Northern Flower

Chapter 6

     "Have you ever seen a unicorn?" I asked Ivan the next morning over breakfast. He looked up from his plate and studied me closely after taking a long sip from his coffee and answered.

"Once," he said. I pressed harder.

"What was it like?"

"Like a horse with a horn in the middle of its head," was his belligerent reply. I glared at him from over the rim of my tin mug. He returned to his meal.

"I saw one last night," I confided. Though only his flicker up to me, I knew from his expression that I had startled him considerably.

"Where?" he asked, in a softer tone.

"Out my window," I answered. And then, "I think it was singing to me."

Ivan nodded silently. After a long silence, he pushed back his chair and rose. "I'll go feed and saddle the horses."

I cleaned the small mess we had made and then gathered up my pack. As I entered the front room, Ivan stepped back in through the door, holding something in his hand.

"Well," he said, "You weren't lying." He held out his hand. Lying in his palm were three, silver-white strands of thick hair, each about six inches in length. They seemed to shine with a light of their own.

"'Tis said that the strands of a unicorn mane and tail have magical qualities of protection for the one they have been gifted to," Ivan said, "Even seeing a unicorn is supposed to be a good omen."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because unicorns are only seen when they wish to be seen and reveal themselves to humans," Ivan explained, "And the only ones who ever own anything from a unicorn are those that the unicorn has granted that gift to. Your unicorn wanted you to see him. And he wanted you to have these."

He took my wrist and gently laid the three strands in my hand.

"Guard them well," he said in a voice and manner more solemn than I had ever seen in him before, "And do not take this gift lightly."

"How do you know this?" I asked.

Ivan reached into his collar and produced a necklace of twisted silver. Woven amongst the silver strands was a shimmering strand of black mane. I looked from his pendant to my gift.

"You mean to say that these strands are some kind of good luck charm?" I wondered.

"Nothing of the sort!" Ivan snorted in disgust, "Luck has nothing to do with it! It is a gift of love and protection."

While I waited for Ivan to pack his gear, I sat and studied my gift. I was skeptical, but, then again, I had been skeptical about the mere existence of unicorns until last night. I took off my necklace from Danny and tied the three strands tightly around the cleft of the heart pendant.

We left that place and continued on our way.

שּׂ        שּׂ         שּׂ

As we traveled on, I pressed Ivan for more information on unicorns.

"Why would a unicorn be interested in helping me?" I asked.

"I don't know," he answered, "Did you have any outstanding or disturbing dreams last night?" Now that he mentioned it, my dreams of the previous night came back to me. The dream of Danny, and then the other dream. I had been broken and torn by the first and then the second had been more of an emotion: a bittersweet pain, filled with unspeakable joy. It was something that really went beyond description.

"Yes," I answered.

"Unicorns are Dreamweavers," Ivan explained. "If your dreams are troubled, they can sense it. Sometimes they intervene to use your dreams to teach you. Sometimes they give you sweeter dreams of indescribable quality to ease your sleep. Without knowing what your dreams were, I can't know for sure."

I kept my dreams to myself.

"It is believed that unicorns influence dreams through their song."

"But how? Or why?" I asked.

"No one knows," he replied, "I tend to think of them as a sort of angel, almost."

שּׂ        שּׂ          שּׂ

The next place we stopped was a village a mile from the Shatari's edge. It was such a small town, I couldn't find it on the map.

We found lodging at an inn called The Dirty Glass.

We entered the bar area to where the greasy, yet friendly landlord had ushered us, following along behind with a hot meal and some ale. The room was quite warm and I pulled off my cloak and draped it over the back of my chair. As my hair fell around my shoulders and my face was revealed, I knew I had made a mistake; I felt every male eye under fifty turned in my direction.

Halfway through our meal a couple of rough men came over to our table. They were flushed with liquor.

"Ho, grandfather!" one of them accosted Ivan, "why did you bring a pretty girl to the Dirty Glass, eh? Hoping to make a few copper off her, eh?" They both began to laugh. I continued to eat, unfazed; I'd faced far worse than these two buffoons on the streets of Levion.

"Here, Corkscrew," he said, addressing his partner, "Watch the old man. I want to talk to this pretty girl." He stepped closer to me, and as he did I calculated three different ways to kill him, and six different ways to make sure he would never bother anyone for another month or so. Ivan made no move. I took it as a sign of his confidence in my abilities.

"Would you care to come have a little private talk with me, miss?" he asked in a more than suggestive tone.

"No, thank you, sir," I replied to him, "I prefer my present company to yours." My reply got the response I had expected.

"Well, people don't always get what they wish for, missy," he growled and reached for my wrist; a most unfortunate mistake on his part. I seized his instead.

"Pardon me, sir," I said, my tone laden with threat, "I said no thank you." Anger rushed into his eyes.

"You impertinent wench!" he roared and grasped for my throat with his free hand. Poor man. I jerked hard pulling him down across my lap and bringing my knee up into his solar plexus simultaneously. He began gasping for air like a fish out of water. Still seated, I brought my elbow hard into his temple. I dumped him onto the floor unconscious. The other man started towards me, but Ivan rose, and in one fluid motion, seized the man by his belt and collar and hurled him into the far wall. He slumped to the floor and did not rise. We resumed our meal. From the collective gasp and following silence, I gathered that the "old man" and the "pretty girl," had just discombobulated two of the toughest men in town. No one even looked at us after that.