The Secret Of The Unicorn Queen - Moonspell Read online

  "What he's trying to tell you," said a silky voice behind them, "is that there's no way out. The house is sealed."

  Sheila felt her skin crawl at the sound of that voice. She would have known it anywhere. She forced herself to face the sorcerer who had sworn vengeance on her.

  Wearing blood-red robes, Mardock stood tall and impos­ing, his long black curls tumbling to his shoulders. "Do you like my house?" he asked cordially. "It was created with just you two in mind. Or to be more specific, it was created from your minds."

  "It's all illusion, then?'' Sheila asked, surprised to find herself curious despite her fear.

  "You're both so easy," the wizard gloated. "It was child's play to reach into your minds and draw out the images that would comfort you. Sheila even provided me with the lady of the house."

  Sheila shut her eyes. It had been Mrs. Kaplan, slightly reworked, of course. Mardock had been able to steal her mem­ories from the fourth grade! And she hadn't even felt him reaching for them. Every time she came up against this wizard, it seemed he had more power than the last time. Was there anything within her that he didn’t know?

  She opened her eyes in alarm as she heard a familiar scrap­ing sound. Darian, his sword drawn, was moving toward the sorcerer with a frightening intensity.

  Amused, Mardock watched him. And then, as if deciding to let the boy have his way, he began backing up into the great hall.

  "Darian, stop!" Sheila called out. "You know you can’t hurt him that way. He's only playing with you."

  Darian ignored her, advancing steadily on Mardock, There was no way to talk him out of it, Sheila knew. Once he had begun a fight, he lost all fear.

  Desperately Sheila unzipped her backpack. Unwilling to take her eyes off Darian, she fished around blindly with one hand. She bypassed matches, the last of the sparklers, her tape player, the makeup. Everything seemed useless. Then her hand closed on the camera. It might not work against the wizard, but it was definitely worth a try.

  Mardock's eyes flickered curiously as she took his picture, but he didn't try to stop her. He simply continued his cat-and-mouse game with Darian, who struck at him repeatedly without connecting.

  Nearly frantic, Sheila waited for the picture to develop, and then thrust it quickly between Mardock and the tip of Darian's sword. "See what I hold," she commanded, ignoring Darian's order to get out of the way.

  Mardock gave the photo a cursory glance. "A pretty trick," he declared. "What good is it?"

  "Don't you know?" Sheila asked, wondering if she could actually pull off this bluff a second time. She tried to give her voice authority as she said, "I've captured your image, and with it your soul. Your power will soon be mine."

  "You are stupider than I thought." The sorcerer's voice dripped with contempt. "And I grow weary of playing with this overly aggressive cub. Let me show you how much of my power remains mine."

  Mardock didn't move. He didn't have to. Sheila saw the same gray mist she had seen in her vision rise out of his body. It floated into the air, hovered for a moment above the fire­place, and then settled around Darian like a fine gray net.

  Darian's eyes went wide as he dropped the sword and fell to his knees.

  "What is it?" Sheila asked, terrified. There were no marks on Darian, and yet he was writhing in pain. "What's he done to you?"

  "It burns," Darian gasped. "It's burning me."

  "You," Sheila breathed, facing Mardock furiously. "You lift that mist from him now!"

  Mardock looked bored. "You're hardly in any position to be giving orders, girl." He gestured to the fireplace. "For you I think I'll use a more traditional flame."

  To her horror Sheila found herself drawn to the burning hearth. She had no control over her feet, but was somehow being led slowly, surely, to the roaring flames. The high black mantel rose well over her head, and Sheila knew that Mardock intended her to walk into the fire. The flames were beckoning her. She would simply walk into the fire, she thought with a strange sense of calm. That was all she was meant to do. She moved forward blindly, as if in a trance, until she heard Darian give a low moan behind her. And with that small sound, all her fury returned.

  Mardock could only be fought with magic, and Sheila knew her own magic wasn't strong enough to challenge him.

