“Deverish, my dear fellow,” Wallaby cried exultantly, still on his knees, “you were right after all! I never should have doubted you.” He turned his beaming face towards Deverish, as the younger man had hoped, and the eager, innocent child’s eyes blinked only once as the rock struck down into his forehead, the jagged point splitting open the great ruddy face from hairline to the bridge of the nose, and exploding a slimy pudding of brain matter onto Deverish’s hands. Wallaby died instantly, but Deverish was impelled to strike and strike again, until nothing remained of the face but a ripe pulp the color and consistency of the scooped innards of an autumn pumpkin. Finally, exhausted and alternately laughing and sobbing, Deverish rose to his feet and with considerable difficulty dragged the great body back across the clearing and to a steeper cliff face plunging into a black ravine at least three hundred feet deep, and at the bottom studded with needle-like crags.
He extracted Wallaby’s billfold from the inside jacket pocket and riffled tenderly through the sheaf of bills, almost five thousand drachma, and another thousand back at the inn where he, as Wallaby’s grief-stricken comrade, would soon have access to it.
Deverish tumbled the bloated body over the edge and listened with satisfaction to the seconds that elapsed before it landed with a soft plop on the rocks below. It was done.
Deverish turned, picked up his rucksack and rifle, and as an afterthought tossed Wallaby’s gun over the edge of the ravine, sighing deeply as his lungs drew in the cool night air, tinged with the clean, heady scent of pine. He looked out over the ravine for a long, final moment and was about to light a cheroot before returning to the rough camp at the foot of the gorge, when he experienced a disconcerting sensation of eyes fixed hotly on the back of his neck. It was absurd, of course, an obvious trick of nerves, but he turned and sighed with relief when he saw there was nothing.
Deverish was halfway back towards the gorge when he felt the same prickling sensation again. He swung around, annoyed at his ready indulgence of such fancies, and a scream gurgled silently in his throat. Less than five feet away a silver shadow gleamed in the moonlight, its contours indistinguishable save for two huge, luminous eyes looking imploringly into and through his, just as the old priest’s had, and registering incomprehension tinged with a pity more terrifying than any accusation. Deverish jerked the rifle to his shoulder and convulsively snapped off three shots.
The creature made no sound but sank to its knees, dipping a slender spiral horn to the earth as if in salutation, or relief. Deverish covered his eyes with his hands, but when he finally stopped trembling and looked again, there was nothing on the ground before him; and when he staggered forward and closely scrutinized the spot where the thing had been, nothing remained but a tiny mound of silvery dust, which the breeze quickly snatched away in coruscating swirls that sparkled oddly in the moonlight.
Deverish returned, shaken, to the camp, the money in his pocket momentarily forgotten, as the wind grew in intensity and howled through the trees with manic frenzy before waning at midnight to a gentle breeze whispering through the forest like a sigh. Across Europe, in that summer of 1914, birds cried in the darkness, and new dreams crept into men’s minds as old dreams died; while four hundred and twenty miles from the mountains of Thessaly, in the city of Sarajevo, the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip passed a restless night loading and unloading his automatic pistol.
The Sacrifice
Garnder Dozois
THERE WERE FOUR of them who entered the haunted darkness of the Old Forest that night, but only three who would return, because three was a magic number.
Featherflower walked silently beside her father Nightwind, her head high, trying not to stumble over the twisted, snakelike roots that seemed to snatch at her legs, trying not to flinch or start at the sinister noises of the forest, the wailing and hooting of things that might be birds, the rustling and crackling of the undergrowth as unseen bodies circled around them in the secret blackness of the night. Her heart was pounding like a fist inside her, but she would not let herself show fear—she was a chief ’s daughter, after all, and though he led her now to an almost certain death, she would not betray his dignity or her own. Firehair walked slightly ahead of them, as befitted a young war leader in the prime of his strength, but his steps were slow and sometimes faltering, the whites of his eyes showing as he looked around him, and Featherflower took a bitter and strength-giving pleasure from the unspoken but undeniable fact that he was more afraid than she was. Grim old Lamefoot brought up the rear, his scarred and graying body moving silently as a ghost, imperturbable, his steps coming no faster or slower than they ever did.
