Had she seen the unicorn? Truly seen it? Had it been real?
The questions left her dazed. She could not move. Then, slowly, purposefully, she rose to her feet, shouldered again the golden bridle, and moved with quiet determination in search of her answers.
She searched all that day. Yet she did not search so much as follow, for there was a sense of being led that she could not explain. She climbed through the tangle of rocks and trees and scrub that carpeted the uneven heights of the Melchor and sought a thing that might not even be. She thought she saw the black unicorn several times more, brief flashes only—an ebony flank, an emerald eye, a ridged horn shining with magic. It did not occur to her that her efforts might be misdirected. She chased quite deliriously and without regret. She knew that the unicorn was there, just beyond her reach. She could feel it waiting for her; she could sense it watching. She did not know its purpose, but she was certain of its need.
Nightfall found her less than a mile west of Mirwouk, exhausted, still alone. She had traversed the forest all about the aging, crumbling fortress. She had retraced her own steps several times. She was no nearer the black unicorn than she had been when she had first spied it, but she was as determined as ever that she would catch up to it. At dawn, she would try again.
She lay down within a sheltering of birch, hugged the bridle of spun gold within its woolen covering close against her breast, and let the cool night air wash over her. Slowly the heat of the day faded, and her exhaustion slipped away. She slept undisturbed and dreamed once more.
Her dream this night was of dozens of white unicorns chained and fettered and begging to be set free. The dream was like a fever that would not break.
From shadows close at hand, eyes of green fire kept watch through the night.
Ben Holiday and his companions spent that night within the Melchor as well, although they were still some distance from Mirwouk and Willow. They were camped just above the foothills leading into the mountains and lucky to be that far. It had taken them the better part of the day just to get out of the wastelands, and they had trekked on through the late afternoon and evening to reach the base of the mountains. Ben had insisted. The kobolds had found Willow’s tracks near sundown, and Ben thought they might catch up to her yet that day. It was only after complete darkness had set in and Questor had pleaded with Ben to be reasonable that the search was temporarily abandoned.
It resumed at daybreak, and the little company found itself less than a mile below Mirwouk by midmorning. It was then that matters began to grow confusing.
The confusion was manifold. In the first place, Willow’s trail was leading toward Mirwouk. Since she wasn’t carrying the golden bridle to Ben—or Meeks disguised as Ben—it was somewhat uncertain what it was that she was doing with it. Possibly she was searching for the black unicorn, although that didn’t make much sense, since in her dream the black unicorn had been a demon creature that threatened her, and she still didn’t know that the dream had been sent by Meeks. Whatever she was doing, she was definitely going toward Mirwouk, and Mirwouk was where Questor’s dream had taken him in search of the missing books of wizard magic and where, in fact, the missing books had been found.
In the second place, the kobolds had discovered that twice already Willow’s tracks had retraced themselves. Sylphs were fairy creatures and not in the habit of getting lost, so that meant either she was searching for something or following something. But there was no indication at all of what that might be.
In the third place, Edgewood Dirk was still among the missing. No one had seen the cat since they had departed their shelter of two nights earlier, following Bunion’s return with Parsnip and the news of Willow’s tracks. Ben hadn’t paid much attention to Dirk’s absence until now, too caught up in his search for Willow really to notice. But confronting these other puzzles had led him almost without thinking to look around for Dirk, perhaps in the vain hope of getting a straight answer from the beast for once; but Dirk was nowhere to be found.
Ben took it all in stride. There wasn’t much any of them could do to clear up the confusion just now, so he simply ordered them to press on.
They crossed Willow’s tracks a third time within a stone’s throw of Mirwouk, and this time the kobolds hesitated. The new trail was fresher than the old. Should they follow it?
Ben nodded and they did.
By midday, they had circled Mirwouk almost completely and crossed Willow’s tracks yet a fourth time. Now she was moving away from the aged fortress. Bunion studied the tracks for several minutes, his face almost pressed up against the earth in his effort to read the markings. He announced finally that he couldn’t tell which tracks were more recent. All seemed quite fresh.
