by Sean Platt
“What if I want to stay?” said Edward.
“You can’t stay. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“And what is it to you?”
The man shook his head. “You are an intrusive presence here, unicorn. This place is dark. It embraces the dark. What do you know about the dark? What do any of you know about the dark?”
Edward realized the man must know about unicorns to make a statement like that. Did it mean they were closer to Mead than he’d thought? Or were there unicorns in other worlds? Or — and this one was troubling — had the man in front of him been to Mead before?
“We know the dark,” Edward said. “And if you can be here, so can I. I will not be led.” But that was wrong. The unicorn wanted to leave.
“You don’t,” said the man. “In all of human history, you haven’t. Your attitude toward us has always proved it. You marched on The Realm. You are the great white, and they are the black — that’s what you think. And you can’t abide it.”
“We never marched on The Realm,” said Edward. Behind the unicorn’s urge to defend himself, he wanted to know what the man was talking about. Was he from The Realm? If so, how could he be? The humans’ Realm was in the world of Mead, but the man’s manner was so belligerent, Edward couldn’t surrender his guard enough to ask.
The man shook his head. “You have marched many times and killed to enforce your superior will. You’ve battled many human cities — covertly if not overtly, stealing their magic away.”
But there was only one human city — in the world of The Realm, anyway. What other groupings could possibly be considered “cities”? And how could the man think unicorns had marched? They’d kept their distance. Ironically, marching would be a step in the right direction, according to Grappy. It represented conflict, which Grappy had said was good, and would mean humans and unicorns finally engaging with one another. The two species hadn’t so much as spoken outside of isolated talks since Grappy had first tried. The idea of open battle was preposterous.
“Get away from me,” said Edward. “Or I’ll trample you.”
The man shook his head. “Something your size? I don’t think so. I doubt you can do magic, either.” He spread his arms wide, and Edward realized with surprise that the odd man was actually looking for a fight. “Go ahead, light-bearer. Strike me down. Stuff me into the mud like the dark-spirited vermin I am.”
Edward started to walk away.
“Not that way, you fool,” said the man.
“What do you care where I go?”
“I want you out of my world!” he blurted.
Edward stopped then turned completely around. The man had surprised himself but recovered quickly, again spreading his arms wide. The gesture said, What are you going to do?
“What?”
“This is a place for dark things. You are not welcome.”
Edward shook his head. After turning, he was facing back toward the grave site and saw that only the giant had stayed behind. He’d lowered the coffin into the hold and was using his massive hands to pile the dirt.
“It’s interesting,” said Edward. “Before you barged into my life, I was thinking that this place has welcomed me more than any of the light places I’ve seen on my trip. I realized that dark and light really aren’t that different. But you? You have spoiled it all.”
Edward felt a hand on his back. The hand seemed to be tipped in claws. He turned and saw the wolf, Henry, standing upright beside him.
“Don’t let him sour your opinion of us,” Henry said. “This attitude is why Delores died. We’re just the big, dark bad guys over here, aren’t we?” He turned to the man in the hat. “Leave him alone, Saul. We’ve had enough prejudice and death.”
The man named Saul nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes we have, haven’t we? Just like what has been done to humans in my home city by the righteous unicorn race, eager to rid the world of those falling low from their standards.”
The wolf shook his head. He spoke to Edward. “He wasn’t always like this.”
Edward pushed past the insults and insinuations. He looked at the man in the hat. “Where is your home?”
“The Realm.”
“You know how to get to there?”
He half nodded. “I used to. Mayhap I still do. It’s been a while, and much has changed.”
“Why did you leave?”
He snorted. “When we came back, and our city was decimated … ” He nodded toward the grave site. “Well, let’s just say this isn’t the first time ‘good’ has triumphed over ‘evil’ because good thought it knew better.”
“You don’t know unicorns did it,” said Henry.
Saul threw his hands in the air. “Of course it was unicorns! Who else can unleash a flood to cover the world? Who else can fly above the floodwaters while their victims drown? They eyed us for years from afar, and have marched on us since, again and again. We’re … ”
Edward cut him off. “You’re talking about the flood?”
“As if you don’t know.”
Edward didn’t know at all. He turned to Henry.
Henry nodded, his long fangs visible. He began to explain.
“Saul here has a talent for music. His home city had a problem with rats … ”
“And we don’t know what caused that particular plague either,” the man said, eyeing Edward.
“And Saul was called on to lead rats from the city. But when he returned, the city was flooded. More than flooded. He was in a river city when it happened. He found a boat and somehow ended up here.”
“There was no ‘somehow’ about it,” said Saul, sounding insulted. “I know where things are. I know how to open doors. It’s my talent.”
“His talent is music,” said Henry, glancing at Saul.
Saul turned his palms upward as if to say he didn’t see the difference.
“Anyway,” said Henry, “Saul didn’t used to be like this. He came here, and he became here. The longer he was here, the more … well, the more like he is … he became. But he’s not supposed to be here either, so don’t buy into his crap that you’re not supposed to be.”
