Unicorns

by Jack Dann

  "I don't know," Finmole said with irritation. "It does not have the feel of a vision. I must think on it."

  "No!" Kern cried. "We must have it now. You cannot refuse to tell us what the gods have shown you." Kern's face was red, and he began to wheeze.

  Jone laid a hand on Kern's shoulder. "Kern is right," he said. "If the gods' voices have spoken to you with a vision, then we must share it."

  Finmole's eyes flickered over the men several times. Was it fever-dream, or vision? he wondered; god-voices or hallucination? Could any of them tell the difference anymore? Could he? Never had he felt his understanding so unsure, his intuition so dimmed. I am old, and ill, he thought, yet still they expect everything from me.

  He sighed and closed his eyes. "The face of the goddess was hidden by the mists, but when they cleared, the steed had turned into a unicorn, and the rider's face was that of Leandra."

  "Leandra?" Keegan cried. "What does she have to do with your vision?"

  The faces of the other men bespoke surprise and guarded caution. More than the appearance of one of their own in Finmole's dream, the mention of the unicorn stunned them. The most powerful talisman in Cannock was seldom invoked. The unicorn spire in the rock cliff above the chase was the first thing in the hamlet to touch the light of dawn. It was believed to be the horn of a giant unicorn, resting within the rock. The spire was as tall as five men, ridged and weathered smooth so that it gleamed in the morning sun, and glistened when the mists surrounded it. The fairies that lived near the cliff would fling anyone over its edge if they dared to touch the spire.

  "We must reach the unicorn and draw from his great powers," Finmole continued, "and the only way to do so is to tempt him with a young virgin. Leandra is the chosen one."

  "But Leandra was promised to me last Errl-tide. She is mine!" Keegan, always irascible, paced furiously across the small area in front of Finmole's hut. "You can't have her. She is mine by right!"

  "She doesn't want you anyway, Keegan," Emer began, and then bit his lower lip. Jone jabbed him sharply, but Keegan had heard, and whirled to face Emer with fire in his ice-blue eyes.

  "That's a lie, Emer, and I'll meet you at the claybank for it, staff for staff," Keegan roared.

  Finmole began to speak, but a sudden painful spasm of coughing took his breath away.

  "Today," Keegan ordered. "Right now!" He stepped towards Emer, who sat, fearfully gnawing on his lips and looking about for help.

  Jone stood up in one smooth motion, placing himself between the two.

  "We can go to another hamlet for a bride, if need be, but Leandra has been chosed by the gods," he said.

  Keegan regarded Jone for a long, silent moment; then Finmole. Then he spat on the ground in front of the druid, and strode angrily away.

  "Is this the vision?" Kern asked.

  Suddenly exhausted, Finmole replied, "Sworn by the oak," almost believing it himself.

  Leandra sat, wide-eyed and silent, on the floor of Finmole's hut. Usna, Cannock 's herbalist, arranged the folds of her robe around her own ample figure, and poured a mug of hot mead for the girl. While Leandra sipped, Usna began to comb the girl's long blond hair, still wet from the ceremonial bath, and redolent of sweet grass.

  Finmole threw a handful of dried herbs onto the hearth pit The hut filled with the heady fragrance of wedgewort and thyme, and the air took on a dusky yellow hue. As he prepared the poultice sack, pausing to search his memory for the proper words, rivulets of sweat traced a ragged path across his brow like morning dew on an autumn leaf.

  Usna crooned softly as she began to plait Leandra's hair with colorful strips of linen and sprigs of fresh mistletoe that Finmole had gathered. "Do I look pretty?" Leandra asked, and smiled with sleepy satisfaction when Finmole assured her that she was indeed lovely.

  At moonrise, Finmole led the small procession into the deep woods, farther than even Jone had ventured alone before. Emer and Kern followed next, with Jone a step or two behind them. To Finmole's left walked Leandra; the foul-smelling poultice sack slapped her thigh as she moved. No one spoke.

  It was dark and eerie in this part of the forest. The men stubbed their toes on rocks and tree roots, and nervously imagined that it was grinning wood-elves that tripped them and caused them to stumble. Night creatures scurried in the underbrush, and the trees were aglow with watchful, unblinking eyes.

