Stalking the Unicorn: A Fable of Tonight

by Mike Resnick

  The Grundy turned to Mallory, a malevolent smile on his thin lips. “Do you know what I have done this night in your world and mine—the grief I have caused, the lives I have taken, the terrible toll I have extracted in pain and misery?"

  "I can imagine,” said the detective.

  "I doubt it,” said the Grundy contemptuously. “Watch again, Mallory."

  A large office building appeared in the crystal ball. The Grundy snapped his fingers, and suddenly a flame shot up from his forefinger. He lowered his head to it and blew gently—and the office building immediately turned into a fiery inferno.

  "What have you in your arsenal to match such power, Mallory?” demanded the Grundy.

  "Nothing yet,” admitted Mallory. “But in one night I've cut your domain in half.” He paused. “Who knows? Someday I may find a way to do the same to you."

  "Then perhaps I should kill you now."

  "Perhaps,” agreed Mallory. “But you won't, not as long as you think I've got the ruby."

  "True,” said the Grundy. “But I shall vent my anger upon the city. It will be visited with death and decay, and you will be the cause of it."

  "I thought your function was to bring order to it, not chaos."

  "There is an almost perfect order in destruction."

  Mallory shook his head. “Why? Because you destroy things in a pleasing pattern? We've got pattern killers where I come from, too—and when we catch them we lock them away, not in jails, but in insane asylums."

  The Grundy laughed. “In point of fact, you lock them away for a period of weeks or months, and then turn them back out on the streets to kill again.” He stared at Mallory. “If you truly wish your actions to be meaningful, come over to my side and join me in my unending battle against the Opponent."

  "I'll choose my own enemies, if it's all the same to you."

  "There is a difference between an enemy and an irritant,” said the demon. “You are an irritant, nothing more."

  "Don't bet on it,” said Mallory. “Every world's got ground rules, even this one. And someday, when I learn enough of them, I may come after you."

  "Are you threatening me?” roared the Grundy.

  "I would never presume to threaten the most powerful demon around,” said Mallory. “Let's just say that I'm using this crystal ball to predict the future."

  "Then look deeply into it and tell me what you see!"

  And suddenly Mallory could see his own image in the ball, his skin corrupted by some hideous disease, his body broken and mangled, his eyes filled with pain and defeat.

  "That is what the future holds for you, and nothing else!” promised the demon.

  Mallory looked up from the crystal ball and forced himself to smile nonchalantly. “That's even more impressive than one of Mephisto's card tricks."

  Suddenly the Grundy grinned. “The Opponent has picked an excellent tool!” he said approvingly. “I knew it the first time I saw you!"

  "Then I passed the exam?"

  "The first one,” acknowledged the Grundy. “Each succeeding one will be harder."

  "Tell me something,” said Mallory. “Did you really kill those people and set that building on fire?"

  The Grundy nodded. “Certainly. I draw my sustenance from pain and misery."

  "I'll have to do my best to stop you."

  "I expect no less of you, Mallory—but you will lose in the end, as everybody loses to Death in the end."

  "Then I'll have to try to win the battles, and let the war take care of itself,” replied Mallory.

  "And I shall watch you day and night,” promised the Grundy, “and when you finally attempt to retrieve the ruby, as sooner or later you must, I shall strike."

  "I told you—the stone is gone."

  "And I told you that no one would ever willingly let it out of his possession—especially not a man like you."

  "Your nature has given you tunnel vision, Grundy,” said Mallory. “You can't imagine yourself ever giving it away, so you can't conceive of anyone else doing it either, not even to save an entire world."

  "And no one would."

  Mallory shrugged. “If you say so."

  "Let me leave you with this thought, Mallory,” said the Grundy. “Larkspur lived for less than seven decades."

  "So?"

  "So war and slavery, repression and torture, bigotry and hatred, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the prison at Andersonville, and the Black Hole of Calcutta—all were invented by your race, not mine." He paused. “Do you really think that denying me the ruby will turn your world into Nirvana?"

