And then he saw it. Tucked away in the bottom was a sizeable sack of what appeared to be
a rich, red velvet cloth, covered with mystic runes and symbols picked out in golden thread–at least, he assumed they were numinous, for he believed not a jot of that superstitious hogwash–covering with its plump folds a number of promising shapes and protuberances. The neck was neatly tied with a thick purple drawstring threaded through slits cut in the fabric. How exciting! Kevin leaned right into the chest to grasp the drawstring and tug it loose.
Had the corner of the bag twitched slightly?
Kevin tut-tutted to himself. Nonsense.
The drawstring resisted his feeble efforts for a couple of minutes, as it doubtless had remained fastened
for years and was accordingly very stubborn. Kevin groused and grumbled, aware that the cramped space swallowed all sounds he might make. His back and thighs were feeling the strain of his position, and he was just about to straighten up, when the string slackened at last.
“Aha!” he exclaimed. “Your resistance is broken! But the question remains: what lies within?” He rubbed his hands together like a child contemplating a toothsome chunk of candy. “I shall wrest your precious secrets free of those unplumbed depths!”
Kevin plunged his hand within.
“Now, where are the keys?”
A distinct jingle informed him that he was close. Tipping still further forward, he discovered that the sack was deeper than he had previously assumed. His arm was swallowed up to the elbow, and there was yet no sign of the bottom. This should have warned him that all was not as it seemed. But Kevin was agog at his success thus far, and innocent of the dangers of reaching into unfamiliar places without at least some basic forethought. His questing hand closed over a bunch of keys.
No sooner had he uttered a crow of ringing gladness, than his foot slipped on the papers behind him and he lost his balance. His arms flailed wildly, still clutching the lantern and the keys.
Luckily, the lantern landed upon the two large tomes and by balancing his whole weight upon it, he was able to arrest an imminent fall. His floundering feet began to find purchase among the slippery papers. Equilibrium was restored. “Ah, a close call!” He chuckled in relief. “Who’s the village idiot then, Kevin?”
And he began to withdraw his other hand from the sack, feeling sheep
ish but elated to have the keys at last.
Something
smacked his wrist and seized it!
Kevin
’s eyes bulged. “What on Earth?”
It was thin and rough, with a steely grasp. Three black-plated, emaciated fingers and two quadruple-jointed opposing thumbs sprouted from a scabrous arm, which had struck from the mouth of the sack with the speed of an angry cobra. He
pulled back with all his might, bracing himself against the side of the chest, but his trapped arm might as well have been set in stone. He could barely feel the keys but held on for dear life–not thinking that he should let them go, for it was simply a grip of the purest and most present terror he had ever known.
The thing in the sack shifted.
He broke into a cold sweat as the folds lifted and moved, throwing open the neck of the bag. Shock piled on shock–it was bottomless! No, there was something inside … what was that
thing
… oh no, oh, “Help! Nooo …!”
His shriek of terror was cut off in the cusp of its life as the disembodied hand yanked him down into the black depths of the sack. His feet flew into the air, the lantern dropped from his nerveless fingers, and there was a sensation of falling.
The chest slammed shut behind him.
K
evin remembered.
T
he arm within the bag was attached to a large, barrel-like body, which was three quarters mouth and a hideous lilac tongue the size of his bed. As he fell, he had time only to appreciate that the yawning cavern of a mouth was lined with flat, rectangular teeth each at least six inches wide, before he landed head-first on the tongue’s damp, sticky surface. The mouth snapped shut like a hunter’s snare and began to chew with ponderous thoroughness.
He remembered pain. Hours, days, weeks–nothing but pain.
He woke with a terrible, bubbling scream, spraying gobbets of clotted blood from his lips onto the spotless white sheets that covered his aching chest. A furry black paw hove into view and dabbed his mouth. The metallic taste of blood ran hot in his throat, making him cough. At once, the paw offered him a draught from a simple wooden cup. A glob of viscous liquid slipped down his throat. Despite the vile taste, the pain dulled immediately.
He slept.
Later, he wondered if he had been dreaming. The pain was still present, but muted, and he sensed a recovery from illness or injury was well-advanced. Kevin’s eyelids creaked apart with the obstinacy of rusty-hinged shutters.
He
found himself in a small, windowless chamber apparently crafted from a single block of wood, lying on a semi-circular bed that occupied half of the room. On the wall opposite hung a large, wood-framed artwork–executed in oils, the scholar in him noted–depicting a bucolic forest scene. To his left stood an unpretentious bedside table holding a bowl, which glowed with a steady radiance sufficient to illuminate the entire chamber. On that wall too he saw a doorframe etched with runic writings. The half-ajar door opened into a rounded corridor beyond. It was both shorter and narrower than those he was used to. He could see little more.
A tiny clicking noise without announced the entry of a curious creature, a bespectacled, bewhiskered old fellow of uncertain lineage, stumping in upon short, bandy legs.
