by Richard Swan
As she walked she discovered that her fingers were unconsciously twisting her ring slowly round and round on her left hand. Awareness of the action brought back Sir Gawain’s words, that this ring had been made by Merlin himself. She paused briefly to examine it. She had noticed before that it seemed to shine with its own light, and that effect was greater here. She had half hoped that by coming into Faërie the engraving on the bezel would begin to make sense, but it was unchanged. It remained a series of lines, not forming an image, and if they were supposed to be letters they weren’t in any script she knew about. She wondered if they were like hieroglyphs, and that she needed to find someone who could read them. Merlin! Could that be true? And what languages might Merlin have used, or invented? There was no way of knowing, and beyond the sense that the ring gave a greater focus to her own power, there was nothing she could do.
She walked on. Her encounter with Sir Gawain had left her more intent than ever on her single purpose of following the unicorn, and she found she was less distracted by the things she sensed around her. The forest was open here, with huge and ancient oak-like trees that were widely spaced and which permitted her to see some way into the distance. There were animals and birds everywhere, but none that looked threatening or that took any notice of her. There were buildings too, the first that she had definitely seen since leaving her own world. Flashes of colour like the ones she had noticed earlier resolved themselves into pennons, fluttering proudly over tall battlements at the limit of her sight. Nearer, there was a small low stone building like a little chapel, and she wondered whether this was the hermit’s cell that Sir Gawain had mentioned. Melody paused and wondered whether to go over and see if she could find the holy man, and perhaps ask him more questions about the forest. She decided against it, because the chapel was still some distance away from the unicorn’s path, and she remembered Erec’s instructions about the way Faërie worked. She might no longer be in Faërie itself here, but in this forest she was sure that the rule held more crucially than ever. Decide what you desire, hold that in your heart, and make your way directly towards it. Do not be distracted, do not turn aside, and do not change the object of your desire. She wondered whether that was what had happened to Sir Gawain. He thought he was questing for the Holy Grail, but she knew that the Knights of the Round Table were famous for seeking glory and honour by doing brave deeds. They fought monsters and dragons, and saved innocent damsels. In that case Sir Gawain would never reach the Grail, because he would always find adventures that gave him glory and renown. Only somebody absolutely single-minded, Sir Perceval perhaps, would ever reach their goal.
Her own objective was clear, and simple. She left the chapel behind on her left and followed the unicorn’s trail through the lovely forest.
The Heart of the Forest
The glade was like any other. There was nothing to distinguish it from several that Melody had passed through, yet she was aware of a difference as soon as she stepped out into it. There was a quality in the air, a clarity and an intensity that made everything minutely clear, as if seen through a powerful magnifying lens. The image of each leaf on the trees, each blade of grass, each flower was imprinted on her mind like a photograph. And on the far side of the glade, dappled and hidden in the shade of the first tree, was the unicorn.
Except that ‘hidden’ wasn’t the right word, Melody thought. Rather, the shade and the tree were part of the unicorn, and the unicorn was part of the shade and the tree. They were a completeness, a unity, and Melody saw that the unicorn contained the whole forest, just as the whole forest contained the unicorn. No wonder that the forest was enchanted when the unicorn stood at its heart.
As if it had been waiting for her arrival, the unicorn came forward into the open and stopped. It was smaller than a horse, for which it could never be mistaken, and its head wasn’t much higher than hers. Only the horn soared over her, alight with its own glory. Time stopped, the world held still. Even the grass fell silent. As she stood there, rapt, Melody realised how stupid all the stories were about humans capturing unicorns, about maidens singing to them and knights with golden halters tying them up. If a unicorn wished to be near a human that was one thing. But it would never be the human’s decision. Transported beyond time, Melody stood and waited, although she had no idea what she waited for. It was sufficient to be here, and if she remained for eternity, never moving again, she would be content.
To begin with Melody couldn’t look into the unicorn’s eyes. It was too intense, like a light so bright that the eyes closed involuntarily. Melody looked instead at the unicorn’s mane, at its flanks, at the way it stood on the welcoming grass. Then she found herself moving forward, although without any conscious choice. It was as if she was being drawn towards the unicorn, or being summoned by it. Soon she was as close as she had been in Oxford Street, but the effect was altogether different. In London she felt she had been in her own world, into which the unicorn had ventured. Here was the unicorn’s own place, and Melody was the stranger, the outsider. Or perhaps, she reflected, it was more like seeing someone behind a curtain and then with the curtain drawn back; the person was the same, but the awareness of them was more intense, more intimate. She stopped a pace away. She could have reached out and touched it, but had even less inclination to than before. Here it would be sacrilege to disturb such a creature, a violation.
Gradually, although the unicorn did not change, she did. Its brightness was not diminished, but she could bear it. Greatly daring, she raised her eyes to meet its gaze.
Her rational mind knew the danger of doing that. To look into the eyes of an immortal creature is to risk oblivion, of forgetting yourself so completely that you might cease to exist as a human being. You are in thrall, and whether you ever return to yourself and the world you know is no longer in your control. If the creature wants you to walk off a cliff, you do it. Yet Melody welcomed her thraldom. She felt no fear of the unicorn, only a total, unconditional love. And she found her love answered. The unicorn had no wish to enslave her or harm her or take her away from her world forever. It wished to speak to her.
