Part One is here

Lara grabbed Scarlet’s hand, staring at her with eyes wide, and she felt the now-familiar sinking that meant things weren’t going to plan. ‘You mean we can’t get out of here? Oh goodness, my parents are going to lose it.’

‘Not how you’re thinking of doing it. All you can do is petition the king, and hope he sees things your way.’

Scarlet sighed. There were days like this. Days when the canteen was invariably sold out of cookies and maths was period five and you had a detention for some reason that made no sense in anyone’s world save the teacher’s. She glanced across at her pale, shaking, girlfriend. Girlfriend. Heh. Had Lara ever had a detention? Somehow, she doubted it.

‘Have you ever had a detention?’

The unicorn and Lara both gave her the same look of complete incomprehension and she giggled. Days like these. They seemed to be happening more and more often. She turned to the unicorn. ‘OK, first things first, what’s your name?’

‘What do you care? Happenstance was a popular one, but Elt’s the most recent. Ain’t been called much of anything in the last sixty years.’

‘Wow. Still better than being called something nasty I guess.’

‘Not really.’

‘Oh, OK, well, my name’s Joanna, this is Lara. Where are we?’

‘You’re in the Kingdom of Illest, once a beautiful and flowering land and now bent, busted and broken beneath the End of Days.’

‘Yeah, about that, sounds nasty. It’s not going to happen anytime really soon, is it?’

The unicorn made a sound Scarlet was fairly certain was a laugh. Like a cement mixer clearing its throat. ‘I’ll call you Elt, if that’s OK?’

‘It’ll do.’

Lara grabbed Scarlet’s hand and pulled. ‘Look, I don’t mean to sound all hysterical, but we’re trapped, in some magical land—’

‘Hah, that’s a joke. This place is anything but magical. My horn was taken during the scourge. Now all the magic’s in the palace, hidden away, ‘safe’.’

‘But why?’

‘The king’s paranoid, isn’t he? He’s also stupid, and ignorant, and twa—’

‘Um, so, I’m not sorry I sound hysterical anymore. Could someone please listen to me. We’re stuck here, we have no way to get home and my parents are expecting me for tea.’

Lara checked her watch and swallowed. ‘In about an hour. They will seriously lose it, I mean, you don’t want to see my dad lose it. What are we going to do?’

It was fair question and Scarlet realised her girlfriend’s mood wasn’t going to be bettered by a compliment about how it made her cheeks all pinky and pretty. Girlfriend. Heh.

‘Elt, you said we could petition the king, right?’

‘Not got much other choices.’

‘Great, could you, like, take us there please?’

Elt rolled his eyes, but lowered himself to the grass, resting on his knees. Scarlet turned to Lara, bouncing on the spot and waving her clenched fists in front of her chin. ‘Oh my god, we’re actually going to ride a unicorn. I mean, I don’t mean to come over all geeky, but that’s just amazing. Eeep.’

She stretched her leg over and tried to get comfortable as Lara, rather hesitantly, got on behind. She sighed as her arms wrapped around her waist and her head rested against her back. This could be cooler but she had no idea how. Oh, hang on, maybe ice creams, or chocolate.

Elt stood and they shifted around, getting balanced. He began to walk and she felt something surround her, like being in water, and as the walk sped to a gallop she realised there was no way they were falling off. Within moments, the grass beneath them was a blur, the forest coming rapidly closer.

They reached the edge of it and Elt turned, running parallel, tree roots flashing by beneath him. Lara was gripping her like she was an advanced copy of the new Harry Potter. Not that there ever would be a new Harry Potter. It was finished and for a moment, she struggled to breathe, her chest heavy. Then she felt the arms tight around her and smiled into the wind.

The trees were blurring and the breath was pinched from her mouth as they moved faster and faster. Within moments, the forest fell away and they were passing over a plain, then a road, dark stone beneath his feet.

He slowed suddenly and she gasped, wanting to feel glamorous but fairly certain her hair looked like she’d been trapped in a wind tunnel. At least Lara would look the same. She glanced over her shoulder to see her girlfriend quickly tying her hair back with a scrunchy. Dammit. Girlfriend. Heh.

Ahead lay a city, the likes of which she’d only seen in her mind, deep in one fantasy novel or another. Huge walls of dirty grey stone blocked the horizon and up and down them, baskets and pallets and all manner of things were being hauled. The top was lined with winches, and it was directly beneath one of the larger ones that Elt came to a stop.

He knelt and they slid off, wobbly for a minute, as he explained.

‘The king don’t like to open the gate. Like I say, paranoid, so most everything goes in and out via the winches. They’ll let you in, easy enough, but once you’re there, be a love and come let me in too. I’m considered safe enough now…’

He trailed off and she saw the pain he had kept hidden until now. She nodded and looked up the wall. A face, half covered in dirt, peered down. ‘Business?’

‘Uh, we want to see the king?’

‘Look on a coin then.’

She sighed. It was like that. She waited for the words to come, like they had before, only this time they didn’t. She turned to Lara. ‘Could you ask, you know, nicely?’

