Chasing Unicorn Songs

Conrad Wong

copyright (c) 1990

A chestnut-colored centaur paused at the door of the passenger lounge. She brushed tangled black hair over her tanned shoulder and bent a delicate equine ear to the enchantingly beautiful music coming from within. Intrigued, she peeked in, her wide brown eyes searching for the talented singer.

Across the circle: a silhouette sat in the many-colored shifting light of the Tangled Web nebula. The feline bard's bright green-gold eyes looked out at her audience from under a well-brushed mane of dark black hair and short triangle ears of calico fur. She wore a simple burgundy red shipsuit, her only concessions to fashion her jeweled earrings. Her slender arms danced over the strings of a crystal harp, and she sang, a sweet purring voice that filled the room without seeming to.

That voice drew her listeners into the teaching ballad every child knew, the song of the famed spacefarer Mikato, who grew up an Owned Person in the days before Ragnarok when humans, deified by science, could call down lightning or raise up palaces at a moment's whim. The Owned People were created in their image and yet different, that the humans might be admired, waited upon, even worshiped. Yet a few, the Compassionate, took pity on their playthings and set free those they could.

The Compassionate named Mikato captain and crew of the sentient ship `Starlight Runner' and sent him forth to seek out a new world for the Free People, one of suitable climate and far from human affairs so that they might develop on their own. His wife, the young and pretty Amaranth, and the best of the people the Compassionates freed slept in cryogenic capsules while he outwitted the dangers that waited beyond human space.

At last Mikato found Elyse, a glowing blue-green pearl in the cloth of the Tangled Web. Too ancient and long in space ever to return to planetary gravity, he shed tears watching as `Starlight Runner' sent the final shuttle to the surface bearing Amaranth's cryocoffin. Forever apart from his wife who remained still young and even more beautiful than he'd remembered, out of despair Mikato plunged his ship into the heart of Elyse's star and died.

As the bard sang the last keening songs of Mikato's dirge, a growing silence fell. Then, one by one, her listeners clapped, filling the room with wild applause.

Intending to offer a drink to the singer, the centaur took two glasses filled with amber-gold nectar from the bartender and trotted past a group of stunned vulpines returning slowly to their neglected drinks. She found two unwelcome tiger-men admirers ahead of her. The singer batted ineffectually at their grasping paws; her whiskers bristled angrily at their coarse whisperings. Nearby patrons murmured disapprovingly but declined to intervene, noting the mercenaries' weapons they carried.

The centaur stepped in casually and tapped one of them on the shoulder. He turned about lazily to stare right into the muzzle of an antique 12mm semi-automatic pistol. Made fearless by intoxication, he lazily drawled, "Got a permit for that?"

"Better than that. Diplomatic immunity." The centaur flicked the safety off with an audible click, causing the tiger-man to sober up quickly. He glanced down to his weapons, all securely holstered and locked away beyond any chance of his outdrawing her, then tapped his companion on the shoulder. They slinked out, ears flattened.

"I'm Zephyr-Racer of Chrysanthemum, Riftworlds ambassador," the centaur said, briskly. She replaced her automatic pistol in a belt pouch and passed one of the drinks she carried to the singer who accepted it gladly. "But my friends call me Zephyr."

"Ariaou, a novice bard of Meetpoint Academy," the bard replied quietly. Then, tail curling in a suddenly concerned S-curve, she asked, "How may I repay you for your help?"

"Our debt's paid by the memory of your beautiful singing. But you've not the look of the industrialist or academician about you. Why're you bound for Ryme?" Zephyr cocked her equine ears forward, all curiosity, and rested her elbows on the table.

"It's a long tale, and sometimes, I think, half imagined," Ariaou murmured, sipping the nectar and sitting back on her chair. "Perhaps I've spent sixteen long, lonely years chasing a foolish child's dreams."

Ariaou struck a chord on her crystal harp, beginning a steady rhythm and melody. She sang softly, her words interwoven with her playing, of fair Mnehim, a lush M'nahnee colony world far to the coreward side of the nebula. A warm summer afternoon colored the trees golden, sunlight setting on the verdant forest and sparkling brightly off the rounded stones within a gurgling brook. Two kittens played nearby, one calico, the other black.