They had been silent since the trees had closed out the sky overhead—the Old Forest at night had never been a place that encouraged inconsequential chatter, but this silence was heavy and sour and unyielding, pressing down upon them more smotheringly even than the fey and enchanted darkness that surrounded them. Featherflower could sense her father’s agony, the grief and guilt that breathed from him like a bitter wind, but she would not make it easier for him by deed or gesture or word. She was the one who was to be sacrificed—why should she comfort him? She knew her duty as well as he knew his, had been born to it, and she would not fight or seek to escape, but it hurt her in her heart that Nightwind—her father—would do this thing to her, however grave the need, and she would not make it easier for him. Let it be hard, as it soon would be hard for her, let him hurt and sweat and cry aloud with the hardness of it.
So they walked through the forest in silence and guilty enmity and fear, the great and living darkness walking with them, a-bristle with watching eyes, until ahead there was a glitter of light.
The forest opened up around them into a small meadow, drenched with brilliant silver moonlight. At the far end of the meadow rose an enormous oak tree, a giant of the forest, its huge branches spread high above them like waiting, encircling arms.
“Here,” said old Lamefoot the wizard. “He will come here.”
When they had crossed the meadow and stood beneath the arms of the oak tree, Featherflower said quietly, “Father, must this be?”
Nightwind sighed. “The trees do not bloom, the streams dry up, the grass is sere . . . It has been long and long since such a thing was done, and I had hoped my time would pass before it was again needful, but clearly the gods have turned their faces away . . .” He fell silent again, looking very old. “He will come here,” Lamefoot said in his grim gray voice, “and if he accepts you, then the powers will smile on us again . . .” Firehair looked guiltily away from her, glanced nervously around him with wide frightened eyes and said only “It is for the good of the Folk . . .”
She blew out her lips at him in scorn, snorting derisively. “Then for the good of the Folk, I will stay,” she said, and sat herself down beneath the giant old oak.
Lamefoot studied her closely. “You will not run away, child?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I will not run away . . .”
They watched her for a while longer then, but there was nothing more for anyone to say, and so at last they went away and left her there, Nightwind giving one last agonized look back before the darkness swallowed them.
She was alone in the Old Forest.
Trembling, she waited beneath the ancient oak. Never had she been so afraid. The dark shapes of the trees seemed to press menacingly close around the meadow, kept at bay only by the silver moonlight. A bat flittered by through that moonlight, squeaking, and she flinched away from it. Something howled away across the cold and silent reaches of the forest, howled again in a voice like rusty old iron. Featherflower’s head turned constantly as she sought to look in all directions at once, straining wide-eyed to pierce the gloom beneath the trees. She would not give way to fear, she would not give way to fear . . . but her defenses were crumbling, being sluiced away by a rising flood of terror.
A crashing in the forest, growing louder, coming nearer, the sound of branches bending and snapping, leaves rust
ling, the sound of some large body forcing its brute way through the entangling undergrowth . . .
She looked away, fear choking her like a hand, stopping her breath.
Something coming . . .
There was movement among the trees, the bare branches stirring gently as though moved by the ghost of the wind, and when she looked again he was there, seeming to materialize from the dappled leaf-shadows, his head held high, paler than the moonlight, clothed in the awful glory of his flesh, so noble and swift-moving and puissant, so proud and lordly of bearing that all fear vanished from her and she felt her heart melt within her with poignant and unbearable love.
Their eyes met, hers shy and guileless, his bright and clear and wild, liquid as molten gold. She tossed her own head back, moonlight gleaming from the long white horn that protruded from her forehead, and pawed nervously at the ground with a tiny silver hoof.
He came to her then across the broken ground, the human, moving as lightly and soundlessly as mist, and laid his terrible head in her lap.
Hunting a Unicorn
Vered Tochterman
HUNTING A UNICORN is not as easy as it sounds.
