Chapter Text
The walls of the room seemed to thaw and run away, and the wizard’s starry gown became the huge, howling night. Mabruk spoke no word himself, but the wind was beginning to make a wicked, grunting sound as it gained strength. In another moment it would become visible, burst into shape. Schmendrick opened his mouth, but if he were shouting a counterspell it could not be heard, and it did not work.
The painful rush of air felt as though a great wyrm was flapping its wings on her back. It was a familiar feeling. Her back was bent differently and not as powerful as it should be against the blows, but she remembered, and it dragged her gaze away from the black and white waves crashing underneath the castle with some difficulty.
She had to use her horn on the dragon that made such a wind then; this one was coming out of nowhere, an otherworldly element let into this world by a single thread of human magic. Turning a little to the side, she could almost see it in the dark, right by them and over her companion's heads, making them cover on the ground against it.
Suddenly, they reminded her of frightened animals huddling together for comfort that would not be coming, because their protector had left their forest and mow they were alone, about to be devoured.
A strange sorrow at that made her insides flash bright, calling on the power enclosed in to come out until it rose up to a tingle in her forehead, and an involuntary raised hand.
Then the wind was gone as though it had never been, and the stone walls were around them once more, the dull chamber as gay as noon after Mabruk’s night.
For a brief moment, she rejoiced in the knowledge that she indeed was still herself inside even if her outer shell was different.
The wizard was crouched almost to the floor, staring at the Lady Amalthea. His wise, benevolent face looked like the face of a drowned man, and his beard dripped thinly from his chin, like stagnant water. Prince Lír took him by the arm.
“Come on, old man,” he said, not unkindly. “This way out, granddad. I’ll write you a reference.”
“I am going,” Mabruk said. “Not from fear of you, you lump of stale dough—nor of your mad, ungrateful father; nor of your new magician, much happiness may you have of him.” His eyes met King Haggard’s hungry eyes, and he laughed like a goat.
“Haggard, I would not be you for all the world,” he declared. “You have let your doom in by the front door, though it will not depart that way. I would explain myself more fully, but I am no longer in your service. That is a pity, for there will come a time when none but a master will be able to save you—and in that hour, you will have Schmendrick to call upon! Farewell, poor Haggard, farewell!”
Still laughing, he disappeared; but his mirth dwelled forever in the corners of that chamber, like the smell of smoke, or of old, cold dust.
“Well,” said King Haggard in the gray moonlight. “Well.”
He came slowly toward Schmendrick and Molly, his feet silent, his head weaving almost playfully. She watched out of the corner of her eye, the movement reminding her of something she had seen long ago. Perhaps in the young stags in her woods....
“Stand still,” he commanded when they moved. “I want to see your faces.”
His breath rasped like a knife on a grindstone as he peered from one of them to the other. “Closer!” he grumbled, squinting through the dark. “Come closer—closer! I want to see you.”
“Light a light then,” said Molly Grue.
“I never light lights,” the king replied. “What is the good of light?”
He turned from them, muttering to himself, “One face is almost guileless, almost foolish, but not quite foolish enough. The other is a face like my face, and that must mean danger. Yet I saw all that at the gate—why did I let them enter, then? Mabruk was right; I have grown old and daft and easy. Still, I see only Haggard when I look in their eyes.”
She was again gazing out of the window, studying the landscape, and more felt than heard him move closer. The presence was faint, old, almost unrecognizable as a human being anymore, and she miscalculated; King Haggard had drawn very near before she wheeled swiftly, lowering her head and locking eyes with him, a cornered creature readying to attack with its horn though it was no longer there. But it didn't matter, the movement itself gave her some peace of mind.
“I will not touch you,” he said, and then they both stood still as statues.
What a strange thing, that he found the one reassuring sentence she needed, that she warned against with her little display. The understanding calmed her immensely.
“Why do you linger at the window?” he demanded. “What are you looking at?”
“I am looking at the sea,” the unicorn replied.
“Ah,” said the king. “Yes, the sea is always good. There is nothing that I can look at for very long, except the sea.”