  But that didn't mean she couldn't call on someone whose was. She stared straight into the high yellow flames, and now she saw them leaping and dancing, devouring the wood, waiting for her. "Let my anger burn as you do," she began silently. "Fire and flame, I call on you and give you whatever strength is still within me. Burn through this night. Send a calling to the sorceress Micula and summon her to me now!"

  A white heat shot through her, and for a moment Sheila lost track of everything—of Darian and Mardock and her own slow progression toward the flames. There was only a thin line of fire burning hot and white within her. It hurt, but Sheila knew at once that it would do her no harm. There was strength in the fire, pulling her away from the hearth and turning her unafraid to face Mardock.

  Sheila began to tremble as she understood what was hap­pening. The sorceress had not appeared at her summoning, but she had sent her power, and it was Micula's magic that was now racing through Sheila's body like a hot, white fire.

  The power of Micula felt nothing like the brief flashes of magic Sheila had experienced on her own. Sure and strong, it made everything around her luminously clear. She saw the mist clinging to Darian. Everywhere it touched him, he was scored with wire-thin red lines of pain. And as she saw it, she called it from him and returned it to the fire, its true source. I didn't even have to think about that, Sheila realized in amaze­ment. I just did it.

  Darian breathed out a long sigh of relief and Sheila turned back to Mardock.

  "You have help now," he said calmly. "But how long do you think it will last?"

  "Long enough," Sheila assured him. She chanted a string of words in a tongue that only Micula would have known, and the fire began pulling Mardock toward it. This was not the slow, relentless tug that Sheila had felt. It was as if the wizard were being sucked into the flames by a giant vacuum.

  Howling with rage, he fought against Micula's power, but the magic was overwhelming. "Girl," he panted, "for this you will—“ But he never finished the threat. In his only chance to escape Micula's wrath, he called out an incantation of his own, and a sheet of dark red light materialized and wrapped itself around him. Sheila fell back as if she had been struck. There was no sound, no movement, and yet she knew that somehow everything was shattering.

  It seemed an eternity before it was over. Then Sheila slowly sat up. Her eyes went first to Darian, who looked stunned but otherwise unhurt. Thank you, Micula, she said silently. Without you, we wouldn't have survived. The white fire that had burned within her was gone. As was Mardock and the house. Dawn was just breaking, and she and Darian were sitting on the damp forest floor just a short distance away from the banks of the Caolin River.

  12

  After the Storm

  There was only one night left before the full moon, and nei­ther Sheila nor Darian had any idea of how far it was to Ryudain. Before them the Caolin River cut a wide blue swath along the side of the mountain. Turning and twisting back on itself, the river opened up the deep, dark forest; sunlight played on the water and streamed through the branches of the tall pines that bordered it. In the aftermath of the storm, birds were calling and squirrels were racing each other up and down the trees. Sheila thought she could almost forget the night's encounter with Mardock. In the bright sunshine it seemed surreal, just one more nightmare.

  Darian, however, did not seem willing to forget. Except to note that there was a good deal of white water and that the river’s current was getting stronger, he barely spoke.

  They followed the river from early morning until the sun was high overhead. The farther they went, the steeper their trail became. How much higher does it go? Sheila wondered. She heard what she thought might be the sound of falls up ahead, b
ut when she mentioned it to Darian, he only grunted something unintelligible. The riverbank soon became strewn with large white boulders that necessitated a great deal of leaping, climbing, balancing, and general scrambling around.

  For Sheila, this made conversation impossible and left her to deal with what was really on her mind—the fate of Morning Star.

  Again and again she found herself wondering how far the unicorn was from Ryudain. She couldn't bear to think she might not reach it safely. Almost as bad was the thought that Morning Star might reach Ryudain but never return from the wild. Morning Star had carried Sheila through more adven­tures than she could count and saved her life on more than one occasion. They were friends, and Sheila couldn't imagine life without her.