No, scratch that. It doesn’t even sound easy. Only I didn’t know that when the sorcerer Pranthar’s apprentice came and asked me to get him a Unicorn’s horn for a spell he was busy casting, in exchange for a respectable bag of gold pieces (“What do I care what you do with the rest? Steaks, if you feel like it,” he said when I asked him about the rest of the carcass). So I agreed.
First of all, you need to find a girl in her virginal state. A maiden. Unicorns can be caught only using a virgin serving as bait. They will come to her, but not to anybody else. The beasts are like purity testers, without all the instruments. And I dare you to try and go around the village asking girls which of them is a virgin. Many slaps did I earn that way. And club threats. And one not particularly gentle encounter with a trough.
Eventually, Zera, the daughter of Mueny the miller, agreed to come along. She looks like your worst nightmare, so I felt certain she was a virgin.
We wandered the enchanted forest until we reached the Unicorn’s lair. We located it by the holes in the tree trunks, which are typical of the way Unicorns sharpen their horns. Initially, the marks were far apart and old, and we knew that we were still far, but gradually they became nearer and fresher. We were approaching our target.
But as we drew near it, we began feeling odd feelings. First, Zera’s eyes met mine. Then, her hand rubbed against my shoulder, as if by mistake. Then, my knee accidentally touched hers. I started sweating with no apparent reason, and Zera’s breath hastened. And when we were at the very entrance to the Unicorn’s lair . . .
Well, I won’t go into details. I’ll only add that if you intend to hunt a Unicorn, take into account that non-virgins cannot come near them. And that in spite of their gentle appearance, they do have natural defenses. Pheromones, the wizards call it. God damn these creatures, I wish they were all wiped out. Though I must admit, my wife Zera does not agree with me on that one.
How to Make Unicorn Pie
Esther M. Friesner
I LIVE IN the town of Bowman’s Ridge, Vermont, founded 1746, the same year if not the same universe as Princeton University. But where Princeton has employed the intervening centuries to pour forth a bounteous-if-bombastic stream of English majors, Bowman’s Ridge has employed the same time to produce people who are actually, well, employable.
Bowman’s Ridge is populated exclusively by three major ethnic groups, the two most numerous of which are Natives and Transients. I’ve lived here for twenty-five years, in one of the smaller authentic Colonial Era houses on Main Street. It has white clapboard siding, conservatively painted dark green shutters, the original eighteenth-century well, a floral clock, a flourishing herb garden, a rockery, and a paid-up mortgage. Local tradition claims that Ethan Allen once threw up here.
I’m still just a Transient. That’s how the Natives would have it, anyway. On the other hand, at least I’m a Transient that they can trust, or perhaps the word I want is tolerate. Just as long as I don’t bring up the unfortunate subject of how I earn my living, everything is roses.
You see (and here I ought to turn my face aside and drop my voice to the requisite hoarse whisper reserved for all such disgraceful confessions), I . . . write.
UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!
Someone get a firm hold on the carriage horses lest they stampede and make sure that no pregnant women cross my path. I wouldn’t like to be held responsible for the consequences.
No, I am not taking on unnecessarily. I’ve seen the looks I get on the street and in the stores. I’ve heard the whispers: “There goes Babs Barclay. She writes.” (Uttered in the same deliciously scandalized tone once applied to prim old maids with a secret addiction to overdosing on Lydia Pinkham’s elixir, cooking sherry, vanilla extract, and hair tonic.)
To the good folk of Bowman’s Ridge, having a writer in their midst is rather like having a toothless, declawed cat in the chicken coop. The beastie may look harmless, logic may insist that in its present state sans fang and talon it is by fiat harmless, but the biddies still huddle together, clucking nervously, because . . . You never know.
I know what they are afraid of. It’s the same fear that’s always plagued small towns condemned to harbor the Pen Pushers from Planet Verbiage. It’s the ultimate terror, which I first saw voiced by a secondary character in one of the Anne of Green Gables books when the heroine began to garner some small success as an author: What if she puts us in one of her stories? Not a direct quote, but it’ll do.
