I have several versions of the beginning of this story. This is the second chapter of the most complete version.

My story takes place on an island called Pulau that has been colonized by a people loosely referred to as "Contientals". In the previous chapter, the heroine (for lack of a better word) was chosen to be in what could very well be the last unicorn hunt before the animal's final exstinction.

If you are interested in betaing my writing, please contact me at:  . Also, feel free to send me your comments. I have received absolutely no comments so far on my writing on the this site, I have no idea why. Speculation would be conterproductive so I am just going to say PLEASE comment, even if it only to say, "I'm very busy; I only read your first sentence", etc.

Thanks! 

It began to rain in earnest the day they departed, turning the crude island roads into muddy rivulets and making the journey almost impossibly slow. The porters swore stolidly as they slipped and stumbled up the mountain, often stopping to rest, shift the loads, and complain. On such occasions, the men would disembark, Etovices giving orders to the servants and securing the luggage, and Ateaurtes standing on the highest point of the path, grinning, his hands crammed into his breeches and the rain running down his face. Lanthiad satisfied herself with opening the door of her litter, resting her feet on the narrow runner, and leaning her head out as far as she could manage. The rainfall was a welcome relief. Steam rose from her shoulders and the blush washed from her cheeks. She felt her heart lighten. She smiled at the vexed servants, she grinned at the view from the mountain of the fields and forests below, and she laughed silently at Ateaurtes’ hat, which had lost all its shape in the rainfall and flopped about his ears.

Since Bartinauntes’ estate was the Continental settlement nearest to the hunting ground, the parties would converge there and use it as the starting point. Bartinauntes had no objection, since he was to be one of the half a dozen planters who were to participate in the hunt. It was necessary to set their estates in order before they could have an adventure, so the hunt was delayed until four days after the maiden was chosen, exactly two weeks after the unicorn was seen. Etovices had joined the party only because he was Lanthiad’s guardian, leaving Kiles behind to tend his estate.

The hunting party arrived shortly before sundown at Bartinauntes’ estate in the North Country. The estate was situated in a small, irregularly shaped clearing abutting a massive, narrow plateau, and was arranged unusually, with the main house on a slight rise in the center, and the storehouses, worker’s houses and rice fields gathered haphazardly about it, like a village. Surrounding it all was a dense forest, out of which towered more plateaus, draped with precariously angled trees and shrubs. It was formidable and strangely lovely, gray-green in thick, low-lying rain clouds.

In front of Bartinauntes’ house was a riddle of planks, balanced between driven stakes and creating wobbly, dangerously narrow avenues above the flooded yard. The servants didn’t bother with the niceties of the avenues, having trekked half way up the island in worse conditions. Nevertheless, the luggage was heavy and the litters precious and cumbersome, making it slow work.

Lanthiad looked askance at the unconventional system; she was not naturally graceful, and it had been a compassionate act on Kiles’ part that he chaperoned her ascent along the steep, crude steps of her uncle’s fields to the main house whenever she ventured out.  Etovices had initially forbidden her wanderings, claiming she was too delicate, but had withdrawn his reservations when he saw she was looked after.  Although Etovices himself was now present, as well as Ateaurtes, they were busy supervising the servants and took their time about seeing her inside. At last, she grew impatient and gingerly stepped out onto the nearest plank, gripping the small eave of the litter to steady herself. The plank wobbled, but she held firm. Encouraged by this small success, she took a step forward and slipped directly into the murky water.

Ateaurtes cut a quick path through the pool and heaved her sputtering, struggling form upright.

He laughed and held her firmly by the waist until she found the beginnings of a tenuous balance.

Lanthiad coughed, shoved her fallen hair out of her face and looked vaguely about. “Where’s my hat?”

Still chuckling, Ateaurtes scooped it up out of the cloudy water and presented it to her with mock formality.  She stared at the sodden, muddy thing in his hand, temporarily at a loss, then snatched it from his fingers and trudged toward the main house, refusing to look at him. Her waterlogged skirts dragged heavily in her wake, severely hampering her progress. It was only through luck and tenacity that she reached the relative safety of the veranda without tumbling into the water again.

 “Out in the fields, you say? Well, what has to be done, has to be done.  He did tell you to expect us, though? The hunting party?” Etovices was saying to Bartinauntes’ household servants, two women and three men. They were well trained and barely even glanced at Lanthiad’s shameful state.

The servants bowed, and the elder of the house women gave a silent signal to the men to assist the party’s servants in unloading their luggage.  The housemen hastened down the steps, deftly navigating the plank avenue. Etovices took off his hat and began to absently wring it out over the railing. Lanthiad looked down at her own hat forlornly—wringing it out would have been just the final abuse it needed to consign it to complete ruin.

“It’s a beautiful country,” Etovices said conversationally. He was accustomed to behaving casually with servants, a habit that Lanthiad and Ateaurtes’ father had found grievance with.

“How will they know their place if he constantly corrupts their training?” he had groused. “It’s better that he went to that heathen island, where he cannot tell my butler to have a drink, too.” Their father had a long memory and a strict sense of propriety, and since Etovices had left the Continent when Ateaurtes was still in curls, several years prior to Lanthiad’s birth, they had both been inoculated with a reserve that Etovices had found priggish on more than one occasion.

“Lanthiad,” he said, turning to her and putting his hat back on, “Why don’t you go with Bumi here? I’m certain you could use a rest. You look like you’ve been drowned.” He said the last with a note of surprise. He motioned Lanthiad to the elder house woman, ostensibly transferring responsibility. “I’ll see your bags find you.” The words came out absently, as if he found it difficult to be confounded and speak naturally at the same time. He watched his niece follow the house woman inside, his expression circumspect.

The house woman led Lanthiad to a room on the west side of the house, still tightly shuttered against the day’s rainfall. The sunlight poured through the louvers, striping all within.  Lanthiad stood dumbly in the middle of the room, dripping. The room was not so different from her own, being about the same size and similarly equipped with a mixture of Continental and island-made furniture. The dressing table was plainer, with a small, squarish silver mirror, and the bed had crisp white linen and posts with finials carved to resemble soulnut flowers. A brass lamp was suspended from a chain in the center of the room. The pitcher and wash basin in the corner were white porcelain, painted with tiny blue fishermen in odd, blue covered boats, whereas the set at her uncle’s depicted some kind of picnic. 