She murmured softly over her playing, "Tommiau and I argued over pebbles in a stream, each claiming the other's stone was worthless and his or her own a precious gem. We paid little heed to the lengthening shadows and the first sweet songs of the nightingales. Then an elusive melody came dancing through the trees."

A shiver ran down Zephyr's spine at the pure silvery tones of the song, pale shadow though it was of the music Ariaou had heard so long ago. It spoke of a wanderer with laughing eyes, of his joy in visiting faraway stars and worlds, and his delight in bestowing enigmas upon those he met, that they might prosper and grow in the understanding. Deep strength and wisdom ran beneath his bright song, and a sadness born of millenia.

"We gave chase, thinking at every turn that the musician would step out of the brush, so close he seemed, his song weaving about us sweetly. And behind us, unheard, a forest predator loped, yellow eyes shining ferally in the moonlight. It hungered, seeking easy prey for a midnight supper."

Ariaou's song tumbled over itself, wove into danger: a young Ariaou fell to the forest floor, and Tommiau cried for help, all alone, surrounded by blinking eyes in the underbrush. Dark shapes ghosted overhead, the carrion birds following the predator hopefully, their cries raucous. The wolf crouched, its sinews tightening into steel coils for the pounce--

"It howled forlornly and fell out of the bush, run through and through by the horn of a golden unicorn that stepped out behind. He shone in the moonlight, his voice warm as sunshine, and his eyes clear sky blue. He sang to us with amusement: such brave kittens we were to run free in the woods, but had we no parents to watch over us?"

Young Ariaou and Tommiau clambered onto the unicorn's back. His grand song arched over them, cascading glissandos of starlight notes forming a rainbow road on which they galloped over the treetops. The forest sped by as if they flew on true wings of song, with a herd of other unicorns all the colors of the spectrum galloping beside the golden unicorn.

"Tommiau fell asleep on our ride, as the unicorn intended, but I did not. In the morning, he awoke remembering nothing of the night's events, and my stories were met with disbelief and scoldings, for there were no such animals as unicorns in the modern world."

Ariaou continued, quietly, the music fading to gentle strumming. "For sixteen years, I've studied music at Meetpoint Academy. Nine years gone by, my parents were killed when terrorists hijacked their starliner. Three years ago, my brother Tommiau was murdered at King Ascenion's coronation. And still I search for the unicorn, and his songs, my own unreachable star in the heavens."

Ariaou let a final questing note ring into silence on her crystal harp. Zephyr remained wordless for a time, then reached over to give the singer a warm hug, which the feline accepted with a thankful purr.

Six hours later, the starliner `Lady of Nine Trumps Unblown' docked with the Ryme deep space station `Quiet Reason', a large, nickel-iron asteroid moved into the Oort cloud centuries ago and excavated. Ariaou watched fascinatedly as the ship slowly folded its warpspace vanes and drifted slowly into the huge cavern of the spaceport on jets of compressed air. A spiderweb of docking lines spun slowly about the spindle-like craft, holding it in place.

They disembarked into the pressurized corridors of the station, having elected to share quarters. Zephyr guided Ariaou past the officials at the customs desk and through the station's labyrinthian corridors. "I want you to meet my friends," Zephyr said. "You'll like them. There'd be only a few diplomats here, but the Dragon Queen's called a nebula-wide trade conference."

"Dragon Queen?" Ariaou asked softly. Her ears flicked curiously.

"The Coordinator of Ryme. Mirdis Shakherak Tarekkha Nazk, for short, her full name would take far too long to remember and recite. I think she secretly prefers our name for her." Zephyr grinned mischievously.

"Mirdis..." Ariaou murmured to herself. "I've seen that name before." She searched her shipsuit, came up with a video pad, tapped several buttons with claw-tips, then showed Zephyr the letter.

"Interesting," Zephyr mused. "She politely invited you to visit the recently excavated pre-Ragnarok ruins, and included a ticket aboard the `Lady of Nine Trumps Unblown'. Yet I know that the ruins have been closed to tourists and scientists until the initial mapping has been completed. It's not often the Dragon Queen takes such mysterious actions."