  At last they reached the most sacred oak—a massive tree nestled where only druids with their knowledge of elves and fairies could go in safety. Silently the men tethered Leandra to the oak, and removed her coarse woolen sark. Her pale skin rippled with gooseflesh in the damp night air; she looked much younger than her twelve summers beneath the canopy of leaves and shadows.

  The men retraced their path through the woods, leaving Leandra for the unicorn that Finmole promised would appear. They would return, but not before the moon had traced a quarter-arc across the glittering night sky.

  Leandra waited for the unicorn alone. She had been brave as the men walked away, but soon began to cry. She trembled at every night-sound, fully expecting to see all the demons of her dreams. Spriggans, wild boars, and one-eyed, one-footed fachans flitted through the shadows of her imagination. She could remember the whispered warnings of the women of Cannock. They said that the unicorn had the tail of a lion, the beard of a goat, and hoofs sharp enough to rip an elephant's belly. His horn was long and sharp and twisted; white at the base, black at the middle, and red at the tip. His eyes, they said, were a cold, deadly blue, and could tell truth from lie at a glance. The women winked knowingly at Leandra when they said that, and she realized they were telling her she had best be the virgin they all thought her to be. Usna's assurances that the unicorn was a gentle and noble beast were soon buried under the deepening layers of silence and midnight mist. Finally, despite her fear, she drifted into a fitful sleep, broken by her nightmare cries that floated eerily among the trees like the song of a phantom nightingale.

  Leandra opened her eyes and shivered. She knelt on the ground, hugging her arms to her sides for warmth. She felt chilled beyond the coolness of the night air, and briefly wished for her sark, until the feeling that prickled her skin like winter's sleet, crystallized into pure fear, and she knew she was no longer alone in the clearing.

  Ten paces away, a pair of clear blue eyes stared evenly at her from beneath a long, pointed horn; and around those, an ethereal white mist glowed with a light all its own. Leandra could not make out any other part clearly, could not piece together the descriptions she had heard to match what stood before her. But the eyes were unmistakable: as cold an azure blue as the color locked within an icicle.

  Leandra sat as still as she could, barely breathing, afraid to move lest the unicorn disappear as quickly as it had come; afraid lest it discover some secret flaw in her, some hidden, lustful dream, and kill her on the spot.

  Several minutes passed, and neither girl nor beast moved. Leandra's leg began to tingle and feel numb. As she stared into the unicorn's eyes, she sensed a calmness . . . almost a sadness. Through the shifting white glow, she could see first one part of the unicorn, and then another, but never, it seemed, the whole beast at once. When the light revealed its flank pierced and bleeding, Leandra gasped, but the unicorn did not shy away. It continued to stare at her with wide, solemn eyes, and her fear lessened bit by bit.

  She waited for the unicorn to come forward and rest its head in her lap as Finmole had said it would. It seemed magnificent and more beautiful than she had imagined; not at all ferocious, but more to be pitied for its wound. But when she heard the rustlings of the men returning, she became afraid again. Afraid, because the unicorn had not lain in her lap as expected . . . and then afraid that if it did, the men would harm it. She leapt to her feet, and whispered to the beast, "You must either come to me now, or run away . . . quickly, make up your mind."

  Familiar faces appeared one by one in the bushes around the clearing. Kern strode into the clearing first, staff in hand.

&
nbsp; "Where is the unicorn?" he demanded.

  The other men stepped forward quietly, scanning the underbrush, and looking to Finmole for guidance.

  "Why, it stands right before you, there!" Leandra pointed at the unicorn. "It has stood there for hours, and would not lie in my lap. Finmole, have I done something wrong?"

  "I see no unicorn," Emer said.

  "Nor I," said Kern, swishing the air before him with his staff. "Jone?"

  The hunter paced the clearing, bending low to the ground looking for any kind of spoor.

  "I see no unicorn," he said with a sigh, and turned to Finmole.

  "But it's here, can't you see it? Emer, you're standing right by its side," Leandra cried, amazed that the men did not see.

  Emer jumped and looked about him, but said to the others, "There is no unicorn here. The child lies."

  "Finmole?" Jone said.

  "Finmole sees, don't you, Finmole?" Leandra said, reaching to touch the druid's cloak, but held back by the tether at her ankle.

