From the moment the first word left his mouth, it was clear that something was going to happen. The first indication was a feeling, a very physical feeling, the kind of electric tension she had felt before massive thunderstorms. Her skin tingled all over, and the scent of the flowers intensified. The air warmed, until she might have stood in the middle of a blooming meadow in high summer, rather than the stonelined room in the middle of winter. Then, as she looked down for a moment, the lines of the diagram began to glow with a soft, bluish-white light, as if she had drawn them with foxfire instead of chalk. She could only make out those nearest her feet - and then only vaguely-but the increased light at the level of the floor told her that all the rest of the lines were glowing too. There was so much light in the room now that the odd effect of a sunlit meadow was intensified. If she closed her eyes, she would have sworn she heard the lazy drone of bees.
And yet, with all of this going on about her, there was no sensation within her of fear, or even apprehension. Instead, a wonderful calm came over her, and a deep and drowsy peace. There was a surety that she was utterly, completely safe and protected, and insensibly she relaxed as Jason continued to chant. I would be happy if this went on forever, she thought in dreamy content.
Without her glasses she really couldn't see what else might be going on, although she had the impression from the moving lights that appeared over key points in the diagram and from the bright haze appearing over the altar that a great deal of activity was taking place. If she hadn't felt so peaceful she would have been immensely frustrated and annoyed; this was why she absolutely hated being without her glasses! No matter how she squinted and strained, she could not make out a blessed thing. Drat. This is hardly fair. My first view of a major Work, and all I can see are moving lights and shadows. If I didn't know him better, I'd think he planned it this way.
Jason came to the last quatrain of the verses, and she woke out of her dreaming; now, if at all, would be a sign that the Unicorn would accept a tendered Summons. She concentrated on the thin, bright mist above the altar and held her breath, hoping for his sake that he was going to get more than just some pretty lights.
As the last few syllables fell from his lips, a deep hush dropped over the room, and it seemed as if everything paused a moment-there was a feeling of immanence, of something wonderful about to happen. The mist above the altar dimmed-then suddenly flared, brightly, and even without her glasses, she made out a bright oval there, as if it was a window into somewhere where everything was made of light.
Now it was her turn, the time to issue the Summons, which more properly might be termed an invitation. She called out her own quatrain, the invitation to the Unicorn to come to her, begging the gift of its presence and its immortal wisdom to enlighten her.
The mist dimmed and flared a second time. Then there was something bright and-as far as she could tell-solid in the heart of the mist. And that was all she could tell; she could not even make out what shape it bore. But her inner peace did not desert her, although she knew, in the back of her mind, that when this was all over, she was going to be very irked with Jason Cameron for taking her eyeglasses away from her, ceremony or not. There should have been some way to allow her to retain them!
"It has been a very long time since I last heard the call of a Summoner." The voice from the white, blurry shape above the altar was bell-clear, sweet, silvery, and sexless. It caressed her like a light breeze, and made her heart dance. "You are fair in my sight, and acceptable, dear maiden. I feast upon your purity, and grant you your request."
It was a good thing that she already knew that the Unicorn meant these things in a metaphorical sense, or she might have been seriously alarmed by that particular set of phrases. That is, she would have been alarmed if the peace imposed upon her from without had not been so all-pervasive. "I thank you for answering my Summons, and I rejoice in the presence of your beauty and purity, O Brightest One," she replied, in what she thought might be the correct response. "My request is that you answer the question of the Petitioner, the Firemaster who stands in the South, O Unicorn," she concluded, and she felt, rather than saw, that it had turned its attention away from her. Its regard was like a brilliant sunbeam; so intense that she had actually felt it as if it was a hand, touching lightly upon her skin.
"And what is your question-as if I need to ask?" it said, and she was surprised at the amount of irony in its tone. It had never occurred to her that a Unicorn would indulge in such a thing. "You must wish to know how to reverse your current condition. I cannot imagine that you would care to remain in the state that you are now, Firemaster."
"My question is, as you divined, O Immortal Wisdom, that you impart to me the means by which I can reverse my condition to that of my wholly human former aspect," Cameron said, his voice a little breathless, as if whatever it was he saw left him shaken and hesitant. That surprised her as much as the Unicorn's irony; surely Jason, who had participated in a Summoning twice before, had known what to expect! "If, indeed, those means exist, I beg you to tell me where I may find them."
"The means do exist, but I am limited in what I may tell you. I cannot give you the whole answer, but I can tell you that it lies within a manuscript that is within your grasp, though not your possession," the Unicorn replied promptly. "It is no more than a few miles distant from this spot, and in the hands of someone you know."
"Who?" Jason gasped. "Where? Please, I beg you-"
The Unicorn interrupted him, and now the tone of its voice was stern and unyielding. "I cannot tell you more, and do not press me-you have brought this state upon yourself, as you are well aware, out of over-reaching pride and arrogance, and it has been judged that you must win free of it wholly by your own efforts, if at all."