The feline bard nodded. "I have no idea how I could have come to her notice, but 'tis my hope that in the ruins I may find something to help me in my quest. Though the unicorns are long gone from this universe, their memories linger in the ancient relics of the past."

"I'd be careful, though. Mirdis will probably want something in return." Zephyr shook her head ruefully, causing her hair to swirl gracefully. "She's sharp, cunning, a hard bargainer-- they wrote the proverb `Never play chess with a dragon' just for her. But if I don't play her games, how am I going to find out if I'm good enough to come away with whole horsehide?"

Zephyr stopped in front of the fifth level conference room, palmed the lock. The door irised open. Within, instead of the many people standing about chatting and laughing that Zephyr clearly expected, a gleaming bronze-scaled draconian shape filled the far wall of the oval room. She raised her head, regarding them with opalescent black eyes that reflected the dim starlight of the overhead skylight.

After a moment's silence, the Dragon Queen drummed her claws impatiently. "It's terribly impolite to leave the door open like that. This is not an official meeting, Zephyr, so you may dispense with the frightened look. Now, come and examine this position."

Upon an ivory and onyx chessboard on a granite pedestal, five chess pieces stood ranged, each a different color and shape, all of the finest quality. "I've seen this game before," Ariaou said hesitantly. "But there were many more pieces, and they were white and black, not all colors."

"This is a fairy chess variant in which each piece has its own ambitions and allies. They may work together, but only if it serves their own interests. Observe." Mirdis moved an orange-streaked marble pawn a step forward. "The pawn's moved to the seventh row, about to advance and be promoted to a superior piece."

The dull grey steel king, cut with knife-like edges, moved next to the pawn, threatening its advance. A translucent glass knight that shimmered with rainbows swept in to defend the pawn's imminent move but itself coming under attack. "The knight sacrifices itself, a subtle and elusive piece, in the hope of far greater gain."

Mirdis placed a smoothly polished rook of dark brown wood along the row of the pawn. "The rook supports the pawn, threatening the king indirectly."

Another uncomfortable moment passed as they studied the board and the remaining unmoved piece, a glittering gold queen of smooth curves, before a dry rasping voice came from behind. "Fascinating, lady Mirdis. Yet we have little time for trivialities."

Ariaou whirled about, saw a familiar grey-cloaked figure, his face shrouded by a starry black veil. She exclaimed softly, "Tarnkappe!"

"Do you know this mysterious person, Ariaou?" Mirdis asked.

"We've met," Tarnkappe snapped. "May we dispense with small talk?"

"By no means," Mirdis purred, producing a silver tray of tea, coffee, and biscuits. "Tell me about him, dear feline." Zephyr passed the cups, evidently glad of an excuse to do something besides look confused.

While sipping a cup of coffee with cream, Ariaou murmured, "I don't know much about him, even his name; I call him Tarnkappe for his cloak and the way he appears and disappears mysteriously. Sometimes he tells the future. One time it saved me from a horrible crash that killed seventeen people. The last time he said I'd be getting a letter from Ryme-- and so I did."

"An innovative approach, making your own prophecies come true. It must save tremendously on worries," the Dragon Queen mused over a cup of Elysian herbal tea held delicately in two claws. "Has he ever explained to you why he helps you in this way?"

Ariuo considered that, taking a biscuit and nibbling delicately on its flakey edges. "Long ago, he told me that he was an old friend of the family from long ago. He never explained how; in fact, he's never said more than a few words at any time, but he seems to know more about me than I do."

"Intriguing. Tsk, but I forget my manners. Allow me to introduce the exiled Prince Gavar Mordenkainen of Hellsgate. The honored dignitary has been badgering me all month about permission to visit the ruins." Mirdis chuckled to herself, a deep rumbling sound.

Tarnkappe bowed ironically, a gesture returned warily by Ariaou and Zephyr, then nodded gravely. "My request for a permit for two to enter site fifteen of the ruins? I should like to depart by midnight."

"Postponed," the Dragon Queen said briskly. "There will be no ships bound for Ryme within the next three days."

"I had heard the shuttle `Octave Black' was to depart in three hours?"

"The crew's enjoying stationside recreation while the technicians give the drive systems a much needed overhaul. `Octave Red' is held on Ryme because of a reported bomb threat."

