I walked into the princess’s parlor the next morning as planned. It felt as depressed as the rest of the castle was. A servant had entered the prince’s chamber this morning to find his bed empty and what seemed to be the remains of a struggle. The servant woke up his valet who searched for the prince. Unable to find him, all the servants in the castle were awoken to join the search before they woke the king and the search moved out to the town. It was now midmorning and all anyone knew was where he wasn’t. No one was quite happy this day, least of all his own sister.
“Lovely, Lady Streya, right on time. Everyone out. Lovely, now that is just the two of us, what do you know?”
“Your brother has been turned into a unicorn, I fear. He was taken up to the pastures last night after his transformation. The bad news is that as long as the person who cursed him lives, he’ll be a unicorn. The good news is that I found a spell that will remove the horn so he will merely look like a white horse and another spell that will allow him to take human form from sun down to sun up.”
“Can you bring him back here?”
“It will take time to get to the pastures and back as well as the fact that the curser likely has some spell in place to keep everyone trapped up there. It would be difficult to bring him down, let alone all the others up there.”
“I tire of this talk. Come, show me your rug. I had it brought to me during the ball as you had finished it. However, I thought I would allow you to show it to me instead of seeing it alone. What in heavens is that?” she nearly shrieked as I started to unroll the rug I had made but never seen.
“A map,” I breathed as I continued unrolling from bottom to top. On the rug were scenes connected by a trail that wound its way through the Great Forest and up to the pastures. From there the path led to a large house that seemed vaguely familiar.
“A map? A map to what? Why did you make yourself a map?!”
“Relax, My Lady, I did not make this from my head. You had the loom set up in a place with good light and I had trouble planning a scene. When I entered the next day the loom had been moved to a spot with nearly no light and another loom had taken the well lit spot. Not being able to see a pattern, I merely picked up strings at random and tied them on. My inner sight must have led me. My Lady, I do believe the time has come to start my adventure.”
“Do not be silly! We cannot allow you to go into the Black Forest. Those places are surely not on any path I know of and very few people that have left the path have ever returned. I will not allow it.”
“Princess, I need to go. Your brother is gone and soon so will your sons. I know you have felt that they are no longer healthy. A curse was set on every unborn baby boy in the land. If they are not miscarried, they will be stillborn and the mother will die with them. It is time for me to stop sitting around playing the lady I am not and do the job the stars set for me. There has to be a way for these curses to be undone and I must set out on the quest that is my destiny.”
“Why can you not send someone else? Surely they can do the journey as well as you.”
“No, princess, I cannot do that to anyone. You said that very few humans have veered off the main paths and returned alive. I have. My Lady, I was raised for five years by a dragon and seven years by a herd of centaurs. I know the Forest and its inhabitance are my friends. They respect me and I know enough of their politics to visit them safely. I am the only human I know of that can wander the Forest at ease. Also, these symbols read like a book to me, where to go and why. My inner eye created this map and it seems to have done so in its own shorthand. If I sent another person to go to some of these places, I would be sending them to certain death. No, it must be me.”
“Oh, fine, I can tell you have set your mind. I will speak to Father and we will get together your entourage. If you are going to rescue my brother he may agree but you will need a large number of guards to journey into the Black Forest. And you must have at least one maid, and a companion as you will be travelling with a large number of men. And you will need a cook and a few wagons of food. You should be able to leave by next week.” That was nearly six days away, I thought as I studied the rug, my hand flying over a blank scroll I had found while we talked. All those people would be hard to control and the Forest would not allow those many people to enter, let alone to leave alive. No, I would leave that night after the dinner party on the fake unicorn, as the map showed. I would take the book of spells in a bag with my tapestry, which I was to take for some reason, and we would find food along the way.
“Where is this building, the one bordering the Great Forest?” I asked to figure out where to aim the fake horse.
“What? Oh, that is my uncle’s place and that man is his son, I do not recognize the woman next to him. You must have visited near there with your herd. It is a very good rendition.” When will she learn to trust the magic that is all around us? Humans are continually trying to disprove what they cannot explain instead of accepting the miracles, I thought as she went back to organizing the trip I would do alone. My copy of the map done, I rolled up the scroll and put it next to my tapestry before rolling up my rug and putting it back in a corner while listened to her ramble on. It would do her good to plan for something. It would keep her mind off worry for her brother, whom she still doesn’t believe was put up in the pasture, and worrying about her sons whom she knew were ill inside her and she could do nothing for them. Yes, tomorrow she would likely add me to her list of things to worry about but for today she could plan.