“My mum?”, I said, “She was… amazing.”
I could hear a lawnmower in the distance, and the grass smelled like spring.
“She made you feel like you were the only person on the planet. She made the best cookies ever.”
I could almost smell them at that moment.
Actually, I could smell them.
I looked over, Chen was giggling. A little table had appeared next to our gently swaying, white painted three-seater. There was a plate full of chocolate chip cookies on it.
I grinned. Thought-casting messes with your head, but it was still pretty cool.
We grabbed a cookie each. They were warm, fresh from the oven just like Mum used to make. Chocolate was melty, insides almost doughy, but still a bit of crunch on the outside. Perfection.
I cast us some fresh, cold milk to go with them.
We both just sat there a while, swaying gently. The afternoon sun was warm, the breeze was cool. And the sight in front of us was absolutely unreal. We’d walked out of my childhood home into the back garden, only what we’d found was something else completely.
The backyard sloped gently down into the edge of a green cedar forest. There was a deep pool of clear, blue water. The willows swayed gently in the warm air. There were no fences, just open space moving on to the next home. But the forest grew thicker into the distance.
“Wait”, said Chen, “Do you see that?”
I looked where she was pointing, I couldn’t see anything.
“Right there, it’s moving between the trees.”
I kept looking, and then I saw something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. An animal or something, something white. And then, it stepped out into full view.
Chen gasped.
“It’s a unicorn!”, she said. And it was.
“Wait – that’s not just any unicorn, that’s the Lady Amalthea!” she exclaimed. “It’s the last unicorn!!”
“Wait, what?”, I said.
“The last unicorn! I used to love that movie when I was a kid!”
The unicorn was lapping water down at the pool, and then she raised her head and looked right at us. She was beautiful. She inclined her head, and walked a few paces, before turning back to look at us.
“Come on!”, Chen exclaimed, “She wants us to come!”
Chen got up and started lightly jogging down the green. I followed.
The unicorn turned again, and started cantering into the forest.
“Quick! Let’s catch up!”, Chen said. The unicorn was picking up speed now that we were following.
“WAIT!”, Chen called out, “Where are you going?”
The unicorn looked back over her shoulders at us, and then flicked her head forward again, still moving too fast for us to reach her. I thought about casting a hover bike, but with the trees it was too risky. With no pain dampeners in the subconscious, even running at top speed would have been dangerous here.
The trees got thicker, darker. The white unicorn flashed between them ahead of us.
“WAIT!” Chen called out, but there was nothing we could do. The unicorn was gone. We pulled up to a stop.
“Chen… what does this mean?”
“I think we’re supposed to keep going. Look! Her trail is still there, you can see where she’s gone. Come on!”
We followed the dainty hoof prints of the unicorn. It felt weird. A unicorn? I guess everything had felt weird here. From Everett’s abduction, to Simon’s elevator, and… well, I didn’t want to think about what happened to Winsford. Just, the human mind is… weird.
Eventually, the tracks led us up an incline, and the trees began to thin. We reached the top, and spread out in front of us was a… not quite medieval, but kind of, I don’t know, an old town. Like, really old. I could see distant timber-framed houses leaning over narrow streets. Some kind of steeple cut the skyline at the town’s center. The land around the town was a broad expanse. It looked like farming land, but there were mountains surrounding the plateau.
“I think we should go down”, she said, “The tracks keep on going down – right toward the town.”
“Ok, Chen, this is your show. Lead the way.”
We set out down the other side of the incline, and found a kind of road-way at the bottom. It had cart wheel marks and more hoof prints all over it. The unicorn’s trail got lost in the mess of footprints, but Chen seemed to think she must have walked right in to the town.
We began passing people on the roadway, peasants in medieval looking rags. None of them looked at us. A horse and cart passed by.
As we approached the town, I made out a painted sign above the entryway: “Vanity Fair.” Again, weird.
“Still think heading in is the right call?” I said.
“I think you were right before. It doesn’t matter what the right call is, because all roads lead in the same direction here. C’mon, let’s go.”
