by Paul Lucas

I collect things. Smart-ass remarks from my regulars, mostly, the Seasons curse that eternally-drunken lot. But what I\x92m most interested in is stories.

My name\x92s Shakara. I run the Randy Dryad Inn, the least broken-down shamble in this middle-of-nowhere town. It\x92s a good day\x92s travel west of Tragaria, Corinthia\x92s northernmost city. Business is good, especially in caravan season, and we rarely see any real trouble outside of small-time bandits and chicken-stealing wyverns.

The locals do give me grief sometimes because I\x92m a business woman. They think I should be living in some hovel somewhere suckling brats and falling on my back as soon as some oaf of a husband trips through the door.

Perhaps when pigs grow wings and dragon scat is a favored delicacy.

But my ale is frothy, my silver good, and my bouncer bigger than an ox, so all they really do is grumble.

But I\x92ve always been fascinated with stories. My mother always told me bedtime tales about my father\x92s exotic adventures with his magical caravan as he traveled throughout the Eleven Worlds. Pure dragon scat, of course, because she hadn\x92t known my father more than two days before he left her without a backward glance. My birth was just one more incident in the age-old tradition of wide-eyed towngirls falling in love with smooth-talking caravan guards.

She must have thought that those outrageous tales of my father would comfort an insecure little girl. Maybe they did, because two decades later I still cast a captivated ear at any interesting tale.

Last spring I spent an ungodly sum on an honest-to-Seasons leather-bound paper book and writing quills. Bloodgouge, my Orc bouncer, thought I was touched, but what good is being boss if you can\x92t ignore common sense?

Anyone who comes in with a good story I give a free drink to, and that night I\x92ll write it down in my book. Once a month I\x92ll pull the book out and read passages to whoever happens to be in the tavern at the time. As time went by, more and more people showed up for the readings. Maybe in a year the book will even earn back the money I spent on it. That should shut Bloodgouge up.

The trouble was that most of the stories I got were pretty mundane. Soldiers told tales of battles, merchants told stories of business ventures, goodwives talked about courtship and love. Nothing truly unusual.

Until Laran.

It all started when I got the new sign. You see, I inherited the inn and always hated the name "Randy Dryad." It made some people think I offered more here than cold drinks and warm hay. So I had this sign with a new name carved and painted by a craftsman in Tragaria, and when it arrived, I decided to show it to the customers before Bloodgouge and I hung it over the door.

I propped it up on the bar and asked everybody what they thought. They all cheered, but then a lone voice called out, "Change it!"

"What?" I said. "After all the money I\x92ve spent?"

The lone dissenter rose from his corner table and stamped toward me. He was only of average height and build, with a shock of long chestnut hair and sallow cheeks. His measured, confidant stride marked him as a soldier. Bloodgouge rose from his stool near the door, but I calmed him down with a cocked eyebrow. No sense escalating things into a brawl just yet.

The stranger stabbed a finger at the yellow beast painted on the sign. "I said change it. You don\x92t want your inn named after such a vile creature."

I laughed, more nervously than I meant to. "You\x92re kidding. Don\x92t you know what that is? They\x92re guardians, protectors--"

"They\x92re monsters."

My eyes narrowed. "How would you know?"

He looked away, fists clenching. He closed his eyes tightly, sighing heavily before opening them again. "I hear you pay a free drink for interesting stories. Give me my drink now, and I\x92ll tell you."

I poured him a mug of ale. He gulped half of it down before beginning.

"My name is Laran. I used to be a young and stupid journeyman woodcarver living with my family. My tale begins at my family\x92s cottage on a warm spring night..."

- - -

"He is calling me," Kayla whispered.

I paused in my whittling, my sister\x92s words sliding an icy dagger into my soul. I knew whom she meant, and it was not our oafish father guzzling whiskey in the next room. He was calling her, summoning her magically through the sexual music in her blood.

The silver light of the half-moon silhouetted her as she leaned against the frame of the open door, an indigo shadow against the dark forest beyond. She slowly glided her thighs together beneath her homespun skirt as she peered longingly into the trees. The skirt was the green, pleated one once owned by our mother, the one Kayla always wore on the nights she went to him.