She thought: When I am an old woman looking back upon my time on the Island, I’ll confuse every room I saw with another until they are all merged into an image of a single room, which itself probably never existed. And it will be covered in soulnut trees.

It seemed that everywhere she looked something alluded to the soulnut trees. They were featured in the paintings on the walls, carved into the furniture, and embossed on her uncle’s writing paper. They were the main theme of filigree above the verandas and the weave of the Pulauni women’s clothes. Bĕrbijidiri, they called the trees. Kiles had taught her the Pulauni name the day before they departed, when he gave her a Pulauni good-luck charm to take with her on the hunt. It had taken her by surprise; the only things Kiles had ever given her before had been stories. The charm was large, and rather heavy, composed of about a dozen walnut-sized wood beads strung on a red silk ribbon and scored with geometric figures. If she tied the long ends together, it made a cumbersome necklace.

“I would be gratified if you would wear it. The Pulauni place great value on its ability to bring good fortune,” he’d said, looking at her as if he dared her to deny it. “Warriors wear them.”

Lanthiad had debated whether it could be considered a love token. The only male outside of her family who had ever given her anything was the cook’s boy, when she was seven, and that had been a toy top. By the end of the week, he’d asked for it back. Now here she had been with another wooden object with ambiguous meaning. She’d sighed, promising Kiles that she would, and herself that she would keep it a secret from her brother and uncle. If it were a love token, they would not approve, least of all because it was not a gold lavaliere.

“I’m certainly not a warrior,” she had commented, feeling the heft of the Pulauni charm in her hand.

“It doesn’t care.”

A servant placed her carpetbag just inside the door, startling her from her thoughts. He bowed and disappeared before she could thank him. Left alone again, she closed the door and undressed, hanging her wet garments to dry as she went. She opened her bag and sighed; the rain had soaked everything through. When the house woman returned, she found Lanthiad sitting on the bed in her chemise, the few possessions she had brought along spread out on the bed to dry.  Her clothing dangled off every surface like bizarre, albino creepers.

“Marita?”

Lanthiad looked up at Bumi, the Pulauni house woman. She was an older woman, quite handsome, dressed traditionally, but in shockingly bright colors even for a Pulauni: teal on purple, with gold stitching at the hem. Her black hair was pulled back tightly from her broad forehead and gathered into a bun at he base of her neck. Silver jewelry covered every available limb. She cautiously touched a pair of bloomers hanging from the lip of the dressing table drawer and looked at the empty carpetbag.

“All?”

Lanthiad nodded.

Bumi eyed the draped room again, and sighed. “I am sorry for you, Marita.” Her dark eyes focused on the thick, woven hair hoop in Lanthiad’s hands, puzzled. “What is that strange thing?”

Lanthiad glanced down, and put the hoop on her head. She grinned.

“It’s for my hair.” She lifted her tangled wet locks up over the hoop and bunched them together on top of her head. Bumi was unimpressed. Lanthiad let her hair fall and set the hoop aside, saying, “It’s supposed to make me beautiful.”

“Does it?”

Lanthiad looked up at the Pulauni woman’s face, surprised at her candor.

“Not particularly; it just makes me taller,” she admitted, and they exchanged a wry grin.

Bumi turned to leave. “I will find you clothes, Marita.”

Shortly before supper, the men were informed that Lanthiad was going to eat in her room and would not be joining them. The only women’s clothing available in Bartinauntes’ house was Pulauni and she wasn’t fit to be seen. Ateaurtes asked Bumi to show him to Lanthiad’s door and immediately began to cajole her out.

 “Come on, Lani,” she heard him say through the door, “It may not be that bad. Let me see.”

“No. You’ll only make fun of me,” she replied. “Besides, it’s not decent.”

“How can it not be decent if half the island wears them? Come on. I won’t tease.”

“Half the island also goes naked, Ateaurtes. I’d hardly say they’re my standard.”

“They’re children, Lani. I don’t think that counts. You used to run around like that, yourself. I remember.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it now,” she retorted, uncertain whether to be irked or amused.

“She did give you the whole dress, didn’t she?”

“Yes...” she replied uncertainly.

“Both the top and bottom?”

“Yes. And you’re teasing me already. I’m definitely not going to come out only to have you tease me all evening.”

“So you’ll come out if I promise not to tease you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. Listen: I promise I won’t tease you all evening.”

“You won’t tease me at all,” she corrected.

“Very well. I won’t tease you at all.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Now come out.”

Ateaurtes listened to his sister’s light footsteps as she crossed the room to the door. She slid it open a crack and peered out at him.

“Well?” He hooked his thumbs in his hip pockets and stepped back. “Come on out.”

Lanthiad glowered at him, took a quick look down either end of the corridor, and slid the door open. She was in what Bumi considered to be one of her better dresses, three pieces and expensive, suitable for a special guest. The most striking thing about it was its color: a vivid blue, green and yellow that pronounced, rather than distracted from her red hair. The dress was patterned to represent flowers and birds, rather realistically, and they danced and swooped over the fabric in an almost dizzying manner. Bumi had helped her into it, so it was properly wrapped. It was sleeveless, the body of the dress being a single piece of fabric, falling straight and narrow to her ankles with an artful pleating to one side. A second length of fabric, in which the original pattern of the dress had its colors reversed, defined the waist. Lanthiad was holding the third piece around her shoulders like a shawl, fully concealing her shoulders.  Her hair was still damp and had been arranged into a neat, low bun.

She took one look at Ateaurtes’ expression and started to close the door again.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, sticking his foot in the door. “You said you’d come out.”

“I didn’t actually say it!” she protested, struggling to close the door.

“Argh!” Ateaurtes rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Very well. You let me assume. But you still have to come out.” He pushed back the door and Lanthiad scowled at him, her arms crossed.

“I suppose now you’re going to drag me out there.”

“No. I want you to walk out. You look fine. There’s nothing to tease. Come on.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You look fine. Father would be proud. Now come to supper.”

The corner of Lanthiad’s mouth twitched: she knew her father would have disowned her if she had appeared dressed like she was in the breakfast room, much less to supper with outsiders. It would have been the scandal of the neighborhood. “The colonel’s daughter gallivants around like a savage!” the gossips would exclaim. But that was on the Continent, among Elsthar society, and she was rapidly learning that Pulau had slightly different rules to master.