As we walked through the entrance to the town, colour hung everywhere. Streamers and silks strung between crooked timbered houses, stalls bursting with spices, masks, baubles, roasted meats, and other things I didn’t recognise. Everything was loud and bright and moving all at once. Hawkers shouted over one another about fortunes and finery and miracles in bottles.
Chen slowed beside me, eyes wide, as a procession of dancers in gilded masks twirled past. Men with creepy smiles and rich clothing beckoned me to follow them into dim doorways. There was a group of women cat-calling from an upper balcony, trying to get our attention.
We kept walking through.
“Where do you think this is taking us?” I called out above the din.
“I think”, she said, “There’s going to be some kind of test ahead. Right about… here.”
We broke through the crowded walkway into some kind of town commons. There was a raised and broad hillock of grass in the centre, and some kind of circus had been set up.
There were cages, and roaring animals. But as we looked closer, I could see that these were not your ordinary run-of-the-mill circus critters. There was a lion with a scorpion’s tail, and a cage with a serpent bigger than anything I’d ever seen before. I looked across to see a vulture staring at me. No, not a vulture. A harpie – I’d seen something like it before in a gaming sim. It’s eyes were piercing and black, and… something weird was going on. Like… I don’t know, time, or the air, or something around it was rippling.
“Look!!”, Chen cried, “There she is!” I followed her eyes to find that, on the other side of the common, the unicorn was there – in one of the cages. Only… it wasn’t the unicorn. It was just a white horse that looked like it. I think.
“COME ONE, COME ALL!” someone voice bellowed out across the green. A large man who looked like a lion-tamer took centre stage.
“COME ONE, COME ALL!! SEE A SIGHT YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!”
Everyone turned to look at the man. He was leading the white horse by a leash. It did have a unicorn’s horn, I could see now, but not like the one we saw back in the forest.
“BEHOLD! THE DEATH OF THE DEATHLESS!” he cried.
The crowd began to murmur, and a second man stepped forward. His great double-bladed axe and his black hooded face declared to all that we were about to witness an execution.
The unicorn didn’t attempt to resist, it just stood there.
“Oh no”, Chen whispered, “I can’t let this happen.”
“Chen! Don’t be an idiot!”, I said, “Think about where we are! You make a noise here, and we have no idea what might happen. This crowd might tear us apart, any one of those animals might get out and kill us!”
She bit her lip, looked across at me, and then back at the spectacle in front of us.
“Don’t say a thing. This place is not even real”, I said. “Who cares if some stupid fantasy unicorn gets the axe?”
We kept watching as the Circus Master circled around the unicorn, making sure everyone had the chance to get a good view. Again, the unicorn didn’t move.
“ANNDD NOOOWWW…”, he bellowed, “Let’s see what you’ve all come out here to see!!!!” He began to razzle the crowd into a frenzy, and they called out louder and louder.
“I… CAN’T… HEARRR YOOOUUU!!!”, he crowed.
The crowd screamed in response, calling out louder and louder. And with that, he gave the signal, the executioner swung his blade…
THUD.
The unicorn’s head fell to the ground. No blood. It was the most… odd thing I’d ever seen. The crowd went silent. They stood still for a moment, and then started walking away.
“Where are they going?”, Chen asked.
They streamed past us, none of them making eye contact. The Circus Master disappeared into the crowd as well, and then quite suddenly we were standing there alone.
And then something weird happened. I mean, things were already weird. Something else weird happened.
Starting with the unicorn, the green began to dribble down the hill and out of the grass. It moved down to the grey cobblestones at our feet, and become more grey. I watched the riot of colourful streamers hanging from the trees and buildings drift into grey. I held my hand up in front of my face and watched the colour recede somewhere beneath the surface of my skin.
“Chen”, I said, “No offense, but your subconscious is one of the most unhinged places I’ve ever been.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment.
“What if we were supposed to save her?”, she asked.
“Chen, that guy probably would have just as easily lopped our heads off, and in the subconscious that is not something we want to risk.”
One of the cages rattled, and we turned to find the Harpy looking straight at us. Her eyes were like pits of tar, and she began to rasp at us.
““Full oft the hand that idly lies, and will not grasp the thread,
Doth loose a star from out the sky, though no bright blood be shed.
A blossom bruised by breath alone may pale the summer’s face,
And silence, like a hidden worm, eat through the heart of grace.