The members of the little company stood staring at each other for a moment, undecided. Sweat lay in a thin sheen across the faces of Ben and Questor, and the G’home Gnomes were whining that they were thirsty. Abernathy was panting. Dust covered all of them like a mist. Eyes squinted against the glaring light of the sun, and faces grimaced and tightened with discomfort. They were all weary and cross and they were all sick and tired of running around in circles.
Though anxious to continue, Ben was nevertheless reluctantly considering the idea of a lunch break and a brief rest when a crashing sound brought him sharply about. The crashing sound was of stone breaking and falling. It was coming from the direction of Mirwouk.
He looked at the others questioningly, but no one seemed anxious to venture an opinion.
“Couldn’t hurt to check it out at least,” Ben declared and resolutely started off to investigate, the others trailing with various degrees of enthusiasm.
They picked their way upward through the tangle of scrub and trees, watching the crumbling walls and towers of Mirwouk appear through breaks in the branches and rise up before them. Parapets loomed against the skyline, ragged and broken, and shutterless windows gaped emptily. Bats darted past in shadowy bursts and cried out sharply. Ahead, the crashing sounds continued—almost as if something was trapped and trying to break free. The minutes slipped away. The little company approached the sagging gates of the fortress and drew to a halt, listening.
The crashing sounds had stopped.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Abernathy announced darkly.
“High Lord, perhaps we ought to …” Questor Thews began, then stopped as he saw a look of disapproval cross Ben’s face.
“Perhaps we ought to have a look,” Ben finished.
So they did, Ben leading, the kobolds a step behind, the others trailing. They passed through the gates, crossed the broad outer courtyard beyond, and slipped into the passageway that ran from the secondary wall to the inner courtyard and the main buildings. The passageway was long and dark and it smelled of rot. Ben wrinkled his nose in distaste and hurried ahead. There was still only silence.
Ben reached the end of the tunnel a dozen steps ahead of everyone and was thinking to himself that he might have been smarter to send Bunion ahead to look things over when he caught sight of the stone giant. It was huge and ugly, a featureless, rough-hewn monstrosity that looked like the beginning stages of some novice sculptor’s efforts at a tribute to Hercules. It appeared to be just a grotesque statue at first, standing there in the middle of the inner courtyard amid a pile of stone rubble. But then the statue moved, turning with a ponderous effort that sounded of rock grating on rock, and it became immediately apparent that this particular statue was very much alive.
Ben stared in bewilderment, not quite certain yet what to do. A sudden tumult rose from the tunnel behind him, and the others of the company emerged in a rush and practically ran over him in their haste to get clear. The G’home Gnomes were no longer whining; they were howling like injured cats. Abernathy and Questor were both yelling at once, and the kobolds were hissing and showing all their teeth in an unmistakable display of hostility. It took Ben a moment to realize that they weren’t responding to anything they saw at this end of the tunnel but to something they
had seen at the other.
Ben peered hurriedly past the frenzied group, neck craning. A second stone giant had entered the passageway and was lumbering toward them.
Questor grasped his elbow as if he might strangle it. “High Lord, that is a Flynt! It will smash us to dust if we let it get close enough …! Ecchhh!” He saw the second one now, as it, too, lumbered forward. “Two of them! Run, High Lord—this way!”
The kobolds were already moving, leading the pack of them across the courtyard to an entryway that disappeared into the fortress proper. The first Flynt had joined the second and both were in pursuit, shambling giants that moved like bulldozers.
The company burst through the entryway and galloped up a flight of stairs.
“What’s a Flynt?” Ben demanded of Questor as they fled. “I don’t remember your telling me anything about Flynts!”