Yet he stared at her for a long time, his own face giving back none of her light—as Prince Lír’s had—but taking it in and keeping it somewhere. His breath was as musty as the wizard’s wind, but she never moved. His eyes had little color, yet it was as staring into a bottomless well, like the blackest night reflected on the sea, very much like the real thing. The unicorn found herself curious as much as he was, studying them back. Something of it reminded of looking into her home pond.
Suddenly, he straightened back in something of a mix of dread and excitement, and shouted, “What is the matter with your eyes? They are full of green leaves, crowded with trees and streams and small animals. Where am I? Why can I not see myself in your eyes?”
Where am I? She thought, not moving an inch. Why do you look like the monsters of the deep sea and shadows of the abyss move there? Why is there blood and night and water yet not my reflection? That is the only reason I look humans in the eye.
King Haggard swung around to face Schmendrick and Molly. His scimitar smile laid its cold edge along their throats. “Who is she?” he demanded.
Schmendrick coughed several times. “The Lady Amalthea is my niece,” he offered. “I am her only living relative, and so her guardian. On our journey, we were attacked by bandits and robbed of all our—”
King Haggard said, “What she wears, what may have befallen you, what you all are to one another—these things are fortunately no concern of mine. In such matters you may lie to me as much as you dare. I want to know who she is. I want to know how she broke Mabruk’s magic without saying a word. I want to know why there are green leaves and fox cubs in her eyes. Speak quickly, and avoid the temptation to lie, especially about the green leaves. Answer me.”
Schmendrick did not reply quickly. He made a few small sounds of an earnest nature, but not a sensible word was among them. Then the light, kind, silly voice of the young Prince Lír replied in their stead.
“Father, what difference does it make? She is here now.”
King Haggard sighed. It was not a gentle sound, but low and scraping; not a sound of surrender, but the rumbling meditation of a tiger taut to spring. “Of course you are right,” he said. “She is here, they are all here, and whether they mean my doom or not, I will look at them for a while. A pleasant air of disaster attends them. Perhaps that is what I want...”
By then, she was again gazing out the window, tuning them out like the buzz of fireflies, letting only the somehow deafening crash of waves enter her ears. There was a haunting quality to the sound, as if something was in them, something she should want. But why? Unicorns did not want anything, because they had all they needed always with them. She snapped back into attention upon feeling words directed at her own person.
''You may come and go as you please,” said King Haggard. “It may have been foolish of me to admit you, but I am not so foolish as to forbid you this door or that. My secrets guard themselves—will yours do the same? ...What are you looking at?”
“I am looking at the sea,” the Lady Amalthea replied again, gaze fixed on it as much as the king's was on the curve of hair on her shoulder.
“Yes, the sea is always good,” he replied, almost smiling. “We will look at it together one day.”
…..........................................................................................
Her days passed in the dreamy, numb manner of a man sentenced to death. It was not very long, by her own count, not compared to the countless years and centuries before where she simply was. Yet it was all new, as well, for the lack of greenery and lack of warmth that always accompanied her time home. The castle was always cold and dark in some manner and she found herself fascinated with all the nuances of it. It was the first time spending a extended period of time anywhere since leaving, and studying little nooks and crannies of the place filled her days. Any time alone was a time of relative peace, even if sometimes she itched to take flight and run up and down the vast halls. She knew better than that now. Losing balance was precariously easy on two legs and the falls hurt much more.
However painful it was, though, it was never more than waking up each morning only to discover it was not a bad dream. Before, she never had bad dreams, yet now hoped for it all to be one and to be awoken by a bear cub nudging her side for attention or a bird perched on her horn to catch a fly.
Instead, though, there was the prince that trailed after her in the likes of a lost puppy. Following in her quiet steps did him good, but then many men grew either healthier or deathly ill by that, and she didn't put much importance to it at first. She was wary; men had tried to snare her before, but never before did they offer a hand for her to ascend stairs or tried wooing her as one of their own with stutters and courtly behavior. It was perplexing how he thought of her as her outer shape, yet being in awe much more than for a mortal woman. She was aware of what he craved, even if it was new to her. She had seen it at home and in the couples that sometimes visited there.