Ye stood where silver virtue shone, the crown of life immortal,
And yet the fall renewed again with silence at the portal.
Now wanes the dye from leaf and limb, from mortal flesh and stone;
The painted world grows thin and sere, as marrow from the bone.
Seek then the halls by sea-wind scarred, where grief hath made his ring,
And find the paths toward the sea, where lies the haggard king.
There glimmers yet what may be found, renewed the lucid light
The choice at hand, redemption found, or sink into the night.”
The beast rose, expanding its wings, and destroyed it’s cage. In a moment it rose into the air and soared, screeching into the distance.
“We haven’t got a moment to lose.”
“Kendrick!”, Chen and I said at the same time, as we spun to see him. Chen embraced him. He smiled, and then gently withdrew.
“We don’t have much time, the enchantment is already doing it’s work”, he said.
“Wait”, Chen said, “Enchantment?”
“This place puts all of us to the test. It’s your turn, Chen. The unicorn is dead, you know what that means.”
“Can somebody actually tell me what the hell is going on?” I asked.
Chen looked at me. “It’s my turn, Cailin. I’m sorry, looks like you’re caught up in this too.”
“Waitwaitwait… caught up? What do you mean?”
“Consider well, Cailin”, said Kendrick. “The fate of Everett, Simon, Winsford, and now Ross. Their demons were accelerated by this place. Yours, it seems, were content with another approach. But in the end, whether here or there, it all ends the same way.”
“What?”, I said, with a scoff in my voice, “We’re all gonna die? Is that what this is about?”
“Well… yes, I suppose you could put it that way”, said Kendrick. “And now, it’s Chen’s turn. Life is seeping away, the colour has disappeared already. You must make it to the castle of the Haggard King by sunset.”
“Or what?”, I said, heat rising in my voice, “Or we die?”
“Yes”, he said without a flinch in his voice.
“Whu… how?”
“You are already vulnerable down here. On some level, your subconscious or preconscious minds are always thinking about it. Fearful of it. Death, I mean. Down here, the thinking just gets a lot more… tangible and hard to ignore. You can’t control where it goes, you must simply move forward.”
“You said there’s a way out.”
“So I did, and so there is. In any event, it’s the same direction.”
“Why am I caught up with Chen’s… I don’t know… scenario? The environ always released us with the others.”
Kendrick put his hands together, as though praying, and pressed the tips of his fingers against his lips.
“I do not really know. Your scenario, as you put it, was something of an anomaly from the normal pattern. Your subconscious, it seems, was content to leave your fate in the real world. Since you’re still down here, however, it would seem that, in some way, perhaps by the friendship you have formed together, your soul is connected to hers more closely. You have been caught up with her. Her fate will be your fate, and your fate will be hers. At least… mostly.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, and turned away. This was nuts.
“So you’re telling me that some unicorn turns up in my back yard from childhood, leads us on a wild goosechase into some crazy medieval town named after a clothing brand, gets its head lopped off, and now I’m gonna die because all the colour disappeared?”
“These are symbols, Cailin”, he said. “Granted, you don’t understand them all. Almost nobody ever does. But make no mistake, the symbols are deeply connected to reality. The truth is you were already dying before you came down here. Everybody is dying. Down here, it seems, you are being forced to more immediately confront that reality. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it is not my place to do otherwise. And remember, all is not lost.”
I looked over at Chen, I couldn’t read her expression.
“Chen, tell me this makes sense to you? What do we do here?”
She sighed.
“This whole thing has been crazy. I don’t understand everything here, but I think we need to get to that castle.”
I looked across at Kendrick again, who was rocking back and forward on his heels and focusing intently on the branch of the nearby oak.
I looked back at Chen.
“I don’t understand this. But… ok. I trust you. How do we find the castle of the haggard king?”
“It’s King Haggard”, Chen said, “From the Last Unicorn. Find the paths toward the sea, where lies the haggard king. King Haggard had a castle right next to the ocean, where he kept all the unicorns captive.”
“Sorry, I never watched it – or whatever. Lead the way.”
