Black Unicorn

by Tanith Lee

  Tanaquil rose. She shouted at the unicorn. "Go on!"

  Then the unicorn tossed its head. It leapt upward like an arrow from a bow. All its four feet were high in the air. It flew. In flight it spun forward, like thistledown, ran like wind along the sea.

  It passed under the cliff. And Tanaquil saw it breach the glowing oval of the Gate and go through. She saw it there inside, within the beauty and shining.

  And then the peeve shot from between her hands.

  "Nice! Nice!" squealed the peeve, as it hurtled toward Paradise.

  "No—you mustn't—come back you fool, oh, God, you fool!"

  She saw the unicorn had turned, there in the dream. Its head moved slowly. There was no denial. Was it a beckoning?

  The peeve squawked and dove through the gate of light.

  With a sickening misgiving, with a cruel desire, Tanaquil also ran, over the sand, under the arch. She felt the Gate, like a sheet of heavy water, resisting her, and making way. And she too rushed into the perfect world.

  11

  To the sea's edge the flowers came. Some grew, it seemed, in the water. Their color was like quenching thirst. Blue flowers of the same blueness as the ocean, and of a darker blue passing into violet. And after those, banks of flowers of peach pink, and carmine, and flowers yellow as lemon wine. Trees rose from the flowers. They were very tall and tented with translucent foliage of a deep golden green. Glittering things slipped in and out of the leaves. The plain of flowers and trees stretched far away, and miles off were mountains dissolving in the blue of the sky. A single slender path of blossomy clouds crossed this sky, like feathers left behind. The sun burned high. Its warmth bathed everything, like honey, and its gentle light that was clear as glass. Even the waves did not flash, and yet they shone as if another sun were in the depths of the sea. And all about the sun of the sky, great day stars gleamed like a diamond net.

  One of the birds slid from a tree that overhung the ocean. It wriggled down into the water. It was a fish. It circled Tanaquil once, where she stood in the shallows, then swam incuriously away.

  She looked behind her. The shining sea returned to the horizon. Sea things were playing there, and spouts of water sparkled. A few inches above the surface of the waves, not three feet from her, a leaden egg floated in the air. It was the Gate.

  I should close it. No. I shouldn't be here—I have to go back—

  The Gate was blank and uninviting. It did not seem to her anything would want to go near it. Even the fish, now plopping like silver pennies from the trees, swam wide of the place.

  She looked forward again. The peeve, which somehow itself knew how to swim, had followed its pointed nose to the shore, emerged, and now rolled about in the flowers. They were not crushed. They gave way before it and danced upright when it had passed.

  On the plain, the unicorn galloped, swerved, leapt and seemed to fly, a streak of golden-silver blackness, while the sun unwound rainbows from its horn.

  "This water can't be salt," said Tanaquil, "or else it's a harmless salt. The flowers don't die."

  She waded out of the shallows and stood among the flowers. Their perfume was fresh and clear, like the light. She moved her feet, and the flowers she had stood upon coiled springily upright.

  "We should go back," Tanaquil said to the peeve.

  The peeve rolled in the flowers.

  Tanaquil did not want to go back. If this was the perfect world, she wanted to see it.

  Birds sang from the trees. It was not that their songs were more beautiful than the beautiful songs of earth, yet they had a clarity without distraction. The air was full of a sort of happiness, or some other benign power having no name. To breathe it made you glad. Nothing need worry you. No pain of the past, no fear for the future. No self-doubt. No lack of trust. Everything would be well, now and for always. Here.

  The unicorn had used up its bounds and leaps for the present. It moved in a tender measure through the flowers, going away now, inland. And once, it glanced toward the shore.

  They went after it, without haste, or reluctance.

  Not only birds sang.

  As they walked over the plain through the silk of the flowers, a murmuring like bees . . . There were orchards on the plain, apple and damson, fig and orange, quince and olive. The fragrant trees rose to giant size, garlanded with leaves and fruit. And the fruit burned like suns and jewels. Not thinking, Tanaquil reached her hand towards a ruby apple, and it quivered against her fingers. It lived. Never disturbed, never plucked, never devoured. It sang.

