Unicorn Genesis (Unicorn Western) Page 8

  He looked up. The sky was clear and blue and beautiful, devoid of the giant white forms of flying unicorns. From each side of the mountain/island, Edward could see the flat horizon in the distance. There were no other mountaintops. No other islands. Looking up, there were no unicorns in the sky.

  Edward lay down and waited. He remembered his time on the hill trail’s peak, and how his appies had saved him from rising floodwaters. Mayhap if he waited, that would happen again. Edward’s odds of coming to rest on the only land in sight were slim (impossible, really), but his appies would be certain to search. Well, if they were alive, anyway. If they hadn’t been smashed into the water and held under until even the mighty unicorns, weakened and drained after their time in the air, were drowned.

  He couldn’t think about that now.

  The unicorn lay on the not-quite-right grass, wondering if he’d ever return to the world he’d once known. This wasn’t that world; that much was certain. This was a world of water and rocks — and, come to think of it, he was plenty grateful for the rocks. This was a world of mixing dark and light, of storms, lightning, and thunder. Strangely, the idea that a storm might strike again (not soon, though; the air was as clear and empty of clouds as he’d ever seen it) didn’t bother Edward at all. The storms might come. He didn’t know if there were any places on his island to hide. But it didn’t matter; it would either happen or it wouldn’t, and there was nothing he could do about it either way.

  He fell asleep.

  Sometime later, he awoke. Edward felt that he’d been shaken awake rather than simply stirring on his own, and searched for the source of the disturbance. He turned, realizing that there was a large wooden ship not too far off, and that someone on board was playing a horn of some sort. The horn was intermittent, blurting out trumpet calls as if the musician were angry or indignant.

  Edward paced toward the boat, curious. Whatever it was, there was something alive onboard. There had to be someone piloting the thing, and right now the unicorn wanted nothing more than to see signs that something else was still around, that something else had found itself with hooves on solid ground.

  As it pulled closer, Edward took in the boat from front to rear. It was crude but apparently seaworthy — more elaborate than any river boat he’d ever seen. And with that thought, he found himself wondering where the strange craft had come from. Edward didn’t know of any bodies of water large enough to merit a ship like the one in front of him, other than the body of water it was floating on now. He’d heard there were areas far from Mead with endless lakes known as oceans, but had it really come that far? Or had he really gone that far? The unicorn realized that if he were, in fact, at the mountains that his appy had told him about (and he was in no way sure that he was), he might be the one out of place.

  Looking at the boat and listening to the same trumpeting noise, Edward didn’t think that was right. This boat was ideally — almost prophetically — suited for the world as it had become. It was large enough to be a floating dwelling, not a mere source of transportation. But why would such a thing exist?

  And it stank. As the boat drew closer, Edward could see windows along its length. Soon, his good unicorn eyes identified things in the windows. Things that didn’t make sense.

  He saw an eylifant, which was the thing making the trumpeting. Was the elephant the driver? That would be disappointing.

  He saw the long, spotted neck of a giraffe popping out from one of the windows.

  And on deck, in a sort of cage, he saw a platybeaver. That last was strange. Couldn’t a platybeaver survive in a waterworld? Whoever had captured it seemed intent to keep it like a collector.

  As Edward catalogued the animals, he heard a shout from the boat’s other end.

  “Oh, all right!” shouted a crazed-looking man wearing a robe and an enormous white beard. “Now at least I’ve got one of you!”

  CHAPTER 13

  NOAH AND THE ARK

  The human seemed shocked to hear Edward speak. It was as if he’d never met a unicorn — or worse: that he’d never even heard of one.

  When Edward said his first phrase to the man (“Your boat stinks”), the man reacted with shock. But his shock didn’t last long. The man blinked, then shrugged as if deciding that the world had gone topsy-turvy and that if things wanted to talk that he didn’t think should, he was willing to roll with the perfectly unreasonable. After that, he introduced himself, reaching a hand toward Edward. The unicorn looked at the man’s hand.

  He looked down, laughed, and dropped his hand. “I’m Noah.”