"There is too little time," Tarnkappe muttered to himself.

"On the contrary, there's all the time in the world," Mirdis replied. "The ruins certainly aren't going to get up and walk away. Your stationside expenses here including quarters will be covered by Ryme; come back and talk to me in four days, and I'll arrange the permit and transportation personally. Now do enjoy your stay here on `Quiet Reason'."

Ariaou and Zephyr nodded, sensing the unofficial meeting was at an end. They turned about and departed as Tarnkappe vanished in his own mysterious way, the feline looking back in time to see Mirdis move the golden queen to place the king in check.

Three hours passed. Zephyr located her friends in the seventh level conference room and persuaded Ariaou to play dance music for them. Then Ariaou's sweet voice led them in several folk ballads, unifying their voices into a single grand chorus. Food and drink flowed freely from the dispensers, and the dignitaries conversed amiably with each others.

Zephyr had to drag Ariaou out of the party as station time approached midnight; they walked back to their quarters, sweat beading down the centaur's chestnut brown horsehide. The feline purred softly with tail and whiskers held high in such good humor that Zephyr teased, "See, I told you that you'd enjoy meeting them. Not such stodgy and pompous bureaucrats, are we?"

"Indeed," Ariaou said with a quiet laugh. "I'd never imagined that an angel could have impure thoughts, let alone know all the lyrics to 'The Thing with All the Eyes and the Asteroid Miner's Daughter'."

"One of my oldest friends and a perennial scandal to her homeworld," Zephyr replied with a grin. She palmed the lock and the door to their stateroom irised open, revealing a familiar grey-cloaked figure within.

"Elements!" Zephyr sighed. "Is everyone following us today?"

"It lacks but half an hour of midnight," Tarnkappe said, ignoring the looks of slight exasperation they gave him. "We have little time if we are to be off the station by then."

The centaur protested, "There won't be an atmosphere-capable ship ready for two days yet!"

"There is one now. The personal cruiser of the Coordinator."

"What gall," the centaur grumbled. "Ariaou?"

She nodded slowly. "'Tis now, or wait upon Mirdis's pleasure."

"Now or never," Tarnkappe said helpfully. "I will not wait."

"That decides that," Zephyr said. "Let's get changed into sensible planetside clothes, Ariaou. Prince Gavar, if you'd be so kind and give us some privacy?..."

Fifteen minutes later, Zephyr cantered and Ariaou walked to the spaceport cavern, both dressed in plain and serviceable blue kelvarite planetside clothes, a material that maintained a comfortable temperature and humidity in a wide range of environments and afforded protection from sharp objects. Tarnkappe strode along in the same grey cloak, apparently unconcerned about any danger.

Tarnkappe led them through the central elevator that ran through the core of `Quiet Reason'. He entered a control code into a heavily armored airlock that irised open to reveal the null gravity pressurized repair and refueling dock surrounding the Dragon Queen's personal cruiser `Fool's Mate', a sleek black-winged shape equally at home in deep space or within planetary atmosphere.

Two guards stood in front of the catwalk leading to the airlock, dressed in station security uniforms and carrying needle rifles slung over their shoulders. The closer one called out, "Who's there? Identify yourself!"

Tarnkappe stepped forward as they leveled their guns and shouted for him to halt. His arms blurred into motion almost too fast to be seen; razor-sharp claws clicked out from his fingers, slashed left and right efficiently, and the guards fell away gurgling horribly, throats cut and blood drifting in slow spheres. He cycled the yacht's airlock open as if nothing had happened and beckoned for them to enter.

They stepped nervously past Tarnkappe, entering the forward half of the passenger compartment, and settled into soft padded anti-acceleration seats. Ariaou whispered urgently to Zephyr, watching Tarnkappe anxiously, "That's the same way my brother Tommiau was murdered three years ago."

"We're stuck with playing this round out," Zephyr replied quietly. "You didn't bring a weapon, did you? Luckily I always keep my sidearm."

Tarnkappe gave no signs of noticing their whisperings as he went forward to the pilot's seat and initiated the departure sequence, his long fingers skimming across the banks of controls. The station's com band came alive with protests of unauthorized departure and unfiled flight plans, all of which he blandly ignored. Mirdis's yacht hummed as its engines powered up slowly.

