Song of the Wanderer

by Bruce Coville

  “Now I must rest,” the unicorn said. He started to kneel, but his legs buckled before he could get all the way down, and he collapsed beside me. I pressed myself against him, trying to keep him warm. But in truth it was his presence that kept me warm through the night.

  In the morning I was able to walk, which felt better than I would have imagined.

  “We must get away from here,” said my unicorn. He led me along the ravine, then into another, then up an isolated mountain to a craggy area where he showed me a hidden cave. Once we were inside, I could tell he felt calmer, more relaxed.

  “Now we must talk,” he said.

  “About what?” I asked.

  Before he could answer, a man leaped out of the darkness. I recognized him at once. It was Martin Hunter.

  “This is for Beloved!” he screamed.

  Then he plunged his sword into the unicorn’s side.

  13

  The Jewel

  Grimwold paused in his story, rubbed the back of his hand over his brow, then glanced at Moonheart, almost as if seeking permission to continue.

  But it was Cara who urged him on. “What happened next?” she demanded. She was fascinated by this secret history of her grandmother. Yet at the same time, the intrusion of another Hunter into the story left her once more horrified by the chain of family that tied her to the vengeful Beloved. She would have given her life to protect the unicorns, and she couldn’t help feeling vaguely guilty whenever she thought of her father’s side of the family.

  “Give me a moment,” said Grimwold. He went to the stream from which they had taken the fish, dipped in his hand, took a drink of water.

  Then he returned to his place and, by the light of his lantern, once again began reading Ivy’s words:

  The unicorn reared back. Silver and scarlet blood pumped down his silken coat as he pawed the air with his hooves, trumpeting in pain and fury.

  The man slashed out with the sword again. As he did, I flung myself at him, grabbing his arm. Startled, he turned toward me, raising his hand to strike me. But the unicorn struck first, his hooves thudding against the man’s head.

  Our attacker cried out, then crumpled to the cave floor.

  My unicorn stood for a moment, blood pulsing from his side. Then he, too, collapsed.

  I threw myself down beside him, put my hand on his neck. I was sobbing, but forced myself to stop. “Are you all right?” I thought, realizing it was a stupid question even as I asked it. “What can I do for you?”

  “Get help,” he thought, and the message as it came to me was red and swirling with pain. “Get help.”

  “How?”

  “Back of the cave . . . another cave . . . find gate.”

  “A gate?” I asked, feeling confused. Why would there be a gate in a cave?

  “Gate to . . . Luster. Find . . . other unicorns. Tell them . . . Moonheart needs help.”

  Cara gasped. “Moonheart?”

  “I never knew about this!” said Lightfoot, sounding equally surprised — and slightly amused.

  “There is a great deal you don’t know, nephew,” said Moonheart severely. “Continue with your story, Grimwold.”

  The old dwarf nodded, and began to read again:

  At first, I was not willing to leave my unicorn, my Moonheart. But I could do him no good where I was. So I made my way to the back of the cave. I traveled a little distance in darkness, through a narrow passage. Then I saw a light ahead of me. Turning a corner, I entered another cave, larger than the first. I stopped short, gazing in awe at the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

  The gate — it had to be the gate — floated in the center of the cave, its base a foot or so above the floor. It was a perfect circle, twelve feet high at least, with a surface that shimmered like water and glowed with the tender green of springtime. I was delighted — and terrified. I walked up to it nervously, then pressed my hand against the surface. I felt a pleasant tingling. I pressed harder, and my hand went through. At once the tingling flowed along my arm.

  I cried out and pulled my hand back. Then I walked around to the other side of the circle. It looked exactly the same as the front. Standing at the edge of the circle so I could see both sides — it was no thicker than a penny — I thrust my hand forward again.

  To my astonishment, though my hand went in, it didn’t come out the other side!

  Gasping with fear, I pulled my hand back. I was relieved to find it was still attached to me arm.

  What was on the other side of the circle? Not the other side here in the cave — I had seen that. What happened if you went through the gate, as I was supposed to do?

  I wanted to run away. But Moonheart was counting on me.

  I began counting myself, intending to step through the circle at three, at five, at ten, but hesitating each time. “I’ll do it when I get to twelve,” I promised myself, starting again with one.

  And I did. When I reached twelve, I plunged through the circle — and into the world that would claim half my heart for all my life.

  Though I had crossed from a cave, I stepped out onto a mountainside. Though I had crossed from morning, I stepped out into twilight.

  In a circle of trees a little way below me stood a glory of unicorns — though I didn’t know, then, that “glory” was the proper term for a group of these wonderful creatures. I stumbled toward them, awed by their beauty, terrified that they might run. I needed them, needed them desperately, to come help Moonheart.

  To my relief, they remained standing, watching me. After a moment, I gained control of myself. Slowly, holding one hand before me, I approached them as you would a skittish animal. I didn’t know, then, how foolish that made me seem; didn’t know that I was the skittish animal.

  They held still, let me come to them. I placed my hand on the neck of the one closest to me.

  “Moonheart needs help,” I thought desperately.

