Some men say that unicorns may be killed by a maid and a golden bridle; others, that they may not be killed at all, but only in legend; and others, that they never lived at all, but only in legend. But the huntsmen of Rel know – ask them and they will say – that unicorns may die, for they have seen it in the forest of the King of Rel, where they hunt the deadly things of the wood and guard the unicorns that are sacred to the king. They guard, but the unicorns die – not by treachery of a maid, but by force of arms, of the rough ragged men who lurk in the king’s forest and know no king – who serve the Lady of Moriah, and bear to her the unicorns’ horns, to raise up her tower of ivory in the east of the kingdom by the sea. And so say the huntsmen of the kingdom of Rel.

Now the king of the land of Rel is a young man and kind, and none can remember the time when he did not rule there. He lives in a palace of white marble (which men there call ivory stone), at the edge of the forest that is called his, in the north of the kingdom where the mountains of Ater begin. And the unicorns thrive in the forest, and the people say – though no one yet living has seen it – that once in a time, in a year or ten years or fifty no one says, the king walks in his forest in the full of the moon and runs with the unicorns, with an ivory horn on his head and hooves on his feet and the shape of a unicorn on him; through the forest and the hills in the east of the kingdom to the sea. And the unicorn-king, and the unicorns sacred to him, sport in the sea and swim, and talk and hold council among themselves on such matters as concern unicorns and touch on the welfare of the kingdom. And then they run again in the hills, until the seawater is dried away and they themselves are weary with joy, and then the unicorns hide themselves in the king’s forest and sleep until they are strong, and the king goes into his palace and sleeps for three days only, and then rises and goes about the business of the kingdom once more. And this marvel no one yet living has seen, nor many of those before them, but the story is faithfully told in the land of Rel, for the king is beloved of his people and it is his own magic they are telling.

And there are other marvels men speak of in the land of Rel, concerning the Lady of Moriah who is (they say) older than their king, and who lives in a tower of ivory by the sea, whose foundation was laid before ever the king lived or was heard of (which is only to say that no one knows when it was that she came there or whence she came). And she dwells in her tower of ivory alone, which men say is made of the horns of unicorns, and she is little seen among the houses of men. And of the men of Rel most think little of her, though her tower of ivory looms in the southern sky, and some say she has magic to call storms, or to speak to the monsters of air and sea (but those men who follow the sea watch for her tower as they come to land, and these will swear they have seen it shining through storms to guide them). So the sailors think kindly of her, and the townsmen not at all, but the king’s huntsmen say that she hates the unicorns and lures them to death, or that her servants lurk in the woods to snare them and saw off their horns (without which they cannot live), and that she builds up her tower in despite and rebellion against the king. But he himself says no word of her, or when he hears such only smiles gently and sends his servants about their work, for he does not wish them to be angry. And about the tower of ivory he says no word, but often in the twilight he looks away to the south, where the sailors say it shines, and then he is silent for a long while together, until his servants rouse him with the kingdom’s tasks. And then he only smiles, and goes with them.

Now the land of Rel, with such a king and such a people, is a prosperous one, with colonies and allies, and enemies across the seas. And it happened one day, in the early months of spring, that a messenger came from the city of Ilgron across the sea, which the king founded, that it was under siege and endangered. And he read and was silent for a time, but he looked sad. And then came another messenger, weary and wounded; he brought no letter, but his own words and the witness of his eyes: that Ilgron had fallen, and not by the enemies without but treachery within. And then the king looked angry, but he spoke and met in council with his friends, and then he gave order to ready a fleet of forty ships, to bear him across the sea to Ilgron. And all was done as he said with haste, for a king’s anger is a hard thing to bear. And still in the early months of spring it was done, and the ships sailed from the city of Grath by the sea, and the king with them. But he left behind him his ministers in the towns, and the Masters of Ships in the port cities, and in the forest, closest to the king’s palace and to his heart, he left his huntsmen, who were servants to him and friends. And the chief of the huntsmen was Karrel, a good man and a strong one, who loved his king and the unicorns, and guarded them well.

Now in Karrel’s lifetime it had been seen that unicorns died, for, in his youth, they often were found in the forest with their horns sawed away and no life in them, but in the lifetime of his son (who was a young man, but not yet a huntsman) it was a thing unknown, and this did not change with the king’s going away. So the huntsmen hunted the deadly things and watched after the unicorns with joy, and Nils, Karrel’s son, ran and watched with them, and his joy was the greatest of them all, for he was young and had never grieved. And the forest prospered and the kingdom prospered, in the early months of spring when their king had left them, and so it was until the season of the summer storms arrived – for then it was that the first of the unicorns died.

