The fourth page was empty, too, but its center was seared slightly as if held too close to a flame.
“I believe it was you who used the word insignificant, wizard?” Abernathy goaded.
Questor did not reply. There was a stunned look on his face. Slowly he began to leaf through the book, turning one blank page after another, finding each sheet of yellowed parchment empty, but increasingly seared. Finally pages began to appear that were burned through entirely. He thumbed impulsively to the very center of the book and stopped.
“High Lord,” he said softly.
Ben peered downward at the ruin that lay open before him. A fire had burned the center of the book to ashes, but it was as if the fire had somehow been ignited from within.
High Lord and wizard stared at each other. “Keep going,” Ben urged.
Questor paged through the remainder of the book quickly and found nothing. Each sheet of parchment was just like the others — empty save for where the mysterious fire had burned or seared it.
“I do not understand what this means, High Lord,” Questor Thews admitted finally.
Abernathy started to comment, then changed his mind. “Perhaps the answers lie in the other book,” he suggested wearily.
Ben nodded for Questor to proceed. The wizard closed the first book and set it aside, gloved his hands in the red fire, brought them carefully down, and drew free the green fire that protected the lock on the second book. It took somewhat longer this time to complete the task, for the lock was still intact. Then, the fires extinguished, he released the lock and cautiously opened the book.
The outline of a unicorn stared back at him. The unicorn was drawn on parchment that was neither yellowed nor seared, but pristine white. The unicorn was standing still, its silhouette perfectly formed by dark lines. Questor turned to the second page. There was a second unicorn, this one in motion, but drawn the same way. The third page revealed another unicorn, the fourth still another, and so on. Questor leafed quickly through the entire book and back again. Each page of the book appeared new. Each page held a unicorn, each drawn in a different pose.
There were no writings or markings of any kind other than the drawings of the unicorns.
“I still do not understand what this means.” Questor sighed, frustration etched into his lean face.
“It means these are not the books of magic you believed them to be,” Abernathy offered bluntly.
But Questor shook his head. “No, these are the books. The dream said so, the markings on the bindings say so, and they appear as the old stories described them. These are the missing books, all right.”
They were silent for a moment. Ben stared thoughtfully at the books, then glanced about until his eyes found the shadowy figure of Bunion peering from behind Questor. The kobold grinned ominously.
Ben looked back again at the books. “What we have here,” he said finally, “is one book with unicorns drawn on every page and another book with no unicorns drawn anywhere, but a burned-out center. That has to mean something, for Pete’s sake! Questor, what about Willow’s dream of a black unicorn? Couldn’t the unicorns here have something to do with that?”
Questor considered the possibility for a moment. “I do not see any possible connection, High Lord. The black unicorn is essentially a myth. The unicorns drawn here are not inked in black, but sketched deliberately in white. See how the lines define the features?” He turned a few pages of the second book to illustrate his point. “A black unicorn would be shaded or marked in some way to indicate its color…”
He trailed off, brows knitting tightly in thought. His bony fingers traced the seared lock on the first book delicately. “Why has this lock been broken and the other left intact?” he asked softly, speaking to no one in particular.
“There have not been any unicorns in the valley since its inception, according to the histories of the Kings of Landover,” Abernathy interjected suddenly. “But there were unicorns once — a whole raft of them. There was a legend about it, as a matter of fact. Now let me think… Yes, I remember. Just wait here a moment, please.”