The Last Unicorn

Chapter I

THE UNICORN LIVED IN A LILAC WOOD, AND SHE LIVED ALL ALONE. HE WAS very old, though he did not know it, and he was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But his eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

He did not look anything like a horned horse, as unicorns are often pictured, being smaller and cloven-hoofed, and possessing that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery. His neck was long and slender, making his head seem smaller than it was, and the mane that fell almost to the middle of his back was as soft as dandelion fluff and as fine as cirrus. He had pointed ears and thin legs, with feathers of black hair at the ankles; and the long horn above his eyes shone and shivered with its own seashell light even in the deepest midnight. He had killed dragons with it, and healed a queen whose poisoned wound would not close, and knocked down ripe chestnuts for bear cubs.

Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place: usually a forest where there is a pool clear enough for them to see themselves—for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful creatures in all the world, and magic besides. They mate very rarely, and no place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn has been born. The last time he had seen another unicorn the young virgins who still came seeking her now and then had called to him in a different tongue; but then, he had no idea of months and years and centuries, or even of seasons. It was always spring in his forest, because he lived there, and she wandered all day among the great beech trees, keeping watch over the animals that lived in the ground and under bushes, in nests and caves, earths and treetops. Generation after generation, wolves and rabbits alike, they hunted and loved and had children and died, and as the unicorn did none of these things, he never grew tired of watching them.

One day it happened that two women with long bows rode through his forest, hunting for deer. The unicorn followed them, moving so warily that not even the horses knew he was near. The sight of women filled him with an old, slow, strange mixture of tenderness and terror. He never let one see him if he could help it, but he liked to watch them ride by and hear them talking.

"I mislike the feel of this forest," the elder of the two huntresses grumbled. "Creatures that live in a unicorn's wood learn a little magic of their own in time, mainly concerned with disappearing. We'll find no game here."

"Unicorns are long gone," the second woman said. "If, indeed, they ever were. This is a forest like any other."

"Then why do the leaves never fall here, or the snow? I tell you, there is one unicorn left in the world—good luck to the lonely old thing, I say—and as long as it lives in this forest, there won't be a huntress who takes so much as a titmouse home at her saddle. Ride on, ride on, you'll see. I know their ways, unicorns."

"From books," answered the other. "Only from books and tales and songs. Not in the reign of three queens has there been even a whisper of a unicorn seen in this country or any other. You know no more about unicorns than I do, for I've read the same books and heard the same stories, and I've never seen one either."

The first hunter was silent for a time, and the second whistled sourly to herself. Then the first said, "My great-grandfather saw a unicorn once. She used to tell me about it when I was little."

"Oh, indeed? And did he capture it with a golden bridle?"

"No. She didn't have one. You don't have to have a golden bridle to catch a unicorn; that part's the fairy tale. You need only to be pure of heart."

"Yes, yes." The younger woman chuckled. "Did he ride his unicorn, then? Bareback, under the trees, like a nymph in the early days of the world?"

"My great-grandfather was afraid of large animals," said the first huntress. "She didn't ride it, but he sat very still, and the unicorn put its head in his lap and fell asleep. My great-grandfather never moved till it woke."