The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(105)

So she reached for that light when it had shone on a great open archway, wrenching the past up against the present. And when she did, the gates disappeared.

She wavered at that, the pain coming back to her head. But the knights standing guard had also swayed a frightened step back. She called to the unicorn, who lowered her head and charged, while all the people cheered and poured in behind. The unicorn shot forward like a falling star, running between the great horses, who shied away from her. And then the whole city of Keris was spilling, wild, behind her into the palace courtyard, and grooms were running out, calling questions, joining with the people from the city, and they were surrounding the bewildered knights, who had drawn their swords but killed no one.

The unicorn wheeled and Anne felt that they stood together in a patch of sun, though it was deepest night, and the glow of her gown and the unicorn’s horn was reflected in the knights’ armor. One of them put aside his helm and she saw his face beneath: haggard, old, tired.

She said, “Sir, whom do you serve?”

“The king who is gone,” whispered the knight. “My mistress the queen.” His eyes were fixed with wonder on the unicorn.

“Your king is gone,” said Anne, letting her voice carry. “But I have seen him. He went into the Lost Lands in search of his beloved wife. And I found him there and he gave me this gown of pearls that was once worn by his queen. And he gave me also his ring, with the sigil of sea-drakes.” She tore the cord from her neck and held it up where the light seized it. “And with that he gave me his blessing. For I said I wished to save his city, which has long been lost in the dark. It is a thousand years since Keris was seen in daylight where once it stood, in the bay of Douarnenez.”

Answering cries, anger, affirmation, spread through the crowd. One knight dropped his sword with a clatter. “We are dead!” someone screamed. “We are ghosts.”

“You may choose your own fate!” retorted Anne. “Do you wish to live in daylight again?”

The old knight whispered, “Can you do this thing, fair wanderer? It is not within the power of any sorcery I know.”

“It is within our power together,” said Anne, pitching her voice so they could hear her. She hoped with all her heart that she was right. “And perhaps the queen will be swayed to our cause. Will you open the door of this palace for us? No feast can last forever.”

Still the knight hesitated, weary honor warring with the fear on his face. “I swore my oath to the king, and to his daughter too, when she was crowned in his place. She ordered me to keep the door.”

“Has she kept her oaths to you?” Anne’s voice rang out over them all.

Slowly, the old knight dismounted. He went with a heavy step to the grand doors of the castle and hesitated. The unicorn put her head round a little, and her slanted ear asked a question.

“Will you carry me in?” Anne whispered.

The ear gave an irritable twitch, but the unicorn turned her head back to the door.

The knight threw these doors back and stood aside.

Was that a glimmer of dawn in the east? Perhaps it was merely a scrap of the city’s light, reflected off the open sea.

The old knight walked beside the unicorn. He said, “The queen will want to kill you. To put the smothering-mask on you. She is dangerous, lady.”

Anne did not reply. In truth, her heart was caught with wonder. She had never been so mad for tales as Isabeau, but she had still heard many stories of Keris. And yet the reality of that palace gave every legend the lie.

Never-Was had been built by the korriganed with no mortal logic. The castle of the dukes of Brittany was made according to the rules of nature—practical, not wondrous. But the palace at Keris had been wrought with the gifts of both men and korriganed, and so it partook of the best powers of both. Soaring rooms led gracefully one to the next, and they housed glorious impossibilities. One room was columned with trees. Another was carpeted with flowers. A third was lit by a pure and sourceless dawn light.

The unicorn went through them all, though Anne could feel how tense she was, see by the daylit glow in her horn how near she was to fleeing altogether. The crowd ran and sobbed and sang in their wake. She had whipped them up with all her skill; she must control them now, if she could.

Then a door barred their way, a double door of great height, bound in gilded iron and studded with wrought bronze. It was unguarded. A smell of smoke and wine and food gone sour crept from beneath.

“Open it,” said Anne, trying not to let the knight see the tension that knotted her throat.

He threw open the two doors, and stepped aside.

Anne had thought the palace a thing of glory. But the other rooms were nothing compared to the great hall of Keris. The vaults of the ceiling were as irregular and as arresting as tree branches, and they glittered with pale lights. A beautiful chaos of stonework comprised the floor.

And yet it was sticky and stained, chipped in places, and a haze of unpleasant smoke veiled the pale lights. The bells outside still sounded, but muffled, as though the night might reassert itself, here in the heart of this ancient place.

A great crowd packed that room, dressed in sweat-stained robes of silk. They looked like flowers beneath the stone trees. When they saw the unicorn, they all stirred as one. There was something wanton and pagan about the movement of all that fabric, the rhythm of their speech, already reasserting itself in hasty murmurs as they recovered from their surprise.