“I probably didn’t tell you anything, High Lord,” Questor acknowledged, breathing hard now. His robes tangled in his feet and he almost went down. “Drat!” He straightened, moving quickly on. “Flynts are aberrations—a creation of old magic, stone monsters brought to life. Very dangerous! They were sentinels of this fortress once, but I thought they were all destroyed centuries ago. Wizards created them. They don’t think, they don’t eat, they don’t sleep, they barely see or smell—but they hear everything. Their intended purpose was to keep intruders out of Mirwouk, but of course that was a long time ago, so who knows what they think their purpose might be now? They seem rather intent on just smashing things. Ugh!” He slowed momentarily and somehow managed to look genuinely thoughtful. “Odd that I didn’t come across them when I was here last.”
Ben rolled his eyes and pulled the wizard ahead.
They reached the top of the stairwell and emerged on a parapet roof about the size of a tennis court. Rubble littered the playing surface. There were no referees in sight and only one other way out—a second stairwell at the far end. The company broke for it as one.
When they reached it, they found it blocked with enough timber and stone to build a set of bleachers.
“Wonderful!” Ben groaned.
“I told you I didn’t like this!” Abernathy declared with a bark that surprised everyone.
The Flynts emerged from the far stairwell, looked slowly about, and began to lumber toward them. Bunion and Parsnip moved protectively in front of the others.
Now it was Ben’s turn to grab Questor. “The kobolds can’t stop those things, damn it! Dredge up some magic!”
Questor moved hurriedly forward, robes flying, tall figure swaying as if he might topple over. He muttered something unintelligible, lifted his arms skyward, and brought them down in a grand sweep. Funnel clouds sprang up from out of nowhere, picked up the loose rubble, and hurtled it at the approaching stone monsters. Unfortunately, the funnel clouds also hurtled some of it back at Questor. The rubble bounced harmlessly off the Flynts. It did not bounce harmlessly off Questor; the wizard went down in a heap, unconscious and bleeding.
Ben and the kobolds rushed to pull the wizard back from further harm. The Flynts still lumbered forward, stone blocks and rubble cracking like deadwood beneath their massive feet.
Ben knelt anxiously. “Questor! Get up! We need you!” He slapped the fallen wizard’s face desperately, rubbed his wrists, and shook him. Questor didn’t move. His owlish face was pale beneath the blood.
Ben leaped back to his feet. Individually, perhaps, the members of the little company were swift and agile enough to evade these stone monsters. Perhaps. But that was before Questor’s injury. No one would get away trying to carry out the wizard, and they were certainly not about to leave him. Ben seized the medallion frantically and let go just as quickly. Useless. He was Meeks’ creation now, his medallion a worthless imitation. There could be no help from the magic; there could be no summons to the Paladin.
But he had to do something!
“Abernathy!”
The dog’s cold nose shoved into his ear, and he jerked away. “High Lord?”
“These things can’t see, taste, or smell—but they can hear, right? Hear anything? Anything even close to Mirwouk, maybe?”
“I am given to understand that the Flynts can hear a pin drop at fifty paces, though I often …”
“Never mind the editorials!” Ben pulled the dog about to face him, furry features held close, glasses glinting with sunlight. “Can you hit high C?”
Abernathy blinked. “High Lord?”
“High C, damn it—can you howl loud enough to hit high C?” The Flynts were no more than a dozen paces off. “Well, can you?”
“I don’t see …”
“Yes or no!”
He was shaking his scribe. Abernathy’s muzzle drew back, and he barked right in Ben’s face. “Yes!”
“Then do it!” Ben screamed.
The whole roof seemed to be shaking. The G’home Gnomes had fastened themselves to Ben once more, crying, “Great High Lord, mighty High Lord” in chorus and wailing like lost souls. The kobolds were crouched in front of him, ready to spring. The Flynts looked like tanks bearing down.
Then Abernathy began to howl.
He hit high C on the first try, a frightening wail that drowned out the G’home Gnomes and expanded the grimaces on the faces of the kobolds into a whole new dimension. The wail lifted and spread, cutting through everything with the tenacity of gastrically induced stress. The Flynts stopped in their tracks and their massive hands came up against the sides of their heads with a crash as they tried in vain to shut out the sound. It came at them relentlessly—Ben would never have believed Abernathy capable of such sustained agony—and all the while, they battered at themselves.