  "Maybe you're right,” said Mallory. “Maybe there are no Nirvanas. But I think they deserve the right to fail without your help."

  "Be grateful that I know you're lying, Mallory,” said the Grundy. “If you ever convinced me that you were telling the truth, I would have no reason to let you live.” He paused. “My patience, like my age, is infinite. Eventually you will make your move, and then the image you saw in the crystal will become your reality."

  The demon made a gesture with his hand, and suddenly there was another puff of reddish smoke and a popping sound as the air rushed into the place he had just vacated.

  Mallory sat motionless for several moments, then sighed, got to his feet, and went into the kitchen to check on the coffee.

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  Chapter 19

  Dawn

  "Mallory!” shouted Winnifred from the apartment doorway. “Are you all right?"

  Mallory came out of the kitchen to greet her. “Couldn't be better,” he replied. “Come on in and have a doughnut."

  She entered the apartment cautiously. “Has the Grundy been here?"

  "Been and gone,” said Mallory. He led her to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for her. “What do you like in your coffee?"

  "Just cream.” She stirred restlessly. “Damn it, man—tell the what happened!"

  Mallory smiled. “We agreed to disagree."

  "And the ruby?"

  "It's back in my world."

  Suddenly she looked around apprehensively. “Perhaps we shouldn't discuss it. He might be listening."

  "It's all right,” said Mallory. “He doesn't believe me anyway.” He handed her a cup of coffee, then poured one for himself. “Damn, but I miss my New York Mets mug!"

  "Is it in your Manhattan?” she asked.

  "As a matter of fact, it's in Flypaper Gillespie's room,” he replied.

  "Then why not go get it if you like it so much?"

  "I suppose I will, in three or four years or so,” answered Mallory.

  He brought the doughnuts over to the table and offered one to Winnifred.

  "Thank you, Mallory,” she said, taking it from him and dunking it in her coffee.

  "I'm afraid I've eaten about half of them already,” he apologized. “But I haven't had a meal since Mürgenstürm brought me here."

  "Which brings up an interesting question,” said Winnifred. “Now that you seem to be here permanently, what do you plan to do with your life?"

  "The same thing I've been doing."

  She shook her head. “Things are different here. You've got the Grundy to contend with, and no end of leprechauns, elves, goblins, and the like. Your methods may not work."

  Mallory smiled. “They've worked pretty well so far. And the criminals I find here can't be any worse than the deadbeats and pushers and wife-beaters I used to deal with."

  "Perhaps,” she admitted. “But even our system of jurisprudence is different."

  "In a way, it's better,” he replied thoughtfully. “At least Gillespie isn't going to commit any more crimes, and my friend Mürgenstürm isn't in a position to plea-bargain himself back onto the street before sunrise.” He nodded approvingly. “Yeah, I think I can function here just fine."

  "I hope you're right,” said Winnifred.

  "There's one thing I do need, though,” he said tentatively.

  "Oh? And what is that?"

  "A partner
."

  "You're looking at me in a very odd way, Mallory,” she said.

  "You want to get out of the Morbidium, don't you?” he replied. “How does the Mallory and Carruthers Detective Agency sound to you?"

  "Do you mean it?” she said, her eyes alight with excitement.

  "Discreet Confidential Investigations,” he continued. “A Subsidiary of Grundy and Opponent, Limited."

  "What was that?” she asked abruptly.

  He smiled. “A private joke.” He leaned forward. “Well, how about it? Are you in?"

  "Of course I'm in!” she replied. “Last night was the first time I've felt really alive in fifteen years!"

  "Good,” said Mallory. “That's settled.” He paused. “We might as well work right out of the apartment. There's no sense renting an office until we stockpile a little money."

  "It sounds good to me,” said Winnifred, finishing her coffee. “Don't be so stingy with those doughnuts, Mallory."

  "Where's your little horse?” purred a familiar voice, and they turned to see Felina standing in the kitchen doorway.

  "What are you doing here?” asked Mallory.

  "I'm hungry,” she said, walking over and rubbing her hip against him. She turned to Winnifred with an innocent smile. “Where's Eohippus?"

