by Tom Holt
Lamorak ignored him. ‘We’ve found one, Per. We’ve found a bloody unicorn.’
Pertelope’s jaw dropped. ‘Where?’ he whispered.
‘Oh for crying out loud.’
On the edge of a small escarpment, about five hundred yards away, the unicorn stopped, lifted its head and sniffed. For a minute or so it stood like a statue, its ears and nostrils straining; then its head dropped once again, and its tail swished rhythmically to and fro, although there were no flies for it to dispel. Its lips brushed the sand at just the level grass would have been growing at, had any grass been so ill-advised as to try and survive in a totally dehydrated environment.
‘Oh, I see,’ Pertelope gasped. ‘Lammo, it is a unicorn. That’s the most incredible—’
‘Yes, right, fine,’ Lamorak muttered. He was trying to get his binoculars out of his rucksack while at the same time remaining perfectly still, and the strap had caught in something. ‘Just keep quiet, will you, while I...’
‘It has a golden horn,’ Pertelope crooned, ‘growing out of the middle of its forehead.’
‘Really,’ Lamorak mouthed darkly. ‘How unusual. Maybe it’s an experimental model or something. Look, can you just free the strap of these glasses? It seems to have got wound round the ...’
‘Its coat is milk-white,’ Pertelope drivelled on. ‘Look, Lamorak, it’s got gold hooves as well, isn’t that just—?’
‘QUIET!’ It’s amazing how loud you can shout when you’re whispering. The unicorn’s head jumped up like the handle of a low-flying rake, and the animal stood poised for a moment, a paradigm of nervous grace, before bounding away out of sight.
There was an ominous silence.
‘Oh dear,’ Pertelope said. ‘We must have frightened it off.’
Lamorak made a gravelly noise deep in his throat and rubbed the vicinity of his protesting molar. ‘You think so?’ he growled. ‘You’re sure it hadn’t just remembered an appointment somewhere?’
‘It was your fault,’ Pertelope retorted, ‘yelling at it like that. That’s the trouble with you, Lammo, you’re out of tune with Nature.’
From his pack, Lamorak had fished out a length of rope, a bundle of cloth, a small bottle and a box of sugar-lumps. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It should be easy enough to follow its hoofprints in the sand.’
Pertelope nodded and stood up. They filled their bags with tins of peaches, scraped sand over the empties (‘Though really we should take them with us, you know, until we can find a proper litter-bin. This sort of can is fully recyclable.’) and trudged off towards where the unicorn had put in its brief, perfectly staged appearance.
Once upon a time, unicorns were extremely scarce.
So elusive were they that there was only one way to catch a unicorn ... Well, in fact there were two. The simple way was to collect a bag of leftover scraps, soak them in cherry brandy, put them in a perfectly ordinary dustbin bag and leave it outside the back door overnight. The unicorn would then rip open the dustbin bag, gorge itself silly and fall asleep. That only worked for the urban unicorn, however; and since urban unicorns were scruffy, tallow-caked, marlinspikenosed killing machines standing about twelve hands high and entirely devoid of fear or compassion, it was more a case of not catching them if it could possibly be avoided. An urban unicorn with a hangover was capable of doing more damage to life and property than most bombs.
When it came to the white unicorn, however, only one method stood any chance of success. It required a maiden of unspotted virtue, and six foot of stout hemp rope. The rope was usually no problem.
As time went on, and for various reasons connected with the decline of moral standards and the spread of Humanism, the annual unicorn cull became harder and harder to achieve, so the unicorns grew more and more plentiful. In fact, they became a pest. Their natural habitat could no longer support the huge herds of migratory unicorns sweeping down from the Steppes each spring, and as the cities grew, more and more unicorns drifted into them, gradually evolving into the urban mutation noted above. Fortunately for the human race, they were entirely wiped out by a form of myxomatosis in the early twelfth century; but the disease never took hold among the white unicorns of the plains, which continued to devastate crops and strip the bark off young trees at an alarming rate. Finally, the Holy Roman Emperor reached an agreement with the Great Khan and Prester John, whereby the unicorns were herded across Europe into Asia, down through China and across into Australia, which at that time was still connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Once the last unicorn had crossed over, the land bridge was immediately destroyed, and the very memory of Australia was deliberately erased from the memory of the human race.