She found that she could understand it. It didn’t have a voice, but it didn’t need to. Ideas in the unicorn’s mind were communicated to hers as if the two were one. She was almost overwhelmed by the jumble of impressions that reached her. She sensed endless forests in a myriad of worlds, creatures of a thousand kinds, many familiar and some bizarre beyond imagining. She sensed other unicorns, in ones and twos, and occasionally in great waves, sweeping across distant plains like the tide. Whether these were all the unicorn’s own visions, or the shared memories of its race, she couldn’t tell. Her mind was filled with wonder, and awe.
Gradually the kaleidoscope of sensations began to recede and a few more definite images emerged. There were pictures of her own world, a dark wood somewhere she didn’t recognise, with a deep pool and a great stone standing beside it. There was the king of the feys, standing in his own realm and speaking to a figure she couldn’t distinguish. And, increasingly, two forms began to take shape. One was a woman, with long fair hair and a pale calm face. It wasn’t anybody she knew. And there was a man, stooping slightly with age but still strong and tall, and whose face she couldn’t see.
Who were these people, she wondered, and why was the unicorn showing them to her? For she was certain that the unicorn was choosing what she saw, that these figures were being seen for a reason. As if in answer Melody felt the ring on her finger grow hot. The ring from another world, the ring that Sir Gawain had said was made by Merlin.
Merlin! Was it possible that the stooping figure was Merlin? Then who was the woman? Her image remained clear in Melody’s mind, so that she would know her instantly if they ever met. But in what age of the world did she exist? In Merlin’s time, or her own, or in some other age of which she could not guess?
Unbidden, a recollection of her own surfaced, and she shared it with the unicorn as it had shared its memories with her. She was once again
on Ealing Common, and a dryad was intoning strange words.
Not in the air
Not in the ground,
Not on water,
Not on land,
Not in fire,
Not in the sun,
Not in all,
Not in one.
Where was such a place? Not here, that was clear, and the prophecy hadn’t pointed towards her meeting with the unicorn. The answer lay far away, and the unicorn was only part of her destiny, not its completion. Did the unicorn know where she was bound? She got no impression from it, only a further swirl of pictures that didn’t make sense to her.
Bewildered, she tried to focus her questions to the unicorn itself. What did the prophecy mean? Where was she to go?
The response was immediate. The unicorn didn’t know the answer to the first question. To Melody’s disappointment the words meant nothing to it, and it could give Melody no guidance as to their significance. On the second question, however, the answer was emphatic. Melody must return to her own world, and must do so directly. The unicorn conveyed a sense of urgency, of need. That was curious, because Melody was sure it wasn’t the unicorn’s own need. Nor was it Melody’s personal need, although her desire to return home was considerable. No, there was a feeling that greater events were taking place, and that Melody was somehow a part of them. Melody was needed. That was all she could make sense of.
With that understanding, Melody’s wish to return to her own world became overpowering. She had reached the furthest point of the journey, following the unicorn all the way until she found it. Now she must turn around and retrace her steps, go back to where it all started. Why then had she come all this way? She didn’t see how finding the unicorn had helped her.
As if reading and sharing all her thoughts, the unicorn took a pace forward. Gently, infinitely slowly, it lowered its head until its horn was pointing straight at Melody. It moved again until the very tip of its horn touched against Melody’s forehead, so gently she wasn’t sure it had even happened.
The effect was profound. Melody felt that she had been filled with light, that her mind and heart were rapt by a beauty too great for comprehension. She saw things more clearly, understood them better. The unicorn, Melody realised, wasn’t ‘it’, but ‘she’. She could look in her eyes without fear, and knew the unicorn was giving her a blessing.
Yes, the unicorn said, that is so. You are one of us now, and thereby special amongst humans. Few, very few, have been thus favoured. Go towards your destiny, and remember that we are always with you.
Melody could hear the unicorn’s voice clear in her mind, but had no words in answer. The experience was too new, and she had nothing to say except to offer her thanks and praise.
We understand that. We can part, you to tread your own path, and I to tread mine. We shall meet again, if that is what is destined to be. Meantime we are never alone.
The unicorn stepped back, gazed once more at Melody, then turned and was gone, a shadow amongst the shadows beneath the trees.
Melody breathed again. With her new awareness she knew that in human terms her encounter with the unicorn had lasted only between one breath and the next. Within it, time had no meaning and no duration.
With a silent farewell in the direction the unicorn had taken, Melody turned and faced the way she had come. There was no need to wonder how she would find her way back. Like the unicorn she would forge her own path, and it would always be absolutely straight. To others she might seem to turn or change direction, but in fact she would always be moving in an unwavering line.
Without hesitation she stepped forward and made her way through the trees. The enchantments of the forest were still there, but they no longer distracted her, because she was part of the enchantment herself. The trees, the animals, the birds all watched her, no longer with curiosity but with wonder, knowing what she was. The hermit’s cell, the castle walls, all were passed by without a thought, because they did not affect her.
