Black Unicorn (Dragonflight)

by Tanith Lee

  Then the nobles rode by, the ladies, and the counselors, and Chief Counselor Gasb in a hat like a sea eagle.

  Following the court came tamers leading the beasts of the Prince's menagerie, some of which were reported to be clockwork, but all of which snarled, strode, and stared.

  More musicians rambled after the beasts, playing soft soothing music.

  Merchants and dignitaries strutted next, and all the guilds in their public uniforms, with their symbols and banners, the potters and masons, shipwrights and vintners. The Artisans' Guild seemed unhappy, and kept glancing about, and over their shoulders at the salters, who walked behind and had taken exception to it.

  Last of all marched further battalions of soldiers, with carts of war machines, carefully oiled and wreathed, cannon in hyacinths, catapults in asphodel, battering rams in roses.

  The crowd cheered everything. It enjoyed everything. This was the wealth and power of the city on display. "We own that," they said. "That's ours," pointing at things they saw over each others' heads once a year, and at cool Prince Zorander, and the alabaster unicorn that bowed.

  From her position in Lizra's chariot, in boned silk and topazes, Tanaquil was very conscious of the presence of Prince Zorander before them, in his weapon-spiked hedge of soldiery, and of Gasb the sea eagle five chariots behind.

  Lizra she did not distract. The girl stood like a statue, pale and frowning, half stifled by her clothes. Now and then she would say in a flippant voice, "Just look there," and point something out to Tanaquil in a regal manner. Lizra's public stance and face were as composed as her father's.

  The sights she indicated were often extremely odd.

  Not only did the procession dress up. In the crowd were persons with indigo faces walking on stilts, huge alarming masks, barrels on legs, and men with the heads of fish. There were also two clowns who had gone farther than the clowns of the Prince. They had put on the canvas skin and parchment head that made them into a horse, but the horse had a horn protruding from its forehead. They were the unicorn of the city. To make things worse, the back end of the horse-unicorn was drunk or crazy. While the front stepped along proudly, sometimes tapping at people lightly with the horn, the back end kept sitting down, doing the splits, or curling into a ball.

  "Bad luck," said a noble in the chariot behind Lizra's. "What can they be thinking of? An insult to the Sacred Beast."

  "There, there, Noble Oppit. The unicorn won't see." Gasb's voice, like a knife ready at your back.

  "Oh—quite so, Lord Gasb."

  "The Festival of the Blessing is to do with the unicorn," said Tanaquil aloud.

  "Of course," said Lizra.

  Tanaquil wished she had understood this sooner. Somehow she had not. She thought of the peeve in its lair under her bed at the palace. If something happened, as it must, she might never be able to return. Yet Lizra would care for the peeve—

  They were coming into the Avenue of the Sea Horse. Up on plinths the marble sea horses stood under their lanterns, with fins and curled tails—and each with a little bright horn coming out from its brow.

  At the avenue's end Tanaquil saw, between the jumble of chariots and marchers, the dark blue level of the ocean. The avenue opened into a square above the sea. The square was packed with people, and the procession flowed against them, folding to each side, allowing the central chariots of the Prince and his retinue to pass through. Before them was a high platform. A wide ramp led up to it, with purple carpet.

  Prince Zorander's chariot was driven straight up, and the rest of his court followed him.

  Tanaquil looked back as Lizra's chariot climbed the ramp. The square was solid now, raised faces thick as beads in a box. And the wild beasts growling on their leashes, and the soldiers and weapons of war, the dancing girls, musicians, and clowns, all piled up among them, everything at a standstill, yet managing to wave its arms, shouting, throwing its flowers, and with its sequins firing off the sun. And there, the white dazzle of the alabaster unicorn, bowing and bowing.

  No way of escape, Tanaquil thought, precisely.

  Up on the platform, the chariots halted. On the other side from the square the ocean burned blue a hundred feet below, and the rest was sky, with one tiny smut of cloud.

  The Prince left his chariot. They all dismounted.

  The Prince went out alone into the middle of the platform. He turned to the ocean and raised his arms, and the thousands in the square were dumb, and farther off, the other crowds along the streets. It was so still Tanaquil heard the clink of golden discs upon the tamers' leashes. She seemed to hear the clockwork ticking in the bowing unicorn's neck.