In Karrel’s lifetime unicorns had died in the king’s forest, with their horns stolen away in the dark of night and their poor bodies buried in the field to the north of the forest, that faced the marble palace of the king, and to him it was an evil thing, but no new one. But to Nils his son it was a new thing and powerful, a wrongness crept into his world which before had known no wrong but those small and trifling, or else distant and vague, that hovered on the horizon like the tower in the southern sky. But this new thin was sharp and twistingly painful, finding in the forest that was his life a unicorn (for it was he that found the unicorn), living yet, but listless, its horn snapped away and gone, its loving gaze veiled by shadow. He stopped in horror as he saw it, all suddenly as he came to the edge of the clearing where it lay, at the edge of the shadows in the glade. It strained to raise its head, and stared at him dully, as if it would ease his hurt but lacked strength to try. A trickle of blood ran down from the base of the horn and the noble head drooped, though it still looked lovingly at him through the haze of death. He ran to it then, and took the poor head in his arms, and in that moment he felt the life go from it, so all its weight was heavy on his arms, and he wept for the life and the beauty that was lost. And weeping he stared into the shadows, and there by the unicorn’s head was a man, ragged and gray – one of those who hid in the forest and fled the king’s huntsmen, who (so they said) served the Lady of Moriah, and brought to her unicorns’ horns. He carried no weapon (but one hand was held in shadow) and his clothes were ragged and torn, blue faded to gray or gray stained blue in patches, and his hair was gray and ragged also. His face was somber, but the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile for Nils’ youth and for his love. And for that moment, that smile, Nils hated him, and hating drew his arm from under the head and took his dagger from his belt and drew back his arm to throw, all on the ground with the unicorn’s weight on his lap.

"If you did," said the ragged man, "you would kill one of your own."

"Who are you?" the youth cried, and the man answered, "I am Kolman, and I serve the Lady and the King." And he said no more, but the dagger trembled and fell back on the unicorn’s neck, scoring a thin line of blood on the smooth skin. And Nils cried out to his father, for he knew him to be near. But in the moment he cried out the ragged man was gone, and all that was left to them was to bury the unicorn in the field to the north of the forest, that faced the marble palace of the king. And the huntsmen and Karrel grieved, and Nils more fiercely than them all, and grieving they hunted through the forest for the ragged men, but they did nothing more, for Karrel said the king would have it so. And the months of storms began to pass away, and in the height of summer another unicorn died, and again they buried it in the field to the north of the forest. And still they kept to the forest at Karrel’s word, but still they grieved. And not so many days later another unicorn died, and this time as they buried it an old man among the huntsmen spoke of the yellow worms that in his early youth had haunted the forest and killed the unicorns, and the oldest of the huntsmen confirmed his word. And he said that it was these that had returned, though they had been hunted from the forest and known no more, for he had seen their marks on every unicorn that died. But a younger man said that worms never sawed off horns and took them away, and another remembered the man that Nils had seen, and others besides, and they blamed the Lady of Moriah and their anger burned hot against her. But Karrel set them to watch for the worms when they hunted the deadly things of the forest, for their slimy tracks or their nests under the leaves, and he kept them strictly to their work, for the king would have it so. And the season of storms passed, but still storms came, and now one man and another told of seeing a flash of yellow in the brush or a trail of slime on a stone, but still no worm was killed nor even seen, but only the yellow finger-long wrigglers that might have been their young or might have been harmless; no man knew. And then another unicorn died, and Nils following a party of huntsmen found it at nightfall, and some among them saw a flash of gray vanish into the trees. Then the huntsmen came in a body to Karrel and demanded of him that he act for the honor of the king’s name, for they said the Lady of Moriah raised a rebellion against him, and called the storms and killed the unicorns in his despite. And Karrel grieved for the unicorns, and thought long and sadly on the king’s command, and he determined at last to do as they said and go with them. But he commanded them to hold back from the tower until he had spoken with the Lady and known her mind, for he feared what their anger or her magic might do. And they promised him faithfully to obey, and so he bade them gather their spears and such weapons as they had and to march with him south to the tower of ivory by the sea. And they did as he commanded, and in the dark of a summer morning set out for the sea.

All through that day they walked, and in the heat of the afternoon came out from the shade of the forest and into the flat land, and when they came to the hills they rested. And all the next day and into the next they walked southeast through the hills, and in the morning of the second day they came to the sea. And all the rest of that day they walked along the shore, and when evening came, while the heat of the day still lingered, they camped on the sandy hills around the tower, for none of them wished to meet the Lady by night. But Karrel went alone to the foot of the tower, glimmering whiteness in the sea-blue dusk, and looked far up the spiraling wall of unicorns’ horns, all snapped-off pieces and thrusting points, heaped up by magic in whorls and curves and sudden rough angular lines, to the point where it suddenly ceased in a jagged crown of spikes, thrusting out at the sky. Just below the peak a narrow window faced the sea, braced on its four sides with smooth long shafts of horn; he stood below it and called up to the Lady, for he wished to what she would say. But the tower was silent and still and the Lady gave no answer. Finally he went back to the tents of the huntsmen, but he sat and stared for a long time over the sea. And the huntsmen talked warily into the night and finally slept, but Karrel slept last of them all.