She took a hesitant step beyond the threshold, hugging herself despite the warmth of the night. Her golden hair danced playfully in the wind.

I scrambled to my feet and rushed after her. Before she had taken a half-dozen steps down the path, I clapped a hand on her shoulder and spun her around to face me. Empty azure eyes looked back. I was merely another phantom in her world of illusions, where the only reality was him. "Kayla, don\x92t!" I whispered, shaking her. "And not just because of Father. We don\x92t know anything about him. We don\x92t know what he\x92s capable of."

"I know, Laran," she insisted, her voice a dreamy sing-song. "He is wonderful, and gentle, and beautiful. And he loves me. He cannot talk, not like we do, but I know he loves me..."

"But why him, Kayla? You\x92re so pretty and smart, you could have any man in the village."

She pushed herself away, fists balling. "I don\x92t want any man, Laran! I want him. What is so wrong with that?"

Because he isn\x92t human.

I almost said it. I gnashed my teeth against the words, fearing to drive her away.

"What the hell is going on out here!"

Ice shot through my spine of the shout. I turned to see Father steadying himself with both arms in the doorway, whiskey jug dangling from callussed fingers. Drool and other fluids stained his work shirt, the one he had not bothered to change for the better part of a week now. He flung the jug aside, the ceramic exploding against the pale walkway stones.

"Kayla" He stabbed a finger at his daughter. "I told you not to go outside after dark! Seasons, you ungrateful little trollop, you\x92ll see what you get when you disobey me!" He fumbled for his broad leather belt.

Kayla\x92s started as Father slapped the strap loudly against his palm, her face ashen. She had been days getting over his last beating.

He stalked toward her, Kayla unable to move, paralyzed like a fawn. "Please," she squeaked.

I stepped between them, my arms outstretched. "Father, don\x92t. This isn\x92t..."

He slapped me aside, his open hand slamming across my chin. New stars danced with old in the night sky as the blow sent me rolling onto the damp earth. I shook my head violently,recovering just in time to hear the fabric of my sister\x92s blouse tearing. Father would allow nothing to soften his punishment.

He doubled the length of leather and whipped it down in a blurring flash, Kayla screaming as it barked on raw skin. Father methodically hit her again and again and again, his spitting invective about whorish daughters punctuating his every downward stroke. Kayla \x91s cries degenerated into pitiful mewlings.

I could have interfered, tried to drag him away from her, but I only stood there, dumbly watching it all like a stupid boy and not the man of nineteen Autumns that I was supposed to be. I had tried to stop him in the past, but I knew from bitter experience that my interference would only make her punishment all the worse. I did not have my father\x92s strength, either of will or body, that he had gained from a lifetime of woodworking.

But I should have at least tried!

I also very reluctantly wondered if I should interfere. As horrible as the beatings were, perhaps they were the best way to keep her from her mysterious lover, overcoming his magical compulsions with a stronger fear of Father\x92s belt.

I hated myself for the thought, turning away and trying not to listen to the staccato cracks of leather on skin.

- - -

I helped Kayla to bed shortly afterward as Father stumbled back into his room. I wrapped my shirt around her, very careful not to brush against any of her new weals. I slung one of her slender arms around my shoulder and helped her hobble to our mutual bedroom.

She wept herself slowly to sleep. I sat on the bed beside her, patting her shoulder. I left her side only when the steady rise and fall of her torso indicated that sleep had mercifully claimed her.

Our family had not always been like this. It is true Father had always been a less than doting parent. Mother had died giving birth to Kayla, a horrible tragedy that Father somehow blamed on his daughter. More than once when we were growing up, during one drunken rage or another, he screamed that she had been a poor trade for her mother.

Stern and reserved, Father was never given to displays of affection. Still, he provided well for us when we were growing up, as we never wanted for anything material. He drank only moderately in those times, and never raised a violent hand to us.

All this changed when Kayla reached marrying age.

Kayla had grown to womanhood self\x97conscious and shy. Still, she had finely chiseled features, bright blue eyes, and a graceful frame that attracted the attentions of several suitors from the nearby village. She refused them all, unsure of taking such a big step so soon.