  The druid rubbed his eyes and blinked several times. A slow wave of fear began at the base of his spine, sending blades of fiery pain across his back and shoulders. He cursed silently. Where is it? he thought.

  He stared through narrowed lids at the place where Leandra pointed. Nothing. He searched the clearing and the trees beyond. The men began to stir impatiently. Soon their confusion would turn to disappointment, and then to anger. Finmole could already feel the air broiling with their frustration, and for the first time, he feared the men of Cannock.

  "The unicorn is here," Finmole said at last. The men froze, still alarmed, but the mood in the clearing eased.

  "You cannot see it, for it has powers of invisibility. You must leave, and wait for us to follow. Go quickly," he ordered.

  The men moved slowly, not quite convinced, but, still, unwilling to disobey. Finmole waited until he no longer heard their passage through the woods, and let several minutes pass beyond that. Then he turned to Leandra.

  "You're lying," he said.

  Her expression of relief turned to one of shock.

  "But, I'm not. You said . . ."

  "I sent them away to save us both. There is nothing here." Finmole began to pace, his walking stick leaving small indentations in the forest floor. "Lying bitch," he cried in anger.

  Leandra dropped to the ground, covered her head with her arms, and began to weep.

  A spasm of coughing overtook the druid, and he leaned against a tree for support. His lungs felt like woolen sacks filled with stones. In his panic, he had said too much—and now Leandra knew that he had not seen the unicorn. Fool, he thought, and muttered frantic pleas for guidance from the still silent god-voices. "Damn," he cried out, lashing at the bushes with his cedar stick. Then he turned to leave.

  Leandra looked up, her face swollen and red, her body still trembling with little sobs.

  "Finmole, where are you going?" she asked.

  The druid did not answer.

  "Wait . . . don't leave me here . . . come back!" She tugged at the tether, and tore at the knot with her fingers. "Don't leave me. Please . . . Finmole!"

  Her screams followed him through the woods until the sounds were lost amid his muffled footfalls and the mossy, ancient trees.

  Finmole stepped quietly out of his hut, and started down the hill. It was less than a mile to the unicorn spire. The night was as black as a spriggan's heart, and a thin mist covered the ground. He turned east, just short of the tiny, conical-roofed huts, and skirted the hamlet on a path that wound among the choke-berries and young rowans at the edge of the woods.

  Finmole's knees ached as he began the walk to the peak. He gripped his cedar stick tightly, and had to stop twice for the wheezing in his chest to subside before he had gone even fifty paces. He felt feverish, just as he had when he had seen the dream. Vision . . . or fever-dream? he asked himself yet again. He felt as if Leandra's eyes were following him, boring into his soul, perched on his left shoulder like glowing coals. But her eyes lied, he reassured himself.

  He reached the base of the outcropping, and looked up at the spire. Dawn would be coming soon, and he left his walking-stick on the ground so that he could use both hands to search for holds across the jagged rock face. The muscles in his legs began to tremble, and his fingers scratched the rock for a solid ridge. His chest burned, and he coughed. Scrabbling for purchase, Finmole began his climb.

  Behind him, the hamlet of Cannock was beginning to stir. Soft sounds of the new day, muffled by the mist, drifted up in fragments, as if they were torn by strong winds along the way. Soon Maude, Leandra's mother, would begin grinding at her quern, crushing grain that she used for barter. Finmole imagined her sitting in front of her hut, her head tilted perpetually to the right, deferring to the veined, purple goiter that hung from her neck, and had become half as large as her head despite the poultices from Usna. No-one in Cannock need know that the vision had not been true. Not even Maude. He would go to the spire and bargain with the power of the unicorn himself. And Leandra? No-one dared travel to the sacred oak; she would die there, and he would say she had become the bride of the unicorn, that it had ridden away with her, far into the woods.

  Finmole sighed and thought of Usna: Usna, his friend, his bitterest enemy, and, sometimes, his lover, but that had been long ago. Jagged ridges scraped skin from his fingers, and he breathed in dirt and chalky rock dust. His mouth felt parched and his lips dry. Usna would have thought to bring a skin of mead to quench my thirst . . . but I would not have accepted it, he admitted to himself. Together we lead the people of Cannock: a tattooed old whore with waning second sight, and an aging priest, as lost amid the confusion as the ones we try to lead.