“I have something that might help”, said Kendrick. He gave a loud whistle, and from over the top of the grassy hillock, two unicorns came trotting toward us. Chen gasped. Unlike everything else, they were full of life and colour.
They approached Kendrick, and he motioned for us to come over.
“They’ll let you ride them, if you like”, he said, patting down the neck of one. “Come on, they won’t hurt you.”
We came over, and patted them on their necks. They smelled like… warm sun and honeysuckle flowers… like mum used to grow in the back yard. I looked into the eyes of my unicorn. I could see… like starlight or something.
“Come on. Jump up, I’ll give you a leg-up”, Kendrick said.
I wasn’t super uncomfortable. Medieval battle sims were one of my favourite genres, so I’d had plenty of experience with horse-riding. So had Chen by the look of things. Neither of us needed a leg-up, with an augmented spring we leapt up and took hold of our mounts. No saddle, of course, but any decent medieval gaming sim will give you experience with that too.
Chen grinned at me.
“It’s still amazing, right?”
I grinned. There was something about these unicorns.
“They know where to go, ride!”, Kendrick called out.
“What about you?”, Chen asked. “Are you coming with us?”
“Chen, I’ve never been too far away”, said Kendrick. “Now go!”
And so we did. The unicorns leapt away, speeding like…well, like Shadowfax! As the wind swept behind us, I turned to look and see a final wave from Kendrick on the hillock at the end of the now distant village green.
The unicorns’ hooves clattered on the stonework of the town, and then we were through the far gate and into the country side.
The landscape raced by, but something wasn’t quite right. The colour was already gone, but something else was happening too. I could hear the sound of dry grass blowing in the wind, and I noticed that it was… thinning out. I looked back again, and – to my alarm – the town behind us was crumbling and falling into dust.
Chen saw it too, and urged her mount to go faster. They did. A lot faster. It wasn’t just the town, though, the landscape was changing. The sun was flickering and moving – faster than it had any right to be moving. The wind whipped my face, and I watched the great bright orb make it’s way down toward the horizon.
We’d reached a mountain pass now, and were speeding through it. The hillsides around us were sinking into the ground, and even the mountains looked a bit unsteady.
But the unicorns were fast. We sped through the low pass between the mountains. It was a blur of speed! Suddenly we were through, and moving down through a wooded forest way.
I had caught a glimpse of the ocean, it was bright and blue – and easy to make out in a flashes even as we moved through the grey forest. The mountains began to fall behind us, rocks and boulders and dust were crashing. Trees cracked and fell, the unicorns moved still faster!
Then suddenly, we were in the clear! Running along a clifftop pathway, the forest still on our left, falling away behind us. The sea far below us, down beyond the cliff face. There is no way we would have covered our ground without the unicorns.
Chen pointed ahead, and I could see – some distance away – what looked like a craggy outcrop jutting out from the cliff, and yet higher. Must be the castle of the haggard king.
The road beside us began to crack and move. I looked ahead, a great stone bridge joined the castle to the cliffside. Our unicorns surged forward as the ground itself began to give way beneath us.
It was completely out of our control. If the unicorns failed or fell, we were finished. But they didn’t. The bridge held firm. I glanced up at the looming castle as we sped across, catching a glimpse of some figure high in a turret. In a flash of movement he was gone. No time to think about it.
As we approached the end of the bridge, the ground became more firm. Less unreliable, and the unicorns began to slow down. At last we dismounted on an open paved courtyard before a great wooden doorway built into the cliff face. The shadows of the looming castle were cold.
We paused a moment to regain our bearing, looking back out at the landscape behind us. The last of the mountains collapsed in on themselves, and the cliffs around the castle fell into the ocean. The waves roared and crashed as they received the land back into the depths.
And then at last, the ocean stilled, and it was just us. Just us on a rocky island in the ocean. The castle above us, cliffs, rock, and distant sand below. And the sound of the waves.
The sinking sun was approaching the horizon, the light was disappearing.
CRREEEAAAKK.
The doors swung open, and a figure emerged from the dim interior.
“So”, a deep resounding voice said, “You’ve come at last.” He sounded like… like Saruman. But his appearance quickly banished everything else from my mind. He was tall, swaying as he walked – or rather – as he lurched and lumbered.