  "He's at home,” Winnifred said coldly. “Have a doughnut."

  Felina leaped easily to the top of the refrigerator. “I'd rather have milk,” she said, licking her forearm.

  Mallory stared at her for a moment, then sighed, opened the refrigerator, and poured her a tall glass of milk.

  "What the hell,” he said, taking his seat again. “I suppose every business ought to have an office cat."

  "What we really ought to have are clients, now that we're in business,” said Winnifred, casting a single glance of distaste at Felina and then ignoring her.

  "Oh, I don't think there will be any great shortage of work in the days to come,” said Mallory.

  "I can't tell you how glad I am to get back into harness,” said Winnifred enthusiastically. “After all those years of inactivity, it feels like heaven."

  "Well,” replied Mallory with a contented sigh as the first rays of sunlight peeked in through a kitchen window, “it'll have to do until Nirvana comes along."

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  APPENDIX A

  Complete racing record of Eohippus

  Age Starts 1st 2nd 3rd Earnings

  2 8 0 0 2 $1,310.00

  3 14 0 1 0 900.00

  4 7 0 0 0 —

  5 19 0 0 1 550.00

  6 10 0 0 0 —

  TOTALS: 58 0 1 3 $2,760.00

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  APPENDIX B

  Stalking the Unicorn with Gun and Camera

  Monograph by Colonel Winnifred Carruthers,

  published by The Blood Sports Club, Ltd.

  When she got to within 200 yards of the herd of Southern Savannah unicorns she had been tracking for four days, Rheela of the Seven Stars made her obeisance to Quatr Mane, God of the Hunt, then donned the Amulet of Kobassen, tested the breeze to make sure that she was still downwind of the herd, and began approaching them, camera in hand.

  But Rheela of the Seven Stars had made one mistake—a mistake of carelessness—and thirty seconds later she was dead, brutally impaled upon the horn of a bull unicorn.

  Hotack the Beastslayer cautiously made his way up the lower slopes of the Mountain of the Nameless One. He was a skilled tracker, a fearless hunter, and a crack shot. He picked out the trophy he wanted, got the beast within his sights, and hurled his killing club. It flew straight and true to its mark.

  And yet, less than a minute later, Hotack, his left leg badly gored, was barely able to pull himself to safety in the branches of a nearby Rainbow Tree. He, too, had made a mistake—a mistake of ignorance.

  Bort the Pure had had a successful safari. He had taken three chimeras, a gorgon, and a beautifully matched pair of gryphons. While his trolls were skinning the gorgon he spotted a unicorn sporting what looked like a record horn and, weapon in hand, he began pursuing it. The terrain gradually changed, and suddenly Bort found himself in shoulder-high kraken grass. Undaunted, he followed the trail into the dense vegetation.

  But Bort the Pure, too, had made a mistake—a mistake of foolishness. His trolls found what very little remained of him some six hours later.

  Carelessness, ignorance, foolishness—together they account for more deaths among unicorn hunters than all other factors combined.

  Take our examples, for instance. All three hunters—Rheela, Hotack, and Bort—were experienced safari hands. They were used to extremes of temperature and terrain; they didn't object to finding insects in their ale or banshees in their tents; they knew they were going after deadly game and took all reasonable precautions before setting out.

  And yet two of them died, and the third was badly maimed.

  Let's examine their mistakes, and see what we can learn from them.

  Rheela of the Seven Stars assimilated everything her personal wizard could tell her about unicorns, purchased the very finest photographic equipment, hired a native guide who had been on many unicorn hunts, and had a local witch doctor bless her Amulet of Kobassen. And yet, when the charge came, the amulet was of no use to her, for she had failed to properly identify the particular sub-species of unicorn before her—and as I am continually pointing out during my lecture tours, the Amulet of Kobassen is potent only against the rare and almost-extinct Forest unicorn. Against the Southern Savannah unicorn, the only effective charm is the Talisman of Triconis. Carelessness.