  Zorander lowered his arms. He stood in his dramatic loneliness at the center of the platform, and in the still and time-stopped sunlight, the unicorn came to him from the sea.

  There must be a way up from the platform's other side, and the creature had been led to it. Well-trained, it made the ascent itself. It trotted towards Zorander, and the crowd murmured, easily, like people pleasantly asleep.

  The unicorn was a fake. It was a slim white horse with opals plaited into mane and tail, and held to its forehead by a harness of white straps, probably invisible from below, was a silver horn.

  It came right up to Zorander and the Prince laid one hand on its brow, beneath the horn. The charming fake nodded. And then it kneeled, in the way of a clever theatre horse, and lowering its head, touched the feet of the Prince sweetly, once, twice, with the horn.

  The crowd broke into cheers and applause, laughter and whistles. They must know, most of them, this creature was not a unicorn, only the symbol. Yet they were thrilled, overjoyed at the successful rite.

  Under the noise, behind her, Tanaquil heard the noble Oppit mumble, "Look at that cloud—how curious."

  Whoever else looked, Tanaquil did. It was the cloud she had noted before over the sea. It was not so small now, and it had risen swiftly up the sky, blown by a hot, moist wind that was lifting all at once from the ocean, fluttering the silks of the Prince's courtiers, the mane of the kneeling horned horse.

  The cloud had a shape. It was like a long thin hand, with outstretched reaching fingers. It was very dark. There were no other clouds.

  Bells and discs rang in the wind. The bright day faded a little.

  "Not a good omen," said Oppit.

  This time, he was not contradicted.

  People in the crowd were pointing at the sky. There was a swell of altered noise, urgent and unhappy.

  The horned horse got to its feet and shook its mane. It glanced about, flaring its nostrils.

  Tanaquil watched the cloud like a hand blow up the sky, and her hair lashed her face, and Lizra's hair coiled and flew about under the diadem, and the robes of the Prince; the sharkskin beat like wings.

  "It's reaching for the sun," breathed Lizra.

  Fingers of cloud stretched over the sun's orb, and the whole hand closed on it. The sun disappeared. A curtain of darkness fell from the air.

  There were cries out of the crowd, vague far-off rumbles and screams along the avenues.

  "Fools," said Gasb's harsh voice. "It's only weather."

  Nails of rain drove down. The rain was hot and salt.

  The horned horse tossed its head, it rolled its eyes and neighed. The Prince stepped slowly back from it, dignified and remote, and two handlers scrambled up on the platform, seizing the horse by its harness, pulling it to one side.

  The cloud did not pass. The darkness mysteriously thickened. The city seemed inside a shadow-jar. Beyond, the sky was blue and clear . . .

  And then, from the hidden ramp, up from the sea, the unicorn came a second time. And now it was as real as the coming of the darkness.

  It stood on the platform, a thing of ebony, blazed with light. And in the shadow, the horn was a white lightning.

  Now a dreadful silence smothered the crowd. There were only the gusts of the wind, the chinking of objects, the tapping of the nails of rain.

  Then the trained horse k
icked and plunged, and struck its fake horn against the platform, and the fake snapped off and clattered away.

  The unicorn turned to see. The unicorn moved. It was only like a horse as a hilt is like a sword. It lifted its forehoof, poised dainty, like a figurine. And then it pawed the ground, the carpet. It pawed out purple dust, then purple fire. The carpet burst into flame, and the unicorn reared up. No, not like a horse. It was a tower, and the horn swept across heaven. The sky must crack and fall— And in the square the crowd pushed, roaring, against itself, fighting to be gone.

  "Oh," said Lizra.

  Prince Zorander had picked up the skirts of his robe; the sharkskin head slipped sideways from his own. He cantered. He thrust aside his soldiers and blundered into the royal chariot. His face was no longer cool and distant. It was a stupid face that seemed to have no bones. "Away!" he yelled.

  The charioteer faltered. "The people, your Highness—"

  "Use your whip on them. Ride them down. You—" to the soldiers—"kill that beast."

  The square was, remarkably, already clearing. The crowd, the procession, had forced back in panic not only into the avenue, but also between buildings, and through alleys and gardens on all sides of the square. Herds of people poured over walls, shinned up trees, and dropped away.

  Zorander's chariot churned forward.

