Song of the Wanderer

by Bruce Coville

  “She is a fine young woman. But then, that is no surprise.”

  Cara’s pleasure at the compliment gave way to her sense of urgency. “What did you mean about ‘the light that flows between the worlds’? Where are we? What is this place?”

  The Queen glanced around, as if assuring herself that she was where she had expected to be, then said, “Earth and Luster — and other worlds, as well, I suppose — are connected by light. In some places that light is splintered, broken into shafts, just as a rainbow is. Such places can be reached only by deep magic, and those who have mastered that magic sometimes use it as a means to exile their enemies. That is where we are now, in a place between the worlds, a place that is neither here nor there, not in one world or the other, but reflects bits and pieces of both of them. Taken together, these places are sometimes called the Rainbow Prison.” She smiled. “Obviously, at the moment we are in the green shaft.”

  “Is there a red shaft, too?” asked Cara eagerly.

  “Of course,” said the Queen.

  “I think my mother is there!”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Wanderer.

  Quickly, Cara told them of her experience with Grimwold’s gem.

  “It sounds, indeed, as if your mother is also somewhere in the Rainbow Prison,” said the Queen. “Whether we can reach her is another matter altogether. Our first task is to get you and your grandmother out of this part of the prison.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Cara eagerly.

  The Queen’s face grew troubled. “I’m not sure. If your bodies were near my own, I could take you back with little problem. But I don’t know where they are resting.”

  “They are still on Earth,” said the Wanderer.

  The Queen frowned. “This is worse than I feared.”

  * * *

  Despite hours of trying, the Queen was not able to free them. Nor was she willing to leave them.

  So they stayed together — the Old One, the Wanderer, and the girl who had traveled so far to reunite them — in the green shaft of the Rainbow Prison.

  And, as the world shimmered around them, they talked.

  Cara spoke first, telling the other two all of what had happened back on Earth.

  The Old One and the Wanderer listened in silence until she described the way Beloved had fled after the fight in the living room.

  “I do not like the sound of that,” said the Queen. “Beloved does not give up so easily. I fear some deeper mischief is at work here.”

  Cara nodded. “I wondered about that, too. Only I couldn’t figure out what. Beloved said something else that puzzled me — she said Lightfoot was next in line for the throne. Can that be true?”

  The Queen sighed. “No. On that matter, Beloved is wrong. Lightfoot is not the heir to the throne.”

  “Then who is?” asked Ivy Morris, sounding startled.

  The Queen looked away for a moment. When she looked back, her eyes were deep and strange and faraway looking. “I need to tell you a story. It is not one I am particularly eager to tell, for it does me little credit. But it is time it was known. It involves a young unicorn named Flickerfoot — possibly the most obstreperous, wayward, restless filly it has ever been my delight and exasperation to know.”

  She sounds like fun, thought Cara.

  “Flickerfoot was well named, for she was a Wanderer at heart, and those feet took her far afield, carrying her into more danger and adventure than I care to tell you, or need to for this story. She was a source of great despair to her family — especially to her mother.”

  “Why her mother?” asked Cara, glancing sideways at her own grandmother.

  “Because her mother had certain hopes and dreams for her, dreams that were endangered by Flickerfoot’s wandering. I know this, because I was Flickerfoot’s mother, and I tell you I loved her, as I had no other of my children, or my children’s children — loved her in spite of her obstinate nature, or perhaps because of it. Loved her, and feared for her. Because Flickerfoot developed a passionate interest in the last place that I wanted her to wander.”

  “Earth,” said Ivy Morris with quiet certainty.

  “Earth,” confirmed the Queen. “Our ancient home, which we love and fear, long for and mourn. By cajoling, spying, sneaking, exploring, and a dozen other means, Flickerfoot found the location of five of the seven gates that I have allowed to remain open. Despite my warnings, my pleas, my threats, she began to travel back and forth between the two worlds. It was a forbidden trip — forbidden to all of us, and doubly forbidden to her because she was of the royal family. But she would not be restrained.

  “Now, because of a promise made long ago by my own mother to a girl named Alma Leonetti, there is always one unicorn on Earth, one who remains to keep alive the memory of what we were, and what was lost when we left. That one, whom we call ‘The Guardian of Memory,’ is always in danger from Beloved and her children. Flickerfoot, whenever she crossed to Earth, shared that danger. Worse, she increased the danger by drawing more attention to our existence. But she insisted on going, and nothing I could do would stop her.

  “Worst of all, she became attached — deeply attached — to a young tumbler named Jacques.”

  At these words both Cara and her grandmother drew in their breath.

  “Finally I ordered Flickerfoot not to return to Earth anymore. It did no good. She was obsessed, and would return, despite any orders I might issue.

  “I lived in terror that she would be caught by Beloved and her Hunters, and finally hit on a plan to try to give her a measure of safety. I summoned the Geomancer and asked her if she could create for me a talisman that would carry a certain enchantment. M’Gama was uneasy with the idea, but agreed that it could be done — though it would certainly not be easy.

  “I ordered her to do it.

  “A year later — the most nerve-racking year of a very long life — the Geomancer returned, not happily, with the item I had requested.