  Sheila knew that Darian could sometimes sense Wildwing's whereabouts, and she wondered if it would be possible for her to sense Morning Star now. Working her way mechanically from rock to rock, she closed her eyes for a second, trying to make herself feel the unicorn's presence. But her timing was off, and her eyes flew open in alarm as she found herself sliding off one very large rock and straight toward the river.

  Darian's hand closed firmly on her wrist, stopping her in mid-slide and yanking her safely back onto the rock.

  "Are you falling asleep?'' he demanded.

  "No," Sheila admitted sheepishly. ''I closed my eyes be­cause I was trying to sense Morning Star."

  "If that's what you want to do, you ought to have enough sense to wait until you're on solid ground," he snapped, and began to make his way upriver again. Like anything that in­volved physical action, climbing came easily to Darian. He moved from rock to rock with a careless, easy grace that left Sheila a good ways behind.

  She watched him dart up the side of a particularly steep rock that seemed to have no footholds at all, and was surprised when he turned and waited for her, offering a hand up. She scrambled to his side and would have leapt to the next rock, but he held her back. "I think we should go inland for a while," he said, nodding toward the forest.

  "No," said Sheila. "I'm not getting lost in there again. Look, I promise I won't fall off any more rocks."

  "It's not that," Darian said with a trace of a smile. "I just have this feeling that we ought to be moving back into the woods now.

  "How come you always have these feelings?" Sheila mut­tered, although she already knew the answer. It wasn't any­thing mystical. Like Illyria and Kara and Zanara-Ki, Darian had a warrior's sixth sense. Through long hours of practice he had developed a special sensitivity to sound and movement and scent.

  "We won't go too far from the river," Darian promised. Then, without waiting for an answer, he leapt off the rock.

  Sheila rolled her eyes but followed him into the forest, starting nervously when a bird flew too close. She didn't think she could take another encounter with a giant owl. But she relaxed a bit when she realized Darian was keeping his word. They were traveling in a line that was roughly parallel to the river, and they remained within earshot of the water.

  For what seemed like hours, they traipsed through the dense green undergrowth. Sheila wanted to call for a break, but there was an urgency in Darian's movements that kept her going without complaint. She was surprised when it was he who finally stopped.

  "Up there," Darian said, pointing overhead.

  Sheila followed the line of his hand and was filled with sudden hope at the sight of an eagle soaring high above. Mo­tionlessly, she watched it wing through the sky as if it owned the heavens. "Do you think that's one of Laric's men?" she asked excitedly.

  "No,'' Darian said. ''It's too small."

  Sheila felt her heart drop. "Well, do you think they'll come to Ryudain?" she persisted.

  "Who knows?" Darian snapped, setting of at another killer pace. "At this rate I'm not even sure we'll get there."

  Darkness fell just as they came to the top of another ridge. Below it the land dipped into a shallow valley before ascend­ing the mountain again. Sheila took a deep breath, hearing the wind whip through the trees. Like the ones before, this night would be a wild one.

  "Now, let's not have any complaints about me making you walk through the woods," Darian said, pointing down into the valley.

  "What?" she said indignantly, ready to argue that she hadn't complained at all. But what she saw turned her protest into a shout of pure joy. There, nested against the hollow of the mountain, a small group of women were gathered around a fire. And on the outskirts of the camp, dancing in and out of the firelight only to disappear again into the night, were the unicorns.

  Sheila turned to Darian and threw her arms around him. "We found them, we found them, we found them!" she chanted, jumping up and down with excitement.

  "Unless you want whoever else might be on this mountain to find us, you'd better calm down," he said, but he was laugh­ing, and Sheila knew he was as happy as she was. With an­other shriek of joy, she grabbed his hand and began running down the side of the mountain.

  Darian let himself be pulled along for a while, but slowed as they neared the outskirts of the camp. "Hold on a minute," he said breathlessly.

  "What is it?" she asked, barely able to contain her im­patience.

  "There's something I've been wanting to tell you," he said, his voice serious. Gently his thumb traced the line of her cheekbone. "A long time ago I called you a sorceress.”

  Sheila felt herself redden with embarrassment.