His green skin was peeling, his eyes sunken. His white hair hung lank and dead down to his shoulders. And yet, somehow, there was something regal about him. He wore a great, kingly red cape, broidered with golden bindings around his neck. But the gold was splotchy with age and grime.
“And you thought you could escape me? Huh.” He smirked through yellowed teeth, and reached beneath his cloak to reveal am ancient, leather-bound sword hilt.
We took a step back as he pulled out a great sword of rusted iron. I instinctively stepped in front of Chen. This was about to get hairy.
“There is no escape in the end. The magician lied. Everybody lies. Everybody dies. And now, it’s your turn. Where is your deliverer now, Chen?” He leered at us.
“Your secret fears…”, he said, lumbering one step closer, “...your secret doubts. Your secret… guilt” he spoke the last word with a malicious grin.
“It was never real, Chen. You were never real. And now you will die in a land that was never real.”
Almost by instinct, I cast my sword. The sword that I had spent weeks perfecting in Simon’s memory training sims.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but right now… you can piss off”, I said, my sword poised at my side.
The lurching zombie-man began to shake, and shudder, and a noise gurgled up from within it. I realised after a moment that it was laughing.
“Haven’t you learned, boy? You can’t beat the beast!”
In a flash the lumbering monster became a blur.
CRACK.
My head spun, and lights flashed in front of my eyes. I realised that I was down on all fours. I could almost see the ground, but mostly it was stars.
“I’ll get to you soon enough”, said a voice, right next to my ear. I swung out on instinct, slashing with my blade. But there was nothing there. Nothing but more laughter.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
It was Chen. Her voice was quiet.
The laughter stopped, and Chen helped me to my feet.
RrrrRRRAAAARRRRGGHHH!!!
I looked up to see the zombie-man charging at us. Chen cast a shield of blue light, and – somehow – the creature couldn’t pierce it. But the force of his charge carried us through a wall of rock, and out… over the edge!!
We fell, tumbling, plummeting down to the rocks and water. I could see the sand far below, dark shapes began to crawl out of the cliff face and rise from the waters.
“HOLD ON!”, Chen shouted.
We were going to die.
A moment before impact, Chen cast a giant landing pad – like the ones we used in the well of ascension.
PPOOOOFF!!
We fell through the landing pad… and then the water took us. Down… down… down into the darkness. I could see shapes all around us. Faces leering in the dark, grinning with row upon row of teeth. I saw a dim blue light up above. I tried to swim, but couldn’t think. A hand grabbed my collar and pulled me up.
I gasped for air, flopping down onto the dark, wet sand. The sun was gone now. I gagged and coughed.
“Are you ok?” It was Chen kneeling on the sand next to me, breathing hard.
I looked up into her white face, barely able to speak.
“I’m just… peachy.”
She smiled.
I looked back at the water. No faces, just… dark. And the faint glimmer of starlight and a crescent moon.
We looked up. No sign of King Haggard’s zombie. We sat down next to each other on the sand, catching our breath.
“Chen, none of this makes any sense to me. Please tell me something that makes sense.”
She sighed again.
“I think I know what we need to do, but you’re not gonna like it.”
“Hit me. Can’t be any more crazy than anything else down here.”
“I think…”, she began, “I think that we’re supposed to walk down into the water.”
She was right. I didn’t like it. At all.
“Are you nuts?!?”, I said, rising to my feet. “Walk into the water? Did you not see what was in there?”
“I saw it, ok”, she said, “It’s just… that’s what my instincts are telling me. On some level, the only way to escape death is to embrace it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Chen?”, I said. “Escape death? Nobody escapes death!”
She turned and looked away, back at the dark depths of the water.
“This is my scenario, Cailin. And I think I understand what’s going on, and if we’re going to get out of here, we need to walk into that water. Kendrick said it wouldn’t necessarily look like what you expected. Well, here it is.”
She stood, silent for a moment.
Suddenly, the ground shook. We spun, spanning the cliff face. But it wasn’t the cliff face I noticed, it was the cave. Between the darkness and, well, drowning, I hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe it hadn’t been there before, but now there was a deep, glowing red flickering in its depths.