  "Oh, listen, peeve. Listen."

  And the peeve looked up in inquisitive surprise.

  "Insect."

  "No, it's the apple. It's singing."

  No fruit had fallen. Perhaps it never would. As they went in among the trees, the whispering thrumming notes increased. Each species had a different melody; each blended with the others.

  When they came out of the great fragrant orchard, there were deer cavorting on the plain. The unicorn had moved by them, and from Tanaquil they did not run away. Birds flew overhead, sporting on the air currents in the sun.

  "What do they eat? Perhaps the air feeds them, and the scents, they're so good."

  The peeve stalked the deer, who whirled and cantered back, playing, but the peeve took fright and raced to Tanaquil.

  "They won't hurt you."

  "Big," said the peeve, with belated respect.

  The sun and the day stars crossed the sky above them.

  They must have walked for three or four hours, and Tanaquil was not tired. She was not hungry. The peeve showed signs only of vast interest in everything. She had been nervous that it might try to dig something up, nibble something, or lift its leg among the flowers. But none of these needs apparently occurred to it.

  In what was probably the fifth hour, the plain reached its brink and unfolded over, down toward a lake of blue tourmaline. A forest lay beyond, and in and out went the flaming needles of parrots. Tanaquil saw animals basking at the lakeside. The unicorn, a quarter of a mile ahead, stepped peacefully among them. They turned to see, flicked their tails and yawned. They knew unicorns, evidently.

  "Are they—? Yes, they're lions. And look, peeve."

  The peeve looked. Tanaquil was not sure it realized what the picture meant. The pride of tawny lions had mingled and lazily lain down with a small flock of sheep. Some had adopted the same position, forelegs tucked under and heads raised. Others slept against each other's flanks. Some lambs chased lion cubs along the lakeshore, bleating sternly. They all fell over in a heap, pelt and fleece, and started to wash each other.

  Tanaquil felt no misgiving as she and the peeve also descended among the lions. And they paid her no special attention. The sheep bleated softly, and one of the sleeping cats snored. The sheep were not grazing on anything. She saw how alike were the faces of the lions and the sheep, their high-set eyes and long noses.

  The unicorn walked on, circling the shore.

  A leopard stretched over the bough of a huge cedar. It stared at them from calm lighted eyes.

  Swans swam across the lake mirror.

  They passed a solitary apple tree, singing, its trunk growing from the water.

  "Insect," said the peeve.

  In the forest were massive cypresses, ilexes, magnolias. In sun-bathed clearings orchids grew in mosaic colors. Deer moved like shadows, and lynxes sat in the shade while mice ambled about between their paws. The parrots screamed with laughter. Monkeys hung overhead like brown fruit. Ferns of drinkable green burst from the mouths of wild fountains. Water lilies paved the pools. There were butterflies in the forest, and bees spiraled the red-amber trunk of a pine. Do they have a sting? Snakes like trickles of liquid metal poured through the undergrowth.

  The unicorn might be seen walking before them down the aisles of the forest. It no longer appeared fantastic. Here, it was only right.

  When they came from the forest they were high up again, and turning, Tanaquil saw the country she h
ad traveled flowing away behind them. The mountains had drawn nearer, and the sun and its attendant stars were lower in the sky. A rose-gold light, like that of a flawless late summer afternoon, held the world as though inside a gem. Again, as with everything, it was not that she had never seen such light the other side of the Gate. It was that here nothing threatened or came between her and the light. In Tanaquil's world, the best of things might have a tinge of sadness or unease. Nothing was sure, or quite safe. The light of the perfect world was the light of absolute truth. And Tanaquil, who had yearned in Jaive's fortress for order, adventure, and change, knew that here there were other things. To be happy would not become sickly. To be at peace would not bore. Happiness and peace allowed the mind to seek for different challenges. She could not guess what they were, but she sensed them in the very air. Would she come to know them? Would they be hers?