  "You proved it last night," he went on.

  "No," Sheila said. "I don't know what you saw, but that wasn't me, Darian. It was Micula's power that stopped Mardock. I never could have done it."

  "But you summoned her," he said. "That's magic. And you've got to know," –for the first time his voice faltered— “that you are magic, Sheila McCarthy. Always.”

  "Oh," Sheila said, stunned, She really didn't know what to say to that, but something in his eyes gave her the courage to tell him what was really in her heart. "I'm not sure about this magic stuff," she confessed, her voice trembling. "There's only one thing I'm sure about, and that's how I feel about you.”

  Darian gave a soft, low laugh and drew her into his arms. "Don't you know?" he chided her gently, "that's magic, too," And then, even though they were only a short distance from the camp, he kissed her until she was breathless.

  An indignant snort behind them finally broke the mood. "I think we have company," Darian murmured, releasing Sheila and turning toward the source of the noise. When he saw that it was Wildwing, he threw himself at the unicorn with a happy shout. But although the unicorn was obviously glad to see his rider, he skittered nervously out of reach when Darian tried to touch him, "He's almost completely wild again," Darian said sadly. "I wonder if they're all like that now."

  Sheila felt a sharp pang at the thought that Morning Star might not let her touch her, and a sharper one at the thought that Morning Star might not even be here. Determined to face the truth, she set off into the camp. "We'll see," she said. ''We'll just see."

  13

  The Renewal

  Sheila and Darian emerged from the line of trees that bordered the camp. The riders were all there, and so were the unicorns. Sheila felt herself go weak with relief when she caught sight of Morning Star prancing around the line of trees that marked the far edge of the camp. But as her eyes roamed the clearing, hoping to see Illyria, her heart began to pound. Pelu and Nanine could clearly be seen tending the fire, with most of the riders gathered round them. And ringing the fire, each the size of a Great Dane, were the wolves. They were a dusky gray, so dark they were barely recognizable in the eve­ning shadows. It was their eyes that gave them away— yellow glittering eyes.

  A low growl rippled through the pack, and Sheila's hand went to the hilt of her sword. Darian's blade was already drawn. But the wolves, seeing two intruders, were already be­ginning to advance.

  Sheila would never know what might have happened had Illyria not stepped through the circle of wolves. "They are welcome here," the Unicorn Queen to
ld the animals, and one by one they fell back. "It's all right," she said to Sheila and Darian, motioning for them to sheath their swords. "As ani­mals of the moon, the wolves are here to protect the unicorns. They have given us escort all along." She kept her eyes on the animals until the growling stopped and they had once more settled around the fire looking reasonably peaceful. Then she turned to the two teenagers and said, "Every night I have wished for your return. The moon has been kind.

  "We've been wanting to come back, too," Darian said a little awkwardly. As Darian and Illyria embraced, Micula stepped forward. The sorceress looked much as she always had, but Sheila couldn't take her eyes off her. For a brief time Sheila had known what it felt like to have Micula's command of magic, and she was still awed. "I—" Sheila began lamely, wondering how she could adequately thank Micula.

  She needn't have wondered, As usual, the sorceress read her. "No thanks are necessary,” she said coolly, with an ap­praising look at Sheila. "You provided a strong entryway for me. I couldn't have acted against Mardock had you not sum­moned me and given me a channel in which to work. You did well, Sheila. One day you will have strong magic of your own.”

  Sheila couldn't believe her ears. She had never expected to hear Micula's praise.

  "Tomorrow is full moon," the sorceress went on, not lin­gering over sentiment. "We need only protect the unicorns for one more night."

  The last night with the unicorns passed uneventfully. Sheila and Darian were welcomed back by the riders and fed a hearty dinner while everyone plied them with questions. Sheila tried to visit with Morning Star, but the unicorn wouldn't even let her approach. The wolves were friendlier, Sheila thought with a sinking heart as she got ready to sleep. Tomorrow might be the last time she would ever see Morning Star, and already the mare was treating her like a stranger.