Into the Land of the Unicorns Read online

  She and Lightfoot were crossing one of the roads themselves, some minutes behind the delvers, when they heard a horrible clatter to their right.

  “There you are!” cried a friendly voice. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

  They turned. To their astonishment an oddly dressed man was trotting toward them. He was drawing a cart behind him, which he pulled by means of two wooden poles. Hanging from the roof of the cart were all manner of things, including a number of pots and pans, all of them clanging and clattering like a cooking set being rolled down a stairway.

  Cara was terrified that the racket would draw the delvers, but Lightfoot told her that it was more likely they would stay away, since they did not care much for humans, and only humans would make such a racket.

  Still, she would have insisted that they move on, so that they not lose sight of the Dimblethum, had she not seen what was sitting on top of the man’s wagon.

  “The Squijum!” she cried.

  “Oh, yes,” said the man, slowing to a walk. “It was he who brought me to you.”

  “Good Squijum! Happy good hotcha-gotcha!” cried the little creature, leaping from the wagon to an overhanging tree. He began swinging through the branches, which let him reach Cara and Lightfoot considerably ahead of the man. He leaped down to her shoulder.

  Cara stroked his fur as she stared at the approaching man.

  Bald and bearded, with a roundish nose, he wore high leather boots, loose trousers, and a remarkable coat that seemed to be made almost entirely of patches of various bright fabrics. The coat had an astonishing number of pockets. Gold chains drooped in graceful arcs from every one of them.

  “Thank goodness I found you,” he said, clattering to a stop. Dropping the wooden poles of his wagon, he wiped his high bald head with a handkerchief he fished from his trousers.

  The cart was like a tiny house on wheels, about four feet wide and eight feet long. It had a pitched roof, and high blue walls. Painted on its side in large, old-fashioned letters, were the words:

  Thomas the Tinker

  • I Mend What I Can •

  “Actually, you’re right on schedule,” he said, pulling one of the chains to reveal a large pocket watch. He stared at the watch for a moment, then frowned. “Or maybe you’re not.” He pulled an even larger watch from another pocket and stared at it. “Oh, well, never mind,” he said, shoving both watches back into pockets other than the ones from which they had come. “You’re here, and so am I, and that’s what matters. Shall we take a stab at rescuing your friend?”

  11

  THE CART

  Three hours later, Cara crouched in the narrow aisle that ran down the center of the Tinker’s wagon. The Squijum sat next to her, nearly bursting with the effort of keeping still. With Thomas hauling the cart, they were heading for the delvers’ camp.

  Cara was surprised at how smoothly the cart traveled. She had expected to be bounced and jolted for the entire journey.

  The inside of the cart had also surprised her. Rather than the hopelessly cluttered jumble she had anticipated it was so tidy as to be almost stark. Whatever Thomas carried here was packed behind rows and rows of small doors, tiny ones at the top of the cart, larger ones at the bottom.

  Despite the need to remain silent, she had tried to open a few of the little doors. When they had proved to be locked, she had tried the others. Every one of them (dozens in all, counting the smallest) was locked.

  It had been very frustrating.

  In her hand she held the knife Thomas had given her. “When the time comes, I want you to jump out of the wagon,” he had told her. “Cut the Dimblethum free and guide him back inside. Then close the door — quickly and tightly! — and I’ll get you out of there.”

  The whole thing had been set up so fast it had left her head spinning. But that was the first thing she had noticed about the Tinker: He was fast. It didn’t make any difference what he was doing — walking, talking, thinking, or planning — he did it rapidly. Lightfoot had seemed alternately amused and disgusted by the man, but since they had no other way of saving the Dimblethum, he had had little choice but to accept the assistance.

  Cara wished she were able to talk to the Squijum. She wanted to know more details about how he had found the Tinker.