  Hotack the Beastslayer, on the other hand, disdained all forms of supernatural protection. To him, the essence of the hunt was to pit himself in physical combat against his chosen prey. His killing club, a beautifully wrought and finely balanced instrument of destruction, had brought down simurghs, humbabas, and even a dreaded wooly hydra. He elected to go for a head shot, and the club flew to within a millimeter of where he had aimed it. But he hadn't counted on the unicorn's phenomenal sense of smell, nor the speed with which these surly brutes can move. Alerted to Hotack's presence, the unicorn turned its head to seek out its predator—and the killing club bounced harmlessly off its horn. Had Hotack spoken to almost any old-time unicorn hunter, he would have known that head shots are almost impossible, and would have gone for a crippling knee shot instead. Ignorance.

  Bort the Pure was aware of the unique advantages accruing to a virgin who hunts the wild unicorn, and so had practiced sexual abstinence since he was old enough to know what the term meant. And yet he naively believed that because his virginity allowed him to approach the unicorn more easily than other hunters, the unicorn would somehow become placid and make no attempt to defend itself—and so he followed a vicious animal that was compelled to let him approach it, and entered a patch of high grass that allowed him no maneuvering room during the inevitable charge. Foolishness.

  Every year hundreds of hopeful hunters go out in search of the unicorn, and every year all but a handful come back empty-handed—if they come back at all. And yet the unicorn can be safely stalked and successfully hunted, if only the stalkers and hunters will take the time to study their quarry.

  When all is said and done, the unicorn is a relatively docile beast (except when enraged). It is a creature of habit, and once those habits have been learned by the hopeful photographer or trophy hunter, bringing home that picture or that horn is really no more dangerous than, say, slaying an Eight-Forked Dragon—and it's certainly easier than lassoing wild minotaurs, a sport that has become all the rage these days among the smart set on the Platinum Plains.

  However, before you can photograph or kill a unicorn, you have to find it—and by far the easiest way to make contact with a unicorn herd is to follow the families of smerps that track the great game migrations. The smerps, of course, have no natural enemies except for the rafsheen and the zumakim, and consequently will allow a human (or preternatural) being t
o approach them quite closely.

  A word of warning about the smerp: with its long ears and cute, fuzzy body, it resembles nothing more than an oversized rabbit—but calling a smerp a rabbit doesn't make it one, and you would be ill-advised to underestimate the strength of these nasty little scavengers. Although they generally hunt in packs of from ten to twenty, I have more than once seen a single smerp, its aura glowing with savage strength, pull down a half-grown unicorn. Smerps are poor eating, their pelts are worthless because of the difficulty of curing and tanning the auras, and they make pretty unimpressive trophies unless you can come up with one possessing a truly magnificent set of ears—in fact, in many areas they're still classified as vermin—but the wise unicorn hunter can save himself a lot of time and effort by simply letting the smerps lead him to his prey.

  With the onset of poaching, the legendary unicorn herds numbering upward of a thousand members no longer exist, and you'll find that the typical herd today consists of from fifty to seventy-five individuals. The days when a photographer, safe and secure in a blind by a waterhole, could preserve on film an endless stream of the brutes coming down to drink are gone forever—and it is absolutely shocking to contemplate the number of unicorns that have died simply so their horns could be sold on the black market. In fact, I find it appalling that anyone in this enlightened day and age still believes that a powdered unicorn horn can act as an aphrodisiac.

  (Indeed, as any magus can tell you, you treat the unicorn horn with essence of gracch and then boil it slowly in a solution of sphinx blood. Now, that's an aphrodisiac!)

  But I digress.

  The unicorn, being a non-discriminating browser that is equally content to feed upon grasses, leaves, fruits, and an occasional small fern tree, occurs in a wide variety of habitats, often in the company of grazers such as centaurs and the pegasus.

  Once you have spotted the unicorn herd, it must be approached with great care and caution. The unicorn may have poor eyesight, and its sense of hearing may not be much better, but it has an excellent sense of smell and an absolutely awesome sense of grimsch, about which so much has been written that there is no point in my belaboring the subject yet again.