The Cracked Slipper

by Stephanie Alexander

  In the span of a second the cold liquid hit her belly, she blinked, and the room at Rabbit’s Rest disappeared. She was not in another room, nor was she outside. It was a nothing place. Blinding white light on all sides. Nothing, save for three objects in front of her.

  The first was a black and red silk bag, the colors of the Svelyan king. The second was a looking glass, backed with Fire-iron. The third item was harder to detect. It was a long white hair, wound upon itself. Its soft shimmer revealed it as a unicorn hair. It sat in the center of the mirror.

  Eleanor closed her eyes and began chanting. The words were in an old language, one the magicians and witches used in the eons past when there were few divisions between them. She continued for nearly half an hour, never altering the words or the pitch.

  As she spoke she sensed power lifting around her. She opened her eyes and glanced down at the mirror. Red steam rose from it. Without losing the beat of her chant, she leaned forward.

  She could see into the mirror, but her own face did not stare back at her. It seemed she looked through a great reddish heap of the palace cooks’ favorite gelatin dessert into a room she had never entered.

  It was about the size of a country chapel, with one door, held shut with a Fire-iron beam, and no windows. At least ten armed sentries and four unicorns stood patiently around a pedestal. On the pedestal sat a nondescript lump of raw Fire-iron.

  As Eleanor watched one of the unicorns threw up his head. He snorted, and his fellows joined in. They paced the room, clearly sensing something amiss. She focused her energy not on the Horn on the pedestal, but on the unicorn hair sitting on the mirror. Her chant grew louder, and her body shook as she pulled at the power swirling around her. She heard the unicorns whinnying in alarm, and the sentries shouting, but the sounds were muffled. Her eyes rolled in her head, and then snapped open.

  She had a glimpse of a long white face and panicked dark eyes before the red glow blinked out and the other room disappeared from the mirror. Caleb’s Horn sat on the glass, the white hair coiled around it like a constrictive snake.

  “What did you see?” said a distant voice. “What did you see?”

  Eleanor blinked again and the vision was gone. The white light, the mirror, the Horn; all of it. Rosemary sat in the chair beside her bed with the baby in her arms. “What did you see?” she asked again.

  “The Horn, I saw…or I felt…it being stolen.” Eleanor couldn’t find the right words. “I was…inside the thief…”

  “Then you know who stole it?”

  Eleanor rubbed her forehead. “It was the thief’s body, but it was my body just the same…the thief’s magic…my body…” She shook her fuzzy head in frustration. “I couldn’t see anything. No walls, no floor…nothing…the thief’s hands were my own.” She bit her lip. “There was something, though. Something familiar. Ach, I can’t remember! It’s like a dream…it makes sense yet I can’t explain it.”

  Rosemary took her hand. “The Oracle believes you can decipher it. Give it some time.”

  “There is the problem, Rosemary.” Eleanor said. She reached for her daughter. “Unfortunately time is something we are sorely lacking.”

  Dorian and his companions skirted the town of Harper’s Crossing and followed the edges of the Forest of Ten-Thousand Oaks. They crossed from Cartheigh into Kelland, and headed north toward the Border Pass, a channel of loosely connected, narrow canyons. The path had been marked hundreds of years before with stone crosses. It was a three-day journey to the Svelyan side of the Scaled Mountains, but Dorian hoped it would not take that long to catch up with Roffi.

  They reached the first cross early in the morning of the second day of travel. It had been drizzling on and off since they left the Forest. Dorian called them to a halt and dismounted. He pulled a long torch from a hook on his saddle. The soldiers looked at him curiously as he lit it and gave it to Teddy, the young guard from Solsea.

  “Sorry, sir,” said Teddy, “but can I ask why we’ll be needing this now? It’s broad morning.”

  “The tradactas,” said Dorian. “They fear fire. Between the unicorns and the flames they will leave us alone, at least during the day. I hope so, anyway. It’s very important you keep this torch lit, Teddy. I can only spare one man to carry it, and we have only this one torch. It will be black as tar up there tonight, and tradactas are night hunters.”

  Teddy nodded. He held the torch in front of himself as if his own breath might blow it out.