  “Edward.”

  “No offense, Edward,” said Noah, “but I’ve never met a talking horse.”

  Edward made a face. “I’m a unicorn.”

  “I thought unicorns had horns?”

  Edward waved his stump, suddenly convinced that it was a long and mighty horn of keratin and that Noah was just blind. He resisted the urge to say that he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet and that it would come in time. But Noah didn’t look toward his nubbin; he just saw Edward’s big head shake and, apparently, thought he was shaking his head in negation.

  “No? Okay, fine. And I guess I see wings. Well, whatever. Come on in. I don’t have one of you, either.” Then he mumbled, “Why is it so hard to find a horse?”

  He waved, and Edward realized that the man expected him to fly onto the boat. The move was presumptuous. For one, Edward didn’t want to get onto the man’s boat. Second, he wanted to wait for his appies to arrive. And third, he couldn’t fly — and right now, more than anything, Edward didn’t want to admit to this crazy white-bearded human that he couldn’t do what the man seemed to assume that he could. Unicorns were supposed to be mighty and fearsome; Edward would have to establish his dominance over the man before he could get onto his reeking boat — which, again, he definitely wouldn’t do.

  Except that Noah and his captive animals were literally the only living things he’d seen since waking, and the clear sky held no signs of unicorns.

  Edward looked the boat over from end to end, smelling its ripe, confined odor. He looked at Noah and saw very large, very wide blue eyes — not unlike a unicorn’s — staring back at him with some insane breed of expectation. The man was out of his mind. The end had come, and he was rowing across creation in a boat, collecting animals.

  Edward looked around his little island, noticing the not-quite-right grass, the not-quite-right smell on the air (beyond the scent of Noah and his passengers) and the not-quite-right taste settling on the back of his tongue. He recalled the things he’d seemed to see when he’d been flying, and the things he’d seemed to see when first arriving on his rock. Edward was suddenly certain that he’d come farther than he thought. Something was wrong. The animals were wrong. Edward had been watching the windows for a while and had seen animals he didn’t recognize. And he hadn’t seen so many of the animals and beings that he probably should have. Why were there no elves? No trolls? If the man was a collector, wouldn’t he want to collect some of everything?

  Edward felt a sudden certainty that Noah’s might be the only voice he’d ever hear again.

  “If I do you the favor of coming onto your stinking boat,” Edward said, trying to channel Appy’s inner jerk, “I won’t let you stick me down with all those crappers.” He tossed his head toward the other animals.

  “Okay.”

  “And I want to stay up on the deck, so I can watch the sky for other unicorns.”

  Noah looked up, excited. “There are others?”

  “Of course. And they are mighty. If they wanted, they could sink your pathetic little boat.”

  Edward met Noah’s eyes, wondering if he’d pushed too far. He wasn’t used to humans — in fact, he’d never seen one so close — but a being was a being, and he thought he could read the man enough to see that taking Edward was a gesture of charity. Yar, he clearly wanted to collect him. But it seemed as if he wanted to save Edward too, and threats were seldom an appropriate way to thank savio
rs.

  “Cool,” said Noah.

  The issue seemed to be settled — Edward having established his own awesomeness and Noah having accepted some unspoken species of thanks — but Edward still didn’t want to reveal that he couldn’t fly. If Noah knew he couldn’t fly, he might realize Edward could barely do any magic — although that same itchy feeling inside the unicorn said that Noah really had never seen anything like him before, and he might not know that magic was expected.

  “I don’t want to fly though this air,” Edward said, flapping his wings self-importantly. “It’s ripe with stench.”

  “Yeah, it sure is,” Noah agreed. Without argument, he reached down with a long oar and, after a few minutes, urged the boat closer. He waggled to the edge and began to extend a dangerous-looking wooden plank. Edward, who was still smaller than most of Noah’s animals, doubted he could cross the thing without cracking it. But it was either that or be carried over in a net.

  “Stand back,” said Edward.

  Noah, nonplussed, did.