`Fool's Mate' lifted off silently on compressed hydrogen jets from the support gantries, refueling and repair arms snapping and falling free. The docking bay depressurized, air vanished through powered fans, and the exit hatch opened silently into deep space. Tarnkappe floated the yacht out slowly and deliberately, then started making preparations for the first boost out of the docking cavern and away from the station.

A voice crackled over the military band, causing Tarnkappe to scrabble surprisedly for nonexistent weapons controls. "The station's weapons are locked onto you, `Fool's Mate'. Repeat, our guns are locked on you. Do not attempt to leave station orbit. You are charged with two counts of first degree murder, grand theft, failure to file a flight plan or authorization with traffic control--"

"Oh hush, dear Captain," a low rumbling reply came from behind them. "It's my yacht and I wrote the rules, so I can take it out when I need to. Do be a dear and take care of the paperwork for me, will you?"

"Understood, Coordinator," the voice replied as Ariaou and Zephyr turned about to gape at the familiar ancient bronze dragon that filled the rear passenger space. "`Quiet Reason' station over and out."

"How did you know we would be here?" Ariaou asked.

"As I'm sure Prince Gavar knows already, my yacht was the only one that he could obtain which could safely make it to Ryme within his time limit." Mirdis turned to look reprovingly at Tarnkappe. "Really, though, killing the guards was a bit much. The paperwork for that will run up more than the rest of this put together."

"They were unimportant," Tarnkappe replied as he examined the unfamiliar astronavigation controls. Slight irritation became evident in his gestures as lights blinked and starmaps flickered on and off despite his efforts.

"As ever, you ignore all but your grand schemes. Even the smallest thing can count." The Dragon Queen reached forward to start the autopilot, which obediently began to follow its preprogrammed course with an efficiency that clearly annoyed Tarnkappe.

He dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand, intently studying the new information coming onto the displays. "I advise you all to brace yourselves, as we will be entering jump in thirty seconds, thanks to lady Mirdis's thoughtful preparations."

`Fool's Mate' accelerated to near lightspeed on anti-matter engines, its artificial gravity protecting its passengers from being smeared against the aft bulkheads by G-force. Its warpspace vanes unfolded into position, long sheets of multiple mirror-bright panels reflecting the light of the receding station. With a sudden jolt, they transited into warpspace. A sense of unreality swept through the yacht.

The yacht emerged scant seconds later only ten minutes flight from the glowing sphere of Ryme that now hung suspended before the forward viewport. `Fool's Mate' folded its vanes and cut cleanly into the atmosphere under the autopilot's directions, atmospheric friction heating up its nose and bottom to a cherry bright glow. It glided over thick forest, its wings dissipating excess heat in the cool winds, then descended into the crater of an extinct volcano on compressed air jets.

Tarnkappe stepped out first. Ariaou and Zephyr cautiously followed, and Mirdis disentangled herself from the yacht last. They stood before an architectural magnificence, white marble sprawling within the crater's expanse, largely overgrown by vines and trees. The outermost walls had fallen long ago, sharp-cut stone blocks half buried in the soft earth; arches and gates still stood within the inner courtyards. The setting sun cast golden rays on the roofs.

Tarnkappe led them on a slow walk into the ruins through ancient moss-covered atriums reminiscent of prehistoric Rome. Ariaou unslung her harp and struck up an ancient requiem, slow and sweet notes like tides on the vast sea, the music echoing quietly from the distant corners like a second voice. Zephyr flicked an ear to listen, smiling slightly.

"This place might have been built in an hour, the summer palace of some far voyaging human who desired to live planetside a while," Mirdis commented from behind them, her black opal eyes unreadable. "Yet it's lasted the millenniums since Ragnarok, the humans' civil war that laid waste all their worlds. Only a few of their race survived, and none to this day. A shame."

They stepped into a still intact building, the smooth marble walls only slightly green with moss, the ceilings high and arching to a thin line over their heads. Zephyr's steady clip-clop echoed back weirdly from the corners and Ariaou's music took on new and disturbing resonances, portending strange and mysterious things. Tarnkappe directed them unhesitatingly, knowing exactly where to go.