However, just as spring broke, Kayla began taking long sojourns into the forest, sometimes not returning until nearly dawn. She did not talk of where she went or what she did, even in the face of Father\x92s screaming demands. She began smiling much more. Once, when she thought no one was looking, I caught her fingertips slowly gliding down the arc of her breast as she stared into the forest, wishing for the touch of someone in particular.

She had taken a lover.

I remember mixed feelings about that revelation when it finally hit me. In one way I was glad for her, that someone was making her happier than our family ever could. Her cheeks flushed wildly whenever I asked about whom she met in the woods, and she demurely refused to discuss such things. Father, for his part, suspected the reasons for her going out at night, but settled into a dour silence. His perpetual grimace deepened, however, whenever she was off on one of her rendezvous.

Still, Kayla was young and inexperienced, and I felt duty-bound to do what I could to protect my sister. I started discretely asking around the village to discover who her lover might be. I thought that, at worst, he would turn out to be some transient mercenary or caravan driver who would leave her for more fertile fields as soon as he tired of her.

But then the miller began telling stories of a great beast he had glimpsed on the edge of the forest during the past weeks, a creature from obscure legend and sorcerers\x92 tales. His story was verified by hunters who had also seen the creature.

And, always, the sightings coincided with the nights Kayla journeyed into the woods.

That was when I began fearing for my sister, and when Father began beating her. His drinking became an unceasing torrent.

Sliding the covers over my sister, I saw her wince at some nightmare. I could well imagine its content. I gently patted her head before I blew out the candle and ambled over to my own bed.

- - -

My eyes snapped open later that night, and I propped myself on an elbow to stare into the darkness. Had a dream wakened me? I seemed to recall a latch clicking, and a door hissing softly shut . . .

I sat bolt upright. "Kayla?" I whispered. I peered over toward her bed, and could barely discern a human-sized lump under the sheets. I knew instinctively only propped-up hay and blankets lay there. I raced to the window. Through the shutters, I saw a shadowy figure run toward the forest, pleated green skirt billowing in the breeze.

Damn. Father would beat her lame if he discovered this.

I had to follow her. I had to know, once and for all, if her lover was truly worth all of the suffering he caused.

I quickly slid into my shoes and shift. Going through the cottage and out the front door would have taken too long, so I opened the shutters and hopped out onto the soft grass four feet below the sill. I grunted as my flat-footed landing stung my soles. I hoped that Father, whose bedroom window was but an arm\x92s length away, hadn\x92t heard.

I made my way as quickly as I dared in the dim moonlight. I only occasionally dodged low-hanging branches and stumbled over treacherous roots. Far away down the worn trail Kayla had taken, I would glimpse my sister\x92s pale blouse more than once, reflected by stray daggers of moonlight, only to have it again swallowed up by the shadows.

Once, I stopped and turned at the sound of movement behind me. I peered into the darkness, but could see nothing save the deep shadows of the trees. Thinking it some careless animal, and not wanting Kayla to get too far ahead, I ignored it and hiked on.

How far down the trail I traveled I have no idea. A half mile? A league? More?

Just as I was about to curse softly as yet another thrice\x97damned spider web thrust into my face, I heard Kayla\x92s soft voice off to the left of the path. I tried to peer through dark morass of conifers, but could only barely detect a hint of movement there.

Luckily my sight had adjusted to the gloom as well as it ever would, and I managed to make my way through the underbrush without inadvertent sound. As I approached, I could make out a small clearing ahead, not much bigger than our cottage. Oddly, the cloud of mosquitoes and black flies that had dogged me ever since leaving home abruptly disappeared, as if I had entered some hallowed ground. I sidled up behind the flaking gray bark of a broad oak, careful to hide myself from the figures moving in the clearing.

Kayla stood in the center of the grassy field. She tossed aside the last of her garments, revealing a slender, naked form as pale as the moonlight that bathed her. She cooed softly to her companion, lovingly stroking his long, speckled flank as he clopped a slow, almost protective circle around her.