  Finmole pulled himself up onto a small ledge, bare legs dangling over the edge, bleeding and bruised. He had lost one sandal, and the other was attached to his foot only by the ankle thong. His hair was matted with dirt and perspiration, and his breath came in painful, wrenching gasps. The spire was still fifteen feet beyond him, and whirling winds drifted down to chill the sweat from his body.

  From the ledge, he could see all of Cannock and the hills beyond. The river north of the hamlet ran muddy from mountain storms, and raced furiously between its banks. As he sat, he thought of Leandra. Could she have really seen the unicorn? he wondered. Could my powers be so diminished that it was actually there, but only she could see it . . . ? No. If it had been there, I would have been the one to know, Finmole thought. Leandra was no priestess, no link to the gods. It was nonsense to think that a mere child could have powers that he no longer commanded. But still, the thought made him uneasy, and he fought to mask his feelings. He was nearer the unicorn spire, and dared not approach it with the stink of fear about him, for the sprites that guarded the spire were capricious, and could twist a mind already clouded with doubt. Just a few seconds more, he bargained with himself, and then I'll continue.

  He groaned aloud and resumed his climb. Dawn was only minutes away, and he had no time to lose. The wind that swept around the spire buffeted his hair and made him dizzy. Dizzy, that's what Leandra had felt after Usna had given her the mead.

  Finmole stood at the base of the unicorn spire. His blood pounded in his ears, and he needed to steady himself, but would not touch the spire. Suddenly, he twisted around and looked intently in the direction of the sacred oak, as if he could see through to the heart of the forest. Then, slowly, he turned to the spire, stunned, staggered by the first certainty he had felt in a long time.

  "I didn't believe," he said to the spire. "I truly didn't believe the girl saw you, but now I know. She saw you, and I could not; not because I lacked the power, but because I lacked the faith. You denied your manifestation to me. To me!" he cried out in anguish.

  "And I came here to wrest your powers from you . . ." he continued wryly, "to produce a sign for the people of Cannock to believe in, some evidence to prove my vision was true—when it is I who hesitated to believe." He laughed bitterly. "I pretend to
lead them with the guidance of god-voices I no longer hear. My dreams and visions and fantasies have all merged together so that I no longer know what is real and what is false . . ."

  Finmole removed a vial of poison from his tunic and removed its stopper.

  "This vial was to be Cannock 's miracle," he cried to the spire. "Now it shall be mine. It is said the touch of your horn can render poison harmless."

  Finmole touched the vial to the spire and held it aloft with trembling hands in an awkward salute. The spire sprites whipped the wind around him, creating dust devils that brought tears to his eyes and choked his throat.

  "I believe," he whispered, "I believe, I believe . . ."

  The winds swirled along the spire, following the spiral ridges all the way to its tip. Finmole's tunic flapped around him, and he was blinded with his own wispy hair. He raised the vial and drank the bitter liquid in one swallow, as the unicorn spire glowed in the first golden rays of dawn.

  Introduction to T. H. White's "The Unicorn"

  Born in 1906, the late T. H. White was perhaps the most talented and widely-acclaimed creator of whimsical fantasy since Lewis Carroll, and probably did more to mold the popular image of King Arthur than any other writer since Twain. Although he published other well-received fantasy novels such as Mistress Masham's Repose and The Elephant and the Kangaroo, White's major work—and the work on which almost all of his present-day reputation rests—was the massive Arthurian tetralogy, The Once and Future King. Begun in 1939 with the publication of the first volume (The Sword in the Stone, itself well-known as an individual novel, and later made into a Disney animated film), the tetralogy was published in an omnibus volume in 1958, became a nationwide best-seller, inspired the musical Camelot, one of the most popular shows in the history of Broadway, and was later made into a big-budget (and not terribly successful) movie. Gloriously eccentric and full of whimsy and delightful anachronism, hilarious and melancholy by turns, poetically written and peopled with compassionately-drawn characters, The Once and Future King is probably one of the two or three best fantasies of the last half of the twentieth century, seriously rivaled for widespread impact only by J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; it also takes its place with works by Mallory, Tennyson, and Twain as one of the major reworkings and interpretations of the Arthurian legends.