Ateaurtes followed her down the corridor, intending to block any retreat.

The men rose from the table when Lanthiad made her entrance, Pades and Etovices lagging slightly behind the others. Lanthiad was hard put to maintain her composure as she and the men surveyed each other, each trying their best to pretend nothing was amiss. Lanthiad was especially mortified to see Dr. Lauventhal was among the company; she had forgotten that he lived on Bartinauntes’ estate and would naturally have been invited to any social event.  His expression was more convincing than the studied neutrality of the others, almost as if he really saw nothing unusual in a young lady coming to a dinner party wrapped in what most Continentals considered little more than outrageously tacky curtains.

The first to speak was Bartinauntes, whose position as host demanded that he be the courteous one. “I’m glad you could join us. I believe you know everyone. Won’t you please have a seat?” 

Bartinauntes’ small speech broke the spell of silence that had seized the rest of the party. They commented on the weather, the poor roads, and the laziness of their porters as Lanthiad settled into her place between Ateaurtes and Etovices at the table. She dared not meet anyone’s eyes, and swore silently to herself that she would get back at Ateaurtes for talking her into coming out. To seal her oath, she gave her brother a kick in the shin, just hard enough to not be ignored.

Ateaurtes started, recovered, and smiled smugly at her. “Relax,” he whispered, opening his napkin and spreading it out on his lap. Lanthiad followed suit, making a quick jab at his thigh while her hand was down.

“Bugs?” Pades inquired blandly.

Ateaurtes straightened the tablecloth and set his wineglass upright. “Uh, no. Just caught my hand on the tablecloth. Please excuse me.”

“Do you have a bug problem, here in the North Country?” a man called Fathras asked Bartinauntes. His estate lay near the port, practically in the mangrove swamp.

Bartinauntes blinked. “Bugs? No. Nothing unusual.”

Pades snorted. “You’re fortunate. I had a terrible bug infestation last rainy season. I couldn’t sit down for a meal for more than fifteen minutes without one crawling up my leg. One, it was as big as my thumb.” He held up his hand, thumb out, to illustrate.

Fathras, a wiry lowland farmer, shook his head sadly.

“What? You think I’m exaggerating, Fathras?” Pades asked defensively.

The lowland farmer shook his head again. “No, no. Not at all. It’s just that at my estate, that wouldn’t hardly be worth consideration.”

“True enough. I’ve seen what comes out of that swamp,” Etovices commented, grimacing. “Insects the size of a man’s hand.”

“Really?” Ateaurtes asked, suddenly interested.

“It’s true,” Fathras said, meeting the young man’s eyes. “I lost a perfectly good ratter to one, once.” He looked at Etovices. “Pure bred, imported from the Continent. Used to spend all night guarding holes, wouldn’t even come away to eat until she’d caught a rodent. Turned out to be the undoing of her, in the end.”

“I understand you are a student of the natural sciences,” Dr. Lauventhal commented casually to Ateaurtes.

It was a mark of Dr. Lauventhal’s consequence that the table grew momentarily sober. Lanthiad forgot her discomfort in favor of observing the clear, steady gaze the doctor settled upon her brother.  He gripped his cane contemplatively as he spoke. Did he ever put it down? she wondered. He really didn’t look very ancient to her eyes: sixty, seventy, maybe. His bearing was erect, and while his face was lined and thin, his complexion was healthy.

“Yes, at Aumsthartaum.”

“Ah,” the doctor said, leaning back in his chair. “I was very saddened to hear what happened at Aumsthartaum. Who would’ve imagined that the Front would have been pushed that far west? I trust you graduated before it was closed?”

Ateaurtes frowned. “I’m afraid not. I was sent home before I was able to deliver my dissertation.”

“Ah, that was unfortunate. If you weren’t already fully occupied, I would ask you to show it to me sometime.”

“Actually,” Bartinauntes interjected, “We may all have more time than we had reckoned upon.  I know these rains, and it may be several days before it’ll be prudent to depart.”

“Won’t every day we linger reduce our chances of finding the unicorn?” Fathras inquired anxiously.

“Only in the sense that they’re evasive creatures. The mountain breeds, like this one, don’t actually migrate,” Pades said.

“We don’t know it’s a mountain breed,” Ateaurtes protested. “We don’t even know if it’s a genuine unicorn yet.”

“It is,” Bartinauntes said unexpectedly.

“What makes you say that? You didn’t speak up about its authenticity before,” Pades said, turning a critical eye on his host.

“I wasn’t sure then,” he replied mildly. “I only heard about it three days ago, so I couldn’t possibly have brought it up at Etovices’. Apparently, the natives have been seeing a unicorn in the North Country every fifty years or so.”

“The natives!” Silvasthar interjected, indignant. “They see spirits! Worship trees! Twice a year, they all go insane, dancing and singing all night and thinking they can fly if they hold onto the tail feather of a pheasant! How can we believe them if they say they see unicorns?” 

Dr. Lauventhal chuckled, startling everyone. Silvasthar blanched, uncertain whether the doctor was laughing at him or the natives he had described.

Bartinauntes tore his eyes from the old doctor’s amused face and continued his defense. “I have it from a reliable source.”

Silvasthar grunted skeptically. “What? That woman?”

Bartinauntes ignored him. “The sightings have rarely coincided with the festivals. And it sounds like the same creature. Black, with a red horn. And while I know they’ve probably all heard the description—after all, we had a couple porters along that day, and I can’t imagine them not telling—the tale seems pretty consistent.”

“What tale is that?” Etovices asked.

“Some legend about an old ruler who used to settle disputes on the island. When the royal court couldn’t decide a case, they’d send for a unicorn, and the beast would be able to tell just by looking in the man’s eyes whether he was guilty or innocent.”

“That old tale!” Fathras exclaimed, slapping his palms on his thighs, amused. “Why, even I know that one. It was in the, what, fifth century? Some kind of suzerain from the mainland? King Sinbank?”

“Simbarincik,” Dr. Lauventhal said, scrupulously pronouncing each syllable. “He ruled the Ashay Empire for forty years following the plagues of 398, during the Upheaval. On the Continent he was known as Emperor Sinisthrivanthes, Shinbahyin Ano Latichin in Mran.”