Maybe he knew, inside, that she was not, but couldn't help it.
Sharing the castle – for that was what he thought of it as, she realized – with Haggard was a much more subtle affair. True to his word he let her wander anywhere it was possible to and explore and she only had a faint idea of where he was at any given time, like a shadow, except the times they ate and when she spotted Schmendrick hurrying past her like a man possessed, knowing he was being summoned.
They did not speak, did not even meet on many days, but somehow always were aware of the other. If she stared out on the tide, she could be sure that he did too, fascinated by something lost in it that nobody else saw or even knew of.
One day, out of the blue, Lear returned with his saddle bag full of a surprise that she did not expect to see dragged all the way to her, the less showed like a proud trophy to gift her.
It was a dragon head, severed and dead for a while, with its red tongue still dripping venom from where it last struck before a mistake proved fatal. The unicorn looked at it in mild surprise and no small puzzlement.
The death itself did not strike her hard, as she herself had killed dragons before and understood why it was sometimes necessary. However, she never told anyone about the exploits, she never showed anyone the dead body, assured that its disappearance and peace for the land was proof enough. Why had he brought it?
She stared Lear in the eye, the question hanging between them. Whatever reaction he had expected, she could see that this was clearly not it.
''It... was eating passing travelers in the western woods,'' he explained hurriedly, as if trying to apologize for the kill. Staring a while longer, she then gave a mild nod of understanding, turning to look outside again.
In one ear, she heard him start to recount the tale, describing its lair and the journey and the dragon, then the fight itself. The words suggested a horrifying encounter, yet he told it with a mix of pride and and excitement, colorfully painting the whole thing and barely surviving. She was by then used to nodding absent-mindedly to most of it, until something in his tales caught her attention. She liked his describtions of the lands he visited and the forests.
''...then it lunged forward like an arrow, snapping, and we stumbled; the moment the beast saw an opening, it reared up, tall as a old oak, and unleashed a torrent of flames so hot I almost felt it all the way up from under the saddle. My horse barely leapt to safety, but it still caught the fire on one foot. I knew it couldn't last much longer at that speed, so had to make a decision about--''
This was one of the things that caught her attention very well.
''She was hurt?'' in a sudden thrill that sounded much like a startled neigh, she asked.
Lear stopped talking, surprised at suddenly being interrupted. ''Ah, well, yes, but don't worry, we both made it back safely-''
''Where is she?'' she asked again, remembering the mare – the real mare – that he often rode out on, white and gray and reliably carrying her rider to every battle.
''In the stables?'' he replied, obviously wondering where else she thought his horse could be.
''Take me there.'' ''But, My Lady, it really is nothing for you to look at, the leg--''
''Take me.''
Finding no energy or courage left to oppose her, the prince simply nodded and began his descent again, sometimes turning to check if she was indeed following behind. She was.
They heard the horse before seeing her in the stables, the muffled sound of her wheezing painfully while leaning on the wall of her pen to not put pressure onto her leg. The sound sent her heart hammering wildly as she rushed to put her hand and cheek on the poor animal's neck.
It instantly quieted down, shivering in pain still but now reassured. Horses always knew her.
I'm here, I'm here, she mouthed, nuzzling against the fur. Everything will be alright. I will make you feel better.
The mare nodded weakly and did not even stir as the girl by her side crouched down, putting both hands onto the badly seared, red wound on her leg. She would lean her head down as well, but recalled with some annoyance that it would have no effect, and so only focused on her hands.
Yet.... looking down on them, she could not remember why she thought that this would heal the burn. How have any human hands ever brought relief, hers or otherwise?
No, no, you're not human, she reminded herself hurriedly, terrified of the thought itself. But the hands. But they're not yours! But you're using hands to hold her leg...
Instead of focusing, she began shivering herself. Have I ever healed anything at all? Was it a dream? Was the feeling she was so sure of a while ago only an illusion?
