Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee (best e book reader .TXT) 📕

tent withthe wrong sorcerous signs embroidered over it, and on.

The market went downhill and was terraced to prevent ev erything tipping over. But Tanaquil’s gaze tipped all the waydown, and there below, in a rainbow frill of objects and actions,bluer than the sky, bluer than anything, was the sea. Contrasted to the flurry of the shore, slender ships glided slowly across thewater, on russet and melon triangles of sail. The fishy, salty scentsparkled like glass in the air, stronger than perfume, sheep, andpeaches.

“Oh, Mother,” said Tanaquil, “we salute the fish!”

“Now then, move along for God’s sake,” said a beefy manin an apron. He shouldered past.

“Be good,” said Tanaquil to the peeve, “and I’ll—” she hesitated. She had been going to promise to get the peeve somecooked meat from one of the stalls. But of course, she had no money. Indeed, she had never seen money except in Jaive’s coffer, and more recently at the dice games of the caravan. “Er,we’ll see,” said Tanaquil. They would not starve. She had, did she not, her fabulous magic “trick”? Instead of gawping at thebazaar, she should find a pitch and thrill the unsuspecting popu lace with the talking peeve.

They went into the market, and walked down the terracesthrough flares of blood-red silk and garlands of woven baskets.

The juggler was encouragingly earning a large pile of coins,tossed by the crowd. In another place a girl danced with bells onher wrists and ankles, and elsewhere boys made a living pyramid,and fire was eaten.

Tanaquil and the peeve came against a side of ox in which thepeeve was rather interested. As she tried to separate them, Tanaquil beheld another marble lion ahead. Seated between its feet was a man playing a pipe. As he played, he swayed, and out of thewooden bowl before him rose a swaying snake, itself with a skinlike a plait of bright money.

“Just look,” said Tanaquil to the peeve, prizing it off the oxcarcass. The peeve looked, for once obliging. Tanaquil realized she had made a mistake. “No—”

The leash burned through her fingers and was gone.

Like a flung brown snowball, the peeve demolished thedistance between itself and the marble lion. The crowd about the statue’s base parted with cries. The peeve skirled through. It rosesteeply. It landed.

There was a kind of explosion of tails, paws, bowl, pipe,snake. Fur and scales sprayed up in the air.

The piper stood baying and waving his arms, obviouslyafraid to intervene in this cyclone. The unsympathetic crowd laughed and jeered.

An awful clattering rebounded on the marble. The snake was gone, instead, a heap of scales and wobbling springs lay on thelion’s feet. The peeve, with a silver spine and head in its mouth,galloped at Tanaquil.

She caught it. “Bad,” said Tanaquil, inadequately. “You fool, it’s not even real—”

The peeve crouched at her feet, worrying the silver backboneof the mechanical snake and growling. It seemed slightly embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry—” Tanaquil hurried to the statue and lookedup at the snake charmer, who was picking over the shattered bitsof his act.

“Seventy-five weights of copper and three pence this costme,” he moaned. “Made by the finest craftsmen in the city. Nowsee.”

The peeve had followed Tanaquil, trailing its leash. “Give me that.” She got the spine and head from its teeth, and it seemedglad to forget them in a thorough wash. The head had facetedgreen glass eyes, and hinged jaws of ivory fangs. Tanaquil beganto try the springs back against their slots. “I think I can mend this.”

“No, no, just my rotten luck. Ruined.”

“Really, I think I can. I can mend things.”

The snake-charmer glared at her with tearful eyes.

“You’re an artisan?”

“Well—I suppose so.”

“All right. Do it then.”

“I’ll need some tools—”

“An artisan and no tools,” scoffed the embittered snake-charmer. He sat on the lion and refused to glance at Tanaquil, thepeeve, the crowd, or the snake.

“Over there, Bindat’s stall—he’ll lend you a few artisan things,” said a man who had come across from the meat rack. “Meanwhile, you can pay me for the bite your dog’s taken out ofmy ox.”

“I haven’t a penny,” said Tanaquil.The man surprisingly answered, “Have it free then. It wasworth it for the laugh.”

All afternoon, Tanaquil sat under the marble lion and re paired the mechanical snake.

It was quite a difficult job, but the further she went with itthe more she got the hang of what needed doing. The scales,which she had feared might be the worst task, merely linked into one another with tiny hooks.

As she worked, people stopped to watch. Ignoring the peevetied to a post and the snake charmer lurking on the lion, a fewinquired what Tanaquil would charge for mending a toy, a clock,a small watering device. Tanaquil said, “I charge half the going rate.”

This meant that by the time the sun westered, various itemshad been left in her care. The bazaar did not shut up shop with sunset; already lamps and torches were being lit.

“Here you are,” said Tanaquil raising the renewed snake inthe reddening light. “See if it will go.”

“Of course it won’t. Hair-fine mechanisms—”

“Just see.”

The snake charmer snatched the snake and cast it in the bowl as if he loathed it. But he blew a trill on the pipe. The snakestirred. To swaying melody, the snake flowed upward from thebowl and danced at the sunset.

The snake charmer took the pipe from his mouth, and thesnake hovered upright, gleaming.

“I won’t thank you. Your dog broke it in the first place.”

“No, please don’t thank me,” said Tanaquil. “After all, it might become a nasty habit.”She flexed her fingers, swallowed her hunger and thirst, and,taking up the two halves of a doll soldier, began again to work.Four hours later all the left items had been collected, and a pocketful of coins sat gleaming like the snake under the torches.

Somewhere a bell sounded. It was midnight. Looking up,Tanaquil found a ragged man in front of her. An iron cap wasover his head and covered his eyes. He probed an invisible voidwith his stick. A blind beggar .

“Clink, clink,” he said. “I heard the coins fall. Spare me a coin.”

Tanaquil