“I’m supposed to be here now,” said Saul, talking to Henry. “But this … unicorn? He’s not like us. He has to go.”
Edward looked at the road. He’d actually been on his way out — of town as well as the conversation — when Saul had stopped him by saying that he was going the wrong way. So what was the argument? Edward wanted to get out of the Dark Forest; he’d been trying for hours before he’d encountered the funeral. Saul wanted him out of the Dark Forest because he was too light to be inside it and was, apparently, sullying the dark. It didn’t matter that they didn’t like each other. They shared a goal. To embrace it they merely had to get out of one another’s way.
“I want to go,” Edward said. “Believe me.”
“But not because you’re being chased out,” Henry interjected.
“Because I want to go home.” Again, Edward glanced toward the road.
“I keep telling you that’s not the way,” Saul said, shaking his head at Edward’s idiocy.
He fought his annoyance. “Fine. So what is the way?”
Saul reached into the folds of his multicolored outfit and pulled out a small alloy pipe with holes dotting the length. He held one end near his mouth and positioned his fingers over the holes, as if getting ready to play.
“This is,” he said.
CHAPTER 19
THE PIED PIPER
“I don’t like you.”
Edward stopped. Saul the piper had suddenly stopped playing his small instrument, stopping as if he’d reached an obstruction in the road.
“I know,” said Edward. “I don’t particularly like you either.”
“I need you to understand,” said the piper. “This might look like I’m helping you, but I’m really helping myself by getting you out of here.”
They had been walking together for mayhap half the time Edward had walked around the village
in circles alone. Only now, with Saul leading the way and playing his small pipe, they were making headway. The overarching dark branches had opened up, and there were a few dead leaves clinging to them. The cinders beneath Edward’s hooves had turned into packed dirt. There were fewer ominous sounds in the dark, and the noises in general had become lighter and fuller. Saul’s pipe had sounded stuffed when they’d begun, but now it had a crisper quality as if the air had grown thinner.
As they walked, Edward had even seen Saul’s demeanor shift. His tread, at the outset, had been heavy and thudding. Their march had been like a procession, and his pipe playing had sounded like a dirge. But as the sky had lightened, so had Saul’s step. Just before he’d stopped playing, Edward had thought he might start skipping. The music he played on his pipe was somehow opening a way out of the Dark Forest — and as that way opened, Saul was opening too. Henry had said that Saul hadn’t always been as surly as he was today, and thinking of Henry’s words now, Edward wondered if the Dark Forest had turned him sour. Saul was human, and he’d been born in The Realm. The Dark Forest wasn’t his true home. Mayhap it had turned him dark, feeding his innate anger with its own bile.
“I understand,” said Edward.
Saul looked at the unicorn earnestly, as if warring internally. When he’d first spoken to Edward, his voice had been all hate and vitriol. Now it was almost apologetic as if he still resented Edward’s presence but now wanted Edward to understand why.
“The people in the Dark Forest,” he continued, “were born with a black mark. They’re hated because they embody the darkness.” Edward found himself thinking of the tree in early Mead, and Grammy’s peach. “But if they keep to themselves, they can mostly avoid the sour judgment of those who hate the dark simply because they do not understand it. There are incursions, like with those kids, but they are few and always unwanted. So when you came in … ” He stopped, seemingly unsure how to finish the sentence. It occurred to Edward that the piper might be confronting an unpleasant truth: that he was as guilty of hating Edward because he didn’t understand him as the forest’s usual interlopers were of hating the dark.
“I understand,” Edward repeated.
Saul held his space. Edward patiently waited. Finally the piper turned, returned the instrument to his lips, and again started to play. He walked lightly forward. After a brief period, the sun started shining with a muted, cloud-obscured glow. The scantest of shadows formed. Perhaps subconsciously, Saul finally started to skip.
A while later, Saul took his pipe and slipped it into the folds of his shirt. He allowed Edward to catch up, and when the unicorn did, their eyes more or less at the same height, he looked over and nodded. It was enough to break the last of their ice.
Edward spoke first.
“You don’t need to keep playing?”
Saul shook his head. “No. We’re out of the Dark Forest.”
“So where is this?”
“In between.”
“Between where?”
“Hard to say. It might be splitting hairs. I just know where we came from is behind us, and where we’re going’s ahead.”
“Mead,” said Edward.
Saul shook his head. “No. It’s like I said, I can no longer be sure of the way. I’ve been around a long time, and something — perhaps some trick of the mind or of this place — makes me impervious to aging. This is a strange place and wasn’t accessible before the flood. But when I first walked from the world of Mead and The Realm, leaving was simple. It’s not like that now. Now there’s a gatekeeper.”
“A gatekeeper?”