Kaylas lover was indeed the beast the miller had described. Very horse\x97like, he was as large as a draft beast and as heavily\x97 muscled. His coat was a shining white, sparkling brightly even in the dim illumination. Long, powerful legs terminated in broad, coal\x97black hooves easily as large as my head. A long, bushy tail of spun silver twitched at his hindquarters. A thick pillar of a neck led to a perfectly-chiseled equine head. Sprouting from his brow was a tapering golden horn, twisting about itself like tightly-corded rope. I remembered a passing sorcerer once describing such beasts; Unicorns, immortal guardians of nature that haunted the ancient forests of the Eleven Worlds.

Kayla backed up slowly to the nearest tree, leading the willing creature along by its unique appendage. She leaned back against the mahogany trunk, her arms gliding up and down the horn as she slowly, steadily spread her thighs apart. Her breath was ragged and loud in anxious anticipation.

The tip of the horn began shimmering with a soft blue light. The beast snorted and stamped the ground powerfully before placing the horn between her legs and slowly, slowly bringing the glowing tip up to touch the nadir of Kayla\x92a small, triangular patch of blond fur.

Kayla loosed a long, breathless cry. Her hands shot up to clench low-hanging branches tightly, the leaves shaking wildly with her convulsive pleasure.

A guttural scream exploded through the forest. I spun around just in time to see Father burst out of the brush on the far side of the clearing, his dark brows twisted into a miasma of hate. Over his head he brandished the hand-scythe we used for harvesting, the one with the curving, two\x97foot blade. He swung it down viciously with both hands, slicing a wide groove into the flank of the unicorn. The beast squealed queerly, more like a dying pig than a forest god, and reared back from both his lover and his attacker. Kayla froze in horror at her place against the tree.

Oddly, the unicorn didn\x92t bleed. The wound, which would have been instantly mortal on any mundane beast, knitted itself closed with a puff of reddish sparkles. A ragged scar was visible through its coat of fine hair, but the creature seemed more enraged than hurt. It bowed its great head deep, bringing its horn to bear in Father\x92s direction.

Father placed himself squarely between Kayla and the unicorn, holding the scythe white-knuckled before him. "Stay away from her!" he growled. They stood transfixed for many moments, unicorn and human, each staring molten hate at the other.

A small, ivory hand slipped onto Father\x92s shoulder. "Please, no," Kayla pleaded.

For a brief moment, he turned his head to regard her, eyes fully lucid for the first time in months. Something vulnerable sparkled briefly in his expression. "Kayla, I . .

The unicorn bolted forward suddenly and savagely, the horn penetrating Father\x92s belly and then swinging upward with superhuman might. The horn ran him completely through, shattering vertebrae in a brackish spray as it burst out his back. Father did not even have time to scream. The unicorn, snorting powerfully as blood streamed around its eyes and off its lips, lifted him fully off the ground and held him in mid-air like meat on a spit. Father could only gurgle as the scythe slid from his unfeeling hand. He wheezed one last curse before his body went limp.

The unicorn threw its head to the side, tossing Father\x92s body into the nearby bushes. Kayla stood frozen, hands clenched spasmodically to her mouth, her face an ashen mask.

The great beast nickered and snorted in triumph. Its eyes locked with hers, something unknowable passing between them. Shoulders slumping and eyes glazing, she strode slowly up to the unicorn, stroking its long, powerful neck. "It\x92s all right," I heard her coo softly with a far\x97away voice. "I understand. I forgive you .

I am not sure what gave me away; my shirt rustling in a breeze, perhaps, or a leaf crinkling under my heel. The unicorn suddenly swung its head around and pierced me with its night-black eyes. The orbs of the creature were an onyx ocean that descended forever into the vast depths of its immortal being. The lifetimes of all the forests in all the worlds were reflected in that gaze, an eon far greater than the heartbeat of time that had passed since humankind had first blinked at the daylight.

The unicorn snorted and pawed at the ground. It placed itself squarely between Kayla and myself. I stood, frozen, a kitten before a tiger. I could do nothing to prevent the unicorn from killing me just as it had Father. My only regret was that I would leave Kayla alone, with no one to take care of her except the mysterious murderer of her family.

Ever so gently, Kayla laid a staying hand on the beast\x92s shoulder. "No," she said. "He means us no harm, my love. He\x92s never hurt me. He came only because he was concerned for me.

