Calling her as he entered, he headed toward her distant response and discovered her at last near the back of the building. She was seated high on a rickety stepladder between tall rows of musty-smelling books, the layers of yellowed, diaphanous lace she habitually wrapped around herself fluttering and drooping about her like the web of a lazy spider in a gentle breeze.
Hunter stood with hands on hips and glared up at her. “What’re you doing up there, Maggie?” he demanded. “You could fall and hurt yourself, and there’d be no one to help you.”
Maggie pulled the lensless wire-rimmed spectacles down her nose—a “badge of office,” she’d cryptically told him yesterday—and stared at him over the tops. “Mind your own business, young man.”
“I’m making you my business,” he said. “Come down from there.”
Closing the book on her lap and returning it to its place on the shelf, she grinned down at him, her dentures sparkling proudly. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
“Come down,” he repeated calmly.
Ostentatiously tucking a strand of gray hair back into its flyaway coronet, Maggie gathered the lace around her and descended the ladder with great dignity. Dignity shattered, however, when she reached the bottom. “Well? What d’you want now?”
“I want to talk to you. Is there any more of that acid you call coffee, or did we polish it off yesterday?”
“There’s more.” With only one keen, searching look betraying interest, Maggie led the way back through the maze of tall shelves to the big desk near the front door. Shoving two books, a feather duster, and one bedraggled, long-suffering tomcat off her creaky old chair, she sat down and gestured toward the archaic little butane stove placed nearby on the inevitable stack of books. A battered copper pot resided on one of the two burners, its contents bubbling merrily.
Hunter rummaged through a low cabinet for the two cracked ceramic mugs they had used the day before and then poured some of the evilly strong brew into them.
“Where d’you get this stuff?” he asked, pulling forward the hard wooden chair that was the only other furniture in the place. “I haven’t seen it anywhere else in the city.”
Maggie sipped the coffee and gave him a sly smile. “A ship brings it in for me from time to time,” she explained.
Hunter winced at his first taste of the bitter coffee and stared at her with suspicions aroused by her bland tone. “What kind of ship?”
“A pirate ship,” she murmured.
About to warn her of the danger of dealing with pirates, he belatedly remembered just where she lived. Sighing, he said instead, “I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“Never doubt it, young man.” She grinned at him, then wiggled the first two fingers of her right hand at him. “Smoke,” she demanded.
“They’re bad for you,” Hunter said automatically as he reached into the pocket of his tunic for the package of cigarettes he had scrounged for her the day before.
Maggie accepted a cigarette and a light from him, puffing away with obvious pleasure. “Of course they are,” she agreed gravely. “That’s why they’re still around after centuries. Now—what was it you wanted to talk about?”
Hunter didn’t hesitate; he told her the entire story of his meeting with the vendor and of his quest to prove the reality of the myth.
Listening intently, Maggie nonetheless seemed a bit distant, the keen blue eyes, encased in their network of fine wrinkles, darkened and oddly sad. Hunter, his story told, gazed at her curiously and, prodded by intuition, avoided asking her point-blank if she believed in the valley and the creatures it supposedly contained. Instead he hovered around the subject.
“I can’t understand why I haven’t heard of the valley before,” he mused, watching her without appearing to. “If the unicorns exist, that is. And if they live in the valley every summer.”
Maggie stirred slightly, her darkened gaze shifting to the black and bitter brew in her mug. “Winter is long on this planet,” she murmured. “Summer comes only once every ten Standard years.”
“Why is that?” He was asking more to keep her talking than out of any real interest.
“Something happened,” she said, still murmuring. “Natural or man-made—who knows now? It was a long time ago. A very long time ago. But whatever it was, it ripped this planet right out of its normal orbit and into a vast elliptical orbit. And now this planet is near its star for weeks only. There’s a brief Autumn. And then Winter comes. It’s long…and cold…and dark.”
Forcing himself to remain patient, Hunter waited.
After a moment, she stirred again and this time looked at him fiercely. “Give it up, Hunter,” she said flatly. “Don’t go up there.”
“Why?” he asked softly.
“Because…” Her voice trailed away and she looked back into her mug. “Because some things were meant to remain…dreams.”
“Why?” he repeated, honestly puzzled.
Maggie looked at him for a long moment, her old, lined face entirely without expression. Then she shook her head sadly. “That’s something I suspect you’ll have to discover for yourself. Because the answer doesn’t come from the mind, but from the heart.”
Hunter grappled with this cryptic speech in silence and in silence dismissed it. His determination remained. “What about the woman? Do you know anything about her?”
“Only what I’ve heard.”
“Which is?”
Maggie recited in a deliberate litany. “She’s a witch, a sorceress, a warrior. She has silver hair and dark eyes and beauty beyond description. She guards the unicorns with a fierce, selfless devotion, and has done so for ten thousand years.”
Sensing something behind the deliberation of her recital, Hunter looked at the old woman intently. “And what do you think about that?”
“I?” Maggie shrugged. “I think most of it is rubbish, Hunter.”