Those clear, bright tones were utterly without pity, and Rose felt very sorry for Jason. Bad enough to know that was the case, but to hear it from such a being-that was hard, hard indeed.
The light above the altar brightened, and Rose's eyes began to water in reaction. And yet, at the same time, she could not bring herself to look away. The light drew her, even as it became impossible to watch.
"I have fulfilled your request, O maiden," it said, in a voice of deep formality, and she felt its calm regard pressing upon her again. "I thank you for the Summons, and for the feast. And now-fare you well."
There was no sound, nothing to mark the moment that it departed. The light simply vanished so abruptly that the room seemed dark in comparison. She rubbed her eyes, which were still watering, and suddenly realized that she felt physically drained and exhausted, as if she had been working very hard for most of the day. And she wanted to see, so badly she shook with the need for clear sight. She reached out her hands, impotently groping for her spectacles, even though she knew that Cameron had them.
Jason was at her side before she realized it, as if he understood all too well her fear of sightlessness-of course, he had been only a few feet away, and no longer needed to worry about erasing the chalk-marks by striding directly across to her. "Here," he said, pressing the spectacles into her hand, as if he had sensed how imperative her need for sight was. "Are you tired?"
"Very," she admitted, fumbling the spectacles into place, and seeing the room leap into focus again with a surge of relief. I would rather almost anything than not be able to see....
"It was the Unicorn, I think-" His voice sounded thoughtful. "I did not experience this myself, but the Unicorn I Summoned was not as powerful as this one, and it never said a word about a 'feast.' I believe that his 'feasting' was not entirely metaphorical, that he 'fed' upon your spiritual energy."
"My what?" she gasped, She turned to him with alarm, and he made a soothing motion.
"Don't worry, this has happened to me with other creatures, just not a Unicorn. I promise you, he hasn't taken anything irreplaceable; by his nature, he can't. In fact, he didn't take it at all; if you think about your quatrain, you offered it to him as a free gift. But energy has to come from somewhere,
as the mathematicians say, and very often the Elementals find the energy we produce preferable to their normal fare." He chuckled a little. "Perhaps the reason that my Unicorn never 'feasted' upon my energies was that I was not sufficiently pure for it. You were obviously more to its taste."
"I suppose I should feel flattered," she said, hesitantly. "And if it really hasn't harmed me-"
"It hasn't," he reassured her. "You'll feel better after a short rest and a little food of less ephemeral nature."
She sighed, and gathered up her skirts. He offered her his hand in a particularly gallant gesture.
"You performed wonderfully, my dearest Rose; stronger Apprentices than you would have bolted from the room at the first signs of the Manifestation. I am very proud of you." He chuckled a little. "If my lady would care to return to the study with me, I believe my Salamanders have brought us just what we need." She sensed, rather than saw, that he smiled, and she was a little surprised that he should offer her so much physical contact. Heretofore he had avoided it, perhaps sensitive to his own appearance. She took the proffered hand, and once again felt that tiny electric shock pass between them. But this time, his paw-hand no longer felt so odd holding hers. She decided not to be annoyed with him. It might have been just as well that she could not see; if she had, she might have been too tongue-tied to make the proper responses.
Once they were inside the door of the study, he dropped her hand and plucked a warm and heavy brown plush cape from a hook beside the door. "I thought you might be cold after all that," he said, handing it to her, as he hesitated a moment, then resolutely pulled the hood of his robe back down onto his shoulders. "And there are two pairs of slippers warming beside the fire. I think you will know which pair is yours."
She wrapped the cape around herself, grateful for the warmth, and went over to the fire. It did not take the mind of a genius to deduce which pair of sheepskin-lined slippers were hers; she doubted that he could squeeze his feet into the smaller of the two, nor would he likely sport a pair of woolen slippers embroidered with white roses. She bent to pull them both on her half-frozen feet, and took her accustomed seat on the sofa, curling her legs up underneath her, just as the clock above the mantelpiece chimed midnight.
A moment later, he joined her, seating himself in a chair across from her, followed by a levitating table and floating tray, each accompanied by an attendant Salamander. The latter held covered dishes and service for two, and she was not at all loath to see them.
"A Christmas Eve dinner of the English sort for you, my lady," he said gravely, "courtesy of the Palace Hotel. Beef Wellington, roast carrots and potatoes, and plum pudding, of course. I can flame the latter, if you would like, but that is a custom I don't particularly care for. I've never found it improved the flavor of a dish, and it often makes sweets so hot that one runs the risk of burning ones mouth."
"I believe I'll decline," she replied cheerfully. "I think we have quite enough flame as it is." She waved her hand at the Salamanders, who danced in response to her sally.
He handed her a plate without further comment; his dinner, as usual, was rare (or raw) meat. It no longer disturbed her to see him consume it, since he had taken to cutting it up and eating it in a civilized manner. She had hot spiced cider to drink-probably a wiser choice than wine, as tired as she was. Again, as usual, he had a glass of milk, and a cup of Master Pao's tea.