Mirdis continued, "The dragons' oldest legends claim that many of the Compassionate, those who freed our people so long ago, survived with what little technology they could preserve. They willingly gave up their humanity to assume heraldic forms of great power, so that they could join our societies and watch over us. It's said that one Guardian single-handedly ended the war between Azhanti and Weyrhelm. A fairy tale for young dragons seeking protectors greater than themselves."

"The story is correct," Tarnkappe conceded reluctantly as they halted in a high-domed vault that held an ivory mausoleum. Gilt plaques lined the walls, carved with ancient writing. "Very shortly we will meet one of these guardians. The inscriptions tell of Sundancer and his wife Alysse Italy whom he married in the last echoes of human civilization's glories. When Ragnarok fell, she fled the battles in shame at the destructions she'd caused, and built her home on this distant world to live out her days. He visits this place once every century, mourning."

"So," Mirdis rumbled to herself thoughtfully. "You violated this place, rather than wait upon a permit. As I guessed, Ariaou is important to your plans somehow. But why?"

"Revenge."

The exiled Prince Gavar pulled his hood back, removed the dark veil that hid his face. Ariaou gasped in recognition, seeing the glowing yellow eyes that haunted her worst nightmares, the grey fur now white with age. "A dire wolf!" she breathed, her paws falling from her harp.

"A genetic madness haunts my line," Gavar explained. "Each son in turn is stricken, reduced to unthinking bestiality. I was old when I fell ill, and exiled from my homeworld to a distant forest where I might hunt as I wished, so that no outsider would know the shame my family endured."

"Then the unicorn came, the one with a pelt like sunfire, and slayed me. But dire wolves are not so easily killed. I healed slowly, and when I awoke again, my thoughts were clear."

"It was an unwanted gift. As a pure wolf, I had known the joy of the wild hunt, the companionship of the pack, the bliss of mating. But I knew these things were wrong, and so I was ashamed. I swore to kill those who witnessed my shame. I killed Tommiau, three years ago. Here I will kill you, and the unicorn, and then there shall be none who know. Then I shall grant myself the peace of death."

"Peace I brought my wife so long ago," a voice like warm twilight said from behind the mausoleum. The golden unicorn Ariaou remembered stepped out, his sky blue eyes shining with ancient sadness and remembrance. "She would have laid waste your fledgling worlds, driven mad with loneliness and anger, and so I was forced to kill her."

"She lives," Gavar said with a wild laugh. "She hungers for your blood as much as I." He threw away the grey cloak, revealing a grizzled frame better muscled than any dire wolf had a right to be, covered with a silvery grey cloth that shimmered and flowed with sentient light. Razor-sharp claws snicked out from his fingers as he assumed a battle stance.

"Grave robber! You have violated her crypt!" the unicorn neighed, his voice a mighty bell ringing. "I could not bear to utterly extinct her mind from this plane of existence, and so I transferred it to the weave of her clothes, which you now wear."

"And which grants me powers like a god's, the power to slay!" With that, Gavar's suit flared into sudden star-like intensity, then released its energy in a bolt of lightning that blew the mausoleum apart in a shower of stone shards and ancient relics as Sundancer dodged aside. Shrapnel shattered Ariaou's crystal harp, sending its brittle pieces falling harmlessly against her kelvarite clothes. She gasped and stumbled closer to Zephyr.

With a sudden flicker, Sundancer teleported behind Gavar, lashed out with a gleaming sharp hoof. Gavar blocked it, his suit deflecting the blow harmlessly, and returned a vicious backhand swipe that gouged the wall. The unicorn raised a defensive aura of dim orange in time to absorb a second lightning bolt, which dissipated in harmless pyrotechnics, then skittered back before the wolf's lunge.

Ariaou staggered upright, holding onto Zephyr for support. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw Zephyr about to pull something out of her belt pouch; Mirdis laid a cautionary claw on the centaur's forearm, clearly signalling `wait'. The battle raged on, the golden unicorn dancing back before the wolf's furious attack.