It didn’t take long for the unicorns to devastate their new environment, and now they are once again a comparatively rare and elusive species. To get an idea of what would have happened to Europe if this step hadn’t been taken, one only has to look at the arid deserts of central Australia and consider that, before the coming of the unicorns, they were the most fertile and productive grasslands on the face of the earth.
As time passed, however, times also changed; and although unicorns are by no means common, there are other species rarer and more elusive still. Thus there is only one sure-fire way of catching a maiden of unspotted virtue. It requires a unicorn and six feet of rope.
‘You know,’ muttered Pertelope, as they limped to the top of yet another escarpment and looked down across a thousand acres of emptiness, ‘I’m still not sure we’re going about this the right way.’
‘Shut up,’ replied Lamorak.
‘It’s all right for you,’ Pertelope protested. ‘You’ve got sensible heels on.’ He sat down, removed his left shoe and shook sand out of it.
‘Don’t start,’ Lamorak sighed. ‘We tossed a coin, remember, and—’
‘Yes,’ said Pertelope, ‘and I’ve been thinking about that.’ He put the shoe back on his foot. It was a patent navy court shoe with a two-inch heel and a rather smart brass buckle, and it rubbed like hell. Still, as Lamorak had pointed out, it did go very nicely with the plain halter-neck navy dress, pill-box hat and matching handbag that now made up the rest of Pertelope’s outfit. ‘You remember,’ Pertelope added, ‘you said call, and I called heads?’
Lamorak looked away and nodded. ‘Quite right,’ he said.
‘I recall wondering at the time why you insisted on using a Portuguese coin,’ Pertelope went on, ‘and it’s just occurred to me that, what with Portugal being a republic ...’
‘Time we were on our way, Per.’
‘... there isn’t a head on a Portuguese coin,’ Pertelope continued, ‘only a sort of coat of arms thing on one side and a number on the other. I think ...’
He broke off. In the far distance there was a tiny speck. They froze, and Lamorak raised his binoculars.
‘That’s it,’ he hissed. ‘We’re in business. Now then, stay absolutely still and do what I told you. And for God’s sake put your veil down.’
‘I still think—’ Pertelope whispered, but Lamorak cut him short.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want to have to say this, but I wouldn’t be, er, suitable anyway, so...’
Pertelope frowned. ‘Well, I’m hardly suitable either, Lammo,’ he replied. ‘I mean, I’m not a woman, am I?’
Lamorak bit his lip. This was embarrassing. ‘It doesn’t actually specify a woman,’ he said, ‘not as such. Just a ... Hold on, it’s coming this way. Right then; action stations.’
‘I still think ...’ Pertelope said, and he was still speaking as Lamorak crawled away over the sand and hid himself behind a large boulder.
Forty-five minutes can be a long time.
It wasn’t, of course, a unicorn that they had been sent to get. If all they’d needed was a unicorn, they could simply have strolled into Harrods’ or Bloomingdales’ pet department and ordered one.
In other words, this was the easy bit.
‘Stone the flaming crows,’ exclaimed the unicorn, ‘it isn’t a bloo
dy sheila after all.’
But by then it was too late; the noose, cast by Lamorak’s well-practised hand, was already flying through the air. There was a brief struggle, some extremely colourful language from the unicorn, and it was all over.
‘Quick,’ Lamorak grunted, ‘grab the rope while I get the chloroform. And watch out for that horn.’
‘Pommy bastards,’ snarled the unicorn, hurling its weight vainly against the rope. Pertelope dug his heels into the sand and strained backwards, while Lamorak emptied the bottle on to his handkerchief.
‘You didn’t tell me they could talk, Lammo,’ he gasped. ‘Just imagine that, a talking animal.’
As if to confirm his statement, the unicorn said something else. It was largely to do with how this particular unicorn’s father had been right in his warnings about the extreme effeminacy of the English; and for all his naturalist’s curiosity, Pertelope was quite relieved when Lamorak managed to stuff the handkerchief up its nose. Slowly, and still muttering imprecations under its breath, the unicorn sagged to the ground and passed out.
‘Well,’ Lamorak said, ‘we did it. Next time, though, we use a tranquilliser gun and the hell with tradition.’ He knelt down and set to work with the rope.