  As they entered the pass the canyon walls rose up on either side of them, as tall as ten men standing on each other’s shoulders. Water dripped down the granite walls, and the ground beneath the unicorn’s hooves was a soggy mess. Fat worms wriggled out of the churned-up mud. Senné lifted his feet high and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Sen,” said Dorian, “but it will get worse before it gets better. The melt comes down the channel. A month ago we might not have made it through here.”

  “It’s not just the wet,” said Senné. “I feel there has been magic here.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. They can’t be far ahead.”

  Dorian did not push them too fast over the slippery terrain. They plodded on through the morning and into the afternoon, eating as they rode. The dank smell seeped into their clothes and hair until Dorian no longer noticed it. Only the puff of the unicorns’ breath and the mud sucking at their feet broke the silence. As they passed the third stone cross the path dipped, then widened out.

  Senné balked. “I don’t want to go down there.”

  “We have no choice. That’s the way the path leads,” said Dorian. Senné slid down the low hill, his hooves leaving deep trenches in the mud, and leapt the stagnant pool at the bottom. He was calling encouragement to his fellows when his ears pricked.

  “What is it?” asked Dorian.

  The black stallion lifted his muzzle and inhaled sharply. “I heard something. A scratch against the rock.”

  Dorian eyed the canyon walls. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Maybe I am mistaken,” said Senné, but his ears continued to wave.

  The other two guards made it to the bottom of the hill. Only Teddy remained at the top. His unicorn was inexperienced as well. He sat back on his heels and refused to move. Teddy clucked to him, the torch waving in his hand, and finally he started forward. It looked as if they would make it until the unicorn dislodged a hidden rock, spooked, and lunged the rest of the way down the hill. Teddy was thrown onto his neck, and the torch flew from his hands. It landed in the muddy water and blinked out.

  “Damn it all, you fuckin’ young nimwit!” cursed one of the other guards, a crusty soldier from Maliana.

  Teddy righted himself. “I’m sorry sir, I’m so sorry. I’ll get it.” He started to slide down but Dorian stopped him.

  “We’ll make do, Teddy. Don’t dismount.”

  Teddy’s apologies were cut off by a high, keening screech. Senné nickered. “The tradactas are day hunters as well, I suppose.”

  A rock the size of a carriage wheel crashed into the canyon and split on the boulders below it. Dorian looked up.

  A tradacta stood on a rotted tree stump. It had a long white neck, and a black coat that resembled fur more than feathers covered the rest of its body. Its wings were small and useless, but each spindly gray leg ended in a horny foot whose long toes gripped the rock with claws resembling skinning knives. Dorian guessed it could look down on Senné if they stood on the same ground. Its head was tiny, but its yellow beak, as long as Dorian’s sword, more than made up for it. A pointed black tongue unfurled when it hissed at him.

  He drew his long bow, took aim, and shot, but it dodged. There was a frightening intelligence in its round black eyes. They seemed too large for its skull, like two meat platters crammed onto a tea table. It screamed again.

  “Oh, shit,” Teddy said.

  More white heads on slender necks floated up from behind the rocks. Dorian took a flint from his pocket and threw it at Teddy. “Find so
mething that will light,” he said. “Anything.”

  Teddy jumped down. He grabbed his saddlebag and dug through it. The tradactas didn’t give him long to search before they struck.

  Dorian leapt from Senné’s back to give the stallion more freedom to fight, and the other guards followed suit. He drew his sword and swung it wildly at one of the passing birds. The tradactas didn’t fly, but they were fast. They struck with their feet and beaks and were gone almost before the men saw them. Dorian regained his balance and focused.

  He swung true this time and sliced the attacking bird’s head cleanly from its neck. The head sailed across the gulley, its mouth gaping at him in surprise. Senné bucked and twisted and dislodged one clinging to his withers. The bird flipped up over his head, and he pierced it neatly with his horn. He and the other unicorns fought on, felling the creatures left and right, but even with Dorian and the two guards hacking them down as well, they kept coming.

  “There are too many!” Dorian screamed at Senné.