  Suddenly the cart stopped. Moving silently, she pressed her eye to the secret hole Thomas had showed her in the back wall. It took a moment for her to make out the scene. It was fully dark now, and they were in the delvers’ camp, which was once again lit by a low fire. The creatures, none of them any higher than Thomas’s waist, had gathered around the Tinker. Several were shifting their spears in a menacing fashion.

  Thomas spoke to them rapidly in their own language. His hands flying, he pointed first to their spears, then to the cart.

  For a terrifying moment, Cara wondered if he had betrayed them and was sending the delvers to kill her.

  She beat down her suspicions and tried to spot the Dimblethum. But the limited view offered by the peephole made it impossible to see him. She hoped she would be able to find him fast enough when the time came!

  As she watched, one of the delvers reluctantly handed Thomas his spear. The Tinker took something from his pouch and made a series of swift strokes over the spearhead. Then he tested it against his thumb, and with a smile handed it back to the delver, who did the same thing. His hideous face broke into a wide grin and he nodded to the others.

  Wonderful, Thomas, thought Cara. Sharpen their weapons for them. That’s going to do us a lot of good!

  But he only sharpened two more of the weapons. When he took the third he examined it and made a series of clucking noises that indicated big trouble. Turning to the owner he said something to him, then reached into one of his pockets and drew out a watch.

  Cara braced herself. That was the sign.

  But when Thomas opened the watch, nothing happened. He shook it in disgust, closed it, put it back in his pocket. Then he dug out another one.

  He motioned to the delvers and they gathered closer.

  Thomas opened the watch and, even though she had been expecting it, Cara cried out at the flash of blinding white light that filled the clearing. Her cry, however, was nothing compared to the screams of the delvers, who clamped their hands over their enormous eyes and fell to the ground screaming in pain.

  Cara shot out of the cart. After the flash of light, the clearing seemed extraordinarily dark, and it took her a second to spot the Dimblethum. As the night before, he was tied to a pole. Racing to his side, she slashed the rough cords that held him.

  The look of gratitude on his face made the risk and the effort all worthwhile. He stumbled forward and she feared that he would not be able to walk. If that happened she didn’t know what she would do, for she surely could not carry him.

  He did not fall, but he did need to lean on her shoulder. Staggering under his weight, she guided him back to the cart. Chaos surrounded them as the still-blinded delvers, most of them not yet back on their feet, groped their way about the clearing, screaming and cursing. She could not understand any of the words except Thomas’s name, which they screamed over and over in tones that made her blood run cold.

  One delver nearly stumbled into them, but the Squijum leaped at him from behind, causing him to spin and fall to his knees. Hurrying past him, Cara led the Dimblethum into the cart, turning him sideways so that his broad shoulders could fit into the narrow aisle that ran down the center.

  The Squijum leaped in behind her. Slamming the door shut, she fastened the bolt and prayed.

  * * *

  Thomas was as good as his word. With her eye pressed to the peephole, Cara could see the trees flashing by as he pulled them through the forest to the place where they were supposed to rendezvous with Lightfoot. This time she decided that there must be something magical about the cart, for no one could pull it over the root-ribbed forest floor so swiftly and easily without magic.

  Lightfoot was waiting impatiently in a clearing j
ust off the side of the little road, about two miles from the delver camp. He had wanted to come on the mission, but the others had persuaded him that there had to be at least one of them left should things come to disaster, and he was the logical one to stay behind.

  “From what you’ve told me, we’ll need you to heal the Dimblethum when we get him back,” Thomas had said. He had paused, then added (not without a note of jealousy), “I wish I could do that kind of mending. Anyway, no sense in risking you at this stage of the game.”

  Lightfoot had fussed and fumed but agreed to stay behind, muttering that there were times when he found it utterly annoying that he did not have hands. However, once they pulled the Dimblethum out of the cart, he was in his glory. Making the others step aside, he used his horn to heal the numerous wounds that split the manbear’s pelt.