  The soldiers armed their bows.

  The black unicorn descended, and as it regained its four feet, a howl of arrow-bolts crashed against it.

  The bolts struck the unicorn. They skidded on its blackness, and streaks of fire resulted, and the bolts sheered away, they splintered like brittle twigs. All about the unicorn the bolts lay, and in its mane and tail they hung like evil flowers.

  All the world was running now.

  Tanaquil and Lizra clutched each other and were knocked down as one. Armored feet jumped over them, lightly bruised them, wheels missed them by inches; heavy silk and ornaments of gold slapped their faces. They covered their heads sobbing and cursing with fright and astonishment, until the stampede had gone by and left them there, like flotsam on the beach.

  They sat up, white-faced, and angrily smeared the childish tears from their eyes, cursing worse than the soldiers.

  They were alone on the platform in the rain.

  Debris scattered the carpet. Arrow-bolts, bracelets, cloaks, and Counselor Gasb's sea eagle hat. One chariot stood abandoned and horseless.

  Below, the shattered crowd still struggled through the square, but the chariots had cleaved a passage and were gone. There was no unicorn. No unicorn at all.

  "My father was afraid," said Lizra. "And he left me here."

  "Yes," Tanaquil said. She recalled how Jaive had left her to die in the desert. But Jaive had had some excuse.

  They stood up. All the sky was now purple as the carpet. Thunder beat its drums, and the rain thickened like oil.

  "It was real?" said Lizra.

  "It was real."

  "Not another horse with a silver horn tied to its head." Tanaquil said nothing. "And the arrow-bolts didn't hurt it. Perhaps the men fired wide—how could they dare to shoot at the Sacred Beast?"

  "You saw what happened," said Tanaquil.

  Lizra said, "Then it's true we've wronged it. It has a score to settle. Did it go after the chariots?"

  "Maybe."

  But Tanaquil visualized the unicorn moving like smoke through the dark of the day, through the torrential rain. The flying people glimpsed their Beast and cowered in terror. In the highest wall there must be a door. Soldiers would shoot and run away. The point of the horn could burst timbers like glass. Then up the palace ramps, across the mountain of dragon-tiled roofs. Lightning and unicorn together dancing atop Zorander's palace.

  "Look at this idiot hat," said Lizra, and kicked the sea eagle.

  The tableaux stayed stupidly in the square as the last of the crowd ran round them. The nodding white beast had fallen over.

  After a while, when the square was empty, the two girls left the platform. Incongruous as they were in their drowned jewelry and silk, no one bothered with them, noticed them. The rain and thunder made nonsense of everything. People on the avenues were running, or sheltering under porticos. They heard wailing. Presently, on Lynx Street, a party of soldiers met them and made them out. "It's the two princesses!" Then they had an escort to the palace.

  Had the knocking been less loud, they might have taken it for thunder. But then also, they had heard the clank of swords, the thump of spears along the corridor.

  They had been sitting in the rose room by the cinnabar fireplace, which had been lit for warmth and cheerfulness. The miserable tension had to be fractured by some ominous act. Here it was.

  "Only Gasb would bring a guard with him."

  "It will be for me."

  "Why?"

  "This witch thing. It follows me around. And the unicorn—somehow the unicorn is linked to me."

  The peeve, in Tanaquil's lap, dropped a piece of cake from its mouth and growled.

  Lizra got up. "Stay here. I'll make him go away."

  Tanaquil doubted this, but she did not protest. Lizra went out and shut the door. Tanaquil shifted the peeve, went to the door, and listened at the panels. She heard the outer door opened.

  "Ah," said Gasb's unmistakably foul voice, "your pardon. I'm looking for the girl from, er, Erm."

  "Princess Tanaquil," said Lizra in her public voice, "isn't here. What do you mean, anyway, by coming here like this with—three, four, five, six soldiers?"

  "Tanapattle, or whatever she's called, is a sorceress. She's a danger to us all, yourself, madam, included. Which, of course, you are too young to realize. Her trick of conjuring an illusory unicorn has reduced the city to havoc—"

  "I've told you, Counselor," snapped Lizra, "Tanaquil isn't here. Go and bother someone else." There was a pause. Lizra said: "Oh no you d—" and then: "How dare you?"