Lara stepped forward and looked up, cupping her hands around her mouth. ‘Um, excuse me, but we wish to enter in order to petition the king on business of the most urgent sort. It is essential that this be dealt with with the utmost expediency.’

The face peered down again, forehead scrunched up, but the winch began to squeak and a platform drifted slowly down. When it touched the ground they both stared at the two foot square of tatty boards, roped together and held in random spots by the winch ropes.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow as she met Lara’s gaze and grinned. ‘Looks like we’ll have to get really close together.’

She felt sleazy as she said it, but Lara’s reply was a smile as she stepped onto the board and when Scarlet put her feet on, her arms went around her waist. All she could smell was Lara, which made a welcome change to the rather pungent scent of manure and unwashed bodies.

The rope went taut and they lifted off the ground, both squeaking at the same time, then laughing. The laughter set the platform swinging and Lara clung even tighter. Scarlet watched the countryside appear below them, huge fields tilled and sown, the people working in them becoming tiny dots far below.

She opted not to look down. That way lay madness and almost certainly embarrassing toilet accidents. Instead she buried her head in Lara’s shoulder and breathed her in until the platform was hauled over the edge and set down on the wall.

They shuffled off, not quite ready to let go of one another, and stood for a moment. It felt quite wonderful and entirely strange, and she could feel acutely all the places they were pressed together, as though someone were going round her body and pointing them out, places she’d never even felt before.

Finally though, they did break apart, and the view made her mouth drop open and her hand reach for Lara, who clasped it with her own and squeezed.

The city was huge. No, that didn’t cover it. Imagine huge, then do some maths thingy to make it much bigger. Like, square it or something.

From here, they could see rooftops, thatch and tile, flat stone and wooden, running all the way into the centre, where the coolest castle she had ever seen dominated the entire place. It had battlements, and towers, and gargoyles the size of cars, and almost certainly at least one hidden room, probably more.

The wall upon which they stood was a couple of metres thick and the drop on the far side was far smaller than that which they’d just scaled. They thanked the man with the dirty face and scampered down one of the wafer-thin flights of steps that led to the city floor.

As they descended the smells rose up to meet them, of food and people and fire and dirt and something far worse. Lara was right behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She stopped, trying to grip onto the wall as she glanced back over her shoulder.

‘We’re going to be alright, aren’t we?’

Scarlet really wanted to say something reassuring, but the best she could manage was. ‘I’ll look after you.’ Judging by the look on Lara’s face, it was the right thing to say, which was weird cos the idea of her looking after anyone was laughable. She just about remembered to feed the cat, but often only after it attacked her with its bowl.

They reached the bottom, took some deep breaths, realised how bad an idea it was to breathe at all down here and headed along the wall to the enormous gates. Two guards leaned casually either side of it, swords nowhere to be seen, but playing cards clearly in evidence.

Scarlet pushed Lara forward, hoping she could repeat her earlier trick. ‘Um, excuse me, gentlemen, but we require that you open the gate, please?’

‘And why is it you require that, young lady?’

‘Our steed is waiting without, and we require his assistance, within.’

‘You ‘require his assistance?’ Clever horse, this one then, ey?’

‘He’s not a horse, he’s a unicorn.’

The guard rocked back on his heels, shaking his head and folding his arms. ‘He’s back again, is he? Well, that’s a pity. I can open the gates, for you, but you might not want to be seen in here with him. He has a history in this city, and not a good one.’

Scarlet pushed Lara aside. ‘Is that the history where the king chopped his horn off?’

‘It might well be, but seeing as he’s unlikely to have told you himself, let me ask you a question. If you know someone’s a murderer, killed a few people, do you leave him his knife, or do you take it away?’

Part One is here

It was only as the ground beneath their feet turned to grass and the ceiling above became dark rolling clouds, that Scarlet thought she should perhaps have told Martin what they were doing. Oops.

She looked at the hand clasped in hers. Lara wore bangles and bracelets, some the rubber ones you got from charity or bands and others, thin rounds of metal. They rubbed gently against her wrist. Maybe she should get some too. Maybe she should buy one for Lara.

Maybe she should find out where they were before someone or something inevitably attacked them. The field stretched away in all directions. Mountains filled the horizon, peaks covered in snow or hidden in the clouds.

Opposite was a forest, the sort you got lost in, or found a gingerbread house in, but either way probably never came out of. Lara’s mouth was wide open and she shook her head. Scarlet squeezed her hand. ‘You okay?’

‘Uh, yeah? Maybe? Where are we?’

‘No idea. Doesn’t matter though, we need to find the horse.’

‘It’s not a horse, it’s a unicorn.’

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure they exist?’

‘Why are you asking me? You’re the one who just opened a portal to another dimension or something.’

True. Somehow though, the idea of unicorns was a step too far, even if their horns had been removed. Was it called a horn? Did it have some fancy name?

She started to walk, taking slow steps through the long grass, enjoying the feel of the hand held in hers and the gentle caress of the bracelets against her wrist.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To find the unicorn.’

‘Well, yes, obviously, but where is it?’