She recalled the energy in her forehead, the wind, the forest, and her....her... yet...
The mare waited, and neighed pitifully when the girl stood up, shaking, neither understanding why it wasn't as they expected. Amalthea turned and fled, fast as two legs could carry her out the stables and from the poor, betrayed look in the mare's eyes.
She went outside and found there was a downpour. It never snowed near the sea, but the rain was freezing to the bone and today she felt it enter her very soul, washing around the sorrow and guilt and the sense of utter loss.
…..........................................................................
The days were as dull as she felt after that, drained and dumb.
The pale mark on her brow was invisible in the gloom of the scullery. She touched it and then drew her hand away quickly, as though the mark hurt her. “The horse died,” she said to the little cat under. “I could do nothing.”
Molly turned quickly and put her hands on her shoulders.
“Oh, my lady,” she whispered, “that is because you are out of your true form. When you regain yourself, it will all return—all your power, all your strength, all your sureness. It will come back to you.”
Amalthea wanted to hug her in that moment, but answered.
“The magician gave me only the semblance of a human being—the seeming, but not the spirit. If I had died then, I would still have been a unicorn. The old man knew, the wizard. He said nothing, to spite Haggard, but he knew. He knew too. But that feels so long ago. Now I am two—myself, and this other that you call ‘my lady.’ For she is here as truly as I am now, though once she was only a veil over me. She walks in the castle, she sleeps, she dresses herself, she takes her meals, and she thinks her own thoughts. If she has no power to heal, or to quiet, still she has another magic. Men speak to her, saying ‘Lady Amalthea,’ and she answers them, or she does not answer. The king is always watching her out of his pale eyes, wondering what she is, and the king’s son wounds himself with loving her and wonders who she is. And every day she searches the sea and the sky, the castle and the courtyard, the keep and the king’s face, for something she cannot always remember. What is it, what is it that she is seeking in this strange place? ...She knew a moment ago, but she has forgotten...”
She turned to face her dearest friend in the castle, and spotted a startled expression in her face as the woman searched her face for something as well, something she didn't feel was there. She knew she lost a grip on something. But what? What dropped from her like a stone into the sea to leave her wondering what she was doing in this castle?
“
Unicorns,” Molly said clearly. “The Red Bull has driven them all away, all but you. You are the last unicorn. You came here to find the others, and to set them free. And so you will.”
Slowly the clarity seeped back into her mind and soul, and she almost screamed inside. Unicorns! Her own! Her people! How could she have forgotten? How had this veil slipped so deep inside her that it hid her very soul even from herself?
“I must go to him,'' she said immediately, resolute. ''There is no other way, and no time to spare. In this form or my own, I must face him again, even if all my people are dead and there is nothing to be saved. I must go to him, before I forget myself forever, but I do not know the way, and I am lonely.”
“
I will go with you,” Molly said. “I don’t know the way down to the Bull either, but there must be one. Schmendrick will come too. He’ll make the way for us if we can’t find it.”
“
I hope for no help from the magician,” the Lady Amalthea replied disdainfully. “I see him every day playing the fool for King Haggard, amusing him by his failures, by blundering at even the most trifling trick. He says that it is all he can do until his power speaks in him again. But it never will. He is no magician now, but the king’s clown.”
Molly’s face suddenly hurt her, and she turned away to inspect the soup again. Answering past a sharpness in her throat, she said, “He is doing it for you. While you brood and mope and become someone else, he jigs and jests for Haggard, diverting him so that you may have time to find your folk, if they are to be found. But it cannot be long before the king tires of him, as he tires of all things, and casts him down to his dungeons, or some place darker. You do wrong to mock him.”
Suddenly, she felt berated as if by her mother, so long ago when she was still the color of sea foam and mankind only a idea on the edge of a god's dream.
And it was rightfully so. For a moment, she shut her eyes tightly, gripping the memory and green leaves in her heart. She could not lose it again, even if her mind slipped and became pretty and empty of all but castles and waves.
….........................................................
