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

“Where’s that fish?” said the sour voice of Jope.

“It was here,” said another one. “I smelled it.”

“Without the fish the ceremony is null—”

“Where, oh, where—?”

“There’s the fish,” tolled Vush.

Tanaquil became aware that something hot and furry sat byher leg, and from its pointed face, out of its motionless jaws, drooped three inches of silvery green tail.

Tanaquil snatched the made fish from the other cup.

“Behold!” cried Tanaquil. “I choose the fish that is made. But my peeve has chosen the fish which may be eaten.”“Sacrilege!” moaned Jope. “The ancient ritual has been mocked. Am I to put up all that fee for her now?”

“This is certainly very grave,” said Vush.

Tanaquil confronted the ring of wicked-looking masks, thelaughable dangerous darkness of these men, who were probablyeven madder than her mother, and much more unjust.

“What punishment for eating the fish?” moaned the wretchedJope.

“The fish,” muttered Tanaquil, “the meat, the soup, thestairs, the door—I put you together out of bones and clockworkand you came alive—Is this a spell I’m making? Where are you?”

“She’s seen our hall,” said Vush, “and the ritual of member ship. But she can’t join. It would be bad luck on us all.”

“It’s the harbor for her,” said a voice she recalled.

7

The wall under the letters, hammer, and chisel changed. Then, quite easily, it parted. There again were treetops and a darker, bluer sky of wilder stars. Pernickety as a cat, the unicorn came,as if on shoes of glass, in through the opening, down across thehall. There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm ofan elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold, and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air,and water.

This time I did call it. Or every time I did.

At her feet Tanaquil heard the peeve swallowing the wholefish in one gulp. And the unmuffled drum of her own heart.

Then one of the artisans shrieked.

“It’s the Sacred Beast! Fly! Save your lives! The city’s lost!”

And somehow the mechanical chairs were knocked over, and the shut door to the corridor was wrenched open, and out of itthe artisans sprang and sprawled with masked shouts and fright ened thumps.

The unicorn, mild-mannered as a deer, trotted lightly afterthem. It went by Tanaquil like a wave of stars. She thought sheheard the music of its bones and of a night wind wrapped aboutthe horn.

As the unicorn passed through the door and along the corri dor toward the outer exit, the peeve tugged on its lead to follow.And once more Tanaquil was propelled to chase the night-dreamthing.

In the corridor the plaster heads turned and poked out theirtongues irrelevantly, and then there was the street beyond theopened pillared door. And down the street rushed the artisans intheir secret regalia, revealed, speechless now in the single-mind edness of panic. With the unicorn dancing after.

Tanaquil hauled on the leash. “No—let it go—I shouldn’thave—no—no—” And the leash snapped and the peeve bounced out into the street, pursuing maybe only its old fantasy of a mealor a treasure—the bone—and Tanaquil walked after. She forced her mind to do some work, while her feet tried not to run.

How had the unicorn entered the city? She saw it leap fromthe sky like a falling planet. But no, the event had been moresimple. She seemed to see the narrow gate through which she had come in, and one soldier asleep by a wine flask, and the otherstanding idle, regarding something come quietly up out of thegroves and orchards of the plain. A horse? Yes, a fine horse lostby some noble. And the horse came to the gate, and the soldierwho was not drunk enough to be asleep smiled on it, and tried to pet it, and somehow could not. But he undid the entry to thecity, and like a vapor the unicorn went in. “Horse-horse,” said the soldier fondly. “One day, I’ll have a horse.”

There were torches burning along the street at intervals, andhere and there a lamp hung in a porch or a lit window gave its stained glass brilliance.

Through cold arches of shadow and cold blasts of light thefleeing artisans milled. They panted like rusty bellows now, andsometimes groaned or cursed. One or two craned over their shoulders, now and then, and, seeing the slender blackness oftheir terror still nimbly prancing after, made fresh rushes of flight that soon broke down.

Nobody looked out to see what went on. The city was fullof noises day and night. They met with no one, either.

However, at its end, the street was crossed by another, awide avenue of special splendor. It was lined by lions of gildediron, and had lamp standards with lanterns of sapphire, green, and crimson glass. People were passing under these, and therewas something of a crowd at the road’s edges, standing andlooking along the street with mild concern.

The artisans had no charity for this barrier. They plungedinto it, hitting out and blustering advice to run or at least to get out of the way. But the crowd rounded on them intrigued, gesturing at the masks: “Look, it’s the Artisans’ Guild! They’veall gone crazy.” And when the artisans, breathlessly blasphem ing, laid about them with sticks and fists, the crowd responded inkind. A spectacular fight began.

Tanaquil, about eighty feet behind, took her eyes from the

upheaval. She saw the unicorn had stopped, clear as the statues inthe lights of the avenue. The surging crowd seemed not to see it there. “No,” said Tanaquil again, “don’t.” And the unicorn, as ifit heard and would tease her in its sublime unearthly way, turnedto the side with a little flaunting, horse-like gambol. There was agarden or an alley there, and into it the unicorn minced.

Tanaquil ran. She caught up to the peeve, who was runningstill. And at a gap between tall houses, both came to a halt. They peered down a tunnel of dark, and nothing was in it. Once more.Vanished.

The peeve sat on the road and washed vigorously, as if it hadjust been running for exercise, not chasing anything.