In the morning the sun rose brilliant over the sea and the huntsmen awoke all at once, for the dappled shade of the forest was their home, and the brilliance of sun on sand was strange to them. But Karrel was the last to awaken, for his sleep was troubled by dreams. When he woke he went again to the foot of the tower and called to the Lady, but again the tower was still, and no answer came. He walked back to the tents then, slowly, for he was troubled in his mind as to what he should do, but as he passed the crest of the hill a curl of yellow in the sand caught his eye, some unknown sea thing, and he paused to study it, leaving aside the problem of the Lady – until it raised its head, and he leapt back, recognizing at last the lithe figure of the yellow worm of the forest! Its small mouth yawned open to show the two white teeth, long and curving like a foreigner's sword, glistening like a unicorn's horn emerging from the sea. Its eyes, too large for so small a serpent, were yet dead black, and glittered against the yellow skin splotched with brown like jewels on rotting cloth, old and deadly. It swayed there, yawning, and then his knife was out and he struck, but it swayed away from the blow and shot away into the sand and was gone. Anxiously he hurried back to the tents then, to give warning to the rest that the worms were about them here too. At his word they posted watchmen while they took council among themselves, but never another worm was seen, and they were divided among themselves as to what they should do. The sun rose higher and a breeze blew with it, and the huntsmen ate and argued and talked more and longer than before, and Karrel ate with them, but he said no word. At last they went in a body to look on the tower, and they were amazed, for its walls were upright and firm and there was no door, but only the window high up on the side by the sea, and all around it the fantastic irregular jumble of broken horns, with no point within reach of a man that might by its evenness betray an entry. And still for all their talk they were divided, and Karrel thought for a time they might return and leave things as they had been. But Nils looked on the jumbled horns, rough in places and curved in others and spiked with the deadly points all around, and thought that a man might climb it, if he were agile and strong and nothing hindered him. And some among them shook their heads and others spoke kindly of his fancies, but Karrel saw that his son was strong and young, and in his youth grieved fiercely, and at last he gave him leave to try, though the sky began to cloud and the morning breeze had quickened to a wind.

The huntsmen crowded towards him as he began to climb, pressing around the tower to help or to see, but Karrel held them back if they came too near. The morning was gray and silent now, but for the wind and the click of his boots and the grunts of his breathing as he struggled to keep hold. Slowly he rose, with the huntsmen staring around him – often he paused to rest, the more the higher he rose. His feet were as high as a man’s shoulders – as a man’s head – as a unicorn’s head, and he clung there, resting, glancing upward to seek for his next hold. The wind blew harder now, with flecks of rain, and the tower of ivory shone white against the sky. He reached up and caught at a horn, but his fingers slipped and he caught himself and hung resting. A huntsman called encouragement, but all the rest were yet silent, and he gathered his strength to reach and climb again.

And then a voice shouted behind them, and a stone hurtled over their heads and glanced off the ivory by the climber’s hand. Another followed it quickly, and the third struck his shoulder and broke his hold. The huntsmen at the back of the crowd turned back to seek the attacker, but Karrel stayed at the tower and watched his son. Anxiously he saw him sway and lose hold – then swiftly, as the huntsmen rushed on his assailant, he saw him fall. He braced himself and caught him by the shoulders, stumbling with the force of the fall. His legs struck the ground hard; his left calf bled to the ankle, gashed by a horn in passing. He sagged for a moment in his father’s arms and then sank to the ground, leaning on the strong chest, his eyes closed and creased with pain. The huntsmen crowded around them then, two of them holding the young assailant by the arms: a youth, no older than Nils, but dressed in a ragged blue or green such as had been often glimpsed through the trees of the king’s forest. They would have questioned him there, but Karrel bade them wait till his son was attended. The others gave ground and one called Pol, who knew something of medicine, probed the wound and found ivory embedded there. The boy clutched his father’s arms as it came free and they bandaged the wound, but Pol tucked a sliver of the ivory back into the folds, for healing. Then they helped him aside to a sheltered place, for the rain had begun to fall, but lightly, and Pol stayed with him. But Karrel returned to the others and questioned the boy who had thrown the stone.

"My name is Johannes," he said, "and I serve the Lady and the King." And he said no more, though they pressed him hard to answer. But Karrel bade them leave him aside, and went himself back to the tower, where the ivory was streaked with blood, and a horn, faded with age, was loose from the force of the blow. With his fingers he worked and pried at it: finally it slid free, and where it had been was a long shadowy gap in the work of the tower. The huntsmen crowded around him then, eager to come at the foe they had not yet seen. Then one of them cried warning and a line of yellow shot out from a shadow and fastened its teeth on Karrel’s hand. He shouted and leapt away, and the worm – for so it was – fell to the ground and would have wriggled away. But a huntsman’s leather boot trapped it there and a spear slashed off its head, and they fell back from the tower then, lest there be more hidden in the shadows. They called Pol then, and he came and tended the wound as best he could, though his face was grave. But the youth Johannes, that two huntsmen still held apart, saw their fear and heard their words, and he twisted away from them and cried out, "Kolman!" and then "Lewes!" with all his strength. And those that held him bade him be silent, but as they were speaking voices shouted behind them and two figures appeared over a far hill, running and blown by the wind, and in the next instant were with them. Johannes spoke quickly to them and the one called Kolman stayed with him, but the other ran down to Karrel, down in the midst of the huntsmen, and spoke urgently to him, ignoring their stares. Karrel would have dismissed him then, as a rogue or a fool if not an enemy, but he looked swiftly past him, and his short sword was out and in the neck of a worm before they had seen it. A few of the huntsmen were at the tower now, prying at the breach with their hands; he cried warning to them as well, and as he shouted they saw yet more worms among them, and leapt aside, striking wildly and crying out as they were stung on the hand or the heel. But the man Lewes was with them then and struck with them, and killed where they missed their aim, and Kolman’s sword lower on the slope was deadly as his, and finally the worms were driven back, and they had space to look around them and see that no more worms appeared, but the wet ground was littered with their carcasses and their blood. When they thought to look for the youths on the slope then Johannes was free of his captors and his small knife had protected them likewise, and Nils, alone, had protected himself as well, for he was unharmed. Of the huntsmen many were wounded, and Karrel was bitten in four places and Pol in three, but of the strangers who said they served the Lady none were harmed. The three stood together on the seaward hill, where Nils sat apart, but the huntsmen clustered below the tower and apart from it. The rain had ceased to fall again, and the wind had fallen, but the sky was darker now, and the air more chill. They stood for a long while in silence while the huntsmen tended each other’s wounds, and they looked on them with compassion, but they did nothing. Then the huntsmen began to murmur among themselves, those that were whole, and some that were bitten as well, and they began to talk against the Lady and her magic, and her servants who were as bad as herself. And finally, hearing their talk, Kolman stepped forward towards them, and he asked them, "What would you have us do?"