Kevin gaped unashamedly–for a pair of twinkling black eyes regarded him along the length of a fine, slightly tapering snout, which was adorned at its tip by a fantastic tuft of hoary whiskers. The creature’s torso was thick and his dark fur shot with silver, his arms stubby and powerful, and his paws long-fingered and nimble. A workman’s smock of coarse cloth covered his chest and lower torso.
Seeing
Kevin awake, he set aside the huge clay pot he was carrying and stepped over to the bed. In a soft, gravelly voice he said, “Feeling better, eh? Hurrum harrah.”
“Fine,” said
Kevin, sincerely. “Never better.”
“That is an illusion,
hurrum hurrum, created by the Aïssändraught I administered to you but a moment hence,” the creature explained further, holding a hot paw to Kevin’s forehead. “Hum haffar, much better indeed. Your temperature is improved, the bleeding stanched, and your broken limbs may now mend in Elliadora’s Peace, blessed of the Hills, hurrum.”
“Broken?”
“The right arm was a clean break. The right leg, shattered below the knee. Zinfandir, the famous healer, set the bones himself. Hurrum harrah.”
It was beginning to register that all might not
be well with his world. The allegedly broken limbs felt heavy, infused with lassitude, but troubled him not half as much as he would have expected. Kevin tried to think back, to summon the comfort of memory. But instead, a single burning question rose to the top of his mind and waved there like a blood-red flag.
He cleared his throat with difficulty and whispered, “Where am I? And who are you?”
And then he collapsed, unconscious.
* * * *
When he awakened, it was to a beastly, pounding headache. His body felt as though it had been pummelled by a herd of elephants, outraging every joint and limb in the process. Kevin groaned softly. Why had the nurse not left him some painkillers on his bedside … table? A rude shock ran through him–this was not his room!
“Hum
haffar. Drink this, good outlander,” said a gruff voice, and a dark paw offered him a carved goblet, which he regarded suspiciously.
“What’s
–ouch!” He revised his volume down to a faint whisper. “My throat is
killing
me.”
“You will find speaking painful for some lighttimes, good outlander,” said his
carer, the same old bear, who had been tending him before. He wrinkled his nose at Kevin. “Your throat was much damaged by acid and poison, hurrum harrah. This draught will soothe it.”
Kevin
, feeling far too enervated to protest, sipped at the brew, and found it had the exact savour of sucking a drainpipe. He made a face. “Ugh! That’s putrid!”
But as before, a pleasant flush settled in his abdomen, pallia
ting his aches and pains like cooling rain. He stared curiously around the wood-carved chamber, marking the elegantly functional furniture and the unfamiliar trappings. Where was he? Something was wrong. Bears should
not
talk. It was downright uncanny.
His bowels clenched ominously.
“Peace, hurrum!” growled the bear, digging a claw momentarily into the Human’s neck.
To his immense surprise,
Kevin found that the sensation passed, leaving him weak and sweating, but unashamed. “How did you do that?”
“You are weak,
hurrum, and should regain your strength. Do not speak.”
“Who
are
you?”
“Hum,” grunted the bear. “I am Braybock ben
Darna of the Blackpaw branch of the Honeybears, noble Human, humble assistant to the great healer Zinfandir. Please call me Bock–it is my common name. Hurrum! You rest, fortunate in your narrow escape and eleven darktimes in convalescence, in the abode of one Zephyr, a Tomalia of humble standing.”
Confusion registered in
Kevin’s illness-dulled eyes. Darktimes? Did he mean nights? He was speaking to a Honeybear? “I’m sorry, Bock old bean, but I’m not following. What is a common name? And what is a Tomalia?”
“Forgive my stumbling tongue,
hurrum,” said Bock, giving him a glance sharply at odds with his bumbling mannerisms and speech. His eyes were as black as berries, but unmistakably merry. “I did not know you were a stranger to the Hills. Hum haffar, you should speak up, for my old ears strain to hear you–indeed, I should have guessed from your speech and the strange colouration of your hair. Where lies your homeland?”
“
Scotland.”
“
Hurrum harrah, never heard of it,” he said cheerfully, clapping his paws together as if this were excellent news. “Then again, I’ve never travelled beyond the Hills myself, so what do I know? Stranger, you find yourself–hurrum–in the great Forest, which covers as a blanket the territory called Driadorn. We creatures who dwell beneath the sheltering boughs do speak of the Seventy-Seven Hills, hurrum hurrum. As to our naming, need I recount the knowledge of babes and sucklings? For all creatures, good Human, have their common or public name that is used by all, and a personal or secret name–their real name–never to be revealed lest some fiendish wizard gain cognisance thereof and work dastardly spells to that creature’s ill fortune. Hurrum, harrah. And your common name is …?”
“Er,
Kevin, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” said he, “
a peculiar Human name, hurrum.” Bock turned to the large bowl, mixing something within with a wooden spoon. It gave off a pleasing, herbaceous smell that thrilled Kevin’s salivary glands at once. “Few Humans one sees here, deep in the older parts of the Forest. I used the term Tomalia, which in the Old Tongue means ‘one-horns’. You are in Unicorn territory.”