  Edward approached and then, with a final glance at the air and at the rocky island behind him, carefully crossed the rickety bridge, suspecting that he might be being stupid. There was something wrong with a man who traveled around and collected animals for his amusement, and the rocky mountaintop, though small and uninteresting, was at least terra firma. But Noah was at least someone with words in a world where such things seemed suddenly scarce, and Edward had to admit he didn’t know if the floodwaters were done rising or not. If he let Noah leave and then his mountain vanished (it wasn’t terribly tall, after all), he’d be sunk. Literally.

  “So,” said Noah once Edward had crossed, pulling back his dogpatch bridge, “you’re a unicorn.”

  “Yar.”

  “Well, I don’t have any unicorns. I saw some things that looked like they might be unicorns, but it’s been a very long trip and I think I might be seeing things. I also thought I saw some mermaids a while back, but they turned out to be manatees. I tried to net them and pull them over the side, but apparently they weigh, like, as much as a hippo. So I just got wet and had to get fished out by my wife.”

  Edward looked around. The boat smelled even more now that he was on it. The boards were all old, but the nails holding the thing together looked new. It was as if Noah had taken a pile of refuse and decided recently to turn it into a floating zoo. Now that Edward was on board, he could see several humans milling about. The animals were all in some sort of a hold, at the bottom of a wide descending walkway that curved from where he stood. They were all making their various animal noises. Edward wondered if it was too late to swim for it.

  “What is a manatee?”

  “Sea cow,” said Noah.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, like a cow. Except in the sea. And not like a cow at all.”

  Edward didn’t know what a cow was. Or, for that matter a hippo. But admitting his ignorance to Noah would surrender control of their conversation to an unkempt human, so the unicorn kept it to himself. Noah was clearly not used to speaking with anything other than humans, but was adjusting well.

  “How long have you been on this boat?”

  “Since the storm began.”

  “Oh, I thought it had been longer.” Edward didn’t add what he wanted to: Were you always crazy? Edward assumed a long boat journey had caused the man’s mind to crumble. As Edward was politely shelving the question (and as he hated himself a little for being polite to a human), Noah’s face exploded in animation — bright blue eyes bugged farther from his mad bush of white hair, mustache, and beard.

  “Longer!” said Noah. “How long do you think it should be? That was the longest storm I’ve ever seen! It lasted for forty days and forty nights!”

  “Forty-one nights,” said a dirty woman emerging from below. “It started at night, Noah.”

  “It did not, woman!” Noah yelled back. The woman didn’t appear to hear. Instead, she vanished into the animal hold carrying two canvas bags loaded with something that chattered like dry grain. The exchange gave Edward the idea that the question of when the storm started was a source of contention on the boat and a frequent topic of debate.

  Noah looked at Edward. “Forty days and forty nights,” he repeated. “We sailed just as the waters were starting to rise.”

  Edward looked up. The ship had no sails — which, Edward knew from Grappy’s stories, were the only way boats could move unless teams of humans were rowing. Edward had seen only a handful of oars, and the boat had nothing above.

  “Fine,” said Noah, following Edward’s gaze. “We floated just as the waters started to rise. I didn’t know I was supposed to make sails. The voice said to build an ark, so I built an ark, and I never got the idea they had sails, so yeah, we just sort of float around. You have a problem with that? Because you can go back, you know.” This seemed to be a sore issue, so Edward let it go and said nothing. Finally Noah broke his gaze and muttered ill-naturedly. “I had to ask around to find out what an ark was, you know. The voice couldn’t have said ‘boat’? I was halfway into building one of these.” Noah made an arch shape in the air. “I’m glad I asked. Boy would I have been surprised when the storm started if all I’d had was a large wooden U.”

  Hearing Noah speak of a voice, Edward found himself recalling Grappy’s story about the beginning of everything.

  “Who told you to build a boat?”

  “Ark.”

  “Fine, an ark.”

