Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee (best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

Tanaquil left the room a moment after, slamming the door.

Four flights of wide stone stairs, with wooden banisters carved with beasts, fruits, demons and so on, went up fromTanaquil’s level to the haunt of her mother. On each landingthere was an opening to the roof walks and battlements, and inone place Tanaquil saw three of the soldiers sitting on the wall playing a game of Scorpions and Ladders. They were all drunk,as usual, but, noting Tanaquil passing, one called out: “Don’t goup, Lady. The sorceress is busy.”

“Unfortunate,” said Tanaquil. And she climbed the last flight,out of breath, and reached the big black door that shut off her mother’s Sorcerium.

In the center of the door was a head of green jade, whichaddressed Tanaquil. “Do you seek Jaive?”

“Obviously.”

“What is your name, and rank?”

“Tanaquil, her daughter.”

The head seemed to purse its lips, but then the door gave acreak and swung massively open.

The chamber beyond was full of oily smoke and pale light ning flashes. Tanaquil was used to this. She walked in and foundher way among looming chests and stands cluttered with objects,some of which cheeped and chittered. Suddenly there was a great mirror, and in it Tanaquil caught a glimpse of a burning city,towers and sparks and creatures flying through the air. Then thevision vanished, and the smoke sank. Jaive appeared out of thesinking smoke. She stood behind a table covered with books, globes of glass, instruments, wands, and colored substances thatbubbled. In a large cage sat two white mice with rabbit ears and the tails of serpents, eating a sausage. Jaive wore a floor-lengthgown of black-green silk sewn with golden embroidery. Her flaming hair surrounded her face like the burning city in themirror. She frowned.

“What do you want?” asked Tanaquil’s mother.

“Would you like a list?” said Tanaquil.

“I am engaged—” said Jaive.

“You always are. Did you enjoy your breakfast, mother?Mine had a bird in it and then turned into a flower. One of the peeves spilled the rest. My fountain water was berry wine. Mostof my clothes have disappeared. I’m sick of it!”

“What is this nonsense?” said Jaive.

“Mother, you know that everything is in an eternal mess here because of your magic, because of leaks of power and sideeffects of incantations. It’s awful.”

“I search for knowledge,” said Jaive. She added vaguely,“How dare you speak to your mother like this?”Tanaquil sat down on a large dog of some kind that had temporarily turned into a stool.

“When I was little,” said Tanaquil, “I thought it was won derful. When you made the butterflies come out of the fire, andwhen you made the garden grow in the desert. But the butterflieswent pop and the garden dissolved.”

“These childish memories,” said Jaive. “I’ve tried to educate you in the art of sorcery.”

“And I wasn’t any good at it,” said Tanaquil.

“Dreadful,” agreed her mother. “You’re a mere mechanical,I’m afraid.” She made a pass over a beaker and a tiny stormrose into the air. Jaive laughed in pleasure. Tanaquil’s stomachrumbled.

“Mother,” said Tanaquil, “perhaps I should leave.”

“Yes, do, Tanaquil. Let me get on.”

“I mean leave the fortress.”

“Tiresome girl, where could you go?”

Tanaquil said, warily, “If my father—”

Jaive swelled; her robe billowed and her eyes flashed; small faces, imps perhaps, or only tangles, looked out of her hair.“I have never told you who your father was. I renouncedhim. I know nothing of him now. Perhaps he no longer lives.”“After all,” said Tanaquil, “I hardly ever see you, you wouldn’t miss me. And he—” “I won’t discuss it. I’ve told you before, your father is nothing to me. You must put him out of your mind.”Tanaquil lost her temper again. She stood up and glared atthe mice’s sausage.

“Perhaps I’ll just go anyway. Anywhere must be better!”

“It would take days to cross the desert, stupid child. Only asorceress could manage it.” “Then help me.”“I wish you to remain here. You’re my daughter.”There was a rattling noise in the wall, and a faint soprano

voice came down to them from near the ceiling. “. . . Bone . . .” The peeve was passing on its quest through the chimneys.

Jaive took little notice. The peeves, desert animals that hadmade burrows about her fort, thinking it another rock, had years before been infected by her magic and so begun to speak. ToTanaquil the peeve symbolized everything that was wrong. Shesaid tensely, “Mother, you must let me go.”

“No,” said Jaive. And with tiger’s eyes she smiled on her daughter.

Tanaquil got up from the dog and went back across the room and out of the door. On the green jade head, at the age of twelve,she had once painted a moustache, and the head had blinked a rayat her that threw her down the stairs. Tanaquil closed the blackdoor restrainedly and wondered where to vent her anger andfrustration.

Jaive’s fortress had been built in the time of her grand mother, also a sorceress and recluse. It was a strange building ofrather muddled design, and from a distance on the desert it wasnot only peeves who thought it only a peculiar formation of rock.To reach the kitchen of the fort, it was necessary to roam through several long and winding corridors and then down a gloomycavernous stair into the basement. This Tanaquil did.

In the third corridor, a carved gargoyle on a beam, touchedby another random breath of Jaive’s magic, abruptly flared itswings and crowed, but Tanaquil ignored it. She carried the smallclock she had been repairing for the cook. This was something Tanaquil was good at. Since the age of ten, she had found herselfable to mend things. And so, while her mother extravagantlysummoned and questioned demons in her Sorcerium, Tanaquilworked carefully on broken dolls and clocks, music boxes, andeven sometimes some of the soldiers’ crossbows, or bits of the cannon, which were never used except by accident and often went wrong.

The kitchen lay six feet below ground, with high windowsnear the ceiling that let in the light and the sand. Boys weresupposed to be constantly at work, sweeping the floors