“Mran!” Etovices hissed. “Even then, they were greedily clamoring for territory.”

“I didn’t know Mran could reach that far during the Upheaval,” Ateaurtes said thoughtfully.

“Well, yes, they could. It was the Continent that had suffered the most during the plagues; guilds weren’t burnt in Mran. The Ashay Empire reached as far as the Twong Islands, fifty leagues from here, although most of their monuments haven’t survived.”

Lanthiad stopped eating, stunned. Pulau and Twong both lay in the Monchinik Sea, an obscure body of water in the sub-tropics, so called because it lay over the Monchin Ridge, a submarine mountain range that supported over a hundred islands, some of them remarkably large. It took a month to reach from the Continent, and possibly longer from Mran. It had only been in the last eighty years that the Continentals had managed to gain a foothold on Pulau, and Lanthiad had falsely conceived of the Monchinik Sea as being a vast, virtually impenetrable wilderness where time had yet to find a purchase—the Edge of the World.  But this wasn’t so. Why hadn’t I read more history? she thought, irritated with herself. She had thought that she was safely tucked away from the realities of the war, when in actuality, she was sitting in former Mranin territory! Centuries ago, the Mranin Empire had managed to paddle a conquering force all the way to the southern islands. What could they do now that they had steamboats?

“Is something the matter?” Pades asked Lanthiad solicitously. “Did you feel a bug?”

The diners looked at Lanthiad. She had frozen in the middle of a motion, her fork suspended ridiculously in front of her. She wondered how long had she been holding that position and slowly lowered the offending utensil, careful to not let it clatter. 

“There shouldn’t be any insects. I’ve had that seen to,” Bartinauntes protested, darting an affronted look at Pades. “Is the food satisfactory?”

She nodded dumbly, seemingly staring at her fork. In actuality, she was watching the Mranin soldiers swarm over the beaches in her mind, their pointed steel helmets glinting like silver in the moonlight.

 “I know it’s a long journey to the North Country, especially for a young lady,” he said, concerned at her peculiar behavior.

“Yes, I think it’s been a long day,” Etovices said. He looked apologetically at the other men. “If you’ll please excuse us, we’ll just see her to her room.” He and Ateaurtes pushed back their chairs in preparation for standing.

“No,” Lanthiad said, abruptly coming back to herself and rising. She adjusted the length of cloth around her shoulders and pushed Ateaurtes’ hands away. “I can see myself to my room. Thank you, anyway.” She inclined her head toward the dinner party, her eyes averted.  “Good night.”

Lanthiad turned away from the table, knowing the men were anxiously watching her. She walked out of the room carefully, every step deliberately laid to conceal how badly shaken she actually was. Once inside her bedroom, she closed the door securely, sat on an empty corner of the bed and let the Pulauni shawl fall from her shoulders. Her damp wardrobe hovered about her in the darkness like sleepy ghosts.

Lanthiad couldn’t remember how many times she had been sent to bed. Her father was particularly fond of dismissing her in that manner, although it was usually because she was disagreeing with him over something or other. She had always argued with him. Well, once she had given up any hope of pleasing him, that is. The colonel respected a sharp mind and a strong will in a person-- two traits he felt to be absolutely inappropriate in a daughter. Lanthiad had adopted them as her starting point with him before she was old enough to make such distinctions, and she had stubbornly refused to let it go, even after her mistake became evident to her. In that way, she had taken after her father much more than Ateaurtes ever could.

The colonel had been a difficult, distant man. He’d come from an old Elsthar family, eminently proud and respectable. As a younger son, he was expected to make his own fortune, so he joined the army and at an obscure, rural outpost, he met a country girl whose genuine, untamed ways had captivated him. He married her and brought her to the ancestral home, where he promptly set about molding her into the perfect society wife. She died when Lanthiad was four. Her father never spoke of her mother, and he had stopped communication with her family shortly after her death, so all Lanthiad that knew about her for years was what Ateaurtes told her and what the servants said when they thought she couldn’t hear. The bits and pieces she had gleaned figured together into a terrifying picture: her mother was a witch, she was fey. The Colonel had never really loved her; she had bewitched him, twisting him to her will. One could see it in his eyes. She would have burned everyone in their beds if she had not died before she could think of it. Everyone knew that was what fey creatures did. They sucked the strength from the good people around them and twisted it into something evil. Women were simply too weak to handle power—it made them insane.

Ateaurtes was five years her senior, and had been the only one to show Lanthiad a picture of their mother. It was a worn gelatin print their father thought he had hidden securely in his library, inside a dusty volume of sixteenth century poetry. Looking out at Lanthiad from its creased surface was a pretty young woman with hair curly to the point of impertinence, just like her own. The face was unfamiliar, yet it wore the same expression she had always thought belonged to Ateaurtes alone. Lanthiad had searched the print occasionally for a likeness to herself, but if there had been one, it was too obscure for a young girl to see while anxiously skulking through her father’s room in the middle of the night.

When Lanthiad was ten years old she was finally bold enough to ask Ateaurtes what he remembered. What terrible thing had she done that no one would talk about her? Was she executed as a murderess? Did she steal newborn babes and eat them, like Nanny said the fey woman in her village had? How exactly did she die?

Ateaurtes had looked up from his lessons and said, “She faded away. She just became paler and paler, sleeping more and more, until one day, the maid went to see if she was awake for tea and found she’d disappeared.”

“Did she run away?”

“No, Lani. If she’d run away, Father would’ve found her, but he never did. There was nothing to find-- I saw. Just a hollow gown in the bed, as if she’d turned to smoke. Now let me be.”

The colonel had joined his wife, vanishing on the far eastern battlefields without a trace, like so many soldiers in the middle years of the war. Ateaurtes was already home from university when the official notice had come. He wrote to a faded address he found among their father’s papers, and within two months they had settled their affairs and boarded a ship bound for the Monchinik Sea, far away from everything.

Lanthiad knew Ateaurtes watched her, searching for signs that she, too, would turn into a mere reflection, wavering and vanishing with the shifting of the light, leaving just a memory.