The unicorn turned its head to regard her, almost quizzically, before turning its attention back toward me. It bobbed its head once, curtly, as if giving me a brief nod of

approval before turning away. Kayla met its eyes briefly, nodding in sad assent at an unspoken entreaty from the creature. He turned and clopped into the dark ocean of forest, and my sister turned to follow him. I knew she would not return to the cottage. Ever.

"Kayla," I called, unsure of what to do or say. My sister turned, wearing a bittersweet smile. My eyes burned with an unspoken question.

Why?

She understood, and lowered her gaze. She laid the tapering fingers of both hands over her lower stomach. There, just above her pale pubic hair, was a small, barely perceptible bulge.

My eyes widened in realization. A life grew there, an inhuman life that was not the product of any man\x92s seed. A life born of the Unicorn\x92s magic.

Kayla smiled at me despite the deep, sad arches of her brows. Good\x97bye. I mimicked the gesture, my heart heavy as she turned and walked after her lover. Within moments she was swallowed by the dark maw of the forest.

I often wonder if I should have gone after her, tried to convince her to stay. Or if I should have fought the unicorn, despite its power. I wonder about a lot of things of that night. I try to tell myself that anything I could have done would have made no difference. Kayla was in the grip of something beyond mortal ken. Perhaps if I had been a master sorcerer, or a heroic warrior, events might have turned out differently. As it was, I was only a very mortal, very vulnerable journeyman woodcarver.

- - -

"That\x92s sad," I said as Laran\x92s words guttered to a stop, refilling his mug. "But you shouldn\x92t be so hard on yourself. Like you said, there was probably nothing you could have done. Wherever your sister ended up, I\x92m sure she\x92s better off than with your father."

He glared icy murder at me. "That was not the end of my story, barkeep. I stopped only because the memories of what followed are hard to relive. You see, I did see Kayla again\x97\x97"

- - -

My sister was found a full cycle of Seasons later by a trapper. She lay in a muddy pool of her own waste, staring blankly into the forest canopy. Her limbs were knobby, her skin leathery, her belly swollen like a famine victim\x92s. Drool ran freely from her lips, matting filthy hair. She was breathing, but only barely.

The trapper knew my family, and recognized Kayla instantly. He nursed her back to health as best he could, then brought her to me as soon as she could travel. All the time, she said not a word and made no gestures save for those connected to natural, uncontrolled body functions.

I immediately sent for a healer. He did his best, combating the fever she developed and healing the horrible, infected gashes on and around her womanhood. But he could do nothing for her lack of conscious thought. Her mindless state proved impervious to all his herbal medicines and alchemical potions, or to my own pleading and weeping.

I fed her, cleaned up after her, put her to sleep, talked to her, yelled at her, but could not get her to so much as blink in response. Finally, in desperation, I exhausted all my meager savings to buy the services of a sorceress passing through with one of the caravans.

Her name was Stellara, a Free Sorcerer who had traveled through several times before. She wore a very worried expression the moment she laid eyes on Kayla.

"By the Dragon Queen," she hissed as she completed her aura\x97reading spell. She muttered more curses as she cast more divinations, her magical cascades of light washing over my ever\x97impassive sister.

"What is it?" I blurted out when the sorceress completed her final casting. "What\x92s wrong?"

She looked at me briefly, pitifully, before turning her gaze toward the floorboards. "Her soul\x97\x97her soul is gone. What you see before you is just a shell. Whatever made your sister who she truly was is forever gone.

Ice colder than all of winter\x92s snows seized my heart. "What do you mean?"

"I do not know how to tell you this, my friend, but there is more. Her soul did not leave willingly, or even wholly. It seems as if something ripped it away bit by bit, tearing chunks out of her being until there was nothing left. I cannot even guess what could have caused this."

"I can," I sai. Suddenly, it all made horrible, twisted sense. Villagers had reported spotting the unicorn again this past spring, but now it was occasionally accompanied by a smaller one, a foal, a younger version of itself.