Kevin
gasped. The curious feelings he had endured after those dreams of the Unicorn sprang to his mind in flashes of colour. Health. Pins and needles in his feet followed by that agonising shower! Oh dear, oh dear. What had he done, and where had the chest taken him? What had the Unicorn done? For he remembered it all now–the cellar, the vermilion sack, and the monster within! His eyes narrowed.
“Am I dreaming, Bock?”
“Dreaming? Hurrum, a strange question to be asking, young Kee-fan.” He faltered over the unfamiliar name, seemingly unable to pronounce the ‘V’. “Keffin. Ah, I will get it right, hurrum harrah. I know not–”
“You daft old Honeybear, do not tease our guest so,” said a new voice, as in the chamber’s doorway appeared the beautiful head and forequarters of a Unicorn–
the
Unicorn, make no mistake. “You must be common-named Kevin, good Human?”
“
Quite so,” said he, examining his host with green eyes come alive at last. Talking horses? Bears? Ha–fiddlesticks to that! He was not fooled. “And you–”
“Zephyr
of the Unicorns,” said the Unicorn, stepping up to Kevin’s bedside. “The Peace of the Sacred Grove to you.”
His dazzling beauty was only marginally less stunning by daylight than Kevin remembered from his dream, for the Unicorn had a physique of a Da Vinci masterpiece–at least, Kevin assumed so from pictures he had seen–and eyes that were pools of brown so dark as to be almost black, expressive and gentle and wise, and it
struck Kevin that in their first lighting upon him the Unicorn knew all things about him worth knowing, and yet esteemed him nonetheless. Could one hide from such eyes? The proud arch of his neck was perfection. His coat was the flawless white of snow freshly fallen, before the birds and animals have disturbed it. That double-spiralled horn was like a jewel centred in his forehead. Though the word was incongruous for a male, he was indeed
beautiful
.
Kevin fixed him with a sceptical frown.
“You say, ‘And also to you, good Unicorn’,” Zephyr instructed, sounding exactly like one of the teachers who had tutored Kevin in his younger years. “We always reflect the Peace. The Peace of the Hills, or the Mothering Forest, the Sacred Grove–all are acceptable.”
“I must be dreaming.”
“This is no dream, I assure you.”
Such he might have read in a story. Was he
stuck in the pages of a book, Kevin wondered? Trapped in a story, in a dream of extraordinary detail? If so, he could prove it.
“So how come I
can understand you?”
“A piffling incantation,” said the Unicorn. “Languages are my specialty. Are you comfortable? Has Bock been treating you well?”
“Er–yes. But you’re speaking English. I am dreaming in English.”
“Ah, by the Hills,” Zephyr drew himself up and preened
like a cockatoo. “You, good outlander, are speaking Standard Driadornese. My incantation works beautifully, doesn’t it? It takes care of reading, too. Furthermore, you’ll master languages at an increased rate–”
“Er–slow down, old sprout. How did you know my name?”
“Bock told me, of course.” Zephyr’s ears pricked at something Kevin could not hear. “The summons has been made. So soon! We have but a moment’s grace.”
“What’s happening?”
“The Council would question you.”
Shrinking back against the pillows shifted his leg, which began to throb in harmony with the rhythm of his pulse. The Honeybear came to
Kevin at once, as if sensing the change in his condition. “Hurrum harrah, this is inadvisable!” he huffed to the world at large, cradling Kevin’s head in his powerful paw with the ease of a father cradling his babe. “Drink this, good Human, haffar. It will ease the pain.”
The liquid
was an infusion of amber glory, warming him at once from head to toe.
Zephyr nickered softly, “More Aïssändraught? He will
float amongst the clouds! Good Kevin, incline your ear. Our Forest is afflicted by a terrible Blight, which daily grows in severity. When the Dryads learned of this affliction, they came to us Unicorns for aid, so that together we might protect the mighty Forest. Yet even our skills proved unequal to the task, our learning was helpless to aid, and our greatest magic availed us naught. There would be no panacea. And so we searched further. You were found and summoned hence, to aid and champion our cause.”
Even as he spoke, the walls of the chamber
faded, becoming translucent, and Kevin saw that they were drifting down into a great, round hall from a height that made his stomach want to do cartwheels. It must be an illusion, he told himself, for there was no apparent sensation of motion and yet the scenery shifted steadily past the lowering bed.
The great hall was bigger than he had first assumed, formed by the conjoining of numerous arched pillars of different colours and patterns of marble, and the interior was decorated with splendid gold latticework and sparkling gemstones acting as prisms to cast delightful rainbows throughout the enclosed space. In the centre of the hall
, he saw six low daises in hexagonal array about a seventh dais, larger and more magnificent than the six. Each appeared to be carved from a single gemstone–Kevin readily identified ruby, carnelian, opal, jade, and emerald from pictures once seen in books, but there were others also, for which he had no description. And upon each of these daises stood a Unicorn, posing statue-still and robed in full panoply of state, with long silken trains caught by a brooch at the shoulder spreading around and behind them like bridal gowns. Some affected heavily bejewelled necklaces and anklets for adornment, and the seventh a crown of clear, delicate crystal that sanctified her from the rest.