‘Can I get out of these clothes now?’ Pertelope said. He was bright red in the face, only partly as a result of his exertions.
‘In a minute,’ Lamorak snapped. ‘Give me a hand over here first, quickly, before the blasted thing wakes up.’
Pertelope sighed and grabbed a length of rope. He wasn’t sure that what they were doing wasn’t a gross interference with a majestic wild animal in its natural habitat. He firmly disapproved of such things, along with zoos, circuses and leaving dogs in cars with the windows done up. ‘Don’t tie it so tight, Lammo,’ he said at intervals, ‘you’ll hurt the poor thing.’
‘Right,’ said Lamorak at last, standing up and breathing heavily, ‘we’ve done that. Now I suggest we have five minutes’ sit-down and a rest.’
Pertelope brushed the dust off his skirts. ‘After,’ he said firmly, ‘I’ve got out of these dreadful clothes.’
‘Go ahead,’ Lamorak replied. ‘I’m just going to sit here and...’
Pertelope blushed furiously. ‘I need you to unzip me,’ he snarled.
‘Sorry.’ Lamorak hoisted himself to his feet again. ‘This time, for pity’s sake hold still. You nearly put my eye out with your hairclips last time, remember.’
But before he could make any further movement, a bullet hissed through the air, just missed his eyebrows and lifted Pertelope’s hat off his head. The two knights remained where they were, standing very still indeed.
‘Thtick ’em up,’ said a voice somewhere behind their backs, ‘or I’ll blow your headth off.’
The Australian wilderness is a place of many strange and terrible noises. There’s the unmistakable yap of the dingo, the screech of the kookaburra, the soft bark of the kangaroo, the rasping growl of the mezzo-soprano gargling with eggs beaten in stout - all these can be disconcerting, and to begin with, even terrifying. But there’s one sound guaranteed to fill even the hardiest heart with fear and turn the brownest knees to water; and that’s the sound of a hearty contralto voice singing :Onthe a jolly thwagman camped bethide a billabong Under the thade of a tumpty-tum tree ...
over and over again, apparently through a megaphone. The repetition is attributable to the fact that the singer doesn’t know the rest of the words. The amplification effect, on the other hand, is due to the large metal drum that covers the singer’s head.
‘Can we put our hands down now, please?’
‘Thorry?’
Lamorak closed his eyes, and then opened them again. ‘I said,’ he reiterated, ‘can we put our hands down now, please?’
‘Oh. Yeth. Only nithe and eathy doth it, right?’
‘Yeth. Yes. Sorry.’ Lamorak lowered his arms experimentally, and ran quick checks over himself to discover whether he’d been shot yet. All clear. ‘How about turning round?’ he suggested.
There was a pause. ‘Go on, then,’ said the voice. It sounded like a cow at the bottom of a deep, steel-lined pit.
The proprietor of the voice looked at first sight like the after-effects of the sorceror’s apprentice run riot in a breaker’s yard. Starting from the top, there was a big round drum, with two tiny holes. Under that, unmistakably, what had once been the bonnet of a Volkswagen Beetle, before someone with a degree in design flair and enormous biceps had beaten it into a vaguely anthropomorphic shape with a big hammer. Two steel tubes stuck out from the sides at right angles, and there was a rust-mottled revolver at the end of one of them. Finally, two more tubes projected out from the underside and linked up with a pair of old-fashioned diver’s boots.
‘Ith either of you laughth, I thall be theriouthly angry,’ it said.
Pertelope blinked. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but why are you wearing those funny clothes?’
The ironmongery quivered slightly. ‘Look who’th talking,’ it replied.
‘Please,’ Lamorak said hastily, ‘you mustn’t mind my friend. It’s just that he’s an idiot, that’s all.’
There was a dubious, rusty sound from inside the drum. ‘You’re thure that’th all?’ it said. ‘I mean, that ith a throck he‘th wearing.’
Pertelope winced. ‘There’s a perfectly good reason—’ he started to say, but a sudden pain in his foot, the result of Lamorak inadvertently stamping on it hard, cut him short.
‘Anyway,’ Lamorak said brightly, ‘it’s been very nice meeting you, and the very best of luck with whatever it is you’re doing, but I’m afraid we’ve got to be getting along. Cheerio.’ He started to walk purposefully towards the unicorn, but the muzzle of the revolver followed him.
