Chapter.

FOUR.

Immobilized by ropes and trapped in a windowless stone building, Simon had done his best to withdraw into the quiet of his own mind. Anger and battering at his bonds were futile. Better to inventory his memories of magic, and perhaps find a store of power to use against Drayton when the time came, for that time would surely be soon.

His drifting consciousness snapped to attention when he suddenly caught the scent of innocence that had enraptured him and led to his capture. Every muscle tensed and he instinctively moved toward the scent, only to be jerked to a halt by the ropes that held him in the center of the shed. He sniffed again, wondering if this was the same sweet female or another like her. The same, he decided. Her fragrance was so intense that she must be just outside the door.

She betrayed me to my doom. But not intentionally. Her cry of anguish when the hunters attacked had been genuine. Even if he knew that she would betray him again, he was unable to resist the sweet lure of her purity. He strained against his bonds, remembering the rapturous moment when he had laid himself at her feet.

The door swung open and a cloaked female silhouette appeared against the lesser dark of the night. "M . . . Meggie is sorry, sweeting," she said in an unsteady voice. "Meggie here to let you go." To his surprise, her words were accompanied by a distinct mental image of her releasing him from his bonds. She could mind-touch?

She stepped forward and banged into the rope that secured him on his right side. The impact jarred the cutting bit of the bridle that had been forced on him, hurting his tender mouth. When he shivered away from the pain, the maiden hissed a word that was not innocent, yet curiously endearing.

She must have brought a knife, for he could feel a blade sawing at the rope, accompanied by a murmuring of soft words. She was treating him as he would treat a nervous horse. He would have smiled wryly if he had been himself.

The line parted and she felt her way round him to find the left line. Once more the cutting. A quaver in her voice, she asked, "C . . . can you forgive Meggie for helping to capture you?"

He replied by rubbing against her affectionately, barely remembering to turn his head so he didn't stab her. He almost knocked her over in his enthusiasm. She laughed breathlessly and stroked his muzzle. The touch of her gentle fingers was exquisite. "N . . . nasty bridle. Will you be good if it comes off?"

He rubbed against her again, trying to indicate that he'd follow her anywhere as docile as a lamb. She must have understood, for she removed the wicked bridle and grasped a handful of his mane. "Must leave without being noticed."

Recalled from the fog of rapture she inspired, he stepped outside. A guard lay on the ground, moaning softly. Had his sweet maiden laid the fellow out? Impressed, Simon accompanied her through the shadows, his steps as light as he could make them. A light drizzle was starting to fall. Maybe that would aid their escape.

They were nearing the postern when the clouds broke and the light of a nearly full moon flooded the courtyard. A man yelled, "A thief is stealing the beast! Stop them!"

The blast of a shotgun pierced the night and a shower of vicious lead shot peppered Simon and his escort. The maiden flinched, then cried, "Go!"

Worried, he tried to see if she was hurt, but she released his mane and took off at a speed that proved she wasn't seriously injured. He followed, trying to place himself between her and the man with the shotgun. More shots blasted through the night, this time from the guard tower above the main gate.

The commotion had woken the castle and several men spilled into the courtyard just as Simon and the maiden reached the postern. She halted and said again, "Go!"

Aghast, he stopped in his tracks, nostrils flaring. She wasn't coming with him?

She made impatient shooing motions with both hands. "Meggie will be safe," she said bitterly. "They won 't dare hurt the lord's pet simpleton."

Despite her words, he had no doubt that the approaching men would hurt her, perhaps very badly. He went down on one knee and imagined her mounting him.

She stared, shock on her narrow, angular face. Clearly she'd had no intention of leaving, perhaps couldn' t even comprehend doing so.

Frightened for her safety and yearning for her presence, he whinnied and sent the riding image again. There was another ragged volley of musket shots, and this time he felt a searing pain in his left haunch, a wound far more severe than the birdshot.

His maiden bit her lip, radiating fear and confusion. Then she looked back at the approaching men and her expression changed to steely resolve. "Want to go."

She swung expertly onto his back. He scrambled to his feet and almost collapsed from the agony that blazed through his left leg. No bones seemed to be broken, so he tried to block out the pain as he bolted through the postern. A shiver of energy from the protective wards tingled his skin but didn't slow him.

The forest was less than a mile away, and they could lose themselves in its depths. He hardly noticed his maiden's weight, for even without a saddle she balanced lightly as a b.u.t.terfly. Clouds covered the moon again and rain began falling harder, but his unicorn vision was uncannily sharp even in the dark.

They were halfway to the forest when he heard a thunder of hooves behind him. Some d.a.m.nable person in the castle had organized a pursuit with wicked speed. If Simon was riderless and unwounded he could easily outrun the pursuers, but in his half-crippled state, they were gaining on him.