  “I just heard this voice. It said, ‘Build an ark, Noah.’ At the time, I was trying to start a sheep farm, along with a few other little ventures. I had my hands full. There was no way I wanted to build a boat. Or an ark, as I saw it. What practical value would an ark be? I wondered. But it just kept nagging and nagging so eventually I said ‘FINE!’ and started building just to shut the voice up. Everyone thought I was crazy. You should have heard Eric the Shepherd and how he made fun of me to the town lasses. The joke was on Eric. He died on the storm’s first day, and I took two of his sheep for the ark!”

  “Why did you take sheep?”

  “Well, I’d been working on that for a while. The voice had said to take two of each animal. And you know, I did my best!” He glared at Edward, and again the unicorn got the impression that this was a sore topic. “I got two sheep, and that was fine. I’ve giraffes down there, and even elephants — and YES, THE BOAT HELD!” Noah yelled this last bit at nobody in particular, seeming to feel the need to win an argument. “But I also grabbed two griffins and a pair of villionborers, but it wasn’t until I was out here that I realized the idea was probably supposed to be for me to get ONE OF EACH GENDER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LETTING ME KNOW.”

  Noah looked up, as if yelling at the cloudless sky.

  “So those animals are going to have a hard time, I guess, unless they get creative. But do you have any idea how hard it is to collect two of EVERY ANIMAL?” Again Noah looked up, annoyed at something Edward couldn’t see. “There are too many animals. Was I supposed to get grubs and worms? What about mosquitoes? They can fly. But would they die without any land? And did I care? I hate mosquitoes! But the voice didn’t help me out once I started building — it seems reactive rather than proactive, nagging me only when I do something wrong rather than GIVING A GUY A WORD OF THANKS FOR DOING AS HE’S TOLD, THANK YOU — so I figured I’d better get mosquitoes. Got plenty in a jar. Disgusting. I had to get wasps, slugs, leeches, tapeworms … ”

  Noah continued to list disgusting animals. Most were a mystery to Edward. And he still wasn’t mentioning creatures the unicorn knew, many of which were sentient. Based on Noah’s speech, humans were the only things on the boat with any brains. And not much at that, Edward thought. Apparently, this crazy old man had an impulse, then had run around his town collecting animals in pairs. The other humans must have been baffled.

  “I couldn’t get them all before the flood started, so when it did and I started to get bored — forty days and forty nights of r
ain is a long time to … ”

  “Forty-one,” said the woman, emerging from the hold with the same two bags, now empty.

  “Forty, WOMAN!”

  The woman made a dismissive gesture and vanished.

  “Anyway,” said Noah, distracted, “it’s a long time to sit on an ark and look at water. So I made a game, trying to find the animals I didn’t have. It’s been hit or miss. I think there might be millions. Frankly, I’m hoping a bunch survived on an island somewhere, or that there will be a way, after this flood is over, for the animals I have to adapt and change into other animals over long periods of time.”

  “That’s ludicrous,” Edward said.

  “Yeah, well, a lot of this is ludicrous,” said Noah, walking to the ark's edge and looking out across the endless sea. Edward was behind him, but the ark's side was low enough to reach his head over, so he stood beside Noah, wondering if this would be his only companion for the rest of the human’s life. The thought was depressing.

  “You said the storm lasted for forty days and forty nights.”

  Noah glanced at the closed door where the dirty woman had disappeared. “Yes.”

  “We didn’t see the storm until last night. We only saw the flood.”

  “You didn’t even get forty days and forty nights of rain?”

  Edward said, “No.”

  “How could there be a flood without rain?”

  That had been one of Edward’s many questions, but he had no answer.

  “You know,” Noah added, “I’ve never seen a real unicorn.”

  Something wasn’t adding up. How could a human never have seen a unicorn? Unicorns were everywhere, and they were constantly fiddling in human affairs — not diplomatically as Grappy suggested, but from afar, as a vague threat.

  “Are you from the Realm?” Edward asked.

  “What’s the Realm?”

  Edward didn’t answer. He backed away from the side, disheartened by the open water. The boat was disgusting, Noah was crazy, his wife (if that’s who she was) seemed argumentative. The humans didn’t even have the proper context required to fear or respect him. As far as Noah was concerned, Edward was a talking horse.