  Soldiers' boots marched into the great painted bedroom, and Gasb's slippers lisped after.

  "In there?" said Gasb.

  "My father will be very angry," said Lizra.

  "Your father agrees that the witch should be apprehended."

  Tanaquil stepped back, so that the soldiers, when they threw open her door, did not knock her over again. She stationed herself near the fireplace, and the peeve crouched before her like a snarling, back-combed mop.

  The door was thrown wide, and six soldiers rushed in, their spears leveled at her heart. Tanaquil's head swam. She thought: If they knew what they looked like, they'd never ever do it.

  Gasb slithered in behind them. He did not wear a hat. He was quite bald, and his features were still those of a bird of prey.

  "Courage, men," he said.

  Tanaquil gently toed the peeve. "I'll unfasten the window. Jump out to the lower roof and run."

  "Stay and bite," said the peeve.

  "Proof of her sorcery," said Gasb to the nervous soldiers. "You heard the animal talk. A familiar. We must take her now, before she can summon demons to her assistance."

  Lizra said in her put-on, penetrating regal tone, "Before you lay a finger on her, remember she's the princess of a foreign town. Do we want a war with them?"

  "Princess." Gasb smiled. "She's no more a princess than that road-sweeper slut."

  Tanaquil had been edging from the fire towards the window, the peeve wriggling along beside her. Then there was a soldier in front of her. "No, lady," he said, crossly.

  "Don't trouble with calling her lady. Surround her. We'll take her somewhere more . . . quiet."

  Tanaquil stared at Gasb's bald malevolence. She was afraid of him and felt demeaned to be so. The soldiers had swords; she grabbed the rocking peeve. And in that instant a lawless and unearthly cry, like nothing she had heard in her life, pierced through the arteries of the palace, down through every floor. She knew what it was even as she knew that to hear it in this way could not be possible.

  "The Prince!"

  The soldiers were transfixed.
Even Gasb gaped. Lizra said, "Has it killed my father?"

  And Tanaquil saw, somehow, somewhere in her mind, Zorander in his library above the snows, where the clockwork butterflies alighted on the unread books. She saw him turned to the stone of terror. And on the threshold, come from the rain and thunder and lightning country of the roof, black night and murderous horn and eyes like molten lava.

  "Seize the witch; she must die at once!" shrilled Gasb. The soldiers started forward again.

  There came a rushing whistling through the air. It was a thunderbolt crashing on the palace, on this very room—the soldiers whirled away. Tanaquil dropped flat over the peeve and rolled them aside against the bed. The chimney croaked and bellowed. And the leaping fire—froze. The flames were points of yellow ice—

  Everyone screamed. The thunderbolt landed in the hearth, and ice and soot and bricks and coal flew out, while the room tottered, and plaster left the ceiling.

  "Demons!"

  There was only one. Tanaquil looked up and beheld that a thing with two heads and elephant ears and the eyes of frogs sat on its huge stomach and obese tail in the fireplace.

  "Come," said Epbal Enrax the cold demon, and cracks slid up the walls. It put out arms like elephant trunks and lifted Tanaquil, and the claw-attached peeve, from the floor. "Red-Hair, we go," said Epbal Enrax. And they went.

  10

  Under the stormy sky, the sea bubbled and lashed like liquid mauvish copper. The colors of everything were wrong. The sand looked like cinders from some awful fire. The palms were black, and groaned in the wind. The beach did not seem to be any place in the world, but some sort of other world that was a kind of Hell. And out of the cinders and the cooper waves, the rocks rose up like the carcass of something petrified.

  From the dune where she had arrived, Tanaquil surveyed the scene. She had been told of demon flights before, though never experienced any. The breath had been knocked out of her, but she was flustered rather than shocked. She understood quite well that she had been rescued from probable death at the hands of Gasb's soldiers. There was a confused memory of a chimney, thousands of roofs below, lightning casts like spears, and descending in a whirlwind. She grasped that this dreadful spot was the sea beach, and through the explosions of brown and puce foam, she made out the unicorn arch, the Sacred Gate. The peeve was seated nearby, washing itself over-thoroughly. Tanaquil glanced behind her. Epbal Enrax balanced on the dunes, apparently up to the pelvis in sand. It seemed pleased—mauve, of course, was the demon's favorite shade.