*    *    *    *    *    *

The night was filled with unicorns. Black, white and gray in the moonlight, spotted and striped, with straight horns, curved horns, and twisted horns, large as draft horses and as small as calves -- they all came down from the myth-clouded peaks and gathered below Lanthiad’s bedroom window.

Lanthiad knew they were there and opened her window. Her room was on the second floor, above the cook’s garden. She stared at the ghostly shapes below, grazing contentedly among the basil and thyme, trodding on the mint and disrupting the neat white pebble borders; the cook would become apoplectic if she knew the damage they were doing to her cherished garden. Lanthiad threw her shawl over her shoulders and leaned out over the dew-covered windowsill.

“Shoo!” she whispered anxiously, trying to wave them away. She was afraid to raise her voice lest she wake the entire household. “Get!” 

The unicorns stoutly ignored her. They didn’t even twitch an ear. A short, barrel-bellied fellow was blithely rubbing his side against the rosemary bush, partially crushing it.

Lanthiad cracked open her bedroom door and listened, but all she heard were the hollow thumps of hooves outside. She closed her door very, very slowly, praying to the gods that it did not creak. Hiking up her long nightdress, she tiptoed stealthfully past the other bedchambers. She paused at the head of the servant’s stairs, her heart hammering, and listened again for movement within the house. The old house creaked and groaned, and still she was the only one who had noticed anything odd. Amazed at her luck, Lanthiad descended the narrow servant’s stairs and opened the kitchen door.

All was as it should be; moonlight picked out the shape of the heavy table, the neatly ordered shelves and the wide white sink. The dark mass of the stove huddled low and smoldering against the wall like a sleeping dragon. Lanthiad’s eyes darted to the closed door of the servant’s quarters. No one was stirring there either, and they were right beside the garden. Her eye caught the gleam of a horn through the window above the sink.

She scurried across the kitchen, narrowly avoiding a chair, and flung open the back door.  She stood on the threshold, her breath coming in quick, short gasps that floated away through the frosty air like clouds. The unicorn nearest her looked at her blandly, a hunk of sweet marjoram dangling from the corner of its mouth, root and all. Lanthiad clutched her shawl tightly about her. Her panic was rising exponentially as she took in the extent of the damage to the garden. There was no way it would be overlooked, but perhaps it could still be explained away. A pack of dogs, maybe? Would the cook believe that?

“Get!” she hissed. “Go away! Stop that!”

A tiny unicorn, coming only as high as her waist, attempted to push past her into the house. She blocked its path and closed the door quickly. “Get out of the garden! Get!” She pushed the nearest unicorn and glanced up at the house nervously. All was dark. She tried to drive the beasts toward the general direction of the garden gate, shoving them and ordering them one moment and pulling and pleading with them the next. If they moved, it was only a pace or two out of her way. She soon found herself in the middle of the herd, her route back to the house blocked and the unicorns insensately devouring and trampling the cook’s garden. She could see a pale streak of white beneath their hooves that was her shawl.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she moaned, and felt many tiny, sharp claws run across her bare feet. “Eh!” she exclaimed, startled. She flailed, jumped out of bed, and lifted the coverlet to see what had been under it. Not finding anything, she pulled it off the bed, gave it a violent shake, and was immediately rewarded with a small green something that flew into the air, tail spinning. She gasped and hopped back, dropping the coverlet. The green something landed on the floor with a slapping sound and disappeared beneath the bed.

There was a light tapping at her door.

“Marita? Is something wrong?” Bumi slid the door slightly open and peeked in. “I hear you cry out.”

Lanthiad blinked at her, somewhat disoriented. She had slept in the Pulauni dress, which was now badly rumpled, and most of her hair had come loose to curl wildly about her head and face. 

Bumi stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She was wearing her full repertoire of jewelry and a dress that dazzled sleep-filled eyes: pale blue with gold embroidery, figured in orange with what might be flowers. “Was it a bad dream?”

“No,” Lanthiad said. “I think it was some kind of lizard…” She went down on her knees and looked under the bed. The house woman knelt beside her with a jangle and also looked. “Do you see it?”

“No, Marita. It may be frightened.”

“I wish Atea was here. I don’t think he has a lizard,” Lanthiad murmured to herself. “Wait! There it is! Do you see it?” She stretched out on the floor and reached her hand slowly under the bed, poised for attack, but it was too quick for her; her hand slapped down on bare wood. The lizard darted by Bumi’s feet, startling her and throwing her off balance. Lanthiad made hasty grab for it, causing Bumi to fall back with a small cry. The house woman caught herself with her hands, and the lizard made for the washbasin via the route straight over Lanthiad’s legs.

“Ah! Get it!” she exclaimed, scrambling awkwardly from under the bed and “Ow!” bumping her head against it in her haste. She grabbed the edge of the bed for support, grimacing, her hand rubbing her forehead. Bumi helped her to stand.

“Are you hurt?”

“Which way did it go?”

The house woman pointed to the washbasin. Lanthiad hurried over to it, examined each side of it briefly. She lifted her skirt and dropped to her knees.

“Why would your brother wish a lizard?” Bumi asked, picking the coverlet off the floor. She looked at Lanthiad, who had her head level with the space below the stand’s bottom shelf.

“There it is!” Lanthiad whispered excitedly, signaling to her to come closer. “It’s under the stand.”

Bumi knelt and looked at the washstand apprehensively.

“You watch that side, and I’ll try to get it over here. Don’t let it escape.”

Lanthiad carefully moved into position, her eye fixed resolutely on her prey. She edged her hand toward the cornered lizard with infinite slowness. It held perfectly still, its tiny black eyes watching her every move. “Come on,” she whispered. “Hold still. Stay…stay. I got it!” She raised her closed hand triumphantly and grinned as she met the Pulauni woman’s eyes. 

“Why does your brother wish a lizard?” Bumi asked again.

“For his collection,” Lanthiad replied, rising. She cupped her hands together for a better hold on the squirming reptile. “Is there something I can put this in? A jar or something?”

The house woman led her to the kitchen, which was little more than a large covered walkway between the main house and the servant’s quarters. Woven reed mats, secured on lengths of wood, were hung from floor to ceiling to keep out the persistent rain. There was no real furniture, everything being stored on shelves and pegs on either side of the doors.

