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the truth and no lie..."
Moonshine, Primrose, and Eagledown joined Snowshadow in the river, each dipping his horn or what
remained of it into the chattering water.
The water instantly cleared, and its raucous voice lowered to a pleasant, well-modulated conversational
tone. "Oooh, that feels very good indeed," it said gratefully. "It's been soooooo loooooong since I've felt
anything as purely edifying as this. Why, look at how I sparkle now, and how deep into me you can see.
I'm rather like an emerald, aren't I?"
Maggie had no patience for admiring the water, for now another wonder was taking place. Eagledown
lifted his head, and his horn came out long, glittering, diamond-bright, boldly scrolled, and best of all,
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entirely whole. The wounds on his body, as on the bodies of the others, washed away in the sparkling
river as easily as the blood and grime. Snowshadow's coat gleamed white again, and her horn grew and
mended, spiralling into whole opalescent beauty even as they watched.
"Oh, I feel so much better," she sighed, splashing to her feet.
"Then we must set to work," Moonshine said, also rising. "Maggie, have your King convey all the dead
and wounded here, into these waters, and they shall be healed."
"All?" she asked.
"Of course, all," Primrose said. "You don't suppose we discriminate between good injured bears and
bad injured bears when we're practicing our art in the greenwood, do you? Though there's been some
discussion about it, we ultimately decided to put your kind in the injured bear category. We will heal all.
What you decide to do with them later is up to you."
The scene that followed reminded her a bit of a summer washday with her father's servants pounding
laundry against the rocks-a practice she limited as much as possible by use of her magic, since the
process tended to be rough on fabric. Only instead of sheets and towels and skirts and veils and
waistcoats, people were being doused, dunked and half-drowned in the enchanted waters.
Moonshine went with her to Colin, and carried the minstrel to the river across his back.
Maggie knelt in the river and held Colin's head aloft while the water lapped his body. Next to her, the
portly, kind-faced gentleman she had seen in the ruined house was performing the same service for
Pegeen.
"You mustn't worry, my dear," he told her, comfortingly. "Why, her Highness has been here barely a
moment, and already I vow her cheeks are pinking and her lashes flutter." Maggie looked. It was true.
Pegeen did indeed live again, and her aura, though imperceptible in the sunlight, cast its rosy glow into the
emerald waters beneath her.
Colin's color seemed improved too, though perhaps it was just the absence of mud and blood which
made him look better. She stroked away the last vestiges of that with her fingers. Wet though her fingers
were, when she bathed his face, she thought it felt warm again.
"I must say, though," the gentleman remarked, waving his arms at the soldiers who regrew limbs, the
sailors revitalized after suffering mortal wounds, the gypsies whose skin deepened from pallor to its
natural sworthiness, the bandits whose burns and gouges disappeared, all of the welter of wet humanity
boiling around them. "I find this sort of thing disturbing. What do you suppose the consequences will be?"
"What consequences?" Maggie asked, not really paying attention for now Colin's eyelids were moving
and his chest rose and fell with a motion quite separate from the lapping wavelets. "Oh, I suppose the
bandits will be imprisoned or hanged, eventually, but everyone else..."
"I wasn't referring to them, actually," the man said. "It's the consequences for the unicorns which concern
me. Once these people leave here and the news is heralded throughout the land that unicorns possess this
sort of power, they'll never be free beasts again. Anyone of any means at all will try to round them up and
breed them like cattle or pigs, for the profit to be gained from selling their healing magic."
"That would never work," Maggie said. "I don't think unicorns could live in captivity that long.
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Snowshadow and Eagledown would surely have died if it hadn't been for the princess."
"Yes? Was someone addressing me?" Pegeen tried to sit erect and succeeded instead in dunking both
herself and the gentleman. He surfaced, dog-paddling, and guided the sputtering Princess to the surface.
"Your pardon, madam," he said. "Sir Cyril Perchingbird, Royal Archivist, at your service. Allow me to
escort your Highness back to shore."
Colin wandered the former battlefield, filled with a disturbing sense of unreality. He knew very little
about battles. Only what he'd learned in songs and stories, and that didn't go into the emotional side of
things much, aside from swellings of patriotism and bloodlust and so forth. But he was almost certain it
couldn't be usual that everyone would look so refreshed afterwards as the people around him did. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]