Free they seemed to be saying! Free!

Then the funnel broke apart and the unicorns scattered, flooding the skies above the mountain clearing in a rush of graceful, delicate bodies—like fireworks exploding in an impossibly beautiful shower. The unicorns spread out across the skyline—buoyed by the magic of their transformation—then soared into the distance. Their cries lingered after them momentarily, then faded into silence.

The mountains had gone still again.

LEGEND

“There never was any black unicorn,” Willow said.

“There was, but it was only a deception,” Ben said.

Questor Thews and Abernathy, Bunion and Parsnip, and Fillip and Sot looked at each other in confusion.

They sat within the shade of a great, old oak at the edge of the meadow clearing, the lingering smell of scorched earth a pungent reminder of all that had befallen. The last of the shards of green flame had flickered out, but trailers of smoke and particles of dust and ash still floated weightless through the sun-streaked afternoon air. Abernathy had been dusted off, the others had been freed of their bonds, and the six of them were gathered about Ben and Willow, who were trying to explain what had happened. It wasn’t easy because neither of them knew everything yet, so they were piecing the story together as they went.

“It might be easier if we start at the beginning,” Ben offered.

He hunched forward, legs crossing before him. He was ragged and dirty, but at least they all recognized him now. Removing his own deception of who and what he was had removed theirs as well.

“A long time ago, the fairies sent the white unicorns into Landover on a journey to certain of the mortal worlds. We know that much from the histories. The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of failing altogether. After all, there has to be some belief in the magic—however small—for any world to survive.

“But the unicorns disappeared. They disappeared because the wizards of Landover waylaid and imprisoned them. They wanted the unicorns’ magic for their own use. Remember, Questor, when you told me that the wizards were once a powerful guild that hired out—back before the King sent the Paladin to dispose of them? Well, I’m betting a major part of that magic came from the imprisoned unicorns—magic that the wizards siphoned off. I don’t know what magic they possessed to trap the unicorns in the first place—a deception of some sort, I’d guess. That seems to be their favorite trick. At any rate, they caught them up, changed them into drawings, and trapped them in those books.”

“But not whole,” Willow said.

“No, not whole,” Ben agreed. “This is where it gets interesting. The wizards separated the body from the spirit of each unicorn in making the transformation. They imprisoned the body in one book and the spirit in the other! That weakened the unicorns and made them easier to hold. The body without the spirit is never as strong. The wizards’ magic was potent enough to imprison each separately; the trick was to prevent them from joining again.”