Lanthiad stood uncertainly by the doorway, the lizard securely in hand. She had awakened before anyone else. The servants were quietly going about their morning rituals, sweeping the floors and toasting the day’s tea. They passed through the kitchen, casting curious looks at her. An old woman with white-streaked hair was tending the cooking the fire, and beside her was a small child in Pulauni clothing, his fine, nut-brown hair trimmed pageboy style. He stared openly at Lanthiad, his thumb in his mouth. Bumi said something to the old woman Lanthiad didn’t understand and rummaged through the shelves for an appropriate lizard receptacle. The old Pulauni woman grunted and looked at Lanthiad suspiciously. Bumi found a glass jar and held it for Lanthiad as the lizard was unceremoniously ushered into it.

“Why does he collect lizards?” Bumi asked, her brows furrowed.

Lanthiad watched the green lizard’s frantic attempts to climb the slick walls of the jar, her hand pressed firmly over the opening. “He studies nature, forms of life,” she said.

“For this, he needs lizards?”

Lanthiad looked at the house woman. “He’s categorizing them, and to do that, he has to catch an example of each and examine it.” She felt the old woman scrutinizing her disapprovingly and wished she had made an effort toward smoothing her hair. The little boy continued to stare, wide-eyed.

“Why?”

“Well, he wants to know why they are made the way they are, how they work. Why they behave the way they do.”

“Why doesn’t he ask them?”

“Huh? How—” she faltered. Could Ateaurtes just ask the animals? No, that was absurd; nobody could talk to animals. If Ateaurtes could do that, he wouldn’t be collecting them, he would be teaching others to talk to animals.

The old woman grumbled something to Bumi in the North Country language, triggering a brief argument wherein the old woman loudly insisted and Bumi indignantly refused. The child paid them no attention. Lanthiad was beginning to feel uncomfortable with his stare. He had probably never seen a redhead before, much less a Continental woman. Bartinauntes was not known for his socializing. His estate was so remote he rarely entertained guests or came to town for anything other than business once or twice a year, lingering for a couple of days to attend the odd dinner or party. Lanthiad had only met him because he came from the same region as Etovices and sometimes made a point of calling upon him. Bartinauntes was considered to be an attractive, likeable man, with a comfortable income from his estate. Oknas had once tried to match him up with her daughter, Leciad. She knew her daughter was one of the loveliest girls on the island: her skin was honey-colored, without freckles, and her eyes were deep blue. Combined with a regal bearing and years of carefully selected Continental tutors, she should have conquered any man her parents chose for her. Yet, Bartinauntes had been oblivious to her charms.

“I’ll never understand it!” Oknas had declared confidentially to Lanthiad one day. “My Leciad is a pearl. She can play the harp, and sing so sweetly, it always brings me to tears! And that man had the nerve to overlook her! The man is a stone, an absolute rock! It almost broke her poor heart. But it was all for the best, in the end. I told her, ‘Did you really want to live in the North Country with all those savages, away from your dear mother?’ I would much rather see her closer to town, with some nice, educated young man who knows how a Continental lady should be treated; someone who’s civilized and hasn’t been corrupted.” Lanthiad knew Oknas meant her brother, and so did he.

“The girl is insipid,” Ateaurtes had complained. “Signal me when they’re gone.”

The Pulauni child took his finger out of his mouth and said distinctly, “Pawang!”

Shocked, the two women dropped their argument and looked from the child, to Lanthiad, and back again.

“What does ‘pawang’ mean?” Lanthiad asked. She was certain the little boy had been speaking to her.

The Pulauni women exchanged looks. Bumi glanced at the child, and said, “he does not mean it; he is just a child. Would you like breakfast? It could be ready shortly.”

The old woman protested angrily, grabbing the house woman’s hem and shaking it agitatedly. Bumi pushed the bony hand away and replied curtly. She turned back to Lanthiad. The old woman frowned and shouted, “No unicorn! Bad luck! Marita, you understand? No unicorn!” The old woman waved the stick she had been stirring the fire with at her.

“I don’t understand.” She looked at the house woman’s face, hoping to see some kind of illumination there. Bumi’s expression was somewhere between anger and mortification.

“No unicorn!”

“What is she talking about? Isn’t there a unicorn?”

“There is, but she doesn’t want the hunt,” Bumi explained, frowning, and said something to the old woman in Pulauni. The old woman responded vociferously. Her stick changed directions and shook at the house woman. Lanthiad took a step toward the door to the main house.

“I’ll take breakfast in my room,” she said, clutching the lizard jar to her breast. 

“Very well, Marita,” Bumi replied, her face strained. Lanthiad could hear the old Pulauni woman carrying on all the way down the corridor to her room. For a change, she was glad that she could not understand much Pulauni. She tied a handkerchief over the mouth of the jar, sighed and looked at herself in the dresser mirror, then sighed again. She picked up her hairbrush and walked to the window. Through the slats of the shutters she could see that the rain was falling steadily, but without the force it had exhibited the day before, making it more of a shower than a storm. There was very little wind, and wide eaves of the house were sufficient to keep the rain away from its walls. She opened the shutters and examined the view.

Between Bartinauntes’ house and the nearest building the yard was a deserted, green pool of water, dotted here and there with palm trees.  It rippled like the sea with rainfall. A couple Pulauni men were wading through it to make repairs to the makeshift walkways, their skirts tucked up into their waistbands and their legs muddied to their knees. Beyond the yard were a couple raised storehouses, whitewashed like her uncle’s, and one or two Pulauni houses with roofs of plain, wide split boards. Their verandas were small and unpainted, but their posts were carved into what Lanthiad thought might be representations of standing people.

She settled down to the tedious process of untangling her hair while she puzzled over what the old woman had said to her. She had never heard of anyone objecting to a unicorn hunt. As a little girl, pretending to hunt unicorns was as popular as tea parties. She even had an illustrated reader about hunting unicorns, just like everyone else. It was understood that like waltzing at a ball, the question was: ‘When will it happen, how well will I perform, and who will be watching?’ not ‘Is it right for me to go at all?’ It was an object of daydreams, sleepless nights and much fevered planning to most young girls.