The huntsmen burst out in a babble of talk, for the king and for the unicorns, and for justice. But Karrel, seated on the ground away from the tower, raised his hand and quieted them. "Did you call the worms to the forest?" he asked.

"No," said the other. "I promise you we did not – and neither did she."

Again a murmuring rose among the huntsmen, but again Karrel quieted them. "Can she save us?" he asked, and they knew he spoke of those the worms had bitten.

"No," he said again. "It is beyond her power." And at that the huntsmen were angry, and Karrel would have spoken again, but Nils cried out and again they all looked over the hill towards the sea – and there, at the crest of the hill, stood a unicorn.

One by one, seeing, they fell silent and stared. The unicorn was tall, its shoulders higher than a man’s head, gleaming white against the gray-black sky. Its mane quivered in the stirring air like the little waves of the sea beyond, but its horn was like a spear or a banner-pole at attention, longer than any of them had ever seen. Each of the king’s unicorns was beautiful, and so it was – but with such a sternness about it that no one thought of beauty. It paced towards them, paying no heed to the ragged men or the youths on the hillside. Karrel stretched out his wounded arm to it, and the others who were bitten did the same, for a unicorn’s touch can heal, but it walked through the midst of them to the tower, to the place where the ivory was stained with Nils’ blood. It looked back at them then, only once, and then lowered its head sorrowfully, until the majestic horn was level with the breach. Thunder growled behind it as, with infinite care, it slid the horn into the hole, until barely a handspan remained in the air.

"No!" cried Nils suddenly from the hill. "He’ll die!" The huntsmen nearest, startled, glanced at him, then one or two flung themselves on its neck to drag it back, but their hands slid on the drenched hide and they could not budge it. The servants of the Lady had come nearer, standing at Nils’ side, but they paused there and looked on in silence. The unicorn swayed on its feet then; its back legs sagged, but the horn stayed firm in the crevice, and Karrel ordered the huntsmen away. Its weakness was obvious now, though it was not wounded. Then suddenly, as they watched, it dropped to its knees. The horn, caught in the ivory, snapped – there was blood on the unicorn’s head. After a moment the head drooped to the ground; the brown eyes clouded and closed. It took no huntsman’s skill to see that it was dead.

Weakly then, leaning on a huntsman’s arm, Karrel rose, though his hand and legs burned with the venom, and made his way past it to the tower wall. It took him a long moment to find the spot where the hole had been: the smear of blood was gone, and all the horns held firm to his touch. At last he recognized the glow of the new horn, where the others were dull around it. There was no doubt then: the hole had been sealed.

Murmurs rose around him, the huntsmen’s anger and grief at the unicorn’s death. He heard the word ‘magic’ whispered, and ‘murder,’ and saw their glances at the window and the men on the opposite hill. The thunder rolled again and the wind whipped spattering rain in their faces, but they stood there still in their anger and their grief. The three who served the Lady stood at Nils’ side, silent yet.

"What have you done?" Karrel asked them, and his voice was like a frightened child’s in the storm. But the two men gave him no answer, and Johannes only crouched at Nils’ side and whispered, pointing at the tower window. They all looked up – to see the Lady of Moriah standing at the window, and not only standing but stepping out onto the treacherous wet ivory, in the rain and the biting wind. With one hand she held a mantle tight about her; with the other she steadied herself as her bare feet stepped surely on the sharp-edged ivory. Circling the tower she came swiftly to the ground in the midst of them, and though they muttered and glared behind her she paid them no heed, but ran to the unicorn and knelt in the mud at its side. Her mantle fell to the ground and the rain beat on her head, but she gathered the great head into her lap and wept there, touching the blood and the poor fragment of the horn with her fingers. The huntsmen stood around her, some watching, some grieving; others looked away from her into the storm, but none moved away. Her servants stood still with Nils on the opposite hill and they too grieved, but they too made no move to approach her.

