Black Unicorn Tanith Lee

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.But really she did not grasp what had happened.The sky was colossal, and the land too.And the unicorn raced.And faintly at her heels she heard the fur barrel of the peeve thump down after her, and the skitter of its paws pursuing her, as she chased the unicorn into the desert waste.Part Two4She was very cold.Perhaps she should get up and light the fire.Tanaquil opened her eyes.She was already on her feet, and her room had grown much too large.It had no furniture.There was a carpet of white snow, walls and high ceiling of pale black moonlit night.A sheet of horror fell down and enveloped her.She knew what had happened, what she had done.Of course, she had been enchanted or possessed—her meddling with the bones had seen to that.In thrall to the unicorn she had chased after it, in a mad trance.Now, coming to, she found herself on the face of the desert, and, turning slowly round, saw nothing anywhere that was familiar, but only the snow and the sand and the night, which were everywhere the same.Her mother’s fortress was not in view.The rock hills were out of sight.Something gleamed in the moonlight on the snow, coming down from a rise.It was a track created by the narrow hoof-marks of the unicorn.Each had filled with ice and curious greenness.Each shone like a pock of stained glass from Jaive’s shattered window.The other way the track led on across the snow into the distance.She must not follow this track.She must retrace the steps the way they had come.Her own footfalls had left no imprint.Tanaquil walked quickly along the glassy trail.She went up the rise.This must have taken a quarter of an hour.At the top she looked over and saw the snow and sand stretching to the edge of vision, nothing on it, no clue.And the weird trail of the unicorn had vanished.Some night wind had blown over and erased it.Had she really come all this way? She could not remember38 …it.It was as if she had been asleep, yet in the midst of an exultant dream, like those she had had before of running across the snow.Well, there were no doubts now.She had emerged from the ensorcellment and would freeze to death in a matter of hours.“No,” said Tanaquil aloud.There would be rescue.Jaive would send the soldiers after her.They would catch up to her soon, she had only to wait.Miles off, a jackal gave a wail at the moon.Tanaquil listened.Sound carried vast distances.Yet she could hear nothing of any soldiers.But then, they would have to come from the fort, they would be erratic and fuddled… could they find her? Probably Jaive would put the magic mirror into service.But again, there were no landmarks here.Even if Jaive gained a glimpse of her daughter, could she be sure where she was exactly?Tanaquil was now too cold to shudder.Her feet and hands were numb.She jumped up and down and beat her palms together.As she was doing this, she saw something bounding toward her.Was it a starving dog or antisocial jackal?Dressed for the dinner, she did not even have her knife.She must use her fists, then.“Hey!” shrilled the dog or jackal.It was neither.“Peeve—”“Rock,” said the peeve, flinging itself against her legs, “big rock with hole.”“Do you mean the hills?”“Rock,” said the peeve.It took a mouthful of her dress and pulled on her.Tanaquil gave up and ran with it.They hurried over the snow, sometimes slipping or falling.The night had become one large ache of cold and blundering.The rock seemed to appear from nowhere, looming up out of the dunes.Tanaquil had never seen it before.It was the size of a room and had a low doorway, a cave that pierced into it.Tanaquil and the peeve crowded in.It was a shelter, but felt no warmer than the open ground outside.In a shaft of the westering moonlight, Tanaquil began to see tufts and skeins of thorny plants growing inside the rock.The forlorn idea came that, if she had had her tinderbox, she could have made a fire.The peeve would survive in the desert, it was a desert animal.Unless it had forgotten how, from living at the fortress.When she sat down facing the cave entrance, the peeve got into her lap.They pressed close for warmth.“If my mother’s soldiers don’t find me…” said Tanaquil.She felt exhausted.She would drop asleep, and might not wake up again.She talked on determinedly.“But they will.What a fool I was.”“Gravy,” said the peeve, apparently for no reason.It slept.“How did you know about the bones?” asked Tanaquil.“The unicorn must have ensorcelled you, too.Must have drawn you there to dig them out.And I repaired it.And Jaive’s magic bolt brought it back to life.And…”If I don’t freeze, and live till morning, thought Tanaquil, I shall be fried alive by the sun.No, they’ll find me in the morning, or I’ll find my way to the fort.In the cave entrance the moonlit ice shimmered.A bright shadow came picking over it.Tanaquil clutched the sleeping peeve.She watched, rigid, as the unicorn came down across the white dunes, over the silence, to the mouth of the cave.There it lowered its fearful head, and its eyes like coals flamed in at her.Perhaps it will kill me.Then I won’t have to wait to freeze or burn.Tanaquil’s teeth chattered.The unicorn raised its head.Now she could only see its body, the hard slim greyhound curve of its belly and the long and slender legs.It pawed the stone floor just inside the cave.A shower of silver sparks littered through the air, and came in at the entry.They clustered on one of the dry thorny bushes growing in the floor.For a moment the bush seemed full of silver insects.And then curls of smoke were creeping from it.The bush was alight.“Oh!” Tanaquil rolled the peeve from her lap.’ On her knees in the low cave she crawled about, breaking off the twigs of the bushes to feed the blaze.Like something taking flight, the unicorn lifted away.It vanished, and only the moon shone on the snow, and the hot fire on the floor of the cave.Tanaquil dozed through the night by the miraculous fire, attentive so it should not go out.She fed in the sticks sparingly,40and the peeve lay luxuriously on a fold of her dress, stomach exposed to the warmth.Nothing else came near for the remainder of the night, and she might have accused herself of dreaming the unicorn, but for the fire.When the sky began to lighten, Tanaquil went out of the cave and scraped rime and snow off the top of the dunes, putting the sandy stuff in her mouth.She was not yet thirsty, but once the sun came she soon would be.The peeve did as she did, licking busily and congratulating itself.Tanaquil tore off a third of her embroidered skirt, leaving the bright blue petticoat to protect her legs.She fashioned a head covering from the skirt, and bound her hands with strips of the material.She cursed her shoes.The peeve became excitable as the sun rose.It bounded about the cave entrance.“Going? Going?”“Yes.We’ll go and see if we can’t meet someone.”The sky was a pale and innocent blue as they set off.It was pleasant at first after the harsh night.But they had to walk with the sun.Tanaquil kept her head down.The going was hard over the sand, as always.They went on for about an hour.Gradually the comforting heat of the sand changed.It started to bake and blister.Each step was a punishment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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