Sundancer stumbled back before a sudden glittering arc of metal, taking a fatal cut through his left foreleg, gushing arterial blood, then falling heavilly against the wall. Unable to dodge, he summoned up all his energies to drive his aura up through the spectrum to a glaring blue, then to blindingly intense white, as Gavar hailed lightning against his protective shield. "Ariaou," he called, desperately. "I need your help! Sing!"

"My crystal harp was broken," she wailed back, looking despairingly at the shards of her instrument. Gavar flicked an ear, but continued keeping the wounded unicorn pressed back; Sundancer did not reply, the golden unicorn's energy fading fast, his shield dropping down from white to blue under the force of the wolf's energy blasts.

Ariaou cast about for an instrument, tail lashing to express her fear, ears laid back. She saw an ancient shimmerlyre of unfamiliar design flung loose in the destruction of the mausoleum, against the far wall. It seemed an eternity away, meters of space across which Gavar might kill her with but a negligent blow.

The feline gave Zephyr and Mirdis a helpless look for an endless moment, flicked her ears forward agitatedly, then threw herself into a forward dive. She barely evaded a lazy claw swipe that whistled overhead and scooped up the instrument, raising it like a shield.

Its first note was magic, born of a lyre that had been old when the Owned People were born. Her voice joined it in sweet harmony, her paws lifting up to spin the soft, gentle, reassuring strains of a lullaby, the words coming to her unbidden, full of meaning even though she knew none of them. The shimmerlyre transformed her song to music worthy of the gods, soothing and warm, a golden skein that weaved about the room.

"Alas," an unfamiliar voice cried out, the contralto voice of a human woman, a ghost trapped within the suit and evoked by Ariaou's sweet singing. "What have I become, that I should strive to slay my beloved, my husband, my unicorn?"

Gavar fought with his suddenly contrary suit, becoming paralyzed as it refused to move for him, its light fading into a black darker than night. His lightning bolts ceased, leaving the unicorn to fall to the floor in a puddle of blood, the shield almost spent. Gavar howled defiantly, "Revenge shall be mine! I command you, my suit!"

A sound like repeated mute thunder filled the room, and a row of red dots appeared along his chest. He toppled over slowly like a broken statue, revealing Zephyr standing behind, and Mirdis close to her, nodding approval. The centaur slowly replaced her antique pistol in her pouch, a grim look furrowing her brows beneath marble dust-specked brown hair.

The unicorn breathed softly, "That lyre was my wife's. Now yours, Ariaou. And I bequeath to you my songs as well, for you are worthy." With that, Sundancer's body glowed and vanished in a sudden flare of light, leaving behind only the sun-bright spire of his crystal horn. Ariaou turned to see the silver suit fade as well, its weave falling into dust.

"The archaeologists aren't going to be happy about this," the Dragon Queen commented, looking about the wreckage.

Much later, back on the station `Quiet Reason', they went their separate ways. Zephyr returned to the nebular trade conference. Mirdis cleared up the paperwork incurred in their exploits. Gavar's homeworld Hellsgate denied the existence of any exiled Prince Gavar Mordenkainen; the Ryme bureaucracy duly made out the forms and filed it away.

Mirdis and Ariaou met once again in the same conference room, near the chess board the Dragon Queen had been studying on their arrival. They spoke for a short while over tea. Finally, Mirdis rumbled, "Then there is nothing I can do to persuade you to remain? Our scientists could undoubtedly learn much from Sundancer's horn."

"Nothing. I must return to Meetpoint, Mirdis," Ariaou replied quietly. "Call it fate, perhaps, or a duty to be fulfilled."

"Very well. From Zephyr, reservations for a first class suite on the starliner `Princess's Favor'. And I give you this to remember Ryme." The Dragon Queen picked up an orange-streaked marble piece from the chess board. At first Ariaou thought it was the pawn; then she looked closer to see that it was a unicorn rampant with eyes of glittering sapphire.

Conrad Wong is a CS student at U. C. Berkeley, about to graduate and face the terrifying world of "Real Life". He is not looking forward to it. Except, that is, to having more money to spend on the necessities of life: new science fiction and fantasy books, anthropomorphic comics (Conrad's particularly fond of `Rhudiprrt'), and getting permanent net access. His hobbies include feeble attempts at writing (one of which you see above), drawing, computer games, and MUDs.

cwong@cory.berkeley.edu