“Do you believe the woman exists?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t believe she possesses powers?”
Maggie’s smile was small and odd. “Oh, I believe she possesses powers. I believe that the truth, my stubborn, misguided friend, will make the legend a shabby tale. I believe that this woman, this ‘Keeper,’ is a truly unique being with extraordinary abilities. And I believe most strongly of all that if you find her, and survive the finding, you may very well be the destruction of her.”
Shaken, Hunter murmured, “I? But—how?”
She looked at him, her stare searching, intent, and then sighed. “You were born to destroy some woman,” she murmured. “And your Quest brought you here. If you reach that valley alive, I can think of only one reason the Keeper would allow you to live. And that will destroy her.”
“What?” Hunter demanded. “What reason?”
Maggie sighed again, her gaze dropping to the dregs in her mug. “What reason?” she muttered to herself. “An ancient, endlessly troublesome reason. The reason kingdoms have toppled and empires fallen. The reason behind many wars and countless deaths. And for the Keeper, an especially great danger.”
He frowned at her for a moment. Then the frown cleared and Hunter laughed with a heart-whole man’s scorn. “Love?”
She glanced up at his face with hooded eyes. “You don’t believe in love, my young friend?”
He gestured back over his shoulder, indicating the squalid city all around them. “You can buy it for the price of a drink out there,” he said curtly. “Anytime, anywhere.”
She lifted a faded eyebrow at him, something infinitely amused stirring in her old eyes. “Is that love?” she asked mildly.
Hunter felt a bit embarrassed after his unthinking remark, silently berating himself for speaking so bluntly to this old, odd, but dignified woman. But there was that amusement in her eyes, that curiously veiled expression, and he felt strangely compelled to respond honestly to her question.
He shrugged. “The only kind I understand,” he said briefly.
“Now, that isn’t true, you
know.” She spoke with faint sternness, as if to a child showing a regrettable lack of intelligence.
“What?” he said, blank.
“That you understand no other kind of love.”
Hunter stared at her. With careful lightness, he asked, “Have you become a seeress, old woman?”
“I’ve become nothing I haven’t always been, young man.”
She wasn’t making sense. Hunter told her so. “And I don’t know what you’re driving at—if anything,” he ended flatly.
Maggie sighed with long-suffering patience. “You had parents, young man?” she asked…but it didn’t sound like a question.
“Of course I had parents.” Hunter displayed no patience, long-suffering or otherwise.
“On a world far away?”
“Relatively far,” he said dryly.
Coolly, she said, “And were you born for the price of a drink?”
He stiffened, then relaxed as her point finally sank home. “No, dammit, Maggie. I wasn’t. My parents were wed. Happily so. From all I’ve heard, at least. I never heard that either complained.”
“A love match?”
“So I believe.”
“Then you are aware of a kind of love not for sale?”
“You’ve made your point,” he said. “You don’t have to keep beating me over the head with it.”
“I think perhaps I do,” she murmured.
He stared at her. “Maggie, I asked a simple question. Which was, if I remember, what reason you thought this Keeper would have for letting me live. You said it would be love, and that it would destroy her. Correct?”
She considered. “Basically.”
“Another simple question, if I may?”
“Why not?”
Hunter ignored her amused tone. “Why would this supposed love destroy the Keeper?”
Maggie studied him for a moment in silence, her shrewd old eyes probing him. “Love is a powerful shield,” she said finally, neutrally. “And a powerful weapon.”
He pondered that. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“Did I not?”
“Dammit, Maggie!”
She smiled just a little. “So impatient. It’s a reckless fault of youth, and a potentially damning one.” She sighed, saying with sudden rudeness, “I’m an old woman and you’re pestering me! Go away.”
“No,” he said flatly.
She stared at him, the frown gone as swiftly as it had come. Her old, lined face became abruptly benign, guileless. “Stubborn,” she noted almost cheerfully.
He proved the force of her observation by saying stubbornly, “Tell me what you meant about love destroying the Keeper.”
Maggie pursed her lips. “Oh, love in and of itself could hardly hurt her, young man. But love for you—or, for that matter, any man—certainly could. And quite probably would.”
“Why?”
“I told you I believed she was a unique being.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t listen.”
“Maggie—”
“Oh, you heard. But you didn’t listen.”
Hunter ran the fingers of one hand through his shaggy black hair and stared at her, baffled. “All right. I’m listening.”
“Unique,” she said instructively, “can be defined as being the only one of its kind, being without an equal or equivalent.” She frowned a little. “I forget which dictionary. Anyway, that’s a clear definition. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Think about that.”
He did. “So?”
She shook her head, clearly impatient with him. “You haven’t realized yet. Think…oh, think. Imagine that there’s a living unicorn standing here in the room with us. And realize that it’s the only one of its kind.”
Hunter thought, imagined. And the little boy who had dreamed of the horned mythical beast felt awe creep through him, the adult man. Slowly he said, “The only one. With no possible future for its race.”
Maggie nodded quickly. “Like the Keeper.”
He frowned. “She’s supposed to be a woman.”