  “I called Flickerfoot to me, and we affixed the talisman to her hoof. ‘This is for use in only the most dire of emergencies,’ I told her. ‘But if the worst should happen, then strike your foot against stone as hard as you can and call on Earth itself to save you.’ Then M’Gama gave her the specific words to activate the magic.

  “Flickerfoot was wary of the talisman, and rightly so, but accepted it to calm my fears — or perhaps simply to silence me.

  “For a year, all was well. Then — I know this because Jacques told me later — there came a day when Flickerfoot was visiting him on Earth and the Hunters found her trail. They began to pursue her. Flickerfoot and Jacques fled, but he soon realized that he was slowing her down, and so they separated. He was hoping to draw the pursuit in his direction. In this he failed, and the Hunters continued to trail her.

  “That was the last time Jacques saw her — and the last I heard of my willful and beloved daughter for many years. But I was certain she had used M’Gama’s talisman to save herself.”

  “How did you know?” asked Cara.

  “Because I would have sensed it if she had been killed.” The Queen shook her head in something like a shudder. “We all know, always and at once, when one of our kind is killed.”

  “But what did the talisman do?” persisted Cara.

  The Queen hesitated. Her answer, when it came, was quiet, and laced with pain. “It transformed Flickerfoot into a human.”

  Ivy Morris cried out.

  “It made her human,” continued the Queen relentlessly, “and in so doing, saved her from the wrath of the Hunters — for how could they capture a unicorn where none existed? But the transformation had its price, as does all magic. When Flickerfoot lost her form, she lost, too, all memory of her past. Moreover, though she was several decades old, the magic translated those years into the much shorter life span of a human, leaving her but a girl.”

  “What happened next?” asked Cara eagerly.

  “Much of what fol
lowed is a mystery. Where that girl went, lost and without memory, I do not know — though we do know, now, where she finally ended up. As for Jacques, my granddaughter had given him enough clues that he finally made his way to the gate she had been using to visit him.” Arabella Skydancer sighed and shook her head. “It might have been better for all of us if I had simply closed those gates long ago. Anyway, Jacques found me and, in great despair, told me what little he knew. I assured him that though I did not know Flickerfoot’s present location, she had indeed survived the Hunt. Then I invited him to remain in Luster, for I feared Earth was no longer safe for him, that Beloved and her children might now be seeking him as well. And, to be truthful, I also I hoped his presence might somehow draw Flickerfoot back.

  “Jacques did not accept my offer at first, for he insisted on returning to Earth to look for Flickerfoot. He was not the only seeking her. The unicorns do have friends on Earth, and I set them all to seeking my granddaughter. But it was her brother who finally found her.”

  “Her brother?” asked Ivy, her voice strained, intense.

  “Moonheart,” said the Queen. Now she turned her face full on Ivy and said, “Though I never told him, and though he does not know to this day who you truly are, my Wanderer, the answer to his often asked question, ‘Why was I able to sense Ivy’s need all the way from her world to ours, when none of the others could?’ is simple. You are his twin sister, my darling daughter Flickerfoot.”

  Ivy Morris was weeping now, though whether the tears were of joy or sorrow, Cara could not tell. The Queen, too, was shedding tears.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” asked the Wanderer.

  “For a long time I didn’t know myself. When you arrived in Luster I took you for just another human who had stumbled through our gates — though from the first I felt my heart reaching out to you in a way it never had to any other human. It was M’Gama who finally worked it all out. But it took her years, and it was only shortly before you and Jacques had decided to marry that she deciphered the puzzle.”

  “That was why you tried to stop the wedding!” said Ivy with sudden understanding.

  The Queen bowed her head in acknowledgment. “I have always regretted the bitter words that passed between us at that time, dear daughter, and wished that I could have dealt with the situation with more wisdom and grace. But even a queen, and a very old one at that, can bungle situations of the heart far too easily.

  “Part of the problem was that by then you had lived so long as a human that I did not know how you would react to truth — especially since there was nothing I could do to return you to your true form at that time.”

  “At the time?” asked Cara. “Does that mean you can turn her back now?”

  “It means it is possible now. The spell was an act of desperation, and as such had desperate consequences, one of which was that there was no reversing it for fifty years. Now those years have passed. Even so, the task will not be easy. But it is time to begin. At last, it is time to begin. For the Wanderer is weary, as she well has a right to be, and her own true shape will bring her renewed strength and joy. Though she is old in human years, she is young as a unicorn, and will have that youth restored if we can make the transformation. And she is the rightful heir to the throne — which will be an enormous relief to poor Lightfoot.”

  Suddenly Cara caught her breath. Looking at the Queen and at her grandmother, she asked in a fearful whisper. “If Gramma is really a unicorn . . . what am I?”

  The Queen smiled. “You are, like your mother, one of the strangest children ever born on two worlds. But more than that, you are, I hope, the one born to bring an end to the Hunt. Within your soul is merged not merely human and unicorn, but unicorn and Hunter. It all comes together in you, child. But how it will end,not even I can see.”

  Before Cara could reply, M’Gama’s ring began to glow again and a voice came drifting through the green:

  Oh, where's the thread that binds me,

  The voice that calls me back?