‘Not tho fatht,’ said the ironclad. ‘What’re you two doing with that’roo, anyway?’
The two knights looked at each other. ‘That what?’ Lamorak enquired.
‘The kangaroo,’ replied the voice from inside the drum. ‘Come on, thpit it out.’
‘Excuse me,’ Lamorak said, in the very recherché tone of voice one uses when pointing out the blindingly obvious to a heavily armed idiot, ‘but strictly speaking, that’s not a kangaroo.’
‘It ithn’t?’
There was something in the modulations of the voice that gave Lamorak the clue he’d been looking for. ‘You’re not from these parts, are you?’ he said.
The ironmongery didn’t reply; but it shuffled and clinked in such a way as to confirm Lamorak in his belief. ‘Or this time, come to that,’ he added slowly. ‘You’re from the future, aren’t you?’
‘Oh thit,’ mumbled the ironclad. ‘How did you know?’
Had Lamorak been truthful, he’d have replied that it was the logical conclusion when you came across someone who’d heard of kangaroos but didn’t know what they looked like, and had the idea that in the Outback, the way to dress inconspicuously was to make up as Ned Kelly. Instead, he said, ‘Lucky guess.’
Pertelope, meanwhile, had been doing a very good impersonation of a man swallowing a live fish. ‘How do you mean, from the future?’ he finally managed to say. Lamorak smiled.
‘Allow me to introduce you,’ he said. ‘Sir Pertelope, this is the Timekeeper. Timekeeper, Sir Pertelope.’
For his part, Pertelope looked like someone who has just been told that the sun rises in the east because of horticulture. He furrowed his brows.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but could somebody please explain what’s going on?’
The Timekeeper shrugged - a gesture which would have been rather more elegant if it hadn’t involved the movement of quite so much rusty sheet metal - and removed the iron drum to reveal a young, freckled and quite unmistakably female face; fourteen going on fifteen, at a guess, and with braces on her teeth.
‘It’th all right,’ she said, ‘I’ll ecthplain. I’m uthed to it,’ she added. ‘But thirtht, can I get out of all thith bloody armour?’
There was a c
onfusing interval while she peeled off the metalwork. It was like watching a destroyer getting undressed.
‘That’th better,’ sighed the Timekeeper. She was now dressed in a scarlet boiler suit and silver trainers, and stood about five feet two in them. The revolver was still in her hand, but probably only because there wasn’t anywhere to put it down that wasn’t covered in sheet steel. ‘I’m throm a thpathethip,’ she said.
‘I see,’ commented Pertelope unconvincingly.
‘It’th very thimple,’ the Timekeeper went on, standing on one foot and massaging the other vigorously. ‘There‘th ten of uth, and we were put into orbit in a time capthule travelling at just over the thpeed of light.’
‘The Relativity Marketing Board,’ Lamorak interrupted. ‘It was the biggest scientific experiment ever attempted. Years ahead of its time,’ he added.
‘Yeth,’ said the Timekeeper, bitterly, ‘ecthept the thools went and thent uth off in the wrong direction. Inthtead of going into the Thuture, we went into the Patht.’
‘Sheer carelessness,’ said Lamorak sadly. ‘Somebody forgot to read the instruction manual, apparently.’
‘And they thorgot to pack any thood,’ the Timekeeper added, ‘which meanth every tho ofen one of uth hath to take the ethcape capthule down to thome detherted thpot on the Thurthathe and forage for provithionth. Gueth whothe turn it wath thith time.’
Pertelope gave Lamorak a bewildered look. ‘How do you know all that, Lammo?’ he asked.
‘Simple,’ the knight replied. ‘I met one of them - oh, two hundred and fifty years ago now, maybe more. Not you,’ he added to the Timekeeper, ‘one of your, er, colleagues. He was about nine years old, with sort of carroty red hair.’
The Timekeeper nodded. ‘That thoundth like Thimon,’ she said. ‘I’ll warn him to ecthpect you.’
Pertelope was about to say ‘But—’ again, but Lamorak forestalled him.
‘Our past is their future, you see,’ he explained, ‘so although I’ve already met - Simon, was it? Yes, I remember now - he won’t meet me for another two and a half centuries, or whatever it is in his timescale. And of course, where we get older as time passes, they get younger.’