by Tanith Lee
"Thank you," said Tanaquil. She held out her empty palm and let the rubies drop into it.
Then Lizra hugged her. Not as she had hugged the peeve, with easy, immediate affection, but in a quick and stony way, afraid to do more. The embrace of farewell.
And then Lizra went into her father's library and across the shiny lamplit floor. And Zorander looked up at her and held out his hand, which she took.
"You're my comfort now," he said.
The peeve growled, a soft sandy sound.
"Goodbye," said Tanaquil. She tugged on the lead.
The peeve bounded ahead down the three flights of stairs. On the green landing they picked their way through people walking precariously on their fingers.
Don't we all?
Only one caravan was due to set out for the eastern city that day.
As she approached the leader's awning on the edge of the bazaar, Tanaquil found Gork and his men dealing with the camels and baggage.
"Well, aren't you smart?" said Gork, shaking all his discs and adornments, and striking his leg rapidly with the goad. "But still got that animal. And still dressed as a man. That's not right, you know."
"Much better for traveling," said Tanaquil with precautionary sweetness.
"What? Not married?"
"Oh, you know how these things are."
Gork was pleased. "You want to come with us to East City? I can fix it."
"No, I'm afraid not. But I wondered if someone from your caravan could make a detour; I can give exact directions, about half a day's ride. It's to deliver an urgent letter to a fortress in the desert. I'll pay very well."
"How much?" Tanaquil, who had bartered carefully with a small topaz and one of the rubies, suggested a healthy sum. "I'll do it. No trouble. You've got a map?"
"Yes, I had it drawn up only an hour ago. Here."
Gork took money, map, and letter. He showed her the gold watch. "It goes, never misses. And you're prosperous now. I suppose you're not still courting?"
"Unluckily, I am. Isn't it a nuisance?"
Gork grinned. "Till we meet again."
Tanaquil sat near the perfume-makers' booths and thought of Gork riding out to her red-haired mother's fort in all his grandeur. What would happen? Anything might.
The peeve began to eat some perfumed soap, and Tanaquil removed it.
The letter would perhaps only annoy Jaive. It told of the resolution of the adventure, and of the perfect world. It asked a respectful question, witch to sorceress: "Do you believe the unicorn will have any trouble there from the additions I had to make to its bones, the copper and other metal I added? Will it always now, because of them, keep some link to this earth?" Tanaquil did not mention the gift of invulnerability—Jaive might grow hysterical. In any case, Tanaquil did not yet quite believe in it. Nor did she speak of the two creamy fossils fashioned to be two earrings at a jeweller's on Palm Tree Avenue, and worn in her ears. Not vanity, but the ultimate in common sense. Who would recognize them now? "Mother, I must see this world. Later, one day, I'll come back. I promise that. I'm not my father, not Zorander. I won't leave you . . . that is, I won't let you renounce me. When we meet again, we'll have things to talk about. It will be exciting and new. You'll have to trust me, please."
"Leave that soap alone!"
With her own map of the oases and the wells, and the towns of the eastern desert, Tanaquil set out near sunset on the stern old camel she had bought three days before. Learning to ride him had been interesting, but unlike most of his tribe, he had a scathing patience. He did not seem to loathe the peeve. But the peeve sat on him, above the provisions, staring in horror at the lurching ground.
"Lumpy. Bumpy. Want get off."
"Hush."
They left the city by a huge blue gate, enameled with a unicorn that soldiers with picks were busy demolishing.
The road was lined with obelisks and statues, tall trees, and fountains with chained iron cups. A few carts and donkeys were being hastened to the gate before day's end.
The fume on the plain was golden. The hills bloomed. There would be cedar trees and the lights of the villages, and then, beyond, the desert offering its beggar's bowl of dusts.
Bred for the cold as for the heat, the woolly, cynical old camel could journey by night, while the thin snow fell from the stars.
Somewhere between the city and the desert, sunset began.
The sky was apple-red in the west, and in the east the coolness of lilac raised the ceiling of the air to an impossible height. Stars broke out like windows opening. The land below turned purple, sable, and its eastern heights were roses on the stem of shadow.
"It's beautiful," said Tanaquil.
It was beautiful. As beautiful as any beauty of the perfect world.
"Oh, peeve. It wasn't our fault we weren't given the best, but this, and all the things that are wrong. But can't we improve it? Make it better? I don't know how, the odds are all against us. And yet—just to think of it, just to try—that's a start."
But the peeve had climbed down the patient, scornful foreleg of the camel, and was digging in the dusty earth. It lifted up its pointed face from the darkness and announced in victory: "Found it. Found a bone."
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