  Above, on a hilltop, the unicorn stood against the luminous sky. A soft wind blew, and scarfed about the horn, and the horn sang, lilting and pure. But it was not the savage music she had heard in the desert. The unicorn was no longer terrible. It was only . . . perfect.

  Soon they went on, climbing up the hills with no effort. Far off, on another slope, Tanaquil saw a creature glide out of some white rocks into the westering day. It was as large as a house of her world, and scaled like a great blue snake. Its crested head turned to and fro, and the wings opened like leaves of sapphire over its spine. "Peeve, it's a dragon." The peeve looked anxious. She stroked its head. Pale fire came from the dragon's nostrils and mouth, but scorched nothing on the hill. Like the salt of the sea, fire was harmless. The peeve got behind Tanaquil. She shook her head at it as it went on its belly through the grass. And so they continued after the unicorn, which now and then, still, seemed to glance back at them, and which had not attempted to leave them behind.

  The sun set. All of the sky became rose red, and the disc of the sun itself was visible, a shade of red it seemed to Tanaquil she had never seen, but perhaps she had. After the sun had gone under the world, the cluster of diamond day stars stayed on the hem of the sky, growing steadily more brilliant. The east lightened and turned a flaming green.

  Miles off, a hill or mountain sent a plume of sparks into the air, and something lifted out of them. It flew on wide flashing wings, passing over, not to be mistaken. A phoenix.

  "Poor Mother," said Tanaquil. "Wouldn't she love this? Why did she never try to find a way in?"

  Nightingales began. The hills were a music box.

  The last slope came, and not knowing, Tanaquil mounted it, the peeve bustling along at her side. At the hill's peak, the land opened below, enormous as the sky. It was like a garden of forests and waters, all blurred and glimmered now by the flower red and emerald of dusk. And floating over it, distant and oddly shaped, was a single broad cloud.

  Tanaquil thought there were stars in the cloud. They were not stars.

  "Peeve—"

  The peeve sat staring on the hill with her. If it knew what it was looking at, it did not say.

  But Tanaquil knew.

  The cloud was not a cloud, either. There were banks and terraces, although perhaps no outer walls. Tapering towers with caps like pearl, and buildings ruled straight by pillars, and statues of giants—and the lamps were being kindled. There, in that city floating in the air, the windows of silver and gold let out their light.

  "There had to be," said Tanaquil, "I knew there had to be—people—but—people?"

  And then in the green-apple rose of the sky, she saw dim shining figures, with a smoke of hair, and wings. Around and around they flew, a sort of dance, and faintly on the wind she heard that they had music, too.

  There could be no unhappiness and no fear in that place, and yet, somewhere in the depth of her, were both. Such emotions had become strangers. She felt them in her heart and mind, and was puzzled. But she turned from the winged people and the castles in the air, and looked back again, the way she had come.

  She had not seen before. Or had not wanted to see.

  The grass and flowers over which she and the peeve had trodden, having sprung up, had dropped down again. The stems were squashed or broken, and in the softness and color, a harsh withering had commenced, the mark of death.

  "This world isn't ours. Even invited, we shouldn't have come in. Look, look what we've done."

  The peeve put its paw on her foot. "Sorry."

  Tanaquil knelt and stared into its yellow eyes. They were comrades, they were, it and she, from an imperfect world.

  "It's not your fault. It's mine."

  "Sorry," said the peeve again, and, experimentally: "Bad?"

  "I must carry you," said Tanaquil. "You'll have to let me. Over my shoulders. And I'll tread only where I've already—it's so terrible, like a burn."

  Just then, she noticed the unicorn. It had gone some way down the other side of the hill, toward the enormous garden under the floating city. Its horn burned bright.

  Should she shout after it? Probably it had forgotten them. Now and then it had glanced back only at some noise they made, or maybe it had seen the ruin of the flowers and grass, had wished them away. But here it would not attack, it could not chase them off as they deserved.

  They had been so careful, she, and the peeve also, not to spoil. But their presence was enough. The very steps they took.