  Cara noticed with some surprise that the horn glowed brighter as it was doing the healing. What did not surprise her was that as soon as Lightfoot was done, his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

  “We need to get farther away from here,” said Thomas nervously. “Let’s get them into the wagon.”

  “They’ll never fit!” said Cara.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” laughed Thomas. “Watch this.”

  Though she watched, Cara was never really sure just what it was that the Tinker did to the cart. He began pulling out rods and folding down slats. Humming to himself as he worked, he reminded her of nothing so much as a kid playing with one of those toys that, with the right motions, can be turned into something altogether different. And indeed, when Thomas was done, the blue cart was twice the size it had been.

  “How did you do that?” she asked in astonishment as the Squijum raced around the cart, chattering with excitement.

  “This is a very special wagon,” said Thomas with a chuckle.

  How special became even clearer when he offered to let Cara pull it, after they had loaded the Dimblethum and Lightfoot inside.

  “You’re joking!” she said, looking at the cart, which was now the size of a large camper trailer.

  “Give it a try,” he replied gleefully.

  Stationing herself between the poles, she grabbed them firmly and tried to take a step forward.

  The cart rolled easily behind her.

  “Very special indeed,” he said, giving the cart an approving pat.

  * * *

  The only problem with having the cart so large was it would not pass easily through the forest. They were forced to follow the road instead, though Thomas said that was just as well, since the delvers would tend to avoid it.

  “They won’t be able to see well enough to follow us for another few hours, anyway,” he continued. “Then they’ll probably have a long fight about whether they should follow us, or report back to the king, or just run away and hide for a month or two. So the odds are we won’t need to worry about them for a while.”

  “There’s someone else hunting for us,” said Cara nervously. “Another human.”

  “I know,” said Thomas with a nod. “The Squijum and I met him on the road. Unfortunately, I was a little confused at the time. I’m afraid I completely bollixed the directions I gave him. In fact, now that I think of it, I probably sent him the wrong way altogether. I expect he’s a long way away from us now.” He gave her a wink. “Silly of me,” he said, “but it’s done now. Oh, well — I was pretty sure he was no friend of the Queen’s.”

  Cara smiled. Much as she had come to love Lightfoot, the Dimblethum, and the Squijum, they were all very different from her. Thomas’s presence made her realize that she had missed human company more than she would have thought possible.

  “How did you get here?” she asked him now as he strolled along beside her.

  “Fell in by accident,” he said. “Pretty silly of me, now that I think about it. But then, I’ve done a lot of silly things in my time.”

  “How long ago did it happen?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to say.” He stopped and did some calculations on his fingers. “About a hundred and fifty years ago, give or take five years on either side.”

  “Right,” she sneered. “And I’ll be ninety-two on my next birthday.”

  He chuckled, which he seemed to do fairly often. “Such a cynic for one so young. I have drunk from the Queen’s Pool — a reward for a little something I did when I first got here. Won’t make me live forever, which is a pretty frightening idea, anyway, now that I think of it. But it does stretch things out a bit.”

  She looked at him, wondering if he was teasing her. The thing was, here in Luster such an outlandish statement made almost perfect sense.

  “Ah, here we go,” he said before she could ask another question. “This looks to me like a good place to bed down for the night. And just in time, too,” he added, holding out his hand at the same time that Cara felt the first drops of rain begin to spatter against her forearms.

  At Thomas’s direction, she positioned the cart about ten feet off the road. Rushing about with his usual speed, he quickly blocked up the wheels, folded out a side compartment complete with a bed, unrolled a canopy from the back, and started a small fire in its shelter.

  “There we go,” he said, settling on the steps that he had flipped out from under the back of the cart. “Cozy as a house and twice as easy to pick up and move.”

  Cara went in the back of the cart to check on Lightfoot and the Dimblethum, but both of them were sleeping soundly. The Squijum, which had scurried in behind her, snuck onto the Dimblethum’s stomach. Covering his eyes with his tail, he sighed softly and fell asleep.