Dreams seemed to visit more easily now than ever before, as if desperate to latch onto her like leeches she would never again tear off. Each day something became paler in her waking world, it crashed the more heavily and colorfully into her sleep, crushing Lady Amalthea's mind as the past fought to be in control, fought not to be forgotten.
Some nights, it even drove her out of bed to wander the castle like a white ghost, her own shine no longer quite enough to chase away the dread and confusion eating at her heels at trying to recall, trying to hold onto the flashes of strange things in her dreams that she knew could not have happened. Hadn't she always been here? Hadn't she always been a lady? How, oh how, was this making her so frightened and desperate?
She was running down the spiral staircase as if she could outrun her own mind, half asleep still, when at a corner, she spotted another figure in the dark. A strange, bleating sound left her throat and she stood still, three steps above him and breathing heavily.
Neither spoke at first, until a raspy, but calm voice greeted her.
“A good evening to you.”
The Lady Amalthea stared at him through the gloom, putting out a hand, but drawing it back before she touched him. Whose was it? Who was so familiar?
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Are you Celaeno?”
A silent laugh came as an answer, and he moved slightly forward to a window through which moonlight filtered on a clear night.
“No,” he answered. “Look closer.”
But she backed away, instinctively, and lowered her head in the way of a goat or a deer, not knowing why. He said, “I’m not going to touch you.”
A shiver went through her legs as she recalled these words, but stilled.
“The old woman,” said the Lady Amalthea. “The moon went out. Ah!”
She shivered once, and then her eyes recognized him. But all her body was still wild and watchful and she came no nearer to him.
“You were dreaming,” he said, surprisingly patient. “What of? Nothing should frighten you so.”
“I have dreamed it before,” she answered slowly, wondering why she wanted to share the dream. “I was in a cage, and there were others—beasts in cages, and an old woman. But I will not trouble you, Your Majesty. I have dreamed it many times before.”
She would have left him then, but he shook his head, with a huff that made her think of the stables. “A dream that returns so often is like to be a messenger, come to warn you of the future or to remind you of things untimely forgotten. Say more of this and I will try to riddle it for you.”
Thereupon she halted, looking at him with her head a little turned, still with the air of some slim, furred creature peering out of a thicket. But her eyes held a human look of loss, as though she had missed something she needed, or suddenly realized that she had never had it. If he had even blinked, she would have been gone; but he did not blink, and he held hers without urging to continue or leaving.
The Lady Amalthea said, staring into the abyss, “In the dream there are black, barred wagons, and beasts that are and are not, and a winged being that clangs like metal in the moonlight -Celaeno!. The tall man has green eyes and bloody hands.”
“The tall man must be the magician,” Haggard mused. “That part’s clear enough, anyway, and the bloody hands don’t surprise me. Is there more?”
“I cannot tell you all of it,” she said. “It is never finished.” Fear came back to her eyes like a great stone falling into a pool: all was clouded and swirling, and quick shadows were rushing everywhere. She said, “I am running away from a good place where I was safe, and the night is burning around me. But it is day too, and I am walking under beech trees in the warm, sour rain, and there are butterflies, and a honey sound, and dappled roads, and towns like fishbones, and the flying thing is killing the old woman. I am running and running into the freezing fire, however I turn, and my legs are the legs of a beast—” She took a breath of air as he nodded to go on.
“But it is never finished. Even when I wake, I cannot tell what is real, and what I am dreaming as I move and speak and eat my dinner. I remember what cannot have happened, and forget something that is happening to me now. People look at me as though I should know them, and I do know them in the dream, and always the fire draws nearer, though I am awake—”
“Now now,” he cut in, clear as a knife through butter. ''now you are getting lost in it. It is good to remember your dreams, but not scattered like mad squirrels.
He paused, then continued in a somewhat gentler voice upon seeing her panic and loss.
''Surely,'' he said. ''the cages are very real. No cage could hold you for long, I imagine, but for a while you could have been in it.''
''Why would someone put me in a cage?'' she cried out, confused. In response, he gave a long, thoughtful look.
''It has been too long,'' he said aloud, with some sorrow. ''you have been away too long in here. You should be with your own, but like this...''