Of course, the reality did not meet expectations. Lanthiad was a seasoned wallflower; whole balls had waltzed by her like summer breezes without anyone outside her family asking for a dance, and being designated as the maiden felt more like a trick than an honor. She knew Ateaurtes did not dare choose one of the Island girls; his favor, meant in earnest or not, would have been construed as a preliminary to an offer of marriage. While Ateaurtes was fond enough of women, he had yet to meet any one who embodied all the traits he required in a partner and was unlikely to settle for anything less. He often used his filial duties as a barrier, claiming on more than one occasion that he could not possibly be spared; he had to dance with his sister.

A large, dirty yellow dog loped through the shallow water, its wet muzzle and curved tail raised. It passed behind the workmen and made straight for the building near the main house, a small white house with a high wooden roof like the Pulauni homes. As the dog climbed the steps to the veranda, its gait changed, and Lanthiad had the distinct impression as it disappeared that it was limping. She was considering this when the Pulauni workmen’s repairs brought them close enough to the main house to notice Lanthiad sitting in the window. She heard them say something, and seeing that she was aware of them, they began to grin at her. They were not much older than she was.

She blushed and quickly pulled the shutters closed, forgetting about the yellow dog for the time being. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

 Ateaurtes was delighted with the lizard. He dropped a small spider into the jar and watched the reptile greedily snap it up. “I wish I had brought my field kit,” he sighed, reluctantly setting the jar on his dressing table. He was sitting on his bed in his shirtsleeves. “There were half a dozen lizards on my ceiling this morning, but I couldn’t reach them or make them come down. I think I’ll have to discuss with Bartinauntes the possibility of returning sometime to gather more specimens; I’ve never seen so many lizards.”

He picked up his water-damaged hat and made a vain attempt to bend its misshapen brim into its former glory. Frowning, he held it out to Lanthiad, who was standing in the doorway of his room, sporting her Continental clothing once again. She took the hat with a small smile and casually examined the extent of the warping.

“Have you breakfasted?” Ateaurtes asked, standing.

“I ate in my room,” she replied, pushing on the crown of the hat gingerly. “You should get a straw hat like Bartinauntes’. There isn’t a hatter in town who could fix this.”

“You can’t find hats like this in town,” Ateaurtes complained. “Just cheap ready-mades.”

Lanthiad met her brother’s eyes, grinning. “Nevertheless.”

He made a sound low in his throat and tried to take the hat back, but Lanthiad smiled and wouldn’t give it to him. He put on his jacket and adjusted his cuffs. “Do you want to come with me to Dr. Lauventhal’s this afternoon?”

“Dr. Lauventhal’s?” Lanthiad repeated dumbly, surprised.

“He invited me over for tea this afternoon.”

Lanthiad tried to grasp what he was saying but found it difficult. One didn’t just go to tea with an alumnus of Bon. Certainly, one might have tea with him, because an alumnus was always invited, but that was the point: an alumnus was entertained, he didn’t entertain.

“I only wish I had brought my dissertation. As it is, I can only discuss it. But one can’t foresee everything, I suppose,” he said. He closed the journal that lay open on his dresser and put it in a drawer. “Do you want to come or not?”

“I—” she began. Perhaps this kind of thing was commonplace for a student; they did, after all, live side by side with the alumni at university. However, even if this were so, why would they tolerate the presence of someone’s little sister?

“I know what you’re going to say. I already asked if I could bring you, and he didn’t object.”

“What?”

“Well?”

“I—well, I—” she stammered, growing red. Did she want to go? And if she didn’t, when would she ever have another opportunity?

The doctor lived in Bartinauntes’ guesthouse with a servant he had brought with him from Bon. Lanthiad had expected a lean manservant with the strong jaw and pale, angular features for which Bon was notorious, so after treading the treacherous planking that lead up to the little house she was surprised to be met by a short, small-boned Deilapi man. In deference to the climate, his clothing was light-colored, deviating very little otherwise from that of a typical Continental servant. His eyes were slate-gray, contrasting strikingly with deep brown of his skin, and his thick, coal black was hair cropped short and combed fastidiously back from his forehead.

“His family has been in my service since the Peruipish War,” Dr. Lauventhal explained when the manservant left the room. Upon entering, Ateaurtes had automatically hung his mended, temperamental hat upon a nearby peg. Lanthiad fell in behind him like a shadow, hoping to go just as unnoticed. Nevertheless, the doctor’s keen eyes flicked to her, pinning her as well in that half-second as her brother would a beetle to a tray. “I rescued his great-grandfather from an awkward situation when he was just a boy,” continued Dr. Lauventhal, gesturing them both towards a small tea table. “According to Deilapi law, he was then a kind of slave-servant to me. Everything was in chaos, and I would have liked to deposit him somewhere suitable, but he seemed to think it wisest to remain with me. His eldest son became my manservant when he came of age, and his son after him, until finally, we have Tisheg here.” As if upon cue, the Deilapi servant re-entered, and mutely placed a generously filled tea tray on the table.

The Peruipish War had ended a full hundred years before Lanthiad was born, after nearly twenty years of warfare. The sheer number of casualties and the extent of the battlefield—four million lives lost, across nearly two thousand miles of the sub-Continent-- had set it down in history as the worst war mankind had ever seen, and ever would. Lanthiad didn’t doubt that the Deilapi boy had chosen to stay with the then-young doctor; it was revealed in the years following the war that in the confusion a sect opposing the Deilapi had managed to massacre dozens of villages in secret.

The doctor’s manservant again retired and Dr. Lauventhal poured the tea.

“What became of the younger sons?” Ateaurtes asked.

“They were set up in trades,” the doctor replied. “Have you been to Deilap?”

The two men fell in to a discussion of foreign parts seen and passed through, leaving Lanthiad at leisure to take in her surroundings. The guesthouse was laid out like a typical Pulauni home-- I-shaped, with a large, central common space, two or three small rooms on either end, and verandas in back and front—but it was clearly constructed with a Continental inhabitant in mind. The spit-plank flooring was carefully leveled, the common room walls were whitewashed, and the exterior’s decorative carving was subdued to the point of virtual invisibility. The general character of the guesthouse had not been much changed by Dr. Lauventhal’s presence. It was all typically Continental Islander, from the dark, polished wood bureaus and winged wicker chairs to the delicate, rose-painted porcelain tea set. The commonplaceness of it disturbed Lanthiad. Where was the cupboard that hid the great jars of anemic oddities, suspended in alcohol for all eternity? Where were the bubbling alembics? The chemicals and strange, acerbic scents? The large, brightly colored birds in man-sized iron cages, speaking in riddles?