For a long while silence descended on the hillside, while the Lady wept and the huntsmen grieved, and gradually their anger was swallowed up in grief, at least for a time, at the picture of grief before them. The rain beat steadily down now, and the rain and the wind were the only sounds, until a strange voice came faintly over the farther hills, rising and fading with the wind and the rain, singing an ages-old ballad of long-suffering triumph.

At last the singer came over the hill; his singing stopped when he saw them. But he wore the red and blue of the king, all wrinkled and draggled with travel and rain, and he opened his empty hands wide to them at once, and so they led him through the crowd to Karrel where he lay. The messenger looked on the chief of the huntsmen and saluted him, but then he turned at once to the Lady, where she knelt at the unicorn’s side. He knelt before her in the mud there, and she looked on him with compassion. And he said to her, "My lord says, Ilgron is saved and the victory won; my enemies are put to flight. I myself am wounded, but I am well, and soon I will be with you." The Lady heard the message in silence, but she looked on him more kindly than before.

"You – messenger!" Karrel said. "Where is my king now?"

"At sea," the man said, turning to him. "I came on the merchanter Lisavetta, four days ahead, but we were delayed by storm. We only came to Grath yesterday, and so I came here at once. He should be a day or two days behind, if there was no delay."

"At sea – in the storm, then." Karrel glanced to the sea, at the sky almost black now above it, and the wind whipping the waves. "How was he wounded?"

"In the last siege of Ilgron, in driving the traitors from their hole. The wounds are deep, but they say he will not die."

"What message have you for me?" he demanded.

"The same: he will be with you soon."

"What token have you?" His voice was harsh now with pain and unease, but the man only held out silently a ring, bright gold with a deep red stone, one that the king had often worn before. Karrel took it in his hand and studied it deeply, though he had known it from the first.

"Go then," he said roughly. "Give your message in the capitol and the towns. Your work is done here."

The messenger glanced at the Lady, but he saluted and rose from the mud, and took his leave. Then Karrel would have put the ring away from him into his pouch, but the Lady said, "Wait," and reached out her hand. Slowly, reluctantly, he did likewise, still holding the ring. She took his hand – her touch was soft and cool – and laid it flat on the unicorn’s head, so the red stone touched the smear of blood. Then she laid her hand beside it, with her fingertips on the broken base of horn. And the unicorn shuddered and changed, there in their sight, and suddenly it was no unicorn, but their king who lay dead, dressed in the mean garb of a seafarer, with his many wounds still bleeding under their hands!

Karrel shouted and jerked away – the king’s ring fell, unheeded, to the ground. The huntsmen cried out in anger and fear, but the Lady knelt there still, with her hand on the king’s poor head, and her servants stood impassive beyond the crowd, yet waiting. But Karrel pushed himself up before her, though his hand burned red with venom and his legs trembled until he could barely stand.

"You have killed the king’s unicorns that we were set to guard," he said, raggedly and bitter, like the poison in his blood. "You killed them in spite of him and stole their horns, and now you have killed him also, who trusted you! Strike me as well then, and these with me, and be done."

His legs shook under him then, and he sank again to the ground and said no more. But the Lady kept her place and never moved; she answered him nothing at all, but turned her eyes back to the dead king’s face and tenderly smoothed back his hair that was wet with the rain. And others of the huntsmen would have spoken, but the man Lewes, the younger of her servants, strode down among them and stood at her side.

"She is less guilty than you," he said hotly, and the wind whipped around him and the thunder echoed his voice. "Your folly has killed him, and your hands or none now must save him."

Karrel looked up and in that moment hated him, this servant of the Lady who fought his king, but then he remembered his office, and the words that the king had said before he left them. "What must we do?" he asked softly.

"Gather up the ivory – every fragment that has fallen here," Lewes said. "Take these and the king’s ring that has fallen and place them in his hands, and you will see."

"Dead ivory has no power!" Karrel protested, but the man gave him no answer, but only looked at him. And finally he gave the order that those huntsmen who were able should search about the tower for the fallen ivory, and those who were bitten should move to one side and not impede them. He himself took the long horn-point that he had pried from the tower with his hands, and he laid it first in the dead king’s hands, and then they helped him aside, and he rested. But the huntsmen brought every sliver of ivory they found, and laid these in the king’s hands also, and one found the ring that had fallen and put it on the king’s finger too, with the red stone turned inward so it touched the broken pieces of horn. But the dead king neither moved nor stirred, and Lewes said only, "It is not all."

The huntsmen began to search anew, but Karrel remembered the ivory bound in the bandage of his son’s wound, and he looked anxiously at the Lady and her servant, to know if she was angry with the boy and would deny him healing. But Nils read his father’s look and, crouching on the ground, untied the bandage with his hands and held out the bloodstained sliver to the Lady. Johannes took it and bore it to her, and she received it gravely and placed it with the rest in the hands of the king. And slowly, with painful hesitation, the dead king began at last to breathe, and when Pol leaned down to touch him his heart beat again within his chest, and as they watched the great bloody wounds grew less and began to vanish, leaving no trace!