Finally, the pounding proved to be too much, and the Flynts simply shattered and fell apart. Heads, arms, torsos, and legs collapsed into piles of useless rock. The dust rose and settled again, and nothing moved.
Abernathy stopped howling, and there was a moment of strained silence. The scribe straightened and glared at Ben with undisguised fury. “I have never been so humiliated, High Lord!” he snarled. “Howling like a dog, indeed! I have debased myself in a way I would not have thought possible!”
Ben cleared his throat. “You saved our lives,” he pointed out simply. “That’s what you did.”
Abernathy started to say something more, stopped, and simply continued to glare voicelessly. Finally he took a deep breath of air, exhaled, straightened some more, sniffed distastefully, and said, “When we get those books of magic back, the first thing you will do with them is find a way to turn me back into a human being!”
Ben hastily masked the smile that would have been his undoing. “Agreed. The first thing.”
Hurriedly they picked up Questor Thews and carried him back down the stairway and out of Mirwouk. They encountered no further Flynts. Perhaps the two they had escaped had been the last, Ben thought as they hastened back into the trees.
“Still, it is odd that Questor didn’t see them the first time,” he repeated the wizard’s observation to no one in particular.
“Odd? Not so odd if you consider the possibility that Meeks put them there after he had the books, expressly to prevent anyone from coming back into the fortress!” Abernathy huffed. He would not look at Ben. “Really, High Lord—I would have thought you could figure that one out by yourself!”
Ben endured the admonishment silently. He could have figured it out by himself, but he hadn’t, so what was there to say? What he couldn’t figure out now was why Meeks would bother placing guards at Mirwouk. After all, the missing books of magic were already in his possession!
He dropped that question into the hopper with all the other unanswered questions and concentrated on helping the others lay Questor on a patch of shaded grass. Parsnip wiped away the dust and blood from the wizard’s face and brought him out of his stupor. Questor recovered after a brief period of treatment, Parsnip patched up his injuries, and the little company was back on its feet once more.
“This
time we follow Willow’s tracks—however many of them there are—until we find her!” Ben declared resolutely.
“If we find her,” Abernathy muttered.
But no one heard him and off they went again.
The heat of the midday sun settled down across the forests of the Melchor in a suffocating blanket and turned its cooling shadows tepid and dank. Morning breezes died away and the air grew thick and still. Insects hummed their toneless songs, leaves hung limp from their branches, and the warm-blooded life of the woodland lay patient and quiet. There was a slowing of time and purpose.
Willow paused at the base of a giant white oak, the weight of the spun gold bridle tugging relentlessly downward on her shoulders where it lay draped across them. A bright sheen of sweat coated the pale green skin of her face and hands, and her lips parted slightly as she worked harder to catch her breath. She had been walking since sunrise, following the black unicorn as it came and went in wisps of dream and shadow, trailing after as if she were a stray bit of dust drawn on in the wake of its passing. She had traveled the whole of the Melchor about Mirwouk half-a-dozen times over, crossing and recrossing her trail time after time, a senseless journey of whim and chance. She was west of Mirwouk now, scarcely a mile from the aged fortress, but she was barely aware of it, and it would have made no difference to her had she taken the time to think about it. She had long since ceased to care about anything but the subject of her search; all else had become irrelevant.
She must find the unicorn. She must know its truth.
She let her eyes glaze slightly with the memory of last night’s dream and wondered anew at its meaning.
Then she drew herself upright and continued on, a frail and tiny bit of life amid the giant trees of the mountain forest, a child strayed. She worked her way slowly through a grove of fir and pine clustered so thick that the boughs interlocked, barely glanced at a stand of Bonnie Blues beyond, and pressed upward along a gentle slope that led to a meadow plateau. She picked her way with careful steps, remembering wearily that she had passed this way before—once, twice, more? She wasn’t certain. It didn’t matter. She listened to the sound of her heart pounding through her neck and in her ears. It was very loud. It was almost the only sound in the forest. It became the measure of each step she took.