solid in the heart of the mist. And that was all she could tell; she could not even make out what shape it bore. But her inner peace did not desert her, although she knew, in the back of her mind, that when this was all over, she was going to be very irked with Jason Cameron for taking her eyeglasses away from her, ceremony or not. There should have been some way to allow her to retain them!
'It has been a very long time since I last heard the call of a Summoner.' The voice from the white, blurry shape above the altar was bell-clear, sweet, silvery, and sexless. It caressed her like a light breeze, and made her heart dance. 'You are fair in my sight, and acceptable, dear maiden. I feast upon your purity, and grant you your request.'
It was a good thing that she already knew that the Unicorn meant these things in a metaphorical sense, or she might have been seriously alarmed by that particular set of phrases. That is, she would have been alarmed if the peace imposed upon her from without had not been so all-pervasive. 'I thank you for answering my Summons, and I rejoice in the presence of your beauty and purity, O Brightest One,' she replied, in what she thought might be the correct response. 'My request is that you answer the question of the Petitioner, the Firemaster who stands in the South, O Unicorn,' she concluded, and she felt, rather than saw, that it had turned its attention away from her. Its regard was like a brilliant sunbeam; so intense that she had actually felt it as if it was a hand, touching lightly upon her skin.
'And what is your question-as if I need to ask?' it said, and she was surprised at the amount of irony in its tone. It had never occurred to her that a Unicorn would indulge in such a thing. 'You must wish to know how to reverse your current condition. I cannot imagine that you would care to remain in the state that you are now, Firemaster.'
'My question is, as you divined, O Immortal Wisdom, that you impart to me the means by which I can reverse my condition to that of my wholly human former aspect,' Cameron said, his voice a little breathless, as if whatever it was he saw left him shaken and hesitant. That surprised her as much as the Unicorn's irony; surely Jason, who had participated in a Summoning twice before, had known what to expect! 'If, indeed, those means exist, I beg you to tell me where I may find them.'
'The means do exist, but I am limited in what I may tell you. I cannot give you the whole answer, but I can tell you that it lies within a manuscript that is within your grasp, though not your possession,' the Unicorn replied promptly. 'It is no more than a few miles distant from this spot, and in the hands of someone you know.'
'Who?' Jason gasped. 'Where? Please, I beg you-'
The Unicorn interrupted him, and now the tone of its voice was stern and unyielding. 'I cannot tell you more, and do not press me-you have brought this state upon yourself, as you are well aware, out of over-reaching pride and arrogance, and it has been judged that you must win free of it wholly by your own efforts, if at all.'
Those clear, bright tones were utterly without pity, and Rose felt very sorry for Jason. Bad enough to know that was the case, but to hear it from such a being-that was hard, hard indeed.
The light above the altar brightened, and Rose's eyes began to water in reaction. And yet, at the same time, she could not bring herself to look away. The light drew her, even as it became impossible to watch.
'I have fulfilled your request, O maiden,' it said, in a voice of deep formality, and she felt its calm regard pressing upon her again. 'I thank you for the Summons, and for the feast. And now-fare you well.'
There was no sound, nothing to mark the moment that it departed. The light simply vanished so abruptly that the room seemed dark in comparison. She rubbed her eyes, which were still watering, and suddenly realized that she felt physically drained and exhausted, as if she had been working very hard for most of the day. And she wanted to see, so badly she shook with the need for clear sight. She reached out her hands, impotently groping for her spectacles, even though she knew that Cameron had them.
Jason was at her side before she realized it, as if he understood all too well her fear of sightlessness-of course, he had been only a few feet away, and no longer needed to worry about erasing the chalk-marks by striding directly across to her. 'Here,' he said, pressing the spectacles into her hand, as if he had sensed how imperative her need for sight was. 'Are you tired?'
'Very,' she admitted, fumbling the spectacles into place, and seeing the room leap into focus again with a surge of relief. I would rather almost anything than not be able to see....
'It was the Unicorn, I think-' His voice sounded thoughtful. 'I did not experience this myself, but the Unicorn I Summoned was not as powerful as this one, and it never said a word about a 'feast.' I believe that his 'feasting' was not entirely metaphorical, that he 'fed' upon your spiritual energy.'
'My what?' she gasped, She turned to him with alarm, and he made a soothing motion.
'Don't worry, this has happened to me with other creatures, just not a Unicorn. I promise you, he hasn't taken anything irreplaceable; by his nature, he can't. In fact, he didn't take it at all; if you think about your quatrain, you offered it to him as a free gift. But energy has to come from somewhere, as the mathematicians say, and very often the Elementals find the energy we produce preferable to their normal fare.' He chuckled a little. 'Perhaps the reason that my Unicorn never 'feasted' upon my energies was that I was not sufficiently pure for it. You were obviously more to its taste.'
'I suppose I should feel flattered,' she said, hesitantly. 'And if it really hasn't harmed me-'
'It hasn't,' he reassured her. 'You'll feel better after a short rest and a little food of less ephemeral nature.'