As thunder boomed and lightning lit up the sky, he dashed into the dark shelter of the woods. Branches lashed them as he followed an almost invisible track made by deer.

The pursuers followed easily, their speed barely diminished. One of them must have some magical tracking power. They would be on him in minutes, and what would happen to his maiden then? He had a horrible image of her raped and beaten, her sweet courage brutally crushed.

He tried to use his hunter's talent for concealment, but in his present form he couldn't wield his Guardian powers. Only the inherent magic of a unicorn was available. That gave him speed, strength, and heightened senses, but could not hide them from their pursuers. Frantic, he reached out mentally to his oldest friend, Duncan Macrae, the finest weather mage in Britain, perhaps in the world.

Help me!

Amazingly, he managed to reach Duncan, who was peacefully asleep at his home in Scotland. Jolted into wakefulness, Duncan responded with an incredulous, Simon?

Even as himself, it would have been almost impossible for Simon to explain the situation at such a distance. But desperation gave him the power to communicate a sense of where he was. He visualized a map of Britain where his position pulsed like a star. Pursued! Storm?

Duncan snapped to full wakefulness. I'll see what weather you have to work with. After a pause while he studied the weather patterns of Shropshire, he thought with satisfaction, Excellent.

Only moments pa.s.sed before lightning slashed the sky and thunder shook the earth a bare instant later. The rain tripled in intensity, pounding with the force of a physical blow. Even though Simon was expecting this, for a moment he was thrown off his stride, slipping to his knees on the muddy track. His maiden lurched but maintained her seat.

He scrambled to his feet and resumed his flight through the forest, relying on his improved night vision to save him from crashing into a tree. Unfortunately his superior hearing could still hear hooves behind him, albeit at a slower pace. With his waning energy, he called Duncan again. More?

He thought he had failed to connect with his friend. Then he heard a faint, More! Take care, Simon.

The connection broke as Duncan concentrated all his power into his weather magic. The wind increased to near-hurricane force and trees began crashing to the earth behind Simon. A dead tree plummeted across the track too closely for Simon to swerve. Mustering all his strength, he leaped headlong over it. Scrawny branches scratched at his limbs but he managed to clear the trunk without falling.

Along with the turbulent weather, Simon sensed that Duncan was using Guardian magic to blur the trail. He must have guessed that for some reason Simon couldn't use shielding himself. Simon took advantage of the grace period Duncan had given them to run until his heart seemed nigh to bursting. Despite rain and wind, his precious rider clung like a burr.

When even hypersensitive unicorn hearing couldn't detect pursuit, Simon slowed to a walk, his lungs pumping like a bellows. Now what? He was cold, tired, and hurting, and the maiden must be chilled to the bone. They had to find shelter. In his previous exploration of the forest, he'd found a deep, rocky overhang. It was masked by thick underbrush, so there would be some protection from the still-heavy rain.

As he limped wearily through the night, he hoped his maiden knew something about treating wounds, or they might not be going anywhere in the morning.

Numb with cold, Meggie almost fell off the unicorn's back when he nosed through some underbrush below a huge overhanging rock and halted in the protected area underneath. She had thought their escape was doomed until the storm struck. Luck had been with them. Though she had been grazed by several shotgun b.a.l.l.s, the hurts were small. She would be fine, if she didn't freeze before dawn.

The night was very black, but the unicorn's beautiful white coat made him dimly visible even under the rocks-except that part of him seemed to be missing, Worried, she touched the dark area on his left flank and raised her fingers to her lips, tasting the metallic tang of blood. He must have been wounded by a musket ball, which explained the increasing roughness of his gait during their escape.

The unicorn rubbed against her as if asking for help. The poor beast was trembling with fatigue, his sleek coat steaming from the cold rain that had fallen on his overheated body. "Meggie doesn't know what to do," she whispered, frustrated. "M . . . maybe if there was light."

Wait. She was wearing her cloak, and she usually carried a tinderbox in one pocket. She groped in the cloak and almost wept with relief when she found it. Now if she could find dry wood . . .

Cautiously she felt around in the dark under the deepest area of the overhang, hoping nothing nasty lived there. Once more her luck was in, and she found several dry, broken branches and a drift of leaves. She was responsible for the small fireplace in her castle bedroom, so even working in near-absolute darkness she was able to strike a spark onto the charred fabric from the tinderbox. When it caught, she carefully fed in bits of dried leaves, then twigs and kindling until she had a small fire burning.

She looked up to see the unicorn watching her. Was that worry she sensed from him? Aloud, she said, "N . . . no one will see the fire, and we need it."

Though the unicorn didn't reply, she suspected he understood her. He was far more than a horse. "Meggie will look at your wound after hands warm."

She held her numbed fingers over the fire and discovered that her right middle finger was bleeding, wounded by a ball from the shotgun. She sucked at the sc.r.a.pe to clean it, grateful the shot hadn't done more damage.