Of course, I realized with a maniacal chuckle that caused the sorceress to arch her brows in alarm. Why do unicorns seek out human females? They use them to reproduce in a manner I cannot fathom. They lure girls to them with magic and bind their lovers with ecstasy no human suitor could ever match. Why do unicorns always seek out virgins? Because they need the purest of souls for their young. Souls that the young feed off of as they are nurtured in the human\x92s womb. Souls that fuel the Unicorn\x92s nascent mystical powers.

Poor, sweet, caring Kayla. She would have loved and cherished the thing growing within her with all her heart even as it emaciated her body and consumed her soul in a mindless, rapacious frenzy to feed and grow and be born. Until, her body shriveled and her identity destroyed, the unicorn was birthed, discarding its mother as a chick discards the shell of its birthing egg.

I wept hard for a long time. Stellara seemed content to take me up in her arms until, after many hours, my body stopped convulsing with grief.

Several days later, I packed my meager belongings into a backpack and left the cottage to join Stellara outside. After hearing my insights into Kayla\x92s fate, she no longer had the stomach for my money, and even agreed to let me join her caravan as far as Tragaria. I accepted readily, knowing I could not stay in that cottage any longer.

According to what we had discussed the night before, the sorceress handed me a torch. I stared at its dancing flames for a heartbeat before I hurled it at the roof of the cottage. It bounced once before settling on the dark thatch, instantly igniting the lamp oil I had spread there moments before. The flames spread quickly, and soon the only home I had ever known was a hellish conflagration.

Sitting at the main room\x92s hearth, unmoving and unconcerned, sat Kayla\x92s living but empty body. She reacted not at all as the flames licked at the hem of her pleated green skirt.

I turned away, unable to watch more. The unfeeling shell in the cottage was only a hollow mockery of what my sister had once been. Destroying it seemed the last kindness I could give her.

I walked down the path toward the road, the sorceress following. I did not look back until we were well beyond the village, and out of the forest that was the domain of unicorns.

- - -

Silence gripped the entire room. Everyone had stopped

their drinking and revelry to hear Laran s tale. Now many wished that they hadn\x92t. "That\x92s, that\x92s--" I stammered, my

throat suddenly dry.

"Horrific?" Laran finished for me. "Yes, it is. And that\x92s why you should change your sign." He turned and shuffled back to his table without a backward glance.

I met him at the stables the following morning to see him off. His sad, angry features of the night before stirred something in me. Not the throbbing lust Bloodgouge crudely suggested I had after he caught me staring at the former woodcarver several times during the night.

I felt compelled to do something for him, so as he was saddling up his horse I brought him a full wineskin and a small dried and salyed meats. "Here," I said. "To make your journey easier."

He nodded. "Thank you."

"Um, look, I don\x92t know your destination, but when you come back this way, maybe we can\x97-I mean, maybe you can stop here again, and I can show you my book of stories, or we can have a drink. Or something."

"I\x92m not coming back."

There was something very final in the way he said that. "What do you mean?"

"That sorceress, Stellara, knew the Rogue Dragons, a mercenary company. You might have heard of them. They passed through Tragaria a number of years ago. Well, I joined them, and spent most of the last ten years learning everything I could about how to fight and hunt. I\x92m as prepared as I can be."

He tightened the last of the straps, packed away my gifts, and swung himself up onto his horse. "I\x92m going to hunt down that unicorn and kill both it and its unholy child. I will have revenge on the monsters that killed my family."

"But Laran," I protested. "From everything you said, the unicorn is too powerful for any one person to fight, sorcerer or soldier. And there\x92s two of them now. Even if you find them, you won\x92t have a chance."

He straightened himself in the saddle and peered at the open road ahead of him, seeing far past the local fields and forest. "I know," he said after a thoughtful silence. "But at least this time, I\x92ll try." Laran gave me a wink of thanks and a sad smile before he turned his horse and cantered off down the road.

I never saw him again.

I turned to see Bloodgouge at the woodpile chopping up the new sign into kindling. It was just as well. I could never look at "The Golden Unicorn" again and not think of Laran\x92s sister and her terrible fate.

I ambled back to my Randy Dryad Inn. The new day would bring new travellers, new business and, perhaps, new tales.