Saul nodded. “I must warn you: If you’re allowed to return to our world, you may be shocked. It’s like the trick of aging. This place — with the Dark Forest and light place beyond the path, all of it — is like a capsule. I’ve gone back and forth between many places, always as an escort, but the Darkness draws me back. And when I’ve left with others, to take people and things to the places they should be, I keep finding that more and more time has spilled from forever. When I spoke of marches on The Realm?” Here, he looked apologetically at Edward, clearly conveying that he understood the colt wasn’t responsible for his species’ actions. “Well, I spoke out of anger and might have been misleading. The marches were after the flood. Long after.”
“How long?” said Edward.
“I’d rather not say more. Worlds are thin through here, and … oh, I know how this will sound, but I’ll say it anyway … it’s like your thoughts and intentions matter. I suspect I drew myself to the Dark Forest because of how I was thinking when I first arrived. And when I’ve taken people to see the gatekeeper, some of the things he’s said … ” Saul shivered.
“What?”
“I think your expectations might matter. Or your thoughts. Or your … I don’t know … your soul or something. So I’d rather not say more about where you may or may not be going. Just to be safe.”
Edward didn’t like how the piper had phrased that. Where he may or may not be going? Paths were simple: You walked down them and arrived at your destination. There was no question of how you might interpret a path. It was what it was.
Yet, this path was changing more and more the farther they walked. Edward had noticed the sun peeking out as they left the Dark Forest, but it was apparently a false start. The sun wasn’t rising more, but they also weren’t retreating into darkness. Instead, the sky above had become an almost totally uniform overcast. They could be inside a giant indoor dome, so even was the color. Edward’s gaze fell to the trees as tendrils of fog curled between them. It might have felt ominous a few days before, but Edward had come from the Dark Forest — a place that made everything seem bright and cheery. He felt no fear while watching the fog. Merely uncertain.
Saul slowed ahead. He looked back at the unicorn colt.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t wonder.” The piper pointed at the fog. “You see what’s happening.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’re doubting and uncertain. Don’t let that happen. Remember: You’re going home. To Mead.”
Edward caught movement from the corner of his eye. The fog had formed a snakelike tentacle ten steps ahead. It twitched upward like an animal hearing a noise as the unicorn noticed it. The fog retreated slightly then, as Edward watched.
“You said I wasn’t going to Mead.”
“But that’s where you want to end up, right? You could be going to Mead.” Saul sounded nervous, his manner filled with fresh trepidation. It was astonishing to think that this was the same man who’d confronted him at the funeral. The man with him now had gone from charitably amiable to helpful to ominous, and was now edging skittish. Mayhap their surroundings responded to mood, but it seemed to Edward that the mood, in turn, caused Saul to respond.
“Could be going to Mead?”
“Think of Mead, unicorn. Think of this as a path between here and there. Because if you do, it may be that. And if you don’t, it cannot be.”
It sounded like a riddle.
Edward didn’t like how a growing number of tentacles were appearing from the fog to obscure their path. He looked at the piper, deciding. He thought about Mead as it was before the flood. He remembered his ammy and appy, the knoll where he tried (and failed) to fly. The green of the grass. The scent. The ripe trees, swollen with fruit.
The path’s sharpness returned to the distance, the fog receded, and overhead, it even seemed that the sun was trying to bloom.
The piper exhaled. He looked at Edward, seeming to silently urge the unicorn to ask nothing. Edward kept thinking of Mead. What was ahead, in one way or another, must be home.
“Where exactly are we going, Saul? Besides Mead, I mean.”
“To the gatekeeper.”
“Why?”
“For judgment.”
Edward didn’t like that at all. He was a unicorn. His previously rock-solid pride had taken a beating through his journey, but
it was still there below the surface. No one could judge him. Unicorns weren’t for others to lay their thoughts and weights upon.
“Judged how?”
“You will see.”
“And what will he decide?”
“Where you go. If you go.”
“If I go?”
The piper shook his head. “I shouldn’t say more.”
“Well, who is this gatekeeper?” Edward insisted. He wasn’t precisely asking for the keeper’s identity. He was asking just who this unseen person thought he was.
“The Sandman,” Saul said.
Edward was about to ask further, but a small, tan-and-gray striped creature skittered into the path. A lizard of some sort, like a tiny crocodile with huge black eyes and a pink belly. On its face was what looked like a vague smile.
“Saaaand,” the creature purred, its mouth opening to reveal two fangs and a pink palate.
The piper stopped, keeping his distance. The thing in the path was no bigger than three apples lined end to end. Edward could crush it with a hoof, but Saul was acting as if it might leap up and strike them dead. Edward resisted the urge to comment or ask questions. Saul had walked this path many times. Whatever the thing was, he’d surely encountered it before. His reaction, whether the unicorn understood it or not, would be correct.
The creature waddled to the path’s side, moving like a beetle when it ran but looking uncertain and clumsy when going slow. Edward watched it approach the base of a tree and then turn to look at them. Its massive black eyes made it look like it wore a bandit’s mask.