  A tradacta loomed in front of him. He feinted right, and his left arm swung away from his body. The bird darted in and Dorian felt a splash of warmth. He jerked his hand away and held it up. The bird had sliced off his smallest finger.

  He yelled and swung his sword, cutting off both its legs at the knee. It dropped to eye level, and he cut off its head.

  “Finley! Finley!” Two tradactas pinned the soldier from Maliana against the canyon wall. He had somehow lost his sword, and he clutched a short knife. Dorian ran to him but he wasn’t fast enough. One of the birds tilted its head. Dorian would not have believed anything’s neck could make such an angle. It opened its beak, and snapped the soldier’s head from his shoulders like a barber snipping off an errant hair. Dorian downed both of birds before they could drag the body away.

  “Teddy!” he screamed. “Teddy! The fire! We need the fire!”

  Teddy desperately banged the flint. “It won’t go, sir! Everything is too wet!”

  Dorian heaved himself onto the rocks, and leapt onto a passing tradacta. He wrested it into the mud and it collapsed on top of him. His arm disappeared to the elbow in its greasy feathers as he tried to find some way to grab hold of it. It dragged both of them a few paces through the mud. He could barely breathe through the feathers and the long-dead smell of its last meal. He finally found an angle and jabbed his sword into its belly. He pushed it off and furiously rubbed his hands in the mud, trying to dislodge the viscous blood already hardening on his skin like cooling wax. Senné’s long face appeared in front of him.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No.” As Dorian brushed the unicorn’s black mane out of his own face an idea came to him. He swung onto Senné’s back.

  “To Teddy,” he said. “Hurry!”

  Senné slid to a halt beside the frantic boy. Dorian pulled his dagger as he dismounted. “I’m sorry, Sen,” he said, “but I must do this. Be still.”

  Senné lifted his head once and then did as his master asked.

  “Teddy! Be ready with the flint.” Dorian grabbed Senné’s long black mane and cut it away. It drifted to the ground in thick chunks, curling as it fell. Teddy knelt down and struck the flint, once, then again.

  The fire roared up. Senné reared, but Dorian reached for his bridle and tugged him down. He grabbed his forelock and hacked it off. The blaze grew, and they had to back away.

  The tradactas retreated, tiny heads bouncing on their necks, their stubby wings waving. They screeched and hissed, but they didn’t stay. The last one disappeared over the lip of the canyon in minutes.

  “We’ll stay here tonight,” said Dorian. “We’re tired, and we can’t move this fire. We’ll find something to make a new torch tomorrow.”

  He spoke to the other three unicorns. “You will have to give up your manes, as Senné did.” They nodded and didn’t complain.

  “Thank you. I know it’s no small thing.” A stallion’s mane signaled his masculinity, like broad shoulders. Dorian tried to be light. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask that you cut off anything else.”

  He applied some herbs Mercy Leigh had given him to his hand, and tied a strip of cloth around it, and but his entire left arm throbbed. He asked Teddy and Jim, the other remaining guard, to dig a grave for their fallen comrade. By the time they were finished it was dark.

  “Sir,” said Teddy as they passed a loaf of hard bread. “Why did the unicorn hair start the fire?”

  “A unicorn’s hide, and hair, are impervious to heat and cold, fire and water. When you cut the hair off, it loses that quality. It becomes brittle in seconds,” Dorian said.

  “It’s shittin’ lucky for us you remembered,” said Jim. He brought out a flask, his hands shaking.

  “Better put that away,” said Dorian. “We need our wits about us. You two get some rest. I’ll take watch. I can’t sleep anyway with this hand.”

  The other two men propped their heads on their saddles. Senné stood over Dorian. The noise of the unicorn’s breathing comforted him. He watched the fire and pictured Eleanor, asleep with the baby curled on her chest. It had not been difficult to stay awake that night as she lay in his arms. He had watched the soft pulse at her neck, her eyelashes fluttering on her cheeks. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the scent of her. He was almost glad for her fragile condition. It would have been difficult to control himself otherwise. Even in her exhaustion and dishevelment she stirred him. He could still feel that ache now through the pain in his arm. The wound and the unrelieved pressure kept him alert.

  I suppose I will have to practice self-control.

