following her into the sea; she can’t stop him from loving her. It’s her curse. And Mother…well, she cried for a long time after my father drowned. I remember that. She’d been asleep, you see, and hadn’t realized he was trying to be with her until it was too late.”

  “You don’t have fins,” Hunter observed, keeping his voice steady with an effort. And then he heard her laugh for the first time. It was an incredible laugh, husky, with the innate music the unicorns had danced to.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I could hardly have fins when my father was a man. And I couldn’t have been the Keeper. That’s why Mother chose a man instead of a Merman. It was her turn.”

  Rubbing absently at the faint ache between his eyes, Hunter wondered which was the greater madness: What she was saying—or the fact that he was listening to what she was saying. “Her turn?” he managed, watching, with utter fascination, Siri cooking before the low fire.