Scarlet shrugged. ‘Normally, I just walk a bit and someone’ll screw things up for me, or kidnap me, or try to kill me. Whatever, we’re bound to come across it sooner or later. I’m just kinda liking the walking.’

She threw a smile to Lara, who laughed as her forehead wrinkled up. ‘Shouldn’t we have some sort of strategy?’

‘Does it involve splitting up? ‘Cause if it does, I’m against it.’

‘I don’t know, we don’t have one yet.’

‘Oh.’

They walked on and sure enough, after only a few minutes, the white figure of a horse emerged from a gap in the hills and galloped out onto the meadow, shaking its head back and forth. They stopped, watching it prance. Scarlet frowned.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be, like, awestruck by the beauty of it or something?’

‘I’m not sure, possibly, yes.’

‘That was conclusive, thanks.’

Lara laughed again and Scarlet stopped looking at the unicorn to glance at her girlfriend. Girlfriend. Heh. She could see her in profile, see the tip of her nose rising slightly, the tiniest wrinkles around the corner of her mouth where she smiled. She must smile a lot.

‘Help you?’

She almost wasn’t surprised that the unicorn was talking to them. Almost. She did, however, jump out of her skin and gasp as the massive beast galloped up to them. He stopped just in time, by which point they were both cowering, hands over their heads. His voice was quieter now and sounded amused.

‘Word to the wise, the best way to avoid being trampled to death is not to put your hands over your faces. Ain’t gonna help much.’

Scarlet recovered first, watching him stamp his massive hooves against the grass, snorting, his mane twitching. ‘Thanks for the tip. Speaking of which, what happened to your horn?’

The stamping stopped, the unicorn’s head coming close into Scarlet. The eyes were huge, as big as her fist and she worked very hard to neither back away nor whimper.

‘It’s not very nice to bring attention to another’s shortcomings.’

‘I’d have thought it was a short-going, actually, you know, being on the front…’

She trailed off as the eyes bore into her. Okay, stupid move. The unicorn was larger than any horse she’d ever seen. To be fair, she’d only ever seen a couple, normally ridden by police, but they had seemed big at the time. This thing was huge, like, twice her height and when it pulled its lips back she could see teeth the size of her head. At least.

‘You are not of this place.’

She bit back another flippant retort, and shook her head. ‘No, we’ve come here from London.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘England?’

A blank stare.

‘Europe?’

Another.

‘Earth?’

‘Ahh, how is it there?’

The two of them exchanged glances. This was, she had to admit, now quite surreal. ‘It’s okay. Weather’s a bit crap, but you don’t seem to have much better here.’

The unicorn tossed its mane again, looking over their heads. ‘The end of days is here.’ He sounded bored and tired and grumpy. ‘The clouds have been steady for… perhaps twenty, maybe thirty years. I lost count a long time ago.’

‘Um, how old are you?’

The unicorn turned its attention to Lara. ‘She ain’t the only rude one, then? Do you normally ask people how old they are, back on Earth?’

Lara turned bright red and stammered. ‘Um, no, no, sorry, not at all, goodness, do please forgive me.’

‘Hm, you talk better than your mate, at least. I remember when the forest behind you were striplings, barely planted. I remember those who planted them, and I remember the forest that was there before the planters cut it down to build.’

‘Old, then?’

He turned his attention back to her, lip rising again as he snorted. ‘You’re interesting. Why are you here?’

‘Actually, we came to see you. I mean, assuming you’re the only unicorn with his horn chopped off in these parts?’

He stamped again, head shaking, and she tried to figure out if he was angry or if it was, like, a nervous twitch or something. She hurried on. ‘Someone’s trying to bring the Undying back to life. We thought you might be able to help.’

‘Ah.’

Was that it? They waited a little longer, but nothing more was forthcoming. ‘So, do you think you could help us, please?’

‘How long’s it been since the last time.’

‘About sixty years, I think. Quite a while really.’

Another long, awkward silence, during which Scarlet got to wondering where the nearest toilet was and whether the clouds above ever delivered the rain they so obviously promised.

‘You lot are clumsy back on earth, ain’t you? Yeah, I’ll help.’

‘That’s a relief. Thanks. What can you do?’

The unicorn actually did a double take, which was one of the funniest things she’d ever seen. ‘The usual, you know.’

‘Um, no?’

He sighed, then snorted. ‘What all unicorns do. I’ll act as a conduit for your magic, strengthening it, making it greater than it would otherwise be and thus giving you the power needed to defeat the Undying.’

‘Actually, I was hoping we could make it so we never got to the point of actually having to fight him, you know? So, like, can you do anything else?’

The unicorn stamped and shook his head. Okay, it was definitely a reaction. She took a step back. ‘OK, great, well, that’s really cool, thanks. Will you come back with us now?’

‘I will. How do you propose we return to earth?’

‘Well, I’ve got the ingredients, so we’ll just get it together and then I’ll open the portal, same as on the way here.’

The unicorn shook its head, almost on a par with the double take for weird humour. ‘No you won’t. The ruler of this place has it locked down tighter than the queen’s privates. Why do you think I’m still here, even after he took off my horn? No one leaves the kingdom without the king’s say so.’

Next Installment Monday 3rd March