Later she could bandage the finger, but her injury was nothing compared to the gory slash on the unicorn' s flank. Bending to avoid hitting her head on the stone overhang, she moved to his side. His horn caught the light of the fire, shimmering with rainbow highlights.

He nuzzled her affectionately and made a soft chirping sound. Touched, she hugged his neck for a long moment before examining his wound. It was deep and bleeding sluggishly. Though she'd always tended horses, she'd never seen a musket ball injury. "Ugly. Be still, sweeting, so Meggie can look closer."

She knelt by the unicorn's belly, not wanting to be behind those sharp rear hooves if he kicked. "S . . . steady . . ."

She leaned over and frowned, not liking the looks of the ragged wound. Was the musket ball buried inside?

She touched the gaping flesh-and the world exploded. A rush of heat blasted her backward as the unicorn vanished in a whirlwind of blazing energy and scalding light. The very air was warped, impossible to see through, but Meggie saw dimly that he was changing. Strange shapes were dimly visible as they twisted into stomach-churningly different forms. She cringed against the stone, terrified.

The blast of heat faded and the blurred air smoothed out, revealing the sprawled form of a human man. A completely naked man.

She pulled as far back as she could, whimpering. How could a unicorn turn into a man? How could there be a unicorn in the first place?

The interloper made no sound or movement. He looked like an angel fallen from heaven. Might he have been killed by that awful explosion?

Warily she forced herself to study the motionless body more closely. He lay on his side in a similar position to that of the unicorn. He was long and lean and fair, with blond hair spilling on the ground. His pale skin showed a peppering of small wounds like those made by a shotgun. And . . . and his left hip had a long, bleeding gash very like the unicorn's wound.

Not wanting to stare at his nakedness, she removed her sodden cloak and crept closer so she could cover him. There was a stark, honed beauty to his face and body. He looked intelligent and impatient and fatigued, but wholly human. He was also, to her relief, breathing.

Though she'd had no qualms when touching the glorious unicorn, she was reluctant to touch a strange man. Even one covered with goose b.u.mps from the damp, chilly air. Carefully she draped the cloak over his long body.

His eyes opened.

Chapter.

FIVE.

Simon was dragged from darkness by the touch of wet, heavy wool. When he opened his eyes, the maiden gasped and scrambled backward, her expression terrified. He couldn't blame her. The poor girl had experienced things that would have tested the mettle of an experienced Guardian.

He was lying on the cold ground, his left hand in front of him. His hand? Startled, he sat up. Pain seared through his left hip and he felt oddly awkward, not balanced in his body. But he had hands again, hands! With rising excitement he ran his hands over his bare torso. "G.o.d be thanked," he breathed. "I am myself again."

He felt a distant twitch from Drayton, who must have sensed this magical upheaval. Swiftly Simon covered himself and the girl with a blanking spell. Their escape would have been easier if he had been able to call such magic earlier.

Then he conjured a translucent, glowing sphere of mage light. It hovered just above his palm, final proof that his Guardian magic had returned. Delighted, he tossed the mage light upward to the stone overhang so it could light them both.

He turned his attention to his body. The maiden's wet cloak fell around his waist but kept him decent, barely. He donned the garment with care so his companion wouldn't be any more shocked than she was already. The cloak was cold and clammy, but loose enough to fit over his larger frame. A pity it wasn't half a yard longer.

Having sorted himself out, he studied his rescuer. She cowered under the stone overhang, her eyes wide with fear. The sight of her no longer produced intoxicated rapture, but he still found her distractingly attractive even though most men wouldn't give her a second glance. That must be a lingering effect of the unicorn spell.

Ignoring that attraction, he concentrated on mitigating her fear. Quietly he said, "My thanks for freeing me from a double captivity. Don't be afraid-I shan't hurt you."

She stared at the globe of mage light. "W . . . what are you?"

"Merely a man. My name is Falconer. And yours?"

"Meggie."

She was thin and plain and angular, with straight dark hair that fell in wet clumps around her narrow skull. Though her unfocused expression made her seem very young, the clarity of the mage light suggested that she was a woman grown. She had referred to herself as a simpleton, which would explain why she seemed so youthful. And yet . . .

Something about her wasn't right. He invoked mage vision, and saw a blurring of her features and form. Could there be an illusion spell overlaying a different reality? Such a thing would take great power if maintained indefinitely, and to what purpose?

Whatever the reason, she was certainly wrapped in magic. "You have been ensorcelled, Meggie," he said slowly.

She looked blank. "What?"

Given all the girl had seen, she deserved to know what was going on, but first he would warm them both

up. He gestured toward the fire. It flared bright and hot.Meggie drew closer to the flames, reaching out her hands eagerly. "What did you do? There was only abit of wood."

