THE LAST UNICORN

Molly blinked bewilderedly, but Schmendrick was nodding. "Yes," he said. "That's how the real magicians do it. But then the clock -"

"The clock will never strike the right time," the skull said. "Haggard scrambled the works long ago, one day when he was trying to grab hold of time as it swung by. But the important tiling is for you to understand that it doesn't matter whether the clock strikes ten next, or seven, or fifteen o'clock. You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that – then any time at all will be the right time for you."

At that moment, the clock struck four. The last bang had not yet faded when there came an answering sound from beneath the great hall. Neither a bellow nor the savage grumble that the Red Bull often made when he dreamed, it was a low, inquiring sound, as though the Bull had awakened sensing something new in the night. Every flagstone buzzed like a snake, and the darkness itself seemed to shudder as the glowing night creatures scampered wildly to the edges of the hall. Molly knew, suddenly and surely, that King Haggard was near.

"Give me the wine," the skull said. "I have kept my part of the bargain." Silently Schmendrick tipped the empty flask to the empty mouth, and the skull gurgled and sighed and smacked. "Ah," it said at last, "ah, that was the real stuff, that was wine! You're more of a magician than I took you for. Do you understand me now, about time?"

"Yes," Schmendrick answered. "I think so." The Red Bull made his curious sound again, and the skull rattled against the pillar. Schmendrick said, "No. I don't know. Is there no other way?"

"How can there be?" Molly heard footsteps; then nothing; then the thin, cautious ebb and flow of breathing. She could not tell where it came from. Schmendrick turned to her, and his face seemed to be smudged from within, like the inside of a lantern glass, with fear and confusion. There was a light too, but it shook like a lantern in a storm.

"I think I understand," he said, "but I'm sure I don't. I'll try."

"I still think it's a real clock," Molly said. "That's all right, though. I can walk through a real clock." She spoke partly to comfort him, but she felt a brightness in her own body as she realized that what she had said was true. "I know where we have to go," she said, "and that's as good as knowing the time any day."

The skull interrupted her. It said, "I'll give you a bit of advice in the bargain, because the wine was so good." Schmendrick looked guilty. The skull said, "Smash me. Just knock me to the floor and let me break in pieces. Don't ask why, just do it." It was speaking very quickly, almost whispering.

Together Schmendrick and Molly said, "What? Why?" The skull repeated its request. Schmendrick demanded, "What are you saying? Why on earth should we break you?"

"Do it!" the skull insisted. "Do it!" The sound of breath came nearer from all directions, though only on one pair of feet.

"No," Schmendrick said. "You're crazy." He turned his back and started a second time toward the gaunt, dark clock. Molly took the Lady Amalthea by her cold hand and followed him, trailing the white girl like a kite.

"All right," the skull said sadly. "I warned you." In a terrible voice, a voice like hail on iron, it began at once to cry, "Help ho, the king! Guards, to me! Here are burglars, bandits, mosstroopers, kidnapers, housebreakers, murderers, character assassins, plagiarists! King Haggard! Ho, King Haggard!"

Now over their heads and all around them, feet came clattering, and they heard the whistling voices of the aged men-at-arms calling as they ran. No torches flared, for no light could be struck in the castle unless the king himself ordered it, and Haggard was yet silent. The three thieves stood confounded and undone, gaping helplessly at the skull.

"I'm sorry," it said. "I'm just like that, treacherous. But I did try -" Then its vanished eyes suddenly saw the Lady Amalthea, and they went wide and bright, although they could not have. "Oh no," it said softly. "No, you don't. I'm disloyal, but I'm not that disloyal."

"Run," Schmendrick said, as he had said it long ago to the wild, sea-white legend that he had just set free. They fled across the great hall while the men-at-arms blundered loudly in the dark, and the skull shrieked, "Unicorn! Unicorn! Haggard, Haggard, there she goes, down to the Red Bull! Mind the clock, Haggard – where are you? Unicorn! Unicorn!"

Then the king's voice, rustling savagely under the uproar. "Fool, traitor, it was you who told her!" His quick, secret footsteps sounded close by, and Schmendrick set himself to turn and fight; but there came a grunt, and a crack, and a scraping noise, and then the bouncing crunch of old bone on old stone. The magician ran on.

When they stood before the clock, there was little grace either for doubting or understanding. The men-at-arms were in the hall now, and their clashing steps sent echoes booming back and forth between the walls, while King Haggard hissed and cursed them on. The Lady Amalthea never hesitated. She entered the clock and vanished as the moon passes behind clouds – hidden by them, but not in them, thousands of miles alone.

As though she were a dryad, Molly thought madly, and time were her tree. Through the dim, speckled glass Molly could see the weights and the pendulum and the cankered chimes, all swaying and burning as she stared. There was no door beyond, through which the Lady Amalthea might have gone. There was only the rusty avenue of the works, leading her eyes away into rain. The weights drifted from side to side like seaweed.

King Haggard was shouting, "Stop them! Smash the clock!" Molly started to turn her head, meaning to tell Schmendrick that she thought she knew what the skull had meant; but the magician had disappeared, and so had the great hall of King Haggard. The clock was gone too, and she was standing beside the Lady Amalthea in a cold place.

The king's voice came to her from very far away, not so much heard as remembered. She went on turning her head, and found herself looking into the face of Prince Lнr. Behind him there fell a bright mist, shivering like the sides of a fish, and bearing no resemblance at all to corroded clockwork. Schmendrick was nowhere to be seen.

Prince Lнr bent his head gravely to Molly, but it was to the Lady Amalthea that he spoke first. "And you would have gone without me," he said. "You haven't been listening at all."

She answered him then, when she had not spoken to Molly or the magician. In a low, clear voice, she said, "I would have come back. I do not know why I am here, or who I am. But I would have come back."

"No," said the prince, "you would never have come back."

Before he could say anything more, Molly broke in – much to her own surprise – crying, "Never mind all that! Where's Schmendrick?" The two strangers looked at her in courteous wonder that anyone else in the world should be able to speak, and she felt herself shake once from head to heels. "Where is he?" she demanded. "I'll go back myself, if you won't," and she turned round again.

He came out of the mist, walking with his head down, as though he were leaning against a strong wind. He was holding a hand to his temple, and when he took it away the blood came softly down.

"It's all right," he said when he saw that the blood was falling on Molly Grue's hands. "It's all right, it's not deep. I couldn't get through until it happened." He bowed shakily to Prince Lнr. "I thought it was you who went by me in the dark," he said. "Tell me, how did you pass through the clock so easily? The skull said you didn't know the way."

The prince looked puzzled. "What way?" he asked. "What was there to know? I saw where she had gone, and I followed."

Schmendrick's sudden laugh rubbed itself raw against the snaggy walls that came swimming in on them as their eyes grew familiar with this new darkness. "Of course," he said. "Some things have their own time by nature." He laughed again, shaking his head, and the blood flew. Molly tore a piece out of her dress.