  She picked up the peeve, and it allowed this. It let itself be arranged, warm and heavy, about her neck. Its back legs dangled, and its tail thumped her shoulder. It fixed its claws into her dress and glared at everything, its face beside her own.

  Tanaquil descended the hill, her back to the city. She put her feet exactly into the ruin they had already made. She did not examine it closely, and the light of dusk was merciful.

  She had gone about two hundred steps when she heard the drumming of hoofs pursuing her. She stopped at once, not in alarm, for you could not feel alarm here. Yet she was amazed. She swung round, with the peeve, and confronted the unicorn, which ran at her, and halted less than two feet away. Now its horn had faded to a shadow.

  In the gathering dark, therefore, she could not see the unicorn well, the gleam of an eye, the mask of ebony—

  "Unicorn," said Tanaquil. That was all she could say.

  The fierce head flung up. The stars on the horizon threw diamonds to the seashell of the horn. It burst alight like white fires. It wheeled and the sky toppled. What had happened? Had she been impaled? Without terror, Tanaquil tried to understand. For the moon-fire horn had touched her forehead, for half a second, the needle tip, gentle as snow.

  "Hey," said the peeve, "good, nice." And it lifted its face.

  And the burning sword of the horn went over Tanaquil's shoulder as the unicorn put down its head. Black velvet, the tongue came from its mouth. It licked the peeve, quickly, thoroughly, roughly, once, from head to tail.

  The scent of the unicorn's breath was like water, and like light. Of course.

  Tanaquil and the peeve hung on the hill in space, breathing, as if lost, and found. And the black unicorn jumped aside and flew up the slope behind the shaft of light, and at the top leapt out, out into the air, and the last of the green sky. Became a star. Was gone. The final vanishment.

  "That was goodbye," said Tanaquil.

  "Mrrr," said the peeve. It fell suddenly asleep.

  And, alone responsible, Tanaquil resumed their retreat from Heaven.

  During the night of the perfect world, two moons rose in the east together. One was a golden moon at full, the other a slim, bluish crescent. Their radiance was sheer, and with the stars the landscape showed bright as day.

  And the stars came in constellations. And they formed images, not as they were said to do in Tanaquil's world, but exactly. First a woman, drawn from east to west as if in zircons and beryls, holding a balance. And as she went over and began to sink, a chariot rose in quartz and opals. It had no horses in the shafts. No shafts. For each hour, it seemed to Tanaquil as she walked, another constellation came in
to the sky. After the chariot, a lion, and after the lion, two dolphins, a tree, a bird, a crowned man, a snake that crossed the sky like a river of silver fires.

  "You see," Tanaquil muttered, as each came up, "how could we manage here?"

  The moons and the stars showed her the burnt grass, the blackened flowers. Never had any path been made so easy.

  Under the cool-warm lamps of the night, panthers gamboled on the shore of the lake. In the forest foxes upbraided her. Would she have shed tears if it had been possible? Surely she would have been angry.

  She came at last back to the orchards above the sea. In the moonlight, under the sinking starry hand of the king, the line of water was like mercury. The star serpent coiled over the orchards, and their song went on by night as by day.

  Tanaquil walked through the orchards, and came under one silent tree. She had expected this. It was the tree where she had touched the apple.

  The peeve woke. It interrogated the apple tree.

  "No insect."

  "No insect. My fault."

  They walked from the orchards through the flowers. Like blackened bones, the snapped stalks where they had trodden before.

  They reached the shore. She was not fatigued. Fast and grim, the egg of darkness hung on the light-rinsed sky. The Gate. Theirs.

  Tanaquil gazed across the land of trees and flowers and beauty.

  "Forgive me."

  The peeve shook itself. Its ears went up in points and its whiskers flickered at her cheek.

  "Insect."

  A weird motion was on the ground. The flowers were rising up again, the black husks crumbling from them. Like a fire along the earth the healing ran up from the shore and away across the plain. She could not hear the silent apple tree begin to sing, but the sharp ears of the peeve had caught it.

  A response to apology? Because she was removing them from the world and, like some unbearable weight, as they were taken from it, it might breathe again?