  “He wants us to come to the other side?” he replied. I could sense the horror in his response, feel it in my stomach as if it were my own.

  “Yes. A man attacked him. He’s been stabbed. He’s bleeding. I’m afraid he might . . . might die.”

  The unicorn’s anger, surging into me through our connection, almost knocked me over. I staggered away, losing my contact with him. He spoke to the other three unicorns, and they raced up the hill. Leaping into the glowing circle, they disappeared from sight.

  And that was how I first came to Luster.

  Grimwold closed the book.

  “That’s it?” demanded Cara.

  “That’s the story the Queen asked me to tell you,” he replied with some asperity. “The tale of how your grandmother came to be here. I assume she had her reasons for wanting you to know it.”

  “But what happened next?”

  “I survived,” said Moonheart dryly.

  “What were you doing on Earth to begin with?” asked Lightfoot.

  Moonheart closed his eyes. “I was having a Wander Year. A year, mind you,” he said emphatically, opening his eyes and looking directly at Lightfoot, “not an eternity. I wanted to see the Seven Gates, both to satisfy my curiosity and because I knew I would someday be charged with the care and guardianship of them. That was a responsibility I took seriously.”

  The Squijum, distracted by something, bounded off Cara’s lap and scurried into the darkness.

  Moonheart snorted and continued his story. “The glory that was guarding the fourth gate welcomed me — until I told them that I could sense something wrong on the other side, could sense a maiden in the wood who needed help.

  “‘That’s no business of ours,’ said the leader — Silkmane was her name — ‘We stay in Luster, where we belong.’

  “I knew she was right. But all through the night, Ivy’s feeling of need, of terror, of pain, continued growing in me. Finally I went to Traveler, who was standing the late watch, and said ‘I am too restless to sleep. I’ll take your place for a
while.’ He was only too happy to agree, and went contentedly off to stand drowsing with the others.

  “I waited, biding my time, until I felt certain none were alert. Then I bolted through the gate.”

  “You went against orders?” snorted Lightfoot in astonishment.

  Cara, her hand on Lightfoot’s flank, thought, Hush! He’ll never finish the story if you embarrass him!

  Moonheart looked uncomfortable, but ignored the question. “It didn’t take me long to find her. But there was a mystery then, and it remains now: Why was I able to sense Ivy’s need when none of the others could? Why was I able to sense that need all the way from the other side of a gate? What made that need so compelling that I was willing to abandon common sense, to flout the rules, in order to respond? That is not the way of things as we know them. That is not my way.”

  He turned his head so that he was speaking directly to Lightfoot. “And yet, I have never regretted what I did. After all, it brought Ivy Morris to live among us. And when my Wander Year was over, I did the right thing and went back to Court.”

  His voice held a hint of accusation, aimed directly at Lightfoot, and something sharp and angry seemed to float in the air between them.

  Cara, uncomfortable, said, “I still want to know what happened next.”

  “The others found and healed me,” said Moonheart.

  “And what of the Hunter?” asked Cara, knowing that she must be in some way related to him, as she was to all the Hunters. With a shudder she realized he might even have been her grandfather on her father’s side.

  “He woke as the others were healing me. When he saw so many of us together, he tried to flee. But we couldn’t let him go, now that he had found the gate — couldn’t let him take that information back to the others.”

  “You didn’t . . . kill him, did you?” asked Cara.

  “He would have killed me,” said Moonheart coldly. “But no, we didn’t kill him. We brought him back here and put him in the hands of a person who deals with such things for us. She put him to sleep, rather like the princess in your ‘Sleeping Beauty’ story.”

  “And he’s still sleeping?” asked Cara in astonishment.

  “Do you have a better idea for dealing with him?” snorted Belle.

  “No. I just . . . no.”

  “Actually, there are times I almost wish to wake him,” said Moonheart, “for there are questions I would still like answered. Our feeling is that the reason he wanted to take Ivy from the orphanage was to use her as a lure for a unicorn, in the way that Hunters have always placed young maidens in the woods. Yet the Guardian of Memory was thousands of miles from that place, so there was no unicorn for him to catch until I arrived. Why set a trap where there is no unicorn? Hunters are not fools about these things. It was almost as if he knew I would be coming. But though Beloved and her Hunters have many skills, reading the future has never been one of them. So how could he have known? And why was it Ivy, in particular, who he wanted — wanted so much that he tried to track her down when she fled. He could have taken some other girl from the orphanage if all he wanted was a maiden to lure a unicorn.”

  Moonheart shook his head, causing his mane to ripple over his neck. In the glow of Grimwold’s lantern it looked like liquid light. “I have pondered these questions many times but not been able to make sense of them. And yet, I do not regret what happened, for it brought Ivy to my side, and that was a great joy. She traveled with me for the rest of my Wander Year, and we had many adventures together. When the year was over she was offered a home at court with the Queen. She turned it down, which was a bit of a scandal. But it was as if there was something in her that could not bear to be at rest. She was always looking, seeking. Sometimes I wondered if because I was a Wanderer myself when we first met that she had been infected by my own restlessness. But I think it was more than that. Alas, whatever it was that made her a Wanderer was one mystery she kept to herself.”