Now the huntsmen who were able rushed to bring tent-cloths and raised a shelter for him, for the storm still swelled, and the rain blew hard in his face from the sea. The shelter was soon made and dry cloths laid inside, and the Lady went in and waited with him. Karrel went in as well, for his own weakness as well as the king’s, and she allowed him; her servants came and stood outside the door, and Nils with them leaning on their shoulders, and they waited. And at last, when it seemed they could bear no more, the king’s eyes opened, and he gazed on his servant and the Lady of Moriah leaning over him. Then, slowly, he smiled, a small faint smile of the deepest joy. He struggled to sit: the man Kolman came and lent his arm. With the same faint smile he looked on them all, but he turned first to the Lady, saying, "I thank you for your watchful care." And she smiled and said no word, but sat beside him and was content.

"Karrel," he said then, and the huntsman looked up to him through the haze and mist of pain and said, "Here I am."

"You have served me well," said the king, "but so has this Lady. She has striven also to tend my unicorns."

"But the tower…" he protested weakly.

"The tower of ivory, made of the horns of my unicorns." The king laughed, merrily into the rising storm. "Karrel, my Karrel, even unicorns must die. But a man in his dying may give of his love – why not they?"

The worms’ venom rang in his ears and in his heart, but he answered trembling, "Lord, I was wrong." He gasped, breathless with weakness and pain, but still went on, "I have served you as I could – I can do no more." And he looked up to see his king’s face, but saw instead the Lady’s smile above him.

"My lord," she said softly, "he is dying of their venom." And Karrel lay still, and was content to have it so. But the king said to him, "Stretch out your hand." And because he was the king’s servant, he strained with all the strength left to him, and lifted his right hand, the one that the worm had bitten, to his king. And the king took the ivory horn in his hands, made whole now, as long as a man’s arm and luminously white but for a streak across one side that was red as blood, and he set it in Karrel’s hand, which twisted to grasp it, though the fire in the hand was stronger than any strength he had left. And where the reddened ivory touched the fire was cooled and then was quenched, and his hand gripped more strongly as the venom was cast out by the magic of the ivory horn. Soon he was able to sit again by his own strength; then he bent down and touched the horn to his bitten legs, once and again and again, and the coolness of it spread in him and finally he was healed – weak still – but able to stand, and he did, and knelt to his king. But the king said, "Were you only wounded?"

He blushed and looked to the king’s wounds, but they were no more. Then he thought of Nils his son, wounded in his fall, and he rushed from the tent into the rain. But as he crossed the wet ground the huntsmen called to him and he saw Pol, who knew the binding of wounds but not the healing of the worms’ venom; he was bitten in three places and lay now on a high patch of grass, open to the rain. Behind him he heard the voice of the king, alive and coming forth from his tent, and the huntsmen cheered around him; but Karrel hurried to Pol and laid the ivory on his wounds, for it grieved him to think of his huntsmen dying by his negligence. After Pol he went to the rest of the wounded, and these too were healed by the magic of the horn; and as they were healed they rushed to their king and knelt before him, and he smiled to see them. But he looked past them, to Karrel’s son still sitting apart on the hillside, and Karrel saw his son but would not go to him, not while those around him cried out in pain. But the king looked past him and called to the boy, "Come."

Johannes, the youngest of those who served the Lady, went and offered his shoulder for a crutch, and together they came to their king and bowed to him, since Nils could not kneel because of his wound. And the king asked them there, "Where are my ships?"

"A day’s journey out, or two," Johannes said, but the king looked at Nils, and he said, "My lord, you know better than I."

"They are near," said the king. "More near than you or any knew, for the storm has driven them on. They will come to ground soon, here in the black night, and then they will come to grief, for there is none to guide them through the storm."

"The tower…" said Johannes, but he stopped and choked back his words, for they all looked up then, and the tower was gray and barely seen in the gathering dark of evening. Then the thunder crashed about them, and the rain fell in earnest, lashing at them in the wind, but the king paid it no heed.

"What has done this?" Nils asked, for he had never in his young life known the tower to fade, though often he had wished it.

"The yellow worms," the king answered gravely. "Fear and anger call them, and my unicorns are their prey. They have a magic in them, that dulls the power of the horns and leaves them unguarded. You have seen their marks in the forest – this is their mark on the tower of ivory, for they have crept over it and around it, and it shines no more."

"It is destroyed, then," said Nils, and his voice was hushed, for though he had wished for this all his young life, there was an awesomeness and a terror in the thought that made him wish it were not so.

"Not destroyed – never that," the king said quickly. "But it will take time to cleanse it of the poison they have left, and until it is cleansed it will never shine through the storm."

"Then the ships…"

"They must have some other guide, or they are lost."

"I will go," Nils said quickly.

"No, I, my lord," Johannes protested. "He is young, and injured. I will go." But the king only looked at him gravely, and said nothing.

"Will you?" the king asked Nils again.

Karrel came to them then, for he had finished his work among the huntsmen and came now in search of his son. "Let him be healed, my lord, and he will serve you," he said. But only the Lady looked at him and said softly, "It may not be." The king looked still at Nils, and said only, "Give him the horn." And Karrel gave it into the hands of his son.