She had no idea how long it had taken her to find the unicorn in the heart of the forest, but her return journey took hardly any time at all. Before she had become accustomed to her new clarity of vision and understanding of what lay around her, she had reached the protective belt of trees that encircled Brocéliande. Stepping through the parting branches, she emerged on the moor. There were three dryads waiting for her, but they made no attempt to speak. They bowed low, and she passed them without a glance.
She was back in Faërie, and the difference was instantly clear to her. Where Faërie had seemed so magical when she had entered it from her own world, after the Forest of Brocéliande it seemed almost normal, with no sense of enchantment at all. She wondered if it was always so, that the impression of one world depended so greatly on its comparison with the one you had just left behind.
She paused to consider what this realm contained. The king of the feys, yes, and she knew he would meet her before she crossed the border back into the human world. He had greeted her on her arrival, and he would want to see her before she departed. That was the nature of his kingship.
And Erec. She hadn’t quite forgotten Erec while she’d been in the forest, but the memory of him had been submerged beneath her new experiences. Now the thought of him resurfaced, and she looked about her. He hadn’t been waiting for her when she came out of the forest, and she wondered where he was. Should she look for him? No, there was no question of that. It wasn’t part of her purpose. Would he find her? It was possible. It depended, she knew, on his own desires, whether he wished to see her or whether he, like the unicorn, had his own path that he was travelling, and which would not cross hers. Well, if he desired to find her he would. She put the thought aside, and set off across the moor.
The king of the feys, standing where he had stood before, watched with no less curiosity as Melody reappeared, and with an added sense of wonder. Never in all his memory had a human walked thus. Never had a human been affected by a unicorn in the way this one had been, and few enough had been affected at all. His kingdom was silent around him as she approached.
‘I see that you have used your time in Faërie wisely, and found what you sought.’
The human girl was slow to answer, and her eyes had a faraway look as if she was considering something beyond what lay around her. In truth she did not seem like just a human girl any more. When she had arrived in his realm the king had recognised her peculiar intensity. That intensity had not lost its strength, but had gained a dimension that reached beyond the merely human. And so the king knelt before her.
Slowly her eyes came to rest on her face. ‘You should not kneel, My Lord. And although I have achieved what I came here for, it seems only the start of what may come after.’
The king smiled, but made no attempt to rise. ‘Assuredly. Any action, any quest, is only part of a greater pattern.’
The girl’s eyes focused more sharply on him. ‘What do you know of patterns, My Lord? Can you see mine? Can you see where I have to go?’
The king thought about this. ‘I spoke generally. I sense patterns, see their webs around me. That is why I am the king, and why I know what my people do. It is why I knew you would come this way at this time, and why I waited here for you. But of the greater design, of which you are part, I do not know. The threads end here, where your world intersects mine. I can see your path as it returns you to your world, but where it will take you then I cannot foretell.’
The girl nodded. ‘Yes. My path takes me back. So neither you nor I know clearly what lies beyond that.’ She smiled. ‘Good, we are agreed on this. Lord, give me your blessing, and let me go.’
The king smiled in return and rose to his feet. ‘Let you go? Who am I, to stay your coming and your going? You move freely where you will, and few will dare to cross you. None in this world, although I cannot say what may happen in yours. So, go with my blessing, and may the light always shine on you and from you.’
‘Thank you, My Lord. Blessed by a unicorn and by a king! Truly
my journey here has been a greater thing than I expected.’ She paused. ‘There is one thing more. The fey, Erec, whom I met here. I have not seen him, or sought him since I left the Forest of Brocéliande, but I thought he might have sought me.’
‘The fey? Yes, I have seen him, and spoken to him. He told me where you went, and what you have done. You will not see him before you leave my realm, because that is not your path or his, yet I sense that you will meet him again. Who knows? If his desire is strong enough, he may follow you even into the human world. Or you may return here at some future time, and meet him then.’
He could see that his answer didn’t entirely satisfy the girl. Human beings, he knew, liked neat endings. She would have wished to have said goodbye, at least for the present. Yet her path did not permit that, and she accepted it.
‘Then farewell, Lord. May your kingdom flourish.’
‘And yours also.’ The king watched Melody leave, walking softly across the grass that welcomed her step, yet shaped its wonder beneath her feet as she passed over it.
The tree that marked the boundary between Faërie and her own world looked like any other, yet to Melody’s perception it was marked out as if by a neon sign. She had only to walk under its boughs and she would find herself back home, amidst the sights and smells of London. It was tempting to plunge straight on, but she stopped. This, she knew, was in some ways the most dangerous moment of all. Not that there was a physical threat, nothing that might attack or prevent her. The peril was not about event, but time. How long had she been absent? If it was hours or days she didn’t think there would be much of a problem. It if was months, or years, who could tell what might have changed? People she knew might have moved, or died. And if it was more than years … Melody refused to contemplate that possibility. Her mind wasn’t equipped to cope with the implications.