The doctor himself was much more congenial than he had been previously, more voluble. True, Lanthiad could not understand half of what the doctor and her brother were saying to each other; the complicated jargon and scholastic references they tossed about were beyond her. She could only plumb the emotional depth of their expressions and tones. They were amused; they were pressing for information tactfully; they were grave about a remembered tragedy, or excited about an old project. The doctor could very well have been somebody’s accountant great-uncle, visiting for the holidays and discussing the ins and outs of bookkeeping with a junior clerk. She caught herself yawning once or twice, but hid it deftly, thinking it would be rude to seem openly bored or disappointed. The two men were very polite to her, pausing in their discussions occasionally to speak to her and keep her supplied in tea and cakes, but Lanthiad’s initial discomfort, combined with a growing disillusionment, left her somewhat reticent. Her brother was too engrossed in the pleasure of the doctor’s company to notice, and they grew very easy with her silence, leaving her out of the conversation for extended periods of time.

Maybe Dr. Lauventhal’s professional paraphernalia was stowed away from prying eyes? Lanthiad discreetly eyed a closed, glazed-front cabinet on the opposite wall. She monitored the manservant’s movements through the guesthouse, hoping he might open a door and give her a forbidden glimpse of the next room, but the Deilapi merely paced relentlessly between the tea table and the kitchen. This in itself was inadequate entertainment, so she filled the time with cake and tea until she had to lean back thoughtfully in her chair like a seasick sailor who hopes that holding perfectly still will somehow influence the world around him.

Later, Lanthiad sympathized with how a glove must feel when it is left behind in some odd or unexpected place, fallen behind a chest, or dropped in street traffic, for when she woke she found herself completely mislaid. She was in a tiny room, reclining on a rattan lounge, her head resting on a small cushion. The walls were gray with shadow and the rain drummed a solemn, hollow tattoo upon the roof. She supposed she must have fallen asleep, although she could not remember having done so. Nodding off at tea was something small children did, not young ladies. She was both embarrassed and vexed. She lay still a moment, listening for movement, voices, any sign that she was not alone, but there was just the persistent rap of the rain on the wooden roof.  The room had two double doors, both closed. Lanthiad eased one of them open and peeked out.

Dr. Lauventhal’s common room was empty. The tea things were cleared away, and the veranda doors wide open. A broad, fuzzy beam of light spilled across the dark wood floorboards. No lamps were lit, leaving most of the room in semi-darkness. The pools swelling over the lawn reflected a tangerine and pink sky on their dappled surfaces. Creeping yellow roses bounced and heaved in the downpour, tenaciously clinging to the eaves and railing of the veranda. It seemed to Lanthiad that it was not just she who had been abandoned, but the entire house, as if it was a ship that had broken mooring in the night and drifted away.

Where had Ateaurtes gone? Surely he wouldn’t just leave her? Had he and the doctor gone to the main house for dinner or wandered away to do some spontaneous specimen collecting? Her brother was certainly guilty of such behavior in the past. Standing in the middle of the room, she listened again for voices. Rain tended to drown sound; warped it and washed it down and away like water-soluble ink. It was a matter of finding the original shape behind the storm, its outline, shadow. It helps to know what to look for, of course, because listening hard isn’t enough. It has to be to the right thing, or near it, otherwise it will get confused with something else. The creepers creaked. The water splashed against the veranda steps. A dog in the distance howled. Something light and metal ticked, like a clock.

Lanthiad noticed a light out of the corner of her eye. As she turned her head it vanished, the ticking stopping a fraction a second later, like the last, awkward clap of a dying applause.  It came from the general direction of the cabinet Lanthiad had been scrutinizing earlier. It was a squat affair with stubby, claw-footed legs and a curved, belly-like front. It rather resembled a lion, if a lion had two doors tastefully glazed and latched in its middle, and a blue-enameled vase for a head. Lanthiad stepped over to the cabinet, listened again for a moment. She heard nothing new from within or without the guesthouse. She tried the latch. It was unlocked, which was disappointing. If she had really seen a glow coming from the cabinet it must be something unusual inside. It would be too valuable to leave just sitting in there, readily available to the first comer. She glanced at her disheveled reflection in the cabinet door, patted her hair a little in a futile attempt to tame it, and looked inside the cabinet.

What she saw made her catch her breath. It was a mechanism of some kind, about a foot and half high and ten inches wide, all silver and glass. In its center was a large bell jar containing a series of pinwheels suspended along a glass rod. The tiny pinwheel sails were made of the same kind of material as the hair-thin arms that attached them to the rod, finely woven and fragile-looking, like ice crystals. A half dozen silver-lidded hatches and gauges with crystal faces were grouped around the mechanism’s base, along with some kind of arm that looked like the long stem of a smoking pipe. Dense, intertwined geometric shapes were etched over the entire surface of the silver, reminding Lanthiad oddly of Dr. Lauventhal’s’ cane.

“Do you like it?” the doctor asked.

Lanthiad started guiltily from the cabinet, her face flushing. The doctor was standing near her in the doorway of the veranda, leaning casually on the cane, a pipe in his free hand. He had been sitting outside smoking. His eyes glittered, a reassuring smile appearing in his snowy beard.

Lanthiad hesitated, uncertain whether she had made the doctor angry or not. When no rebuke came, she relaxed slightly and nodded. “What is it?”

Dr. Lauventhal stepped closer and reached out a thin hand to open the cabinet doors further. The delicate pinwheels in the device began to spin rapidly, a pinpoint of light forming where their arms touched the glass rod. It flashed on and off with a sharp, thin snap: the source of what Lanthiad had thought was a clock-like tick. “A sentimental souvenir,” the old doctor said, stepping back to the doorway to allow Lanthiad a closer look. “A thaumatosprectrometer, the cornerstone of my career. I invented it, oh, long ago.”

Lanthiad touched the base of the meter lightly, the pinwheels still spinning. The gauges bobbed and the tiny motes of light turned from a white to a faint, milky blue.

 “What is it used for?” she asked.