  “Now I know this cart is magical,” muttered Cara, climbing back down to sit beside the Tinker.

  12

  DRAGONPATH TO GRIMWOLD

  The next morning Lightfoot and the Dimblethum were still a little shaky. However, they both pronounced themselves fit to travel.

  “Mind if I come along?” asked the Tinker, as he started to fold up his cart. To Cara’s astonishment, he continued folding until it was about the size of a man’s wallet.

  “Convenient sort of a thing, isn’t it?” he said with a smile, slipping the cart into his pocket. “Only real problem I have with it is when I want to get at my tools. Then I have to unfold the silly thing all over again.”

  * * *

  The Dimblethum came to her while she was standing with Lightfoot, and said, “For what you did, the Dimblethum thanks you. Now the Dimblethum and you are even, each rescuing the other.”

  Cara was startled. “I didn’t come get you so we would be even,” she said, somewhat sharply. “I did it because . . . oh, never mind.”

  Lightfoot translated her words for the Dimblethum, who looked truly puzzled, and a little hurt. But later he gave Cara a flower, one of the fuzzy purple ones. She tucked it over her ear and wore it for the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Most of this day was given over to retrieving the amulet. They had to retrace their journey of the day before, and it was late afternoon when they finally reached the area where Cara had hidden it. For a little while they were not able to find the specific tree. Cara was beginning to panic when the Squijum located it, working by scent.

  “See, see!” he cried triumphantly. “Can look and find!” Emerging from the hollow tree with the amulet and its broken chain, he crooned to himself, “Hotcha good finder guy!”

  That accomplished, they needed to plan what to do next.

  “If we press on, we can reach the edge of Dragon Territory tonight,” said Thomas. “That will give us an extra bit of safety if the delvers are still patrolling the area; it is unlikely they will enter Firethroat’s domain.”

  “Which makes them smarter than us,” muttered Lightfoot.

  * * *

  Late in the evening they stopped to rest. The Dimblethum built a small fire while Thomas unfolded his cart. Later, after they had eaten, he asked Cara if she would let him examine the amulet.

  “Well, now I see what the fuss is all about,” he s
aid, as he turned it over and over in his hands. “It’s not every day that one of the Queen’s Five turns up out in the open. Would you like me to fix this silly chain?” he asked.

  “That would be nice,” said Cara.

  “I like fixing things,” he said as he worked. “The world is always breaking, here and there, this way and that. Fix a bit of it, and I feel like I’m helping.”

  Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a ridiculously tiny tool.

  “Funny thing about chains,” he said. “They’re everywhere, once you know how to look for them. I like chains.”

  When Cara laughed at this, he shook his chest, causing the hundreds of golden links that hung there to sparkle in the firelight.

  “There are all kinds of chains,” he continued. “You can’t see most of them, the ones that bind folks together. But people build them, link by link. Sometimes the links are weak, snap like this one did. That’s another funny thing, now that I think of it. Sometimes when you mend a chain, the place where you fix it is strongest of all.”

  As he spoke, he held up the chain, which was whole again. Passing the amulet to Cara, he said, “Never was a chain that couldn’t be broken. Sometimes it’s even a good idea.”

  Putting away his tools, he crawled under the wagon and slept.

  * * *

  Despite her worries about her grandmother, Cara found herself beginning to fall deeply in love with the world into which she had fallen.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she marveled as they stood on top of a high hill, gazing over a spread of green territory dotted with small lakes, friendly rivers, and patches of forest.

  “Earth used to be like this,” replied Lightfoot. “Not all green, of course; it always had its mountains and deserts. Luster does, too, for that matter. But Earth was once clean and bright and beautiful.”

  “How do you know about that?” she asked.

  “It’s in our stories. It’s where we came from, after all. Grimwold can tell you more.”

  “Who is this Grimwold, anyway?”