  Not such a bad thought. There was more than one means to a satisfying end, and Dorian could be creative. He smiled through the pain at the idea, and let his imagination run wild for a while.

  He breathed easy as he watched the fire. Peace would be fleeting when they returned to Eclatant. The great lie he would have to purport sat beside him like an uninvited houseguest, but for now he let it lie with his contempt for Gregory’s cowardice. Somehow an answer seemed possible out here in the dark. For the first time in eight years he had followed his own path exactly. He enjoyed the memories, and Eleanor’s love, and the calm that came with making his own decisions.

  “Something is coming,” said Senné, sometime after midnight. The other unicorns nickered under their breath, and Jim and Teddy stirred.

  “What is it, sir?” asked Teddy, pulling out his bow. Jim did the same. “The tradactas again?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Senné.

  “Then what?” Dorian strained to hear something. He caught the sound of boots scuffling over stones, and then a few curses.

  “That’s no tradacta,” he said. An orange light appeared on the rocks.

  “Who’s there?” called Teddy. He raised his bow. Dorian hushed him. The light grew, and a man appeared, carrying a torch.

  It was Christopher Roffi.

  “Stop!” called Teddy. “Don’t come any closer!”

  Roffi squinted. Dorian saw the light of recognition in his eyes, and he ran at them with his hands up.

  “Put down your weapons,” said Dorian, but it was too late. Jim had already let fly with an arrow. It struck Roffi in the stomach. He kept going for a few paces before falling on his knees.

  “Damn!” Dorian ran to Roffi. He lifted him and dragged him toward the fire. Roffi’s legs buckled again, and Dorian knelt beside him.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Jim stammered. “I thought—”

  “Silence,” Dorian said. Roffi clutched the arrow protruding from his midsection. His hands were covered in blood.

  “Chris.”

  “I should have known you would come.” Roffi groped at the pocket of his cloak. “Here, here. Take it.” He held out a small red and black bag.

  Dorian peered inside. “I don’t understand. Why are you returning it to me?”

  Roffi spit, and beckoned Dorian closer. Dorian strained to hear his whispered reply. “I had to bring it back. I cou
ld not…I could not do it. I could not let her be taking the blame for this.”

  “Eleanor.”

  “Yes, Eleanor. Of course, always Eleanor.”

  Suddenly Dorian understood. He leaned toward Roffi. “You must say it,” he said. “Say it out loud so we can all hear you.”

  Roffi nodded and raised his voice. “Eleanor is innocent. It was not her doing.”

  Dorian turned to the guards. “Did you hear him?”

  They nodded, and Teddy ran to his saddlebag. He held up a stub of charcoal. “Perhaps if he wrote it down?”

  “No paper,” said Dorian. “No…wait.” He took out Gregory’s orders giving him permission to take Mercy Leigh to Rabbit’s rest. “Here.”

  He held the tattered paper for Roffi, who scrawled on it, his hand trembling. EBD Innocent. CR.

  Roffi’s hand dropped. He gasped for air. The firelight turned his white hair orange and the blood on his clothes black. His voice was a ragged whisper again. “He does not deserve her.”

  Dorian leaned even closer, until his mouth almost touched Roffi’s ear. “I hear you. I know it.”

  “You must take care of her.” He clutched at Dorian’s cloak. “I know we understand each other.”

  Roffi’s eyes rolled and he started raving. “I did it because I love my country. For my country.”

  “Chris!” Now Dorian fairly shouted in his face. “Who helped you? Someone in Maliana? Who stole the Horn for you?”

  Roffi’s eyes focused again for a moment. “I used Margaret Easton to be close to Eleanor…I planted the Horn in her room…but there was no reason for her to steal it…so we gave her a reason in me…a love affair with me. If only that part could have been the truth. Rumors…lies…all of it.” He coughed, and a gout of blood sprayed from his mouth.

  “But why? Why Eleanor? Why lay the blame on her?”

  “They hate her…both of them. She must be careful. Tell her, Dorian.”

  “Who? Who hates her? Who stole the Horn? Chris, you must say it!”

  “They hate her…” His body shook, and his voice trailed off. He was gone, and he took the names with him.