“Chen… this doesn’t look good… please tell me this is something good?”
She was straining her eyes, looking down into the cave.
“It’s the red bull”, she said. “He drives all the unicorns into the ocean, where they get held as captives to King Haggard.”
The ground shook again, more violently this time, and the red light intensified. Some beast bellowed from the depths, and I could begin to feel separate, thudding footsteps in the ground.
“How do you beat the red bull?” I asked.
“You be an immortal unicorn and fearlessly force it back into the ocean”, she said.
“Great. Just great”, I muttered. Whatever these AI constructs down here were, they were out of our league. Gilgamesh, Sophie, King Haggard, even Kendrick – they were capable of doing things we couldn’t even comprehend. No way we were taking on some demon-bull from the pit of hell.
“Maybe we climb the cliff?”, I suggested.
“No. He’s still up there. We’re meant to be down here”, she said, eyes set resolutely on the glowing cave entrance.
“Give me something, Chen! I don’t want to die! Sophie said that if we fly we end up in some other part of the subconscious – let’s roll the dice and see how we go. Anything has got to be better than this!”
“If we fly, we lose each other. Maybe never get out at all. No. I’m staying here. If you want to fly, you’re call.”
What do you do when forced to choose between subconscious oblivion, the prospect of an endless cycle of torment from your inner demons, a black ocean full of horrors, or a gigantic flaming red bull that wants to kill you?
I’ll admit, it’s not a choice I ever expected to have to make. I’m surprised I was still sane. Maybe I wasn’t sane.
Ok. I’ll admit it. There was something about Chen. Something in her soul more solid and real than all the insane thought-casting we’d seen. It was something I couldn’t go past. So I didn’t. I just stood there next to her, waiting for the red bull to come and destroy me.
As the figure emerged in the darkness. It was like the darkness was deeper, even though I could see flames and fire. It had horns, but it had more of a man shape than a bull. It roared, and heat blasted out. Chen again cast her blue energy shield, and the heat rippled against it.
“It’s now or never, Cailin. Are you coming?”
The beast roared again, and closed in on us, lumbering on four limbs that looked lava columns of blackness.
Suddenly, a great noise came from behind us. Like a wind, or an energy blast, or something. I looked behind us, down into the dark waters. Only, they weren’t dark anymore. There was a deep blue light emerging, and the waters were moving.
A beam of bright, blue light shone out, pushing the water back all of a sudden, and I saw a clear pathway down the sand into the ocean. I could see the demon faces in the walls of the water, leering and screaming, but for some reason they couldn’t get through.
The centre point of the light blazed, and I squinted, shielding my eyes but trying to see what was down there. I began to see shapes in the white and blue light. I saw a lion roaring, and then it was a figure of blue energy, wrapped in a toga of white – like some Ancient Grecian champion. He looked, somehow, like the whole universe was inside him. Stars, and planets, and supernovas shimmered inside him. The form shifted again and became a tiny lamb, bright and white. Then there were three forms in the fire, or maybe four, I couldn’t tell: a King tall and strong; a star robed in white with a staff flashing in his hand; and a halfling, glorious and shining – transparent somehow. The figure shifted again, and became…. a man, his arms stretched out as if to hold the waves of energy in place as they emanated from his body.
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“Wait...is that..”
“MOOOVVEEE!!!!!” Chen screamed.
And we ran. I didn’t even need to think about it in the end. From the horror and hell of the monster, and the underwater demons, we ran. Sprinting through the gap made by the white water waves of power holding back our nightmares. As we ran, their faces of horror blurred at the edge of my vision, but they didn’t touch us. The light grew brighter and brighter as we came closer and closer to the man, his face bright and shining like the sun now.
And then it was gone.
No more darkness.
No more light… except for the normal sunlight coming through the very normal window of our room.
I looked down at old, polished oak floorboards beneath my bare feet. I looked over at the off-white curtains pulled back so the warm breeze could come in. I looked at the two recliners, and the coffee table in the middle of the room. On the table was a black box with a red button. Finally, our life line. Our ticket out of the hell of our own subconscious. We were safe. I wanted to fall down and cry. I managed to keep my feet and a straight face.
“Chen,” I said, “What… was that?”
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