  “Indeed,” said Grimwold, and Cara had the sense that he was deeply annoyed at not knowing the whole story.

  “There’s nothing wrong with wandering,” said Finder quietly.

  “No, there’s not,” agreed Moonheart, “not if that’s what you’re born to do. But with Ivy there was always a sense that she was not merely wandering but that she was looking for something — something she could not even name”

  “Or perhaps that some secret sorrow kept her in motion,” said Jacques, who had been silent to this point. “I sometimes felt that she feared if she stayed in one place too long, some old pain or loss that she could not speak of, perhaps couldn’t even really remember, would rise up and devour her.”

  “There are things even a unicorn can’t heal,” said Moonheart sadly.

  I wonder if Gramma’s wandering had anything to do with losing her parents? thought Cara.

  “Eventually your grandmother became a messenger for the Queen,” said Grimwold. “Which is not a bad job for someone who is a wanderer by nature. She was one of the few to travel regularly back and forth between the two worlds. She has more adventures recorded in the Chronicles than I can count.”

  “She was using the amulet all that time?” asked Cara, putting her hand to her neck.

  Grimwold shook his head. “No, the amulet was given to her at the end, when she decided to return to Earth for good. She had done the Queen a great service then, and no one wanted her to go. But she insisted. The amulet was so she could return to Luster when she wanted. It has a particular quality in that regard. While I know it dropped you in the wilderness when you first arrived, its magic was tuned in such a way as to bring the Wanderer back to the Queen, wherever she might be.”

  “Yet she didn’t come back,” whispered Jacques, his face still and solemn, its lines deep with age, and loss. “I don’t know why.”

  “She used to sing about her wandering,” said Grimwold. Then, to Cara’s surprise, he began to sing “Song of the Wanderer” himself. After a moment, Jacques joined him, their voices blending in an unexpectedly lovely harmony.

  It was a long song, filled with a need so deep it was like the sound of a heart being torn in two.

  Across the gently rolling hills,

  Beyond high mountain peaks,

  Along the shores of distant seas,

  There’s something my heart seeks.

  But there’s no peace in wandering,

  The road’s not made for rest.

  And footsore fools will never know

  What home might suit them best.

  But, oh, the things that I have seen,

  The secret paths I’ve trod,

  The hidden corners of the world

  Known to none but me and God.

  Yes, the world was meant for knowing,

  And feet were meant to roam.

  But one who’s always going

  Will never find a home.

  Oh where’s the thread that binds me,

  The voice that calls me back?

  Where’s the love that finds me —

  And what’s the root I lack?

  And between each verse the now familiar chorus:

  My heart seeks the hearth,

  My feet seek the road.

  A soul so divided

  Is a terrible load.

  My heart longs to rest,

  My feet yearn to roam.

  Shall I wander the world

  Or stay safe at home?

  “That was her final gift to us,” said Jacques when they were done. “That — ” He broke off. Pointing to Cara’s finger, he cried, “What does that mean?”

  Cara glanced down. M’Gama’s ring was glowing, as it had the first night she heard Jacques sing the song.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She held up her hand. The green light of the ring, almost dazzling in its intensity, began to fade even as they all stared at it.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Grimwold gruffly.

  “M’G
ama gave it to me,” said Cara, still staring at her hand, even though the ring had lost its light.

  “She always was one for a touch of mystery,” muttered Grimwold. “As for gifts — a song and a ring are all fine, but odds are good you are going to need yet another gift before this is over, if the message I got from the Queen is correct. She said you were heading for Ebillan’s territory?”

  The Dimblethum growled at the mention of the name.

  “Yes, well, that’s very impressive,” said Grimwold, nodding at the manbear. “But it will take more than growls to convince that dragon to let you pass in peace.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?” asked Cara.

  “He is fierce and unpredictable,” said Grimwold. “The best way to reach him is through his greed.”

  “Alas,” said Finder, “we have nothing to bargain with.”

  Grimwold smiled. Reaching into his robe, he drew forth a scarlet gem the size of a duck egg. “This may be of use,” he said, sounding just a trifle smug.

  He extended it to Cara.

  “Are you sure you want to give this up?” she asked, awestruck by the size and beauty of the jewel.

  “What am I going to do with it?” he asked scornfully. “Eat it? I don’t want to throw it away on a fool’s errand. But if you can make good use of it — if it will help you bring back the Wanderer — then take it.”

  Hesitantly, Cara accepted the jewel from his hand. It looked like fire and felt like ice. Staring into it, she felt herself being lost in its crimson depths, wandering among its facets, almost as if she had entered another world. Forests of red, rivers of red, towering mountains and deep caverns, all blazing red, rolled out before her.

  As she walked along the scarlet paths, one tree in particular seemed to call to her. Unaware now of Grimwold, of her friends, of anything save the jewel, Cara let her mind drift forward.

  The tree had a big hollow at its base.

  Cara stooped to peer into it.