  25

  The Journey Home

  “It’s Jacques!” cried Cara. “He’s singing us home!”

  “How would he know to do that?” asked her grandmother, who looked distinctly nervous.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he’s just doing the same thing I did — singing it to you, to your body, because . . . well, because it just seemed like the right thing to do. Come on — we have to sing with him if we’re going to get back to our bodies.”

  Cara raised her voice to join the song. As she did, the green strand appeared again, stretching from M’Gama’s ring into the distance, back toward the song that Jacques was singing for them.

  “Go,” said the Queen urgently. “Don’t lose this chance to escape, for you may not get another. I can get back to Luster on my own. Your amulet will bring you to me when you’re ready, Flickerfoot. Come as soon as you can. Please.”

  Cara slipped her arm around her grandmother’s waist. “Sing, Gramma,” she pleaded. “I think we both have to be singing to make it work.

  Indeed, the strand of green was clear but not solid, and Cara could not close her hand over it.

  Reluctantly at first, then with increased strength and clarity, Ivy Morris joined the song.

  Cara began to pull them along the green strand.

  “I’ll be waiting for you!” called the Queen. Then she turned and galloped in the opposite direction. Leaping into the swirling green, she disappeared from sight.

  Cara felt the strand of green grow wispy beneath her hand. “Don’t stop now, Jacques!” she cried. “Keep singing until we’re home!”

  “Jacques, you wonderful old fool, keep singing!” shouted Ivy. Then she took up the song again herself.

  Whether he heard them, or it was mere luck, Jacques began to sing again. Cara and Ivy faltered for a moment, trying to match their voices to his. Then they began to move, slowly at first, then faster, and faster, until the shades of green blurred into a single color.

  * * *

  Cara gasped and opened her eyes. She was in her own body, back on Earth, back in her grandmother’s bedroom. On the bed in front of her, the body of her grandmother, which had been so still and lifeless, was also stirring.

  “You’re back!” cried Jacques. The words tore from him like a sob. “You’re back!”

  Ivy Morris reached a hand toward him. “This is the last place I would have expected to see you, old friend.”

  “You’re not the only one who can wander,” he said, trying to force the corners of his drooping mouth into a smile.

  “I wandered a little too far for comfort that time,” said Ivy Morris. She drew in a deep breath. “Well. Rescued by my granddaughter and my former husband.” She stopped, and her face twisted in a way that was unreadable. “And coming home with a story that suddenly makes sense of my life and also changes it utterly.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jacques.

  “Later,” said Ivy Morris, her voice vague and troubled. “I'll explain everything later. Right now, based on the things Cara has told me, we have to move fast.”

  “Faster than she realizes,” said Jacques.

  Dread and fear were so heavy in his voice that it frightened Cara. “What do you mean?” she cried.

  Jacques wrung his hands and looked away without speaking. Though his face was always lined and careworn, Cara had come to see that at least part of that was a mask, a pose. Now his features carried a look of pain that pierced her heart. She felt cold, wondering what new sorrow was in store.

  “I should have stayed in Luster,” he said dismally.

  Cara put her hand on his arm. “You saved me! If you hadn’t come through, Beloved would have had me.”

  He shook his head. “Thomas could have done that. It was his amulet that brought me through.

  “Thomas has an amulet?” cried Cara.

  Jacques nodded. “He let me take it so Lightfoot and I could come after you.
He wanted to come himself, but the amulet would only bring two of us, and I insisted that it be me, because . . . because I was hoping to find Ivy.”

  He turned his head away, and a racking sob tore from him.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cara in alarm.

  “The Hunters took it from me,” moaned Jacques. “They took Thomas’s amulet!”

  She cried out, stunned by the horror of his words. Now she understood what Marcus must have been whispering just before the end, and why Beloved had made such a sudden retreat. Of course she had wanted to get away. She had what she was after. She had an amulet.

  Cara’s mind reeled at the thought of Beloved having a key to enter Luster.

  Ivy Morris sprang to her feet. “We have to get this information to the Queen at once. Cara, may I have my . . . our amulet?”

  Cara lifted the amulet from her neck and passed it to her grandmother. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Return to Luster. But only for a moment. I’ll come back for you.”

  Closing her eyes at the same moment she closed her fingers over the crystal lid of the amulet, Ivy Morris whispered, “Luster, bring me home.” In the words Cara heard a longing deeper than she would have imagined possible.

  An instant later her grandmother was gone. The disappearance was silent, mysterious. She watched it but somehow could not see it. One moment her grandmother was there. Then Cara felt as if her vision had blurred, and when she looked again, her grandmother was gone.

  Cara looked at Jacques. “Where will she end up?” she asked nervously.

  “With the Queen,” said Jacques, and Cara remembered what Grimwold had told them: that for her grandmother, the amulet was a direct route not only to Luster, but to the Queen herself.

  She took Jacques’ hand, wondering what, if anything, she should say to him of the things she had learned in the Rainbow Prison. But before she could speak, her grandmother reappeared at the edge of the bed. “Message delivered,” she said grimly.