Forget what you think you know about fame. Not everyone wants his or her allotted fifteen minutes’ worth. The people of Bowman’s Ridge want it even less than the people of Avonlea, or Peyton Place, or any other small town that had the poor judgment to allow writers to burrow into the wainscotting and nest for the winter. They are simple, honest, hardworking folk, who will take a simple, honest tire iron to your head if you so much as hint that you’re going to make the outside world aware of their existence. (I think that the surplus of deferred fame-bites gets funneled into an offshore account where Donald Trump’s ego, Michael Jackson’s manhood, and Madonna’s uterus spend much too much time making withdrawals. I could be wrong.)
It doesn’t do me a lick of good to explain to my friends and neighbors that their fears are for naught. I write romances. Historical romances. Books with titles like Druid’s Desire and Millard Filmore, My Love. The only way I’d write about anyone from Bowman’s Ridge is if they were romantic, famous, and dead. Why, they could no more get into one of my books than a taxman into heaven, a linebacker into leotards, or a small, sharp sliver of unicorn horn into a nice big slice of Greta Marie Bowman’s apple pie.
“Ow!”
It was a snoozy afternoon in mid-November and I was seated at the counter in the coffee shop when it happened. The coffee shop in Bowman’s Ridge is the nexus for all manner of social interaction, from personal to political. I’m afraid my Transient heart doesn’t get all revved up over the Planning and Zoning Commission’s latest bureaucratic brouhahaha or the Women’s Club’s plans for yet another authentic Colonial weekend to honor the memory of our own Captain James Resurrection Bowman (1717–1778). I go there because the coffee is good, but the apple pie is downright fabulous.
Or so I thought, until I found the figurative needle in the Northern Spies.
Carefully I put three fingers into my mouth and drew out the thing that had stung me, tongue and palate. I pulled it between my lips to clean off any adhering fragments of cooked apple and flaky crust. I have no idea why I went to the trouble. Would it make any difference to my throbbing mouth if I got the barb clean before seeing what it was?
I might as well have saved myself the effort and simply spit it out. Even clean and wiped dry on a paper napkin, it was nothing I could put a name to. About as long as the first joint of my little finger and one-quarter as wide, it caught the light from the coffe
e shop overheads and shimmered like the inside of an abalone shell.
“Something wrong, dear?” Muriel’s shadow fell over the object of my attention.
Muriel and her husband Hal own and run the Bowman’s Ridge coffee shop. I like to think that they belong to some mystic fraternal order of interior decorators—the Harmonic Knights of the Cosmic Balance, Fabric Swatch and Chowder Society—for the way they keep the place charming without being cloying. Anyone who’s dallied in small town Vermont knows how easy it is for an eatery to sink into the La Brea Cute Pits. Either the management heaps on the prêt-à-porter antiques, or wallows in frills and dimity, or worst of all, beats it with the Quaint stick until it catches a case of Terminal Rusticity from the knotty-pine paneling and dies.
Hal and Muriel just serve good food, never patch the vinyl counter stools with duct tape, adorn the place suitably for holidays, and periodically change the basic decor according to the grand, universal imperative of We Felt Like It. Oh! And they never shop at Everything Guernseys, thanks be to God, Jesus, Ben and Jerry.
Muriel has never treated me like a Transient and she sees to it that all the waitresses know how I take my coffee (black, two sugars) without my having to tell them every time. She even awarded me the supreme accolade, posting a Happy Birthday, Babs message on the whiteboard where they display the daily Specials. This privilege is as good as telling the world that I might not be a Bowman’s Ridge Native, but I was one of the Transients they could take out of the attic on visiting days to show the neighbors. I like Muriel a lot.
So of course I lied to her. “Nuh-uh,” I said, hastily clapping my hand over the extracted sliver. “Nothing’s wrong, not a thing, great pie.”
Muriel gave me a searching look, but all she said was, “Yes, Greta Marie said she’s gotten some superior apples this season.” Then one of the waitresses came up to tell her she was wanted in the kitchen and she was gone.
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