"Bear it before you," the king said, "but use none of its magic, for it is a hard task I give you and you will have need of it." Nils swayed on his wounded leg, and Johannes looked quickly, questioningly at the king, but Nils spoke again bravely and said he would go. The king looked on him for a long moment, then turned and took two steps towards the tower, crying, "My unicorns!" And his voice rang even above the wind.

The beat of hooves sounded on the air and a form swept down from the tower’s jagged peak: a shape like a unicorn’s, but they could see the raindrops through it. It alighted before the king and knelt to him, and the huntsmen swayed back and stared – for the horn on its head was snapped away, and from its shoulders came something that fluttered and shone like wings.

"Nils," said the king, more softly. Limping, but walking alone, the young man came to him.

"My lord, no!" Karrel pleaded. "He is wounded; he cannot…"

"Nils," said the king again. The huntsman’s son held out the horn and touched the ghostly creature’s side, and then he was able to grasp its mane and painfully mount, and the king himself gave him his hand as he did. And Karrel watched, silent now, as the unicorn raised its head and called silently to the wind, and then stretched forth its wings and thrust itself into the air. They heard more hoofbeats then, and more and yet more of the shadows swept over them and vanished into the storm.

The rain beat down, and the hills by the tower of ivory were dark and empty with night. Then Kolman and Johannes came and stood with Karrel, and gazed with him out across the empty sea, but Lewes moved among the huntsmen and bade them raise their tents, there on the hills around the tower, and they raised tents also for the Lady and the king, and one for the Lady’s servants also. But they stood for a long time still on the hillside, watching the rain and the storm as darkness fell.

In dark and night they waited; in dark and night Nils rode with the unicorn-spirits, with the beat of hooves on air in his ears. The black storm and black swirling water raged around him, flecked with white foam and the flick of ghostly white wings. But the storming sea was empty, and the rain beat down and chilled him; his wound began to ache bitterly under the sopping bandage. He swayed on the unicorn’s back, but his free hand twisted tight in the streaming mane and he kept his seat. And finally he heard a call ahead of him, thin and triumphant on the wind, and his own mount shrilled answer and leapt ahead. Then the king’s ships were below him, twisting and plunging through black waves so that every moment there seemed more and fewer of them than before. But the mast nearest him showed the king’s red and blue, twisting and writhing in the whipping wind, and he twisted his mount down to follow as it drove on in the storm.

The spirit-hooves beat on the air and then he was next to the helmsman, shouting with all his strength and pointing ahead through the black dark. The man stared and shouted, a white figure against the dark, but no word came to his ears and the ship plunged on unheeding. Others of the sailors saw and began to stare, as much as they could without yielding the ship to the storm, but none seemed to know him. The wind and the water beat at him, thrusting them apart though his mount strove to follow; he shouted, but the wind took his words and they never heard. Finally he ceased and urged the unicorn-spirit up instead, past the tangle of rope and sail to the flag, and he leaned and pointed at it with the ivory horn, and gave the king’s salute, precariously in the wind. The lookout at least saw him and called down; he could never tell if anyone heard. Then without warning the spirit plunged again, and he grasped madly for the mane, holding desperately on until he found himself back at the helmsman’s side.

This time the man took his hand from the wheel and sketched a salute in return, before the waves lashed at the ship and he must seize it and wrestle it back again. But Nils waved with his free hand to follow and gave his mount its head, and it peeled away from the ship and rose, plunging upward away to the left, into the storm. He struggled to glance back, to be sure the ships were following, but when he turned the broad back shifted under his legs, suddenly misty and frail where it had been solid and wet and warm, and he grabbed in a panic for its mane: when the horn in his hand touched its skin it was solid again. After that he dared not look back, but stared ahead past the broken stump of its horn, straining to see the land through the swirling dark. Once and many times he thought he glimpsed it, but each time it faded away and there was naught but the storm. At last, wrapping his left hand tight in the sopping mane, he leaned and stretched the other hand forward, holding the ivory horn, and now he seemed to see a streak of paler cloud, resting on a dark mass that might have been land or sea or sky, and it was for this that his ghostly mount was driving. The wind was stronger yet, dragging and shoving at his wounded leg; he crouched lower still and held on, but the broad back was wavering once more, and he dared not bring back the horn lest he lose sight of the tower ahead. He could make out the nearest hill now, and the sandy fringe where the storm-waves beat nearly as high as the tufted grass near the crest – a poor refuge, but better than open sea. He glanced back: the lead ship was safely following.

Then the spirit’s back was misty beneath him and he was falling, through cloud and then through rain; the wind was all around him now. He thrust the ivory horn above him, seeking, but nothing was solid, nothing was real but the wave-ridden hills so near. Then the storm lashed out and caught him; the waves coiled in snaky chaos below, leaping to bring him down. The pain in his leg blazed up at the impact, but his hand still held the ivory horn. Holding it still, he thrashed and struggled; at last he sank down and fought no more – and the first of the king’s ships slid into the little bay.

