He paused. “Then suddenly there was movement in the pine — just a shadow of something, nothing more than that. I remember thinking that my eyes were playing tricks on me yet another time. I was going to say something to Dain; he was working just off to my left. But I held my tongue — too tired, maybe, to want to say anything. I just sort of stopped what I was doing there in the brush and the heat and I watched the place of the movement to see if there was going to be any more.”
He took a deep breath, and his jaw tightened down. “There was this darkening of the little sunlight that remained then — as if clouds had screened it away for a moment. I remember how it felt. The air was all hot and still; the wind had died down into nothing. I was looking, and the brush came apart and there it was — the unicorn, all black and fluid like water. It seemed so tiny. It stood there staring at me — I don’t know how long. I could see the goat’s feet, the lion’s tail, the mane that ran down its neck and back, the fetlocks, that ridged horn. It was just as the old stories described it — but more beautiful than they could ever make it. Sweet mother, it was glorious! The others saw it, too, a few of them anyway. Dain caught a glimpse; another two said they saw it close up. But not as close as me, Lord! No, I was right next to it, it seemed! I was right there!
“Then it bolted. No, not bolted — it didn’t flee like that. It bounded up and seemed to fly right past me; all that motion and grace, like the shadow of some bird in flight cast down on the earth by the sun passing. It came by me in the blink of an eye — whisk! — and it was gone. I stood there looking after it, wondering if I’d really seen it, knowing I had, thinking how marvelous it was to view, thinking it truly was real…”
He choked on the words as they tumbled out one after the other, released from his throat in a rush of strange emotion. His hands were raised before him, knotting with the intensity of the telling of his story. Ben quit breathing momentarily, awed by what he was seeing, not wanting to break the spell.
The hunter’s eyes lowered then, and the hands followed. “I heard later that it flew right into the teeth of the chase. I heard it went past the whole mess of them like wind through a forest of rooted trees. Dozens saw it. There was a chance to hold it, maybe — but I kind of wonder. It came right over the nets. There was a chase, but… but you know what?” The eyes lifted again. “The unicorn came right up against the Lords of the Greensward and the King’s men — right up against them, sweet mother! And the wizard — the very one that organized all this — conjured up some nonsense and it rained flowers and butterflies all over everything. The chase broke up in the confusion, and the unicorn was gone before you could spit!” He smiled’suddenly. “Flowers and butterflies — can you imagine that?”
Ben smiled with him. He could.
The hunter drew up his knees then and hugged them. The smile disappeared. “That was it, then. That was all she wrote. The hunt was done. Everyone sort of broke up and went away after that. There was some talk of continuing, of taking the whole line back east again, but it never came to anything. No one wanted any part of that. It was like the heart had gone out of the chase. It was like everyone was glad the unicorn got away. Or maybe it was just that no one thought it could ever be caught anyway.”
The hard eyes lifted. “Strange times we live in. The King sacked the wizard and the dog, I hear. Threw them out the minute he heard what had happened. Just dismissed them out of hand for what the wizard had done — or what he thought he’d done. I don’t think the wizard could have done much one way or the other anyway. Not with that creature, not with it. No one could have. It was too much a ghost for anything mortal, too much a dream…”