''Whom? I beg of you, don't speak in riddles,'' she pleaded on the verge of crying.
''You are forgetting,'' in a hard voice, he started explaining. ''You are forgetting your home is a forest with green leaves and fox cubs. How humans desire you so badly they could gladly put you in a cage to look at you all day for the magic. You forgot how the Red Bull hounded you and herded you towards my castle, once or more times that I don't know. You ran away from him on four, white furred legs, and somehow – I know not how – you ended up in a woman's body that is now eating you from the inside out. You were female, but you weren't a woman. People sometimes mistook you for a white horse, however blasphemous that is.''
Slowly, very slowly, her eyes widened, but her face calmed down, both in awe and disbelief. Slowly, she brought a hand up towards her forehead, brushing around the bump in the middle.
''Yes, and you are missing your horn,'' he added, painfully soft.
They could have stood in silence for hours, one wondering, the other watching, with only the sounds of the sea crashing outside. In the end, he made an almost unnoticeable gesture down, moving a step back too. Still shocked, she took a step forward, then another, until they both stalked through the castle to the entrance and outside to rocks and sand. The night was crisp and clear and it helped her gather her wits a little.
''How strange. I told you that you could come and go as you will, yet you haven't left the castle since you arrived,'' the king noted with a sour smile. ''double confinement did not do you good, my lady.''
''Don't call me that,'' she said without turning to face him and only gazed at the moon. ''that's not who I am. Everybody calls me that.''
Without much amusement he laughed, coming to stand by her side. It was as close as it could be, without touching even accidentally. ''Of course, I apologize. It's the nasty force of habit. But what to call you, I wonder? I know what you are, yet not who you are.''
For the first time, she turned to look at him first, staring without a single emotion showing on her face save a blank, scrutinizing look. ''We do not have names like mankind.''
''Yes, but I must call you something. What do you wish to be called?''
For a moment she was speechless. ''What does the name Amalthea mean? Why did he give that one to me?''
''Improvisation on the spot,'' he replied lightly, poking a stray rock under his boot. ''it is a mythological name of something or other that cared for an infant god. It means tender goddess, I believe.''
She liked the meaning, but frowned at it nevertheless. It was a good name, but not quite what she thought of herself as, and simply shook her head. ''I don't know. I need time to think about it.''
''You have all the time in the world.''
They stood silent for a while longer before he moved towards the ocean, and involuntarily she did too. Then she remembered why she dreaded to step outside and halted a moment, holding in her breath and searching the night for a flash of red and the telltale bellow of the Bull. As though he read her mind, Haggard beckoned to move again. ''Worry not, he is far away today in another kingdom searching for you. You may go down without fear.''
He stopped again once he noticed she didn't move from the spot and kept stealing glances towards the castle gate again, then to the hills, legs trembling. With a frown, he watched the tremors under her dress a moment.
''I don't trust you,'' she finally said.
At that, he started laughing outright, and it was startlingly loud and high in the empty night even over the waves.
''I understand,'' he finally replied, ''of course, I will not force you. At the beach or in the castle, you are still close by. It suits me just as fine that you should return to bed to your memories. Or follow me. But either way you choose, know what I do not wish you harm.''
He paused, ooking over his shoulder, and began talking in a voice no louder than brisk wind in dry leaves. ''I had nightmares too, once. Someone they called the mountain king. Of dragons, dungeons, and a land too vast for one, with only goats loving its hills, of hunters, blood, drowning and magic-- and yet more blood until the entire shore ran red and then ran on its own, called vast and alive... So many of mine were red. But no more.''
It rang very true between them even as he moved down at a brisk pace, not slipping once. Slowly, she turned again, and began the ascent back to her chosen tower, breathing somewhat lighter than before. Far more questions than answers arose from their talk, yet for the reminders, the memories themselves, she could think on them more calmly now. The knowledge returned some power to her step, and some determination into her heart, dragged down and weary from the seemingly hopeless situation.
Was this his proof that he indeed craved a disaster?