Meat at last! I thought I was going to perish of longing for it before the three days were over!
She was too hungry to press him for his reaction to the result of their efforts, but as soon as she polished off the last of the plum pudding, and poured herself a second glass of the cider, she saw that he had finished his own dinner and was regarding her with an expectant air.
"Well?" she said. "Was it worth the effort?"
He nodded, slowly. "Quite worth the effort," he replied. "I was astonished at the strength of the apparition, to be frank. The ones that I Summoned appeared for only a moment or two, uttered a few cryptic words, and vanished again. This Unicorn practically engaged us in conversation, and it very clearly gave us all the information it was permitted to give us."
"Permitted by whom?" she asked. "That was what I wanted to know."
He shrugged. "When one deals with creatures like the Unicorn, one acknowledges the fact that there are higher powers ruling them. What those powers are, I have never attempted to discover. Because they are burdened, or gifted, with more knowledge than we, they are constrained more directly by those higher powers than mere mortals."
He stared down into his cup, and she said nothing, remembering what else the Unicorn had said. Finally, he shook his head, and looked up again.
"The important thing is that we know now that there is a solution to my problem, and what is more, the Unicorn made a very significant omission." He swirled the tea in his cup and drank the rest of it down, with his usual grimace. "Yes, it said that the means to reverse my condition existed in a manuscript. But it did not say that we would be unable to deduce those same means from our own researches, if we put enough effort into the task."
She bit her lip, and looked into his eyes. "You're right," she agreed. "What is more, it did say that you would find your answer by your own efforts, if at all. But are you not going to pursue the manuscript?"
"There is no reason why I cannot do both," he pointed out. "I can send out inquiries, while you and I continue to research. We can take whatever means presents itself first."
She nodded, feeling a great deal more comfortable with that solution. "I can't help thinking that in concentrating on this manuscript, we might be chasing a wild goose," she confessed. "When you think that it might be in the hands of some antiquarian you know, someone who has no idea of the significance of what he has-someone who would just laugh at you if you even suggested the possibility of Magick-""That's all too possible," he agreed. "And now we know the most important part of any such secret."
"Such as?" she asked, stifling a yawn.
"We know the answer exists. We did not know that for certain before." He seemed very cheerful of a sudden, and his cheer infected her.
"That's true." she wondered if this was the right time to present him with her Christmas gift to him, and decided that it couldn't hurt. Better to give it to him now, while he still felt cheerful! That way, if he didn't like it, he would at least feel constrained to pretend that he did. If she gave it to him while he was in a bad mood, he might hurl it across the room in a fit of temper. He'd hurled other objects in her presence before-his temper could be as black and stormy as the worst tornado-weather, and she suspected the if he ever gave free rein to it, that temper could wreak just as much damage.
She beckoned to one of the Salamanders while his back was turned for a moment, putting a few logs on the fire, and whispered her request to it. It vanished, and came back in through the door a moment later with her wrapped package, just in time for him to see it as he turned back around.
"What's this?" he asked, puzzled, as the Salamander brought the package directly to him.
"I took the liberty of getting you a Christmas gift, Jason," she said, and surprised herself by blushing. "I hope you don't think me presumptuous. It isn't much-I don't know if you'll like it-but I thought of you when I saw it-"
He continued to stand beside the fire, staring at her, the package cradled carefully in both paws. "But I didn't get anything for you, Rose-" he stammered, as taken aback as if no one had ever brought him a present before. "How can I possibly accept this?"
"Gifts aren't given with the intent that the giver expects a gift in return, Jason," she replied, astonished that he would think that she expected a gift from him. "They're given because the giver thinks they might please the recipient-if you like it, I'll be quite rewarded enough by that. You don't have to get me anything. Everything I own now is something you gave me! I just thought this might grant you a little pleasure. Please," she prompted. "Open it."
He walked slowly to his seat, sat down ca
refully, and began, hesitantly, to open the package. She had taken special care to wrap it so that it would be easy for him to extract the box from the brightly colored paper and ribbons-no mean feat, so far as that went. She was rather proud of her wrapping job.
At length the box sat on the table, in its nest of shredded wrapping. He looked up at her, as if he had never seen her before, then slowly opened the box itself.
He stared down into it, then with trembling paws, reached inside and brought out the carved stone Phoenix.
The carnelian from which it had been made caught the firelight beautifully, seeming to glow from deep within. It could have been poured from liquid embers. She was altogether pleased with the effect-and with the statue itself. She had been afraid that in his study here, surrounded by all his expensive art objects, it would look shabby. In fact, it looked very much as if it belonged here.
He stared at it, and touched its carved surface gently. "This-this is magnificent," he stammered. "It's wonderful! Rose, you couldn't have chosen anything likely to please me more, and I haven't a single notion how you managed to deduce what I would like so accurately. What-what can I possibly say?"
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