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

boiling day. “Will you show me? Can I help you?” The peeve put its head down and studied the eighth bone it

had brought. There was a silence.Tanaquil said, “You know, the ravens might come back totheir nest and steal from you.”The peeve tossed up its head and scanned the sky, its whisk ers making fierce arcs.

Tanaquil felt like a villain.

“Let me help,” she said. She went over to the peeve andgently stroked its head. The peeve allowed this and looked at herout of topaz eyes. “You are so clever. It’s a wonderful bone.”

They went out in the afternoon, when the worst of the heatwas lessening. The peeve had been running back and forth allmorning, only pausing to drink from the cistern in the roofgulley.

After all, the peeve seemed pleased to have company. It bustled along, sometimes rushing ahead, then playing in the sand until Tanaquil caught up. The direction in which they went wasthat of the rock hills. Tanaquil accepted this with an odd feelingin her stomach. When the little afternoon shadow of the hills came over them, and the peeve bounded in under the hollow hillshaped like a bridge, Tanaquil nodded. The hoard of fabulousbones lay exactly beneath the spot where she had brooded. Per haps the dust storm a week ago had uncovered them, or evenother playful peeves.

The dark heat under the arch of the hill was solemn and purple. Over among the tendons of the rock, the peeve exca vated, sending up sprays of sand.

Tanaquil went to see.

And there, sticking up like crystal plants, were the tops ofbones.

They dug together .

“Good, good,” said the peeve, thrusting in its nose, andsuddenly uprooting—there could be no doubt—a whole ribcage.

It was large, daunting. How it shone in the shadow. “Sprr,” saidthe peeve. They pulled out the cage of ribs, and leg bones followed and dropped apart in jewelry bits. It was like the leg ofa huge dog, or like a horse’s leg.

“Is there a skull?” asked Tanaquil.

The peeve took no notice, only went on digging. It had apparently realized that, with Tanaquil to carry the bones, itcould unearth all of them.

They had worked in the hollow hill for maybe an hour whenthe sand gave way, pouring down and over itself into a bigcauldron. Some of the bones just coming visible were foldedaway into the sand-slip.

The peeve rolled about, kicking. Tanaquil used one of the oaths the soldiers were fond of.

Very likely, the bones lay over a void in the sand; they mighttumble down into some hidden abyss, unreachable. The sand might also give way entirely under Tanaquil and the peeve, cast ing them after.

Tanaquil tried to make the peeve understand this, but it paid no attention, only resumed its digging. Tanaquil shrugged, andthrew in her lot with it, bracing herself, if she felt any movementunder her, to grab the animal and run.

No more slips occurred, and gradually the new bones cameclear again. There were parts of vertebrae, and the segments of along neck: star flowers.

Then, against her plucking hands, Tanaquil felt a smoothmass. She heaved the object out. The sand shook off.

“No good,” said the peeve. “Not a bone.”

“It’s the skull,” said Tanaquil.

She held the skull in her hands, astonished, even after what she had seen.

It was a horse skull, or very like one, and it gleamed likean opal, polished finer than the other bones. Colors ran throughthe crystal of it, fiery, limpid. She imagined the brain inside thiscase, which must have fed on such colors, or caused them. The teeth were all present, silvery white. A pad of bone rose on theskull, above the sockets of the eyes—layers of opal—indented like another socket to hold some precious gem.

Tanaquil looked about. She was surrounded by the bones.The peeve was still industriously digging, shooting sand into theair, disappearing slowly down a hole.

“I think that’s all,” said Tanaquil. “ Almost all of it’s here.”

“More,” said the peeve.

“Let’s go back now.”

The peeve kicked and the sand gave. The peeve fell only afoot, but Tanaquil leaned down and took hold of it. It came outpummelling the air, sneezing angrily.

“Want dig.”

“No, that’s enough.”

“Dig, dig.”

“Let’s take these bones to my room. They’ll be safe there.You can share my room. You’d like that. I’ll get you some lovelymeat fat.” The peeve considered. It sat down and washed itself, leavingthe bone hole be.

Tanaquil began to gather up the bones. She took the scarf offher head and folded bones into it, and put bones into the cuffs ofher boots, into pockets. The ribcage was difficult; she somehowgot it on to her back. She picked up the opal skull, cradling it inher free arm. “You take those.” She indicated the last few slender vertebrae she had not managed to stow. The peeve got them into its mouth. Its mouth stood open, glittering.

Suppose someone saw them? Generally, the fortress might aswell have been deserted during the afternoon. The soldiers andservants dozed, and Jaive swirled about her Sorcerium impervi ous to heat. Tanaquil hoped they would keep to their usualschedule; she did not want to share her discovery. Although she could not leave the fort, she had found a temporary escape—forthe bones of the magical beast made her forget herself. In com parison to them, what did anything else matter?

The blast of the sunlight beyond the hill was mighty, but thesun was lowering itself westward and the sky was thick and golden.Tanaquil and the peeve walked toward the fortress with great shadows before them.

Tanaquil told the peeve about the fat toast, and roast meat,and other things she thought she might be able to get for it. Itkept pace with her, not arguing, mouth full of magic.

The peeve made a lair under Tanaquil’s bed. It bundled upher rug and pushed that under, and took a pillow. Streams offeather stuffing eddied out from the torn pillow, across the floor.

As she arranged the bones along the floor at the opposite endof the room, she heard the peeve snuffling and complaining to

itself, fidgeting about. It had eaten the rancid fat in the window,and she had brought