The sailors pulled her to shore on the sand-hills, and the servants of the Lady came to meet them. That night they slept in safety, and the huntsmen and the Lady and the king slept near them. Towards morning the rain began to slacken and the wind to fall, and when the sun rose the beach was as calm as the Lady’s eyes. But the unicorn-spirits had gone with the storm, and though Karrel looked anxiously at the beach and at the king, Nils was nowhere seen, and no one spoke of him.

All through that morning they worked, those who were able, in repairing the ships and the tents and making all ready to depart. And when afternoon came the first of them set out, the king and the Lady and her servants (for the king wished to return at once to his capitol, and the Lady went with him). And Karrel and certain of the huntsmen went as well, but others stayed behind to help the sailors and return with the ships when they came. But the huntsmen and the servants of the Lady walked with their king, for five days and into the sixth they walked, and in the evening of the sixth day they came to the great marble palace to the north of the forest, and they entered the king’s palace quietly, without fanfare, for he wished it so. And he called servants to make ready rooms for them for the night, but he himself talked with the Lady long into the night, and it was long before he slept. But when morning came he rose and greeted his people, and told them of the victory at Ilgron, and then he retired and rested. And the next day the ships came finally into the harbor of Grath, battered yet, but whole, and the huntsmen who had sailed with them returned to their families and to their homes. And in the afternoon the king called them to his palace.

As they entered the palace seemed to them higher and brighter than before, with loftier towers and greater magnificence than ever they had seen. And Karrel and his fellows greeted them in the courtyard and led them within, through the white marbled halls they called ivory-stone, to a courtyard within that none of them had seen nor even heard of. It was broad and shaded, surrounded by marble walks and columns, but the ground of the courtyard was soft earth and grass, flourishing with rosebushes and sprinkled with little stars of white and yellow. And in the center of the courtyard rose a tower such as they had seen before: a tower of unicorn’s horns, piled and heaped up by magic in whorls and curves and angles, rising in firm upright lines to a peak, where long shafts of horn, braced on the walls, leaned inward and met in a point that was decked with a banner of the king’s red and blue. Below the peak was a narrow window, but Karrel led them to one side, along a flagstoned walk that wound around the tower to its other side. And on that side of the tower was a doorway, braced on its four sides with long smooth shafts of horn, open and welcoming. Unhesitatingly he walked inside, and after a moment they followed.

Within the doorway they found a long winding staircase, made also of unicorns’ horns – but of this they thought little, still wondering and beyond wondering at what they had seen, and saw yet. And at the top of the staircase was a door, wooden and firm amidst the ivory, and beyond it a narrow chamber, with a warm blue carpet on its floor and curtains at its three windows (and a longer one to one side might have concealed a door); richly carved wooden chairs and a small writing-table sat in a shaft of sunlight under one window. A parchment book stood open on the table, and the Lady herself stood beside it, welcoming them. Then another voice sounded, laughing behind them on the staircase, and they crowded into the room ahead of the king. He entered the room behind them, and welcomed them too. "And now we feast, after all our toil," he said, so gaily that Karrel turned away from him, gazing out a window over the forest. But the king turned to the Lady and spoke to her, and she went to the writing-table and set her hand on the book – and the book changed and was a feast, laid out in royal splendor, and table was a banqueting table and the room a hall, paneled and dark and lit with chandeliers and windows, but they still felt smooth ivory under their feet. And the king took his place at the table’s head, with the Lady at his right hand beside him, and she called Karrel to her and made him sit at her right hand, and the rest of the huntsmen and her servants took their places in turn. But Karrel grieved yet for his son, and could barely speak to her. And when they had all sat down it was seen that there was an empty place left, at Karrel’s right hand, and a silence came over them all as they remembered Nils.

Then the king turned to the Lady and whispered, and she smiled and called Johannes to her, and whispered in turn. And Johannes smiled and moved to the curtain that still hung at the side of the long room, and smiling drew it aside – and they saw a young unicorn, its head scarcely taller than his, though its horn was long already and gleamed white in the shadows of the little room. Uncertainly it moved forward; Johannes put his hand on its shoulder and they came together to stand before the king and the Lady.

"This is not a time for games, my son," the king said gravely, but even he smiled as he said it. And then he spoke another word, and the unicorn shuddered and was gone – and in its place Nils, still uncertain, standing still with Johannes’ hand on his shoulder.

In an instant Karrel came to his feet, and an instant after Nils was in his arms weeping. The king looked on and he smiled for a time, and then he said loudly, "But this is a feast, my friends! Why do you weep?" Then Karrel and Nils his son looked guiltily up at him, and then they began to laugh, they and the whole company, and the huntsmen cheered them. And at last they found their seats and the feast began. And the story of it is yet told in the kingdom of Rel, by the huntsmen who love the king and by the seamen who love the lady, and the townsmen, they to whom a unicorn is a curiosity and a unicorn’s horn a mere artifact, even they now have heard it once in their lives, and they too will argue for the truth of it, for they too are loyal to their king and love him. And rare it is now to hear there of a unicorn’s dying, and when they do hear it, those huntsmen or the townsmen or the men of the sea, they say first to a man that the teller lies, and if after a while they believe him, they grieve, but they are proud as well, for they know – and no man better, for they have seen – that no unicorn dies, but of its love.

(c) 2001
By Annie McAndrew
All Rights Reserved
Biography