“Let’s say for the sake of argument that she’s a very unique woman. With a unique heritage and a responsibility no other woman could bear. Let’s say that her entire life, her being, is concerned with—and only with—guarding the unicorns and keeping them safe.”
He nodded, accepting that.
“And man is the enemy,” Maggie said softly.
“Not all men,” he said without thinking.
“No?” She gestured, much as he had earlier, to indicate the city outside the library. “Huntmen live here, young man. Every Summer they assault the valley. Every Summer they attempt to kill unicorns. And only the Keeper stands between them and extinction. She knows only the men who enter her valley. Do you still believe all men aren’t her enemy?”
Reluctantly seeing the truth, Hunter said, “She won’t give her trust easily.”
“She won’t give her total trust until she loves.”
“But…love will destroy her?” He shook his head impatiently. “We’re going in circles. I still don’t understand why you think loving a man would destroy her!”
“Because she guards the unicorns.”
Hunter waited for the rest of the answer. But it didn’t come.
“That’s it?” he questioned. “Love will destroy her because she guards the unicorns?”
“That’s it.”
Hunter put his face in his hands, the muffled sound escaping him indicative of despair.
There was no answering flicker of amusement in Maggie’s old eyes; she was troubled. “So much was lost,” she murmured. “So many pieces of the story. You search for a myth you don’t even understand. And, oh, the danger in that.”
He lifted his head, glaring at her.
She was gazing intently down into her mug, as if the muddy dregs were whispering to her. Abruptly she said, “Why don’t you return to your world, Hunter, and wear the crown you were born for?” He stiffened, hearing something new in her tone even more surprising than her words, something curiously powerful.
Carefully he said, “What’re you talking about, Maggie?” Since princes were valuable to men who thought of ransom, Hunter had kept that part of his identity a secret—as, no doubt, Boran had.
“You left a kingdom behind you,” she said almost idly.
Hunter kept all expression from his face. Lightly he said, “You’re talking more and more like a seeress, old woman.”
She looked hard at him, and that same elusively powerful something was in her old eyes. Her suddenly very, very old eyes.
Unaccountably, Hunter felt distinctly unnerved. “Don’t tell me you believe in that garbage?” he questioned, less casual than he would have liked. “Crystal balls and the like?”
“I need no crystal ball, Hunter,” she said mildly.
After a moment, he said, “You knew I was a prince. How?”
“Does it matter how I knew?”
“I…I think it does.”
Maggie shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand. Not now. One day, perhaps, but not now. It matters only that I know.” She looked at him with those veiled eyes. “What would you say if I told you that I was very, very certain that you hold the power to destroy the Keeper…and the unicorns?”
“I wouldn’t believe you,” he said firmly.
“You think yourself so unworthy of love?” she asked blandly.
He started slightly, his mind hurrying to catch up to hers. Then he remembered. Love for a man would destroy the Keeper. “What I meant,” he said slowly, “was that I wouldn’t believe that I would…destroy her or the unicorns.”
“Obsession,” she said obliquely, “is blind.”
A sudden intense question forced itself up from the depths of Hunter’s puzzlement. “Who are you, Maggie?”
“If I told you I was a seeress?”
“I’d have a hard time believing that.”
“Well, I’m not,” she said abruptly. ??
?More than that. And less. Akin to that. But different.”
The safe haven of the library seemed suddenly to Hunter an uncertain, potentially dangerous place. His warrior’s senses told him that there was something here, some power he couldn’t fathom.
Maggie was smiling at him. “Like all men,” she said softly, “you scorn or fear what you don’t understand.”
“I’m not like all men,” he denied, disliking being labeled.
Unexpectedly, she agreed. “No, you’re not like all men. You left a kingdom filled with riches to go in search of yourself.”
“I’m searching for myth,” he said instantly.
“You’re searching for yourself, young man,” she corrected placidly. “Whoever sent you on your Quest was wise. You’ve found pieces of yourself here and there, and your Quest is not now what it began as. Now you search for a dream as salvation to your people, rather than merely as a means to gain a throne. And you search, still, for yourself. Oh, you’ll find the myth first, I think. But you won’t understand it. You’ll have to find all of yourself before you’ll be able to understand.”
“You speak in riddles!” he snapped.
“Do I?” she murmured, studying him. She saw a man in the physical prime of his life, strong and proud. She saw, more clearly than another would have seen, the searching look in his cool green eyes. She saw the level, inborn command of those eyes, and the guardedness of too many years of living with danger. And she saw, in the sharp-honed stillness of his face, the look of rooted obsession, blind obsession.
She wondered about the Keeper.
The Keeper would have to be strong.
She voiced a cool warning, watching his face for the effect it would have. “You’ll destroy all that you seek if you aren’t careful. Very careful.”
“I’m a cautious man,” he said flatly.
Maggie wasn’t happy with what she observed on his face. Oh, yes, she thought, the Keeper must be very strong!
“This possibly mythical Keeper we’ve been discussing. Does she exist?” he asked in a hard tone.