He settled on the opposite side of the fire, so close that steam rose gently from the dark folds of thecloak. "Do you know anything of magic? The ability to draw power from nature and shape it to otheruses?"

She shook her head."Magic is not rare," he said. "Many people have at least a touch of magic in their souls. I come from agroup of families called Guardians. Most of us have a great deal of magical talent. Often we live in thewilder Celtic fringes of Britain, where the magic is strongest. When Guardians are on the verge of adulthood, we must swear oaths to use our power for protection and to help others rather than using itfor personal gain.""H . . . how does magic work?" She gestured toward the fire, which was burning merrily despite the shortage of fuel."There are many kinds of spells and rituals, but at heart, magic is about will. If one desires a particular result, such as a good fire, and has magical power, that desire helps achieve the result. With great power,one can do great and difficult things."Interest glinted in her dull eyes. "There are other men like you?""Both men and women. Some of the most powerful mages-wielders of magic-are female. I am a Guardian, and so is Lord Drayton, your master."Her expression closed. "If he has power, 'tisn't used to help anyone.""Drayton is a renegade. I called at Castle Drayton several days ago to stop him from causing more damage." And d.a.m.ned overconfident Simon had been. "I thought my power equal to anything he mightdo. I was wrong, and he used his magic to turn me into a unicorn."

Meggie's jaw dropped. "You really are the unicorn!""Indeed, and I would like to know how I changed back to my real self, but I'l consider that later."Meggie was a vital part of this puzzle, that he knew. "I believe that Lord Drayton laid spells on you. Wasthere ever a time when you were near him, and suddenly you felt different?"

Her mouth twisted. "He found Meggie in a field. One touch and . . . and everything changed to this." Hergesture encompa.s.sed herself and probably her whole life."How long has that been?"She looked away. "Long. Years.""I would like to try to remove the spells that bind you."She blinked like an anxious mouse. "W . . . will it hurt?""It shouldn't, but you might feel strange. Confused. Will you trust me to try?"

She bit her lip, then nodded.

He moved around the fire until he could sit next to her. His human feet noticed the rough ground far more than hooves had. "Just relax and let me hold your hands."

Her fingers trembled when she reached for his clasp, and her skin was cold despite the increased heat of the fire. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind of the pain and fear and humiliation he'd experienced since his confrontation with Drayton.

When he was centered, he laid a calming spell over Meggie and began gently exploring the magic knotted around her deepest self. The darkness of Drayton's energy was everywhere. Simon would have to work very carefully to avoid damaging her.

As he'd suspected, the highest layer of the tangled web was an illusion spell that changed the way people perceived Meggie. It was easily dissolved, since matter resisted being distorted by illusion.

He opened his eyes to see what she really looked like and caught his breath. Drayton had very cleverly conserved power by making only subtle shifts in her appearance, but those changes had warped what was delicate and graceful into a form and face that were awkward and angular. Meggie's coa.r.s.e skin was now smooth, her dark hair had acquired thickness and gloss, and her features were well shaped and appealing. Her real self was an attractive young woman.

Closing his eyes, he resumed his work. The bindings on her mind and personality were far more complex and deeply rooted than the illusion spell. One dark knot of power strangled her intelligence, another subdued her natural personality. No wonder she seemed simple. It spoke well for her basic character that even crippling magic hadn't been able to suppress the courage that had led a terrified girl to free a unicorn.

When he finished untangling the web of spells, he was surprised to find a shielded sphere that shimmered like a silver apple. Simon explored it warily, wondering what it contained. He sensed that it held a part of Meggie rather than a trapped spirit ent.i.ty that might be malevolent. A silver thread spun away from the sphere to vanish into the distance. Guessing that it connected her to Drayton, Simon visualized a silver knife and used it to cut the thread.

Then he turned his attention to the shining sphere. Destroying it would be a risk, but if he didn't try, Meggie would not be whole.

After encompa.s.sing the sphere in a bubble of his own power, he gradually poured in more and more magic. Rainbow hues glimmered across the bright surface. He was nearing the limits of his power when the silver apple exploded into a torrent of magic, like an unearthly b.u.t.terfly smashing from its chrysalis.

With a wordless cry of anguish, Meggie jerked out of Simon's clasp and folded over on herself, burying her face in her hands. Silver light raged through her body, like a dam breaking. Only instead of contained water being released into its natural channel, this was a tidal wave of magic.

"G.o.ds above," he gasped. "You are a mage. Or will be, with training." No wonder Drayton could afford the energy required by the illusion spell-he had been able to use Meggie's own power to maintain it. Her blazing magic equaled that of the most gifted Guardians Simon had ever known.

Though he wanted to comfort Meggie with a touch, he controlled the impulse. Her energy must find its own balance without interference from him.